Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra

by William Ware

We moved on with slow and silent steps, our spirits partaking of the stillness and solitariness of the place. We reached the front of the grotto, without disturbing the meditations of the venerable man. A part of the rock which formed his dwelling served him for a seat, and another part projecting after the manner of a shelf, served him for a table, upon which lay unrolled a large volume. Bending over the book, his lean and shrivelled finger pointing to the words, and aiding his now dim and feeble eye, he seemed wholly wrapped in the truths he was contemplating, and heeded not our presence. We stood still for a moment, unwilling to break a repose so peaceful and profound. At length, raising his eyes from the page, they caught the form and face of the princess, who stood nearest to him. A quick and benignant smile lighted up his features; and rising slowly to his full height, he bade her welcome, with sweet and tremulous tones, to his humble roof.

'It is kind in you,' said he,'so soon again to ascend these rough solitudes, to visit a now unprofitable old, man; and more kind still to bring others with you. Voices from the world ring a sweet music in my ear--sweeter than any sound of bird or stream. Enter, friends, if it please you, and be rested, after the toil of your ascent.'

'I bring you here, father,' said Julia, 'according to my sometime promise, my friend and companion, the daughter of Gracchus, and with her a noble Roman, of the house of Piso, lately come hither from the capital of the world.'

'They are very, very welcome,' replied the saint, 'your presence breaks most gratefully the monotony of my life.'

'We almost doubted,' said I, 'venerable Father, whether it would please you to find beneath your roof those who receive not your belief, and what is much more, belong to a faith which has poured upon you and yours so full a flood of suffering and reproach. But your countenance assures us that we have erred.'

'You have, indeed,' replied the sage; 'as a Christian I see in you not pagans and unbelievers, not followers of Plato and Epicurus, not dwellers in Rome or Alexandria, but members of the great family of man, and as such I greet you, and already love you. The design of christianity is to unite and draw together, not divide and drive asunder. It teaches its disciples, indeed, to go out and convert the world, but if they cannot convert it, it still teaches them to love it. My days and my strength have been spent in preaching Christ to Jews and heathen, and many of those who have heard have believed. But more have not. These are not my brethren in Christ, but they are my brethren in God, and I love them as his.'

'These are noble sentiments,' said Fausta. 'Religion has, in almost all its forms, condemned utterly all who have not received it in the form in which it has been proposed. Rome, indeed, used to be mild and tolerant of every shape which the religious sentiment assumed. But since the appearance of christianity it has wholly changed its policy. I am afraid it formerly tolerated, only because it saw nothing to fear. Fearing christianity, it seeks to destroy it. That is scarcely generous of you, Lucius; nor very wise either--for surely truth can neither be created nor suppressed by applications of force. Such is not the doctrine of christianity, if I understand you right.'

'Lady, most certainly not,' he replied. 'Christianity is offered to mankind, not forced upon them. And this supposes in them the power and the right to sit in judgement upon its truth. But were not all free judgment destroyed, and all worthy reception of it therefore, if any penal consequences--greater or less, of one kind or another, present or future--followed upon its rejection? Rome has done wickedly, in her aim to suppress error and maintain truth by force. Is Rome a god to distinguish with certainty the one from the other? But alas! Rome is not alone to blame in this. Christians themselves are guilty of the same folly and crime. They interpret differently the sayings of Christ--as how should they not?--and the party which is stronger in numbers already begins to oppress, with hard usage and language, the weaker party, which presumes to entertain its own opinions. The Christians of Alexandria and Rome, fond of the ancient philosophy, and desirous to recommend the doctrines of Christ, by showing their near accordance with it, have, as many think, greatly adulterated the gospel, by mixing up with its truths the fantastic dreams of Plato. Others, among whom is our Paul of Antioch, deeming this injurious and erroneous, aim to restore the Christian doctrine to the simplicity that belongs to it in the original records, and which, for the most part, it still retains among the common people. But this is not willingly allowed. On the contrary, because Paul cannot see with their eyes and judge with their judgment, he is to be driven from his bishopric. Thus do the Christians imitate in their treatment of each other their common enemy, the Roman. They seem already ashamed of the gentleness of Christ, who would have every mind left in its own freedom to believe as its own powers enable it to believe. Our good Zenobia, though no Christian, is yet in this respect the truest Christian. All within her realm, thought is free as the air that plays among these leaves.'

'But is it not, said Fausta, 'a mark of imperfection in your religion, that it cannot control and bind to a perfect life its disciples? Methinks a divine religion should manifest its divinity in the superior goodness which it forms.'

'Is not that just?' I added.