At the founts of the Roman and the Hebrew story we come indeed upon one mysterious link--the history of each people begins in a fratricide. As Cain slays Abel so Remus is slain by Romulus, but there the likeness ends; there is no reproach in the Roman story--"the voice of thy brother's blood" cries out through the whole course of Hebrew history. The act of Romulus founded what was most precious to the Roman, his Kingdom of God on earth--the Roman state, the Roman polity: the act of Cain awoke what lay at the source of Jewish theocracy, the persuasion of sin and of righteousness, the Kingdom based on the conscience. Neither has ever been able to enter freely into the sentiment of the other. Romulus is a hero, Cain is outcast humanity; but the temple to Romulus still evokes more response in Rome than the moral considerations connected with Abel. [Illustration: SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA The Dominican church near the Pantheon, called "S. Mary above Minerva" because it was erected upon Pompey's temple of the goddess, was built by Florentines in the fourteenth century, and is the only instance of pointed architecture in Rome. Its unlikeness to the Roman basilica is manifest.] It is the _pax romana_, the peace of the Roman empire, which was actually established as "the Peace of the Church." The peace, juridical or religious, of a world which acknowledged the sway of Rome. Without were barbarians and heretics, within was the _civis romanus_. It was a peace consistent with all war save internecine, and Rome, whether political or religious, created in the world it conquered the ambition to live and die united to the greatest of earthly entities--to live and die as catacomb epitaphs to orthodox strangers dying in Rome record--_in pace_. The Roman citizenship becomes the Catholic citizenship through the mediation of the Apostle who could say "But I am a Roman born," while setting forth imperially a Palestinian sect to the Gentile world. The stranger Roman citizen who dies in Rome for Christ links two worlds with his blood, dedicates that new _imperium_ where Rome may claim that all homage is paid _et mihi et Petro_, confounds those two things which the master of the Gospel "of the Kingdom" had set apart, the things of Caesar and the things of God. CHAPTER X THE ROMAN CARDINAL