Onesimus

§ 6. HOW I WAS LED INTO THE NET OF THE GOSPEL

As soon as I was come forth from the presence of Paulus I resolved one thing for certain, that, go whither I might to-morrow, I would by no means go to the house of Tryphæna; for, in spite of all my former disbelief in witchcraft, I began to believe that verily some kind of fascination was being used against me to make me a Christian against my will. For a long time I dared not lie down to rest, but sat reasoning with myself and endeavoring to call to mind the arguments of Artemidorus against the Christians; yet ever and anon the face of Paulus would appear before mine eyes, and I seemed to hear him saying that the gods are immortal men, and it came into my mind that, if indeed there were but such a god as my beloved Eucharis or Chrestus, only immortal instead of mortal, how willingly would I trust in him, how gladly face all peril and endure all hardship for his sake! And then I bethought myself of the saying of Paulus about his leader Christus whom he mentioned as still living and bearing witness to him, and how he seemed to see Christus behind me; and with that I leaped up crying for help and screaming like one distraught; and so timorous was I that I lit a second lamp and sat down again resolving not to sleep that night at all. But presently sleep, whether I would or not, fell upon my eyelids, and a confused mixture of many visions passed before me, Paulus and Pythagoras and Heraclitus, all beckoning to me, and speaking about an “immortal man” and a “mortal god;” and then such a chaos of words and sights that I grew dizzy, till at last I saw a small white cloud which grew larger and opened itself and inclosed all the former chaos, and on it was written “Chrestus;” but as I approached, it was not “Chrestus” but “Christus,” and then “Chrestus” again, till the cloud burst with a loud sound as of thunder and disclosed my brother, bright and smiling as in old days, and on his breast he bore the token I LOVE THEE and he stretched out his arms to me. But when I ran to embrace him, behold, on his hands and feet the marks of grievous wounds, and the expression of his countenance was the same and yet not the same; so that I stood and drew back, and, though he beckoned to me, I fled. But he pursued after me and I still fled from him, and all around there were voices and faces of good and evil, the good helping my pursuer, the bad helping me; but, as he gained fast upon me, the priest of Cybele smote the ground, and, behold, a great yawning chasm, wherein was a multitude of skeletons with open arms waiting for me, and I leaped into the chasm, and the arms of the skeletons were clasping me round; when suddenly I awoke and found myself upon the ground, shrieking and struggling and my limbs all shivering and bathed in sweat; and by this time the night was well nigh past, and the first light of dawn was to be seen in the east.

So great was my terror that my first resolve was to depart at once from Rome. But then I bethought myself that, whithersoever I might travel, I could not avoid bad dreams; and, if I desired to avoid Paulus, no place was so convenient for me as the most populous of all cities. So I concluded to remain where I was, but to spend that day in Tusculum; whither I accordingly set out a little before noon. But I had not gone a few paces from the door of my lodging, before the slaves of a certain rich Octavius, one of my patrons, came suddenly behind me and, catching fast both my arms, bade me return with them, saying their master entertained company that day unexpectedly, and much desired my presence to make them merry. When I would have excused myself, they replied that they were under constraint to take no refusal; for Octavius had threatened them with a whipping if by fair means or foul they brought me not. Moreover, as they were to dine very early, I must come with them at once, though it was but the seventh hour, and thus they would be sure of me.

So I went with them under a kind of friendly violence and entertained the company after my power. But what I said and did I know not, save only that at the beginning of the entertainment I overheard one of the guests say to his neighbor that Tychicus (by which name I was known in those days) was that day in admirable fooling; and his neighbor replied that truly Tychicus would be the most wittily obscene buffoon in the whole of the city, but for a certain unevenness in his jesting, as if he were possessed with two spirits, a lewd spirit and a surly spirit, “for,” said he, “after keeping all the table in a roar of mirth for two or three hours, if you watch the fellow for a minute or so when he thinks none are looking at him, he falls into a moroseness, or else a kind of vacancy, as if he were a soothsayer and saw visions.” When I heard this, I drank even more recklessly than my wont, saying to myself that I would drive out that spirit of vision-seeing and give myself wholly to the evil spirit. And noting that it was now near sun-down, so that I was free from the snares of the enchanter Paulus, I grew more and more furious in my revelry, exceeding all bounds in grossness and blasphemy so that the guests applauded amain and covered my head with crowns of roses.

When I was at last dismissed, the guests now retiring to prepare for a second banquet, it was full two hours after sunset. Now the House of Octavius was on the Cœlian hill (where now stands the Colisseum) so that I was in no way constrained to go near the Capenian gate in order to return to my lodging. But the Lord constrained me and it was as if my feet took me thither against my will. Again and again did I repeat to myself, “Fool, why goest thou into the snare with thine eyes open?” But I replied, “What harm in merely going through the street, since it is certain that I shall not enter the house?” Yet, as I drew near to the street, I perceived the folly of going whither I desired not to go, and I drew back and turned aside going towards the Prætorium, when of a sudden a fear fell upon me, and I felt a hand laid on my shoulder from behind, and I trembled from head to foot hearing the voice of Paulus: “My son, thou art not in the right way.” Fain would I have made some excuse, or have fled at once without excuse; but neither could my tongue avail for words, nor my feet for flight. So I went on with Paulus even as a captive, and he took me by the hand and led me unresisting into a house where was a large congregation of the Christians already assembled and expecting his presence; through the midst of whom I walked, crowned as I was with roses, and dripping with unguents and staggering in my gait, so that all gazed at me with wonder and some perchance in anger. However they all made way reverently for Paulus, and for me with Paulus, he still holding me by the hand. Then Paulus ascended a bema or platform and began to speak to the people. At first I sat still, as one hearing and yet not hearing, content to listen but not knowing why I listened; like a brute beast not capable of understanding. By degrees my senses returned, and his words seemed to come nearer and nearer to me till they penetrated my very soul; but I cannot recollect them so as to set them down, except a few of the last sentences, and these not exactly.

When I came to myself, he was speaking of the mercies of the Lord, describing how he himself had persecuted the faith yet had obtained mercy. Who therefore, said he, could not be pardoned, since he had been counted worthy of pardon? Who was so vile and sinful that must needs say ‘I am not worthy to draw nigh unto the Lord’ since he, Paulus, the sinner and persecutor, had been embraced by the arms of his mercy? “Therefore, say not within yourselves ‘What new sacrifice shall I bring?’ For the Lord Jesus Himself is your sacrifice; neither say in your hearts ‘With what new purification shall I draw nigh unto him?’ for the blood of the Lord Jesus is your purification; neither say ‘What new deeds must I do?’ or ‘What new life must I lead?’ for the Lord himself hath prepared thy deeds that thou shalt do; and as for thy life, it is no longer thine own; for behold thou art dead; and the life that thou shalt hereafter live, is the life that Christ shall live in thee. Come therefore unto thy Lord and trust in him.

“Stumble not, O ye Jews, at the cross, neither say within yourselves, ‘The Crucified cannot be the Christ; he that died the death of a slave cannot be our King.’ Nay, but I say unto you, because of the cross, and not in spite of the cross, the Lord Jesus is the Christ; and because he made himself to be the servant of all, therefore is he now exalted to be King over all. Also, ye Gentiles, stumble not at the sepulchre of Christ, saying, ‘It is not possible that one that is dead should rise again;’ for verily these eyes have seen him, and your own consciences bear witness for me that I speak not as one deceiving you, but that I verily saw the Lord Jesus. And as many of you as believe, have, as a testimony, the presence of his Spirit in your hearts; and as many as shall believe shall have that same Spirit dwelling among you, as earnest of the glory that is to come, bringing with it love towards God and good-will towards all men. Come therefore unto the Lord Jesus, and behold, the grave hath no power to make a gulf between you and him. Say not ‘He is in the heaven far above us,’ nor ‘He is in Hades far beneath us;’ for I declare unto you that neither heaven, nor earth, nor that which is beneath the earth, can part you from him; fear not the gods nor the Gentiles, nor the reproach of men; fear not the thrones nor powers of this world; if Christ be for us who shall be against us? Fear ye not therefore the fears of this world; for behold, for them that are called of Christ, all things work together for good; for I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Now at first as I came to myself, and heard the voice of the Apostle discoursing of Jesus and of the life in Him, and of the joy and peace of it, being made conscious of my inward darkness and of the unattainable Light, I felt the burden of my miseries too great for me to bear. A shape of evil seemed to sit pressing down my soul, stifling her groanings and exulting over her unavailing struggles; bidding me stop my ears against the voice lest it should disquiet my heart in vain, because having taken side with evil and having wilfully blasphemed, I was now his lawful slave, and regrets were unavailing; and because I would not obey him, methought he was encompassing me all around with thick walls of an impenetrable dungeon, wherein I lay as in a sepulchre beneath the earth, fast bound, not able either to see or to hear. But suddenly, as if a great way off, I seemed to perceive a sound, though very faint, that “if Christ were for us none would be against us,” and with that, a shaking of the walls of my dungeon; and after that, came the other words of the Apostle each after each, battering at my prison, so that wall after wall fell with a great crashing noise; and last of all there came that thunderous proclamation roaring around mine ears, that neither things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature should separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord; and hereat my whole dungeon straightway parted, like a curtain rent asunder, and brightness burst in upon me as a flood, and the Lord Jesus revealed Himself unto me as the Light and Life of men.

THE END OF THE FIFTH BOOK

THE SIXTH BOOK

§ 1. OF THE TEACHING OF PAULUS

Who shall describe the marvels of the change when from the sea of sin a human soul is caught up into the life above, and lifted into the blessed brotherhood of the saints of God? No fears, no doubts, no remorse; but only a certain purifying fire of repentance within me, stimulating me to a life of virtue and to the helping of others, even as I had myself been helped. In addition to the delight of continual communion with my beloved teacher Paulus, my spirit was also refreshed by all the brethren of the church. For in them I found such a joy of fellowship as I had never before known, not like a common collegium where men meet merely to eat and drink and to be merry and to pay for the funeral of some deceased companion, and to give help to those of the collegium who may chance to be in need; but the Christian collegium, if I may so call it, was far above all these, being bound together with a tie not to be loosened by death and so strong and passionate as I had never experienced nor even conceived, a veritable enthusiasm and insatiate desire for well-doing. Marvellously great therefore was the change for one who had been but yesterday friendless, an outcast, despised of all men, now to find himself encompassed round with friends or rather brothers and bathed as it were in a flood of friendship. But the greatest help of all was the Lord Jesus himself, present in my heart by day and night, a constant fountain of inexpressible peace. Now also I heard once more and learned these words of the Lord which had first drawn my soul towards him at Antioch; and other words I learned beside these, full of grace and healing. Many a time in Colossæ, and sometimes even in Pergamus and Corinth during the days of my darkness, I had caught myself unwittingly repeating to myself that most precious exhortation of the Lord Jesus to the weary and heavy laden, that they should come unto him and he would give them rest; but then I had repeated these words as an unbeliever or as a doubter, striving to harden myself in unbelief; now I repeated them with understanding, knowing them by experience to be true, and acknowledging that in him alone was rest. Notwithstanding the Spirit of the Lord, and the manifestations of the Spirit, came not unto me from the learning of the sayings of Jesus, but from the preaching of Paulus, who first revealed to me the power of the Lord unto salvation.

At this time I told Paulus the whole story of my life, and although I supposed that matters of love were scarcely fit for his hearing (as Epictetus had spoken of them slightingly, as beneath the attention of a philosopher) yet I concealed not either my former love for Eucharis or the bitterness of my sorrow for her death. He was moved by it more than I had thought possible, nor did he rebuke me as I had expected. Hereon I described to him the doctrine of Epictetus, who forbade me to sorrow for her or for anything, or any person, because it was necessary to preserve serenity of mind. But Paulus shook his head, and said that it was not right that we should in this way seek to escape from the troubles of life by separating ourselves from others; but that we ought to rejoice with them that rejoice and sorrow with them that sorrow, and that we should fulfil the law of Christ by bearing one another’s burdens. Yet he bade me think of Eucharis as of one not dead but sleeping, and not in the hand of Death but in the hand of the Lord, “for” said he, “whether we live, or die, we are the Lord’s.”

Again, when I spoke to him of my former doubts concerning the ruling of the world, whether it were for good or for ill, he said that men had been placed in the world as if in twilight, to seek and grope after God; but that now the day had dawned in the manifestation of the Lord Jesus and in his rising again from the dead; “for,” said he, “this, and nothing else, is the salvation of the world, resolving all doubts and showing forth the triumph of good over evil and of life over death.” And in all his doctrine he made mention of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus as being the foundation of the whole Gospel and the seal of its truth.

As to the objections of Artemidorus (for I hid none of them nor aught else, because of the perfect trust I had in Paulus) namely, that the Lord Jesus had not been sent into the world till after so many centuries, and then to a most despised nation—the Apostle lightened these doubts by teaching me more fully concerning Israel; how the seed of Abraham, though lightly esteemed of men, had been chosen of God to proclaim his will; and how all things from the beginning, both the questionings of the Gentiles, and the Law, and the Prophets of Israel, had prepared the way for the coming of the Lord. But whereas Artemidorus had said that there was no sin, and Epictetus also had taught me that sin and crime were no more than “erroneous opinion,” Paulus now taught me quite otherwise, that an Evil Nature was in the world from the first, contending against the Good, and that the Evil is the cause of all our sins and miseries; howbeit, he bade me believe that out of our very sins the Love of God worketh a higher righteousness, making evil itself to be a kind of step of ascent to a greater good; which belief I do still, and ever shall, hold fast. Touching any signs and wonders wrought by the Lord (whereon certain of the brethren were wont to set great store) he said but little, although he himself wrought no small signs in the healing of diseases; for that which drew him to the Lord was not signs nor wonders but a love of him, and a trust in him, as being the spiritual power of God manifested to the saving of the souls of men. In the same way I also believed, and do still believe, in the Lord Jesus, worshipping him not as the worker of wonder and portents, but as the Eternal Love of God, governing the world from the first, and in these last days made flesh for us, that in him we might know God, and love God, and be at one with God.

§ 2. HOW I RETURNED TO PHILEMON AT COLOSSÆ

Even before I had been baptized (which took place on the seventh day after I had first heard the preaching of Paulus) I had resolved that I must at once return to Philemon. However, by the advice of Paulus, I went not straightway to Colossæ, but abode some days with him at his lodging, that I might be strengthened in the faith of Christ; and each day drew me closer to my new teacher. Those who knew him not might perchance have accused him of inconstancy; for his manner of speech and the features of his countenance changed every moment; and he was skilful as an actor to suit himself (in all honorable fashion) to them with whom from time to time he had to do, whether Jews or Greeks, bond or free, soldiers or courtiers, or whatever else. But the cause of his thus conforming himself to others in things indifferent was not inconstancy nor dissimulation, but a sincere love for all men and a power of feeling as others felt, so that his own nature disposed him without constraint to carry out that precept which was always on his lips, “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and sorrow with them that sorrow.” And beneath all this appearance of inconstancy there was a firm and solid resolution, the depth of which could not be known but by those who knew the depths of the love of the Lord Jesus. From Paulus (who knew Philemon well) I heard that my former enemy Pistus had fled from Colossæ some months ago, being convicted of theft, and after his departure his devices against me had been discovered and my innocence proved; hearing which I was the more willing to return. Nor did the Apostle longer delay me, saying that he doubted not but that Philemon would do what was right; but to make assurance surer he would write a letter to him whereof I should be the bearer.

I had not been an hour in Colossæ before Philemon signified his desire to emancipate me without conditions, at the same time lamenting that he had been led by the practice of Pistus to suspect me without cause; and for the brief remnant of his life, he (no less than Apphia) bestowed on me a truly parental affection; which I for my part endeavored to requite with something of the care and attention due from a son. Soon afterwards I was appointed to the ministry, and I labored in the church at Colossæ to supply the old man’s place, inasmuch as he became daily more infirm and less able to preside over the congregation. Many difficulties in the work began at this time to perplex me, because there appeared in our little congregations divisions of opinion. Some of the brethren were plain simple folk (slaves most of them) delighting in wonders; and these, besides believing other portents, supposed that, after their death, they would reign on earth with Christ for many years wearing the same flesh and blood which now they wore. Others (but of these only a few) coming to the knowledge of Christ from the study of philosophy, denied that there was any further resurrection, after the human soul had once been raised up from the death of sin to life in Christ. Again, others maintained Christ to be not very God, but only the greatest of a great train of angels created by God; and some of these affirmed that Christ was not a man at all (save in appearance only) but that he merely went through the form of appearing to be born and to suffer and to die. Many also attacked the Law of Moses and the ancient Scriptures of the Jews; and these (not understanding the doctrine of the Apostle concerning the progress of all things, and how the Law was but as a slave to bring us to Christ) taking it for granted that I must needs maintain the Law to be perfect, and the doings of the Patriarchs to be perfect, yea, and the letter of the Law to be perfect, endeavored to bring the Scriptures into derision, by asking whether the true God had nails and hair and teeth and the like, as well as hand and voice and nostrils; because, said they, the Scriptures declared that he had the latter; and if the latter, why not the former?

Against all these opinions it seemed needful to contend, not so much inveighing against that which was false, as rather pleading for that which was true. Many times did I now desire that my teacher, the blessed Apostle, had been present to direct and guide me. But then there came into my mind the saying of Epictetus that “it is only a bad performer who is afraid to sing alone,” and how One greater than Epictetus had promised that he “would be ever with us.” Yet I began to lament (as did others also) that we had no writings of the words and deeds of the Lord which might have served as a lamp and guide to our feet. However, in spite of these contrarieties, it was still a great refreshment to note the work of the Spirit among all such as believed in the Lord Jesus, yea, even among some that erred in opinions. For not only did all alike abstain from magic arts, and festivals, and sacrifices to demons, and the like, but a wonderful change came also upon their whole lives: the thief no longer stole; the lewd became chaste; the cruel merciful; the timorous and servile no longer feared aught save sin. To crucify slaves had become a thing hateful and abominable; to expose children was to sin against God; wealth and pleasure were despised; and, in a word, such temperance, constancy and benevolence as are recommended by philosophers in their lectures to a small circle of pupils, these very virtues were practised by the whole multitude of the saints; and this, not out of ostentation, nor “to preserve one’s own serenity of mind” (as Epictetus would have had me think) but simply out of an insatiate desire to serve the Lord Jesus by loving and serving men. Nor could I fail to perceive how fruitful and blessed was the service of the Lord; for that very peace and freedom of mind which Epictetus had held up to me as the chief object of life, and which I had found impossible to obtain by aiming at it, behold, now that I no longer aimed at it, but only desired to serve the Lord, this same peace of mind came as it were unasked into my bosom, peace deep, and calm, and past all power of tongue to utter or mind to understand.