IX
Just as Julius was saying this, Pamphilius’ little son came running into the room, and clung to his father. In spite of all the blandishments of Julius’ wife, he would not stay with her, but ran to his father. Pamphilius sighed, caressed his son, and stood up; but Julius detained him, begging him to stay and talk some more, and have dinner with them.
“It surprises me that you are married and have children,” exclaimed Julius. “I cannot comprehend how Christians can bring up children when you have no private property. How can the mothers live in any peace of mind knowing the precariousness of their children’s position?”
“Wherein are our children more precariously placed than yours?”
“Why, because you have no slaves, no property. My wife was greatly inclined to Christianity; she was at one time desirous of abandoning this life, and I had made up my mind to go with her. But what chiefly prevented was the fear she felt at the insecurity, the poverty, which threatened her children, and I could not help agreeing with her. This was at the time of my illness. All my life seemed repulsive to me, and I wanted to abandon everything. But then my wife’s anxiety, and, on the other hand, the explanation of the physician who cured me, convinced me that the Christian life, as led by you, is impossible, and not good for families; but that there is no place in it for married people, for mothers with children; that in life as you understand it, life—that is the human race—would be annihilated. And this is perfectly correct. Consequently the sight of you with a child especially surprised me.”
“Not one child only. At home I left one at the breast and a three-year-old girl.”
“Explain to me how this happens. I don’t understand. I was ready to abandon everything and join you. But I had children, and I came to the conclusion that, however pleasant it might be for me, I had no right to sacrifice my children, and for their sake I continued to live as before, in order to bring them up in the same conditions as I myself had grown up and lived.”
“Strange,” said Pamphilius; “we take diametrically opposite views. We say: ‘If grown people live a worldly life it can be forgiven them, because they are already corrupted; but children! That is horrible! To live with them in the world and tempt them! “Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that by whom the offense cometh.” ’
“So spake our Teacher, and I do not say this to you as a refutation, but because it is actually so. The chiefest obligation that we have to live as we do arises from the fact that amongst us are children—those beings of whom it is said, ‘Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ ”
“But how can a Christian family do without definite means of subsistence?”
“According to our faith there is only one means of subsistence—loving labor for men. For your means of livelihood you depend on violence. It can be destroyed as wealth is destroyed, and then all that is left is the labor and love of men. We consider that we must hold fast by that which is the basis of everything, and that we must increase it. And when this is done, then the family lives and prospers.
“No,” continued Pamphilius; “if I were in doubt as to the truth of Christ’s teaching, and if I were hesitating as to the fulfilling of it, then my doubts and hesitations would instantly come to an end if I thought about the fate of children brought up among the heathen in those conditions in which you grew up, and are educating your children. Whatever we, a few people, should do for the arrangement of our lives, with palaces, slaves, and the imported products of foreign lands, the life of the majority of men would still remain what it must be. The only security of that life will remain, love of mankind and labor. We wish to free ourselves and our children from these conditions, not by love, but by violence. We compel men to serve us, and—wonder of wonders!—the more we secure, as it were, our lives by this, the more we deprive ourselves of the only true, natural, and lasting security—love. The same with the other guarantee—labor. The more a man rids himself of labor and accustoms himself to luxury, the less he becomes fitted for work, the more he deprives himself of the true and lasting security. And these conditions in which men place their children they call security! Take your son and mine and send them now to find a path, to transmit an order, or to do any needful business, and see which of the two would do it most successfully; or try to give them to be educated, which of the two would be most willingly received? No, don’t utter those horrible words that the Christian life is possible only for the childless. On the contrary, it might be said: to live the pagan life is excusable only in those who are childless. ‘But woe to him who offendeth one of these little ones.’ ”
Julius remained silent.
“Yes,” said he, “maybe you are right, but the education of my children is begun, the best teachers are teaching them. Let them know all that we know. There can be no harm in that. But for me and for them there is still time. They may come to you when they reach their maturity, if they find it necessary. I also can do this, when I set them on their feet and am free.”
“Know the Truth and you shall be free,” said Pamphilius. “Christ gives full freedom instantly; earthly teaching never will give it. Goodbye.”
And Pamphilius went away with his son.
The trial was public, and Julius saw Pamphilius there as he and other Christians carried away the bodies of the martyrs. He saw him, but as he stood in fear of the authorities he did not go to him, and did not invite him home.