moulded himself, or been moulded, into a new shape that he began to
think that he might have done better if he had left the moulding to God.
His conscience told him this and reminded him how he vowed himself to
Jesus, whom Banu saw in a vision. All the same he remained, not
unnaturally, a young man enticed by the charm of the Greek language, and
the science of the Alexandrian philosophers, who were every one
possessed of Mathias's skill in dialectics. They all knew Mathias and
were imbued with much respect for him as a teacher, and were willing to
instruct Joseph in psychology, taking up the lesson where Mathias closed
the book. So, putting his conscience behind him, Joseph listened, his
ears wide open and his mind alert to understand that it was a child's
story--the report in Jerusalem that the end of the world was
approaching, and that God would remould it afresh--as if God were human
like ourselves, animated with like business and desires! He heard for
the first time that to arrive at any clear notion of divinity we must
begin by stripping divinity of all human attributes, and when every one
is sloughed, what remains? Divinity, Joseph answered; and his instructor
bowed his head, saying: here is no matter for reflection.

The philosophers were surprised to learn that in Jerusalem many still
retained the belief that God was no more than a man of colossal stature,
angry, revengeful, and desirous of burnt offerings and of prayers which
were little better; that the corruptible body could be raised from the
dead and given back to the soul for a dwelling. That Jerusalem had
fallen so low in intellect was not known to them; and Joseph, feeling he
was making a noise in the world, admitted that despite the knowledge of
the Greek language he accepted the theory that the soul was created
before the body and waited in a sort of dim hall, hanging like a bat,
for the creation of the body which it was predestined to descend into,
till the death of the body released it. He was, however, now willing to