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"After Buddha had been ten years in retirement, certain sages sent their disciples to him, asking him, 'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama? "Buddha answered them, 'I claim to be nothing. "Ten years afterwards they sent again to him, asking the same question, and again Buddha answered: 'I claim to be nothing. "Then after yet another ten years had passed, they sent a third time, asking, 'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama? "And Buddha replied, 'I claim to be the utterance of the most high God. "Then they said to him: 'How is this, that hitherto thou hast proclaimed thyself to be nothing, and now thou declarest thyself to be the very utterance of God? "Buddha answered: `Either I am nothing, or I am the very utterance of God, for between these two all is silence."
Why art thou thus eternally reflecting upon so excellent a woman, as if thou wert assured she would fail in the trial? Nay, thou declarest, every time thou writest on the subject, that she will, that she must yield, entangled as she is: and yet makest her virtue the pretence of thy solicitude for her. An instrument of the vile James Harlowe, dost thou call me? O Jack! how could I curse thee!
But this is sure that emissaries will be sent to Italy and Spain, who will turn the people's mind from the truth; and the testimony of the twelve that saw Jesus and of the five hundred that saw him afterwards will be as naught; and the Jews will scoff at me, saying: he whom thou declarest was raised from the dead lives; and the Gentiles will scoff and say: we will listen to thee, Paul, another day; and the world will fall back into idolatry, led back into it by the delusions of a madman.
Said Ioasaph, "All that thou hast told me I believe without question, and him whom thou declarest I glorify as God. Only make all plain to me, and teach me clearly what I must do. But especially go on to tell me what is that Baptism which thou sayest that the Faithful receive."
And Achilles fleet of foot made answer and spake to him: "Yea, be of good courage, speak whatever soothsaying thou knowest; for by Apollo dear to Zeus, him by whose worship thou, O Kalchas, declarest thy soothsaying to the Danaans, not even if thou mean Agamemnon, that now avoweth him to be greatest far of the Achaians."
Thou knowest how welcome the sight of him would be in the halls to all, and to me in chief, and to his son that we got between us. But this is no true tale, as thou declarest it, nay but it is one of the deathless gods that hath slain the proud wooers, in wrath at their bitter insolence and evil deeds. For they honoured none of earthly men, neither the good nor yet the bad, that came among them.
And as Caius was astonished at Agrippa's inclinations, and still the more pressed him to make his request for somewhat which he might gratify him with, Agrippa replied, "Since thou, O my lord! declarest such is thy readiness to grant, that I am worthy of thy gifts, I will ask nothing relating to my own felicity; for what thou hast already bestowed on me has made me excel therein; but I desire somewhat which may make thee glorious for piety, and render the Divinity assistant to thy designs, and may be for an honor to me among those that inquire about it, as showing that I never once fail of obtaining what I desire of thee; for my petition is this, that thou wilt no longer think of the dedication of that statue which thou hast ordered to be set up in the Jewish temple by Petronius."
But who told thee that thy soul was such an excellent thing as by thy practice thou declarest thou believest it to be? What! set more by thy soul than by all the world? What! cast a world behind thy back for the welfare of a soul? Is not this to play the fool, in the account of sinners, while angels wonder at and rejoice for thy wisdom?
Now when he had well eaten and comforted his heart with food, then the herdsman filled him the bowl out of which he was wont himself to drink, and he gave it him brimming with wine, and he took it and was glad at heart, and uttering his voice spake to him winged words: 'My friend, who was it then that bought thee with his wealth, a man so exceedingly rich and mighty as thou declarest?
Surely thy lover will not forget such charms; surely he will know thee, and bow the knee, saying, 'This is my Immortal, and no other woman. "Then, and not till then, will I believe that thou art even what thou declarest thyself to be, an evil spirit, who bought undying life with murder and used thy demon loveliness to bewitch the souls of men."
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