philosopher's fallacies; and in doing this he was drawn away from his
subject, which was unfortunate. The hour was near by when the Essenes
would, according to rule, retire to their cells for meditation,
and--foreseeing that he could not rid himself of the burden which
Joseph's question imposed upon him--he abandoned Heraclitus in a last
refutation, to warn Joseph that he must not resume his questions.

But if I do not ask at once, my chance is gone for ever; for your
discourse is like the clouds, always taking new shapes, Joseph pleaded.
In dread lest all be forgotten, I repeat to myself what you have said,
and so lose a great deal for a certain remembrance.

Joseph's manifest delight in his statement of the doctrines of
Heraclitus, and his subsequent refutation of the heathen philosopher
caused Mathias to forget temporarily certain ideas that he had been
fostering for some days--that God, being the designer and maker of all
things, and their governor, is likewise the creator of time itself, for
he is the father of its father, and the father of time is the world,
which made its own mother--the creation. So that time stands towards God
in the relation of a grandson; for this world is a young son of God. On
these things the sage's thoughts had been running for some days past,
and he would have liked to have expounded his theory to Joseph: that
nothing is future to God: creations and the very boundaries of time are
subject.

He said much more, but Joseph did not hear. He was too busy memorising
what he had already heard, and during long hours he strove to come to
terms with what he remembered, but in vain. The more he thought, the
less clear did it seem to him that in eternity there is neither past nor
future, that in eternity everything is present. Mathias's very words;