Azazeel

by Ziedan, Youssef

  ‘Good day, brother. My heart tells me you are hungry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Are you planning to cross the desert in that gown and without a mount?’

  So began our conversation, which ended in a way I had not expected. In this frail monk I found something I had not found in the monks I had met before – anxiety. He told me he was originally from Damietta and he had fallen in love with a girl there but they forced her to marry another man, and so he chose the monastic life. That happened to him when he was twenty years old and now he had reached thirty, and throughout his ten years as a monk he had asked himself every day if his decision had been wrong or right. His honesty left a good impression on me and I listened to him. I spoke at length to him, and he to me. I told him what drove me out of Alexandria to wander on my way. He made light of it. He did not know of Hypatia and had not heard of her death. He made light of what I told him because he was contemptuous of everything that had happened or would happen in the course of events. His disdain for everything amazed me, and I was yet more amazed at the levity with which he said that if his beloved came back to him he would abandon the monastic life, or become a priest in a church, or go back to carpentry with his father. But, by his own account, he knew she would not come back and so he would spend his life as a monk.

  ‘So you did not say farewell to life when you took your monastic vows?’

  ‘Brother, the monastic way is a permanent attitude towards life, so how could I claim that I have said farewell to life?’

  He told me that without emotion, and stood up in front of me to gather his flock, which had taken shelter under the tree around us. He went on to tell me, in his quaint Bohairi dialect, that I should not go into Sinai before dropping in on the abbot at the nearby monastery. I still remember the expression he used. ‘He’s a man who has to be seen because you will never meet anyone like him.’

  I had no objection to passing by the monastery before going into the Sinai desert. In the small church there I met the abbot, who was so advanced in years that I believed it when the people at the monastery told me he was much more than a hundred years old. The wrinkles in his face corroborated that, but the gleam in his eyes belied it. His eyes had a twinkle and a striking brilliance, and his few words showed a serene wisdom. As he spoke to me, he looked towards the cross above the altar. He looked at me just once, after a discussion that lasted two hours, and said, ‘If you are looking for the origins of Christianity, as you say, then go to the Dead Sea caves and meet the Essenes, for they are really the Jews, and Judaism is the source. And if you do go there, make sure to meet Chariton the monk, for he is one of the most honest and solitary of men.’

  I spent three days in the remote monastery and then left for Sinai. When I left, the monks gave me a gown, chunks of bread baked from fenugreek flour with molasses, and a goatskin water bag. That was my equipment for crossing Sinai, one of the wildest places on earth. At the monastery door I met a water carrier, frail and lame, carrying on his back a water bag no less long than he was tall. When he heard I was going to Sinai, he gave me some advice: ‘Don’t let the sea out of your sight and don’t go deep into Sinai for whatever reason, otherwise you’ll never come out again, and look for a donkey to ride, because this desert cannot be crossed on foot.’

  I knew the geography of Sinai from passages in the book of Claudius Ptolemaeus, the ancient sage who lived in Alexandria at the time when the world’s most distinguished men lived there, and so I knew what the lame waterman meant, and understood his reference. I did not stray far from the northern edge of the desert. Many incidents occurred in the two months I spent crossing Sinai, some of them unforgettable. I passed, for instance, a group of nomadic Bedouin and I treated a young man who had dislocated his shoulder when he fell from an old wall against which they had pitched a tent. The accident happened the day I passed and after he had suffered shoulder pains for two hours I applied to the young man what I knew of the arts of setting broken bones and treating twists and dislocations. His pain abated. Then his family gave him a kind of soporific herb, which he chewed a little, and he then fell sound asleep. The Bedouin treated me with honour the night I stayed with them and the following day they gave me a decrepit donkey, so that in crossing the desert I could have recourse to riding on its bony back, which chafed the insides of my thighs. I bought from them a blanket, some meat jerky and some dry fodder for the donkey. In exchange for what I bought, I paid them the half of what the rich man in Damietta had given me.

  Another memorable incident was when I caught up at sunset with a caravan of pilgrims who two months earlier had left Cyrene, one of the five cities of the Western Pentapolis, heading for Jerusalem. I was quite delighted when I saw the caravan, though I had thought myself happy in my solitude. I walked with them a full month until we reached the land of Palestine and they walked on northwards while I went east alone, heading for the Dead Sea in search of the origins of Christianity. At that time I thought there was only one true faith, with a single origin.

  The third incident was horrible. In the middle of the desert leading to the Dead Sea, desert wolves attacked me just before dawn. At first they circled around me at a distance, and the donkey’s steps faltered and it would no longer respond to me. Why did I go out early that day, instead of waiting for the sun to rise? The wolves howled and drew closer, their barking a sign of how hungry and fierce they were. I had nothing with me to defend myself from them except my stick and my donkey, which threw me from his back and bolted off in terror, with the wolves in pursuit. The heart of the wilderness shuddered at the death rattle of the donkey and the snarling of the wolves as they pulled it to pieces, too engrossed in it to take an interest in me. I went on my way, struck by an idea that suddenly occurred to me: God had sent the donkey here to be a hot delicious meal for animals which He had created as predators. God, secluded behind curtains of glory, does what He wishes with whomsoever He wishes.

  And so the parchment is filled, but that does not put an end to the memories which, as I write, seem like a reality experienced twice but seen in a new light as the years go by and as I retrieve them from the remote past. But here my stream of reminiscences unravels and my train of thought almost breaks off, so let me go back in the next parchment to the story of what happened to Nestorius after I first met him at the Church of the Resurrection.

  SCROLL ELEVEN

  The Rest of What Happened in Jerusalem

  I well remember that distant Jerusalem morning, and the heavy air. The memories Nestorius revived when he asked about the death of Hypatia had devastated me throughout the previous night and had taken me back to a time in Alexandria which I always avoid recalling. When the sun rose, I did not feel it and I did not go to morning prayers that day. I stayed sitting on the bench as though stunned. I even forgot my appointment with Nestorius, so he took me by surprise when he knocked on my door, and when I opened it his radiant face appeared, and behind him the light of day.

  ‘Good morning, my son, what happened to you? Your face is pale and your eyes are wandering.’

  ‘Nothing, father, please come in, please come in.’

  ‘Your bed is made and cold. Did you sleep on the floor?’

  ‘Come in, father, come in.’

  ‘I’ll open this window. So what happened to you, Hypa?’

  We sat opposite each other in silence. He was sitting on my bed looking at me with eyes full of concern and sympathy, while I sat on the bench, bowing my head, the screams of Hypatia still echoing inside me. Ten years had passed since she was killed, but it seemed like yesterday. After minutes of oppressive silence, he invited me to go out and join the prayers in the church, or take a walk around its walls. I looked at him askance and did not answer.

  He stood up and said, ‘Hypa, walking is good for you.’

  ‘As you wish, holy father.’

  I closed the door of my room and Nestorius dismissed the deacons awaiting him outside. I walked next to him in silence, or perhaps unwilli
ng to speak. I was relieved that he did not enter the church, because the mass was long and would be tedious. Nestorius veered away from the wall and took me left towards the slender trees near the city walls behind the church, to the quiet spot which I very much liked and to which I often retreated under the trees. He tried to bring me out of my distracted mood, telling me that the health of Bishop Theodore had improved, and that he thanked me and wanted to see me again. He was even thinking of taking me with him to Mopsuestia to live there. By the time he had finished talking we had reached the site of the slender trees. He asked if I wanted to sit down and I agreed immediately because my legs felt too weak to walk.

  He took out what looked like a small bible and offered it to me. ‘This is a present for you,’ he said. ‘From Bishop Theodore, and from me.’

  I opened the book and found it was a medical treatise, not a bible. It was Galen’s epistle to his pupil Glaucon on therapeutics. I thanked him and he smiled, encouraging me to overcome my distress. He told me that if my memories of Alexandria were so troubling then I should forget them, and that he was sorry if his question about Hypatia had upset me.

  Nestorius was sensitive, though his appearance did not reveal it. I feigned a smile and told him that Hypatia was not my only painful memory, and there was no need to apologize. Then to placate him I said, ‘I’ll tell you the story of the distress that I bear, to share it with someone as eminent as you.’

  ‘Say what you wish, my son.’

  I told Nestorius how Peter the reader and those with him dragged Hypatia along the ground, and how then, when her skin had been peeled off her flesh and her organs shredded, they pulled her to the spot where they set fire to her, on the ruins of the abandoned scientific school known as the Museion. At that point I stopped telling the story, because of the signs of anguish I saw on his face.

  I did not tell Nestorius the whole story. I did not tell him that I stood gazing at the fire until it died out, after it had devoured Hypatia’s body and the remains of the Museion, where I had once dreamed of studying medicine. But I did tell him that I left Alexandria that day in a daze, never to return, and walked stunned and alone along the Canopian Way, through what looked like a city of ghosts.

  ‘Mercy, my God.’ Nestorius sighed as he spoke. I looked at him and was alarmed at how the features of his face were flushed with bitterness. I realized I was right to summarize the incident and tell him only the gist of what happened and not the details. I was not surprised when he told me sadly that the magistrates sent by the emperor to investigate what had happened to Hypatia achieved nothing, none of her killers were convicted, and the incident passed as though it had never happened.

  ‘Yes, father, I knew that. I heard it from the pilgrims who come here from Memphis and Alexandria.’

  ‘And did they tell you, Hypa, that Bishop Cyril paid that judicial committee large bribes and showered them with expensive presents to have the matter buried?’

  ‘Yes, father, they said that. They also said that in order to close that bloody chapter Emperor Theodosius II merely sent the monks of Alexandria a warning not to mix with people in public places in the city.’

  Nestorius replied with bitter sarcasm, ‘A severe punishment. If only they had enforced it.’

  The midday sun was blazing above us, and when I saw the beads of sweat on Nestorius’s brow I took pity on him and on myself and invited him to my room. ‘No, let’s go to the church first to pray,’ he said. ‘After that we’ll have a drink of that mountain mint in your room.’

  At the church door the chief priest was saying goodbye to some visitors, and when he saw us his face beamed and he approached Nestorius with a welcome and insisted we join him at lunchtime. Nestorius thanked him kindly and declined, saying he would have lunch with Bishop Theodore, but he invited the priest to join the two of them. ‘If today you eat with us the lovely food which the monks prepare,’ he joked, ‘you’ll think seriously about joining our church and coming back with us when the pilgrimage days are over.’

  ‘Holy Nestorius, how could I leave my wife and my poor children? Besides, I lost my appetite for food long ago.’

  ‘As for your family, they can live with you in Antioch or Mopsuestia. As for your appetite, Hypa the monk will restore it for you with some of the herbs he has that strengthen the stomach and give you an appetite for good food,’ Nestorius said.

  The priest laughed and said, ‘So you’ll look after me the way I looked after you the first time!’ When Nestorius asked me what he meant, the priest of the church told him the story of my arrival in Jerusalem, how I collapsed from exhaustion at the door to the Church of the Resurrection, and how they carried me to him. Nestorius looked towards me courteously and said, ‘Men are weak, whoever they are, and we are weak, and our only strength is through love.’ The priest nodded, then something else caught his attention. With sudden enthusiasm Nestorius said, ‘Talking of love, would you like us to hold a council for you today, for you to talk to us about the varieties of love? That would be interesting, because I heard you speak on that subject to your brothers when I visited you in Antioch.’

  ‘The good priest doesn’t forget. That was a long time ago. But now I won’t hold any councils as long as Bishop Theodore is with us. It’s enough to listen to him and drink at the fountain of his learning.’

  ‘God bless you, and him. And now I beg your leave, for the work of the church never ceases,’ said the priest.

  ‘In God’s protection, reverend. Off we go to prayers, Hypa.’

  Prayer has the effect of magic. It calms the soul and comforts the saddened heart. In the same way, masses wash away all our cares, throwing them from our shoulders into the lap of divine mercy so we can rest a while. Then we feel the need to pray again, so long as we believe in the Lord. And if we leave the fold of the Lord, we are alone and become prey to worries and troubling thoughts. We don’t need that now! After prayers we came out through the church door and Nestorius’s face beamed with love and he was back in his usual spirits. He suggested we go first to have lunch with Bishop Theodore and then go back to my room, and I did not object.

  On the way to their guesthouse, the conversation went in every direction. He told me of the splendour of Antioch, the many fields of learning taught in its schools, the well-stocked library of the bishopric, the simple people who come from the nearby villages, Emperor Theodosius II, the way he hesitated in most matters, and about the bishop of Antioch and his good character. I told him about my days in Akhmim and described to him that lively town on the banks of the Nile, its large temple which had awe-inspiring statues of pharaohs at its gate, some of them ninety feet high. I told him about the statue of the beautiful woman which stood there and who they say was the daughter of the great pharaoh who built the temple.

  ‘I heard that the rest of the Alexandrian professors left the city for Akhmim and have been living there for years,’ Nestorius said.

  ‘Yes, father. But Akhmim also has many churches and half the inhabitants are Christian, and good people.’

  ‘Hypa, you’re prejudiced in favour of your fellow Egyptians.’

  ‘It’s possible, father, it’s possible.’

  When we saw Bishop Theodore in his room he was delighted we had come. I felt that day the depth of the affection which united them and I hoped to have the same relationship with Nestorius as he had with the bishop. I was at ease in the council room and the food at lunch was really good, with dishes unknown in and around Jerusalem. The bishop tried to please me by identifying the various dishes for me, praising some of them as easy to digest. Galen’s book was still in my hand and I thanked him for it and for the invitation to lunch in this holy gathering of priests. He smiled and said, ‘I’ll send you some more good books after I get back and I’ll ask the diocesan scribes to copy for you the works of Hippocrates and other famous physicians.’

  ‘That would be a great honour, your Grace.’

  ‘It would be useful for you, and for the people, God willing,’ he s
aid. ‘People need medicine and the profession has declined recently. Let’s hope that through you the Lord will preserve this useful art.’

  Nestorius intervened politely in the conversation and told the bishop that I wrote poetry. The bishop turned to him and told him that his old friend Bishop John Chrysostom used to write poetry early in his life. ‘Did I not tell you, dear Nestorius, that they are similar?’ he said. Then the bishop started recalling to the gathering many stories about John Chrysostom. He relished telling old stories, as though he were reviving something in the core of his being from the distant past.

  Our gathering included an elderly monk who did not speak a word and two priests. As soon as Bishop Theodore had finished telling his stories, one of the priests jumped in with a question: ‘How could Alexandria dare to condemn John Chrysostom when he was a saint?’ The sudden question dispelled the mood of goodwill which had prevailed in the session. Nestorius looked in disapproval at the priest who asked the question, embarrassing him, and we all took refuge in silence.

  Bishop Theodore frowned and spoke irritably. ‘There are many foolish things in Alexandria. The current and former bishops committed acts of violence, and I do not like to speak about them or their deeds, which were as remote as possible from the teachings of Christ and the Apostles and most similar to acts committed by those with earthly ambitions. May the Lord encompass all with his mercy, and pardon everyone.’

  I expected that Bishop Theodore’s remarks would signal the end of the meeting, but all of a sudden the taciturn monk, from whom I had not heard a word since I first saw him, started talking in Greek with an eastern accent. Resting his shoulder on his stick, he spoke intensely,: ‘God forgive the Alexandrians what they have done, what they are doing now and what they will do tomorrow. The church of Alexandria will not desist until it collapses and Christianity collapses with it.’