'What was it the Apostle Paul said?' he asked, looking at me, his words slightly slurred.
'My lord, I am no Scriptures scholar. Even had I memorized all of Paul's writings, would you have me repeat them to you now?'
He waved me off impatiently. 'Ah, my friend, I won't let you shirk your conversational duties so easily. You know perfectly well what the great man said about salvation — you were raised among bishops as a child, just as I was. "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Was it not that?'
'Indeed it was. His letter to the Romans, too. Very appropriate.'
Julian chuckled as he saw I was warming to the topic — but still I remained chary. 'And that statement is, in fact, the very essence of Christianity, is it not?'
'Of course.'
'And one who acknowledges its truth and is witnessed to have accomplished those two things might rightly be said to be a proper Galilean, correct?'
'A proper Christian — yes, my lord.'
He waited a moment, giving me an opportunity to expand upon my responses, yet all I could feel was the heat of the room, the uncut wine making my head swim, and I knew I had no desire to participate in a farcical discussion in the presence of senators and palace toadies. Julian's eyes narrowed slightly at my clear refusal to play along with his attempts at a debate.
'Then why,' he said, feigning a look of puzzlement, 'are Christians said to fear and despise me, and claim I am not one of them? Here, I shall say it: "Jesus is lord." Now am I saved?'
I felt all eyes at our table upon me, and noticed that all other conversation in the room had fallen silent. I spoke clearly and evenly. 'I do not know of any Christians who despise you, though they might doubt your commitment to their faith. By merely speaking those words, you have fulfilled only half the requirement. You must also believe in your heart.'
'Ah — so whether or not I am saved is contingent upon whether or not I believe. If I believe I will receive salvation, then I will receive salvation. Circular logic, is it not? What if I do not, or cannot completely believe — will I be partially saved?'
'No, my lord,' I said. 'You can no more be partially saved than can a woman be partially pregnant.'
A few of the diners tittered appreciatively at the weak witticism, but were quickly silenced by Julian's stony face.
'So in other words, my entire fate is based on whether or not I believe. Not on good works, not on charity, not on love. I need only utter the magic words and believe them, whether I am an illiterate peasant, a king, or a scholar, although, in fact, the more I am the latter, the less likely I am to believe. What kind of a religion are we establishing here, that is based so much on the vagaries of one's heart rather than on one's actions in the world?'
'My lord, you belittle our faith,' I rejoined, striving to contain my anger at his mocking tone. 'You cast it in overly simplified terms, to which no religion could stand up. This is not the proper venue for a discussion of this kind. If you insist, we shall talk of these things tomorrow, in private, when you are not so-'
'Calm, calm, Caesarius, I meant no offense,' he interrupted, smiling lightheartedly. 'I call our other guests to witness that I have said nothing vicious or untrue, have I?' Most of the others at the table diverted their gaze or laughed uneasily. 'Here, on my honor, I confess my belief that God raised Christ from the dead, for I truly do believe that, Caesarius, as much as I believe that Athena appeared personally to Odysseus to assist him on his return home, and that Apollo spoke directly to Croesus through the oracle. Is there any disputing now that I am as much a Christian as the Pope himself? I believe those things!'
'"The devils also believe, and tremble," say the Scriptures.' The room fell into shocked silence.
Julian's eyes narrowed again. 'What exactly are you implying, Caesarius?'
'Only this,' I said slowly. 'The passage from Paul you cited presupposes that you have also acknowledged the verity of the Ten Commandments, the foundation of the Christian faith, the first of which is that you shall have no other gods. When you say "Jesus is Lord," you must mean he is the Lord of all, not a lord. Your belief in Athena and Apollo negates your profession of fealty to Christ.'
I sat back in my seat, incensed at Julian for putting me on the spot in this way. He stared at me, smirking, and for the first time I noticed true malice in his eyes. 'Ah,' he said, 'so there is a catch. An implied definite article modifying the noun "Lord" in Paul's passage, which neither the Greek language nor its translations into the Latin were able to make explicit, apparently due to their linguistic and structural shortcomings, and which insightful Paul, writing in a language other than his mother tongue, was unable to clarify. Forgive me my denseness on this matter, Caesarius, in not recognizing what every Christian peasant across the length and breadth of Europe and Africa has apparently easily accepted. So there is only one lord, you say?'
I licked my lips, sensing I was being boxed into a corner, but not sure precisely how. 'You know that is true, my lord,' I said, and immediately bit my tongue.
Julian seized upon my words triumphantly, as he had been waiting to do. 'Did you call me "lord"?' he asked mockingly. 'And I seem to recall your referring to the Emperor Constantius by the same term, did you not? And what will you call my successor, I wonder, should you be fortunate enough to continue your service under him? What has become now of your singular "lord," dear Caesarius? Or is there indeed a plurality of such eminences which you, in your wisdom, have not yet had the opportunity to explain to me?'
I was furious at his petty tone, and at the sophistic direction the conversation had taken.
'With all due respect, Augustus,' I said, 'you know as well as I that common court courtesy dictates that I refer to you by the title "lord." It is a linguistic convention. You are disputing semantics, not religion.'
He smiled contemptuously and turned to the men seated around him, who were staring wide-eyed and gape-jawed at my challenge to the Emperor. They quickly, and nervously, smiled back at him, but failed to meet his gaze, and he stood up, draining his cup and holding it out to the steward behind him for a refill.
'The most notable example I have witnessed this evening of the pot calling the cauldron black,' he said. 'My dear friend Caesarius now claims that we must somehow assume that the Apostle Paul meant one lord, not many, and that we must somehow assume that Paul's definition of the word "lord" was different from that used by any other man either before or since. Our Galilean here parses the meaning of Paul's simple phrase to support his own views, making Paul say something completely different from what the bare words of the text show. And when I ask an honest question about a discrepancy, as any honest reader should, it is I who am accused of disputing semantics. Is this a fair summary of our discussion thus far?'
The two rows of heads along both sides of the table nodded vigorously in agreement at Julian's assessment of my apologetics, and then all faces turned back to me. Maximus, I noticed, had perked up considerably and was staring at me with a broad smirk that exposed his crumbling teeth.
'My dear Caesarius,' he continued, 'if you and I, who have been friends now for many years, are unable to agree on a concept as simple as the definition of the word "lord," how then are we to resolve the disputes raging across the Christian world from Spain to Armenia, concerning the very nature of Christ Himself?'
My stomach had shrunken to a tight, hard little ball inside me, but I resolved to take a stand against this grossly unfair attack.
'Caesar Augustus,' I argued, 'religion is a matter of faith, not science, and it is in the nature of men that their differences increase in direct proportion to the strength of their faith. The divisions among Christians must not be viewed as a weakness in the core of Christianity, but rather as a sign of the strength of men's faith. The Greeks invented philosophy to take the place of religion, and were successful because our ancestors' pagan beliefs contradicted men's desire both for reason and for reasonable faith. In Christianity, however, the Greek philosophers have met their match, and have been defeated.'