Hand and Tongue

 

            Maximus was exceptional in every aspect of his life and had been superior to his peers since the moment he could read. Taller than most, smarter than most, and his eloquence in speech and thought patterns set him apart, making him the oddball in every social setting and classroom. Completing his education at the age of sixteen, he was immediately hired as a scribe and translator for the governor of the region, and, as was expected, besting every one of his co-workers in his precision, clarity, speed of work and cheerful demeanor.

              With five years of work behind him, it came as no surprise to his parents, his friends, or himself that the emperor requested his transfer to the capital to work as his own personal assistant. Accepting the proposal, Maximus saw his income double, his quality and comfort of living radically improve, allowing him to send financial support to his parents, and travel more, seeing more of the Roman Empire than he ever thought possible.

              One year into his time as the emperor's personal assistant, he and the emperor stood together on a platform overlooking the Bosphorus Strait, discussing the possible means of increasing the efficiency of shipping through this body of water. Like an expert craftsman, Maximus weaved together the details of water currents, ship sizes, the impact of weather, and the varying quality of relationship between Constantinople and the surrounding nations.

              The emperor motioned for him to sit, allowing Maximus to finish his thought process, in a way that the emperor clearly felt satisfying, asking him to put his plan on paper and deliver it to all those involved in every aspect of shipping and international relations. He cemented his thoughts into his memory and enjoyed the sudden shift of conversation from shipping to small talk about society, culture, and religion.

              He understood the emperor's attitude and feelings about religious practice, the gods, and the exclusivity of some of the newer religions. He shaped and controlled his language with precision, speaking with enough ambiguity to avoid giving away his personal feelings and thoughts of religion, a sensitive subject in the kingdom at this time. The emperor suddenly stood up, pulled Maximus to his feet, thanked him for his time, and led the two of them back inside the walls of the city to enjoy a dinner with several dozen other military, civil, and religious leaders.

              He enjoyed the meal and subtly watched the behavior of this wide variety of powerful men, particular intrigued by those who called themselves Christians, followers of a failed religious leader in Jerusalem several centuries earlier who had been crucified for accusations of political and religious troublemaking. While the civil leaders and military leaders gorged themselves, and drank copious amounts of wine and beer, some of the religious leaders were subdued, mild, and self-controlled, which sparked many questions in Maximus' mind.

              He made a mental note of names and faces, curious about what would motivate someone to pass up full access to the very best food and drink their city could offer. The next day he visited numerous friends and acquaintances to track down the unusual guests from the previous night, driven to find them, watch them, explore their backgrounds, their lives, and the environments in which they lived.

              By the end of the day, he had addresses for them all, giving him the data he needed to send spies in among them to learn as much as possible. The following morning he received word back from his spies that everything with their prey couldn't have gone better or revealed better quality people. Maximus then made the decision to experience this for himself, tracking down each one, hoping that his face would not seem familiar, and earned enough trust from them to join them in one of their religious services.

              By the end of the evening, in a part of town that he in the past never would have visited, for its poverty and crime, he marveled at the kindness, genuineness, and generosity of these people, which eventually turned into multiple conversations that spanned the space of hours. Given a scroll as he was striving to end the conversation, he returned home, read the scroll three times, and finally turned in to hopefully pick up enough sleep to get him through the next day.

              Like an itch that couldn't be scratched enough, the words of the scroll tugged at his heart and mind, forcing him to question the shallowness and insecurity within him, a battle that ensued for weeks on end until he finally reached a point that being with the emperor, his servants, and the vain wealth made his skin crawl. Again he found himself on the platform overlooking the Bosphorus Strait and listening to the emperor laud his excellent insight into the shipping problem he had solved weeks before.

              "You seem to have a different attitude about you, Maximus," the emperor said, " has something significant happened to you because you are certainly different than you were a month ago."

              Unable to speak anything but the truth, Maximus gushed forth the change of heart that had taken place with his interaction with the unusual religious men from the dinner party and as he spoke he could see the emperor's face change and become dark. "This is possibly the worst decision you every could have made," he said, "these followers of Christ are nothing but trouble and I've heard that they actually consume human flesh in their ceremonies."

              The emperor then stood, pulled Maximus to his feet and led him from the platform and back into the palace. As they stood in silence in the grand hall, a handful of soldiers burst into the room and rushed toward the emperor, obviously troubled and somewhat disheveled. "Maximus, quickly gather your things and get out of the city, for we are under attack. We cannot allow the enemy to capture you and take advantage of your knowledge and abilities. Move quickly."

              Heeding the emperor's direction, he rushed to his home, packed as much as he could carry, to then go to the home of the leader of the followers of Christ with words of warning. Within thirty minutes, the man's home was flooded with his fellow believers, to then depart en masse toward the waterfront to mount a large fishing vessel in order to cross the Bosphorus. Reaching land on the other side, the group broke up into smaller groups and scattered in various directions, Maximus eventually finding himself at a monastery near Chrysopolis.

              When news of the fall of the empire reached the monastery, he and all of the other monks fled to Africa to avoid the persecution coming from the hands and weapons of the Persians. Decades passed as he became more and more engulfed, enamored, and grounded in his newfound religion. His razor sharp mind, his academic skills, and his oratory excellence made him a remarkable foe for anyone who opposed the Christian faith or who tried to twist that faith into something that was contrary to what the Church had always believed and practiced.

              As he drew near to his eightieth year, his theological output only continued to increase and to influence every corner of the Christian world, resulting in his regular involvement in councils, debates, and discussions. Holding fast to the historic faith, he refused to modify his beliefs, eventually being condemned and sent into exile. Despite his old age, he maintained his belief in the historic faith.

              In what would become the last year of his life, he was brought before the imperial court and emperor and rigorously questioned, hoping that his former relationship with the emperor would carry some weight and influence, he discovered that he was mistaken. When he absolutely refused to change his views, he was bound, tortured, had his right hand chopped off and his tongue uprooted from his throat, to then be sent off into exile into the Caucasus Mountains. Before the year was complete, he died from a combination of old age, fragility, and his physical torments.

              His memory, his writings, and his brilliant academic work was honored and retained, and his body was rescued and sent to the monastery in Chrysopolis, the place that had been his home for many decades. In less than twenty years, the finer points of Maximus' theology were recognized as accurate and embraced as in line with the historic faith. An official declaration was made that Maximus was correct in his teaching, even when it seemed that everyone else in the known world was in opposition to him.