“Because they are all members of the congregation,” Julia said more pleasantly. Gaius blinked. It would never have occurred to him to question how she managed her household, but he had not realized that her zeal had led her quite so far. She added, “They will return to the villa when this is over. I cannot deny them the chance to worship.”
Gaius thought it was, rather, that she would not, but he thought it wiser to say no more. The new Christian church was a largish old building near the river that had belonged originally to an importer of wine. The reek of old wine was overlaid by the fragrance of wax candles and early flowers were heaped on the altar. Rather crudely painted pictures — a shepherd carrying a lamb, a fish, some men in a boat, adorned the white-washed walls.
As they entered Julia made a cryptic sign; he was displeased to see that Cella, Tertia and Quartilla all tried to imitate her. Had Julia converted not only her servants but her daughters as well? He wondered if these Christians were in the business of undermining the authority of the home.
Julia found a seat on a hard bench not too far from the door, and sat down, surrounded by her waiting-women and her daughters. Gaius, standing behind her, looked round to see if anyone else in the congregation was known to him. Most of the assembled worshippers seemed to be working people of the poorer kind, and he wondered how the snobbish Julia liked finding herself among such folk. Then he recognized a face: the girl who had brought Brigitta’s daughters to the town. She had told him she came to the meetings when she could get away, and he realized now that one reason he had given in to Julia’s request that he accompany her was a faint hope of seeing her.
A priest, closely shaven and wearing a long dalmatica, entered with two boys, one of whom carried a large wooden cross and the other a candle, and a couple of older men whom Julia had told him were deacons, one of whom carried a heavy leather-bound book in his hand. This one was a rather sober-looking man of middle years. As he laid the book on the immense lectern, he stumbled over a four-year-old child in the aisle; but rather than fleeing in terror, the child laughed up at him, and the deacon bent down and hugged the toddler with a smile that transformed his face, then handed it back to its father, a rough-handed grimy man with a blacksmith’s brawny arms.
There were prayers and invocations; the congregation was purified with incense and water, all of it similar enough to a Roman ceremony that Gaius did not feel too uncomfortable, though the Latin was rather less pure. Then the priests and deacons were seated and there was a little stir of excitement as another man came forward.
Gaius was not surprised to recognize Father Petros, looking frowsy and bearded next to the others. He gazed at the collected worshippers with such intensity that Gaius wondered uncharitably if the hermit suffered from poor eyesight.
“Our Master once said, “Suffer the little children to come to me and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Many of you here tonight have lost a child and you grieve; but your children, I tell you, are safe with Jesus in Heaven, and you parents who grieve are happier than those parents who have given their children over, living, to the service of idols. I tell you that it would be better for these children to be safely dead, having sinned not, than living to serve false gods!” He paused for breath and the people sighed.
They have come here to be frightened! thought Gaius cynically. They are enjoying the thought of their own virtuous superiority!
“For the first of the great commandments is this: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul; and the second of the great commandments is this: that thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother,” Father Petros boomed. “The question arises, then: how far can a young person be held responsible if his guardians place him in the service of a heathen idol? There are Fathers in our Church who have said that all, even infants in arms, are guilty if they are present during the worship of an idol; but there others who hold that if a child’s guardians commit him to serve an idol before he shall have arrived at an age of reason, then he should be held guiltless. My own feeling is —”