master’s thought a stage further was a pleasure, if any moment of his present life could be called pleasurable.  He heard these sayings first in Alexandria, and, looking towards Jerusalem, he tried to recall the exact words of the sage regarding the futility of sacrifice.  Our priests try, said Heraclitus, to purify themselves with blood and we admire them, but if a filthy man were to roll himself in the mud in the hope of cleaning himself we should think he was mad.  In some such wise Heraclitus spoke, but it seemed to Joseph he had lost something of the spirit of the saying in too profuse wording of it.  As he sought for the original epitome he heard his name called, and awaking from his recollections of Alexandria he looked up and saw before him a young man whom he remembered having seen at the Sanhedrin.  Nicodemus was his name; and he remembered how the fellow had kept his eyes on him for one whole evening, trying at various times to engage him in talk; an insistent fellow who, despite rebuffs, had followed him into the street after the meeting, and, refusing to be shaken off, had led the way so skilfully that Joseph found himself at last on Nicodemus’ doorstep and with no option but to accept Nicodemus’ invitation to enter.  He did not like the fellow, but not on account of his insistence; it was not his insistence that had prejudiced him against him as much as the young man’s elaboration of raiment, his hairdressing above all; he wore curls on either side that must have taken his barber a long while to prepare, and he exhaled scents.  He wore bracelets, and from his appearance Joseph had not been able to refrain from imagining lascivious pictures on the walls of his house and statues in the corners of the rooms—­in a word, he thought he had been persuaded to enter an ultra-Greek house.

In this he was, however, mistaken, and in the hour they spent together his host’s thoughts were much less occupied than Joseph expected them to be with the jewels on his neck and his wrists, and the rich tassels on his sash.  He talked of many things, but his real thoughts were upon arms; and he showed Joseph scimitars and daggers.  Despite a long discussion on the steel of Damascus, Joseph could not bring himself to believe that Nicodemus’ interests in heroic warfare were more than intellectual caprice:  and he regarded as entirely superficial Nicodemus’ attacks on the present-day Jews, whose sloth and indolence he reproved, saying that they had left the heroic spirit brought out of Arabia with their language, on the banks of the Euphrates.  One hero, he admitted, they had produced in modern times (Judas Maccabeus), and Joseph heard for the first time that this great man always had addressed his soldiers in Hebrew.  All the same he did not believe that Nicodemus was serious in his passionate demands for the Hebrew language, which had not been spoken since the Jews emerged from the pastoral stage.  We should do well, Nicodemus said, to engage others to look to our flocks and herds, so that we may have leisure to ponder the texts of Talmud, nor do I hesitate to condemn my own class, the Sadducees, as the least worthy of all; for we look upon the Temple as a means of wealth, despising the poor people, who pay their half-shekel and bring their rams and their goats and bullocks hither.