“Minutus, son of Marcus Manilianus!” he cried. “Have you too chosen the only way?”
He embraced me, kissed my lips and fervently began to preach. “Christ has suffered for you too,” he said. “Why don’t you model yourself on him and follow in his footsteps? He did not abuse his abusers. He threatened no one. Don’t take revenge by evil for evil. If you suffer for Christ, then praise God for it.”
I cannot repeat all that poured out of him, for he took no notice of my protests, but his fervor undoubtedly had a powerful effect on the others. Nearly all of them began to pray for the forgiveness of their sins, though some muttered through clenched teeth that the kingdom would never bear fruit if the Jews were freely allowed to slander, oppress and ill-treat the subjects of Christ.
While this was going on, the police outside were arresting people regardless of whether they were faithful Jews or Christian Jews, or anyone else. As the Praetorians were guarding the bridges, many people fled in boats and took the opportunity to unfasten other boats at the quays so that they began to drift away in the current. The city was left unprotected, all the police having been sent to the Jewish quarter. Crowds began to collect in the streets, shouting the name Christus as a password they had learned on the other side of the river.
They plundered shops and set fire to several houses, so that when the Jewish quarter was quiet again, the City Prefect had to order his men to return to the city proper. This saved me, for they had just begun a house-to-house search in the Jewish quarter.
Evening had come, I was sitting gloomily on the floor with my head in my hands, realizing I was very hungry. The Christians gathered up the remaining food and began to share it among all those present. They had bread and oil, onions, pease porridge and wine. Aquila blessed the bread and wine, in the Christian way, as the flesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth. I accepted what was offered me and shared my bread with Claudia. I was given a little cheese too and a piece of dried meat. I drank wine from the same goblet as the others when my turn came. When everyone had eaten their fill, they kissed each other gently.
“Oh, Minutus,” said Claudia after she had kissed me. “I am so glad you have eaten of his flesh and drunk of his blood, to be forgiven your sins and lead an eternal life. Can’t you feel the spirit glowing in your heart, as if you had discarded the tattered clothes of your earlier life and put on new ones?”
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I said bitterly that the only glow I felt was from the cheap sour wine. Not until then did I fully realize what she had meant and see that I had taken part in the secret meal of the Christians. I was so appalled that I wanted to be sick, although I knew I had not drunk blood from the goblet. “Nonsense,” I said furiously. “Bread is bread and wine is wine when one is hungry. If nothing worse than this happens amongst you, then I don’t see why such lunatic stories are told about your superstitions. Still less do I understand how such innocent activities can lead to such violence.”
I was too tired to quarrel with her, aroused as she still was, but in the end she made me agree to look more closely into the Christian teachings. I could see nothing wrong in their attempts to defend themselves against the Jews. But I was fairly sure they would be punished if the disorders continued, whether they or the faithful Jews were responsible.
Aquila admitted that there had been trouble earlier, but not to the same extent as now. He assured me that the Christians usually met without attracting attention and also answered evil words with good. But the Christian Jews also had a legal right to go into the synagogues and listen to the scripts and to speak there. Many of them had taken part in the raising of the new synagogues.
I took Claudia home through the warm summer night, past Vatican and out of the city. We saw the glare of fires and heard the murmur of the crowd across the river. Wagons and carts loaded with foodstuffs on their way to the market halls were waiting, crowded together on the road. The country people wondered anxiously what was happening in the city. It was whispered from man to man that one Christus was rousing the Jews to murder and arson. No one seemed to have a good word to say for the Jews.
As we walked, I began to limp and my head ached. I was surprised that I had hitherto not felt any ill-effects from the injuries I had received in the fighting. When we eventually arrived at Claudia’s hut, I was feeling so wretched that she would not let me return, but begged me to stay the night. In spite of my protests, she put me to bed in her own bed by the light of an oil lamp, but then sighed so much as she busied herself around the room that I had to ask her what was wrong.
“I’m neither pure nor without sin,” she said. “But every word you told me about that shameless Briton girl has fallen like drops of fire on my heart, although I can’t even remember her name.”
“Try to forgive me that I could not keep my promise,” I said.
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