The physicians gave me permission to return to Rome a month ago.
But I must thank Fortuna that I have been allowed to experience this spring, which I had not believed possible. I feel so much younger that a little while ago I asked to have my favorite horse brought so that I could start riding again, although I have been content for several years to lead my horse in processions. Thanks to Claudius’ decree, this is still allowed and we older men take advantage of it as we grow heavier.
Speaking of Fortuna, your mother has always been strangely jealous of the simple wooden goblet which I inherited from my mother. Perhaps it reminds her only too well that you have a quarter Greek blood in your veins, though fortunately she does not know how lowly that blood is. This goblet of Fortuna, because of your mother, I sent to Linus several years ago, when in a moment of satiety I thought I had had more than enough of worldly success. I think the Christians need all the good fortune they can get, and Jesus of Nazareth himself had drunk from this goblet after his resurrection. So that the wooden goblet should not become too worn, I had a cleverly worked goblet of gold and silver made to enclose it. On one side it bears a picture in relief of Cephas and on the other, one of Paul.
It was quite easy to have these portraits made, for the craftsman who did them had seen both of the men himself many times and was also helped by other people’s drawings and a mosaic. True they were both Jews who did not approve of human images, but Paul revered the Jewish laws in many other respects, so I do not think he will mind that with Linus’ help I have preserved his appearance for posterity, even if there is no future in the Christian teaching alongside other and more promising religions, from the Gymnosophists to the Mithras brotherhood.
They were both good people and now, after their deaths, I understand them better than before, as so often happens when certain aggravating characteristics no longer stop one’s creating a clear picture of a person as he really had been. Anyhow, the Christians own a picture of Jesus of Nazareth. It stuck to a piece of cloth when he fell to the ground in Jerusalem with his cross on his back and a woman handed him her own kerchief to wipe the blood from his face. This picture would hardly have stayed on the cloth if he himself had not wished it, so as far as I can make out he permitted human images, unlike the faithful Jews.
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My mother’s goblet is much used, but I have a feeling its power has lessened because of the gold and silver around it. In any case, the Christians’ internal disputes continue unabated and as violently as before.
Linus has great difficulty reconciling them so that they do not take to physical violence against each other at their sacred evening meals.
What happens in the dark streets, when the locked doors are opened and the partakers of the meal leave, I shall not bother to tell you. The same intolerant envy which ruined Paul and Cephas still holds sway among them. For this reason, too, they have no future. I am only waiting for the moment when one Christian kills another in the name of Christ. The physician Lucas is so ashamed of all this that he is not able to concentrate on writing the third book to add to the work he has planned, and has stopped working on it.
It is no help that learned and educated men have begun to join them and profess themselves adherents of Christ. Indeed, it seems only to make the situation worse. When just before my illness I invited two Sophists here to a meal, in the hope that their education would be of help to Linus, they became involved in such a violent dispute that they nearly broke my valuable Alexandrian glass bowls.
The reason for the Sophists’ visit was purely a practical one. I thought that educated men such as they would understand how advantageous it would be for the Christians if their leaders began to wear some kind of insignia of rank, for instance headgear of the kind worn by the Mithraic priests, and perhaps add the soothsayer’s spiral to their simple shepherd’s stave. Such outward signs, I thought, would encourage ordinary citizens to join the Christians.
But instead of a reasonable discussion, both men began arguing.
“I believe in an invisible kingdom,” said the one, “in the angels and that Christ is the Son of God, for this is the only possible explanation of the incomprehensible and insane way of the world. I believe so that I can understand.”
“Don’t you sec, you poor fool,” said the other, “that human reason ean never understand the divinity of Christ? I myself believe only because the teachings about him are absurd and senseless. So I believe because it is irrational.”
Before they could physically come to grips with one another I intervened.
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