e spectacle in the amphitheatre, which fifty thousand people beheld;
the succeeding festival at which all Rome assembled, were two acts in
the birthday of a faith.

Then, to the cradle, presently, Wise Men came with gifts--the gold,
the frankincense, the myrrh, of creeds anterior though less divine.

VIII

THE NEC PLUS ULTRA

It was after fastidious rites, the heart entirely devout and on his
knees, that Angelico di Fiesole drew a picture of the Christ. The
attitude is emulative. It is with brushes dipped in holy water that
Jesus should be displayed, though more reverent still is the absence
of any delineation.

Reverence of that high character history formerly observed. There is
no mention of the Saviour in the chronicles of those who were blessed
in being his contemporaries. One indiscreet remark of Josephus has
been recognized as the interpolation of a later hand, well-intentioned
perhaps, but misguided. Jesus glows in the Gospels. Yet they that
awaited the day when, in a great aurora borealis, the Son of man
should appear, had passed from earth before one of the evangels was
written.

It was a hundred years later before the texts that comprise the New
Testament were complete. It was nearly two hundred before they were
definitive. In the interim many gospels appeared. Attributed
indifferently to each of the Twelve, one was ascribed to Judas. There
was a Gospel to the Hebrews, a Gospel to the Egyptians. There were
evangels of Childhood, of Perfection and of Mary.

These primitive memoirs were based on oral accounts of occurrences
long anterior. Into them entered extraneous beauties, felicities of
phrase and detail, which, with naif effrontery, were put into the
mouth of one apostle or another, even into that of Jesus. The
ascription was regarded as highly commendable. It was but a way of
glorifying the Lord. Besides, the scenarii of these pious evocations
the prophets had traced in advance.

"Rejoice, daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy
King cometh unto thee; he is just and having salvation, lowly and
riding upon an ass."

That king of the poor whom Zachariah had foreseen, the stumbling block
of Israel that Isaiah had foretold, the Son, mentioned by Hosea, whom
Jahveh had called out of Egypt, was the Saviour, ascending in glory as
Elijah had done. A passage incorrectly rendered by the Septuagint
indicated a virginal birth. That also was suggestive.

The little biographies i