represented the loves of Eros and Psyche; while between the pillars stood
busts of the greatest heathen philosophers, and in the background a fine
statue of Plato was conspicuous. Among all the Greeks and Romans there
was the portrait of only one Jew, and this was that of Philo, whose
intellectual and delicate features greatly resembled those of the most
illustrious of his Greek companions.

In this splendid room, lighted by silver lamps, there was no lack of easy
couches, and on one of these Apollodorus was reclining; a fine-looking
man of fifty, with his mild but shrewd eyes fixed on a tall and aged
fellow-Israelite who was pacing up and down in front of him and talking
eagerly; the old man's hands too were never still, now he used them in
eager gesture, and again stroked his long white beard. On an easy seat
opposite to the master of the house sat a lean young man with pale and
very regular finely-cut features, black hair and a black beard; he sat
with his dark glowing eyes fixed on the ground, tracing lines and circles
on the pavement with the stick he held in his hand, while the excited old
man, his uncle, urgently addressed Apollodorus in a vehement but fluent
torrent of words. Apollodorus, however, shook his head from time to time
at his speech and frequently met him with a brief contradiction.

It was easy to see that what he was listening to touched him painfully,
and that the two diametrically different men were fighting a battle which
could never lead to any satisfactory issue. For, though they both used
the Greek tongue and confessed the same religion, all they felt and
thought was grounded on views, as widely dissimilar as though the two men
had been born in different spheres. When two opponents of such different
calibre meet, there is a great clatter of arms but no bloody wounds are
dealt and neither rout nor victory can result.