Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face, Charles Kingsley [thriller novels to read TXT] 📗

escape from thoughts, from which one companion, one kindly voice, might have delivered them. I have known those, too, who have been so puffed up by those very penances which were meant to humble them, that they have despised all means of grace, as though they were already perfect, and refusing even the Holy Eucharist, have lived in self-glorying dreams and visions suggested by the evil spirits. One such I knew, who, in the madness? of his pride, refused to be counselled by any mortal man—saying that he would call no man master: and what befell him? He who used to pride himself on wandering a day’s journey into the desert without food or drink, who boasted that he could sustain life for three months at a time only on wild herbs and the Blessed Bread, seized with an inward fire, fled from his cell back to the theatres, the circus, and the taverns, and ended his miserable days in desperate gluttony, holding all things to be but phantasms, denying his own existence, and that of God Himself.’

Arsenius shook his head.

‘Be it so. But my case is different. I have yet more to confess, my friend. Day by day I am more and more haunted by the remembrance of that world from which I fled. I know that if I returned I should feel no pleasure in those pomps, which, even while I battened on them, I despised. Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women; or discern any longer what I eat or what I drink? And yet—the palaces of those seven hills, their statesmen and their generals, their intrigues, their falls, and their triumphs—for they might rise and conquer yet!—for no moment are they out of my imagination,-no moment in which they are not tempting me back to them, like a moth to the candle which has already scorched him, with a dreadful spell, which I must at last obey, wretch that I am, against my own will, or break by fleeing into some outer desert, from whence return will be impossible!’

Pambo smiled.

‘Again, I say, this is the worldly-wise man, the searcher of hearts! And he would fain flee from the little Laura, which does turn his thoughts at times from such vain dreams, to a solitude where he will be utterly unable to escape those dreams. Well, friend!—and what if thou art troubled at times by anxieties and schemes for this brother and for that? Better to be anxious for others than only for thyself. Better to have something to love—even something to weep over—than to become in some lonely cavern thine own world,—perhaps, as more than one whom I have known, thine own God.’

‘Do you know what you are saying?’ asked Arsenius in a startled tone.

‘I say, that by fleeing into solitude a man cuts himself off from all which makes a Christian man; from law, obedience, fellow-help, self-sacrifice—from the communion of saints itself.’

‘How then?’

‘How canst thou hold communion with those toward whom thou canst show no love? And how canst thou show thy love but by works of love?’

‘I can, at least, pray day and night for all mankind. Has that no place—or rather, has it not the mightiest place—in the communion of saints!

‘He who cannot pray for his brothers whom he does see, and whose sins and temptations he knows, will pray but dully, my friend Aufugus, for his brothers whom he does not see, or for anything else. And he who will not labour for his brothers, the same will soon cease to pray for them, or love them either. And then, what is written? “If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how will he love God whom he hath not seen?”’

‘Again, I say, do you know whither your argument leads?’

‘I am a plain man, and know nothing about arguments. If a thing be true, let it lead where it will, for it leads where God wills.’

‘But at this rate, it were better for a man to take a wife, and have children, and mix himself up in all the turmoil of carnal affections, in order to have as many as possible to love, and fear for, and work for.’

Pambo was silent for a while.

‘I am a monk and no logician. But this I say, that thou leavest not the Laura for the desert with my good will. I would rather, had I my wish, see thy wisdom installed somewhere nearer the metropolis—at Troe or Canopus, for example—where thou mightest be at hand to fight the Lord’s battles. Why wert thou taught worldly wisdom, but to use it for the good of the Church? It is enough. Let us go.’

And the two old men walked homeward across the valley, little guessing the practical answer which was ready for their argument in Abbot Pambo’s cell, in the shape of a tall and grim ecclesiastic, who was busily satisfying his hunger with dates and millet, and by no means refusing the palm-wine, the sole delicacy of the monastery, which had been brought forth only in honour of a guest.

The stately and courtly hospitality of Eastern manners, as well as the self-restraining kindliness of monastic Christianity, forbade the abbot to interrupt the stranger; and it was not till he had finished a hearty meal that Pambo asked his name and errand.

‘My unworthiness is called Peter the Reader. I come from Cyril, with letters and messages to the brother Aufugus.’

Pambo rose, and bowed reverentially.

‘We have heard your good report, sir, as of one zealously affected in the cause of the Church Catholic. Will it please you to follow us to the cell of Aufugus?’

Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important air to the little hut, and there taking from his bosom Cyril’s epistle, handed it to Arsenius, who sat long, reading and re-reading with a clouded brow, while Pambo watched him with simple awe, not daring to interrupt by a question lucubrations which he considered of unfathomable depth.

‘These are indeed the last days,’ said Arsenius at length, ‘spoken of by the prophet, when many shall run to and fro. So Heraclian has actually sailed for Italy?’

‘His armament was met on the high seas by Alexandrian merchantmen, three weeks ago.’

‘And Orestes hardens his heart more and more?’

‘Ay, Pharaoh that he is; or rather, the heathen woman hardens it for him.’

‘I always feared that woman above all the schools of the heathen,’ said Arsenius. ‘But the Count Heraclian, whom I always held for the wisest as well as the most righteous of men! Alas!—alas! what virtue will withstand, when ambition enters the heart!’

‘Fearful, truly,’ said Peter, ‘is that same lust of power: but for him, I have never trusted him since he began to be indulgent to those Donatists.’

‘Too true. So does one sin beget another.’

‘And I consider that indulgence to sinners is the worst of all sins whatsoever.’

‘Not of all, surely, reverend sir?’ said Pambo humbly. But Peter, taking no notice of the interruption, went on to Arsenius—

‘And