Quintus Bibulus

“ There are no struggles like the night wrestlings of the soul in matters of religion. What words can measure the divers arguments, the opposing considerations, the conflicting emotions that shape human choice? Quintus stands at the point where soon—in the progress of the new faith—Saul from Tarsus, Clement of Rome, and so many more of the great spirits of that first era are to stand. ”

“ Some sort of provision must be made for him when he comes to Rome. For I don't think he could endure that woman as a mother-in-law. I refused Pindarus' offer for the villa at Cumae. Now let me tell you why I have sent a messenger. Young Quintus is promising to be as prim as a puritan: and both he and his father have begged me to go bail to you for him, but on the condition that you only believe it when you see it. I shall give him a letter according to his fancy, but don't take any notice of it. I am writing now to prevent you from thinking that I do. God grant he keeps his promise. ”

“ Quintus is far handsomer—he is exactly like the Apollo in the Golden House [69] by the Esquiline. But he is also like the gods, in that he is apt to vanish suddenly behind a cloud, and is gone. Now Aurelius, or my soul deceives me, would be constant to those he loved. ”

“ He felt that he must clearly face and realize the fact, before he could go forth again into the wild turmoil of city life. Rome, which until lately he had considered as the element in which alone he could live, now watched him with the jealous eye of an informer. Every corner-stone, every column cried mockingly: “Quintus, be on your guard!” Every human countenance threatened betrayal and an ignominious death.—Aye, beware, Quintus, and hide your secret as a murderer hides his crime! ”

“ It is to no mortal, but to the gods alone that you have to confess your crime. Humility before the gods is no dishonor....”
“Your gods are not mine,” cried Quintus vehemently. “A confessor of the true God can never sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus.”
“Who is the true God, but he whose care and rule we see, wherever we turn our eyes, and feel in our souls? Are you so utterly degenerate, that you have learnt to confound the great universal spirit—whom our fathers worshipped as Jupiter, the Father of Light—with a mortal—with a Jewish revolutionary, whom the imperial governor silenced by death?” ”

“ They meet traders from western Zidon, sailors from Crete, bearded Idumaeans from beyond Judaea, and scholars from far Alexandria. Magnificent Jerusalem it is! Yet destined soon to fall. For the day draws near when the Roman Titus shall weep on Scopus over its fading splendors and then shall smite it to the dust.
One purchase only does Quintus make. In a shop where Egyptian wares are sold he says to Aulus:
"Look on this scarab, this sacred beetle, which has been shaped by some workman down in Thebae on the Nile. We may be sure that no people believes more intensely in a future life. ”

“ But to accept the Jewish Teacher means earthly loss. As he keeps guard with himself through the night hours Quintus is wondering if he shall incur the hostility of his father Marcus and shall be forced to sacrifice his estates on the Palatine. He fancies also the grief of the fair Lucretia when she learns that he has chosen an alien faith. And he remembers, further, that in the choice of the Christus he is joining a company on whom the Eastern world is already casting its withering contempt. ”

“ They were discussing the event of the day—the edict just published against the Christians.
“There will be heaps and heaps of arena fights,” cried one; “the Subura swarms with Nazarenes.”
“Let them have it!” said another. “The last wild-beast fight was the most wretched affair; and when I sit there, in my newly-bleached toga, [33] blood is what I want!”
“Merciful Lord Jesus Christ!” murmured Quintus. “From this hour my only God! To Thy keeping I commend my life. And ah! protect him—that dear father, who never dreams how fearful is the darkness that shrouds his sight. ”

“ He laughs at them as visionaries and fools, who are no more to be held as reprobate, than the worshippers of Isis, or any other oriental sect. Mockery, contempt, are the only weapons worthy of a thinking man. When I pointed out to him, that the creed of the Nazarenes was undermining the religion of the state in a way which no other superstition had done, he dared to utter these audacious words: ‘If your Olympus cannot take care of itself, it may crumble into dust.’”
“The words, I admit, sound audacious enough,” replied Quintus, looking his father in the face ”

“ The great temple of Isis lay flooded with gold; a procession of priests, [201] bearing the image of the goddess, came marching down the street.
“Get on!” cried Quintus. “I am tired to death. It was a folly, Blepyrus, to dismiss the litters.”
“It was wisdom, my lord!” said the slave. “If I still am honored with your confidence, I would again repeat....”
“Ah well!” Quintus interrupted. “Very likely you are right—you leeches are always right. [202] If only you attain a proportionate result! But if exercise were everything, I should be the lightest-hearted man in Europe. ”

“ My faith in Isis made me strong too—and it was all a lie, foul and base treachery. Ah! Quintus, Quintus, you are sacrificing your young and promising life for a mere dream, a delusion, a shadow—throwing everything away for an empty bubble!”
“My poor Cornelia!” said Quintus deeply moved. “The greatest idea, that ever dawned in the mind of man, you call a delusion and a dream. It is true, perhaps, that many of the aspects under which we shadow forth this great conception are petty and childish, for we are but weak and helpless mortals. ”

“ Do not I know it by my own experience?”
“It is worth trying, at any rate,” said Quintus. “But now allow me to breathe the fresh air; I am suffocating in here.” And as he spoke he unbarred the door and quitted the room.
“You must dissuade him!” said Nerva, as the door closed upon him.
“He is mad,” said Cinna. Then, turning to Aurelius, he went on: “You, my friend, go now and mingle with the guests. Amuse yourself, refresh and rest yourself. You are young, and youth claims its dues. To-morrow—you know—at the house of Afranius....” ”

“ CHAPTER XXII.
“Do not be uneasy, Quintus,” Aurelius whispered, as Cneius Afranius dismounted and threw the bridle to his slave. “By all the gods, this man is as trustworthy as you and I are! It would be perfect madness, not to give him an opportunity for an interview with Eurymachus. His fight with Stephanus is in the interest of common humanity, and particularly in that of our protégé.”
“It is all the same; I do not like the business at all.” ”

“ There is not a man in all the legion that is his match in skill and strength; not one that can beat him in running or in lance-throwing. But speak, my lord; you look so grave, so sad! What is it? Oh, for God’s sake, in Christ’s name—it is impossible! My son, my Philippus!—but he could stand against twenty—speak, my lord, or you will kill me....”
“Poor old man,” said Quintus much moved, “what good will it do to conceal the truth from you? Your son is dead. ”

“ Does it charm your hopes more to bleed to death under the fangs of Libyan beasts, than to be clasped in the arms of your Cornelia? Does the air of the Tullianum please you better, than the perfumed atmosphere of your own rooms? You have everything, every single thing your heart can desire, and you must plunge into dark gulfs of crime, soil your soul with the foul mire of superstition—nay, call yourself the brother of vile slaves, of panders and corpse-carriers!”
“I follow the light of truth,” replied Quintus. “You are wrong, father, in regarding the Nazarenes as mere vile rabble. ”

“ Aurelius shook his head doubtfully.
“Well, well,” said Quintus. “You good folks in the north have a stricter code—Tacitus describes the savage Germanic tribes as almost equally severe. But Rome is Roman.—No prayers can alter that; and after all you get used to it! I believe Cornelia herself would hardly scold if she heard.... Besides, it is in the air. Old Cato has long, long been forgotten, and the new Babylon by the Tiber wants pleasure—will have pleasure, for in pleasure alone can she find her vocation and the justification of her existence.” ”

“ You will save yourself nothing but immediate embarrassment. I, for my part, am so perfectly intimate with Afranius, so completely his friend....”
“If you suppose....”
“Only explain the case to your slave, Blepyrus. He must not be implicated. Your best way to avoid difficulties will be not to come on board. I could not even have invited you to come on with me, if I had not felt it a duty to inform you of my intentions.”
Quintus nodded.
“Very good,” he said thoughtfully. “Then tell our friend, Eurymachus, not to mention my name. ”

“ We all sat down to table, all, that is, but her. However, Quintus sent her something from the table. She refused it Not to make a long story of it, no one could have been more gentle than my brother, and no one more exasperating than your sister—in my judgment at least, and I pass by many other things which offended me more than they did Quintus. I went on to Aquinum." (The lady's behavior was all the more blameworthy because her husband was on his way to a remote province.) "Quintus remained at the Retreat. The next day he joined me at Arpinum. ”

“ Blepyrus, incapable of standing even a moment longer, threw off his cloak and sank at full-length on to one of the cushioned benches in the colonnade; he begged Herodianus, as he passed, to throw a coverlet over him. “I am more dead than alive,” he said. “When my master goes home, wake me.”
The freedman tried to persuade him to go into one of the rooms and lie on a bed; but Blepyrus heard no more. Deep, blank sleep had overpowered him at once. So Herodianus fetched a couple of warm rugs, in which he carefully wrapped the weary slave and then he joined Aurelius and Quintus. ”

“ But here, where my unoccupied mind is thrown back upon itself....”
“But what you say,” interrupted Aurelius, “proves not that you are satiated with the joys of life, so much as—you will forgive my plainness—that you are satiated with excess. You are betrothed, you say, and yet you can feel a flame for a fiery-eyed Gaditanian. In my country a man keeps away from all other girls, when he has chosen his bride.”
“Oh yes! I know that morality has taken refuge in the provinces,” said Quintus ironically. “But the youth of Rome go to work somewhat differently, and no one thinks the worse of us for it. ”

“ Quintus looked down in silence.
“You speak of God,” he said at last. “Which God do you mean, Eurymachus? Jupiter, whom our forefathers worshipped, is to you a mere idol. What name then do you give to the Divinity, who commands your love? And what proof have you, that he too is not a false God?”
“My lord,” said Eurymachus, “our God has no name by which he is known. A name is used for distinction, and to mark a difference from others of the same, kind; but He is one alone and eternal from the beginning. ”

“ No other teacher of the East has ever come back from the sepulcher. Look and see for yourself. Yonder is Joseph's empty tomb. The Christus is himself the evidence."
What can Quintus do, in the face of such proof as this? He returns to Scopus in wildest tumult. Little does he say to Aulus, his chosen friend. The company of Longinus or the centurion he does not seek. The time has come—as it comes to all—when he must commune with himself, and make the decision confronting every soul that has heard the resurrection story. ”

“ Quintus sat staring into the darkness for some little time. Then he felt his way round the wall to the bed, lay down on the mildewed worsted blanket and covered himself with his lacerna. After once more dedicating himself to God and his conscience, even unto death, he repeated the short prayer that the congregation had used on the occasion of his reception under the covenant. He had heard the words but once, but they were graven on his soul—those simple child-like words: “Our Father”—and then he fell asleep, as soundly and quietly as if he were lying on the soft cushions of his own cubiculum. ”

“ Oh, lamentable lot! For, considering his noble and almost divine intellect, if Cicero had seen Christ or had merely heard of His name, not only (in my opinion) would he have embraced the faith, but, with his incomparable eloquence, would most ably have spread the teachings of Christ.
[11] . Cic., ad Att., vii, 2, 6 (50 B. C.) :
Indeed, I never cherished the slightest desire for a triumph till I saw that Bibulus’ most shameless letters succeeded in winning for him the decree of a thanksgiving. ”

“ Quintus adds further, "if the augur, watching the flight of birds there at Brundisium. could mean that I am to fall by death, here in Palaestina. We have not come for battle, but to guard the peace. Yet it is easy for Atropos, that cruel fate, to clip the slender thread of life and send men on to die land of shades. If this was what the augur meant, no Roman in the days of Tiberius has ever set forth upon a more serious adventure." ”

“ The second letter was from Cornelia, Quintus’ betrothed, and ran as follows:
“Cornelia embraces her dear Quintus a thousand times. Here I am in Rome again, my beloved! My term of banishment to that odious desert at Tibur is ended. But, woe is me! Rome is dead and deserted too since you, my treasure, my idol, linger still far from the Seven Hills! Oh! how glad I am to hear from your father, that he is recalling you from Baiae sooner than was intended. Oh! Quintus, if you felt only one thousandth part of what I feel, you would fly on the wings of the storm to the arms of your love-sick Cornelia. ”