“I could well dispense with them,” replied Euergetes; “Plato too disdained to measure syllables, and I know passages in his works which are nevertheless full of the highest poetic beauty.  Besides, it has been pointed out to me that even the Hebrew poems, like the Egyptian, follow certain rules, which however I might certainly call rhetorical rather than poetical.  The first member in a series of ideas stands in antithesis to the next, which either re-states the former one in a new form or sets it in a clearer light by suggesting some contrast.  Thus they avail themselves of the art of the orator—­or indeed of the painter —­who brings a light color into juxtaposition with a dark one, in order to increase its luminous effect.  This method and style are indeed not amiss, and that was the least of all the things that filled me with aversion for this book, in which besides, there is many a proverb which may be pleasing to kings who desire to have submissive subjects, and to fathers who would bring up their sons in obedience to themselves and to the laws.  Even mothers must be greatly comforted by them,—­who ask no more than that their children may get through the world without being jostled or pushed, and unmolested if possible, that they may live longer than the oaks or ravens, and be blessed with the greatest possible number of descendants.  Aye! these ordinances are indeed precious to those who accept them, for they save them the trouble of thinking for themselves.  Besides, the great god of the Jews is said to have dictated all that this book contains to its writers, just as I dictate to Philippus, my hump-backed secretary, all that I want said.  They regard everyone as a blasphemer and desecrator who thinks that anything written in that roll is erroneous, or even merely human.  Plato’s doctrines are not amiss, and yet Aristotle had criticised them severely and attempted to confute them.  I myself incline to the views of the Stagyrite, you to those of the noble Athenian, and how many good and instructive hours we owe to our discussions over this difference of opinion!  And how amusing it is to listen when the Platonists on the one hand and the Aristotelians on the other, among the busy threshers of straw in the Museum at Alexandria, fall together by the ears so vehemently that they would both enjoy flinging their metal cups at each others’ heads—­if the loss of the wine, which I pay for, were not too serious to bear.  We still seek for truth; the Jews believe they possess it entirely.

“Even those among them who most zealously study our philosophers believe this; and yet the writers of this book know of nothing but actual present, and their god—­who will no more endure another god as his equal than a citizen’s wife will admit a second woman to her husband’s house—­ is said to have created the world out of nothing for no other purpose but to be worshipped and feared by its inhabitants.