"Thou, Marsyas!" Saul exclaimed in sudden recognition. He extended his hands to meet the other's in a greeting that was more affectionate than conventional. The young man with sudden impulsiveness raised the hands and pressed them to his breast.
"Saul! Saul!" he repeated with a quiver of emotion in his voice.
"And none hath supplanted me in thy loves, Marsyas?" Saul smiled. "Art thou come hither for instruction? Am I to have thee by me now in Jerusalem?"
The glow of warmth in the rabbi's manner did not contribute its confidence to the young man. He seemed not less troubled than moved. With searching eyes, he looked down from his superior height into Saul's face. As the two stood together, physical extremes could not have been more perfect.
The rabbi was not well-formed, and his frame had a note of feebleness in its make-up in spite of its youth and flesh. The face was pale, the eyes so deep-set as to appear sunken, the hair, thin, curling and lightly silvered, the beard, short, full and touched with the same early frost. Though no recent alien blood ran in his veins, his features were only moderately characteristic of the sons of Jacob. He was not erect, and the stoop in his shoulders was more extreme than the mere relaxation from rigidity, yet less pronounced than actual curvature. The veins on the backs of his hands stood up from the refined whiteness of the flesh, and when his head turned, the great artery in his throat could be seen irregularly beating. It was the physique of a man not only weak but sapped by a subtle infirmity.
He wore the head-dress and the voluminous white robes of a rabbi, girded with the blue and white cord of his calling. But his class as a Pharisee was marked by the heavy undulating fringes at the hem of his garment, and by the little case of calf-skin framing a parchment lettered in Hebrew which was bound across his forehead. Herein, by fringe, phylactery and the traditional colors, he published his submission to the minutiæ of the Law.
In so much the rabbi could have had twenty counterparts over Judea, but his aggressive nature stamped him with an individuality which has had no equal in all time. Over his countenance was a fine assumption of humility curiously inconsistent with a consciousness of excellence which made an atmosphere about him that could be felt. Yet, holding first place over these conflicting attributes was the stamp of tremendous mental power, and a heart-whole sweetness that was irresistible. The union of these four characteristics was to produce a man that would hold fast to theory, though all fact arise and shouted it down; who would maintain form, though the spirit had in horror long since fled the shape. Thus, inflexibly fixed in his convictions, he was unlimited in his capacity for maintaining them. In short, he was a leader of men, a zealot, a formalist and an inquisitor—one of great mentality dogmatized, of great spirit prejudiced, of immense capabilities perverted.
Such was Saul of Tarsus.
But the other was a Jew of blood so pure, of type so pronounced, that the man of mixed races before him appeared wholly foreign. His line had descended from the persistent love of Jacob for Rachel, through the tents of them that slew the Midianitish women in the wilderness, through the households of Esdras and the camps of Judas Maccabæus.
He was above average height, and built ruggedly, as were Judah the lion, and Jacob who wrestled with the angel. One of in-door habit, he was fair on the forehead, under the soft young beard and the shining black curls at his temples. But his cheeks were crimson, his eyes intensely black and sparkling, his teeth, glittering ranges of shaded ivory. And the bold strength of his profile and the brilliance of his color seemed finished by the deep cleft distinctly discernible.