CHAPTER VI.

THE CLASSIC CIPHER.

Sec. 1. The Wand of Circe.

There were many cogent reasons, as we have shown, for not writing the Name in open fashion; and, at the same time, there were several good reasons for writing it, provided the concealment were effectual. A partial mode of doing so, as already suggested, would be in the use of appellatives, since the same license allowed ourselves must be granted to the ancients. Not always do we employ the words "Christ" or "Jesus"; often as not we say the Redeemer, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light, the Word, the Master, the Lord, the Son, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb, the God-man. All those could be used, and were used by the Greek and Latin writers.

Like ourselves, too, they employed figurative modes of expression; and a traditional Aesculapius who cured the sick and called the dead to life, or a Codrus who died voluntarily in order to save his people, or an Alcon who killed a serpent to save his son, or an Achilles who was to be bruised only in the heel-all those and others were types of our Saviour to the ancients, just as Adam, Noah, Moses and others are to moderns. The death of Socrates furnishes an excellent illustration of this figurative application. The philosopher knew the truth, had preached it-too openly and too early. Condemned to die, he could have saved himself by recanting; but this he would not do. Why? The answer is obvious. "If," said he, "you should set me free on those conditions, I would tell you, O men of Athens, that I wish you well and look upon you with love. But I shall obey God rather than you; and whilst I breathe and am that which I am, I shall not cease to search after the truth, to commend it to you, and to point it out to whomsoever of you I may chance to converse with." While thus preferring martyrdom to apostasy, he recognized the futility of achieving success until "The fullness of time, the Healer himself" would come; and his last act was to acknowledge this, for he figuratively offered up himself to the Redeemer: he, who had crowed too early, was the cock; Aesculapius, the Saviour.

Still another way of writing the Name would be by symbols. One of these, the "Pythagorae figura," has been pointed out in "The Gods of Old," p. 376.

But all those modes of naming were not thoroughly satisfying. Symbols were too intricate, figures too indefinite, and appellatives but a costly setting that lacked the precious gem. The Name itself, in its naked brevity, was worth them all; and until this much in little was obtained, there could be no content.

One of the simplest but most effective ways whereby a word can be concealed in written speech is that in which its combined letters, transposed or otherwise, are placed in the whole or part of one or more words. "Name," for instance, can be hidden in "mean," "humane," "give me an apple," "I am next," and "in a measure" (where no transposition occurs). The deceit is not limited to single words or detached sentences. It can be employed in lengthened and connected discourse, as the following example proves :

"Eager to hear Anselmo, and warned by neither sign nor omen of impending disaster, there entered from every opening crowds of people who, surging to and fro, met finally in the centre of the vast enclosure. The clamor ended, Anselmo, resting on his staff tipped with gold from ore of native source, addressed the multitude in words that breathed more of moderation than of anger:

'If immediate danger moved within our midst, my friends, then would sermons be out of place, and room remain for little else but deeds; then, indeed, would the counsellor embarrass, the hero embolden. But fortunately for you, your families, and for me, the danger, though existing, is still remote enough to permit of sober deliberation.''

The foregoing serves to illustrate how the word "Rome" can be concealed repeatedly (fourteen times); and to show how feasible it is, with some patience and ingenuity, to hide any other word in a similar way without notably detracting from the natural, connected and easy flow of written speech. It remains for each reader to determine how quickly the hidden word dawned upon his intelligence; but it must be conceded that, unless he had been forewarned of the fact, the difficulties would have been much greater, and the probabilities are that, engrossed with the subject of discourse, he would have read right on and left the word unnoticed.

Such was certainly the case with the writings of the ancients, for in this way, simple and familiar as it is, did they baffle the profane; with this Circean wand of transposition were the names "Christ" and "Jesus" written time and again by Homer, by Hesiod, and by many another who wrote before and after their days; and in this same way were other important names, such as "Mary," "Joseph," "Nazareth," "Bethlehem," "Jerusalem" and some others, concealed from all who were outside the inner circle. The advantages attached to such a mode of cipher writing are evident enough. To a certain extent it did not interfere with freedom and easiness of style; it was suitable for all languages, for all kinds of writing, and could be employed by the poet or philosopher, the historian or biographer; it fulfilled, too, the prescribed conditions, namely “a uniform mode of concealment, readily observable by the enlightened, but not by the profane"; and it insured practical safety, since, if suspicion's eye-glance chanced to lour upon its weakest spot—a combination lacking transposition (like "name" in "in a measure")—the informer's jaws could be locked up by the plea of a chance coincidence.

Two objections to our assertion will rise instantly to the reader's lips :

I. A cipher so simple could not escape detection by the
Pagan.

2. The combinations, if existing, prove nothing. "Rome,"
for instance, may be concealed fourteen times, or forty if
you will, in the illustration given. But what of that?
Who thinks of it, any more than of Cairo, Caesar, Blanc,
Volga, time, space, or any other name proper or common?
Who can be expected to think of it, or to look for it, or to
find it, unless suggestively directed to do so? And when
the combination is noticed, what of it? It may be "more"
as well as "Rome"; and, whether one or the other, it
conveys no intentional concealment, fixed design, or ulte-
rior motive on the writer's part, and may, therefore, be
considered as a mere fortuitous grouping of letters. So,
too, with the chance grouping of "Christ" or "Jesus"
letters in the Greek or Latin text.

Let us answer each of those in turn, first disclaiming any merit for our illustration save what must be granted it—a possible way of concealing our Lord's name in written and connected speech.

I. The cipher, as already remarked, is not so simple as it looks to be when we know that transposition is employed; and this key, the only one that will turn the wards, was unknown to the profane reader. His knowledge, also, was limited probably to that of two words, Christ and Jesus, the names of one who would come to war with tyranny and make man free, to war with idolatry and make men turn to the One God. Outside of those points, the pagan priests and rulers were not much concerned, and were in total ignorance. Herod, king and Jew though he was, did not know where Christ was to be born. Why should the pagan know more than Herod did, or as much? This limited acquaintance with two names would necessarily hamper detection; and so, too, would the apparent subject matter of what he read. Men do not look for the names of constellations in an arithmetical treatise, nor for historical personages in an essay upon psychology. Why, then, look for "Christ Jesus" in poems that had war, love, revelry, bucolic pleasantries, satire, or social topics for their surface theme? The theme distracted the pagan's attention and biassed his thoughts, biassed it to such an extent that dies usurpatus seemed only a fortuitous grouping of letters, domuisse was passed by, the singing bird in avis est was left unnoticed, and pullus cristatus was only an every-day term.

Why, moreover, should the poets have been suspected of Christian teaching? We moderns have read their works as often, carefully, and critically as the pagans ever did; and, in comparison with those latter, we certainly have entertained as high, if not higher, opinion regarding the poets themselves. But have we ever suspected them of Christian teaching? Have we ever given them credit for higher thoughts and a nobler theme? No; the pagan theme is our theme; our constructions are those of pagan Greece and Rome; and since the cipher has escaped detection by us, why should we expect the pagan world to have fathomed it?

It is well to say, however, that the characteristically lettered and non-transposed form of the Name (as observed in "si es usquam") was very seldom employed; that transposition was but one factor in the cipher; and that there was another (which, and the reasons for which, will be explained later on) affecting the letters themselves, and of such a nature as to defy detection by all outside the Christian pale.

2. Coming to the second objection, it cannot be denied that a Christian circle of readers must have had reasons for the faith which it embraced and silently professed. To be Christians (we

use the term advisedly, since they called themselves "Christians"), they should know at least that there was One God, the creator of heaven, earth and man; a God who, in order to atone for man's original sin, would come to earth, be born of woman's seed, and be called Jesus, the Christ; who would preach the doctrine of faith and hope in God, charity to all, and universal love; who would die upon a cross to prove His love, rise from the dead and ascend to heaven.

This much the neophyte should know; and to increase those details he was referred, if he could read (and reading could not have been very limited in early days, since even slaves like Aesop and Phaedrus could read and write), to the pages of certain philosophers and poets, and was also instructed in the mystery of cipher writing. The Christian, as a consequence, had advantages which the Pagan lacked: he knew the fundamental truths of Christianity; he knew the poet's true intent and real theme; he knew the cipher; he knew what to look for in the page before his eyes. He could see (what the pagan did not) the pictured Name in dies usurpatus, domuisse, avis est, pullus cristatus, and others like them—and, though noting them well, he, like the pagan, often passed them by. Why? Because for the time being they were fortuitous groupings, the privateers of ready speech, but with no royal commission from the poet to fight for the Name and subject he was writing of at the moment. Still, the Christian kept up the search until he found the keyword the true and only vessel, with all its letters of marque properly signed, sealed and delivered, that tallied completely with the description.

Had we offered a precious reward for the word concealed in our illustration, interest would have been excited, thought spurred, and (despite all the difficulties objected to) some one quickly made the richer; and had we added a codicil to it, stating that the hidden word was the name of a well-known city, then-we would be only insulting the reader's intelligence. Well, the early Christians looked for a rich reward-eternal life; that spurred their thoughts in searching for the word; and that word, as they had been told beforehand, contained the name of their Redeemer.

This, it will be noticed, nullifies one portion of the objection and brings us face to face with the real question at issue. Did the poets write the Name in the bare, bald fashion that "Rome" was written in our illustration? Did they merely put it down and