My father said bitterly that this was a philosophy that was beyond his comprehension. In his day, he himself had been humbly willing to become a subject of the kingdom of Jesus of Nazareth, but then he was not received because he was not a Jew. The leaders of the Nazareth sect had even forbidden him to talk about their king. As far as he could see, he would be wisest to continue to wait for the affairs of the kingdom to be clarified so that they would also be comprehensible to simpler minds. Clearly it was providence that was now sending him to Rome, for such unpleasantness was to be expected in Antioch from both Jews and Christians that even the best mediators could no longer offer a solution.

But he promised to suggest to the city council that the Christians should not be tried for having violated the Jewish faith, since they by receiving the baptism, devised by the Jews, and by admitting a Jewish Messiah as their king, in any case de facto if not also literally de jure, in some way or other were Jews. If the council admitted this standpoint, then the matter could at least be postponed and the Jews’ action set aside for a time.

With this Barnabas and Paul were satisfied, and indeed they could hardly be otherwise. My father assured them that his sympathies in any case lay more with the Christians than with the Jews. The freedmen on their part implored my father to ask to be allowed to resign from the city council without delay, for he had enough to do with his own affairs. But my father quite rightly replied that just at this moment it was impossible for him to do so, for a public application for resignation would make everyone believe that he in fact regarded me as guilty of sacrilege.

The freedmen began seriously to fear that my father’s obvious sympathies with the Christians would make the people suspect that he had perhaps encouraged me, his son, with the view in mind of violating the girls’ innocent rites. For both Christians and Jews felt an equally implacable aversion to idols, holy sacrifices and hereditary rites.

“The Christians who have been baptized and then have drunk blood with their fellow believers,” said the freedmen, “pull down and burn their household idols and destroy their expensive fortunetelling books instead of selling them for a reasonable price to people who could still use them. This impetuous intolerance makes them dangerous.

You, our good patient master, should have no more to do with them, or things might go badly for your son.”

In all honor to my father, it must be said that after the visit from the two Jews, he no longer pressed me to go and listen to their teachings. After disagreeing with other Jews,

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they also began quarreling between themselves, and they left Antioch in different directions. The faithful Jews calmed down after their departure, for the moderate Jews avoided open and public conflict and kept themselves to themselves in their own secret society.

At my father’s suggestion, the city fathers refused to allow the Jews’ complaint against Paul and Barnabas, and proclaimed that the Jews themselves must settle their own disagreements. With the help of some determination, it was also easier to hand over the dispute concerning me and my friends to be solved by the oracle in Daphne. Our parents paid heavy fines and we ourselves underwent purification ceremonies in the groves of Daphne for three days and three nights. The parents of the girls we had violated no longer dared press us with proposals of marriage. But in connection with the purification ceremonies, we were forced to make a certain promise to the Moon Goddess, but this I could not tell my father, nor did he ask me about it.

My father, contrary to his usual habit, went with me to the amphi-theater, where we seven youths were allowed to occupy the place of honor behind the city authorities at the next performance. Our lion had under-gone a slimming course and was skillfully spurred on to conduct itself in the arena far better than we had dared to hope. With little difficulty it tore apart a malefactor who had been condemned to be thrown to the beasts of prey; then bit the first gladiator in the knee, and fell while fighting fearlessly to the end. The crowd roared with delight and honored the lion and ourselves by rising to its feet and applauding. I think my father was proud of me, although he said nothing.

Several days later, we said good-bye to the tearful servants and traveled to the port of Seleucia. There we boarded a ship, my father and I, with Barbus following, to sail to Naples and from there to Rome.

Book II

Rome

If I could but describe what it feels like to arrive in Rome, at fifteen years of age, when one has known since childhood that all one’s blood ties are united with those sacred hills and valleys. For me, it felt as if the very ground shook beneath my feet as it welcomed its son, as if every furrowed stone in the streets had repeated eight hundred years of history for my ears. Even the muddy Tiber was so sacred to me that I felt faint at the sight of it.

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