'If the Christians,' he rejoined, 'are virtuous men, it is better for the state than if they were Christians and corrupt men. But still that would make no change in my judgment of their offence. They deny the gods who preside over this nation, and have brought it up to its present height of power and fame. Their crime were less, I repeat, to deny the authority of Aurelian. This religion of the Galileans is a sore, eating into the vitals of an ancient and vigorous constitution, and must be cut away. The knife of the surgeon is what the evil cries out for and must have—else come universal rottenness and death. I mourn that from the ranks of the very fathers of the state, they have received an accession like this of the house of Piso.'
'I shall think my time and talent well employed,' I replied, 'in doing what I may to set the question of Christianity in its true light before the city. It is this very institution, Varus, which it needs to preserve it. Christianize Rome, and you impart the very principle of endurance, of immortality. Under its present corruptions, it cannot but sink. Is it possible that a community of men can long hold together as vicious as this of Rome?—whose people are either disbelievers of all divine existences, or else ground to the earth by the most degrading superstitions? A nation, either on the one hand governed by superstition, or, on the other, atheistical, contains within itself the disease which sooner or later will destroy it. You yourself, it is notorious, have never been within the walls of a temple, nor are Lares or Penates to be found within your doors.'
'I deny it not,' rejoined the Prefect. 'Most who rise to any intelligence, must renounce, if they ever harbored it, all faith in the absurdities and nonsense of the Roman religion. But what then? These very absurdities, as we deem them, are holy truth to the multitude, and do more than all bolts, bars, axes, and gibbets, to keep them in subjection. The intelligent are good citizens by reflection; the multitude, through instincts of birth, and the power of superstition. My idea is, as you perceive, Piso, but one. Religion is the state, and for reasons of state must be preserved in the very form in which it has so long upheld the empire.'
'An idea more degrading than yours, to our species,' I replied, 'can hardly be conceived. I cannot but look upon man as something more than a part of the state. He is, first of all, a man, and is to be cared for as such. To legislate for the state, to the ruin of the man, is to pamper the body, and kill the soul. It is to invert the true process. The individual is more than the abstraction which we term the state. If governments cannot exist, nor empires hold their sway, but by the destruction of the human being, why let them fall. The lesser must yield to the greater. As a Christian, my concern is for man as man. This is the essence of the religion of Christ. It is philanthropy. It sees in every human soul a being of more value than empires, and its purpose is, by furnishing it with truths and motives, equal to its wants, to exalt it, purify it, and perfect it. If, in achieving this work, existing religions or governments are necessarily overturned or annihilated, Christianity cares not, so long as man is the gainer. And is it not certain, that no government could really be injured, although it might apparently, and for a season, by its subjects being raised in all intelligence and all virtue? My work therefore, Varus, will be to sow truth in the heart of the people, which shall make that heart fertile and productive. I do not believe that in doing this Rome will suffer injury, but on the contrary receive benefit. Its religion, or rather its degrading superstitions, may fall, but a principle of almighty energy and divine purity will insensibly be substituted in their room. I labor for man—not for the state.'
'And never, accordingly, most noble Piso, did man, in so unequivocal words, denounce himself traitor.'
'Patriot! friend! benefactor! rather;' cried a voice at my side, which I instantly recognized as that of Probus. Several beside himself had drawn near, listening with interest to what was going on.
'That only shows, my good friend,' said Varus, in his same smiling way, and which seems the very contradiction of all that is harsh and cruel, 'how differently we estimate things. Your palate esteems that to be wholesome and nutritious food, which mine rejects as ashes to the taste, and poison to the blood. I behold Rome torn and bleeding, prostrate and dying, by reason of innovations upon faith and manners, which to you appear the very means of growth, strength, and life. How shall we resolve the doubt—how reconcile the contradiction? Who shall prescribe for the patient? I am happy in the belief, that the Roman people have long since decided for themselves, and confirm their decision every day as it passes, by new acts and declarations.'
'If you mean,' said Probus, 'to say that numbers and the general voice are still against the Christians, I grant it so. But I am happy too in my belief, that the scale is trembling on the beam. There are more and better than you wot of, who hail with eager minds and glad hearts, the truths which it is our glory, as servants of Christ, to propound. Within many a palace upon the seven hills, do prayers go up in his name; and what is more, thousands upon thousands of the humbler ranks, of those who but yesterday were without honor in their own eyes, or others'—without faith—at war with themselves and the world—fit tools for and foe of the state to work with—are to-day reverers of themselves, worshippers of God, lovers of mankind, patriots who love their country better than ever before, because they now behold in every citizen not only a citizen, but a brother and an immortal. The doctrine of Christianity, as a lover of man, so commends itself, Varus, to the hearts of the people, that in a few more years of prosperity, and the face of the Roman world will glow with a new beauty; love and humanity will shine forth in all its features.
'That is very pretty,' said Varus, his lip slightly curling, as he spoke, but retaining his courteous bearing, 'yet methinks, seeing this doctrine is so bewitching, and is withal a heaven-inspired wisdom, the God working behind it and urging it on, it moves onward with a pace something of the slowest. Within a few of three hundred years has it appealed to the human race, and appealed in vain. The feeblest and the worst of mankind have had power almost to annihilate it, and more than once has it seemed scarce to retain its life. Would it have been so, had it been in reality what you claim for it, of divine birth? Would the gods suffer their schemes for man's good to be so thwarted, and driven aside by man? What was this boasted faith doing during the long and peaceful reigns of Hadrian, and the first Antonine? The sword of persecution was then sheathed, or if it fell at all, it was but on a few. So too under Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, Commodus, Severus, Heliogabalus, the Philips, Gallienus, and Claudius?'
'That is well said,' a Roman voice added, of one standing by the side of Varus, 'and is a general wonder.'