Onesimus: Memoirs of a Disciple of St. Paul

by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Being somewhat alarmed by my last letter (so he confessed to me afterwards) lest I should not only permit Philemon to join himself to the Christians, but also become a Christian myself, Artemidorus wrote to me as follows, more vehemently than became a philosopher.

“ARTEMIDORUS TO ONESIMUS, HEALTH.

“If I bade you make further inquiry concerning the mad doctrines of this mad leader of madmen, I do so no longer. He who converses with lunatics more than is fit is in danger to become himself infected with their insane delusions.

“Besides, what possibility is there that you should attain to the truth? What aids have you, what instruments? There are none. No witnesses, no written documents, no regard for truth, no power of reasoning, no faculty of distinguishing things in the course of nature from things against nature. Amid such a chaos you are fighting against error with your hands tied. Cease then, I beseech you, from your vain attempt to build where there is no foundation. But do your utmost to induce the worthy Philemon to return home with all speed, lest he be entangled in the cobweb of this imbecile superstition; and lest perchance even Onesimus at last, by frequent converse with these miracle-mongers and forgers, suffer his regard for truth to be so far blunted that he himself may be tempted to gloss over and excuse their impostures.”

§ 10. HOW I STUMBLED AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE DOOR AND WENT NOT IN.

I take shame to myself that I was not in any such danger as Artemidorus supposed, of becoming a Christian at this time. Had I, indeed, been enabled to pursue the study of the words of the Lord Jesus, perchance having been thus led to know him I might have entered into the fold at once and so have been spared much misery. But it was not so to be. For, on the very day that I wrote the last letter to Artemidorus, it pleased Philemon to set out suddenly for Jerusalem, nothing contenting him but that we should visit the Christians, as he said, in the place which was the centre and source of the sect. Now those disciples with whom we conversed in the Holy City were of the straiter sect of the Jewish Christians, all of them maintaining that it was fit to come into the Church by first accepting the Law of Moses, and that the uncircumcised, albeit Christians of a certain sort, were inferior in righteousness to them that had received circumcision. And they spoke against Paulus and all others that denied the need of circumcision, saying that Paulus was no safe guide but a teacher of heresy.

In part the narrowness of these brethren, in part the newness of the sights which I saw in Jerusalem, and in part also the fear that I had, lest by becoming superstitious I should fall below the rank of a philosopher and lose the esteem of Artemidorus, caused me to harden my heart against the promptings of the Holy Spirit which would fain have led me to the Lord Jesus. But, in spite of all my efforts, certain of the words of the Lord (both then and for many months afterwards) kept coming to my mind, and in particular these: “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine persons that need no repentance,” and again, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest;” and there were times when these last words so fascinated me, and I felt so weary of myself and such a longing for the peace which he could give me, that I went near to calling aloud unto him “Verily I am weary and heavy-laden, I will come unto thee, O Lord.” But the cares and pleasures of this world choked the good seed so that I could hear no more of the sayings of the Lord, and strove to forget such as I had heard. Hence it came to pass that my next letter to Artemidorus (though I had not yet received his message of warning) breathed not a syllable of any desire to become a Christian.

“ONESIMUS TO ARTEMIDORUS, HEALTH.

“O for an hour of Antioch or Colossæ! Never before had I understood how much of the joy of life we owe to the Muses till I came hither, where the Muses are despised. Here are no temples (save one), no processions, no dances, no games, no chariot races, no plays, no pictures, no statues, no libraries; the very air breathes dullness and superstition. If one brings a statue into these streets it is sacrilege; and they shrink from our poems and songs, our literature and our very language, as if it were a sin to be a Greek. And then the hideousness of their temple, which during their festivals so reeks with the multitude of slaughtered sheep and oxen that it resembles a kind of shambles! Never may I again see a whole nation offering sacrifice as it were wholesale! Even now I cannot forget the shrieks of so many ten thousands of victims, and the reek of the burning fat and all the ill savor of so many worshippers thus pressed together—and all this in a barbaric building, with not so much as a single statue to adorn it, nothing but eternal grape-clusters and stars and the like, all bedaubed with gold in true eastern fashion for ostentation’s sake. Ostentation everywhere, beauty nowhere! O for an hour of Colossæ or the pettiest Greek town in Asia, to relieve the staleness of this Jerusalem, surely the weariest and dullest of dull places!

“But I am like to forget the occasion which caused me to take up my pen, and which indeed (together with the suddenness of the journey hither) has for the time driven out of my mind all thought of the Christians. You must know then that, ten days ago, I beheld for the first time a battle, if battle it is to be called, where one side kills and the other is killed. It was after this manner. Coming to Jerusalem and having now accomplished about half of the journey between the city and Jericho, we, being mounted on dromedaries, overtook a great multitude of mixed folk journeying on foot, four or five thousand or more, as I should judge, some with swords, some with spears, some with bows, but not a few unarmed or bearing nothing save pruning-hooks and mattocks. Making our way with much ado through this motley multitude, (who would not have suffered us to pass, being Greeks, had there not been with us certain priests that were going up to the Temple,) we found that this rabble called itself an army, and that they were following a certain prophet, whom I saw, but I did not rightly understand his name; only thus much, that he was from Egypt, and that, being able to work all wonders, he had promised them that he would take Jerusalem and destroy the Romans in one day. And what think you was the prophet’s plan? There is a mountain called Olivet on the eastern side of Jerusalem. Hither the multitude was to journey, and here to take their stand. Thereupon the prophet was to lift up his hands in prayer; the walls of Jerusalem (even as the walls of Jericho in old days were cast down by the sound of trumpets) were in like manner to fall to the ground; and the faithful would rush in and slay every Roman with the sword. Heard you ever the like, for simple credulity and self-conceit? And then to listen to the babbling and boasting of these illiterate peasants! What great things they would do when they had smitten the Romans! How the prophecies should be fulfilled, and how they would rule over the Gentiles and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel! How they would cut the throats of every Samaritan, and destroy the temple in Gerizim, and be avenged on Edom! Never, never before have I felt better content that the whole world is under the firm and just dominion of Rome!