"That the Christians had desired this audience before him and the sacred senate, and he had therefore granted them their request. And he was now here, to listen to whatever they might urge in their behalf. But," said he, "I tell them now, as I have told them before, that it can be of no avail. The acts of former Emperors, from Nero to the present hour, have sufficiently declared what the light is in which a true Roman should view the superst.i.tion that would supplant the ancient worship of the G.o.ds. It is enough for me, that such is the acknowledged aim, and a.s.serted tendency and operation of this Jewish doctrine. No merits of any kind can atone for the least injury it might inflict upon that venerable order of religious worship which, from the time of Romulus, has exercised over us its benignant influence, and, doubtless, by the blessings it has drawn down upon us from the G.o.ds, crowned our arms with a glory the world has never known before--putting under our feet every civilized kingdom from the remotest East to the farthest West, and striking terror into the rude barbarians of the German forests.
Nevertheless, they shall be heard; and if it is from thee, Christian, that we are to know what thy faith is, let us now hear whatever it is in thy heart to say. There shall no bridle be put upon thee; but thou hast freest leave to utter what thou wilt. There is nothing of worst concerning either Rome or her worship, her rulers or her altars, her priesthood or her G.o.ds, but thou mayest pour it forth in such measure as shall please thee, and no one shall say thee nay. Now say on; the day and the night are before thee."
"I shall require, great Emperor," replied Probus, "but little of either; yet I thank thee, and all of our name who are here present thank thee, for the free range which thou hast offered. I thank thee too, and so do we all, for the liberty of frank and undisturbed speech, which thou hast a.s.sured to me. Yet shall I not use it to malign either the Romans or their faith. It is not with anger and fierce denunciation, O Emperor, that it becomes the advocate, of what he believes to be a religion from Heaven, to a.s.sail the adherents of a religion like this of Rome, descended to the present generation through so many ages, and which all who have believed it in times past, and all who believe it now, do hold to be true and woven into the very life of the state--the origin of its present greatness, and without which it must fall asunder into final ruin, the bond that held it together being gone. If the religion of Rome be false, or really injurious, it is not the generations now living who are answerable for its existence formerly or now, nor for the principles, truths, or rites, which const.i.tute it. They have received it, as they have received a thousand customs which are now among them, by inheritance from the ancestors who bequeathed them, which they received at too early an age to judge concerning their fitness or unfitness, but to which, for the reason of that early reception, they have become fondly attached, even as to parents, brothers, and sisters, from whom they have never been divided. It becomes not the Christian, therefore, to load with reproaches those who are placed where they are, not by their own will, but by the providence of the Great Ruler. Neither does it become you of the Roman faith to reproach us for the faith to which we adhere; because the greater proportion of us also have inherited our religion, as you yours, from parents and a community who professed it before us, and all regard it as heaven-descended, and so proved to be divine, that without inexpiable guilt we may not refuse to accept it. It must be in the face of reason, then, and justice, in the face of what is both wise and merciful, if either should judge harshly of the other.
"Besides, what do I behold in this wide devotion of the Roman people to the religion of their ancestors, but a testimony, beautiful for the witness it bears, to the universality of that principle or feeling, which binds the human heart to some G.o.d or G.o.ds, in love and worship?
The worship may be wrong, or greatly imperfect, and sometimes injurious; the G.o.d or G.o.ds may be so conceived of, as to act with hurtful influences upon human character and life; still it is religion; it is a sentiment that raises the thoughts of the humble and toilworn from the earthly and the perishing, to the heavenly and the eternal. And this, though accompanied by some or many rites shocking to humanity, and revolting to reason, is better than that men were, in this regard, no higher nor other than brutes; but received their being as they do theirs, they know not whence, and when they lose it, depart like them, they know not and care not whither. In the religious character of the Roman people--for religious in the earlier ages of this empire they eminently were, and they are religious now, though in less degree--I behold and acknowledge the providence of G.o.d, who has so framed us that our minds tend by resistless force to himself; satisfied at first with low and crude conceptions, but ever aspiring after those that shall be worthier and worthier.
"And now, O Emperor, for the same reason that we believe G.o.d the creator did implant in us all, of all tribes and tongues, this deep desire to know, worship, and enjoy him, so that no people have ever been wholly ignorant of him, do we believe that he has, in these latter years, declared himself to mankind more plainly than he did in the origin of things, or than he does through our own reason, so that men may, by such better knowledge of himself and of all necessary truth which he has imparted, be raised to a higher virtue on earth, and made fit for a more exalted life in heaven. We believe that he has thus declared himself by him whom you have heard named as the Master and Lord of the Christian, and after whom they are called, Jesus Christ. Him, G.o.d the creator, we believe, sent into the world to teach a better religion than the world had; and to break down and forever destroy, through the operation of his truth, a thousand injurious forms of false belief. It is this religion which we would extend, and impart to those who will open their minds to consider its claims, and their hearts to embrace its truths, when they have once been seen to be divine. This has been our task and our duty in Rome, to beseech you not blindly to receive, but strictly to examine, and, if found to be true, then humbly and gratefully to adopt this new message from above--"
"By the G.o.ds, Aurelian," exclaimed Porphyrius, "these Christians are kindly disposed! their benevolence and their philosophy are alike. We are obliged to them--"
"Not now, Porphyrius," said Aurelian. "Disturb not the Christian. Say on, Probus."
"We hope," continued Probus, nothing daunted by the scornful jeers of the philosopher, "that we are sincerely desirous of your welfare, and so pray that in the lapse of years all may, as some have done, take at our hands the good we proffer them; for, sure we are, that would all so receive it, Rome would tower upwards with a glory and a beauty that should make her a thousand-fold more honored and beloved than now, and her roots would strike down, and so fasten themselves in the very centre of the earth, that well might she then be called the Eternal City. Yet, O Emperor, though such is our aim and purpose; though we would propagate a religion from G.o.d, and, in doing so, are willing to labor our lives long, and, if need be, die in the sacred cause, yet are we charged as atheists. The name by which we are known, as much as by that of Christian, is atheist--"
"Such, I have surely believed you," said Porphyrius, again breaking in, "and, at this moment, do."
"But it is a name, Aurelian, fixed upon us ignorantly or slanderously; ignorantly, I am willing to believe. We believe in a G.o.d, O Emperor; it is to him we live, and to him we die. The charge of atheism I thus publicly deny, as do all Christians who are here, as would all throughout the world with one acclaim, were they also here, and would all seal their testimony, if need were, with their blood. We believe in G.o.d; not in many G.o.ds, some greater and some lesser, as with you, and whose forms are known and can be set forth in images and statues--but in one, one G.o.d, the sole monarch of the universe; whom no man, be he never so cunning, can represent in wood, or bra.s.s, or stone; whom, so to represent in any imaginary shape, our faith denounces as unlawful and impious. Hence it is, O Emperor, because the vulgar, when they enter our churches or our houses, see there no image of G.o.d or G.o.ddess, that they imagine we are without a G.o.d, and without his worship. And such conclusion may in them be excused. For, till they are instructed, it may not be easy for them to conceive of one G.o.d, filling Heaven and earth with his presence. But in others it is hard to see how they think us atheists on the same ground, since nothing can be plainer than that among you, the intelligent, and the philosophers especially, believe as we do in a great pervading invisible spirit of the universe. Plato worshipped not nor believed in these stone or wooden G.o.ds; nor in any of the fables of the Greek religion; yet who ever has charged him with atheism? So was it with the great Longinus. I see before me those who are now famed for their science in such things, who are the teachers of Rome in them, yet not one, I may venture to declare, believes other than as Plato and Longinus did in this regard. It is an error or a calumny that has ever prevailed concerning us; but in former times some have had the candor, when the error has been removed, to confess publicly that they had been subject to it. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to name no other, when, in the straits into which he was fallen at Cotinus, he charged his disasters upon the Christian soldiers, and, they praying prostrate upon the earth for him and his army and empire, he forthwith gained the victory, which before he had despaired of--did then immediately acknowledge that they had a G.o.d, and that they should no longer be reviled as atheists; since it was plain that men might believe in a G.o.d, and carry about the image of him in their own minds, though they had no visible one. It is thus we are all believers. We carry about with us, in the sanctuary of our own bosoms, our image of the great and almighty G.o.d whom we serve; and before that, and that only, do we bow down and worship. Were we indeed atheists, it were not unreasonable that you dealt with us as you now do, nay and much more severely; for, where belief in a G.o.d does not exist, it is not easy to see how any state can long hold together. The necessary bond is wanting, and, as a sheaf of wheat when the band is broken, it must fall asunder.
"The first principle of the religion of Christ is this belief in G.o.d; in his righteous providence here on earth, and in a righteous retribution hereafter. How then can the religion of Christ in this respect be of dangerous influence or tendency? It is well known to all, who are acquainted in the least with history or philosophy, that in the religion of the Jews, the belief and worship of one G.o.d almost const.i.tutes the religion itself. Every thing else is inferior and subordinate. In this respect the religion of Jesus is like that of the Jews. It is exceeding jealous of the honor and worship of this one G.o.d--this very same G.o.d of the Jews; for Jesus was himself a Jew, and has revealed to us the same G.o.d whom we are required to worship, only with none of the ceremonies, rites, and sacrifices, which were peculiar to that people. It is this which has caused us, equally to our and their displeasure, frequently to be confounded together, and mistaken the one for the other. But the differences between us are, excepting in the great doctrine I have just named, very great and essential. This doctrine therefore, which is the chief of all, being so fundamental with us, it is not easy, I say, to see how we can on religious accounts be dangerous to the state. For many things are comprehended in and follow from this faith. It is not a barren, unprofitable speculation, but a practical and restraining doctrine of the greatest moral efficiency. If it be not this to us, to all and every one of us, it is not what it ought to be and we wrongly understand or else wilfully pervert it.
"We believe that we are everywhere surrounded by the presence of our G.o.d: that he is our witness every moment, and everywhere conscious, as we are ourselves, of our words, acts, and thoughts; and will bring us all to a strict account at last for whatever he has thus witnessed that has been contrary to that rigid law of holy living which he has established over us in Christ. Must not this act upon us most beneficially? We believe that in himself he is perfect purity, and that he demands of us that we be so in our degree also. We can impute to him none of the acts, such as the believers in the Greek and Roman religions freely ascribe to their Jove, and so have not, as others have, in such divine example, a warrant and excuse for the like enormities. This one G.o.d too we also regard as our judge, who will in the end sit upon our conduct throughout the whole of our lives, and punish or reward according to what we shall have been, just as the souls of men, according to your belief, receive their sentence at the bar of Minos and Rhadamanthus. And other similar truths are wrapt up with and make a part of this great primary one. Wherefore it is most evident, that nothing can be more false and absurd than to think and speak of us as atheists and for that reason a nuisance in the state.
"But it is not only that we are atheists, but that, through our atheism, we are to be looked upon as disorderly members of society, disturbers of the peace, disaffected and rebellious citizens, that we hear on every side. I do not believe that this charge has ever been true of any, much less of all. Or if any Christian has at any time and for any reason disobeyed the laws, withheld his taxes when they have been demanded, or neglected any duties which, as a citizen of Rome, he has owed to the Emperor, or any representative of him, then so far he has not been a Christian. Christ"s kingdom is not of this world--though, because we so often and so much speak of a kingdom, we have been thought to aim at one on earth--it is above; and he requires us while here below to be obedient to the laws and the rulers that are set up over us, so far as we deem them in accordance with the everlasting laws of G.o.d and of right; to pay tribute to whomsoever it is due; here in Rome to Caesar; and, wherever we are, to be loyal and quiet citizens of the state. And the reception of his religion tends to make such of us all. Whoever adopts the faith of the gospel of Jesus will be a virtuous, and holy, and devout man, and therefore, both in Rome, in Persia, and in India, and everywhere, a good subject.
"We defend not nor abet, great Emperor, the act of that holy but impetuous and pa.s.sionate man, who so lately, in defiance of the imperial edict and before either remonstrance or appeal on our part, preached on the very steps of the capitol, and there committed that violence for which he hath already answered with his life. We defend him not in that; but neither do we defend, but utterly condemn and execrate the unrighteous haste, and the more than demoniac barbarity of his death.
G.o.d, we rejoice in all our afflictions to believe, is over all, and the wicked, the cruel, and the unjust, shall not escape.
"Yet it must be acknowledged that there are higher duties than those which we owe to the state, even as there is a higher sovereign to whom we owe allegiance than the head of the state, whether that head be king, senate, or emperor. Man is not only a subject and a citizen, he is first of all the creature of G.o.d, and amenable to his laws. When therefore there is a conflict between the laws of G.o.d and the king, who can doubt which are to be obeyed?--"
"Who does not see," cried Porphyrius vehemently, "that in such principles there lurks the blackest treason? for who but themselves are to judge when the laws of the two sovereigns do thus conflict? and what law then may be promulged, but to them it may be an offence?"
"Let not the learned Porphyrius," resumed Probus, "rest in but a part of what I say. Let him hear the whole, and then deny the principle if he can. I say, when the law of G.o.d and the law of man are opposite the one to the other, we are not to hesitate which to obey and which to break; our first allegiance is due to Heaven. And it is true that we ourselves are to be the judges in the case. But then we are judges under the same stern laws of conscience toward G.o.d, which compel us to violate the law of the empire, though death in its most terrific form be the penalty.
And is it likely therefore that we shall, for frivolous causes, or imaginary ones, or none at all, hold it to be our duty to rebel against the law of the land? To think so were to rate us low indeed. They may surely be trusted to make this decision, whose fidelity to conscience in other emergences brings down upon them so heavy a load of calamity. I may appeal moreover to all, I think, who hear me, of the common faith, whether they themselves would not hold by the same principle? Suppose the case that your supreme G.o.d--"Jupiter greatest and best"--or the G.o.d beyond and above him, in whom your philosophers have faith--revealed a law, requiring what the law of the empire forbids, must you not, would you not, if your religion were anything more than a mere pretence, obey the G.o.d rather than the man? Although therefore, great Emperor, we blame the honest Macer for his precipitancy, yet it ought to be, and is, the determination of us all to yield obedience to no law which violates the law of Heaven. We having received the faith of Christ in trust, to be by us dispensed to mankind, and believing the welfare of mankind to depend upon the wide extension of it, we will rather die than shut it up in our own bosoms--we will rather die, than live with our tongues tied and silent--our limbs fettered and bound! We must speak, or we will die--"
Porphyrius again sprang from his seat with intent to speak, but the Emperor restrained him.
"Contend not now, Porphyrius; let us hear the Christian. I have given him his freedom. Infringe it not."
"I will willingly, n.o.ble Emperor," said Probus, "respond to whatsoever the learned Tyrian may propose. All I can desire is this only, that the religion of Christ may be seen, by those who are here, to be what it truly is; and it may be, that the questions or the objections of the philosopher shall show this more perfectly than a continued discourse."
The Emperor, however, making a sign, he went on.
"We have also been charged, O Emperor, with vices and crimes, committed at both our social and our religious meetings, at which nature revolts, which are even beyond in grossness what have been ever ascribed to the most flagitious of mankind."--Probus here enumerated the many rumors which had long been and still were current in Rome, and, especially by the lower orders, believed; and drew then such a picture of the character, lives, manners, and morals of the Christians, for the truth of which he appealed openly to n.o.ble and distinguished persons among the Romans then present,--not of the Christian faith, but who were yet well acquainted with their character and condition, and who would not refuse to testify to what he had said--that there could none have been present in that vast a.s.sembly but who, if there were any sense of justice within them, must have dismissed forever from their minds, if they had ever entertained them, the slanderous fictions that had filled them.
To report to you, Fausta, this part of his defence, must be needless, and could not prove otherwise than painful. He then also refuted in the same manner other common objections alleged against the Christians and their worship; the lateness of its origin; its beggarly simplicity; the low and ignorant people who alone or chiefly, both in Rome and throughout the world, have received it; the fierce divisions and disputes among the Christians themselves; the uncertainty of its doctrines; the rigor of its morality, as unsuited to mankind; as also its spiritual worship; the slowness of its progress, and the little likelihood that, if G.o.d were its author, he would leave it to be trodden under foot and so nearly annihilated by the very people to whom he was sending it; these and other similar things usually urged against the Christians, and now for the first time, it is probable, by most of the Romans present, heard, refuted, and explained, did Probus set forth, both with brevity and force; making nothing tedious by reason of a frivolous minuteness, nor yet omitting a single topic or argument, which it was due to the cause he defended, to bring before the minds of that august a.s.sembly. He then ended his appeal in the following manner:
"And now, great Emperor, must you have seen, in what I have already said, what the nature and character of this religion is; for in denying and disproving the charges that have been brought against it, I have, in most particulars, alleged and explained some opposite truth or doctrine, by which it is justly characterized. But that you may be informed the more exactly for what it is you are about to persecute and destroy us, and for what it is that we cheerfully undergo torture and death sooner than surrender or deny it, listen yet a moment longer. You have heard that we are named after Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was born in Judea, and there lived and taught, a prophet and messenger of G.o.d, till he was publicly crucified by his bitter enemies the Jews. We do not doubt, nay, we all steadfastly believe, that this Jesus was the Son of the Most High G.o.d, by reason of his wonderful endowments and his delegated office as the long-looked-for Messiah of the Jews. As the evidences of his great office and of his divine origin, he performed those miracles that filled with astonishment the whole Jewish nation, and strangers from all parts of the world; and so wrought even upon the mind of your great predecessor, the Emperor Tiberius, that he would fain receive him into the number of the G.o.ds of Rome. And why, O Emperor, was this great personage sent forth into the world, encircled by the rays of divine power and wisdom and goodness, an emanation of the self-existent and infinite G.o.d? And why do we so honor him, and cleave to him, that we are ready to offer our lives in sacrifice, while we go forth as preachers of his faith, making him known to all nations as the universal Saviour and Redeemer? This Jesus came into the world, and lived and taught; was preceded by so long a preparation of prophetic annunciation, and accompanied by so sublime demonstrations of almighty power, to this end, and to this end only, that he might save us from our sins, and from those penal consequences in this world and in worlds to come, which are bound to them by the stern decrees of fate. Yes, Aurelian, Jesus came only that he might deliver mankind from the thraldom of every kind of wickedness, and raise them to a higher condition of virtue and happiness. He was a great moral and religious teacher and reformer, endowed with the wisdom and power of the supreme G.o.d. He himself toiled only in Judea; but he came a benefactor of Rome too--of Rome as well as of Judea. He came to purge it of its pollutions; to check in their growth those customs and vices which seem destined, reaching their natural height and size, to overlay and bury in final ruin the city and the empire; he came to make us citizens of Heaven through the virtues which his doctrine should build up in the soul, and so citizens of Rome more worthy of that name than any who ever went before. He came to heal, to mend, to reform the state; not to set up a kingdom in hostility to this, but in unison with it; an inward, invisible kingdom in every man"s heart, which should be as the soul of the other.
"It was to reform the morals of the state, to save it from itself, that you, Aurelian, in the first years of your reign, applied those energies that have raised the empire to more than its ancient glory. You aimed to infuse a love of justice and of peace, to abate the extravagances of the times, to stem the tide of corruption that seemed about to bear down upon its foul streams the empire itself, tossing upon its surface a wide sea of ruin. It was a great work--too great for man. It needed a divine strength and a more than human wisdom. These were not yours; and it is no wonder that the work did not go on to its completion. Jesus is a reformer; of Rome and of the world also. The world is his theatre of action; but with him there is leagued the arm and the power of the Supreme G.o.d; and the work which he attempts shall succeed. It cannot but succeed. It is not so much he, Jesus of Nazareth, who has come forth upon this great errand of mercy and love to mankind, as G.o.d himself in and through him. It is the Great G.o.d of the Universe, who, by Jesus Christ as his agent and messenger, comes to you, and would reform and redeem your empire, and out of that which is transitory, and by its inherent vice threatened with decay and death, make a city and an empire which, through the energy of its virtues, shall truly be eternal. Can you not, O Emperor, supposing the claims of this religion to a divine origin to be just, view it with respect? Nay, could you not greet its approach to your capital with pleasure and grat.i.tude, seeing its aim is nothing else than this, to purify, purge, and reform the state, to heal its wounds, cleanse its putrifying members, and infuse the element of a new and healthier life? Methinks a true patriot and lover of Rome must rejoice when any power approaches and offers to apply those remedies that may, with remotest probability only, bid fair to cure the diseases of which her body is sick, nigh unto death.
"Such, Aurelian, was and is the aim of Jesus, in the religion which he brought. And of us, who are his ministers, his messengers--who go forth bearing these glad tidings of deliverance from sin and corruption, and of union with G.o.d--our work is the same with his. We but repeat the lessons which he gave. Are we, in so doing, enemies of Rome? Are we not rather her truest friends? By making men good, just, kind, and honest, are we not at the same time making them the best citizens? Are there in Rome better citizens than the Christians?
"You will now perhaps, Aurelian, desire to be told by what instruments Christianity hopes to work such changes. It is simply, O Emperor, by the power of truth! The religion which we preach uses not force. Were the arm of Aurelian at this moment the arm of Probus, he could do no more than he now does with one, which, as the world deems, is in the comparison powerless as an infant"s. In all that pertains to the soul, and its growth and purification, there must be utmost freedom. The soul must suffer no constraint. There must be no force laid upon it, but the force of reason and the appeal of divine truth. All that we ask or want in Rome is the liberty of speech--the free allowance to offer to men the truth in Christ, and persuade them to consider it. With that we will engage to reform and save the whole world. We want not to meddle with affairs of state, nor with the citizen"s relations to the state; we have naught to do with the city, or its laws, or government, beyond what was just now stated. We desire but the privilege to worship G.o.d according to our consciences, and labor for the moral welfare of all who will hear our words.
"And if you would know what the truth is we impart, and by which we would save the souls of men, and reform the empire and the world, be it known to you that we preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, whom G.o.d raised up and sent into the world to save it by his doctrine and life, and whom--being by the Jews hung upon a cross--G.o.d raised again from the dead. We preach him as the Son of G.o.d with power, by whom G.o.d has been revealed to mankind in his true nature and perfections, and through whom, he and he only is to be worshipped. In the place of Jupiter, we bring you a revelation of the G.o.d and Father of Christ Jesus our Lord--creator of the universe, who will call all men into judgment at last, rewarding or punishing according to what they have done. Through Jesus, we preach also a resurrection from the dead. We show, by arguments which cannot be refuted, that this Jesus, when he had been crucified and slain, and had lain three days in the tomb, was called again to life, and taken up to Heaven, as an example of what should afterwards happen to all his followers. Through him has immortality been plainly brought to light and proved, and this transporting truth we declare wherever we go. Through Jesus, we preach also repentance; we declare to men their wickedness; we show them what and how great it is; and exhort them to repentance, as what can alone save them from the wrath to come.
"This, O Emperor, is the great work which we, as apostles of Jesus, have to do, to convince the world how vile it is; how surely their wickedness, unrepented of, will work their misery and their ruin, and so lead them away from it, and up the safe and pleasant heights of Christian virtue. We find Rome sunk in sensuality and sin; nor only that, but ignorant of its own guilt, dead to the wickedness into which it has fallen, and denying any obligations to a different or better life. Such do we find, indeed, not Rome only, but the world itself, dead in trespa.s.ses and sin. We would rouse it from this sleep of death. We desire first of all, to waken in the souls of men a perception of the guilt of sin! a feeling of the wide departure of their lives from the just demands of the being who made them. The prospect of immortality were nothing without this. Longer life were but a greater evil were we not made alive to sin and righteousness. Life on earth, Aurelian, is not the best thing, but virtuous life: so life without end is not the best thing, but life without fault or sin. But to the necessity of such a life men are now insensible and dead. They love the prospect of an immortal existence, but not of that purity without which immortality were no blessing. But it is this moral regeneration--this waking up of men dead in sin, to the life of righteousness, which is the great aim of Christianity. Repentance! was the first word of its founder when he began preaching in Judea; it is the first word of his followers wherever they go, and should be the last. This, O Aurelian, in few words, is the gospel of Jesus--"Repent and live forever!"
"In the service of this gospel, and therefore of you and the world, we are content to labor while we live, to suffer injury and reproach, and if need be, and they to whom we go will not understand us, lay down our lives. Almost three hundred years has it appealed to mankind; and though not with the success that should have followed upon the labor of those who have toiled for the salvation of men, yet has it not been rejected everywhere, nor has the labor been in vain. The fruit that has come of the seed sown is great and abundant. In every corner of the earth are there now those who name the name of Christ. And in every place are there many more, than meet the eye, who read our gospels, believe in them, and rejoice in the virtue and the hope which have taken root in their souls. Here in Rome, O Aurelian, are there mult.i.tudes of believers, whom the ear hears not, nor the eye sees, hidden away in the security of this sea of roofs, whom the messengers of your power never could discover. Destroy us, you may; sweep from the face of Rome every individual whom the most diligent search can find, from the gray-haired man of fourscore to the infant that can just lisp the name of Jesus, and you have not destroyed the Christians; the Christian church still stands--not unharmed, but founded as before upon a rock, against which the powers of earth and h.e.l.l can never prevail; and soon as this storm shall have overblown, those other, and now secret, mult.i.tudes, of whom I speak, will come forth, and the wilderness of the church shall blossom again as a garden in the time of spring. G.o.d 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 G.o.d"s, and he is laying its foundations and building its walls. Have pity too, great Emperor, upon this large mult.i.tude 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 ma.s.sacre. I implore your compa.s.sions, 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 compa.s.sion 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 G.o.ds of Rome, nor in any in whom mankind can ever have belief. I doubt not but they think themselves believers in a G.o.d. 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 G.o.d is invisible; he is a universal spirit, like this circ.u.mambient 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 a.s.sert, 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 G.o.ds, 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 h.e.l.lenism. 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 a.s.serted 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 sanct.i.ty may then have been a.s.sumed, 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 superst.i.tions--superst.i.tions 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 antic.i.p.ating 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly. 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 cla.s.ses 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."
"I could observe," added Probus, "the same differences of feeling and judgment all over the surface of that sea of faces. But if I should express my belief as to the proportion of friends and enemies there present, I should not hesitate to say--and that I am sure without any imposition upon my own credulity--that the greater part by far were upon our side--not in faith as you may suppose--but in that good opinion of us, and of the tendencies of our doctrine and the value of our services, that is very near it, and is better than the public profession of Christ of many others."
"It will be a long time, I am persuaded," said Julia, "before the truths received then into many minds will cease to operate in our behalf. But what think you was the feeling of Aurelian? His countenance was hidden from me--yet that would reveal not much. It is immovable at those times, when he is deeply stirred, or has any motive to conceal his sentiments."