The quenchless light

by Agnes C. Laut

Now whether Apollos were Apollonius, I do not know. They lived in the period in the same places. For fiction purposes to throw the flashlight on the conditions under which the Apostles labored, it does not matter; but granted he may have been, isn’t there a dilemma in having him East of the Dead Sea, on his way back from the Far East?

Didn’t Apollonius, according to the legendary life of him, come back from India by the Red Sea to Egypt? Didn’t he meet Vespasian in Alexandria; and wasn’t he sent by Vespasian on an errand to Tarsus, North of Palestine? How then, would he go East of the Dead Sea towards Damascus? Fiction could brush these questions aside as immaterial in a story; but it does not need to. From 66 to 70, every port in Egypt, Palestine and Grecian Asia was packed with the Roman Armies hurrying to crush Jerusalem. Christians had already hurried east of the Jordan and Dead Sea to hide in the caves of the desert as Christ had warned them to do, when he foretold the destruction of the Holy City. Travelers from the Far East to Grecian Asia had to follow the Damascus Road; for they could not safely venture in the war zone of the Coast and Jerusalem.

How do we know Peter was in Babylonia? Because he says so in one of his letters. Critics say the Babylonia he mentions is really Rome. I leave that dispute wide open. There is no proof Paul and Peter were together in Rome, when the former was executed. Paul’s death is given variously as between 67 and 69 A.D. Note John’s references in the Apocalypse to “the two witnesses” in the other world! If Peter hastened from the Euphrates to take up the work of Paul’s dispersed followers in Rome—and there is no proof of Peter being elsewhere in these years—he must have hastened for Rome almost contemporaneous with the revolt that ended in the overthrow of Jerusalem; for his death by crucifixion took place soon after Paul’s. Onesimus’ trip to Peter in the East is, of course, pure fiction, for Peter’s first round-robin letter to the churches of Asia was sent by Silvanus, a friend of Paul; and very few details are known of the second letter. They are dated 60 to 66 A.D. The Vatican books in this period are invaluable to all students of early Christianity. They reject ruthlessly all fabulous stories. See “Pope’s Aids to the Bible,” Vol. II; and Fouard’s “St. Peter.”

How do I infer that in the siege of Jerusalem the Herod women were sent for safety to the Herod Fort east of the Dead Sea instead of west? First, because the Herod Fort on the west side of the Dead Sea was in the hands of the rabble zealots and bandits, and was therefore against Rome and the Herods. It was one of the first forts to be reduced after Jerusalem. Second, because the Herod Fort east of the Dead Sea was always an arsenal of defence against revolt and against the invasion of Arab and Idumean from the east. Here, the Herods had their family country place in distinction from the Palace in Jerusalem and from the public buildings in Cæsarea on the sea. Here, Herod the Great entertained Cleopatra and spurned her blandishments. Here, the Herods retired with their families for family conference and often for the most terrible crimes known in family history. It was a secret fort. Here were the sulphur baths. Near Jericho were their pleasure gardens. Here, it is now almost universally agreed, John Baptist was imprisoned and executed; and Herod the Great passed the hideous days preceding his hideous death. I can’t prove it was where they were kept for safety during the siege of Jerusalem; but it does not seem to me there was any other place where they could have been safely kept; for Cæsarea was in wild disorder. Bernice had gone down to Jerusalem from her old spouse in Syria to lay her plans for Titus, the Roman general; but as far as we know until the end, she was not in the siege. Agrippa was with the Roman forces throughout. Herodias’ madness and remorse can be found in her banished husband’s letters. The final fate of the last of the Herods beneath Vesuvius’ eruption can be found in Josephus.

Letters from Pilate to Herod, from Herod to Pilate, give the data as to Herodias’ blindness. In these letters, Herodias’ daughter is referred to as a younger Herodias, not as Salome. Therefore I left Salome out of these stories. The fiction woven about Salome’s name in modern literature seems to me the most perfect example of sensualizing and degrading biblical records that could be devised. The most cursory glance at the Herod family tree show she must have been little more than a baby at the time of the Baptist’s death—certainly under eight or ten. When you consider the colossal pyramid of unclean modern literature and music built on Salome’s name, it isn’t much of a testimony to the modern heart being much cleaner than the Herod heart which we condemn.

The superstition of the flower foretelling the lovers’ fate, which has come down to our own day in the petals of the field daisy, dates back to the very lotus flower worship of India and Egypt.

The legendary “Ardath, the Field of Flowers” is, of course, from the Persian and will be found in the Book of Esdras. In fact, to understand this whole era, no student should fail to read Esdras and Enoch, which are parallel in writing and sentiment to Daniel and Revelation. Pilate’s fate and letters will be found in the Apocryphal New Testament.

Malden thinks from Paul’s letters to the people of Thessaly 54 A.D. that, up to the assault on Jerusalem in 69-70, many of the Christians still looked for Christ’s second coming in glory and majesty and power; but in the letter to Cornith, when Paul had drawn his immortal picture of “the celestial body,” it is evident the Christians knew they were working for and in an Invisible Kingdom such as Onesimus described. Malden gives the correct chronology in which the books of the New Testament were written; so that one can follow the fuller and higher and closer outlook the workers were attaining of their own mission.

Details on the trails down to the Jordan at this time can be found in Josephus, or Thomson’s famous Land and the Book. There is a full description of Machærus Fort in Thomson also.

It is interesting to note that the Roman Consul, who befriended Paul at Corinth in the days of his work with Apollos, was Junius Galleo, a relative of Seneca’s, which seems to bear out that Paul and Seneca knew each other in Rome. In this period before Paul’s death, Burrhus, Nero’s handy man, was sent again and again on messages from the Jews of Cæsarea and Ephesus to Rome.