Marsyas looked at the preacher. He was tall, spare and old, his hair and his beard were so white that they shone in the torch-light, and his face was so thin and colorless that he seemed already to have put off the flesh. But his eyes glowed with fire and youth. Here of a surety was no weakness to call into account.
"No," he answered again.
"Then, O my son, which of us is truly subject to the Lord?"
"Ye crucify yourselves to an unnatural doctrine! It is not human to bow to it!"
"When thou canst do as we strive to do, my son, thou shall know that it is divine."
Marsyas looked at Eleazar, and the rabbi, who had his eyes fastened on the preacher, spoke for the first time.
"That is sweet humility, while ye are oppressed," he said, in a voice almost prophetic. "But will ye remember it, when ye come into power?"
Power! Had any of that congregation a hope for power? The word startled them. They looked at the rabbi's garments, clothing a huge frame, the strength of the Law typified, and wondered at his words. Even the preacher had no ready answer. The intimation of the Nazarenes in power on the lips of an expounder of the Law was not conducive to instant comment.
"So ye were in the Jews' place, what would ye do?" he asked again. Marsyas looked at the rabbi in surprise, but meanwhile the preacher answered.
"Christ's doctrine suffereth no change for rank or power."