With arms thronging him, Paul soon comes to Caesarea, whither the mob ran, propped up by their orator, who, having gained the governor's ear, gave forth empty words. Against him at last Paul thus speaks: Most excellent governor, long have we all known you to follow the proofs of justice, and that this modest companion attends your counsels, which grace persuades us to trust, nor to speak doubtfully under such a judge. We have not violated the holy use of the law and the temple, nor with wandering speech have we stirred the popular winds. Coming from the cities of Asia, we began to pay our gifts, ever looking to a pure vow. Who, I ask, will be free, if such a thing makes a man guilty?
I speak fearing nothing, for faith knows not to dread perils — the faith which they dare to call a sect, though it is the way of light, nor do the ancient laws of the fathers clash with the new; it is now lawful for all to believe that bodies can already rise again from the tombs, after Christ, who founded all things, brought his own back from there. Felix was astonished, having lost his name [the 'happy' one], whom another's chains make a defendant, by whose obstacle Paul is bound and is kept for the year of Festus the governor. Here we leave too much aside, lest our joys be delayed. Now come to Latium, O Paul! What contests were stirred up again and again in the forum, and how great the Jewish frauds are read to have flowed; for Paul speaks thus: I appeal you to Caesar's throne; I appeal, says he, as a Roman, for Caesar's aid;
to whom Festus replies: You shall depart, as you wish, the sooner to behold the tribunal of Augustus. Not fleeing dangers with fear urging him, Paul did not shun the burden of judgment; his mind, ever anxious, was to die for a better life; but the Author of grace had once long ago said to his herald and witness that he was to come to Rome. The clemency of Jesus, in all lands, to those thirsting for the draught of faith, gives cups from his own vessel, and bids that all be watered with His abundant-flowing word, and the grace of the western name was granted to grow from the light of the word. The voyager had loosed the fleet from the eastern shore, having gained the help of the south wind, by whose breath, with the way growing glad, and the sail's wings spread wide, the ship cleaved the seas; but when did the deceits of the winds ever hold anything gentle?
Soon, by the blasts of Eurus, the sea's calm was broken, and the feigned peace of the dark-blue deep grew white with swelling crests. The sea rages on every side, and, lifting its masses with an angry whirlpool, it denies sure footing to the snatched-away vessel, which, suspended toward the poles and cast down, is joined to the fields of the deep, following land and sky; the hand fit for the raft lacks the aid of friendly skill, and with icy dread they lay down their spirits, and, blind beneath the black sky, again and again they see shipwreck, and, with the depth closed in, the image of death lies open. I am summoned by the historical method to traverse the vast Syrtes, and to follow the torn ropes and the fragments of the rudder; but I do not commit so frail a tongue to the shoals, and I would long flee to brave the rushing tempests, lest perchance a too-violent wave overwhelm the singer's scanty speech.
It pleases me to touch on but a few things; I shall make for the safe sands. The guiding stars lay hidden from the wave-wandering ship, nor did the firmament flash forth with the sun's rays beneath the clouds. And when the circling heaven had now duly completed many days, on the sea there was one unbroken night, during which time they indulged in no food: how great, alas, is the penalty of fear, not to feel the torment of hunger! An evil thing often gives seeds to good ends: so renowned a band of sailors and a cohort of soldiery would, with a more prosperous strait, have scorned the honor of the man whose custody is at last loosed, and, conquered, they revere from the savage sea him whom they perceived to be their harbor:
that very wreck brings it to pass, lest it lie hidden, what manner of man Paul was, and that the holy man be made manifest, with the sea as his witness; and the elements labor with the lights snatched away to show forth the man, and in the midst of darkness radiant faith appears. But the laurel for the just comes from the price which terror exacts, and abiding virtue grows amid adversities, which, having used perils as witnesses, has its distinction set toward merit. At last Paul, standing, thus heartens the despairing pious breasts with words: O would that you had been willing, faithful youth, to obey our counsels earlier, and had not left the shores of Crete, doomed to suffer the rage of the mad deep! You would not have borne the threats of sea and sky, nor the sad burden of ravaging loss, nor with so great a whirlwind would your despaired-of safety bewail the borders of death.
Yet those joys which transcend human prayer, these it is easy for God to grant, for whom this use of His gift is the mightier, which no one supposes; for an angel sent from the stars, coming, announces these things with placid mouth: This crowd which that vessel carries, the Ruler of Olympus has bestowed upon you, that no shipwrecked one be fixed upon the rocks. Believe — true things shall come to pass, nor shall I be cheated by empty hope, I who have merited the promises of God; and an island granted to us shall be a harbor, in whose anchorage it will be permitted, the land once seized, to enjoy it, and, the ship being broken up, to look upon its grievous fall with no danger to ourselves. At these words the wrath of the sea collapsed, and the light, long hidden, recalled, sparkles; with the veil of night drawn back it seemed to spread open the ground which, hospitable, offered itself to the sailors — Melite, neighbor by its oars to the Sicilian shore.
Yet before they overcome the raging swells of the sea, Loose your fasts, cries Paul, you weary ones, and on the fourteenth day, just as we eat, says he, now taste bread for the day. Let us prove by what law the memorable mysteries of the holy figure avail. At the time when the lights of the first month shone, on this same running day by this very number, the multitude was bidden to be fed from the flesh of the lamb, by whose protection, once touched, the free people was granted to escape the shadows of the Nile. Hence by a like span Paul persuades those whom he desires to bear away from the gulf of the world to feast together with him, and to offer the sacred food, reading the observed footsteps of Moses; in which, to those who scan the deed, these two things are diverse in their settings but near in their causes, and salvation, repeated, is drawn up from one font.
Christ the Lamb is therein, and the Bread also is held to be Christ from heaven, as He Himself also teaches; he who has taken Jesus into his body lacks the enemy, nor do Pharaoh and Egypt now hold their dominion; soon all the demon's weapons are sunk in these waters in which that infant, who was a captive, is reborn; the wave of the salt abyss too is left behind, and the pools of the foul dragon are overcome, and to the rescued flock Christ grants pastures, calling them by their proper names, now the true Shepherd to the one who feeds. Hence also the golden moon bears the figure of the Church, which on the fourteenth day, from the rising of the first lamp, is now beheld full in the daylight, because by the body of Jesus it has waxed in its own orb, destined to make perpetual light.
That Paul might drive off the growing cold with the storm-fed flame, he had heaped twigs upon the fires, to which a viper fastened, bearing the demon's weapons, coming to meet the rising flames, with its ancient ferocity, upon his hand, and in the fire it dealt the wound of icy venom. Why still, O evilly noxious serpent, do you long to recall him from the Lord, and prepare your old plunder under the newness of the law? Why, O lover of death, whose very parent you are, do you renew wars against the redeemed? You come as a plunderer, but you lie as the prey, and, dealing out death, you are yourself consumed, wicked one, by the tree's alternating branches, and after the cross of Christ, death is your portion of the wood. Not far from here were those bearing rustic hearts, sprung from barbarian stock, who together resounded with a dire muttering:
this man is guilty of blood poured out from crime, now safe on no shores, for whom sea and land alike rage. They treat of mortal things, and yet prove the divine; for the beast, hanging from his finger, is shaken off, cast into the fires — well returned to the flame which it itself gave before, which brought forth the fire of guilt, whence Gehenna grows hot; the ice of the venom, warmed, dissolves into ashes, and the pride of the icy pestilence perishes from the burning; this hearth and its swift vapors take on unwonted strength, and bear dry nourishments with them, but you alone, O faith, boil down the serpent, using your own fervor; the cold enemy is made subject to you, and in turn, kindling conflagrations, it blazes, with its viperous frost smoking. With the swelling coming on they say that he may fall; how far does the mind ignorant of the good run through empty vanities!
already then the poison was absent from Paul's body, when the scaly horror went out from his eyes, which the ancient serpent had given; cleansed in the ethereal stream, and binding his limbs back to the cross of Christ, he knows not how to die by the snake; the flame devours this venom, which took its force from the sacred waters, by which, scorched, it gasps — the serpent that grieves that the old colonists return to their homeland. The youth, marveling that he thus stood unharmed so long, says he is a God; at last, O rude inhabitant, learn by what power he reigns over the heavens who confers such things, that you may suppose his servants to be this. Now the figured cause must be more fully discerned in the gift of the bright deed. The serpent is the origin of death (for from this death its very name is derived).
From the sinner's bite it holds things contrary to the just; it wishes to retain the hand, since the hand fit for serving is rightly called 'work'; whoever has felt such an enemy, let him briskly shake it off, and burn it with the Lord's heat. When Paul knew that the stratagems of the applied peril sought to creep upon him, seizing for himself the heavenly weapons, he pressed the deceits down into the fire, from whose kindling, growing, faith is set ablaze, and ardor added to the senses; and hence warmth went forth to the peoples from the richness of the font. For three winter months in the region of Melite Paul gives manifold aid, and lifts up the parent of Publius from the neighboring affliction, and at the sight of that gift, on every side they headlong seized sudden healing.
Meanwhile the leafy hair of bright spring sprouts forth, whereby the earth grows young, the frost of old age fleeing away, and the South wind, receiving the ship as the sails yield, offered winged waves upon the calm billows. It is fitting that He breathe whom the prophet sounds with his mouth, who sings the form of faith as a torrent in the South. So too, with the storms laid low for our joys, gathering up very many towns in their distinct quarters, he came to the lofty summits of high Rome. A higher theme demands that I tell how the two lights of the world met together, and from regions so vast chose one place, through which the two stars are joined, who make serene all the fields with the virtues of faith. Although this matter may be stretched into countless figures, wishing to relate but a few, I shall set them forth, those same figures excelling.
Peter rose up as prince in the body of the Church; this turreted city, head of the world, bore him about its shores. Greater things befit her, that all may behold the founded summits of the seat of the mistress of lands. Paul, chosen as teacher to the gentiles without end, being present, more fittingly spreads to her the reins of his speech, which, set before them, admonishes the gentiles; and what he thunders there, the City's honor compels, that the subjected world may hear, and that a theme worthy of the crown of Peter and Paul might surpass the threats of Caesar, and in the tyrant's citadel lay open the laws of heaven, and in the contest conquer the highest tribunal, lest the petty enemy should lay claim to their trophies. Egypt bears the form of the world; whence the people that earned to be called forth was entrusted to two leaders, in whom a brotherly birth knit the office together.
So many idols at Rome, which had been gathered from the subdued world, were pressing down hearts liable to darkness; and this people, now free, whom Pharaoh had bound before, put off the shadows of Egypt by just as many leaders, and through the lavers of God, which then the image of the sea enacted, having gained the way of life, found the heavenly food. To these two also belongs a brotherly love, in whom grace wrought more than nature gave: them, born twin unto the stars, not the same day, the day to be lamented, brought forth, but in the revolving span of the year their Passion consecrated the repeated light, and fellowship's grace holds the eternal palm.