But I was being swept inexorably away from Philon’s practice and pulled after the archbishop. I did not like the look of where I was being dragged. I supposed, thinking it over, that I was as good as or better than many of the doctors at the Temple — Philon was a good teacher. But I still felt ignorant and helpless, and when I thought about the church it was worse. Athanasios had been challenging emperors all his life, and the present uneasy peace in the city would last no longer than his life did. I was afraid.
Afraid of discovery too, I admitted to myself. If there had been a scandal when I ran away from Ephesus, there’d be more of a scandal if I was found out now. And if I became well known, someone might say to Ischyras, “Your young cousin has done very well at Alexandria,” and he’d say, “What cousin?” and they’d say, “Why, the eunuch Chariton” — and then somebody was bound to put two and two together.
On the other hand, I had no intention of going back to Ephesus. And it was plainly impossible to just slip along as Philon’s assistant any longer. I’d had to go to Athanasios, and I couldn’t refuse the new patients. A career of my own it would have to be.
“Very well,” I said heavily. “I’ll take the examination.”
It was not much of an ordeal, actually. I bought myself a new cloak and tunic for the occasion; the old ones that Thorion had bought secondhand in the marketplace at Ephesus were now very stained and shabby. Theophila presented me with a woven edge for the cloak; it had a pattern of birds and trees in red and green, and when it was sewn on and I’d had a haircut, I was agreed to look a perfect gentleman.
The whole family came up to the Temple to watch the examination, which was held in one of the annexes. It was one of the larger annexes, because there were quite a lot of observers: most of my fellow students, and many former patients as well. Philon’s Jewish patients and the party of monks and churchmen eyed each other with mutual suspicion. There was a panel of six judges from the Museum — four physicians, two other scholars — sitting at a table in the middle of the room in their good cloaks, with official expressions on. But I could see the glint of pleasure under the official severity, and felt less nervous. Most of the judges were very pleased with the occasion. They did not like doctors from other systems of training to win important patients, and to have me standing there respectfully in my new cloak, preparing to answer their questions, vindicated the Museum. Athanasios’ doctor was no Egyptian ascetic, no pious monk from the desert, but a Hippocratic trained at the Temple. The new philosophy still had to yield some areas to the old sciences.
I took my place, standing opposite the panel, and after the usual shufflings and rustlings from the audience and coughings and rappings from the judges, the examination began.
As Philon had promised, the questions were phrased so that everyone could agree with the answers, which meant they were easy and uncontroversial, drawn from the standard medical writers and the herbals. Describe the structure of the heart; how would you treat a dislocation of the shoulder; how do you prepare melanthion and what are its uses? Only one of the examiners even wanted trouble. He was one of the scholars on the panel, a philosopher, an astrologer, and an enthusiastic pagan, and he was determined to show that Christian physicians were inferior to the old pagan variety. His turn to question me came at last, and he gave me a malicious smile and asked, “What effect do the stars have on health?”
My mind went blank for a moment; I noticed Adamantios scowling. “Hippocrates notes that the solstices, the rising of Sirius, Arcturus, and the Pleiades, are critical times for health,” I said at last. “But apart from that, there is no further agreement among medical authorities on which stars are helpful and which not.”
“Just what Hippocrates would have said!” shouted one of my fellow students, and the rest of them all burst out laughing. Adamantios smiled. The philosopher, not seeing the joke, scowled and began to cite Aratus and other astrological writers; Adamantios stopped him. “These aren’t medical writers, most perfect Theon. Their authority on medical questions must be considered unreliable, and you cannot expect the most esteemed Chariton to have read them!”
Theon stopped, though with the smug look of one who has made his point. “My young daughter, though a female, is as well read in these matters as she is in Plotinus,” he announced. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t expect as much of this most Christian physician.”
“Excellent sir,” I said, “I applaud your daughter’s learning, and wish her success in her philosophy, but I doubt that she’s read Krateuas, so I don’t see why I should have read Aratus and Plotinus.”
At this some of the other Hippocratics applauded. Adamantios smiled again, then coughed and exchanged glances with his fellows on the panel. They nodded, and I was pronounced accomplished in all medical matters, a doctor of the medical faculty of the Museum of Alexandria. Then, because I’d offered in advance, I was invited to swear the oath of Hippocrates. Not every doctor wants to swear it; the provisions are very strict. But I had admired it for years, and would have kept its provisions even if I didn’t have a room full of witnesses to hold me to it. Theon sneered at me for swearing in the name of “the most sacred and glorious Trinity” instead of by Apollo and Asklepios, but it was the same oath. For seven centuries doctors had sworn it. Now I too promised to respect my master in the art as my own father; to help the sick and harm no one; to give no drugs to cause death or abortion; to be chaste and religious in my life and practice; never to cut to make a man a eunuch (my audience whispered when I swore that); not to abuse my position in a house for sexual advantage (more whispers); to keep secret whatever I learned that ought not be divulged. “If therefore I keep this oath and do not violate it, may I prosper in my life and in my profession,” I finished. “If I transgress and perjure myself, may my fate be otherwise.”
Adamantios rose, came round the table, and shook my hand. “I am sure that you will prosper,” he told me, smiling, then went and chatted to Philon. It was over. The other judges all came up and congratulated me, as pleased as if they had never sent me off when I first arrived. My fellow students came after them, shaking my hand, slapping me on the back, congratulating me, and offering to buy me drinks. I offered them drinks in turn, and so we all went noisily down the hill to the tavern, where I spent a considerable sum on wine. When the party began to get rowdy, I slipped out with Theogenes, and we went home to Philon and his family; I didn’t like rowdy parties. “There’s truth in wine,” the saying goes, and the truth was something I wanted to prevent people from discovering. Deborah and the slaves had prepared a private dinner party to celebrate, and I enjoyed this much more than I would have enjoyed getting drunk and being thrown into the Temple fountain, which was the more usual way of celebrating the end of studenthood.
“What will you do now, Chariton?” Theophila asked me shyly, when the private dinner party was nearing its quiet finish. Her cheeks were pink with the wine: she’d had much more than she was used to. So had I, though I’d tried to be moderate. Philon’s dining room seemed to me to be glowing of its own accord, bright with lamplight and the happiness I had felt in it.
I looked at Philon. He looked back at me. Oh God, I thought, if only he were my own father and not just my master in the art. I wished I could be open with him, tell him the truth, and then ask him if he still wanted me for his partner.
But he wouldn’t have let his own daughter study medicine. It was true that Theophila was not really interested in the art. But even when she did ask some medical question, Philon always turned it gently away. The art, he said, was not an interesting topic for pretty girls.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It looks as though my practice will be largely among Christians. All your paying patients are Jewish. They’re both likely to suspect me if I try to straddle the gap.”
Philon sighed, then nodded. “They suspect you already. You don’t need to apologize, Chariton. I know you will have to set up on your own.”
“It’s not what I wanted,” I told him.
“I was happy where I was.”
“Don’t be so gloomy! I hope we will still see much of each other.” He lifted his wine cup. “To your success and long life!”
The others raised their cups as well, wishing me success.
A week after taking the examination I moved into a house in the Rhakotis quarter. The deacon Theophilos arranged this; he was pleased that I’d be closer to the archbishop, where I could be reached quickly if he fell ill again. “And it is better that you live with Christians than with Jews,” he told me. “I’m not saying anything against your master, but it is improper for His Holiness’ physician to be fetched from a Jew’s house.” To say nothing of how Philon’s Jewish patients were worried by all the monks parading in and out.
I told Theophilos that I’d prefer just a room at present, so that I wouldn’t have the worries of a householder; I said I couldn’t afford any slaves just yet, and wanted to live simply. He found a house belonging to a wealthy Alexandrian nun, and she let me have a room in it for nothing, surprised that I wanted no more than one room. My room was once again at the top of the house; the lower floors were taken by some other nuns. My landlady worried slightly about letting me the room; she wasn’t sure that the other nuns would like having a man in the house, even a eunuch, who couldn’t endanger their reputations. But the nuns agreed that the archbishop’s personal physician was an acceptable housemate, and were content to take on the chores of cleaning my things, fetching water, and cooking, for a small fee — though they lived very simply, having only one meal a day, usually of bread and vegetables, without meat or wine. I bought quite a lot of meals in the marketplace, had dinner at Philon’s at least once a week, to discuss cases with him, and met Theogenes sometimes for lunch at the tavern.
But I liked the nuns more than I had expected to. There were three of them: Anastasia, Agatha, and Amundora. They were all of lower class backgrounds (unlike the landlady, who had an ancestry to shame my father) and fanatically devout, but they all had a robust and surprisingly vulgar sense of humor, and they were not in the least retiring and ladylike. “Eh, Chariton!” Amundora told me when I gave her a prescription for her corns. “I thought a eunuch would be no good, and you’ve done more for me already than a week of monks’ praying. It just goes to show: brains are better than balls, eh? Not that those monks have any of either, poor things.” And she chortled, as she always did when she thought of a rude comment about the monks. She thought of plenty of these, perhaps because she did regard them as brothers — talkative and arrogant younger brothers, in need of someone to put them in their place. The nuns went about the city, attending to the poor; they wove clothes and sold them to support themselves, and they did work for the church. They were proudly independent, and resented the higher status of the monks. I had scarcely moved in when they were pointing out to me that they were just as capable of nursing as the monks at the hospital, and suggesting that I say as much to His Holiness.
“I’m sure it’s true,” Athanasios said when I told him. “But if I put both nuns and monks in the hospitals, the pagans will gossip. Perhaps I should found another hospital, and let the nuns run that one.”
He still coughed occasionally, and tired more easily than he should, though it was now over a month since his illness. But he had never rested properly. He was now fully back in command of the church, hearing cases in the ecclesiastical courts, arranging church funds, appointing bishops and clergy, preaching and organizing, and writing long letters to bishops of the Nicene faction all over the whole of the East. (The imperial officials were very curious as to whom he wrote and what he said, and I was offered several bribes if I could discover this information. I told them he kept his correspondence private, and then tried very hard never to see any of it.) He worked furiously, getting up early in the morning and plunging into the church like a whirlwind. He also still practiced asceticism, eating as simply as my nuns and lying prostrate for hours on the church floor, praying. I did not like it at all, and told him as much. “You are going to make yourself ill again. If you must work like this, treat your poor body more kindly. Eat two or three meals a day, not just one, and take some wine. Water is bad for you.”
He jerked his head back, though he smiled at me. “There is too much to do. I must make the church as strong as possible, so that it doesn’t break when I am gone.”
“I wasn’t talking about the church work, I was talking about the asceticism.”
“Chariton, my dear” — he had a secretary in the room, and so used my official name — “you are working too hard. A delicately reared young man like you, attending patients with diarrheas and enteritis, and most of those the common dregs of the populace who can’t even pay you! Why don’t you treat yourself more gently, like those excellent physicians up at the Temple: graciously visit one or two wealthy patients a day, read Oribasios, and admire the constellations?”
“What do you mean by all that?” I asked; I knew his biting sarcasm by this time.
“You’re a doctor for love, not money or reputation. Well, I am an ascetic for love. The rest of what I do is for the church. But this I do for God, and for myself. If I am to die soon, let me seek God the more eagerly, even if it is bad for me. You’re like a doctor coming to an athlete just before a great race and telling him to be careful not to strain himself by exercising too much. ‘My soul thirsts for God, the living God.’ Do you think I want to spend my time worrying about the Persians, and the duke of Egypt, and an argument between the monks of Nitria and the bishop of Karanis over where the monks are to sell mats? I do not take much time for prayer; don’t bother me over what I do take.”
“Why is it necessary to maltreat yourself to love God? You don’t believe the flesh is evil. I read your book: you go on and on in it about how the material world is created by God and human bodies are hallowed by the incarnation. So why do you have to punish yourself this way?”
Athanasios sighed and looked around his room. Books and letters overflowed from the writing desk; the secretary waited with his tablets and stylus; a gold embroidered cloak, worn to preach a sermon, was tossed over the couch. “Our lives are so cluttered,” he said, dismissing them with a wave of a hand, like a man wiping clear a tablet. “We need simplicity, stillness, but we invent unnecessary needs for trivial things, and they cluster about, distracting us from the Truth. The hermit Anthony once told me that a monk is like a fish: take him out of his element and he dies. Silence is his element. In silence you can trade this shoddy world for Heaven.”
I did not understand it, but there was no mistaking the longing that came into his voice when he spoke of monasticism, so I had to let him be. Instead I asked Peter whether he couldn’t divert more of the church business away from the archbishop.
“Do you think I’m not trying to do that?” he demanded. “But no one can tell Thanassi to do anything, particularly not if it’s for his own good.”
“Thanassi?” I said, amused. I hadn’t heard this nickname before.
Peter grinned sheepishly. I was getting to know the old man better now, and I liked him: he was an earnest believer rather than an impassioned one, and he was thoroughly good-natured, eager to be of help to anyone. “We used to call him that when he was a deacon. No one could talk sense to him then, and no one can now. You know that I had to hit him over the head and drag him out of the church once, to get him away from the soldiers? There was Duke Syrianus and his men, marching right up to the altar to arrest him and beating everyone who got in their way, and there was Thanassi, standing on top of the episcopal throne and shouting that he wouldn’t leave until everyone else had got out safely. I hit him with one of the altar candlesticks and we pulled him out the back door. When he came to, he thought God must have worked some miracle for him to escape, and we didn’t disillusion him, since it convinced him that he shouldn’t give himself up. You can’t reason with him when he’s like that. In fact, he listens to you more than he does to most people.” He chuckled, then became very sober. “Will he rec
over if he doesn’t rest?”
I shook my head. “No more than he’s recovered already. The first disease he catches may kill him, in the state he’s in now.”
Peter bit his lip. “Well, Theophilos and I will do what we can. And we rely on you, doctor.”
That was not reassuring. Still less comforting was the letter I got from Thorion about the archbishop. I had written to him about what had happened — some of it, anyway — and the letter he wrote back was the last one I received from him before the winter. “I read with astonishment your account of having cured Archbishop Athanasios of a pneumonia,” Thorion wrote. “I found on inquiry that this same archbishop is profoundly hated at court: the praetorian prefect calls him a prating demagogue, and the master of the offices thinks he is depraved and dangerous. I hear that he was once charged with murder, rape, and sorcery, though Maia says that those charges weren’t justified. However that is, it is quite certain that His Sacred Majesty plans to crush the Nicene party at Alexandria, and is only waiting for Athanasios to die before he does so. He has chosen a successor for the archbishop already — one Lucius, a good Arian — and he has spies set throughout the city to report on what the archbishop is doing, for it is thought possible that Athanasios may attempt to raise Alexandria and Egypt in rebellion and cut off the grain shipments to Constantinople, which would certainly cause us no end of trouble. If I were you, Charition, I’d stay well clear of a troublemaker like that.”
“Lucius?” Athanasios said when I told him what Thorion had written (I suppose I was a spy too, in my way). “Yes, I knew that they were thinking of sending him. A few bishops in Antioch consecrated him to the throne of St. Mark, from a safe distance, and when Valens first exiled me they tried to install him. But he had to be escorted out of the city under a guard; it’s a wonder he didn’t get himself lynched, coming in like that with only a few attendants. If he comes back, he’ll be sure to surround himself with troops first.”
The Beacon at Alexandria Page 18
