Onesimus: Memoirs of a Disciple of St. Paul

by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Break! leave poor Molon to despair.

When I read these words I could not but feel some touch of pity for the poor old man mourning alone in his chamber where we three had been wont to sit so happily together; and looking on the wreaths and garlands that were on the sepulchre and perceiving that they were all very old and faded, I remembered that Eucharis was born as on that very day, and I marvelled that the old man had not come forth to do honor to the tomb and to deck it with fresh flowers, and methought some strong cause must have hindered him; for it was now nigh upon sun-down. So though I durst not have looked him in the face, I arose and went into the city again, even to the street where he lived, in case I might see him coming forth from his door; and up and down I walked till sunset, my head muffled in my cloak, and all that time I saw him not. Nor was I like to see him. For when I inquired of one that came forth from a neighboring house whether Molon yet lived in that street, he looked on me as if pitying me for my ignorance and said that the old man had died but two days ago and was to be buried on the morrow.

Now would I fain have persuaded myself that it was well with me, because not a single friend remained to reproach me, nor any one whose love or good opinion might deter me from leading a life according to my own desires, or the drift of fortune: yet at night when I lay down in Corinth, the thought of Eucharis would force its way into my soul, and when I shut my eyes I could see nothing and think of nothing but the inscription on her tomb; and at the last the memory of my beloved one prevailed, and tears fell from eyes for the first time since I had read her last farewell. But on the morrow all was forgotten. I went forth to my task of buffoonery as usual; and the day and the night passed according to custom, in jesting, and drinking, and revelling, and sin.

What shall I say to thee, O Lord, concerning these things? Shall I say, Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who didst suffer Thy servant to sin much, that he might be forgiven much, and that he might love much? Nay, but Thou art a righteous Lord and hatest unrighteousness. Lord, this only can I say, Thou knowest all, and yet Thou hast forgiven.

§ 4. HOW I SAW THE HOLY APOSTLE PAULUS BUT KNEW HIM NOT.

Though I had by this time no lack of employment, yet I began to be in debt as well as in want. For by continued revelling and gaming and drinking, I had spent all the money that I had brought with me from Pergamus, I mean the money of Philemon. Therefore about this time (it was the ninth year of the Emperor Nero) certain of my companions, who were in the same case as myself, persuaded me to accompany them to Rome, where they would obtain no less employment, they said, and better pay. At any other time I should have been not a little moved, coming thus for the first time to the chief city of the world; but such a lethargy had fallen on me that I took little or no note of all the greatness and splendor of the place, save only that I well remember the day when I first saw the Emperor presiding at the games in the Circus Maximus. For on that day seeing one that was a matricide, and a murderer, and an abuser of nature, thus enthroned in the chief seat of empire, and worshipped as God with the applause of such a concourse as would have gone nigh to make up a great city, and beholding also what vile sights were there exhibited—things detestable and not to be mentioned, with which the deaths of thousands of gladiators cannot be compared for horror—then it was borne in upon my mind that there need be no more dispute as to whether Good or Evil reigned over the world; for here before mine eyes was Evil visibly reigning, and called God by all. Wherefore, though I went to no greater excesses than before at Corinth, yet was I hardened and confirmed in evil, drowning my shame in wine and striving to banish all distinction between evil and good.

Yet even at Rome there were seasons when, in my heart of hearts, I was weary of my sinful and desolate condition, and longed for the touch of a friend’s hand; and at times I yearned to be a fool and to believe in something, cursing the wranglings and disputations of the philosophers who had taken from me all faith in the gods, so that I could no longer put trust in anything; yea, at such moments I would fain have been a peasant in the poorest village of Asia (such a one as poor old Hermas or lame Xanthias whom I remembered in my childhood), worshipping Zeus, or Pan, or aught else, so that I might only be not myself. Life wearied me, yet I feared death, yea, I feared even sleep; for the darkness was full of terrors, and my couch brought me no rest, but only horrible phantasms of dread abysses, and visions of falling down for ever, and of hands stretched out to stay me and then drawn back, and of sad faces veiled or turned away. The daylight which chased away the terrors of sleep, brought ever back with it shame and remorse. Thus all things, both by night and by day, seemed set in array against me. But indeed (albeit I knew it not) my miseries were of the Lord; for by these means, didst thou, O Judge that judgest rightly, even by these righteous torments and just retributions, prepare me to be delivered from unrighteousness and to be made free in the Lord Jesus.

After I had been in Rome a few weeks, I was admitted into a club or collegium of actors; where I made acquaintance with the actor Aliturius, a Jew by birth, one that was in great favor with Poppea who had that same year been married to the Emperor. Now the lady Poppea, like many others of rank and quality at that time, was given to the observance of the Jewish law; at least so far as concerned Sabbaths and abstinence from meats and the use of certain purifications; and she had with her a certain Ishmael, who had been high priest among the Jews. Hence it came to pass that, by help of Aliturius and through favor of Poppea, I was admitted to perform and recite at several feasts and drinking parties in the palace, and sometimes even in the presence of the Emperor himself, but more especially before the officers of the Pretorian guard.

One evening, as I came from a feast where I had been making mirth for some of the officers, returning through that part of the palace which looks towards the Circus Maximus, there passed by me a guard of soldiers having a prisoner in chains, whom they led into an adjoining chamber, and I understood from them that the man was to lie there for that night, that he might be ready on the morrow; when the Emperor himself proposed to hear his cause in the temple of Apollo, which was near at hand. “And who,” said I, “is this prisoner whom the divine Emperor thus deigns to honor?” The man, they said, was one of the Christian superstition. Now at that time, being in favor with Poppea and the Jew Aliturius, and it being my occupation to be a jester for the officers and soldiers, I was wont to make the Christians matter for jest and scoffing, not sparing sometimes (may the Lord forgive me) to assail even the Crucified One in my jesting. So being inflamed with wine, I thrust myself unbidden into the chamber, telling the guard that we would examine the prisoner at once, “Wherefore,” said I, “be ye judices or jury, and I, for the nonce, will be the divine Emperor himself.”

Having therefore made for myself a kind of tribunal, I sat down on it, taking a centurion to be my assessor, and the rest of the soldiers, joining in the jest, sat down upon the floor; and when I bade the soldiers “produce the prisoner,” he sat up, but not so that I could see his face clearly, the lamp being behind him. Then I accosted the man in derision, saying that from his aspect I discerned him to be Heraclitus the crying philosopher, and I asked him whether he also, like Heraclitus, taught that “men are mortal gods, and gods immortal men.” To this he replied, as if willing to enter into the jest, that he was a teacher of joy and not of sorrow, but that indeed he taught that God and men were at one. After this, mocking at his baldness, I asked him whether he were Pythagoras risen from the dead, or whether he could teach us to be something more than men and to be in harmony with the Universe. He laughed gently at this, replying that, though indeed he could teach these things, yet was he no philosopher but rather a soldier; and saying this, he raised his head and looked at me very intently as if he were weak of sight; and at this moment the light of the lamp, just then falling on his face, perplexed me, because I felt sure that I had seen this man before; but where or when I could not tell. However, recovering myself, I asked him in what legion he had served and under what Imperator, and he replied, still preserving a calm temper and smiling, that he served in the Legio Victrix and under the auspices of the Imperator Soter, or Salvator. Hereat the soldiers applauded, and I perceived that I was being beaten on my own ground. So thinking to catch the old man by some slip, or to drive him into an inability to answer, I asked him what were his weapons. But he replied that he used the shield of faith, and the breastplate of righteousness, and the belt of truthfulness, and the sword of the word of God; and, said he, I fight the good fight of righteousness against unrighteousness, wherein the victory must needs be in the end upon my side, as your own hearts also testify; for which cause is our legion rightly called Victrix. He added some words which I cannot now recall, about the nobleness of such a battle, and the glory of it, which moved even the drowsy soldiers; insomuch that they said with one consent that the man had reason on his side and that they wished him well. “Then,” said I, making one last adventure to have the laugh on my side, “where then is thy Imperator that he does not bear witness unto thee?” At once he replied, “He will bear witness for me, and he is with me at this instant;” and these words he uttered with such a force of confidence and with a look so fixed and steady, gazing methought on some one whom he discerned behind me, that I leaped up and looked over my shoulder, trembling and quaking lest there were some phantom in the room. The soldiers also were, for the moment, somewhat moved, howbeit less than I was; and thinking perchance to shift the shame of their fear from themselves, they called out that I was not worthy to sit on a tribunal, nor to represent the divine Emperor. So, to put the best face I could upon my discomfiture, I concluded briefly with a mock-oration, saying that the prisoner appeared to be a valiant soldier, and that he seemed worthy to be allowed the privilege of abstaining from swine’s flesh, and of worshipping an ass’s head, if it so pleased him, and with that, I proclaimed the meeting dissolved.