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'A FOREIGN SUPERSTITION' 73
But the next time Britannicus was able to visit Pomponia,
he asked her it there were any Christian books which he
might read.
'
There are the old Jewish books,' said Pornpouia, which
'
Christians regard as sacred, and which a few Romans have
read out of curiosity, for they were translated into Greek
nearly four hundred years ago. But they are rare, and it
is not easy to get them. And even if you read them, there is
much in them which we Romans cannot understand.'
'
But has no Christian written '
anything ?
'
Scarcely anything,' she said. '
You know the Christians
are mostly very poor, and some of them quite illiterate. But
there is a great Christian teacher named Paulus of Tarsus,
and many who have heard him preach in Ephesus and in
Philippi, and even in Athens and Corinth, say that his words
are like things of life. My friend Sergius Paulus, the late
Proconsul of Cyprus, has met him, and spoke of him with
enthusiastic reverence. He has written nothing as yet except
two short letters to the Christians in Thessalonica. They are
only casual letters, and do not enter into the life of Jesus the
Christ, or the general belief of Christians. But I have them
here, and will read parts of them to you if you like.'
She read to him the opening salutation, and on his expressing
astonishment that he could join 'much affliction' with
'joy,' she explained to him that this was the divine paradox
of all Christianity, in which sorrow never destroyed joy, but
sometimes brought out a deeper joy, even as there are flowers
which pour forth their sweetest perfumes in the midnight.
1
Then she read him the exhortations to purity and holiness,
and asked him l whether that sounded like the teaching of
men who practised the evil deeds of which the Christians were
accused by the popular voice.'
He sat silent, and she read him the passage about the
coming day of the Lord, and the sons of light, and the
2
armour of righteousness. Lastly, she read him the concluding
part of the Second Letter, with its exhortations to
diligence and order.
'
I '
think,' she said, that in one passage Paulus may perhaps
refer in a mysterious way to your father, the late Emperor.
He is
speaking of the coming of some lawless tyrant and
* 1 Thess. iv. 1-8. 2 1 Thess. v. 1-11.