figure of a god would have pleased you, of all men; for I know of no
weakness in you. Quite lately Dositheos, the Jewish centurion--a very
learned man--tried to describe to my husband the one great god to whom
his nation adheres with such obstinate fidelity, but I could not help
thinking of our beautiful and happy gods as a gay company of amorous
lords and pleasure-loving ladies, and comparing them with this stern and
powerful being who, if only he chose to do it, might swallow them all up,
as Chronos swallowed his own children."

"That," exclaimed Euergetes, "is exactly what most provokes me in this
superstition. It crushes our light-hearted pleasure in life, and
whenever I have been reading the book of the Hebrews everything has come
into my mind that I least like to think of. It is like an importunate
creditor that reminds us of our forgotten debts, and I love pleasure and
hate an importunate reminder. And you, pretty one, life blooms for you--"

"But I," interrupted Cleopatra, "I can admire all that is great; and
does it not seem a bold and grand thing even to you, that the mighty idea
that it is one single power that moves and fills the world, should be
freely and openly declared in the sacred writings of the Jews--an idea
which the Egyptians carefully wrap up and conceal, which the priests of
the Nile only venture to divulge to the most privileged of those who are
initiated into their mysteries, and which--though the Greek philosophers
indeed have fearlessly uttered it--has never been introduced by any
Hellene into the religion of the people? If you were not so averse to
the Hebrew nation, and if you, like my husband and myself, had diligently
occupied yourself with their concerns and their belief you would be
juster to them and to their scriptures, and to the great creating and
preserving spirit, their god--"