20 - The Grace of the Lord Be With You

The word “Tullianum” filled every Roman with dread. The dungeon prison was carved out of solid rock in the Capitoline Hill on the steep side overlooking the Forum Romanum. This was one place from which there was no escape. Prisoners were lowered by ropes into its lightless depths, and high above them, around the “entrance” they could never reach without outside help, a strong guard was kept day and night.

As a rule prisoners who were lowered into the Tillianum never again saw the light of day. They weren’t starved to death so much as they were eaten alive. Food of some kind was given to them, but they in turn became food for the monstrous rats and crawling things that bred in countless numbers in the foulness of the cells and corridors.

The prisoners were chained, either to rings in the walls or to great, immovable blocks of wood. The floors were littered were human offal, moldering bodies and bones gnawed clean. The poisonous air ate into the lungs and skin. Thick ooze dripped from the walls, and dampness caused the bones and flesh to swell painfully. The prisoners’ limbs, often immovable in their chains, rotted, and became gangrenous masses. The diet of bread and water quickly undermined whatever health the prisoners brought with them. When a prisoner died, the warders unchained the carcass and rolled it over toward the nearest heap of offal, so the chains would be ready for the next one.

Simon Peter, the old fisherman from Galilee, spent his last months in the Tullianum.

He was thrown into the underground dungeon with other Christians taken at the last service in the Jewish catacombs. His name was well enough known that even Caesar himself had heard that he was one of the leaders along with the man named Paul. But at the time of Peter’s arrest, Nero wasn’t in Rome. He was in Athens looking for a sympathetic audience for his poetical and musical compositions, and officials were waiting for his return before carrying out the execution of the important prisoner.

Those months of imprisonment were like a living hell. The aged apostle was chained by both legs to a ring in the wall, and he would often awaken from a fitful sleep to feel rats gnawing at his feet. The odor of decaying flesh, living and dead, assailed his nostrils from out of the darkness. No light ever broke into the prison. Yet he endured.

He endured because he knew that his savior might come at any moment. All around him he heard the moaning of his brothers in the faith, but he couldn’t see them. They constantly called on the name of Christ, begging him to hurry. But he didn’t hurry, and some of them began to fall away from the faith in the horrors of the dungeon.

From his plot of darkness, the apostle spoke words of comfort to the dying, assuring them that Messiah waited for them beyond the portals of death. He was calling them to his cross, that they might share his sufferings and eternal life. But between these ministrations, Peter himself pressed his face against the damp stone in despair.

At other times he chanted Psalms. The warders would sometimes beat him for his interminable praying. Criminals, murderers, and thieves, who were thrown in with the Christians, if they were near enough, would reach over and strike him in the darkness. His hair and beard were sticky with blood, and if his skull weren’t so hard, it probably would have cracked when a wild hand threw it at random against the rock wall.

Gabelus, the old soldier, was one of the ones whose faith began to fail, and the apostle wept when he heard him, like the others, yielding to despair.

“Come, lord,” prayed Peter in his heart, “come and help me, for the waters have come up to my lips.”


A day came when a prisoner was lowered into the hole in the ground. Two warders fastened the newcomer to a ring in the wall opposite Peter. When they left the prisoner called out, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, Amen!”

Peter couldn’t see the prisoner’s face, but he certainly knew that voice. In sudden joy he cried out, “Is that you, brother Paul?”

The Christians, languishing in their corners, feeling the last embers of their faith dying out, started up when they heard that name. Feebly they cried out, “Paul the apostle is with us!”

“Yes, I am your brother Paul, a servant of God. I’ve come to bring you the hope of Israel in Jesus Christ. Christ calls you to share his suffering. The grace of our lord be with you all, amen!”

“It is Paul!” whispered several voices. “That’s the greeting he uses in his letters!”

All Peter could say was, “Paul, my beloved brother, Paul.”

“Yes, Peter, it is I. I’ve come to share your chains in Christ!”

“My beloved brother!” wept Peter. The tears coursing down his cheeks seemed to soften the pains in his body. “Where are you?”

From opposite walls in the narrow cell they reached across to each other with their free hands and intertwined their fingers. It was like they could feel their whole bodies through the contact, and they embraced and kissed each other in the touch of their fingers.

And as if from an inner signal, they both began to chant together, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me!”

Instantly the black chamber resounded with the song of hope, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me!”

Paul felt someone crawling at his feet. He reached out and touched a face, a beard, warm flesh.

“Paul, the bringer of salvation!”

“Gabelus, is that you?” cried Paul. “Praise be to God for giving you a share in Christ’s sufferings.”

“Praise be to God for finding me worthy to be one of his soldiers,” answered Gabelus.

“Brothers in the faith!” said Paul into the darkness. “May God, our eternal help, accept our suffering as a sacrifice! Rejoice in your sufferings, for they bring you nearer to Christ. Come, brothers, let us sing a great song. God has chosen us to suffer with Christ! Let the Name of God be praised from now on and evermore.”

From the cells along the invisible corridors, across the heaps of refuse, decaying flesh, and skeletons, through halls of death and darkness, there came a sound of voices. It was like the wind stirring through the valley of withered bones in Ezekial’s vision. The voices rose, took on power and self-assurance, and shook off the weakness of the flesh.

“God has chosen us to suffer with Christ! Let the Name of God be praised from now on and evermore.”

As they spoke the words, their voices rang louder and louder, repeating after Paul the verses of the Psalms in Greek. The Jews among the prisoners recalled the original Hebrew version, as it was sung on the Temple steps in Jerusalem, and they took up the chorus in Hebrew.

“Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, praise all you servants of the Lord. Praise the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.”

They repeated the Hallel, as was done on the day of a great festival amid the glory of the Temple courts. The Greek mixed with the Hebrew, the two melodies rose side by side, like double fountains of joy. The flood of strength and renewal filled the whole underground prison. Health, liberation, and hope were found again, as if a flood of sunlight had shattered the prison and the glory of the heavens had burst on the prisoners.

The criminals in the prison and the warders outside listened stupefied to this song of exaltation coming from these half dead Christians. It was utterly incomprehensible to them. And the wonder grew daily. Ever since the new prisoner was lowered into the deeps, it was like a wind of life passed through the decaying bodies and withered bones chained to the walls and blocks. It was clear that in their singing the Christian prisoners were transported to another world.

They asked each other, “Who is this man? What does he say? He shows them something we can’t see. He makes them hear something we can’t hear.”

“Enter with us!” cried Paul. “The door is open for everyone! Come to the arms of the lord, his love waits for you too!”

“Are you crazy? We’re the ones who tormented you!”

“God’s grace is boundless. For Him there is neither stranger nor kin. Those who believe in Him will not be ashamed. The Scripture says that He is the same Lord for all. Whoever calls on Him will be saved. All of you, come, the door stands wide open!”

The hell of that prison, where the darkness of despair had been secure, was transformed into a radiant threshold on which white-robed souls waited for admittance to the innermost sanctuary of God’s eternal presence. And those whose eyes were closed to the radiance were filled with deepest envy. It wasn’t just the condemned criminals who drew close, but the warders too came with wonder and desire to those whom they had tortured just yesterday.

There was a new spirit in the Tullianum. What little water and dry bread they were brought became their common meal, and in the darkness, heavy with death, the banquet of the living faith was spread.


So the lifeline of Christ was thrown out, not just to those for whom death was already prepared, but to those who watched them, the soldiers and the warders on the upper levels of the prison. Gabelus’ faith, which had been flickering toward extinction, was rekindled, and he set about the task of winning those whose comrade-in-arms he’d once been. Old Gabelus, who once led the cohorts of Caesar to victory in the battlefield, now led the soldiers of Caesar stationed in the Tullianum to victory on the field of faith.