‘It is the washing with pure water,’ said Clemens. ‘Our Roman ceremonies are pompous and cumbersome. It is not so with the Christians. Their symbols are the simplest things in the world. Water, the sign of purification from guilt; bread and wine, the common elements of life, taken in remembrance of Christ who died for them.’
‘And are the elders of these Christians--the presbyters, as they call them--the same sort of persons as our priests?’
‘I should hope not!’ said Clemens. ‘They are simple and blameless men--more like the best of the philosophers, and more consistent, though not so learned.’
The entrance of Domitian--whom they more than suspected of having listened at the door--stopped their conversation. But what Britannicus had heard filled him with deeper interest, and he felt convinced that the Christians were possessors of a secret more precious than any which Seneca or Musonius had ever taught.
But the happy days at the Sabine farm drew to an end. When November was waning to its close it was time to return from humble Phalacrine and its russet hills, to the smoke and wealth and roar of Rome.
‘Quoi cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella Et puella tenellulis delicatior hædis, Asservanda nigellulis diligentius uvis, Ludere hanc sinit, ut lubet.’
We left Onesimus bound hand and foot in his cell, and expecting the severest punishment. His crimes had been heinous, although the thought of escaping detection by slaying Junia had only been a momentary impulse, such as could never have flashed across his mind if it had not been inflamed by the furies of the amphitheatre. As he looked back in his deep misery, he saw how fatally all his misfortunes dated from the self-will with which he had resisted light and knowledge. He might by this time have been good and honoured in the house of Philemon, less a slave than a brother beloved. He might have been enfranchised, and in any case have enjoyed that happy freedom of soul which he had so often witnessed in those whom Christ had made free indeed. And now his place was among the lowest of the low. Nereus had of course reported to Pudens his attempt at theft. Pudens was sorry for the youth, for he had liked him, and saw in him the germs of better things. But such a crime could not be passed over with impunity. Onesimus was doomed to the scourge, as well as to a trinundine[47] of solitude on bread and water, while he remained fettered in his cell.