Baring-Gould Sabine
Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213
CHAPTER XV
“REVEALED UNTO BABES”
On account of the death in the family of the timber merchant, Æmilius left the house and took a room and engaged attendance in the cottage of a cordwainer a little way off. The house was clean, and the good woman was able to cook him a meal not drowned in oil nor rank with garlic.
He was uneasy because Callipodius did not return, and he obtained no tidings concerning Perpetua. The image of this maiden, with a face of transparent purity, out of which shone the radiance of a beautiful soul, haunted his imagination and fluttered his heart. He walked by the side of the flooded tract of land, noticed that the water was falling, and looked, at every turn he took, in the direction of Nemausus, expecting the arrival of his client, but always in vain.
He did at length see a boat approach, towards evening, and he paced the little landing-place with quick strides till it ran up against it; and then only, to his disappointment, did he see that Callipodius was not there. Castor disembarked.
On the strength of his slight acquaintance Æmilius greeted the bishop. The suspense was become unendurable. He asked to be granted a few words in private. To this Castor gladly consented.
He, the head of the Christian community, had remained unmolested. He belonged to a senatorial family in the town, and had relations among the most important officials. The duumvir would undoubtedly leave him alone unless absolutely obliged to lay hands on him. Nemausus was divided into two towns, the Upper and the Lower, each with its own water-supply, its own baths, and each distinct in social composition.
The lower town, the old Gallic city, that venerated the hero-founder of the same name as the town, was occupied by the old Volcian population and by a vast number of emancipated slaves of every nationality, many engaged in trade and very rich. These freedmen were fused into one “order,” as it was termed, that of the Liberti.
The upper town contained the finest houses, and was inhabited by the Roman colonists, by some descendants of the first Phocean settlers, and by such of the old Gaulish nobility as had most completely identified themselves with their conquerors. These had retained their estates and had enriched themselves by taking Government contracts.
Such scions of the old Gaulish houses had become fused by marriage and community of interest with the families of the first colonists, and they affected contempt for the pure-blooded old aristocracy who had sunk into poverty and insignificance in their decayed mansions in Lower Nemausus.
Of late years, slowly yet surely, the freedmen who had amassed wealth had begun to invade superior Nemausus, had built themselves houses of greater magnificence and maintained an ostentatious splendor that excited the envy and provoked the resentment of the old senatorial and knightly citizens.
The great natural fountain supplied the lower town with water, but was situated at too low a level for the convenience of the gentry of Upper Nemausus, who had therefore conveyed the spring water of Ura from a great distance by tunneling mountains and bridging valleys, and thus had furnished themselves with an unfailing supply of the liquid as necessary to a Roman as was the air he breathed. Thus rendered independent of the natural fountain at the foot of the rocks in Lower Nemausus, those living in the higher town affected the cult of the nymph Ura, and spoke disparagingly of the god of the old town; whereas the inferior part of the city clung tenaciously to the divine Nemausus, whose basin, full of unfailing water, was presented to their very lips and had not to be brought to them from a distance by the engineering skill of men and at a great cost.
Devotion to the god of the fountain in Lower Nemausus was confined entirely to the inhabitants of the old town, and was actually a relic of the old Volcian religion before the advent of the colonists, Greek and Roman. It had maintained itself and its barbarous sacrifice intact, undisturbed.
No victim was exacted from a family of superior Nemausus. The contribution was drawn from among the families of the native nobility, and it was on this account solely that the continuance of the septennial sacrifice had been tolerated.
Already, however, the priesthood was becoming aware that a strong feeling was present that was averse to it. The bulk of the well-to-do population had no traditional reverence for the Gaulish founder-god, and many openly spoke of the devotion of a virgin to death as a rite that deserved to be abolished.
From the cordwainer Æmilius had heard of the mutilation of the statue and of the commotion it had caused. This, he conjectured, accounted for the delay of Callipodius. It had interfered with his action; he had been unable to learn what had become of the damsel, and was waiting till he had definite tidings to bring before he returned. Æmilius was indignant at the wanton act of injury done to a beautiful work of art that decorated one of the loveliest natural scenes in the world. But this indignation was rendered acute by personal feeling. The disturbance caused by the rescue of the virgin might easily have been allayed; not so one provoked by such an act of sacrilege as the defacing of the image of the divine founder. This would exasperate passions and vastly enhance the danger to Perpetua and make her escape more difficult.
As Æmilius walked up from the jetty with the bishop, he inquired of him how matters stood with the Christians in the town and received a general answer. This did not satisfy the young lawyer, and, as the color suffused his face, he asked particularly after Perpetua, daughter of the deceased Harpinius Læto.
The bishop turned and fixed his searching eyes on the young man.
“Why make you this inquiry?” he asked.
“Surely,” answered Æmilius, “I may be allowed to feel interest in one whom I was the means of rescuing from death. In sooth, I am vastly concerned to learn that she is safe. It were indeed untoward if she fell once more into the hands of the priesthood or into those of the populace. The ignorant would grip as hard as the interested.”
“She is not in the power of either,” answered Castor. “But where she is, that God knows, not I. Her mother is distracted, but we trust the maiden has found a refuge among the brethren, and for her security is kept closely concealed. The fewer who know where she is the better will it be, lest torture be employed to extort the secret. The Lady Quincta believes what we have cause to hope and consider probable. This is certain: if she had been discovered and given up to the magistrate the fact would be known at once to all in the place.”
“To break the image of the god was a wicked and a wanton act,” said Æmilius irritably. “Is such conduct part of your religion?”
“The act was that of a rash and hot-headed member of our body. It was contrary to my will, done without my knowledge, and opposed to the teaching of our holy fathers, who have ever dissuaded from such acts. But in all bodies of men there are hot-heads and impulsive spirits that will not endure control.”
“Your own teaching is at fault,” said Æmilius peevishly. “You denounce the gods, and yet express regret if one of you put your doctrine in practice.”
“If images were ornaments only,” said the bishop, “then they would be endurable; but when they receive adoration, when libations are poured at their feet, then we forbid our brethren to take part in such homage, for it is idolatry, a giving to wood and stone the worship due to God alone. But we do not approve of insult offered to any man’s religion. No,” said Castor emphatically; “Christianity is not another name for brutality, and that is brutality which insults the religious sentiment of the people, who may be ignorant but are sincere.”
They had reached the rope-walk. The cordwainer was absent.
“Let us take a turn,” said the bishop; and then he halted and smiled and extended his palm to a little child that ran up to him and put its hand within his with innocent confidence.
“This,” said Castor, “is the son of the timber merchant.” Then to the boy: “Little man, walk with us, but do not interrupt our talk. Speak only when spoken to.” He again addressed the lawyer: “My friend, if I may so call thee, thou art vastly distressed at the mutilation of the image. Why so?”
“Because it is a work of art, and that particular statue was the finest example of the sculpture of a native artist. It was a gift to his native town of the god Marcus Antoninus (the Emperor Antoninus Pius).”
“Sir,” said Castor, “you are in the right to be incensed. Now tell me this. If the thought of the destruction of a statue made by man and the gift of a Cæsar rouse indignation in your mind, should you not be more moved to see the destruction of living men, as in the shows of the arena – the slaughter of men, the work of God’s hands?”
“That is for our entertainment,” said Æmilius, yet with hesitation in his voice.
“Does that condone the act of the mutilator of the image, that he did it out of sport, to amuse a few atheists and the vulgar? See you how from his mother’s womb the child has been nurtured, how his limbs have grown in suppleness and grace and strength; how his intelligence has developed, how his faculties have expanded. Who made the babe that has become a man? Who protected him from infancy? Who builds up this little tenement of an immortal and bright spirit?” He led forward and indicated the child of Flavillus. “Was it not God? And for a holiday pastime you send men into the arena to be lacerated by wild beasts or butchered by gladiators! Do you not suppose that God, the maker of man, must be incensed at this wanton destruction of His fairest creation?”
“What you say applies to the tree we fell, to the ox and the sheep we slaughter.”
“Not so,” answered the bishop. “The tree is essential to man. Without it he cannot build himself a house nor construct a ship. The use of the tree is essential to his progress from barbarism. Nay, even in barbarism he requires it to serve him as fuel, and to employ timber demands the fall of the tree. As to the beast, man is so constituted by his Creator that he needs animal food. Therefore is he justified in slaying beasts for his nourishment.”
“According to your teaching death sentences are condemned, as also are wars.”
“Not so. The criminal may forfeit his right to a life which he is given to enjoy upon condition that he conduce to the welfare of his fellows. If, instead thereof, he be a scourge to mankind, he loses his rights. As to the matter of war: we must guard the civilization we have built up by centuries of hard labor and study after improvement. We must protect our frontiers against the incursions of the barbarians. Unless they be rolled back, they will overwhelm us. Self-preservation is an instinct lodged in every breast, justifying man in defending his life and his acquisitions.”
“Your philosophy is humane.”
“It is not a philosophy. It is a revelation.”
“In what consists the difference?”
“A philosophy is a groping upwards. A revelation is a light falling from above. A philosophy is reached only after the intellect is ripe and experienced, attained to when man’s mind is fully developed. A revelation comes to the child as his mind and conscience are opening and shows him his way. Here, little one! stand on that cippus and answer me.”
Castor took the child in his arms and lifted him to a marble pedestal.
“Little child,” said he, “answer me a few simple questions. Who made you?”
“God,” answered the boy readily.
“And why did He make you?”
“To love and serve Him.”
“And how can you serve Him?”
“By loving all men.”
“What did the Great Master say was the law by which we are to direct our lives?”
“ ‘He that loveth God, let him love his brother also.’ ”
“Little child, what is after death?”
“Eternity.”
“And in eternity where will men be?”
“Those that have done good shall be called to life everlasting, and those that have done evil will be cast forth into darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
The bishop took the child from the pedestal, and set him again on the ground.
Then, with a smile on his face, he said to Æmilius, “Do we desire to know our way after we have erred or before we start? What was hidden from the wise and prudent is revealed unto babes. Where philosophy ends, there our religion begins.”
CHAPTER XVI
DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES
Æmilius paced the rope-walk in deep thought. He did not speak during several turns, and the bishop respected his meditation and kept silence as well.
Presently the young man burst forth with: “This is fairly put, plausible and attractive doctrine. But what we lawyers demand is evidence. When was the revelation made? In the reign of the god Tiberius? That was two centuries ago. What proof is there that this be not a cleverly elaborated philosophy – as you say, a groping upwards – pretending to be, and showing off itself as, a lightening downwards?”
“The evidence is manifold,” answered Castor. “In the first place, the sayings and the acts of the Divine Revealer were recorded by evangelists who lived at the time, knew Him, heard Him, or were with those who had daily companied with Him.”
“Of what value is such evidence when we cannot put the men who gave it in the witness-box and cross-question them? I do not say that their evidence is naught, but that it is disputable.”
“There is other evidence, ever-living, ever-present.”
“What is that?”
“Your own reason and conscience. You, Æmilius Lentulus, have these witnesses in yourself. He who made you seated a conscience in your soul to show you that there is such a thing as a law of right and wrong, though, as far as you know, unwritten. Directly I spoke to you of the sin of murdering men to make pastime, your color changed; you knew that I was right. Your conscience assented to my words.”
“I allow that.”
“My friend, let me go further. When your mind is not obscured by passion or warped by prejudice, then you perceive that there is a sphere of holiness, of virtue, of purity, to which men have not yet attained, and which, for all you see, is unattainable situated as you are, but one into which, if man could mount, then he would be something nobler than even the poets have conceived. You have flashes of summer lightning in your dark sky. You reject the monstrous fables of the gods as inconsistent with what your reason and conscience tell you comport with divinity. Has any of your gods manifested himself and left such a record of his appearance as is fairly certain? If he appeared, or was fabled to have appeared, did he tell men anything about the nature of God, His will, and the destiny of man? A revelation must be in agreement with the highest aspirations of man. It must be such as will regulate his life, and conduce to his perfection and the advantage of the community. It must be such as will supply him with a motive for rejecting what is base, but pleasing to his coarse nature, and striving after that which is according to the luminous ideal that floats before him. Now the Christian revelation answers these conditions, and is therefore probably true. It supplies man with a reason why he should contend against all that is gross in his nature; should be gentle, courteous, kindly, merciful, pure. It does more. It assures him that the Creator made man in order that he might strive after this ideal, and in so doing attain to serenity and happiness. No other religion that I know of makes such claims; no other professes to have been revealed to man as the law of his being by Him who made man. No other is so completely in accordance on the one hand with what we conceive is in agreement with the nature of God, and on the other so completely accords with our highest aspirations.”
“I can say nothing to that. I do not know it.”
“Yes, you do know it. The babe declared it; gave you the marrow and kernel of the gospel: Love God and man.”
“To fear God is what I can understand; but to love Him is more than I can compass.”
“Because you do not know God.”
“I do not, indeed.”
“God is love.”
“A charming sentiment; a rhetorical flourish. What evidence can you adduce that God is love?”
“Creation.”
“The earth is full of suffering; violence prevails; wrong overmasters right. There is more of misery than of happiness, saving only to the rich and noble; they are at any rate supposed to be exempt, but, by Hercules, they seem to me to be sick of pleasure, and every delight gluts and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”
“That is true; but why is there all this wretchedness? Because the world is trying to get along without God. Look!” The bishop stooped and took up a green-backed beetle. “If I cast this insect into the water it will suffer and die. If I fling it into the fire it will writhe and perish in agony. Neither water nor fire is the element for which it was created – in which to exist and be happy. The divine law is the atmosphere in which man is made to live. Because there is deflection from that, and man seeks other ends than that for which he was made, therefore comes wretchedness. The law of God is the law man must know, and knowing, pursue to be perfectly happy and to become a perfect being.”
“Now I have you!” exclaimed Æmilius, with a laugh. “There are no men more wretched than Christians who possess, and, I presume, keep this law. They abstain from our merry-makings, from the spectacles; they are liable to torture and to death.”
“We abstain from nothing that is wholesome and partaken in moderation; but from drunkenness, surfeiting, and what is repugnant to the clean mind. As to the persecution we suffer, the powers of evil rebel against God, and stir up bad men to resist the truth. But let me say something further – if I do not weary you.”
“Not at all; you astonish me too much to weary me.”
“You are dropped suddenly – cast up by the sea on a strange shore. You find yourself where you have never been before. You know not where to go – how to conduct yourself among the natives; what fruits you may eat as wholesome, and must reject as poisonous. You do not know what course to pursue to reach your home, and fear at every step to get further from it. You cry out for a chart to show you where you are, and in what direction you should direct your steps. Every child born into this world is in a like predicament. It wants a chart, and to know its bearings. This is not the case with any animal. Every bird, fish, beast, knows what to do to fulfill the objects of its existence. Man alone does not. He has aspirations, glimmerings, a law of nature traced, but not filled in. He has lived by that natural law – you live under it, and you experience its inadequacy. That is why your conscience, all mankind, with inarticulate longing desires something further. Now I ask you, as I did once before, is it conceivable that the Creator of man, who put in man’s heart that aspiration, that longing to know the law of his being, without which his life is but a miserable shipwreck – is it conceivable that He should withhold from him the chart by which he can find his way?”
“You have given me food for thought. Yet, my doubts still remain.”
“I cannot give you faith. That lightens down from above. It is the gift of God. Follow the law of your conscience and He may grant it you. I cannot say when or how, and what means he may employ – but if you are sincere and not a trifler with the truth – He will not deny it you. But see – here comes some one who desires to speak with you.”
Æmilius looked in the direction indicated, and saw Callipodius coming up from the water-side, waving his hand to him. So engrossed had he been in conversation with Castor, that he had not observed the arrival of a boat at the landing-place.
At once the young lawyer sped to meet his client, manifesting the utmost impatience.
“What tidings – what news?” was his breathless question.
“As good as may be,” answered Callipodius. “The gods work to fulfill thy desire. It is as if thou wert a constraining destiny, or as though it were a pleasure to them to satisfy the wishes of their favorite.”
“I pray, lay aside this flattery, and speak plain words.”
“Resplendent genius that thou art! thou needest no flattery any more than the sun requires burnishing.”
“Let me entreat – the news!”
“In two words – ”
“Confine thyself to two words.”
“She is safe.”
“Where? How?”
“Now must I relax my tongue. In two words I cannot satisfy thy eagerness.”
“Then, Body of Bacchus! go on in thine own fashion.”
“The account may be crushed into narrow compass. When I left your radiant presence, then I betook myself to the town and found the place in turmoil – the statue of the god had been broken, and the deity was braying like a washerwoman’s jackass. The populace was roused and incensed by the outrage, and frightened by the voice of the god. All had quieted down previously, but this worked up the people to a condition of frantic rage and panic. I hurried about in quest of the Lady Perpetua; and as I learned that she had been conveyed from the pool by Baudillas Macer, I went into the part of the town where he lives; noble once, now slums. Then, lo! thy genius attending and befriending me, whom should I stumble against but a fellow named Tarsius, a slave of a wool merchant to whom I owe moneys, which I haven’t yet paid. I knew the fellow from a gash he had received at one time across nose and cheek. He was drunk and angry because he had been expelled the Christian society which was holding its orgies. I warrant thee I frightened the poor wretch with promises of the little horse, the panthers, and the cross, till he became pliant and obliging. Then I wormed out of him all I required, and made him my tool to obtain possession of the pretty maid. I learned from him that the Lady Quincta and her daughter were at the house of Baudillas, afraid to return home because their door was observed by some of the Cultores Nemausi. Then I suborned the rascal to act a part for me. From thy house I dispatched two litters and carriers, and sent that tippling rogue with them to the dwelling of Macer, to say that he was commissioned by his master, Litomarus, to conduct them to his country house for their security. They walked into the snare like fieldfare after juniper berries. Then the porters conveyed the girl to thy house.”
“To my house!” Æmilius started.
“Next, she was hurried off as soon as ever the gates were opened, to your villa at Ad Fines.”
“And she is there now, with her mother?”
“With her mother! I know better than to do that. I bade the porters convey the old lady in her palanquin to the goose and truffle market and deposit her there. No need to be encumbered with her.”
“The Lady Quincta not with her daughter?”
“You were not desirous for further acquaintance with the venerable widow, I presume.”
“But,” said Æmilius, “this is a grave matter. You have offered, as from me, an insult most wounding to a young lady, and to a respectable matron.”
“Generous man! how was it possible for me to understand the niceties that trouble your perspicuous mind? But be at ease. Serious sickness demands strong medicines. Great dangers excuse bold measures. The priestess has demanded the restoration of the virgin. The flamen Augustalis is backing her up. So are all the Seviri. The religious corporation feel touched in their credit and insist on the restitution. They will heap on fuel, and keep Nemausus in a boil. By no possibility could the damsel have remained hidden in the town. I saw that it was imperiously necessary for me to remove her. I could think of no other place into which to put her than Ad Fines. I managed the matter in admirable fashion; though it is I who say it. But really, by Jupiter Capitolinus, I believe that your genius attended me, and assisted in the execution of the design, which was carried out without a hitch.”
Æmilius knitted his arms behind his back, and took short turns, in great perturbation of mind.
“By Hercules!” said he, “you have committed an actionable offense.”
“Of course, you look on it from a legal point of view,” said Callipodius, a little nettled. “I tell you it was a matter of life or death.”
“I do not complain of your having conveyed the young lady to Ad Fines, but of your not having taken her mother there along with her. You have put me in a very awkward predicament.”
“How was I to judge that the old woman was to be deported as well?”
“You might have judged that I would cut off my right hand rather than do aught that might cause people to speak lightly of Perpetua.”
The client shrugged his shoulders. “You seem to breed new scruples.”
“I thank you,” said Æmilius, “that you have shown so good a will, and have been so successful in your enterprise. I am, perhaps, over hasty and exacting. I desired you to do a thing more perfectly than perhaps you were able to perform it. Leave me now. I must clear my mind and discover what is now to be done.”
“There is no pleasing some folk,” said Callipodius moodily.
