VIII.
Now, it chanced that about this time I was invited to a feast at the house of Elisha ben Simeon, one of the leaders of the Pharisees in Jerusalem. His son had become thirteen years old that week, and, as is our custom, was received into the holy congregation as a Son of the Covenant on the Sabbath. He had been summoned up to the reading of the Law, and had himself read aloud a portion of it; for from this day onward he was to be treated in all matters of religion as if he were a man. Being a friend of his father, I had attended his synagogue, and heard the lad's pure voice for the first time in his life declare publicly his faith in the Most High.
After the service in the synagogue, his friends accompanied the father and the lad to their house, and with them went I, who had known the father from our schoolboy days, and the little lad from the time of his birth.
