Azazeel (24 page)

‘Hypa, what’s happening in Alexandria has nothing to do with religion,’ said Nestorius. ‘The first blood shed in that city, after the period of pagan persecution of
Christians, was Christian blood shed by Christians. Fifty years ago the Alexandrians killed the bishop of their city, Bishop Georgios, because he agreed with some of the opinions of Arius the
Alexandrian. Killing people in the name of religion does not make it religious. It was this earthly world that Theophilus inherited and later bequeathed to his nephew Cyril. Don’t confuse
matters, my son, for those are people of power, not people of faith, people of profane cruelty, not of divine love.’

‘In the church in Alexandria, father, I saw one of the monks who killed Bishop Georgios the Cappadocian.’

Nestorius was surprised at what I said, then he surprised me with his words, because they reminded me of what I had always believed. ‘What you saw there was not a monk,’ he said
sadly. ‘Monks do not kill. They walk lightly on earth, following in the footsteps of the apostles, the saints and the martyrs.’

SCROLL TWELVE

M
y days in Jerusalem varied little until Nestorius came with the pilgrims that year, but after his arrival my time became pleasant and agreeable
and I no longer felt like a stranger there. We used to meet mostly in the church, or in my room or at their residence. I always cheered up when he came and my worries abated till I almost forgot
them, and they left me alone. But after twenty days were past he told me they were preparing to go back home, now they were sure that the roads to Antioch and Mopsuestia were safe. I was anxious
all night and on the day of their departure I woke up early and was at their residence with the first rays of the sun. The square was full of pack animals and the delegation was absorbed in
preparing for the journey. Everyone was busy with departure and I worried about how desolate my life would be after they were gone.

From afar Nestorius saw me as he moved among the group briskly and enthusiastically, saying one thing to one person and giving an order to someone else. Everyone obeyed him, and he had great
prestige among them. He saw me and approached with a smile. He took me aside at the wall of the big guesthouse, but kept an eye on the people preparing to depart. Then he turned to me and said,
‘Why don’t you come to Antioch with us? Or join us with the next caravan that comes?’

‘Antioch, father, is a big noisy city and I can no longer live in such places. My only remaining aim is to spend the rest of my days in peace.’

‘What are you talking about? You’re only thirty years old!’

‘Is it thirty? It feels like three hundred,’ I replied.

Nestorius laughed at my remark and his face beamed all the more. Inquisitively he asked me if I intended to live out my life as a hermit, or as a practising physician. He added in jest,
‘Or you could become a priest in our country. If one day you want to give up the monastic life, I’ll find you a good Christian wife who will beget a tribe of Egyptians for you in our
country.’

‘Sir, I tell you I want to live in peace, and then you suggest marriage!’

Nestorius laughed, showing his even white teeth. He adjusted his cap and asked me if I was content to live in Jerusalem. I showed him the palms of my hand as if to say I had no other option. He
said that if I wanted to live in peace I should think of living in a monastery. He added politely, ‘I won’t describe to you how peaceful life is in a monastery, because you Egyptians
invented monasticism and monasteries, reviving the traditions you had followed since ancient times.’

Nestorius told me that day that in a green area north of Aleppo there was a monastery affiliated to their church in Antioch and that it was one of the quietest and most beautiful places on
earth. He asked me if I would like to settle there and without thinking I said, ‘Yes, father, I would like that. I’m tired of living here and nothing will console me in Jerusalem when
you’re gone.’

Nestorius asked for a pen and some ink, put his hand in his pocket and took out a small piece of washed leather parchment inscribed on both sides, and told me it was a letter to the abbot and
that he would give me a warm welcome. He described the site of the monastery to me and told me about the fine climate and how close it was to Antioch, that in fact it was just one day’s walk
and that I could visit them at the cathedral whenever I wanted. He said he might drop in on me on his travels between the many towns and monasteries in those parts. ‘The monastery is more
relaxed and safer than Jerusalem, which is surrounded by wilderness on all sides and is far from the capital of the empire,’ he said. He paused to think a moment and then continued,
‘Soon I might move to Constantinople because the bishop there is ill and they are talking to me about taking on the bishopric after him. As you know, the bishopric of the capital is no less
important than the papal see in Rome, and my presence there might be of benefit to Christians.’

‘God willing it will be of benefit, father, and fortunate.’

‘Let God do with us what he wishes. And now, Hypa, I bid you farewell in the hope that we will meet again, and do not delay in moving to the monastery.’

The caravan moved on, bringing to the surface my underlying anxieties. I walked behind them until they left Jerusalem through the southern gate, which they call the Zion Gate. Then they veered
westwards to head to Antioch along the coast road which skirts the great sea. When the caravan disappeared from sight, I had a powerful sense of loneliness and estrangement. I hurried back to my
room with a determination to leave for the northern monastery as soon as possible.

I spent two weeks organizing my departure and a third week waiting for the trade caravan which passes close to Aleppo. I thought that travelling with them would be less strenuous than all my
previous travels. Most of the merchants in the caravan were Arabs who speak a language the intricacies of which were unfamiliar to me and which I had no intention of learning. Although the language
is similar to Syriac, it has no written literature which would encourage me to learn it, and its speakers are people without any special religion. They include Jews, Christians and pagans and in
the barren heart of their peninsula they have shrines for idols, and they walk naked in circles around those shrines. They are said to be the descendants of Ishmael and are mentioned in the Torah,
but I do not believe that. Those who are Christians have a bishopric in the deserts of the peninsula, which is known as Arabia. They are traders, cunning and warlike.

As I expected, my journey with the caravan was comfortable. On the way we passed by a large town called Damascus, surrounded by orchards and overlooked by a tall mountain. Beyond it the land
flattens out and a plain extends northwards as far as Aleppo and the villages around it. After two weeks we reached Aleppo at sunset one day, and I could make out the features of the town only on
the morning of the next day. It is a pleasant city inhabited by many Arabs, Syrians and Greeks, as well as some families from Palmyra who took refuge there a century and a half ago when Palmyra was
destroyed and abandoned. So it is a city of an Arab character, with Arab inhabitants.

The strange thing about Aleppo is that it does not have a city wall. The houses are scattered around low hills and in the middle stands one enormous hill. On top of that stand the remains of an
old castle with ruined gates, though the remaining walls are still high. From the antiquity of the town it seems it was of some importance in previous centuries and then its importance gradually
diminished and merchants moved in. I spent the night in the guesthouse attached to the parish of Aleppo and early in the morning a servant who worked in the parish travelled with me to the
monastery. He was taking some provisions to deliver to the monks living in the small monasteries dispersed along the roads between Aleppo and Antioch. That’s what the servant told me when he
saw my surprise at the many things loaded on to the two donkeys that were with him. My many books, which had come from Jerusalem to Aleppo on a camel, now travelled the rest of the way on the backs
of two wretched mules.

The distance between Aleppo and the northern monastery is short, no more than half a day’s journey, and the plain along the way is open, with green meadows and hills of yellow sand. The
parish servant pointed to the first hill that appeared after we left Aleppo and told me that the city cemetery was behind it and that his mother and father were buried there. He said he visited
them every week to profit from their example and relive a period that would never return. I asked him if he would like to pass by them, and he answered hesitantly that he did not want to delay or
inconvenience me but he would like to visit the graves because after he took me to the monastery he would continue his journey to Antioch to visit his married sister there and he would spend a
month with her. I had no choice but to turn aside to visit the graves with him and stay there half an hour while he recited his prayers.

The people there have a strange way of burying their dead. They do not cover them with soil and set up a tombstone for them, as we do in Egypt. Instead they put the dead in openings like long
holes, one on top of another, then plug up the openings with a sticky paste made of soil, and trace the sign of the cross on the openings.

While the man was reciting his prayers, I thought about the people I knew who had died. I do not know of any grave for my father, and I do not think he was buried in the first place. Perhaps the
temple priests threw his remains in the Nile when they were sure that his killers were gone, and crocodiles ate them. Did the Alexandrians throw Octavia in the sea to be eaten by fish, or did they
bury her in that cemetery near the ruins of the royal quarter? Of course Hypatia was not buried: there was nothing left of her to bury. The worms of the underworld ate nothing of her body, because
she ended her life like a tree that is burned and changes into charcoal. Coal kindles fire, while a body buried in the ground is ravaged by worms. Was it fitter that Hypatia was burned after her
death, so that worms never feasted on her camphorous body? Where do worms come from to eat the dead? The great doctors of antiquity, who dissected bodies dead and alive, never mentioned in their
books that they found worms in living creatures, so where did the worms come from after death? Are they latent inside us, such that they appear only after we die? Are they latent also in juicy
fruit, old cheese and living bodies, waiting for the creature to die and its flesh to rot, so they can live off death, then die? They say that these worms do not eat the remains of saints and
martyrs. Is that a miracle on the part of the saints and martyrs, or on the part of the worms, in that they can distinguish between bodies which are holy and those which are not? But as far as I
can tell, the worms do not discriminate and cannot tell the bodies of saints from those of others. They also do not attack the bodies of the mummies preserved in our country in ancient
sarcophaguses. And why did the ancient Egyptians preserve the bodies of their dead, using either magic or science to keep the worms away? Or perhaps their bodies were also sacred.

‘Come along, father, God bless you.’

The parish servant interrupted my daydreaming, inviting me to resume our journey. On the mule’s back I had endless thoughts and questions without answers. Would I be buried one day and
would my grave be a hole in a wall, like that at which the servant had said his prayers and asked God to bestow his mercy on his mother and father after they were dust? If I did have one of those
graves, who would come to invoke God’s mercies by praying at my grave, when I have no family and no descendants? Would these white worms that eat the dead, although they have no teeth, one
day feast on me? Or have they already started to eat me without me noticing? I remembered with distress how once in my childhood I saw a dead duck lying between the rocks with worms teeming in its
gut. In the bowels of the earth, if we dug it up, we would see worms. Has the earth died and are the worms burrowing into it without us knowing, so that this world fades away into nothingness while
we pay no heed?

On the broad dirt road leading north from Aleppo to the monastery we went through open land with reddish fertile soil. They say, the parish servant told me, that the soil on
these plains was originally yellow and sandy, and that it turned brown from the blood of the martyrs shed in the days of the persecution, and the soil stayed brown to remind Christians of the time
of oppression. That’s what the poor man told me and I saw no reason to challenge or contradict his ideas, which he seemed comfortable with. On the way, I picked some herbs to look into their
properties and possible uses when I settled down in the monastery. Everything the earth produces has uses and benefits, whether we are aware of them or not.

I was delighted at the scenes along the way and the church servant was pleasant company, quick to help me and look after me. In the afternoon we were walking across those hills which look like
big waves, one on top of another, and I was engrossed in my meditations when the servant stretched out his arm and pointed to the top of the highest hill around. ‘That’s the monastery.
We’re there,’ he said with pleasure. My heart jumped.