We sat by her spring on a stone bench under her old tree and I told her about how Lugunda had come into my life, how I had taught her to read and how useful she had been on my journeys among the Britons. Then I began to falter a little and look down at the ground. Claudia seized me by the arm with both hands and shook me, telling me to go on. So I told her what my self-respect allowed me to, but in the end I did not have the courage to tell her that Lugunda had borne me a son. In the vanity of my youth, however, I boasted of my manhood and Lugunda’s virginity.
To my surprise, Claudia was most hurt by the fact that Lugunda was a hare-priestess.
“I’m tired of the birds flying from Vatican,” she said. “I no longer believe in omens. The gods of Rome have become to me just statues with no power and I’m not surprised that in a foreign country you were bewitched, you with your lack of experience. But if you honestly regret your sins, then I can show you a new way. People need more than magic, omens and stone statues. While you were away, I’ve experienced things I’d never have believed possible.”
Unsuspecting, I asked her to tell me about it, but my heart sank when I realized her uncle’s wife, Paulina, had begun to use her as an intermediary between her and her friends, thus involving Claudia much more deeply in the infamous machinations of the Christians.
“They have the power to cure the sick and forgive us our sins,” Claudia said fervently. “A slave or the poorest of tradesmen is equal to the wealthiest and most important person at their holy meals. We greet each other with a kiss as a sign of our mutual love. When the spirit comes to the congregation, they are seized with holy ecstasy so that simple people begin to speak foreign languages and the faces of the holy glow in the darkness.”
I looked at her with the same horror as one regards a very sick person, but Claudia seized both my hands in hers.
“Don’t condemn them until you’ve got to know them,” she said. “Yesterday was Saturn’s day and the Jewish Sabbath. Today is the Christians’ holy day because it was the day after the Sabbath that their king rose from the dead. But the heavens may open any day and he will return to earth and found the kingdom of a thousand years in which the last will be first and the first last.”
Claudia was frighteningly beautiful, like a seer, as she spoke. I can only believe that there really was some irresistible force speaking through her, paralyzing my will and dulling my mind, for when she said, “Come, let’s go and see them at once,” I rose helplessly and went with her. Thinking I was afraid, she assured me that I would not have to do anything I did not want to do, only watch and listen. I justified my actions to myself by saying that I had reason to learn something about these new beliefs in Rome, as I had also tried to learn about the Druids in Britain.
When we reached the Jewish part of the city, Transtiberia, it was in a state of alarm and unrest. We were met by running, screaming women and people were fighting at street corners with fists, sticks and stones. Even worthy gray-haired Jews in tasseled cloaks were involved and the City Prefect’s police did not seem to be in control. As soon as they had managed to disperse some of the fights with their batons, another broke out in the next alleyway.
“What in the name of all the gods of Rome is going on here?” I asked a breathless policeman who was wiping blood from his forehead.
“Someone called Christus is stirring up the Jews against each other,” he explained. “As you see, rabble from all over the city have come here. You’d better take your girl another way. They’ve sent for the Praetorians. There’ll soon be more bloody noses than mine here.”
Claudia looked excitedly about her and let out a cry of pleasure.
“Yesterday the Jews hunted everyone who recognizes Jesus out of the synagogues and beat them,” she said. “Now the Christians are retaliating. They’ve got help from Christians who aren’t Jews.”
In the narrow alleys there were in fact groups of tough-looking slaves, smiths, and loaders from the shores of the Tiber who were smashing the closed shutters of the shops and forcing their way inside. Pitiful cries came from within, but the Jews are fearless fighters when they are fighting for their invisible god. They gathered in groups in front of the synagogues and fended off all attacks. I did not see any weapons used, but then neither the Jews nor any of the other people who had flooded in from all directions into Rome were allowed them.
Here and there we saw a few middle-aged men who were standing with their arms raised, crying out, “Peace, peace, in the name of Jesus Christ.”
They managed to calm down some people to the extent of getting them to lower their sticks and drop their stones, and slip off to join in another fight. But the more dignified Jews became so furious that they stood in front of Julius Caesar’s beautiful synagogue and tore their beards and clothes, calling out aloud about blasphemy.
It was as much as I could do to protect Claudia and try to prevent her from becoming involved in the fighting, for she stubbornly strug-gird on toward the house where her friends were to perform their mysteries that evening. When we reached it, an excited group of ardent Jewish believers were dragging out and knocking down those who had hidden themselves inside. They tore apart people’s bundles, emptied their baskets of food, and trampled everything into the dirt, hitting out as one hits out at one’s neighbor’s pigs. Anyone attempting to flee was knocked down and kicked in the face.
I do not know how it came about. Perhaps I was seized by the natural desire of a Roman for law and order, or perhaps I tried to defend the weaker ones from the attackers’ violence, or perhaps it was Claudia who egged me on to partake, but suddenly I noticed that I was pulling a huge Jew’s beard and twisting a stick from his hand with a wrestler’s hold as he in his religious fervor was about to kick a girl he had knocked to the ground. Then I found myself fighting in all seriousness, and indubitably on the side of the Christians. Claudia urged me on, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, to catch all Jews who did not recognize him as the savior.
I came to my senses when Claudia pulled me into the house and I hurriedly let go of a bloodstained stick I had picked up somewhere, realizing to my horror what the consequences would be if I were arrested for becoming involved in Jewish religious riots. I had not only my rank of tribune to lose, but also the narrow red band on my tunic. Claudia led me down to a large dry cellar room where Christian Jews were all shouting at once, quarreling over who had started the rioting, and weeping women were bandaging wounds and putting ointment on bruises. From the room upstairs, several old, men came down, shaking with fear, together with a couple of men who from their clothes did not appear to be Jews. As confused as I was, they were presumably wondering how they could get themselves out of this dilemma.
With them came a man whom I did not recognize as the tentmaker Aquila until he had wiped the blood and dirt from his face. He had been severely ill-treated, for the Jews had rolled him in a sewer and broken his nose. Despite this, he passionately called for order.
“Traitors, all of you!” he cried. “I daren’t call you my brothers any longer. Is freedom in Christ just something for you to vent your anger with? You have been beaten for your sins. Where is your endurance? We must submit and stop those who spit on us with good deeds.”
There were many protests.
“It’s no longer a question of the heathens among whom we live learning to praise God when they see our good deeds,” they cried. “Now it’s
Jews fighting us and abusing our Lord Jesus. It’s for him and to his glory we resist the evil ones, not just to defend our miserable lives.”
I pushed forward to Aquila, shook his arm and tried to whisper to him that I must get away. But when he recognized me, his face cleared in delight and he blessed me.
“Minutus, son of Marcus Manilianus!” he cried. “Have you too chosen the only way?”
He embraced me, kissed my lips and fervently began to preach.
“Christ has suffered for you too,” he said. “Why don’t you model yourself on him and follow in his footsteps? He did not abuse his abusers. He threatened no one. Don’t take revenge by evil for evil. If you suffer for Christ, then praise God for it.”
I cannot repeat all that poured out of him, for he took no notice of my protests, but his fervor undoubtedly had a powerful effect on the others. Nearly all of them began to pray for the forgiveness of their sins, though some muttered through clenched teeth that the kingdom would never bear fruit if the Jews were freely allowed to slander, oppress and ill-treat the subjects of Christ.
While this was going on, the police outside were arresting people regardless of whether they were faithful Jews or Christian Jews, or anyone else. As the Praetorians were guarding the bridges, many people fled in boats and took the opportunity to unfasten other boats at the quays so that they began to drift away in the current. The
