Hypatia

Charles Kingsley

Description

This fascinating novel from beloved British author Charles Kingsley delves into the life, politics and religious beliefs of the female ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia. Though purportedly set in ancient times, many of the novel's themes reflect the prevailing controversies of nineteenth-century England -- the novel is said to have been a favorite of Queen Victoria.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776671496
• Langue: English

Extrait

HYPATIA
OR, NEW FOES WITH AN OLD FACE
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CHARLES KINGSLEY
 
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Hypatia Or, New Foes with an Old Face First published in 1853 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-149-6 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-150-2 © 2016 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface Chapter I - The Laura Chapter II - The Dying World Chapter III - The Goths Chapter IV - Miriam Chapter V - A Day in Alexandria Chapter VI - The New Diogenes Chapter VII - Those by Whom Offences Come Chapter VIII - The East Wind Chapter IX - The Snapping of the Bow Chapter X - The Interview Chapter XI - The Laura Again Chapter XII - The Bower of Acrasia Chapter XIII - The Bottom of the Abyss Chapter XIV - The Rocks of the Sirens Chapter XV - Nephelococcugia Chapter XVI - Venus and Pallas Chapter XVII - A Stray Gleam Chapter XVIII - The Prefect Tested Chapter XIX - Jews Against Christians Chapter XX - She Stoops to Conquer Chapter XXI - The Squire-Bishop Chapter XXII - Pandemonium Chapter XXIII - Nemesis Chapter XXIV - Lost Lambs Chapter XXV - Seeking After a Sign Chapter XXVI - Miriam's Plot Chapter XXVII - The Prodigal's Return Chapter XXVIII - Woman's Love Chapter XXIX - Nemesis Chapter XXX - Every Man to His Own Place Endnotes
Preface
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A picture of life in the fifth century must needs contain much whichwill be painful to any reader, and which the young and innocent willdo well to leave altogether unread. It has to represent a very hideous,though a very great, age; one of those critical and cardinal eras inthe history of the human race, in which virtues and vices manifestthemselves side by side—even, at times, in the same person—with themost startling openness and power. One who writes of such an era laboursunder a troublesome disadvantage. He dare not tell how evil people were;he will not be believed if he tells how good they were. In the presentcase that disadvantage is doubled; for while the sins of the Church,however heinous, were still such as admit of being expressed in words,the sins of the heathen world, against which she fought, were utterlyindescribable; and the Christian apologist is thus compelled, for thesake of decency, to state the Church's case far more weakly than thefacts deserve.
Not, be it ever remembered, that the slightest suspicion of immoralityattaches either to the heroine of this book, or to the leadingphilosophers of her school, for several centuries. Howsoever base andprofligate their disciples, or the Manichees, may have been, the greatNeo-Platonists were, as Manes himself was, persons of the most rigid andascetic virtue.
For a time had arrived, in which no teacher who did not put forth themost lofty pretensions to righteousness could expect a hearing. ThatDivine Word, who is 'The Light who lighteth every man which cometh intothe world,' had awakened in the heart of mankind a moral craving neverbefore felt in any strength, except by a few isolated philosophers orprophets. The Spirit had been poured out on all flesh; and from one endof the Empire to the other, from the slave in the mill to the emperoron his throne, all hearts were either hungering and thirsting afterrighteousness, or learning to do homage to those who did so. And He whoexcited the craving, was also furnishing that which would satisfyit; and was teaching mankind, by a long and painful education, todistinguish the truth from its innumerable counterfeits, and to find,for the first time in the world's life, a good news not merely for theselect few, but for all mankind without respect of rank or race.
For somewhat more than four hundred years, the Roman Empire and theChristian Church, born into the world almost at the same moment, hadbeen developing themselves side by side as two great rival powers, indeadly struggle for the possession of the human race. The weapons ofthe Empire had been not merely an overwhelming physical force, and aruthless lust of aggressive conquest: but, even more powerful still, anunequalled genius for organisation, and an uniform system of externallaw and order. This was generally a real boon to conquered nations,because it substituted a fixed and regular spoliation for the fortuitousand arbitrary miseries of savage warfare: but it arrayed, meanwhile,on the side of the Empire the wealthier citizens of every province, byallowing them their share in the plunder of the labouring masses belowthem. These, in the country districts, were utterly enslaved; whilein the cities, nominal freedom was of little use to masses kept fromstarvation by the alms of the government, and drugged into brutish goodhumour by a vast system of public spectacles, in which the realms ofnature and of art were ransacked to glut the wonder, lust, and ferocityof a degraded populace.
Against this vast organisation the Church had been fighting for now fourhundred years, armed only with its own mighty and all-embracing message,and with the manifestation of a spirit of purity and virtue, of loveand self-sacrifice, which had proved itself mightier to melt and weldtogether the hearts of men, than all the force and terror, all themechanical organisation, all the sensual baits with which the Empirehad been contending against that Gospel in which it had recognisedinstinctively and at first sight, its internecine foe.
And now the Church had conquered. The weak things of this worldhad confounded the strong. In spite of the devilish cruelties ofpersecutors; in spite of the contaminating atmosphere of sin whichsurrounded her; in spite of having to form herself, not out of a raceof pure and separate creatures, but by a most literal 'new birth' outof those very fallen masses who insulted and persecuted her; in spite ofhaving to endure within herself continual outbursts of the evil passionsin which her members had once indulged without cheek; in spite ofa thousand counterfeits which sprang up around her and within her,claiming to be parts of her, and alluring men to themselves by that veryexclusiveness and party arrogance which disproved their claim; in spiteof all, she had conquered. The very emperors had arrayed themselveson her side. Julian's last attempt to restore paganism by imperialinfluence had only proved that the old faith had lost all hold upon thehearts of the masses; at his death the great tide-wave of new opinionrolled on unchecked, and the rulers of earth were fain to swim with thestream; to accept, in words at least, the Church's laws as theirs; toacknowledge a King of kings to whom even they owed homage and obedience;and to call their own slaves their 'poorer brethren,' and often, too,their 'spiritual superiors.'
But if the emperors had become Christian, the Empire had not. Here andthere an abuse was lopped off; or an edict was passed for the visitationof prisons and for the welfare of prisoners; or a Theodosius wasrecalled to justice and humanity for a while by the stern rebukes ofan Ambrose. But the Empire was still the same: still a great tyranny,enslaving the masses, crushing national life, fattening itself and itsofficials on a system of world-wide robbery; and while it was paramount,there could be no hope for the human race. Nay, there were even thoseamong the Christians who saw, like Dante afterwards, in the 'fatal giftof Constantine,' and the truce between the Church and the Empire, freshand more deadly danger. Was not the Empire trying to extend over theChurch itself that upas shadow with which it had withered up everyother form of human existence; to make her, too, its stipendiaryslave-official, to be pampered when obedient, and scourged whenever shedare assert a free will of her own, a law beyond that of her tyrants; tothrow on her, by a refined hypocrisy, the care and support of the masseson whose lifeblood it was feeding? So thought many then, and, as Ibelieve, not unwisely.
But if the social condition of the civilised world was anomalous at thebeginning of the fifth century, its spiritual state was still more so.The universal fusion of races, languages, and customs, which had goneon for four centuries under the Roman rule, had produced a correspondingfusion of creeds, an universal fermentation of human thought and faith.All honest belief in the old local superstitions of paganism hadbeen long dying out before the more palpable and material idolatry ofEmperor-worship; and the gods of the nations, unable to deliver thosewho had trusted in them, became one by one the vassals of the 'DivusCaesar,' neglected by the philosophic rich, and only worshipped bythe lower classes, where the old rites still pandered to their grosserappetites, or subserved the wealth and importance of some particularlocality.
In the meanwhile, the minds of men, cut adrift from their ancientmoorings, wandered wildly over pathless seas of speculative doubt, andespecially in the more metaphysical and contemplative East, attempted tosolve for themselves the questions of man's relation to the unseen bythose thousand schisms, heresies, and theosophies (it is a disgrace tothe word philosophy to call them by it), on the records of which thestudent now gazes bewildered, unable alike to count or to explain theirfantasies.
Yet even these, like every outburst of free human thought, had their useand their fruit. They brought before the minds of churchmen a thousandnew questions which must be solved, unless the Church was to relinquishfor ever her claims as the great teacher and satisfier of the humansoul. To study these bubbles, as they