Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [16]
Gudrun was pleased. “It is because we keep our own pigs, and fatten them before the slaughter. The meat of the black forest pigs is tough and unappetizing.”
“Tell us about Constantinople!” John said eagerly. “Is it true the streets are paved with precious stones, and the fountains spew liquid gold?”
Aesculapius laughed. “No. But it is a marvelous place to behold.” Joan and John listened gape-mouthed as Aesculapius described Constantinople, perched on a towering promontory, with buildings of marble domed in gold and silver rising several stories high, overlooking the harbor of the Golden Horn, in which ships from all over the world lay at anchor. It was the city of Aesculapius’s birth and youth. He had been forced to flee when his family had become embroiled in a religious dispute with the basileus, something to do with the breaking of icons. Joan did not understand this, though her father did, nodding with grave disapproval as Aesculapius described his family’s persecution.
Here the discussion turned to theological matters, and Joan and her brother were trundled off to the part of the house where their parents slept; as an honored guest, Aesculapius was to have the big bed near the hearth all to himself.
“Please, can’t I stay and listen?” Joan pleaded with her mother.
“No. It is well past time for you to be asleep. Besides, our guest is done with telling stories. This schoolroom talk will not interest you.”
“But—”
“No more, child. Off to bed with you. I will need your help in the morning; your father wishes us to prepare another feast for his visitor tomorrow. Any more such guests,” Gudrun grumbled, “and we will be ruined.” She tucked the children into the straw pallet, kissed them, and left.
John was quickly asleep, but Joan lay awake, trying to hear what the voices were saying on the other side of the thick wooden partition. Finally, overcome with curiosity, she got out of bed and crept over to the partition, where she knelt, peering out from the darkness to where her father and Aesculapius sat talking by the hearth fire. It was chilly; the warmth of the fire did not reach this far, and Joan was wearing only a light linen shift. She shivered but did not consider returning to the bed; she had to hear what Aesculapius was saying.
The talk had turned to the cathedral schola. Aesculapius asked the canon, “Do you know anything of the library there?”
“Oh yes,” said the canon, obviously pleased to have been asked. “I have spent many hours in it. It houses an excellent collection, upwards of five and seventy codices.” Aesculapius nodded politely, though he did not appear impressed. Joan could not imagine so many books all in one place.
The canon said, “There are copies of Isidore’s De scriptoribus ecclesiasticus and Salvianus’s De gubernatione Dei. Also the complete Commentarii of Jerome, with wondrously skilled illustrations. And there is a particularly fine manuscript of the Hexaëmeron by your countryman St. Basil.”
“Are there any manuscripts of Plato?”
“Plato?” The canon was shocked. “Certainly not; his writing is no fit study for a Christian.”
“Ah? You do not approve of the study of logic, then?”
“It has its place in the trivium,” the canon replied uneasily, “with the use of proper texts such as those of Augustine and Boethius. But faith is grounded in the authority of Scripture, not the evidence of logic; out of foolish curiosity men do sometimes shake their faith.”
“I see your point.” Aesculapius’s words were spoken more out of courtesy than agreement. “Perhaps, however, you can answer me this: How does it happen that man can reason?”
“Reason is the spark of the divine essence in man. ‘So God created man in His own image; In the image of God created He him.’”
“You have a good command of Scripture. So you would agree, then, that reason is God-given?”
“Most assuredly.”
Joan crept closer, moving out from behind the shadow of the partition; she did not want to miss what Aesculapius said next.
“Then why fear to expose faith to reason? If God gave it to us, how