Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

His argument was far too complex for most of the congregation; rather it was a clarion call, a warning to his fellows that, although he might be a neophyte, he did not intend to abandon his beliefs through gratitude. From then on, and for the rest of his life, he delivered his sermons, arcane, erudite, and complex, knowing that his audience would not understand them but knowing also that the repeated presentation of such sophisticated ideas would indeed have an effect, if only a small one, deepening and refining the bundle of coarse superstitions that Christians called their religion.

Even had he ventured into complete and coherent heresy, however, the congregation would have forgiven him. For Manlius spent a considerable sum of money to provide a spectacle the likes of which they had not seen for years. He had already begun rebuilding and extending the church, now he rerobed the priests and offered food in plenty and at no cost after the event. For this, they were all to parade through the streets to the now generally disused forum, led by Manlius and with the new convert, robed in white, just behind him.

However, the route from the basilica ran alongside the street where most of the town’s Jews lived, and they were enraged by the way the church’s triumph was being so noisily proclaimed. Even so, there was little anyone could do, but Daniel’s brother, deeply shamed by his elder sibling, climbed to the top of a building and, when Daniel passed by underneath, tipped a large jar of oil over him.

Fortunately, none hit the bishop, else the consequences would have been very much worse; had his cloak been touched, even the slightest drop staining the pure white wool, then the anger of the crowd would have been uncontrollable. But the aim was true; only the newly baptized Daniel was touched, and he shrank down with a scream, thinking that worse was about to follow.

His fear ran through the crowd, and when one pointed up at the roof to the departing brother, they all cried out and began to give chase. It was a hopeless task; Vaison was hardly a big town anymore, but it was more than large enough to conceal one person who did not wish to be discovered. Their anger could find no outlet, and so they went to the one place where they knew Jews could be found. The synagogue was not grand, and did not in any way resemble the buildings that either Olivier or Julien would recognize. Rather, it was an ordinary house, with one larger than average room at the back, big enough to accommodate fifty or so people at one time; when there were more, on holy days, the extra would congregate in the small courtyard outside. It had been there a long time, more than a century, since the number of Jews in the town had increased enough to support it, and everyone knew where it was.

There was no plan to what happened next; the building was set on fire because, once the crowd arrived outside its doors, no one knew what to do next. Had someone with authority managed to keep up, worked his way to the head of the crowd and taken control, there would have been no violence. But, in the absence of such a figure, leadership descended to the most brutal, and it was one of these who first picked up a stone and threw it into the building, then kicked in the door. Half a dozen charged in and only one of these took some embers from the fire glowing in the grate and used them to light the hangings.

It was a small fire, which did little damage in itself; its main effect was to enflame the crowd, who sensed that the thin curl of smoke and little flicker gave the permission to continue. From then the destruction increased and engulfed the whole building. When the real fire, the one that reduced it to ashes, took hold, there was not a piece of furniture, hanging, or book left intact. The noise of the crowd increased to a pitch, then gave way and sank back to silence as the flames blazed, the energy of their anger transferring to the conflagration, and reducing them to mere spectators. Then they simply stood and watched what they had done, scarcely even remembering that it was they who had begun this. And after a while they began to disperse, their anger spent, their vengeance taken, and their lust satisfied.

In terms of violence, it was not a serious business. Compare it with the orgy that convulsed Constantinople a few decades later and left fifteen thousand dead after a week of riots. Compare it to some of the coups and civil wars that had engulfed the empire in the past century. Compare it to the traditional and accepted behavior of troops taking control of a city after a siege. The violence of Vaison killed no one; even Daniel’s brother escaped unscathed, and while Jews felt obliged to stay indoors for a day or so, even they did not consider themselves under great threat. Indeed, their anger was directed not so much against the Christians who had destroyed their synagogue—even though they deeply resented the assault—as against the family that had brought this calamity upon them: the useless Daniel and his equally violent, headstrong brother. Neither of them was worth any loss.

The importance of the incident was not the violence; many communities of all sorts had suffered very much worse. Rather, this lay in the fact that it became woven into the fabric of Christian, Gallic history, embedded in a framework of theological justification, given purpose and meaning, a past and a future, through the words and deeds—misreported and twisted though they were—of Manlius Hippomanes.

For Manlius saw the opportunity finally to make himself the undisputed leader of the town, to put himself in a position where he commanded such love and respect that he was invulnerable. And he took it, grasped it with both hands.

The following day he delivered his second sermon. Less considered and far more effective than his first. Little of what he said was completely new; the desirability that the Jews should throw off their blindness and recognize their own Messiah was something of a commonplace and had been for well over a century. Revulsion at the way they had murdered their own God was not new either. Disdain for—or more properly incomprehension of—Jews was also common, although it was little different in form to the bewilderment that had once greeted the unsocial, uncivil, and coarse behavior of Christians themselves. None of this was innovative; nor did passion give the words their power, for Manlius regarded Jews with no more disdain than he regarded Goths, Huns, slaves, serfs, and townsmen—anyone not of his family or rank.

It was his logic that impressed, that finely honed skill taught to him by Sophia and which he applied to all that he said or did, reaching out to conclusions and stating them because of their rationality. The Jews were disobedient; they had disobeyed their savior, and now they disobeyed those who took their authority from the savior. Consequently, the path was clear. They were to be given three choices. They could convert, they could leave, or they could die. It was necessary for all Jews to be eliminated for the divine plan to be fulfilled, and the church, through Manlius, put its full authority behind this noble plan.

Manlius wished to be remembered as a man of letters, the voice of reason, a philosopher. This he intended to be his immortality. But all of this was buried for nine hundred years until Olivier briefly unearthed his work, and it was then lost again until Julien discovered it in the Vatican archive. Instead, such influence as he had came through a trifle, an instinctive reponse to a political problem that he had largely forgotten about only a few months later. For in one sermon he managed to bind all the diverse elements of disapproval into a coherent polemic. He asserted not merely the right of the church to insist on conversion, but also its duty to eradicate false belief by whatever means necessary. His learning, skill, and eloquence were bent to the task of asserting the church’s right—his right—to absolute control, and he brought all his scholarship, everything he had learned, to the task of weaving the proofs necessary to back up his desires.