The Wrath Of The Zealots (Η Οργή Των Ζηλωτών)

-From The Meletic Tales.

The smell of burning incense that once perfumed the streets of Alexandria. Statues of Athena, Isis, Serapis and the Muses stood tall in the colonnades. Now, their faces were shattered, their limbs broken and their remains strewn amongst the rubble present. The voices that echoed from temples were drowned by a new sound: the cries of mobs, their psalms turned into slogans, and their fervour bent on destruction.

The Christian zealots, emboldened by the decrees of the Emperor Theodosios, roamed the streets like hounds of judgement. They called it holy cleansing. They called it devotion. Others called it pure madness.

Themistios stood alone on the steps of the Meletic temple, a modest stone building nestled beside the ruins of what was once the Great Library. His eyes, dark and contemplative, watched as smoke rose from the distance—the Serapeum had just been burnt. His lips trembled with emotion, but he spoke nothing aloud.

He was no priest nor warrior. He was a student of thought, a practitioner of Meleticism, a seeker of the Logos, the Nous and the ineffable presence of To Ena, the One. His robes were simple linen, his sandals dusty from the agitated streets, yet in his chest beat the heart of one unwilling to let silence win.

A youth ran to him breathless. ‘Xenagoras! They’re headed this way… They smashed the altar at the Temple of Apollo. A philosopher tried to reason with them and they beat him half to death. Fools are calling him a devil!’

‘Then reason has fallen’, Themistios muttered.

‘You must hide. They speak of the Meletics now. They say we are pagans in disguise'.

Themistios looked towards the road. ‘Let them come’.

And they did. By noon, a crowd of fifty men and women had gathered before the shrine. They bore wooden crosses, clubs and lit torches. Some wore the cloaks of monks. Others were citizens, stirred by fiery sermons and mere superstition.

One, a tall man with sun-scorched skin and wild eyes, stepped forth. ‘Themistios of the Meletics! You preach heresy!’

‘I preach none but the One. Not a god of idols nor a storm of wrath. To Ena is beyond names and form. We do not oppose your Christ’, replied Themistios calmly.

‘You do not accept him!’ The man proclaimed. ‘Therefore, you are against him!’

Themistios stepped down the stone steps, facing the zealots. ‘If truth is what you seek, then let us speak—not strike with words or actions’.

A woman shrieked, ‘He speaks like a serpent! Smite him!’

‘He worships demons in the disguise of philosophy!'

'I worship no such things'.

They charged. Themistios raised no arm to defend himself. He was struck in the face with a rock. Another man grabbed his robe and hurled him to the ground. Fists met flesh, and blood trickled from his temple. A boot crushed his ribs. The world blurred.

‘Stop!’ Cried an elder woman from within the mob. ‘He is unarmed!’

Another voice, younger and less angry, muttered, ‘He has not curst us. He speaks with calm in his voice'.

The tall zealot raised a club to finish the task. Then, a Roman guard arrived on horseback. The mob dispersed, not for justice, but out of fear. Themistios lay limp upon the steps, barely breathing.

He awoke days later in the home of a fellow Meletic, Demetrios, whose quiet wife had tended his wounds.

‘You could have died’, said Demetrios, handing him a broth.

‘I still might, but not for silence', Themistios whispered.

‘They’ve outlawed the old ways. Theodosios has decreed all temples shut. You cannot reason with a man whose ears are closed by religious dogma’.

Themistios winced as he sat upright. ‘Then I must open hearts, not ears to the truth'.

‘You speak like a fool’.

‘Then I shall be the fool who speaks. Better that than the wise man who hides behind his cloak'.

Over the following weeks, Themistios recovered. He returned not to the temple, now gutted and vandalised, but to the streets. There, he spoke to passersby, not in sermons but in questions.

‘Do you think To Ena and your Christ are enemies?’

‘What is faith without understanding?’

‘Is fire the best answer to thought?’

He did not provoke. He listened. In time, a few began to converse. A young scribe named Basileos became intrigued. ‘You do not hate us,’ Basileos said.

‘Why should I? Your soul, like mine, was born of To Ena, the One’.

‘But others say your philosophy is heresy’.

Themistios smiled. ‘Heresy you say. I desire only to comprehend’.

One afternoon, Themistios was summoned. Not by mob nor scribe, but by the imperial guards. Word of his dialogues had reached Alexandria’s prefect and, in time, the ears of Theodosios.

He was to stand before the emperor himself in Antioch. The journey to Antioch took weeks. Upon arrival, he was brought to the palace—a hall of marble, incense and imperial silence.

Theodosios, dressed in robes of purple and gold, regarded him with cold curiosity. His beard was grey, and his eyes heavy with the burdens of ruling both empire and church.

‘Themistios of Alexandria, I have heard you are not of the old gods, nor of the Christians, yet you speak of one truth', he said slowly.

Themistios bowed. ‘I speak of To Ena the One, the unity that breathes through all existential things’.

What is your request?’

Themistios raised his eyes. ‘That our temple in Alexandria be spared. That those who practise Meleticism be permitted to contemplate, not preach. We are not enemies of your church or reign, only seekers of the truth’.

The emperor leaned back. ‘What is this truth?’

‘Not division. Not wrath, but harmony. The Logos, the Nous and the unity of existence. Your Christ is part of it. So is all else. The One cannot be confined to the material world’.

A bishop beside the emperor scowled. ‘This is heresy. Dangerous speech. We cannot allow him to continue to poison the minds of the youth and ignorant'.

Theodosios raised a hand. ‘I have allowed the temples to fall. Not because I despise reason—but because I serve God above all else. Philosophy is not forbidden, but idolatry, and those individuals who lead the weak into it, are guilty'.

Themistios stood still. ‘Then we do not disagree. Meleticism worships not stone nor idol. We venerate being, thought and virtue in the Meletic path.

The emperor paused. ‘Your words are bold, but the times are fragile. The temple shall not be spared.’

Themistios' heart sank.

‘However, you shall not be executed. You are to be exiled, far from Alexandria, to Cyrene. If your ideas bear peace, let them spread in silence there amongst your kind', Theodosios continued.

Themistios bowed again. ‘So be it.’

Cyrene was quiet. The city, once vibrant with Hellenistic spirit had become a place of trade and agriculture. It held no grand temples, no angry mobs. The people were simpler. There, Themistios lived in a modest home near the hills. And there, he began anew.

He wrote on scrolls and taught under olive trees. He spoke of the Hyparxis, the essence of being; of the Logos; the cosmic order; of the Nous, the cosmic shaper; of To Ena, the silent presence in all. His students were a mixture—some Jews, some Christians, some who had no name for faith at all.

He would say: ‘The One does not require names. Only awareness’.

Word spread quietly. A merchant’s son, disillusioned with church hierarchy, came to him. A Roman centurion, tired of war, found solace in his words. A woman, whose husband had died under Christian persecution for owning philosophical texts, came and wept during his meditations. Themistios would call them Meletics.

The years passed. One spring, Basileos the scribe, now grown in stature had followed the stories. He embraced Themistios with relief.

‘I thought you were lost’.

‘No. Only planted in other soil’, said Themistios.

Basileos stayed, and later became his companion in thought and word. Together they compiled Themistios' teachings into what would later be known as the Scroll of Oneness.

For truth, like To Ena, does not vanish. It simply waits.

Cyrene was like the tide—gentle in its retreat, eternal in its motion. Themistios lived not as a prophet nor preacher, but as a gardener of minds. He rose with the sun, tended his modest grove, and taught beneath the branches of the old olive tree near the hillside. His students, once few, now numbered in dozens. They came from many paths—merchants, craftsmen, freed slaves, Roman officials and shepherds alike—drawn not by proclamation, but by the quiet murmur of his presence.

He never raised his voice. He never claimed the truth as his alone.

‘We do not own the truth,’ he told his students one morning, as birds sang in the branches overhead. ‘We uncover it, piece by piece, in the mirror of our soul. To Ena is not a doctrine—it is the realisation that there is no separation. Between us and the world, between mind and matter, between the extraordinary and the ordinary. All is one’.

A woman named Aglaia, once a priestess of Artemis before the temple’s destruction, asked him, ‘How can we believe in To Ena when the world is so broken? When gods are pulled from their sanctuaries and men destroy in the name of holiness?’

Themistios bowed his head. ‘Even the river must break against stone, but it still flows. To Ena is not disturbed by the madness of men—it continues, patient, eternal. Within us, when we still the storms of passion and fear, we feel it in us’.

Basileos, his now devoted companion and scribe, preserved each day’s teaching in scrolls. What had begun as scattered thoughts soon took shape into treatises—on the nature of unity, on the illusions of division, on the cultivation of virtue and the harmony of soul and mind. They wrote not to convert, but to clarify.

One spring, a messenger arrived from Alexandria, dusty and hesitant.

He handed Themistios a parchment sealed in crimson wax.

‘The emperor?’ Basileos asked, eyeing it.

Themistios opened it slowly. The script was not from Theodosios, who by then had passed into memory, but from his successor, Arcadios. The letter was short, formal.

To Themistios of Cyrene,
It has come to our knowledge that your writings have travelled across provinces.
Even though Meleticism is not sanctioned, your conduct in exile has remained peaceful.
You are hereby permitted to return to Alexandria, but may not rebuild your temple.
Continue your philosophy in private, not in public forum'.

Themistios folded the letter with care. ‘So, they extend a hand—not of friendship, but of permission’.

‘Will you return?’ Asked Basileos.

He did not answer at once.

That evening, Themistios walked alone to the edge of the hill, where the sea wind touched his face. He watched the horizon where sun met water, and in that golden light, he remembered Alexandria—the marble steps, the laughter in the colonnades, the books, the violence and the blood on his own hands. He remembered the roar of the zealots, the calm of his fallen teacher Hermonax, the warmth of Demetrios' wife tending to his wounds.

He whispered to the wind, ‘Do we return to what we were—or become what we must be?’

A month later, Themistios returned. Not to the temple, which had been turned to rubble and then repurposed into a granary, but to the old quarter where once philosophers gathered. He purchased a humble home not far from the ruins of the library and began his teachings anew—quietly, without banners or public speech.

People came in pairs, in secret. Some were those who remembered him from long ago. Others were sons and daughters of those who had struck him.

One day, the tall Christian zealot who had nearly killed him all those years ago entered. His beard was now white, his robes plain. He bowed.

‘I am called Loukios,’ he said.

Themistios inclined his head. ‘I remember you’.

‘I came to ask forgiveness, and to learn’.

Themistios gestured to the open space beside the olive-wood table. ‘Then sit, Loukios and let us begin again’.

They spoke for hours. Of fear. Of faith and of ignorance. Loukios wept when he learnt how much had been lost—not only temples, but thoughts, scrolls, meditations and quiet truths that could not scream to survive.

‘They told us philosophy was paganism, but now I see—it was only the mirror they feared’, Loukios admitted.

Themistios smiled faintly. ‘Fear makes tyrants of good men’.

In time, even bishops and monks came in secret. Not all, but some.

One monk, a thin man named Giorgos, once challenged him gently. ‘Is Meleticism not too inclusive? Where is the line between true belief and open confusion?’

‘There is no confusion in seeking. Confusion arises when we pretend to have already arrived. To Ena is not owned by any religion or philosophy. It is lived and experienced’, Themistios answered.

Basileos compiled these later dialogues into a new volume: The Scroll of Concordance. Unlike the first, this one focused on the dialogue between Meleticism and early Christian philosophy, drawing connections between the Logos of John’s Gospel and the Logos of the Meletics.

Themistios refused to publish either scroll openly. Instead, he had them copied by hand and distributed by those who asked with sincerity. He never forced, never persuaded. He simply shared.

The years turned to decades. Themistios aged, his beard now silver, his voice softer, but no less clear. He walked with a staff carved from cypress wood. People greeted him not as ‘master’ or ‘prophet’, but simply as Themistios. He became, in the eyes of many, the quiet philosopher of Alexandria—the man who defied hatred with presence, not power.

Themistios died in Cyrene, not in martyrdom, but in silence. His death occurred on one autumn morning, as the leaves rustled in the breeze, Basileos found him seated beneath the olive tree, his eyes closed, his hands folded in his lap.

‘Themistios?’ He whispered.

Themistios did not stir. His face was serene, as though he had drifted into a deeper meditation. Basileos wept.

They buried him in a grove outside the city, far from temples, far from cathedrals. His tomb bore no cross, no idol, no grand symbol, no emblem—only a stone inscribed in Greek: ‘Let not your love for the truth make you an enemy of those persons who seek it. All are from the One. All shall return’.

His teachings lived on in whispers. Meletics across scattered cities began to form quiet gatherings. They did not resist with swords. They resisted with thought, reflection, and an unyielding awareness that true unity could not be extinguished by fear.

In time, even those once called zealots found their children reading his words, contemplating their meaning by candlelight, not as rebellion—but as remembrance.

Long after the fire of zealotry dimmed, the teachings of Themistios spread—not as a movement of power, but of presence.

Meletics became known not for their temples, but for their philosophy. In the markets, they listened more than they spoke. In the courts, they pleaded for mercy more than justice. In the homes, they taught children to wonder, not to fear.

The Scroll of Oneness and Scroll of Concordance were eventually preserved by both Meletics and sympathetic Christian philosophers. In Byzantium, a monastery copied fragments of his dialogues, unaware that the author was once branded heretic.

Even in the West, during times of tension between reason and religion, a handful of thinkers rediscovered his words and found them luminous.

Themistios lived—not in monuments, but in minds. Not in statues, but in stillness and awareness.

Wherever one paused and asked, ‘What is the source behind all this? He was there'.

Not in name, but in spirit. As a whisper of To Ena.

In a remote village in Cilicia, a child once asked his grandmother, ‘Who was Themistios?’

She smiled and replied, ‘He was a man who listened when others shouted. Who saw unity where others saw enemies. He taught not with thunder, but with light’.

'Was he divine or sent by god?'

'Neither. He was merely a mortal man who spoke his truth', the grandmother replied.

The child nodded, not fully understanding, but something in the tone lingered in his heart. Later in life, when that same child stood before a crowd torn by division, he chose not to argue, but to listen—remembering a tale passed down quietly, from one soul to another, like a candle lit in darkness. Themistios endured.

In time, whispers of Themistios reached places far beyond Alexandria and Cyrene.

In a remote monastery atop Mount Parnassus, a Christian monk named Matthaios read fragments of the Scroll of Concordance and noted in his journal, ‘He who believes unity cannot exist between faiths has never truly gazed into the depths of his own soul.’ Although forbidden to speak of the Meletic, he kept the scroll hidden beneath his bed, reading it by lamplight when doubt visited him.

In Carthage, a young woman named Ilithya—once raised as a pagan—discovered one of Themistios' teachings etched into the margin of an old botanical manuscript: ‘To understand the leaf, study the root.’ The phrase stirred her to question her world more deeply, not to abandon her beliefs, but to refine them.

Even in the Eastern courts of Constantinople, a few educated men debated in hushed tones whether Meletic thought should be studied, not condemned. ‘Not all that lies outside the Church is darkness,’ one advisor was heard to say. ‘Some stars shine in silence.’

It was not fame that preserved Themistios. It was the way he lived. The dignity with which he bore exile. The way he never cursed his persecutors. The way he saw To Ena in every child, every stranger, every broken stone in the ruined city.

And so, his story endured—not written in gold, nor sung in temples, but carried in the soul.

Wherever someone chose reflection over rage, dialogue over dominance, presence over pride—that was where Themistios still lived.

Not in memory alone, but in the undivided breath between all things, as a whisper of To Ena, the One.

Even centuries later, when scholars debated the origins of certain anonymous scrolls, some would wonder aloud, ‘Could this be from the school of Themistios?’ No answer was ever definitive. Perhaps that was fitting—for Themistios never sought to be remembered by name, but by presence.

In the quiet moments between thought and word, between anger and mercy, his essence endured.

A boy sitting alone beneath a fig tree, thinking not of conquest but of meaning—there he was. A mother calming her fears with breath and awarenes—there he was.

In every seeking soul, To Ena whispered: 'You are never apart'.

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