Azazeel Read online

  Writing raises within us storms we have stifled, digs our memories out of their hiding places and brings to mind the most atrocious of happenings. In distant, receding periods of my life my faith has consoled me and filled me with joy. But today gloom surrounds me on every side and tempests rage within me, strong enough to cut me adrift from all creation. What will be the fate of Nestorius after all that has happened to him? Where, I wonder, will I go after I complete this chronicle? Will I again see my beloved Martha who has gone? I thought she had left me in peace, but after she was gone I felt the sting of anxiety and the tremor of desire. I wish I had stopped her going to Aleppo and saved her from the danger of singing at night among the drunken merchants and the villainous Arabs, and saved myself from what I am suffering now. Since she left I have never forgotten her tearful eyes, and my worry for her has not abated.

  ‘You are the reason, Hypa, you are the reason, because she begged you to save her from that, and to save yourself, but you did not dare.’

  ‘Azazeel!’

  ‘Yes, Hypa, the Azazeel who comes to you from within yourself.’

  Thus is the trinity of my torment completed – my worry about the fate of Nestorius, my curiosity about the fate of Martha, and Azazeel’s sudden appearances. How long must I bear this torment, and when will I be free of this triple affliction? O God, save me, for I...

  ‘Hypa, don’t be silly and carry on with what you were writing.’

  ‘And what was I writing?’

  ‘What Nestorius told you at the eastern wall of Jerusalem. Fear nothing, for writing will not make matters worse and I don’t think anyone will read what you write for years, so write tonight, that you may be truly yourself. Who knows, poor man, maybe after your forty days of seclusion news will come that Nestorius turned defeat into victory. Perhaps you will see Martha again in her lovely Damascene dress and take her with you when you depart, as expected. Perhaps you will find joy with her for the rest of your life and the anguish in your heart will abate.’

  Azazeel has strong arguments and he usually wins me over. Or is it that I have emboldened him by tugging him towards myself, as he claims, with my constant hesitation and my chronic worrying? In any case, there is no cause for concern. The morning is nigh, and there is nothing dangerous in what I am going to write now. This piece of parchment is almost full and only this small space remains clear of ink. In it I shall write a summary of what I heard that day from Nestorius. I will write it in my own words, in Syriac, so that it is binding on me, not an argument against him.

  The reverend Nestorius said to me in Jerusalem that day, in his elegant Greek accent, ‘The truth is, Hypa, that it is all a fraud. Satan was the driving force behind everything that happened a hundred years ago at the Council of Nicaea. By Satan I mean the devil in the form of temporal power, which goes to people’s heads. Then they challenge the authority of the Lord and tear each other to pieces; then they lose heart and are scattered to the wind. Their passions overwhelm them and they act foolishly and violate the spirit of the faith in seeking to obtain the vanities of the transient world. What happened in Nicaea, Hypa, was null and void through and through. Emperor Constantine was in such a hurry to declare his sovereign authority over all Christians that he would not wait until his new city Constantinople was complete before calling the ecumenical council, so he held the council in nearby Nicaea.

  ‘A year earlier the emperor had been busy with a single purpose – to assert his authority through war on his former military comrades, and when the wars ended in their defeat, he wanted to gain spiritual authority over his subjects, so he called the heads of all the churches to the ecumenical council, ran the sessions and interfered in the theological debate. Then he dictated the resolutions to the bishops and priests who attended, though I don’t believe he ever read a single book of Christian theology. In fact he didn’t understand Greek, the language in which the theological debate raged between the bishops in Nicaea, and basically he wasn’t interested in the theological dispute between Arius the priest and the bishop of Alexandria of his time, Alexander. That’s clear from the emperor’s letters to them, in which he describes their disagreement over the nature of Jesus Christ as trivial, vulgar, foolish and crass. He tells them they should keep their opinions to themselves and not bother people with them. The letter is famous and there are copies of it in the diocese.

  ‘Then the emperor took sides with Bishop Alexander to secure Egypt’s wheat and the annual grape harvest. He excommunicated Arius, banned his teachings and declared him a heretic to please the majority of his subjects and make himself the champion of Christianity. Emperor Constantine let the wisdom of Arius go to waste in the past, just as his wisdom goes to waste today at the hands of the ignorant people who claim to be his followers and who adopt him as a way to heresy and to undermine the faith. The Arians who now fill the land around us do injustice to Arius, just as Emperor Constantine did a hundred years ago, when he sanctioned his assassination in broad daylight.’

  ‘Just as the emperor, father, ordered the burning of his books and all the Gospels which people had, except the four famous ones. But what do you mean, father, by the wisdom of Arius?’

  At the time we were walking under the canopy of a large shady tree, at the end of the church wall, in the quiet spot overlooking the city wall. Our conversation had removed the walls between us, and Nestorius stood there in a moment of meditation. Then he turned towards me as though he were about to throw a heavy stone at me, and he was surprised later that I had not been surprised at what he said. I will never forget his face as he gently began to speak. ‘I understand, Hypa, the significance of your studying theology in Alexandria and I know everything they taught you there, and everything they told you about Arius and his opinions, which they consider heresy. But I see the matter from another point of view, the Antioch point of view if you wish to describe it as such. I find that Arius was a man full of love, honesty and spiritual power. The events of his life, his asceticism and self-denial, all confirm that. As for what he said, I see it as merely an attempt to purge our religion from the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians about their gods, because your ancestors also believed in a holy trinity, made up of Isis, her son Horus and her husband Osiris, by whom she conceived without intercourse. Are we reviving the old religion? No, and it is not right to say of God that He is the third of three. God, Hypa, is One, unaccompanied in His divinity. Arius wanted our religion to worship God alone. But he sang a song which was unfamiliar in his time, recognizing the mystery of God’s manifestation in Christ but not admitting Christ’s divinity, recognizing Jesus the son of Mary, a gift to mankind, but not recognizing any divinity other than the one God.’

  ‘But in that, father, he did not go beyond the belief of the ancient Egyptians, who finally concluded that God is one and superior to everything that is holy. Arius, nonetheless, did break with the consensus among the people of his time, and he said what he said, and the fires of heaven singed him.’

  ‘The fires of Alexandria singed him, Hypa, and when the emperor recalled him from his long exile in the land of the Goths, to reconcile him under duress with the bishop of Alexandria, to ensure peace and tranquillity and gratify the great city, he was assassinated with poison.’

  ‘He died from poison!’ I cried that out, then I checked myself and looked around me. The only people passing nearby were two women wearing black, with veils of the kind worn by Jewish women. The women looked towards us when I shouted and one of them scowled, while the other smiled. Nestorius took no offence at my sudden outburst, and answered me softly and gravely. ‘That’s what I think most probable, because the day before he was expected to meet the emperor and the bishop of Alexandria, Arius and some others were out walking at noontime, when suddenly he had stomach pains, right out of the blue, and he turned aside to answer the call of nature. Much blood and pieces of his stomach and intestines spilled out of him, and he died a shocking death because he fell into the mess he had excreted. That was on a Saturda
y afternoon in the year 336.’

  ‘And what happened after that, father?’

  ‘Nothing. Bishop Alexander was delighted and went into seclusion to pray. Emperor Constantine was relieved at the death of Arius, whose followers and friends disowned him. All the bishops condemned him and renounced his opinions in a statement they submitted to the emperor.’

  ‘The man was a lost cause.’

  ‘And his opinions almost disappeared with him, especially after the bishops gathered in Antioch five years after his death, for the Council of the Dedication,3 and drafted a statement in which they said with outrageous effrontery, “We have never been followers of Arius. How could we, as bishops, follow the words of a priest?” That’s how Alexandria triumphed. Talking of Alexandria, Hypa, were you there when the philosopher Hypatia was killed?’

  His question hit me in the gut like a fiery liquid, dispelling the gentle evening breezes which had started to blow. His unexpected question threw me back to a past which I had thought was forgotten. I was stunned, remembering suddenly the terrible event which drove me out of Alexandria to wander through the land of the Lord. At the time I kept my feelings under control but despite myself I could not hold back a few tears at the memory of Hypatia and her screams when she cried out for help. Nestorius sensed my distress and showed divine compassion. When he turned me gently towards him and gave my left shoulder a friendly shake with his right hand, I felt the urge to weep, but my shyness prevented me.

  ‘Take it easy, Hypa. You’re exhausted. We have spoken much today, and your company has delighted me. Here’s our lodge nearby, so go back to your good and holy room to rest the night, and tomorrow I will await you in the early morning at the church door. We will pray and then have breakfast together and you can tell me, if you want, what happened in Alexandria on that day. I’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.’

  I realized that day that Nestorius was indeed a priest with spiritual power, and a monk who deserved reverence. I saw in him my father who was snatched from me, my lost father, although Nestorius did not resemble him in appearance and was not old enough to be the father of someone my age, other than in the ecclesiastical sense of the word. On that day long ago, in the torrent of my confusion, I forgot to tell him that I wanted to see Bishop Theodore to check up on his health and to receive his blessing. I withdrew from this bewildering situation with a mumbled farewell. ‘I’ll be there in the morning, at the time of the third prayer. I’ll wait for you, father, and I’ll tell you everything if you will honour me with another visit to my humble room. I’ll tell you what happened because I was there that day and I witnessed it from close by.’

  I hurried back to take refuge in my loneliness. On my way back I prayed to the Lord that I would not find any patients awaiting me at my door, and my prayer was answered. I shut the door and did not light the lamp. I knelt on the ground in the darkness and said my prayers devoutly, hoping that I would calm down. But that night I tossed and turned without a moment’s sleep, as happens whenever I remember Alexandria. My bed was like a bed of nails and as the dark night progressed I mingled copious tears with fervent prayers. ‘Oh God, help me through Thy mysterious loving kindness, for my endless sufferings are unbearable. Save me through Thy grace, Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, from the agony of the memories that teem within me. Grant me, God, a new birth through which I may live without memory, or have mercy and take me unto Thyself, far from this world.’

  That night I prayed mightily that His mercy might descend on me from heaven, but the Lord did not answer my prayers, and my Alexandrian memories swept me away like the waves of the sea.

  SCROLL THREE

  The Capital of Salt and Cruelty

  I well remember how, in my youth which is gone and never will return, I left Akhmim bound for Alexandria, inspired by great hopes. It was exactly midday and in the church they were preparing for the prayers of the sixth hour, which take place precisely at noon. I headed under the full sun to the east bank of the Nile, to the place where the sail boats tie up. It was a short distance but the quay was empty and the sun was fierce. In the afternoon sky blazed the July (Abib) sun, which knows no mercy. The ancients in their golden age believed that the sun was the manifestation of the power of the god Ra, who was the chief of their gods...their gods which have vanished, the memory of them dead along with those who invoked them.

  At the quay I found shade under the solitary tree. It was as slender as me and its leaves hung down over the edge of a miserable canal that took its water from the Nile during the time of the summer flood. From my bag I took out the small icon from which I am never parted, an image of the Holy Virgin Mary, and I began to meditate on the details of her tranquil face. Should not the Lord have given me a mother as immaculate as the Virgin? I was about to drift off into a reverie, when I noticed the approach of a young man of about twenty years, followed by a monkey. The two of them came with leaps and bounds, as though animated by a single spirit. The young man looked towards me with a smile before embarking on the mission for which he had come, by which I mean climbing the tall palm tree nearby, which was loaded with dry dates no one had gathered in the winter. Some of the dates had fallen but others remained in place.

  ‘These dates are full of sugar and taste delicious,’ the young man told me, as though he knew me well, or perhaps because he wanted to tell me why he had come, as if he were asking my permission to climb the tree, which was not mine anyway. Or perhaps he was asking for a blessing because he thought well of me, or of the monk’s habit I was wearing. He pointed upwards to the top of the tree, with his arm outstretched. The monkey went ahead and the two of them climbed the palm tree without great effort, as though they were walking along the ground. The monkey reached the top first and began to jump for joy from frond to frond and cluster to cluster of dates. The young man watched the monkey warily for a while, until he was sure that the top of the tree was free of snakes and scorpions, then continued to climb into the crown and began to shake the hanging clusters. After several minutes of a shower of dates they came down even faster than they went up. The young man picked out those dates which worms had not damaged and put handfuls of them into the fold of his pale jellaba. He came and threw some of the dates into my lap without saying a word. The man had a strange smile. He did not wait for me to give him a word of thanks or bless him with a prayer, but took his monkey on his shoulder and disappeared into the fields. At the time I thought God had sent this young man as a good omen, or that he was one of the angels of heaven who fill the earth and hurry from person to person without anyone knowing they are there. But I did not ask myself at the time how an angel could bring along a monkey.

  Later in the day a boat tied up on its way to Lycopolis (Assiut), a town on the banks of the Nile two days to the north of Akhmim. The boat people were in a hurry and they approached me, asking if I wanted to sail with them, and I saw this as a sign from God inviting me to visit Assiut’s holy site, the shrine on the mountain known as Qusqam, where the Virgin Mary stayed with the infant Jesus the Messiah when she brought him to Egypt to escape the oppression of the Romans. The boat owners soon set sail and the wind was favourable for sailing, and I reached Assiut at noon the following day.

  The city is very large and most of the inhabitants are Christian, with some pagans, but in general pleasant people. Their houses are spacious and attached to each other. At the time I thought it the biggest city in the world, but I had not yet been to Alexandria, or Jerusalem or Antioch. From Assiut I headed west to the place where at one time the holy family took refuge in the desolate mountains. I did not find much there but I did not regret visiting the place.

  I climbed up to a place hidden away in the mountains and found a wretched church surrounded by some dilapidated buildings which I doubted went back to the time of the Holy Virgin. Some hermits were there, living a life of poverty in which I did not sense as much spirituality as I had hoped and expected. I felt melancholic and after two days I went back to Assiut with a gro
up of other visitors, about a dozen of them. Halfway back, I was approached by an elegantly dressed man who, in spite of the heat, was wearing a cloak of fine black wool with a decorative border of shiny black silk. His appearance and his sly demeanour struck me as strange. He did not have a cross hanging around his long neck. When our eyes met he smiled and looked even slyer, and his eyes shone with intelligence. I was wary of him and slowed my pace. He walked slower too until he came level with me and prepared to speak. Despite myself I looked at him. His face was covered in white leprous spots which stood out the more for his brown complexion. In Greek, which people rarely use in that country, he said straight out: ‘How did the Virgin come here in flight with her infant son, years after the death of the ruler they claim killed the Jewish children? And why did she go back to the dry yellow country after coming to Egypt’s green valley?’ He said this quietly and in a mischievous tone, then turned aside from the group’s route back to Assiut, taking a path to the northeast, and slipped off into the fields through the scattered thickets of reeds until he disappeared from sight. Why am I telling you all these details?

  I spent several confused weeks among the monasteries and churches of Assiut, then left the city for Alexandria on a river boat owned by some poor merchants originally from Heliopolis. They were good people but they never stopped taking strong drink and, when they were drunk, singing loud comic songs. When I embarked with them I was wearing the cassock of an Egyptian monk, which is now compulsory for all monks. Out of deference to my cassock, after agreeing to let me travel with them, the boat people refused to let me pay the fare. One of them, a Christian of course, said, ‘For us, father, it’s enough that you bring your blessings to our boat.’ It was the first time any of them had called me ‘father’.