Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

From his study, Dr. Rhinehart brought out an armload of leather-bound manuscripts and stacked them on the library table near Hattie. He invited her to read at her leisure his translations of the old Coptic scrolls that were his life’s work. She thanked the kind doctor and promised to return as soon as she settled into her classes. The graduate lectures included long reading lists, so the first semester she limited herself to a lecture course on the Crusades and a seminar on heresy. Both classes demanded a great deal of reading and preparation; weeks passed and Hattie was still too busy to return to Dr. Rhinehart’s library.

The lectures on the Crusades were exciting, but disturbing as well because of the bloodshed. The seminar on heresy was as fascinating as Hattie hoped it would be. Christ was scarcely in his grave before the first heresies sprang up. As the semester progressed, she found the Gnostic heretics the most interesting and thought she might find a worthy subject for her thesis. Whether she was granted graduate student status depended in large part on the thesis topic she chose; of course, her father thought she should write her book and not bother about a graduate degree.

The Gnostic heretic Basilides was really quite wonderful. He preached Jesus was not crucified, that Simon of Cyrene took on Jesus’ appearance and carried the cross and died instead. Basilides believed Jesus came to redeem mankind with the light of divine goodness, but since the material world is full of suffering and evil, Jesus assumed a phantom body that appeared normal but was of heavenly, immaterial origin.

Lecture after lecture Hattie discovered heresies and heretics never mentioned in catechism class, such as Simon Magus, the Samaritan Messiah, who claimed to be the chief emanation of the Deity and was reputed to be the author of a lost gospel, the Great Revelations .

The Gnostic Cerinthus taught the world was not made by God but by a power remotely distant from him. He looked forward to a millennium when a Messiah would rule for a thousand years of peace. Carpocrates, a follower of Cerinthus, taught the world was made by six angels, and all believers are equal with Christ; man could be free of vice and sin only after enslavement to vice and sin.

What would the pale Jesuit say if he could see Hattie now? She knew Sister Conrad would have declared her immortal soul in jeopardy! For her first paper, Hattie wrote about the origins of Illuminism, preached by Valentinus, who said he received secret instruction about the secret doctrine of God. “May you be illumined by the Light” was the greeting of his followers to one another. The Illuminists appeared first in Spain with Priscillianus, who preached special enlightenment directly from God, which naturally caused a furor. The Spanish bishops persuaded the emperor Maximus to condemn Pricillianus to death, but Martin, bishop of Tours, who was present at Trier, protested the heretic’s punishment by state authorities and insisted excommunication was enough. Martin refused to leave the city until the emperor promised to spare Priscillianus, but as soon as Martin left, the bishops persuaded the emperor to behead Priscillianus and one of his followers. In her concluding remarks, Hattie asserted that A.D. 385 marked the first time the church invited the state to meddle in church business, but not the last.

When the paper was returned to her she found extensive notes from the professor in a tiny cramped script in the margins. Her paper was well written, he said, but her conclusions were impetuous and unsound, and might even be mistaken for an indictment of the Spanish bishops for Priscillianus’s execution. Moreover, her paper allowed the possibility that God did give secret knowledge denied to the church hierarchy; that was heresy, pure and simple.

While Hattie was looking over the comments on her paper, she was aware that Mr. Hyslop in the next chair seemed quite interested. Mr. Hyslop was the first of her classmates to introduce himself, polite and even hospitable while the other students continued to ignore her. She glanced up and smiled, but gave him no further notice while she considered the B her paper received.

After class, Mr. Hyslop waited outside on the steps for her and reminded her they had two classes together — heresy and the Crusades, he said with a chuckle. Hattie liked his bright blue eyes but felt her face flush, so she looked down at the steps. The others might feign indifference to her, he said, but they all knew her name because she was the only woman to audit classes that semester. A Presbyterian himself, Mr. Hyslop thought it quite amazing that a Roman Catholic, never mind a woman, was attending Divinity School lectures.

But Hattie didn’t even flinch the morning the lecturer asserted that the Crusades were a disaster for Christianity. Afterward, she told Mr. Hyslop she agreed: the Crusades accustomed Christians to killing for the sake of religion. She relaxed as they moved down the sidewalk under the trees away from the lecture hall.

Two women audited classes the year before, he said, and both were quite good students. Hattie replied she certainly hoped the women were good students — why else should they bother to audit classes? Mr. Hyslop’s face became bright red. Just then they reached the end of the walk, where the Abbotts’ carriage waited each afternoon. The young man stood awkwardly with his hat in his hand as the driver opened the door for her. Hattie called out, “Good afternoon,” to him as she stepped into the carriage, and he blushed and waved as they drove away.

For her second paper in the heresy seminar, Hattie wrote about the followers of Valentinus, who prayed to the Mother as the mythic eternal Silence and Grace, who is before all things and is incorruptible Wisdom, Sophia. Valentinus said those who listened to their guardian angels would have knowledge revealed to them because their angels could not enjoy eternal bliss without them. He taught the material world and the physical body are only temporary; thus, there are no sins of the flesh, and no sacrament of marriage is necessary either, since the spirit was everything.

Hattie’s attention focused on the equal status accorded the feminine principle in Gnostic Christian tradition. She researched other instances of the equality of the feminine element and discovered the Ophites, who believed the light, or glory, of God is without equal and Christ will reign for 365,000 years. The thrones of the twelve disciples will be near his throne, but the thrones of Mary Magdalene and John the Virgin will be higher than the thrones of the disciples. Amazing! Hattie thought. Fantastic, remarkable. The heresy was plain to see, and yet she was spellbound.

Marcion became another of Hattie’s favorites. After he and his followers were expelled from the church, Marcion established his own church, thus adding the sin of schism to heresy. He claimed to preach a purer Christianity than the orthodox Christians, and he and his followers were called the Dissenters. They believed in a supreme God of pure benevolence, not found in the Old Testament; the Just God of the Old Testament was a creating power with anger, jealousy, and the urge to punish, while the God of the New Testament was a Kind God, who sent his Son to rescue mankind. Those loyal to the Just God were inspired by him to crucify Jesus, but this act brought the defeat of their God, who acknowledged his sin in killing Jesus out of ignorance. The Just God was punished by losing all the souls of his followers, who embraced the Kind God. Thus mankind was saved by Jesus’ crucifixion, and all that was required for salvation was a belief in God’s love. Aha! Hattie thought, and composed her conclusions: Marcion’s teachings rendered the orthodox church useless; no need for punishment if there are no laws, only God’s love. No need for church hierarchs, or tithes either.