266 SCAURUS ON CHRIST'S RESURRECTION [Chap. 27

but (as Epictetus would say) 'my own.' Truth, my dear Silanus, is your own, too—that is to say, truth to your own reason, truth to your own conscience. Never let wishes or aspirations wrest that from you. Keep what is your own!'"

For the time, this appeal was too strong for me. I wrote to Scaurus briefly confessing that the City of Dreams had had attractions for me, as well as for him, but that I had resolved to put the thought away, though I might, perhaps, continue a little longer the study of the Christian books, which I, too, had found very interesting. When I grew calmer, I added a postscript, asking whether it was not possible that "feeling," as well as "reason," might play a certain lawful part in the search after truths about God. My last words were an assurance that, whereas I had been somewhat irregular of late in my attendance at Epictetus's lectures, I should be quite regular in future. This indeed was my intention. As things turned out, however, the next lecture was my last.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LAST LECTURE

AWAKING early next morning, two or three hours before lecture, I spent the time in examining the gospels, and in particular the accounts of Christ's last words. So few they were in Mark and Matthew that I could not anticipate that Luke would omit a single one of them or fail to give them exactly. They were uttered in public and in a loud voice. According to Mark and Matthew, they were a quotation from a Psalm, of which the Jewish words were given similarly by the two evangelists. They added a Greek interpretation. Luke, to my amazement, omitted both the Jewish words and the Greek interpretation. Afterwards, Mark and Matthew said that Jesus, in the moment of expiring, cried out again in a loud voice. On this occasion they gave no words. But there Luke mentioned words. Luke's words, too, were from a Psalm, but quite different in meaning from the words previously given by Mark and Matthew.

Still more astonished was I to find what kind of words the two earliest evangelists wrote down as the last utterance of Christ "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That Christ said this I could hardly believe. Reading further, I found that some of the men on guard exclaimed “This man calls for Elias"-because the Jewish word "Heli" or "Eli," 'my God," resembles the Jewish "Elias." I wished that these men might prove true interpreters. Then I found that, although Luke mentions neither "Eli" nor "Elias," he nevertheless mentions "Elios" or "Helios," which in Greek means sun." This occurred in the passage parallel to Eli or

Heli. What Luke said was that there was an eclipse," or "failing," of "the sun." I thought then (and I think still) that Luke was glad-as a Christian historian might well be without being at all dishonest-to find that Mark's "Eli" had been taken, at all events by some, not to mean Perhaps some version gave "Elios," or "Helios," "sun." "sun." Luke might gladly accept. Indeed, in the genitive, which is the form used by Luke, the word "Heliou" may mean either of the sun or "of Elias."

my God." This

But, on reflection, I could not find much comfort from Luke's version. For the difficult version seemed more likely to be true. And how could there be an "eclipse" of the sun during Passover, when the moon was at the full? Then I looked at the Psalm from which the words were taken, and I noted that although it began with "Why hast thou forsaken me?" it went on to say that God "hath not hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him he heard him." Also the Psalm ended in a strain of triumph, as though this cry "Why hast thou forsaken me?" would end in comfort and strength for all the meek, so that "all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord." Nevertheless this did not satisfy me. And even the help that I afterwards received from Clemens (about whom I shall speak later on) left me, and still to this day leaves me, with a sense that there is a mystery in this utterance beyond my power to fathom, though not beyond my power to believe.

I was still engaged in these meditations when my servant brought me a letter. It was from Arrian, informing me of the death of his father, which would prevent him from returning to Nicopolis. He also requested me to convey various messages to friends to whom he had not been able to bid farewell owing to his sudden departure. In particular he enclosed a note, which he asked me to give to Epictetus. "Add what you like,” he said, "you can hardly add too much, about my gratitude to him. I owe him morally more than I can express. Moreover in the official world, where everybody knows that our Master stands well with the Emperor, it is sometimes a sort of recommendation to have attended his lectures. And perhaps it has

helped me. At all events I have recently been placed in a position of responsibility and authority by the Governor of Bithynia. I like the work and hope to do it fairly well. Even the mere negative virtue of not taking bribes goes for something, and that at least I can claim. I am not able, and never shall be able, to be a Diogenes, going about the province and healing the souls of men. But I try to do my duty, and I feel an interest in getting at the truth, and judging justly among the poor, so far as my limited time, energy and intelligence permit.

"In the towns, among the artisans and slaves, I have been surprised to find so many of the Christians. You may remember how we talked about this sect more than once. You thought worse of them than I did. But I don't think you had much more basis than the impressions of your childhood, derived from what you heard among your servants and the common people in Rome. I have seen a great deal of them lately and have been impressed by the high average of their morality, industry, and charity to one another.

"You never see a Christian begging. What is more, they set their faces against the exposing of children. I have often thought that our law is very defective in this respect. We will not let a father strangle his infant son, but we let him kill it by cold, starvation, or wild beasts. Every such death is the loss of a possible soldier to the state. It is a great mistake politically, and I am not sure whether it is right morally. When I first came to Nicopolis I used to hear it said that our Epictetus-one of the kindest of men I verily believe-once adopted a baby that was on the point of being exposed by one of his friends, got a nurse for it, and put himself to a lot of trouble. I sometimes wonder why he did not first give his friend the money to find a nurse and food for the baby, and then give him a good sharp reprimand for his inhumanity. For I call it inhuman. But I never heard Epictetus say a word against this practice. The Jews as well as the Christians condemn it. Perhaps the latter, in this point, merely followed the former; but in most points the Christians seem to me superior to the Jews.

"I am proud to call myself a philosopher, and perhaps I should be prouder than Epictetus would like if I could call myself a Roman citizen; but I am free to confess that there are points in which philosophers and Romans could learn something from these despised followers of Christus. Fas est et a Christiano doceri. I have been more impressed than I can easily explain to you on paper by the behaviour of this strangely superstitious sect. There is a strenuous fervour in their goodness-I mean in the Christians, I am not now speaking of the Jews-which I don't find in my own attempts at goodness. I am, at best, only a second-class Cynic, devoid of fervour.

"You may say, like an orthodox scholar of Epictetus, Let them keep their fervour and leave me calmness.' But these men have both. They can be seasonably fervid and seasonably calm. I have heard many true stories of their behaviour in the last persecution. Go into one of their synagogues and you may hear their priest-or rather prophet, for priests they have none-thundering and lightening as though he held the thunderbolts of Zeus. Order the fellow off for scourging or execution, and he straightway becomes serenity itself. Not Epictetus could be more serene. Indeed, where an Epictetian would make himself a stone' under stripes and say, 'They are nothing to me,' a Christian would rejoice to bear them for the sake of Christus.' And even Epictetus, I think, could not reach the warmth, the glow, of their affection for each other. I am devoutly thankful that I did not occupy my present office under Pliny. It has never been my fate to scourge, rack, torture, or kill, one of these honest, simple, excellent creatures, whose only fault is what Epictetus would call their 'dogma' or conviction—surely such a 'dogma' as an emperor might almost think it well to encourage among the uneducated classes, in view of its excellent results. Farewell, and be ever my friend."

The third hour had almost arrived and I had to hasten to the lecture-room taking with me the note addressed to Epictetus. All the way, I could think of nothing but the contrast between what Arrian had said about the Christians, and what Mark and Matthew had said about Christ's last words-the servants