‘Does He do so for all Christians when they suffer?’
‘I think He does, for all His true children. Lady, do you know that Paulus of Tarsus—the Apostle whose letters to the churches I have read to you—is in Rome?’
‘So Pomponia told me,’ said Octavia, ‘and she asked if I would not see him. But how can I? Burrus is dead, and Paulus sits chained to a Prætorian soldier in his own lodging.’
‘He has friends who would bring you his teachings,’ said Tryphæna. ‘One of them I have seen. His name is Lucas of Antioch, and he is a physician. To comfort me after I had been tortured, he told me how Paulus, before his conversion—when he was a blasphemer, and persecutor, and injurious—had witnessed and even incited the stoning of our first martyr, the young deacon Stephen; and how when Stephen stood before the Council, and they were all gnashing their teeth at him, his face was as an angel’s. And he says that Stephen saw the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.’
While Octavia stood talking with the young slave-girl, she was told that Pomponia had come to see her, and humbly kissing the poor sufferer on the brow, she went to the tablinum to receive her guest.
‘Wherever sorrow is, there Pomponia comes,’ she said, embracing her.
‘That is not my individual virtue,’ said Pomponia. ‘We Christians are all taught to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgives us.’
‘Your faith seems to make you all very happy.’
‘It does indeed. Oh, if you could see our Paulus, how would he comfort you!’
‘What made him a Christian?’ asked Octavia. ‘Tryphæna has just been telling me that he was once a persecutor.’