"Yes; and therefore I put it away, on the epicurean principle that it increases the misery of the destiny that inflicts it on us."
"Yet our ancestors did not take that view, and they have had repute for wisdom. They built their tombs in public places to remind living generations of the fleeting character of all things human. They placed a horse's head over the inscriptions as a symbol that death is only the commencement of another and a longer journey. If the epicurean philosophy be true, they were deceived; but, if they were right, we are wrong in turning our gaze away from death, which, alas! is a terrible reality! Would it not be wiser to try and pierce the mystery of that horse's head, to draw aside the veil that shrouds that journey from our sight?"
"Men like Plato, and Socrates, and Cicero, have endeavored to do so in every age, and have failed. The great doubt, whether there be a hereafter or not, still puzzles the world. How can we hope to remove it when these giants fail? It is much better for our peace and happiness to follow the common belief in elysium and in the gods, and to drown the thought of death in forgetfulness, and to enjoy the pleasures of the present."
"It is a hard alternative, especially when the insecurity of the present is brought so strikingly before us by the passing away of men like Senecio and Priscus, and those of whom we were speaking. To believe in elysium and the gods is to rest our faith and hope on the creations of the poets. Enjoyment of the present does not bring happiness; and, even if it did, when these pleasures are over, (and we don't know how soon,) what is to follow? But yesterday Senecio, whose funeral we have witnessed, swayed the senate by his reason and eloquence. Does nothing of him remain now but the ashes gathered from the pyre? Why have the generations gone before erected those vast monuments, if all that is left be the dust in the urn? Fitter let it be borne by the wind over the face of the earth, if no spirit remain to take an interest in its preservation! Are the souls of the mighty dead, who slumber in those tombs around, 'nothing but a name'? Like the blast which bends the forest, and then, dispersed in air, is felt and heard no more? Oh! my blood runs cold to think it!
"And yet there is no certainty it is not so—no hope, after so many attempts, of now obtaining it. Better, then, enjoy the present and leave the future to fate," said Aurelian.
"No hope, no certainty!" repeated Sisinnius twice over, "no hope, no certainty! And death approaching with his inevitable lance set! It may be to-day, it may be to-morrow. Oh! is it not a wretched destiny that keeps us thus in the dark? We come we know not whence, we go we know not whither. Like persons lowered into a deep pit, we see a little sky above, but our gaze cannot penetrate on either side of us. Is there no delivery from this state of prison and anguish? What wretchedness is equal to that of the last sad moment? Who but the fool or madman, with such daily reminders of earthly life's vanity and shortness, can be deaf to the approaching footfalls of death?"
They had now arrived at the valley extending to the left, and watered by the fountain of Egeria. Here it was that the nymph dictated the laws to Numa. The valley contained also a temple of the Camoenae, and a sacred grove. At a little distance was a large village. The poet Juvenal complains that in the reign of Domitian pompous marble had displaced the grass of the vale and concealed the rock from which the water gurgled; and that the fountain, the temple, and the wood were owned and occupied by Jewish beggars:
"Hoc sacri fontis nemus, et delubra locantur
Judaeis, quorum cophinus foenumque supellex.
Omnis enim populo mercedem penrtere jussa est
Arbor, et ejectis meudicat sylva Camoenis."
Juv. Sat. iii.
Juvenal and the pagans of his time frequently confounded the Christians with the Jews. But the acts of early martyrs, like those of St. Cecilia, clearly show that the Jews alluded to in these verses were Christians, perhaps converted from Judaism. The surmise of the Abbé Gueranger is most likely true, that, when the Emperor Claudius banished "the Jews' from Rome on account of their dissensions, the Christians also were forced to leave the capital for a short time; but after their return many of them settled in this place outside the walls, and occupied the village called Vicus Camaenarum, where they seem to have rented the fountain as well as the temple and grove. Here they could dig vaults, open subterranean galleries wherein to bury their dead, and to hide themselves in times of persecution. What confirms this supposition is, that here within the bowels of the earth commence the sombre galleries of the Christian catacombs. The statesmen and soldiers of pagan Rome sleep the long sleep of ages above, in monuments rising to the face of heaven, with all the surroundings of material greatness; while the champions and martyrs of the church repose in their lowly niches beneath, where a ray of sunlight never penetrates. What a contrast is here symbolized, and how true! The pride of the world raising itself like Lucifer to heaven, and the lowliness of the church bowing its head with Christian humility, and submitting to be trampled in the earth! As it was in the beginning, so it is, so it will be to the end.
At this point of the road Zoilus paused to impress upon his companions the rules by which they were to be guided. They were to pretend to be converts to the faith. He had succeeded in convincing those who had guard of the avenues to the Christian meeting-place that Aurelian and Sisinnius would make open profession of the new religion but for the dangers with which such a step would surround them and those dear to them; that they were eager to be instructed privately as neophytes; and that they asked to be admitted to the Christmas celebration in order to witness the ceremony by which one so dear to them as Flavia Domitilla was about consecrating herself to God. They did not wish, however, that Flavia or Theodora should be aware of their presence or of their conversion. Zoilus, who had been baptized by St. Polycarp at Smyrna, and who had made the Roman Christians believe that he was a zealous member of the church, succeeded in convincing them of the truth of his representations, and in obtaining admission for Aurelian and Sisinnius to the feast. The visits of Clement to the house of the latter, together with the conversion of Theodora and Flavia, rendered these representations plausible.