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Herod was so nearly arrested is a legacy of his improvident youth. Once arrived at Rome he will soon find honourable means of repaying it. But to fall into-the hands of his enemies in the Syrian Government would be his ruin and the ruin of my children and myself.’
    The Alabarch turned towards Cypros, whose fidelity to Herod in his misfortunes almost brought tears to his eyes, and asked, kindly but cautiously, ‘Does your husband observe the Law?’
    Herod saw her hesitate a little and spoke for himself. ‘You must remember, sir, that I am an Edomite by blood: You cannot reasonably expect as much from an Edomite as from a Jew. Edom and Jewry are blood-brothers through our common ancestor, the patriarch Isaac; but before any Jew congratulates himself on God’s peculiar favour to his nation let him remember how Esau, the ancestor of Edom, was tricked of his birthright and of his father’s blessing by Jacob, the ancestor of Jewry. Drive no hard bargains with me, Alabarch. Show more compassion to a distressed and improvident Edomite than old Jacob did, or, as the Lord my God lives, the next spoonful of red lentil porridge that you put into your mouth will surely choke you. We have lost our birthright to you and with it God’s peculiar favour, and in return we demand from you such generosity of heart as we ourselves have never failed to show. Remember Esau’s magnanimity when, meeting, Jacob by chance at Peniel, he did not kill him.’
    ‘But do you observe the Law?’ asked the Alabarch, impressed by Herod’s vehemence and unable to contradict his historical references.
    ‘I am circumcised, and so are my children, and I and my whole household have always kept the Law revealed to your ancestor Moses as strictly as our difficult position as Roman citizens and our imperfect consciences as Edomites have allowed us.’
    ‘There are no two ways of righteousness,’ said the Alabarch stiffly. ‘Either the Law is kept, or it is broken.’
    ‘Yet I have read that the Lord once permitted Naaman, the Syrian proselyte, to worship in the Temple of Rimmon by the side of the King, his master,’ said Herod. ‘And Naaman proved a very good friend to the Jews, did he not?’
    At last the Alabarch said to Herod: ‘If I, lend you this money will you swear in the name of the Lord—to whom be Glory Everlasting - to keep His Law as far as in you lies, and cherish His People, and never by sins of commission or omission offend against His Majesty?’
    ‘I swear by His most Holy Name,’ said Herod, ‘and let my wife Cypros and my children be my witnesses, that I will henceforth honour Him with all my soul and with all my strength and that I will constantly love and protect His People. If ever wittingly I blaspheme from hardness of heart, may the maggots that fed upon my grandfather Herod’s living flesh so feed upon mine and consume me utterly!’
    So he got the loan. As he told me afterwards, ‘I would have sworn anything in the world only to lay my hands on that money, I was so hard pressed.’
    But the Alabarch made two further conditions. The first was that Herod should now be paid only the equivalent, in silver, of 4,000 gold pieces and receive the rest of the money on his arrival in Italy. For he did not yet trust Herod entirely. He might have thoughts of going off to Morocco or Arabia with the money. The second condition was that Cypros should take the children to Jerusalem to be educated as good Jews there under the guardianship of the Alabarch’s brother-in-law, the High Priest. To this Herod and Cypros agreed, the more cheerfully as they knew that no good-looking boy or girl in high Roman society was safe from Tiberius’s unnatural lusts. (My friend Vitellius, for example, had had one of his sons taken away from him to Capri, under the pretence that he would be given a liberal education there, and put among the filthy Spintrians, so that the boy’s whole nature became warped. The name ‘Spintrian’ has stuck to him all