ansgressing a hard and clearly defined
law. Their god, in his infallible but stern wisdom, sets those who cling
to him on an evil and stony path to prove their strength, and to let
them at last reach the glorious goal which is revealed to them from the
beginning."

"How strange such words as these sound in the mouth of a Greek,"
interrupted Euergetes. "You certainly must be repeating them after the
son of the Jewish high-priest, who defends the cause of his cruel god
with so much warmth and skill."

"I should have thought," retorted Cleopatra, "that this overwhelming
figure of a god would have pleased you, of all men; for I know of no
weakness in you. Quite lately Dositheos, the Jewish centurion--a very
learned man--tried to describe to my husband the one great god to whom
his nation adheres with such obstinate fidelity, but I could not help
thinking of our beautiful and happy gods as a gay company of amorous
lords and pleasure-loving ladies, and comparing them with this stern and
powerful being who, if only he chose to do it, might swallow them all
up, as Chronos swallowed his own children."

"That," exclaimed Euergetes, "is exactly what most provokes me in
this superstition. It crushes our light-hearted pleasure in life, and
whenever I have been reading the book of the Hebrews everything has come
into my mind that I least like to think of. It is like an importunate
creditor that reminds us of our forgotten debts, and I love pleasure
and hate an importunate reminder. And you, pretty one, life blooms for
you--"

"But I," interrupted Cleopatra, "I can admire all that is great; and
does it not seem a bold and grand thing even to you, that the mighty
idea that it is one single power that moves and fills the world, should
be freely and openly declared in the sacred writings of the Jews--an
idea which the Egyptians carefully wrap up and conceal, which the
priests of the Nile only venture to divulge to the most privileged of
those who are initiated into their mysteries, and which--though the
Greek philosophers indeed have fearlessly uttered it--has never been
introduced by any Hellene into the religion of the people? If you were
not so averse to the Hebrew nation, and if you, like my husband and
myself, had diligently occupied yourself with their concerns and their
belief you would be juster to them and to their scriptures, and to the
great creating and preserving spirit, their god--"

"You are confounding this jealous