"I heard the talk of the Levite," he said. "Because it concerns me much, I could not shut mine ears against it. I, too, have heard the creed of the Nazarenes."
"How, Marsyas? Harkened unto the heretics?"
"I have heard their creed," he persisted in his calm way. "It differs little from the teachings of mine own order, the Essenes, except that they believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and the receptiveness of the Gentile."
"And thou callest that a little difference?"
"Not so great that one going astray after the Nazarenes could not be satisfied with the Essenes, if he were obliged to give up his apostasy. I seek a remedy."
"Moses supplied the remedy," Saul averred with meaning.
"The Essenes are not inflicters of punishment," was the even reply.
The Pharisee made a conciliatory gesture. "It is then only a discussion of the practices of my class and of thine."
"Thou knowest Stephen?" he asked after a pause.
"Perchance, then, thou knowest Galilee," the Essene resumed after a short pause. "Galilee that sitteth between Phoenicia the menace and Samaria the pollution, and is not soiled; that standeth between the Middle Sea, the power, and the Jordan, the subject, and is not humbled. She is Israel's brawn, not easily governed of the mind which is enthroned Jerusalem.
"We are rustics in Galilee, tillers of the soil, mountaineers and fishers, simple rugged folk who live in the present, expecting miracles, seeing signs, discovering prophets and wonders. We are patriots, bound and hooped against an alien, but bursting wide with whatever chanceth to ferment within us. Let there but arise a Galilean who hath a gift or a grudge or a devil, and proclaim himself anointed, and he can gather unto himself a following that would assail Cæsar's stronghold, did he say the word."
He paused and seemed to recall what he had said.
"Yet, we are good Jews," he added hastily, "faithful followers of the Law and such as Israel might select to die singly for Israel's sake. No Galilean is ashamed of himself except when he permits himself to be led so far into folly that he can not turn back."
The Pharisee foresaw intuitively the young man's climax.
"The Law does not remit punishment for blasphemy, even if a soul turn back from its folly," he observed.