Arius the Libyan: A Romance of the Primitive Church

by Nathan C. Kouns

"I know not when I learned it," answered Arius; "I was learning it from my mother when I lay helplessly upon her breast; I was learning it from my father when he dandled me upon his knees; every day and hour of my life I have learned it more and more;" and then, involuntarily rising upon his tiptoes, like a python standing upon its tail, with his head erect and bending slightly forward, and sparkling eyes agleam, he exclaimed, "and I was never such an idiot as to doubt it at all."

Then, as if modestly conscious of some impropriety in such demonstrative utterances in the presence of one so aged and venerable, he sank lower upon his chair with an ingenuous blush.

"O glorious certitude of youth and hope!" said the ancient, mournfully. "O bold, triumphant faith, fitting its possessor for happy and jubilant exertion in the accomplishment of all life's aims and purposes! Thou wast 'never such an idiot as to doubt it!' But I, that have seen nigh fourscore years of misery, do doubt it much and painfully. I that have mastered all the arts, science, and religion of ancient Egypt--a land that was wrinkled with age centuries before the era of old Moses; I that know both all that the priests of Kem ever taught the people, and also the higher and more recondite forms of ignorance in which the priests themselves believed--I verily know nothing! I can scarcely believe in anything save universal spiritual darkness, for which no day-spring cometh, and universal wretchedness, for which there is no cure. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?"

The bloodless hands were clasped upon the ancient's aching breast, the noble gray head was bowed with hopeless sorrow, the weary eyes seemed dim with long and bitter anguish. Arius gazed upon him with astonishment and sympathy. Then the grand gifts of every born minister of Christ, the missionary's yearning to instruct, the physician's longing for the power to heal and to strengthen, moved in the boy's heart, and once more he sprang to his feet, and with extended hand that quivered with emotion like the python's tongue, and tearful, scintillant eyes, and head bent forward from the long, lithe neck, and a strange thrill in his vibrant musical voice, he cried: "Who shall deliver thee? Surely Jesus Christ, our Lord! He saveth even unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him. Believe and live!"

"So! so!" said the ancient, in tones of hopeless weariness. "Believe and live! Believe and live! 'He that believeth on me shall never die! He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live again.' O new, strange faith, hidden through all the dynasties like the Nile's undiscoverable source, yet ever hinted at in the few high, arid, half-intangible truths in which the priests of Ra believed! What if it be true? What if the spiritual dualism of the first cause, which the priests gradually elaborated into the splendid pageantry and elegant mysticism of Hesiri-Hes, and the offspring Horus, has at last become an actual truth by the incarnation of the spiritual Son of the one God that is necessarily a spiritual hermaphrodite? Through the long centuries the priests secretly sneered at the polytheisms which they taught to the people, and they did believe in one God that was utterly unknown to the masses of mankind, for whom they had neither name nor symbol; and they conceived him to be a dual entity, containing in himself the fullness of double spiritual sexhood; and they stood in awe of some grand revelation which they supposed would some time be made to mankind when this one, almighty, hermaphrodite spirit should 'beget' with one side of his spiritual nature and 'conceive' with the other, and incarnate its son in flesh, and save man by assuming human nature. This they saw foreshadowed in Hesiri-Hes; this was the mystery which the priests perceived in every Apis, the emblem of one 'hidden' like the fountains of the Nile; for in the hieratic language Hapi, which is 'hidden,' signifies both the sacred river and the sacred bull; for this they prepared the mummy that a body might be ready for the returning soul when 'the hidden' should be revealed; this, the sacred scarabæi dimly intimated, and this was the secret mystery that lurked beneath the veil of Hes that 'no mortal hand hath lifted.' Some such glorious revelation must have flitted past Greek Plato's vision, when he longed for a clearer statement of the will of God to men, and prophesied the coming man. This was the grand thought of Moses, the monotheist, when in the same breath he denounced all forms of polytheism, and yet designated the one God whom he worshiped by a name which is the plural number of a Hebrew noun"; and, as if he had forgotten the presence of Arius altogether, who sat listening to this strange monologue with silent wonder, the ancient continued the unconscious utterance of his fervid meditations: "So hath it been throughout the world with every ancientest form of all original myths; for while Assyria and the Medo-Persians and other comparatively modern nations, and afterward the Greeks and Romans, borrowed only the lower, vulgar forms which the Egyptians had fashioned for popular use, in China Chang and Eng symbolized the original conception of one dual God that afterward degenerated into anthropomorphism; and in India Indra and Agni, a primitive conception that antedates Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu, by countless centuries, and is the burden of the ancientest and uncorrupted Rig-Veda, bears unequivocal testimony to the same primitive conception; and the Buddhas taught that they were, perhaps believed themselves to be, earthly manifestations of the spiritual self-conception of one dual God: for polytheism was never the original form of any primitive nation's faith, and every people that began with paganism borrowed from some older nation in which the original faith had already been degraded. Strange! most strange! Oh, if it could be proved! If it could only be proved that Jesus of Nazareth is, in very truth, the incarnation of that which was to be 'begotten' and 'conceived' of the one dual God, and born of a woman into the world, how grandly would the fact vindicate the primitive utterances of all human faith, and translate its vague but splendid dreams into a glorious reality! It must be true! Surely it must be true! For among Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, and Jews, this original faith preceded all idolatries!"

Then, buried in profoundest meditation, the old man ceased to speak. But after a time he roused himself, and looking upon the astonished youth he said: "And thou believest all this! thou hast 'never been such an idiot as to doubt it!' Happy art thou, boy, if thou shalt preserve unfalteringly and unquestioningly thy serene and all-reliant faith."

But the lad's sturdy independence of thought asserted itself, and he answered: "Nay, sir! I have professed faith in none of the things of which thou speakest. I believe in one God and in Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, and in the Holy Ghost. I believe not in Hesiri-Hes, nor in Chang and Eng, nor in Indra and Agni, nor in any gods which Moses denounced as falsest idols. Nor in Jupiter, nor Venus, nor Mars, nor in any of the gods that came into fashion with the heathen long since Moses died."

The ancient smiled approvingly, and replied: "Thou art altogether in the right, my son. Many of the gods in which the nations believe were born long after the records kept by the Egyptian priests began; but all were born of the myths which Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian priests wove about the grand, primitive conception of one dual God. The idolaters of other lands received in various forms the mythologies which the priests wove about the most ancient, simple faith, which was primarily the same for all, only the children of Abraham refused to add anything to the original conception, clinging obstinately to the primitive monotheistic idea; and yet Moses designates the one God by his name of Adonai, the plural number of a Hebrew noun; and when the one God speaks of himself he uses the words 'we,' 'our,' and 'us': Let us make man in our own image and likeness. Thou seest that it would be contrary to reason that the original utterance of every faith should be the affirmation of God that was one, and yet more than one, unless the divine being is spiritually hermaphrodite, having a double spiritual sexhood. Thou seest that, if this were not so, Moses could not have used the plural number to designate one God. Thou seest that, if it were not so, the only act possible to God would have been creation, not generation; and thy faith in 'the only-begotten Son' must have been false; and the very ancientest forms of faith would have been demonstrated to be merely impossible falsehood--impossible, because there can not be a falsehood which does not originate in and grow out of a truth; for falsehood is a perversion or misconception of the truth; for falsehood is not that which hath no existence, but is the wrong statement or conception of that which doth exist. If it were not so, my son, thy faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, would be merest polytheism, for three are not one, nor is one three; but the three may be one divine nature and family. For the one God was always conceived of by the primary faiths as a dual being, possessed of both elements of spiritual sexhood perfectly; and 'begotten' is a proper thing to say of one side of the dual God, and 'conceived' is a proper thing to say of the other; and so thou mayst believe, without any imputation of polytheism, in Christ, as a being 'begotten,' not created; 'conceived,' not made. Would that I knew that Jesus of Nazareth is he!"

"This learning is entirely new to me," said the lad. "Perhaps it is higher than I am yet able to comprehend. I believe in just precisely what the gospels say, no more, no less; that Jesus is the Christ, only-begotten Son of God, conceived of the Holy Ghost, before there was a creation, and born of the Virgin into the world long after God by him had made all things that are created. But, with thy profound knowledge of all these mysteries, how is it that thou thyself dost not believe? Who and what art thou, thou ancient, learned, yet unhappy man, whom may our Lord soon bless and save?"

"I love thee, boy, but I am old, and now too weary to talk more with thee. Wilt thou not come unto me again? I desire to live in seclusion as I have done for years, and beg of thee to speak of me to none; but come again thyself whenever thou canst."