I
That afternoon was one of comparative calm for the infant Church. She was three hundred and ten years old. The pagan persecutions had ceased, and disputes about the Nature of Christ, over which blood was more freely to flow, had not yet matured. It still seemed that under her inspired guidance the old world would pass without disaster into the new. What lovely weather! The month was June, and the beacon of smoke that rose from the summit of the Pharos was inclined over Alexandria by a northerly wind. Both harbours were filled with ships; the Eastern Harbour was lined with palaces. The Western Harbour—and to it we must turn—was indeed less splendid. Then, as now, it washed the business quarter, the warehouses, the slums where the dock hands lived. Hardness and poverty edged it as they do to-day, and Christianity had settled here early, as she settled on all spots where the antique civilization had failed to make men dignified. Issuing out of the Gate of the Moon, the great Canopic Way here lost its straightness and split into ignoble lanes. There was only one redeeming feature—a house in which a real bishop was sitting. His name was Alexander. He has invited some clergymen to lunch, and they are late.
Bishops existed then in a profusion we can scarcely conceive. Every large village produced one, and they even went so far as to disorganize the postal service by galloping about in troops upon the government horses. But he of Alexandria was a bishop of no ordinary brand. He bore the title of “Patriarch of all the Preaching of St. Mark,” and a prestige that only Rome challenged. If he lived in these slums, it was because historical associations detained him. The sainted shoemaker Annianus had plied his trade hard by. A church to the right—St. Theonas’—had been built by another local saint. Here were the origins of his power, but its field lay elsewhere—eastward among the splendours of the town; southward, hundreds of miles southward, up the valley of the Nile. The whole of Egypt was ripe for Christianity. A magnificent prize!
The waters of the harbour, placid and slightly stale, came almost up to his house. He gazed at them, and at the grubby beach where some little boys were playing. They were playing at going to church. They were poor, they had no toys, and, since railway trains did not exist, going to church was the only game they could command. Indeed, it is a fascinating game. Even Anglican nurseries have succumbed to it. Scantily robed, they processed and inclined, and the Bishop, being not Anglican, but African, only smiled. Boys will be boys! He was specially diverted by their leader, a skinny but sportive youth, who would take his flock for a swim and, diving, reappear when and where they least expected. Then more solemn thoughts returned.
The whole of Egypt was ripe for Christianity. Ah, but for what kind of Christianity? That was the trouble. Fancy if, with Arius, it adopted the heresy of “Time was when He was not”! Fancy if it paltered with Gnosticism, and believed that creation, with its palaces and slums, is the result of a muddle! Fancy if it Judaized with Meletius, the disobedient Bishop of Assiout! Alexander had written to Meletius, asking him to Judaize less, but had had no reply. That was the disadvantage of a copious episcopy. You could never be sure that all the bishops would do the same thing. And there were dreadful examples in which flighty laymen had lost their heads, and, exclaiming, “Me be bishop too!” had run away into the desert before any one could stop them. The Emperor Constantine (that lion-hearted warrior!) was a further anxiety. Constantine so easily got mixed. Immersed in his town-planning, he might stamp some heresy as official and then the provinces would take it up. How difficult everything was! What was to be done? Perhaps the clergymen, when they arrived for lunch, would know. There used to be too little Christianity. Now there almost seemed too much. Alexander sighed, and looked over the harbour to the Temple of Neptune that stood on the promontory. He was growing old. Where was his successor?—someone who ... not exactly saintliness and scholarship, but someone who would codify, would define?
Stop! stop! Boys will be boys, but there are limits. They were playing at Baptism now, and the sportive youth was in the act of pouring some of the harbour water over two other Gippoes. To enter into the Bishop’s alarm we must remember the difference between Northern and Southern conceptions of impiety. To the Northerner impiety is bad taste. To the Southerner it is magic—the illicit and accurate performance of certain acts, and especially of sacramental acts. If the youth had made any mistake in his baptismal ritual it would not have mattered, it would have remained play. But he was performing accurately what he had no right to perform; he was saying, “Me be bishop too,” and Heaven alone knew the theological consequences. “Stop! stop!” the genuine article cried. It was too late. The water fell, the trick was done ... and at the same moment the clergymen arrived, offering such apologies for their unpunctuality as are usual among Egyptians.
It was long before lunch was served. The culprits were summoned, and in terrific conclave their conduct was discussed. There was some hope that the two converts were Christians already, in which case nothing would have been affected. But no. They had bowed the knee to Neptune hitherto. Then were they Christians now? Or were they horrid little demons who, outside or inside the Church, would harm her equally? The sportive youth prevailed. He won over the Bishop, and calmed the clergymen’s fears, and before evening fell and the smoke on the Pharos turned to a column of fire, it was settled that he had by his play rendered two souls eligible for immortal bliss. And his action had a more immediate consequence: he never washed again. Taken into the Bishop’s house, he became his pupil, his deacon, his coadjutor, his successor in the see, and finally a saint and a doctor of the Church: he is St. Athanasius.