'Yes,' said the priest, 'you have heard his name. But that of Felix, the bishop of the Christians, as he is called, is more familiar to you.'
'Felix, Felix, that is the name I have heard most, but Probus too, if I err not.'
'He has been named to you, I am certain,' added Fronto. 'He is the real head of the Nazarenes,—the bishop, but a painted one.'
'Probus is he who turned young Piso's head. Is it not so?'
'The very same; and beside his, the lady Julia's.'
'No, that was by another, one Paul of Antioch, also a bishop and a fast friend of the Queen. The Christians themselves have of late set upon him, as they were so many blood-hounds, being bent upon expelling him from Antioch. It is not long since, in accordance with the decree of some assembled bishops there, I issued a rescript dislodging him from his post, and planting in his place one Domnus. If our purposes prosper, the ejected and dishonored priest may find himself at least safer if humbler. Probus,—I shall remember him. The name leads my thoughts to Thrace, where our greater Probus waits for me.'
'From Probus the Christian,' I said, 'you will receive,' whenever you shall admit him to your presence, a true account of the nature of the Christians' faith and of the actual condition of their community—all which, can be had only from a member of it.'
But little more was said, when I departed, and took my way again towards Tibur.
It seemed to me, from the manner of the Emperor more than from what he said, that he was settled and bound up to the bad work of an assault upon the Christians. To what extent it was in his mind to go, I could not judge; for his language was ambiguous, and sometimes contradictory. But that the darkest designs were harbored by him, over which he was brooding with a mind naturally superstitious, but now almost in a state of exasperation, from the late events, was most evident.