"It is the time for change; rest under old usages is no longer possible. But Israel hath endured a long, long time in one habit."
"Give me thy meaning, Rabbi."
"Thou and I are good Jews, Marsyas, yet I can not say that of a surety of any other man in Judea. I have come from Jerusalem, David's City, the rock of Israel, but the hosts of schism possess it from the Ophlas to the uttermost limits of Bezetha!"
"Rabbi!"
"I have seen; I have seen. Saul hath set for himself a task of emptying the sea. In Jerusalem they come singing to torture and death, but armies of them go fleeing into the rest of Judea and all the world. And, hear me, thou true son of Israel, the pastor of the apostates we heard this night declared at least one truth. The Pharisee hath diffused an influence; he hath scattered a pestilence."
Because it was a new charge against Saul, Marsyas accepted it.
"Is there no help against him?" he exclaimed.
"Marsyas, there stirreth a dread fear in me that he is the instrument of the time. If not he, then another would have been called by the spirit of change—"
"There is no such extenuation in me!" Marsyas broke in.
"Might promises no allegiance to its ministers," the rabbi replied.