CHAPTER XXX: EVERY MAN TO HIS OWN PLACE
It was near midnight. Raphael had been sitting some three hours inMiriam's inner chamber, waiting in vain for her return. To recover, ifpossible, his ancestral wealth; to convey it, without a day's delay, toCyrene; and, if possible, to persuade the poor old Jewess to accompanyhim, and there to soothe, to guide, perhaps to convert her, was his nextpurpose:--at all events, with or without his wealth, to flee from thataccursed city. And he counted impatiently the slow hours and minuteswhich detained him in an atmosphere which seemed reeking with innocentblood, black with the lowering curse of an avenging God. More than once,unable to bear the thought, he rose to depart, and leave his wealthbehind: but he was checked again by the thought of his own pastlife. How had he added his own sin to the great heap of Alexandrianwickedness! How had he tempted others, pampered others in evil! GoodGod! how had he not only done evil with all his might, but had pleasurein those who did the same! And now, now he was reaping the fruit of hisown devices. For years past, merely to please his lust of power, hismisanthropic scorn, he had been malting that wicked Orestes wickederthan he was even by his own base will and nature; and his puppet hadavenged itself upon him! He, he had prompted him to ask Hypatia'shand.... He had laid, half in sport, half in envy of her excellence,that foul plot against the only human being whom he loved.... and he haddestroyed her! He, and not Peter, was the murderer of Hypatia! True,he had never meant her death.... No; but had he not meant for her worsethan death? He had never foreseen.... No; but only because he did notchoose to foresee. He had chosen to be a god; to kill and to make aliveby his own will and law; and behold, he had become a devil by that veryact. Who can--and who dare, even if he could--withdraw the sacred veilfrom those bitter agonies of inward shame and self-reproach, made allthe more intense by his clear and undoubting knowledge that he wasforgiven? What dread of punishment, what blank despair, could havepierced that great heart so deeply as did the thought that the God whomhe had hated and defied had returned him good for evil, and rewarded himnot according to his iniquities? That discovery, as Ezekiel of old hadwarned his forefathers, filled up the cup of his self-loathing.... Tohave found at last the hated and dreaded name of God: and found thatit was Love!.... To possess Victoria, a living, human likeness, howeverimperfect, of that God; and to possess in her a home, a duty, a purpose,a fresh clear life of righteous labour, perhaps of final victory....That was his punishment; that was the brand of Cain upon his forehead;and he felt it greater than he could bear.
But at least there was one thing to be done. Where he had sinned, therehe must make amends; not as a propitiation, not even as a restitution;but simply as a confession of the truth which he had found. And as hispurpose shaped itself, he longed and prayed that Miriam might return,and make it possible.
And Miriam did return. He heard her pass slowly through the outer room,learn from the girls who was within, order them out of the apartments,close the outer door upon them; at last she entered, and said quietly--
'Welcome! I have expected you. You could not surprise old Miriam. Theteraph told me last night that you would be here....'
Did she see the smile of incredulity upon Raphael's face, or was it somesudden pang of conscience which made her cry out--
'.... No! I did not! I never expected you! I am a liar, a miserable oldliar, who cannot speak the truth, even if I try! Only look kind! Smileat me, Raphael!--Raphael come back at last to his poor, miserable,villainous old mother! Smile on me but once, my beautiful, my son! myson!'
And springing to him, she clasped him in her arms.
'Your son?'
'Yes, my son! Safe at last! Mine at last! I can prove it now! The son ofmy womb, though not the son of my vows!' And she laughed hysterically.'My child, my heir, for whom I have toiled and hoarded forthree-and-thirty years! Quick! here are my keys. In that cabinet are allmy papers--all I have is yours. Your jewels are safe--buried with mine.The negro-woman, Eudaimon's wife, knows where. I made her swear secrecyupon her little wooden idol, and, Christian as she is, she has beenhonest. Make her rich for life. She hid your poor old mother, andkept her safe to see her boy come home. But give nothing to her littlehusband: he is a bad fellow, and beats her.--Go, quick! take yourriches, and away!.... No; stay one moment just one little moment--thatthe poor old wretch may feast her eyes with the sight of her darlingonce more before she dies!'
'Before you die? Your son? God of my fathers, what is the meaning ofall this, Miriam? This morning I was the son of Ezra the merchant ofAntioch!'
'His son and heir, his son and heir! He knew all at last. We told him onhis death-bed! I swear that we told him, and he adopted you!'
'We! Who?'
'His wife and I. He craved for a child, the old miser, and we gavehim one--a better one than ever came of his family. But he loved you,accepted you, though he did know all. He was afraid of being laughed atafter he was dead--afraid of having it known that he was childless, theold dotard! No--he was right--true Jew in that, after all!'
'Who was my father, then?' interrupted Raphael, in utter bewilderment.
The old woman laughed a laugh so long and wild, that Raphael shuddered.
'Sit down at your mother's feet. Sit down.... just to please the poorold thing! Even if you do not believe her, just play at being her child,her darling, for a minute before she dies; and she will tell you all....perhaps there is time yet!'
And he sat down.... 'What if this incarnation of all wickedness werereally my mother?.... And yet--why should I shrink thus proudly from thenotion? Am I so pure myself as to deserve a purer source?'.... Andthe old woman laid her hand fondly on his head, and her skinny fingersplayed with his soft locks, as she spoke hurriedly and thick.
'Of the house of Jesse, of the seed of Solomon; not a rabbi from Babylonto Rome dare deny that! A king's daughter I am, and a king's heart Ihad, and have, like Solomon's own, my son!.... A kingly heart.... Itmade me dread and scorn to be a slave, a plaything, a soul-less doll,such as Jewish women are condemned to be by their tyrants, the men. Icraved for wisdom, renown, power--power--power! and my nation refusedthem to me; because, forsooth, I was a woman! So I left them. I wentto the Christian priests.... They gave me what I asked.... They gaveme more.... They pampered my woman's vanity, my pride, my self-will, myscorn of wedded bondage, and bade me be a saint, the judge of angels andarchangels, the bride of God! Liars! liars! And so--if you laugh, youkill me, Raphael--and so Miriam, the daughter of Jonathan--Miriam, ofthe house of David--Miriam, the descendant of Ruth and Rachab, of Racheland Sara, became a Christian nun, and shut herself up to see visions,and dream dreams, and fattened her own mad self-conceit upon the impiousfancy that she was the spouse of the Nazarene, Joshua Bar-Joseph, whomshe called Jehovah Ishi--Silence! If you stop me a moment, it may betoo late. I hear them calling me already; and I made them promise not totake me before I had told all to my son--the son of my shame!'
'Who calls you?' asked Raphael; but after one strong shudder she ran on,unheeding--
'But they lied, lied, lied! I found them out that day.... Do not lookup at me, and I will tell you all. There was a riot--a fight betweenthe Christian devils and the Heathen devils--and the convent was sacked,Raphael, my son!--Sacked!.... Then I found out their blasphemy.... OhGod! I shrieked to Him, Raphael! I called on Him to rend His heavens andcome down--to pour out His thunderbolts upon them--to cleave the earthand devour them--to save the wretched helpless girl who adored Him,who had given up father, mother, kinsfolk, wealth, the light of heaven,womanhood itself, for Him--who worshipped, meditated over Him, dreamedof Him night and day .... And, Raphael, He did not hear me.... He didnot hear me! .... did not hear the!.... And then I knew it all for alie! a lie!'
'And you knew it for what it is!' cried Raphael through his sobs, as hethought of Victoria, and felt every vein burning with righteous wrath.
--'There was no mistaking that test, was there?.... For nine months Iwas mad. And then your voice, my baby, my joy, my pride that brought meto myself once mo
re! And I shook off the dust of my feet against thoseGalilean priests, and went back to my own nation, where God had set mefrom the beginning. I made them--the Rabbis, my father, my kin--I madethem all receive me. They could not stand before my eye. I can stakepeople do what I will, Raphael! I could--I could make you emperor now,if I had but time left! I went back. I palmed you off on Ezra as hisson, I and his wife, and made him believe that you had been born to himwhile he was in Byzantium .... And then--to live for you! And I did livefor you. For you I travelled from India to Britain, seeking wealth. Foryou I toiled, hoarded, lied, intrigued, won money by every means, nomatter how base--for was it not for you? And I have conquered! You arethe richest Jew south of the Mediterranean, you, my son! And you deserveyour wealth. You have your mother's soul in you, my boy! I watchedyou, gloried in you--in your cunning, your daring, your learning, yourcontempt for these Gentile hounds. You felt the royal blood of Solomonwithin you! You felt that you were a young lion of Judah, and they thejackals who followed to feed upon your leavings! And now, now! Your onlydanger is past! The cunning woman is gone--the sorceress who tried totake my young lion in her pitfall, and has fallen into the midst of itherself; and he is safe, and returned to take the nations for a prey,and grind their bones to powder, as it is written, "He couched like alion, he lay down like a lioness's whelp, and who dare rouse him up?"'
'Stop!' said Raphael, 'I must speak! Mother! I must! As you love me, asyou expect me to love you, answer! Had you a hand in her death? Speak!'
'Did I not tell you that I was no more a Christian? Had I remainedone--who can tell what I might not have done? All I, the Jewess, daredo was--Fool that I am! I have forgotten all this time the proof--theproof--'
'I need no proof, mother. Your words are enough,' said Raphael, ashe clasped her hand between his own, and pressed it to his burningforehead. But the old woman hurried on 'See! See the black agate whichyou gave her in your madness!'
'How did you obtain that?'
'I stole it--stole it, my son; as thieves steal, and are crucified forstealing. What was the chance of the cross to a mother yearning forher child?--to a mother who put round her baby's neck, three-and-thirtyblack years ago, that broken agate, and kept the other half next her ownheart by day and night? See! See how they fit! Look, and believe yourpoor old sinful mother! Look, I say!' and she thrust the talisman intohis hands.
'Now, let me die! I vowed never to tell this secret but to you: neverto tell it to you, until the night I died. Farewell, my son! Kiss me butonce--once, my child, my joy! Oh, this makes up for all! Makes up evenfor that day, the last on which I ever dreamed myself the bride of theNazarene!'
Raphael felt that he must speak, now or never. Though it cost him theloss of all his wealth, and a mother's curse, he must speak. And notdaring to look up, he said gently--
'Men have lied to you about Him, mother: but has He ever lied to youabout Himself? He did not lie to me when He sent me out into the worldto find a man, and sent me back again to you with the good news that TheMan is born into the world.'
But to his astonishment, instead of the burst of bigoted indignationwhich he had expected, Miriam answered in a low, confused, abstractedvoice--
'And did He send you hither? Well--that was more like what I used tofancy Him....A grand thought it is after all--a Jew the king of heavenand earth!.... Well--I shall know soon.... I loved Him once,.... andperhaps....perhaps....'
Why did her head drop heavily upon his shoulder? He turned--a darkstream of blood was flowing from her lips! He sprang to his feet. Thegirls rushed in. They tore open her shawl, and saw the ghastly wound,which she had hidden with such iron resolution to the last. But it wastoo late. Miriam the daughter of Solomon was gone to her own place................
Early the next morning, Raphael was standing in Cyril's anteroom,awaiting an audience. There were loud voices within; and after a while atribune--whom he knew well hurried out, muttering curses--
'What brings you here, friend?'said Raphael.
'The scoundrel will not give them up,' answered he, in an undertone.
'Give up whom?'
'The murderers. They are in sanctuary now at the Caesareum. Orestes sentme to demand them: and this fellow defies him openly!' And the tribunehurried out.
Raphael, sickened with disgust, half-turned to follow him: but hisbetter angel conquered, and he obeyed the summons of the deacon whoushered him in.
Cyril was walking up and down, according to his custom, with greatstrides. When he saw who was his visitor, he stopped short with a lookof fierce inquiry. Raphael entered on business at once, with a cold calmvoice.
'You know me, doubtless; and you know what I was. I am now a Christiancatechumen. I come to make such restitution as I can for certain pastill-deeds done in this city. You will find among these papers thetrust-deeds for such a yearly sum of money as will enable you to hirea house of refuge for a hundred fallen women, and give such dowries tothirty of them yearly as will enable them to find suitable husbands. Ihave set down every detail of my plan. On its exact fulfilment dependsthe continuance of my gift.'
Cyril took the document eagerly, and was breaking out with somecommonplace about pious benevolence, when the Jew stopped him.
'Your Holiness's compliments are unnecessary. It is to your office, notto yourself, that this business relates.'
Cyril, whose conscience was ill enough at ease that morning, feltabashed before Raphael's dry and quiet manner, which bespoke, as he wellknew, reproof more severe than all open upbraidings. So looking down,not without something like a blush, he ran his eye hastily over thepaper; and then said, in his blandest tone-- 'My brother will forgive mefor remarking, that while I acknowledge his perfect right to disposeof his charities as he will, it is somewhat startling to me, asMetropolitan of Egypt to find not only the Abbot Isidore of Pelusium,but the secular Defender of the Plebs, a civil officer, implicated, too,in the late conspiracy, associated with me as co-trustees.'
'I have taken the advice of more than one Christian bishop on thematter. I acknowledge your authority by my presence here. If theScriptures say rightly, the civil magistrates are as much God'sministers as you; and I am therefore bound to acknowledge theirauthority also. I should have preferred associating the Prefect with youin the trust: but as your dissensions with the present occupant of thatpost might have crippled my scheme, I have named the Defender of thePlebs, and have already put into his hands a copy of this document.Another copy has been sent to Isidore, who is empowered to receive allmoneys from my Jewish bankers in Pelusium.'
'You doubt, then, either my ability or my honesty?' said Cyril, who wasbecoming somewhat nettled.
'If your Holiness dislikes my offer, it is easy to omit your name in thedeed. One word more. If you deliver up to justice the murderers of myfriend Hypatia, I double my bequest on the spot.'
Cyril burst out instantly--
'Thy money perish with thee! Do you presume to bribe me into deliveringup my children to the tyrant?'
'I offer to give you the means of showing more mercy, provided that youwill first do simple justice.'
'Justice?' cried Cyril. 'Justice? If it be just that Peter should die,sir, see first whether it was not just that Hypatia should die. Not thatI compassed it. As I live, I would have given my own right hand thatthis had not happened! But now that it is done--let those who talk ofjustice look first in which scale of the balance it lies! Do you fancy,sir, that the people do not know their enemies from their friends? Doyou fancy that they are to sit with folded hands, while a pedant makescommon cause with a profligate, to drag them back again into the veryblack gulf of outer darkness, ignorance, brutal lust, grinding slavery,from which the Son of God died to free them, from which they arepainfully and slowly struggling upward to the light of day? You, sir, ifyou be a Christian catechumen, should know for yourself what wouldhave been the fate of Alexandria had the devil's plot of two days sincesucceeded. What if the people struck too fiercely? They struck in theright place. What if they have given
the reins to passions fit onlyfor heathens? Recollect the centuries of heathendom which bred thosepassions in them, and blame not my teaching, but the teaching of theirforefathers. That very Peter.... What if he have for once given place tothe devil, and avenged where he should have forgiven? Has he no memorieswhich may excuse him for fancying, in a just paroxysm of dread, thatidolatry and falsehood must be crushed at any risk?--He who counts backfor now three hundred years, in persecution after persecution, martyrs,sir! martyrs--if you know what that word implies--of his own blood andkin; who, when he was but a seven years' boy, saw his own father made asightless cripple to this day, and his elder sister, a consecrated nun,devoured alive by swine in the open streets, at the hands of those whosupported the very philosophy, the very gods, which Hypatia attemptedyesterday to restore. God shall judge such a man; not I, nor you!'
'Let God judge him, then, by delivering him to God's minister.'
'God's minister? That heathen and apostate Prefect? When he has expiatedhis apostasy by penance, and returned publicly to the bosom of theChurch, it will be time enough to obey him: till then he is the ministerof none but the devil. And no ecclesiastic shall suffer at the tribunalof an infidel. Holy Writ forbids us to go to law before the unjust.--Letthe world say of me what it will. I defy it and its rulers. I have toestablish the kingdom of God in this city, and do it I will, knowingthat other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which isChrist.'
'Wherefore you proceed to lay it afresh. A curious method of provingthat it is laid already.'
'What do you mean?' asked Cyril angrily.
'Simply that God's kingdom, if it exist at all, must be a sort ofkingdom, considering Who is The King of it, which would have establisheditself without your help some time since; probably, indeed, if theScriptures of my Jewish forefathers are to be believed, before thefoundation of the world; and that your business was to believe that Godwas King of Alexandria, and had put the Roman law there to crucifyall murderers, ecclesiastics included, and that crucified they must beaccordingly, as high as Haman himself.'
'I will hear no more of this, sir! I am responsible to God alone, andnot to you: let it be enough that by virtue of the authority committedto me, I shall cut off these men from the Church of God, by solemnexcommunication, for three years to come.'
'They are not cut off, then, it seems, as yet?'
'I tell you, sir, that I shall cut them off! Do you come here to doubtmy word?'
'Not in the least, most august sir. But I should have fancied that,according to my carnal notions of God's Kingdom and The Church, they hadcut off themselves most effectually already, from the moment when theycast away the Spirit of God, and took to themselves the spirit ofmurder and cruelty; and that all which your most just and laudableexcommunication could effect, would be to inform the public of thatfact. However, farewell! My money shall be forthcoming in due time; andthat is the most important matter between us at this moment. As for yourclient Peter and his fellows, perhaps the most fearful punishment whichcan befall them, is to go on as they have begun. I only hope that youwill not follow in the same direction.'
'I?' cried Cyril, trembling with rage.
'Really I wish your Holiness well when I say so. If my notions seem toyou somewhat secular, yours--forgive me--seem to the somewhat atheistic;and I advise you honestly to take care lest while you are busy tryingto establish God's kingdom, you forget what it is like, by shutting youreyes to those of its laws which are established already. I have no doubtthat with your Holiness's great powers you will succeed in establishingsomething. My only dread is, that when it is established, you shoulddiscover to your horror that it is the devil's kingdom and not God's.'
And without waiting for an answer, Raphael bowed himself out of theaugust presence, and sailing for Berenice that very day, with Eudaimonand his negro wife, went to his own place; there to labour and tosuccour, a sad and stern, and yet a loving and a much-loved man, formany a year to come.
And now we will leave Alexandria also, and taking a forward leap of sometwenty years, see how all other persons mentioned in this history went,likewise, each to his own place. ...............
A little more than twenty years after, the wisest and holiest man in theEast was writing of Cyril, just deceased--
'His death made those who survived him joyful; but it grieved mostprobably the dead; and there is cause to fear, lest, finding hispresence too troublesome, they should send him back to us.... May itcome to pass, by your prayers, that he may obtain mercy and forgiveness,that the immeasurable grace of God may prevail over his wickedness!....'
So wrote Theodoret in days when men had not yet intercalated into HolyWrit that line of an obscure modern hymn, which proclaims to man thegood news that 'There is no repentance in the grave.' Let that be as itmay, Cyril has gone to his own place. What that place is in history isbut too well known. What it is in the sight of Him unto whom all livefor ever, is no concern of ours. May He whose mercy is over all Hisworks, have mercy upon all, whether orthodox or unorthodox, Papist orProtestant, who, like Cyril, begin by lying for the cause of truth; andsetting off upon that evil road, arrive surely, with the Scribes andPharisees of old, sooner or later at their own place!
True, he and his monks had conquered; but Hypatia did not die unavenged.In the hour of that unrighteous victory, the Church of Alexandriareceived a deadly wound. It had admitted and sanctioned those habits ofdoing evil that good may come, of pious intrigue, and at last of openpersecution, which are certain to creep in wheresoever men attempt toset up a merely religious empire, independent of human relationships andcivil laws; to 'establish,' in short, a 'theocracy,' and by that veryact confess their secret disbelief that God is ruling already. And theEgyptian Church grew, year by year, more lawless and inhuman. Freed fromenemies without, and from the union which fear compels, it turned itsferocity inward, to prey on its own vitals, and to tear itself in piecesby a voluntary suicide, with mutual anathemas and exclusions, till itended as a mere chaos of idolatrous sects, persecuting each other formetaphysical propositions, which, true or false, were equally hereticalin their mouths, because they used them only as watch-words of division.Orthodox or unorthodox, they knew not God, for they knew neitherrighteousness, nor love, nor peace.... They 'hated their brethren, andwalked on still in darkness, not knowing whither they were going'....till Amrou and his Mohammedans appeared; and whether they discovered thefact or not, they went to their own place....
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;Though He stands and waits with patience, with exactness grinds He all--
And so found, in due time, the philosophers as well as the ecclesiasticsof Alexandria.
Twenty years after Hypatia's death, philosophy was flickering downto the very socket. Hypatia's murder was its death-blow. In languagetremendous and unmistakable, philosophers had been informed that mankindhad done with them; that they had been weighed in the balances, andfound wanting; that if they had no better Gospel than that to preach,they must make way for those who had. And they did make way. We hearlittle or nothing of them or their wisdom henceforth, except at Athens,where Proclus, Marinus, Isidore, and others kept up 'the golden chain ofthe Platonic succession,' and descended deeper and deeper, one after theother, into the realms of confusion--confusion of the material withthe spiritual, of the subject with the object, the moral with theintellectual; self-consistent in one thing only,--namely, in theirexclusive Pharisaism utterly unable to proclaim any good news for manas man, or even to conceive of the possibility of such, and graduallylooking with more and more complacency on all superstitious whichdid not involve that one idea, which alone they stated,--namely,the Incarnation; craving after signs and wonders, dabbling in magic,astrology, and barbarian fetichisms; bemoaning the fallen age, andbarking querulously at every form of human thought except their own;writing pompous biographies, full of bad Greek, worse taste, and stillworse miracles....
--That last drear mood Of envious sloth, and proud decrepitude; No
faith, no art, no king, no priest, no God; While round the freezingfounts of life in snarling ring, Crouch'd on the bareworn sod, Babblingabout the unreturning spring, And whining for dead gods, who cannotsave, The toothless systems shiver to their grave.
The last scene of their tragedy was not without a touch of pathos.... In the year 629, Justinian finally closed, by imperial edict, theschools of Athens. They had nothing more to tell the world, but what theworld had yawned over a thousand times before: why should they breakthe blessed silence by any more such noises? The philosophers felt sothemselves. They had no mind to be martyrs, for they had nothing forwhich to testify. They had no message for mankind, and mankind nointerest for them. All that was left for them was to take care of theirown souls; and fancying that they saw something like Plato's idealrepublic in the pure monotheism of the Guebres, their philosophicemperor the Khozroo, and his holy caste of magi, seven of them setoff to Persia, to forget the hateful existence of Christianity inthat realised ideal. Alas for the facts! The purest monotheism, theydiscovered, was perfectly compatible with bigotry and ferocity, luxuryand tyranny, serails and bowstrings, incestuous marriages and corpsesexposed to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air; and inreasonable fear for their own necks, the last seven Sages of Greecereturned home weary-hearted, into the Christian Empire from which theyhad fled, fully contented with the permission, which the Khozroo hadobtained for them from Justinian, to hold their peace, and die amongdecent people. So among decent people they died, leaving behind them, astheir last legacy to mankind, Simplicius's Commentaries on Epictetus's_Enchiridion_, an essay on the art of egotism, by obeying which,whosoever list may become as perfect a Pharisee as ever darkened theearth of God. Peace be to their ashes!.... They are gone to their ownplace................
Wulf, too, had gone to his own place, wheresoever that may be. He diedin Spain, full of years and honours, at the court of Adolf and Placidia,having resigned his sovereignty into the hands of his lawful chieftain,and having lived long enough to see Goderic and his younger companionsin arms settled with their Alexandrian brides upon the sunny slopes fromwhich they had expelled the Vandals and the Suevi, to be the ancestorsof 'bluest-blooded' Castilian nobles. Wulf died, as he had lived, aheathen. Placidia, who loved him well, as she loved all righteous andnoble souls, had succeeded once in persuading him to accept baptism.Adolf himself acted as one of his sponsors; and the old warrior wasin the act of stepping into the font, when he turned suddenly to thebishop, and asked where were the souls of his heathen ancestors? 'Inhell,' replied the worthy prelate. Wulf drew back from the font, andthrew his bearskin cloak around him.... 'He would prefer, if Adolf hadno objection, to go to his own people.' [Footnote: A fact.] And so hedied unbaptized, and went to his own place.
Victoria was still alive and busy: but Augustine's warning had cometrue-she had found trouble in the flesh. The day of the Lord had come,and Vandal tyrants were now the masters of the fair corn-lands ofAfrica. Her father and brother were lying by the side of RaphaelAben-Ezra, beneath the ruined walls of Hippo, slain, long years before,in the vain attempt to deliver their country from the invading swarms.But they had died the death of heroes: and Victoria was content. And itwas whispered, among the down-trodden Catholics, who clung to her as anangel of mercy, that she, too, had endured strange misery and disgrace;that her delicate limbs bore the scars of fearful tortures; that a roomin her house, into which none ever entered but herself, contained ayoung boy's grave; and that she passed long nights of prayer uponthe spot, where lay her only child, martyred by the hands of Arianpersecutors. Nay, some of the few who, having dared to face that fearfulstorm, had survived its fury, asserted that she herself, amid her ownshame and agony, had cheered the shrinking boy on to his glorious death.But though she had found trouble in the flesh, her spirit knew none.Clear-eyed and joyful as when she walked by her father's side on thefield of Ostia, she went to and fro among the victims of Vandal rapineand persecution, spending upon the maimed, the sick, the ruined, thesmall remnants of her former wealth, and winning, by her purity and herpiety, the reverence and favour even of the barbarian conquerors. Shehad her work to do, and she did it, and was content; and, in good time,she also went to her own place.
Abbot Pambo, as well as Arsenius, had been dead several years; theabbot's place was filled, by his own dying command, by a hermit from theneighbouring deserts, who had made himself famous for many miles round,by his extraordinary austerities, his ceaseless prayers, his lovingwisdom, and, it was rumoured, by various cures which could only beattributed to miraculous powers. While still in the prime of hismanhood, he was dragged, against his own entreaties, from a lofty crannyof the cliffs to reside over the Laura of Scetis, and ordained a deaconat the advice of Pambo, by the bishop of the diocese, who, three yearsafterwards, took on himself to command him to enter the priesthood. Theelder monks considered it an indignity to be ruled by so young a man:but the monastery throve and grew rapidly under his government. Hissweetness, patience, and humility, and above all, his marvellousunderstanding of the doubts and temptations of his own generation, soondrew around him all whose sensitiveness or waywardness had made themunmanageable in the neighbouring monasteries. As to David in themountains, so to him, every one who was discontented, and every onewho was oppressed, gathered themselves. The neighbouring abbots wereat first inclined to shrink from him, as one who ate and drank withpublicans and sinners: but they held their peace, when they sawthose whom they had driven out as reprobates labouring peacefully andcheerfully under Philammon. The elder generation of Scetis, too, saw,with some horror, the new influx of sinners: but their abbot had butone answer to their remonstrances--'Those who are whole need not aphysician, but those who are sick.'
Never was the young abbot heard to speak harshly of any human being.'When thou halt tried in vain for seven years,' he used to say, 'toconvert a sinner, then only wilt thou have a right to suspect him ofbeing a worse man than thyself.' That there is a seed of good in allmen, a Divine Word and Spirit striving with all men, a gospel and goodnews which would turn the hearts of all men, if abbots and priests couldbut preach it aright, was his favourite doctrine, and one which he usedto defend, when, at rare intervals, he allowed himself to discussany subject from the writings of his favourite theologian, Clementof Alexandria. Above all, he stopped, by stern rebuke, any attempt torevile either heretics or heathens. 'On the Catholic Church alone,' heused to say, 'lies the blame of all heresy and unbelief: for if she werebut for one day that which she ought to be, the world would be convertedbefore nightfall.' To one class of sins, indeed, he was inexorable--allbut ferocious; to the sins, namely, of religious persons. In proportionto any man's reputation for orthodoxy and sanctity, Philammon's judgmentof him was stern and pitiless. More than once events proved him tohave been unjust: when he saw himself to be so, none could confess hismistake more frankly, or humiliate himself for it more bitterly: butfrom his rule he never swerved; and the Pharisees of the Nile dreadedand avoided him, as much as the publicans and sinners loved and followedhim.
One thing only in his conduct gave some handle for scandal, among thejust persons who needed no repentance. It was well known that in hismost solemn devotions, on those long nights of unceasing prayer andself-discipline, which won him a reputation for superhuman sanctity,there mingled always with his prayers the names of two women. And, whensome worthy elder, taking courage from his years, dared to hint kindlyto him that such conduct caused some scandal to the weaker brethren,'It is true,' answered he; 'tell my brethren that I pray nightly for twowomen both of them young; both of them beautiful; both of them belovedby me more than I love my own soul; and tell them, moreover, that oneof the two was a harlot, and the other a heathen.' The old monk laid hishand on his mouth, and retired.
The remainder of his history it seems better to extract from anunpublished fragment of the _Hagiologia Nilotica_ of GraidiocolosyrtusTabenniticus, the greater part of which valuable work was destroyed atthe taking of Alexandria under Amrou, A. D. 640.
'Now when the said abbot had ruled the monastery of Scetis seven yearswith uncommon prudence, resplendent in virtue and in miracles, it befellthat one morning he was late for the Divine office. Whereon a certainancient brother, who was also a deacon, being sent to ascertain thecause of so unwonted a defection, found the holy man extended upon thefloor of his cell, like Balaam in the flesh, though far differing fromhim in the spirit, having fallen into a trance, but having his eyesopen. Who, not daring to arouse him, sat by him until the hour of noon,judging rightly that something from heaven had befallen him. And at thathour, the saint arising without astonishment, said, "Brother, make readyfor me the divine elements, that I may consecrate them." And he askingthe reason wherefore, the saint replied, "That I may partake thereofwith all my brethren, ere I depart hence. For know assuredly that,within the seventh day, I shall migrate to the celestial mansions. Forthis night stood by me in a dream, those two women, whom I love, and forwhom I pray; the one clothed in a white, the other in a ruby-colouredgarment, and holding each other by the hand; who said to me, 'That lifeafter death is not such a one as you fancy; come, therefore, and beholdwith us what it is like.'" Troubled at which words, the deacon wentforth yet on account not only of holy obedience, but also of thesanctity of the blessed abbot, did not hesitate to prepare accordingto his command the divine elements: which the abbot having consecrated,distributed among his brethren, reserving only a portion of the mostholy bread and wine; and then, having bestowed on them all the kiss ofpeace, he took the paten and chalice in his hands, and went forth fromthe monastery towards the desert; whom the whole fraternity followedweeping, as knowing that they should see his face no more. But he,having arrived at the foot of a certain mountain, stopped, and blessingthem, commanded them that they should follow him no farther, anddismissed them with these words: "As ye have been loved, so love. As yehave been judged, so judge. As ye have been forgiven, so forgive."And so ascending, was taken away from their eyes. Now they, returningastonished, watched three days with prayer and fasting: but at lastthe eldest brother, being ashamed, like Elisha before the entreaties ofElijah's disciples, sent two of the young men to seek their master.
'To whom befell a thing noteworthy and full of miracles. For ascendingthe same mountain where they had left the abbot, they met with a certainMoorish people, not averse to the Christianity, who declared thatcertain days before a priest had passed by them, bearing a paten andchalice, and blessing them in silence, proceeded across the desert inthe direction of the cave of the holy Amma.
'And they inquiring who this Amma might be, the Moors answered thatsome twenty years ago there had arrived in those mountains a woman morebeautiful than had ever before been seen in that region, dressed inrich garments; who, after a short sojourn among their tribe, havingdistributed among them the jewels which she wore, had embraced theeremitic life, and sojourned upon the highest peak of a neighbouringmountain; till, her garments failing her, she became invisible tomankind, saving to a few women of the tribe, who went up from time totime to carry her offerings of fruit and meal, and to ask the blessingof her prayers. To whom she rarely appeared, veiled down to her feet inblack hair of exceeding length and splendour.
'Hearing these things, the two brethren doubted for awhile: but at last,determining to proceed, arrived at sunset upon the summit of the saidmountain.
'Where, behold a great miracle. For above an open grave, freshly dug inthe sand, a cloud of vultures and obscene birds hovered, whom two lions,fiercely contending, drove away with their talons, as if from somesacred deposit therein enshrined. Towards whom the two brethren,fortifying themselves with the sign of the holy cross, ascended.Whereupon the lions, as having fulfilled the term of their guardianship,retired; and left to the brethren a sight which they beheld withastonishment, and not without tears.
'For in the open grave lay the body of Philammon the abbot: and by hisside, wrapped in his cloak, the corpse of a woman of exceeding beauty,such as the Moors had described. Whom embracing straitly, as a brothera sister, and joining his lips to hers, he had rendered up his soulto God; not without bestowing on her, as it seemed, the most holysacrament; for by the grave-side stood the paten and the chalice emptiedof their divine contents.
'Having beheld which things awhile in silence, they considered thatthe right understanding of such matters pertained to the judgment seatabove, and was unnecessary to be comprehended by men consecrated to God.Whereon, filling in the grave with all haste, they returned weepingto the Laura, and declared to them the strange things which they hadbeheld, and whereof I the writer, having collected these facts fromsacrosanct and most trustworthy mouths, can only say that wisdom isjustified of all her children.
'Now, before they returned, one of the brethren searching the cavewherein the holy woman dwelt, found there neither food, furniture, norother matters; saving one bracelet of gold, of large size and strangeworkmanship, engraven with foreign characters, which no one coulddecipher. The which bracelet, being taken home to the Laura of Scetis,and there dedicated in the chapel to the memory of the holy Amma, provedbeyond all doubt the sanctity of its former possessor, by the miracleswhich its virtue worked; the fame whereof spreading abroad throughoutthe whole Thebaid, drew innumerable crowds of suppliants to that holyrelic. But it came to pass, after the Vandalic persecution wherewithHuneric and Genseric the king devastated Africa, and enriched theCatholic Church with innumerable martyrs, that certain wanderingbarbarians of the Vandalic race, imbued with the Arian pravity, and madeinsolent by success, boiled over from the parts of Mauritania intothe Thebaid region. Who plundering and burning all monasteries, andinsulting the consecrated virgins, at last arrived even at the monasteryof Scetis, where they not only, according to their impious custom,defiled the altar, and carried off the sacred vessels, but also boreaway that most holy relic, the chief glory of the Laura,--namely, thebracelet of the holy Amma, impiously pretending that it had belongedto a warrior of their tribe, and thus expounded the writing thereonengraven--
'For Amalric Amal's Son Smid Troll's Son Made Me.
Wherein whether they spoke truth or not, yet their sacrilege did notremain unpunished; for attempting to return homeward toward the sea byway of the Nile, they were set upon while weighed down with wine andsleep, by the country people, and to a man miserably destroyed. But thepious folk, restoring the holy gold to its pristine sanctuary, werenot unrewarded: for since that day it grows glorious with ever freshmiracles--as of blind restored to sight, paralytics to strength,demoniacs to sanity--to the honour of the orthodox Catholic Church, andof its ever-blessed saints.' ...............
So be it. Pelagia and Philammon, like the rest, went to their own place;to the only place where such in such days could find rest; to the desertand the hermit's cell, and then forward into that fairy land of legendand miracle, wherein all saintly lives were destined to be enveloped formany a century thenceforth.
And now, readers, farewell. I have shown you New Foes under an oldface--your own likenesses in toga and tunic, instead of coat and bonnet.One word before we part. The same devil who tempted these old Egyptianstempts you. The same God who would have saved these old Egyptians ifthey had willed, will save you, if you will. Their sins are yours,their errors yours, their doom yours, their deliverance yours. There isnothing new under the sun. The thing which has been, it is that whichshall be. Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone,whether at Hypatia or Pelagia, Miriam or Raphael, Cyril or Philammon.
THE END
Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face Page 31
