click to read pdf file - The Preterist Archive

446 DAKKNESS AND DAWN
CHAPTER LIII
'HE WHO SAW THE APOCALYPSE*
1
Quest! e colui, che giacque sopra
'1
petto
Del nostro Pellicauo ;
e quest! fue
Di su la croce al grande ufficio eletto.'
DANTE, Paradise, xxv. 112-114.
THE slave Philetus came to the house of Aliturus on the next
Sunday evening, and told him that the Christians now knew
themselves to be menaced by imminent peril. They had consequently
changed their place of meeting to another sand-pit
near the Appian road, where they would be assembled in unusual
numbers, expecting the presence of John, one of the
twelve companions of Jesus whom they called Apostles.
Aliturus, seeing the character of the man, who was one of
those who are ever ready to sell their souls for gain, said as
little to him as possible ;
but while he donned his Ephesian
disguise he determined to do his utmost to warn the Christians
secretly of the toils which, before he knew their true
character, lie himself had designed to spread for them.
The worship of the congregation resembled that on the
previous First-day evening, except that the impression of
solemn expectation was even more thrilling and intense.
Aliturus was at a distance from the Apostle, whom his fellow-Christians
surrounded with a reverence akin to awe, and
whose bearing, though full of love and humility, was yet
more full of natural dignity than Aliturus had ever observed
in Consul or Emperor. During the day the Apostle had
walked through the areas of encumbered ruin and blackened
waste, which in ten regions of the city were all that was left
of Rome. He had walked along the lines of temporary huts
in the Campus Martius, and heard the wail of men and women
who refused to be comforted for the loss of all. He had
stood behind the base of a half-calcined pillar on the Aventiue
when Nero had been carried past him in an open
litter of