y beautiful.

Convinced of her superior merits, the authorities of the School of
Philosophy in which Plotinus and his successors had expounded their
theories, importuned her to become preceptress therein; and, overcoming
her natural diffidence, she consented. Thenceforth, instead of the
frivolous adornments, considered too foolish to be worn by men, but
quite fitting and becoming for women, she was arrayed in the cloak of
the philosopher, and took her proper position as head of the most noted
school in a city distinguished as the chief seat of learning of that
age. As a public speaker--for her lectures were not altogether confined
to her school--she was fluent. Her elocution may be said to have been
faultless, and her manner of address pleasing; and these, combined with
the very remarkable amount of information which she was capable of
conveying in her lectures, drew crowds of warm admirers and
enthusiastically devoted students to listen to her.

Was it possible that one so gifted, so beautiful and pure, could arouse
malicious envy, or make an enemy by the exercise of talents God had
given her?

Ah, yes! She knew more than Cyril--a professedly Christian bishop, who
then filled the patriarchal chair. Thenceforth she was marked as his
prey.

Allied to the State, the Church had lost its purity, and become the
bitterest of persecutors; and Cyril was one of the bitterest of these.
The Jews had enjoyed a degree of liberty in Alexandria, which latterly
had been denied them elsewhere; and this the haughty spirit of the
arrogant bishop could not brook; and, assuming that his power as an
ecclesiastic was in consequence superior to the civil authority, he,
after treating the Jews with most outrageous cruelty, banished them from
the city. The Jews had been allowed to inhabit Alexandria from the time
of its foundation, and had materially contributed to its prosperity;
therefore, the civil authorities were not willing to see them suffer
such indignities without raising their voice against the oppressive act.
Orestes, Prefect of the city, appealed to the emperor on their behalf.
He, trammeled with his Church connections, and yet not wishing to break
with the prefect, declined to interfere in the matter, thus leaving them
to settle the dispute by themselves; and soon the ecclesiastics and the
citizens joined issue. Orestes, being attacked by a party of monks as he
was peaceably pursuing his way through the streets in his carriage,