The strange narratives embodied in the Golden Legend, how fabulous soever they may be, are referable notwithstanding to the highest Christian antiquity. They are parables rather than histories; the style is simple and eastern, like that of the Gospels; and their traditional existence proves that a species of mythology had been devised to conceal the Kabalistic mysteries of Johannite initiation. The Golden Legend is a Christian Talmud expressed in allegories and apologues. Studied from this point of view, the newer in proportion as it is more ancient, the work will become of real importance and highest interest.[134] One of the narratives in this Legend so full of mysteries characterises the conflict of Magic and dawning Christianity in a manner which is equally dramatic and startling. It is like an outline in advance of Chateaubriand’s Martyrs and the Faust of Goethe combined.
Justina was a young and lovely pagan maiden, daughter of a priest of the idols, after the manner of Cymodoce. Her window opened on a court which gave upon the Christian church, so that she heard daily the pure and recollected voice of a deacon reading the holy gospels aloud. The unknown words touched and stirred her heart, so deeply indeed that when her mother remarked one evening how grave she seemed and sought to be the confidant of her preoccupations, Justina fell at her feet and said: “Bless me, my mother, or forgive me: I am a Christian.” The mother wept and embraced her, after which she returned to her husband and related what she had heard. That night in their sleep the parents were both visited by the same dream. A divine light descended upon them, a sweet voice called them and said: “Come unto me, all ye that are afflicted and I will comfort you. Come, ye beloved of my father, and I will give unto you the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world.”
The morning dawned; father and mother blessed their daughter. All three were enrolled among the catechumens and, after the usual probation, they were admitted to Holy Baptism. Justina returned white and radiant from the church, between her mother and aged father, when two forbidding men, wrapped in their mantles, passed as Faust and Mephistopheles going by Margaret: they were Cyprian the magician and his disciple Acladius. They stopped dazzled by the apparition, but Justina went on without seeing them and reached home with her family.
The scene now changes and we are in the laboratory of Cyprian. Circles have been traced, a slaughtered victim still palpitates by a smoking chafing-dish; the genius of darkness stands in the presence of the magician, saying: “Thou hast called me; I come. Speak: what dost thou require?”—“I love a virgin.”—“Seduce her.”—“She is a Christian.”—“Denounce her.”—“I would possess and not lose her: canst thou aid me?”—“I tempted Eve, who was innocent and conversed daily with God Himself. If thy virgin be Christian, know that it is I who caused Jesus Christ to be crucified.”—“Thou wilt deliver her into my hands, therefore.”—“Take this magical unguent, and anoint the threshold of her dwelling: the rest concerns me.”
And now Justina is asleep in her small and simple room, but Cyprian is at the door murmuring sacrilegious words and performing horrible rites. The demon creeps to the pillow of the young girl and instils voluptuous dreams full of the image of Cyprian, whom she seems to meet again on issuing from the church. This time, however, she looks at him; she listens, while the things which he whispers fill her heart with trouble. But she moves suddenly, she awakes and signs herself with the cross. The demon vanishes and the seducer, doing sentinel at the door, waits vainly through the whole night.
On the morrow he renews his evocations and loads his infernal accomplice with bitter reproaches. The latter confesses his inability, is driven forth in disgrace, and Cyprian invokes a demon of superior class, who transforms himself by turns into a young girl and a beautiful youth, tempting Justina by advice as well as caresses. She is on the point of yielding, but her good angel helps her; she joins inspiration to the sign of the cross and expels the evil spirit. Cyprian thereupon invokes the king of hell and Satan arrives in person. He visits Justina with all the woes of Job and spreads a frightful plague through Antioch; the oracles, at his instigation, declare that it will cease only when Justina shall satisfy Venus and love, who are alike outraged. Justina, however, prays in public for the people, and the pest ceases. Satan is baffled in his turn; Cyprian compels him to acknowledge the omnipotence of the sign of the cross and defies him by making it on his own person. He abjures Magic, becomes a Christian, is consecrated bishop and meets with Justina in a convent. They love now with the pure and lasting love of heavenly charity; persecution befalls both; they are arrested together, put to death on the same day and ratify in the breast of God their mystical and eternal marriage.[135]
According to the legend, St. Cyprian was Bishop of Antioch, but ecclesiastical history says that his seat was that of Carthage. It matters little, for the rest, whether the personalities are the same; the one belongs to poetry, while the other is a father and martyr of the Church.
There is extant among the old Grimoires a prayer attributed to the St. Cyprian of legend, who is possibly the holy Bishop of Carthage: its obscure and figurative expressions may have given credit to the idea that prior to his conversion he was addicted to the deadly practices of Black Magic. It may be rendered thus.
“I, Cyprian, servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, have prayed unto God the Father Almighty, saying: Thou art the strong God, my God omnipotent, dwelling in the great light. Thou art holy and worthy of praise, and Thou hast beheld in the old days the malice of Thy servant and the iniquities into which I was plunged by the wiles of the demon. I was ignorant of Thy true name; I passed in the midst of the sheep and they were without a shepherd. The clouds shed no dew on earth; trees bare no fruit and women in labour could not be delivered. I bound and did not loose; I bound the fishes of the sea, and they were captive; I bound the pathways of the sea, and many evils did I encompass. But now, Lord Jesus Christ, I have known Thy Holy Name, I have loved Thee, I am converted with my whole heart, my whole soul and all my inward being. I have turned from the multitude of my sins, that I may walk in Thy love and follow Thy commandments, which are henceforth my faith and my prayer. Thou art the Word of truth, the sole Word of the Father, and I conjure Thee now to break the chain of clouds and send down on Thy children Thy goodly rain like milk, to set free the rivers and liberate those who swim, as also those which fly. I conjure Thee to break all the chains and remove all the obstacles by the virtue of Thy Holy Name.”
The antiquity of this prayer is evident and it embodies most remarkable reminiscences of primitive types belonging to Christian esotericism during the first centuries of this era.