I
A ROMAN QUEST
"If one might only have a guide to the truth."—Seneca.
On Scopus, the high mountain north of Jerusalem, the Roman camp was pitched, that last autumn in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. A few years further on, if the warriors of the Emperor Tiberius could then have foreseen the future, Titus was to quarter his famous legions on that vantage point; and from its elevation he was to hurl himself as a resistless battering ram against the Holy City. But, on this autumn day, when these chronicles begin, no blare of trumpets was summoning the Roman soldiery to arms; only the feet of the camp sentinels, as they walked their appointed rounds, broke the quiet of the sunlit afternoon.
That lithesome, cultivated, serious-minded young knight, Quintus Cornelius Benignus, is standing on the height which overlooks the great metropolis. He is the son of Marcus Cornelius Magnus, that Roman noble who is the intimate associate of the reigning Caesar, and who has been a luxurious resident on the Palatine Hill since his distinguished proconsulship in Africa.
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NOTE.—It is not from any time-marked Hebrew roll that this story of Quintus is now taken. He was of Roman blood, and his record is, rather, to be found in the Latin literature of his time. Well it is when some new leaf is discovered among the musty folios, reciting the saintly character and the triumphs of those who lived when Christianity was new. This record shows the worth of consecrated life and service in the days when the luxurious Roman state most needed a Christian citizenship. But the lesson is none the less for these last days, when the hope of the world is in the creed of Quintus.
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By the side of Quintus is his fellow soldier Aulus. They had spent their boyhood together among the scenes of Rome; now they are companions still, on this last Roman expedition to the district of Judaea. While the common soldiery are throwing their dice in the camp thoroughfare, these are speaking of more serious things. The picture on which they look from lofty Scopus includes the shining roofs of Jerusalem, the wooded Mount of Olives, and the far landscape to the south and west; its undulations and brilliant colorings no Roman artist might put upon the canvas.
With the autumn haze covering the extended panorama, Quintus says first to his comrade:
"What the fates have in store for me, here in the city of Hierosolyma, I am much wondering. The day before our trireme sailed from Brundisium for Tyrus I made a visit to the augur's tent. His prediction was that my journey hither would be followed by strange consequences. The flight of the birds through the air did not reveal to him just what was to occur; but that something eventful was to take place he was very sure. What is to be my fortune?"
"Your lot it may be," answers Aulus, "to perform some daring deed, here in our Jewish campaign; and on your return to Rome you may receive a great reward from the hand of Tiberius."
"In my mind this has been," replies Quintus; "before I left Rome I had an audience with our divine Caesar, and he was pleased to say that my fidelity here might bring me special recompense. Yet would that be satisfying? I have seen the triumphal processions in the streets of Rome, when heroes have been acclaimed; I have heard our statesmen in the Senate hall, and prize the joys of oratory; I have been served all my days by slaves in my father's palace, and know the sweetness of the Falernian wine in the banquet room. A proconsulate, if I might come to that dignity, would be a high honor to write in my life story. But, my dear Aulus, would there be content in this? My restless soul seems crying out for some better gift from the gods."
"It cannot be," continues Aulus. "that your heart's love is involved. When our military movements bring the Roman knights to Palaestina, in their pride of birth they do not wed the black-eyed daughters of the Jews. On your earlier expedition to Egypt you met a princess of the land, but were not let to espouse that swarthy maiden of the Nile. The reward of love cannot be the experience of which the augur spoke at Brundisium."
"Not so," says Quintus in response; "as I was leaving Rome, it was the beautiful Lucretia who sent me forth with her rare farewell. For my return from Palaestina she is now waiting; and under the blue skies of Italia we are to wed. I have been wondering," Quintus adds further, "if the augur, watching the flight of birds there at Brundisium. could mean that I am to fall by death, here in Palaestina. We have not come for battle, but to guard the peace. Yet it is easy for Atropos, that cruel fate, to clip the slender thread of life and send men on to die land of shades. If this was what the augur meant, no Roman in the days of Tiberius has ever set forth upon a more serious adventure."
"You are given to melancholy, this autumn afternoon, my comrade Quintus," the other says; "you are feeling that sadness which comes to men when the Dryads move over the earth and touch the leaves into crimson and gold and brown."
"Not so," answers Quintus; "but I am remembering that I have come into a land where a strange Teacher is speaking to men of a future life. Yet are men to live again? I have seen the marble tombs on the Appia Via where the Scipios, the Metelli, and so many more of our great Romans lie asleep. Shall I soon follow them? Is it an endless slumber? What is it that the new Rabbi from Nazareth means, when in the city yonder he speaks of another life?"
"A fig for your weird autumn fancy," responds Aulus; "down to the streets of Hierosolyma we will go, and among their novel sights we will forget your serious meditations."
They walk that afternoon as sightseers through the crowded Jewish emporium. The shops remind them, with all their contrasts, of the marts of Rome, for men always and everywhere have the trader's passion. In the narrow streets of Jerusalem they see the stir of many activities. The workman is hammering his brass; the shoemaker shapes his sandals; the flax spinner is winding his thread; the scribe sits on his mat, and is ready for his writing. In the shops they see costly merchandise for sale—silks and jewels, fine linens and perfumes, delicious foods and drinks. These have been imported from far Arabia and India; they have been brought from distant Persia and Media. With all their variety, no taste, however fitful, need go unsatisfied.
What a motley crowd is on the streets! They hear the Aramaic speech of Palestine, which Quintus has been taught by his Athenian tutor, and their ears also catch the accents of other foreign tongues. They meet traders from western Zidon, sailors from Crete, bearded Idumaeans from beyond Judaea, and scholars from far Alexandria. Magnificent Jerusalem it is! Yet destined soon to fall. For the day draws near when the Roman Titus shall weep on Scopus over its fading splendors and then shall smite it to the dust.
One purchase only does Quintus make. In a shop where Egyptian wares are sold he says to Aulus:
"Look on this scarab, this sacred beetle, which has been shaped by some workman down in Thebae on the Nile. We may be sure that no people believes more intensely in a future life. What compliment they pay this physical frame of men when they hold that embalmment restores to the soul its former body! After the judgment of Osiris, if their lives be true, the worthy shall enjoy the companionship of the great god forever. No other people wears such a visible emblem of their faith in another life. I will buy this scarab for an amulet against accident and evil."
But where had the workman gone who once had shaped that token of immortality? Whither had vanished his carver's skill? Where had disappeared his projects and his dreams? Quintus is not thinking of any proconsulship he may win, or even of the love light in the eyes of Lucretia, as he climbs again the heights of Scopus. Rather he is meditating on the departed maker of scarabs—and on the destiny of the soul. For ages the philosophers have been speculating about the future life. Familiar is Quintus with the views of Laelius and Seneca, among the Roman inquirers, and with the teachings of the great Grecians who have spoken in classic Athens. But now the question leaps to the front. Quintus is in the city where Ayran travelers and Persian magi and Egyptian priests are busy telling their theories of immortality. He is in the very streets, besides, where a sandaled Teacher from Nazareth is declaring that the dead shall live again. If but half is true that this strange Man is reputed to have said, no priest of Jupiter has ever uttered at Rome so luminous a word. Can it be that Quintus himself shall see this Christus and hear his message? If so, his will be in very truth a momentous quest.