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Zenobia

W >> William Ware >> Zenobia




'Where you see,' said Julia, 'that dark entrance, beneath yonder
low-browed rock, is the dwelling of the aged Christian.'

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.

'A divine religion,' he replied, 'may indeed be expected to show its
heaven-derived power in creating a higher virtue than human systems. And
this, I am sure, christianity does. I may safely challenge the world to
show in human form the perfection which dwelt in Jesus, the founder of
this religion. Yet his character was formed by the power of his own
doctrines. Among his followers, if there have been none so perfect as he,
there have been multitudes who have approached him, and have exhibited a
virtue which was once thought to belong only to philosophers. The world
has been accustomed to celebrate, with almost divine honors, Socrates, and
chiefly because of the greatness of mind displayed by him when condemned
to drink the cup of poison. I can tell you of thousands among the
Christians, among common and unlearned Christians, who have met death, in
forms many times more horrible than that in which the Greek encountered
it, with equal calmness and serenity. This they have been enabled to do
simply through the divine force of a few great truths, which they have
implicitly believed. Beside this, consider the many usages of the world,
which, while others hold them innocent, the Christians condemn them, and
abstain from them. It is not to be denied that they are the reformers of
the age. They are busy, sometimes with an indiscreet and violent zeal, in
new modeling both the opinions and practices of the world. But what then?
Are they to be condemned if a single fault may be charged upon, them? Must
they be perfect, because their religion is divine? This might be so, if it
were of the nature of religion to operate with an irresistible influence
upon the mind, producing an involuntary and forced obedience. But in such
an obedience there would be nothing like what we mean by virtue, but
something quite inferior in the comparison. A religion, for the reason
that it is divine, will, with the more certainty, make its appeals to a
free nature. It will explain the nature and reveal the consequences of
virtue and vice, but will leave the mind free to choose the one or the
other. Christianity teaches, that in goodness, and faithfulness to the
sense of duty, lies the chief good; in these there is a heaven of reward,
not only now and on earth, but throughout an existence truly immortal. Is
it not most evident that, with whatever authority this religion may
propound its doctrines, men not being in a single power coerced, will not,
though they may receive them, yield to them an equal observance? Hence,
even among Christians, there must foe, perhaps ever, much imperfection.'

'Does not this appear to you, Fausta and Piso,' said Julia, as the old man
paused, 'just and reasonable? Can it be an objection to this faith, that
its disciples partake of the common weaknesses of humanity? Otherwise,
religion would be a principle designed, not so much to improve and exalt
our nature, as to alter it.

'We allow it readily to be both just and reasonable.'

'But it seemed to us,' said Fausta, 'as we ascended the mountain, and were
conversing, to be with certainty a proof of imperfection in your
religion--pardon my freedom, we are come as learners, and they who would
learn, must, without restraint, express their doubts--that it recommended
or permitted a recluse and inactive life. Have your days, Father, been
passed in this deep solitude? and has your religion demanded it?'

'Your freedom pleases me,' replied the venerable man; 'and I wonder not at
the question you propose. Not my religion, lady, but an enfeebled and
decrepit frame chains me to this solitude. I have now outlasted a century,
and my powers are wasted and gone. I can do little more than sit and
ponder the truths of this life-giving book, and anticipate the renewed
activity of that immortal being which it promises. The Christian converts,
who dwell beneath those roofs which you see gleaming in the valley below,
supply the few wants which I have. When their labor is done for the day,
they sometimes come up, bringing with them baskets of fresh or dried
fruits, which serve me, together with the few roots and berries which I
myself can gather as I walk this level space, for my food. My thirst I
quench at the brook which you have just passed. Upon this simple but
wholesome nutriment, and breathing this dry mountain air, my days may yet
be prolonged through many years. But I do not covet them, since nature
makes me a prisoner. But I submit, because my faith teaches me to receive
patiently whatever the Supreme Ruler appoints. It is not my religion that
prescribes this manner of life, or permits it, but as the last refuge of
an imbecility like mine. Christianity denounces selfishness, in all its
forms, and what form of selfishness more gross than to spend the best of
one's days in solitary musing and prayer, all to secure one's own
salvation? The founder of this religion led an active and laborious life.
He did good not only to himself by prayer and meditation: he went about
doing it to others--seeking out objects whom he might benefit and bless.
His life was one of active benevolence; and the record of that life is the
religious code of his followers. No condemnation could be more severe than
that which the Prophet of Nazareth would pronounce upon such a life as
mine now is, were it a chosen, voluntary one. But it never has been
voluntary. Till age dried up the sources of my strength, I toiled night
and day in all countries and climates, in the face of every danger, in the
service of mankind. For it is by serving others, that the law of Christ is
fulfilled. Disinterested labor for others constituted the greatness of
Jesus Christ. This constitutes true greatness in his followers. I perceive
that what I say falls upon your ear as a new and strange doctrine. But it
is the doctrine of christianity. It utterly condemns, therefore, a life of
solitary devotion. It is a mischievous influence which is now spreading
outward from the example of that Paul, who suffered so much under the
persecution of the Emperor Decius and who then, flying to the solitudes of
the Egyptian Thebais, has there, in the vigor of his days, buried himself
in a cave of the earth, that he may serve God by forsaking man. His maxim
seems to be, "The farther from man, the nearer to God"---the reverse of
the Christian maxim, "The nearer man, the nearer God." A disciple of Jesus
has truly said: "He who loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how
shall he love God, whom he hath not seen?" This, it may be, Roman, is the
first sentence you have ever heard from the Christian books.'

'I am obliged to confess that it is,' I replied. 'I have heretofore lived
in an easy indifference toward all religions. The popular religion of my
country I early learned to despise. I have perused the philosophers, and
examined their systems, from Pythagoras to Seneca, and am now, what I have
long been, a disciple of none but Pyrrho. My researches have taught me
only how the more ingeniously to doubt. Wearied at length with a vain
inquiry after truth that should satisfy and fill me, I suddenly abandoned
the pursuit, with the resolve never to resume it. I was not even tempted
to depart from this resolution when Christianity offered itself to my
notice; for I confounded it with Judaism, and for that, as a Roman, I
entertained too profound a contempt to bestow upon it a single thought. I
must acknowledge that the reports which I heard, and which I sometimes
read, of the marvellous constancy and serenity of the Christians, under
accumulated sufferings and wrongs, interested my feelings in their behalf;
and the thought often arose, "Must there not be truth to support such
heroism?" But the world went on its way, and I with it, and the Christians
were forgotten. To a Christian, on my voyage across the Mediterranean, I
owe much, for my first knowledge of Christianity. To the Princess Julia I
owe a larger debt still. And now from your lips, long accustomed to
declare its truths, I have heard what makes me truly desirous to hear the
whole of that which, in the glimpses I have been able to obtain, has
afforded so real a satisfaction,'

'Were you to study the Christian books,' said the recluse, 'you would be
chiefly struck perhaps with the plainness and simplicity of the doctrines
there unfolded. You would say that much which you found there, relating to
the right conduct of life, you had already found scattered through the
books of the Greek and Roman moralists. You would be startled by no
strange or appalling truth. You would turn over their leaves in vain in
search of such dark and puzzling ingenuities as try the wits of those who
resort to the pages of the Timæus. A child can understand the essential
truths of Christ. And the value of Christianity consists not in this, that
it puts forth a new, ingenious, and intricate system of philosophy, but
that it adds to recognised and familiar truths divine authority. Some
things are indeed new; and much is new, if that may be called so which,
having been neglected as insignificant by other teachers, has by Christ
been singled out and announced as primal and essential. But the
peculiarity of Christianity lies in this, that its voice, whether heard in
republishing an old and familiar doctrine, or announcing, a new one, is
not the voice of man, but of God. It is a revelation. It is a word from
the invisible, unapproachable Spirit of the universe. For this Socrates
would have been willing to renounce all his wisdom. Is it not this which
we need? We can theorize and conjecture without end, but cannot relieve
ourselves of our doubts. They will assail every work of man. We wish to
repose in a divine assurance. This we have in Christianity. It is a
message from God. It puts an end to doubt and conjecture. Wise men of all
ages have agreed in the belief of One God; but not being able to
demonstrate his being and his unity, they have had no power to change the
popular belief, which has ever tended to polytheism and idolatry,
Christianity teaches this truth with the authority of God himself, and
already has it become the faith of millions. Philosophers have long ago
taught that the only safe and happy life is a virtuous life. Christianity
repeats this great truth, and adds, that it is such a life alone that
conducts to immortality. Philosophers have themselves believed in the
doctrine of a future existence, and have died hoping to live again; and it
cannot be denied that mankind generally have entertained an obscure
expectation of a renewed being after death. The advantage of Christianity
consists in this, that it assures us of the reality of a future life, on
the word and authority of God himself. Jesus Christ taught, that all men
come forth from death, wearing a new spiritual body, and thereafter never
die; and to confirm his teaching, he himself being slain, rose from the
dead, and showed himself to his followers alive, and while they were yet
looking upon him, ascended to some other and higher world. Surely, Roman,
though christianity announced nothing more than these great truths, yet
seeing it puts them forth in the name, and with the authority of God, it
is a vast accession to our knowledge.'

'Indeed it cannot be denied,' I answered. 'It would be a great happiness
too to feel such an assurance, as he must who believes in your religion,
of another life. Death would then lose every terror. We could approach the
close of life as calmly and cheerfully, sometimes as gladly, as we now do
the close of a day of weary travel or toil. It would be but to lie down
and rest, and sleep, and rise again refreshed by the slumber for the
labors and enjoyments of a life which should then be without termination,
and yet unattended by fatigue. I can think of no greater felicity than to
be able to perceive the truth of such a religion as yours.'

'This religion of the Christians,' said Fausta, 'seems to be full of
reasonable and desirable truth--if it all be truth. But how is this great
point to be determined? How are we to know whether the founder of this
religion was in truth a person holding communication with God? The mind
will necessarily demand a large amount of evidence, before it can believe
so extraordinary a thing. I greatly fear, Julia, lest I may never be a
Christian. What is the evidence, Father, with which you trust, to convince
the mind of an inquirer? It must possess potency, for all the world seems
flocking to the standard of Christ.'

'I think, indeed,' replied the saint, 'that it possesses potency. I
believe its power to be irresistible. But do you ask in sincerity,
daughter of Gracchus, what to do in order to believe in christianity?'

'I do, indeed,' answered Fausta. 'But know that my mind is one not easy
of belief.'

'Christianity, lady, asks no forced or faint assent. It appeals to human
reason, and it blames not the conscientious doubter or denier. When it
requires you to examine, and constitutes you judge, it condemns no honest
decision. The mind that approaches christianity must be free, and ought to
be fearless. Hesitate not to reject that which evidence does not
substantiate. But examine and weigh well the testimony. If then you would
know whether christianity be true, it is first of all needful that you
read and ponder the Christian books. These books prove themselves. The
religion of Christ is felt to be true, as you read the writings in which
it is recorded. Just as the works of nature prove to the contemplative
mind the being of a God, so do the books of the Christians prove the truth
of their religion. As you read them, as your mind embraces the teaching,
and above all, the character of Christ, you involuntarily exclaim: "This
must be true; the sun in the heavens does not more clearly point to a
divine author, than do the contents of these books." You find them utterly
unlike any other books--differing from them just in the same infinite and
essential way that the works of God differ from the works of man.'

He paused, and we were for a few moments silent. At length Fausta said:
'This is all very new and strange, Father! Why, Julia, have you never
urged me to read these books?'

'The princess,' resumed the hermit, 'has done wisely co leave you to the
promptings of your own mind. The more every thing in religion is voluntary
and free, the more worth attaches to it. Christ would not that any should
be driven or urged to him; but that they should come. Nevertheless the way
must be pointed out. I have now shown you one way. Let me tell you of
another. The Christian books bear the names of the persons who profess to
have written them, and who declare themselves to have lived and to have
recorded events which happened in the province of Judea, in the reigns of
Tiberius and Nero. Now it is by no means a difficult matter for a person,
desirous to arrive at the truth, to institute such inquiries, as shall
fully convince him that such persons lived then and there, and performed
the actions ascribed to them. We are not so far removed from those times,
but that by resorting to the places where the events of the Christian
history took place, we can readily satisfy ourselves of their truth--if
they be true--by inquiring of the descendants of those who were concerned
in the very transactions recorded. This thousands and thousands have done,
and they believe in the events--strange as they are--of the Christian
history as implicitly as they do in the events of the Roman history, for
the same period of time. Listen, my children, while I rehearse my own
experience as a believer in Christ.

'My father, Cyprian, a native of Syria, attained, as I have attained, to
an extreme old age. At the age of five score years and ten, he died within
the walls of this quiet dwelling of nature's own hewing, and there at the
root of that ancient cedar his bones repose. He was for twenty years a
contemporary of St. John the evangelist--of that John, who was one of the
companions of Jesus the founder of christianity, and who ere he died wrote
a history of Jesus, of his acts and doctrine. From the very lips of this
holy man, did the youthful but truth-loving and truth-seeking Cyprian
receive his knowledge of christianity. He sat and listened while the aged
apostle--the past rising before him with the distinctness of a
picture--told of Jesus; of the mild majesty of his presence; of the power
and sweetness of his discourse; of the love he bore toward all that lived;
of his countenance radiant with joy when, in using the miraculous power
intrusted to show descent from God, he gave health to the pining sick,
and restored the dying and the dead to the arms of weeping friends. There
was no point of the history which the apostle has recorded for the
instruction of posterity, which Cyprian did not hear, with all its minuter
circumstances, from his own mouth. Nay, he was himself a witness of the
exercise of that same power of God which was committed without measure to
Jesus, on the part of the apostle. He stood by--his spirit wrapt and
wonderstruck--while at the name of Jesus the lame walked, the blind
recovered their sight, and the sick leaped from their couches. When this
great apostle was fallen asleep, my father, by the counsel of St. John,
and that his faith might be yet farther confirmed, travelled over all the
scenes of the Christian history. He visited the towns and cities of Judea,
where Jesus had done his marvellous works. He conversed with the children
of those who had been subjects of the healing power of the Messiah. He was
with those who themselves had mingled among the multitudes who encompassed
him, when Lazarus was summoned from the grave, and who clung to the cross
when Jesus was upon it dying, and witnessed the sudden darkness, and felt
the quaking of the earth. Finding, wherever he turned his steps in Judea,
from Bethlehem to Nazareth, from the Jordan to the great sea, the whole
land filled with those who, as either friends or enemies, had hung upon
the steps of Jesus, and seen his miracles, what was he, to doubt whether
such a person as Jesus had ever lived, or had ever done those wonderful
works? He doubted not; he believed, even as he would have done had he
himself been present as a disciple. In addition to this, he saw at the
places where they were kept, the evangelic histories, in the writing of
those who drew them up; and at Rome, at Corinth, at Philippi, at Ephesus,
he handled with his own hands the letters of Paul, which he wrote to the
Christians of those places; and in those places and others, did he dwell
and converse with multitudes who had seen and heard the great apostle, and
had witnessed the wonders he had wrought. I, the child of Cyprian's old
age, heard from him all that I have now recounted to you. I sat at his
feet, as he had sat at the evangelist's, and from him I heard the various
experiences of his long, laborious, and troubled life. Could I help but
believe what I heard?--and so could I help but be a Christian? My father
was a man--and all Syria knows him to have been such an one--of a
passionate love of truth. At any moment would he have cheerfully suffered
torture and death, sooner than have swerved from the strictest allegiance
to its very letter. Nevertheless, he would not that I should trust to him
alone, but as the apostle had sent him forth, so he sent me forth, to read
the evidences of the truth of this religion in the living monuments of
Judea. I, too, wandered a pilgrim over the hills and plains of Galilee. I
sat in the synagogue at Nazareth, I dwelt in Capernaum. I mused by the
shore of the Galilean lake. I haunted the ruins of Jerusalem, and sought
out the places where the Savior of men had passed the last hours of his
life. Night after night I wept and prayed upon the Mount of Olives.
Wherever I went, and among whomsoever I mingled, I found witnesses
eloquent and loud, and without number, to all the principal facts and
events of our sacred history. Ten thousand traditions of the life and acts
of Christ and his apostles, all agreeing substantially with the written
records, were passing from mouth to mouth, and descending from sire to
son. The whole land, in all its length and breadth, was but one vast
monument to the truth of Christianity. And for this purpose it was
resorted to by the lovers of truth from all parts of the world. Did doubts
arise in the mind of a dweller in Rome, or Carthage, or Britain,
concerning the whole or any part of the Christian story, he addressed
letters to well known inhabitants of the Jewish cities, or he visited them
in person, and by a few plain words from another, or by the evidence of
his own eyes and ears, every doubt was scattered. When I had stored my
mind with knowledge from these original sources, I then betook myself to
some of the living oracles of Christian wisdom, with the fame of whose
learning and piety the world was filled. From the great Clement of Rome,
from Dionysius at Alexandria, from Tertullian at Carthage, from that
wonder of human genius, Origen, in his school at Cæsarea, I gathered
together what more was needed to arm me for the Christian warfare; and I
then went forth full of faith myself to plant its divine seeds in the
hearts of whosoever would receive them. In this good work my days have
been spent. I have lived and taught but to unfold to others the evidences
which have made me a Christian. My children,'continued he, 'why should you
not receive my words? why should I desire to deceive you? I am an old man,
trembling upon the borders of the grave. Can I have any wish to injure
you? Is it conceivable that, standing thus already as it were before the
bar of God, I could pour false and idle tales into your ears? But if I
have spoken truly, can you refuse to believe? But I must not urge. Use
your freedom. Inquire for yourselves. Let the leisure and the wealth which
are yours carry you to read with your own eyes that wide-spread volume
which you will find among the mountains and valleys of the holy land.
Princess, my strength is spent, or there is much more I could gladly add.'

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