Later in the day, after he had presented himself to Archbishop Cyril, Philammon learnt from an old priest, and from a fanatical monk named Peter, that the very name of Hypatia was enough to rouse the clergy to a fury of execration.  It seemed that Orestes, the Roman governor of the city, although nominally a Christian, was the curse of the Alexandrian Church; and Orestes visited Hypatia, whose lectures on heathen philosophy drew all the educated youth of the place.

Philammon’s heart burned to distinguish himself at once.  There were no idols now to break, but there was philosophy.

“Why does not some man of God go boldly into the lecture-room of the sorceress, and testify against her?” he asked.

“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.

The archbishop gave permission.

“Only promise me two things,” he said.  “Promise me that, whatever happens, you will not strike the first blow, and that you will not argue with her.  Contradict, denounce, defy.  But give no reasons.  If you do you are lost.  She is subtler than the serpent, skilled in all the tricks of logic, and you will became a laughing-stock, and run away in shame.”

“Ay,” said Peter, bitterly, as he ushered Philammon out.  “Go up to Ramoth Gilead and prosper, young fool!  Ay, go, and let her convert you.  Touch the accursed thing, like Achan, and see if you do not end by having it in your tent.”

And with this encouraging sentence the two parted, and Philammon, on the following morning, followed the train of philosophers, students, and fine gentlemen to Hypatia’s lecture-room.

Philammon listened to Hypatia in bewilderment, attracted by the beauty of the speaker, the melody of her voice, and the glitter of her rhetoric.  As she discoursed on truth a sea of new thoughts and questions came rushing in on his acute Greek intellect at every sentence.  A hostile allusion to the Christian Scriptures aroused him, and he cried out, “It is false, blasphemous!  The Scriptures cannot lie!”

There was a yell at this.  “Turn the monk out!” “Throw the rustic through the window!” cried a dozen young gentlemen.  Several of the most valiant began to scramble over the benches up to him, and Philammon was congratulating himself on the near approach of a glorious martyrdom, when Hypatia’s voice, calm and silvery, stifled the noise and tumult in a moment.

“Let the youth listen, gentlemen.  He is but a monk and a plebeian, and knows no better; he has been taught thus.  Let him sit here quietly, and perhaps we may be able to teach him otherwise.”

And, without even a change of tone, she continued her lecture.

Philammon sprang up the moment that the spell of her voice was taken off him, and hurried out through the corridor into the street.  But he had not gone fifty yards before his friend the fruit porter, breathless with running, told him that Hypatia called for him.  “Thereon, her father, commands thee to be at her house—­here—­to-morrow at the third hour.  Hear and obey.”