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it, for the physicians in Antioch speak of it reverently. It will cost me much money, but God will provide it.”
     
    “So, we have a God, who not only does not possess a name, or understandable attributes, or a face or a form, and who is everywhere simultaneously, but He is also a banker!” said Diodorus with a wry smile. “Do you think He will require interest also, my child?”
     
    “Most certainly.” The boy’s voice was grave and filled with surety. “My whole life, my whole devotion.”
     
    Diodorus thought that if a man had spoken so he would believe him mad. He, Diodorus, had often heard Jews speaking of the wise men in the gates, who thought of nothing and wrote of nothing but their God. But the Jews were a people no one could ever understand, least of all a Roman, though Caesar Augustus, being a tolerant man and superstitious in addition, had ordered that in Rome the Jewish God should be given some recognition, if only to persuade Him to soften the stiff necks and sullen resentment of His people against the Romans, and thus make the ruling of them less difficult. Diodorus began to laugh softly to himself. He remembered how he, as a young tribune, had offered to put a statue of the Jewish God in the Roman temple in Jerusalem, and how horrified the high priest had been, and how he had raised his hands and shook them violently in the air as if either imploring his God to strike the tribune dead or cursing him silently. Diodorus, bewildered, had gathered that he had made an unpardonable error, but how, or why, he could never understand from the stifled imprecations of the priest. He had tried to reason with the holy man; how could a statue of the Jewish God in a Roman temple affront Him, and why should He despise the honor of Romans? The high priest had merely torn his beard and rent his garments, and he had looked at Diodorus with such terrible eyes that the poor young tribune had hastily taken his leave. He had been confirmed in his hesitant belief that the Jews were madmen, especially their priests.
     
    But Lucanus was a Greek, not a Jew, though he spoke of devoting his life to the Unknown God, as the Jews spoke of so devoting their lives to their own God. Diodorus remembered how, in the streets of Jerusalem, he had seen men called rabbis, followed by humble crowds who listened to their words of wisdom eagerly. There were some reputed to be miracle workers, and this had interested Diodorus, who believed fervently in godly miracles. But he did not believe in these men, for they were often barefoot and shaggy and desperately poor, for all their lambent eyes and strange, incomprehensible words. Diodorus, walking with Lucanus, shook his head. “You should visit the temple of the Jews in Antioch,” he said, with amusement.
     
    Lucanus said serenely, “I do visit it, Master.”
     
    “So!” exclaimed Diodorus, holding aside a thorned bush for the child, as he would have done for his daughter. “And is their God the Unknown God?”
     
    “Yes, Master, I am sure He is.”
     
    “But He does not love all men. He loves only the Jews.”
     
    “He loves all men,” said Lucanus.
     
    “You are wrong, boy. I offered to put a statue of Him in the Roman temple in Jerusalem, and it was refused.” Diodorus laughed. “Do the Jews object to your entering their temples? Ah, I remember now. In Jerusalem the temple had a place they called the Court of the Gentiles. But they could not enter the inner sanctum of the Jews.”
     
    “I worship in the Court of the Gentiles in the synagogue in Antioch,” said Lucanus.
     
    What a peculiar boy! But Diodorus began to think of the school of medicine in Alexandria. He said, “I think the Unknown God has arranged a way for you to study medicine, Lucanus,” and he laughed again, ruefully. He was a just and sometimes charitable man, but, like the ‘old’ Romans, he was prudent with money and believed that two pieces of gold should return to a man accompanied by two