“Mary—you call her Mary. I thought all the holy and the great had uncommon names?”
“In fiction they do; in reality the name is nothing.”
“Was she wise and beautiful?”
“One of our most holy teachers, Epiphanius, who lived less than four hundred years after Mary, spent many years at Bethlehem and gathered facts that caused him thus to write. ‘She was of middle stature, her face oval, her eyes brilliant and of an olive tint; her eyebrows arched and black, her hair a pale brown, her complexion fair as wheat. She spoke little, but she spoke freely and affably. She was grave, courteous, tranquil. In her deportment was nothing lax or feeble.’ Saint Denis, the Areopagite, who is said to have seen this queen of David’s house in her lifetime, declared that she was ‘a dazzling beauty,’ that he ‘would have adored her as a goddess had he not known that there was but one God!’ Of this much I’m certain, my Bozrah Miriamne, one so serene of character, and so pure, must have reflected her inner, imperishable beauties in her features.”
“Father Adolphus, you mention strange names. There are none that sound like those revered by my people. Do you ever hate my race? If you do you must not teach me any doctrine.”
“Hate? Why, I love all peoples, and by faith I am made a child of Abraham.”
“Then you are a proselyte?”
“Not by any forms. I believe in the God of Abraham and His Messiah. That makes me a perfect Jew.”
“This is strange. My mother never unfolded it to me.”