"Peter. Verily, verily, I say
to you, When thou were young, you dressed yourself, and walked where you
liked: but when you are old, you will stretch forth your hands, and
another will gird you, and carry you where you would not like to
go."
About 23 years ago I went on a trip to Rome with my wife, who was then three
months pregnant with my son. We wanted to make a pilgrimage there, and for
her and my son to receive the blessing of the Pope, and to have a little
holiday together before life become a little more circumscribed. Before we
the children arrived we traveled together extensively while I was on
business, all over the world.
We were staying at a charming little
hotel tucked away near the Trevi fountain. While we were there one morning we
visited the room in which the English poet John Keats died of consumption,
just off to the left going down the Spanish Steps, into the Piazza di
Spagna. The year before I had visited the house in Hampstead Heath at
which he is said to have written, "Ode to a Nightingale."
Later we visited his gravesite in the Cimitero degli Inglesi, and
read the inscription on his tombstone.
This Grave contains all that was mortal,
of a Young English Poet, who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his
heart, at the Malicious Power of his enemies, desired these words to be
Engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.
Later we took a bus to the ancient wall
of the city, and continued walking through the Porta San Sebastiano,
south on the Via Applia in search of an old restaurant at which I desired to
have our usual late lunch. After a little while on the road we came to a
small, simple country church, the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Palmis,
but more commonly known as Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis. We went
inside, and to my surprise, this was the place referenced by Henryk
Sienkiewicz in his famous book, Quo Vadis which I had read in high
school.
The story of this meeting on the Appian Way so many years ago comes from the
apocryphal Acts of Peter, thought to have been written in the 2nd century
by a companion to John the Apostle. But it was not included in the
canon of the Bible.
I have to admit that it was a moving experience, to visit the places where
these things mary have occurred in whatever particular way. I felt the same
way when we toured the Coliseum, the Forum, and the Mamertine Prison which
had held both Peter and Paul. This reminds us that Keats, and Peter, and
Nero, and Paul, and so many other figures whom we remember and read about in
history were real people, in most ways just like us, making decisions with
confusion, worries, concerns, fears, and the rest of the issues that we all
have today.
Here is the relevant section about this area on the Appian Way from
Synkewicz's book.
"About dawn of the following day two
dark figures were moving along the Appian Way toward the Campania.
One of them was Nazarius; the other the Apostle Peter, who was leaving Rome
and his martyred co-religionists.
The sky in the east was assuming a light tinge of green, bordered gradually
and more distinctly on the lower edge with saffron color. Silver-leafed
trees, the white marble of villas, and the arches of aqueducts, stretching
through the plain toward the city, were emerging from shade. The greenness of
the sky was clearing gradually, and becoming permeated with gold. Then the
east began to grow rosy and illuminate the Adban Hills, which seemed
marvellously beautiful, lily-colored, as if formed of rays of light alone.
The light was reflected in trembling leaves of trees, in the dew-drops. The haze
grew thinner, opening wider and wider views on the plain, on the houses
dotting it, on the cemeteries, on the towns, and on groups of trees, among
which stood white columns of temples.
The road was empty. The villagers who took vegetables to the city had not
succeeded yet, evidently, in harnessing beasts to their vehicles. From the
stone blocks with which the road was paved as far as the mountains, there
came a low sound from the bark shoes on the feet of the two travellers.
Then the sun appeared over the line of hills; but at once a wonderful vision
struck the Apostle's eyes. It seemed to him that the golden circle, instead
of rising in the sky, moved down from the heights and was advancing on the
road. Peter stopped, and asked, --
"See thou that brightness approaching us?"
"I see nothing," replied Nazarius.
But Peter shaded his eyes with his hand, and said after a while,
"Some figure is coming in the gleam of the sun." But not the
slightest sound of steps reached their ears. It was perfectly still all
around. Nazarius saw only that the trees were quivering in the distance, as
if some one were shaking them, and the light was spreading more broadly over
the plain. He looked with wonder at the Apostle.
"Rabbi. What ails thee?" cried he, with alarm.
The pilgrim's staff fell from Peter's hands to the earth; his eyes were
looking forward, motionless; his mouth was open; on his face were depicted
astonishment, delight, rapture.
Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and this cry
left his lips, --
"O Lord! O Lord!"
He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one's feet.
The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man, broken
by sobs, --
"Quo vadis, Domine?" (Where are you going, Lord?)
Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter's ears came a sad and sweet
voice, which said, --
"If you desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second
time."
The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or
speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he rose at
last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without a word toward
the seven hills of the city.
The boy, seeing this, repeated as an echo, --
"Quo vadis, Domine?"
"To Rome," said the Apostle, in a low voice.
And he returned.
Paul, John, Linus, and all the faithful received him with amazement; and the
alarm was the greater, since at daybreak, just after his departure,
praetorians had surrounded Miriam's house and searched it for the Apostle.
But to every question he answered only with delight and peace, --
"I have seen the Lord!"
And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach and baptize
those who wished to bathe in the water of life.
And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasing numbers.
It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and
that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar
was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who
had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon,
those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the
sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out
of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.
When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the
society of the time could not give any one, -- happiness and love..."
Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz, 1905
It is too
bad that it is not read much today, because it is an interesting book. I
think it has been made into several movie versions. I especially like the one
with Klaus Maria Brandauer, although the earlier epic with Robert Taylor and
Deborah Kerr is more famous and probably more popular.
The novel was a worldwide best seller in its day from about 1906 to 1930. I
remember at the time I read it in 1968 enjoying it because of the portrayal
of T. Petronius, Nero's Arbiter Elegantiae, who is said to have
written the first western novel, The Satyricon.
The world sometimes treasures such books and stories, but it seems especially
so during times of suffering and trouble, when the great masters rise up once
again and proclaim their dominion over history. Perhaps it, or some things
like it, will have a revival when the madness is once again unleashed, and The
New Rome falls, and The New Temple is sacked.
And where is the magnificent Emperor Nero now, immortal god and lord of the
world, but a memory, returned to the earth as the dirt and dust, perhaps to
be found beneath the fingernails of some child, to be plucked out and
discarded with a 'tut tut' by a doting mother.
Epub: Quo
Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero by Henryk
Sienkiewicz
