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A terror of shadows!

Be that as it may. But do you not see that this paralysing terror has curdled and coiled itself up into a wall around the Emperor? Ah, I see very well why the great Constantine promoted such a will-binding doctrine to power and authority in the empire. No bodyguard with spears and shields could form such a bulwark round the throne as this benumbing creed, for ever pointing beyond our earthly life. Have you looked closely at these Christians? Hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked, flat-breasted, all; they are like the linen-weavers of Byssus; they brood their lives away unspurred by ambition; the sun shines for them, and they do not see it; the earth offers them its fulness, and they desire it not;—all their desire is to renounce and suffer, that they may come to die.

Then use them as they are; but you yourself must stand without. Emperor or Galilean;—that is the alternative. Be a thrall under the terror, or monarch in the land of sunshine and gladness! You cannot will contradictions; and yet that is what you would fain do. You try to unite what cannot be united,—to reconcile two irreconcilables; therefore it is that you lie here rotting in the darkness.

Show me light if you can!