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_ THEY went through the Vicus Patricius, along the Viminal to the
former Visninal gate, near the plain on which Diocletian afterward
built splendid baths. They passed the remains of the wall of
Servius Tullius, and through places more and more deserted they
reached the Via Nomentana; there, turning to the left, towards the
Via Salaria, they found themselves among hills full of sand-pits,
and here and there they found graveyards.
Meanwhile it had grown dark completely, and since the moon had
not risen yet, it would have been rather difficult for them to find
the road were it not that the Christians themselves indicated it, as
Chilo foresaw.
In fact, on the right, on the left, and in front., dark forms were
evident, making their way carefully toward sandy hollows. Some
of these people carried lanterns, -- covering them, however, as far
as possible with mantles; others, knowing the road better, went in
the dark. The trained military eye of Vinicius distinguished, by
their movements, younger men from old ones, who walked with
canes, and from women, wrapped carefully in long mantles. The
highway police, and villagers leaving the city, took those night
wanderers, evidently, for laborers, going to sand-pits; or
grave-diggers, who at times celebrated ceremonies of their own in
the night-time. In proportion, however, as the young patrician and
his attendants pushed forward, more and more lanterns gleamed,
and the number of persons grew greater. Some of them sang songs
in low voices, which to Vinicius seemed filled with sad-- ness. At
moments a separate word or a phrase of the song struck his ear, as,
for instance, "Awake, thou that sleepest," or "Rise from the dead";
at times, again, the name of Christ was repeated by men and
women.
But Vinicius turned slight attention to the words, for it came to his
head that one of those dark forms might be Lygia. Some, passing
near, said, "Peace be with thee!" or "Glory be to Christ!" but
disquiet seized him, and his heart began to beat with more life, for
it seemed to him that he heard Lygia's voice. Forms or movements
like hers deceived him in the darkness every moment, and only
when he had corrected mistakes made repeatedly did he begin to
distrust his own eyes.
The way seemed long to him. He knew the neighborhood exactly,
but could not fix places in the darkness. Every moment they came
to some narrow passage, or piece of wall, or booths, which he did
not remember as being in the vicinity of the city. Finally the edge
of the moon appeared from behind a mass of clouds, and lighted
the place better than dim lanterns. Something from afar began at
last to glimmer like a ftre, or the flame of a torch. Vinicius turned
to Chilo.
"Is that Ostrianum?" asked he.
Chio, on whom night, distance from the city, and those ghostlike
forms made a deep impression, replied in a voice somewhat
uncertain, -- "I know not, lord; I have never been in Ostrianum.
But they might praise God in some spot nearer the city."
After a while, feeling the need of conversation, and of
strengthening his courage, he added, -- "They come together like
murderers; still they are not permitted to murder, unless that
Lygian has deceived me shamefully."
Vinicius, who was thinking of Lygia, was astonished also by the
caution and mysteriousness with which her co-religionists
assembled to hear their highest priest; hence he said, -- "Like all
religions, this has its adherents in the midst of us; but the
Christians are a Jewish sect. Why do they assemble here, when in
the Trans-Tiber there are temples to which the Jews take their
offerings in daylight?"
"The Jews, lord, are their bitterest enemies. I have heard that,
before the present Caesar's time, it came to war, almost, between
Jews and Christians. Those outbreaks forced Claudius Caesar to
expell all the Jews, but at present that edict is abolished. The
Christians, however, hide themselves from Jews, and from the
populace, who, as is known to thee, accuse them of crimes and
hate them."
They walked on some time in silence, till Chio, whose fear
increased as he receded from the gates, said, -- "When returning
from the shop of Euricius, I borrowed a wig from a barber, and
have put two beans in my nostrils. They must not recognize me;
but if they do, they will not kill me. They are not malignant! They
are even very honest. I esteem and love them."
"Do not win them to thyself by premature praises," retorted
Vinicius.
They went now into a narrow depression, closed, as it were, by two
ditches on the side, over which an aqueduct was thrown in one
place. The moon came out from behind clouds, and at the end of
the depression they saw a wall, covered thickly with ivy, which
looked silvery in the moonlight. That was Ostrianum.
Vinicius's heart began to beat now with more vigor. At the gate
two quarryrnen took the signs from thtm. In a moment Vinicius
and his attendants were in a rather spacious place enclosed on all
sides by a wall. Here and there were separate monuments, and in
the centre was the entrance to the hypogeum itself, or crypt. In the
lower part of the crypt, beneath the earth, were graves; before the
entrance a fountain was playing. But it was evident that no very
large number of persons could find room in the hypogeum; hence
Vinicius divined without difficulty that the ceremony would take
place outside, in the space where a very numerous throng was soon
gathered.
As far as the eye could reach, lantern gleamed near lantern, but
many of those who came had no light whatever. With the
exception of a few uncovered heads, all were hooded, from fear of
treason or the cold; and the young patrician thought with alarm
that, should they remain thus, he would not be able to recognize
Lygia in that crowd and in the dim light.
But all at once, near the crypt, some pitch torches were ignited and
put into a little pile. There was more light. After a while the crowd
began to sing a certain strange hymn, at first in a low voice, and
then louder. Vinicius had never heard such a hymn before. The
same yearning which had struck him in the hymns murmured by
separate persons on the way to the cemetery, was heard now in
that, but with far more distinctness and power; and at last it
became as penetrating and immense as if together with the people,
the whole cemetery, the hills, the pits, and the region about, had
begun to yearn. It might seem, also, that there was in it a certain
calling in the night, a certain humble prayer for rescue in
wandering and darkness.
Eyes turned upward seemed to see some one far above, there on
high, and outstretched hands seemed to implore him to descend.
When the hymn ceased, there followed a moment as it were of
suspense, -- so impressive that Vinicius and his companions
looked unwittingly toward the stars, as if in dread that something
uncommon would happen, and that some one would really descend
to them.
Vinicius had seen a multitude of temples of most various structure
in Asia Minor, in Egypt, and in Rome itself; he had become
acquainted with a multitude of religions, most varied in character,
and had heard many hymns; but here, for the first time, he saw
people calling on a divinity with hymns, -- not to carry out a fixed
ritual, but calling from the bottom of the heart, with the genuine
yearning which children might feel for a father or a mother. One
had to be blind not to see that those people not merely honored
their God, but loved him with the whole soul. Vinicius had not
seen the like, so far, in any land, during any ceremony, in any
sanctuary; for in Rome and in Greece those who still rendered
honor to the gods did so to gain aid for themselves or through fear;
but it had not even entered any one's head to love those divinities.
Though his mind was occupied with Lygia, and his attention with
seeking her in the crowd, he could not avoid seeing those
uncommon and wonderful things which were happening around
him. Meanwhile a few more torches were thrown on the fire,
which filled the cemetery with ruddy light and darkened the gleam
of the lanterns. That moment an old man, wearing a hooded
mantle but with a bare head, issued from the hypogeum. This man
mounted a stone which lay near the fire.
The crowd swayed before him. \Toices near Vinicius whispered,
"Peter! Peter!" Some knelt, others extended their hands toward
him. There followed a silence so deep that one heard every charred
particle that dropped from the torches, the distant rattle of wheels
on the Via Nomentana, and the sound of wind through the few
pines which grew close to the cemetery.
Chilo bent toward Vinicius and whispered, -- "This is he! The
foremost disciple of Christ--a fisherman!"
The old man raised his hand, and with the sign of the cross blessed
those present, who fell on their knees simultaneously. Vinicius and
his attendants, not wishing to betray themselves, followed the
example of others. The young man could not seize his impressions
immediately, for it seemed to him that the form which he saw
there before him was both simple and uncommon, and, what was
more, the uncommonness flowed just from the simplicity. The old
man had no mitre on his head, no garland of oak-leaves on his
temples, no palm in his hand, no golden tablet on his breast, he
wore no white robe embroidered with stars; in a word, he bore no
insignia of the kind worn by priests -- Oriental, Egyptian, or Greek
-- or by Roman flamens. And Vinicius was struck by that same
difference again which he felt when listening to the Christian
hymns; for that "fisherman," too, seemed to him, not like some
high priest skilled in ceremonial, but as it were a witness, simple,
aged, and immensely venerable, who had journeyed from afar to
relate a truth which he had seen, which he had touched, which he
believed as he believed in existence, and he had come to love this
truth precisely because he believed it. There was in his face,
therefore, such a power of convincing as truth itself has. And
Vinicius, who had been a sceptic, who did not wish to yield to the
charm of the old man, yielded, however, to a certain feverish
curiosity to know what would flow from the lips of that companion
of the mysterious "Christus," and what that teaching was of which
Lygia and Pomponia Gzecina were followers.
Meanwhile Peter began to speak, and he spoke from the beginning
like a father instructing his children and teaching them how to live.
He enjoined on them to renounce excess and luxury, to love
poverty, purity of life, and truth, to endure wrongs and
persecutions patiently, to obey the government and those placed
above them, to guard against treason, deceit, and calumny; finally,
to give an example in their own society to each other, and even to
pagans.
Vinicius, for whom good was only that which could bring back to
him Lygia, and evil everything which stood as a barrier between
them, was touched and angered by certain of those counsels. It
seemed to him that by enjoining purity and a struggle with desires
the old man dared, not only to condemn his love, but to rouse
Lygia against him and confirm her in opposition. He understood
that if she were in the assembly listening to those words, and if she
took them to heart, she must think of him as an enemy of that
teaching and an outcast.
Anger seized him at this thought. "What have I heard that is new?"
thought he. "Is this the new religion? Every one knows this, every
one has heard it. The Cynics enjoined poverty and a restriction of
necessities; Socrates enjoined virtue as an old thing and a good
one; the first Stoic one meets, even such a one as Seneca, who has
five hundred tables of lemon-wood, praises moderation, enjoins
truth, patience in adversity, endurance in misfortune,-- and all that
is like stale, mouse-eaten grain; but people do not wish to eat it
because it smells of age."
And besides anger, he had a feeling of disappointment, for he
expected the discovery of unknown, magic secrets of some kind,
and thought that at least he would hear a rhetor astonishing by his
eloquence; meanwhile he heard only words which were immensely
simple, devoid of every ornament. He was astonished only by the
mute attention with which the crowd listened.
But the old man spoke on to those people sunk in listening, -- told
them to be kind, poor, peaceful, just, and pure; not that they might
have peace during life, but that they might live eternally with
Christ after death, in such joy and such glory, in such health and
delight, as no one on earth had attained at any time. And here
Vinicius, though predisposed unfavorably, could not but notice
that still there was a difference between the teaching of the old
man and that of the Cynics, Stoics, and other philosophers; for
they enjoin good and virtue as reasonable, and the only thing
practical in life, while he promised immortality, and that not some
kind of hapless immortality beneath the earth, in wretchednes,
emptiness, and want, but a magnificent life, equal to that of the
gods almost. He spoke meanwhile of it as of a thing perfectly
certain; hence, in view of such a faith, virtue acquired a value
simply measureless, and the misfortunes of this life became
incomparably trivial. To suffer temporally for inexhaustible
happiness is a thing absolutely different from suffering because
such is the order of nature. But the old man said further that virtue
and truth should be loved for themselves, since the highest eternal
good and the virtue existing before ages is God; whoso therefore
loves them loves God, and by that same becomes a cherished child
of His.
Vinicius did not understand this well, but he knew previously,
from words spoken by Pomponia Graecina to Petronius, that,
according to the belief of Christians, God was one and almighty;
when, therefore, he heard now again that He is all good and all
just, he thought involuntarily that, in presence of such a demiurge,
Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, Juno, Vesta, and Venus would seem like
some vain and noisy rabble, in which all were interfering at once,
and each on his or her own account.
But the greatest astonishment seized him when the old man
declared that God was universal love also; hence he who loves
man fulfils God's supreme command. But it is not enough to love
men of one's own nation, for the God-man shed his blood for all,
and found among pagans such elect of his as Cornelius the
Centurion; it is not enough either to love those who do good to us,
for Christ forgave the Jews who delivered him to death, and the
Roman soldiers who nailed him to the cross, we should not only
forgive but love those who injure us, and return them good for
evil; it is not enough to love the good, we must love the wicked
also, since by love alone is it possible to expel from them evil.
Chilo at these words thought to himself that his work had gone for
nothing, that never in the world would Ursus dare to kill Glaucus,
either that night or any other night. But he comforted himself at
once by another inference from the teaching of the old man;
namely, that neither would Glaucus kill him, though he should
discover and recognize him.
Vinicius did not think now that there was nothing new in the
words of the old man, but with amazement he asked himself:
"What kind of God is this, what kind of religion is this, and what
kind of people are these?" All that he had just heard could not find
place in his head simply. For him all was an unheard-of medley of
ideas. He felt that if he wished, for example, to follow that
teaching, he would have to place on a burning pile all his thoughts,
habits, and character, his whole nature up to that moment, burn
them into ashes, and then fill himself with a life altogether
different, and an entirely new soul. To him the science or the
religion which commanded a Roman to love Parthians, Syrians,
Greeks, Egyptians, Gauls, and Britons, to forgive enemies, to
return them good for evil, and to love them, seemed madness. At
the same time he had a feeling that in that madness itself there was
something mightier than all philosophies so far. He thought that
because of its madness it was impracticable, but because of its
impracticability it was divine. In his soul he rejected it; but he felt
that he was parting as if from a field full of spikenard, a kind of
intoxicating incense; when a man has once breathed of this he
must, as in the land of the lotus-eaters, forget all things else ever
after, and yearn for it only.
It seemed to him that there was nothing real in that religion, but
that reality in presence of it was so paltry that it deserved not the
time for thought. Expanses of some kind, of which hitherto he had
not had a suspicion, surrounded him, -- certain immensities,
certain clouds. That cemetery began to produce on him the
impression of a meeting-place for madmen, but also of a place
mysterious and awful, in which, as on a mystic bed, something was
in progress of birth the like of which had not been in the world so
far. He brought before his mind all that, which from the first
moment of his speech, the old man had said touching life, truth,
love, God; and his thoughts were dazed from the brightness, as the
eyes are blinded from lightning flashes which follow each other
unceasingly.
As is usual with people for whom life has been turned into one
single passion, Vinicius thought of all this through the medium of
his love for Lygia; and in the light of those flashes he saw one
thing distinctly, that if Lygia was in the cemetery, if she confessed
that religion, obeyed and felt it, she never could and never would
be his mistress.
For the first time, then, since he had made her acquaintance at
Aulus's, Vinicius felt that though now he had found her he would
not get her. Nothing similar had come to his head so far, and he
could not explain it to himself then, for that was not so much an
express understanding as a dim feeling of irreparable loss and
misfortune. There rose in him an alarm, which was turned soon
into a storm of anger against the Christians in general, and against
the old man in particular. That fisherman, whom at the first cast of
the eye he considered a peasant, now filled him with fear almost,
and seemed some mysterious power deciding his fate inexorably
and therefore tragically.
The quarrymen again, unobserved, added torches to the fire; the
wind ceased to sound in the pines; the flame rose evenly, with a
slender point toward the stars, which were twinkling in a clear sky.
Having mentioned the death of Christ, the old man talked now of
Him only. All held the breath in their breasts, and a silence set in
which was deeper than the preceding one, so that it was possible
almost to hear the beating of hearts. That man had seen! and he
narrated as one in whose memory every moment had been fixed in
such a way that were he to close his eyes he would see yet. He
told, therefore, how on their return from the Cross he and John had
sat two days and nights in the supper-chamber, neither sleeping
nor eating, in suffering, in sorrow, in doubt, in alarm, holding their
heads in their hands, and thinking that He had died. Oh, how
grievous, how grievous that was! The third day had dawned and
the light whitened the walls, but he and John were sitting in the
chamber, without hope or comfort. How desire for sleep tortured
them (for they had spent the night before the Passion without
sleep)! They roused themselves then, and began again to lament.
But barely had the sun risen when Mary of Magdala, panting, her
hair dishevelled, rushed in with the cry, "Ihey have taken away the
Lord!" When they heard this, he and J olin sprang up and ran
toward the sepulchre. But John, being younger, arrived first; he
saw the place empty, and dared not enter. Only when there were
three at the entrance did he, the person now speaking to them,
enter, and find on the stone a shirt with a winding sheet; but the
body he found not.
Fear fell on them then, because they thought that the priests had
borne away Christ, and both returned home in greater grief still.
Other disciples came later and raised a lament, now in company,
so that the Lord of Hosts might hear them more easily, and now
separately and in turn. The spirit died within them, for they had
hoped that the Master would redeem Israel, and it was now the
third day since his death; hence they did not understand why the
Father had deserted the Son, and they preferred not to look at the
daylight, but to die, so grievous was the burden.
The remembrance of those terrible moments pressed even then
from the eyes of the old man two tears, which were visible by the
light of the fire, coursing down his gray beard. His hairless and
aged head was shaking, and the voice died in his breast.
"That man is speaking the truth and is weeping over it," said
Vinicius in his soul. Sorrow seized by the throat the simple-hearted
listeners also. They had heard more than once of Christ's
sufferings, and it was known to them that joy succeeded sorrow;
but since an apostle who had seen it told this, they wrung their
hands under the impression, and sobbed or beat their breasts.
But they calmed themselves gradually, for the wish to hear more
gained the mastery. The old man closed his eyes, as if to see
distant things more distinctly in his soul, and continued, -- "When
the disciples had lamented in this way, Mary of Magdala rushed in
a second time, crying that she had seen the Lord. Unable to
recognize him, she thought him the gardener: but He said, 'Mary!'
She cried 'Rabboni!' and fell at his feet. He commanded her to go
to the disciples, and vanished. But they, the disciples, did not
believe her; and when she wept for joy, some upbraided her, some
thought that sorrow had disturbed her mind, for she said, too, that
she had seen angels at the grave, but they, running thither a second
time, saw the grave empty. Later in the evening appeared Cleopas,
who had come with another from Emmaus, and they returned
quickly, saying:
'The Lord has indeed risen!' And they discussed with closed doors,
out of fear of the Jews. Meanwhile He stood among them, though
the doors had made no sound, and when they feared, He said,
'Peace be with you!'
"And I saw Him, as did all, and He was like light, and like the
happiness of our hearts, for we believed that He had risen from the
dead, and that the seas will dry and the mountains turn to dust, but
His glory will not pass.
"After eight days Thomas Didymus put his finger in the Lord's
wounds and touched His side; Thomas fell at His feet then, and
cried, 'My Lord and my God!' 'Because thou hast seen me thou hast
believed; blessed are they who have not seen and have believed!'
said the Lord. And we heard those words, and our eyes looked at
Him, for He was among us."
Vinicius listened, and something wonderful took place in him. He
forgot for a moment where he was; he began to lose the feeling of
reality, of incasure, of judgment. He stood in the presence of two
impossibilities. He could not believe what the old man said; and he
felt that it would be necessary either to be blind or renounce one's
own reason, to admit that that man who said "I saw" was lying.
There was something in his movements, in his tears, in his whole
figure, and in the details of the events which he narrated, which
made every suspicion impossible. To Vinicius it seemed at
moments that he was dreaming. But round about he saw the silent
throng; the odor of lanterns came to his nostrils; at a distance the
torches were blazing; and before him on the stone stood an aged
man near the grave, with a head trembling somewhat, who, while
bearing witness, repeated, "I saw!"
And he narrated to them everything up to the Ascension into
heaven. At moments he rested, for he spoke very circumstantially;
but it could be felt that each minute detail had fixed itself in his
memory, as a thing is fixed in a stone into which it has been
engraved. Those who listened to him were seized by ecstasy. They
threw back their hoods to hear him better, and not lose a word of
those which for them were priceless. It seemed to them that some
superhuman power had borne them to Galilee; that they were
walking with the disciples through those groves and on those
waters; that the cemetery was turned into the lake of Tiberius; that
on the bank, in the mist of morning, stood Christ, as he stood when
John, looking from the boat, said, "It is the Lord," and Peter cast
himself in to swim, so as to fall the more quickly at the beloved
feet. In the faces of those present were evident enthusiasm beyond
bounds, oblivion of life, happiness, and love immeasurable. It was
clear that during Peter's long narrative some of them had visions.
When he began to tell how, at the moment of Ascension, the
clouds closed in under the feet of the Saviour, covered Him, and
hid Him from the eyes of the Apostles, all heads were raised
toward the sky unconsciously, and a moment followed as it were
of expectation, as if those people hoped to see Him or as if they
hoped that He would descend again from the fields of heaven, and
see how the old Apostle was feeding the sheep confided to him,
and bless both the flock and him.
Rome did not exist for those people, nor did the man Caesar; there
were no temples of pagan gods; there was only Christ, who filled
the land, the sea, the heavens, and the world.
At the houses scattered here and there along the Via Nomentana,
the cocks began to crow, announcing midnight. At that moment
Chilo pulled the corner of Vinicius's mantle and whispered, --
"Lord, I see Urban over there, not far from the old man, and with
him is a maiden."
Vinicius shook himself, as if out of a dream, and, turning in the
direction indicated by the Greek, he saw Lygia. _
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