Religious disputations -- Fiction; Short stories, Australian
I hesitated, and delayed to set out on my adventure until well on into
the night At last I went. A fresh wind was blowing from the north-west,
it stung my face and eyes, and I saw that snow lay lightly upon the
summit of Acrocorinth, silvery in the moonlight. As I passed into the
Jews' quarter I began to meet little knots and groups of people talking
with excited gestures, and I heard rumours of brawls and quarrels; but I
reached the house of Caius without incident. The same boy who had
brought me the message admitted me. He had fine clear-cut features,
distinctive of no particular race, though with evidence of Roman blood
somewhere. Caius was the son of a freedman I gathered later, and this
boy was the eldest of his two children, the other being a girl. The boy
told me that the meeting was over, but that Caius was with Paul and his
travelling companions in an upper chamber; he led the way and I
followed. I felt cold and suspicious, but curious. The boy drew back the
curtain, whispered my name, and I went into the warmly-lighted room.
Seated by the brazier was a thick-set, crook-backed man, ugly and mean,
with a small head, much too small for his shoulders, a sallow skin and
thick beard. As I entered he lifted his face; the eyebrows met above the
beaky nose, and he regarded me for a moment in complete silence. The
eyes were piercing, as though full of smouldering fires. They seemed to
explore the most secret recesses of my soul; then to grow kinder, as if
recognising something in it.
"Peace be with you, and light, and understanding," he said; and as he
spoke there seemed to me a hesitation and an embarrassment in his
manner. I murmured something in reply, at which, perhaps, a slight smile
broke about his lips, and he turned away. Caius brought me the
manuscript which I had looked at, gave me a chair in a warm corner by a
lamp, and went back to the others. I began to read. Four men, besides
Caius, and a woman were gathered at a table by Paul. One of the men was
holding a pen. Then the voice of Paul broke the silence.
"For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it
was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the
ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind
the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things
of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the
spirit is life and peace.... And if Christ is in you, the body is dead
because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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