"
Eleazar did not yield, but began to parley.
"Say one word, a single word to convince me," he asked.
"Oppas! there is one for you."
Eleazar opened his eyes, but asked for yet another one.
"Zijad's son."
"Still better!" said Eleazar, "but now the last!"
"Bar-coch-ba."
Eleazar reached him his hand. "Come under my roof, eat of my bread,
and drink of the sacred wine." In a moment the shop was closed, and
the two elderly men sat at supper in the room behind it. They
conversed eagerly.
"There are some hundreds of thousands of us Hebrews here in Spain,
for when the Emperor Hadrian had destroyed Jerusalem for the last
time, he sent some fifty thousand Hebrews here. That is six hundred
years ago, and we have naturally increased--yes, to such a number,
that ninety thousand of us could be compulsorily baptized. I, too,
have been baptized, but, though they poured water on me, I have held
fast the faith of my fathers, and how could I do otherwise? The
Christians have not one faith, but many. The Synod held in Toledo in
589 A.D. taught, for example, that the Holy Spirit did not only
proceed from the Father, but from the Son also. But the Synod of
675 A.D. declared that the Son was not only sent by the Father but
by the Holy Spirit. That is nonsense, and therefore they fall away
from their own doctrine.
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