Onesimus

§ 1. HOW WE CAME TO ATHENS

Loosing from Sidon we were driven by violent winds to the Chelidonian isles. There the Pamphylian sea divides itself from the Lycian; and the floods, meeting several ways and breaking against the promontory, swell into terrible billows rising higher than the cliffs. But when we were now in great peril of our lives, the Lord had mercy on us. For he sent a star which, seeming to settle upon our top-sail, by a left-hand course directed our vessel again into the sea, just when it was ready to be dashed upon the cliffs. I had often before heard speak of these marvellous stars, but never yet had seen them; and although Artemidorus had taught me that they were no gods but mere effects of causes according to nature, yet, in such extreme peril, being filled with thankfulness for our deliverance, I could not but join myself with the mariners and the rest of the crew in doing worship to the twin-gods. That very night—having often before of late had visions of a man seated on the clouds and encompassed with brightness—there came to me another such vision, but of more than usual splendor, and he beckoned to me and said that the stars had been sent by him, and not by these twin-gods whom I had ignorantly worshipped. But I shook off the dream as being a mere phantasm of the night, not knowing that it was from the Lord.

Escaping from the peril of the seas, we sailed through the Arches, and thence were driven onwards, not however to Ephesus, whither we desired to have come, but to Piræus. There, owing to the sickness of Philemon, we spent some days, during which I lodged in the house of Molon the rhetorician; and when at last my master returned to Colossæ, I persuaded him to suffer me to remain at Athens for a while, that I might study rhetoric and attain the true Attic pronunciation and idiom, so that I might be the more useful to him as amanuensis and secretary. But I had other reasons for desiring to remain. For besides the delights and novelties of the city—which were all new to me because I had not been able to persuade Philemon to spend more than two days there when we last came to Greece to visit Lebadea—I had already conceived a love for Eucharis, Molon’s only daughter. But, of this, more hereafter. Meantime it chanced that Philemon, returning to Colossæ, much infected with the superstition of the Christians (as Artemidorus termed it), had caused the latter to suppose that I also was in the same condition of mind; which (to my shame be it spoken) was far from the truth. However, Artemidorus taking it to be true, and being sorely incensed against me, wrote the following letter which I will here set down, being the last I received from him on this matter:

§ 2. HOW ARTEMIDORUS REBUKED ME, SUPPOSING THAT I WAS IN DANGER OF BECOMING A CHRISTIAN

“ARTEMIDORUS TO ONESIMUS, HEALTH:

“So Onesimus thinks it possible to reconcile philosophy with the vilest and falsest of superstitions. Come now and let me demonstrate to you, if your ears are not yet altogether stopped against the truth, 1st, the blasphemy and absurdity of your new religion; 2nd, the uselessness of it; 3rd, the self-conceit of it; 4th, the uncertainty of it; 5th, the folly and puerility and degradation of the man who stoops his neck to the yoke of it.

“To begin, then, it is blasphemous. For it teaches that the Supreme God has sent down his only son in the shape of a man to deliver men from sin. What! are we to suppose that the Son of the Supreme can be made like unto a mortal? As if a convention of frogs around a puddle should croak among themselves debating which is the greater sin, and should say, ‘Behold, the Supreme God has sent down his only son, in the shape of a frog, verily born of a frog, to deliver all the race of frogs from their iniquities;’ or as if a number of worms should examine their souls and say ‘Alas, alas, we are fallen away from the divine image of the Supreme; and therefore our Father in heaven hath sent unto us his Son made in the image of a worm.’ Away with this impiety of likening the Architect of the Universe to sinful frogs and self-introspective worms! For if there be a God—which I do not myself believe, but if there be one—doubtless he is as little like a man as a frog or a worm, but infinitely superior to all his creatures, and transcending all their knowledge.

“But sin forsooth is a terrible evil, and the usefulness of this new religion consists in this, that it is to ‘take away sins.’ Which of the Greek or Roman philosophers, of any note, has recognized this absurd fiction of sin? It is a mere Jewish fantasy, unknown among other nations, except where it may have been insinuated by these vagrant proselytizers into the minds of a few women and children or imbecile dotards. Error there may be; but sin cannot be, whether there be gods or not. For if there be no gods there can be no sin; and if there be gods, who made all things, it is inconceivable that they should have made sin. Nor, if sin had any existence, could it be increased or diminished. For all rational people know that there neither were formerly, nor are there now, nor will there be again, more or fewer evils in the world than have always existed; the nature of all things, and the generation of all things, being always one and the same. And whereas these Christians profess, ‘We were sinners by nature, but the All-Merciful hath changed us’—they ought to be taught that no one even by chastisement, much less by merciful treatment, can effect a complete change in those who are sinners by nature as well as by custom. Hence this boast of removing sins is an imposture, and the religion that makes the boast is useless. Moreover what an insult is it to their superior god that these men should admit that he made them after a certain pattern and then changed his mind and desired to remake them! Or else they are forced to introduce a certain Satan, who by his devices, perverted men forsooth from the divine image, and so for a time overcame the superior god. But it is clear, even to a blind man, that a superior god, overcome, though but for a time, by an inferior god, is for that time, no longer superior, much less Supreme and All-Powerful. Therefore your religion is proved to be not only useless, but blasphemous.

“In the third place, mark the impudence of it and the self-conceit. For admitting that the superior god could send his son as a man, can we possibly believe that he would send him as a Jew, and not as a Greek, or as a Roman, or as a man of no particular nation? I have heard you laugh at Zeus in the comedy when he wakes up after his day’s debauch and despatches Hermes to the Athenians and Lacedæmonians to complain that they curtail his sacrifices and keep him on short commons. But why do you not laugh at your own superior god who, awakening after the slumber of many thousands of years, despatches his son to one single nation, and that the smallest and vilest and most contemptible upon earth? Moreover consider how exacting and impudent is your religion beyond all others. Heracles, Asclepius, and Romulus, claim not to be the only children of God, but leave room for others also. And how many others! Worship, if you will, him who was put to death upon the cross, but set not your selves above the Getæ who worship Zamolxis, or the Cilicians who worship Mopsus, or the Acrananians who pay divine honors to Amphilochus, or the Thebans who do the same to Amphiaraus, or the Lebedians who (in company with yourself) pay reverence to Trophonius. For how is your Syrian saviour better than the Theban, or the Cilician, or any other of the host of his rival saviours? Nay, he is inferior, if we are to trust that which is reported concerning him and them by the followers of each. For Christus did but show himself to men in times past, whereas these others, if you are to believe those who worship them, are still to be seen in human form in their temples, appearing with all distinctness.

“Next, as to the uncertainty of your new religion. Consider that just such another as your Christus, might come into the world to-morrow, and indeed such are continually coming forward in the market-place of every town in Asia, who are wont to say, ‘I am God, or I am the Son of God, or I am the Divine Spirit. I am come to save you because ye, O men, are perishing for your iniquities;’ and they persuade their dupes by promises or threats: ‘Blessed is he who does me homage; on all the rest I will send down eternal fire.’ And then the followers of such an one in a confident voice call on us saying, ‘Believe that he whom we preach is the Son of God, although indeed he died the death of a slave; yea, believe it the more on this very account.’ If these people bring forward a Christus every year, what is to be done by those who ‘seek salvation?’ Must they cast dice to decide to which of all the saviours they should pay homage?

“But lest you should imagine that I am entirely dependent upon you for my knowledge of this sect, understand that both here, and in Hierapolis, and in Ephesus, I have made search concerning it; and I am become an adept in their ridiculous jargon which speaks of ‘the narrow way’ and ‘the gates that open of themselves;’ and ‘those who are being slaughtered that they may live;’ and about ‘death made to cease in the world;’ and how ‘the Lord doth reign from the tree;’ and of ‘the tree of life’ and ‘the resurrection of life by the tree.’ All this talk of timber, forsooth, because their ringleader was not only slain on the cross of wood but also a maker of crosses, being a carpenter by trade! And I suppose if, instead of being crucified, he had been cast down a precipice, or into a pit, or hanged by the neck, or if, instead of being a carpenter by trade, he had been a leather-cutter, or a stone-mason or a worker in iron, then these absurd people would have exalted to the skies a ‘precipice of life,’ or a ‘pit of resurrection,’ or a cord of immortality,‘ or a ‘stone of blessing,’ or a ‘sacred leather.’ What child would not be ashamed of such babble as this!

“And this brings me to my last point, the shame and disgrace that any philosopher must needs bring both upon himself and upon philosophy, in stooping to so puerile a superstition. If you know not this, at least your new friends know it; for like the hyena, they seldom attack a full-grown man, but for the most part children or imbeciles; and to the best of their power they would destroy reason saying (like so many Metragurtæ, or Mithræ, or Sabbadii) ‘Do not examine, but believe,’ ‘Your faith will save you,’ ‘The wisdom of the world is evil, foolishness is good.’ For this cause, because they distrust the wise and sober, they prefer to decoy the young, saying to them, ‘If ye would attain to the knowledge of the truth, ye must leave your fathers and tutors and go with the women to the women’s apartments, or to the leather shop, or to the fuller’s shop, that he may there attain perfection.’ And they retail the sayings of these illiterate creatures as if they were repeating the precepts of a Socrates: ‘Simon the fuller, or Eleazar the leather cutter, or John the fisherman affirmed this, or that.’ I say nothing also of the immorality of a religion, which asserts that God will receive the unrighteous, if he humble himself, because of his unrighteousness, but he will not receive the righteous man who approaches him adorned with righteousness from the first. All these immoral theories, these lies, and myths, and vile superstitions, are taught by the Christians; and taught in the name of whom? Of one who died as a slave after being deserted (according to their own confession) by his most devoted followers. And taught for what cause? Simply because a phantom of him was seen after his death by a half frantic woman and some dozen of his other companions who conspired together for the purpose of deception. For my part, if I must needs give a reason why this most absurd religion attracts the multitude, I should say that it is because the multitude in their inmost heart, prefer falsehood to truth; and if I desired a new proof that the world is governed by chance, or by fate, and not by gods, I should discern it in the growth of this pernicious superstition. Farewell and return speedily to thyself.”

§ 3. OF MY REPLY TO ARTEMIDORUS

I was astonished at the passion of his letter; and though I was at this time neither a Christian nor likely to become one, the injustice of my friend moved me to say somewhat on the other side. My reply was to this effect:

“ONESIMUS TO ARTEMIDORUS, HEALTH.

“Your vehemence surprises me. That I am not, and shall not be, a Christian, must be clear from my previous letters; and that which I saw in Jerusalem has set me, even more than before, against the Jews and all things Jewish. Nevertheless, Artemidorus, I am far from agreeing with you in all your condemnation of this sect, which you seem to me, of set purpose to misunderstand.

“And why do you vent dogmas on me? How know you that God is unknowable? Were it not more seemly for a philosopher to conjecture, and not to know, where knowledge is impossible? Why, therefore, should a man be ashamed of conjecturing (in Plato’s company, I think), that the most perfect image of the Supreme God is neither a frog, nor a worm, but a righteous man? And if man be at all like unto the Supreme Goodness, then to be virtuous, I suppose is to be most like Him; and to be sinful is to be most unlike Him, a calamity from which the Supreme Being Himself might naturally desire to deliver mankind. However, I purpose not to argue with you, for I cannot think that you yourself believe in your own arguments, you who say that there is no difference between sin and error; or else I suppose you will be consistent and blame your slaves equally if Glaucus to-morrow commits theft or murder, and little Chresimus says that five and six make ten.

“But one word concerning Christus himself. It is but a few weeks ago that I heard you praise some Roman or other for saying that we ought to choose out some noble life, to be as it were a carpenter’s rule, by which we might straighten our own crooked life; why will you not praise me, then, if upon finding this Christus to be a truly great and noble man, I make his life the rule of mine? But you reply, ‘What do you know that is noble and heroic in him?’ I will answer this question when we meet. Meantime let me say that though I know but little, it is more than enough to assure me (for your letter proves it) that you know nothing of him. Do not again suppose that I am likely to be a Christian. I am prevented from this by arguments, and by feelings still more powerful than arguments. Yet I have at least this advantage, Artemidorus, over you, that I have not yet allowed prejudice unphilosophically to blind my eyes to the truth, and that, after studying the life of Christus, the store of the examples of great men, which you yourself have exhorted me to treasure up in my heart, is now enriched by the example of one more man, both good and great, who has been able, according to your own avowal (perchance by the mere memory of his goodness), to convert fullers and leather-cutters and thieves and adulterers into decent citizens. Farewell and be thyself.”