f solitude, is our
unexpected guest."

COTTA. You may even add, Zenothemis, that the place of honour is due to
him, because he came without being invited.

ZENOTHEMIS. Therefore, we ought, my dear Lucius, to make him the more
welcome, and strive to do that which would be most agreeable to him. Now
it is certain that such a man cares less for the perfumes of meat than
for the perfumes of fine thoughts. We shall, doubtless, please him by
discussing the doctrine he professes, which is that of Jesus crucified.
For my own part, I shall the more willingly discuss this doctrine,
because it keenly interests me, on account of the number and the
diversity of the allegories it contains. If one may guess at the
spirit by the letter, it is filled with truths, and I consider that
the Christian books abound in divine revelations. But I should not,
Paphnutius, grant equal merit to the Jewish books. They were inspired
not, as it was said, by the Spirit of God, but by an evil genius. Iaveh,
who dictated them, was one of those spirits who people the lower air,
and cause the greater part of the evils, from which we suffer; but he
surpassed all the others in ignorance and ferocity. On the contrary, the
serpent with golden wings, which twined its azure coils round the tree
of knowledge, was made up of light and love. A combat between these
two powers--the one of light and the other of darkness--was, therefore,
inevitable. It occurred soon after the creation of the world. God had
hardly begun to rest after His labors; Adam and Eve, the first man and
the first woman, lived happy and naked in the Garden of Eden, when Iaveh
conceived--to their misfortune--the design of governing them and all
the generations which Eve already bore in her splendid loins. As he
possessed neither the compass nor the lyre, and was equally ignorant of
the science which commands and the art which persuades, he frightened
these two poor children by hideous apparitions, capricious threats,
and thunder-bolts. Adam and Eve, feeling his shadow upon them, pressed
closer to one another, and their love waxed stronger in fear. The
serpent took pity on them, and determined to instruct them, in order
that, possessing knowledge, they might no longer be misled by lies. Such
an undertaking required extreme prudence, and the frailty of the first
human couple rendered it almost hopeless. The well-intentioned demon
essayed it, however. Without the knowledge of Iaveh--who pretended
to