Priscilla of Alexandria

by Maurice Magre

  The barbarian was surrounded. He repeated: “It’s necessary to have pity on her! I’ve had children too!”

  All that was very brief, but it was to remain engraved in the minds of the witnesses. Zenobia the Syrian finally arrived. Other nuns accompanied her, but they were unnecessary. Priscilla’s mother, very meekly, at a slow pace, like a child that had committed a sin and is afraid, started walking back to the convent, hunched and shrunken, bent double in her torn veils, like a bundle of rags. All the energy of several years had been expended. She did not even look back.

  Old Diodorus had been killed the same year. His son was a poor, weak man devoid of will-power. He became even more timid and uncertain and acquired the habit of not making any decision, and not having any precise thought, without reference to Bishop Cyril.

  The latter decided that the children would no longer accomplish their annual visit to Zenobia’s convent. The scandal that had occurred had annulled the promise made.

  Diodorus attempted a few objections.

  “It’s for your children, and in the interest of the unfortunate sinner herself,” the Bishop replied.

  When the following autumn reddened the palm trees of the desert and the land exhaled heavy vapors, forerunners of the season’s simooms, the unfortunate sinner gazed for many days at the cross that let a little light into her cell, the cross that never brought her any more hope.

  III. Hypatia

  In the stifling heat of the afternoon, the tamarisks of the garden were immobile. Clusters of wisteria seemed to have been painted on the azure of the sky. Bees were buzzing around.

  Then, for no reason, Priscilla tilted her head backwards, her gaze lost in the distance, and, as if she were expressing a thought already ancient, she said: “I’d like to see Hypatia.”

  At that name, the face of Majorin, who was playing the role of tutor with regard to Priscilla and her brother and was in the process of giving them a history lesson, took on an expression of sad hatred. His eyelids were creased, his complexion jaundiced. He was afflicted by a disease of the liver, and irritations and bad sentiments were immediately reflected in his features.

  “Is it true that there isn’t a more beautiful woman in Alexandria?” Priscilla added.

  “The wicked are never beautiful,” said Majorin, giving his lips an expression of disgust. “Everyone conceives beauty differently. On the rare occasions that it has been given to me to encounter that woman, I have had the sentiment of the most abject ugliness, that of the soul, and I fled immediately. The limited pagans who delight in lies can appreciate her face and find beauty therein. If there is any, it is given by the basest vices. Perhaps the line of her mouth is regular, but when I have seen that mouth open to speak, it made me think of the drains of Bruchium that carry the filth of Alexandria to the sea.”

  Skeletal in his black robe, Majorin was sitting facing the children on a stone bench in the shade of the palm trees in the garden.

  Behind him, a gardener was holding a large watering-can at arm’s length, with which he was watering the mimosas. The water, spreading out in a fan through the broad head, surrounded Majorin with a luminous silver aureole that brought out the yellow color of his skin, his thinness, his wrinkles, and his hidden malevolence, and rendered him similar to a caricature of a saint.

  Hypatia! She was for some the glory of Alexandria, for others its opprobrium. Never, either in Athens or in Rome, had a woman professed philosophical teachings publicly. It was an unprecedented novelty that shocked and excited opinion at the same time. Her great beauty, the austerity of her life and the slightly theatrical ostentation she put into making the most of both added further to her prestige. The prefect Orestes asked her advice.18 Synesius, whom the city of Ptolemais had just proclaimed Bishop because of his justice, called her his sister, mother and mistress in spirit.19 The poet Palladius compared her to Astraea and Minerva and addressed hymns to her in the model of those the Greek poets composed in honor of the gods.

  She battled against the authority of Bishop Cyril in Alexandria, and the increasing number of students who came to hear her lectures at the Museum caused her partisans to say that through her, philosophy would triumph over Christian ideas in Egypt. Many men had loved her, but she had neglected amour thus far. She gave her black hair the undulation of waves and wore a large green jewel therein, made of an unknown substance, which was said to be a magical stone once possessed by Iamblichus, which gave spiritual power. She had rare essences brought from Arabia to perfume herself, and her garments were made of a cloth so fine that they adapted to her body and allowed all of its harmonious grace to be seen when she walked. She lived with her father, the mathematician Theon,20 in a little house not far from the Church of Caesarea, whose threshold was surmounted by a stone owl, the emblem of Athene. Its garden was small and no plants other than laurels grew there.

  Majorin’s gaze expressed the irritated scorn of his entire being. Marcus was dozing quietly, his mouth open.

  “However,” said Priscilla, “there are many philosophers and professors who come from Corinth, Antioch and Rome to hear her. It’s said that the Museum has never known an influx as great as when she speaks there.”

  Majorin burst into bitter laughter. “Philosophers! Professors! Professors of what? Of lies! What do they teach? The three hypostases of Ammonius, the Sophia of the Gnostics. It’s risible. Bad times are those in which we live. Error is allowed to propagate. People forget that there is a hidden force that makes it spread more easily than truth, and that the demon lends it wings. We have our hands bound. It’s necessary for there to be another prefect!”

  “Even if only once, I’d like to see Hypatia,” murmured Priscilla, who was no longer listening.

  Majorin shrugged his shoulders. He was about to criticize the impropriety of that desire and affirm that it would never be realized.

  A little caterpillar, as yellow as a drop of gold, dropped on to his black robe and made a living stain there. He stood up in order to shake it off. That made a diversion. He was in a bad mood. Marcus was completely asleep. Priscilla laughed. He interrupted the lesson and went back up to his room, which was under the eaves.

  He did not suspect that the mysterious law that connects events and enables great events to stem from tiny causes, would put his pupil in the presence of Hypatia before the end of the day, and that it would only be the first scene in a great drama that was in preparation.

  Priscilla was now fifteen years old. Her breasts had flourished, her flesh had colored, her eyes had acquired a singular profundity, and men were troubled in her presence, as if they had respired a dust of sensuality that escaped her and trailed behind her footsteps.

  Many were astonished by that, for it seems that there ought to be a logic of nature only to give a voluptuous beauty of the body to those who are susceptible of making use of it.

  Priscilla was inclined toward religion with all her ardor. Naturally, the daughter of the richest man in Alexandria had had a thousand aspirants for her hand, but the news had rapidly spread that her tastes pushed her toward the monastic life. The narrow amity of the Patriarch of Alexandria and Diodorus confirmed that opinion, for Cyril considered that the renunciation of a great fortune for retreat into a convent made the power of Christ more glaringly evident. He also saw it as a source of profit for the Church.

  At the moment of puberty Priscilla had been struck by human desires like so many arrows plunging into her flesh. Her modesty had triumphed over the initial curiosities that one experiences at that age, and a perpetual suffering had come to her, from which she could not protect herself. That suffering came from obscene inscriptions that she saw involuntarily on walls, certain words that she overheard, gestures that she glimpsed whose meaning she divined, and certain expressions in gazes audaciously fixed on her.

  When she passed through the port, the wind martyrized her because it stuck her garment to her torso and uncovered her ankles. She lowered her eyes because of the nudity of the negroes unloading mer
chandise along the quays, but even when she could not see it, that nudity, close by, offended her. She could not pray in church if a man was kneeling beside her. When she opened her window on spring mornings she respired something sexual with the pollen and the vegetal dust of the garden, which made her faint with disgust.

  She was subject on the part of her brother to attempted caresses that, although rare, were odious to her. Marcus’ intelligence had not developed with the years. He had periods of almost complete imbecility. He laughed constantly then, and thought of nothing but getting close to his sister. When he found himself alone with her, either in a room or in the garden, he would suddenly seize her in his arms and hug her to him, until she was able to escape his embrace by force. At other times he kissed her neck, breathing the perfume of her skin forcefully, or laughed endlessly while enveloping himself in the embroidered mantle that she wore, and in which he perceived something of her. Strictly speaking, all that did not surpass the manifestations of affection that a brother can permit himself with his sister, but Priscilla, rightly or wrongly, sensed an obscure impulsion therein, a love of her flesh that had the violence of sin and by which she was dolorously traversed.

  A certain Peter, lector and caretaker of the Church of Saint Mark, who was Bishop Cyril’s man of confidence, often came to see her father. He was a kind of Hercules who panted as he walked and emitted an odor of garlic and old linen. His short-cropped hair was born almost over his eyes, which were very small, and he seemed to have no forehead, and with the pointed form of his head, his prominent jaw, his bad teeth and he greasy pallor of his hops he evoked the idea of a monstrous pig. His hands, by virtue of a particular infirmity, gave off a sticky liquid, which did not prevent him extending them to people he encountered with such frank force that one was obliged to shake them.

  Peter was dominated by a continual desire for coupling. In the evening he prowled deserted quarters in order to knock down and take by force the women the encountered, or, sitting in front of the portal of Saint Mark’s, he whispered propositions to those who came to pray alone. He sometimes employed threats, and sometimes promises. A black woman from Rhacotis had attempted to kill him out of jealousy. It was said that he had once been condemned to the mines as a thief. No one knew the origin of his elevation.

  For Priscilla he was the symbol of the material ugliness by which she was surrounded. His presence was an insult to her chastity. He remained apparently respectful, but stared at her with his blinking eyes, undressing her, considering her body from the roots of her thick hair to the tips of her delicate feet. She saw his mouth trembling imperceptibly then; that movement was the sole sign of his desire, but she was obliged to flee under its pollution.

  When she was all alone in her room, before going to bed, when she had recited all her prayers, she sometimes wept in front of the large bronze mirror at the foot of her bed, in considering the receptacle of evil, the vase of sin, that her slender and excessively perfect body was.

  Majorin was never able to explain what happened. There was a crowd outside the Museum. A large number of young men stationed around the twelve winged horses that framed the portal were waiting for the emergence of Hypatia, in order to acclaim her.

  Followed by Priscilla and Marcus, he had advanced quite a long way along the street of the Sema when he saw a chariot turn round and retrace its steps because of the density of the crowd.

  On that chariot was Bishop Cyril. His lips were taut, his immense forehead was deeply furrowed.

  “I too ought to turn back,” he murmured.

  Majorin thought that it was appropriate to act like Bishop Cyril and not to mingle with the crowd of pagans, where his ecclesiastical appearance was beginning to provoke jeers on the part of the injurious young men.

  “Come on, come on, don’t remain among there people. Follow me.”

  Doubtless neither Marcus nor Priscilla heard him, for they continued walking past the Museum while he turned back with great strides. When Majorin perceived that he was alone and tried to catch up with his pupils, a stir in the crowd prevented him from doing so.

  Then Priscilla knew for the first time the light of a gaze that was not devoid of softness.

  A young man who was marching beside her looked at her, smiling. His hair was parted at the front and the regular features of his face were calm and handsome. He was dressed with care. His mauve chiton was pinned at the shoulder by an Egyptian jewel. A cloak of a deeper mauve was thrown over his shoulder and trailed behind him. There was something negligent, easy and cheerful in his gait. Priscilla noticed, with surprise, that he was wearing several bracelets on his wrist.

  “If it’s Hypatia you want to see, come with me; I’ll introduce you to her.” He said that as if Priscilla and Marcus were old acquaintances. “Let’s get out of this crowd. By going this way we’ll arrive in a matter of minutes.”

  And, without waiting for a response, certain that his proposition would be accepted, he went into a narrow street to the left and plunged into ancient Bruchium.

  He had affected to address Marcus directly, like a familiar comrade, but he had judged him with a glance.

  Her desire to prevent her brother making a ridiculous response, and also the desire that she had to see Hypatia, impelled Priscilla to stammer a few words and, uncertainly, she turned with her brother behind the young man.

  “I’m from the family of Azarias and my name is Telamon,” said the latter, not without a hint of pride. Then, on the way, he explained that his father had had a gymnasium built, on the model of that of Ephesus, in the vicinity of the public gardens, not far from the ruins of the Macedonian Acropolis. There, a few young men, smitten with ancient Greece, met at dusk in order to discuss philosophy, take baths and devote themselves to all the games of old.

  “Hypatia is particularly fond of throwing the discus. You could compete with her if you’ve already had a little practice,” Telamon went on, darting an ironic glance at Marcus. “There’s a stadium for running and a xyste for wrestling. My sisters engage in combats there like true athletes. But perhaps you’d prefer to drink sorbets while listening to the discourses of philosophers. There are very arduous ones. It’s true that it’s permissible to imitate Antagoras and listen without understanding. Proclus is there almost every day, and also Isidore of Gaza.21 He’s the most interesting because he recounts the visions he has had and explains dreams. Perhaps last night, one or other of you had a curious dream whose symbolic meaning you’d like to know?”

  Oh, yes, Priscilla had had a dream: a terrible dream, which had woken her up with a start, leaving her damp with sweat.

  In an endless avenue bordered by cypresses, obelisks and stone sphinxes very small and very pale, she was walking alongside the monstrous Peter, the sight of whom, when he came to see her father, caused her such a complete repulsion. He was holding her by the hand and she felt her palm and fingers impregnated by his sticky grip. She was his thing, his property, his slave. He was not dragging her. She was walking beside him meekly, of her own free will.

  To the right and the left, faces that she knew were considering her with horror, but as they went along she acquired a lightness. A nauseating odor emerged from her companion, and he sometimes uttered a bestial grunt. They went quickly toward the goal that was designated in the distance beneath a lunar glow, and that goal was a poor chapel that resembled the one that she had seen several years before in the midst of the sands, between the cells of the convent of Zenobia the Syrian.

  On the threshold of that chapel, Jesus Christ was standing, but he was not the Christ of the churches, the one who was paraded in processions, the one who was worshiped over tabernacles. This one was neither radiant nor splendid. He wore a triangular beard in accordance with the custom of the Essenes of the shore of the Dead Sea. He had one shoulder higher than the other and knock-knees, and on drawing closer Priscilla saw that his entire body was deformed. Beneath the rags that covered him she distinguished traces of leprosy, moist pustules and hideous lesion
s. A swarming life animated his body. Beasts were climbing his legs, lice were circulating in his hair, and worms were eating his abscesses.

  She understood that this was the true Christ of men, the one who had assumed their sins and miseries in order that the spirit might be saved; and she fell to her knees to adore him. But then the horrible Peter, the ignominious companion who had brought her here, shook her forcefully and handed her a stone in order for her to throw it at the sublime Christ. She perceived that the liquid sweated by his hand was blood, which had stained her arms and her white tunic, and had dripped behind her all along the great avenue.

  She knew that it was necessary, in spite of herself, to accomplish the greatest crime, to throw the stone, and, with all her might, she threw it.

  But how would she dare to recount that dream, and who could explain it?

  “We’ve arrived,” said Telamon. “Look at the bas-relief above the door. It’s my father who recovered it. It ornamented the temple of Apollo at Delos and it’s by Phidias.”

  The first courtyard was paved with large orange-colored mosaics and was surrounded by busts of Socrates, Plato and the most famous Greek philosophers.

  After having passed through a marble portal, the young people penetrated a second square courtyard planted with palm trees, surrounded by a double portico, and in the middle of which was a statue of Hermes. Sitting on stone benches, several individuals formed a semicircle and were chatting while respiring the first freshness of dusk.

  “Hypatia has preceded us,” said Telamon, joyfully, and he pushed his two companions ahead of him.