Eucrites.  You jest, Nicias, and, as usual, you excel in ridicule.  But if the ox of which you speak is really a god, like Apis, or like that subterranean ox whose high priest I see here, and if the frog, being wisely inspired, succeed in equalling it, would it not be, in fact, more virtuous than the ox, and could you refrain from admiring such a courageous little animal!

Four servants placed on the table a wild pig, still covered with its bristles.  Little pigs, made of pastry, surrounded the animal, as though they would suckle, to show that it was a sow.

Zenothemis, turning towards the monk, said—­

“Friends, a guest has come hither to join us.  The illustrious Paphnutius, who leads such an extraordinary life of solitude, is our unexpected guest.”

Cotta.  You may even add, Zenothemis, that the place of honour is due to him, because he came without being invited.

Zenothemis.  Therefore, we ought, my dear Lucius, to make him the more welcome, and strive to do that which would be most agreeable to him.  Now it is certain that such a man cares less for the perfumes of meat than for the perfumes of fine thoughts.  We shall, doubtless, please him by discussing the doctrine he professes, which is that of Jesus crucified.  For my own part, I shall the more willingly discuss this doctrine, because it keenly interests me, on account of the number and the diversity of the allegories it contains.  If one may guess at the spirit by the letter, it is filled with truths, and I consider that the Christian books abound in divine revelations.  But I should not, Paphnutius, grant equal merit to the Jewish books.  They were inspired not, as it was said, by the Spirit of God, but by an evil genius.  Iaveh, who dictated them, was one of those spirits who people the lower air, and cause the greater part of the evils, from which we suffer; but he surpassed all the others in ignorance and ferocity.  On the contrary, the serpent with golden wings, which twined its azure coils round the tree of knowledge, was made up of light and love.  A combat between these two powers—­the one of light and the other of darkness—­was, therefore, inevitable.  It occurred soon after the creation of the world.  God had hardly begun to rest after His labors; Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, lived happy and naked in the Garden of Eden, when Iaveh conceived—­to their misfortune—­the design of governing them and all the generations which Eve already bore in her splendid loins.  As he possessed neither the compass nor the lyre, and was equally ignorant of the science which commands and the art which persuades, he frightened these two poor children by hideous apparitions, capricious threats, and thunder-bolts.  Adam and Eve, feeling his shadow upon them, pressed closer to one another, and their love waxed stronger in fear.  The serpent took pity on them, and determined to instruct them, in order that, possessing knowledge, they might no longer be