Christian Poems 2

O ancient mother of temples, now, O Rome devoted to Christ, with Laurentius for your victorious leader you triumph over the barbarous rite. You had conquered proud kings and curbed the peoples with reins; now upon monstrous idols you lay the yoke of your empire. This glory alone was wanting to the insignia of the toga-clad city: that, having captured the savagery of the nations, it should tame foul Jove — not by the turbulent might of a Cossus, a Camillus, or a Caesar, but by the not-bloodless battle of the martyr Laurentius. Faith fought in arms, lavish of her own blood; for by death she overthrew death and spent herself upon herself. The priest Xystus had already foretold that this would be, while, fixed to the cross, he saw Laurentius weeping beneath the very beam of the cross: 'Cease to pour forth weeping in grief at my departure! I go before, brother;

you too shall follow after this, within three days.' The last word of the bishop, foreteller of glory, in nothing failed; for the foretold day brought forth the palm. With what voice, with what praises shall I celebrate the order of his death? With what song, worthily reweaving his passion, shall I sing? This man, first of the seven who stand nearest the altar, a Levite sublime in rank and surpassing the rest, presided over the bars of the sacred things, governing the secret of the heavenly house with faithful keys, and dispensing its dedicated wealth. The prefect of the royal city was racking himself with hunger for money, minister of an insane chief, exactor of gold and blood, considering by what force he might dig out the hidden coins, supposing that buried talents and heaped-up piles lay hidden beneath the sanctuaries.

He commands Laurentius to be brought before him, and demands the strongbox crammed with rich masses, and the mountains of gleaming coin laid up. 'You are wont,' he says, 'to complain that we rage more than is just, when we more than cruelly cut up Christian bodies. The fervent severity is absent from harsher proceedings; gently and quietly I demand what you ought of your own accord to undertake. It has been disclosed that this is the custom and practice handed down in your rites, this the discipline of your covenant: that the priests pour libations with gold. They say that the sacred blood smokes in silver cups, and that fixed candles of gold stand by at the nocturnal rites. Then the brethren's chief care is, as the talkative report bears witness, to offer the thousands of sesterces from estates sold.

The estates of forefathers, made over under foul auctions, the disinherited heir bewails, in want though his parents were holy. These things are hidden away in the secret corners of the churches, and the highest piety is believed to be to strip dear children bare. Bring forth the treasures which by evil sleights of persuasion you hold heaped up, which you shut away in a darkening cave. This the public use demands, this the fisc, this the treasury, that money devoted to stipends may aid the chief. Thus is your doctrine: 'Render to each his own.' Lo, Caesar recognizes his own coinage stamped upon the money. What you know to be Caesar's, give to Caesar — surely I demand what is just. If I err not, your god stamps no money at all; nor, when He came, did He carry golden Philips with Him, but, empty of purse, He gave His precepts in words.

Fulfill the faith of those sayings by which you peddle yourselves throughout the world; render the coins gladly, be rich in words!' Nothing harsh does Laurentius reply to these things, nor anything stormy, but as one ready to comply he obediently assents. 'He is rich,' he says, 'I do not deny it, and our church has very much wealth and gold, nor is anyone in the world richer. The Augustus himself does not have so much, though he possesses the citadel of silver tokens, to whom every coin is ascribed. Yet neither do I refuse to bring forth the strongbox of the wealthy Deity; I will publish all and bring forth the precious things which Christ holds. But one thing I ask, entreating: a little space of respite, that I may discharge more effectively the office of my promise, while the whole household-stuff of Christ is, item by item, written down for me;

for first it must be reckoned, then the little sum must be set down.' The prefect swells joyful with gladness, and devours in hope the gold, exulting as though it were already stored up and remaining at home. They struck a bargain of three days' time; thence praised, Laurentius is released, surety of himself and surety of a vast gain. For three days he runs to and fro through the city, gathering and bringing together into one the weak bands and all who beg for alms. There, displaying to both his eyes the hollowed orbs, one guided his wavering step with a staff going before to lead his straying way; and one, lame with broken knee or maimed leg, half-footed, or with one foot shorter than the other, dragged his uneven gait. There is one whose ulcerous limbs flow with corrupting decay; there is one whose withered right hand draws its sinews up into the forearm.

Such men he sought out in all the squares, accustomed to be fed from the storehouse of mother Church, whom he himself as steward had known. Then he reviews them one by one, writing down their names individually, and bids them stand placed in a long row before the temple. The prescribed day had already slipped by: the judge raged hot with greedy spirit, demanding that the promised things be paid. Then the martyr: 'I would that you stand by and marvel at the wealth set in order, which our God, exceeding rich, holds among His saints. You shall see a vast hall gleam with golden vessels, and through the open porticoes rows built up with talents.' He goes, nor is he ashamed to follow. They came to the sacred door; the bands of the poor stood, swarms unkempt to the sight. The clamor of the askers is raised; the prefect bristles, stupefied, turned upon Laurentius with troubled, threatening eyes.

In reply, he: 'Why do you threaten,' he says, 'gnashing your teeth, or what displeases you? Do you reckon these things sordid or cheap, do you reckon them fit to be spat upon? Gold, for which you ardently thirst, the dug-up rubble brings forth, and from the squalid ores penal toil hammers it out; the torrent or the river, rolling with turbid sands, infolds it; that which is earthy and sordid must of necessity be boiled down by flames. Modesty is dissolved by gold, integrity is violated by gold; peace dies, faith departs, and the laws themselves perish. Why do you extol the poison of glory and think it a great thing? If you seek truer gold, it is light and the human race. These are the nurslings of light, whom a weak body confines, lest, through the health of their flesh, a swollen mind grow insolent.

When disease scatters the limbs, the spirit thrives more robust; with the limbs in turn made strong, the force of the senses is wounded. For blood that grows hot unto sin supplies the less of strength, if, its fervor spent, it draws in some feeble venom from evils. If by chance the choice were given me, I would rather suffer the fragments of my limbs in bitterest pain and be beautiful, living within. Set side by side the forms of plagues and compare the alternate sicknesses: which is the fouler — the disease of the flesh, or the ulcers of mind and morals? Our men, whole within through their feeble frames, bear a sense of comeliness unharmed, untouched by toil; but inner leprosy corrupts your men, strong in body, and error limps with maimed step, and blind deceit sees nothing.

Any one of your princes, who shine resplendent in dress and countenance, I will prove more feeble than any one of my poor. This man, who is proud in silk, whom the chariot bears puffed up, the watery dropsy distends within with its bright poison. But this miser draws together his curved hands, and folding his palm with hooked nails cannot loosen his sinews. That one, dragged by foul lust through the public harlots, defiles himself with mire and sewers, while he begs for filthy debaucheries. What? That one, hot with ambition and burning with thirst for honor, does he not pant, plunged in fevers and raging with the fire of his veins? Whoever, intemperate of silence, itches to disclose things to be left unsaid, is racked and scratches his liver and endures the itch of his heart.

Why should I unfold the swollen scrofulous tumors of envious breasts, or the festering and livid wounds of malignities? You yourself, who rule Rome, despiser of the eternal God — while you cherish the filth of demons, you labor with the royal disease. These men, whom you proudly despise, whom you judge accursed, shall shortly put off their ulcerous limbs and shall be made whole, when, loosed at last and free from the most corrupted flesh, in the most beautiful state of life they shall shine in the citadel of the Father — not sordid or feeble, as they seem for the present, but in purple robes, splendid, and with golden crowns. Then, if opportunity should serve, before your very eyes I would have these mighty ones of the world given to be reviewed. You would see them clothed in rags and with mucus-filled nostrils, the chin wet with spittle, and the eyelids blear with rotten lids.

Nothing is fouler than the sinner, nothing so leprous or putrid; the scar of his crimes is raw and reeks like the cavern of Tartarus. By a reversed turn, a corrupted form is inflicted upon the souls which a beautiful aspect had before delighted in the body. Behold, then, the golden coins which I lately promised you, which neither the ruin of ashes may bury nor a thief steal away. Now I add noble gems, lest you think Christ poor — gems of glittering light, with which this temple is adorned. You behold the consecrated virgins, you marvel at the untouched aged women, who, after the loss of a first marriage-bed, know not the fire of a second. This is the necklace of the Church; with these gems she is adorned; thus dowered she pleases Christ, thus she adorns her lofty head.

Behold the talents, receive them; you shall adorn the city of Romulus, you shall enrich the prince's estate, and you yourself shall become richer.' 'We are mocked!' cries the prefect, raging, 'and in wondrous ways we are made sport of through so many tricks, and the madman's head lives on! Do you think, you gallows-bird, that with mimic mockery you have woven together such great wiles unpunished, while like a buffoon you dance out a farce? A neat urbanity it seemed, to handle us with jests! Was I, sold for guffaws, become a festive entertainment? Is there then no austerity, no severity in the fasces? Has soft leniency so blunted the public axe? You say: 'Gladly will I meet it; death is a thing to be vowed for the martyr' — that, we know, is your empty conviction — but I will not bestow it on you, willing as you are: that a compendious exit of swift death be granted you, ask it in haste, I will not give.

I will hold your life and put it off with constant delays of torments, and an inextricable death shall drag out long pains. Strew the warm coals, lest the kindled heat seize too greatly the face of this obstinate man and enter the hidden parts of his heart. Let the aging vapor languish, which, poured forth with light breath, may gradually temper the torments of the half-burned body. It is well that he himself, of all men, the master-of-mysteries, has fallen in; this man alone shall give an example of what they ought soon to fear. Mount the heaped pyre, lie down on a worthy little couch; then, if you please, dispute that my Vulcan is nothing!' As the prefect speaks these things, the savage torturers on this side and that prepare to strip the martyr of his garment, to bind his limbs and stretch them. His face shone with comeliness, and a radiance was poured about him;

Returning from the mountain, the lawgiver bore down such a countenance, which the Jewish people, defiled and discolored by the golden calf, dreaded; impatient of God, they turned their faces backward. Such glory of a shining face Stephen too displayed, gazing through the shower of stones upon the opened heavens. This light shone from afar, newly upon the brothers lately cleansed, whom the baptism given but recently had made capable of receiving Christ; but the blindness of the impious, with face forgotten beneath the blackening filth of night, sees not the brightness beneath the drawn-over veil — after the manner of the Egyptian plague which, while it condemned the barbarians to darkness, displayed the day to the Hebrews in clear light. Indeed the very quality of the odor that the scorched skin gives off moves the two parties differently: to these it is a stench, to those it is nectar.

And the same sense, altered by a differing breath, either afflicts the nostrils with avenging horror or soothes them with delight. Thus God is an eternal fire, for Christ is the true fire; He Himself fills the just with light and burns the guilty. After the long-continued heat had cooked through his burnt side, of his own accord from the gridiron he addressed the judge with a brief word: 'Turn over the part of the body that is sufficiently roasted, and make trial of what your burning Vulcan has accomplished.' The prefect orders him turned, and then he said: 'It is cooked, devour it and take the proof, whether it tastes better raw or roasted!' This he had said in jest; then he looks up to heaven and, groaning, in pity prays for the city of Romulus:

'O Christ, the only Name, O Splendor, O Power of the Father, O Maker of earth and sky and Author of these walls, who set the scepters of Rome upon the summit of things, ordaining that the world should serve the Quirinal toga and yield to her arms, that you might tame beneath single laws the customs and observances and tongues and dispositions and rites of discordant nations! Behold, under the reign of Remus every mortal race has yielded; peoples once of discordant speech now utter the same words, hold the same belief. This was foreordained, that thereby the more might the law of the Christian name bind in one chain whatever land lies anywhere. Grant, O Christ, to your Romans, that the city be Christian, through which you granted that to all others there might be one mind concerning sacred things!'

From every side all the members are joined together into one body of confession; the subdued world grows gentle — let its supreme head grow gentle too. Let it perceive that the sundered regions come together into one grace; let Romulus become faithful, and let Numa himself now also believe. Trojan error still confounds the senate-house of the Catos, venerating in hidden hearths the exiled household-gods of the Phrygians. The senate worships two-faced Janus and Sterculus — I shudder to name so many monstrosities of the fathers, and the feasts of aged Saturn. Wipe away, O Christ, this disgrace! Send forth your Gabriel, that the erring blindness of Iulus may acknowledge the true God! And already we hold most faithful pledges of this hope, for here indeed already reign two princes of the apostles: the one the caller of the nations, the other, possessing the foremost chair, unlocks the entrusted gates of eternity.

Depart, adulterous Jupiter, forgetful of the defilement of your sister; leave Rome free, and flee now the people who belong to Christ! Paul drives you hence, the blood of Peter expels you; that very deed of Nero which you yourself had armed now works against you. I see a prince who shall one day come, who, a servant of God, will not suffer Rome to serve the foul filth of the rites, who will close the temples with bars, block up the ivory doors, condemn the accursed thresholds, fastening bronze bolts before them. Then at last more marbles shall gleam, cleansed of all blood, and the bronzes shall stand harmless that are now held to be idols.' Here was the end of praying, and likewise the end of the bond of the flesh: the spirit, following the voice, willingly broke forth.

Certain men, whom the wondrous freedom of the hero had moved to seek after Christ, bore his body upon their submissive shoulders. Suddenly a new disposition had breathed into their marrow and compelled them, through love of the exalted God, to hate their former trifles. From that day the worship of base gods grew cold: the people thinner in the shrines, men run to the tribunal of Christ. Thus contending, Laurence girded not his side with a sword, but, turning the enemy's iron backward, bore it against its author. While the demon provoked God's unconquered witness to combat, he himself, pierced through, fell and lies prostrate forever. That death of the holy martyr was the true death of the temples; then Vesta felt her Palladian hearths abandoned with impunity. Whatever of the Quirites had been wont to pray with Numa's sacrificial ladle, now thronging the courts of Christ, resounds the martyr in hymns.

The very lights of the senate, once Luperci or flamens, now kiss the thresholds of the apostles and martyrs. We see illustrious houses, noble in both sexes, offering by their vows the dear children of most distinguished free families. The pontiff once crowned with fillets is taken up under the sign of the cross, and the Vestal Claudia enters your church, Laurence. O thrice and four times and seven times blessed is the dweller of the city, who at close hand frequents the seat of your bones and your own, to whom it is permitted to prostrate himself nearby, who waters the place with weeping, who presses his breast to the ground, who pours out his prayers in a murmur! Us the Basque Ebro divides, set far apart by the two Alps, beyond the ridges of the Cottians and beyond the snowy Pyrenees.

Scarcely is the report known, how full of hidden saints Rome is, how richly the city's soil flourishes with sacred sepulchers. But we who lack these good things, and cannot see face to face the traces of the blood, gaze upon heaven from afar. Thus, holy Laurence, we seek your passion, for you have a twofold hall: here that of the body, in heaven that of the dewy spirit. There, chosen citizen of the unspeakable city, you bear the civic crown in the citadel of the eternal senate. I seem to see a man flashing with illustrious gems, whom heavenly Rome has chosen for herself as her perennial consul. What power has been entrusted to you and how great a gift bestowed, the joys of the Quirites prove, to whom, when entreated, you give assent.

Whatever each suppliant asks, he carries it away obtained with good success; they petition, they make merry, they declare, and not one returns sad — as though you were ever present at hand and, with fatherly love, nourished your own city-children embraced in your fostering bosom. Among these, O glory of Christ, hear a rustic poet, confessing the crimes of his heart and disclosing his own deeds. I acknowledge I am unworthy, and I know whom Christ Himself may hear; but through patron martyrs healing can be obtained. Hear graciously the suppliant Prudentius, guilty before Christ, and one in bondage to the body absolve from the chains of the world!