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  Text originally published in 1956 under the same title.

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  Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

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  A GOAT FOR AZAZEL

  A NOVEL OF CHRISTIAN ORIGINS

  BY

  VARDIS FISHER

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Contents

  TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

  DEDICATION 4

  I 5

  II 12

  III 16

  IV 24

  V 34

  VI 42

  VII 51

  VIII 59

  IX 71

  X 80

  XI 90

  XII 100

  XIII 110

  XIV 122

  XV 128

  XVI 136

  XVII 146

  XVIII 155

  XIX 166

  XX 171

  XXI 180

  XXII 187

  XXIII 197

  XXIV 205

  XXV 210

  XXVI 217

  XXVII 225

  XXVIII 232

  XXIX 239

  XXX 245

  NOTES AND COMMENTARY 253

  REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 299

  DEDICATION

  For these—JESSIE BURT, ESTHER GIPSON, THELMA, LEWIS, IRENE MEAD, MATTIE WAUGH

  “...the use of the dying god as a scapegoat to free his worshipers from the troubled....The accumulated misfortunes and sins of a whole people are sometimes laid upon the dying god....palming off on someone else the trouble which a man shrinks from bearing himself....the custom of sacrificing the son for the father was common, if not universal, among Semitic peoples....All over Western Asia from time immemorial the mournful death and happy resurrection of a divine being appear to have been annually celebrated.”

  —FRAZER

  I

  His father was a Greek named Pamphilus, who, before he was taken by pirates and sold as a slave in Rome, was a schoolmaster at Antioch. His mother Levana was a Roman of noble birth, but the mad emperor, Caligula, destroyed her male relatives and confiscated their property, leaving the women in beggary. She was born in the twentieth year of the emperor Tiberius and was actually a beggar when Pamphilus, then a slave, met her in the eighth year of the emperor Claudius. Damon, their only child, was born in the ninth year of Claudius, and so was fourteen years old in the year of the great fire which destroyed most of Rome, and fixed in him that obsessive interest in the Christians which was to endure throughout his life.

  His father’s master, one Valerius, a distant relative of the Claudian line and a very wealthy man, was invited by Nero to a banquet, at his seaside villa in Antium, the day before the fire; and Damon went along as one of the servants, for at great feasts it was a custom with rich men to have slaves in attendance on them, to wash their feet, to fan them, to sing to them, and in other ways to minister to their whims. Valerius had been depressed and anxious for many weeks, having heard that Nero intended to trump up a charge of treason against him and confiscate his holdings. Valerius had told Pamphilus that he would give him his freedom and settle on him a substantial inheritance. He was fond of Pamphilus, who had become his tutor in rhetoric and philosophy, and his close companion. On receiving Nero’s invitation Valerius said, “They always invite one to a feast, Pamphilus, before sending a messenger to give one his choice of the forms of suicide. I shall eat in preparation for my death.” Pamphilus had made no reply. For one familiar with the caprices and tyrannies of the emperors there was nothing to be said. It was widely known that Nero was short of funds. An emperor who, when he journeyed, had a thousand mules shod with solid silver, hundreds of retainers robed in the finest scarlet, and a procession that stretched out for miles, was usually in need of money.

  They arrived early in the afternoon at Nero’s magnificent villa. Damon had been in attendance with his master at some very sumptuous affairs but he had never been in the emperor’s palace or villa. The time was the 19th of July in the tenth year of Nero’s reign.

  Damon’s first impression was of huge gardens drenched with costly scents; his second, of a bald-headed senator, being borne away by his servants, in a handsome red sedan. He thought the man was ill. His father told him later that the man had been taken away to a chamber to be bathed with scented waters and rubbed with unguents. His father said the perfumes used at feasts by the more prodigal emperors, or sometimes by patricians of great wealth, were so fantastic in their cost that guests were expected to contribute to them. Passions, Damon had learned, were so unconfined that the host or one of his aides usually challenged at the door any guest whose face was sad or cynical or sickly; for no one with an unhappy mind or a weak stomach had any business at a Roman feast. Indeed, the guests were usually given a promulsis to strengthen their stomachs: the horrible concoction, Damon’s father said, was made of boiled honey, sweet wines and strong spices. If a guest sickened on this he was hustled away to a pile of raw lettuce and cooling herbs to settle his vomit.

  Sitting alone together, beyond hearing, Damon’s father had spent hours telling him about the Romans. Since Augustus, Pamphilus said, all the emperors had been prodigious gluttons. Tiberius had sat at a feast and eaten for two days and nights without rising. Caligula had been worse, Nero was certainly no better.

  Nero, whom Damon had seen at chariot races or when singing in the theaters, was a man under average height, powerfully built but corpulent. He had blue eyes touched with madness, pale red hair, a freckled florid face. His neck was short and thick, his hands heavy and gross and sprinkled with large freckles. He was very near-sighted, a condition that gave him an air of morbid doubt and suspicion. The whole world knew that he fancied himself as the greatest singer alive, a delusion which the sycophants around him did much to nourish. He also fancied himself as a musician and an actor without peer, and as an athlete of extraordinary prowess. But those who knew him best, Pamphilus said, thought him thick-witted, arrogant, self-deceived and monstrously vain; but they admitted that he was popular with the common people.

  A little drunk, when Damon and his father arrived with Valerius, Nero was singing in a very loud voice; and all the hypocrites whose lives depended on his whims were fawning and applauding, while in actual truth, Damon was to learn later with astonishment, plotting his death. A quiet, rather neurotic and thoughtful child, Damon in his unobtrusive way observed many things this evening: he was fascinated by a few of the guests—by Petronius because of his contemptuous silence and elegant sneers; Seneca, because of his fluent talk; Plautius, because of his incredible gluttony; and the beautiful Murdia because, though a Christian lice his own mother, she seemed to be wanton. Damon was dressed in livery and had many tasks but he also had time, as the party progressed into deeper drunkenness, to look round him and to listen. He had seen feasts but never so much food or so many kinds. As the various courses were brought on the nature of them was proclaimed by the master
of the banquet, who drooled from his tongue and leered like a pimp. The first course, the gustatio or appetizer, included oysters, eggs, mushrooms, all saturated with a sauce of sweet wine mixed with heavy amber honey. Among the tidbits were tongues of flamingoes and other birds, the flesh of ostrich wings, breast of dove and thrush, livers of geese, and a concoction of sow-livers, teats and vulva in a thick syrup of figs. Of the main dishes he managed to taste chicken covered deep with a sauce of anise seed, mint, lazerroot, vinegar, dates, the juices of salted fishguts, oil and mustard seed. There were many kinds of fish, all heavily spiced, rich and dripping; thrush on asparagus; a pastry of the brains of small birds; sows’ udder floating in a thick jelly that smelled of coriander; roast venison, pig, fowl and hare; and innumerable sausages and pickled or spiced meats. A dish in great demand was a jelly of sow-livers that had been fattened on figs, an invention of Apicius, a famous gourmet under Tiberius. When the tables were wiped clean for new courses, the servants, including Damon, were expected to move in dance-rhythms and to sing. He moved his lips but he made no sound.

  Of wines, Valerius had told them while riding over, Nero would have only the choicest: old crusted Alban and Setine; the famous Falernian vintage of Opimius, said to be a hundred years old; and Chian. Damon managed to taste them all. They were all very sweet. They were not, it seemed to him, the kind that would mix happily with sauces drenched with oils and with hot spices. He knew that the mansions of the wealthy had vomit-chambers, to which guests, sickened by eating, could withdraw to empty their stomachs, and so eat again. Aids were there, including long feathers with which to tickle the throat, and various emetics of mustard, salt and nauseous herbs. Servants were there to assist the glutton, cleanse his face and clothes, and give him cooling drinks or gentle herbs to settle his stomach, or medicines to promote his appetite and digestion.

  Damon now and then stole near to observe Plautius, whose gluttony was legendary. It was the Roman way when eating to lie belly downward on a couch, and reach out for the food heaped on tables. When sated, the diner turned to his left side. For what seemed to Damon a long time Plautius fed ravenously with both hands, assisted by slave-boys whose long hair he used as napkins to wipe his dripping fingers. In a moment when Damon was staring at him he suddenly rolled over and sat up. He leaned forward, his elbows across his knees, his bulging eyes looking horrified and expectant. He started to rise but at once vomited, pouring out of his outraged stomach oysters stewed in garum, figpeckers, African snails, sow-udder, mussels, Lybian truffles, honey, sauces, pastries, wines, fruits. Nobody but Damon thought anything of it. Vomiting was the surest possible way to show approval of a cook’s art and a host’s hospitality. Slaves, including Damon, hastened over to clean up the mess; and the huge fellow staggered off, clutching his guts with both hands. A little later he returned, looking cleansed and fit, and began to eat, choosing first an antidote against poison, which was furnished to all guests, and then a sweet thick wine mixed with boiled honey and heavy cream. He must have drunk a pint of this when, smacking his lips, he looked over the tables and chose sorrel and peppers. These were intended to keep his stomach from heaving. But presently, Damon observed, his own stomach turning sick, the man was devouring rich hot meat dishes, raw brains in jelly, a paste made of camel-heels, and huge quantities of Falernian. After a few minutes he sat up again and stared down like a man contemplating the treacheries of his stomach. How many times this monstrous glutton ate and disgorged Damon was never to know, for his attention was drawn to other matters. Hours later a few of the guests, deathly sick, were laid out on couches, with slaves fanning them. Damon fanned one of them until the man fell asleep, when he went over to hear what Seneca was saying.

  Seneca, Damon had heard Valerius say with contempt, pretended to believe in an austere life of self-denial but had never practiced what he preached. He taught against the accumulation of wealth but was himself among the richest men in the world; advocated a brotherhood of man but lent money at usurious rates; proclaimed that ambition ought to be restrained but aspired to be emperor of Rome; and in still other ways was an odious example to those whom he exhorted.

  Damon saw a short man of Spanish extraction, with a great bald head, a grossly fleshy neck and jowls, and a short pointed beard that was gray. His speaking voice was not pleasant; it was nasally resonant and became shrill when he was agitated. His hands, with which he gestured to silence a disputant, were heavy and abnormally hairy; and his mouth back in his beard had, Damon thought, a number of decayed teeth.

  It was Nero’s whim to invite to his feasts actors, singers, philosophers, physicians, as well as base fops with the stain of low birth upon them. They reeked of unguents and hovered attentively on the words of the powerful. Among these sycophants was an exquisite dandy named Regulus, who had painted a dark circle round his right eye and covered a part of his forehead and one cheek with patches; for this was then the fashion with fops.

  As Damon moved within hearing he heard a statement and glanced quickly at his father. If God, Seneca said, had given man a rational nature, then nothing was more becoming to man than reason. He elaborated on this by saying that reason could be improved with study and the pursuit of truth, that philosophy purified a man of prejudice and superstition, promoting virtue and self-confidence. He said he was not yet wise, nor would ever be. “Do not ask me to be equal to the best, but rather to be better than the base. That is enough for me—daily to take away something from my faults, and rebuke my errors.” Then he made a statement that caused Damon’s father to reach down and clasp his son’s hand. “There is an old proverb,” said Seneca. “If one should tell you that he has sought and found, do not believe him; but believe him who tells you that he found without seeking.” Why, after Seneca had uttered those words, had his father squeezed his hand? Damon thought he knew but he was not sure.

  Regulus interrupted to ask: “What do you think of the Friends?” He meant the Christians.

  Seneca spoke with bitterness tinctured with contempt. He had heard of these people and he had seen a few of them; he thought them stupid, ignorant and contemptible. They were dangerous to the Empire because they would dissolve the ties of custom, home and friendship, desecrate religious institutions, encourage hatred of mankind. They despised life, they projected their whole interest into a mythical future. The doings of the wretches were illegal, for did they not live in secret societies? In fact, did they not imitate the rites of the mystery cults, the better to deceive the unwary and prey on the ignorant? He looked round him and said: “I have heard that some of them eat human flesh.”

  Because his mother was a Christian Damon was listening with all his ears.

  “Great philosopher,” said Regulus, impudently baiting him, “they believe in a brotherhood of man. My wife is one.” He turned to a group that was watching naked slave-girls dance. “Murdia, come here!”

  There came toward Regulus a very beautiful woman. She was giddy, for she had been drinking too much; and she moved with the air of a woman who viewed with cynical indulgence her baser passions.

  “You’re a Friend,” said Regulus. “Isn’t it true that you people believe in a brotherhood of man?” He turned to Seneca. “You Stoics profess to believe it. You and the Friends seem to have much in common.”

  Seneca growled and for a few moments seemed to be listening to an inner voice. “Who are these people?” he said at last. “Beggars, slaves, the rabble and chaff, the vulgar outcasts, illiterate, ignoble, barbarous. Is there virtue in them? Is there love of truth? Do the fools really believe in the immortality of their flesh and bones?”

  “You say slaves?” cried Murdia and poked at him with her fan. “I’m no slave but to love. Do you know that one of the noblest women present tonight is a Friend?”

  “Who could that be?” asked Seneca, looking round him.

  “Equality and brotherhood,” said Regulus, pressing his point. “That’s a Stoic doctrine, even though,” he added with soft insolence, “it is seldom observ
ed.”

  Seneca turned his dark sad eyes on Regulus. “Can the stupid ever be equal with the intelligent, the cowards with the brave? Who but imbeciles believe in equality? As for brotherhood, Cicero said that nature inclines us .to love men, that such love is the foundation of law. Men, he said, are born to help one another—”

  “That’s all very pompous and empty,” said Regulus, leering round at his circle of intimates. “But is that what you practice? Would you go among this rabble and chaff and call them brothers?”

  “Yes, would you?” asked Murdia, breathing in his face. “No, you wouldn’t!”

  Seneca fixed her with his unhappy eyes. “I observe your costly raiment,” he said. “Your speech is not that of the rabble. Why, then, are you one of these people who abhor art because their dull minds think it idolatrous? They despise life—”

  “There’s another life!” Murdia cried at him. “It isn’t this corrupt life of flesh, no, but life in Christ and the Kingdom; and the Kingdom, sir, will come any day now! There is one who came and will come again, to right wrongs, to destroy evil, to punish the wicked and give fellowship to those cast out, peace to the whole earth!”

  Seneca rumbled, as with incredulity. “Peace to the whole earth, did you say?”

  “Peace!”

  “Dear woman, you use the word christ but do you know its meaning? It is a common name over the whole earth for both slaves and freedmen. Greek, it means the anointed one and over in Antioch these people are called Christian, after the word christ, but the Antiochans use the term in reproach and contempt. These people—”

  “We do not call ourselves Christians,” Murdia said, her dark eyes despising him.

  “Why not?—if you believe in a mythical Christ? Here in Rome you call yourselves Friends. In other cities, I have heard, these people call themselves Disciples or Brethren or Saints or the Elect, or even the New Israel.”