CHAPTER V. He took Egypt in his homeward way, and at Alexandria was willing to forget the signs of sympathy which the citizens had shown his rival, leaving his daughter to their care in token of the confidence with which he trusted them. At Smyrna he wished to hear the eminent Aristides lecture, whose vanity was such that he would only consent to speak while attended with a long train of pupils who must have free liberty to clap him when they would. The Emperor let them all in willingly enough, and himself gave the signal for applause at the eloquent periods of the famous Sophist. At Athens, where he left some lasting traces of his visit in the endowment of professional chairs, he had himself admitted to the Eleusinian Mysteries whose venerable symbols might happily shadow forth through his inquiring fancy some new beliefs or hopes about the world unseen. For more than a year the Emperor had rested Rome and signalized his period of repose by charitable cares for the Puellae Faustinianae, the poor girls who were to be reared in memory of his wife and bear her name. We may see at Rome a bar relief in which the sculptor's fancy has portrayed the maidens, clustering round the noble dame, and pouring corn into the folds of the garment which one of them is holding for the purpose. The medals also of the year record the liberal largesse given to the populace of Rome at the festivities which followed the marriage of the youthful combatus, on which occasion the bonds which the state held against its debtors were thrown into the fire in the forum, while similar munificence was shown in helping the ruined Smyrna to rise once more in its old stately beauty after the havoc caused by a great earthquake. Meantime the thunder clouds were gathering on the northern frontier, and the military chiefs were anxious to have the emperor again upon the scene. Once more he started for the seat of war, after observing with a scrupulous care the ceremonial customs of old time. The spearhead taken from the shrine of Mars was dipped in blood, and hurled by the prince's hand in the direction of the hostile borders, within which in the earlier days of the Republic the lance itself was flung as a symbol of the war thereby declared. Once more victory crowned the efforts of the Roman leaders, and the title imperator was taken for the tenth time by the prince. The war itself seemed well nigh over, but Marcus Aurelius was not permitted to survive it. While in Pannonia, either at Vienna or Sermium, in AD 180 he was struck down by disease, probably by the plague, whose ravages may still be traced along those countries by the evidence of old inscriptions. Dion Cassius, as usual, takes up the vilest story he can find and charges comatose with parasite in the form of poison given by a doctor's hand. Other writers tell us only that the dying emperor's son showed little feeling, saved the selfish wish to escape from the danger of contagion by a speedy flight. When friends who were gathered round his deathbed asked, whom he wished to be the guardians of his young successor, he answered only, yourselves if he be worthy. Then, drawing his stoic mantle round his head, he died as he had lived with gentle dignity. His health had never been robust, and it was sorely tried by the hardships of a soldier's life, by hurried journeys to and fro, and the rigor of those winters by the Danube. His resolute spirit had drawn thus far on its reserves of moral force to keep the frail body to its work, but the keen blade wore out its sheath at last. The Romans mourned their emperor as they had seldom mourned for one before, yet on the day when the funeral possession passed along the streets they abstained from outward show of grief, convinced as they were, says his biographer, that heaven had only lent him for a time, and taken him soon back again to his own place among the immortal gods. You also, adds the writer addressing Diocletian his prince, regard Marcus Aurelius as a god, and make him the object of a special worship, praying often times that you may copy the virtues of a ruler whom Plato himself, with all his lessons of philosophy, could not excel. In honor of the victories which his arms had won over the formidable warriors of those borderlands, great monuments were raised at Rome. One of these, an arch of triumph, stood nearly fifteen centuries till a pope, Alexander VII, ordered it to be thrown down, because it was thought to block the way through which in days of carnival the crowds of masked revelers used to pass. The arch, says a modern writer, had happily escaped the barbarians, the medieval times, the Renaissance, but a pope was found not only to lay bold hands upon it, but to have the naivete to take credit to himself for doing so, in an inscription which the curious still may read upon the site. A second monument is standing still, but the papal government which dealt so hardly with the arch of triumph, tried to rob the emperor of this glory also, for the title carved upon his columns by the order of a second pope, Sixtus V, ascribes the work to Antoninus Pius. Like Trajan's column of which it is a copy, it is formed of cylinders of marble piled upon each other, round which is coiled in spiral form a long series of vahri-leafs which illustrate the Marcomonic war. The literary records of the ten-year struggle are too meager to enable us to give their local color to the scenes pictorially rendered. The sculptured figures too complacently exhibit the unvarying success of Roman arms to represent with fairness a war in which the German and Sarmatian tribes tasked year after year the military resources of the empire. One set of images there is which frequently recurs in varying forms, and we may trust to these as evidence of the constant hindrance to the forward movement of the legions in the wild lands beyond the Danube. The broad current of the Great River and its tributary streams, the unclear forest, and the dangerous morasses are often shown in symbolic guise upon the column, and in these Roman vanity was ready to admit the obstacles and perils which carried with them no dishonor to the eagles. Trophies of war were little suited to the character of such a ruler, but happily we have a worthier monument in the thoughts, or meditations, which intended for a no eye but his, reflect his passing sentiments from day to day. Written here and there in the moments of his leisure sometimes on the eve of battle in the general's tent, sometimes in the dreary monotony of winter quarters and by the morasses of the Danube, they have little nicety of style or literary finish, they contain no system of philosophy set off with parade of dialectic fence, but there is in them what is better far, the truthful utterance of an earnest soul which would lay bare its inmost thoughts, study the secrets of its strength and weakness, and be by turns the accused, the witness, advocate, and judge. Both when quarries such as this had been of all the favorite tenant of Pythagorean schools, it had been pressed by Socrates upon his age with a sort of missionary fervor, it had since passed almost as commonplace into the current systems of the day and become a recognized duty with the earnest-minded, just as the practice of confession in the Church of Rome. With Marcus Aurelius it was a lifelong habit and covered the whole range of thought and action. How hast thou behaved thus far? he asks himself. To the gods, thy parents, brethren, children, teachers, to those who looked after thy infancy, to thy friends, kinsfolk, to thy slaves. Think of thou hast hitherto behaved at all in such a way that this may be said of thee. Nair has he wronged a man in word or deed. Call to recollection how many things thou hast passed through, and what thou hast been able to endure, and that the history of thy life is fully told, and thy service drawing to its close. Think how many fair things thou hast seen, and how many pleasures and pains thou hast despised. How much that the world holds in honor thou hast burned. And with how many ill-minded folks thou hast dealt kindly. In the course of such reflections he recurs with tender gratitude to the memory of those who watched over his early years, or helped to form his character, or enrich his thought, to the good parents, teachers, kinsmen, friends, for the blessings of whose care he thanks the God so fervently, while he dwells fondly on the features of the moral character of each. He speaks of his mother's cheerful piety and kindly temper, of the instinctive delicacy with which she shunned not the practice merely, but the thought of evil. Of how she spent with him the last years of her short life guarding the virgin modesty of his young mind, that he might grow up with the purity of his manhood unbefauled. The twenty years of unbroken intercourse with his adoptive father had not faded from his thoughts, when he penned in all sincerity these graceful lines. Do everything as the pupil of Antoninus. Remember his constancy in every act which was conformable to reason. His evenness in all things, his piety, the serenity of his countenance, his sweetness, his disregard of empty fame, and his efforts to understand things duly. How he would let nothing pass without having first most carefully examined it, and clearly understood it. How he bore with those who blamed him unjustly without blaming them in return. How he did nothing in a hurry, how he listened not to column knees. And how exact an examiner of manners and actions he was. Not given to reproach people nor timid nor suspicious nor asophist. How he bore with freedom of speech in those who opposed his judgments. The pleasure that he had when any man showed him anything better. And how religious he was without superstition. Imitate all this that in thy last hour thou mayest have as good a conscience as he had. He speaks to, in later years with thankfulness of his aged guardians' care, which would not trust him to the risks and uncertainties of the public schools, but grudge no outlay on his education, supplying him with the best teachers of the day at home. As he passes in memory over the long list of these, he does not care to dwell upon the order of his studies, or how much he learnt from each of them of the stores of art and learning, but he tries rather to remember in each case what was or might have been the moral impress on his character from the examples of their lives. His governor, he says, gave him a distaste for the passionate excitement of the circus or the gladiators' fights. Taught him how to endure labour and want little, to work with his own hands and not to meddle with the affairs of others or listen readily to slander. Diagnatis turned his thoughts from the trifles to the realities of life, introducing him to philosophy, and made him feel the value of ascetic training, of the coarse dress and the hard-pallet bed. Fronto, meantime, was leading him to note what envy and duplicity and hypocrisy are in a tyrant and how commonly the nobles of the day were wanting and parental love. From Suveras he learned to admire the great men of the past, Thrasia, Helvidius, Cato, Brutus, and from him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects, most of all, the freedom of the governed. Rusticus, who did him the good service of introducing him to the mind of Epictatus, as expressed in the memoirs of his pupils, led him to see the vanity of sophistic emulation and display. In the example of Apollonius he saw that the same man can be most resolute and yielding. He had before his eyes a teacher who regarded his skill and experience and instruction as the smallest of his merits, and from him he learned how to receive from friends what our thought favors without being either humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed. In Sextus he saw the beauty of a genial courtesy, and had the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner, and of living conformable to nature, and of gravity without affectation. He had the power of accommodating himself readily to all so that intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery, and at the same time he was most highly venerated by those who associated with him. After the Grammarian never used to chide those who uttered any barbarous or strange-sounding phrase, but dexterously introduced the very expression which ought to have been used in the way of answer or assent, or joining an inquiry about the thing itself and not about the word. In Maximus he saw unvarying cheerfulness and a just admixture of sweetness and of dignity in the moral character. He was beneficent, ready to forgive, free from falsehood, and presented the appearance of a man who could not be diverted from the right, rather than of one who had been improved. Finally, after the long survey of all the influences of earlier days, he thanked the powers of heaven for all their gifts and inspirations, which tended to make the path of duty easy, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and from not observing the admonitions, or I may almost say, the direct instructions of the gods. Few who have read the remaining meditations can think that Marcus Aurelius is here numbering complacently his own good qualities of heart and temper, or throwing a decent cloak over his praises of himself. There is a danger doubtless that the habit of constant introspection may lead to vanity, or at least to a morbid persistency of self-centered thought, which may be fatal to the simple naturalness of healthy action. But in this case, at least, there are no traces of such influence. The candor of his early youth seems reflected in the utterances of later years. He has a lively horror of deceit and affectation, would have his soul be simple and single and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds it, so that the character may be written on the forehead as true affection reads everything in the eyes of those it loves. He wonders how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the judgment of the world. If a god or a wise teacher should present himself to a man, and bid him think of nothing and design nothing which he would not express as soon as he conceived it, he could not bear it even for a single day. So much more respect have we to what our neighbors shall think of us than to what we shall think of our own selves. There is yet another danger which is very real when earnest thought broods intently upon moral action and dissects its motives and its aims. It often ends in seeing mainly what is mean and selfish, in having eyes only for the baser side of human nature, in becoming fretful and suspicious, or in feeding the intellectual pride by stripping off what seemed the mere disguises of hypocrisy and fashion, and pointing to the canker worm of selfishness in all the flowers and fruits of social life. Do we find anything in these meditations which may point to such painfulness of self-contempt, or to any impatient scorn of the pettiness and vices of the men and women whom he knew? A pure and noble nature such as his could not but be keenly sensitive to evil, and he does not shrink from speaking of it often. Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busy body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial, but he goes on to find a motive for patience and forbearance. He was often sick and weary. It would seem of social troubles and of uncongenial work. Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores and mountains, and thou art too, won't to desire such things very much. It is in thy power, whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself, for nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from troubles does a man retire than into his own soul. Constantly then give thyself this retreat, and renew thyself, and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely and to send thee back free from all this content with the things to which thou returnest. He would find rest and comfort in a larger or more hopeful view of things. There are briars in the road, turn aside from them. Do not add, and why are such things made in the world? For thou wilt be ridiculed by a man who is acquainted with nature, as thou wouldst be by a carpenter or a shoemaker, if thou didst find fault, because in his workshop there were to be seen shavings and cuttings from the things which he was making. He exhorts himself to imitate the patience of the powers of heaven. The gods who are immortal are not vexed, because during so long a time they must tolerate continually men such as they are, and so many of them bad. And besides this they also take care of them in all ways. But thou who art destined to end so soon, art thou weary of enduring the bad, in this too when thou art one of them? But above all he would aim at cheerfulness in the thoughts of what is good and noble. When thou wishes to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with thee, for instance the activity of one, and the modesty of another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth, for nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues when they are set before us in the morals of those who live with us. CHAPTER V But Marcus Aurelius felt the cares of State too deeply to indulge himself in the listless contemplation which might unearth him for the work of life. He bids himself not to be a man of many words or busy about many things, but to act like a Roman and a ruler, who has taken his post, like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life. Or again, in the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present, I am rising to a man's work. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do things for which I exist, and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this? To lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm? Those who love their several arts exhaust themselves in working at them unwashed and without food, but are the acts which concern society more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of thy labor? Again reverence the gods and help men, take care that thou art not made into a Caesar, and to throw light upon his meaning we may read the strong words which are poured out so abruptly.  In the fullness of time philosophy was seated in his person on the throne, but he was too wise to entertain heroic aims and hopes of molding human nature like the potter's clay. How worthless are all these poor people who are engaged in politics, and, as they think, are playing the philosopher! Do not expect Plato's Republic, but be content if the least thing goes well and considers such an event to be no small matter. For who can change men's opinions, and without a change of opinion what else is there than the slavery of men who groan while they are pretending to obey? Framing out a side to insolence and pride, simple and modest is the work of philosophy. How modest was its aim, how far from all utopian fancies of the use of force we may gather from another passage! What wilt the most violent man do to thee if thou art still kindly towards him? And if, as opportunity occurs, thou gently admonishest him, and calmly correctest his errors at the very time when he is trying to do the harm, saying, Not so, my child, we are made by nature for something else. I shall certainly not be harmed, but thou art injuring thyself. Show him by gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and that even bees do not as he does, nor any animals of social nature. This thou must do affectionately and without any ranker in thy soul, and not as if thou wert lecturing him, nor yet that any bystander may admire. The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation, not by the strong hand of the master of thirty legions, nor by the voice of the imperial lawgiver, but by the softer influence of loving hearts like his, was the spirit of a noble manhood to be spread on earth. For when he speaks, as he often does of charity, his words are not the old common places of the schools, but tender phrases full of delicate refinement and enthusiastic ardor, such as no work of heathendom can vie with, such as need but little change of words to bring before us the most characteristic graces of the gospel standard. Think of thyself, not as a part merely of the world, but as a member of the human body. Else thou dost not yet love men from thy heart. To do good does not delight thee for its own sake, thou doest it still barely as a thing of propriety, and not yet as doing good to thine own self. What is this but the well-known thought, if one member suffer all the members suffer with it? As a dog when he has tracked the game, as a bee when he has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must the man then be one of these, who in a manner act thus without observing it? Yes. Here we seem to hear the precept, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. Again on the duty of forgiveness, when a man has done thee wrong immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this thou wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry. It is thy duty then to pardon him. Translate this into Christian language, and we have the words, Forgive them for they know not what they do.  If a man should stand by a pure spring and curse it, the spring never ceases sending up wholesome water, and if he should cast clay into it, or filth it will speedily disperse them and wash them out, and will not be at all polluted. Surely this is a variation on the theme, bless them that curse you and despitefully use you. It was the ardour of this charity which kept from extravagance or bitterness his sense of the pettiness of all the transitory interests of earth. For he often has his mystic moods, in which he feels that he is only a stranger in a pilgrim, journeying a while amid vain and unsubstantial shows. Consider the times of Vespasian that will see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, flattering, suspecting, plotting, heaping up treasure, grumbling about the present. Well then, the life of these people is no more. Pass on again to the times of Trajan. Again all is the same, their life too is gone. So view also the other epochs of time, and of whole nations, and see how many after great efforts fell and were resolved into the elements.  What then is that about which we ought to employ our serious pains? This one thing. Just thoughts, and social acts, and words which never lie, and a temper which accepts gladly all that happens. Or as he writes elsewhere, in a still-satter vein, but with the same moral as before. Soon, very soon, that will be ashes or a skeleton, and either a name or not even that. The things which are much prized in life are empty and rotten and trifling, in like little dogs biting one another, and little children quarreling, laughing, and then straightway weeping. But fidelity and modesty and justice and truth are fled, up to Olympus from the widespread earth. What then is there which still detains thee here? To have good repute amidst such a world as this is an empty thing. Why then dost thou not wait in tranquility for thine, whether it be extinction or removal to another state? And until that time comes, what is sufficient? Why what else than to venerate the gods and bless them and to do good to men, and to practice tolerance and self-restraint? He wearies of his books, of the life of courts, of dreams of glory and the conqueror's ambition, of the blindness and waywardness of men. For this is the only thing if there be any which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. But now thou seeest how great is the trouble arising from the discordance of those who live together, so that thou mayest say, Come quick, O death, lest perchance I too should forget myself. Vanity of vanities, all here is vanity, he seems to say, save reverence and charity and self-restraint. But true to his stoic creed, he still clings firmly to the thought that there is a ruling providence and perfect wisdom which is guiding all things for the best, although its judgments may be unsearchable and its ways past finding out. It is the peculiar feature of his character that this religious optimism has the power not only to content his reason but to stir his heart and fill it at times too overflowing with a gush of tenderness and love. Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O universe. Nothing is too early nor too late for me which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O nature. From thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. The poet says, dear city of sea-crops, and will thou not say, dear city of Zeus? Or again, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods? But in truth they do exist and they do care for human things, and they have put all the means and man's power to enable him not to fall into real evils. It moves his heart with gratitude to think that the sinner has a place given him for repentance and may come back from his moral isolation. Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity, yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God has allowed this to no other part after it has been cut as sunder to come together again. But consider the kindness by which he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be parted at all from the universe, and when he has been parted he has allowed him to return and to resume his place. This reverent tenderness of feeling and delicate sympathy with nature made him find a certain loveliness in things which had no beauty to the ancient world. Even the things which follow after those of natural growth contain something pleasing and attractive, figs when they are quite ripe, gape open, and in the ripe olives the very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. The ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouths of wild boars, and many other things consequent upon the things which are formed by nature help to adorn them, and they please the mind, so that if a man showed a feeling and a deeper insight, there is hardly one of those which follow by way of natural sequence which will not seem to him to be in a manner so disposed as to give pleasure. There was something here beyond what he had learned from his old stoic masters. They had taught him that the world was ruled by an intellect supreme with which it was man's privilege, as it was his duty, to be in constant unison. But their phrases were cold and hard and unimpassioned, till they were transfigured by his moods of tender fancy. They had shown their followers how to meet the ills of life with dignity and calm and to face death with stern composure. If not with a parade of tragic pride, as if philosophy had robbed their last enemy of his fatal sting. But it is a gentler, humbler voice that cries, past through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it and thanking the tree on which it grew. Yet with all we are haunted by a certain melancholy which runs through all these meditations, and as we read his earnest words we feel a ring of sadness sounding in our ears. For he had hopes and aspirations for which the stoic creed could find no place, and he sorely felt the problems which his reason could not solve. How can it be that the gods, after having arranged all things well and benevolently for mankind, have overlooked this alone? Yet some men, and very good men, and men who, as we may say, have had most communion with the deity, and through pious acts and religious observances, have been most intimate with the deity, when they have once died, should never live again, but should be quite extinguished. He would feign hush to rest such yearning doubts, but the heart probably remained unconvinced by the poor logic which his reason had to offer. But if this is so, be assured that if it ought to have been otherwise, the gods would have done it. But because it is not so, if in fact it is not so, be thou convinced that it ought not to have been so. At times, too, there is something very sad in the confessions of his lonely isolation, for the air is keen and chilling on the heights to which he towered by character as well as station. Live as on a mountain, let men see, let them know, a real man who lives according to nature.  Or again, thou wilt consider this, that when thou art dying, and thou wilt depart more contentedly by reflecting thus. I am going away from such a life in which even my associates, in behalf of whom I have striven, prayed, and cared so much, themselves wish me to depart, hoping perchance to get some little advantage by it. Why then should a man cling to a longer stay here? From the imperfect sympathy of fellow men he turned as by natural instinct to communion with the eternal and divine. But here again he found a sorry comfort in the system of his choice. The universal mind, the abstract Godhead, were the soul diffused through all creation and revealed by nature's myriad voices. These were cold and neutral phrases which might indeed convince his reason, but could not animate or stir his heart. He could not therefore rest content to use them always in their austere nakedness, but must invest the cold abstractions with the form and color of a personifying fancy, bringing thus before us on his pages the postulates of emotion rather than of logic. But meantime the poor artisans and freedmen of the Christian churches were praying to their father in heaven with all the confidence of trustful childhood. The rabble of the streets were clamoring for their lives and quickening the loyal zeal of many a gallio on the seat of judgment, but they found comfort in the thought of one who called them friends and brothers, and who had gone before them on the road which they must travel, supported by the unseen help of an eternal love. They laid their dead within the catacombs, tracing on the rough hewn walls the symbol of the cross or the form of the good shepherd, but they felt no dark misgivings and no inexplicable yearnings, and so were happier in their life and death than the philosophic emperor of the proud Roman world, who speaks only once of the Christians and then notices them as facing death with the composure of mere obstinate pride. It is sad to think that an emperor so good was followed by a successor so unworthy. Sadder still that that successor was his son. Could not the philosophic ruler Julian asked, rise above a father's doting fondness, and find someone more better fitted to replace him than a selfish stripling who was soon to prove himself a frantic tyrant with a gladiator's tastes? He had a son-in-law besides him, Pompeonus, a soldier and a statesman of ripe age, or failing him there were all the worthiest of Rome to choose from, as he himself had been singled out in earlier days and raised by adoption to the empire. He had himself served for many years of tutelage under the eyes of Antoninus to fit him for the responsibilities of absolute power. Was it wise to hope that an inexperienced youth cradled in the purple and exposed to the mean arts and flattery of servile spirits, while his father was far away upon the Danube, would have the wisdom or the self-control to provide for the welfare of the subject millions? Captain Gossips had an ugly story of the signs of cruelty which had shown themselves in commoness already. How in a fit of passion at a slave who had failed to heat his bath, he ordered him to be flung into the furnace, but was tricked by the smell of frying sheepskin, which thanks to an attendant's happy thought took the place of the poor bath-man. True or false, the tale may serve to illustrate the current talk and show how little men dared to hope that the father's virtues would be continued in the sun.  We must think him so indeed if we believe the common story so confidently repeated since that she disgraced him by the profligate amours which were the talk of the whole town, and the mark of scurrilous jests upon the stage, that she intrigued with Cassius and urged him to revolt and died by her own hand at last in fear of imminent detection. Yet we have grave reasons to mistrust this picture of Faustina's character, and the evidence on which it rests is very poor. The emperor himself in a striking passage of his memoirs speaks of her in a very different strain. When in the loneliness of the general's tent beside the Danube there rise before his thoughts the memories of the kinsmen, friends and teachers who had guided him by their counsels or example. When he thanks the powers of heaven for all their goodness to him in the past he does not fail to praise them for the blessing of a wife, so obedient, so affectionate, and so simple. The touching pictures of the emperor's home life and Fronto's letters bring her to our fancy as the tender wife and loving mother. Her own recorded words, written in hot passion at the news of the revolt of Cassius, are full of affection toward her husband and cries of vengeance on the traitor, and that are recently discovered in inscriptions in the Horan have disposed of the doubts as to their genuineness raised long ago by critics. In the countless medals struck in honor of her by the emperor or senate, she appears sometimes as the patroness of female modesty, sometimes as the power of love and beauty, and flattery however gross would hardly have devised such questionable titles to provoke the flippant wit of Rome had such grave scandals been believed. We cannot doubt indeed that some years later there were stories much to her discredit floating through the streets of Rome. One writer of repute now lost to us is expressly charged with blackening her memory. Another, Dion Cassius, raked up commonly into his pages so much of the dirt of columny that we listened to his statements on the subject with reserve. The feeble writers of the Augustan history a century later repeat the stories but avowedly as only current rumor, which they had not tested for themselves. But the epitomists of later ages drop out the qualifying phrases altogether and speak of her without misgiving or reserve as another messalina on the throne, and later history has commonly repeated the worthless verdict of these most uncritical of writers. If we hesitate to think that such grave charges could be altogether baseless, we may note that Faustina in her pride of birth and fashion had little liking for the sages whom her husband gathered round him, and outraged probably the scruples of these ascetic puritans by her gay defiance of their tastes. But their displeasure may have carried a moral sanction with it, and lived on in literary circles and influenced the tone of history itself. The rabble of the streets grew now and then impatient of the serene wisdom of their ruler, and when he was inattentive at the games or tried to lessen the excitement of the gladiators' bloody sport, they thought it a good jest to point to Faustina's fashionable pleasures and to hint broadly that it was natural enough that she should look for sympathy elsewhere than to sow August a philosopher and bookworm. When comodists in later years unbarred the vileness of his brutal nature, men might perhaps remember all this gossip of the past and say that he could be no true son of the benign ruler whom they now regretted, and thus fondly embalming the memory of the prince, while sacrificing to it the honour of his wife. End of section 14 Section 15 of the Roman Empire of the Second Century by William Wolfe Capes. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 6 The Attitude of the Imperial Government Towards the Christians, Part 1 For a century or more the Imperial Government took little notice of the Christian Church as the organised form of a distinct religion. It knew it chiefly as a Jewish sect, as a fitting object for suspicion or contempt, but not commonly for active persecution. The race indeed with which they clasped it was peculiarly distasteful to the Roman rulers, as fanatical and unruly, and stirred at times by inexplicable moods of wild excitement. After the terrible struggle of a war almost of extermination they had risen in fierce revolt in Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt, in all the great centres of industry and trade in which they spread, they gained a name for turbulence and strife and obstinate self-assertion. Yet for themselves at least, their national worship was respected, for the policy of Rome found a place in its pantheon for the gods of all the countries of the empire, and all might live together unmolested side by side. But when they tried to be aggressive, to make proselytes even in the streets of Rome and to unsettlemen's traditional beliefs, the civil power stepped in to check and to chastise the disturbers of the public peace. It was thus that in the old days of the Republic, Senate and consuls oftentimes took measures to stay the progress of the Eastern creeds when they claimed a right of settlement at Rome, and the rulers of the early empire acted in like spirit as defenders of the national faith when it was menaced by what they thought the intolerant bigotry of the Jewish zealots. In the reign of Tiberius, for example, large numbers of such aliens, whose uncouth superstitions seemed to spread contagion round them, were flung into the island of Sardinia to live or die as it might happen in the miasma of that pestilential climate. In the days of Claudius again we read of a disturbance among the Jewish immigrants which grew to such a height as to be followed by a summary edict of general banishment from Rome. The strange words of Suetonius, in which he speaks of the impulse given by a certain crestus to the tumult, impulsore cresto tumultuantes, point probably to hot disputes and variance caused among the synagogues by the ferment of the new Christian teaching. The disturbance was soon quieted, and the peremptory order was withdrawn or followed only by the departure of the leading spirits, and the little Christian church lived for a time securely screened from notice and attack under the shelter of the legalized religion of the Jews with which it was commonly confused in the fancy alike of the people and of their rulers. But the story of Pomponia Greikina serves to show that these exclusive creeds might not with impunity overleap the barriers of race and social class. A noble Roman lady was accused of tampering with new forms of superstition and tried according to the rule of ancient days before a family council formed by her husband and her nearest kinsmen. After her acquittal we are told that she shunned the world of fashion and lived for years a sober life of meditation. Ecclesiastical historians have commonly believed that they could read in the somewhat scornful language of the heathen writer a description of the early type of Christian devotion. The story of the cruelties of Nero paints in far more lurid colors the growing hatred of the populace and the constant dangers of the infant church which now for the first time clearly appears to view in the pages of the classical historians. The butchery and the tortures were indeed a mere freak of unscrupulous ferocity by which the Emperor thought to divert men's minds from the great fire which had made so many thousands homeless or at least to discharge the lowering thunder-clouds of popular discontent upon the heads of the poor Christian artisans and freedmen. They suffered, says Tacitus, those votaries of a pernicious superstition, not indeed that they were guilty of the fire, but for their hatred of the humankind. We may well ask ourselves the causes of the horror and repugnance here and elsewhere expressed so strongly and which served as a convenient excuse for Nero's wanton cruelty, guided possibly by the Jewish jealousy of his wife Pompeya. How could the gentle courtesies of the new morality inspire such feelings in the society which watched its growth? The Jewish race was one which could not in those days mingle peacefully with the peoples of the West, in Rome and Alexandria and others of the great cities of the ancient world there were frequent frays and tumults in the populous quarters where they flocked. Their peculiar habits and dogged self-assertion stirred the antipathy of their heathen neighbors who had no eyes for their industry and thrift and the nobler aspects of their moral character. But the Jews had at least an old and national religion which might be born with so long as its worshipers kept peacefully to their own circles, while the Christians, though really as it seemed, of the same race and customs, seemed to draw themselves apart in still more obstinate isolation, to hold aloof even from their countrymen and exhaust the patience of the world by meaningless disputes about the nice points of spiritual dogmas. Then let them do so at their cost. If they disowned their ancient worship they must forfeit the legal sanction which had screened them hitherto. Again in the personal bearing of the Christians there was much which unavoidably outraged the social sentiments of others, for they could not easily take part in the business or pleasures of a world on which the stamp of idolatry was set. They must shun the pleasant gatherings of their friends and neighbors if they did not wish to compromise their principles or shock the feelings of the rest by their treatment of the venerable forms of heathendom. In family observances at the chief epochs of a Roman's life they could not be present to show their sympathy and joy and sorrow for religious usages took place at each, and they dared not touch the unclean thing. At the recurring seasons of festivity they seemed unmoved amid the general gladness, for they could not worship at the altars or join in the ceremonial processions or hang their garlands on the statues of the gods. If they enlisted in the legions they might be called upon to adore the genius of the emperor, or in case of their refusal be charged with rank disloyalty. No wonder if they held themselves aloof from public life when at every turn they were confronted by the forms of a ritual which was accursed in their eyes. When their fellow citizens kept holiday they could not venture to the theatre without a shock to their sense of right and decency, while they turned with loathing from the ghastly horrors of the gladiatorial combats. They saw the dangers and they felt the force of the allurements to vice by which they were surrounded, and they turned away almost with despair from a world which seemed so wholly given over to the power of sensuality and sin. They had no eyes for the beauty of an art which was enlisted in the service of idolatry, nor for the symbolic value of the ancient forms which were one day to be hallowed for church use. Appealing to a higher standard than the will of Caesar or the laws of Rome they could not accept the current estimates of men in manners, but looked often with a grave displeasure at what seemed innocent to other eyes. Hence men came to think of them as stern fanatics, shunning the pleasures and courtesies of social life, sectarians who would cut themselves adrift from all the natural ties of country and of race. Nay more they were branded even with impiety because they took no part in any recognized forms of worship but shrank from all the common usages of national religion. Those who visited their homes found no niche or shrine to hold the figures of the guardian laris. The oratory which perhaps took its place was empty as the Temple at Jerusalem which had moved the wonder of the conqueror Pompeius. From the first they had refused all adoration to a Caesar, still more emphatically they refused it after the cruelties of a Nero had colored with their stains of blood the apocalyptic visions of Antichrist and future judgment. In addition to these charges there were others, wild delusions of distempered fancy then as in other ages greedily caught up by the credulous and prejudiced masses. The simple love feasts held at first in token of brotherhood and thankful memories were perverted into scenes of foul debauch and the stories of accursed pledges cemented by the blood of slaughtered infants such as were told of old Bacchanalian orgies or of the conspiracy of Catiline passed once more from mouth to mouth finding possibly some poor excuse in Eucharistic language misconstrued. They were often clasped with the professors of magic and of necromancy with the charlatans and quacks of every kind who haunted the low quarters of the town and preyed upon the ignorant fancy of the vulgar. Yet among these the Christians often found their bitterest rivals in the deceivers who feared to be unmasked or to see the prophets of their trade endangered. When once the suspicion and dislike of the populace were roused against them as impious misanthropes the wildest stories were invented and believed to justify the hatred which was felt. If the Nile failed to overflow the fields in time of drought if the plague spread its havoc through the towns if harvest failed or earthquakes left their track of ruins the Christians were the guilty wretches by whom the wrath of heaven was caused. In northern Africa we read it was in later days a proverb if there is no rain fix the blame upon the Christians. In the ignorant antipathy of the lower orders lay the chief danger of the early church and it was on this which Nero reckoned when he made it the scapegoat of the blind fury of the people. But his cruelty frightful as it was was personal only causing no change of legal status an exceptional moment in a time of toleration. The Christian religion was not yet proscribed and its professors had little cause to fear the Roman governors or judges save when the people clamored loudly for their blood. The rain of Domitian indeed is vaguely spoken of as one of persecution but there is little evidence of this in the annals of the time though here and there noble Romans like Clemens and Domitilla may have suffered for lapsing from the creed of their fathers. But with the second century of the empire darker times set in in earnest and a general ban was put at last by law upon the Christian church. We may find in Pliny's letters the fullest notice of the change. As governor of Bethania he wrote to Trajan from his province to tell him of the new religionists who were brought before his seat of justice and to ask for instructions how to deal with them. He had never had to do with them before he said nor ever sat in court when such cases were brought up. He was doubtful whether the name of Christian should be criminal in itself or if it would be right to look only to the practice implied in the profession. Information had been sent to him by unknown hands and many had been denounced to him by name. On inquiry it appeared that while some denied the charge entirely others admitted that they had been drawn away though they had ceased to be Christians long ago. When sharply questioned as to the practice and belief of the society to which they had belonged they said its members used to meet from time to time at break of day and sing their hymns of praise to Christ and bind themselves by sacred pledges not to any deed of darkness but to keep themselves unstained by fraud and falsehood and adultery. There were stated gatherings besides in which they joined each other in a simple meal till all such forms of social brotherhood were put away by special edict. To test the truth of such confessions Pliny had two slave girls tortured but nothing further was avowed by them nor by the rest who frankly owned that they were Christians and would not recant or flinch even after repeated threats. Their unyielding obstinacy seemed to the writer of itself to call for punishment, though beyond that he could only find the traces of extravagant delusion. But he shrank from acting on his own discretion without instructions from the emperor himself so grave were the interests at stake owing to the numbers of every age and sex and social grade whose lives and fortunes were involved. For the contagion, as he called it, had been spreading fast through towns and villages and lonely hamlets. The ancient temples had been almost deserted and few were found to buy the offerings for the altars till fear of punishment had lately quickened into life the forms of won'ted reverence. Reasons may be urged indeed for doubting the genuineness of this letter, at least in the form in which we have it now, but we may at least accept the reply of Trajan which was very brief and weighty. He would give no encouragement to official eagerness and hunting out charges of this kind. No anonymous evidence should be accepted. Any Christian should meet with pardon for the past if they would adore the national gods. But punishment must be enforced on all who stubbornly refused. This rescript formally decided the legal status of the new religion and the proceedings of the imperial agents. The Christian Church could now no longer claim the protection which the synagogue enjoyed. The forms and pledges of its union were illegal. Any who would might come forward to inform against them, and governor or judge might not pardon even if he wished. Indeed, even to the enlightened rulers such as Trajan who were not disposed to credit the gross columnese of popular fancy, there was much that might seem dangerous in the mysterious influence of the new religion. Its talk of equality and brotherhood might sound like the watchword of a social revolution, and the more so as its members were recruited chiefly from the toiling millions. The ties of sympathy between its scattered members were like the network of a widespread conspiracy, whose designs might be political, though religious names. Its meetings, often held at night, were an offense against the legal maxim that no new clubs must be formed or organized without the sanction of the civil power. The refusal of its members to comply with a few time-honored forms, or to swear even by the emperor's genius, seemed like the disloyal wish to break holy with the past and to parade a cynical contempt for the established powers. The obstinate unwillingness to bow even to the will of Caesar and the claim to be guided by a higher law had an unwelcome sound in the ears of absolute power. Some, too, there were no doubt who pushed their courageous protest to the extreme of discourteous defiance in their sensitive fear of dallying with the forms of idol worship, like the soldier who refused to appear before his general with the laurel garland on his head, and who scruples called out a treatise by Tertullian in their defence, or who else vaunted openly their indifference to death in their impatient longing for the martyr's crown. It was probably of such as these that Marcus Aurelius was thinking, when he penned his single reference to the Christians, saying that the soul should be ready at any moment to be parted from the body, not from mere obstinacy as with them, but considerably and with dignity without tragic show. During the whole period before us there was little change in the attitude of the central power. The justice of Trajan, the refined curiosity of Hadrian, the humanity and gentle wisdom of the Antonines, seemed alike insensible to the goodness and the grandeur of the Christian morality, and alike indisposed to sanction the new influence which was spreading through the heathen world. Its speedy progress might well seem alarming to the defenders of the established order. It has been thought indeed that Pliny's letter must have been tampered with in early times, since the numbers of the Christians are insisted on so strongly by a writer who confesses that beforehand he knew nothing of their tenets. Yet the churchmen of that age proudly point to the striking signs of onward movement. There is no spot upon the earth, says Justin, even among barbarous peoples, where the name of the crucified Redeemer is not heard in prayer. Irenaeus thinks that the church is spread through the whole universe, and Tertullian in the lively phrases of his rhetoric urges, we are but of yesterday, and we already fill your empire, your cities, your town councils, your camps, your palace, and your forum. We leave you only your temples to yourselves. Without recourse to arms we might do battle with you simply by the protest of our separation. You would be frightened at your isolation. And the oldest of the catacombs of Rome has seemed to competent observers to point, in the forms of its symbolic art, to the number of the churchmen who even in that early age laid their dead within these obscured labyrinths of stone. This rapid spread of the young church exaggerated as it probably has been was a real element of danger. Not that the emperors had any persecuting zeal, or any wish to hunt the poor victims down, but the clamours of the populace grew louder and the provincial governors were often called on to enforce the law without appeal to any higher courts. Some looked on with indifference from the seat of justice, while the crowd of ignoble criminals passed before them, marveling only at the conscientious scruples which declined to sprinkle a few grains of incense on the altars. Others were glad to court the favour of the people over whom they ruled by the sacrifice of a few stiff-necked zealots, fearing also to hear the cry, If thou letst this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. So we have this striking fact that on the one hand, after Trajan's re-script, the lowering clouds seemed to be ever gathering more blackly, and the explosions of popular fury grow more frequent. On the other hand, each of the emperors as represented in church history is doing something to shield the Christians from attack, or to temper the austerity of justice. Thus we have the letter sent by Hadrian to the governor of Asia Minor, in which he comments strongly on the disorderly attacks upon the Christians, such as might encourage the malice and extortionate claims of false accusers. Only indictments in strict legal form should be accepted. None should be arrested on vague rumour, and none convicted save of acting contrary to law. This would amount to virtual toleration, unless taken in connection with the rule prescribed by Trajan, which made it penal to refuse to adore the gods of Rome. But even as thus qualified, it would be a boon to the oppressed, as it might tend to check the greed of the informers and strengthen the hands of an impartial judge. But the letter itself is not beyond suspicion, though far more credible than one which purports to be written by one or other of the Antonines to a general assembly of the deputies of Asia. This message of Antoninus Pius, briefly stated, runs somewhat as follows. I hold that the gods may be safely left to vindicate their honour on the heads of those who burn them. The Christians prefer to die, rather than be faithless to the power they worship, and they triumph in the contest for they are true to their own principles. Their neighbours in their panic fear of natural portents and disasters neglect to pray and offer to their gods, while they persecute the Christians who alone show real religion. The actual governors often wrote to my sainted father on this subject and were told not to meddle with the Christians unless they were guilty of treason to the State. I too would follow the same course of action and have informers warned that they will be liable to penalties themselves if they bring vexatious charges of this sort. An imperial mandate couched in such strong terms would certainly have screened the Christians from attack, and have marked an epoch in the history of the Church, and as such have constantly appealed to in the law courts as also in the writings of apologists. But it is probable enough that something was done to check the violence of popular feeling or the malice of informers, and that we have the traces of such action, coloured in after-days by grateful feeling, or overstated from the fancy that princes so large-hearted and humane must have been in sympathy with the noblest movements of their times. CHAPTER VI. THE ATTITUDE OF THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT TOWARD THE CHRISTIANS. PART II Yet sad to say, to the reign of the philosophic emperor, belongs many a page of the long chronicle of martyrdom. The stories are given us at length of the sufferings of confessors whom the good ruler was either powerless or indifferent to save. One of the earliest of such records may be found in a letter of the Church of Smyrna, which describes the last days of the venerable polycarp. The passion of the populace had broken out against the Christians and after witnessing the death of meaner victims, they began to clamour, away with the atheists, let polycarp be sought. The aged bishop wished to stay in the city at his post of duty, but his friends urged him to withdraw and shun the storm. He was tracked, however, from one house in the country to another, till at length he would fly no further but waited in his hiding-place for his pursuers saying only, God's will be done. As they returned with him to the city, they were met by the chief officer of the police who took up polycarp into his carriage and spoke to him with kindness, asking what harm there could be in calling Caesar Lord and in offering sacrifice to save his life. Polycarp at first made no reply, but at last said, I will not do what you advise me. Threats and violence were of no avail with him, and he went on his way calmly to the governor's presence, though a deafening din was made by the assembled multitude. The procouncil urged him to swear by the genius of Caesar and to say, away with atheists like the rest. The old man looked gravely at the crowd with a sigh and with uplifted eyes then said, pointing to them with his finger, away with the atheists. The governor urged him further, swear, curse Christ, and I release thee. Eighty in six years he answered, have I served him, and he has done me no harm, and how can I blaspheme the king who saved me? When still pressed he said, if you wish to know what I am, I tell you frankly that I am a Christian, if you would hear an account of Christianity a point a day and hear me. The governor, who was no fanatic, and would have gladly saved him, asked him to persuade the people, but he refused to defend himself before them. The threats of the wild beasts and of the stake were all of no avail, and at last it was proclaimed, Polycarp has confessed himself a Christian. Then all the multitudes of Gentiles and of Jews who dwelt at Smyrna, yelled out in furious clamour. This is the teacher of impiety, the father of the Christians, the enemy of our gods, who teaches so many to turn away from worship and from sacrifice. And they cried with one accord, that Polycarp must be burned alive. We need not dwell longer on the story of his martyrdom, the outline of which seems genuine enough, though there are features of it which were added probably by the fancy of a later age. A few years afterwards another storm of persecution raged in Gaul at Vienna and Lugdenam, Leone, the record of which has given us it full in a letter from the suffering churches to their brethren of Asia Minor. The various parts of the chief actors in the scene are stated in it with unusual clearness, and some extracts may serve to illustrate the temper of the social forces of the time. The Christians of the neighbourhood had been long exposed to insult and outrage in all public places, but at length the excitement grew to such a height that a furious mob began to pillage their houses and to drag the inmates off to trial. As they openly avowed their faith before the magistrates and people, they were shut up in prison for a time until the arrival of the Roman governor. As soon as they were brought before him, he showed a spirit of ferocious enmity, resorted even to the torture to ring confession from the accused, and admitted, contrary to legal usage, the evidence of heathen slaves against their masters, till fear and malice caused them to be accused of thiesty and banquets and edipodian incest. No age nor sex was spared meantime. Potinus, the aged bishop of Lugdanum, was roughly dragged before his judge, and asked, Who was the Christian's God? He answered only, If thou art worthy, thou shalt know. For this he was set upon and buffeted and cast into a dungeon where after two days his feeble body breathed its last. Blandina, a weak woman, was wracked from warn till night till the baffle jailers grew weary of their horrid work, and were astonished that she was living still. But she recovered strength in the midst of her confession and her cry, I am a Christian and there is no evil done among us, brought her refreshment in all the sufferings inflicted on her. As some of the accused were Roman citizens, proceedings were delayed till appeal could be directly made to Caesar, and his will about the prisoners could be known. At length the imperial answer came that those who were canted should be set free, but that all who persisted in their creed must die. Meantime many who had denied already but were still kept in bonds were encouraged by the ardor of the true champions of the faith, and came forward to the governor's judgment seat to make a good confession and to be sent by him, such as were citizens of Rome to be beheaded and all the rest to the wild beasts. Some indeed who had no marriage garment gave way to their fears, but the rest like noble athletes endured diverse contests and gained great victories and received the crown of incorruption. Last of all Blandina was again brought in along with Ponticus a boy of about fifteen years of age. These two had been taken daily to the amphitheater to see the tortures which the rest endured, and force was used to make them swear by the idols of the heathen, but as they still were firm and constant the multitude was furious against them and neither pitied the boys tender years nor respected the women's sex. They inflicted on them every torture but failed to make them invoke their gods, for Ponticus encouraged by his sister, after enduring nobly every kind of agony gave up the ghost, while the blessed Blandina, last of all, after having like a noble mother and spirited her children, trod the same path of conflict which her children trod before her, hastening on to them with joy at her departure, not as one thrown to the wild beasts, but as one invited to a marriage supper. The heathens themselves acknowledging that never among them did women endure so many and so fearful tortures. We cannot read without emotion the story of these heroic martyrs, but it has besides this special interest for us, that it chose the persecution taking its rise, as usual, in the blind fury of the people and encouraged also by local magistrates, provincial governors, and either by Marcus Aurelius himself or by his representatives at Rome, if the prince was too busy with the Marcomonic War. Yet for none of these can the excuse of ignorance be fairly pleaded. For Christianity had been long before the world, there was no mystery or concealment of its creed, its most distinctive features were confessed in the pages even of its hostile critics, and for some years past apologists had been busy in doing battle with the prejudices of the people and appealing to the enlightened judgment of the Caesars. Thus even the mocking Lucian in a single page of his satiric medley reflects the noble unworldliness of the young church, its enthusiastic hopes of a life beyond the grave, its generous spirit of sympathy and brotherhood, with the longing to have all things in common which made it easily the dupe of sanctimonious imposters. He describes the life of such a clever rogue, under the name of Peregrinus Proteus, who after many a fraudulent device professed himself a convert and soon rose to high repute among the Christians by his plausible eloquence and seeming zeal. From his energy he was singled out for persecution, thus winning admiration from the brethren as a confessor and a saint. While he was in prison they spared no trouble or expense to gain his freedom, and failing in this they were careful to provide for all his wants. From the dawn of day old women, widows and orphans might be seen standing at the prison doors, the chief members of the sect, having bribed the keepers, slept near him in the dungeon. They brought him all kinds of good cheer and read the books of scripture in his presence. Even from cities an Asia minor came deputies from Christian societies to offer comfort and to plead his cause, for nothing says Lucian can exceed their eagerness in like cases or their readiness to give away all they have. Poor wretches they fancy that they are immortal, and so they make light of tortures and give themselves up willingly to death. Their first lawgiver has also caused them to believe that all of them are brothers, renouncing therefore the gods of Greece and adoring the crucified Sophists whose laws they follow, they are careless of the goods of life and have them all in common, so entire is their faith in what he told them. About the same time probably Celsus, the philosopher, devoted all his acuteness and his wit to an elaborate attack upon the Christian creed, and proved that he had made himself acquainted with the letter of its doctrines, though he had not the earnestness of heart to appreciate its spirit. His work is only known to us in the reply of origin, but in the course of the objections urged and met we have brought before us the chief aspects of the numerality.  He only states in taunting form, the well-known paradox of the gospel teaching, but in his protest at such ignorant faith he does not stay to ask how a religion which disowned as he thought appealed to reason could give birth to the many heresies and varying sects on which he lays elsewhere such stress as a weak point in the Christian system. Again, though only as a hostile critic, he bears witness to its promises of peace and grace to the sinful and despairing conscience. They, he says, who bid us be initiated into the mysteries of other creeds begin by proclaiming, let him draw near who is unstained and pure, who is conscious of no guilt, who has lived a good and upright life. But let us hear the invitation of these Christians.  With this we may connect his comment on the subject of conversion. It is clear that no one can quite change a person to whom sin has become a second nature, even by punishment, and far less than by mercy, for to bring about an entire change of nature is the hardest of all things. Celcius knew the chief points of the story of the life and character of Christ, but was unaffected by its moral grandeur. He had heard of humility as a marked feature of the Christian spirit, but it seemed to him a morbid growth, a perversion of the philosopher's ideal. He was familiar with the teaching of God's providence and his fatherly care for every soul of man, but he thought it all a vain presumption. And the talk about the dignity of human nature and possibility of its redemption sounded but as idle and unmeaning words to one who was content with the idea of a great universe evolving through unchanging laws an endless round of inevitable results. In the next century Christianity found champions who were ready to meet such attack on its own ground and to furbish for their use the weapons drawn from the armory of philosophic schools, but the apologists of that age had other work to do. Accused as they had been as atheists, misanthropes, magicians, and sensualists of the worst type, the pressing need for them was to rebut such wanton slander and to appeal to the imperial justice from the columnese of ignorant malice. They were not like divines engaged on treatises of theological lore, but writing face to face with the thought of speedy death, they turned to meet the danger of the moment and dwelt on practice as well as on belief. In answer to the course falsehoods which were spread about their secret meetings, they described at length their doings in their Sunday gatherings how they met to read the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets. Then when the reader ceases, the president exhorts to copy those good things. Then we rise up altogether and offer prayers and when we cease from prayer bread is brought and wine and water and the president offers prayers in like manner and thanksgivings and the people add aloud Amen and the sharing of those things for which thanks have been given takes place to everyone and they are sent to those who are not present. Those who have means and good will give what they like and the sum collected is laid up with the president who in person helps orphans and widows and all who are in need and those who are in bonds and those who have come from a strange land and in one word he is guardian to all who are in need. They were spoken of as evildoers and possibly so-called Christians might have been such Gnostics or heretics of questionable creeds but if so urged the writers they could be no true followers of him whose recorded words they quote and whose influence in the past they point to as leading the hearts of men from hatred to love from vice to virtue on social and morose they were not though they must needs shun the forms of idol worship and the gross offering so unworthy of God's spiritual being. Magicians certainly they were not and it was an idol taught to say that the miracles of their master were the mere works of magic art for prophecy had long ago foretold them by the mouth of the holy men of God on which a large measure of the divine spirit must have rested. That spirit or external logos was incarnate in its fullness only in Christ Jesus though shared in some degree by the good men of heathen days like Socrates or Plato.  Great however as was their devotion to their heavenly master they had no lack of loyalty to Caesar for the kingdom to which Christ pointed was no earthly kingdom of material power but their hopes and fears of a life beyond the grave were the surest sanctions of morality and such wholesome restraints on evildoers all wise governors must welcome. These were the main topics of the earliest apologies interspersed at times now with attacks upon the heathen legends which sanctify the very vices with which Christianity was falsely charged and now with warnings against the malignant action of the demons who had by the allurements of idolatries seduced men from the worship of the living God and who still made their potent influence felt in the outrages of persecution or the snares of heretical deceivers. We know little but the names of any of the writers of this class before the time of Justin Martyr and his story is mainly given in his works if we accept the record of his martyrdom. Though born in a city of Samaria he came seemingly of Gentile parents and his attention was only drawn to Christianity when he saw how the believers could face the pains of death for I myself he writes while an admirer of platonic thought heard the Christians spoken evil of but when I saw them fearless in regard to death and to all else that men think terrible I began to see that they could not possibly be wicked sensualists for what man who was licentious or incontinent would welcome death with the certainty of losing all that he enjoys would he not rather try to live on as before and to shun the notice of the rulers instead of giving information against himself which must lead to his death he had passed from one system to another of the ancient schools of thought seeking from each sage in turn to learn the lessons of a noble life but only when he heard of Christian truth was the fire lighted in his soul and he knew that the object of his search was in his grasp for the true philosophy was found at last he tried to pass it on to other men wearing is before the wandering scholars mantle and talked with men of every race about the questions of the faith his apologies were addressed by him to the Antonines by name with what effect we may best judge from the fact that he closed his missionary life by a martyr's death while Marcus Aurelius was on the throne and we have reason to believe that his sentence was pronounced by rusticus the prefect who owed his place of office to the monarch's gratitude for earlier lessons of morality and of section 16 section 17 of the roman empire of the second century by William wolf capes this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Pamela Nagami chapter seven the characteristics of the state religion and of the rights imported from the east part one after studying the progress and the dangers of the Christian church we may naturally ask what was the character of the national religion which attended to displace an old inscription tells us that a vote of thanks was passed by the roman senate in honor of Antoninus Pius for his frupless care of all the ceremonial observances of public life there was indeed no special reason why the emperors of this age should be attached to the old forms of roman worship the families from which they sprung had long been resident in foreign lands by taste or from necessity they passed much of their time far from the imperial city their culture and the language even of their deepest thought was often greek and they had few ties of sentiment to bind them to the rights of purely italic growth but it had been part of the policy of augustus to begin a sort of conservative reform and faith and morals and to lead men to reverence more earnestly the religion of their fathers his successors wanton and disalute as they often were professed at least the same desire and expressed it often in enduring shapes and costly ceremonials the emperors of the second century observed with more consistent care the same tradition carried it even somewhat to extremes as when they stamped upon their medals the legendary fancies of an early age and linked the old poetic fictions to the associations of imperial rule just as the literary fashion of their times tried to express its complexities of thought and feeling in the archaic rudeness of an ancient style the old religion of italic growth was a very artless nature worship whose deities with uncouth names were cold abstractions of the reason personified as yet by no poetic fancy they were the sexless and mysterious agencies which presided over the processes of husbandry the powers of stream and forest and the sanctities of the domestic hearth after a time indeed the exotic growth of hellenism overlaid the simple forms which tended perhaps to disappear from the language and thought of educated men but lingered on and country life surviving even at the last the ruin of their more attractive rival among the earliest and most distinctive of the usages of natural religion were the observances of the calaigia or confraternities which served as organized forms of an established worship these priesthoods were still recruited seemingly with the same care as here too for the oldest families of Rome were represented in the salii among whom a future emperor as we have seen was entered at an early age and took pride in mastering the niceties of traditional practice at the loop or calia the half naked priests still ran along the streets of Rome using the time honored words and symbols and the arbal brothers went through their ceremonial round with formularies which had been unchanged for ages the last of these dated certainly from immemorial antiquity for the foundation legend of the city enrolled the twins of ray in the then existing brotherhood during the whole period of the republic its prayers and offerings continued to express the hopes and fears of rural life though history had passed it by with little notice even in imperial days when liberal schemes of re-endowment do probably to the policy of augustus had raised it in the social scale we should know scarcely anything of the customs of its members if we were left only to the common literary sources but a lucky accident has saved for us unusual stores of evidence year by year it was the practice to have careful minutes taken of their meetings and of all official acts and commit them not to the frail materials or the custody of their own president but to monumental characters engraved upon the walls of the temple where they met their holy place was not in Rome itself but in a quiet grove five miles away which in the course of ages has become a vineyard while a humble cottage has replaced the shrine some of the stone slabs which line the walls have been worked into the masonry of other buildings till the letters graven on them caught here or there some curious eyes one such of special value containing the oldest form of an Italian liturgy was found a century ago in a chapel of st. Peter's only a few years ago the institute of archaeology at Rome resolved to explore the field in which the temple stood in search of further evidence the scattered fragments of the stones were pieced together and along series of priestly archives reaching from the days of Augustus to those of Gordian reappeared at length as from the tomb the accounts of the stated meetings and of many occasional gatherings are given with surprising fullness of detail and by their help we gain an insight quite unique into much of the symbolic ritual and characteristic worship of the Romans brothers in name and twelve at number to correspond to the twelve lunar months in which the round of agricultural labor is completed they were at first the spokesman of Latin husband men who offered prayer and thanksgiving for the prospects of a fruitful season but in later days the noblest families of Rome were proud to figure on the list of a religious guild which reckoned at times an emperor as its high priest its greatest festival came at the end of May when the first fruits of the earth were gathered and a blessing asked upon the works of coming harvest three days the holy season lasted the first and third were kept at Rome but the second must be spent among the scenes of rural life and the brooding sanctities of nature at early dawn the president of the arbal brotherhood passed out of the city walls to the tetrastilla more guild hall enclosed in its four lines of colonnade robing himself here in his dress of state with purple stripe he went at once to the entrance of the sacred grove where he offered swine on one altar and a white heifer on another to appease the sylvan deities whose mysterious peace was to be that day disturbed while the victims were roasting on the flames the other priests were all assembled and each in turn must enter his name on the official register which done they laid their robes aside and breakfasted upon the vians which were now ready on the altars the hours that followed were given to repose in the cool shade but at midday another service must begin robed in the dress of state with ears of corn wreathed round their heads they paced in ceremonial procession through the grove up to the central shrine where the lamb was offered on the altar the wine and meal were sprinkled on the ground the clouds of incense filled the air and jars of antique form which held the bruised meal of earlier days were exposed to reverent adoration in the shrine once more they issued from the doors with sensors in their hands and offerings to the treasury and libations poured from silver cups two priests were then dispatched to gather the first fruits from the fields hard buy the ears of corn were passed from left to right through the whole company and back again then with closed doors they touched the jars of meal and murmured over each the solemn words of dedication and brought them out to be flung at last down the hillside before the temple the priests rested for a while upon their marble seats and took from their servants hands the rolls of bread bedecked with laurel leaves and poured their ungwants on the images around them the laity must then withdraw the doors were barred while the priests girded their flowing dress about their loins and took each's copy of the service books in which were written the old liturgies whose meaning no one present knew the venerable chant was sung with the cadence movements of the old latin dance and then the servants reappeared with garlands which were placed upon the statues of the gods the solemn forms were at an end the election of the president for another year was followed by the customary greetings felicia and the priests left the grove to rest in their own hall and to dine and pomp after the labors of the day the dinner over they crowned themselves with roses and but took themselves with slippered feet to the amusements of the circus which were held close by and closed the festival with a supper party in the high priest's house at roam in the proceedings of the arvil brotherhood we may note three features which seem to characterize the national religion of the romans one its punctilious regard for ancient forms may be read in every line of those old archives the deity worshipped in that shrine was a nameless dea dea still as in the days before greek fancy made its way to latin the primitive religious dance tripodiatus was scrupulously observed the rude instruments of barbarous ages were still used though else unknown the words of the chant they had to sing were so archaic that they could not trust their memories without the book the fear to employ any instruments of iron in the grove the changes of dress and posture and demeanor the careful entry in the registers of each stage in the long ceremonial service these are examples of a pharosaic care for outward usages which may be often found elsewhere in the history of symbolism but which in this case seemed to have passed at last into a stately picture language which spoke nothing to the reason and little to the heart to it had therefore little influence on men's moral nature and scarcely touched the temper of his character or the practice of his workday life for the most part the deities whom they adored had each his toll of offering and due respect but did not claim to guide the will or check the passions ceremonial obedience might serve to disarm their jealousy or win their favor and men need not look to any spiritual influence beyond the priests had never been the social moralists of Rome preaching and catechizing were unheard of and the highest functionaries of religion might be and sometimes were men of scandalous life and notorious unbelief the history of the arbal brotherhood may help to illustrate the general truth in the lists recorded in its archives may be found the names of many of the most profligate worldlings of imperial times but very few of good repute court favor gave a title to the priesthood its practical concern was the enjoyment of good cheer and the inscriptions carefully record the sum which was allotted for each banquet by the state and the drinking cup which was put for every guest one list of the year 37 tells us that the emperor caligula presided on the day of the great festival and though he was too late to be present at the sacrifice still he was there at least in time for dinner of the seven names which follow his two were born by noblemen of exceptionally immoral habits a third is called by tacitus of a self-indulgent nature and not one displayed any great qualities in public life five out of the seven died a felons death or to escape it laid violent hands upon themselves three the romans had their national worship their church as established by the state the priesthoods had been commonly faithful servants of the governing powers and had never raised the cry of rights of conscience or of spiritual freedom the arbal brotherhood had certainly the temper of unquestioning loyalty we need not indeed lay special stress upon the recurring usage of state prayers in which they joined at every opening year together with the whole official world but it is curious to turn over the archives of the eventful years sixty nine in which four emperors followed each other on the throne and in which the brothers took the oath of fealty to each with equal readiness meeting one day under the presidency of their prince and five days afterwards hailing the murderer as his successor sometimes they met to commemorate events of national importance as in the days of festival for trajan's nation victories but besides this we have in the first century a whole series of days of thanksgiving and intercession connected chiefly with the fortunes of the imperial family whose chiefs had been first patrons and then deities of the old guild the flavian dynasty and the antonines were too sensible and modest to care much for such official flattery and possibly they may have grudged the sums allotted to such a costly round of entertainments so the meetings of the priests grew fewer and the entries in the registers were rarer save for the may festivals of early usage the creed and ritual of ancient Rome were too cold and meager and devoid of all emotional power to content the people's hearts the luxuriant creations of holonic fancy the stirring excitements of the eastern worships gradually came in to fill the void till at last all the religions of the world found a home in the imperial city and of section 17 section 18 of the roman empire of the second century by william wolf capes this libra vox recording is in the public domain recording by pamela negami chapter seven the characteristics of the state religion and of the rights imported from the east part too the greek colonists who early pushed their way along the coasts of southern italy handed on the legends and the rights of greece which even in the regal period gained through the sibling books of footing in the state which literary influences constantly increased as roams conquering arms were stretched forth to embrace the world as strangers flocked to see the mistress of the nations and slaves of every race were gathered within her walls the names and attributes of foreign deities began to naturalize themselves almost of right and to spread insensibly from aliens to romans polytheism has commonly a tolerant and elastic system it seldom tries to impose its creed by force on other races or to resist the worship of new gods as a dishonor to the old accustomed already to the thought of a multitude of unearthly powers it has no scruple in adding to their number and prefers to borrow the guardians of other races rather than force them to accept its own so as land after land was added to the empire protection and honor were accorded to the forms of local worship and all the subject nations were allowed to adore the objects of their choice if any of them left their homes they clung of course to the old rights and might enjoy them undisturbed at Rome it was however quite another thing to let them pass beyond the bounds both of country and of race and to give them the sanction of the state as a form of the established faith of Rome still more so when the latest comers who claim to set up their altars and their temples in the streets shocked the old fashioned scruples of the ruling statesmen by their extravagance or sensual license or when it seemed that secret societies were spreading through the people under the cover of religious names then the government stepped in with force or menace stamped out the bacchanalia for example with terrible decision and had the shrine of ices level to the ground though the consul's hand had to strike the first blow with the axe when meaner arms were paralyzed with fear even after the days of the republic Augustus who had shown honor to Serapis in his Egyptian home for Bade his worship in the soil of Italy yet these were only passing measures ineffectual to stay the stream of innovation on one pretext or another the sanction of the state was given to the alien rights a war or a pestilence was at times enough to excuse an appeal to some new tutelary power and even to cause invitations to be sent to distant gods as the sense of the imperial unity grew stronger the distinction between the religious life of the center and the provinces seemed more arbitrary and unmeaning and though many a moralist of antique spirit gravely disapproved of the tone and temper of the eastern creeds yet the rulers gradually ceased to put any check upon their spread so long as each was satisfied to take his place beside the rest without intolerant aggression or defiance of the civil power there was besides another tendency which made it easier to enlarge the national pantheon many a scruple was disarmed when men were told that the newcomers were only the old familiar powers disguised in a new shape comparison had shown the likeness sometimes of usages and prayers in different lands sometimes of the attributes assigned or of the poetic fancies which had grown up in time round venerable names sincere believers felt a comfort in the thought that all the multitude of rival deities which seemed to have a claim on their respect consisted really of the many masks assumed by the same personal agencies or were even separate qualities of the one heavenly father Plutarch priest of the pithy in Apollo and devout adherent of the old religion of his fathers yet wrote a treatise on the gods of Egypt in which he tried to prove that they were in truth only the gods of Greece were shipped with mysterious rights and somewhat weird suggestions of the fancy which however found a counterpart at home in the native outgrowths of the holy nick mind the truth which the figurative language of their ritual shadowed forth was one expressed in many another symbol the powers of heaven were well content that men should read it and would yield their secrets with a good grace to the earnest seeker he felt therefore the more attracted to the mystic obscurity of that old culture of the pharaohs of which the sphinxes were the aptus tokens certain as he was that all its riddles might be read and would yield and harmonious and eternal truth Plutarch never doubted of the personal existence of the beings whom he adored and never resolved them into mere abstractions others there were with piety no less real than his who regarded all the forms of popular religion as useful in their various degrees but as all alike inadequate to express the truths which were ineffable doubtless says one of them god the father and creator of the universe is more ancient than the son or heavens is greater than time superior to all that abides and all that changes nameless he is and far away out of our ken but as we cannot grasp and thought his being we borrow the help of words and names and animals and figures of golden ivory of plants and streams and mountain heights and torrents yearning after him yet helpless to attain to him we attribute to him all that is most excellent among us so do the lovers who are fain to contemplate the image of the person soon they love they finally gaze at the liar or dart which they have handled or the chair on which they sat or anything which helps to bring the dear one to their thoughts let us only have the thought of god if the art of fideus awakens this thought among the greeks if the worship of animals does the like for the egyptians if here a river and there the fire does the same it matters little i do not blame variety only let us know god and love him only let us keep his memory abiding in our hearts in place of the matter of fact and ceremonious religion of the latin farmers we may trace in course of time new thoughts and feelings roused to play their part in a rich variety of spiritual moods we may trace the mystic reveries and ecstatic visions such as those which convent life has often nursed in pious souls of later times where the fancy living over much in the world of the unseen loses its sense of the reality and due proportions of the things of earth we hear of sensitive and enthusiastic natures who see so clearly the special providence which broods over their lives and feel so keenly love and gratitude for all the mercies given to them that they speak of themselves as the elect predestined to the favor of heaven they feel the workings of god's spirit in their hearts they see in every turn of life the traces of his guiding hand and every visitants from other worlds looking upon them in their dreams such a one was the rhetorician aristides who after suffering for long years from a malady which none could cure devoted himself to the service of the goddess glapius whom the latins called ice gulapius living mainly in his temple with his priests seeing him in visions of the night following implicitly the warning sent in sleep and falling into trances of unspeakable enjoyment proud of the privileges of his special revelation he wrote out in impassioned style his sacred sermons published as he said at the dictation of his heavenly patron he told the story of his ecstatic moods of the promised recovery of strength which followed in due course of the deliverance from instant danger vouch saved him at the great earthquake of smirna of the comfort of the abiding presence of a saving spirit and his thankfulness for the old trial of sickness which brought him to the notice of a protector so benign mystic aspirations point to the hope of a closer union with the divine than the trammels of our common life allow to rise above these limitations to lose the sense of personal being and almost indeed of consciousness in the pulsations of a higher life to this the enthusiasm of devotion points in many a different name and race most commonly with this end in view the soul would keep the body under and starve it with aesthetic rigor while the spirit beats against its prison bars panting for a freer and a purer air examples of such austerity of self denial may be also found in heathen times weary journeyings the holy places visited by countless pilgrims who must be meanly fed and hardly lodged if they would hope to gain the gladness of the beatific vision recluses to there were in egypt giving their lives without reserve to holy meditation and hoping to draw nearer to their god by well nice ceasing to be men more frequently they had recourse to the influence of high rot feeling to the electric sympathies by which strong waves of passion sweep across excited crowds and carry them beside themselves in transports of enthusiasm by the wild dance and maddening din by fleshly horrors self-imposed or the orgies of licentious pleasure by vivid imagery to make the illusion of the fancy more complete they worked upon the giddy brain and quivering nerves till the excited votaries of ices or adonis passed beyond the narrow range of everyday life into the frenzy of religious ecstasy and awe in the early roman creed there was little room for the hopes or fears of a life to come but there is a yearning in the mind to pierce the veil which hides the future from the site and many a prophecy was brought from other lands couched in hopeful or in warning tones here darkly hinted in enigmas here loudly proclaimed in confidence outspoken there acted in dramatic forms before the kindling fancy as in the ancient mysteries of Greece or in more questionable shapes in the ritual of eastern creeds another influence was brought to bear on western thought in the deeper sense of sinfulness as the pollution of the guilty soul and an outrage on the majesty of God with this came in natural course the greater influence of the priests to whom the stricken conscience turned in its bewilderment or its despair for they alone could read with confidence the tokens of the will of heaven they alone knew the forms of intercession or atonement which might bring peace by promises of pardon no longer silent ministers engaged in the mere round of outward forms as servants of the state they wandered to and fro to spread the worship of their patron saints sometimes with the missionary fervor of devoted faith sometimes working on men's hopes and fears to gain a ready or sale for their indulgences and priestly charms sometimes like sorted monta banks and jugglers catering for the wonder loving taste of credulous folks by sleight of hand and magic incantations among the most striking of such innovations due to the spread of oriental symbolism was the costly right of tau robo liam in which recourse was had to the purifying influence of blood known to us chiefly by the inscriptions of which the earliest dates from the reign of hadrian we have reason to believe that the usage came from asia as a solemn sacrifice in honor of the frigian mother of the gods from southern italy it crossed to gall and in the busy town of lug dunham liam the meeting point of traders of all races it was celebrated with more than common pomp it was the most impressive from its rarity for so great seemingly was the cost of the arrangements that only the wealthy could defray it corporations therefore and town councils came forward to undertake the burden when dreams and oracles and priestly prophecies had expressed the sovereign pleasure of the goddess ceremonies on such a scale could be held only by the sanction of the ruling powers and it would seem that an official character was given to the rights by the presence of the magistrates and robes of state the crowning act of a long round of solemn forms was the slaughter of the bullet self from which the whole right had drawn its name the votary in whose behalf the offering was made descended with silk and dress and crown of gold into a sort of fresh dug grave above which planks were spread to hold the bull and sacrificing priest as the blow fell upon the victim's neck the streams of blood which came pouring from the wound flowed through the chinks and fittings of the wood and bathed the worshipper below from the cleansing virtue of the blood he became henceforth spiritually regenerate in iternum renatus and at the time an object almost of adoration to the gazing crowds we need not wonder that the writers of the early church indignantly opposed such heathen rights which seemed to them a hideous caricature of the two great topics of their faith Christian baptism and redemption it would be too much to say perhaps that any of the thoughts and feelings naturalized in later days at Rome were holy new and unfamiliar in weaker moods in rudimentary forms they may be traced in the religion of the earliest days and so too even the outer forms of worship the mystic rites and orgies had their counterparts in ancient Rome some scope was given from the first to sacerdotal claims some priestly functions had been claimed by women which made it easier in later times for priests to gain ascendancy and women to play a large part in the religion of the empire but the eastern influence gave intensity of life to what before was faint and unobtrusive it vivified the unseen world which was vanishing away before the practical materialism of the roman mind it colored and animated with emotional fervor the pale and rigid forms of social duties it was the informing spirit which was new and this could pass into any of the multitudinous creeds which now lived side by side in peace they could and did compete for popular favor without bitterness or rancor in their rivalry and the priests of one deity could be votaries of another believing as they often did that the same power was worshipped under different disguises of nationality and language each took its place within the imperial pantheon without the hope or wish to displace others two systems only proudly stood aloof the jewish synagogue whose energies were centered in the work of explaining and commenting on its sacred books the christian church which was turning from its fond hopes of the speedy fulfillment of its kingdom of heaven to engage in a struggle of life and death in which all the iron discipline and social forces of the empire stood arrayed against it while it was armed only with the weapons of mutual kindliness and earnest faith and in extinguishable hope and of section 18