Historical Miniatures Part 25

"Stand up, Caesar! Thy life is in G.o.d's hand."

"Do I find mercy?"

"You shall have a guide."

"Say whether right or left; then I can help myself."

"Keep to the left."

"And if you lie."

"I cannot lie! Do you see, that is the difference."

"Why do you not lie? I should have done so."

"Keep to the left."

The Emperor believed him, and went. But after going some steps, he stood still and turned round.

"Out upon you, slaves! Now I shall help myself."

It was a terribly stormy night, when Nero, accompanied by the boy Sporus, and a few slaves, reached the estate of his freedman Phaon.

Phaon did not dare to receive him, but advised him to hide in a clay-pit. But the Emperor did not wish to creep into the earth, but sprang into a pond, when he heard the pursuers approaching, and remained standing in the water. From this place he heard those who were going by seeking him, say that he was condemned to be flogged to death. Then, after some hesitation, he thrust a dagger into his breast.

His nurse Acte, who had also been his paramour, buried him in a garden on Monte Pincio. The Romans loved him after his death, and brought flowers to his grave. But the Christians saw in him the Wild Beast and the Antichrist of the Apocalypse.

THE APOSTATE

At a date rather more than three hundred years after the Birth of Christ, the stage of the world's history had shifted from the Mediterranean to the East. Greece was sunk in everlasting sleep, Rome lay in ruins and had become a tributary state. Jerusalem was destroyed, Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile in a state of decay. The world's metropolis lay on the Black Sea, and was a half-oriental colony called Byzantium, or, after Constantine the Great, Constantinople. The heathen world was a waste, and Christianity had become the State religion.

But the spirit of Christianity had not penetrated the empire. Doctrine indeed there was--plenty of doctrine--but those at court lived worse lives than the heathen, and the way to the throne in Byzantium was generally through a murder.

But while the centre of gravity in Europe had shifted to the East, new conquests had been made in the West and in the North. The Romans had founded fifty cities on the Rhine, and, since Julius Caesar's time, all Gaul lay under Roman ploughs and worshipped Roman G.o.ds in Roman temples.

But now that Christianity was to be introduced into Gaul, it encountered great difficulties. The original religion of the country, Druidism, had been proscribed by the Emperor Claudius, and the Roman cult of the G.o.ds subst.i.tuted. And now that a second alteration of their religion was proposed, the Gauls strongly resented it. Accordingly Gaul was in a state of disorganisation, which was likely to result in some new growth.

But under the rule of Constantius, new danger from another side threatened the newly-formed provinces of Gaul. The German races, the Franks and the Alemanni, were attracted by the charm of the fertile land, where the mountains seemed to drop with wine, and the plains were covered with yellow corn. In order to protect the best of his provinces, and perhaps for other reasons, the Emperor sent his cousin and brother-in-law, Julian, to subdue the Germans. Although Julian had been educated in a convent and at a university, he seems to have understood the art of war, for he defeated the invaders and then retired to Lutetia Parisiorum.

The legions had marched up the Mons Martis or Martyrorum, as it was called by turns. At their head went the insignificant-looking man with his beard trimmed like a philosopher's--Julian, surnamed Caesar, but not therefore Emperor. High on the summit of the hill stood a temple of Mars, but it was closed. When the army had encamped, Julian went alone to the edge of the hill, in order to view the town Lutetia, which he had never seen.

On the island between the two arms of the Seine lay the main part of the town with the temple of Jupiter; but the Imperial Palace and the Amphitheatre stood on the slope of Mount Parna.s.sus, on the left bank of the river. For three hundred years from the time of Julius Caesar, the Emperors had stayed here at intervals. The two last occupants had been Constantine the Great and Constantius.

After thoughtfully contemplating for a while the valley with the river flowing through it, Julian exclaimed, "Urbs! Why, it is Rome! A river, a valley, and hills, seven or more, just as at Rome. Don't you see, we stand on the Capitoline? On the opposite side we have Janiculum represented by Mount Parna.s.sus, and in the north Mons Valerian forms our Vatican. And the city on the island! The island resembles a ship, just like the island in the Tiber, on which they have erected an obelisk as a mast, so striking was the similarity. Caesar indeed was too original to have wished to copy. They call Byzantium New Rome, but Rome is like a worm; when cut in two, a living creature is formed from each piece. What do you say, Maximus?"

"Rome was the city of the seven hills and the seven kings; how many there will be here, none can say."

"It had never occurred to me," answered Julian, "that Rome had had just as many kings as hills--a curious coincidence!"

Maximus the Mystic, who, together with the Sophist Priscus, always accompanied the Emperor, in order to give him opportunities for philosophising, immediately objected: "There are no 'coincidences,'

Caesar, everything is reckoned and numbered; everything is created with a conscious purpose, and in harmonious correspondence--the firmament of heaven and the circle of the earth."

"You have learnt that in Egypt," Priscus interrupted, "for the Egyptians see the river Nile in the constellation Erida.n.u.s. I should like to know under which constellation this Lutetia lies!"

"It lies under Andromeda, like Rome," answered Maximus, "but Perseus hangs over the Holy Land, so that Algol stands over Jerusalem."

"Why do you call that cursed land 'holy'?" broke in Julian, who could not control his generally quiet temper as soon as any subject was mentioned connected with Christianity, which he hated.

"I call the land 'holy' because the Redeemer of the world was born there. And you know that He was born without a father, like Perseus; you know also that Perseus delivered Andromeda, as Jesus Christ will deliver Rome and Lutetia."

Julian was silent, for, as a Neo-platonist, he liked a.n.a.logies between the heavenly and the temporal, and a poetic figure was more for him than a rhetorical ornament.

Educated in a convent by Christian priests, he had early gained an insight into the new teaching of Christianity; but he believed that his philosophic culture had shown him that the seed of Christianity had already germinated in Socrates and Plato. After he had made the acquaintance of the Neo-Platonists, he found nothing to object to in the recently-promulgated dogmas of Christianity. But he felt a boundless hate against these Galilaeans who wished to appropriate all the wisdom of the past ages and give it their own name. He regarded them as thieves. The doctrine of Christ's Divine Sonship seemed to him quite natural, for as a Pantheist he believed that the souls of all men are born of G.o.d and have part in Him. He himself acknowledged the dogma recently promulgated at Nicaea, that the Son is of the same essence as the Father, although he interpreted, it in his own way. As to miracles, they happened every day, and could be imitated by magicians. He acknowledged the truth of the Fall of Man, for Plato also had declared that the soul is imprisoned in matter--in sinful matter, with which we must do battle. And this had been confirmed by St. Paul's saying in the Epistle to the Romans, "The good which I would, that I do not, but the evil, which I would not, that I do," and again, "I delight in the law of G.o.d after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, which warreth against the law of my mind.... O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" That was the lament of the thinking sensitive man regarding the soul's imprisonment in matter; the disgust of human nature at itself.

Julian, as a sensitive and struggling spirit, had felt this pressure, and had honestly and successfully combated the l.u.s.ts of the flesh. Grown up though he was, among murderers and sybarites, in the extravagant luxury of the Byzantine Court, where, for example, he had at first possessed a thousand barbers and a thousand cooks, he had abandoned luxury, lived like a Christian ascetic, acted justly, and was high-minded. He had a perfect comprehension of the soul's imprisonment in the flesh or of "sin," but understood nothing of the Redemption through Christ. Three hundred years had pa.s.sed since the birth of Christ, and the world had become continually more wretched. The Christians he had seen, especially his uncle Constantine the Great, lived worse than the heathen. As a young man he had tested the new teaching in his own internal struggles; he had prayed to Christ as to G.o.d, but had not been heard. When he had lamented his plight to the devout Eusebius, the latter had answered, "Be patient in hope! Continue constant in prayer."

But the youth answered, "I cannot be patient."

Then Eusebius said, "The deliverance comes, but not in our time. A thousand years are as a day before the Lord G.o.d! Wait five days, then you will see."

"I will not wait," exclaimed the youth angrily.

"So say the d.a.m.ned souls also. But look you, impatience is one of the torments of h.e.l.l, and you make a h.e.l.l for yourself with your impatience."

Julian became a hater of Christ, without exactly knowing why. The philosophers did not teach it him, for they adapted Christianity to their philosophy. Celsus' feeble attack on Christianity had not misled Julian's ripe and cultured intelligence. Eusebius explained his pupil's hatred of Christ in the following way: "He has heathen blood in him, for he comes of Illyrian stock; he does not belong to this sheepfold. Or is his pride so boundless, his envy so great, that he cannot tolerate any Autocrat in the realm of the spirit? He lives himself like a Christian, and teaches the same as Christ, but at the same time is a Christ-hater."

Meanwhile Julian, in order to hide his anger, had approached the little Temple of Mars on the hill. The building was in ruins, the doors had been carried away, and the columns were broken. As he entered it, he saw the statue of Mars, modelled after a good Greek one of Ares, standing in the apse, but the nose was broken off, the fingers were lacking, and the whole statue was streaked with dirt.

"This is the work of the Galilaeans," said Julian, "but they shall pay for it."

"They have already paid with their lives," answered Maximus.

"Dionysius [Footnote: St. Denis] was beheaded on the hill, and his chapel stands there on the slope."

"Are you also a Galilaean?"

"No; but I love justice."

"Justice and its guardian-G.o.ddess Astrasa left the earth when the Iron Age began; now she is a star in heaven."

"In the Zodiac," interrupted Priscus; "I believe also, we all live in Zodiacs, and there justice has no place."

A sudden murmur of voices was heard from the camp. Julian mounted a heap of stones to see what was the matter. The whole of the north-east side of Mars' Hill was covered with soldiers, and below in the valley were to be seen tents and camp-fires. These thousands belonged to all the nations of the world. They comprised Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Negroes, Hebrews, Persians, Afghans, Scythians, Germans, Britons, and Gauls. But now they were in movement and swarming, as gnats do when they dance.

"What is the excitement about?" asked Julian.

A little bell from the chapel of St. Denis sounded the Angelus, and the Christians fell on their knees, while the heathen remained standing or continued their occupations. The Christians considered themselves disturbed, and so did the heathen.