lor into juxtaposition with a dark one, in order to increase
its luminous effect. This method and style are indeed not amiss, and that
was the least of all the things that filled me with aversion for this
book, in which besides, there is many a proverb which may be pleasing to
kings who desire to have submissive subjects, and to fathers who would
bring up their sons in obedience to themselves and to the laws. Even
mothers must be greatly comforted by them,--who ask no more than that
their children may get through the world without being jostled or pushed,
and unmolested if possible, that they may live longer than the oaks or
ravens, and be blessed with the greatest possible number of descendants.
Aye! these ordinances are indeed precious to those who accept them, for
they save them the trouble of thinking for themselves. Besides, the great
god of the Jews is said to have dictated all that this book contains to
its writers, just as I dictate to Philippus, my hump-backed secretary,
all that I want said. They regard everyone as a blasphemer and desecrator
who thinks that anything written in that roll is erroneous, or even
merely human. Plato's doctrines are not amiss, and yet Aristotle had
criticised them severely and attempted to confute them. I myself incline
to the views of the Stagyrite, you to those of the noble Athenian, and
how many good and instructive hours we owe to our discussions over this
difference of opinion! And how amusing it is to listen when the
Platonists on the one hand and the Aristotelians on the other, among the
busy threshers of straw in the Museum at Alexandria, fall together by the
ears so vehemently that they would both enjoy flinging their metal cups
at each others' heads--if the loss of the wine, which I pay for, were not
too serious to bear. We still seek for truth; the Jews believe they
possess it entirely.

"Even those among them who most zealously study our philosophers believe
this; and yet the writers of this book know of nothing but actual
present, and their god--who will no more endure another god as his equal
than a citizen's wife will admit a second woman to her husband's
house--is said to have created the world out of nothing for no other
purpose but to be worshipped and feared by its inhabitants.

"Now, given a philosophical Jew who knows his Empedocles--and I grant
there are many such in Alexandria, extremely keen and cultivated
men--what idea can he form in his own mind of 'creat