Edwin Abbott - Onesimus

“Of this latter kind one instance I myself witnessed on the very day on which I heard Simeon thus discourse; and it was wrought by Simeon himself in the synagogue. For after he had made an end of the first part of his discourse, he began to call upon all the people to repent, saying that the superior god whom he named the Father, would speedily judge all the world in righteousness, punishing the bad and rewarding the good, and in that day the Son,—namely, that very Christus whom Pontius had crucified,—should come again with great glory. Hereon one cried out in the assembly after the manner of demented people, saying, ‘Avaunt! Away! Away from me!’ adding loud exclamations against the name of Jesus. Simeon forthwith ceased from speaking, and looking very intently on the man’s countenance caused him to be brought near, and stretching out his hand as with authority in a loud voice adjured I know not what evil spirit to go forth from the man. The demented man immediately fell to the ground as one dead; but Simeon took him by the hand, and raised him up and restored him to his friends; and he went forth from the building delivered from his disease.

“The man happened to be the brother of our host’s door-keeper; and his madness was confirmed to me by many witnesses, as being of long continuance, yea, and I myself had seen him in a pitiable plight, gibbering and gaping as one mad in our court-yard a full month before; and our host himself (who is no friend to the Christians) constantly affirmed that he had been mad for the space of at least fourteen years. Wherefore thus much is certain and not to be denied, that a man who was demented for fourteen years, up till the seventh day of this month, is now on the fourteenth day of this month in his sound mind and to all appearance likely to remain therein; and this has been wrought by certain words uttered by this Simeon Niger. Now if this effect proceeds from natural causes, as the great Epicurus would doubtless assert, the causes (none the less) seem worthy to be sought out and examined.

“When the madman was led forth delivered from his disease, I had much ado to prevent the worthy Philemon from standing up publicly and praying that he also might be initiated into the sacred rites of this new religion by means of purification with water; which they practice not many times, as with us, but once for all, and with more than usual solemnity; and I suppose that Christus himself instituted this purification; at all events no one is admitted without it. But I besought the excellent man not to do so rash a thing with such precipitate haste, and at least to wait till he should have discovered whether those who are initiated into the Christian rites, are also to submit themselves to the whole of the law which the more ancient religion of the Jews enjoins upon that nation. For the time I succeeded and kept him from his purpose. But I could wish that Archippus or Apphia were here present with him, and I not alone. For I greatly fear that, if he be so violently moved a second time, I may no longer be able to restrain him. Concerning the second visit to the synagogue, having many things to write, and the messenger of Philemon being already on the point to depart, I must defer what I would further say to another occasion.

“One matter had almost slipped my memory; and it is perhaps hardly worth setting down. Going this day to the garden of Adonis I saw the youths and maidens passing in procession through the golden gate of Daphne; and there calling to my mind other processions such as I had seen in my youth (but this far surpassed them all) I remembered how I was wont as a child to make comparisons between a certain Diosdotus, a priest of Zeus of a goodly presence and lofty stature, and a certain unknown wandering priest or juggler, mean of aspect, bald-headed and hook-nosed, who in my presence had healed one that was lame and known to have been lame for thirty years. This happened when I was a mere child, scarcely (as I think) past my tenth year; but to-day it came into my mind that both that wandering priest and this Simeon—albeit differing greatly in countenance and appearance, Simeon being tall and the other short or inclining to shortness—nevertheless agreed in this one point, that they spoke of things invisible not only as if they saw them, but also in such wise as to make others fancy that they saw them. And, if I err not, that prophet also spoke, as did Simeon, concerning a certain Son of God whom the superior God had sent into the world. Wherefore I now conjecture that that same wandering prophet belonged to no gods of the Greeks, but was, even as this Simeon, a Jew, and one of this sect that believes in Christus.

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