CHAPTER LIII

‘HE WHO SAW THE APOCALYPSE’

The slave Philetus came to the house of Aliturus on the next Sunday evening, and told him that the Christians now knew themselves to be menaced by imminent peril. They had consequently changed their place of meeting to another sand-pit near the Appian road, where they would be assembled in unusual numbers, expecting the presence of John, one of the twelve companions of Jesus whom they called Apostles. Aliturus, seeing the character of the man, who was one of those who are ever ready to sell their souls for gain, said as little to him as possible; but while he donned his Ephesian disguise he determined to do his utmost to warn the Christians secretly of the toils which, before he knew their true character, he himself had designed to spread for them.

The worship of the congregation resembled that on the previous First-day evening, except that the impression of solemn expectation was even more thrilling and intense. Aliturus was at a distance from the Apostle, whom his fellow-Christians surrounded with a reverence akin to awe, and whose bearing, though full of love and humility, was yet more full of natural dignity than Aliturus had ever observed in Consul or Emperor. During the day the Apostle had walked through the areas of encumbered ruin and blackened waste, which in ten regions of the city were all that was left of Rome. He had walked along the lines of temporary huts in the Campus Martius, and heard the wail of men and women who refused to be comforted for the loss of all. He had stood behind the base of a half-calcined pillar on the Aventine when Nero had been carried past him in an open litter of silver, in which he lolled on purple cushions. He was discinctured and clad in a light Coan synthesis, looking the picture of cruel and dissolute effeminacy. A young Greek slave shared his litter, and some of his worst associates laughed and jested by his side. The sight of the Antichrist had stirred the heart of John to uttermost indignation, and as he now rose in the assembly, the mystic golden petalon of priesthood upon his forehead flashing under the light of the lamps in the far recess of the sand-pit, his whole figure seemed to burn and dilate with inspired passion. He spoke at times with something of the holy frenzy of a Hebrew prophet, in language purposely couched in Eastern metaphors. To those who were unfamiliar with the style of Jewish Apocalypses, much of what he said might have seemed wholly unintelligible; but most of those who heard him had a clue to his utterances, either from their Jewish birth or from familiarity with sacred books of the Hebrews. Among these was Aliturus. Knowing the high authority of the speaker, the whole assembly listened with beating hearts to the tones of a voice which throbbed with fire and life, and sometimes rose to awful power.

In imagery afterwards embodied in his Apocalypse he spoke of a wild beast, rising out of the sea with a name of blasphemy on his forehead. And men worshipped the beast, and said, ‘Who is like the wild beast?’ and ‘Who can fight against him?’ Those who had heard of Nero in his disguise at the infamous banquet on the Lake of Agrippa knew that by the wild beast he meant the Emperor, and by the sea the sea of nations, and by the name of blasphemy the divine title Augustus, and by his superhuman exaltation the adoring flattery of his votaries. He described the misery of the people as of men gnawing their tongues for pain; and he spoke of a war of the wild beast against the saints, and of blood rolling in a great river; and of the vengeance which should follow, and of the vain rage of the nations against Him which is, and was, and is to come.

His voice ceased. He sat down, and an awful hush fell over the listeners. And then the whole assembly knelt down as with one great sob, and Aliturus sobbed with them. Pitying their emotion, the Beloved arose once more, and said: ‘Nay, brethren, you must not return thus with broken hearts to your homes. It is given unto me to foresee that ye must resist unto blood. Many of you must be tortured, many slain. At this moment there is a traitor among you, and it is no longer possible to escape. And there is another, not a traitor, but who meant to be an open enemy.’ The speaker paused, and the heart of Aliturus became chill as a stone within him. ‘But,’ continued the Apostle, ‘the grace of God hath called this one to repentance, and he shall be saved, though through much tribulation. And now, my children, give your customary gifts to God and to the suffering ones, for many are now in depths of affliction, and there are not a few of you whose children shall be fatherless and their wives widows, who must be the care of the Church hereafter. But I say to you all, as our Lord said the night that He was betrayed, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” And as my last words, take this His new commandment: “Little children, love one another.”’

He bade them sing a hymn to calm their troubled souls, and they sang:—

The deacons went round among the worshippers, and collected the alms. Aliturus, more deeply moved than ever in his life, flung into the offering the large sum of gold which he had received for his unhallowed dance. Linus rose and said, ‘Beloved, the times are perilous. We know not when or where the cloud will burst. Let us meet again on the third day hence, and hear the word of exhortation.’

Then the Apostle committed them to God’s gracious mercy and protection, and to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit; and once more, like phantoms, that great throng melted into the darkness.

But Aliturus, telling Philetus that it would be better for them to separate, dismissed him, and waited for the presbyters who were conducting John to the house of Linus.

‘I would speak to thee,’ he said, addressing the Apostle in Hebrew, which he had not entirely forgotten since the day when he learnt it at his brave father’s knee. ‘I am—’

‘I know thee who thou art, my son,’ answered the Apostle, in the same language. ‘Thou wast born a child of Abraham; thou hast become a firstborn of Satan. Yea, weep, for thy sins have been many; yet rejoice, for thou shalt be snatched as a brand out of the burning.’

‘I have never been a Christian, O Apostle,’ said Aliturus; ‘I have never heard the name of Christ except in mockery; but now, convinced of all, judged of all, I see that the secret of God is with you. I have led you into peril, but I did it ignorantly, and now, if thou wouldst direct me, I fain would do my utmost to save you all.’

‘Thou shalt be forgiven, my son, because (as thou sayest) thou didst it ignorantly: but save us thou canst not. Nevertheless, do what thou canst, and may God be with thee!’

‘Oh that I might ask for thy blessing; for my heart is sore even to breaking.’

‘My son,’ said the Apostle, laying his hand on the bowed head of the actor; ‘the blessing of God is with them that repent, and the Lord rejecteth none who come to Him.’

They parted in the darkness, and the next day Aliturus sought an audience with the Emperor alone. He had been so great a favourite that Nero always rejoiced to see him, and to while away an hour under the spell of his natural brightness. But, to his surprise, Aliturus had no sooner kissed his hand than he flung himself at his feet and craved his indulgence.

‘What ails the gay actor?’ asked Nero. ‘Is it something more about these Christians?’

‘It is,’ said the actor. ‘Spare them, Emperor. Spare them, I entreat you. I have ascertained that they are perfectly innocent. Cæsar has no more virtuous subjects.’

‘Virtue?’ said Nero. ‘It is three-fourths humbug, and the other fourth hypocrisy. Give me pleasure; give me art. These fanatics would quench all joy in the world. They would kill Venus and starve Bacchus. I hate them.’

‘Would Cæsar slay the innocent?’

‘Innocent? They are anything but innocent. They are conspirators, and sorcerers, and murderers, and haters of mankind.’

‘Oh, Cæsar,’ exclaimed the actor, in despair. ‘I, too, believed this; but these are only the lies of the multitude.’

‘At any rate, they are gloomy and pestilent fanatics. Why should Aliturus care for the wretches who worship a man whom Pilatus crucified? What is their execrable superstition to Rome’s favourite pantomime? I am to be king of the East, and these Galileans set up another king, whom they call Christus. It is flat sedition! Besides, how am I to appease the populace, if I do not find them some victims?’

‘You may yet find the true criminals, Cæsar; it may be that they are nearer your own person than these poor Christians.’

‘Don’t let Tigellinus hear you say that, or you may yet know what the tunica molesta is like, and may leave a trail of burning pitch on the sand of the amphitheatre! Come, Aliturus, this is tedious. Enough of it. I prefer your dancing.’

At this moment Poppæa entered, and the young man withdrew. As he passed down the corridor the slaves were surprised to see the bright darling of the populace wringing his hands and muttering ‘Too late! too late!’

On one point he was determined. No word, no sign of his should do any further injury to the Christians. He would not reveal their meeting-place, nor help their enemies.

Alas! his aid was no longer needed. We can abstain from evil deeds, but when we have done them their consequences are beyond us, nor can we escape their punishment. Tigellinus, by his spies, had put himself in communication with Philetus; he knew enough to palliate in the eyes of the people the arrest of a community which they regarded with detestation. His nets were spread in every direction. Unless the Christians abandoned all attempt at meeting together, it was impossible that they could escape the agents of the tyranny which had determined to destroy them as the scapegoat of its own crimes. To warn them would in any case have been in vain, and Aliturus was unable to warn them, for Tigellinus did not make him a confidant of his intentions.

Unaccompanied by Philetus, the actor went to the meeting which Linus had announced, and found the Christians gathered in undiminished numbers, anxious to hear once more the words of him who at the Last Supper had leaned his head on the bosom of their Lord.

Again—lest in the presence of traitors and enemies he should use language which might be turned into an engine of condemnation against the brethren—the Apostle addressed them in allegoric terms. The Christians understood his words, and the rich comfort which lay beneath their poetic imagery. But he had not been speaking long, when from the narrow entrance which led into the sandpit—for the Christians had barricaded every approach but one—there arose first a cry of surprise, then a sound of struggling, and a clash of arms, and a tramp of feet. The youths to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the approach were borne back by numbers, and flying into the assembly raised a shout of ‘Fly, brethren, fly! the Prætorians are upon us.’ The lamps flashed on the gilded armour of a centurion, who leapt, sword in hand, into the midst of the worshippers. In a moment every lamp was extinguished, and by the straggling starlight might be caught glimpses of a scene of wild confusion, as men and shrieking women sprang in vain to the egress, and, driven back on each other by the swords of the soldiers, struggled in mad panic towards the various subterranean hiding-places and passages, which branched out of the sandpit, and were the beginning of the catacombs. Many made their escape in the tumult, for they were more familiar than the soldiers with the exits and winding ways. Except that one or two Christians were struck to earth and trampled upon in the obscurity, no blood was shed; for the principles of the Christians forbade them to resist lawful authority. The centurion, the moment he entered, strode straight towards the group of presbyters, and arrested Linus, who sat in the seat of the bishop. Another officer laid his hand on the robe of the Apostle, but while Aliturus involuntarily sprang forward to make him release his hold, a gigantic fossor—whose trade it was to hew graves in the tufa for all the brethren—flung his arms round the officer, and pinned them to his side, while Cletus, seizing the hand of John, hurried him along a tortuous and half-subterranean path by which they emerged into the upper air. They lay concealed among the thick leaves of a vineyard, until they heard the tramp of the soldiers who marched off with about a hundred prisoners, whose arms they had tied behind their backs. Aliturus was in no personal danger, but he had followed the escaping steps of Cletus and the Apostle, and he lay hidden with them in the vineyard till the sound of footsteps had died away in the echoing gloom.

‘Alas, father, what can I do?’ exclaimed the presbyter. ‘I am but a freedman in the house of the senator Nerva. I have no home, no refuge to offer thee which would not be full of hardship and the peril of certain death.’

‘Come to my house,’ exclaimed Aliturus to the Apostle, eagerly. ‘I am not a Christian—I am but a pantomime. But, if thou wilt trust me, thy life will be safer with me than in any house in Rome, till opportunity enables thee to escape to Asia.’

‘My son,’ said the Apostle, ‘I trust thee. Lead me on.’

That night the son of Zebedee was sheltered in the house of the actor, who told his most confidential slaves to treat with all honour a friend of Jewish race who had come from Palestine. But all night long the Apostle was on his knees, praying for his brethren. For the Great Tribulation—the first of the ten great Christian persecutions—had begun.

CHAPTER LIV

IN THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE

Ἀγαπητοὶ μὴ ξενίζεσθε τῇ ἐν ὑμῖν πυρώσει πρὸς πειρασμὸν ὑμὶν γινομένῃ.—1 Pet. iv. 12.

‘Christianus etiam extra carcerem sæculo renuntiavit, in carcere autem etiam carceri.’—Tert. Ad Mart. 2.

The prisoners, men and women alike, were hurried into promiscuous dungeons, in a suffocating confinement which was itself an anticipated death. Next day an edict was published by the Emperor, saying that the Christians were the incendiaries of Rome, and would be set apart for exemplary punishment. He characterised the whole sect as public enemies, enemies of the gods, and of the human race, whom he should make it his duty as far as possible to exterminate. The edict was well received. It was at first supposed that its allegations were true, and that the Emperor had really succeeded in lifting from his rule the vast weight of indignation which had threatened to endanger it.

Next day, half suffocated and half starved, and altogether in miserable plight, a number of the prisoners were put to the torture, to enforce confession and a betrayal of their accomplices. Tigellinus personally presided, and gloated over their torments. It had become known that Linus was their leader, and he was the first to suffer. The old man remained nobly constant. Urged to confess his crime, he said, ‘I am a Christian; but to be a Christian is not a crime.’ Charged with complicity in the deeds of darkness which were attributed to Christians, he indignantly repudiated them, and said that the laws of Christians branded not only such deeds with infamy, but even those vices which the heathen regarded as indifferent or venial. Bidden to give up the names of his fellow-Christians, he said that they were many, but that he would rather die than betray them. No added intensity of torment could wring from him anything further, and he was carried back to prison, a pitiable sufferer, dislocated in every limb. Indeed, so nigh was he unto death, that the jailors, burdened by the crowded and horrible condition of the prisoners, accepted a bribe from the Christians to allow him to be removed. He was taken, by Pomponia’s kindness, into her own house, and there was lovingly tended many days. He lived to send a greeting to Timotheus by St. Paul some years later; but he was never again able to resume his functions as the bishop of the little community. Stricken to the heart by the anguish of witnessing the apparent destruction of the Church, and hopelessly maimed by torture, he was removed in secrecy to one of the country villas of Aulus Plautius, and after being long confined to his bed, he died no less a martyr of the Neronian persecution than any of his brethren.

Others showed equal fortitude. Foiled and savage, Tigellinus noticed among the prisoners a timid, shrinking boy, and ordered him to be stripped and laid upon the rack, confident that anything might be wrung from him. But the poor boy could only keep repeating,

‘I am a Christian! I am a Christian! but we are innocent. We do no wrong. The crimes you charge us with are false.’

‘Give up the names of your accomplices, jail-bird,’ said Tigellinus, striking him fiercely on the cheek.

‘I am no jail-bird,’ said the boy; ‘I am free-born. Oh, set me free from this anguish! I have done no wrong.’

‘You shall try another turn or two of the rack first, crucisalus,’ said Tigellinus. ‘Confess, and you shall not only be set free, but rewarded.’

His limbs were stretched still further. A groan of agony burst from his lips, and the sweat stood in thick dews over the face which had become pale as death; but he spoke not, and fainted. When they were taken back to prison, the Christians did their utmost to tend and console the glorious young confessor.

‘How were you strengthened,’ they asked him, ‘to endure such pangs?’

‘When all was at the worst,’ he said, ‘it seemed to me that music sounded in my ears, and a fair youth with wings stood by me who wiped the perspiration from my forehead. And seeing him I felt that I could hold out even to death.’

‘Try a woman this time,’ said Tigellinus.

The executioners seized the deaconess Phœbe, who, since she left Cenchreæ with the Epistle to the Romans, had stayed and worked in Rome; and with her they seized two other virgins who were also deaconesses.

But the constancy of womanhood also remained unshaken, and the Præfect began to fear that the attempt to secure evidence would fail as completely as in his plot against Octavia. He stamped, and cursed the Christians by all his gods, and raved impotently against their brutal obstinacy, as effort after effort failed. Then he ran his experienced eyes over the throng, and fixed them on one man whose abject face seemed to promise good effects from the application of terror. His name was Phygellus.

‘Seize that man,’ he said to the lictors.

‘Oh, do not torture me!’ exclaimed the wretch. ‘I am not—I am not, indeed, a Christian.’

The other Christians turned their eyes upon him with a look of reproach, and he trembled; but he continued to asseverate, ‘I am not a Christian.’

‘Then how came you to be arrested in the assembly of those vagabonds?’

‘They seduced me; they bewitched me; they are sorcerers.’

‘Then throw these grains of frankincense on the fire in honour of Jupiter, and worship the Genius of the Emperor.’

The man did as he was required, though the Christians murmured to him—

‘Will you be an apostate? Will you deny the cross of Christ?’

‘Now then,’ said Tigellinus, ‘tell us the names of their ringleaders.’

Phygellus hesitated. He had been ready to save himself; but he had not contemplated the destruction of his fellows.

‘On to the rack with him!’ said Tigellinus.

The man was laid shrieking on the instrument of torture, but the moment the screw was turned, he cried,

‘I will confess; I will confess.’

‘Do the Christians kill infants, and eat their flesh?’

‘No.’

‘Do you persist in that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Try the rack again.’

‘Spare me! spare me!’ he cried. ‘If you torture me, I shall say anything—any lie you ask me; but these stories about the Christians are not true.’

‘Will you now tell us all you know, without any more torture?’

‘I will.’

‘Did the Christians set fire to Rome?’

‘I did not see them doing it; but they were always talking about Christ being manifested in flaming fire, and about the burning of the world.’

‘That will do. Now give us some names.’

‘There are hundreds—there are thousands of them,’ said the renegade.

‘Then it will be all the easier for you to tell us some of them.’

‘Must I?’ he pleaded. ‘They have done no harm.’

‘On to the rack with him,’ said Tigellinus, furiously. ‘He trifles with us and wastes our time.’

‘No, no,’ moaned the coward; ‘I will tell you. There is Linus the bishop, and Cletus the presbyter, and Prisca, and Aquila.’

‘Who are they?’

They are Jewish tent-makers, and they live on the Aventine; but they left Rome recently. And Amplias, Claudia, Stachys, Apelles, of the household of Narcissus; Persis, a freedwoman of Pomponia Græcina; Asyncritus, Patrobas, slaves of Flavius Clemens; and Nereus and his daughter Junia, manumitted by the centurion Pudens.’

‘We want more names still.’

‘There are Marcus, Felicitas, Phœbe, Helpis, in the house of Aulus Plautius; and there are Tryphæna, Tryphosa, Stephanus, Crescens, Thallus, Herodion, and Artemas, of Cæsar’s household.’

‘None but slaves and freedmen?’

‘There is Aristobulus, the auctioneer, who has a house in the Subura. He and all his family are Christians. And Andronicus, and Junius—they are merchants who import goats’ hair from Cilicia, and are relations of Paulus of Tarsus, whom they call an Apostle.’

‘Come, this is to the purpose,’ said Tigellinus, rubbing his hands. ‘Are there any soldiers?’

‘Yes; Vitalis and Celsus, the Prætorians, and, I think, Pudens the centurion, who has gone to Britain and—’

He stopped suddenly, and his face assumed a look of terror. For the soldier Urbanus who stood behind the chair of Tigellinus was one who, though not yet a Christian, had been among those who had been chained to Paul, and had acquired a kindly feeling towards the persecuted brethren. Fixing his eyes on the apostate, he made so menacing a gesture with his hand on his dagger, that Phygellus began to stammer.

‘I do not know,’ he said, ‘the names of any more soldiers.’

‘Are there any persons of rank?’

Fortunately Phygellus had never found much favour among the Christians. Their leaders had not entrusted to him their secrets. He was unaware that Pomponia was a Christian, and had not heard of the conversion of Flavius Clemens and Domitilla. But he ventured at haphazard to mention Aliturus, whom he had seen in the tumult.

But Tigellinus knew that it was not yet time to interfere with such a man as Aliturus. He laughed aloud.

‘What!’ he said; ‘do you think that on the evidence of such scum as you we are going to arrest the delight of the populace—the gayest and fairest pantomime in Rome? There, we have had enough of you.’

And, spurning him with his foot, he bade the lictors to keep him safe till more evidence was required.

There were a few others—chiefly neophytes and catechumens of unformed character—who, either from indifference and insincerity, or to escape for the moment from the tormentors, gave evidence sufficient for the nefarious purpose of the Præfect. The consequence was a wholesale series of arrests, till every prison in Rome was crowded to deadliness with innocent confessors, who, while they denied all crime, admitted themselves to be Christians, and were ready, if God so willed, to die for their faith.

Tigellinus savagely recommended to Nero that they should be executed in a mass.

‘Rome,’ he said, ‘is too crowded. As it is, Cæsar, you are maintaining many thousands of the destitute, and among them hundreds of these Christians, whose lodgings have been burnt. Why not get rid of such criminal wretches?’

‘All the people hate them,’ said Poppæa, ‘as despisers of the gods, and all the Jews hate them. From Josephus, and the High Priest, and Tiberius Alexander, the nephew of their great writer Philo, who once headed a deputation to the Emperor Gaius, I hear nothing of them but evil.’

‘Their arrest has made a wonderful difference already,’ said Tigellinus, ‘and has silenced many inconvenient rumours. Publish another edict, Emperor, saying that you have now the amplest evidence of their guilt, and that they shall be executed when you have decided the method of their death.’

‘I will reserve some of their ringleaders for more conspicuous punishment,’ said Nero. ‘The common herd can be dealt with afterwards.’

‘We have got the man they call their bishop,’ said the Præfect. ‘He is an artisan named Linus. He has been tortured, and is said to be dying. But we can strike a deadlier blow yet. My spies tell me that one of the Twelve they call Apostles, whose name is John, is in Rome, and that another is on his way whose name is Peter. They were friends of him whom they call Christus. We have lost sight of John for the moment; but we shall make sure of having them both soon.’

---

The Church in Rome was smitten to the very dust by the terrible blow which had befallen her, and it was necessary that the brethren should take the utmost precautions, and meet only in the deepest secrecy. In this they were aided by Aliturus. He had a villa a short distance from Rome on the Salarian road, the grounds of which could be approached by country paths known to few but shepherds and goatherds. To this villa he took the Apostle John for safety, and there he received from him such wise and loving instruction that he became a catechumen. Meanwhile he freely used the wealth which he had acquired, to alleviate the sufferings of the brethren. The visiting of those in prison was regarded as one of the primary duties of the Christian’s life, and no considerations of personal safety were allowed to interfere with it. The Apostle went from prison to prison breaking bread, and entrusting to the officers of the Church, or to those who had been longest in the faith, the money which was supplied to him by Pomponia and by the actor. In this way he and others, who were as yet unmolested, were enabled to minister to the necessities of the captives, and also to speak to them such words of hope as fell upon their souls like dew from heaven. It was inevitable that his noble and venerable figure should soon be recognised. The spies of the Præfect were everywhere, and, noticing the profound reverence with which the Elder was received, they were soon able to identify him. He had prepared Aliturus to expect that if on any day he did not return to the villa it would be because he was lodged in prison. The ordinary dungeons were so full that the Apostle was confined in the wet and rocky vault of the Mamertine.

In that prison he was visited by Pomponia, who contributed by every means in her power to mitigate his hardships, and received his counsel and his apostolic blessing. She no longer hesitated to go in person to console the confessors. She found, indeed, that they needed but little consolation. The majority of them were in a state of spiritual exaltation which made their faces radiant and transformed their hard fare into manna which was angels’ food. They turned their prisons into minsters, and the coarse pagan jailors and German guards were amazed when they heard those abodes of misery ringing with sweet voices and the holy melodies of unknown songs. In each place of confinement they held their daily worship, conducted by presbyter, or deacon, or reader, and broke with one another the bread of Holy Communion. They knew that death awaited them, but death was to be a martyrdom, and they looked to it, not as a curse, but as a coronation. Pomponia, sharing all their feelings, found that it was only to their bodily wants that she had need to minister.

She did not shrink from personal danger: if arrested, she would have at once avowed that she was a Christian. But her name had not been mentioned by those who gave evidence. Having once been tried on the charge of holding a foreign superstition and acquitted, it was contrary to the principle of the Roman law that she should again be accused. The deadly wrong which Nero’s wickedness had already inflicted on Aulus Plautius had excited an indignation among all the best elements of Roman society, which, though it was voiceless, had made itself felt; and among the populace Pomponia was half worshipped for her abounding kindness and large-handed charities. Her visiting of the prisons was set down to the same strange but harmless eccentricity which made her eschew jewels and wear robes of such sombre hue.

One day, during a visit to the largest prison, she encountered Tigellinus, who was going his rounds with an escort of Prætorians to exult over the multitudes of his victims. He inspired such dread that the noblest senators cringed to him, and Pomponia had reason to know that he hated her with all the energy of wickedness which is reproved by the spectacle of virtue.

He made her a low obeisance of mock respect, which she scarcely noticed by the slightest inclination of her head.

‘The fair Pomponia is fond of prisons,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘but she despises the poor Præfect of the Prætorians.’

‘Pomponia,’ she replied, ‘is not accustomed to the language of insincere and empty compliment. She despises none; but, if the Præfect desires her opinion, there are some of his humblest soldiers whom she respects more than him.’

Tigellinus cast on her a glance of savage hatred. He quailed before her queenly dignity of goodness, but could not bear to be foiled in the hearing of his escort, whose smiles had scarcely been suppressed.

‘Let Pomponia take care that she does not herself become the denizen of a prison. Some have whispered that she is as much a Christian as these whom she visits, and deserves the same fate.’

‘I deserve it,’ she says, ‘as much and as little as these do, for none knows better than Tigellinus that they are perfectly innocent.’

Tigellinus lost all self-control. ‘Do you not know, woman,’ he exclaimedT17 hoarsely, ‘that your life is in my power?’

‘Man!’ she answered, with the calmest disdain, ‘you are addressing the wife of Aulus Plautius. My life is not in your power, but in the power of Him who gave it. I leave you, and shall continue to tend these hapless prisoners.’

She passed by him and he dared not meet her glance. To beard Tigellinus required a courage of which scarcely one person was capable. But Pomponia thought it her duty to attempt a yet more dangerous effort, and, if possible, to have an appeal made to the Emperor on behalf of the doomed Christians. She went to Seneca in his retirement. She found him anxious and miserable, full of disappointment and self-disgust. He did not respond to her entreaties. ‘I have no sympathy,’ he said, ‘with the Christians. They are only a sect of the Jews, and I should like to see their whole superstition eradicated.’

‘You call it their superstition,’ said Pomponia. ‘Is it more of a superstition than the worship of what you have called “our ignoble crowd of gods”?’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Seneca. ‘But the popular religion is one thing, and philosophy is another.’

‘Would you, then, be content to see the mass of the pagan population unjustly tortured, unjustly slain, because their religion is a noxious superstition?’

‘They do not render themselves amenable to the laws.’

‘Nor do these poor Christians. I know their tenets. Their moral teaching again and again reminds me of your own, which it sometimes resembles almost to verbal identity.’

‘I have heard,’ said Seneca, ‘that their Paulus of Tarsus has genius and style; but it is to me incredible. What can he know of philosophy?’

‘Pardon me, dear friend,’ replied Pomponia, ‘he knows a philosophy far diviner than that of the Porch, far nobler than that of the Garden or the Lyceum. It is a philosophy which may not puff up the pride of intellect, but can sway the motives of the life. You may perhaps find in Rome—though I doubt it—ten philosophers who live purely and simply, but I could find you many hundreds of Christians.’

‘Men of the common herd,’ he said, in a tone of some disdain.

‘Are they not our fellow-men? Did not one God make them and us? Did He mean only a handful to be blessed, and the rest to perish? Have you no pity for them? Have not you yourself said, “Man is a sacred thing to man”?’

‘Why should I waste my life in an unavailing pity? Pity is a weakness which the true philosopher should suppress.’

‘Ah!’ replied Pomponia, ‘I see the secret why Stoicism fails. It talks of following nature, and it flings away its sweetest elements.’

‘I could do nothing for you, Pomponia, even if I would,’ said Seneca, wearily; ‘I live a daily death.’

‘A daily death?’ she replied—‘in this splendid palace, with every resource of wealth, with slaves, with villas, with books, with gardens, with boundless fame, with a wife faithful and beloved, with a host of friends?’

‘What avail such things,’ said Seneca, ‘with the sword of Damocles trembling over my neck? My only safety is the life which I describe in my little tragedy of “Thyestes”—a life which causes neither jealousy nor fear, and where one does not dread to drink poison in golden goblets.99 If I am alive at this moment, I believe I owe it to the fact that my freed man Cleonicus, whom Nero bribed to poison me, failed to do so because I only eat fruits from the tree, and drink nothing but running water.100 Yet I am wretched. Sometimes I all but accept the view that, after all, men are no better than a laughing-stock of the gods, whatever gods there be.’

‘And are you so miserable, Seneca,’ she said, ‘and so hopeless? Come with me to the prisons of the poor Christians, and I will show you men who are poor and yet happy; ground to the dust by daily hatred and cruelty, in hunger, and nakedness, and prison, and yet happy; with torture and the vilest deaths immediately awaiting them, and yet happy. Shall I tell you how Paulus of Tarsus describes himself and them? “We are troubled on every side,” he wrote to Corinth, “yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”’

‘That is very eloquent,’ said Seneca. ‘I should like to read more that this Christian has written.’

‘You shall,’ she answered; ‘and you will find in his letters something better than eloquence of style. But will you despise, will you do nothing to assist, the men and women whose faith enables them not only to write thus, but thus to live?’

Seneca sighed deeply. ‘My power with the Emperor is gone, and I am menaced with death and confiscation. But I am rich still, Pomponia. Take the sum of gold in this purse. It may at least help to relieve the sufferings of these poor creatures, perhaps even to secure by bribes the escape of some of them. It is all that I can do.’

Pomponia did not refuse it, and bade him a kindly farewell. But she never visited the philosopher without feeling, in spite of her affection for him and her gratitude to him, how ineffectual were his half-truths, how vain the pomp of declamatory epigram in which they were enshrined. The same ineffectualness, having its roots in an insincerity so insincere as to be habitual and unconscious, marked the whole of the contemporary morality. It ended, and was understood to end, in self-deceiving words.

But, having failed with Seneca, Pomponia hardly knew what to do. To the Emperor himself she would not go. His mere presence, since his foul murder of her young Aulus, made her tremble with loathing as though she stood before an incarnate demon. His leering sensuous looks, his slothful obesity, his face deformed by an eczema caused by gluttony, intemperance, and uncleanness, filled her with such repulsion that she could not speak to him. But she had sometimes met Poppæa in her least guilty days, when she was the wife of Rufius Crispinus, and she hoped that there might remain some spot in the heart of the lovely Empress which was not wholly callous to the appeal of pity.

To her surprise she found Poppæa bathed in tears, and gently asked her why she wept. There was something about Pomponia which seemed at once to awaken confidence. She had that temperament which in modern times would be called magnetic, and she always called out the best feelings of those with whom she spoke. The haughty, beautiful, triumphant wife of Nero would not have dreamed of suffering any one to be admitted to her in a moment of sorrow and weakness, except the wife of Aulus Plautius. To others she never appeared except in dresses such as the world could not parallel, surrounded by luxury, and breathing of the most delicate perfumes. But as Pomponia entered she did not even attempt to remove the stain of tears from her glowing cheeks, or to arrange the disordered tresses of her gleaming hair.

‘Pomponia is welcome,’ she said. ‘She does not often deign to visit the poor Empress. She should have been a vestal virgin, and moved about surrounded by sanctities. But we wicked people have our sorrows too. I was thinking of my boy Rufius. I love him more than anything on earth, and Nero hates to see him, and will not let him visit me. The poor boy might just as well have no mother.’

Pomponia paused before she spoke, and had to gulp down a choking sob. ‘I can sympathise with you, Empress. My son Aulus was a little older than your charming Rufius. He was manly; he was beautiful; he gave promise of all his father’s virtues.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Poppæa, turning away her face, on which rose, in spite of herself, a burning blush. ‘He offended Nero in some way, and he is dead.’

‘He offended him not,’ said Pomponia. ‘How could an innocent lad like my Aulus have been guilty of treason? Let us speak no more of him. There are those for whom death is more merciful than life, and I did not come here to bewail my own bereavements.’

‘I pleaded for your boy, Pomponia—indeed, I did. I deigned to prostrate myself before Nero that he would not injure him, that he would not have him slain. Would you believe that I—I, the Empress,—have fears lest something evil should be done to my young Rufius?’

‘May Heaven protect his youth!’ said Pomponia. ‘If it will be any comfort to you I will see him, and ask him to our palace. My husband is kind to all the young, and will love him for the sake of his own lost boy. And I will take your messages to him.’

‘Thanks, Pomponia, thanks,’ said the Empress. ‘Nowhere could he be better than in your virtuous home. But why have you sought me—you to whom the Palace is justly hateful?’

‘I come,’ answered Pomponia, ‘to plead for your pity. There is not a prison in Rome which is not full of innocent men and women, called Christians. They are charged with having set fire to Rome, and with many other atrocities. Empress, they are innocent! Will you not use your influence for them? If you have ever done evil—forgive me, Poppæa, but I know not the language of falsehood, or of flattery—will you not now try to do a great deed of good?’

‘Your kindness deceives you,’ answered the Empress. ‘From all that I have heard they thoroughly deserve their fate.’

‘Your mind has been poisoned against them by their enemies the Jews. Believe me, Poppæa—for I know them well—their lives are almost the only beautiful lives spent in this wicked city.’

‘Anything I could say for them would be in vain, Pomponia. I am not as you are—would that I were!—but let me tell you what no other living being should hear from me. Since our child Claudia died, I am no longer all-powerful with Nero. I can stimulate his course in evil—a touch will do that; but I cannot turn him from any wrong on which he and Tigellinus have agreed.’

Seeing that her efforts were useless, Pomponia left her, and would have kissed her hand; but the Empress kissed her on the cheek, and said, ‘Oh, Pomponia, deign to be the friend of the hapless Poppæa. The work of her ambitious guilty dreams is already crumbling into ruins. She needs to have one friend who is not wicked.’

---

In times so oppressive the Christians who were still free could not forego the duty and support of common prayer and Holy Communion, however great might be the risk. Accustomed to hatred and persecution, they were also accustomed to precautions and secret signs, and by ways of communicating with each other unobserved and unexpected they made it known that on the next Sunday, deep in the night, they would meet in a secluded vineyard at the back of the villa of Aliturus, and that Peter of Bethsaida, the Apostle of Christ, had arrived in Rome, and would be present.

By far routes, under the curtain of darkness, they met in the vineyard, a deeply sorrowing and diminished band. But they felt reasonably secure. Aliturus was beloved by his slaves, to whom he was always generous, and he had trusted those in whom he most confided to watch on every side, and give signals by waving a torch at the slightest approach of danger. He himself went to the assembly, and, though as a catechumen he could not receive the holy mysteries, he joined in the prayers, and received the blessing of Peter, as he had received the blessing of John. Nothing could have been more comforting than the brief words of the great Apostle. His gray hair added to the venerable aspect of his advancing years; but his eye was undimmed, his cheek still ruddy with the long years of the winds of Galilee, and holy courage shone in his weather-beaten features. There was a certain fire and force in all he said which gave it an impressiveness beyond that which was contained in the words themselves. Plain and practical as was ‘the pilot of the Galilean Lake,’ there hung about him a reflection of something which elevated him above himself—as though the sunlight of Gennesareth still played around him, and the glory of Hermon shone upon his face. Everywhere among the good he commanded the deep reverence which his simplicity did not seek; and everywhere among the evil, he inspired the awe which his humble manliness might seem to deprecate. He told the Christians that he had hastened his journey to Rome, when he had heard at Corinth the frightful perils with which his beloved brethren were surrounded. Were they suffering as Christians? Then happy were they! Had not Jesus said, ‘Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved’? Only let them give no ground for the enemy to blaspheme. ‘It is the will of God, brethren,’ he said—and every syllable came home to their hearts in the deep stillness—‘that by well-doing ye put to silence the ignorance of foolish men; as free, yet not using your freedom as a pretext for vice, but as the servants of God. Christ suffered for us; let us be ready to suffer for Him. Be united, then, brethren; have compassion one for another in this dread crisis; be not afraid of their faces; be not afraid of their words; be not afraid of their terror; neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God, and the peace which passeth understanding shall stand sentry over your hearts.’

The Apostle ceased, and Cletus, who during the desperate illness of Linus was the leading presbyter, told the brethren that, from information which had reached him, a fresh edict would be immediately proclaimed, which declared Christianity to be an unlawful religion, and threatened with the worst forms of death any one who was convicted of it. Under these circumstances they could not find a securer place of meeting than the present, but they were surrounded by spies, and in spite of all caution must be prepared for the worst. And John the Beloved, from the vault of the Tullianum, had sent them his blessing, and messages of peace.