CHAPTER LXI BEFORE THE LION

Καὶ ἐῤῥύσθην ἐκ στόματος λέοντος.

S. Paul. ad Tim. β. iv. 17.

When Onesimus had succeeded in rescuing Nereus from the pitchy tunic on the dreadful-glorious night of the Church’s martyrdom, the two made their way through the darkness to Aricia, which they reached at the earliest dawn. Old Dromo welcomed them, and Junia received her father with transports of love and gratitude. Onesimus hung modestly back during their meeting, but when the girl had ceased to weep on her father’s neck, she turned to his deliverer, and thanked him from her heart as one to whose courage and devotion she owed his preservation from that death of agony.

During that day they arranged their plans. In the little farm and vineyard of Pudens there was ample room for free labour, and it was settled that Nereus and Junia should stay there for the present, Nereus working in the vineyard, and Junia helping in the care of the flocks and fowls, and in the management of the household. Among those groves, in that remote and humble homestead, they were safe in their obscurity, and there they could abide until some other opportunity offered, or happier times came round.

Onesimus thought it his duty to return to the Apostle, to whose service he had devoted his life. The generosity of Octavia had left him with sufficient funds for his simple needs, and he prepared to make his way to Crete, where he expected to find St. Paul. But before he started he asked Nereus to sanction his marriage with Junia. Both of them were baptised Christians, and Onesimus had now sufficiently proved the sincerity of his faith, and the depth of his repentance for former errors.

‘I am grateful to thee, youth,’ said the old man, ‘and I know that thou art a brand plucked from the burning. But the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and the sky is red and lowering, and Antichrist is striving to destroy the Church of God. Is it a time to marry and give in marriage? Is it not rather a time for them who have wives to be as though they had none, and for the unmarried to abide as virgins because of the present necessity?’

‘I know it, my father,’ said Onesimus; ‘but thou mayst die, and Junia be left an orphan in these evil days. Let us be married, and she will have an earthly arm to defend her and toil for her. We will marry, and will separate to-day. I will seek the Apostle, and if it be God’s will He will make our way plain before our face.’

Nereus consented. At a little distance from Rome, in the loneliness of the Campagna, the fossors had already begun to construct the catacomb now known as that of St. Callistus, and there in a small subterranean chapel in one of those dim galleries, the Christians began to hold their evening or early morning assemblies. Thither after sunset Nereus, Onesimus, and Junia made their way. They found but a handful of Christians who had escaped the fury of the persecution, and though these were, in one sense, deeply discouraged by the shattering blow which had destroyed their Church, and almost heartbroken at the agonising loss of their loved brethren, in another sense they were full of hope and exalted courage, and uttered to one another their watchword Maranatha, with more intense conviction. And among them was Cletus, who had escaped as by miracle. His name had been denounced, but being young and active, he had succeeded in hiding himself and eluding research. He was now the humble bishop of the ruined community. He it was who joined the hands of Onesimus and Junia in the holy bond, and he it was who blessed the bread and wine of which the little band of brethren partook in humble communion. Marriage gladness, marriage festivities there were none. The Phrygian freedman and the Roman maiden pledged their faith to each other under the shadow of the Cross.

Before the dawn was red, Onesimus was making his way to Rhegium, whence he purposed to get to Messana, and so by ship to Lasæa on the stormy shores of Crete. On his arrival he found only Titus of Corinth, whom St. Paul had left in charge of the young and struggling Churches. He sailed in search of the Apostle, and his ship stopped for a day at Patmos, where he found the Beloved Disciple in his exile. The ascendency of St. John’s personality had overawed the inhabitants of that rocky islet, and he was suffered to spend his time in freedom. Onesimus sat with him under a grey olive tree, on the grassy summit of a rock, the highest point of the island, and discoursed with him for hours. The scene was lovely. The brilliant sapphire of the sea lay beneath them in unbroken calm, rippled here and there by the white wings of the beautiful seabirds. The crags glowed a deep rich red, except when they were covered with grass, on which the pink sea-thrift had already faded into white. On every side the sea-line was broken by the fantastic contour of isles and islets. Eastward on the Ionian shore, so rich in heroic and philosophic memories, they saw the historic summit of Mount Mycale, and northwards the island of Thera. A burning mountain, cast into the midst of the sea, and at that time in a crisis of violent eruption, it vomited, as though from the depths of the abyss, its volumes of turbid smoke which hung like a cloud at one spot of the far horizon.117 It was here that St. John heard from Onesimus the scenes which had followed his providential deliverance from the boiling oil, the illumination of Nero’s gardens with living torches, the orgies of the wild beast from the sea of nations as he wallowed in the blood of the saints. His whole soul was already brooding on the awful manifesto in which he answered the fury of the world, and spoke of the impending destruction of the two great cities of antiquity—Jerusalem, the metropolis of God’s olden Temple; Rome, the metropolis of the dragon and the Antichrist. Here, too, he entrusted to Onesimus—in whose youth, prudence, and courage he was interested—some of the keys to that strange cryptogram of the Apocalypse, which, if it had been written otherwise than in symbols, might have involved the ruin of whole communities. Among other things he told him that, by the cabbalistic system of Gematria, which the Greeks called isopsephism, ‘Nero Cæsar’ in Hebrew letters gave that which he had called the number of the Beast, 666. It was necessary that such secrets should be kept with care, for in the hands of an informer they might lead to overwhelming disasters; yet Onesimus did not wholly throw into the Mæander the key to the secret; but in due time revealed enough to guide the guesses which Irenæus and others of the ancient Christian Fathers had heard through the martyr Polycarp.

From Patmos Onesimus sailed to Ephesus, but did not overtake the Apostle Paul till he had followed him to Nicopolis, in Epirus. After a restful winter there St. Paul went through Macedonia to Troas. There, in the hospitable house of Carpus, he was suddenly arrested at the instance of Alexander the coppersmith, who was animated by trade grudges, because that part of his work which was connected with small images of Diana of the Ephesians had suffered from Paul’s preaching. Paul was seized by night, and so suddenly that he had no time to take with him his few precious books and documents and his large cloak. He was hurried to Ephesus, and tried before the proconsul; but, knowing that there he was little likely to obtain justice, he again appealed to Cæsar. During his imprisonment at Ephesus he had been cheered by Onesiphorus, and by the son of his heart Timotheus, who had shared with him for so many years in the life of a despised and hunted missionary. They parted with streaming tears which Paul long remembered. With Onesimus as his attendant, and Luke, Demas, Tychicus, Trophimus, and Erastus as his fellow-helpers, the glorious prisoner set forth on his last journey. Trophimus fell ill at Miletus; Erastus stayed at Corinth, of which city he had been chamberlain. They went over the Diolkos to Lechæum, along the Gulf of Corinth, and across the Adriatic to Brundisium. Thence they made their dreary way to Rome. This time there were no rejoicing crowds of Christians to meet them at Appii Forum or the Three Taverns, at sight of whom he could thank God and take courage. He found the Church of Rome in its ashes. No one could visit him without peril; and indeed no Christian of rank was left at Rome. Clemens and his family shared the disgrace into which Vespasian had fallen, and were living at the Sabine farm. Pomponia, after her visit to Poppæa, had suffered a severe relapse, and had been moved to a distant villa in the Apennines. Every leader of the Christian Church except Cletus and Hermas had perished in the persecution. Pudens was in Britain with Caractacus and Claudia. In later days the devotion of Christians to their imprisoned brethren struck Pagans with curious amazement, but Paul himself discouraged visits which might so easily bring death to the visitors. He was left, therefore, in painful loneliness, except for the loving care of Luke and Onesimus. Of his companions, Demas had forsaken him, and the presence of others had been necessary in various Churches. He was imprisoned, as his brother Apostles had been, in the Tullianum, and it was difficult to find out where he was. The Ephesian Onesiphorus, who came to Rome for the purpose, cheered his heart by fearlessly seeking him, and, unashamed of his chain, refreshed him in this his seventh imprisonment with that sense of human sympathy which he most required. But this one gleam of light was speedily quenched, for Onesiphorus caught the prison fever, and died at Rome.

Nero himself presided at the first trial of the Apostle. The crime which the Emperor had committed against the Christians was so enormous that the recollection of it haunted him, and intensified his hatred. He would not lose the opportunity of condemning the greatest of the Christian leaders. Paul was conducted to the basilica in the Golden House. It was a hall of the utmost splendour. The floor was of mosaic, in which porphyry, and serpentine, and giallo antico blended their soft lustres in patterns of wonderful variety and grace. The pillars were of light-green cipollino, the walls were inlaid with pavonazzetto from the Apennines near Pisa, and their cornices of alabaster were sculptured with animals and dolphins, and winged figures. The Emperor sat in the centre of the apse, which was divided from the body of the hall by a balustrade of white marble. His gilded and ivory chair was elevated on an inlaid pavement, approached by steps of porphyry. Round him stood a group of Prætorians with their silver eagles and other military ensigns. The lictors with their axed fasces stood at the back of his chair, and near him on lower seats sat Tigellinus, Eprius Marcellus, Cossutianus Capito, and other informers who had recently been enriched with the spoils of the innocent. Not far from these were some of the leading Jews, and conspicuous among them were the High Priest Ishmael, the alabarch Tiberius Alexander the unworthy nephew of Philo, and the foxy features of that arch-impostor, the magician Simon.

The great prisoner was made to stand in front of the balustrade on the spot marked by a circle of giallo antico on the floor. His hands were fastened together with a long coupling chain. The two chief Ephesian accusers, Alexander the coppersmith, and Demetrius the silversmith, were animated with the keenest hatred. And Paul was left absolutely alone. Onesimus and Luke accompanied him to the entrance, but they were both ‘suspects,’ and were not permitted to enter. But there were Gentiles and soldiers who might have helped him had they chosen, and the Apostle would not have been human if he had not felt the bitterness of desertion. ‘At my first trial,’ he wrote to Timothy, ‘no man took his place at my side. All abandoned me. God forgive them!’ In all that city, where his previous bonds had made the Gospel known alike in the Palace and the camp; in that world, for which he had sacrificed his life in loftiest services, there was no patron to protect, no advocate to support him, no favourable witness to plead extenuation. But he felt and said that One more powerful than many legions stood by him—even the Lord whom he had served.

Nero was in his most savage mood, and Tigellinus as always, added fuel to his rage. He insulted Paul, he glared upon him, he roared at him, he attempted to browbeat him, with utter violation of every principle of justice. Paul was a man the very sight of whom naturally inspired Nero with ferocity. For Nero, whom all the world knew to be a robber, a poisoner, a murderer, a matricide—a sensualist, effeminate, degraded, and unutterably depraved—had become aware that these Christians lived lives of purity and holiness, the possibility of which he affected to deny. And his guilty splendour and luxurious misery were forced at last to blush and tremble before the irresistible weakness of that despised, ragged, fettered prisoner. For Paul did not in the least fear him, and Paul’s courage was so marvellous to those who were accustomed to the pusillanimity of senators, who went away and committed suicide if Nero did but frown at them, that the courtiers and soldiers turned their eyes from the purple of the world’s master to gaze upon the rags of this sick prisoner who stood there with his pale countenance, his stooping figure and thin sable-silvered hair, more dauntless in chains, and under the axe of doom, than the Emperor amid his guards.

The first trial turned on Ephesian accusations of riot and disorder, and Paul, producing the diploma of his franchise, stood on his rights as a Roman citizen. He demanded to answer for himself, and, in the manly speech which he made, the chained ambassador of Christ struck a feeling akin to terror into the heart of the deified autocrat of heathendom. He was able to prove by the written evidence of the Recorder of Ephesus, and of friendly Asiarchs, that the testimony of the metal-workers was false, and that he had ever behaved as a peaceable citizen. The calm dignity of his defence, and the perfect courtesy and fearlessness which he had shown in his desperate position, left a deep impression on the jurors. Eprius Marcellus tried to cow him with that Hercules-Furens style of oratory which had so often driven the blood from the cheeks of consulars and generals. But when Paul turned on him his quiet glance, Eprius Marcellus stopped short, stammered in the middle of a sentence, and ignominiously sat down, muttering something about ‘the evil eye.’

In spite of Nero’s scorn and anger, the jurors voted in accordance with their convictions. When the votes were counted in the urn there were a few C.s for Condemno dropped by Court sycophants, but most of the tablets were A. for Absolvo and N. L. for Non Liquet, ‘not proven.’ To the astonishment of all, this first offence ended in acquittal on the first capital charge, and ampliatio—the postponement of the trial—for the examination of the second count. The second count was that Paul was a Christian, and, as such, the adherent of an illegal religion. On this he knew that he could not escape; but of the result of the first trial he wrote to Timothy with heartfelt gratitude that ‘God had saved him out of the mouth of the lion.’

There was nothing to cheer his cold and rocky prison except the light within his soul, and that human tenderness which, when all others had deserted him, was still lavished upon him by Onesimus and Luke. The Evangelist did all that was in his power to keep alive in Rome the flickering flame which the violence of persecution had overwhelmed. In this way Onesimus could do but little. He regarded it as the present work of his life to console and tend the Apostle, and he devoted himself to this work with all the more thoroughness because, when he was able to visit Aricia, Junia impressed him with its necessity and sacredness. He had his reward; for day by day he himself advanced in righteousness and knowledge, as he listened to words which have helped forward the regeneration of the world.

BOOK III

‘ATROPOS OCCAT’