‘It is,’ said Julius. ‘Immediately after I had witnessed this sad scene, I was talking to a brilliant young priest in Jerusalem named Josephus, of whose abilities they think highly, and who evidently has a great future before him. He made the same remark.’
‘But tell us something about that wonderful prisoner whom you brought to Rome,’ said Titus.
Julius detailed to them his voyage, the storm when they drifted so long up and down Adria in the starless nights and sunless days; the strong influence of the Jewish prisoner over the whole crew; the spirit which he breathed into their despair; the practical wisdom of all his counsels; the intense gratitude which he had kindled in the Protos of Malta and in the barbarous inhabitants, by what they believed to be a miraculous healing. ‘His teaching,’ he added, ‘is the most wonderful thing I ever heard.’
‘What can a Jew really teach?’ asked Seneca, with some disdain.
‘He preaches that their Prophet whom Pilatus crucified, was God Himself,’ said Julius; ‘and no sane man can believe that. But there is a sort of supernatural spell about the goodness of this Paulus; and when I hear him speak to “the brethren,” as he calls the Christians, I am always reminded of Homer’s lines—
‘In thought profound
His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground;
But when he speaks, what elocution flows,
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows!
The copious accents fall with easy art,