Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face

  CHAPTER XV: NEPHELOCOCCUGIA

  Hypatia had always avoided carefully discussing with Philammon anyof those points on which she differed from his former faith. She wascontent to let the divine light of philosophy penetrate by its ownpower, and educe its own conclusions. But one day, at the very time atwhich this history reopens, she was tempted to speak more openly to herpupil than she yet had done. Her father had introduced him, a few daysbefore, to a new work of hers on Mathematics; and the delighted andadoring look with which the boy welcomed her, as he met her in theMuseum Gardens, pardonably tempted her curiosity to inquire whatmiracles her own wisdom might have already worked. She stopped in herwalk, and motioned her father to begin a conversation with Philammon.

  'Well!' asked the old man, with an encouraging smile, 'and how does ourpupil like his new--'

  'You mean my conic sections, father? It is hardly fair to expect anunbiased answer in my presence.'

  'Why so?' said Philammon. 'Why should I not tell you, as well as all theworld, the fresh and wonderful field of thought which they have openedto me in a few short hours?'

  'What then?' asked Hypatia, smiling, as if she knew what the answerwould be. 'In what does my commentary differ from the original text ofApollonius, on which I have so faithfully based it?'

  'Oh, as much as a living body differs from a dead one. Instead of meredry disquisitions on the properties of lines and curves, I found amine of poetry and theology. Every dull mathematical formula seemedtransfigured, as if by a miracle, into the symbol of some deep and nobleprinciple of the unseen world.'

  'And do you think that he of Perga did not see as much? or that we canpretend to surpass, in depth of insight, the sages of the elder world?Be sure that they, like the poets, meant only spiritual things, evenwhen they seem to talk only of physical ones, and concealed heaven underan earthly garb, only to hide it from the eyes of the profane; while we,in these degenerate days, must interpret and display each detail to thedull ears of men.'

  'Do you think, my young friend,' asked Theon, 'that mathematics canbe valuable to the philosopher otherwise than as vehicles of spiritualtruth? Are we to study numbers merely that we may be able to keepaccounts; or as Pythagoras did, in order to deduce from their laws theideas by which the universe, man, Divinity itself, consists?'

  'That seems to me certainly to be the nobler purpose.'

  'Or conic sections, that we may know better how to construct machinery;or rather to devise from them symbols of the relations of Deity to itsvarious emanations?'

  'You use your dialectic like Socrates himself, my father,' said Hypatia.

  'If I do, it is only for a temporary purpose. I should be sorry toaccustom Philammon to suppose that the essence of philosophy was to befound in those minute investigations of words and analyses of notions,which seem to constitute Plato's chief power in the eyes of those who,like the Christian sophist Augustine, worship his letter while theyneglect his spirit; not seeing that those dialogues, which they fancythe shrine itself, are but vestibules--'

  'Say rather, veils, father.'

  'Veils, indeed, which were intended to baffle the rude gaze of thecarnal-minded; but still vestibules, through which the enlightened soulmight be led up to the inner sanctuary, to the Hesperid gardens andgolden fruit of the Timaeus and the oracles.... And for myself, werebut those two books left, I care not whether every other writing in theworld perished to-morrow.'[Footnote: This astounding speech is usuallyattributed to Proclus, Hypatia's 'great' successor.]

  'You must except Homer, father.'

  'Yes, for the herd.... But of what use would he be to them without somespiritual commentary?'

  'He would tell them as little, perhaps, as the circle tells to thecarpenter who draws one with his compasses.'

  'And what is the meaning of the circle?' asked Philammon.

  'It may have infinite meanings, like every other natural phenomenon;and deeper meanings in proportion to the exaltation of the soul whichbeholds it. But, consider, is it not, as the one perfect figure, thevery symbol of the totality of the spiritual world; which, like it, isinvisible, except at its circumference, where it is limited by the deadgross phenomena of sensuous matter! and even as the circle takes itsorigin from one centre, itself unseen,--a point, as Euclid defines it,whereof neither parts nor magnitude can be predicated,--does notthe world of spirits revolve round one abysmal being, unseen andundefinable--in itself, as I have so often preached, nothing, for itis conceivable only by the negation of all properties, even of those ofreason, virtue, force; and yet, like the centre of the circle, the causeof all other existences?'

  'I see,' said Philammon; for the moment, certainly, the said abysmalDeity struck him as a somewhat chill and barren notion.... but thatmight be caused only by the dulness of his own spiritual perceptions. Atall events, if it was a logical conclusion, it must be right.

  'Let that be enough for the present. Hereafter you may be--I fancy thatI know you well enough to prophesy that you will be--able to recognisein the equilateral triangle inscribed within the circle, and touching itonly with its angles, the three supra-sensual principles of existence,which are contained in Deity as it manifests itself in the physicaluniverse, coinciding with its utmost limits, and yet, like it, dependenton that unseen central One which none dare name.'

  'Ah!' said poor Philammon, blushing scarlet at the sense of his owndulness, 'I am, indeed, not worthy to have such wisdom wasted uponmy imperfect apprehension.... But, if I may dare to ask.... does notApollonius regard the circle, like all other curves, as not dependingprimarily on its own centre for its existence, but as generated by thesection of any cone by a plane at right angles to its axis?'

  'But must we not draw, or at least conceive a circle, in order toproduce that cone? And is not the axis of that cone determined by thecentre of that circle?'

  Philammon stood rebuked.

  'Do not be ashamed; you have only, unwittingly, laid open another, andperhaps, as deep a symbol. Can you guess what it is?'

  Philammon puzzled in vain.

  'Does it not show you this? That, as every conceivable right section ofthe cone discloses the circle, so in all which is fair and symmetricyou will discover Deity, if you but analyse it in a right and symmetricdirection?'

  'Beautiful!' said Philammon, while the old man added--

  'And does it not show us, too, how the one perfect and originalphilosophy may be discovered in all great writers, if we have but thatscientific knowledge which will enable us to extract it?'

  'True, my father: but just now, I wish Philammon, by such thoughts as Ihave suggested, to rise to that higher and more spiritual insight intonature, which reveals her to us as instinct throughout--all fair andnoble forms of her at least--with Deity itself; to make him feel that itis not enough to say, with the Christians, that God has made the world,if we make that very assertion an excuse for believing that His presencehas been ever since withdrawn from it.'

  'Christians, I think, would hardly say that,' said Philammon.

  'Not in words. But, in fact, they regard Deity as the maker of adead machine, which, once made, will move of itself thenceforth, andrepudiate as heretics every philosophic thinker, whether Gnosticor Platonist, who, unsatisfied with so dead, barren, and sordida conception of the glorious all, wishes to honour the Deity byacknowledging His universal presence, and to believe, honestly, theassertion of their own Scriptures, that He lives and moves, and has Hisbeing in the universe.'

  Philammon gently suggested that the passage in question was wordedsomewhat differently in the Scripture.

  'True. But if the one be true, its converse will be true also. Ifthe universe lives and moves, and has its being in Him, must He notnecessarily pervade all things?'

  'Why?--Forgive my dulness, and explain.'

  'Because, if He did not pervade all things, those things which He didnot pervade would be as it were interstices in His being, and in so far,without Him.'

  'True, but still they would be within His circumference.'
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  'Well argued. But yet they would not live in Him, but in themselves.To live in Him they must be pervaded by His life. Do you think itpossible--do you think it even reverent to affirm that there can beanything within the infinite glory of Deity which has the power ofexcluding from the space which it occupies that very being from which itdraws its worth, and which must have originally pervaded that thing,in order to bestow on it its organisation and its life? Does He retireafter creating, from the spaces which He occupied during creation,reduced to the base necessity of making room for His own universe, andendure the suffering--for the analogy of all material nature tells usthat it is suffering--of a foreign body, like a thorn within the flesh,subsisting within His own substance? Rather believe that His wisdom andsplendour, like a subtle and piercing fire, insinuates itself eternallywith resistless force through every organised atom, and that were itwithdrawn but for an instant from the petal of the meanest flower, grossmatter, and the dead chaos from which it was formed, would be all whichwould remain of its loveliness....

  'Yes'--she went on, after the method of her school, who preferred,like most decaying ones, harangues to dialectic, and synthesis toinduction.... 'Look at yon lotus-flower, rising like Aphrodite fromthe wave in which it has slept throughout the night, and saluting, withbending swan-neck, that sun which it will follow lovingly around thesky. Is there no more there than brute matter, pipes and fibres, colourand shape, and the meaningless life-in-death which men call vegetation?Those old Egyptian priests knew better, who could see in the number andthe form of those ivory petals and golden stamina, in that mysteriousdaily birth out of the wave, in that nightly baptism, from which itrises each morning re-born to a new life, the signs of some divine idea,some mysterious law, common to the flower itself, to the white-robedpriestess who held it in the temple rites, and to the goddess to whomthey both were consecrated.... The flower of Isis!.... Ah!--well. Naturehas her sad symbols, as well as her fair ones. And in proportion asa misguided nation has forgotten the worship of her to whom they owedtheir greatness, for novel and barbaric superstitions, so has her sacredflower grown rarer and more rare, till now--fit emblem of the worshipover which it used to shed its perfume--it is only to be found ingardens such as these--a curiosity to the vulgar, and, to such as me, alingering monument of wisdom and of glory past away.'

  Philammon, it may be seen, was far advanced by this time; for he borethe allusions to Isis without the slightest shudder. Nay--he dared evento offer consolation to the beautiful mourner.

  'The philosopher,' he said, 'will hardly lament the loss of a mereoutward idolatry. For if, as you seem to think, there were a root ofspiritual truth in the symbolism of nature, that cannot die. And thusthe lotus-flower must still retain its meaning, as long as its speciesexists on earth.'

  'Idolatry!' answered she, with a smile. 'My pupil must not repeat to methat worn-out Christian calumny. Into whatsoever low superstitions thepious vulgar may have fallen, it is the Christians now, and not theheathens, who are idolaters. They who ascribe miraculous power to deadmen's bones, who make temples of charnel-houses, and bow before theimages of the meanest of mankind, have surely no right to accuse ofidolatry the Greek or the Egyptian, who embodies in a form of symbolicbeauty ideas beyond the reach of words!

  'Idolatry? Do I worship the Pharos when I gaze at it, as I do for hours,with loving awe, as the token to me of the all-conquering might ofHellas? Do I worship the roll on which Homer's words are written, whenI welcome with delight the celestial truths which it unfolds to me, andeven prize and love the material book for the sake of the messagewhich it brings? Do you fancy that any but the vulgar worship the imageitself, or dream that it can help or hear them? Does the lover mistakehis mistress's picture for the living, speaking reality? We worship theidea of which the image is a symbol. Will you blame us because we usethat symbol to represent the idea to our own affections and emotionsinstead of leaving it a barren notion, a vague imagination of our ownintellect?'

  'Then,' asked Philammon, with a faltering voice, yet unable to restrainhis curiosity, 'then you do reverence the heathen gods?'

  Why Hypatia should have felt this question a sore one, puzzledPhilammon; but she evidently did feel it as such, for she answeredhaughtily enough--

  'If Cyril had asked me that question, I should have disdained to answer.To you I will tell, that before I can answer your question you mustlearn what those whom you call heathen gods are. The vulgar, or ratherthose who find it their interest to calumniate the vulgar for the sakeof confounding philosophers with them, may fancy them mere human beings,subject like man to the sufferings of pain and love, to the limitationsof personality. We, on the other hand, have been taught by the primevalphilosophers of Greece, by the priests of ancient Egypt, and the sagesof Babylon, to recognise in them the universal powers of nature, thosechildren of the all-quickening spirit, which are but various emanationsof the one primeval unity--say rather, various phases of that unity, asit has been variously conceived, according to the differences of climateand race, by the wise of different nations. And thus, in our eyes, hewho reverences the many, worships by that very act, with the highestand fullest adoration, the one of whose perfection they are the partialantitypes; perfect each in themselves, but each the image of only one ofits perfections.'

  'Why, then,' said Philammon, much relieved by this explanation, 'do youso dislike Christianity? may it not be one of the many methods--'

  'Because,' she answered, interrupting him impatiently, 'because itdenies itself to be one of those many methods, and stakes its existenceon the denial; because it arrogates to itself the exclusive revelationof the Divine, and cannot see, in its self-conceit, that its owndoctrines disprove that assumption by their similarity to those of allcreeds. There is not a dogma of the Galileans which may not be found,under some form or other, in some of those very religions from which itpretends to disdain borrowing.'

  'Except,' said Theon, 'its exaltation of all which is human andlow-born, illiterate, and levelling.'

  'Except that--. But look! here comes some one whom I cannot--do notchoose to meet. Turn this way--quick!'

  And Hypatia, turning pale as death, drew her father with unphilosophichaste down a side-walk.

  'Yes,' she went on to herself, as soon as she had recovered herequanimity. 'Were this Galilean superstition content to take its placehumbly among the other "religiones licitas" of the empire, one mighttolerate it well enough, as an anthropomorphic adumbration of divinethings fitted for the base and toiling herd; perhaps peculiarly fitted,because peculiarly flattering to them. But now--'

  'There is Miriam again,' said Philammon, 'right before us!'

  'Miriam?' asked Hypatia severely. 'You know her then? How is that?'

  'She lodges at Eudaimon's house, as I do,' answered Philammon frankly.'Not that I ever interchanged, or wish to interchange, a word with sobase a creature.'

  'Do not! I charge you!' said Hypatia, almost imploringly. But there wasnow no way of avoiding her, and perforce Hypatia and her tormentress metface to face.

  'One word! one moment, beautiful lady,' began the old woman, with aslavish obeisance. 'Nay, do not push by so cruelly. I have--see what Ihave for you!' and she held out with a mysterious air, 'The Rainbow ofSolomon.'

  'Ah! I knew you would stop a moment--not for the ring's sake, of course,nor even for the sake of one who once offered it to you.--Ah! and whereis he now? Dead of love, perhaps! at least, here is his last token tothe fairest one, the cruel one.... Well, perhaps she is right.... To bean empress--an empress!.... Far finer than anything the poor Jew couldhave offered.... But still.... An empress need not be above hearing hersubject's petition....'

  All this was uttered rapidly, and in a wheedling undertone, with acontinual snaky writhing of her whole body, except her eye, whichseemed, in the intense fixity of its glare, to act as a fulcrum for allher limbs; and from that eye, as long as it kept its mysterious hold,there was no escaping.

  'What do you mean? What have I to do with this ring?' ask
ed Hypatia,half frightened.

  'He who owned it once, offers it to you now. You recollect a littleblack agate--a paltry thing..... If you have not thrown it away, as youmost likely have, he wishes to redeem it with this opal.... a gem surelymore fit for such a hand as that.'

  'He gave me the agate, and I shall keep it.'

  'But this opal--worth, oh, worth ten thousand gold pieces--in exchangefor that paltry broken thing not worth one?'

  'I am not a dealer, like you, and have not yet learnt to value thingsby their money price. It that agate had been worth money, I would neverhave accepted it.'

  'Take the ring, take it, my darling,' whispered Theon impatiently; 'itwill pay all our debts.'

  'Ah, that it will--pay them all,' answered the old woman, who seemed tohave mysteriously overheard him.

  'What!--my father! Would you, too, counsel me to be so mercenary? Mygood woman,' she went on, turning to Miriam, 'I cannot expect you tounderstand the reason of my refusal. You and I have a different standardof worth. But for the sake of the talisman engraven on that agate, iffor no other reason, I cannot give it up.'

  'Ah! for the sake of the talisman! That is wise, now! That is noble!Like a philosopher! Oh, I will not say a word more. Let the beautifulprophetess keep the agate, and take the opal too; for see, there is acharm on it also! The name by which Solomon compelled the demons to dohis bidding. Look! What might you not do now, if you knew how to usethat! To have great glorious angels, with six wings each, bowing at yourfeet whensoever you called them, and saying, "Here am I, mistress; sendme." Only look at it!'

  Hypatia took the tempting bait, and examined it with more curiosity thanshe would have wished to confess; while the old woman went on--

  'But the wise lady knows how to use the black agate, of course?Aben-Ezra told her that, did he not?'

  Hypatia blushed somewhat; she was ashamed to confess that Aben-Ezra hadnot revealed the secret to her, probably not believing that there wasany, and that the talisman had been to her only a curious plaything,of which she liked to believe one day that it might possibly havesome occult virtue, and the next day to laugh at the notion asunphilosophical and barbaric; so she answered, rather severely, that hersecrets were her own property.

  'Ah, then! she knows it all--the fortunate lady! And the talismanhas told her whether Heraclian has lost or won Rome by this time, andwhether she is to be the mother of a new dynasty of Ptolemies, or to diea virgin, which the Four Angels avert! And surely she has had the greatdemon come to her already, when she rubbed the flat side, has she not?'

  'Go, foolish woman! I am not like you, the dupe of childishsuperstitions.'

  'Childish superstitions! Ha! ha! ha!'said the old woman, as she turnedto go, with obeisances more lowly than ever. 'And she has not seen theAngels yet!.... Ah well! perhaps some day, when she wants to know how touse the talisman, the beautiful lady will condescend to let the poor oldJewess show her the way.'

  And Miriam disappeared down an alley, and plunged into the thickestshrubberies, while the three dreamers went on their way.

  Little thought Hypatia that the moment the old woman had found herselfalone, she had dashed herself down on the turf, rolling and biting atthe leaves like an infuriated wild beast..... 'I will have it yet! Iwill have it, if I tear out her heart with it!'