Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
the powers of earth and hell can never prevail; and soon as this storm
shall have overblown, those other, and now secret, multitudes, of whom I
speak, will come forth, and the wilderness of the church shall blossom
again as a garden in the time of spring. God is working with us, and
who therefore can prevail against us!
'Bring not then, Aurelian, upon your own soul; bring not upon Rome, the
guilt that would attend this unnecessary slaughter. It can but defer for
an hour or a day the establishment of that kingdom of righteousness,
which must be established, because it is God's, and he is laying its
foundations and building its walls. Have pity too, great Emperor, upon
this large multitude of those who embrace this faith, and who will not
let it go for all the terrors of your courts and judges and engines;
they will all suffer the death of Macer ere they will prove false to
their Master. Let not the horrors of that scene be renewed, nor the
greater ones of an indiscriminate massacre. I implore your compassions,
not for myself, but for these many thousands, who, by my ministry, have
been persuaded to receive this faith. For them my heart bleeds; them I
would save from the death which impends. Yet it is a glorious and a
happy death, to die for truth and Christ! It is better to die so,
knowing that by such death the very church itself is profited, than to
die in one's own bed, and only to one's self. So do these thousands
think; and whatever compassion I may implore for them, they would each
and all, were such their fate, go with cheerful step, as those who went
to some marriage supper, to the axe, to the stake, or the cross.
Christianity cannot die but with the race itself. Its life is bound up
in the life of man, and man must be destroyed ere that can perish.
Behold then, Aurelian, the labor that is thine!'
Soon as he had ceased, Porphyrius started from his seat and said,
'It is then, O Romans, just as it has ever been affirmed. The Galileans
are atheists! They believe not in the gods of Rome, nor in any in whom
mankind can ever have belief. I doubt not but they think themselves
believers in a God. They think themselves to have found one better than
others have; but upon any definition, that I or you could give or
understand, of atheism, they are atheists! Their God is invisible; he is
a universal spirit, like this circumambient air; of no form, dwelling in
no place. But how can that without effrontery be called a being, which
is without body and form; which is everywhere and yet nowhere; which,
from the beginning of the world has never been heard of, till by these
Nazarenes he is now first brought to light, or, if older, exists in the
dreams of the dreaming Jews, whose religion, as they term it, is so
stuffed with fable, that one might not expect, after the most exact and
laborious search, to meet with so much as a grain of truth. Yet,
whatever these Galileans may assert, their speech is hardly to be
received as worthy of belief, when, in their very sacred records, such
things are to be found as contradict themselves. For in one place--not
to mention a thousand cases of the like kind--it is said that Jesus, the
head of this religion, on a certain occasion walked upon the sea; when,
upon sifting the narrative, it is found that it was but upon a paltry
lake, the lake of Galilee, upon which he performed that great feat!--a
thing to which the magic of which he is accused--and doubtless with
justice--was plainly equal; while to walk upon the sea might well have
been beyond that science. How much of what we have heard is to be
distrusted also, concerning the love which these Nazarenes bear to
Rome. We may well pray to be delivered from the affection of those,
whose love manifests itself in the singular manner of seeking our
destruction. He who loves me so well as to poison me that I may have the
higher enjoyment of Elysium, I could hardly esteem as a well-wisher or
friend. These Jewish fanatics love us after somewhat the same fashion.
In the zeal of their affection they would make us heirs of what they
call their heavenly kingdom, but in the meanwhile destroy our religion,
deprive us of our ancient gods, and sap the foundations of the state.
'Romans, in spite of all you have heard of another sort, I hope you will
still believe that experience is one of your most valuable teachers, and
that therefore you will be slow to forsake opinions which have the
sanction of venerable age, under which you have flourished so happily,
and your country grown to so amazing a height of glory and renown. I
think you would deserve the fate which this new-made religion would
bring you to, if you abandoned the worship of a thousand years, for the
presumptuous novelty of yesterday. Not a name of greatness or honor can
be quoted of those who have adorned this foreign fiction; while all the
great and good of Greece and Rome, philosophers, moralists, historians,
and poets, are to be found on the side of Hellenism. If we cast from us
that which we have experienced to be good, by what rule and on what
principle can we afterward put our trust in anything else? And it is
considerable, that which has ever been asserted of this people, and
which I doubt not is true, that they have ever been prying about with
their doctrines and their mysteries among the poor and humbler sort,
among women, slaves, simple and unlearned folks, while they have never
appealed to, nor made any converts of, the great and the learned, who
alone are capable of judging of the truth of such things.
'Who are the believers here in Rome? Who knows them? Are the sacred
Senate Christians? or any distinguished for their rank? No; with
exceptions, too few to be noticed, those who embrace it are among the
dregs of the people, men wholly incapable of separating true from false,
and laying properly the safe foundations of a new religion--a work too
great even for philosophers. And not only does this religion draw to
itself the poor and humble and ignorant, but the base and wicked also;
persons known, while of our way, to have been notorious for their vices,
have all of a sudden joined themselves to the Christians; and whatever
show of sanctity may then have been assumed, we may well suppose there
has not been much of the reality. Long may it boast of such members, and
while its brief life lasts make continually such converts from us. As to
the amazing pretences they make of their benevolence in the care of the
poor, and even of our poor, doing more offices of kindness toward
them--so it is affirmed--than we ourselves--who does not see the motive
that prompts so much charity, in the good opinion they build up for
themselves in those whom they have so much obliged, and who cannot in
decency do less afterward than oblige them in turn, by joining their
superstitions--superstitions of which they know nothing before they
adopt them, and as little afterward.
'But I will not, O Emperor, weary out your patience again--already so
long tried--and will only say, that the fate which has all along and
everywhere befallen these people, might well warn them that they are
objects of the anger rather than the favor and love of the Lord of
Heaven, of which they so confidently make their boast. For if he loved
them would he leave them everywhere so to the rage and destruction of
their enemies--to be reviled, trodden upon, and despised, all over the
earth? If these be the signs of love, what are those of hate? And can it
be that he, their Lord of Heaven, hath in store for them a world of
bliss beyond this life, who gives them here on earth scarce the sordid
shelter of a cabin? In truth, they seem to be a community living upon
their imaginations. They fancy themselves favorites of Heaven--though
all the world thinks otherwise. They fancy themselves the greatest
benefactors the world has ever seen, while they are the only ones who
think so. They have nothing here but persecution, contempt, and hatred,
and yet are anticipating a more glorious Elysium than the greatest and
best of earth have ever dared to hope for. We cannot but hope they may
be at sometime the riddle to themselves which they are to us. This is a
benevolent wish, for their entertainment would be great.'
When he had ended, and almost before, many voices were heard of those
who wished to speak, and Probus rose in his place to reply to what had
fallen from the philosopher, but all were alike silenced by the loud and
stern command of Aurelian, who, evidently weary and impatient of further
audience of what he was so little willing to hear at all, cried out,
saying,
'The Christians, Romans, have now been heard, as they desired, by one
whom they themselves appointed to set forth their doctrine. This is no
school for the disputations of sophists or philosophers or fanatics. Let
Romans and Christians alike withdraw.'
Whereupon, without further words or delay, the assembly broke up.
* * * * *
It was not difficult to see that the statements and reasonings of Probus
had fallen upon many who heard them with equal surprise and delight.
Every word that he uttered was heard with an eager attention I never
before saw equaled. I have omitted the greater part of what he said,
especially where he went with minuteness into an account of the history,
doctrine, and precept of our faith, knowing it to be too familiar to you
to make it desirable to have it repeated.
It was in part at least owing to an unwillingness to allow Probus again
to address that audience, representing all the rank and learning of
Rome, that the Emperor so hastily dissolved the assembly. Whatever
effect the hearing of Probus may have upon him or upon us, there is
reason to believe that its effects will be deep and abiding upon the
higher classes of our inhabitants. They then heard what they never heard
before--a full and an honest account of what Christianity is; and, from
what I have already been informed, and gathered indeed from my own
observation at the time, they now regard it with very different
sentiments.
When, late in the evening of this day, we conversed of its events,
Probus being seated with us, we indulged both in those cheering and
desponding thoughts which seem to be strangely mingled together in our
present calamities.
'No opinion,' said Julia, 'has been more strongly confirmed within me by
this audience before Aurelian, than this, that it has been of most
auspicious influence upon our faith. Not that some have not been filled
with a bitterer spirit than before; but that more have been favorably
inclined toward us by the disclosures, Probus, which you made; and
whether they become Christians or not eventually, they will be far more
ready to defend us in our claim for the common rights of citizens.
Marcellinus, who sat near me, was of this number. He expressed
frequently, in most emphatic terms, his surprise at what he heard,
which, he said, he was constrained to admit as true and fair statements,
seeing they were supported and corroborated by my and your presence and
silence. At the close he declared his purpose to procure the gospels for
his perusal.'
'And yet,' said I, 'the late consul Capitolinus, who was at my side, and
whose clear and intelligent mind is hardly equaled here in Rome, was
confirmed--even as Porphyrius was, or pretended to be--in all his
previous unfavorable impressions. He did not disguise his opinion, but
freely said, that in his judgment the religion ought to be suppressed,
and that, though he should by no means defend any measures like those
which he understood Aurelian had resolved to put in force, he should
advocate such action in regard to it, as could not fail to expel it from
the empire in no very great number of years.'