In another narrative, which had caused me difficulty of the same kind, Scaurus gave me help. It is not in Mark. But I will set it down here because it bears on kindness. Matthew and Luke represented a disciple as asking to be allowed, before following Christ, to “bury” his father, and as not being allowed. “As to this,” said Scaurus, “I have no doubt that the man meant, ‘Suffer me to wait at home till I have seen my aged father into the grave and have duly buried him.’ Similarly Esau says, in effect, ‘My father will die before long. I will wait till I have mourned for him before killing Jacob.’ So, in Latin, we say ‘I have buried them all,’ meaning ‘I have survived and buried all my relations.’ My rabbi confirms me in this view. Christ always defends nature and natural affection against man’s conventions, so that it seems to me absurd to suppose that he would enjoin anything really inhuman.” Scaurus next proceeded to attack the miraculous part of Mark’s narrative. Mark, he said, considering the smallness of his gospel, describes many more miracles, relatively, than Matthew and Luke. “As to miracles,” said he, “I am ready to believe in anything, miraculous or non-miraculous, on sufficient evidence. But the evidence about Mark’s miracles leads me to two conclusions. Some of them occurred but were not miraculous. The rest, although they were honestly supposed to have occurred, did not occur. “Let us take the first class first. Mark calls them ‘powers,’ _i.e._ works of power. That is a good name for them. But Mark seems to think that, if a man has ‘power’ to cast out demons and perform cures without medical means, such a one must be a great prophet or even a Son of God. To that I demur. I remember, when I was in Dacia, one of my men was down with fever, and bad fever, too. But when the bugles sounded out one night, and the enemy came on, beating in our outposts and pouring into our camp on the backs of some of our cowardly rascals, this brave fellow was up and doing, without helmet or armour, in the front with the best of them. Next morning, he was none the worse. Nor was there any relapse. He was quite cured. I think I have told you how Josephus described to me the casting out of a demon in the presence of Vespasian. And I might remind you of Tacitus’s story about the cure of a blind man by the same emperor. I suspect, however, that the former was a mere conjuring trick and that the latter was got up by the priests of—Serapis, I think it was. So I lay no stress on either. But I have spoken to many sensible physicians, who tell me that paralysis and some kinds of fever can be cured by what they call an emotional shock. Often the cure does not last. Some of these physicians go a little further and ascribe to certain persons a peculiar power of quieting restless patients and pacifying or even healing the insane. But I entirely refuse to believe that, if a man has such a power, he can consequently claim to be a Son of God.”