by Iain Pears
So, every time he was summoned, he sighed wearily, put on his cloak, and made his way to Avignon, a monument to greed and excess he detested. And there he gave answers and opinions as best he could. His reward in 1347, three years after we are told he died but in fact a year that saw him still in rude good health, was a knock on the door and a visit from Olivier de Noyen. It was a fateful meeting for reasons even more important than the explication of an obscure text in the tradition of late Neoplatonism. In Olivier, Gersonides felt the flame burning brightly, the same one that Sophia had felt in Manlius when he, too, had come to her door. Like her, he could not resist. Unlike her, however, he cursed his ill fortune.
The phrase of Manlius that led Olivier to the rabbi was at least a considered one, and one of the greatest importance. Indeed, it was at the summation of nearly eight hundred years of thought on the relationship that must exist between the physical and the metaphysical. “The soul dies when it falls to earth.” More Christian heresies were contained in this statement than in almost anything else in the entire document. It contradicted the idea that the soul is created ex nihilo—at birth, at quickening, or at conception, a question never precisely answered. It contradicted the idea that man is born and dies once only; it contradicted the idea that salvation lies through God alone; indeed it suggests that man is responsible for his own salvation, but through knowledge, not through deeds or faith. The idea that birth is death and death is life again hardly sat easily with contemporary Christian doctrine, although it echoed all too readily with the heresies of the Cathars.
More important, it did not accord at all with the ideas that Olivier had learned so far from his readings of Cicero and Aristotle, containing a mystical, magical element entirely absent in their works.
In truth, they were ideas all but dead in the West when Manlius put them on paper, although they survived in ever more feeble form in the East until the emperor Justinian closed the Academy of Athens and ended nearly a millennium of teaching that began with Socrates. It was a long time since anything of the sort had been taught in Gaul, and Manlius and his circle only came into contact with it when they encountered Sophia, the intellectual legatee of Alexandria.
It was a duty, not a labor of love, that made her teach, for she could not but be aware that each newcomer to her door, however curious, knew less than the one he replaced. The ability to argue diminished; the grasp of basic concepts weakened; and the knowledge that comes from study grew perpetually less. Christianity, which spread over men’s minds like a blanket, put faith above reason; increasingly those brought up under its influence scorned knowledge and thought. Even those with a spark given to them by the gods wanted to be told, rather than wanted to think. Getting them to accept that the goal was thought itself, not any conclusion at the end of thought, was hard indeed. They came to her for answers; all they got instead were questions.
But she continued, because every now and then, just often enough, someone like Manlius came to her door and she tasted the joy of guiding someone whose curiosity was boundless, whose desire to approach truth inexhaustible. As Manlius grew into manhood he came to disguise this under the sneering façade of gentlemanly idleness, but it was only ever buried, not extinguished. And she felt an urgency that slowly changed their relationship from teacher and pupil into something more complex and dangerous. For after a while it was not simply that he wanted to learn from her; she also felt the desperate need to teach him, to pass on to him something so that at least it would be preserved awhile longer. For the first and only time in her life she put aside all doubts, and almost willfully refused to see him whole. She knew that Manlius had his weaknesses, knew that the regime of contemplation she offered could subdue but not quell his pride and his desire for renown. She suspected that the Manlius who retired to his estates and the Manlius who emerged to impose himself on the province were in opposition to each other, not two facets of a harmonious soul. But she ignored this, because she needed to.
There were some illusions she could not hold on to; she saw clearly that whatever he took from her would not be philosophy in any pure form. Yet through him, something might survive, and Sophia desperately wanted it to do so. She spent her life in thought, and held that thought was its own end; yet she was still sufficiently of this world to wish that something would outlast her. She scorned the body, rejected marriage, and was past the age of children; the ideas and concepts that she deposited in the mind of Manlius would be her only legacy, her only memorial. Without realizing it, she came to depend on him more than she ever dreamed possible, and this need, which rose from the depths of her soul, often showed itself in a hectoring, lecturing, critical harshness that revealed little but her desire. She loved him because he was all she had; and worried about him for the same reason.
“The soul dies when it falls to earth.” It was not a literal belief; nothing she taught was to be held literally; this was one of the most difficult concepts that her poor pupils had to grasp. For Christians had taken from Greece the idea of the logos, the word, simplified it, stripped it of its meaning, and then identified it with the God they worshiped. Sophia taught that the divine was not only beyond words but beyond meaning; only the process of thought could give an approximation of it. The phrase was a metaphor, an illustrative myth to show the magnitude of the thought journey the individual had to travel to grasp the essence of the divine and approach God in the mind. After many months’ study, much reading from Sophia’s library of texts, and detailed discussion, Manlius began to understand, and when he did, the fatuousness of Christianity was borne in on him all the more.
Olivier, however, had no such advantages; the context had vanished, the associated texts were destroyed or buried in monasteries scattered around the Mediterranean. All he had was this one text, without the means of decipherment.
And so, with great trepidation, he knocked on the door of Rabbi Levi ben Gershon. The door was opened by his servant, Rebecca, whom Pisano wanted as his model for Saint Sophia, and whom Olivier had first glimpsed two years previously hurrying along the street in her brown cloak, as the Christian stood on the steps of the church, thinking about love.
Only toward the end of their initial meeting, when he began to talk of the things he had discovered, of the manuscripts he had read, did his speech become animated and his face light up. Even so, the old man remained in a bad mood, for he was feeling his age that day, and was crotchety about being interrupted from his work. Olivier’s youth reminded him of how little time he had left to study.
“You talk too much about the language, and not at all of the content,” he said with annoyance at one stage. “Is that all you think matters? You think ignoble thoughts become less so if they are phrased beautifully?”
“I assume ugly things cannot be disguised.”
“Then you think wrongly. Indeed, you are scarcely thinking at all. I have spent my life in study and have witnessed all too often the words of the devil coming from the mouths of angels. You bring me this manuscript—which I must confess I have never seen before. I am grateful for that. It is, as you would no doubt say, written beautifully. Elegant. Charming. Even witty. But is what he says beautiful? And what do you know of the author? Is he therefore elegant and charming? You suggest only good people can write beautiful things.”
“You do not agree?”
Gersonides levered himself up from his chair with a groan, then leaned on the table in front of him as he felt his head spinning. Olivier jumped up to support him. “Sit down, sir, please. I do apologize. I never realized you were ill. I’ll go away and come back when you are better.”
“Stop fussing over me,” said Gersonides more sharply than the young man’s consideration deserved. “I cannot stand it. I am an old man. This is what happens when we grow old. It is neither unexpected nor unwelcome. Go and get me that book you see on the shelf over there.”
It took some time to pinpoint which one he meant, but eventually Olivier found it and brought it to him. Gersonides flicked
through it.
“Aha,” he said. “Here we are. At least my memory still serves me. Now, then. Manlius Hippomanes. Your philosopher-bishop. Do you know how he seems to Jews?”
Olivier was not meant to answer, so he kept silent while Gersonides read: “I will spare you the preamble,” he began. “The essence of the matter is this. ‘Manlius sent a letter to the leader of the Jews in that town and said, “I wish to live in peace with you, but your deceit and stubbornness has been the cause of violence. My patience is thus at an end. If you are prepared to believe what I believe, then become one in my flock. If not, then depart. And if you will do neither, then you must look to yourselves.” Most did embrace the truth, although some fled. The rest were killed by the mob, to avenge the stain on their bishop’s honor caused by this stubborn refusal.’ ”
Gersonides looked up. “Remember, young man, when you wax lyrical over his beauteous prose, that this man also killed my people. Not only that, he set an example for others to emulate or surpass. In this lies his sanctity. Do not expect me to admire the elegance of his thought without reservation.”
Olivier could hardly say he found it no great shame to have done so, that no one had even suggested that such a deed was to be condemned, but he could not let the matter pass silently. “Caesar was a general who killed far more people, but he is praised for his style.”
A grunt. “Caesar writes of battles and of armies, not of virtue and beauty. There is a difference. Not that we have time to talk anymore. Go away and think of this. Think of what sort of virtue this Manlius might have had in mind when he wrote about the need to embody virtue in activity. And consider also that what seems untrammeled virtue to one person may seem total iniquity to another. The task of the philosopher—your task if you so desire—is to see beyond such subluminary deceits and grasp the comprehension of virtue entire.” Gersonides waved his hand. “Now, go away. Leave me in peace. And shut the door when you leave.”
“Can I come back tomorrow, sir?”
Gersonides peered up at him. “You want to?”
Olivier nodded.
“Very well, then,” he said reluctantly. “If you must.”
He didn’t know what he was doing; he did not want to see her, he told himself. Now he knew for certain who she was and what she was—a servant, a Jew—he did not want anything to do with her. He was furious with her, indeed. For near two years now he had held this woman in his imagining, written her poetry, turned her into his muse. Every day in his mind he laid flowers at her feet, kissed her hand, more than that. And then he discovers her. And she is a Jew, a servant. He hated her, never wanted to see her again, of course not. The feelings she had aroused in him disgusted him, the poetry he had written, in praise of a Jewish servant, would make him mocked by all who learned of it.
Yet he stood waiting, pacing up and down the street as these thoughts went through his mind. He should not even talk to her. He would treat her with the utmost disdain, not even notice her next time he went to see Gersonides. It would be good for him, even a mortification of the soul, to be confronted with his error. The moment he went back to Avignon, he would burn all his silly verses, and thank God that he had read them to only a few.
And still he stood there, looking up and down the street, telling himself he would move on in a minute and go back to his lodging. But a part of him rebelled already. Those lines he had written were good, he knew, even though he could hardly bear to think of them. No matter. They would be destroyed. He would write an epic instead, celebrating noble deeds. The death of Cicero, he thought; that would be a topic worthy of the times. Not foolish love poetry deserving only scorn and derision.
Then she was there, walking down the street, and his heart stopped and his hands began to tremble. It was a mild evening, but he felt burning hot, then an icy chill crept over him. He would not talk to her; would walk straight past her.
But she would see him, might smile at him. He could not have that. Quickly, he pressed himself against the wall, hoping she would pass by without seeing him, and hoping as well that she would not.
“Sir, are you sick? Are you not well?”
Oh, that voice, so gentle and delicate, reassuring and caressing, so inviting and so soft. Of course she spoke like that; he had had dozens, thousands of conversations with her already and knew her voice better than he knew his own, long before he ever heard it. It had its own music, and he had borrowed it for some of his songs, written down by his hand, in her voice. They could only be read by her, and sometimes, when he read them back to himself late at night, he heard her so sweetly speaking his words.
“Sir? Is something not right?”
Of course it isn’t, he wanted to say. I am in love with a Jew. How can anything be right?
He shook his head.
“You must come in. Sit down by the oven. I will give you some food.” The concern was real. She reached out and took him by the hand to gain his attention and the touch burned through his skin like flame.
“No,” he said, and snatched his hand away, looking at her as though he had seen a devil.
She paused and frowned. “Then I will leave you. If you do not require any assistance.”
And she turned, and Olivier’s fine resolution crumbled. “Please don’t go.”
She turned back again, very patiently.
“Who are you?” he said.
She looked puzzled. “My name is Rebecca. I am the rabbi’s servant. You know that already.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“What?”
“I’ve seen you before,” he said in a rush. “I’ve seen you twice. Once, two years, three months, and twelve days ago. You were walking past the church of Saint Agricole in Avignon. The second time was five weeks and three days ago, in the market. You bought some herbs.”
He said it with such intensity, such seriousness, that she looked slightly frightened, then smiled. “Possibly,” she replied.
“Definitely. On the first occasion, you were dressed in an old brown cloak, which you had up over your head. You were not carrying anything, and you seemed in something of a hurry. You were alone. You only slowed to walk around a puddle on the ground. I don’t know how it got there, it hadn’t been raining at all. You were not wearing a star. The next time, you were wearing a blue cloak, with a patch by the right shoulder. No one talked to you. You bought the herbs and paid for them with coins that you took from a little purse you carried in your right hand.”
“You remember a remarkable amount.”
“I remember very little, usually. Whole days go by and they are blotted from my memory. I cannot recall anything that I was doing yesterday. For daily events I have a terrible memory. These were not daily events. My life has not been the same since. I have had nights without any sleep, when my head has pounded. I could not concentrate on anything. My friends and my master have criticized me for my rudeness, all because of you.”
“I don’t see—”
“I never want to see you again,” he said, growing angry as he thought of it. “How dare you.”
Had she grown angry in response, or been frightened, or turned away saying no more, then all would have been well. Olivier was sure of it. Instead she smiled at him, not mockingly, but with such sympathy and understanding. I wish I could help you, but I cannot, she seemed to be saying. And was there something in her glance that was a response, or a reflection of what he felt? Olivier recoiled from that smile, turned and stumbled, then ran away, oblivious to the strange looks the few other people in the street gave him.
He ran through the town and out through the gates, past the scattered houses and workshops outside and into the open country, then walked steadily and purposefully but without a destination. After an hour or so the effort calmed him, his feet slowed and his breathing returned to normal. He was not free of her; if anything, he had made his situation even worse. But slowly his mood lightened. He did not become happy, but a sort of peace came on him, and his mind began to wander, trying to thi
nk of everything and anything except for the way she had smiled at him. He mingled his lesson with Gersonides with the encounter in the street, blending what he had heard with what he had felt, the one turning into a metaphor for the other. “Woman of darkness, wisdom touching the light.” The line came to him, and he was pleased with it. The next one followed, then the next; soon the whole poem—short but so tightly packed—was in his mind dancing over his thoughts.
He shivered, though it was not cold. He walked back into Carpentras as quickly as he could, found a quiet spot in his lodgings, and, by the flickering light of a tallow candle, wrote the poem down. Then he slept, better than he had for months.
But she was frightened nonetheless. Not of the young man—that would be ridiculous—but because of the reaction he had caused within her. For two years now, she had secluded herself in the rabbi’s household. No man had even looked at her or spoken to her. She had felt safe for the first time since she had become an orphan, forced to wander the world looking after herself. She had made herself forget that time; the loneliness of it all had been banished from her mind. Anything outside the cocoon she had built around herself was dangerous, and reminded her of fear and hunger. She knew far too much of the cruelty that lay just beyond Gersonides’s hearth, and away from his quiet, unquestioning protection.
For the old man had found her wandering the streets bedraggled and bruised from the evening she had been attacked—by whom she knew not, nor for what reason. She had asked him for money, as the Jews had often been generous to her, and they didn’t frighten her. He had looked carefully at her and seen her despair.
“I have no money with me,” he said sadly.
She had shrugged. It didn’t matter.
“But I believe I have some at home. Walk with me, and I will see if I can find it.”
She got up and walked by his side. He said nothing, but did not seem embarrassed by her company, did not want her to walk behind him to guard his reputation. And when they got to his house—this house, the first she had been in since she had left the empty place her parents had occupied—he ladled a bowl of vegetable soup onto a plate for her and made her sit and eat. Then gave her some bread and water. Then some more soup. And some more.
