Serapis. Complete

One and all, they were allies in a great fight, and the same hopes, ideas, and wishes fired them all. The Abominable Thing—which imperilled hundreds of thousands of souls, which invited Satan to assert his dominion in this world—should fall this day and be annihilated forever! To them the whole heathen world was the “great whore;” and though the gems she wore were beautiful to see and rejoiced the mind and heart of fools, they must be snatched from her painted brow; they would scourge her from off the face of the redeemed earth and destroy the seducer of souls forever. “Down with the idols! Down with Serapis! Down with the heathen!” Their shouts thundered and bellowed all about Agne; but, just as the uproar and crush were at the worst, a tall and majestic figure appeared on a balcony above the cross and extended his hand in calm and dignified benediction towards the seething mass of humanity. As he raised it all present, including Ague, bowed and bent the knee.

Agne felt, knew, that this stately man was the Bishop whom she sought, but she did not point him out to her little brother, for his aspect was that of some proud sovereign rather than of “the good, kind man” of whom she had dreamed. She could never dare to force her way into the presence of this great lord! How should the ruler over a million souls find time or patience for her and her trivial griefs?

However, there must be within his dwelling sundry presbyters and deacons, and she would address herself to one of them, as soon as the crowd had dispersed enough for her to make her way to the door beneath the cross. Twenty times at least did she renew her efforts, but she made very small progress; most of the monks, as she tried to squeeze past them, roughly pushed her back; one, on whose arm she ventured to lay her hand, begging him to make way for her, broke out into shrieks as though a serpent had stung him, and when the crush brought her into contact with the crown-bearer he thrust her away exclaiming:

“Away woman! Do not touch me, spawn of Satan tool of the evil one! or I will tread you under foot!”

Retreat had been as impossible as progress, and long hours went by which to her seemed like days; still she felt no fatigue, only alarm and disgust, and, more than anything else, an ardent desire to reach the Bishop’s palace and take counsel of a priest. It was long past noon when a diversion took place which served at any rate to interest and amuse the crying child.

On the platform above the doorway Cynegius came forth—Cynegius, the Emperor’s delegate; a stout man of middle height, with a shrewd round head and a lawyer’s face. State dignitaries, Consuls and Prefects had, at this date, ceased to wear the costume that had marked the patricians of old Rome—a woollen toga that fell in broad and dignified folds from the shoulders; a long, close-fitting robe had taken its place, of purple silk brocade with gold flowers. On the envoy’s shoulder blazed the badge of the highest officials, a cruciform ornament of a peculiarly thick and costly tissue. He greeted the crowd with a condescending bow, a herald blew three blasts on the tuba, and then Cynegius, with a wave of his hand introduced his private secretary who stood by his side, and who at once opened a roll he held and shouted at the top of a ringing voice:

“Silence in Caesar’s name!”

The trumpet then sounded for the fourth time, and silence so complete fell on the crowded square that the horses of the mounted guard in front of the Prefect’s house could be heard snorting and champing.

“In Caesar’s name,” repeated the official, who had been selected for the duty of reading the Imperial message. Cynegius himself bent his head, again waved his hand towards his secretary, and then towards the statues of the Emperor and Empress which, mounted on gilt standards, were displayed to the populace on each side of the balcony; then the reading began:

“Theodosius Caesar greets the inhabitants of the great and noble city of Alexandria, by Cynegius, his faithful ambassador and servant. He knows that its true and honest citizens confess the Holy Faith in all piety and steadfastness, as delivered to believers in the beginning by Peter, the prince of the Apostles; he knows that they hold the true Christian faith, and abide by the doctrine delivered by the Holy Ghost to the Fathers of the Church in council at Nicaea.

“Theodosius Caesar who, in all humility and pride, claims to be the sword and shield, the champion and the rampart of the one true faith, congratulates his subjects of the great and noble city of Alexandria inasmuch as that most of them have turned from the devilish heresy of Arius, and have confessed the true Nicaean creed; and he announces to them, by his faithful and noble servant Cynegius, that this faith and no other shall be recognized in Alexandria, as throughout his dominions.

“In Egypt, as in all his lands and provinces, every doctrine opposed to this precious creed shall be persecuted, and all who confess, preach or diffuse any other doctrine shall be considered heretics and treated as such.”

The secretary paused, for loud and repeated shouts of joy broke from the multitude. Not a dissentient word was heard-indeed, the man who should have dared to utter one would certainly not have escaped unpunished. It was not till the herald had several times blown a warning blast that the reader could proceed, as follows:

“It has come to the ears of your Caesar, to the deep grieving of his Christian soul, that the ancient idolatry, which so long smote mankind with blindness and kept them wandering far from the gates of Paradise, still, through the power of the devil, has some temples and altars in your great and noble city. But because it is grievous to the Christian and clement heart of the Emperor to avenge the persecutions and death which so many holy martyrs have endured at the hands of the bloodthirsty and cruel heathen on their posterity, or on the miscreant and—misbelieving enemies of our holy faith—and because the Lord hath said ‘vengeance is mine’—Theodosius Caesar only decrees that the temples of the heathen idols in this great and noble city of Alexandria shall be closed, their images destroyed and their altars overthrown. Whosoever shall defile himself with blood, or slay an innocent beast for sacrifice, or enter a heathen temple, or perform any religious ceremony therein, or worship any image of a god made by hands-nay, or pray in any temple in the country or in the city, shall be at once required to pay a fine of fifteen pounds of gold; and whosoever shall know of such a crime being committed without giving information of it, shall be fined to the same amount.”—[Codex Theodosianus XVI, 10, 10.]

The last words were spoken to the winds, for a shout of triumph, louder and wilder than had ever before been heard even on this favorite meeting-place of the populace, rent the very skies. Nor did it cease, nor yield to any trumpet-blast, but rolled on in spreading waves down every street and alley; it reached the ships in the port, and rang through the halls of the rich and the hovels of the poor; it even found a dull echo in the light-house at the point of Pharos, where the watchman was trimming the lamp for the night; and in an incredibly short time all Alexandria knew that Caesar had dealt a death-blow to the worship of the heathen gods.

The great and fateful rumor was heard, too, in the Museum and the Serapeum; once more the youth who had grown up in the high schools of the city, studying the wisdom of the heathen, gathered together; men who had refined and purified their intellect at the spring of Greek philosophy and fired their spirit with enthusiasm for all that was good and lovely in the teaching of ancient Greece—these obeyed the summons of their master, Olympius, or flew to arms under the leadership of Orestes, the Governor, for the High-Priest himself had to see to the defences of the Serapeum.—Olympius had weapons ready in abundance, and the youths rapidly collected round the standards he had prepared, and rushed into the square before the Prefect’s house to drive away the monks and to insist that Cynegius should return forthwith to Rome with the Emperor’s edict.

Young and noble lads were they who marched forth to the struggle, equipped like the Helleman soldiers of the palmy days of Athens; and as they went they sang a battle-song of Callinus which some one—who, no one could tell—had slightly altered for the occasion:

       “Come, rouse ye Greeks; what, sleeping still!        Is courage dead, is shame unknown?        Start up, rush forth with zealous will,        And smite the mocking Christians down!”

Everything that opposed their progress was overthrown. Two maniples of foot-soldiers who held the high-road across the Bruchium attempted to turn them, but the advance of the inflamed young warriors was irresistible and they reached the street of the Caesareum and the square in front of the Prefect’s residence. Here they paused to sing the last lines of their battlesong:

       “Fate seeks the coward out at home,        He dies unwept, unknown to fame,        While by the hero’s honored tomb        Our grandsons’ grandsons shall proclaim:       ‘In the great conflict’s fiercest hour        He stood unmoved, our shield and tower.’”

It was here, at the wide opening into the square, that the collision took place: on one side the handsome youths, crowned with garlands, with their noble Greek type of heads, thoughtful brows, perfumed curls, and anointed limbs exercised in the gymnasium—on the other the sinister fanatics in sheep-skin, ascetic visionaries grown grey in fasting, scourging, and self-denial.

The monks now prepared to meet the onset of the young enthusiasts who were fighting for freedom of thought and enquiry, for Art and Beauty. Each side was defending what it felt to be the highest Good, each was equally in earnest as to its convictions, both fought for something dearer and more precious than this earthly span of existence. But the philosophers’ party had swords; the monks’ sole weapon was the scourge, and they were accustomed to ply that, not on each other but on their own rebellious flesh. A wild and disorderly struggle began with swingeing blows on both sides; prayers and psalms mingling with the battle-song of the heathen. Here a monk fell wounded, there one lay dead, there again lay a fine and delicate-looking youth, felled by the heavy fist of a recluse. A hermit wrestled hand to hand with a young philosopher who, only yesterday had delivered his first lecture on the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus to an interested audience.

And in the midst of this mad struggle stood Agne with her little brother, who clung closely to her skirts and was too terrified to shed a tear or utter a cry. The girl was resolutely calm, but she was too utterly terror-stricken even to pray. Fear, absorbing fear had stunned her thoughts; it overmastered her like some acute physical pain which began in her heart and penetrated every fibre of her frame.

Even while the Imperial message was being read she had been too frightened to take it all in; and now she simply shut her eyes tight and hardly understood what was going on around her, till a new and different noise sounded close in her ears: the clatter of hoofs, blare of trumpets and shouts and screams. At last the tumult died away and, when she ventured to open her eyes and look about her, the place all round her was as clear as though it had been swept by invisible hands; here and there lay a dead body and there still was a dense crowd in the street leading to the Caesareum, but even that was dispersing and retreating before the advance of a mounted force.

She breathed freely once more, and released the child’s head from the skirt of her dress in which he had wrapped and buried it. The end of her alarms was not yet come, however, for a troop of the young heathen came flying across the square in wild retreat before a division of the heavy cavalry, which had intervened to part the combatants.

The fugitives came straight towards her; again she closed her eyes tightly, expecting every instant to find herself under the horses’ feet. Then one of the runaways knocked down Papias, and she could bear no more; her senses deserted her, her knees failed under her, she lost consciousness, and with a dull groan she fell on the dusty pavement. Close to her, as she lay, rushed the pursued and the pursuers—and at last, how long after she knew not, when she recovered her senses she felt as if she were floating in the air, and presently perceived that a soldier had her in his arms and was carrying her like a child.

Fresh alarms and fresh shame overwhelmed the poor girl; she tried to free herself and found him quite ready to set her down. When she was once more on her feet and felt that she could stand she glanced wildly round her with sudden recollection, and then uttered a hoarse cry, for her mouth and tongue were parched:

“Christ Jesus! Where is my brother?” She pushed back her hair with a desperate gesture, pressing her hands to her temples and peering all round her with a look of fevered misery.

She was still in the square and close to the door of the Prefect’s house; a man on horseback, in all probability her preserver’s servant, was following them, leading his master’s horse. On the pavement lay wounded men groaning with pain; the street of the Caesareum was lined with a double row of footsoldiers of Papias no sign!

Again she called him, and with such deep anguish in her voice, which was harsh and shrill with terror, that the young officer looked at her with extreme compassion.

“Papias, Papias—my little brother! O God my Saviour!—where, where is the child?”

“We will have him sought for,” said the soldier whose voice was gentle and kind. “You are too young and pretty—what brought you into this crowd and amid such an uproar?”

She colored deeply and looking down answered low and hurriedly: “I was going to see the Bishop.”

“You chose an evil hour,” replied Constantine, for it was he who had found her lying on the pavement and who had thought it only an act of mercy not to trust so young and fair a girl to the protection of his followers. “You may thank God that you have got off so cheaply. Now, I must return to my men. You know where the Bishop lives? Yes, here. And with regard to your little brother.... Stay; do you live in Alexandria?” “No, my lord.”

“But you have some relation or friend whom you lodge with?”

“No, my lord. I am… I have… I told you, I only want to see my lord the Bishop.”

“Very strange! Well, take care of yourself. My time is not my own; but by-and-bye, in a very short time, I will speak to the city watchmen; how old is the boy?”

“Nearly six.”

“And with black hair like yours?”

“No, my lord—fair hair,” and as she spoke the tears started to her eyes. “He has light curly hair and a sweet, pretty little face.”

The prefect smiled and nodded. “And if they find him,” he went on, “Papias, you say, is his name where is he to be taken?”

“I do not know, my lord, for—and yet! Oh! my head aches, I cannot think—if only I knew.... If they find him he must come here—here to my lord the Bishop.”

“To Theophilus?” said Constantine in surprise. “Yes, yes—to him,” she said hastily. “Or—stay—to the gate-keeper at the Bishop’s palace.”

“Well, that is less aristocratic, but perhaps it is more to the purpose,” said the officer; and with a sign to his servant, he twisted his hand in his horse’s mane, leaped into the saddle, waved her a farewell, and rejoined his men without paying any heed to her thanks.

CHAPTER XIV

There was much bustle and stir in the hall of the Episcopal palace. Priests and monks were crowding in and out; widows, who, as deaconesses, were entrusted with the care of the sick, were waiting, bandages in hand, and discussing their work and cases, while acolytes lifted the wounded on to the litters to carry them to the hospitals.

The deacon Eusebius, whom we have met as the spiritual adviser of Marcus, was superintending the good work, and he took particular care that as much attention should be shown to the wounded heathen as to the Christians.

In front of the building veterans of the twenty-first legion paced up and down in the place of the ordinary gate-keepers, who were sufficient protection in times of peace.

Agne looked in vain for any but soldiers, but at last she slipped in unobserved among the men and women who were tending the wounded. She was terribly thirsty, and seeing one of the widows mixing some wine and water and offer it to one of the wounded men who pushed it away, she took courage and begged the deaconess to give her a drink. The woman handed her the cup at once, asking to whom she belonged that she was here.

“I want to see my lord, the Bishop,” replied Agne, but then correcting herself, she added hastily: “If I could see the Bishop’s gate-keeper, I might speak to him.”

“There he is,” said the deaconess, pointing to an enormously tall man standing in the darkest and remotest corner of the hall. The darkness reminded her for the first time that it was now evening. Night was drawing on, and then where could she take refuge and find shelter? She shuddered and simply saying: “Thank you,” she went to the man who had been pointed out to her and begged that if her little brother should be found and brought to him, he would take charge of him.

“To be sure,” said the big man good-naturedly. “He can be taken to the orphanage of the ‘Good Samaritan’ if they bring him here, and you can enquire for him there.”

She then made so bold as to ask if she could see a priest; but for this she was directed to go to the church, as all those who were immediately attached to the Bishop were to-day fully occupied, and had no time for trifles. Agne, however, persisted in her request till the man lost patience altogether and told her to be off at once; but at this instant three ecclesiastics came in at the door by which her friend was on guard, and Agne, collecting all her courage, went up to one of them, a priest of advanced age, and besought him urgently:

“Oh! reverend Father, I beg of you to hear me. I must speak to a priest, and that man drives me away and says you none of you have time to attend to me!”

“Did he say that!” asked the priest, and he turned angrily on the culprit saying: “The Church and her ministers never lack time to attend to the needs of any faithful soul—I will follow you, brothers.—Now, my child, what is it that you need?”

“It lies so heavily on my soul,” replied Agne, raising her eyes and hands in humble supplication. “I love my Saviour, but I cannot always do exactly as I should wish, and I do not know how I ought to act so as not to fall into sin.”

“Come with me,” said the priest, and leading the way across a small garden, he took her into a wide open court and from thence in at a side door and up a flight of stairs which led to the upper floor. As she followed him her heart beat high with painful and yet hopeful excitement. She kept her hands tightly clasped and tried to pray, but she could hardly control her thoughts of her brother and of all she wanted to say to the presbyter.

They presently entered a lofty room where the window-shutters were closed, and where a number of lamps, already lighted, were hanging over the cushioned divans on which sat rows of busy scribes of all ages.

“Here we are,” said the priest kindly, as he seated himself in an easy-chair at some little distance from the writers. “Now, tell me fully what troubles you; but as briefly as you can, for I am sparing you these minutes from important business.”

“My lord,” she began, “my parents were freeborn, natives of Augusta Trevirorum. My father was a collector of tribute in the Emperor’s service …”

“Very good—but has this anything to do with the matter?”

“Yes, yes, it has. My father and mother were good Christians and in the riots at Antioch—you remember, my lord, three years ago—they were killed and I and my brother—Papias is his name…”

“Yes, yes—go on.”

“We were sold. My master paid for us—I saw the money; but he did not treat us as slaves. But now he wants me—he, Sir, is wholly devoted to the heathen gods-and he wants me…”

“To serve his idols?”

“Yes, reverend Father, and so we ran away.”

“Quite right, my child.”

“But the scriptures say that the slave shall obey his master?”

“True; but higher than the master in the flesh is the Father in Heaven, and it is better a thousand times to sin against man than against God.”

This conversation had been carried on in an undertone on account of the scribes occupied at the desks; but the priest raised his voice with his last words, and he must have been heard in the adjoining room, for a heavy curtain of plain cloth was opened, and an unusually deep and powerful voice exclaimed:

“Back again already, Irenaeus! That is well; I want to speak with you.”

“Immediately, my lord—I am at your service in a moment.—Now, my child,” he added, rising, “you know what your duty is. And if your master looks you up and insists on your assisting at the sacrifice or what ever it may be, you will find shelter with us. My name is Irenaeus.”

Here he was again interrupted, for the curtain was lifted once more and a man came out of the inner room whom no one could forget after having once met him. It was the Bishop whom Agne had seen on the balcony; she recognized him at once, and dropped on her knees to kiss the hem of his robe in all humility. Theophilus accepted the homage as a matter of course, hastily glancing at the child with his large keen eyes; Agne not daring to raise hers, for there was certainly something strangely impressive in his aspect. Then, with a wave of his long thin hand to indicate Agne, he asked:

“What does this girl want?”

“A freeborn girl—parents Christian—comes from Antioch…” replied Irenaeus. “Sold to a heathen master—commanded to serve idols—has run away and now has doubts…”

“You have told her to which Lord her service is due?” interrupted the Bishop. Then, turning to Agne, he said: “And why did you come here instead of going to the deacon of your own church?”

“We have only been here a few days,” replied the girl timidly, as she ventured to raise her eyes to the handsome face of this princely prelate, whose fine, pale features looked as if they had been carved out of marble.

“Then go to partake of the sacred Eucharist in the basilica of Mary,” replied the Bishop. “It is just now the hour—but no, stop. You are a stranger here you say; you have run away from your master—and you are young, very young and very.... It is dark too. Where are you intending to sleep?”

“I do not know,” said Agne, and her eyes filled with tears.

“That is what I call courage!” murmured Theophilus to the priest, and then he added to Agne: “Well, thanks to the saints, we have asylums for such as you, here in the city. That scribe will give you a document which will secure your admission to one. So you come from Antioch? Then there is the refuge of Seleucus of Antioch. To what parish—[Parochia in Latin]—did your parents belong?”

“To that of John the Baptist?”

“Where Damascius was the preacher?”

“Yes, holy Father. He was the shepherd of our souls.”

“What! Damascius the Arian?” cried the Bishop. He drew his fine and stately figure up to its most commanding height and closed his thin lips in august contempt, while Irenaeus, clasping his hands in horror, asked her:

“And you—do you, too, confess the heresy of Arius?”

“My parents were Arians,” replied Agne in much surprise. “They taught me to worship the godlike Saviour.”

“Enough!” exclaimed the Bishop severely. “Come Irenaeus.”

He nodded to the priest to follow him, opened the curtain and went in first with supreme dignity.

Agne stood as if a thunderbolt had fallen, pale, trembling and desperate. Then was she not a Christian? Was it a sin in a child to accept the creed of her parents? And were those who, after charitably extending a saving hand, had so promptly withdrawn it—were they Christians in the full meaning of the All-merciful Redeemer?

Agonizing doubts of everything that she had hitherto deemed sacred and inviolable fell upon her soul; doubts of everything in heaven and earth, and not merely of Christ and of his godlike, or divine goodness—for what difference was there to her apprehension in the meaning of the two words which set man to hunt and persecute man? In the distress and hopeless dilemma in which she found herself, she shed no tears; she simply stood rooted to the spot where she had heard the Bishop’s verdict.