ddenly and, almost agape,
stood gazing into his father's face, reading therein a great perplexity,
for Dan was asking himself for what good reason had God given him so
strange a son. He would have been content to let the story pass into
another, but Joseph was waiting for him to speak, and speaking
incontinently he said he had heard that in the Temple of Astoreth the
Phoenician youths often castrated themselves with shards of shells or
pottery and threw their testicles in the lap of the goddess crying out:
art thou satisfied now, Astoreth? But he did not know of any text in
their Scriptures that counselled such a practice; and the introduction
of it seemed to savour of borrowing from the heathen. Whereupon Joseph
averred that whereas the wont of the Phoenician youths is without
reason, the same could not be said of Jesus' device to save a soul. To
which Dan rejoined that the leaving of the knife for the man to mutilate
himself with, seemed to him to be contrary to all the rumours of Jesus
that had come to his ears. I have heard that he would set the law aside
and the traditions of our race, declaring the uncircumcised to be
acceptable to God as the Jew; that he sits down to food with the
uncircumcised and lays no store on burnt offerings. Nor did Isaiah,
Joseph interrupted, and circumcision is itself a mutilation. I do not
contest its value, mark you; but if thou deny'st that Jesus was right to
leave a knife whereby the sinner might free himself from sin thou must
also deny circumcision. Circumcision is the sign of our race, Dan
answered. A physical sign, an outward sign, Joseph cried, and he asked
his father to say if the Jews would ever forget priests and ritual; and
he reminded his father that the once sinner, now a holy anchorite, did
not bring an appetency into the world that could be overcome by prayer,
and so had to resort to the knife that he might live in the spirit. It
seems to me, Joseph, that we should live as God made us, for better or
worse. But, Father, once you admit circumcision---- A man should not be
over-nice, Joseph, and though it be far from my thought to wish to see
thee a fornicator or adulterer it would rejoice me exceedingly to see
grandchildren about me. There is a maiden---- Another reason, Father, of
which I have not yet spoken makes the marriage of the flesh seem a
vanity to me, and that is---- I know it well, Joseph, that the great
day is coming when the world will be remoulded afresh. But,