Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/99

V] SYNESIU8 OP CYRENE 81 where death held the countless races of mankind The old man Hades feared Thee, the devouring dog (Cerberus) fled from the portal ; but, having released the souls of the righteous from suffering. Thou didst offer, with a holy worship, hymns of thanksgiving to the Father. As Thou wentest up on high, the daemons, powers of the air, were affrighted. But ^Ether, wise parent of harmony, sang with joy to his sevenfold lyre a hymn of triumph. The morning star, day's harbinger, and the golden star of evening, the planet Venus, smiled on Thee. Before Thee went the horned moon, decked with fresh light, leading the gods of night. Beneath Thy feet. Titan spread his flowing locks of light. He recognized the Son of God, the creative intelligence, the source of his own flames. But Thou didst fly on outstretched wings beyond the vaulted sky, alighting on the spheres of pure intelli- gence, where is the fountain of goodness, the heaven enveloped in silence. There time, deep-flowing and unwearied time, is not ; there disease, the reckless and prolific offspring of matter, is not. But eternity, ever young and ever old, rules the abiding habitation of the gods." Such was Synesius, the guardian bishop of his peo- ple, whose manhood would excommunicate the tyrant governor, but would not give up that wife given him by "God and the law and the sacred hand of The- ophilus."* When a pagan, he was not averse to Christianity; when a bishop, he did not give up 1 Patriarch of Alexandria. The celibacy of the clergy was an issue In Synesios' time. There is no evidence that Synesius lived with hU wife after he became bishop, o