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IN THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE 459
of the primary duties of the Christian's life, and no considerations
of personal safety were allowed to interfere with it.
The Apostle went from prison to prison breaking bread, and
entrusting to the officers of the Church, or to those who had
been longest in the faith, the money which was supplied to
him by Pomponia and by the actor. In this way he and
others, who were as yet unmolested, were enabled to minister
to the necessities of the captives, and also to speak to them
such words of hope as fell upon their souls like dew from
heaven. It was inevitable that his noble and venerable figure
should soon be recognised. The spies of the Prefect were
everywhere, and, noticing the profound reverence with which
the Elder was received, they were soon able to identify him.
He had prepared Aliturus to expect that if on any day he did
not return to the villa it would be because he was lodged in
prison. The ordinary dungeons were so full that the Apostle
was confined in the wet and rocky vault of the Mamertine.
In that prison he was visited by Pomponia, who contributed
by every means in her power to mitigate his hardships, and
received his counsel and his apostolic blessing. She no longer
hesitated to go in person to console the confessors. She found,
indeed, that they needed but little consolation. The majority
of them were in a state of spiritual exaltation which made
their faces radiant and transformed their hard fare into manna
which was angels' food. They turned their prisons into minsters,
and the coarse pagan jailors and German guards were
amazed when they heard those abodes of misery ringing with
sweet voices and the holy melodies of unknown songs. In
each place of confinement they held their daily worship, conducted
by presbyter, or deacon, or reader, and broke with one
another the bread of Holy Communion. They knew that
death awaited them, but death was to be a martyrdom, and
they looked to it, not as a curse, but as a coronation. Pomponia,
sharing all their feelings, found that it was only to their
bodily wants that she had need to minister.
She did not shrink from personal danger
: if arrested, she
would have at once avowed that she was a Christian. But her
name had not been mentioned by those who gave evidence.
Having once been tried on the charge of holding a foreign
superstition and acquitted, it was contrary to the principle of
the Roman law that she should again be accused. The deadly