Historical Miniatures Part 31

They made me Prefect of the city. I wished to live in the service of the Lord, and had to distribute eatables for the poor, procure beds for the hospitals, look after drains and water-pipes. The burden of the day's task hindered my thoughts from rising, and I sank in the swamp of material things--sank so deep that I believed I should never rise again."

"But the people blessed you."

"Hus.h.!.+ And I--I who had never worn a sword--had to collect soldiers and march to the field. When I was six years old Rome was pillaged by Totila the Goth, and so ravaged that only five hundred Romans remained. When I was seven years old, there came Belisarius--when I was twelve, Na.r.s.es.

Then I was sent as amba.s.sador to Constantinople--I who hated travelling and publicity. All that I hate, I have been obliged to accept. Now I am tired, and would like to go to rest. I sit here and wait, for my grave to open."

"Do you remember what Virgil says in the _Georgics_ regarding the labour of the husbandman?"

"No, I hate the heathen."

"Wait! He says these words of wisdom: 'If Zeus sends bad weather, mice and vermin, it is to stimulate the husbandman's energy, and call forth his inventive capacity.' Misfortune comes to help the world forward."

"The world goes backward towards its overthrow and its d.a.m.nation. For five hundred years we have awaited the Redemption, but we have only seen one wild race come after another, to murder and pillage. Do you see any reason in all this sowing without reaping?"

"Blasphemer! Yes, I see how green harvests are ploughed up to fertilise the soil."

"Dragon's-seed and h.e.l.l's harvest. No--now I go into my grave, and close the door behind me; I have a right to rest after a life so full of trouble and work."

"The bell is ringing for prime."

"Jam moesta quiesce querela."

The Tiber had overflowed Rome, and destroyed quite a quarter of it, but spared the convent of St. Andrew. The Abbot sat again one morning in his garden and wrote, but in such a position that he could see his grave when he looked up from his work. Deep in his writing, he did not hear what was happening around him. But he saw that the flowers in the beds began to shake like reeds, frogs jumped about at his feet, and there was a smell of dampness that was at the same time mouldy and poisonous.

He continued to write, but his eye, although intent on the pa.s.sage of his pen over the paper, noticed something dark that moved on the ground, spread itself like a black carpet, and came nearer. Suddenly his feet were wet, and a deathlike chill crept up his legs. Then he awoke and understood. The Tiber had risen, and he was driven out of his last refuge. "I will not go," he cried, as the alarm-bell sounded, and the monks fled.

He went to his cell in the upper story, firmly resolved not to flee.

He would not go out into the world again, but would die here. The flood which he had prayed for, had come. But he had a spiritual conflict and agony of prayer in his cell: "Lord, why dost thou punish the innocent?

Why dost thou chastise Thy friends and let Thy foes flourish? For five hundred years Thou hast avenged Thyself on Thy children for the misdeeds of their fathers! If that is not enough, then destroy us all at once!"

The water rose and lapped against the walls; the garden was destroyed, and the Abbot's grave filled with water, but he remained where he was.

At one time he sang hymns of praise, then he raged; then he prayed for pardon, and raged again.

After that he set himself to write at the great work which should make him immortal,--his "Magna Moralia." It was now noon, but he felt no hunger, for by practice he had learned to fast for three days together.

During the afternoon, a noise at the window made him look up from his book. There lay a boat, and in it sat the novice Augustinus. The extraordinary, almost comic, aspect of things, elicited a smile from him, and, remembering his conversation with the youth, he asked through the open window, "Well, did you get the wine and good food, you glutton?"

"No, venerable Father; I did not want it when I could have it, and then the temptation was over. But now I have to speak of something else. The plague has broken out, and people are dying like flies."

"The plague too! Oh Lord, how long wilt Thou altogether forget us! The plague too!"

Then he rose. "Everyone to his post! Let us do our duty! Bless the Lord, and die!" The Abbot stepped out of his window into the boat, and left his sinking s.h.i.+p.

The Tiber sank to its level again, but left behind snakes, fishes, and frogs, which died and infected the air. The people had fled to the hills; on the Palatine Hill they had made a hospital out of a church.

Here the Abbot of the St. Andrew's Convent walked about, gave drink to the sick, and spoke comfort to the dying. "Why do you fear death, children?" he said. "Fear life, for that is the real death." He seemed to be quite in his element here, showed a calm, cheerful temper, and sought to decipher on the faces of the dead, "whether they were happy on the other side."

Death would have nothing to do with him. Often he went to the other hills, and walked about among the sick and dying, so that the people began to think that he was an immortal who had come down to comfort them. The older ones remembered him as Prefect, when he defended the city against the Goths, Vandals, and Longobards, and his fame continually grew.

The pestilence raged, and the number of the dead increased, so that the corpses could no longer be buried. All occupations ceased, and the peasants brought no more food into the city. There was a famine. The Abbot of the St. Andrew's Convent, Gregory, lost courage, and wanted to abandon all, "I cannot fight against G.o.d, and if it be His will that Rome perish, it is G.o.dless to wish to prevent it." In the midst of this tribulation, Pelagius II, the Bishop or Pope of Rome, as he was afterwards called, died. The people with one voice clamoured for the Abbot Gregory to succeed him. But, like King Saul and the Emperor Julian, he hid himself. He fled from the town to a hermit's grotto in the Sabine Mountains. But the people came, brought him out, and led him back to Rome, where he was consecrated as Gregory I. For thirteen years Gregory ruled over the former queen city of the world. He was Governor, for the Exarch of Ravenna existed no more, having been driven away by the Longobards. He asked help from the Emperor in Byzantium, but obtained none. He was thrown upon his own resources, and succeeded by the power of his eloquence in disarming King Agilulf, who threatened Rome.

But he was also Bishop, and as such had to govern all the churches of the West. He succeeded in bringing them to abandon Arianism and to accept a single creed, which became the universal or "catholic"

confession of faith.

To the heathen of England he sent the former novice Augustine, who had quickly overcome his initiatory difficulties. The little "glutton" ended as Archbishop of Canterbury.

The former retiring and life-weary Abbot had with great effect developed the necessary strength for his duties. The high post to which he had been summoned called out his capacities. He had time for great and small things alike. He reformed the liturgy, wrote letters, composed books, arranged church music. His manner of life, however, was as simple as before. From his cell in the Lateran Palace, he ruled over souls from the Highlands of Scotland to the Pillars of Hercules. His empire was as great as the Caesars', though his legions were only pen and ink. It was the beginning of the Kingdom of Christ, but it was a spiritual empire, and Gregory was the ruler.

ISHMAEL

After the death of Gregory the Great, Christianity seemed to have conquered all Europe which was known at the time, and also Byzantium, Palestine, Egypt, and the north coast of Africa. The conqueror was about to betake himself to rest, when a quite new and unexpected event happened which threatened Christendom with destruction and heralded the arrival of a new race upon the scene. Ishmael's descendants, Abraham's illegitimate sons, who had wandered in the deserts, seeming to continue the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness, began to collect in troops and seek a Promised Land.

Six years after Gregory's death, the Prophet Muhammed, then forty years old, was "awakened." His armies spread like a conflagration, and a hundred years later, Christian Europe thought the last day had come. The countries first conquered by Christianity--Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, and North Africa--had fallen away and done homage to the new Antichrist. Byzantium was threatened; Sicily and Sardinia had been taken, and Italy was in danger.

From the southernmost point of Spain one could see in clear weather the coast of Africa, where the Saracens dwelt. Spain was a country which, somewhat remote from Rome, had grown and developed into one of the richest provinces, after Phoenicians and Carthaginians had laid the foundations of her civilisation. But when Rome fell into decay, Barbarians from the Baltic sea belonging to the new German races, whose advent had been foretold by Tacitus, poured into Spain, founded a kingdom or two, and now at the beginning of the eighth century, possessed the important cities Toledo and Seville.

In Seville, on the Guadalquivir, in the beautiful province of Andalusia, the old Jew Eleazar sat in the shop where he sold weapons, and counted his day's takings.

"Many weapons are sold in these days," was the sudden remark of a stranger who had stepped up to the counter.

Eleazar looked up, liked the appearance of the well-dressed stranger, and answered cautiously, "Yes, certainly, many are sold."

"Are you expecting war?"

"There is always war here--especially verbal warfare."

"You refer to the twenty Church Councils which have been held here. The Christians are never united."

Eleazar did not answer.

"Excuse me," continued the stranger, "but I forgot who you are, and that you would rather forget the last Council."

"No, not at all! why should I?"

"It was directed against your people."

"And my only son, who was about to marry a Christian maiden, had to give her up, since marriages with Jews were forbidden...."

"Well! and what was the end of it?"

"He could not survive it, but laid hands on himself, and, as she followed him in death, the blame was laid on us, and we lost our property and freedom."