The Poetical Works of the Rev: H. H. Milman :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Prefect's Hall of Justice.
OLYBIUS, VOPISCUS, MACER, PRIEST, ROMANS, &c. CALLIAS.
DIODOTUS, CHARINUS, CALANTHIAS, AND OTHER CHRISTIANS.
PRIEST.
The sacrifice hath pleased the immortal Gods.
With willing foot the golden-horned steer
Moved to the altar, and in proud delight
Shook the white fillet on his brow: the blood
Pour'd forth its purple stream profuse; the Aruspex
Gazed on the perfect entrails; and the smoke
Rose in a full unbroken cloud. Great Prefect,
Thy deed is holy to our Gods.

OLYBIUS.
The Gods,
Whose honour we espouse, espouse our cause.
Hear me, ye Priests on earth, ye Gods in heaven!
By Vesta, and her virgin-guarded fires;
By Mars, the Sire and guardian God of Rome;
By Antioch's bright Apollo; by the throne
Of him whose thunder shakes the vaulted skies;
And that dread oath I add, that binds th' immortals,
The unblessed waters of Tartarian Styx:
Last, by the avengers of despised vows,
Th' inevitable serpent-hair'd Eumenides;
Olybius swears, thus mounting on the throne
Of justice, to exhaust heaven's wrath on all

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That have cast off their fathers' Gods for rites
New and unholy. From my heart I blot
Partial affection and the love of kindred;
Even if my father's blood flow'd in their veins,
I would obey the Emperor, and the Gods!

VOPISCUS.
So nobly said, as nobly be it done.

OLYBIUS.

Lead forth the prisoners!

Ye of nobler birth,
Diodotus, Charinus, and Calanthias,
And ye, the baser and misguided multitude,
Ye stand denounced before our solemn throne
As guilty of that Galilean faith,
Whose impious and blaspheming scorn disdains
Our fathers' Gods; ye serve not in our temples;
Crown not our altars; kneel not at our shrines;
And in their stead, in loose and midnight feasts
Ye meet, obscuring with a deeper gloom
Of shame and horror night's chaste brow.

DIODOTUS.
Olybius!
Were these foul deeds as true as they are false,
We might return, that we but imitate
The Gods ye worship—ye, who deify
Adultery, and throne incest in the skies:
Who, not content with earth's vast scope defiled,
Advance the majesty of human sin

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Even till it fills the empyreal heavens. Ye sit
Avengers of impure, unhallow'd licence.
'Tis well:—why summon then your Gods to answer,
Wrest the idle thunderbolt from amorous Jove,
Dispeople all Olympus,—ay, draw down
The bright-hair'd Sun from his celestial height,
To give accompt of that most fond pursuit
Through yon dim grove of cypress.

OLYBIUS.
Do we wonder
That Heaven rains plagues upon the guilty earth;
That Pestilence is let loose, and Famine stalks
O'er kingdoms, withering them to barrenness;
That reeling cities shake, and the swoln seas
Engulf our navies, or with sudden inroad
Level our strong-wall'd ports! But, impious men,
We will no longer share your doom; nor suffer
Th' indiscriminate vengeance from on high
To plunge mankind in wide promiscuous ruin:
Impatient earth shall shake you from her bosom,
Even as a city spurns the plague-struck man
From her barr'd gates, lest her attainted airs
Be loaded with his breath.

DIODOTUS.
Hath earth but now
Begun to heave with fierce intestine fires,
Or the hot South from his unwholesome wings
Drop pestilence? Have changeless slumbers lock'd

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Th' untempested and stagnant seas, and now
Awake they first to whelm your fleets and shores?
But be it so, that angry nature rages
More frequent in her fierce distemperature.
Upon yourselves, ye unbelieving Heathen,
The crime recoils. The Lord of Hosts hath walked
This world of man; the One Almighty sent
His everlasting Son to wear the flesh,
And glorify this mortal human shape.
And the blind eyes unclosed to see the Lord;
And the dumb tongues brake out in songs of praise;
And the deep grave cast forth its wondering dead;
And shuddering devils murmur'd sullen homage:
Yet him, the meek, the merciful, the just,
Upon the Cross his rebel people hung,
And mock'd his dying anguish. Since that hour,
Like flames of fire his messengers have pass'd
O'er the wide world, proclaiming him that died
Risen from the grave, and in omnipotence
Array'd on high; and as your lictors wait
Upon your earthly pomp, portentous signs
And miracles have strew'd the way before them.
But still the princes of the earth take counsel
Against the Eternal. Still the Heathen rage
In drunken fury. Therefore hath the earth
Espoused its Maker's cause; the heavens are full
Of red denouncing fires; the elements
Take up the eternal quarrel, and arise

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To battle on God's side. The universe,
With one wide voice of indignation, heard
In every plague and desolating storm,
Proclaims her deep abhorrence at your sins.

OLYBIUS.
Diodotus, thou once didst share our love;
I knew thee as a soldier, valiant; wise,
I thought thee; therefore once again I stoop
To parley with thy madness. Noble warrior,
Wouldst thou that Rome, whose Gods have raised her up
To empire, boundless as the ocean-girt
And sun-enlighten'd earth; that by the side
Of her victorious chariot still have toil'd,
While there were hosts t' enslave or realms to conquer;
That have attended on her ranging eagles
Till the winds fail'd them in their trackless flight;—
Wouldst thou that, now upon her powers meridian,
Ungrateful she should spurn the exhausted aid
Of her old guardian Deities, and disclaim
Her ancient worship ? Did not willing Jove
His delegated sceptre o'er the world
Grant to our fathers? Did not arm'd Gradivus

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His Thracian coursers urge before our van,
Strawing our foes, as the wild hurricane
The summer corn? Where shone the arms of Rome,
That our great sire Quirinus look'd not down
Propitious from his high Olympian seat?
And shall we now forsake their hallow'd fanes,
Rich with our fathers' piety: refuse
The solemn hecatomb; dismiss the flamen
From his proud office; rend the purple robe
Pontifical, and leave each sumptuous shrine
A nestling place for foul unhallow'd birds?

DIODOTUS.
Olybius, thou wrong'st our Roman glory.
No fabled Thunderer, nor the fiery car
Of Mavors, nor long-buried Romulus,
Set up great Rome to awe the subject world:
It was her children's valour, that dared all things,
And what it dared, accomplish'd. Rome herself,
Th' Almighty willing her imperial sway,
Was her own fortune, fate, and guardian deity.
She built the all-shadowing fabric of her empire
On the strong pillars of her public virtues,
And reign'd because she was most fit to reign.
But ours, Olybius, is no earthly kingdom,
We offer not a sceptre, that proclaims
Man mightier than his brethren of the dust;
No crown that with the lofty head that wears it
Must make its mouldering pillow in the grave.

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This earth disowns our glories: but when Rome
Hath sepulchred the last of all her sons,
When Desolation walks her voiceless streets,
Ay, when this world, and all its lords and slaves,
Are swept into the ghastly gulf of ruin;
High in immortal grandeur, like the stars,
But brighter and more lasting, shall our souls
Sit in their empyrean thrones, endiadem'd
With amaranthine light. Such gifts our God
Hath promised to his faithful.

OLYBIUS.
Bounteous God!
That, as an earnest of your glory, leaves you
For every spurning foot to trample on,
To feed unstruggling the fierce beast of rapine,
To stand with open and untented wounds
Beneath the scorching sun! Where sleep the bolts
Of your Almighty, when we hale you forth
To glut the fire, or make a spectacle
Of your dread sufferings to the applauding people?

DIODOTUS.
Our God and Saviour gives us what we pray for;
On earth a portion of his bitter cup
To purify the world from our gross souls,
And disencumber us for heaven.

CHARINUS.
Diodotus!
Why stand'st thou thus, and dalliest with this man?

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Hear me, I say, proud Pilate! on thy throne
Of judgment we defy thee,—loose thy hell-hounds!

OLYBIUS.

I'll hear no more—Away with them!—we'll glut
Their mad desires with suffering!

Ha, what's here?

This was the argument, which was urged again and again, during the long period of the simultaneous decay of the Roman greatness, and the progress of Christianity. It was uttered, as it were, by the dying voice of Paganism in the celebrated oration of Symmachus; to which St. Ambrose and the poet Prudentius replied. St. Augustine's great work, the City of God, was designed as a full and conclusive decision of this solemn question.