CHAPTER XXXVI SILANUS BECOMES A CHRISTIAN

It was very late, but I was unwilling to say farewell. During the last two or three hours, Clemens had in some strange way so associated himself with my thoughts of Scaurus that I now began to feel as though, in parting from my new friend, I should be parting from the old one—whose living self I should perhaps not see again in Tusculum and whose likeness I was leaving in Nicopolis. But Clemens would not resume his seat. Quoting Scaurus’s words with a kindly smile, “It takes a great deal,” he said, “to make you ‘tired of books’.” “Perhaps my old friend would not have been tired,” I replied, “if he had had you as his interpreter. I wish he could have been present with us to-night.” “I shall always think of him as a friend,” said Clemens, “for your sake, for his own sake, and for truth’s sake.”

Then he asked me at what hour I was to set sail, to-morrow, “or rather,” said he, “to-day, for it is long past midnight.” “About noon,” I replied. “Long before noon,” said he, “I must be at some distance from Nicopolis on a visit to some sick folk. But I expect to be returning, by way of the wood where we first conversed together, just in time to catch sight of your vessel before it disappears round the cape. So you must think of me then as wishing you over again from a distance the good things that I now wish you face to face.” “When we last parted,” said I, as we clasped hands at the open door, “you wished me peace. Wish it me again.” “May peace,”[361] he said, “be multiplied to you!” Then, drawing me gently towards himself, after standing for a moment as though unable to speak, “that peace,” he said, “which passes understanding!”

When I returned to my lodging I found a messenger awaiting me with a note from Marullus. Scaurus was still living, though unconscious. The doctors thought it possible, though not probable, that he might recover for a short time. “I fear,” said Marullus, “that, by the time you receive these lines, my dear patron will be no more. If you wish to come, in the slight hope of seeing him, you will do well to come at once.” I was prepared for this, so that it made no difference in my arrangements. These were nearly completed except for writing letters of farewell to friends in Nicopolis.

The sun was well above the horizon before I began the letter that I had reserved for the last—my farewell to Epictetus. To several acquaintances I had been scribbling away, fluently enough. Nor had I been at a loss for what to say to the one or two more intimate friends to whose kindness I was indebted. But, all the time, there had been in my mind an undercurrent of anxious questioning as to what I should say to the man to whom I owed most. Should I explain? Should I confess? Should I distinguish between what I had received from him for which I was his debtor, and what I had not been able to receive so that I could not call myself indebted? To what end? Whatever might happen in the future, I could never cease to be grateful to him for having raised me to a higher sense of a life above the level of the Beast, and for stimulating me to follow and revere the Man. What though a new ideal of the Man had been presented to me? Did that make me less Epictetus’s debtor? Nay, did it not possibly increase my debt, because, but for him, I might not have taken—if ever I should be proved to have taken—the path that led towards a higher and nobler goal?

I wrote, tore up, re-wrote, corrected, re-corrected, and again re-wrote. There was a want of directness in all my attempts, and they all ended in tearing up. At last I said, “I will try to write as my Master himself would have written.” That made my letter of the briefest. After explaining my sudden[362] departure, and thanking him for his teaching, “I am your debtor,” I wrote, “and always shall be.” I was on the point of adding, “If ever I possess myself, I shall owe myself to you.” But the words struck me as familiar. Then I remembered something like them in the Epistle to Philemon: “I say not unto thee how that thou owest to me even thine own self.” Could I say with strict Epictetian truth that I owed to Epictetus as much as Philemon owed to Paul? I re-wrote it thus: “If ever I possess myself I shall in large measure owe myself to you.” That had the disadvantage of being a little longer, but the advantage of being quite true. Sealing the letter that I might not be tempted to alter it again, I threw myself down for two or three hours of rest.

A little before noon my servant roused me. All was ready, and we went down at once to the quay. Besides the usual bustle—sailors, fishermen, merchants, passengers mostly in a hurry—there was some dispute (I know not what, but I think it was among the fishermen). This added to the confusion. Not many blows were interchanged, but there was no lack of threats, imprecations, scurrilous jests, and obscene abuse. As I was making my way through the crowd, some one touched me on the shoulder. It was my Epicurean friend, Apronius Rufus, whom I had last seen in the little village of Lycus, scattering nuts and figs to make the schoolboys scramble. I had caught sight of him, a minute or two before, lounging in a corner and looking on at the quarrelsome crowd; but being in no mood for his jests I had turned aside in the vain hope that he would not see me. As soon as he overtook me, he began in his usual fashion, “What brings you here at this hour, most serious Cynic? A truant humour, I fear. For it is lecture time, or at all events not much past: and Epictetus gives long lessons. Yet no. You are no truant. Truants don’t look so serious. You have come here as a philosopher, to see life as it is, and to set up as a heretic. You come from books to things; from ideals to facts. Good! Now begin to learn! Look at these bipeds! Look, and listen! Up above, in your schoolroom, they were ‘sons of God,’ were they not! Look, then, at that son of God hitting his brother son of God in the eye![363] Listen to those two daughters of God and their harmonious antiphon!”

I was vexed, but let him talk on, as being the best means of getting myself free from him without explanation; and he, following close behind me, kept pouring his jests into my ear, till, I suppose, he got a clearer view of my face. For he suddenly checked himself, saying, “But, my dear Silanus, pardon me if something is really wrong. You would not, I am sure, let my idle talk pain you. Your servant is here with baggage. I fear some bad news is taking you from Nicopolis.” Then I briefly explained.

He had some slight acquaintance with Scaurus and was instantly and sincerely apologetic. “I was a fool,” said he, “not to have noticed that something was amiss. Really I am grieved. And Scaurus, too! That fine old soldier! Often have I heard my father speak of his splendid service in Moesia. Well, Silanus, there are humanities as well as philosophies. Believe me, I feel with you. Farewell! Forgive me as sincerely as I condemn myself.” He pressed my hand, and I his. He was a good fellow at heart and died in Syria, a soldier’s death—such as Scaurus would have approved and no Cynic could have censured.

In a few minutes, we were outside the port, seeing from a distance (without hearing) the bustle on the quay. It was not an unpleasing scene—now. A few minutes more, and the whole of the city stood out as a bright picture in a framework of fields. Presently Nicopolis was receding and lessening. Hills rose up behind. The frame was becoming the picture and Nicopolis a small part in it. I paced the deck, this way and that, turning in my mind all that had befallen me since I had gazed on these same scenes in reversed order, arriving from Italy. How few days ago in time! How many ages ago in thought and experience! “What strange things,” I exclaimed, “what marvellous things have happened to me! Am I not a changed man?” Then a sense of unreality began to creep over me. “Am I not, after all, the same Silanus, recovering from a dream? Have these ‘strange things’ been real things? Have they not been mere pictures—pictures of[364] the mind, phantasms, dreams, from which I, the old Silanus, am now awaking to find myself just what I was in old days when I was wasting my time in Rome?”

I looked back on Nicopolis and it was now little more than a hamlet, and the quay was a dot. But it still loomed large on my mind. I had spoken of “phantasms” and “dreams.” But I could not think of the human scene in the harbour as a “dream.” Only too life-like were those bipeds—noisy, scurrilous, vile, obscene! How unworthy of the bright and glorious sunlight in which all things were bathed at that moment of full noon—all things in heaven and earth! How glorious was everything except man! Yes, everything except man! Rufus spoke in jest, but did he not speak the truth? What were those “sons of God” on the quay? Surely, surely, they were “sons of clay,” mere puppets to play with and break! To this day I cannot tell why just at this moment so strong a temptation should have so suddenly seized me. But seize me it did. I write it as it happened, that others may take heart if the same thing should happen to them. It was God’s way of dealing with me, suffering me to be almost cast down by evil that He might lift me up for good.

Feeling the evil coming, I tried at first to strengthen myself with the sayings of my Master, Epictetus, “See then that thou do nothing as a beast. Else thou hast lost the Man. Thou hast not fulfilled the promise of the Man,” and again, “Man is a being that has nothing more sovereign than his will. He has all other things in subjection to this.” Then I thought of Man as the Psalmist describes him, saying to God, “Thou hast put all things under his feet … yea, and the beasts of the field,” and how the Christians regarded this as meaning that Man was to triumph over sin.

But, against these hopeful thoughts, there rose up, first, the confessions of Epictetus that he had never succeeded in producing a Man of this kind, nor anything approaching to it; and then the words of the other Psalm, “Man being in honour hath no understanding, but is like unto the beasts that perish.” I longed to believe the good Voices, but truth seemed to compel me to believe the bad Voices. Worst and strongest of all,[365] there rose up recollections of my own evil deeds, words, and thoughts, from childhood upwards, and they strengthened the Voices of evil. I could not at that moment recall the brighter and better side of my own life. I could not remind myself how different a man in a crowd may be for a moment from the same man in his home and at his work during his daily life. It seemed to me that I ought to be on my guard against hoping contrary to facts. Was not Glaucus right in taunting me with “self-deceiving,” which I called “believing”? Was it not the plain and manifest fact that the Beast was Lord over the Man?

Again and again this question put itself before me, as though from the mouth of the Beast, saying, “Am I not your Lord? Can you honestly deny it?” And at that instant I could not deny it. Never had I felt so weak, so forsaken—abandoned by all the hopes that had been lately gathering round me, more hopeless than if I had never entertained them.

But just when I seemed to be touching the bottom of the lowest depth, I received a sense of the nearness of help. If I could not trust in the Good, at least I could rebel against the Evil. What though the Beast be Lord of mankind? “At least,” I exclaimed, “there are those who will not be his slaves—Epictetus, Scaurus, my father, others known to me, multitudes unknown. Rather than submit to the Beast, it is better to be on the conquered side—along with the good, and worthy and noble. It is better, yes much better, to be on the side of the Man crushed down, trampled on, destroyed!” Then a great longing fell on me that the Man thus crushed down and destroyed by the Beast might prove to be not destroyed in the end, for such a Man, if only He existed, seemed the only fit object of worship for mankind. Yes, victorious or defeated, He alone was to be worshipped. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with thee, O thou FORSAKEN SON OF GOD!”

As I uttered these words I remembered where I had first uttered them—on the hills yonder, while I was thinking of[366] Glaucus’s troubles just before I met my new friend Clemens. That made me think of him and of his promise to wait on the hill, and look on my vessel as it vanished, and “wish me well.” I glanced back over the stern just in time to see our little coppice disappearing. “Clemens,” I said, “is there. Clemens is praying for me.” With that, there came back to me all he had said about the power of the FORSAKEN to help those who felt “forsaken”; and about the “cross,” as the real throne whereon the Son of man reigns as the real king and subjects all things to Himself. In that moment I understood how both the Psalms were true: “Man being in honour—as the world counts honour—is like unto the beasts that perish.” But “man being in honour—as God counts honour—is uplifted on the throne of suffering and reigns over those for whom He suffers and whom He redeems.” A sudden conviction fell upon me that here at last I had the light that makes all things clear, and I cried from the deepest depth of my being, “Whom have I in heaven but thee, O thou forsaken one that art NOT FORSAKEN? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison with thee. Make no long tarrying, O my Helper and my Redeemer!”

All this, which takes time to describe, passed in the twinkling of an eye, and then something befell me that I cannot exactly describe. Only I know that it was no act of reason. Nor was it vision. It was more like feeling. The arm of the Lord seemed to lift me up and carry me to something that I felt to be the Cross. Then the thought of the Cross sent down upon me the thought of an overwhelming flood of the mighty love and pity of God, the Father of the fatherless and Servant of the meanest of His servants, descending on my soul from the side of the Saviour and bathing me in His purifying blood, creating me anew in the eternal Son. And thus, at last, after so many delays, refusals, and resistances, willingly led captive out of the dominion of darkness and fear and sin, I was carried as a little child into the joy of the family of God.

[367]

When I reached Tusculum, Scaurus was in his grave. He had died on the day when I left Nicopolis, and about noon. I could not discover among his papers any last instructions, or indications of any wishes connected with the subject of his last letter. Only I found a paper with “For Hermas’s tomb” on it. Below was written in large characters IN PEACE. I asked Marullus whether he understood this. He said that on the morning of the last day of his active and conscious life the old man had gone (with Marullus’s aid, for he was very feeble) to see the tomb he had erected for Hermas in years gone by. After standing for some time silent he repeated aloud the last words of the inscription, “For memory’s sake.” “That,” said he, “is not enough.” Then, as they walked home, he said, “Hermas would have liked IN PEACE. There is room. See that those words are added.” I saw that they were added. I also placed them on Scaurus’s own tomb.

For the rest, in the years that followed—forty-five in number—nothing has befallen me that would greatly interest my readers. I became a soldier. Many of the brethren condemned me for it. But when the war broke out in Illyria I felt that, although a Christian, I had no right to cease to become a Roman, or to spare my blood, if need arose, in defence of the peace of the Empire. In doing this, I was glad to think that I had fulfilled Scaurus’s last wish. Clemens also supported me.

From him I received several letters before I went to Illyria. Soon afterwards, he passed away in Corinth, but not before he had done for Glaucus the same service that he did for me. His first letter told me that he had seen my vessel at noontide from the hills above Nicopolis, and that he had kept his promise of “wishing me well.” He always called me brother; and no brother could have been more brotherly. But assuredly he was more than that. Paul sowed the seed of the gospel in my heart, but it was the spirit of Clemens that helped to quicken and to foster it. He was my father in the faith.

Yet Scaurus, too, was a helper—helper in deed even when opposing in word—guiding me indirectly towards the City of Truth. I have read Apologies for the Christian faith written[368] by worthy men—Justin for example and others. But they have not helped me towards Christ as Scaurus did. They have been special pleaders for their religion, and sometimes great manipulators of words and arguments. But what Scaurus said, even in dispraise of the gospels, was often so qualified by praise, admiration, yes, and love, of the character of the Saviour, that it had much more effect with me than the arguments of Justin afterwards had, when I came to know them. Moreover Scaurus was such a lover of truth, and so quick and keen to detect an untruth, that in meeting his attacks upon the gospels I felt I had met the worst. I doubt not that he has found peace in one of the “many mansions.” If I may not call him my father in the faith, yet certainly he was the kindest of stepfathers, helping me to the living Truth by causing me to love all truth, and indirectly strengthening my feet in the path towards the Saviour by not suffering me to walk too soon.

And you, too, good Epictetus, truthloving, keen Epictetus—I will not say “kind Epictetus,” not at least always kind in word, though always good at heart even when most bitter in word—always fervid against falsehood, always zealous with a fiery zeal for that strange cold aspect of a “Father of all” in which you placed your trust and strove to make us place ours: what shall I say of you and how thank you for the help you gave me! How often in Rome and Tusculum, how often on nightwatches in Illyria, Moesia, and the East, have I seen your face, dear Master, as I saw it for the last time in Nicopolis, leaving you without bidding you farewell, spying on you unfairly through the open door, and detecting you in the act of breaking the rules of your own philosophy by feeling trouble, real trouble, for a sorely troubled disciple! Epictetus in trouble, yes, Epictetus in trouble, that is how I shall remember you to my dying day, as seen in the moment when I trusted your teaching least and loved you most, when you dropped the veil of your philosophy to shew me your real human heart—my “tutor” to bring me to Christ.

THE END