Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria (37 page)

For three hours now, Theophilus has twisted his face full of pox and his body grown gaunt and his limbs grown thin into every conceivable shape.
 
I have held a bowl over and over as he vomited.
 
I have held a second bowl to catch the content of his bowels.
 
How much does he contain?
 
What is wrong with him?
 
Does he die?
 
If he is dying, where is the archdeacon?
 
I call for slaves to empty bowls.
 
I call for incense so I do not lose my own dinner.
 
Why are Cyril and Theophania outside?
 
Do they not heed his cries?

He moans as he clutches his belly, tears of torment leaking down his face, his beard soaked with sweat.
 
I know this torment of the bowels, it plagues me, though his seems so much the greater.
 
And then he grows quiet.
 
Holding my breath in order to avoid his, I lean over him.
 
Has it passed, whatever torments him?
 
His eyes are closed.
 
Will the poor thing rest?
 
Quietly I turn away.
 
If I am quiet enough, I might leave.
 
His chamber reeks of vomit and feces.
 
I reek of his vomit and feces.
 
The robe I wear will need to be soaked for a day or more to clean it.

My hand is reaching for his door handle, when he calls out to me.
 
Our Mother in Heaven, if I did not know, I would never guess this the voice of the powerful Patriarch of Alexandria.

“Jone.”

“Yes, Holy Father?”

“Come back here.”
 
I sigh, but take care he does not see me sigh, returning to seat myself on the stool I have used throughout.
 
“I am dying, Jone.”
 
I would deny it, but he denies me the effort of denial.
 
“I was not dying this morning, but I am dying now.
 
A whole life lived, and it comes to this?”
 
I shake my head.
 
Though I have thought of death often, it has never been
my
death.
 
I cannot imagine such a thing as my own death.
 
As for his, what
has
he come to?
 
“Not once did I dream I would die in this way.
 
Where is God?
 
Where are his angels?
 
Where my solace and my reward—and where is my church?
 
I’ve chosen the site.
 
I’ve drawn the plans.
 
This year I would lay the first stones.
 
Will it be built?
 
Will I be honored as I should be?
 
Do I care?
 
I find I do not care.
 
Shall I tell you, poor thing that you are, what has gone through my mind?”
 
If he will tell me, he will, though I wish he would not.
 
I sit quietly.
 
“Hypatia.”
 
I am now as still as he will be when he dies…which for the first time this night I hope will be soon.
 
“Your sister troubles my dying as she has troubled my life.
 
Why else forbid Isidore her and her Isidore?
 
Why else did I banish my favorite?
 
All think it because of Origen.
 
Pah!
 
His heart was full of Hypatia and would not empty itself of her!
 
Only one thing is left me.
 
That I could
know
Hypatia.”

My God, my God, my God.
 
Is there no end to this!
 
I have thought I could feel no more.
 
I have thought my hatred had limits.
 
I find it does not.
 
Long ago, Isidore who I loved, loved Hypatia.
 
I pined for Minkah, but Minkah loves Hypatia.
 
For weeks Cyril has waddled into her lectures and when he comes home there is a look about him I have seen before.
 
Am I nothing?
 
Do they think I feel
nothing
?
 
Did Father cast me aside and assume I
felt
nothing!
 
I feel
everything
!
 
And all that I feel is as bile to me.

Theophilus, dying, desires Hypatia?
 
I will tell him of his precious Hypatia.
 
He would take her with him to the hell that awaits him?
 
Then he shall take also the one thing that might prove worse than hell.

I lean close.
 
I do not gag at his stench.
 
I do not take my eyes from the vomit that coats his wrinkled lips or fills the marks of his pox like mud fills potholes.
 
I say this to him.
 
“The books exist, Theophilus.”

His eyes, dim, yet wet with a foolish desire that does not die as he dies, grow suddenly bright.
 
“What do you mean?”

“I mean that all the books you thought burned are not burned.
 
They were taken away, book by book, out into the desert, and there they are now, in jars, protected and safe.
 
Hypatia did this.
 
My sister Hypatia has saved the books.
 
They live, Theophilus.”

He stares at me.
 
If I know hate, so too does he.
 
“You knew this?
 
You knew—”

“I knew.”

“And you never told me?”

If he knows love, I too once knew love.
 
“I would protect Minkah the Egyptian.”

“By the sack of Satan!
 
You name
Minkah
!”

The news is too shocking.
 
The books exist.
 
He cannot accept it.
 
He cannot reject it.
 
He reaches for me, the fat gold rings on his long thin fingers slipping down his knuckles, the jewels on each slimy with the sweat of his dying, and in that moment I know why I am called here this night.
 
I am called because I am as close as he will ever come to Hypatia.
 
And now he would kill her, as I would kill her, but as he cannot, he would kill me.

But before his will can be done, Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria has one last terrible spasm, and is dead.
 
It is ugly, his dying.
 
It has been painful and loud and satisfying.
 
And it is just in time.

I do not shut his eyes or his mouth or cover his face.
 
I do not straighten the great gold medallion stuck through with rubies and emeralds that lies on his sunken chest in a puddle of vomit.
 
I walk from his room as a cat would walk from a room: indifferent, indolent, in search of its own pleasures.
 
I leave him as all leave me.

Cyril is asleep on the couch, his fat red mouth puckered and his snore like mallets on stone.
 
Bald as an Egyptian, Theophania is also asleep, slumped on a chair, her legs splayed out as if she gives birth, her head bent at an awkward angle.
 
Her braided black and orange wig lies on the floor.
 
I would kick it into a corner, but I am no longer a child.
 
I pass the open door to a great dining room.
 
Theophilus has served his pest of a sister and his uncomfortable nephew a goodly meal.

Beside each plate is a pomegranate.
 
All three have been sliced in half.
 
Only one has been eaten.
 
God listens to some.

Late Fall, 412

Minkah the Egyptian

Theophilus is dead.
 
From the Moon to the Sun Gate, from the sweet lake to the salted sea, Alexandria is in shock.
 
Nothing ailed him.
 
He had no accident.

He would not be at all surprised to note the many who offer up thanks at his passing.
 
He might be surprised to find that I, Minkah, was not among them.
 
Theophilus stood between Hypatia and his Christians.
 
But would it surprise him to know Hypatia mourns?
 
Would it please him?
 
My beloved attends his funeral in all sincerity.
 
I go only to protect her.
 
All know a handmaid of Cyril’s attended him on the night he died.
 
All know her name: Jone.
 
Not all, but many know her as daughter of Theon and as sister to Hypatia.
 
These are suspicious.

But this is as nothing beside the horror of Cyril, son of Theophania, now Bishop of Alexandria.

Cyril is unwanted, unloved, and feared.
 
Christians, at least those who believe in the right of succession by high office, expected as Bishop Archdeacon Timothy.
 
Cyril would have Cyril as bishop.
 
The city only now calms after three brutal days of terror.
 
Cyril’s black mantles threatened Timothy and the supporters of Timothy.
 
Fires were set, women raped then gutted, men knifed, the heads of children were smashed against walls.
 
Even as Prefect, Orestes could do little as Abundantius, his Military Chief Commander, commands only a single detachment.
 
Abundantius could not be everywhere, arrest everyone, save more than a few.

On the 18
^th
of October, accompanied by riots all over the city, Archdeacon Timothy lost an election his by popular right and Cyril “won” what he had no right to win.

 
Bewigged and bejeweled, his mother, now thinner than an eel, sleeker and more slippery, immediately clapped the robes of office around her son’s great bulk, crammed the pharaohnic hat on his enormous head, handed him the golden scepter of office to seize in one fat hand, the golden staff to grip in the other, and there he sits now, stuffed into the throne of Saint Mark.

The son of Theophania is thirty five years old.
 
He may live for years.
 
For too many, they will be years of pain and tears and loss.

But while Alexandria is terrified, a small group of men are made jubilant.
 
Of these, most are my good friends, the ever pestilent
Parabalanoi
, or Isidore’s associates, the increasingly malignant monks of the Nitrian Mountains.
 
With Theophilus dead, the
Parabalanoi
reforms itself around Cyril.
 
These renew their vows.
 
Those who would not, do not.
 
I do not, nor does my friend, Felix Zoilus.
 
Does Isidore?
 
Long since, he left the thugs of Theophilus to join the thugs of Nitria who love Cyril.
 
Under Cyril, will Isidore become again Archdeacon?
 
Better to ask: how much will any man pay for position?
 
In my experience, he will pay his very soul.

None wait long for fear to coalesce into terror.
 
Any who had ever ignored Cyril, or laughed at him, or did not agree with him, or who had opposed his reign as bishop…all who he did not agree with, or felt contempt for, or threatened by, or believed inferior to his Christian “truths,” were either killed or banished.
 
Of those killed, no trail led back to Cyril.
 
Those who were banished were banished openly.

Cyril turns first on his fellow Christians, primarily the Novatians.
 
As my darling does not call herself pagan, these do not call themselves Novatians, but rather the Pure, the
Katharoi
.
 
Believing their faith corrupted when those, under threat, denied the Christ and sacrificed to idols, they resist Cyril who welcomes apostates back into the church.
 
Say the Pure: what insult to those who willingly died appalling deaths rather than deny their faith!
 
The
Katharoi
are mathematicians, philosophers, men of letters.
 
They supported Timothy against Cyril.
 
They attend the lectures of Hypatia of Alexandria.
 
They now pay dearly for each of these crimes.
 
Cyril closes their churches, robs their treasuries, drives their bishop and his flock from the city.

I hear Cyril will soon turn his thoughts to the Jews.

And I, Minkah, prepare for the day he looks farther afield.

The life of man turns and turns again, wheeling like the stars from sign and to sign, and every sign known in advance.
 
If times are good for some, they are bad for others.
 
But whether good or bad, they will reverse themselves as inexorably as the moon in its course.
 
For Cyril, times become very good, and for those who pant out his praises.
 
For all others, times become very bad indeed.

No longer under the protection of Theophilus, nothing but death could force me from Hypatia’s side.

~

Summer, 413

Hypatia of Alexandria

Though it causes the Companions no end of silent complaint, my salon is a great success.
 
And if its luster pales when compared to that of Aspasia of Athens, it seems a success to me and I am content.

Because women attend, men do not.
 
This turns out a blessing.
 
Aside from Lais, in all my life I have spent little time with my own sex.
 
To do so now is a revelation.
 
With these, I am merely a guide.
 
I am taught as I teach.
 
The talk of women is not the talk of men.
 
It is freer, less contentious, more eager to speak, a great deal more eager to listen.
 
It holds within it touches and tastes of Lais.

Beginning only with Catherine and Olinda and Galla—until Aelia Galla is called back to her willing captivity, for all see she is anxious to return to King Ataulf, her Visigoth abductor—we grow quickly in number.
 
First come the wives and daughters of Companions, then those of rich men, and then come women I scarce knew existed.
 
Women free of men, women who have traveled from place to place, women who live by their wits.
 
These last amaze and humble me.
 
My world was ready made for me; I am cocooned by it.
 
These have made the world their own.
 
And they have sought me out.
 
One heard me in Athens, one in Ephesus, several in Antioch, one in Constantinople.
 
I question them closely, find homes for those in need, offer stipends.

No matter that Alexandria trembles before Cyril—surviving so much, surely she will survive the ambition of one fat man—I am happier now than I have ever been.

As we talk, as we sip wine, as I read to them from Seth, from Valentinus, from my own unfinished pages, as I am asked this and asked that, and as I ask of them, Nildjat Miw prowls among us, as large as a caracal.
 
On the tip of each ear grows a curved tuft of dark hair and her color is as shaded sand.
 
If I thought it possible, I should imagine she
is
a caracal.
 
She grows no less vocal.

We discuss the words of Mary Magdalene, beloved companion and teacher of the Christ, she who once lived and studied in Alexandria under Philo Judaeus, then taught her beloved what she herself had learned as they walked to his death.
 
We discuss the words of
The Gospel of Philip
.
 
“God created man and man created God.
 
So is it in the world.
 
Men make gods and they worship their creations.
 
It would be fitting for the gods to worship men.”
 
I wait for intake of breath, but it does not come as it would from one or more of the Companions.
 
“Most who heard such words would dismiss them.
 
Others would misunderstand them.
 
Philip is not saying God is no more than a fabrication of man.
 
He is saying, as did Parmenides of Elea, that out of our own Thoughts, through our own Minds, we brought forth the World…and with the World came the idea of God.
 
He is saying that out of his own Thoughts and through his own Mind, God brought forth Man.
 
But how can this be?
 
God made man and man made God?
 
Is it not one or the other?
 
The answer is simple.
 
Man and God are the same.
 
There is no separation.”

I tell them further, as a faith named for Christ drives our gods from the world and makes the source of “evil” a woman, they are made rapt to discover that the Christ is not a history but a spiritual myth, that the word “Christ” is not a name or a title but a state of being: Christ Consciousness, which in Greek is called
gnosis
or divine knowing, and in the language of those I have met from the land of the Gupta it is
Moksha
.

As we talk my women and I become runners of the sun, those who would
know
.

~

“By their own laws, Christians are forbidden taverns, brothels, and public assemblies.
 
They are forbidden the theater.”
 
Bishop Synesius tells us this.
 
After a moment of thought, he adds, “Few obey.”

Meletus, who stands in the Agora’s center courtyard as I do as does Minkah and Orestes, nods.
 
“Jews, no different, attend theater even on the Sabbath.
 
They become unruly, for the Law that binds the Jews has loosened and many have escaped.”
 
He says this in all seriousness and I see he does not mean to be amusing.

Synesius sighs.
 
“The true faithful of any religion are not many.”
 
At this my old friend and student looks at me knowing I know he does not count himself among the true faithful.

Orestes, as Prefect, laments: “If they do not stop, Jewish theater must stop.”
 
This he also says, “And yet no Jew threatens Imperial authority.
 
Only Cyril does.
 
As I labor to return order to the law courts and to public gatherings, his people, forbidden by their church to attend either, create hell on earth.
 
Now they attack Jews for attending their own theater on their own Sabbath, as if it was any of their accursed business…yet as Prefect, I am required to maintain public order.”

“Orestes,” say I, “when you do this, might I come along?”

Minkah grows alert beside me.
 
“Why would you go?”

“All I have known of Jews is Meletus.
 
I would know more.”

“There are better ways than maintaining order with Orestes.”

“Are there?”

Since the death of Theophilus, I well understand Minkah protects me.
 
Even Felix Zoilus protects me.
 
Do they assume a bloodbath?
 
But knowing Meletus, stranger to a smile, we are all eager to see a Jew revel.
 
Orestes agrees.
 
How could there be danger?
 
Wherever goes the Prefect of Alexandria, so too goes any number of imperial guards.

~

We go on a night when the moon is full.
 
From the theater, built into the side of a limestone ridge on the Street of Theaters, one can look down at the Great Harbor and across its waters to the island of Pharos…but once inside—by Queen Vashti, hero to all wives—what a sight!
 
Jews stand on benches.
 
Jews throw dates, olives, bread.
 
They shout, they stamp their feet, they pull their beards.
 
As for those on stage, dancing and miming, who sees them?
 
Jews are here not for the stage, but for freedom.