Roger Pearse

The pagan Asclepiodotus has passed off the illegitimate child of a priestess of Isis as the child of his sterile wife, claiming that Isis had cured her.  The student Paralios, vacillating between his pagan friends, and Stephen, the friend of his Christian brother Athanasius, has learned the story.

Paralios, believing that this story was true, made it known to his brother, and to those who were with him, as a remarkable thing.  He said that this demonstration from facts had greater force than any argument from logic, and he gloried in it as an obvious pagan miracle.  The divine Stephen, having heard the story of this nonsense, said to Paralios, “If a sterile woman, my friend, has given birth, she will also have milk, and the pagans must verify the matter, by the intermediary of an honourable lady of a family known at Alexandria.  She can see it and establish this prodigy and miracle, and so it will not seem that the daughter of an important official of Caria, and the wife of a philosopher, is insulted (?).”  This language seemed reasonable, and Paralios forwarded the proposal of the monks to the pagan philosophers.  But these, thinking that nobody could be allowed to impugn this fabulous story, said to Paralios, “How dare you demand the impossible!  Do you think to persuade people [the philosophers] who remain unshakeably attached to the truth, and who don’t waste time on things of this sort?”  But as it seemed ……………. sent …………….. so the outcome for Paralios was that he moved away from the teachings of the pagans.

He produced yet another fact, which is as follows.  While at Menouthis, Paralios saw Isis, i.e. the demon who this goddess represents, who said to him in a dream, “Beware of that one, he’s a magician.”  Now it happened that the man in question had also come to learn grammar, and studied with the (same) master and that the demon revealed to him (the same thing) about Paralios, when he went to Menouthis.  Each made his vision known to his friends at the school of Horapollon, and each learned what his fellow-pupil said about him, and each was persuaded that he was telling the truth and that his fellow-pupil was lying.

Also Paralios recalled the teaching of the great Stephen; he remembered that both Stephen and Athanasius had spoken long discourses with him on the evils of the malevolent demons, telling him that these were in the habit of stirring up men, one against another, because they enjoyed wars and fighting and were the enemies of peace.

However Paralios wanted to know the truth about these things.  Indeed he reflected on what was the custom of the demon, and about the error, and about what went on in these places.  Until then he believed that his companion was lying.  So he returned to Menouthis.  He offered the customary sacrifices to the demon and prayed that he would let him know by an oracle if it was himself who was a magician, or his enemy, and whether such an oracle had really been given to both of them.   The demon, not tolerating the idea that the oracles in question might be tainted by contradiction and wickedness, did not deign to reply.  Paralios then begged the demon for a number of days not to leave the question unanswered because, he said, he wouldn’t try to refuse him, or the other gods, his submission and honours if he received entire satisfaction on this subject.  The demon persevered in his silence, and didn’t even give him sight of the customary illusion of his epiphany.  After waiting for a long time and offering many sacrifices, Paralios grew angry, and had no more doubts about the wicked teaching of the demons.  He praised the great Stephen, who had really told him the truth, and he prayed, as the latter had told him to do, “Creator of all things (etc.)”, adding these words by the great Stephen, “Show me your truth and do not let me be seduced by this demon who loves fighting, who arms men against each other and who stirs up quarrels; nor by the other evil demons like him.”  In fact he had been advised to address a prayer to the creator of everything, because it was desired to get rid of, immediately, the invocation of the gods of the pagans and the demons, of Chronos, Zeus, Isis, and names of that sort, and to accustom him little by little to the truth of the teachings [of the gospel]; it was desired that he should recognise no other creator of everything than our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the Father made the world, the principalities, the powers, and the dominations, as it is written, “All things were made by him,” says the Theologian, “and nothing was made without him.”  After this prayer, Paralios returned to Alexandria.  He uttered many words against the gods of the pagans, saying with David, “All the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord is the creator of the heavens.”

He mocked Horapollon, Heraiscus, Ammonius, and Isidore (who finished up being recognised as a manifest and troublesome magician) and the rest of the pagans, (jeering) at what went on at Menouthis, the impurities of all kinds and the lubricity of the priestess of Isis, affirming that she engaged in debauchery with anybody who wanted to, that she was no different to a prostitute who gives herself to the first man who comes along.

The pupils of Horapollon, who were attached to the follies of the pagans, could not bear the sarcasm and  reproaches of Paralios.  So they fell upon him in the very school where they were studying.  They waited for the moment when few Christians were present and when Horapollon had left.

It was the sixth day of the week, which is called Friday, during which all the other professors, so to speak, used to teach and expound at home.  Paralios was beaten up; his head was a mass of bruises and his whole body was covered with some kind of injury.  After succeeding, with difficulty, in getting a little away from them — he had a robust constitution — he sought refuge and assistance with the Christians, while a mob of pagans surrounded him and kicked him.  Now we were present at that moment, having a philosophy course.  The philosophers as well as Horapollon used to teach in the school on Friday as normal.  There were three of us; myself, Thomas the sophist, who loved Christ in all things (he is with me in Gaza), and Zenodotus of Lesbos.  As we were constantly in the churches with those who are called (at Alexandria) Philoponoi, and in other places are called “zealots”, and in still others “companions”, and as we appeared rather redoubtable (to the pagan pupils) to some degree, we approached the troublemakers, who were many, and told them that they were not doing well at all, in making someone suffer so who wanted to become a Christian.  It was, indeed, what Paralios was shouting.  The pagans wanted to deceive us and soothe us with their claims, saying, “We’ve no quarrel with you, but we will avenge ourselves on Paralios as an enemy.”

Since Christianity was the state religion, and paganism was illegal, there must have been a definite undercurrent here.  Ancient states were not policed, so a great deal could go on that was in theory illegal.  So it came down to pressure. Zacharias and his friends were implicitly saying, “You don’t want us to report you as pagans to the authorities here, do you?”  And the pagans were saying, “This isn’t a Christian-pagan thing; this guy has insulted us and is getting some payback.”

It’s notable that Zacharias does not disguise that Paralios had indeed provoked a riot, and was now playing “the religion card”.   This might have been unintelligible a century ago.  Sadly it is not so now.

We’re all familiar with how the “race card” can be played today by unscrupulous members of ethnic minorities.  Indeed I recall a Nigerian IT contractor in one job, who had consistently refused to do what he was told and kept interfering with an important computer system.  My boss of the time, a very diffident and somewhat leftist man, had no choice other than to sack him and have him escorted off site, or else be sacked himself.  The security staff arrived to march the Nigerian to the exit; whereupon the latter suddenly discovered that he was a victim of “racism”, and shouted this claim all the way to the gate.   It was a false claim, but one that gave him power.  Sadly for him his misconduct was inarguable.

Likewise anybody who has read the History of the Coptic Patriarchs of Alexandria will recognise how disputes between individuals often led to one side claiming to be Moslems in order to bring down the state on their foes.

It seems that, when equality before the law is lost, when the rulers of a state privilege some group on ideological grounds, non-members of that group will continually endure injustice on all sorts of occasions from the unscrupulous.  Clearly something similar prevailed in the 6th century in Alexandria.

Did Paralios really convert at Menouthis?  The story indicates that there was only his word for it.  I suspect that we may reasonably doubt it; and we may reasonably suppose that he merely claimed this later.   Probably he was still vacillating when he came back to Alexandria, but was very annoyed with the shrine at Menouthis and its supporters.  On this theory, once in a dispute with his fellow pagans that he was going to lose, the lure of the “Christian card” was too strong to resist.  It would take a man of more principle, than Paralios then was, not to use it while being beaten up!

From the Life of Severus of Antioch (6th c. AD), as written by Zacharias Rhetor:

Shortly afterwards occurred the events relating to Paralios and Horapollon the grammarian, from which we learn that he [Severus] who has been slandered, contrary to the divine laws, is innocent of the slanders of his infamous slanderer.  Here’s what was the origin of these events.

Paralios was from Aphrodisias, which is the metropolis of Caria.  He had three brothers, two of whom were engaged in idolatry and appeased the evil demons by invocations, sacrifices, incantations and by the arts of magicians; and the third, Athanasius, a man of God, had embraced the monastic life at Alexandria, in the convent called Enaton, at the same time as the illustrious Stephen.

After his early education, during which he studied civil law in Phoenicia, Athanasius went to Alexandria on business.  There he met Stephen, who I have just mentioned, who since childhood had been animated with an ardent piety and was exercising the functions of a sophist, i.e. a teacher, and he saw fit to reject, along with him, the pointless hopes of the bar.  As by a sign from God, each of them received the yoke of the true philosophy from the hand of the great Salomon, at this period the superior of those who cultivated philosophy in the convent in question.  He was a man of sound mind who was distinguished by the virtues of the monastic life.

Paralios, after being raised as a pagan in his own country by his two other brothers, went to Alexandria with the desire to learn grammar.  Before his departure, his brothers had strongly recommended him not to to speak a word to the aforementioned Athanasius.  So he went to the grammarian Horapollon.  The latter knew his art in a remarkable way, and his teaching was praiseworthy; but he was of the pagan religion, and full of admiration for demons and magic.  In engaging with Horapollon, the paganism of Paralios deepened further; along with his master, he was determined to offer sacrifices to idols.  At length Paralios, overcome by natural feelings, burned with the desire to finally see his brother Athanasius.  So he went to the monastery of Salomon, and was captivated by the holy pair, Stephen and Athanasius.  With the help of God’s spirit they easily overcame the numerous pagan objections and questions which they heard Paralios make.

Stephen was indeed very wise, and well aware of both the divine teachings and of encyclopediac knowledge.  After reading numerous treatises by the doctors of the church, who combatted the pagans, he had received from God the grace to triumph over them entirely, talking with them; and his zeal for religion made him seem like the great Elijah.  So he refuted the sophistical objections that the pagans made to the Christians, and then he retorted on Paralios the sleaziness of the pagans, the infamous mysteries of their gods, the lying oracles of polytheism, the obscure and shifty responses of their gods, their ignorance of the future, and other demonic deceptions.  He persuaded Paralios to submit some doubts of this kind to Horapollon, Heraiskus, Asclepiodotus, Ammonius, Isidore, and to the other philosophers who were with them; and then to weigh in a just balance what was said on both sides.  For many days Paralios had conversations on this subject with the pagans, and he found their responses feeble and unfounded.  He then produced a fact which deserves to be remembered and written down.

Asclepiodotus of Alexandria, who was involved with enchantments, practiced magic, made demoniac invocations, and who had thus commanded the admiration of the pagans for his philosophy, had agreed with his namesake (= Asclepiodotus), who at that time boasted of honours and dignities given to him by the king, and who held the first place in the senate of Aphrodisias, to give him his daughter in marriage.  He lived a long time in Caria with his wife, and wished to have children.  But his wish was not fulfilled, God inflicting on him as punishment, because he was involved with the evil practices of magic, the loss of his children and the sterility of his wife.  Since his father-in-law was  upset that his daughter had no children, our philosopher imagined an oracle (or perhaps he was tricked by the demon represented by Isis), according to which the goddess promised him children, if he went with his wife into the temple which this goddess had at Menouthis, a village fourteen miles from Alexandria, and near to the [locality] called Canopus.  So he persuaded his father-in-law to allow him to take his wife and go with her to this place.  He had promised his father-in-law to return home with his wife and the child she would have, but Asclepiodotus (of Alexandria) went to Alexandria, having deceived his namesake (= Asclepiodotus of Caria).

He stayed at Menouthis for some time, and offered a considerable number of sacrifices to demons.  But this achieved nothing.  The sterility of his wife persisted there too.  Having believed that he had seen Isis lying next to him, he heard those,  who interpreted dreams there, and who served the demon represented by Isis, say that he must join himself to the idol of the goddess, and then join himself with his wife; thus a child would be born to him.  Our philosopher believed this pretty crude deception, as the priest who had advised him from the start came back again, and he joined himself to the stone which represented Isis, and then, after the stone, to his wife.

Despite this, she remained sterile.  Then the priest advised him to go with only his wife to the village of Astu, to remain there some time, and then to take as his child one who had been born from the priestess, a compatriot of his, a short time earlier.  Because the gods and the fates, he said extravagantly, wanted him to do so.  Asclepiodotus likewise followed this advice, went with his wife, without anyone else accompanying them, to the mother of this child.  He gave her a certain amount of money, and took her child.  Then he returned to Alexandria, boasting that a sterile woman had given birth after all this time.  In consequence all those who were involved in the folly of the pagans boasted greatly about this fable, as if it was true, and praised Isis, and Menouthis, the village of the goddess, where someone doing a good deed had buried the temple of Isis under the sand, to the point where not a trace of it could be seen.

Fascinating stuff!

We continue from the Life of Severus of Antioch by Zacharias Rhetor.

The illustrious Severus is Pisidian in origin, and his home town is Sozopolis.  In fact it was this town that fell to him as his his home, after the first [birth], of which we have all  been banished following the transgression of Adam, and that the divine apostle invites us to do again.  Because here, he says, we have no continuing city, but we seek that one where we shall live one day, one where God is the architect and founder.  He was raised by distinguished parents, as those who knew them say.  They were descended from that Severus who was bishop of the town of Sozopolis at the period when the first council of Ephesus met against the impious Nestorius.  After the death of his father, who was one of the senate of the town, his widowed mother sent him with his two brothers, who were older than him, to Alexandria, to study grammar and rhetoric, both Greek and Latin.

The custom being established in his homeland, so it is said, not to come to holy baptism before middle age except when urgently necessary, it happened that Severus and his brothers were still only catechumens when they came to Alexandria, for the reason stated.  At that time I too was staying in the city for the same reason.  The three brothers went first to the sophist John, nicknamed Σημειογράφος (?), then to Sopater, who had a reputation for the art of rhetoric, as everybody spoke highly of him for this.  It happened that I was also frequenting the course of this master at that time, as well as Menas, of pious memory, whose orthodoxy, humility of life, great chastity, love of his fellow man, and sympathy for the poor were universally acknowledged.  He was in fact one of those who assiduously frequented the holy church, those whom the Alexandrians, following the custom of the country, were accustomed to call Philoponoi.

In the course of our studies, during our stay at Alexandria, we admired the subtlety of mind of the marvellous Severus, as well as his love of learning.  We were astonished to see how, in a short space of time, he learned to express himself with elegance, in applying himself assiduously to the study of the precepts of the ancient rhetors, and striving to imitate their brilliant and practised (?) style.  His mind was occupied with this, and not with that which usually attracts youth.  He devoted himself entirely to study, secluding himself in his zeal from every blameworthy spectacle.

Upset that such intelligence had yet to receive divine baptism, we counselled Severus to place opposite the discourses of the sophist Libanius, whom he admired as the equal of the ancient rhetors, those of Basil and Gregory, those illustrious bishops, and to compare them together.  We gave him this advice so that he  might come by way of rhetoric, which was dear to him, to their teaching and philosophy.  When Severus had come to know these writings, he was completely conquered by them.  He was immediately heard to eulogise the letters addressed by Basil to Libanius, and those which Libanius wrote in response, in which he admitted himself defeated by Basil and accorded the victory to the letters of the latter.  The result of this was that Severus plunged into reading the works and meditations of the illustrious Basil, and Menas my friend, who was admired by everyone for his fervour, declared in a prophecy, which events have confirmed (in fact Menas loved to do good), “This one (Severus) will shine among the bishops like St. John, to whom was given the helm of the holy Church of Constantinople.”  God, who alone knows the future, revealed these things about Severus, when he was still a young man, using here again the intermediary of a pious soul.

Tidying your desktop can be perilous.  I found a PDF with the French translation of the Vita of Severus of Antioch on mine.  I had forgotten how interesting a work this was.

I know that there is an English translation out there somewhere, but of course it is inaccessible to most of us.  So I feel no compunction in translating some of the French!

Here follows the biography of holy Mar Severus, patriarch of Antioch, which was written by Zacharias the Scholastic, who studied [grammar and rhetoric] along with Severus at Alexandria, and law at Beirut.

— Where are you coming from today, O friend and comrade?

— From the Royal Portico (=στοά), my dear chap.  I have come to see you to clarify some questions that I want to put to you.  In fact I have just been upset by a libel, which appears to have a Christian as its author, but who in reality seems rather to flout Christian teaching.

— And how is that?  Tell me all.  And how did you come to read this libel?

— I was looking at the books of the booksellers who are set up at the Royal Portico — hey, you know my passion for books! — when one of those who was sitting there and selling books gave me the libel in question to read.  In this book a philosopher is defamed, slandered, jeered at and abused.  You knew him at the start of his career.  He has since distinguished himself in the episcopate and is outstanding even now by his conduct and learning of the holy scriptures.  I mean Severus, whose reputation is great among those who appreciate the good without bias.  And that’s why I feel cruelly afflicted.

— But my friend, if you have so good an opinion of Severus, why do you worry about his slanderer and defamer, whoever he may be?  It seems, in fact, from what you say, that he is only a Christian in form, and by hypocrisy, that in reality he has taken on the task instead of glorifying the pagans, and aspires only to cover them with praise, insulting the kind of people who are valued for their virtue and to whom it has been given to serve God for so many years already by this beautiful philosophy which they have shown us.

— It is not because doubt has come over me, or because I have given credence to stories made up out of malevolence, that I have come to you today.  No! But I feel afflicted, as I said.  I am afraid that readers of a simple spirit may by mischance acquire a negative opinion of the patriarch.  Also, if you really want to know — and you do — please tell me the life of Severus since his young, for the glory of God Almighty and of our saviour Jesus Christ, in whom rest those who are dedicated to the priesthood and to philosophy; I mean the true philosophy.  Please tell me from what city he was, of what people, of what family, if you do actually know these details.   Please tell me above all about his conduct, and what have been his opinions on God since his youth.  Because the slanderer has attacked him not only for his life, and his conduct, but also because, at the start of his career, he worshipped malevolent demons and idols.  In fact he said, “He was also caught offering pagan sacrifices, in Phoenicia, at the time when he was studying literature and the law.”

— But if someone defames the life of another, collecting futile and false stories about him, we must not worry about this, unless what is said contains an element of truth.  For the wicked demons and their friends slander easily the conduct of those who have conquered in virtue.  We mustn’t be astonished if the servants of Christ, God of the universe, are treated like Satans by Satan, since, when the efficient and creative cause of all things had come among us, he caused the Jews to blaspheme and to say, “It is by Beelzebub, prince of demons, that he expelled the demon.”  However, since you have told me that you believe that this libel may harm some simple souls, I will, out of respect for truth and love for you, recount the life of Severus, with whom I was, in his first youth, at Alexandria and in Phoenicia, hearing the same masters as him and sharing the same occupations.  Those who studied with us and are still alive — their number is very considerable — can attest the truth of my narrative.

We need not take this literary frame too seriously.  But Severus was an active figure in the controversies of the late 5th and 6th century, and there can be little doubt that his enemies used the pleasant methods of Byzantine controversy to undermine him by means of personal accusations.