Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗

voice which he had heard in his soul, and which

commanded him to struggle with the wild bull. All went away consoled,

hoping that Christ would not let His followers be exterminated on earth

before His coming at the day of judgment. And hope sustained their

hearts, for persecution had not ceased yet. Whoever was declared a

Christian by public report was thrown into prison at once by the city

watches. It is true that the victims were fewer, for the majority of

confessors had been seized and tortured to death. The Christians who

remained had either left Rome to wait out the storm in distant

provinces, or had hidden most carefully, not daring to assemble in

common prayer, unless in sand-pits outside the city. They were

persecuted yet, however, and though the games were at an end, the newly

arrested were reserved for future games or punished specially. Though

it was believed in Rome no longer that Christians had caused the

conflagration, they were declared enemies of humanity and the State, and

the edict against them remained in former force.

 

The Apostle Peter did not venture for a long time to appear in the house

of Petronius, but at last on a certain evening Nazarius announced his

arrival. Lygia, who was able to walk alone now, and Vinicius ran out to

meet him, and fell to embracing his feet. He greeted them with emotion

all the greater that not many sheep in that flock over which Christ had

given him authority, and over the fate of which his great heart was

weeping, remained to him. So when Vinicius said, “Lord, because of thee

the Redeemer returned her to me,” he answered: “He returned her because

of thy faith, and so that not all the lips which profess His name should

grow silent.” And evidently he was thinking then of those thousands of

his children torn by wild beasts, of those crosses with which the arena

had been filled, and those fiery pillars in the gardens of the “Beast”;

for he spoke with great sadness. Vinicius and Lygia noticed also that

his hair had grown entirely white, that his whole form was bent, and

that in his face there was as much sadness and suffering as if he had

passed through all those pains and torments which the victims of Nero’s

rage and madness had endured. But both understood that since Christ had

given Himself to torture and to death, no one was permitted to avoid it.

Still their hearts were cut at sight of the Apostle, bent by years,

toil, and pain. So Vinicius, who intended to take Lygia soon to Naples,

where they would meet Pomponia and go to Sicily, implored him to leave

Rome in their company.

 

But the Apostle placed his hand on the tribune’s head and answered,—

 

“In my soul I hear these words of the Lord, which He spoke to me on the

Lake of Tiberias: ‘When thou wert young, thou didst gird thyself, and

walk whither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt

stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee

whither thou wouldst not.’ Therefore it is proper that I follow my

flock.”

 

And when they were silent, not knowing the sense of his speech, he

added,

 

“My toil is nearing its end; I shall find entertainment and rest only in

the house of the Lord.”

 

Then he turned to them saying: “Remember me, for I have loved you as a

father loves his children; and whatever ye do in life, do it for the

glory of God.”

 

Thus speaking, he raised his aged, trembling hands and blessed them;

they nestled up to him, feeling that to be the last blessing, perhaps,

which they should receive from him.

 

It was destined them, however, to see him once more. A few days later

Petronius brought terrible news from the Palatine. It had been

discovered there that one of Cæsar’s freedmen was a Christian; and on

this man were found letters of the Apostles Peter and Paul, with letters

of James, John, and Judas. Peter’s presence in Rome was known formerly

to Tigellinus, but he thought that the Apostle had perished with

thousands of other confessors. Now it transpired that the two leaders

of the new faith were alive and in the capital. It was determined,

therefore, to seize them at all costs, for it was hoped that with their

death the last root of the hated sect would be plucked out. Petronius

heard from Vestinius that Cæsar himself had issued an order to put Peter

and Paul in the Mamertine prison within three days, and that whole

detachments of pretorians had been sent to search every house in the

Trans-Tiber.

 

When he heard this, Vinicius resolved to warn the Apostle. In the

evening he and Ursus put on Gallic mantles and went to the house of

Miriam, where Peter was living. The house was at the very edge of the

Trans-Tiber division of the city, at the foot of the Janiculum. On the

road they saw houses surrounded by soldiers, who were guided by certain

unknown persons. This division of the city was alarmed, and in places

crowds of curious people had assembled. Here and there centurions

interrogated prisoners touching Simon Peter and Paul of Tarsus.

 

Ursus and Vinicius were in advance of the soldiers, and went safely to

Miriam’s house, in which they found Peter surrounded by a handful of the

faithful. Timothy, Paul’s assistant, and Linus were at the side of the

Apostle.

 

At news of the approaching danger, Nazarius led all by a hidden passage

to the garden gate, and then to deserted stone quarries, a few hundred

yards distant from the Janiculum Gate. Ursus had to carry Linus, whose

bones, broken by torture, had not grown together yet. But once in the

quarry, they felt safe; and by the light of a torch ignited by Nazarius

they began to consult, in a low voice, how to save the life of the

Apostle who was so dear to them.

 

“Lord,” said Vinicius, “let Nazarius guide thee at daybreak to the Alban

Hills. There I will find thee, and we will take thee to Antium, where a

ship is ready to take us to Naples and Sicily. Blessed will the day and

the hour be in which thou shalt enter my house, and thou wilt bless my

hearth.”

 

The others heard this with delight, and pressed the Apostle, saying,

 

“Hide thyself, sacred leader; remain not in Rome. Preserve the living

truth, so that it perish not with us and thee. Hear us, who entreat

thee as a father.”

 

“Do this in Christ’s name!” cried others, grasping at his robes.

 

“My children,” answered Peter, “who knows the time when the Lord will

mark the end of his life?”

 

But he did not say that he would not leave Rome, and he hesitated what

to do; for uncertainty, and even fear, had been creeping into his soul

for some time. His flock was scattered; the work was wrecked; that

church, which before the burning of the city had been flourishing like a

splendid tree, was turned into dust by the power of the “Beast.”

Nothing remained save tears, nothing save memories of torture and death.

The sowing had yielded rich fruit, but Satan had trampled it into the

earth. Legions of angels had not come to aid the perishing,—and Nero

was extending in glory over the earth, terrible, mightier than ever, the

lord of all seas and all lands. More than once had that fisherman of

the Lord stretched his hands heavenward in loneliness and asked: “Lord,

what must I do? How must I act? And how am I, a feeble old man, to

fight with this invincible power of Evil, which Thou hart permitted to

rule, and have victory?”

 

And he called out thus in the depth of his immense pain, repeating in

spirit: “Those sheep which Thou didst command me to feed are no more,

Thy church is no more; loneliness and mourning are in Thy capital; what

dost Thou command me to do now? Am I to stay here, or lead forth the

remnant of the flock to glorify Thy name in secret somewhere beyond the

sea?”

 

And he hesitated, He believed that the living truth would not perish,

that it must conquer; but at moments he thought that the hour had not

come yet, that it would come only when the Lord should descend to the

earth in the day of judgment in glory and power a hundred times greater

than the might of Nero.

 

Frequently it seemed to him that if he left Rome, the faithful would

follow; that he would lead them then far away to the shady groves of

Galilee, to the quiet surface of the Lake of Tiberias, to shepherds as

peaceful as doves, or as sheep, who feed there among thyme and

pepperwort. And an increasing desire for peace and rest, an increasing

yearning for the lake and Galilee, seized the heart of the fisherman;

tears came more frequently to the old man’s eyes.

 

But at the moment when he made the choice, sudden alarm and fear came on

him. How was he to leave that city, in which so much martyrs’ blood had

sunk into the earth, and where so many lips had given the true testimony

of the dying? Was he alone to yield? And what would he answer the Lord

on hearing the words, “These have died for the faith, but thou didst

flee”?

 

Nights and days passed for him in anxiety and suffering. Others, who

had been torn by lions, who had been fastened to crosses, who had been

burnt in the gardens of Cæsar, had fallen asleep in the Lord after

moments of torture; but he could not sleep, and he felt greater tortures

than any of those invented by executioners for victims. Often was the

dawn whitening the roofs of houses while he was still crying from the

depth of his mourning heart: “Lord, why didst Thou command me to come

hither and found Thy capital in the den of the ‘Beast’?”

 

For thirty-three years after the death of his Master he knew no rest.

Staff in hand, he had gone through the world and declared the “good

tidings.” His strength had been exhausted in journeys and toil, till at

last, when in that city, which was the head of the world, he had

established the work of his Master, one bloody breath of wrath had

burned it, and he saw that there was need to take up the struggle anew.

And what a struggle! On one side Caecsar, the Senate, the people, the

legions holding the world with a circle of iron, countless cities,

countless lands,—power such as the eye of man had not seen; on the

other side he, so bent with age and toil that his trembling hand was

hardly able to carry his staff.

 

At times, therefore, he said to himself that it was not for him to

measure with the Cæsar of Rome,—that Christ alone could do that.

 

All these thoughts were passing through his care-filled head, when he

heard the prayers of the last handful of the faithful. They,

surrounding him in an ever narrowing circle, repeated with voices of

entreaty,—

 

“Hide thyself, Rabbi, and lead us away from the power of the ‘Beast.’”

 

Finally Linus also bowed his tortured head before him.

 

“O lord,” said he, “the Redeemer commanded thee to feed His sheep, but

they are here no longer or tomorrow they will not be here; go,

therefore, where thou mayst find them yet. The word of God is living

still in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, and in other cities. What

wilt thou do