Hypatia | Page 8

education, and worship, each man sat, day after day, week after week,
his mind full of high and heavenly thoughts, weaving the leaves of their
little palm-copse into baskets, which an aged monk exchanged for
goods with the more prosperous and frequented monasteries of the
opposite bank. Thither Philammon rowed the old man over, week by
week, in a light canoe of papyrus, and fished, as he sat waiting for him,
for the common meal. A simple, happy, gentle life was that of the
Laura, all portioned out by rules and methods, which were held hardly
less sacred than those of the Scriptures, on which they were supposed
(and not so wrongly either) to have been framed. Each man had food
and raiment, shelter on earth, friends and counsellors, living trust in the
continual care of Almighty God; and, blazing before his eyes, by day
and night, the hope of everlasting glory beyond all poets' dreams ....
And what more would man have had in those days? Thither they had
fled out of cities, compared with which Paris is earnest and Gomorrha
chaste,--out of a rotten, infernal, dying world of tyrants and slaves,
hypocrites and wantons,--to ponder undisturbed on duty and on
judgment, on death and eternity, heaven and hell; to find a common
creed, a common interest, a common hope, common duties, pleasures,
and sorrows .... True, they had many of them fled from the post where
God had placed them, when they fled from man into the Thebaid
waste .... What sort of post and what sort of an age they were, from
which those old monks fled, we shall see, perhaps, before this tale is
told out.
'Thou art late, son,' said the abbot, steadfastly working away at his
palm-basket, as Philammon approached.
'Fuel is scarce, and I was forced to go far.'
'A monk should not answer till he is questioned. I did not ask the
reason. Where didst thou find that wood?'
'Before the temple, far up the glen.'

'The temple! What didst thou see there?'
No answer. Pambo looked up with his keen black eye.
'Thou hast entered it, and lusted after its abominations.'
'I--I did not enter; but I looked--'
'And what didst thou see? Women?'
Philammon was silent.
'Have I not bidden you never to look on the face of women? Are they
not the firstfruits of the devil, the authors of all evil, the subtlest of all
Satan's snares? Are they not accursed for ever, for the deceit of their
first mother, by whom sin entered into the world? A woman first
opened the gates of hell; and, until this day, they are the portresses
thereof. Unhappy boy! What hast thou done?'
'They were but painted on the walls.'
'Ah!' said the abbot, as if suddenly relieved from a heavy burden. 'But
how knewest thou them to be women, when thou hast never yet, unless
thou liest--which I believe not of thee--seen the face of a daughter of
Eve?'
'Perhaps--perhaps,' said Philammon, as if suddenly relieved by a new
suggestion--'perhaps they were only devils. They must have been, I
think, for they were so very beautiful.'
'Ah! how knowest thou that devils are beautiful?'
'I was launching the boat, a week ago, with Father Aufugus; and on the
bank,....not very near,....there were two creatures....with long hair, and
striped all over the lower half of their bodies with black, and red, and
yellow....and they were gathering flowers on the shore. Father Aufugus
turned away; but I .... I could not help thinking them the most beautiful
things that I had ever seen....so I asked him why he turned away; and he
said that those were the same sort of devils which tempted the blessed

St. Anthony. Then I recollected having heard it read aloud, how Satan
tempted Anthony in the shape of a beautiful woman .... And so .... and
so .... those figures on the wall were very like .... and I thought they
might be....'
And the poor boy, who considered that he was making confession of a
deadly and shameful sin, blushed scarlet, and stammered, and at last
stopped.
'And thou thoughtest them beautiful? Oh utter corruption of the
flesh!--oh subtilty of Satan! The Lord forgive thee, as I do, my poor
child; henceforth thou goest not beyond the garden walls.'
'Not beyond the walls! Impossible! I cannot! If thou wert not my father,
I would say, I will not!--I must have liberty!--I must see for myself--I
must judge for myself, what this world is of which you all talk so
bitterly. I long for no pomps and vanities. I will promise you this
moment, if you will, never to re-enter a heathen temple--to hide my
face in the dust whenever I approach a woman. But I must--I must see
the