Chapter X: Part II: I (2)

"Yes, my friend, with the aid of the gods we shall accomplish it all," concluded the Emperor. "The Galileans want to convince the world that they have a monopoly of brotherly love, although it belongs to all philosophers, whatever be the gods they revere. My task in the world is to preach a new love; a love free and glad as the very sky of the Olympians!"

Julian glanced round those present, but on the faces of his dignitaries did not find what he sought. Deputations from the Christian professors of rhetoric and philosophy at this moment entered the hall. An edict forbidding Christian teachers to give instruction in classical eloquence had recently appeared. The Christian grammarians had therefore to renounce their faith or quit their schools.

Scroll in hand, one of these teachers approached the Emperor. He was a little thin man with a confused manner, bearing a strong likeness to a parrot. Two raw and awkward pupils accompanied him.

"Beloved of the gods, have pity on us!"

Julian interrupted--

"What's your name?"

"Papirian, a Roman citizen."

"Well, understand, my dear Papirian, I bear no grudge against you ... on the contrary, remain Galilean...."

The old man fell at the Emperor's feet and kissed them.

"Forty years have I been teaching grammar.... I know Homer and Hesiod better than anyone else...."

"What do you want..." asked Augustus sternly.

"Sir, I have six children!... Don't rob me of my last crust!... My pupils like me; ask them if I teach anything harmful!"

Emotion prevented Papirian from continuing his speech, and he pointed to his pupils, who, not knowing where to put their hands, stood together staring and blushing.

"No, my friends," said the Emperor gently but firmly. "The law is just. To my mind it is absurd that Christian teachers, in explaining Homer, should expound away the gods of whom Homer sang. If you believe that our wise men composed mere fables on the subject of our gods, you should go to your churches, and expound Matthew and Luke!... And note, Galileans, all is done in your own interest...."

One of the rhetoricians muttered--

"In our interest! We shall starve!"

"Do you not fear profanation by what is worse than starvation--lying wisdom? You say 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' Be, then, poor in spirit!... Perhaps you imagine that I am ignorant of your teaching? I know it better than you do! I see in the Galilean commandments depths you have never dreamed of!... But let each take his own path. Leave us our frivolous learning and philosophy, our poor literary knowledge. What have these poisoned streams to do with you? Yours is a higher wisdom! We own the earthly kingdom, and you ... the Kingdom of Heaven. That's no small thing for humble folk like you!... Dialectic and logic leads to freethinking or heresies? Be then, in good sooth, simple as children. The ignorance of the fishermen of Capernaum is above all the Platonic dialogues, is it not? All the wisdom of the Galileans is summed in the word 'Believe'! Ah, rhetoricians, if you were true Christians you would bless our edict. At this moment, it is not your souls, but your bodies which rebel; your bodies, which find sweetness in sinfulness. That is all I have to say to you, and I hope that you will learn to agree with me, and that you will find that the Roman Emperor is more anxious for your souls' salvation than you are yourselves!"

Julian calmly threaded his way through the crowd of unhappy rhetoricians, contented with his speech, but Papirian, still kneeling, tore his hair--

"Why, Queen of Heaven, dost thou suffer such things to be?" and the two scholars, seeing their master's distress, with clumsy fists brushed the tears from their eyes.

VI

Julian remembered the interminable conflicts between Orthodox and Arians under Constantius at the council of Milan, and designing to profit by that animosity, he decided to follow the example of his Christian predecessors and convoke an oecumenical council.

On one occasion, in a private conversation, he had declared that, instead of persecuting the Galileans, he wished to give them full freedom of faith, and to call back from exile Donatists, Cæcilians, Marcionists, Montanists, and other heretics banished by the councils of Constantine and Constantius. He thought that there was no better means of abolishing Christianity.

"You will see, my friends, when all the sectaries shall have returned, such strife will be kindled between these brethren, that they will begin to torture each other like birds of prey loosed from their cage into the arena of the circus. They will bring shame upon their Master's name more quickly and effectually than I could by any persecutions and martyrdoms!"

And so Julian sent into all parts of the Empire edicts authorising the banished to return. The wisest Galilean teachers were at the same time invited to come to the palace at Constantinople for a religious discussion; but the majority of those invited were unaware of the subject to be discussed, the wording of the letters being skilfully vague. Guessing some trick, many, pleading sickness, failed to present themselves.

The blue morning sky seemed dark against the dazzling whiteness of the double colonnade surrounding the court known as the Atrium of Constantine. White pigeons were fluttering here and there in the sky, with gleeful beating of wings. In the centre of the court stood the statue of Venus Callipyge, in warm and beautiful marble. The monks, passing by her, turned away, hiding their eyes, but the tender temptress remained, for all that, in their midst. Not without purpose had Julian chosen this situation for the Galilean council. The dark robes of the religious appeared blacker still, their starvation-dulled faces more meagre. Each strove to wear an air of indifference and presumption, feigning not to see his enemy at his elbow, yet casting stealthy glances of curiosity and contempt.

"Holy Mother of God, what is this? Whither are we fallen?" said the old bishop Eustace, with profound emotion. "Let me pass out, soldiers!"

"Gently, gently, my friend," answered the centurion of the lance-bearers, the barbarian Dagalaïf, politely keeping him from the door.

"I'm choking in this pit of heresy! let me pass!"

"By the will of Augustus, everybody here has come to the council," responded Dagalaïf, inflexibly keeping him back.

"But this is not a council, it is a den of thieves!"

Among the Galileans some more cheerful persons began to laugh at the provincial manners and the strong Armenian accent of Eustace, who, losing courage, quieted down, and slipped into a corner, muttering--

"Lord, Lord, how have I offended Thee?"

Evander of Nicomedia also quickly repented of having come and of having led thither brother Juventinus, a disciple of Didimus, who had but newly arrived at Constantinople.

Evander was one of the greatest dogmatists of his time; a man of profound and lucid intellect. He had lost his health, and grown prematurely old, over his books; he was almost blind, and his short-sighted eyes worn out with fatigue. Innumerable heresies besieged his brain, leaving him no sleep, or tormenting him in dreams, ever tempting him by their dread subtleties. Evander used to collect heresies, as one might collect jewels or scientific rarities, in an immense manuscript entitled _Against Heresy_. He hunted for them greedily, imagined those that might be in existence, and the better he refuted the more he was attracted towards them.

Sometimes he would entreat God to grant him simple faith, and God would refuse him simplicity.

In ordinary life he was timid, simple, and offenceless as a child. For rascals to deceive Evander was as easy as breathing, and on this score the mockers told a hundred stories against him. Plunged in doctrinal dreams, the bishop continually found himself in awkward situations. In one of these fits of abstraction he had come to this singular council, without thinking why he went thither, but attracted by the hope of lighting on a new heresy. Now his face was twitching with annoyance, and he shaded his weak eyes against the too bright rays of the sun, longing to be back amongst his books in his little twilight chamber.

Evander kept Juventinus at his side, and warned him against temptation by criticising various heresies. In the centre of the hall a vigorous old man was striding up and down. He had high cheek-bones and thick grey hair. It was the septuagenarian bishop Purpuris, recalled from exile by Julian. Neither Constantine nor Constantius had succeeded in stifling the Donatist heresy. For fifty years past streams of blood had flowed in Africa, by reason of the unjust deposition of a Donatist in favour of a Cæcilian, or of a Cæcilian in favour of a Donatist. Nor could any augury be made as to the final issue of this fratricidal strife.

Juventinus noticed that the Cæcilian bishop who was passing in front of Purpuris brushed the vestments of the Donatist with the corner of his chasuble. The latter turned fiercely round, with a growl of disgust, and, taking the stuff between two fingers, shook it several times before the eyes of everybody.

Evander informed Juventinus in a low voice that when a Cæcilian happened to enter a Donatist congregation he was hunted out and the flags touched by his feet were washed with salt water.

Behind Purpuris, dogging him step by step, walked his faithful bodyguard, an enormous half-savage African, brown-skinned, terrible, flat-nosed, and thick-lipped, the deacon Leona. He was armed with a cudgel, gripped tightly in his nervous hands. He was an Ethiopian peasant, belonging to the self-mutilating sect called Circumcellions. Weapon in hand, these sectaries would run along the high-roads offering money to passers-by, in return for destruction, adding, "Kill us, or we will kill you!" In the name of Christ the Circumcellions mutilated themselves, burned themselves, drowned themselves, but never would hang themselves, because Judas was hanged. They declared that suicide for God's glory washed all sin from the soul, and the people looked on them as martyrs. Before death, they abandoned themselves to all pleasures; ate, drank, and offered violence to women. A great number refrained from using swords, Christ having forbidden it, but on the other hand they felled heretics and pagans with huge bludgeons, "according to the Scriptures," and with consciences at ease. While spilling blood they would cry "Glory be to God!"

And the peaceful inhabitants lived more in terror of this religious cry than of war-trumpets or the roarings of a lion. The Donatists considered the Circumcellions as their guardians, and these Ethiopian peasants finding theological controversies hard to understand, the Donatists would point out beforehand those whom they were to strike according to the Scriptures.

Evander directed the attention of Juventinus on a handsome youth, whose tender and ingenuous expression seemed almost that of a young girl. He was a Caïnite.

"Blessed be our tameless brothers, Cain, Shem, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah!" preached the Caïnites. "They are seeds of high wisdom, of reason divine!... Come to us, all ye hunted, reprobate, revolted! Blessed be Judas! he alone among the apostles was initiated in the higher knowledge!... He betrayed Christ that He might die and rise again, because he knew the death of Christ would save the world! He who is initiated in our wisdom can transgress all limits, daring all, despising matter, trampling all fear under foot; and giving himself up to all sins and delight of the sense, attain that disgust for matter which is the final purity of the soul!"

"Look, Juventinus, there is a man who believes himself above archangels and seraphim," said Evander, waving his hand towards a young and sprightly Egyptian, who held himself aloof from everyone, an ironic smile on his lips, which were painted, like those of a courtesan. He was dressed in the latest Byzantine vogue, his white hands loaded with rings. His name was Cassiodorus, and he was a Valentinian. "In the Christians," affirmed the arrogant Valentinians, "there is a soul, as in animals; but there is no mind, as in us. We alone are initiated into the mysteries of the Gnosis and of the divine Plenum. It follows, therefore, that we alone are worthy to call ourselves human. All others are, as it were, pigs and dogs."

Cassiodorus would say to his disciples: "You should know everyone, but no one should understand you. Before the profane, deny the Gnosis, be dumb, and despise evidences of the gospel. Despise professions of faith and martyrdoms; love silence and mystery. Be for your enemy as invisible, elusive, inviolable, as the immaterial forces. Ordinary Christians need good actions for their salvation; but those who possess the highest knowledge of God, the Gnosis, need not perform these actions. We are the sons of light, they the sons of darkness. We fear not sin, because we know that sin is needful to the material body, and even to the immaterial soul. We are placed so high that, let our faults be what they will, we cannot err. Our heart remains chaste in the delights of matter, as pure gold keeps its brightness in the mud."

Elsewhere Juventinus saw an old man, with a hang-dog expression and a squint, the Adamite Prodick, explaining his teaching in a loud voice. He believed in restoring the innocence of the first Adam. The Adamites performed their mysteries in a church warmed like a bath and called the "Eden." Like our first ancestors, they evinced no shame in the absence of clothes, and assevered that among themselves all men and women were noted for lofty modesty, although the innocence of these paradisiac assemblies had sometimes been questioned.

At the elbow of the Adamite Prodick a woman--pale-faced, grey-haired, and proud, her eyes half-shut with fatigue--was sitting on the ground. She wore episcopal garb. She was the prophetess of the Montanists. Yellow-skinned Copts were tending her devotedly, gazing on her with solicitude, and calling her "Heavenly Dove." Consuming themselves for years in ecstasies of impossible love, they preached the duty of bringing humanity to an end, through the practice of continence. Scattered in numerous bands on the burning hills of Phrygia, near the ruins of Papusa, these pallid dreamers would remain sitting motionless, day after day, their eyes fixed on the horizon, on which the Saviour was to appear. On foggy evenings, above the grey plain, in the clouds, in rays of melting gold they would catch visions of the glory of God--the new Zion descending upon earth. Year after year they would wait, dying at last in the hope that the celestial kingdom was just about to descend upon the ruins of Papusa. Sometimes lifting her wearied eyelids, and with troubled gaze fixed in the distance, the prophetess was murmuring in Syriac--

"_Maran Atha_"--"The Lord is coming!"

And her Coptic servants bowed towards her, the better to hear.

Juventinus listened to the explanations of Evander. All this resembled some wild and torturing dream. His heart shivered, under a bitter flood of pity.

Silence was at last restored; all looks turned towards the same spot, at the opposite extremity of the court, where Julian was standing. His face was clear and firm, and he wore an air of assumed indifference His garb was the simple white chlamys of the philosophers.

"Old men and masters," said Augustus, addressing the assembly, "we have thought it well to give evidence of our indulgence and compassion to all our subjects who profess the Galilean teaching. For those who are gone astray it is better to feel compassion than hatred; better to lead the obstinate to the truth by exhortation, and in no wise by harryings, blows, or corporeal tortures. Wishing to restore peace to the world, so long troubled by religious discord, I have called you, O learnéd Galileans, together. We shall hope that under our protection you will give an example of those lofty virtues which befit your wisdom and your spiritual divinity."

So, with the easy gestures of a practised speaker, he began a speech prepared beforehand. But the benevolent words were not lacking in ironic allusion.

He made it clear he had not forgotten the stupid and coarse altercations that had taken place under Constantius, at the council of Milan. He mentioned, with an evil smile, those audacious persons who, regretting that they were no longer allowed to persecute or martyrise their brethren, had urged the ignorant populace into rebellion, poured oil on fire, and attempted to fill the world with fratricidal madness. These were the real enemies of humanity, and guilty of the greatest evil of all, namely, anarchy.

And he finished his harangue by the following unexpected words--

"We have called back from banishment your brothers, who had been hunted forth from the councils of Constantine and Constantius, because we desired to give liberty to all citizens of the Roman Empire. And for the complete suppression of discord, we confide to you, wise teachers, the duty of settling for Galileans a single and unique profession of faith. It is to this end that we have convoked you in our palace. Judge now, and authoritatively decide. In order to afford you full freedom of speech we will withdraw, and await your wise decision."

Before anyone had time to grasp the situation, or to answer this strange discourse, Julian, surrounded by his philosophic friends, left the court and disappeared.

Everybody was dumb. Someone uttered a long sigh, and in the general silence the beating of pigeons' wings and the rippling of the fountain alone were audible. Suddenly, on the raised marble daïs, which had served as tribune for Julian, appeared the kindly old man at whose provincial bearing and Armenian accent everybody had laughed.

His face was red, his eyes burning with vehemence. The Emperor's speech had offended the old bishop. Filled with fearless religious zeal, Eustace advanced towards the members of the council--

"Fathers and brothers," he exclaimed, and his voice was so stern and unshaken that no one thought of laughing at it--"Fathers and brothers, let us part in peace! He who has called us here, to seduce and to insult us, knows neither the canons of the Church nor the rules of the councils. He hates even the name of Jesus! Let us not be a sport to our enemies, let us restrain all angry words! I entreat you, in the name of the eternal God, let us separate in silence!"

He pronounced these words in a loud and ringing voice, his eyes fixed on a raised gallery, curtained by purple hangings. The Emperor, surrounded by his Hellenist friends, had just appeared there. A murmur of fright and astonishment ran through the assembly. Julian gazed at Eustace, but the old man sustained his gaze. The Emperor's face grew dark.

At that moment the Donatist Purpuris brutally thrust off the bishop and took his place on the tribune.

"Do not listen to him," cried Purpuris; "do not let us separate, in scorn of the will of Augustus! The Cæcilians bear a grudge against him, because he has delivered us."

"No, in all truth, no, my brothers!" protested Eustace.

"Leave us, ye accursed! We are not your brothers! We are the wheat-ears of God--you the straw destined for the burning!..." And waving his hand towards the apostate Emperor Purpuris continued in a solemn tone, as if chanting a nuptial song--

"Behold our saviour! Look on him!... Glory, glory, to the most compassionate and learned Augustus!... Thou shalt trample on the snake and the reptile! Thou shalt conquer the lion, for the angels watch over thee in all thy doings.... Hail!"

The congregation became unsettled. Some declared that the advice of Eustace must be followed. Others asked to be heard, not wishing to lose the opportunity of expounding their doctrines before a general religious council. Faces kindled and voices rose.

"Let a Cæcilian enter one of our churches now" exulted Purpuris, "and we'll place our hands on his head, not to choose him as our shepherd, but to crack his skull!"

Many forgot the purpose of the meeting and engaged in subtle discussions, seeking converts. The Basilidian, Triphon, who hailed from Egypt, surrounded by curious hearers, exhibited a transparent chrysolith amulet, bearing the mysterious word "Abraxa."

"He who shall understand the meaning of the word _Abraxa_," Triphon was saying to the group around him, "shall receive all freedom, shall become an immortal, and, tasting all sins, be sullied by none. _Abraxa_ represents by letters the number of the mountains in heaven, three hundred and sixty-five. Above the three hundred and sixty-five celestial spheres, above the hierarchies of angels and archangels, there is a certain Nothingness, nameless, and more beautiful than any light, a motionless and sterile Nothingness...."

"The motionless and sterile nothingness is in your own stupid head!" growled an Arian bishop, striding straight up to Triphon.

The Gnostic, according to his custom, became silent, locking his lips in a contemptuous smile, and raising a forefinger--

"Wisdom! Wisdom!" he ejaculated, and vanished in the crowd.

The prophetess of Papusa, among her anxious Copts, stood up, terrible, pale, half-swooning, and groaned, as if her troubled eyes saw nothing, as if her ears heard nothing--

"_Maran Atha_"--"The Lord is coming!"

The disciples of the youth Epiphanes, a Pagan demi-god or Christian martyr, worshipped in the oratories of Cephalonia, were declaiming brotherhood and equality--

"There are no laws but these: Destroy all; let all be in common--women, lands, riches, like earth, air, and sun!"

The Ophites, serpent-worshippers, raised above their heads a cross, round which a tame adder was coiling--

"The wisdom of the Serpent," they said, "gives man a knowledge of good and evil; behold the saviour, Ophiomorphos, the serpentiform! Fear nothing! Hearken to him! Taste the forbidden fruit, and ye shall be even as gods!"

A perfumed and curled Marcosianist, lifting on high a crystal cup full of water with the skilful gestures of a juggler, invited curiosity--

"Look at this miracle! the water's going to boil and be turned into blood!"

Colabasians were there, counting their fingers with inconceivable celerity, and demonstrating that all the numbers of Pythagoras, every mystery of heaven and earth, were comprised in the letters of the Greek alphabet--

"Alpha, Omega--the beginning and the end, and between them the Trinity; Beta, Gamma, Delta--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! You see how simple it is!"

Fabionites, gluttonous Carpocratians, debauched Barbelonites stood up, preaching such follies that hearers possessing a vestige of morality put their fingers in their ears. Many strove to move their audiences by the attractive force over the imagination possessed by madness and monstrosity. Every man was certain of his own gospel. Yet all were enemies. Even the minute sect, hidden in remote provinces of Africa, the Rogationists, were certain that Christ returning upon earth would find the true comprehension of the Gospel only amongst themselves, in a few Mauritanian villages, and nowhere else.

Evander of Nicomedia, forgetting Juventinus, could scarcely scribble down the new heresies on his tablets fast enough, happy as a collector who has lit upon a new set of trinkets.

And meantime, in the upper gallery, the young Emperor, surrounded by his white-robed philosophic friends, was gazing down upon the maddened tumult with malign satisfaction. The Pythagorean Proclus, Nymphidian, Priscus, Ædesius, old Iamblicus, the pious bishop Hekobolis, were at his side. They neither laughed nor jested. Their faces remained almost impassive and their attitude a becoming one; only from time to time across their closed lips flitted a furtive and pitying smile. From the shadow of the purple hangings they looked down on the spectacle, as gods must regard the hostilities of men, or circus-lovers the beasts of the arena. It was indeed a banquet for Hellenic sages.

In the midst of the general confusion the effeminate young Caïnite leapt on the tribune and shouted, with such conviction in his voice that everybody turned round, overwhelmed at the impiety--

"Blessed be rebels against God! Blessed be Cain, Shem, Judas, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah! Blessed be their brother, the Angel of Infinite Darkness!"

The bishop Purpuris, who for an hour past had not been able to get a hearing, to relieve his feelings rushed at the Caïnite and raised his sinewy hand to close the lips of the blasphemer.

A crowd dragged him back.

"Father, it is unbecoming!"

"Let me be, let me be! I will not endure such abomination," roared Purpuris; "take this, seed of Cain!"

And the bishop spat in his face.

A general fray followed, which would have enlarged into a battle if Roman soldiers had not intervened. These parted the Galileans, with the words--

"You must not act so in this place! Have you not got enough churches to fight each other in?"

Purpuris was dragged off, and ordered to quit the atrium.

He called out--

"Leona, deacon Leona!"

The deacon thrust the soldiers aside, felled two of them to the earth, freed Purpuris, and set the terrible mace of the Circumcellions whirling above the heads of the heresiarchs.

"Glory to God!" shouted the African, seeking a victim.

Suddenly the club sank out of his loosened hands. All stood petrified. Then a sharp cry, uttered by one of the Coptic servants of the prophetess of Papusa, rent the general hush. Kneeling, his face transfigured by fear, he pointed to the tribune--

"The Devil! The Devil! Look at the Prince of Evil!"

It was Julian the Emperor, on the marble daïs above the crowd, in his white chlamys, his arms crossed on his breast. Terrible glee burned in his eyes; and to many indeed, at that moment, the recreant prince appeared dreadful as Satan, his brother.

"Is this how you fulfil the law of love, Galileans?" he said to the dumbfounded assembly. "How much your mercy and forgiveness are worth!... Verily the wild animals have more compassion than brethren like you! In the words of your Master: "Woe upon you, law-makers, because you have taken the key of the house, and, hindering others from entering, have not entered in yourselves! Woe to you, Pharisees!..."

And enjoying their silence he added after a pause--

"If you cannot rule yourselves, Galileans, I say to you, in order to prevent greater misfortunes, you shall now obey, and submit yourselves to me!"

VII

Just as Julian, leaving the Atrium of Constantine, was descending the great flight of steps and proceeding to sacrifice in the direction of the little Temple of Tyche, the goddess of happiness, near the palace, the old bishop Maris, blind, white-haired, and bent double, approached him, led by a child. A great crowd had gathered at the foot of the staircase. With a solemn gesture, the bishop stopped the Emperor and said to him--

"Listen, peoples, tribes, young and old, all that be upon the earth, listen to me! And ye powers above, Angels, who will blot out soon this martyr-maker! It is not the Amorite king who shall fall, nor Ogyges, King of Thebes, but the Serpent, the Great Spirit, the revolted Assyrian, the common enemy, who shall cause a multitude of threats and violences upon earth! Hear, O heaven, and inspire the earth!... And thou also, Cæsar, listen to my prophecy, for to-day, by my mouth, God speaks!... Thy days are numbered! Soon wilt thou perish! Like dust lifted by the tempest, like the hiss of an arrow, like the noise of thunder, like the swiftness of light! The spring of Castaly shall be dried up forever, and a mockery to us that pass by! Apollo shall become again a worthless idol, Daphne a tree bewept in fable, and the grass shall grow in your temples overturned. O! abominations of Sennacherib! so we have foretold it. We Galileans--despised of the earth--adorers of the Crucified--ignorant disciples of the fishermen of Capernaum--we, weakened by long fasting, half-dead, who struggle in vain, we nevertheless shall overcome you!... Unfold to me, Imperial sophist, your speeches, your syllogisms, your antitheses; and we shall see how, on our side, ignorant fishermen can speak!

"David shall chant again--David, who with his strange pebbles from the brook slew Goliath. Thanks be to Thee, O Lord! the Church to-day is purified by persecution! O pure virgins, kindle your torches, array the bishop with a fair robe, for our ornament is the robe of Christ!"

The old man almost chanted the last words as in a liturgy, and the crowd, with emotion, murmured approval. Someone cried out aloud--

"Amen!"

"Have you finished, old man?" asked Julian, calmly.

The Emperor had listened to the long speech imperturbably, as if it had been addressed to someone else.

"Here are my hands, executioners ... bind them!... Lead me to death!... Lord, I accept Thy crown!"

The bishop raised his faded eyes skyward.

"Do you imagine, brave man, that I shall send you to execution?" said Julian. "You are mistaken. I shall bid you go in peace. In my heart there is no anger whatever against you...."

"What is he saying?" the crowd asked each other.

"Tempt me not! I will not deny Christ. Hence, enemy of mankind! Headsman, lead me to death!... I am ready...."

"There are no headsmen here, my friend; they are only simple good folk, like yourself. Set your mind at rest. My existence is more wearisome and ordinary than you imagine. I have heard you with curiosity, for I admire eloquence, even when it is Galilean!... And how much there was in it ... the abomination of Sennacherib, the king of the Amorites, the stones of David and Goliath! The style of your discourse can scarcely be called simple. Read our Demosthenes, Plato, and particularly Homer. These were really simple in their words as children, or gods. Yes, Galileans, learn the greatness of calm from them!... God, remember, was not in the tempest but in the silence. That is all my lesson. That is all my vengeance, since vengeance you must have from me...."

"May God strike thee blind, renegade!" began Maris.

"God's wrath will not give thee back sight by striking me blind!" answered Julian.

"I thank God for my blindness!" exclaimed the old man; "it does not allow me to see your damned face, Apostate!"

"What spitefulness! in so frail a body! You are always speaking of humility and love, Galileans; and yet what hate is in every one of your words! I have just quitted an assemblage where the Fathers of the Church were ready to fly at each other like wild beasts. And now comes this unbridled speech of yours! Why this hatred? Am I not your brother? Oh, if you knew at this moment how kindly my heart feels towards you! May the Olympians soften your cruel and suffering soul, poor blind man! Go in peace, and remember that the Galileans are not the only men who can pardon!..."

"Believe him not, brethren!... It is a trick, a snare of the Serpent. God of Israel, have no mercy!"

Paying no attention to the curses of the old man, Julian, in his white tunic, made his way through the crowd with the haughty bearing of one of the old sages.

VIII

It was a stormy night. At rare intervals a weak moon-ray darted between hurrying black clouds and mingled itself strangely with the throbbings of lightning. A warm salt-laden wind was blowing violently. On the left shore of the Bosphorus a horseman was approaching a lonely ruin. In immemorial Trojan times this fortification had been used as a watch-tower. It was now little more than a heap of stones and half-demolished walls, overgrown by tall grass. But at its foot a small chamber still served as shelter to shepherds and poor travellers.

Tethering his horse under a dismantled doorway, and brushing through the burdock-leaves, the rider knocked at a low door--

"It is I, Meroë! Open!..."

An old Egyptian woman opened the door and admitted him to the interior of the tower. The traveller came near a torch which lighted up his face. He was Julian the Emperor.

The two went out, the old woman, who knew the place well, leading Julian by the hand. Parting the briers and thistles she revealed a low entry in one face of a little ravine in the cliff, and went down the steps within. The sea lay near, and the shock of the waves below made the cliff tremble, but arched rockwalls completely sheltered them from the wind. The Egyptian halted--

"Here, my lord, is a lamp, and the key. You must turn it twice. The monastery-door is open. If you meet the guardian brother, fear nothing; I have given him money. Only make no mistake; it is in the upper passage, the third cell to the left."

Julian opened the door and took a long time descending a steep slope of huge stone-hewn steps. The tunnel soon became a passage, so narrow that two men could not pass each other in it. This secret way joined the watch-tower on the opposite bank of the chasm with a new Christian monastery.

Julian emerged high above the sea, but still between steep cliffs washed by the tide. He began to climb a narrow rocky stair by daylight. Arrived at the summit he found a brick wall, which he climbed with some difficulty. He found himself in the little cloistered garden.

He penetrated farther into a small court, in which the walls were hung with wild roses. The air was full of perfume. The shutters of one of the windows on the ground floor were not closed from within. Julian gently opened them, and entered through the window. A gust of imprisoned air filled his nostrils with odours of moisture, incense, mice, medicinal herbs, and fresh apples, with which the cautious nuns had filled their stores.

The Emperor went along a corridor into which opened two rows of doors. He counted the third to the left and softly opened it. An alabaster lamp faintly lighted the cell. He made his breathing as noiseless as possible.

A woman, dressed in the dark robe of a nun, lay stretched upon a low bed. She must have fallen asleep during prayer, too weary to undress. Long lashes shadowed the pale cheeks, and the brows wore a slight majestic frown, like the frown of the dead.

Julian recognised Arsinoë.

She had greatly changed. Her hair alone had remained unaltered. It was still golden brown at its roots, and at its ends pale yellow, like honey standing in the sun.

The eyelids trembled. She sighed.

Before Julian's remembrance arose that proud body of the young Amazon bathed in light, dazzling as the mellow Parthenon marbles, and, with a gesture of irresistible love, Julian stretched out his arms to the nun sleeping under the shadow of the tall black cross. He murmured--

"Arsinoë!"

The girl opened her eyes, and gazed at him without astonishment or fear, as if she had known he would come. But returning to herself, she shivered, and passed her hand over her forehead.

He came near her--

"Fear nothing; at a word from you I will go away."

"Why have you come?"

"I wished to know if indeed...."

"What matters it, Julian? We cannot understand each other."

"Do you really believe in 'Him,' Arsinoë?"

She made no answer and lowered her eyes.

"Do you remember our night at Athens?" continued the Emperor. "Do you remember then how you tempted me, the Galilean monk, as now I am tempting you? The old pride, the old force, are still on your face, Arsinoë, and not humility, O slave of the Galilean! Tell me the truth."

"I wish for power," she said in a low tone.

"Power! Then you still remember our compact--our alliance?" exclaimed Julian joyfully.

She shook her head, with a sad smile--

"Oh no! Power over the people is not worth the labour of obtaining it. _You_ have learned that!"

"And this is why you go forth into the desert?"

"Yes ... and for freedom's sake."

"Arsinoë, as of old, you care only for yourself!"

"I wish to love others as 'He' commands, but I cannot. I detest them, and I detest myself!"

"Then it is better not to live!"

"One must conquer oneself," she said slowly. "One must conquer in oneself not only the distaste for death but also distaste for life, which is very difficult, because a life like mine is much more terrible than death. But if one succeeds in self-conquest to the end, Life and Death become as nothing, and a greater liberty is gained!"

Her fine brows were knit into a frown of indomitable will.

Julian looked at her in despair.

"What have they made of you?" he murmured. "You are all, all, executioners and martyrs! Why do you keep torturing yourselves? Do you not see that within your soul there is nothing but hate and despair?"

She fixed on him eyes full of anger--

"Why did you come here? I never summoned you. Go!... What matters it to me what you think! My own thoughts and sufferings are enough for me to bear. There is an abyss between us which none living can cross over. You tell me that I do not believe.... That is precisely the cause of my self-hatred. I do not believe, but I wish to believe. Do you understand? I wish and I shall believe. I shall force myself. I shall torture my flesh--dry it up by hunger and thirst, make it more unfeeling than stones. I will tame my intelligence, I will slay it, I will kill it, because it is the Devil, and more seducing than any passion. That shall be my last victory, and the best, because it will set me free. Then I shall see if anything will dare revolt in me and say, 'I do not believe!'"

She stretched her joined hands heavenward, with a suppliant gesture--

"Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, where art Thou? Hear me, and pardon me!"

Julian flung himself on his knees before her, drew her to himself, and his triumphant eyes sparkled--

"O girl, I see now, you are not able to leave us! You willed it, but willed the impossible! Come! Come now with me! To-morrow you shall be the spouse of the Roman Emperor, mistress of the world! I have entered this place like a thief; I shall go out with my prey like a lion! What a victory over the Galileans! Who can hinder us? We will dare everything, and walk as gods!"

The face of Arsinoë became sad and tranquil. She looked at Julian pityingly, without thrusting him away--

"Unhappy man!... You are unhappy as I. You yourself know not whither you wish to lead me. On whom do you reckon? In whom put your trust? Your gods are decaying, dead.... I will flee into the desert, far from contaminating fables, far from this terrifying smell of rottenness. Leave me.... I can aid you in nothing.... Go...."

Wrath and passion shone in Julian's eyes; but more calmly still, and so pityingly that his very heart shivered and froze as under the blow of deadly insult, she went on--

"Why do you delude yourself? Are _you_ not wavering, perishable, as we all are? Think: what means this charity of yours? These guest-houses--these sermons of the sacrificial priests? All that is new, unknown to the ancient heroes of Hellas.... Julian! Julian! are _your_ gods the ancient Olympians, luminous and pitiless--terrible sons of the azure--rejoicing in the blood of victims and in the pains of mortals? Human blood and suffering were the very nectar of the old gods! Yours, seduced by the faith of the fishermen of Capernaum, are sick and humble weaklings, full of compassion for men.... But that pity is mortal to your gods!

"Yes," she continued implacably; "you are sick, you are all too weak for your wisdom! That is your penalty, Hellenists of too late a day. You have strength neither for good nor for evil. You are neither day nor night, nor life nor death; your heart wavers, here and there. You have left one bank, and cannot reach the other. You believe, and you do not believe. You betray yourselves, you hesitate; you will, and you do not will, because you do not know on what to set your will. They alone are strong who, seeing one truth, are blind to all other. They will conquer us--us who are wise and weak!"

Julian raised his head with an effort, as if waking from some evil dream, and said--

"You are unjust, Arsinoë. My soul does not know fear, nor my will weakness. The forces of destiny are leading me. If it is written that I shall die too soon--and I know it is so--my death shall not be unworthy of the sight of the gods. Farewell. I bear you no anger, because now to me you are as one dead!"

IX

Above the marble portico of the guest-house of Apollo, built for the poor, for pilgrims and the disabled, ran these letters in Homeric Greek along the pediment:

"_Strangers and beggars are all sent by Zeus,
And dear to them is the little we give._"[11]

[11] _Odyssey_, xiv. 57, 58.

The Emperor went into the inner court. A graceful Ionic colonnade ran round it. The hospice had formerly been a palæstra or wrestling-ground. It was a soft and sunny afternoon, before sunset, but a heavy atmosphere came to the portico from the inner rooms.

There, massed together, children and old men were crawling about, Christians and Pagans, the sound and the sick; folk disabled, deformed, enfeebled, dropsical, consumptive; folk bearing on their faces the stamp of every vice and every form of suffering.

A half-naked old woman, with a tanned skin like the colour of dead leaves, was rubbing her sore, pockmarked back against the pure marble of a pillar.

In the middle of the court stood a statue of the Pythian Apollo, bow in hand, quiver on shoulder. At the foot of the statue was seated a wrinkled monster who seemed neither young nor old. His arms were huddled round his knees, his head rested on one side; and swinging himself from right to left with a stupid air, he kept declaiming in a monotone--

"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy upon us, the lost, lost, lost!"

At last the principal inspector, Marcus Ausonius, appeared, pale and trembling--

"Most wise and merciful Cæsar, will you not deign to come into my house? The atmosphere is hurtful here ... there are contagious maladies...."

"No, I am not afraid. Are you the inspector?"

Ausonius, keeping in his breath in order not to breathe the vitiated air, bowed low.

"Are bread and wine distributed every day?"

"Yes, as you have ordered, divine Augustus...."

"What filth!"

"They are Galileans. To wash, is for them a sin. It's impossible to make them take baths."

"Bring me the account-books!" ordered Julian.

The inspector fell on his knees, and for long could not utter a word. Finally he faltered--

"Sire ... everything is in due order, ... but unfortunately ... the books have been burnt...."

The Emperor's brow clouded.

At that moment, cries arose from the crowd of sick persons--

"A miracle! A miracle!... Look, the paralytic can walk!"

Julian turned round, and saw a tall man, wild with joy, stretching out his hands towards him with a look full of simple faith.

"I believe! I believe!" cried the paralytic; "I believe thou art no man, but a god descended upon earth. Touch me, heal me, Cæsar!"

All the halt and maimed were shouting--

"A miracle! Glory to Apollo! Glory to the Healer!"

"Come to me," called the sick, "say a word, and I shall be cured!"

Julian turned, and looked at the god in the light of sunset, and for the first time all going on in the hospice seemed to him a sacrilege. The clear eyes of the Olympian should look down no more on these monstrosities. Julian felt a wild desire to purify the ancient palæstra, to rid it of all Pagan and Galilean vermin, to sweep out the whole human dunghill. Oh, had Apollo lived again, how his eyes would have lightened, his arrows flown and purged the place of the paralytic and infirm!

Julian left the hospice of Apollo in haste. The Emperor had understood perfectly that his information was correct and that the principal inspector was a peculator. But such fatigue and disgust rose in his heart that he had no courage to push further his investigation of the rascality.

It was late when he returned to the palace. He gave an order that he would receive no one, and withdrew to the terrace which looked out on the Bosphorus.

Previous to his visit to the guest-house, the whole day had worn away in wearisome details of business, legal decisions, and the audit of accounts. A great number of instances of peculation had been brought to light, and allowed the Emperor to see that even his best friends were deceiving him. All these philosophers, these rhetoricians, poets, panegyrists, were robbing the treasury, and robbing it just as much as had the eunuchs and Christian bishops in the reign of Constantius. Guest-houses, alms-houses for philosophers, inns of Apollo and Aphrodite, were so many pretexts for gain by the cunning, and the more so that not only to Galileans, but also to Pagans themselves, these institutions seemed a fantastic notion, even a sacrilege, on the part of Cæsar.

Julian felt his body aching under ceaseless and profitless fatigue. Extinguishing the lamp, he lay down upon his narrow camp-bed.

"I must reflect in quiet," he said to himself, gazing at the nocturnal sky. But the power of reflection did not come. A great star was shining in the darkened ether and Julian through half-closed eyelids looked at it. Coldly, coldly, the star's image sank into his heart.

X

At Antioch the great, the capital of Syria, not far from Syngon, the principal street, splendid hot baths, _Thermæ_, stood just at the meeting of four roads.

These baths were fashionable and expensive. Crowds of clients used to go there to learn the last gossip of the town. Between the _apodyterium_, the room for undressing, and the _frigidarium_, or room for cooling and rest, lay a fine hall with mosaic floor and marble walls; this was the hot-air bath, the _sudatorium_ or _laconicum_.

From adjoining halls came laughs of the bathers and the noise of powerful jets of water falling into huge basins. Naked slaves ran hither and thither, jostling one another and opening jars of perfume.

At Antioch bathing was considered neither as an amusement nor as a necessity, but as the principal charm and most varied art of life. The capital of Syria was moreover renowned, the world over, for the abundance, the exquisite taste, and the purity of its waters. A full bath or a full bucket seemed empty, so transparent were the streams from the aqueducts of Antioch.

Through the warm and milky vapours of the sudatorium could be caught glimpses of the red and naked bodies of notable citizens. Some were half-reclining, others seated. Some were being rubbed over with oil; all, with the utmost solemnity, were talking together, while they perspired. The beauty of a pair of ancient statues, an Antinous and an Adonis, placed in niches overhead, threw into still greater prominence the hideousness of the living.

A fat old man came out with a majestic, albeit misshapen, body. He was the merchant Bouzaris, whose finger and thumb controlled the whole of the corn-markets of Antioch. A sprightly young man was respectfully supporting him under the arm. Although both were naked, it was easy to distinguish at a glance which was patron and which client.

"Let the vapour be turned on me," commanded Bouzaris, in his hoarse voice. From the profundity of his tones could be calculated the prodigious number of millions which he commanded on the market.

Two metal taps were turned, and the warm steam, escaping with a hiss from the vent-hole, enveloped the figure of the merchant in thick mist. He stood in the middle of the white cloud, like some squat and monstrous god in process of apotheosis, tunding his red and fleshy belly like a drum.

Sitting hard by in a prominent place was Marcus Ausonius, the former inspector of the guest-house. Huddled up, crouching on his heels by the massive side of the merchant, the meagre little man resembled a featherless and shivering chicken.

Julius Mauricus, the scoffer, was there, trying to make his dry nervous body perspire. He was lean as a stick.

Garguillus, too, was stretched on the mosaic floor, still well-fed, soft as gelatine, enormous in bulk as the carcass of a slain boar. A Paphlagonian slave, panting under the protracted effort, was scrubbing the blubber of his back with a piece of damp cloth; while the now wealthy poet, Publius Porphyrius, was staring in a melancholy manner at his own gouty legs.

"Do you know, my friends?" he asked, "about the letter from the white bulls to the Roman Emperor?"

"No. Tell it."

"One line only: 'Conquer Persia, and we are doomed!'"

"Is that all?"

"What more was there to say?"

Undulations of laughter heaved the body of Garguillus.

"By Pallas, it's telling and to the point! If the Emperor comes back in triumph from Persia, he'll offer in sacrifice to the Olympians such masses of white bulls that these animals will get rarer than the bull Apis!... Slave! Rub the small of my back, the small of my back!... harder, harder!"

And, in turning over, his body made the sound, against the mosaic floor, of a great bundle of wet linen flopped on the ground.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Julius, "they say from the Isle of Taprobane, in the Indies, they're sending great numbers of very rare white birds and big wild swans from Scythia. All that for the gods! The Roman Emperor is fattening the Olympians. It's true they have had time to get hungry since the days of Constantine!"

"The gods guzzle while we starve!" cried Garguillus. "It's now three days since one has been able to get a decent Colchis pheasant in the market, or even a tolerably eatable fish."

"He's a greenhorn and an innocent!" remarked the corn-merchant.

Everybody turned round respectfully.

"A greenhorn, I tell you!" resumed Bouzaris. "I say that if you pinched the nose of your Roman Cæsar you'd find nothing but milk in him like a babe of two weeks!... He wanted to lower the price of bread; forbade us to sell it at the price we set on it! And so he brought four hundred thousand measures of wheat from Egypt...."

"Well, did you lower the price?"

"Listen! I stirred up the wheat-sellers. We closed the shops. Better let our grain rot than give in. So the people ate the Egyptian corn. We won't give him ours. He's made his cake, let him eat it!"

Bouzaris triumphantly clapped his palms on his belly.

"That's enough steam! Now pour!" ordered the merchant.

And the handsome curly-headed slave, who resembled Antinous, unsealed over his head a slender amphora containing the costliest Arabian cassia. The aromatics flowed over the red sweating body. Bouzaris spread the thick scented drops over himself with satisfaction, and then wiped his gross fingers in the golden hair of the slave standing with bowed head before him.

"Your excellency has quite rightly observed that the Emperor was nothing more than a greenhorn," said the parasite friend, with a profound bow. "He has recently published a pamphlet aimed at the inhabitants of Antioch and entitled, _The Beard-hater_, in which, in response to the insults of the populace, he says in effect--'You laugh at my beard and my coarseness of manners. Laugh as much as you please! I, too, laugh at myself. But I don't want trials, informers, prisons, or punishments!' Now is that worthy of a Roman Emperor? Is it dignified?"

"The Cæsar Constantius of pious memory," declared Bouzaris, "can't be spoken of in the same breath with Julian! In his clothes, in his bearing, one could see at once he was a Cæsar. But this one, God forgive me, is only an abortion of the gods, a lame monkey, a bandy-legged bear who hangs about the streets unshaven, uncombed, unwashed, with stains of ink on his fingers. Why it makes me sick to see him!... Books, learning, philosophy.... Ah, we'll make you pay dear for all that! A ruler mustn't laugh with his people! He must keep them in hand. Once let the people slip, and he'll never get a grip on them again...."

Then Marcus Ausonius, who up to that time had been mute, murmured thoughtfully--

"Well, one can forgive most things, but why does he take away the last remaining joy in life--the circus, and the fights of gladiators? My friends, the sight of blood causes, and will always cause, an inexplicable pleasure to man.... 'Tis a sacred and mysterious enjoyment. There's no gaiety without bloodshed, no greatness on the earth. The smell of blood is the smell of Rome!"

The last scion of the Ausonii glanced naïvely round at his hearers. Sometimes he looked like a boy, sometimes like an old man. The swollen torso of Garguillus heaved on the floor. Raising his head, he glanced at Ausonius.

"Neatly put. Smell of blood, smell of Rome!... Go on, Marcus, you're inspired to-day...."

"I say what I feel, my dear fellows. Blood is so pleasant to man that even the Christians can't do without it. They want to purify the world through bloodshed. Julian is making a great mistake. In taking away the circus from the people he's robbing them of their chief enjoyment, which is naturally sanguinary. The populace would have pardoned almost anything; but it won't pardon that!"