Part 6

"Ah! imposters! simonists, heretics and demons!--vermin of the schools!--dregs of hell! Marcion, there, is a sailor of Sinopus excommunicated for incest;--Carpocrates was banished for being a magician; Ætius stole his concubine; Nicholas prostituted his wife; and this Manes, who calls himself the Buddha, and whose real name is Cubricus, was flayed alive with the point of a reed, so that his skin even now hangs at the gates of Ctesiphon!"

ANTHONY (_recognizing Tertullian, rushes to join him_): "Master! help! help!"

TERTULLIAN (_continuing_):

"Break the images! veil the virgins! Pray, fast, weep and mortify yourselves! No philosophy! no books! After Jesus, science is useless!"

(_All have fled away; and Anthony beholds, in lieu of Tertullian, a woman seated upon a bench of stone._

_She sobs; leaning her head against a column; her hair is loose; her body, weakened by grief, is clad in a long brown simar. Then they find themselves face to face and alone, far from the crowd; and a silence, an extraordinary stillness falls--as in the woods when the winds are lulled, and the leaves of the trees suddenly cease to whisper._

_This woman is still very beautiful, although faded, and pale as a sepulcher. They look at one another; and their eyes send to each other waves, as it were, of thoughts, bearing drift of a thousand ancient things, confused, mysterious. At last_--)

PRISCILLA (_speaks_:)

"I was in the last chamber of the baths; and the rumbling sounds of the street caused a sleep to fall upon me.

"Suddenly I heard a clamour of voices. Men were shouting--'It is a magician!--it is the Devil!' And the crowd stopped before our house, in front of the Temple Æsculapius. I drew myself up with my hands to the little window.

"Upon the peristyle of the temple, there stood a man who wore about his neck a collar of iron. He took burning coals out of a chafing-dish, and with them drew lines across his breast, the while crying out--'Jesus! Jesus!' The people shouted--'This is not lawful! let us stone him!' But he continued. Oh! those were unheard of marvels--things which transported men who beheld them! Flowers broad as suns circled before my eyes, and I heard in the spaces above me the vibrations of a golden harp. Day died. My hands loosened their grasp of the window-bars; my body fell back, and when he had led me away to his house...."

ANTHONY. "But of whom art thou speaking?"

PRISCILLA. "Why, of Montanus!"

ANTHONY. "Montanus is dead!"

PRISCILLA. "It is not true!"

A VOICE. "No: Montanus is not dead!"

(_Anthony turns; and sees upon the bench near him, on the opposite side, another woman sitting; she is fair, and even paler than the other; there are swellings under her eyes, as though she had wept a long time. She speaks without being questioned_:)

MAXIMILLA. "We were returning from Tarsus by way of the mountains, when, at a turn in the road, we saw a man under a fig tree.

"He cried from afar off: 'Stop! stop!' and rushed toward us, uttering words of abuse. The slaves ran up; he burst into a loud laugh. The horses reared; the molossi all barked.

"He stood before us. The sweat streamed from his forehead; his mantle napped in the wind.

"And calling us each by our names, he reproached us with the vanity of our work, the infamy of our bodies; and he shook his fist at the dromedaries because of the silver bells hanging below their mouths.

"His fury now filled my very entrails with fear and yet there was a strange pleasure in it which fascinated me, intoxicated me!

"First the slaves came. 'Master,' they said, 'our animals are weary.' Then the women said, 'We are frightened,' and the slaves departed. Then the children began to weep,--'We are hungry.' And as the women were not answered, they disappeared also from our view.

"He still spoke. I felt some one near me. It was my husband; but I listened only to the other. My husband crawled to me upon his knees among the stones, and cried--'Dost thou abandon me,' and I replied: 'Yes! go thy way!' that I might accompany Montanus."

ANTHONY. "A eunuch!"

PRISCILLA. "Ah! does that astound thee, vulgar soul! Yet Magdalen, Johanna, Martha and Susannah did not share the couch of the Saviour. Souls may know the delirium of embrace better than bodies. That he might keep Eustolia with impunity, the bishop Leontius mutilated himself--loving his love more than his virility. And then, it was no fault of mine. Sotas could not cure me; a spirit constrained me. It is cruel, nevertheless! But what matter? I am the last of the prophetesses; and after me the end of the world shall come."

MAXIMILLA. "He showered his gifts upon me. Moreover, no one loves him as I, nor is any other so well beloved by him!"

PRISCILLA. "Thou liest! I am the most beloved!"

MAXIMILLA. "No: it is I!"

(_They fight. Between their shoulders suddenly appears the head of a negro._)

MONTANUS (_clad in a black mantle, clasped by two cross-bones_):

"Peace, my doves! Incapable of terrestrial happiness, we have obtained the celestial plentitude of our union. After the age of the Father, the age of the Son; and I inaugurate the third, which is that of the Paraclete. His light descended upon me during those forty nights when the heavenly Jerusalem appeared shining in the firmament, above my house at Pepuzza.

"Ah, how ye cry out with anguish when the thongs of the scourge lacerate! how your suffering bodies submit to the ardor of my spiritual discipline! how ye languish with irrealizable longing! So strong has that desire become that it has enabled you to behold the invisible world; and ye can now perceive souls even with the eyes of the body!"

ANTHONY. (_Makes a gesture of astonishment._)

TERTULLIAN (_who appears again, standing beside Montanus_):

"Without doubt; for the soul has a body, and that which is bodiless has no existence."

MONTANUS. "In order to render it yet more subtle, I have instituted many mortifications, three Lents a year, and prayers to be uttered nightly by the mind only, keeping the mouth closed, lest breathing might tarnish thought. It is necessary to abstain from second marriages, or rather from all marriage! The Angels themselves have sinned with women!"

THE ARCHONTICS (_wearing cilices of hair_):

"The Saviour said: 'I come to destroy the work of the Woman!'"

THE TATIANITES (_wearing cilices of reed_):

"She is the tree of evil. Our bodies are but garments of skin."

(_And continuing to advance along the same side, Anthony meets_:--)

THE VALESIANS (_extended upon the ground, with red wounds below their bellies, and blood saturating their tunics. They offer him a knife._)

"Do as Origen did and as we have done! Is it the pain that thou fearest, coward? Is it the love of thy flesh that restrains thee, hypocrite?"

(_And while he watches them writhing upon their backs, in a pool of blood_--)

THE CAINITES (_wearing knotted vipers as fillets about their hair, pass by, vociferating in his ear_):--

"Glory to Cain! Glory to Sodom! Glory be to Judas!

"Cain made the race of the strong; Sodom terrified the earth by her punishment, and it was by Judas that God saved the world! Yes! by Judas: without him there would have been no death and no redemption!"

(_They disappear beneath the horde of the_--)

CIRCUMCELLIONES (_all clad in the skins of wolves, crowned with thorns, and armed with maces of iron_).

"Crush the fruit! befoul the spring! drown the child! Pillage the rich who are happy--who cat their fill! Beat the poor who envy the ass his saddle-cloth, the dog his meal, the bird his nest,--and who is wretched at knowing that others are not as miserable as himself.

"We, the Saints, poison, burn, massacre, that we may hasten the end of the world.

"Salvation may be obtained through martyrdom only. We give ourselves martyrdom. We tear the skin from our heads with pincers; we expose our members to the plough; we cast ourselves into the mouths of furnaces!

"Out upon baptism! out upon the Eucharist! out upon marriage! universal damnation!"

(_Then throughout all the basilica there is a redoubling of fury._

_The Audians shoot arrows against the Devil; the Collyridians throw blue cloths toward the roof; the Ascites prostrate themselves before a waterskin; the Marcionites baptise a dead man with oil. A woman, standing near Appelles, exhibits a round loaf within a bottle, in order the better to explain her idea. Another, standing in the midst of an assembly of Sampseans distributes, as a sacrament, the dust of her own sandals. Upon the rose-strewn bed of the Marcosians, two lovers embrace. The Circumcellionites slaughter one another; the Valesians utter the death-rattle; Bardesanes sings; Carpocras dances; Maximilla and Priscilla moan; and the false prophetess of Cappadocia, completely naked, leaning upon a lion, and brandishing three torches, shrieks the Terrible Invocation._

_The columns of the temple sway to and fro like the trunks of trees in a tempest; the amulets suspended about the necks of the Heresiarchs seem to cross each other in lines of fire; the constellations in the chapels palpitate; and the walls recoil with the ebb and flow of the crowd, in which each head is a wave that leaps and roars._

_Nevertheless, from the midst of the clamor arises the sound of a song, in which the name of Jesus is often repeated, accompanied by bursts of laughter._

_The singers belong to the rabble of the people; they all keep time to the song by clapping their hands. In their midst stands_--)

ARTUS (_in a deacon's vestments_):

"The fools who declaim against me pretend to explain the absurd; and in order to confound them utterly, I have composed ditties so droll that they are learned by heart in all the mills, in the taverns and along the ports.

"No! a thousand times no!--the Son is not coeternal with the Father, nor of the same substance! Otherwise he would not have said: 'Father, remove this chalice from me! Why dost thou call me good? God alone is good! I go to my God, to your God!'--and many other things testifying to his character of creature. The fact is further demonstrated for us by all his names:--lamb, shepherd, fountain, wisdom, son-of-man, prophet; the way, the corner-stone!"

SABELLIUS. "I hold that both are identical."

ARIUS. "The Council of Antioch has decided the contrary."

ANTHONY. "Then what is the Word?... What was Jesus?"

THE VALENTINIANS. "He was the husband of Acharamoth repentant!"

THE SETHIANIANS. "He was Shem, the son of Noah!"

THE THEODOTIANS. "He was Melchisedech!"

THE MERINTHIANS. "He was only a man!"

THE APOLLINARISTS. "He assumed the appearance of one! He simulated the Passion!"

MARCEL OF ANCYRA. "He was a development of the Father!"

POPE CALIXTUS. "Father and Son are but two modes of one God's manifestation!"

METHODIUS. "He was first in Adam, then in man!"

CERINTHUS. "And He will rise again!"

VALENTINUS. "Impossible--his body being celestial!"

PAUL OF SAMOSATA. "He became God _only_ from the time of his baptism!"

HERMOGENES. "He dwells in the sun!"

(_And all the Heresiarchs form a circle about Anthony, who weeps, covering his face with his hands._)

A JEW (_with a red beard, and spots of leprosy upon his shin, approaches close to Anthony, and, with a hideous sneer, exclaims_):

"His soul was the soul of Esau! He suffered from the Bellephorentian sickness. Was not his mother, the seller of perfumes, seduced by a Roman soldier, one Pantherus?.......................... [6]

ANTHONY (_suddenly raising his head, looks at them a moment in silence; then advancing boldly upon them, exclaims_):

"Doctors, magicians, bishops, and deacons, men and phantoms, away from me! begone! Ye are all lies!"

THE HERESIARCHS. "We have martyrs more martyrs than thine, prayers that are more difficult, outbursts of love more sublime, ecstasies as prolonged as thine are."

ANTHONY. "But ye have no revelation! no proofs!"

(_They all at once brandish in the air their rolls of papyrus, tablets of wood, scrolls of leather, rolls of woven stuff bearing inscriptions; and elbowing; and pushing each other, they all shout to Anthony._)

THE CERINTHIANS. "Behold the Gospel of the Hebrews!"

THE MARCIONITES. "Behold the Gospel of the Lord!"

THE MARCOSIANS. "The Gospel of Eve!"

THE EUCRATITES. "The Gospel of Thomas!"

THE CAINITES. "The Gospel of Judas!"

BASILIDES. "The Treatise upon the Destiny of the Soul!"

MANES. "The Prophecy of Barkouf!"

(_Anthony struggles, breaks from them, escapes them; and in a shadowy corner perceives_--)

THE AGED EBIONITES

(_withered as mummies, their eyes dull and dim, their eyebrows white as frost._

_In tremulous voices they exclaim_:--)

"We have known him, we have seen him! We knew the Carpenter's Son! We were then the same age as he; we dwelt in the same street. He used to amuse himself by modelling little birds of mud; aided his father at his work without fear of the sharp tools, or selected for his mother the skeins of dyed wool. Then he made a voyage to Egypt, from whence he brought back wondrous secrets. We were at Jericho when he came to find the Eater of Locusts. They talked together in a low voice, so that no one could hear what was said. But it was from that time that his name began to be noised abroad in Galilee, and that men began to relate many fables regarding him."

(_They reiterate, tremulously_:)

"We knew him! we others, we knew him!"

ANTHONY. "Ah, speak on, speak! What was his face like?"

TERTULLIAN. "His face was wild and repulsive; forasmuch as he had burthened himself with all the crimes, all the woes, all the deformities of mankind."

ANTHONY. "Oh! no, no! I imagine, on the contrary, that his entire person must have been glorious with a beauty greater than the beauty of man!"

EUSEBIUS OF CÆSAREA. "There is indeed, at Paneades, propped up against the walls of a crumbling edifice surrounded by a wilderness of weeds and creeping plants, a certain statue of stone which, some say, was erected by the Woman healed of the issue of blood. But time has gnawed the face of the statue, and the rains have worn the inscription away."

(_A woman steps forward from the group of the Carpocratians._)

MARCELLINA. "I was once a deaconess at Rome, in a little church, where I used to exhibit to the faithful, the silver images, of Saint Paul, Homer, Pythagoras and Jesus Christ.

"I have only kept that of Jesus."

(_She half opens her mantle._)

"Dost thou desire it?"

A VOICE. "He reappears himself when we call upon him! It is the hour!--come!"

(_And Anthony feels a brutal hand seize him by the arm, and drag him away._

_He mounts a stairway in complete darkness; and after having ascended many steps, he finds himself before a door._

_Then the one who is leading him--(is it Hilarion?--he does not know)--whispers in the ear of another_: "The Lord is about to come!"--_and they are admitted into a chamber, with a very low ceiling, and without furniture._

_The first object which attracts his attention is a long blood-colored chrysalis, with a human head surrounded by rays, and the word_ Knouphus _inscribed all around it in Greek characters. It is placed upon the shaft of a column, which is in turn supported by a broad pedestal. Hanging upon the walls of the chamber are medallions of polished iron representing the heads of various animals:--the head of an ox, the head of a lion, the head of an eagle, the head of a dog, and the head of an ass--again!_

_Earthen lamps, suspended below these images, create a vacillating light. Through a hole in the wall, Anthony can see the moon shining far off upon the waves; he can even hear the feeble regular sound of lapping water; together with the heavy thud occasionally caused by the bumping of a ship's hull against the stones of the mole._

_There are men crouching down, with their faces hidden by their mantles. From time to time they utter sounds resembling a smothered bark. There are women also, sleeping with their foreheads resting upon their arms, and their arms supported by their knees; they are so hidden by their garments as to resemble heaps of cloth piled up at intervals against the wall. Near them are half naked children, whose persons swarm with vermin. They watch with idiotic stare the burning of the lamps; and nothing is done: all are waiting for something._

_They talk in undertones about family matters, or recommend to each other various remedies for their ailments. Some of them must embark at earliest daylight; the persecution is becoming too terrible to be endured. Nevertheless, the pagans are easily enough deceived_:--"The fools imagine that we are really adoring Knouphus!"

_But one of the brethren, feeling himself suddenly inspired, takes his place before the column, where a basket has already been placed, filled with fennel and aristolochia. On the top of the basket is placed a loaf._)

THE INSPIRED BROTHER

(_unrolling a placard covered with designs representing cylinders blending with and fitting into one another, commences to pray_:)

"The ray of the Word descended upon the darknesses; and there arose a mighty cry, like unto the voice of Light."

ALL (_swaying their bodies in unison, respond_):

"Kyrie eleison!"

THE INSPIRED BROTHER. "Then was Man created by the infamous God of Israel, aided by those who are these (_pointing to the medallions_)--Astophaios, Oraios, Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloi, Iao!

"And Man, hideous, feeble, formless and thoughtless, lay upon the slime of the earth."

ALL (_in plaintive accents_):

"Kyrie eleison!"

THE INSPIRED BROTHER. "But Sophia, compassionating him, vivified him with a spark of her own soul.

"Then God, beholding Man so beautiful, waxed wroth; and imprisoned him within His own kingdom, forbidding him to touch the Tree of Knowledge.

"Again did the other succor him. She sent to him the Serpent, who, by many long subterfuges, made him disobey that law of hate.

"And Man, having tasted knowledge, understood celestial things."

ALL (_raising their voices_):

"Kyrie Eleison!"

THE INSPIRED BROTHER. "But Iabdalaoth through vengeance cast down man into the world of matter, and the Serpent with him."

ALL (_in a very low tone_):

"Kyrie Eleison!"

(_Then all hold their peace, and there is silence._

_The odors of the port mingle with the smoke of the lamps in the warm air. The lamp-wicks crepitate; their flames are about to go out, long mosquitoes flit in rapid circlings about them. And Anthony groans in an agony of anguish, as with the feeling that a monstrosity is floating about him, as with the fear of a crime that is about to be accomplished._

_But_--)

THE INSPIRED BROTHER (_stamping his heel upon the floor, snapping his fingers, tossing his head wildly, suddenly chants to a furious rhythm, with accompaniment of cymbals and a shrill flute_:--)

"Come! come! come!--issue from thy cavern!

"O swift one, who runneth without feet, captor who seizeth without hand!

"Sinuous as the rivers, orbicular as the sun, black, with spots of gold, like the firmament star-besprinkled! Like unto the intertwinings of the vine, and the circumvolutions of entrails!

"Unengendered! eater of earth! immortally young! unfailing perspicacious! honored at Epidaurus! Kindly to man! thou who didst heal King Ptolemy, and the warriors, of Moses, and Glaucus, son of Minos!

"Come! come! come!--issue from thy cavern!"

ALL (_repeat_):

"Come! come! come!--issue from thy cavern!"

(_Nevertheless, nothing yet appears._)

"Why? What aileth him?"

(_And they concert together, devise means._

_An old man presents a clod of turf as an offering. Then something upheaves within the basket. The mass of verdure shakes; the flowers fall, and the head of a python appears._

_It passes slowly around the edge of the loaf, like a circle moving around an immovable disk;--then it unfolds itself, lengthens out; it is enormous and of great weight. Lest it should touch the floor, the men uphold it against their breasts, the women support it upon their heads, the children hold it up at arms' length; and its tail, issuing through the hole in the wall, stretches away indefinitely to the bottom of the sea. Its coils double; they fill the chamber; they enclose Anthony._)

THE FAITHFUL (_press their mouths against its skin, snatch from one another the loaf which it has bitten, and cry aloud_:--)

"It is thou! it is thou!

"First raised up by Moses, broken by Ezechias, re-established by the Messiah. He drank thee in the waters of baptism; but thou didst leave him in the Garden of Olives; and then indeed he felt his own weakness!

"Writhing about the arms of the cross, and above his head, while casting thy slime upon the crown of thorns, thou didst behold him die! For thou art not Jesus, thou!--thou art the Word! thou art the Christ!"

(_Anthony faints with horror, and falls prostrate in front of his hut upon the splinters of wood, where the torch that had slipped from his hand, is burning low._

_The shock arouses him. Opening his eyes again, he perceives the Nile, brightly undulating under the moon, like a vast serpent winding over the sands; so that the hallucination returns upon him again; he has not left the company of the Ophites; they surround him, call him; he sees them carrying baggage, descending to the port. He embarks along with them._

_An inappreciable time elapses._

_Then the vaults of a prison environ him. Iron bars in front of him make black lines against a background of blue; and in the darkness beside him people are praying and weeping surrounded by others who exhort and console._

_Without, there is a murmur like the deep humming of a vast crowd, and there is splendour as of a summer's day._

_Shrill voices announce watermelons for sale, iced drinks, and cushions of woven grass to sit upon. From time to time there are bursts of applause. He hears the sound of footsteps above his head._

_Suddenly a long roar is heard, mighty and cavernous as the roar of water in an aqueduct._

_And he sees, directly opposite, behind the bars of another compartment across the arena a lion walking to and fro, then a line of sandals, bare legs, and purple fringes. Beyond are the vast circling wreaths of people, in symmetrical tiers, enlarging as they rise, from the lowest which hems in the arena to the uppermost above which masts rise to sustain a hyacinth-colored awning, suspended in air by ropes. Stairways radiating toward the centre, divide these huge circles of stone at regular intervals. The benches disappear under a host of spectators--knights, senators, soldiers, plebeians, vestals, and courtesans--in woollen hoods, in silken maniples, in fallow-colored tunics; together with aigrettes of precious stones, plumes of feathers, the fasces of lictors; and all this swarming multitude deafens and stupefies Anthony with its shoutings, its tumultuous fury, as of an enormous boiling vat. In the middle of the arena, a vase of incense smokes upon an altar._

_Anthony thus knows that the people with him are Christians condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts. The men wear the red mantle of the pontiffs of Saturn; the women, the bandellettes of Ceres. Their friends divide among themselves shreds of their garments, and rings. To obtain access to the prison, they say, costs a great deal of money. But what matter! They will remain until it is all over._

_Anthony notices among these consolers, a certain bald-headed man, in a black tunic: Anthony has seen that face somewhere before. The consoler discourses to them concerning the nothingness of this world, and the felicity of the Elect. Anthony feels within him a transport of celestial love; he longs for the opportunity to lay down his life for the Saviour--not knowing as yet whether he himself is to be numbered among the martyrs._