“Then are all Christians necessarily sorcerers?” asked Scaurus.
“Necessarily; it is part of their superstition. They believe their priests to have most extraordinary power over nature. Thus, for example, they think they can bathe the bodies of people in water, and their souls acquire thereby wonderful gifts and superiority, should they be slaves, over their masters, and the divine emperors themselves.”
“Dreadful!” all cried out.
“Then, again,” resumed Calpurnius, “we all know what a frightful crime some of them committed last night, in tearing down a supreme edict of the imperial deities; and even suppose (which the gods avert) that they carried their treasons still further, and attempted their sacred lives, they believe that they have only to go to one of those priests, own the crime, and ask for pardon; and, if he gives it, they consider themselves as perfectly guiltless.”
“Fearful!” joined in the chorus.
“Such a doctrine,” said Scaurus, “is incompatible with the safety of the state. A man who thinks he can be pardoned by another man of every crime, is capable of committing any.”
“And that, no doubt,” observed Fulvius, “is the cause of this new and terrible edict against them. After what Calpurnius has told us about these desperate men, nothing can be too severe against them.”
Fulvius had been keenly eyeing Sebastian, who had entered during the conversation; and now pointedly addressed him.
“And you, no doubt, think so too, Sebastian; do you not?”
“I think,” he calmly replied, “that if the Christians be such as Calpurnius describes them, infamous sorcerers, they deserve to be exterminated from the face of the earth. But even so, I would gladly give them one chance of escape.”