Origen was a native of Alexandria. It was there, after his time, that the endless controversy as to the nature of the Three Persons in the Trinity originated—a controversy which lasted for centuries, which led to wars and massacres, and which finally separated the Churches of Greece and Rome. The Jews, who had settled in Alexandria by the invitation of the Ptolemies, carried the teaching of Plato into their religious speculations. In time Arius arose to proclaim his idea of the Logos, and Athanasius to oppose and protest, and ultimately triumph. The Homoousians prevailed, and the Homoiousians were branded and persecuted as heretics—enemies alike to God and man; yet Athanasius was driven from his diocese, and the famous St. George of Cappadocia reigned in his stead. The pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a Bishop whom they feared and esteemed. At a later time Cyril became the Archbishop, and distinguished his orthodox career by the animosity with which he expelled the Jews, and opposed the doctrine of Nestorius, who taught that there was a Divine and human Christ, and refused to worship the Virgin Mary as the mother of God.
‘He was a most expert logician,’ writes Zosimus, ‘but perverted his talents to evil powers, and had the audacity to preach what no one before him had ever suggested, namely, that the Son of God was made out of that which had no prior existence; that there was a period of time in which He existed not; that as possessing free will, He was capable of vice; and that He was created, not made.’ At the Council of Nicæa, held in the reign of Constantine, it was decided that Christ and the Father were of one and the same nature, and the doctrine of Arius, that Christ and God were only similar in nature, was declared heretical. Nevertheless, the Arians became more numerous than ever under the reign of Valens. As soon as the Christians of the West, writes Gibbon, had extricated themselves from the snares of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of orthodoxy, and the small remains of the Arian party that still subsisted in Sirmium or Milan might be considered as objects of contempt rather than resentment. But in the provinces of the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the strength and number of the hostile factions were equally balanced, and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives, and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria, but the thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macedonian or semi-Arian bishops, but their secret reluctance to embrace the Divinity of the Holy Ghost clouded the splendour of their triumph, and the declaration of Valens, who in the first years of his reign had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism. Well might Dr. Arnold write that it was an evil hour for the Church when Constantine connected Christianity with the State. It is really wonderful that real Christianity survived that fatal step when the sword of the civil magistrate was drawn in its support. It is hardly yet recognised that the religion of Jesus of Nazareth flourishes best when free from State patronage and control.
CHAPTER XIV.
IN CAIRO.
Covered with dust, parched with thirst, exhausted with hunger, burnt up with heat, I am landed at the charming Hôtel du Nil, in the gardens of which, filled up with American rocking-chairs, and trees bearing gorgeous red flowers and bananas and palms, and eucalyptus and banyan-trees all around, I realize as I have never done before something of the splendour and the wondrous beauty of the East. It must have been a fairy palace at one time or other, this Hôtel du Nil, with an enchanted garden. In the day it is intolerably hot, but the mornings and evenings are simply perfection. If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this. I feel inclined to pitch my tent here, and for ever bid adieu to my native land. The dinners are all that can be desired, the bedrooms large and lofty, and the servants, who, with the exception of the German waiters, are Soudanese—tall, white-robed, with a girdle round the middle—seem to me to be the best and most attentive in the world. There is nothing they will not do for me, and they are honest as the day. Apparently the dark boys have a good deal of the negro in their blood. I walk out to see the fine buildings and palaces which lie between me and the railway-station, but I cannot stand the bustle and confusion of the street, and soon beat a hasty retreat. The infirmities of old age follow me into this land of perpetual youth.
I walk outside the narrow and sombre lane which leads to the hotel in the quaint and ancient street Mousky. Let me attempt to describe it, and it will give the reader an accurate idea of Oriental life. The Mousky is the busiest street in all Cairo. Here meet Greek and Syrian, Anglo-Saxons, American or English, Armenian and Turk, Maronite and Druse, Italians, French, Russians, German, Dutch, and Belgian, and the vast army of residents, men, women, and children, of all shades and complexions, from the ebony-black Soudanese to the olive-tinted Arab, walk its length, penetrate its dark and confusing bazaars, and there
Crowded together are nooks and corners where native merchants ply their trades, and the gloom of some dark recess is lit by the glowing blue and scarlet and purple of Persian rugs, and the glare of polished and embossed brass. In the street the modern descendant of Tubal Cain is hard at work, and the tailor plies his needle, and the cigarette-maker rolls up his tobacco in its thin wrapper of paper, and the weaver bends over his loom, differing in nothing from that used by his forefathers a thousand years ago. Eatables and drinkables of strange flavour and colour are exposed for sale, and pedlars meet you at every turn uttering hoarse and discordant cries. There is quite a buzz of conversation, but I cannot understand a word. Why, I ask, did not Leibnitz carry out his grand idea and give us a universal language? It would have saved some of us a good deal of trouble. The pavement is too narrow for anyone to walk on, as the shopkeeper sits outside smoking his cigarette, while the customers also do the same, and the street is completely blocked. You are obliged to get into the narrow way where carriages and donkey and luggage waggons meet you at every step.
Women abound, all clad in black, with a black cloth over their faces, leaving only the eyes and nose visible, and a cheek of pallid skin. The nose is covered with a little gilt ornament, I suppose they call it, coming from the forehead, so that you really see nothing of it. Now and then you pass a coffee-house where smoking and gambling seem to be going on all day. In the course of my ramblings I came to a street lined with scribes on stones writing letters for their clients, and was struck with the firm, clear hand in which their letters are written—all in Arabic, of course. Every now and then a swell passes me in his carriage, with a running footman to clear the way with a white or black staff. I expect to be knocked down every minute. To walk the Mousky in peace and safety, you require to be as deaf as a post and to have a pair at least of good eyes at the back of your head.