Sabine Baring-Gould - Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213

Those who occupied the higher grades in the Church, even at this early period, were, for the most part, selected from the cultured and noble classes; not that the Church had respect of persons, but because of the need there was of possessing men who could penetrate into the best houses, and who, being related to the governing classes, might influence the upper strata of society, as well as that which was below. The great houses with their families of slaves in the city, and of servile laborers on their estates, possessed vast influence for good or evil. A believing master could flood a whole population that depended on him with light, and was certain to treat his slaves with Christian humanity. On the other hand, it occasionally happened that it was through a poor slave that the truth reached the heart of a master or mistress.

Baudillas led the girl, now shivering with cold, from the garden, and speedily reached a narrow street. Here the houses on each side were lofty, unadorned, and had windows only in the upper stories, arched with brick and unglazed. In cold weather they were closed with shutters.

The pavement of the street was of cobble-stones and rough. No one was visible; no sound issued from the houses, save only from one whence came the rattle of a loom; and a dog chained at a door barked furiously as the little party went by.

“This is the house,” said Baudillas, and he struck against a door.

After some waiting a bar was withdrawn within, and the door, that consisted of two valves, was opened by an old, slightly lame slave.

“Pedo,” said the deacon, “has all been well?”

“All is well, master,” answered the man.

“Enter, ladies,” said Baudillas. “My house is humble and out of repair, but it was once notable. Enter and rest you awhile. I will bid Pedo search for a change of garments for Perpetua.”

“Hark,” exclaimed Quincta, “I hear a sound like the roar of the sea.”

“It is the voice of the people. It is a roar like that for blood, that goes up from the amphitheater.”

The singular transformation that had taken place in the presiding deity of the fountain, from being a nymph into a male god, had not been sufficiently complete to alter the worship of the deity. As in the days of Druidism, the sacred source was under the charge of priestesses, and although, with the change of sex of the deity, priests had been appointed to the temple, yet they were few, and occupied a position of subordination to the chief priestess. She was a woman of sagacity and knowledge of human nature. She perceived immediately how critical was the situation. If Æmilius Lentulus were allowed to proceed with his speech he would draw to him the excitable Southern minds, and it was quite possible might provoke a tumult in which the temple would be wrecked. At the least, his words would serve to chill popular devotion.

The period when Christianity began to radiate through the Roman world was one when the traditional paganism with its associated rights, that had contented a simpler age, had lost its hold on the thoughtful and cultured. Those who were esteemed the leaders of society mocked at religion, and although they conformed to its ceremonial, did so with ill-disguised contempt. At their tables, before their slaves, they laughed at the sacred myths related of the gods, as absurd and indecent, and the slaves thought it became them to affect the same incredulity as their masters. Sober thinkers endeavored to save some form of religion by explaining away the monstrous legends, and attributing them to the wayward imagination of poets. The existence of the gods they admitted, but argued that the gods were the unintelligent and blind forces of nature; or that, if rational, they stood apart in cold exclusiveness and cared naught for mankind. Many threw themselves into a position of agnosticism. They professed to believe in nothing but what their senses assured them did exist, and asserted that as there was no evidence to warrant them in declaring that there were gods, they could not believe in them; that moreover, as there was no revelation of a moral law, there existed no distinction between right and wrong. Therefore, the only workable maxim on which to rule life was: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we may die.”

Over all men hung the threatening cloud of death. All must undergo the waning of the vital powers, the failure of health, the withering of beauty, the loss of appetite for the pleasure of life, or if not the loss of appetite, at least the faculty for enjoyment.

There was no shaking off the oppressive burden, no escape from the gathering shadow. Yet, just as those on the edge of a precipice throw themselves over, through giddiness, so did men rush on self-destruction in startling numbers and with levity, because weary of life, and these were precisely such as had enjoyed wealth to the full and had run through the whole gamut of pleasures.

What happened after death? Was there any continuance of existence?

Men craved to know. They felt that life was too brief altogether for the satisfaction of the aspirations of their souls. They ran from one pleasure to another without filling the void within.

Consequently, having lost faith in the traditional religion – it was not a creed – itself a composite out of some Latin, some Etruscan, and some Greek myth and cult, they looked elsewhere for what they required. Consciences, agonized by remorse, sought expiation in secret mysteries, only to find that they afforded no relief at all. Minds craving after faith plunged into philosophic speculations that led to nothing but unsolved eternal query. Souls hungering, thirsting after God the Ideal of all that is Holy and pure and lovable, adopted the strange religions imported from the East and South; some became votaries of the Egyptian Isis and Serapis, others of the Persian Mithras – all to find that they had pursued bubbles.

In the midst of this general disturbance of old ideas, in the midst of a widespread despair, Christianity flashed forth and offered what was desired by the earnest, the thoughtful, the down-trodden and the conscience-stricken – a revelation made by the Father of Spirits as to what is the destiny of man, what is the law of right and wrong, what is in store for those who obey the law; how also pardon might be obtained for transgression, and grace to restore fallen humanity.

Christianity meeting a wide-felt want spread rapidly, not only among the poor and oppressed, but extensively among the cultured and the noble. All connected by interest, or prejudiced by association with the dominant and established paganism, were uneasy and alarmed. The traditional religion was honeycombed and tottering to its fall, and how it was to be revived they knew not. That it would be supplanted by the new faith in Christ was what they feared.

The chief priestess of Nemausus knew that in the then condition of minds an act of overt defiance might lead to a very general apostasy. It was to her of sovereign importance to arrest the movement at once, to silence Æmilius, to have him punished for his act of sacrilege, and to recover possession of Perpetua.

She snatched the golden apple from the hand of the image, and, giving it to an attendant, said: “Run everywhere; touch and summon the Cultores Nemausi.”

The girl did as commanded. She sped among the crowd, and, with the pippin, touched one, then another, calling: “Worshippers of Nemausus, to the aid of the god!”

The result was manifest at once. It was as though an electrical shock had passed through the multitude. Those touched and those who had heard the summons at once disengaged themselves from the crush, drew together, and ceased to express their individual opinions. Indeed, such as had previously applauded the sentiments of Æmilius, now assumed an attitude of disapprobation.