‘I never thought of that,’ said Britannicus. ‘And are all the other stories about these Christians lies?’ he asked after a pause. ‘They are,’ said Pomponia. ‘Some day, perhaps, you shall judge for your own self.’ CHAPTER XI ‘_A FOREIGN SUPERSTITION_’ ‘Quos, per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat.’ --TACITUS, _Ann._ xv. 44. The young son of Claudius, burdened as he was by a sense of wrong, was not only cheered by the kindness of the conqueror of Britain, but had been deeply interested in all that he had heard from his high-minded wife. Pomponia had warned him that to mention the subject of their conversation might needlessly imperil her life, and to no one did he venture to say a word on the subject except to Pudens. It struck him that in the words and bearing of the handsome young soldier there was something not unlike the moral sincerity which he admired and loved in Pomponia Græcina. ‘Pudens,’ he said to him the next morning, when Titus was absent, ‘what do you think of the Christians?’ Pudens started; but, recovering himself, he said, coldly, ‘The Christians in Rome are humble and persecuted. Most persons confuse them with the Jews, but many Jews are nobler specimens than the beggars on the bridges, and many Christians are not Jews at all.’ ‘Are they such wretches as men say?’ ‘No, Britannicus, they are not. A man may call himself a Christian, and be a bad man; but it is so perilous to be a Christian that most of them are perfectly sincere. They preach innocence, and they practise it. You know well enough that the air is full of lies, and certainly not one-tenth part of what is said of the Christians has in it the least truth.’ The time had not yet come for Pudens to avow that his Claudia had been secretly baptised by an early missionary in Britain, as Pomponia had been in Gaul; and that he himself was beginning seriously to study the doctrines of the hated sect. But the next time Britannicus was able to visit Pomponia, he asked her if there were any Christian books which he might read. ‘There are the old Jewish books,’ said Pomponia, ‘which Christians regard as sacred, and which a few Romans have read out of curiosity, for they were translated into Greek nearly four hundred years ago. But they are rare, and it is not easy to get them. And even if you read them, there is much in them which we Romans cannot understand.’ ‘But has no Christian written anything?’