Charles Kingsley

“ There were no idols now to break but there was philosophy—'Why not carry war into the heart of the enemy's camp, and beard Satan in his very den? Why does not some man of God go boldly into the lecture-room of the sorceress, and testify against her to her face?'
'Do it yourself, if you dare,' said Peter. 'We have no wish to get our brains knocked out by all the profligate young gentlemen in the city.'
'I will do it,' said Philammon. ”

“ And there haunted him, too, another peculiarity in the man, which he had never before remarked in any one but Arsenius—that ease and grace, that courtesy and self-restraint, which made Raphael's rebukes rankle all the more keenly, because he felt that the rebuker was in some mysterious way superior to him, and saw through him, and could have won him Over, Or crushed him in argument, or in intrigue —or in anything, perhaps, except mere brute force. Strange—that Raphael, of all men, should in those few moments have reminded him so much of Arsenius ”

“ The priest, bowing lower than before, represented the immediate necessity for help.
'It is very odd,' said Peter to the swallows in the Serapeium, 'that some people cannot obtain influence enough in their own parishes to get the simplest good works performed without tormenting his holiness the patriarch.'
The old priest mumbled some sort of excuse, and the archdeacon, without deigning a second look at him, said—'Find him a man, brother Peter. Anybody will do. What is that boy—Philammon—doing there? ”

“ And as figure after figure rose before his imagination, of simple men and weak women who had conquered temptation and shame, torture and death, to live for ever on the lips of men, and take their seats among the patricians of the heavenly court, with brows glittering through all eternities with the martyr's crown, his heart beat thick and fast, and he longed only for an opportunity to dare and die. ”

“ Peter seemed not to receive the proposition favourably, and whispered something to the archdeacon. . . .
'No. I can spare none of the rest. Importunate persons must take their chance of being well served. Come—here are our brethren; we will all go together.'
'The farther together the better for the boy's sake,' grumbled Peter, loud enough for Philammon—perhaps for the old priest—to overhear him.
So Philammon went out with them, and as he went questioned his companions meekly enough as to who Raphael was.
'A friend of Hypatia!'—that name, too, haunted him ”

“ And so he does to every one who he fancies has done him a bad one. So here am I slaving away, a subordinate priest, while such fellows as Peter the Reader look down on me as their slave. But it's always so. There never was a bishop yet, except the blessed Augustine— would to Heaven I had taken my abbot's advice, and gone to him at Hippo!—who had not his flatterers and his tale-bearers, and generally the archdeacon at the head of them, ready to step into the bishop's place when he dies, over the heads of hard-working parish priests. ”

“ She who meets at her own house weekly all the richest and most pious women of the city, to settle our discipline for us, as the court cooks do our doctrine. She who has even, it is whispered, the ear of the Augusta Pulcheria herself, and sends monthly letters to her at Constantinople, and might give the patriarch himself some trouble, if he crossed her holy will!'
'What! will Cyril truckle to such creatures?'
'Cyril is a wise man in his generation—too wise, some say, for a child of the light. But at least, he knows there is no use fighting with those whom you cannot conquer ”

“ Of course, and of course, too, young men must needs buy their own experience, instead of taking old folks' at a gift. There—use your own eyes, and judge for yourself. There you may see what sort of saints are bred by this plan of managing the Catholic Church. There comes one of them. Now! I say no more!'
As he spoke, two tall negroes came up to them, and set down before the steps of a large church which they were passing an object new to Philammon—a sedan-chair, the poles of which were inlaid with ivory and silver, and the upper part enclosed in rose-coloured silk curtains. ”

“ He actually proposed to go into her lecture-room and argue with her to her face. What think you of that for a specimen of youthful modesty and self-distrust?'
Cyril was silent a while.
'What answer am I to have the honour of taking back? A month's relegation to Nitria on bread and water? You, I am sure, will not allow such things to go unpunished; indeed, if they do, there is an end to all authority and discipline.'
Cyril was still silent; whilst Peter's brow clouded fast. At last he answered—
'The cause wants martyrs. ”

“ But all I know is just this, that when that fellow Martinian got back again into Pelusium, after being turned out by the late bishop for a rogue and hypocrite as he was, and got the ear of this present bishop, and was appointed his steward, and ordained priest—I'd as soon have ordained that street-dog—and plundered him and brought him to disgrace—for I don't believe this bishop is a bad man, but those who use rogues must expect to be called rogues—and ground the poor to the earth, and tyrannized over the whole city so that no man's property, or reputation, scarcely their lives, were safe ”

“ The old man laughed bitterly.
'Ah, the old story—of preventing scandals by retaining them, and fancying that sin is a less evil than a little noise; as if the worst of all scandals was not the being discovered in hushing up a scandal. And as for unity, if you want that, you must go back to the good old times of Dioclesian and Decius.'
'The persecutors?'
'Ay, boy—to the times of persecution, when Christians died like brothers, because they lived like brothers. ”

“ The county bishops are jealous of the metropolitan, and he is jealous of the North African bishops, and quite right he is. What business have they to set up for themselves, as if they were infallible? ”

“ You will see very little of that now, except in some little remote county bishopric, which no one ever hears of from year's end to year's end. But in the cities it is all one great fight for place and power. Every one is jealous of his neighbour. ”

“ But many a rich man puts his name on the list of the guild just to get his exemption from taxes, and leaves the work to poor men like you. Rotten, rotten! my son, and you will find it out. The preachers, now—people used to say—I know Abbot Isidore did—that I had as good a gift for expounding as any man in Pelusium ”