‘Self-sacrifice for the sake of others is always divine,’ said Pomponia. ‘Even in Greek mythology the gods assume the likeness of men in order to help and deliver them. Does not the poet tell us how Apollo once kept, as a slave, the oxen of Admetus? how Hercules was the servant of Eurystheus? how Jupiter came to visit Baucis and Philemon? Is it so strange that the God of all should reveal Himself to man as man? Doubtless you have read with your tutor the grandest play of Æschylus--the “Prometheus Bound.” Does not the poet there sing that Prometheus, who is the type of humanity, can never be delivered _until some god descends for him into the black depths of Tartarus_? And does not Plato say that man will never know God until He has revealed Himself in the guise of suffering man; and that “when all is on the verge of destruction, God sees the distress of the universe, and, placing himself at the rudder, restores it to order”?[25] And does not Seneca teach that man cannot save himself?[26] Seneca even says, “Do you wonder that men go to the gods? God comes to men--yea, even into men.” No one laughs at such thoughts in the most popular of our philosophers; why should they laugh at Christians for believing them?’ ‘But what made his disciples believe that Christus was a Son of God?’ he asked. Sitting quietly there, she told him, that day, of the Jews as the people who had kept alive for centuries the knowledge of the one true God; of their age-long hopes of a Deliverer; of their prophecies; and of the coming of the Baptist. On his next visit she told him of Jesus, and read to him parts of one of the old sketches of His ministry which were current, in the form of notes and fragments, among Christians who had heard the preaching of Peter or other Apostles. Lastly, she told him some of His miracles, and the story of His death and resurrection. ‘He spake,’ she said, ‘as never man spake. He did what man never did. Above all, He rose from the dead the third day. Even the centurion who watched the crucifixion returned to Jerusalem and said, “Truly this was a Son of God!”’