A.D. 300 - The Early Martyrs:
The early martyrs enjoyed these gifts.
Dean Ferrar, in his book "Darkness to Dawn" states:
"Even for the minutest allusions and particulars I have contemporary authority." He refers
to the persecuted Christians in Rome singing and speaking in unknown tongues.
The above is only a secondary source.
I have endeavoured to choose a title for this book which
shall truly describe its contents. The ' Darkness ' of which
I speak is the darkness of a decadent Paganism ; the
' Dawn ' is the dawn of Christianity. Although the story
is continuous, I have called it ' Scenes in the Days of Nero,'
because the outline is determined by the actual events of
Pagan and Christian history, more than by the fortunes of
the characters who are here introduced. In other words,
the fiction is throughout controlled and dominated by
historic facts. The purport of this tale is no less high
and serious than that which I have had in view in every
other book which I have written. It has been the illustra
tion of a supreme and deeply interesting problem—the
causes, namely, why a religion so humble in its origin and
so feeble in its earthly resources as Christianity, won so
majestic a victory over the power, the glory, and the intellect
of the civilised world.
The greater part of the following story has been for
some years in manuscript, and, since it was designed,
and nearly completed, several books have appeared which
deal with the same epoch. Some of these I have not
seen. From none of them have I consciously borrowed
Vlll DARKNESS AND DAWN
century will recognise that
even for the minutest allusions
and particulars I have contemporary authority. Expres
sions and incidents which, to some, might seem to be
startlingly modern, are in reality suggested by passages in
the satirists, epigrammatists, and romancers 'of the Empire,
or by anecdotes preserved in the grave pages of Seneca and
the elder Pliny. I have, of course, so far assumed the
liberty accorded to writers of historic fiction as occasionally
to deviate, to a small extent, from exact chronology, but
such deviations are very trivial in comparison with those
which have been permitted to others, and especially to the
great masters of historic fiction.
All who know most thoroughly the real features of
that Pagan darkness which was deepest before the Christian
dawn will see that scarcely even by the most distant
allusion have I referred to some of the worst features in
the life of that day. While I have not extenuated the
realities of cruelty and bloodshed, I have repeatedly softened
down their more terrible incidents and details. To have
altered that aspect of monotonous misery which pained
and wearied its ancient annalist would have been to falsify
the real characteristics of the age with which I had to deal.
The book is not a novel, nor is it to be judged as a
novel. The outline has been imperatively decided for me
by the exigencies of fact, not by the rules of art. I have
been compelled to deal with an epoch which I should never
have touched if I had not seen, in the features which it
presented, one main explanation of an historical event the
most sacred and the most interesting on which the mind
can dwell.
The same object has made it inevitable that, at least
PREFACE IX
in passing glimpses, the figures of several whose names
are surrounded with hallowed associations should appear in
these pages. I could not otherwise bring out the truths
which it was my aim to set forth. But in this matter I do
not think that any serious reader will accuse me of irre
verence. Onesimus, Pudens, Claudia, and a few others,
must be regarded as imaginary persons, except in name,
but scarcely in one incident have I touched the Preachers
of early Christianity with the finger of fiction. They
were, indeed, men of like passions with ourselves, and as
St. Chrysostom says of St. Paul, 'Even if he was Paul,
he was yet a man ' ; but, recognising their sacred dignity,
I have almost entirely confined their words to words of
revelation. Even if I had done more than this, I might
plead the grave sanction and example of Dante, and Milton,
and Browning. But the small liberty which I have dared
to use has only been in directions accorded by the cycle of
such early legends as may be considered to be both innocent
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