‘Alas! And why alas? How would the Gospel be glorified if heathens were holier than Christians? It ought to be so, therefore it is so. If she seems to have virtues, they, being done without the grace of Christ, are only bedizened vices, cunning shams, the devil transformed into an angel of light. And as for chastity, the flower and crown of all virtues—whosoever says that she, being yet a heathen, has that, blasphemes the Holy Spirit, whose peculiar and highest gift it is, and is anathema maranatha for ever! Amen!’ And Peter, devoutly crossing himself, turned angrily and contemptuously away from his young companion.
Philammon was quite shrewd enough to see that assertion was not identical with proof. But Peter’s argument of ‘it ought to be, therefore it is,’ is one which saves a great deal of trouble...and no doubt he had very good sources of information. So Philammon walked on, sad, he knew not why, at the new notion which he had formed of Hypatia, as a sort of awful sorceress—Messalina, whose den was foul with magic rites and ruined souls of men. And yet if that was all she had to teach, whence had her pupil Raphael learned that fortitude of his? If philosophy had, as they said, utterly died out, then what was Raphael?
Just then, Peter and the rest turned up a side street, and Philammon and Hieracas were left to go on their joint errand together. They paced on for some way in silence, up one street and down another, till Philammon, for want of anything better to say, asked where they were going.
‘Where I choose, at all events. No, young man! If I, a priest, am to be insulted by archdeacons and readers, I won’t be insulted by you.’
‘I assure you I meant no harm.’
‘Of course not; you all learn the same trick, and the young ones catch it of the old ones fast enough. Words smoother than butter, yet very swords.’
‘You do not mean to complain of the archdeacon and his companions?’ said Philammon, who of course was boiling over with pugnacious respect for the body to which he belonged.
No answer.
‘Why, sir, are they not among the most holy and devoted of men?’
‘Ah—yes,’ said his companion, in a tone which sounded very like ‘Ah—no.’