Onesimus: Memoirs of a Disciple of St. Paul

by Edwin Abbott Abbott

“And you have not seen it? You will find it on the Laodicean road, on the right-hand side, about three furlongs from the gate. But I must be going. Farewell, my young friend, and take my advice. As for the wise people who profess to know everything and to teach everybody, no two of them agreeing together, pay no attention to them. Snap your fingers at all their philosophies and controversies. Take in a substantial cargo of good things. Trim your sails for a pleasant voyage through life, making up your mind to be often merry, seldom serious, and never sad.” So saying, he departed, and I returned to the house of Philemon.

§ 11. OF THE DEATH OF EUCHARIS AND HOW I WAS AGAIN ACCUSED OF THEFT.

The words of Metrodorus himself had not much weight with me. But the image of that ant-hill came again and again into my mind, making me ask, “Is it so indeed that men are but as insects in the eyes of the immortal gods?” And as day after day went on, and still no letter nor message from Molon, my nights being sleepless and my days given up to expectation and suspense, I resolved (even as a weak mariner yielding to wind and tide) that I would suffer myself to drift with the event: if the gods led me to good then I would believe in them, but if to ill, then I would not. So for the space of ten days my mind swayed this way and that, tossed with a very tempest of increasing troubles, and still no tidings from Athens, although nearly a month had passed since Molon’s former letter. At last I began to suspect that Pistus might have intercepted some letters from Eucharis; and if this suspicion had rankled long in my mind, it would have gone nigh to make me mad.

But toward the end of the month one of the slaves who was well affected to me brought me a letter bearing the familiar seal of Molon, which, when I had in all haste opened, it contained no letter from Eucharis, no, not so much as a little piece of paper, nor any words written in her hand, nor even a flower or aught else by way of token; and I shook it again, but still nothing fell out. So I sat down holding the letter in my hand, unread, foreboding the worst; and how long I sat I know not, but in those minutes (if they were minutes) there seemed to have passed over me years, yea ages of misery; and I had reckoned over my life even to the grave, and beyond the grave, into a darkness that was without end.

“Eucharis is dead”—so the letter began. The rest was very long and full of lamentations, telling how the Christians had caused her death, or else perchance her sorrow for my sake; how the followers of one Paulus had persuaded her to be baptized; how her father, though he had foreseen and noted the mischief, could not stay the progress of the disease, and how, for the rest of his life he must live alone in the world. But my eyes travelled idly over this to return again and again to the first words: “Eucharis is dead.” So suddenly had she passed away that at the last she could not so much as write me one word of farewell, nor do more than bid her father send me this message, that Onesimus must always keep the token she had given him and not forget her last words.

During my torpor, while I sat in a kind of trance of misery, the letter had fallen to the ground. Stooping to pick it up I unwittingly took in its stead the letter of Epictetus, and began to read it. “A bad performer cannot sing alone, but only in a chorus: in the same way some people cannot walk the path of life alone.” Most true! And I was one of those “bad performers,” one of those who “cannot walk the path of life alone.” But what then? Were there not “bad performers” as well as perfect actors, and was there no place for them in the world? I was not meant nor made to walk alone. But why had the gods made me of a nature to walk in dependence on some guide, and then, after mocking me with the semblance of the gift of so precious a guide as my beloved one, snatched her away that they might see me stumble and fall? Even so they had given me Chrestus, and snatched him away. So it had been with all their gifts to me. They had given me a love of learning; but now they forbade me to learn; they had given me a thirst for truth, but had driven the truth far away; they had given me the breeding and habits of a free man, but had condemned me to be a slave. Each gift had been a curse in disguise.

Now came back into my mind the image of the ant-hill of Metrodorus, and then there rose up from the depths of darkness the lessons I had learned in the ergastulum, which I had thought I had forgotten, but now they seemed as fresh as yesterday, and more real than any other memory of my life. And now once more I inclined to believe that some bad demon or demons possessed and governed the world, exulting in our miseries and mocking at our foolish prayers and silly gratitude. Either they, or chance, ruled over the Universe. In either case, no good God; no one to love, no one to trust, no one to whom in some invisible world I could intrust my darling Eucharis and my brother Chrestus, feeling confident that all was well with them. Eucharis and Chrestus! Say rather Dust and Ashes. Then Satan filled my heart and I lifted up my voice in blasphemy and cursed the Master of the Feast who had given command that I should depart, yet would open no door for my departure, and I looked about me for means to destroy myself. But the hand of the Lord delivered me. For when I had made a noose with the thongs of my sandals, and having fixed the end to a beam was now in the act of placing it round my neck, behold, Philemon entered the chamber with a stern countenance, and two or three slaves behind him. He at once accused me of taking many precious volumes from the library with intent to steal them. I denied it, but he affirmed that it must needs be so, for they had been found yonder, pointing to a hole beneath the floor in my apartment, and, said he, “your attempt to slay yourself convicts you; for having perceived that the books have been recovered, you desire to prevent the punishment of your theft.”

Perceiving that I was speechless—as indeed I was, marvelling at the iniquity of Pistus, or whoever else was my enemy—Philemon bade all the slaves depart the chamber, and then taking me by the hand, with tears in his eyes, he besought me to confess the truth, saying that he had noted, now these many days, how Satan had taken advantage of me because I had hardened my heart against the word of the Lord; and he implored me to repent and to wash away my sins. Now if I had shewn him the letter of Molon describing the death of Eucharis, I might perhaps have persuaded him that I was not guilty of theft, and that other causes drove me to attempt my life. But I could not do it; for in my madness I regarded him as her murderer. Therefore I in no way endeavored to persuade him, but merely answered with much vehemence that in truth I was not guilty, and that either Pistus or some enemy had devised this plot against me. Upon this, Philemon clapped his hands and called in the slaves, saying, in their presence, that it was useless to argue with me or to beseech me, and that I was fascinated by some woman who had ensnared my soul, adding withal some words not indeed gross nor unseemly, but very bitter to me at that season, knowing poor Eucharis to be but lately dead. So in that instant I leaped upon him and seizing the stilus which he held in his hand I attacked him with it, and assuredly, had not the slaves run together and stayed me, I should have slain him outright; but as it was, the Lord had mercy on me, and I did but wound him very slightly. But I foamed at the mouth as one mad; yea, and indeed I thank the Lord that I was verily mad at that time, and that I spoke not, but Satan spoke within me. For I seemed to see Christus as an evil demon pursuing me without ceasing, setting Philemon against me and inspiring Pistus with malice, and now last of all slaying my beloved Eucharis; wherefore I uttered such terrible execrations against the Lord Jesus, as even now fill me with horror so much as to think of; and write them down I durst not. But Philemon, stopping his ears, rushed in haste from the room, wringing his hands as if all hope were now lost, and leaving me struggling in the hands of Pistus and the rest of the household who were binding me.

That evening I heard what had been resolved concerning me. Philemon’s brother, a decurion of Smyrna, who had not yet been converted to the faith was very earnest that I should be crucified according to the custom; but Philemon was constant against it, partly out of his affection for me, even then not wholly destroyed; but partly because the brethren have been from the first always unwilling that any should be punished with that death whereby the Lord Jesus was slain. So it was determined that I should be sent into the country to an ergastulum about one hundred and twenty furlongs north of Laodicea.

But here must I needs pause. For now begins my pen to describe the deepest of the depths of my most sinful life; whereof, whensoever my mind unwillingly goes back to that black darkness, I can say no more than this: “All things are possible with thee; thy blood, O Lord Jesus, can cleanse from every sin.”