Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley (most popular novels of all time .TXT) 📕
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- Author: Charles Kingsley
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Cyril in the meanwhile, though he was doing a foolish thing, was doing it wisely enough. Orestes might curse, and respectability might deplore, those nightly sermons, which shook the mighty arcades of the Caesareum, but they could not answer them. Cyril was right and knew that he was right. Orestes was a scoundrel, hateful to God, and to the enemies of God. The middle classes were lukewarm covetous cowards: the whole system of government was a swindle and an injustice; all men’s hearts were mad with crying, ‘Lord, how long?’ The fierce bishop had only to thunder forth text on text, from every book of scripture, old and new, in order to array on his side not merely the common sense and right feeling, but the bigotry and ferocity of the masses.
In vain did the good Arsenius represent to him not only the scandal but the unrighteousness of his new canonisation. ‘I must have fuel, my good father,’ was his answer, ‘wherewith to keep alight the flame of zeal. If I am to be silent as to Heraclian’s defeat, I must give them some other irritant, which will put them in a proper temper to act on that defeat, when they are told of it. If they hate Orestes, does he not deserve it? Even if he is not altogether as much in the wrong in this particular case as they fancy he is, are there not a thousand other crimes of his which deserve their abhorrence even more? At all events, he must proclaim the empire, as you yourself say, or we shall have no handle against him. He will not dare to proclaim it if he knows that we are aware of the truth. And if we are to keep the truth in reserve, we must have something else to serve meanwhile as a substitute for it.’
And poor Arsenius submitted with a sigh, as he saw Cyril making a fresh step in that alluring path of evil-doing that good might come, which led him in after years into many a fearful sin, and left his name disgraced, perhaps for ever, in the judgment of generations, who know as little of the pandemonium against which he fought, as they do of the intense belief which sustained him in his warfare; and who have therefore neither understanding nor pardon for the occasional outrages and errors of a man no worse, even if no better, than themselves.
CHAPTER XXI: THE SQUIRE-BISHOP
In a small and ill-furnished upper room of a fortified country house, sat Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene.
A goblet of wine stood beside him, on the table, but it was untasted. Slowly and sadly, by the light of a tiny lamp, he went on writing a verse or two, and then burying his face in his hand, while hot tears dropped between his fingers on the paper; till a servant entering, announced Raphael Aben-Ezra.
Synesius rose, with a gesture of surprise, and hurried towards the door. ‘No, ask him to come hither to me. To pass through those deserted rooms at night is more than I can bear.’ And he waited for his guest at the chamber door, and as he entered, caught both his hands in his, and tried to speak; but his voice was choked within him.
‘Do not speak,’ said Raphael gently, leading him to his chair again. ‘I know all.’
‘You know all? And are you, then, so unlike the rest of the world, that you alone have come to visit the bereaved and the deserted in his misery?’
‘I am like the rest of the world, after all; for I came to you on my own selfish errand, to seek comfort. Would that I could give it instead! But the servants told me all, below.’
‘And yet you persisted in seeing me, as if I could help you? Alas! I can help no one now. Here I am at last, utterly alone, utterly helpless. As I came from my mother’s womb, so shall I return again. My last child—my last and fairest—gone after the rest!—Thank God, that I have had even a day’s peace wherein to lay him by his mother and his brothers; though He alone knows how long the beloved graves may remain unrifled. Let it have been shame enough to sit here in my lonely tower and watch the ashes of my Spartan ancestors, the sons of Hercules himself, my glory and my pride, sinful fool that I was! cast to the winds by barbarian plunderers.... When wilt thou make an end, O Lord, and slay me?’
‘And how did the poor boy die?’ asked Raphael, in hope of soothing sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in words.
‘The pestilence.—What other fate can we expect, who breathe an air tainted with corpses, and sit under a sky darkened with carrion birds? But I could endure even that, if I could work, if I could help. But to sit here, imprisoned now for months between these hateful towers; night after night to watch the sky, red with burning homesteads; day after day to have my ears ring with the shrieks of the dying and the captives—for they have begun now to murder every male down to the baby at the breast—and to feel myself utterly fettered, impotent, sitting here like some palsied idiot, waiting for my end! I long to rush out, and fall fighting, sword in hand: but I am their last, their only hope. The governors care nothing for our supplications. In vain have I memorialised Gennadius and Innocent, with what little eloquence my misery has not stunned in me. But there is no resolution, no unanimity left in the land. The soldiery are scattered in small garrisons, employed entirely in protecting the private property of their officers. The Ausurians defeat them piecemeal, and, armed with their spoils, actually have begun to beleaguer fortified towns; and now there is nothing left for us, but to pray that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured the last. What am I doing? I am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows, instead of listening to yours.’
‘Nay, friend, you are talking of the sorrows of your country, not of your own. As for me, I have no sorrow—only a despair: which, being irremediable, may well wait. But you—oh, you must not stay here. Why not escape to Alexandria?’
‘I will die at my post as I have lived, the father of my people. When the last ruin comes, and Cyrene itself is besieged, I shall return thither from my present outpost, and the conquerors shall find the bishop in his place before the altar. There I have offered for years the unbloody sacrifice to Him, who will perhaps require of me a bloody one, that so the sight of an altar polluted by the murder of His priest, may end the sum of Pentapolitan woe, and arouse Him to avenge His slaughtered sheep! There, we will talk no more of it. This, at least, I have left in my power, to make you welcome. And after supper you shall tell me what brings you hither.’
And the good bishop, calling his servant, set to work to show his guest such hospitality as the invaders had left in his power.
Raphael’s usual insight had not deserted him when, in his utter perplexity, he went, almost instinctively, straight
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