Feeling the evil coming, I tried at first to strengthen myself with the sayings of my Master, Epictetus, “See then that thou do nothing as a beast. Else thou hast lost the Man. Thou hast not fulfilled the promise of the Man,” and again, “Man is a being that has nothing more sovereign than his will. He has all other things in subjection to this.” Then I thought of Man as the Psalmist describes him, saying to God, “Thou hast put all things under his feet … yea, and the beasts of the field,” and how the Christians regarded this as meaning that Man was to triumph over sin.
But, against these hopeful thoughts, there rose up, first, the confessions of Epictetus that he had never succeeded in producing a Man of this kind, nor anything approaching to it; and then the words of the other Psalm, “Man being in honour hath no understanding, but is like unto the beasts that perish.” I longed to believe the good Voices, but truth seemed to compel me to believe the bad Voices. Worst and strongest of all, there rose up recollections of my own evil deeds, words, and thoughts, from childhood upwards, and they strengthened the Voices of evil. I could not at that moment recall the brighter and better side of my own life. I could not remind myself how different a man in a crowd may be for a moment from the same man in his home and at his work during his daily life. It seemed to me that I ought to be on my guard against hoping contrary to facts. Was not Glaucus right in taunting me with “self-deceiving,” which I called “believing”? Was it not the plain and manifest fact that the Beast was Lord over the Man?
Again and again this question put itself before me, as though from the mouth of the Beast, saying, “Am I not your Lord? Can you honestly deny it?” And at that instant I could not deny it. Never had I felt so weak, so forsaken—abandoned by all the hopes that had been lately gathering round me, more hopeless than if I had never entertained them.
But just when I seemed to be touching the bottom of the lowest depth, I received a sense of the nearness of help. If I could not trust in the Good, at least I could rebel against the Evil. What though the Beast be Lord of mankind? “At least,” I exclaimed, “there are those who will not be his slaves—Epictetus, Scaurus, my father, others known to me, multitudes unknown. Rather than submit to the Beast, it is better to be on the conquered side—along with the good, and worthy and noble. It is better, yes much better, to be on the side of the Man crushed down, trampled on, destroyed!” Then a great longing fell on me that the Man thus crushed down and destroyed by the Beast might prove to be not destroyed in the end, for such a Man, if only He existed, seemed the only fit object of worship for mankind. Yes, victorious or defeated, He alone was to be worshipped. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with thee, O thou FORSAKEN SON OF GOD!”
As I uttered these words I remembered where I had first uttered them—on the hills yonder, while I was thinking of Glaucus’s troubles just before I met my new friend Clemens. That made me think of him and of his promise to wait on the hill, and look on my vessel as it vanished, and “wish me well.” I glanced back over the stern just in time to see our little coppice disappearing. “Clemens,” I said, “is there. Clemens is praying for me.” With that, there came back to me all he had said about the power of the FORSAKEN to help those who felt “forsaken”; and about the “cross,” as the real throne whereon the Son of man reigns as the real king and subjects all things to Himself. In that moment I understood how both the Psalms were true: “Man being in honour—as the world counts honour—is like unto the beasts that perish.” But “man being in honour—as God counts honour—is uplifted on the throne of suffering and reigns over those for whom He suffers and whom He redeems.” A sudden conviction fell upon me that here at last I had the light that makes all things clear, and I cried from the deepest depth of my being, “Whom have I in heaven but thee, O thou forsaken one that art NOT FORSAKEN? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with thee. Make no long tarrying, O my Helper and my Redeemer!”
All this, which takes time to describe, passed in the twinkling of an eye, and then something befell me that I cannot exactly describe. Only I know that it was no act of reason. Nor was it vision. It was more like feeling. The arm of the Lord seemed to lift me up and carry me to something that I felt to be the Cross. Then the thought of the Cross sent down upon me the thought of an overwhelming flood of the mighty love and pity of God, the Father of the fatherless and Servant of the meanest of His servants, descending on my soul from the side of the Saviour and bathing me in His purifying blood, creating me anew in the eternal Son. And thus, at last, after so many delays, refusals, and resistances, willingly led captive out of the dominion of darkness and fear and sin, I was carried as a little child into the joy of the family of God.
When I reached Tusculum, Scaurus was in his grave. He had died on the day when I left Nicopolis, and about noon. I could not discover among his papers any last instructions, or indications of any wishes connected with the subject of his last letter. Only I found a paper with “For Hermas’s tomb” on it. Below was written in large characters IN PEACE. I asked Marullus whether he understood this. He said that on the morning of the last day of his active and conscious life the old man had gone (with Marullus’s aid, for he was very feeble) to see the tomb he had erected for Hermas in years gone by. After standing for some time silent he repeated aloud the last words of the inscription, “For memory’s sake.” “That,” said he, “is not enough.” Then, as they walked home, he said, “Hermas would have liked IN PEACE. There is room. See that those words are added.” I saw that they were added. I also placed them on Scaurus’s own tomb.
For the rest, in the years that followed—forty-five in number—nothing has befallen me that would greatly interest my readers. I became a soldier. Many of the brethren condemned me for it. But when the war broke out in Illyria I felt that, although a Christian, I had no right to cease to become a Roman, or to spare my blood, if need arose, in defence of the peace of the Empire. In doing this, I was glad to think that I had fulfilled Scaurus’s last wish. Clemens also supported me.