By The Wall Street Journal Editorial | This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.
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When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus
the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was
Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.
Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the
Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in
society, for the centurions saw that it was so.
But everywhere there was something else, too. There was
oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the
tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to
feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave
largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the
circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed.
What was a man for but to serve Caesar?
There was the persecution of men who dared think
differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was
enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did
not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt
for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded
world?
Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a
man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and
unto God the things that are God’s.
And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar,
offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but
his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of
Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world and the men who lived in
darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still
believe salvation lay with the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the
truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they
tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the
light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not
whither he goeth.
Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But
afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars,
other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant
unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and
walk no more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again
over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only
of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to
new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would
not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there
would be no light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his
brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each
of the years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has
made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-hoc-anno-domini-11608765784?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
