Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213

The most tolerable portion of the jail consisted of the outer court, with its cells, and a hall for shelter in cold and wet weather. This was in fact the common atrium on an enlarged scale and without its luxuries. But there was another part of the prison entitled the robur, after the Tullian prison at Rome. This consisted of one large vaulted chamber devoid of window, accessible only by the door, through the interstices of which alone light and air could enter. It derived its name from oak beams planted against the walls, to which were attached chains, by means of which prisoners were fastened to them. In the center of the floor was a round hole, with or without a low breastwork, and this hole communicated with an abyss sometimes given the Greek name of barathrum, with conical dome, the opening being in the center. This pit was deep in mire. Into it flowed the sewage of the prison, and the outfall was secured by a grating.7 The title of barathrum sometimes accorded to this lower portion of the dungeon was derived from a swamp near Athens, in which certain malefactors were smothered.

When Jeremiah was accused before King Zedekiah of inciting the people to come to terms with the Chaldeans, he was put into such a place as this.

“Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah, that was in the court of the prison, and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire; so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.”

When Paul and Silas were at Philippi, they were imprisoned in the superior portion of the robur, where were the stocks, whereas the other prisoners were in the outer portion, that was more comfortable, and where they had some freedom of movement.

Baudillas turned gray with horror at the thought of being consigned to the awful abyss. His courage failed him and he lost power in his knees, so that he was unable to sustain himself, and the jailer’s assistants were constrained to carry him.

As he was conveyed through the outer court, those who were awaiting their trial crowded around him, to clasp and kiss his hand, to encourage him to play the man for Christ, and to salute him reverently as a martyr.

“I am no martyr, good brethren,” said the deacon in a feeble voice. “I am not called to suffer for the faith, I have not been asked to sacrifice; I am to be thrown down into the pit, because I cannot reveal what I do not know.”

One man, turning to his fellow, said, in a low tone: “If I were given my choice, I would die by fire rather than linger in the pit.”

“Will he die there of starvation?” asked another, “or will he smother in the mire?”

“If he be sentenced to be retained there till he tells what he does not know, he must die there, it matters not how.”

“God deliver me from such a trial of my faith! I might win the crown through the sword, but a passage to everlasting life through that foul abyss – that would be past endurance.”

As Baudillas was supported through the doorway into the inner prison, he turned his head and looked at the brilliant sky above the yard wall. Then the door was shut and barred behind him. All, however, was not absolutely dark, for there was a gap, through which two fingers could be thrust, under the door, and the sun lay on the threshold and sent a faint reflection through the chamber.

Nevertheless, on entering from the glare of the sun, it seemed to Baudillas at first as though he were plunged in darkness, and it was not for some moments that he could distinguish the ledge that surrounded the well-like opening. The jailer now proceeded to strike a light, and after some trouble and curses, as he grazed his knuckles, he succeeded in kindling a lamp. He now produced a rope, and made a loop at one end about a short crosspole.

“Sit astride on that,” said he curtly.

Baudillas complied, and with his hands grasped the cord.

Then slowly he was lowered into the pitch blackness below. Down – down – down he descended, till he plashed into the mire.

The jailer holding the lamp, looked down and called to him to release the rope. The deacon obeyed. There he stood, looking up, watching the dancing pole as it mounted, then saw the spark of the lamp withdrawn; heard the retreating steps of the jailer, then a clash like thunder. The door of the robur was shut. He was alone at the bottom of this fetid abyss.

Then he said, and tears coursed down his cheeks as he said it: “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit – in the place of darkness and in the grave.”

CHAPTER XV

“REVEALED UNTO BABES”

On account of the death in the family of the timber merchant, Æmilius left the house and took a room and engaged attendance in the cottage of a cordwainer a little way off. The house was clean, and the good woman was able to cook him a meal not drowned in oil nor rank with garlic.

He was uneasy because Callipodius did not return, and he obtained no tidings concerning Perpetua. The image of this maiden, with a face of transparent purity, out of which shone the radiance of a beautiful soul, haunted his imagination and fluttered his heart. He walked by the side of the flooded tract of land, noticed that the water was falling, and looked, at every turn he took, in the direction of Nemausus, expecting the arrival of his client, but always in vain.

He did at length see a boat approach, towards evening, and he paced the little landing-place with quick strides till it ran up against it; and then only, to his disappointment, did he see that Callipodius was not there. Castor disembarked.

On the strength of his slight acquaintance Æmilius greeted the bishop. The suspense was become unendurable. He asked to be granted a few words in private. To this Castor gladly consented.

He, the head of the Christian community, had remained unmolested. He belonged to a senatorial family in the town, and had relations among the most important officials. The duumvir would undoubtedly leave him alone unless absolutely obliged to lay hands on him. Nemausus was divided into two towns, the Upper and the Lower, each with its own water-supply, its own baths, and each distinct in social composition.

The lower town, the old Gallic city, that venerated the hero-founder of the same name as the town, was occupied by the old Volcian population and by a vast number of emancipated slaves of every nationality, many engaged in trade and very rich. These freedmen were fused into one “order,” as it was termed, that of the Liberti.

The upper town contained the finest houses, and was inhabited by the Roman colonists, by some descendants of the first Phocean settlers, and by such of the old Gaulish nobility as had most completely identified themselves with their conquerors. These had retained their estates and had enriched themselves by taking Government contracts.

Such scions of the old Gaulish houses had become fused by marriage and community of interest with the families of the first colonists, and they affected contempt for the pure-blooded old aristocracy who had sunk into poverty and insignificance in their decayed mansions in Lower Nemausus.

Of late years, slowly yet surely, the freedmen who had amassed wealth had begun to invade superior Nemausus, had built themselves houses of greater magnificence and maintained an ostentatious splendor that excited the envy and provoked the resentment of the old senatorial and knightly citizens.

The great natural fountain supplied the lower town with water, but was situated at too low a level for the convenience of the gentry of Upper Nemausus, who had therefore conveyed the spring water of Ura from a great distance by tunneling mountains and bridging valleys, and thus had furnished themselves with an unfailing supply of the liquid as necessary to a Roman as was the air he breathed. Thus rendered independent of the natural fountain at the foot of the rocks in Lower Nemausus, those living in the higher town affected the cult of the nymph Ura, and spoke disparagingly of the god of the old town; whereas the inferior part of the city clung tenaciously to the divine Nemausus, whose basin, full of unfailing water, was presented to their very lips and had not to be brought to them from a distance by the engineering skill of men and at a great cost.

Devotion to the god of the fountain in Lower Nemausus was confined entirely to the inhabitants of the old town, and was actually a relic of the old Volcian religion before the advent of the colonists, Greek and Roman. It had maintained itself and its barbarous sacrifice intact, undisturbed.

No victim was exacted from a family of superior Nemausus. The contribution was drawn from among the families of the native nobility, and it was on this account solely that the continuance of the septennial sacrifice had been tolerated.

Already, however, the priesthood was becoming aware that a strong feeling was present that was averse to it. The bulk of the well-to-do population had no traditional reverence for the Gaulish founder-god, and many openly spoke of the devotion of a virgin to death as a rite that deserved to be abolished.

From the cordwainer Æmilius had heard of the mutilation of the statue and of the commotion it had caused. This, he conjectured, accounted for the delay of Callipodius. It had interfered with his action; he had been unable to learn what had become of the damsel, and was waiting till he had definite tidings to bring before he returned. Æmilius was indignant at the wanton act of injury done to a beautiful work of art that decorated one of the loveliest natural scenes in the world. But this indignation was rendered acute by personal feeling. The disturbance caused by the rescue of the virgin might easily have been allayed; not so one provoked by such an act of sacrilege as the defacing of the image of the divine founder. This would exasperate passions and vastly enhance the danger to Perpetua and make her escape more difficult.

As Æmilius walked up from the jetty with the bishop, he inquired of him how matters stood with the Christians in the town and received a general answer. This did not satisfy the young lawyer, and, as the color suffused his face, he asked particularly after Perpetua, daughter of the deceased Harpinius Læto.

The bishop turned and fixed his searching eyes on the young man.

“Why make you this inquiry?” he asked.

“Surely,” answered Æmilius, “I may be allowed to feel interest in one whom I was the means of rescuing from death. In sooth, I am vastly concerned to learn that she is safe. It were indeed untoward if she fell once more into the hands of the priesthood or into those of the populace. The ignorant would grip as hard as the interested.”

“She is not in the power of either,” answered Castor. “But where she is, that God knows, not I. Her mother is distracted, but we trust the maiden has found a refuge among the brethren, and for her security is kept closely concealed. The fewer who know where she is the better will it be, lest torture be employed to extort the secret. The Lady Quincta believes what we have cause to hope and consider probable. This is certain: if she had been discovered and given up to the magistrate the fact would be known at once to all in the place.”

“To break the image of the god was a wicked and a wanton act,” said Æmilius irritably. “Is such conduct part of your religion?”

“The act was that of a rash and hot-headed member of our body. It was contrary to my will, done without my knowledge, and opposed to the teaching of our holy fathers, who have ever dissuaded from such acts. But in all bodies of men there are hot-heads and impulsive spirits that will not endure control.”

“Your own teaching is at fault,” said Æmilius peevishly. “You denounce the gods, and yet express regret if one of you put your doctrine in practice.”

“If images were ornaments only,” said the bishop, “then they would be endurable; but when they receive adoration, when libations are poured at their feet, then we forbid our brethren to take part in such homage, for it is idolatry, a giving to wood and stone the worship due to God alone. But we do not approve of insult offered to any man’s religion. No,” said Castor emphatically; “Christianity is not another name for brutality, and that is brutality which insults the religious sentiment of the people, who may be ignorant but are sincere.”

They had reached the rope-walk. The cordwainer was absent.

“Let us take a turn,” said the bishop; and then he halted and smiled and extended his palm to a little child that ran up to him and put its hand within his with innocent confidence.

“This,” said Castor, “is the son of the timber merchant.” Then to the boy: “Little man, walk with us, but do not interrupt our talk. Speak only when spoken to.” He again addressed the lawyer: “My friend, if I may so call thee, thou art vastly distressed at the mutilation of the image. Why so?”

“Because it is a work of art, and that particular statue was the finest example of the sculpture of a native artist. It was a gift to his native town of the god Marcus Antoninus (the Emperor Antoninus Pius).”

“Sir,” said Castor, “you are in the right to be incensed. Now tell me this. If the thought of the destruction of a statue made by man and the gift of a Cæsar rouse indignation in your mind, should you not be more moved to see the destruction of living men, as in the shows of the arena – the slaughter of men, the work of God’s hands?”

“That is for our entertainment,” said Æmilius, yet with hesitation in his voice.

“Does that condone the act of the mutilator of the image, that he did it out of sport, to amuse a few atheists and the vulgar? See you how from his mother’s womb the child has been nurtured, how his limbs have grown in suppleness and grace and strength; how his intelligence has developed, how his faculties have expanded. Who made the babe that has become a man? Who protected him from infancy? Who builds up this little tenement of an immortal and bright spirit?” He led forward and indicated the child of Flavillus. “Was it not God? And for a holiday pastime you send men into the arena to be lacerated by wild beasts or butchered by gladiators! Do you not suppose that God, the maker of man, must be incensed at this wanton destruction of His fairest creation?”

“What you say applies to the tree we fell, to the ox and the sheep we slaughter.”

“Not so,” answered the bishop. “The tree is essential to man. Without it he cannot build himself a house nor construct a ship. The use of the tree is essential to his progress from barbarism. Nay, even in barbarism he requires it to serve him as fuel, and to employ timber demands the fall of the tree. As to the beast, man is so constituted by his Creator that he needs animal food. Therefore is he justified in slaying beasts for his nourishment.”

“According to your teaching death sentences are condemned, as also are wars.”

“Not so. The criminal may forfeit his right to a life which he is given to enjoy upon condition that he conduce to the welfare of his fellows. If, instead thereof, he be a scourge to mankind, he loses his rights. As to the matter of war: we must guard the civilization we have built up by centuries of hard labor and study after improvement. We must protect our frontiers against the incursions of the barbarians. Unless they be rolled back, they will overwhelm us. Self-preservation is an instinct lodged in every breast, justifying man in defending his life and his acquisitions.”

“Your philosophy is humane.”

“It is not a philosophy. It is a revelation.”

“In what consists the difference?”

“A philosophy is a groping upwards. A revelation is a light falling from above. A philosophy is reached only after the intellect is ripe and experienced, attained to when man’s mind is fully developed. A revelation comes to the child as his mind and conscience are opening and shows him his way. Here, little one! stand on that cippus and answer me.”

Castor took the child in his arms and lifted him to a marble pedestal.

“Little child,” said he, “answer me a few simple questions. Who made you?”

“God,” answered the boy readily.

“And why did He make you?”

“To love and serve Him.”

“And how can you serve Him?”

“By loving all men.”

“What did the Great Master say was the law by which we are to direct our lives?”

“ ‘He that loveth God, let him love his brother also.’ ”

“Little child, what is after death?”

“Eternity.”

“And in eternity where will men be?”

“Those that have done good shall be called to life everlasting, and those that have done evil will be cast forth into darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The bishop took the child from the pedestal, and set him again on the ground.

Then, with a smile on his face, he said to Æmilius, “Do we desire to know our way after we have erred or before we start? What was hidden from the wise and prudent is revealed unto babes. Where philosophy ends, there our religion begins.”

CHAPTER XVI

DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES

Æmilius paced the rope-walk in deep thought. He did not speak during several turns, and the bishop respected his meditation and kept silence as well.

Presently the young man burst forth with: “This is fairly put, plausible and attractive doctrine. But what we lawyers demand is evidence. When was the revelation made? In the reign of the god Tiberius? That was two centuries ago. What proof is there that this be not a cleverly elaborated philosophy – as you say, a groping upwards – pretending to be, and showing off itself as, a lightening downwards?”

“The evidence is manifold,” answered Castor. “In the first place, the sayings and the acts of the Divine Revealer were recorded by evangelists who lived at the time, knew Him, heard Him, or were with those who had daily companied with Him.”

“Of what value is such evidence when we cannot put the men who gave it in the witness-box and cross-question them? I do not say that their evidence is naught, but that it is disputable.”

“There is other evidence, ever-living, ever-present.”

“What is that?”

“Your own reason and conscience. You, Æmilius Lentulus, have these witnesses in yourself. He who made you seated a conscience in your soul to show you that there is such a thing as a law of right and wrong, though, as far as you know, unwritten. Directly I spoke to you of the sin of murdering men to make pastime, your color changed; you knew that I was right. Your conscience assented to my words.”

“I allow that.”

“My friend, let me go further. When your mind is not obscured by passion or warped by prejudice, then you perceive that there is a sphere of holiness, of virtue, of purity, to which men have not yet attained, and which, for all you see, is unattainable situated as you are, but one into which, if man could mount, then he would be something nobler than even the poets have conceived. You have flashes of summer lightning in your dark sky. You reject the monstrous fables of the gods as inconsistent with what your reason and conscience tell you comport with divinity. Has any of your gods manifested himself and left such a record of his appearance as is fairly certain? If he appeared, or was fabled to have appeared, did he tell men anything about the nature of God, His will, and the destiny of man? A revelation must be in agreement with the highest aspirations of man. It must be such as will regulate his life, and conduce to his perfection and the advantage of the community. It must be such as will supply him with a motive for rejecting what is base, but pleasing to his coarse nature, and striving after that which is according to the luminous ideal that floats before him. Now the Christian revelation answers these conditions, and is therefore probably true. It supplies man with a reason why he should contend against all that is gross in his nature; should be gentle, courteous, kindly, merciful, pure. It does more. It assures him that the Creator made man in order that he might strive after this ideal, and in so doing attain to serenity and happiness. No other religion that I know of makes such claims; no other professes to have been revealed to man as the law of his being by Him who made man. No other is so completely in accordance on the one hand with what we conceive is in agreement with the nature of God, and on the other so completely accords with our highest aspirations.”

“I can say nothing to that. I do not know it.”

“Yes, you do know it. The babe declared it; gave you the marrow and kernel of the gospel: Love God and man.”

“To fear God is what I can understand; but to love Him is more than I can compass.”

“Because you do not know God.”

“I do not, indeed.”

“God is love.”

“A charming sentiment; a rhetorical flourish. What evidence can you adduce that God is love?”

“Creation.”

“The earth is full of suffering; violence prevails; wrong overmasters right. There is more of misery than of happiness, saving only to the rich and noble; they are at any rate supposed to be exempt, but, by Hercules, they seem to me to be sick of pleasure, and every delight gluts and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”

“That is true; but why is there all this wretchedness? Because the world is trying to get along without God. Look!” The bishop stooped and took up a green-backed beetle. “If I cast this insect into the water it will suffer and die. If I fling it into the fire it will writhe and perish in agony. Neither water nor fire is the element for which it was created – in which to exist and be happy. The divine law is the atmosphere in which man is made to live. Because there is deflection from that, and man seeks other ends than that for which he was made, therefore comes wretchedness. The law of God is the law man must know, and knowing, pursue to be perfectly happy and to become a perfect being.”

“Now I have you!” exclaimed Æmilius, with a laugh. “There are no men more wretched than Christians who possess, and, I presume, keep this law. They abstain from our merry-makings, from the spectacles; they are liable to torture and to death.”

“We abstain from nothing that is wholesome and partaken in moderation; but from drunkenness, surfeiting, and what is repugnant to the clean mind. As to the persecution we suffer, the powers of evil rebel against God, and stir up bad men to resist the truth. But let me say something further – if I do not weary you.”

“Not at all; you astonish me too much to weary me.”

“You are dropped suddenly – cast up by the sea on a strange shore. You find yourself where you have never been before. You know not where to go – how to conduct yourself among the natives; what fruits you may eat as wholesome, and must reject as poisonous. You do not know what course to pursue to reach your home, and fear at every step to get further from it. You cry out for a chart to show you where you are, and in what direction you should direct your steps. Every child born into this world is in a like predicament. It wants a chart, and to know its bearings. This is not the case with any animal. Every bird, fish, beast, knows what to do to fulfill the objects of its existence. Man alone does not. He has aspirations, glimmerings, a law of nature traced, but not filled in. He has lived by that natural law – you live under it, and you experience its inadequacy. That is why your conscience, all mankind, with inarticulate longing desires something further. Now I ask you, as I did once before, is it conceivable that the Creator of man, who put in man’s heart that aspiration, that longing to know the law of his being, without which his life is but a miserable shipwreck – is it conceivable that He should withhold from him the chart by which he can find his way?”

“You have given me food for thought. Yet, my doubts still remain.”

“I cannot give you faith. That lightens down from above. It is the gift of God. Follow the law of your conscience and He may grant it you. I cannot say when or how, and what means he may employ – but if you are sincere and not a trifler with the truth – He will not deny it you. But see – here comes some one who desires to speak with you.”

Æmilius looked in the direction indicated, and saw Callipodius coming up from the water-side, waving his hand to him. So engrossed had he been in conversation with Castor, that he had not observed the arrival of a boat at the landing-place.