Azazeel

by Ziedan, Youssef

  I had never seen Bishop Nestorius flare up in this way. At the time I felt most uncomfortable at how the bishops were talking about this sensitive subject in front of me, and I wanted to take my leave of them, but Nestorius suddenly asked me what I thought about what I had read them.

  ‘As you are well aware, your Grace, I am out of touch with what is happening between the major churches, and I have no knowledge of the details of this matter, even if I have heard the broad outlines. But I was apprehensive some months ago when we received the letter in which you forbade the laity and church leaders from repeating the word “theotokos”. I was yet more anxious when I heard of the friendly correspondence between the bishops of Alexandria and Rome, and that they had agreed to reject Your Grace’s views.’

  Bishop Rabbula nodded his head, impressed by what I said, as though he found it persuasive. Then he turned to address me for the first time, saying that the rapprochement between Alexandria and Rome was temporary and its only purpose was to weaken the diocese of Constantinople in the person of Bishop Nestorius. As for Nestorius’s letter banning the word ‘theotokos’, it was sent only to the eastern churches and was unlikely to have reached the Egyptian churches and monasteries and had not been translated into Coptic. He added that he thought that what had angered Bishop Cyril was reports of the sermon which the reverend Nestorius had made the day he was installed as bishop, when he said, ‘Jesus is human, and his incarnation is a compromise between the Eternal Logos and Christ the human. Mary is the mother of Jesus the human being, and should not be called the mother of God. It is not right that she be called theotokos.’

  I was surprised that Bishop Rabbula was able to recall Nestorius’s phrase word for word and that he dared repeat it so forcefully in front of the author, at a time when we were in the midst of these upheavals. I was inclined to go along with Rabbula and discuss with him the views of Nestorius, which we knew were in origin the opinions of the late Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia. But I held my tongue and confined myself to nodding my head. When I did not interrupt him, Bishop Rabbula continued, still looking towards me without seeing me. ‘Bishop John of Antioch wrote a lengthy answer to the three letters of Bishop Cyril, discussing the matter with him in detail, as the reverend Bishop Nestorius had done before him,’ he said, ‘but they could not come to agreement. Now Bishop Nestorius wants to respond to the anathemas from the bishop of Alexandria with counter-anathemas. I believe that would stir up more conflict and many forms of enmity, and would inflame contention and strife between the big churches.’

  Bishop Rabbula was eloquent, and what he said was severe and persuasive. That was no surprise, as he was a renowned ecclesiastical poet. It was he who, through his famous poems, had prevailed against the ideas propagated in the poems of the Syrian gnostic Bardaisan, who was described as an apostate. The poetry of Rabbula was now more famous than Bardaisan’s poems, especially after Rabbula took up the post of bishop of Edessa, gained prestige among the people there and became the chief Christian in those eastern regions, so much so that his poems and hymns are sung today in most masses and on holy days. None the less there was something in Bishop Rabbula that I found troubling.

  I sat in silence out of politeness, uncertain how to escape this meeting, to which I was paying little attention. My mind wandered, but then the reverend Nestorius looked towards me, his face red with anger, and asked me, ‘Do you believe, Hypa, that the monks in the many monasteries in Wadi Natroun and in the deserts of Egypt agree with Cyril in what he says?’

  ‘They’ll agree with him in anything, for they are the army of the church of St Mark, and the loyal soldiers of the Pope of Alexandria,’ I replied.

  ‘Pope, hmm, then so be it.’

  John of Antioch looked at Nestorius with paternal affection. He was about to speak but Rabbula of Edessa stood up grumpily and asked their leave, saying he wanted to drop in on the Roman governor of Antioch in his residence, then come back to attend the prayers. He asked Bishop John if he would come along with him. John hesitated a moment, but Nestorius decided the matter, saying, ‘Go together in the protection of the Lord, for I want to be alone a little with Hypa the monk.’ They departed side by side, leaving us secluded in the corner of the room. Nestorius whispered something in the ear of Anastasios the priest, who stood up at once, and we were alone.

  After a moment’s silence, I said in a friendly manner, ‘Father, I am anxious for you. I do not advise you to challenge the church of Alexandria.’

  ‘Hypa, I’m not challenging anyone, but Cyril wants to proclaim his authority over all the churches in the world.’

  Nestorius began to repeat what I already knew, how he believed it was wrong to call the Virgin Mary theotokos, because she was a saintly woman but not the mother of God, and it was wrong for us to believe that God was a child who was born from the womb of a woman in labour, who urinated in his cradle and needed a nappy, who felt hungry and cried for his mother’s breast. ‘Does it make sense,’ he asked, ‘to believe that God suckled at the breast of the Virgin, and grew day by day until he was two months old, then three months, then four. The Lord is perfect, as it is written, so how could he take the form of a child, when the Virgin Mary was a human who gave birth from her immaculate womb by a divine miracle, and after that her son became a manifestation of God and a saviour for mankind. He was like a hole through which we have been able to see the light of God, or like a signet ring on which a divine message appeared. The fact that the sun shines through a hole does not make the hole a sun, just as the appearance of the message on the signet ring does not make the ring a message. Hypa, these people have gone quite mad, and have made God one of three.’

  I kept my silence out of respect for Nestorius’s anger and pity for him. He soon calmed down and spoke in a gentler tone. He told me, and I summarize, that the temporary manifestation of Almighty God in the Messiah Jesus was a grace that God gave us and we should not throw to waste this divine gift by extrapolating and getting carried away with our superstitions about how Christ was divine from the time He was in his mother’s womb or since He was a child. He said it was wrong to believe the Virgin Mary gave birth to God, because God endures in His eternal everlasting perfection. He is the only One, neither is He born nor does He die, but He is manifested at times and in occlusion at other times, in accordance with His will.

  The reverend Nestorius looked into my eyes with eyes full of sorrow, and said, ‘Is there anything strange in what I assert? Or is the strangeness rather in what Cyril and his followers say? Hypa, the danger goes further and is graver than the word “theotokos”, which both the public and the learned bandy about. It’s a question of true faith, and whether Christianity is able to address the heart and mind of man in every time and place. The pagans scoff at our superstitious excesses, and after them, other scoffers will arise from amongst us to ridicule these delusions and try to bring them down and so bring down the whole religion. The gospel and divine miracles, Hypa, are a rare mystery, and if they are done to excess they lose their meaning, and we lose our faith and defy reason.’

  I knew this view of his by heart, but I let Nestorius elaborate, out of politeness and out of respect for his righteous anger. When he had finished and was quite calm again, I asked him politely, ‘Why don’t you leave ordinary Christians and the ignorant to their own beliefs, mixed with delusions which they find comforting and which are appropriate to their understanding, while we explain the facts to theologians, the clergy and the priests of the churches, because they are capable of understanding these subtle theological matters? Then we could leave the laity to learn from them, generation after generation, without confronting them.’

  ‘Why should we resort to this trick?’ said Nestorius.

  ‘Out of necessity, your Grace, out of necessity, to escape the fangs and claws of the lion of St Mark!’

  Nestorius smiled at my pun, because with his sharp mind he realized I was referring to the belief, common in Alexandria, that St Mark the Apostle of Alexandri
a adopted the lion as a mascot, or rather the Alexandrians gave him, and gave themselves, the symbol of the lion, in that they depicted St Mark the Apostle in their books and on the walls of their houses writing his gospel with a lion crouched next to him, looking at what he was writing. The brief smile had restored to Nestorius’s face some of the serenity which I had known in earlier times and which I had missed since the start of this unexpected meeting of ours in Antioch.

  I wanted to ask him if there was any truth in the reports we had been receiving for the past year, the reports that he had oppressed his opponents, demolished churches run by the Arians and expelled them from Constantinople and so on. But I felt that the moment for this had not yet come, so I bided my time.

  After several minutes of calm, Nestorius sat up straight, adjusted his cap and turned towards me. He looked anxious and his smile could not disguise what he was going through. Visibly disturbed, he told me he had sent a forceful response to Cyril’s first letter and was now planning to respond to this latest letter, and was also thinking of sending me to Alexandria to debate with him on the subject.

  ‘I beg your pardon, reverend father, but do you think that Bishop Cyril will listen to me, or even respect my visit in the first place?’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You have been a monk since your early youth. You are a scholar of dogma, you speak eloquent Greek, and you studied in Alexandria.’

  ‘And I fled the city on a memorable day.’

  ‘Do you think he was aware of that at the time? His elation at the killing of Hypatia must have distracted him from the fact that you were gone. By the way, Hypa, did you ever meet him at a private gathering while you were in Alexandria, the great city?’

  Nestorius uttered the famous sobriquet with a sarcasm that did not conceal his distaste at describing the city as great, and at the city’s enthusiasm for promoting itself at the expense of the papal see in Rome and of the imperial capital Constantinople. Because he expected me to answer his question, and because I loved Nestorius like a father and did not want him to meet the same wretched fate, I told him something I had always tried to keep secret. It was for his sake that I told my story.

  ‘I met Bishop Cyril on a single occasion. At the time I had been in Alexandria for two tedious years during which I submitted to the will of the Lord and set aside my dream of excelling in medicine. I spent my time there either praying with the monks, attending mass on most days, dozing off in most of the masses, and taking regular classes at the theological school, to learn again what children learn in primary schools in Upper Egypt. At the time I was studying the kind of medicine practised by people who sell perfumes and medicinal herbs and by farmers in my home country. I persevered in this course, passively and without enthusiasm, and I realized that since I had come to Alexandria the dreams which had tied me to the city had turned into nightmares which weighed upon me and from which there was no escape. Then the day came when the senior priest at the church of St Mark told me I would have an audience with Bishop Cyril the next morning after mass. At the time I was about twenty-five years old and naturally I spent the night lost in labyrinths of anxiety and insomnia. The next day I went in to see Bishop Cyril after waiting two hours at his door. As soon as he saw me he asked me how old I was. I told him, and then I said that I originally came to Alexandria to immerse myself in studying medicine, and he responded with a question the meaning of which at first I did not grasp.

  ‘Who is the greatest of those who have immersed themselves in medicine?’ he asked.

  ‘Your Holiness, it is said to be an ancient Egyptian by the name of Imhotep or the famous Greek, Hippocrates. Or perhaps, father, you mean the Alexandrian doctors who came after them, such as Herophilos, or those who studied in Alexandria, such as Galen.’

  ‘Wrong, all your answers are wrong. All those you mentioned are pagans and not a single one of them could cure a leper, or with a touch of his hand bring the dead back to life,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, your Grace, but I did not understand what you meant.’

  ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ, monk, is the polymath of medicine, so learn from him, and from the lives of the saints and the martyrs. Tap into their spiritual power through your piety and faith.’

  Cyril spoke severely to me and what he said did not reveal what he really and surely thought. At the time I preferred to stay silent, while he said something to the effect that I was about to end my period of training in the city and he intended to send me, starting the next summer, to one of the monasteries in arid Wadi Natroun in the heart of the desert, south of Alexandria, where, as he put it, there would descend upon me the blessings of the pure earth, which is rich with the remains of the saints who gave their souls for Jesus and for His sake abandoned the world. Cyril sat up straight and, without looking in my direction, continued. ‘And I might send you to one of our monasteries in Upper Egypt or in Abyssinia. The children of the Lord there need our support.’

  Cyril stopped a while as though in deep thought, then he looked towards one of his priests and said, ‘Perhaps it would be appropriate for us to send him to Akhmim, because the people there face tests of faith. In recent years many people from here have fled there and many people there are studying sciences which are of no benefit.’

  I was at a loss to answer him. Then, in a moment of courage or stupidity, lowering my voice, I asked him in all politeness, ‘And what, your Holiness, are the sciences which are of no benefit, that I might know them and make sure I avoid them?’

  ‘Good monk, they are the absurdities of the heretics and the delusions of those who devote themselves to astronomy, mathematics and magic. Understand that and stay away from such things, that you may follow in the ways of the Lord and the paths of salvation. If you seek history, then you have the Pentateuch and the Book of Kings. If you seek rhetoric, you have the books of the prophets. If you seek poetry, then you have the psalms. If you seek astronomy, law and ethics, you have the glorious law of the Lord. Arise now, monk, and join the prayers, and perhaps our Lord the living Christ will grace you with a kindly glance.’

  Nestorius listened with such interest and concern that I felt he could discern behind what I said the hidden meaning which lies deeper than the superficial sense of the words. After a moment of portentous silence, he turned towards me with the old paternal sympathy which I had always found in him. ‘I’ll excuse you, Hypa, from the mission of going to see this man. I’ll answer his stupidities myself and meet his anathemas with counter-anathemas that I shall enshrine in a letter like his own. But let’s leave that aside for now. Tell me how you are coming on in the monastery.’

  I remembered the letter from the abbot and I quickly took it out from inside the folds of my cassock and passed it to him. He opened it carefully, looked at it, then said with an interested smile, ‘Samuel the monk wants to enlarge the church and build a wall for the monastery. Assure him, Hypa, that I’ll talk to Bishop John on the subject today, and with the help of God the bishop will fulfil his request.’

  Nestorius called for an inkwell and pen and took from his pocket a small piece of parchment on which he wrote a letter to the abbot, then sealed it with his seal and gave it to me. I asked him if I could go back to the monastery the next morning and he told me he would sail at dawn for Constantinople. Then he stood up, embraced me goodbye and sat down again, alone. At the door I remembered a question I had been repressing, so I went back and asked him. ‘Father, if the dispute between you and Bishop Cyril grows worse than this, will the other bishops support you?’

  ‘Hypa, there are many bishops in the world, east and west, and their inclinations vary. You go in the protection of the Lord and do not worry, for God is our helper and our aid.’

  I wanted him to be clearer, so I said, ‘Father, I mean Bishops John and Rabbula.’

  ‘John of Antioch is a righteous man and we have been friends for many years. As for Rabbula, I do not know what he intends to do. Don’t worry, Hypa. Don’t worry, my child, because this world,
with everything and everyone in it, is not worth believers worrying about.’

  SCROLL EIGHTEEN

  On the Outskirts of Sarmada

  On my way back from Antioch I had planned to drop in at the Eupropius monastery to visit Dignified Laugher the monk, because I missed him. But for some mysterious reason the idea escaped me and I decided to go straight back to the monastery. As I left the eastern gate I noticed something strange: the donkey, which I had always considered a stupid animal, began to hurry along the way as though it knew the way back. It walked along without the least guidance from me. The tapping of its hoofs showed its elation and delight at heading back to its home and its tether in the pen at the monastery. Donkeys long for their roots and take pleasure in returning home, while I am terrified of the idea of going back to my country, even on a short mission.

  But in fact I was terrified specifically of going back to Alexandria, because for someone like me it would be fraught with dangers. Anyone who leaves Alexandria, either in anger or as the target of someone else’s anger, should not go back. The test of time has proven that. Origen went back to the city after leaving in anger and the bishop at the time, Demetrius known as the vine-tender, made him suffer grievously. That was two hundred years ago and the bishop of the city at the time was not as powerful as the bishop today, and Alexandria at the time was not known as the Great City. The façades of the houses and walls of the churches were not yet full of images of Mark the Apostle, with the lion crouched beside him, and Origen was not a wretch like me! None the less at their hands he tasted bitterness and woe. Eighty years later the Alexandrians lured Arius the monk to Constantinople from his exile in the land of the Goths, also known as Spain, where he had settled quietly and comfortably at the end of the earth, after excommunicating him, deposing him and blackening his reputation. They were not content to let him die in peace, and when he was tricked into going and meeting Bishop Alexander in the court of Emperor Constantine, in the hope of a reconciliation and an end to the theological dispute which had angered Alexandria, Arius met his horrible fate and died of poisoning. The bishop of Alexandria at the time was not as powerful as the bishop today, and Arius was not a poor man like me.