prevented him from finishing his
sentence, and he asked for a cup of water, and having drained it he put
down the cup and said, looking round, I was speaking to you about
Corinth. The moment seemed a favourable one to Mathias to ask a
question. How was it, he said, that you passed on to Corinth without
stopping at Athens? I made stay at Athens, Paul answered, and I thank
you, Mathias, for having reminded me of Athens, for the current of my
discourse had borne me past that city, so eager was I to tell of the
persecutions of the Jews. We are all Jews here! I speak only of the
Hierosolymites who understand only that the law has been revealed, and
we have only to follow it; though, indeed, some of them cannot tell us
why we should follow any law, since they do not believe in any life
except the sad life we lead on the surface of this earth.

But you asked me, Mathias, about Athens. A city of graven images and
statues and altars to gods. On raising my eyes I always saw their marble
deities--effigies, they said, of all the spirits of the earth and sea
and the clouds above the earth and the heavens beyond the clouds.
Whereupon I answered that these statues that they had carved with their
hands could in no wise resemble any gods even if the gods had existence
outside of their images, for none sees God. Moses heard God on Mount
Sinai, but he saw only the hinderparts; which is an allegory, for there
are two covenants, and I come to reveal---- Whereat they were much
amused and said: if Moses saw the hinderparts why should we not see the
faces, for our eyes see beauty, whereas the Hebrews see but the
backside? At which I showed no anger, for they were not Jews, but
strove, as it is my custom, to be all things to all men. The Jews
require a miracle, the Greeks demand reason, and therefore I asked them
why they set up altars to the unknowable God. And they said: Paul, thou
readest our language as badly as thou speakest it; we have inscriptions
"to unknown gods" but not to the unknowable God. Didst go to school at
Tarsus, yet canst not tell the plural from the singular? To which I
answered: then you are so religious-minded that you would not offend any
god whose name you might not have heard, and so favour him by the
inscription to an unknown God? But some of your philosophers, Athenians,
call God unknowable. I knew this before I learnt how superstitious ye
are. Ye are all alike ignorant since God left you to your sins for your
idola