As to the “good tidings,” I knew that Epictetus would have considered it to be a message from God to this effect, “Children, I have placed your true happiness in your own control. Take it from yourselves, each of you, from that which is within you.” But what was Paul’s “good tidings”? Isaiah had described God’s messengers as “proclaiming good tidings,” namely, that God was coming to the aid of men: “As a shepherd will He shepherd His flock and with His arm will He gather the lambs.” Epictetus, as I have shewn above, scoffed at this metaphor of “shepherd.” But I could not help liking it. Homer used it about kings, Isaiah about God. I thought Paul meant, in part, that God would manifest Himself as the righteous King. But I knew that Paul must also mean more, and that he would not have claimed the attention of the Romans for a mere repetition of an ancient written prophecy. Any child able to read could have repeated that. Paul must have more good news—either about the Shepherd, or about the time, or about the certainty of His coming. At this point, it occurred to me, “Why wait for the gospels that Flaccus is to send me? Why not search through the epistles to find out what Paul’s gospel is?” But I checked myself, saying, “No more digressions.” The next words were these: “Concerning His Son, who came into being from the seed of David according to the flesh; who was defined Son of God, in power, according to the spirit of holiness, from the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” These words I have translated literally and obscurely so as to indicate to the reader how exceedingly obscure they seemed to me. “I must pass on,” I said, “I can make nothing of this. What follows may make things clearer.”