CHAPTER XXI

_The Death of a Martyr_

[Sidenote: The Return to Consciousness]

I awoke with a sensation of pain in every limb. A female voice was singing a faint song near me. But the past was like a dream. I involuntarily looked down for the gulf on which I had trod; I looked upward for the burning rafters. I saw nothing but an earthen floor and a low roof hung with dried grapes and herbs. I uttered a cry. The singer approached me. There was nothing in her aspect to nurture a diseased imagination; she was an old and emaciated creature who yet rejoiced in my restoration. She in turn called her husband, a venerable Jew, whose first act was to offer thanksgiving to the God of Israel for the safety of a chief of His nation. But to my inquiries for the fate of my child, he could give no answer; he had discovered me among the ruins of the palace of the Æmilii, to which he, with many of his countrymen, had been attracted, with the object of collecting whatever remnants of furniture might be left by the flames. I had fallen by the edge of a fountain which extinguished the fire in its vicinage, and I was found breathing. During three days I had lain insensible. The Jew now went out and brought back with him some of the elders of our people, who, notwithstanding the decree of the Emperor Claudius, had remained in Rome, tho in increased privacy. I was carried to their house of assemblage, concealed among groves and vineyards beyond the gates, and attended to with a care which might cure all things but the wounds of the mind. On the great object of my solicitude, the fate of my Salome, I could obtain no relief. I wandered over the site of the palace; it was now a mass of ashes and charcoal; its ruins had been probed by hundreds; but search for even a trace of what would have been to me dearer than a mountain of gold, was in vain.

[Sidenote: The Cry for Revenge]

The conflagration continued for six days, and every day of the number gave birth to some monstrous report of its origin. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, but four remained. Thousands had lost their lives, tens of thousands were utterly undone; the whole empire shook under the blow. Then came the still deeper horror.

Fear makes the individual feeble, but it makes the multitude ferocious. A universal cry arose for revenge. Great public misfortunes give the opportunity that the passions of men and sects love, and the fiercest crimes of selfishness are justified under the name of retribution.

But the full calamity burst on the Christians, then too new to have fortified themselves in the national prejudices, if they would have suffered the alliance; too poor to reckon on any powerful protectors; and too uncompromising to palliate their scorn of the whole public system of morals, philosophy, and religion. The Emperor, the priesthood, and the populace conspired against them, and they were ordered to the slaughter.

I too had my stimulants to hatred. Where was I? In exile, in desperate hazard; I had been torn from home, robbed of my child, made miserable by the fear of apostasy in my house; and by whom was this comprehensive evil done? The name of Christian was gall to me. I heard of the popular vengeance, and called it justice; I saw the distant fires in which the Christians were being consumed, and calculated how many each night of those horrors would subtract from the guilty number. Man becomes cruel by the sight of cruelty, and when thousands and hundreds of thousands were shouting for vengeance; when every face looked fury, and every tongue was wild with some new accusation; when the great and the little, the philosopher and the ignorant, raised up one roar of reprobation against the Christian, was the solitary man of mercy to be looked for in one bleeding from head to foot with wrongs irreparable?

[Sidenote: Preparations for Executions]

On one of those dreadful nights, I was gazing from the housetop on the fire forcing its way through the remaining quarters, the melancholy gleams through the country showing the extent of the flight, and in the midst of the blackened and dreary wastes of Rome, the spots of livid flame where the Christians were perishing at the pile, when I was summoned to a consultation below.

A Jew had just brought an imperial edict proclaiming pardon of all offenses to the discoverer of Christians. I would not have purchased my life by the life of a dog. But my safety was important to the Jewish cause, and I was pressed on every side by arguments on the wisdom, nay, the public duty, of accepting freedom on any terms. And what was to be the price?—the life of criminals long obnoxious to the laws and now stained beyond mercy. I loathed delay; I loathed Rome; I was wild to return to the great cause of my country, which never could have a fairer hope than now. An emissary was sent out; money soon effected the discovery of a Christian assemblage; I appeared before the prætor with my documents, and brought back in my hand the imperial pardon, given with the greater good will as the assemblage chanced to comprehend the chiefs of the heresy. They were seized, ordered forthwith to the pile, and I was commanded to be present at this completion of my national service.

The executions were in the gardens of the imperial palace, which had been thrown open by Nero for the double purpose of popularity and of indulging himself with the display of death at the slightest personal inconvenience. The crowd was prodigious, and to gratify the greatest possible number at once, those murders were carried on in different parts of the gardens. In the vineyard, a certain portion were to be crucified; in the orangery, another portion were to be burned; in the pleasure-ground, another portion were to be torn by lions and tigers; gladiators were to be let loose, and when the dusk came on, the whole of the space was to be lighted by human torches, Christians wrapped in folds of linen covered with pitch and bitumen, and thus burning down from the head to the ground.

[Sidenote: A Christian Martyr]

I was horror-struck, but escape was now impossible, and I must go through the whole hideous round. With my flesh quivering, my ears ringing, my eyes dim, I was forced to see miserable beings, men—nay women, nay infants—sewed up in skins of beasts, and hunted and torn to pieces by dogs; old men, whose hoary hairs might have demanded reverence of savages, scourged, racked, and nailed to the trees to die; lovely young females, creatures of guileless hearts and innocent beauty, flung on flaming scaffolds. And this was the work of man, civilized man, in the highest civilization of the arts, the manners, and the learning of the pagan world!

But the grand display was prepared for the time when those Christians who had been denounced on my discovery were to be executed; an exhibition at which the Emperor himself announced his intention to be present. The great Circus was no more, but a temporary amphitheater had been erected, in which the usual games were exhibited during the early part of the day. At the hour of my arrival, the low bank circling this immense enclosure was filled with the first names of Rome—knights, patricians, senators, military tribunes, consuls; the Emperor alone was wanting to complete the representative majesty of the empire. I was to form a part of the ceremony, and the guard who had me in charge cleared the way to a conspicuous place, where my national dress fixed every eye on me. Several Christians had perished before my arrival. Their remains lay on the ground, and in their midst stood the man who was to be the next victim.[29] By what influence I know not, but never did I see a human being who made on me so deep an impression. I have him before me at this instant.

The victims had been generally offered life for recantation, and this man was giving his reply. I see the figure: low, yet with an air of nobleness; stooped a little with venerable age, but the countenance full of life, and marked with all the traits of intellectual power; the strongly aquiline nose, the bold lip, the large and rapid eye; the whole man conveying the idea of an extraordinary permanence of early vigor under the weight of labor or of years. Even the hair was thick and black, with scarcely a touch of silver. If the place and time were Athens and the era of Demosthenes, I should have said that Demosthenes stood before me. The vivid action; the flashing rapidity with which he seized a new idea, and compressed it to his purpose; the impetuous argument that, throwing off the formality of logic, smote with the strength of a new fact, were Demosthenic. Even a certain infirmity of utterance, and an occasional slight difficulty of words, added to the likeness; but there was a hallowed glance and a solemn yet tender reach of thought interposed among those intense appeals that asserted the sacred superiority of the subject and the man. He was already speaking when I reached the scene of terrors. I can give but an outline of his language.

[Sidenote: The Christian Speaks]

He pointed to the headless bodies round him.

“For what have these my brethren died? Answer me, priests of Rome; what temple did they force—what altar overthrow—what insults offer to the slightest of your public celebrations? Judges of Rome, what offense did they commit against the public peace? Consuls, where were they found in rebellion against the Roman majesty? People of Rome, whom among your thousands can charge one of these holy dead with extortion, impurity, or violence; can charge them with anything but the patience that bore wrong without a murmur, and the charity that answered tortures only by prayer?”

He then touched upon the nature of his faith.

“Do I stand here demanding to be believed for opinions? No, but for facts. I have seen the sick made whole, the lame walk, the blind receive their sight, by the mere name of Him whom you crucified. I have seen men, once ignorant of all languages but their own, speaking with the language of every nation under heaven; the still greater wonder of the timid defying all fear, the unlearned instantly made wise in the mysteries of things divine and human, the peasant putting to shame the learned—awing the proud, enlightening the darkened; alike in the courts of kings, before the furious people, and in the dungeon, armed with an irrepressible spirit of knowledge, reason, and truth that confounded their adversaries. I have seen the still greater wonder of the renewed heart; the impure suddenly abjuring vice; the covetous, the cruel, the faithless, the godless, gloriously changed into the holy, the gentle, the faithful, worshipers of the true God in spirit and in truth—the conquest of the passions which defied your philosophers, your tribunals, your rewards, and your terrors, achieved in the one mighty name. Those are facts, things which I have seen with these eyes; and who that had seen them could doubt that the finger of God was there? Dared I refuse my belief to the divine mission of the Being by whom, and even in memory of whom, things baffling the proudest human means were wrought before my senses? Irresistibly compelled by facts to believe that Christ was sent by God, I was with equal force compelled to believe in the doctrines declared by that glorious revealer of the King alike of quick and dead. And thus I stand before you this day, at the close of a long life of labor and love, a Christian.”

[Sidenote: The Faith of a Christian]

This appeal to the understanding, divested as it was of all studied ornament, was listened to by the immense multitude with the most unbroken interest. It was delivered with the strong simplicity of conviction. He then spoke of the Founder of his faith.

“Men may be insane for opinions, but who can be insane for facts? The coming of Christ was prophesied a thousand years before! From the beginning of His ministry, He lived wholly before the eyes of mankind. His life corresponds with the prophecies in circumstances totally beyond human conjecture, contrivance, or power. The Virgin Mother, the village in which He was born, the lowliness of His cradle, the worship paid to Him there, the hazard of His life—all were predicted. Could the infant have shaped the accomplishment of those predictions? The death that He should die, the hands by which it was to be inflicted, even the draft that He should drink, the raiment that He should be clothed in, and the sepulcher in which He should be laid, were predicted. Could the man have shaped their accomplishment? The time of His resting in the tomb, His resurrection, His ascent to heaven, the sending of the Holy Spirit after He was gone—all were predicted; all were beyond human collusion, human power, even beyond human thought; all were accomplished! Is not here the finger of God?

[Sidenote: Christ, the Crucified]

“Those things, too, were universally known to the nation most competent to detect collusion. Did Christ come to Rome, where every new religion finds adherents, and where all pretensions might be advanced without fear; where a deceiver might have quoted prophecies that never existed, and vaunted of wonders done where there was no eye to detect them? No! His life was spent in Judea. He made His appeal to the Scriptures, in a country where they were in the hands of the nation. His miracles were brought before the eyes of a priesthood that watched him step by step; His doctrines were spoken, not to the mingled multitude holding a thousand varieties of opinion, and careless of all, but to an exclusive race, subtle in their inquiries, eager in their zeal, and proud of their peculiar possession of divine knowledge.

“Yet against His life, His miracles, or His doctrine, what charge could they bring? None. There is not a single stigma on the purity of His conduct; the power of His wonder-working control over man and nature; the holiness, wisdom, and grandeur of His views of Providence; the truth, charity, and meekness of His counsels to man. Their single source of hatred was the pride of worldly hearts, that expected a king where they were to have found a teacher.

“Their single charge against Him was His prophecy that there should be an end to their Temple and their state within the life of man.

“They crucified Him; He died in prayer, that His murderers might be forgiven; and His prayer was mightily answered. He had scarcely risen to His eternal throne when thousands believed and were forgiven. To Him be the glory, forever and ever!”

All this was heard in wonder. I could see eyes lifted to heaven, and lips as if moved in prayer.

[Sidenote: A Face Inspired]

“Compare Him with your legislators. He gives the spirit of all law in a single sentence: ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.’ Compare Him with your priesthood. He gives a single prayer, containing the substance of all that man can rationally implore of heaven. Compare Him with your moralists. He lays the foundation of virtue in love to God! Compare him with your sages. He leads a life of privation without a murmur; He dies a death of shame, desertion, and agony, and His last breath is mercy! Compare him with your conquerors. Without the shedding of a drop of blood He has already conquered hosts that would have resisted all the swords of earth; hosts of stubborn passions, cherished vices, guilty perversions of the powers and faculties of man. In proof of all, look on these glorious dead, whom I shall join before the set of yonder sun. Yes, martyrs of God! ye were His conquests, and ye too are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us and gave Himself for us. But a triumph shall come, magnificent and terrible, when all eyes shall behold Him, and the tribes of the earth, even they who pierced Him, shall mourn.”

Some raged, more listened, many wept. He spoke with still loftier energy.

“Then rejoice, ye dead! for ye shall rise; ye shall be clothed with glory; ye shall be as the angels, bright and powerful, immortal, intellectual kings! ‘For tho worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’”

He paused, as if he saw the vision.

The sky was cloudless; the sun was in the west, but shining in his broadest beams; the whole space before me was flooded with light; when, as I gazed upon the martyr, I saw a gleam issue from his upturned face; it increased to brightness, to radiance, to an intense luster that made the sunlight utterly pale. All was astonishment in the amphitheater, all was awe. The old man seemed unconscious of the wonder that invested him. He continued with his open hands lifted up and his eyes fixed on heaven. The glory spread over his form, and he stood before us robed in an effulgence which shot from him, like a living fount of splendor, round the colossal circle. Yet the blaze, tho it looked the very essence of light, was strangely translucent; we could see with undazzled eyes every feature, and whether it was the working of my overwhelmed mind, or a true change, the countenance appeared to have passed at once from age to youth. A lofty joy, a look of supernal grandeur, a magnificent yet ethereal beauty, had transformed the features of the old man into the likeness of the winged sons of Immortality!

[Sidenote: A Christian’s Prayer]

He spoke again, and the first sound of his voice thrilled through every bosom and made every man start from his seat.

“Men and brethren! it is the desire of your Father that all should be saved—Jew and Gentile alike—for with Him there is no respect of persons. He is the Father of all! Christianity is not a philosophic dream, but a divine command—the summons of the God of gods, that you should accept His mercy—the opening of the gates of an eternal world! It is not a call to the practise of barren virtue, but a declaration of reward mightier than the imagination of man can conceive. Would you be immortals—would you be glorious as the stars of heaven—would you possess eternal faculties of happiness, supremacy, and knowledge? Ask for forgiveness of your evil, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth! What is easier than the price? What more transcendent than the reward? Who shall tell the limit of the risen soul? What resistless power, what more than regal majesty, what celestial beauty may be in His fame! What expansion of intellect, what overflowing tides of new sensation, what shapes of loveliness, what radiant stores of thought and mysteries of exhaustless knowledge, may be treasured for Him! What endless ascent through new ranks of being, each as much more glorious than the last as the risen spirit is above man! For what can be the limit to the power of God to make those happy, glorious, and mighty whom He will? For what can be the bound to the fellow heirs with Christ, their Leader in trial, their Leader in triumph? Omnipotence for their protector, for their friend, for their father! He who gave to us His own Son, will He not with Him give us all things?”

The voice sank into prayer.

[Sidenote: The Arrival of Nero]

“King of kings! if through a long life I have labored in Thy cause, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness—Thine alone be the praise, Thine the glory, O Thou who hast brought me through them all, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. And now, Lord, Thou who shalt change my vile body into the likeness of Thy glorious body, be with Thy servant in this last hour! Savior and God! receive my spirit, that where Thou art, even I may be with Thee!”

He was silent; the splendor gradually passed away from his form, and he knelt upon the sand, bowing his neck to receive the blow. But to lift a hand against such a being seemed now an act of profanation. The ax-bearer dared not approach. The spectators sat hushed in involuntary homage; and not a word, not a gesture broke the silence of veneration.

At length a flourish of distant trumpets was heard. Cavalry galloped forward, announcing the Emperor, and Nero, habited as a charioteer in the games, drove his gilded car into the arena. The Christian had risen and, with his hands clasped upon his breast, was awaiting death. Nero cast the headsman an execration at his tardiness; the ax swept round, and when I glanced again, the old man lay beside his brethren.

This man I had sacrificed. My heart smote me; I would have fled the place of blood, but I was in the midst of guards; more of my victims were to be slain, and I must be the shrinking witness of all. The Emperor’s arrival commenced the grand display. He took his place under the curtains of the royal pavilion. The dead were removed; perfumes were scattered through the air; rose-water was sprinkled from silver tubes upon the exhausted multitude; music resounded, incense burned, and in the midst of those preparations of luxury the lion-combat began.

A portal of the arena opened and the combatant, with a mantle thrown over his face and figure, was led in surrounded by soldiery. The lion roared and ramped against the bars of its den at the sight. The guard put a sword and buckler into the hands of the Christian, and he was left alone. He drew the mantle from his face, and looked slowly and steadily round the amphitheater. His fine countenance and lofty bearing raised a universal sound of admiration. He might have stood for an Apollo encountering the Python. His eyes at last turned on mine. Could I believe my senses? Constantius was before me!

[Sidenote: Constantius and the Lion]

All my rancor vanished. In the moment before, I could have struck the betrayer to the heart; I could have called on the severest vengeance of man and Heaven to smite the destroyer of my child. But to see him hopelessly doomed; the man whom I had honored for his noble qualities, whom I had even loved, whose crime was at worst but the crime of giving way to the strongest temptation that can bewilder man; to see this noble creature flung to the savage beast, torn piecemeal before my eyes—I would have cried to earth and heaven to save him. But my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth; I would have thrown myself at the feet of Nero, but I sat like a man of stone, pale, paralyzed—the beating of my pulse stopped—my eyes alone alive.

The gate of the den was now thrown back, and the lion rushed in with a roar and a bound that bore him half across the arena. I saw the sword glitter in the air; when it waved again it was covered with blood, and a howl told that the blow had been driven home. The lion, one of the largest from Numidia, and made furious by thirst and hunger, an animal of prodigious power, crouched for an instant as if to make sure of his prey, crept a few paces onward, and sprang at the victim’s throat. He was met by a second wound, but his impulse was irresistible, and Constantius was flung upon the ground.

A cry of natural horror rang round the amphitheater. The struggle was now for instant life or death. They rolled over each other; the lion reared on his hind feet and with gnashing teeth and distended talons plunged on the man; again they rose together. Anxiety was now at its wildest height. The sword swung round the champion’s head in bloody circles. They fell again. The hand of Constantius had grasped the lion’s mane, and the furious bounds of the monster could not loose his hold; but his strength was evidently giving way; he still struck terrible blows, but each was weaker than the one before; till, collecting his whole force for a last effort, he darted one mighty blow into the lion’s throat and sank. The savage yelled, and, spouting out blood, fled bellowing round the arena. But the hand still grasped the mane, and his conqueror was dragged whirling through the dust at his heels. A universal outcry now arose to save Constantius, if he were not already dead. But the lion, tho bleeding from every vein, was still too terrible, and all shrank from the hazard. At length the grasp gave way and the body lay motionless on the ground.

[Sidenote: The Appearance of Salome]

What happened for some moments after I know not. There was a struggle at the portal; a woman forced her way through the guards, rushed in alone, and flung herself upon the victim. The sight of a new prey roused the lion; he tore the ground with his talons; he lashed his streaming sides with his tail; he lifted up his mane and bared his fangs. But he came no longer with a bound; he dreaded the sword, and crept, snuffing the blood on the sand, and stealing round the body in circuits still diminishing.

The confusion in the vast assemblage was now extreme. Voices innumerable called for aid. Women screamed and fainted. Even the hard-hearted populace, accustomed as they were to the sacrifices of life, were roused to honest curses. The guards grasped their arms, and waited but for a sign of mercy from the Emperor. But Nero gave no sign. I glanced upon the woman’s face. It was Salome! I sprang upon my feet. I called on her name; I implored her to fly from that place of death, to come to my arms, to think of the agonies of all who loved her.

She had raised the head of Constantius on her knee, and was wiping the pale visage with her hair. At the sound of my voice she looked up, and calmly casting back the locks from her forehead, fixed her gaze upon me. She still knelt; one hand supported the head, and with the other she pointed to it, as her only answer. I again adjured her. There was the silence of death among the thousands round me. A sudden fire flashed into her eye—her cheek burned. She waved her hand with an air of superb sorrow.

[Sidenote: The End of the Combat]

“I am come to die,” she uttered, in a lofty tone. “This bleeding body was my husband. I have no father. The world contains for me but this clay in my arms. Yet,” and she kissed the ashy lips before her, “yet, my Constantius, it was to save that father that your generous heart defied the peril of this hour. It was to redeem him from the hand of evil that you abandoned our quiet home! Yes, cruel father, here lies the preserver who threw open your dungeon, who led you safe through conflagration, who to the last moment of his liberty only thought how he might protect you.”

Tears at length fell in floods from her eyes.

“But,” said she, in a tone of wild power, “he was betrayed, and may the Power whose thunders avenge the cause of His people pour down just retribution upon the head that dared——”

I heard my own condemnation about to be unconsciously pronounced by the lips of my child. Wound up to the last degree of suffering, I tore my way, leaped on the bars before me, and plunged into the arena by her side. The height was stunning; I tottered forward a few paces, and fell. The lion gave a roar and sprang upon me. I lay helpless under him; I felt his fiery breath; I saw his lurid eye glaring; I heard the gnashing of his white fangs above me——

An exulting shout arose. I saw him reel as if struck—gore filled his jaws. Another mighty blow was driven to his heart. He sprang high into the air with a howl. He dropped—he was dead! The amphitheater thundered with acclamation.

With Salome clinging to my bosom, Constantius raised me from the ground. The roar of the lion had roused him from his swoon, and two blows saved me. The falchion was broken in the heart of the monster. The whole multitude stood up supplicating for our lives, in the name of filial piety and heroism. Nero, devil as he was, dared not resist the strength of the popular feeling; he waved a signal to the guards; the portal was opened, and my children, sustaining my feeble steps, and showered with garlands and ornaments from innumerable hands, slowly led me from the arena.

END OF BOOK I.