The archbishop raised his hands and the people were still. For a moment it was so silent that I could hear the crackling of the torches and the hush of the waves in the harbor behind us, the great sigh of the breath of this mob of people, the pounding of my own heart. I was closely pressed by the monks, and I felt dizzy; there was a smell of harbor sewage, unwashed bodies, and sweat.
“Beloved brothers,” said the archbishop, “what is the meaning of this tumult?” There was another moment of silence, then many people began shouting at once. The archbishop raised his hand again and fixed his eyes on the monks from the hospital.
Archaph leaped forward; he prostrated himself to the archbishop. “Holy Father!” he exclaimed. “We have heard that the godless mean to take you from us, and we are afraid!”
Archbishop Athanasios sighed. “Do not be afraid,” he said loudly and clearly; he had an extraordinarily powerful voice for such a small old body, and he did not mumble or hesitate over his words, the way many old people do; if you had closed your eyes, you would have thought it was a young man speaking. “I have heard this rumor too, but it is false. The duke of Egypt has brought his troops down to Alexandria for the Easter festival, for fear of tumults among the people, but there is no more to the matter than that. I have inquired of the duke and am content that nothing will happen, for the duke says that his troops will do nothing unless the people break into riot. Therefore, my brothers, I beg you to go home and to leave me to my evening’s rest, for disturbances like this will do nothing but cause jubilation among the ungodly, who will accuse us of rioting.”
The people all shouted loudly, “Athanasios! Lord of Egypt! Bounteous Nile!” They began to sing again, this time a psalm of victory. Someone restarted the clapping. Athanasios nodded to them, made the sign of the cross, and waved them off with a blessing. Most of the crowd began to disperse. My guard of monks milled about uncertainly, not sure whether to press the matter of taking patients from a Jew or not.
The archbishop decided them. “Is there anything more, my brothers?” he asked. “Archaph of the Thebaid! I did not know you were in Alexandria.”
The monk looked very pleased to be recognized. “We caught this eunuch at the hospital,” he told the bishop. “I think he is a spy. He wishes to slip his patients in among the faithful.”
Athanasios looked at me, and I looked back. He was a small man, shorter than I was, and stooped slightly with age. He was very thin, had lost many of his teeth, and dressed very plainly in the gray robe of an ascetic. If it hadn’t been for the crowd’s reaction to him, I wouldn’t have known who he was. He had a beard, white and thin, and white hair; but his eyes were perfectly clear. They were very large, dark eyes, like the eyes of some bird, but very expressive. One felt that they looked deep below the surface, gazing into the heart.
“You are a doctor?” asked Athanasios.
“A student, Your Holiness,” I said. “I am the assistant of Philon the Jew. We have a patient, a Christian woman, whom we wished to have cared for in the hospital because she is poor and her husband has to leave the city to earn bread. I went to the hospital about her, but it seems to have been a bad time.”
“What good can come of a Jew and a eunuch?” demanded Archaph vehemently. “They are spies, wishing to slip in more spies and heretics to watch us!”
“Is there anything for them to spy upon?” Athanasios asked him, smiling a little, then shrugged. “It is difficult to settle these matters on the doorstep. Come in — you, Archaph, and you, Mark . . . and you, eunuch. The rest of you go back to your work, and pray for peace. The city is troubled this spring, and we need the prayers of all godly men.”
Reluctantly the other monks dispersed, and I went with Archaph and Mark into the episcopal palace.
Athanasios led us through an entrance hall and a small courtyard, and into a reception room. It was lit by several oil lamps. In one corner was a writing desk covered with books, in the other was a brazier. The room had a tessellated pavement floor, without mosaics, and was otherwise quite plain.
The archbishop sat down heavily at the desk, turning his chair about to face us; several deacons and another monk stood behind him. He gestured for us to make ourselves at home, but no one sat down; all stood, facing him. “Now,” he said, “I pray you, brothers, explain yourselves. You object to taking patients from a Jewish doctor, and you think this eunuch is spying on you.”
Archaph and Mark both began to speak at once, then stopped together. “I do not trust a eunuch who says he is a student of medicine,” said Archaph. “They are a luxury-loving race, as you yourself have observed, Your Piety. And this one is foreign, but leagued with a Jew, though he claims to be a Christian. I have only just come to the city, I know no more than that. But Holy Father, you know how deeply we are hated, and how our enemies plot against us.”
“God has protected us, and will protect us still,” said Athanasios calmly. “I do not believe that the emperor will move against us now until I have died. But it is true that he has set men to watch those, like you, who support me. Mark, do you know this eunuch?”
Mark hesitated. “He is the assistant to one Philon, a Jewish doctor. We have taken several patients on his recommendation during the past year; some have died, some lived. He and Philon are most assiduous in visiting them, though they expect no money for it. Indeed, if it were not that one was a Jew and the other a eunuch, I would have said that these doctors were both virtuous men.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect that the patients have been spies?”
“The patients? No, indeed not, Your Holiness. They were ordinary people of Alexandria, poor people.”
“Not Jews or eunuchs? Well, well. I see no harm in your taking patients from the Devil, if they are Christians and in need of charity. My brother Archaph is zealous and loyal, but truly, I think his zeal has overcome him a little here, eh? Eunuch — what’s your name? Are you a Christian?”
“Yes, Your Holiness,” I said, feeling greatly relieved. We now had it from the lips of the archbishop himself that the hospital was to take our patients. “I am Chariton, sir, of Ephesus, a Nicene Christian.”
“Why then are you working with a Jew?” The bright bird-eyes fixed me again. “However virtuous your master is, it is surprising to find an Ephesian eunuch who is an educated gentleman studying medicine with an Alexandrian Jew. It is something that is bound to look suspicious to many who, like Archaph, have been given reason to suspect.”
I smiled and shrugged, inwardly making a note of the old man’s perceptiveness. I had said only a few words to him, and he already had me identified as a gentleman. That accent so carefully nurtured by Ischyras and Maia! “I applied to study with other doctors when I arrived in Alexandria, Your Holiness, but they did not wish to work with a eunuch. My master Philon is a very generous man, sir, a true Hippocratic, and I am well pleased with the instruction I receive from him.”
“A true Hippocratic! And that matters more to you than whether he is a follower of Christ! I trust his instruction is limited to the medical domain and your Christian faith is secure.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that immediately, and Athanasios watched me with an expression of suppressed amusement. “Philon is a virtuous man,” I said at last. “He would never impose his faith on anyone. And he keeps the oath of Hippocrates in every detail.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Athanasios said smoothly. “What, precisely, does he swear in that oath? Not to spy?”
“ ‘Whatever I may discover which I ought not reveal, I will keep secret.’ I should think that that includes not spying.”
“And his Christian patients trust him? You said that there was a patient you wished to have put in the hospital now, didn’t you?”
“His Christian patients can trust him, Your Holiness. Yes, there is a woman with childbed fever and no one to look after her.”
Athansios said nothing for a moment. He just stared at me, then suddenly frowned. Archaph noticed and stirred,
giving me another look of suspicion and dislike, which the archbishop caught. “No,” he told the monk, “you are quite wrong, brother: he is not our enemy. But God has revealed something to me. Young man, I must speak with you a moment privately. Mark, Archaph, I beg you to put aside fear and anger, and go and charitably look after this young man’s patient. Pray for us, brothers, as we will for you.” He gestured a blessing at them, and with a look of surprise toward him and a look of frank curiosity toward me, they left. Athanasios nodded to his other attendants. “Leave us alone for a while,” he ordered them. “I must speak to this eunuch privately.”
They withdrew, staring without surprise but with curiosity, as though divine revelations were nothing unusual but the nature of them a cause for profound speculation. I felt very uneasy. I did not like the archbishop’s sharp eyes. What could God have revealed to him? I preferred to leave God out of it. Bishop Athanasios was quite powerful enough on his own.
“So,” he said when the others had gone. “What is your real name, young woman?”
“What?” I asked him. “I don’t understand.”
He made an impatient gesture. “You understand perfectly. Chariton . . . Is it Charis, perhaps? Why are you dressed up like that, pretending to be a eunuch?”
I felt a bit weak at the knees, and my tongue felt dry. I once again could think of nothing to say. Deny it? Or admit it and beg him to tell no one?
“You need not be afraid,” Athanasios told me. “I have a . . . Hippocratic oath of my own. Whatever I may discover which I ought not reveal, I will keep secret.”
“Yes,” I said, and swallowed. “Yes, it is Charis. How did you know?”
“God revealed it to me.” He watched me carefully. “It was surprising to find a well-educated eunuch studying medicine with a Jewish doctor, but it is even more surprising to find a young noblewoman. Why?”
I swallowed again. Did God really reveal things to him, or was it just his keen and unprejudiced eyes? “I didn’t want to get married, and I did want to study medicine.”
I realized later that this was one of the best things I could have said. Bishop Athanasios was an ascetic. He considered marriage an inferior way of life; perfection was chastity and spiritual discipline. He had often supported Alexandrian women against their families, though this won him considerable enmity. But I didn’t think of this when I spoke.
“Medicine,” he said, with a peculiar little frown. “Well. Still, it may lead to higher things . . . Does anyone else know of it?”
“No one in Alexandria,” I told him. “My brother helped me.”
“Helped you to run off from your parents, but could not help you to a position with a prestigious doctor beforehand? I see. All suspicious circumstances are now explained. It is a pity that you are forced into such a masquerade. I have sometimes thought that the nuns should be permitted to study medicine — but there is no saying anything to the scholars of the Museum. Occasionally they acknowledge that a woman may study philosophy, but the sciences, never. Though I have known several nuns who would have made excellent doctors. And there was one . . . well. Are you really a Nicene Christian?”
“Your Holiness, I am ignorant of theology. I respect Your Holiness, and will believe as you do.”
“You wouldn’t say that if I were questioning you on some medical matter. You mean that you are not interested in theology, don’t you? Well, perhaps you will come to it later. It is at the bottom of everything, what one believes about God. Study the art of healing, then, Charis of Ephesus. I thank you for being honest with me:”
I stood there, blushing stupidly. A few minutes before I had felt like a student of the art of healing; now I felt like a silly little girl. “You won’t tell anyone?” I asked clumsily.
He laughed. “Why should I? I cannot see that you are doing anything wrong. It is the vanity of the world and the ambition of men that forces girls to marry when they would rather not. And the art of healing is a noble one, which Our Lord Christ himself practiced, and there are too few doctors who take their oaths seriously these days. But I may ask you for help one day, Charis.”
Our eyes met. His were steady, testing. No, it was nothing so crude as a threat of blackmail. But he knew he had power over me now, because he knew who I was when others didn’t, so he knew that he could trust me. He had a hold on me.
I bowed very low. “If Your Holiness ever wants help from me, you know that I am your servant.”
Athanasios laughed again. “Yes, I do know that, don’t I? The blessing of God be on you, daughter.” He made the sign of the cross, then added, “I will have one of my priests escort you back to the hospital. The city is still disturbed tonight, and even as a eunuch you would have trouble.”
When I got back to the hospital I found that Philon was there making our patient comfortable. The monks, even Archaph, eyed me with considerable respect, as the subject of a divine revelation, and this respect seemed to be spilling over onto Philon as well. PhiIon looked very relieved to see me, but at first discussed nothing but the patient. He’d given her a small amount of hemlock to lower the fever, with gentian to dry up the flow of blood, and she was sleeping now; a wet nurse had been found for the baby, but Philon wanted the child brought back to the mother to nurse at least once a day, for fear that she would develop mastitis as well as childbed fever. All the monks were very cheerful and cooperative, and we were soon able to leave the hospital and start home.
“Thank Heaven you’re safe,” said Philon when we were alone on the road home. “There was shouting down at the dock, and that woman’s husband came in saying that the archbishop was to be exiled again and the whole city was in an uproar. I sent him after you to keep you away from the hospital; I knew there’d be trouble with those monks. It was too late, though. They took you to see the archbishop himself?”
I nodded. “He told them that the rumor was false and that they ought to take our patients.”
“Chariton, you’re a wonder,” Philon declared emphatically. “Anyone else would have got himself lynched . . . They told me that the archbishop wanted to speak with you privately.”
I nodded. Philon looked at me for a minute, but I did not look back. “And what happened?” he asked at last.
“I think he would make a better emperor than Valens the Augustus,” I said. “He wouldn’t have people tortured. He wouldn’t need to.
Philon stopped and caught my arm. “Chariton,” he said, “he can’t . . . I know you’ve done nothing wrong, but I know there are some things you haven’t told me about. It is obvious — a eunuch from a wealthy family doesn’t suddenly arrive in a city like Alexandria penniless and without any study arranged, unless something’s gone wrong. The archbishop can’t use . . . whatever your reasons are, against you, can he?”
I was touched at his concern. “I don’t think he will,” I told Philon. “And anyway, I don’t think he’ll need to.”
Philon looked at me searchingly. I smiled; he smiled back and dropped my arm. We went home.
“But what’s the archbishop really like?” Theogenes asked me again. It was the evening after the Sabbath, and we were sitting in Kallias’ tavern with a few other medical students. At first I hadn’t said anything about my encounter with Athanasios, but Theogenes had heard the whole story at Philon’s house the evening before, and people had been asking me about nothing else ever since.
“How should I know? I met him for ten minutes,” I said irritably. “He struck me as very intelligent and very perceptive, but more than that I can’t say.”
“But how did he know this personal thing about you, when you won’t even tell us what it was?” demanded Nikias.
“I don’t know how he knew. Maybe God really did reveal it to him. Or maybe he just made a lucky guess.”
“They say he’s a sorcerer,” Nikias said uneasily. Though as a pagan he tended to scoff at divine revelations to Christians, he believed in anybody’s magic as strongly as he did in all the miraculous cures attributed to Asklepios.
“I don’t believe it,” I said firmly. “Accusations of sorcery are common as dirt, but about the only group of Egyptians I’ve never found actually practicing it are clergymen.”
“But Athanasios can foresee the future,” Nikias said earnestly. “Once he was going down the Soma Street in his litter when he passed the turning to the Temple. A crow had landed on the votive column there, and a crowd of people were discussing what it meant. Athanasios had his litter stopped and told them that the crow was saying ‘cras,’ which means something in Latin . . .”
“It means ‘tomorrow,’ ” I supplied.” “But show me a crow that doesn’t say something similar!”
“But this crow was sitting on the votive column of Serapis! And Athanasios declared that it meant that on the next day the procession in honor of that god would be canceled. And that’s exactly what happened. The next day the prefect published an edict outlawing pagan processions.”
I thought of the look of amusement in Athanasios’ eyes, and I laughed. “I think he was probably making a joke,” I told Nikias. “He must have heard about the procession being canceled from someone in the prefect’s office.” My wine cup was empty, so I refilled it from the mixing bowl that stood on the table before us.
“You always think you know more about it than anyone else,” Nikias said angrily.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake! There’s a perfectly obvious natural explanation for your little story, and you have to bring in sorcery and omens and whatnot. I think Athanasios was making fun of people like you. From what I did see of him, that would be completely in character. “
“You’re so prejudiced against miracles that you won’t acknowledge one even when it happens to you!” Nikias returned. “Every time I tell you some wonderful cure worked by the great god Asklepios, you say either that it didn’t happen or that it had a natural cause, and now —”
The Beacon at Alexandria Page 15
