Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century by William Ware (best color ebook reader .txt) 📖

it. It was that of a man to be loved, and yet to be feared; whose compassion you might rely upon; but whose indignation at wrong and injustice might also be relied upon, whenever the weak or the oppressed should cry out for help against the strong and the cruel.

No sooner had Aurelian seated himself, and the thronged apartment become still, than he turned to those who were present and said,[Pg 409]

'That the Christians had desired this audience before him and the sacred senate, and he had therefore granted them their request. And he was now here, to listen to whatever they might urge in their behalf. But,' said he, 'I tell them now, as I have told them before, that it can be of no avail. The acts of former Emperors, from Nero to the present hour, have sufficiently declared what the light is in which a true Roman should view the superstition that would supplant the ancient worship of the gods. It is enough for me, that such is the acknowledged aim, and asserted tendency and operation of this Jewish doctrine. No merits of any kind can atone for the least injury it might inflict upon that venerable order of religious worship which, from the time of Romulus, has exercised over us its benignant influence, and, doubtless, by the blessings it has drawn down upon us from the gods, crowned our arms with a glory the world has never known before—putting under our feet every civilized kingdom from the remotest East to the farthest West, and striking terror into the rude barbarians of the German forests. Nevertheless, they shall be heard; and if it is from thee, Christian, that we are to know what thy faith is, let us now hear whatever it is in thy heart to say. There shall no bridle be put upon thee; but thou hast freest leave to utter what thou wilt. There is nothing of worst concerning either Rome or her worship, her rulers or her altars, her priesthood or her gods, but thou mayest pour it forth in such measure as shall please thee, and no one shall say thee nay. Now say on; the day and the night are before thee.'

'I shall require, great Emperor,' replied Probus, 'but little of either; yet I thank thee, and all of our name[Pg 410] who are here present thank thee, for the free range which thou hast offered. I thank thee too, and so do we all, for the liberty of frank and undisturbed speech, which thou hast assured to me. Yet shall I not use it to malign either the Romans or their faith. It is not with anger and fierce denunciation, O Emperor, that it becomes the advocate, of what he believes to be a religion from Heaven, to assail the adherents of a religion like this of Rome, descended to the present generation through so many ages, and which all who have believed it in times past, and all who believe it now, do hold to be true and woven into the very life of the state—the origin of its present greatness, and without which it must fall asunder into final ruin, the bond that held it together being gone. If the religion of Rome be false, or really injurious, it is not the generations now living who are answerable for its existence formerly or now, nor for the principles, truths, or rites, which constitute it. They have received it, as they have received a thousand customs which are now among them, by inheritance from the ancestors who bequeathed them, which they received at too early an age to judge concerning their fitness or unfitness, but to which, for the reason of that early reception, they have become fondly attached, even as to parents, brothers, and sisters, from whom they have never been divided. It becomes not the Christian, therefore, to load with reproaches those who are placed where they are, not by their own will, but by the providence of the Great Ruler. Neither does it become you of the Roman faith to reproach us for the faith to which we adhere; because the greater proportion of us also have inherited our religion, as you yours, from parents and[Pg 411] a community who professed it before us, and all regard it as heaven-descended, and so proved to be divine, that without inexpiable guilt we may not refuse to accept it. It must be in the face of reason, then, and justice, in the face of what is both wise and merciful, if either should judge harshly of the other.

'Besides, what do I behold in this wide devotion of the Roman people to the religion of their ancestors, but a testimony, beautiful for the witness it bears, to the universality of that principle or feeling, which binds the human heart to some god or gods, in love and worship? The worship may be wrong, or greatly imperfect, and sometimes injurious; the god or gods may be so conceived of, as to act with hurtful influences upon human character and life; still it is religion; it is a sentiment that raises the thoughts of the humble and toilworn from the earthly and the perishing, to the heavenly and the eternal. And this, though accompanied by some or many rites shocking to humanity, and revolting to reason, is better than that men were, in this regard, no higher nor other than brutes; but received their being as they do theirs, they know not whence, and when they lose it, depart like them, they know not and care not whither. In the religious character of the Roman people—for religious in the earlier ages of this empire they eminently were, and they are religious now, though in less degree—I behold and acknowledge the providence of God, who has so framed us that our minds tend by resistless force to himself; satisfied at first with low and crude conceptions, but ever aspiring after those that shall be worthier and worthier.

'And now, O Emperor, for the same reason that we[Pg 412] believe God the creator did implant in us all, of all tribes and tongues, this deep desire to know, worship, and enjoy him, so that no people have ever been wholly ignorant of him, do we believe that he has, in these latter years, declared himself to mankind more plainly than he did in the origin of things, or than he does through our own reason, so that men may, by such better knowledge of himself and of all necessary truth which he has imparted, be raised to a higher virtue on earth, and made fit for a more exalted life in heaven. We believe that he has thus declared himself by him whom you have heard named as the Master and Lord of the Christian, and after whom they are called, Jesus Christ. Him, God the creator, we believe, sent into the world to teach a better religion than the world had; and to break down and forever destroy, through the operation of his truth, a thousand injurious forms of false belief. It is this religion which we would extend, and impart to those who will open their minds to consider its claims, and their hearts to embrace its truths, when they have once been seen to be divine. This has been our task and our duty in Rome, to beseech you not blindly to receive, but strictly to examine, and, if found to be true, then humbly and gratefully to adopt this new message from above—'

'By the gods, Aurelian,' exclaimed Porphyrius, 'these Christians are kindly disposed! their benevolence and their philosophy are alike. We are obliged to them—'

'Not now, Porphyrius,' said Aurelian. 'Disturb not the Christian. Say on, Probus.'

'We hope,' continued Probus, nothing daunted by the scornful jeers of the philosopher, 'that we are sincerely desirous of your welfare, and so pray that in the lapse[Pg 413] of years all may, as some have done, take at our hands the good we proffer them; for, sure we are, that would all so receive it, Rome would tower upwards with a glory and a beauty that should make her a thousand-fold more honored and beloved than now, and her roots would strike down, and so fasten themselves in the very centre of the earth, that well might she then be called the Eternal City. Yet, O Emperor, though such is our aim and purpose; though we would propagate a religion from God, and, in doing so, are willing to labor our lives long, and, if need be, die in the sacred cause, yet are we charged as atheists. The name by which we are known, as much as by that of Christian, is atheist—'

'Such, I have surely believed you,' said Porphyrius, again breaking in, 'and, at this moment, do.'

'But it is a name, Aurelian, fixed upon us ignorantly or slanderously; ignorantly, I am willing to believe. We believe in a God, O Emperor; it is to him we live, and to him we die. The charge of atheism I thus publicly deny, as do all Christians who are here, as would all throughout the world with one acclaim, were they also here, and would all seal their testimony, if need were, with their blood. We believe in God; not in many gods, some greater and some lesser, as with you, and whose forms are known and can be set forth in images and statues—but in one, one God, the sole monarch of the universe; whom no man, be he never so cunning, can represent in wood, or brass, or stone; whom, so to represent in any imaginary shape, our faith denounces as unlawful and impious. Hence it is, O Emperor, because the vulgar, when they enter our churches or our houses, see there no image of god or goddess, that they[Pg 414] imagine we are without a God, and without his worship. And such conclusion may in them be excused. For, till they are instructed, it may not be easy for them to conceive of one God, filling Heaven and earth with his presence. But in others it is hard to see how they think us atheists on the same ground, since nothing can be plainer than that among you, the intelligent, and the philosophers especially, believe as we do in a great pervading invisible spirit of the universe. Plato worshipped not nor believed in these stone or wooden gods; nor in any of the fables of the Greek religion; yet who ever has charged him with atheism? So was it with the great Longinus. I see before me those who are now famed for their science in such things, who are the teachers of Rome in them, yet not one, I may venture to declare, believes other than as Plato and Longinus did in this regard. It is an error or a calumny that has ever prevailed concerning us; but in former times some have had the candor, when the error has been removed, to confess publicly that they had been subject to it. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to name no other, when, in the straits into which he was fallen at Cotinus, he charged his disasters upon the Christian soldiers, and, they praying prostrate upon the earth for him and his army and empire, he forthwith gained the victory, which before he had despaired of—did then immediately acknowledge that they had a God, and that they should no longer be reviled as atheists; since it was plain that men might believe in a God, and carry about the image of him in their own minds, though they had no visible one. It is thus we are all believers. We carry about with us, in the sanctuary of our own bosoms, our image of the great[Pg 415] and almighty God whom we serve; and before that, and that only, do we bow down and worship. Were we indeed atheists, it were not unreasonable that you dealt with us as you now do, nay and much more severely; for, where belief in a God does not exist, it is not easy to see how any state can long hold together. The necessary bond is wanting, and, as a sheaf of wheat when the band is broken, it must fall asunder.

'The first principle of the religion of Christ is this belief in God; in his righteous providence here on earth, and in a righteous retribution hereafter. How then can the religion of Christ in this respect be of dangerous influence or tendency? It is well known to all, who are acquainted in the least with history or philosophy, that in the religion of the Jews, the belief and worship of one God almost constitutes the religion itself. Every thing else is inferior and subordinate. In this respect