Hypatia | Page 9

world; I must see the great mother-church in Alexandria, and the
patriarch, and his clergy. If they can serve God in the city, why not I? I
could do more for God there than here .... Not that I despise this
work--not that I am ungrateful to you --oh, never, never that!--but I
pant for the battle. Let me go! I am not discontented with you, but with
myself. I know that obedience is noble; but danger is nobler still. If you
have seen the world, why should not I? If you have fled from it because
you found it too evil to live in, why should not I, and return to you here
of my own will, never to leave you? And yet Cyril and his clergy have
not fled from it....'
Desperately and breathlessly did Philammon drive this speech out of
his inmost heart; and then waited, expecting the good abbot to strike
him on the spot. If he had, the young man would have submitted
patiently; so would any man, however venerable, in that monastery.
Why not? Duly, after long companionship, thought, and prayer, they
had elected Pambo for their abbot--Abba--father--the wisest,
eldest-hearted and headed of them--if he was that, it was time that he
should be obeyed. And obeyed he was, with a loyal, reasonable love,

and yet with an implicit, soldier-like obedience, which many a king and
conqueror might envy. Were they cowards and slaves? The Roman
legionaries should be good judges on that point. They used to say that
no armed barbarian, Goth or Vandal, Moor or Spaniard, was so terrible
as the unarmed monk of the Thebaid.
Twice the old man lifted his staff to strike; twice he laid it down again;
and then, slowly rising, left Philammon kneeling there, and moved
away deliberately, and with eyes fixed on the ground, to the house of
the brother Aufugus.
Every one in the Laura honoured Aufugus. There was a mystery about
him which heightened the charm of his surpassing sanctity, his
childlike sweetness and humility. It was whispered--when the monks
seldom and cautiously did whisper together in their lonely walks-- that
he had been once a great man; that he had come from a great
city--perhaps from Rome itself. And the simple monks were proud to
think that they had among them a man who had seen Rome. At least,
Abbot Pambo respected him. He was never beaten; never even
reproved--perhaps he never required it; but still it was the meed of all;
and was not the abbot a little partial? Yet, certainly, when Theophilus
sent up a messenger from Alexandria, rousing every Laura with the
news of the sack of Rome by Alaric, did not Pambo take him first to the
cell of Aufugus, and sit with him there three whole hours in secret
consultation, before he told the awful story to the rest of the
brotherhood? And did not Aufugus himself give letters to the
messenger, written with his own hand, containing, as was said, deep
secrets of worldly policy, known only to himself? So, when the little
lane of holy men, each peering stealthily over his plaiting work from
the doorway of his sandstone cell, saw the abbot, after his unwonted
passion, leave the culprit kneeling, and take his way toward the sage's
dwelling, they judged that something strange and delicate had befallen
the common weal, and each wished, without envy, that he were as wise
as the man whose counsel was to solve the difficulty.
For an hour or more the abbot remained there, talking earnestly and low;
and then a solemn sound as of the two old men praying with sobs and

tears; and every brother bowed his head, and whispered a hope that He
whom they served might guide them for the good of the Laura, and of
His Church, and of the great heathen world beyond; and still
Philammon knelt motionless, awaiting his sentence; his heart filled-
who can tell how? 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger
intermeddleth not with its joy.' So thought he as he knelt; and so think I,
too, knowing that in the pettiest character there are unfathomable
depths, which the poet, all-seeing though he may pretend to be, can
never analyse, but must only dimly guess at, and still more dimly
sketch them by the actions which they beget.
At last Pambo returned, deliberate, still, and slow, as he had gone, and
seating himself within his cell, spoke--
'And the youngest said, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth
to my share .... And he took his journey into a far country, and there
wasted his substance with riotous living. Thou shalt go, my son. But
first come after me, and speak with Aufugus.'
Philammon, like everyone else, loved