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CHAPTER I.

LOCUS IN QUO.

A long time ago, Etearchus, King of Axus, in Crete, married a second wife (as many better men have also done), and she persuaded him to get rid of Phronime, the pretty daughter of his former spouse. Thereupon Etearchus agreed with a merchant of Thera that he would take Phronime away in his ship and let her down into the sea. The merchant, true to the letter of his bargain, did let her down into the sea, but true also to that natural tenderness toward a pretty woman which inspires the breast of every man who is fit for anything in this world, he quickly drew her up again by a rope which he had fastened around her lissome waist for that purpose, and conveyed her safely enough to Thera.

There Phronime met another man, Polymnestus by name, a descendant of the ancient Minyæ, who also had a keen eye for feminine beauty, and him she married. By this Polymnestus our Phronime gave birth to a man-child, who grew up to be a terrible stammerer, and was therefore called Battus.

And afterward, when Grinus, the Theran king, made a pilgrimage to the oracle of Delphi to see whether the oracle would tell him some remedy for a fearful drought which then afflicted all the land of Thera, Battus the Stammerer went along with him to see whether the same sacred oracle would tell him some remedy by which to cure himself of stuttering. To both of these suppliants the oracle made the same answer, and this answer was as follows: "FOUND A CITY IN LIBYA!" But they did not know where Libya was, and were, therefore, very low-spirited about finding any cure for the drought and for the stammering; until it chanced that upon their homeward voyage they fell in with an ancient fisherman, Corobius by name, who had once been driven by storms upon the African coast, and he undertook to pilot them to Libya.

And afterward, it was about 630 B.C., Battus the Stutterer went with a colony to Libya, and founded there the city of Cyrene, almost ten miles from the Mediterranean, nearly two thousand feet above the level of the sea, with the grand Barcan mountains rising between it and the great desert of the same name. From this colony afterward sprang (Pentapolis, the Grecian five-cities) Cyrene, Bernice, Arsinoë, Barca, and Apollonia.

Thus far testifieth Herodotus, the father of history, who, if not always entirely trustworthy, is certainly no greater liar than the rest of the tribe.

Battus became king of all Cyrenaica, and his descendants, by the name of Battidæ, did rule that land, and maintain the prosperity of Cyrene through eight generations, until the Ptolemies of Egypt conquered the country, and under their patronage Apollonia, the seaport, became the chief city.

It would be a great error to suppose that because Cyrene was on the northern coast of Africa, and near the vast and arid Barcan Desert, it was therefore an unpleasant seat. On the contrary, it may well be doubted whether a more delightful locality can be found on earth. All Pentapolis is remarkably healthful and pleasant, especially Cyrene and its vicinity. The lofty mountain-range slopes gently away to the very sands of earth's middle sea, the waters of which temper the heat of the climate, while the high mountains lying farther inland ward off the hot blasts of the desert. In Cyrene, and between the city and the sea, a luxuriant soil produces almost every fruit, flower, and grain known to both tropical and temperate latitudes. The grand fountain of Apollo, which the Arabs of our age call 'Ain Sahât, gushed up in the very midst of it. The mean temperature is 85° Fahr., and the variations thereof are gradual and insignificant.

In the year 26 B.C., Apion, the last lineal descendant of the Egyptian Ptolemies, bequeathed the city to the Romans.

Cyrene, so happily situated, became noted, not only for its prosperity and salubriousness, but for the intellectual life and activity of its inhabitants. It long possessed a famous medical school; it gave to fame Callimachus, the poet; Carneades, the founder of the new academy at Athens; Aristippus, the disciple of Socrates; Eratosthenes, the Polyhistor; and Synesius, one of the most elegant of ancient Christian writers.

Not far from beautiful and prosperous Cyrene, on one of those gentle declivities which were washed by the waters of the Mediterranean, there was, in A.D. 265, a comfortable stone farm-house, pleasantly located in the midst of a considerable tract of cultivated lands. The farm faced a small bay and the limitless sea northwardly; southwardly the high range of the Barcan mountains rolled grandly away, their nearer slopes inclosing the farm between the highlands and the bay, and imparting to the beautiful place a most attractive sense of quiet and seclusion from the busy world. The house was one story high, containing seven rooms, and the ground plan of it was exactly the outline of a cross, there being four rooms and a portico in the length thereof, and three in its greatest width.

At this house, in the last-named year, was born a man-child, whose fate it was to become one of the grandest, purest, least understood, and most systematically misrepresented characters in human history--Arius the Libyan, the Heretic--whose fortunes, good and evil, whose experiences, heterodox or orthodox, shall be followed in these pages with genuine love and admiration, with profoundest pity also, and yet with a sincere desire to deal justly with his grand and beautiful memory, seeking to "nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice."

CHAPTER II.

TO US A CHILD IS BORN: TO US A SON IS GIVEN.

The family resident at the Libyan farm-house consisted of only the swarthy Egyptian Ammonius; his young wife Arete, who, although an Egyptian, had somehow acquired a purely Greek name, a fact which indicated vast influence that the great Grecian city of Alexandria had long exerted over Egypt; and an old female domestic that had belonged to Arete's mother during even her girlhood, and was called Thopt, the abbreviation of some ancient Coptic name, the letters of which still served to point out the fact that in her infancy she had been dedicated to the service of some one of the gods of the Nile.

The tropical sun was just rising along the Libyan coasts, when old Thopt came into the apartment in which sat Ammonius awaiting news of his wife, bearing in her arms a creature that was swaddled up in such innumerable bandages that it looked like a new and diminutive mummy, and, presenting this pygmy to the father, the old woman said: "It is a man-child, and a fine one! But he hath a forehead like a ram."

And Ammonius carefully but awkwardly took the parcel into his own hands, and looked upon it with curious emotion, whereupon the manikin began to cry so suddenly and vigorously that Ammonius would have let it drop upon the floor if old Thopt had not seized it just as the lapse began.

"How fareth the little man's mother?" said he, "and may I not go in to see her immediately?"

"She rallieth from her trial wonderfully," answered old Thopt, "and even now inquireth after thee."

And the great, rough, swarthy man went into his wife's room, and, bending over her, he kissed her with exceeding tenderness: "May the Lord help thee, mother," he said, "for thou art mother now, and doubly dear to me!"

"Bless thee, husband!" said Arete; "and remember that thou hast promised me that, if the babe should prove to be a boy, thou wouldst have him educated for the ministry of Christ. May the Lord raise him up for his own glory!"

"Amen!" replied Ammonius, fervently. "I did so promise thee, Arete, and will so do if the Lord will. Already our pleasant farm is so famous for its excellent cattle, that whereas I did call the house Baucalis because, when the wind bloweth from the east, the water runneth through the narrow entrance into the little bay, with a murmur like the gurgling of wine from a bottle, the neighbors call the place Boucalis because they say that no land in all Cyrenaica produceth more or better cattle. So, little mother, thou need not fear but that with the cattle and with shipments of corn to Alexandria, whence the merchants transport it unto Puteoli and Rome far across the sea, we shall be able to give thy boy all proper training to become a presbyter, or even a bishop, if he liveth and showeth a godly disposition."

"And thou wilt never let the love of gain, nor of worldly honors, grow upon thee until thou shalt repent thee of this purpose, and so determine that it would be better for the boy to betake himself to business affairs and acquire wealth rather than to serve God wholly?"

"Nay, verily," cried Ammonius; "for the matter lieth nearer to my heart than even thou knowest, Arete."

"For what reason, then, good husband?"

"I have often told thee, little mother, that I was a boy in a temple on the Nile, dedicated to Amun, or Ammon, as mine idolatrous name doth signify, and that at an early age I fled therefrom and betook myself to the river and to the sea, and did prosper so that I got first an interest in a ship, and afterward the sole ownership thereof, and made many long and prosperous voyages. I have told thee, also, in all details, how, on a voyage from Alexandria unto Italy, the storm drove us upon a rocky island where our destruction seemed imminent, until, while we all were momently expecting death, a quiet and almost unnoticed passenger, who had come from Antioch unto Alexandria and was journeying with us to Puteoli, did pray for us to Jesus Christ, and stilled the storm, and so saved the ship and all our lives. I have often told thee how this good Bishop of Antioch did lead me into the knowledge and love of Christ, and how I sold my ship and cargo, and gave one half of my property to the Church, that other Egyptians might be converted, and with the other moiety bought this farm, having known the pleasant coasts of Cyrenaica for many years; and then returned to Alexandria to bring thee hither that we might as stewards of the Lord manage this estate together. But I did not tell thee that when the bishop asked me whether I experienced any vocation for the preaching of the word, and I did tell the holy man that neither natural gifts nor education fitted me for that sacred calling, I did then vow to the Lord that if any son were given unto me I would teach him as far as I might be able to do in the love and learning of the gospel, and would send him unto Antioch to be more thoroughly instructed. So thou seest, dear little mother, that not only thine and mine own inclinations, but also mine obligation given unto God, bindeth me to bestow upon the boy all the teaching I can give unto him, and to afford to him every reasonable opportunity for greater learning. And I pray that he may escape the physical infirmity which, even more than the lack of learning, hath kept me from the public ministry of the word!"

"It is a strange and perplexing thing," laughed Arete, "and yet amusing. For all the Christians of our region rely upon thy strong good sense and modest learning in every private matter, whether of business or of religion; yet it seemeth so pitiful that, if thou standest upon thy feet to speak to any assembly, thou dost straightway begin to jerk and wriggle like a serpent, and to hiss and stammer so that thou canst not talk intelligibly, although thou hast more brains and learning than many who are eloquent."

"I long thought it to be my duty to try to overcome these physical defects, but, if at any time my heart is deeply moved, I can not talk, and it is useless to try it any more. We shall strive both by teaching and by prayer to train the boy better."

"Dost thou not remember, Ammonius, that evening in our boat upon the dear old Nile, what a distressful time thou didst endure in thine attempt to ask me to become thy wife?" And the little woman laughed and laughed until her eyes were full of happy tears.

"Yea," answered Ammonius, "nor indeed do I think that I did ever ask thee at all. I did, after many efforts, get thee to say what words thou wouldst have a man use who loved thee and wanted thee to be his wife, and all I could do was to cry out, 'I say that to thee, Arete--I say all that and more!' and in mine embarrassment verily I could utter nothing else!"

"But," laughed the little woman, "afterward I did make thee say the words over and over again, albeit I might almost as soon have trained a parrot to repeat them."

"But I trust thou hast never regretted the trouble thou didst take in teaching me how to court thee," said Ammonius.

"Nay, verily," she answered, "but I think it was the most amusing courtship that hath ever happened."

And, while husband and wife pleasantly conversed, old Thopt brought the child back to his mother, and announced that Christian women from other farms along the coast had come to offer their congratulations and any assistance that might be needed. It was singular to observe that while the adjacent country, from Apollonia to Cyrene, and all around, was settled by Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, and Romans, and while some women and girls of all of these nationalities, during the next few days, made visits of sympathy to the family at Baucalis, none came except those who were known to each other to be Christians, no matter what their nationality might be. Practically the faith of Jesus had broken down all ethnic, social, and political barriers among those who professed it; and the only class distinction which was recognized at all was between those who were Christians and those who were not. The persecution, which had begun seven years before under the Emperor Valerian, had raged in Libya as fiercely as in any portion of the Roman Empire, and, although intermittent in its character, there had quite recently been cruelties enough, extending in some instances to martyrdom, chiefly at the instigation of Jewish and pagan priests, to render it necessary for the Christians to conduct their religious rites and social intercourse with a certain degree of secrecy, and to preserve their ancient means of instantaneous recognition in constant use, so that, when a Christian might meet any one who was not familiarly known to him, an almost imperceptible sign served as a challenge by which he was instantly enabled to tell, without an inquiry or a spoken word, whether the stranger might be a Christian or not. Of course, if any one came who failed to recognize the sign, another movement, almost as imperceptible, served to warn all Christians present that there was one near them who did not profess their faith; so that there was little danger in their usual intercourse with each other or with their pagan neighbors.

On the eighth day after the birth of the boy, a few Christians assembled at the farm, and the services of a presbyter of Cyrene were procured. They first engaged in singing and in prayer, and then a portion of the gospel was read and the communion administered, after which the child was baptized. Preparatory to this ceremony there was quite a discussion among them as to the name by which the boy should be baptized, the young mother being desirous to call him by the name of some of the holy men who had suffered martyrdom for Jesus, or had otherwise become especially dear and honored throughout the Christian communities. To this the fatal objection was urged that such a selection of a name might arouse evil-minded neighbors to the fact that there were Christians among them, and so render the family unnecessarily and perhaps dangerously obnoxious to the malice of any who might ever harbor ill-will against them. Ammonius insisted upon calling the boy after the name of a Roman who had been his partner in the old sea-faring days, and whom he had highly esteemed, although he might be still a pagan so far as Ammonius knew; and so the child was finally christened "Arius."

"It is almost the Greek name of the god of war whom the heathen worship," said the presbyter.

"He shall be a warrior," answered Ammonius--"a soldier of Christ; and the military designation is not inappropriate."

"It is almost the name for a ram!" said another.

"I desire him to become the leader of a flock," said Ammonius, "and the name is well enough."

"It is almost the name of one of the signs of the zodiac," said another.

"I pray that the boy's thoughts and hopes may be fixed upon celestial things," said Ammonius, "and the name is well enough."

"It almost signifies that he shall be most lean and spare," said yet another.

"I would not desire him to look like a glutton or a drunkard," said Ammonius, "and surely the name is well enough."

"It may signify 'entreated' or 'supplicated,' or 'execrated,' or 'accursed,'" said the presbyter, "and is certainly a strange name."

"I would ever have him sought after by the good and hated by the evil," answered Ammonius, "and I will not change the name. Let him be called Arius. Besides," he added, "what is in a name? Mine own idolatrous name signifieth 'dedicated to Am-un,' yet I hope ye take me to be a Christian. I call the farm Baucalis, from the murmur of the waters on the garden shore, but ye call it Boucalis, because it breedeth good cattle. Arius!--what doth it matter whether it meaneth this or that? I know it for the name of an honorable man and faithful friend, and, if the boy become what I hope to see him, he shall make both the name Baucalis and Arius loved and honored by the faithful everywhere. If he turneth out ill, a prouder name might be disgraced by him; therefore let him be called Arius."

And so the babe was christened.

"I perceive," said the presbyter, after the religious services were ended and all of them partook of suitable refreshments and engaged in conversation, "that thou hast fixed thy heart upon having this child devoted unto the service of our Lord. It seemeth strange to me that, having such a pious desire for him, thou that art learned and intelligent hast never thyself sought to preach the gospel of our Lord!"

"I might truly have rejoiced so to do," answered Ammonius, "but that the python's influence prevented me."

"The python!" exclaimed the presbyter; "why, brother, what can the serpent have to do with thee?"

"This," replied Ammonius. "Some time before I came into the world, at Alexandria, to which great city strangers resort from the four quarters of the world even as unto imperial Rome, there came certain priests out of India to witness the ceremonies of a great festival in honor of a new Apis, and in their train certain jugglers who wrought various wonders, and carried with them immense pythons which they had charmed and rendered harmless. While my mother stood on the propylon of our house, watching the vast procession, one of the pythons, that had its tail entwined round the neck and body of an Indian passing below, suddenly sprang up out of its coil erect, and brandished its hideous head before my mother's face, so that she fainted thereat with terror. When I came into the world she was horrified at being able to trace out in the conformation of my head and face the similitude of the cobra; and with many prayers and offerings she had me early dedicated to Ammon, thinking that perchance the idol might remove the peculiarity of my features which made me loathsome in her sight by continually recalling the fearful image of the python. As I grew older, this conformation largely faded out, but all my life, whenever my feelings or passions are aroused, involuntary action of the muscles runneth from the feet upward, and maketh me to writhe like a serpent, and throweth a sibilant sharpness into my voice, so that anything like public speaking is well-nigh impossible to me; and I am compelled to master all emotions and to preserve a perfect serenity of mind, in order to avoid this serpentine appearance which is distressful to some and fearful unto others, and am compelled to speak in the slow, methodical manner thou hearest. But for this affliction, I would gladly have entered into the public service of the Master. God grant that my boy inherit not this strange malady! Pray thou for him."

"Yea, most gladly and earnestly will I," said the presbyter. "But repine thou not, my brother; for, although thou preachest not publicly, thy godly walk and conversation are a living sermon, which all who know thee must ponder with delight and edification."

And afterward the presbyter departed, and all who had attended the service went each one his own way, with sincerest benedictions upon the little family of Baucalis, and warmest sympathy with the earnest desire of the parents that their babe might live and grow up to be a minister of Christ.

CHAPTER III.

HOW MEN LIVED IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

Soon the ripple of excitement caused by the arrival of the young Arius at the Baucalis farm passed away, and the life of the dwellers there resumed its wonted quiet. Ammonius, generally bareheaded and naked from the waist up and from the knees down, as the custom of the country was, his olive skin glistening with healthful perspiration, pursued the various labors of the farm, and his wife attended to the fruits and vegetables nigh the house; and old Thopt prepared their food, and did the washing which their simple style of living rendered necessary; and both women devoted the hours not otherwise employed to the manufacture of woolen, cotton, and linen goods for domestic uses. Neither Jewish, Greek, nor Roman women generally adopted the luxurious manners and elegance of dress and ornament common to noble or opulent Egyptians; and those Egyptians who dwelt in the agricultural portions of Cyrenaica, especially those who were Christians, followed the simpler manners of the same classes among their neighbors. At the Baucalis farm everything about the house was scrupulously clean and neat, manifestly designed for comfort and convenience, nothing for ostentation. In the business of the place, out-doors and in-doors, there was never seen any of that driving spirit which indicates a thirst for accumulation, but all duties were prosecuted as if reasonable diligence were esteemed to be both a duty and a pleasure. At the end of a year's labor Ammonius would have felt no concern at all if he had found that he had not gained a single coin beyond the sum requisite to pay taxes, but he would have experienced a humiliating sense of shame and unworthiness if the occupant of so fine a farm had failed to have enough and to spare for every call of charity, for every reasonable claim upon his hospitality, or for liberal contribution to every work in which the Church was interested. Corn, wheat, and barley, variously prepared for table use, a large variety of fruits both preserved and fresh, and many kinds of vegetables, formed their chief food. Fish of choice kinds, and in great abundance, was in common use, and domestic fowls were raised by all. The consumption of flesh was not an everyday thing with these simple and healthful people. Twice, or, at most, thrice a week neighbors would club together and kill and part among themselves a kid or sheep. Beef was little used among them, and was raised for market chiefly. Swine's flesh they never used, and they wondered at the Roman appetite for coarse, strong meat dishes. The light, pleasant wine made everywhere along the coast was in general use among them all. The every-day dress of both sexes was cotton cloth, a short kilt reaching from the shoulder to the knee, and over this, when not actively at work, a loose gown covering the person from neck to ankle, and confined at the waist with a girdle or sash of bright-colored cloth. They had garments of finest wool and linen for extraordinary occasions.

In this region the Christian communities were not formally organized upon the communistic basis of the primitive Church, because all of them were in a nearly equally prosperous condition, and there were none among them who were "poor" in the sense of requiring assistance. The few that were in any way incapacitated for earning a livelihood were related by ties of blood to one or more families, able and always willing to afford them every needful comfort and assistance. But no Christian family was ever known to refuse anything for which a needy person asked, in money, clothing, food, or whatever they possessed; and in this respect it made little difference what might be the religion or nationality of the applicant. To refuse to give to one that asked would have seemed to any of these Christians to be a wicked, almost sacrilegious, violation of the very words of Jesus: "Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away." They regarded all property of Christians as in the ownership of the Church, and themselves only as stewards intrusted with the management of this or that portion thereof. Hence every call of presbyter or bishop for assistance to less fortunate communities, and every individual application for aid, was gladly and promptly responded to; and they regarded it as part of their profession of faith to find some healthful occupation for every one that was able and willing to do anything for the common good. In the cities of Cyrenaica were many Christians engaged in multiform avocations, but even there the Christian communities were so temperate and diligent that few among them wanted anything; and the union of the faithful furnished such a perfect safeguard against the ills of life that they were not only able to care for those of their own number who might be overtaken by any calamity, but were always able and willing to afford assistance to foreign communities less fortunately situated, when requested so to do. In short, all and far more than modern "poor-laws," Masonic, Odd-Fellows', and other eleemosynary associations, marine, life, and fire companies, have been enabled to do toward the amelioration of the condition of the unfortunate, was far more perfectly accomplished by these Christian communities, that recognized as a matter of faith the principle of all human charity which extends beyond mere alms-giving, that the average prosperity of the community should extend to each individual thereof when overtaken by any misfortune--a redeeming principle which Jesus and his apostles taught in its most perfect and effective form as the "communion of saints," the partnership or fellowship of the holy ([Greek: koinônia ton hagiôn]); community of property and rights among all who believe; a principle which good men have been vainly seeking to restore in some form ever since the subversion of Christianity, in the fourth century, by the agency of numberless nugatory statutes and associations; a divine truth which in its Christless forms of "communism," "socialism," and "Nihilism," now threatens the very existence of law and order throughout Christendom; a system perhaps impossible to any government which recognizes the legality of private-property rights, and is therefore committed to Mammon-worship.

But these Christians had learned a higher truth than any known to human laws: they were the owners of nothing; they were only stewards of their Lord's goods; the wealth which they accumulated and held for the common good was to them "true riches"; the wealth which any individual held for himself and his own private aggrandizement was the "mammon of unrighteousness." Hence no Christian could be in want while the community was prosperous; no community could suffer while any other communities accessible to them by land or sea had anything to spare; and the faith of Christ made the general prosperity of all Christians insure the individual prosperity of each one; so that there were no "rich" and no "poor" among them.

Plato's dreams of a perfect community ("Republic") admitted human slavery--Jesus Christ taught the freedom, equality, and fraternity of all men: Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" abolished marriage, and proposed to hold women in common--Jesus Christ elevated marriage into a sacrament; denied man's right to "hold" woman at all; proclaimed freedom and equality for her also, repudiating the universal idea that she was a chattel, and teaching that she is a soul endowed with the same rights, duties, and responsibilities as are inherent in the soul of man. Modern reformers propose to "divide" out all property, and limit individual acquisitions thereof; but Jesus proposed to divide out nothing, and to limit nothing; but, that all things should be accumulated, owned, and used in common, as every one hath need, just as air, and sunlight, and the boundless sea are common. The word "catholic" ([Greek: kata holos]) was unknown to Jesus and the New Testament; the word "common" ([Greek: koiyos]) was the key to all of his teachings, social, spiritual, and political.

The only relation which these Christians sustained to the "government" of Cyrenaica, or to that of Rome, was to pay the taxes demanded of them; and they had no concern as to who might be emperor or proconsul, except so far as these rulers might be disposed to persecute the Christians, or otherwise. They paid taxes, to avoid giving offense, even as Jesus himself had paid tribute, although born under Roman rule, and not a "stranger," and not liable to pay tribute; but they never acknowledged the Roman authority in any other way. It would have been an ineffaceable stigma on the character of a Christian to summon another Christian before a civil magistrate for any cause; they would not "go to law before the heathen." If any differences arose between any, they left it to some of the brethren to consider the matter and adjust it; and they considered themselves bound to abide by the settlement reached, by bonds of faith and love stronger than human statutes can be made. If any became careless of right and duty, or actively wicked, his nearest friends remonstrated with him, and, if he refused to abandon his sinful course, the presbyters reproved him; and, if this proved ineffectual in working out the needed reformation, they brought the offender before the Church, and either succeeded in drawing him back into the right way, or, if he proved incorrigible, they simply refused henceforth to fellowship with him, and held him as a publican and a sinner. They never had recourse to any temporal penalties to enforce the law of Christian brotherhood; knowing that no one who refused to be controlled without the use of force was a Christian, they publicly disowned him, and that was the end of it. For they had been taught from the beginning that the essential difference between the kingdom of heaven and every other kingdom established upon earth consisted in the fact that human governments recognize private property-rights in estates, rank, offices, prerogatives, and seek to enforce these legal, fictitious rights by temporal penalties, contrary to reason and justice; while Jesus denounced all such private rights as Mammon-worship, and all statutes enacted to enforce them as lies of the Scribes and Pharisees; and never fixed, and never authorized his apostles to fix, any temporal penalties whatever. They understood perfectly well that the necessary and inevitable result of all law-and-order systems is to produce a ruling class at the top of every political fabric to whom all of its benefits inure, an oppressed or enslaved people at the bottom upon whose weary shoulders rest all of the burdens and the waste of life, and between these extremes ecclesiasticisms and an army (always on the side of the ruling classes and against the multitudes) seeking to adjust their mutual legal rights and duties by the agency of bayonets and prayer--a system of laws creating fictitious rights, creating legal offenses by the disregard of these pretended rights, and denouncing legal penalties. But they knew that Jesus died as much for the children of Barabbas as for the offspring of Herod; and that every statute, custom, or superstition which attempts to make one of the babies "better" than the others is a fraud on our common humanity and a violation of the law of Christ. For the kingdom of heaven was organized upon the basis of community of rights and property among all who believe, thereby removing all inducements to commit such crimes as treason, larceny, and fraud, which exist only by force of the statutes creating and punishing them; for civilization itself is the parent of all crime except murder or lust, which might sometimes occur from the mere ebullition of brutal passion and instinct in low and base natures. Hence those Christians, who "called nothing they possessed their own," regarding themselves as only stewards of the Lord's goods, held by them for the common good of all believers, had no use for the Roman government or any other, and cared nothing for it except so far as taxes and persecutions, imposed or omitted, might affect the temporal welfare of individuals and of the communities of which they were members. They were citizens of a kingdom in but not of the world, desiring to be at peace with all worldly kingdoms. They knew that Jesus proclaimed a good news or gospel for the poor, the very foundation-stone of which is the absolute equality, liberty, and fraternity of man; and they learned from the same divine Teacher that kings, lords, nobles, all personal and class distinctions among men, are the mere creation of legal fiction, sustained by unjust force, like slavery and piracy, and do not exist in the nature of things or by the will of God; and that these laws are everywhere only the utterances of selfishness crystallized into the form of statutes, customs, or decrees, government over the people being nothing more nor less than an organized expression of faith in the ancient lie that private property (in estates, rank, or prerogatives) is the one thing sacred in human life, and that laws and penalties are necessary to maintain it; which faith is the idolatry of Mammon, the only paganism that Jesus denounced by name, and declared to be utterly antagonistic to the worship of God. They understood, therefore, that in place of attempting (as all human legislators have ever done) to provide a more perfect law-and-order system for the protection of private rights, our Lord designed to abolish all private property, and with it all the unjust laws and penalties by which the worship of Mammon is maintained. Hence, in place of teaching to men a better slave-code than the world had known before, Jesus taught freedom for all men. In place of teaching a more effective art of war, he proclaimed the gospel of peace, love, justice. In place of ordaining only more wise and just regulations for governing the intercourse of men with their female chattels, he elevated monogamic marriage into a holy sacrament, and applied to man and wife alike the same divine law of personal rights, duties, and responsibilities. In place of teaching better laws for the government of men by other men as erring, sinful, and selfish as themselves, he taught that all such laws and government are unnecessary to any people who believe that there is something more sacred, higher, and holier than private rights, and are willing by faith to renounce all human, statutory advantages in order to acquire divine truth.

So in beautiful Cyrenaica, while Greek and Roman, Egyptian and Jew, concerned themselves about politics, and struggled for offices, and toiled beyond measure for useless gain, the Christian communities pursued the calm and even tenor of their way, meeting on every Sabbath for religious services and instruction; closing each week-day's labor with a pleasant formula of evening prayer; training up their sons and daughters to despise all the false statutory and customary distinctions and vanities of worldly life "after which the Gentiles seek"; teaching them to seek knowledge, especially the knowledge peculiar to their faith; to love all men, especially the brethren; and to regard this earthly life as but the threshold of a higher, holier, and more perfect state of being that lay only a few brief, fleeting years away from every one of them. And so, while the sun arose and set; while the harvests were grown and garnered; while the pure and fadeless sea lapsed along the fertile garden of the Baucalis farm, and new lives came upon the stage of human action, and older ones were gathered into the rest appointed for all the living, peace and plenty, charity and love, purity and truth, blessed the dwellers at the stone cottage by the sea-side.