Pudens understood the sign. The youth was, or had been, a Christian, and knew that if Pudens happened to be a Christian too his favour would be secured.
‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘My household is small and humble, but I have just lost my lacquey, who died of fever. I will speak to my head freedman. Perhaps, when we have heard something more about you, he will let you fill the vacant place.’
CHAPTER XIII
THE ADVENTURES OF A RUNAWAY
Ἕκαστος δὲ πειράζεται ὑπὸ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας ἐξελκόμενος καὶ δελεαζόμενος.—S. Jac. Ep. i. 14.
Φρύγα οἰκέτην ἔχω πονηρόν.—Alciphr. Ep. iii. 38.
The real history of Onesimus was this. He had been born at Thyatira; his parents had once been in a respectable position, but his father had been unfortunate, and when the boy became an orphan he had sunk so low in the world that, to save him from the pangs of hunger, the creditors sold him as a slave to the purple-factory of which Lydia—who afterwards became St. Paul’s convert at Philippi—was part-owner. There he had learnt a great deal about the purple-trade and the best way of folding and keeping purple robes. But he was wild and careless and fond of pleasure, and the head workman, not finding him profitable or easy to manage, had again offered him for sale. He was a quick, good-looking boy, and Philemon, a gentleman of Colossæ, touched with his forlorn look as he stood on the slave-platform (catasta) with his feet chalked and a description (titulus) round his neck, had felt compassion for him and had bought him. Not long after this, Philemon, with his wife Apphia, his son Archippus, and several slaves of their household, had been converted by St. Paul. The Apostle had not, indeed, visited the strange Phrygian city, where the Lycus flows under its natural bridges of gleaming travertine; but Philemon and his party had gone down to witness the great Asian games at Ephesus, and to view the treasures of the famous Temple of Artemis, which was one of the wonders of the world. There they had heard Paul preach in the hall of the rhetorician Tyrannus, and, being of sweet and serious disposition, had been profoundly impressed by the message of the gospel. The grace of God had taken possession of their hearts. They exulted in the purity, the hope, and the gladness of Christianity, and under the fostering care of Epaphras, to whose charge St. Paul had entrusted the churches of the Lycian valley, they had finally been led to the full acceptance of the gospel, and had been baptised in the waters of their native river.
Onesimus had not been baptised with them, though he had learnt something of Christianity as a young catechumen. He had lived in daily contact with these good people from early boyhood, and they had treated him with a kindness and consideration which was in marked contrast to the brutal manner of most Pagans towards the human beings whom they regarded as chattels of which they were the indefeasible owners. But Colossæ was a sleepy and decaying city. It offered none of the pleasures and excitements which Onesimus had tasted at Thyatira and Ephesus. He longed to escape from the narrow valley of the dull town; to hear in the streets of Ephesus the shrill wail of the priests of Cybele; to gaze at the superb Artemisian processions; to sit palpitating with enthusiasm as he watched the chariots dash past him in wild career in the circus, or the gorgeous spectacles of the amphitheatre. Above all he sighed and yearned for Rome, for he had often heard of its glory, its magnificence, its unchecked indulgencies. He was only a slave—only one of those Phrygian slaves, who were the least esteemed; but he had been free born. The passions of the Asiatic Greek were strong in him. Other slaves had made their way—why should not he? He was strong, clever, good-looking—was he not certain to secure some fortune in the world?
The ‘tempting opportunity’ met the ‘susceptible disposition.’ Philemon was engaged in the wool-dyeing which formed the most prosperous industry of Colossæ, and on a certain day after the great fair of Laodicea considerable sums were paid to him. He had never had any reason to distrust Onesimus, and the youth knew where the money was kept. One day, when Philemon had been summoned by business to Hierapolis and was likely to be absent for a week, Onesimus abstracted some of the gold coins—enough, he thought, to take him safely to Rome if necessary—and absconded to Ephesus. There, for a few days, he enjoyed himself in visiting the marvels and amusements of the city. But a fair youth, in servile dress, alone, in a crowded town, could hardly escape falling among companions of the lowest type. Fain would they have plunged him into vice and dissipation; but though the runaway was not always truthful, and had fallen into dishonesty, he was far from being depraved. One who had breathed in a pure Christian household the dewy dawn of the Christian faith, and had watched its purple glow transfiguring the commonest elements of life, could hardly sink to the depths of Satan in the great weltering sea of heathen wickedness. Fallen as he was, he never wholly lost his self-respect, and when he had satisfied his first wild impulse he longed to return and plead for forgiveness. After all, how infinitely more happy had he been in sleepy Colossæ than in tumultuous Ephesus! But for a slave to abscond from a kind master, and in absconding to steal his master’s gold, was not only a heinous but a capital offence. He did not know but what Philemon, good and kind as he was, might still deem it right to uphold the laws of the State, and to hand him over to the magistrates. And then he shuddered to think of what awaited him: what blows, what brandings, what wearing of the furca, or thrusting into the stocks, or being made to work in the mines or the galleys, or among the chained wretches of some public slave-prison. The soft nature of the Eastern shrank from such horrors, and almost more from the intolerable sense of shame which would overwhelm him when he stood for the first time a convict-fugitive in his master’s house.
His ill-got money was soon ill-gone. A little of it was lost in gambling; some he had to squander on worthless companions, who tried to insinuate themselves into his favour, or to terrify him with their suspicions; the rest was stolen one night in the low lodging which he had been obliged to seek. Penniless, and sick at heart, he hurried down to the great quay of the city, and offered to work his passage to Italy in a galley. Landed in Italy he had begged his way to Rome, and in Rome he had sunk to the wretchedness in which we first saw him. No career seemed open to him but a career of vice; no possibility offered of earning his daily bread but by criminal courses. He sank back horrified from the rascality which he had witnessed on every side, among those who, being past feeling, and having their consciences seared as with a hot iron, wrought all uncleanness with greediness. He grew more and more emaciated, more and more wretched, sleeping under arches or porticoes, and depending for his scant supply of polenta on the chance of a farthing flung to him now and then in scornful alms. The accident which threw him in the path of Pudens came only just in time to save him from ruin and despair.
Nereus, the freedman of Pudens, was not unwilling to get for nothing an active youth who might turn out to be a useful slave; and in that household he once more found kindness and happiness. It is true that Pudens was not yet an open Christian, but several of his slaves were, as Onesimus soon discovered; and he had learnt by experience that, among Christian men and women, he was safe from a thousand miseries and a thousand temptations. The busy thronging, rushing life of Rome delighted his quick intelligence, and all the more from the contrast it presented to the silent streets of Colossæ, and the narrow valley of its strange white stream.