Our house was decimated in our wars against the Romans, and among the daughters of our race Ben Akiba found not one in Palestine who seemed to him worthy to marry his son.  But the report of the good fortune of the Alexandrian branch of our family had reached Judea, and Ben Akiba thought that he would do like our father Abraham, and he sent me, his Eliezer, into a strange land to win the daughter of a kinsman to wife for his Isaac.  Now, who and what the young man is, and the esteem in which he and his father are held by men—­”

“I know well,” interrupted Apollodorus, “and my house has never been so highly honored as in your visit.”

“And notwithstanding,” continued the Rabbi, “we must return home as we came; and indeed this will not only suit you best, but us too, and my brother, whose ambassador I am, for after what I have learnt from you within this last hour we must in any case withdraw our suit.  Do not interrupt me!  Your Ismene scorns to veil her face, and no doubt it is a very pretty one to look upon—­you have trained her mind like that of a man, and so she seeks to go her own way.  That may be all very well for a Greek woman, but in the house of Ben Akiba the woman must obey her husband’s will, as the ship obeys the helm, and have no will of her own; her husband’s will always coincides with what the law commands, which you yourself learnt to obey.”

“We recognize its excellence,” replied Apolloderus, but even if all the laws which Moses received on Sinai were binding on all mortals alike, the various ordinances which were wisely laid down for the regulation of the social life of our fathers, are not universally applicable for the children of our day.  And least of all can we observe them here, where, though true to our ancient faith, we live as Greeks among Greeks.”

“That I perceive,” retorted Gamaliel, “for even the language—­that clothing of our thoughts—­the language of our fathers and of the scriptures, you have abandoned for another, sacrificed to another.”

“You and your nephew also speak Greek.”

“We do it here, because the heathen, because you and yours, no longer understand the tongue of Moses and the prophets.”

“But wherever the Great Alexander bore his arms Greek is spoken; and does not the Greek version of the scriptures, translated by the seventy interpreters under the direct guidance of our God, exactly reproduce the Hebrew text?”

“And would you exchange the stone engraved by Bryasis that you wear on your finger, and showed me yesterday with so much pride, for a wax impression of the gem?”

“The language of Plato is not an inferior thing; it is as noble as the costliest sapphire.”

“But ours came to us from the lips of the Most High.  What would you think of a child that, disdaining the tongue Of its father listened only to that of its neighbors and made use of an interpreter to be able to understand its parents’ commands?”