The little fruit porter, alone of all her disciples, fought his way through the mob, only to be thrown down the steps.

When all was over in the church, and Hypatia was dead, and the mob had rushed out, Philammon sank down exhausted outside, and the little porter burst out into a bitter agony of human tears.

“She is with the gods,” said the porter at last.

“She is with the God of gods,” answered Philammon.

Then he felt that he must arise and flee for his life.  He had gone forth to see the world, and he had seen it.  Arsenius was in the right after all.  Home to the desert.  But first he would go himself, alone, and find Pelagia, and implore her to flee with him.

* * * * *

Abbot Pambo, as well as Arsenius, had been dead several years; the abbot’s place was filled, by his own dying command, by a hermit from the neighbouring deserts, who had made himself famous for many miles round by his extraordinary austerities, his ceaseless prayers, and his loving wisdom.

While still in the prime of his manhood, he was dragged, against his own entreaties, to preside over the laura of Scetis.  The elder monks considered it an indignity to be ruled by so young a man; but the monastery throve and grew rapidly under his government.  His sweetness, patience, and humility, and, above all, his marvellous understanding of the doubts and temptations of his own generation, soon drew around him all whose sensitiveness or waywardness had made them unmanageable in the neighbouring monasteries.

Never was the young Abbot Philammon heard to speak harshly of any human being, and he stopped, by stern rebuke, any attempt to revile either heretics or heathens.

One thing was noted, that there mingled always with his prayers the names of two women.  And when some worthy elder, taking courage from his years, dared to hint kindly that this caused some scandal to the weaker brethren, “It is true,” answered he.  “Tell my brethren that I pray nightly for two women, both of them young, both of them beautiful; both of them beloved by me more than I love my own soul; and tell them that one of the two was an actress, and the other a heathen.”  The old monk laid his hand on his mouth and retired.

The remainder of his history it seems better to extract from an unpublished fragment of the lives of the saints.

“Now when the said abbot had ruled the monastery of Scetis seven years with uncommon prudence, he called one morning to him a certain ancient brother, and said:  ’Make ready for me the divine elements, that I may consecrate them, and partake thereof with all my brethren, ere I depart hence.  For know assuredly that within the seventh day, I shall migrate to the celestial mansions.’  And the abbot, having consecrated, distributed among his brethren, reserving only a portion of the most holy bread and wine; and then, having bestowed on them all the kiss of peace, he took the paten and chalice in his hands, and went forth from the monastery towards the desert; whom the whole fraternity followed weeping.  And having arrived at the foot of a certain mountain, he stopped, and blessing them, dismissed them, and so ascending, was taken away from their eyes.