Gods and Legions
Page 43
'I said, his soul is gone,' he muttered to me.
I stopped and looked at him, surprised that he would even bother to address me. 'I believe,' I said, that if he repented before he died, he will rise again. His soul will be in Paradise. For this I prayed.'
Maximus shook his head scornfully as we walked together in the pale gray light of early morning. 'Everything has its opposite, physician, as day has night, as heat has cold. The opposite of life is death, the opposite of existence is nothingness. If he is no longer living, he is dead. His soul will be born again, in another time, in another entity — but Julian himself is dead.'
I stared past him and picked up my pace. Maximus, however, would not be ignored. His short legs churned as he matched my speed, two steps for each one of mine, as if unaccountably hungry for my company. Again he spoke, an insistent and compelling tone to his voice.
'So too has every man his opposite,' he continued. 'As Caesar had Brutus, as Jesus Christ has Lucifer.' I shuddered to hear Our Lord's name spoken by these blasphemous lips, but nevertheless I hesitated, intrigued by the little man's words, at his vision of the world as so black and white, every object with its opposite, every man his Manichean double.
'As Julian had, perhaps, Constantius?' I ventured cautiously, though still attempting to draw away.
'Perhaps.'
I paused, and he still continued to peer at me, an inscrutable expression on his face.
'And who would my opposite be?' I asked.
Maximus grinned, exposing the rotten stumps of his teeth. 'You are a healer, physician,' he said simply. He glanced over at the camp altar, to which even now one of the Etruscans was leading an ox in preparation for Maximus' imminent morning sacrifice. 'That would make your opposite — me.'
He chuckled as he drew his long blade, turned, and walked over to the sleepy-eyed animal. All was uncommonly silent in the exhausted camp, except for the moaning of the wounded and the faint sound of high-pitched singing nearby, which I did not at first acknowledge as being as peculiar as it truly was. I stood for a long while, lost in thought, staring at the strange little man, the antihealer, my self-proclaimed converse, my negation, my antidote.
And I knew, in this, that Maximus was wrong.
I turned and began walking slowly toward my own quarters, yet the odd singing slowly broke in on my thoughts, and I realized that it seemed to be following me. At this revelation I stopped and stood motionless, listening carefully to the tuneless crooning, and then with dawning astonishment I turned around. Standing in the middle of the dirt track between the rows of tents, staring at me yet not daring to approach, was the deaf Persian boy, who had also followed me out of Julian's tent when I left. The nearly unintelligible lyrics of the ancient Christian hymn he intoned were, I believe, the first words that had ever passed his lips, but the repetitive chanting of the simple phrase will forever be burned into my brain.
Father in Heaven…
Alleluia…
Father in Heaven…
Alleluia…
Tears glistened as they coursed in tracks down his dirt-caked cheeks. His little song was so humble — a croak, a slur, a mere four words chanted in a tune that could barely be discerned, an earthy paean that was simplicity itself — yet to my ears it was as triumphant and as heartfelt as the grandest chorus in the Great Church of Constantinople. He stood barefoot and ragged in the dust and looked at me, and his face shone radiant in a broad smile.
Simple words. A wise man once told me that one cannot possibly express more joy in Creation, more optimism in the perfection of the Kingdom to come, than through simple words.
And the sun rose on another day.
VIII
I shall continue this account no longer, for to do so would be to shift its focus from the topic that has obsessed me these past five years to myself, to the comforts and fears of my current existence, to things not germane to my story and which I have striven to keep out of the narrative.
Under the Emperor Valens, Julian's decrees against the Christians were reversed, and though internal divisions remain, particularly between the Arians and the Orthodox, the Empire is now firmly back on its path to becoming a Christian one, the first and greatest Christian empire the world has ever known. I wonder at the thought that I played a small part in bringing this end about, Brother, and rejoice that you yourself have found an important role in furthering the survival of Christ's Kingdom. Nevertheless, my conscience remains ill at ease, unallayed even by the frequent confessions to which I willingly submit. I rationalize my act as a blow in the defense of Christ, a strike against the chaos and bloodshed into which the Empire would surely have fallen were Julian to have continued on his course. I base my claim on the right to self-preservation. I obscure my guilt behind the curtain of greater good for all mankind. All these justifications are valid. Yet can a mortal sin be so justified? Can murder be excused? Of all the graces, peace of mind is the one I least encounter or, for that matter, deserve.
The man who assassinated Julian, the man who killed the Terror of the Germans, the conqueror of Gaul, the greatest caesar and emperor in the history of Rome, the most brilliant general since Marius, victorious in forest and desert, voted ever Augustus by the Roman Senate; that one anonymous man who pierced the Emperor's side with a javelin on a battlefield was never found, nor was claim ever made for the horse's weight in gold offered by King Sapor to the soldier who did such a deed. Some say Julian's assailant was slain himself before he could claim his reward, others that the spear was thrown wildly and its sender never aware of the target it had met. To most men, these things were of no significance, for all that mattered was that the Emperor of Rome and the scourge of Christ was dead. To me, however, the motive and the agent are of the utmost importance; in fact, they are an issue of concern to eternity, a fact with which you, Brother, of all people, will surely agree.
Thanks be to God that I have been allotted the time to complete this testimony, which is indeed a great thing. Five years I have spent completing these books, bearing witness to the history of such things as I have observed. Naturally there are many things I have left untold, yet by and large, I believe them to be of small consequence to the task I set myself. As you well know, when a man dedicates five years of his life to undertaking a task, he takes a great risk, for he knows not whether he will even live to complete what he has begun. But I have completed it indeed, and for such a blessing and relief, I am truly grateful.
Amen.
AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT
The Emperor Julian died at Maranga from a spear thrown by an unknown hand in the year 363. Upon his death, the Empire was offered to Sallustius, who refused it on the grounds of old age. The crown passed instead to Jovian, one of Julian's generals, who was forced to surrender enormous tracts of Roman territory to the Persians and escaped out of the desert only with great loss of life among his men. He died six months later from the poisonous smoke of a charcoal brazier in his room. Like Julian, he was buried at Tarsus, the home of Paul the Apostle.
Maximus fell out of favor with the Emperor Valens and after various changes of fortune was beheaded in Ephesus in the year 371 on charges of conspiracy.
Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Caesarius' brother, was appointed Bishop of Constantinople and became known as one of the greatest of the early Church Fathers.
Caesarius was appointed provincial treasurer of Bithynia by the Emperor Valentinian, and miraculously survived a terrible earthquake that devastated Nicaea. This experience led him to return home to Nazianzus to live a life of prayer and solitude, but in the year 369, at age thirty-eight, he suddenly died in mysterious circumstances. He was later canonized, for reasons now lost to the mists of history. Saint Caesarius' feast day is celebrated February twenty-fifth.
Ut digni efficiamur…
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