GEORGE MOORE
47
(Looking round.) And the Lord has led him hither to make known to us certain joyous tidings.
paul: That there is salvation for all, Jews and Gentiles alike.
MANAHEM (to Mathias): And this wonderful passing of the old world was wrought by the coming of the Messiah promised beforetime, a child born of a virgin's womb.
MATHIAS: I know of no such prediction; the word in Isaiah is not virgin, but girl, who shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. In thine eagerness to accept Paul's Gospel, thou hast forgotten the Scriptures, Manahem.
sHALLUM: The prophecy in Deuteronomy is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.
MATHIAS: I would answer thee, Shallum, out of Deuteronomy: The prophet that shall presume to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other Gods, even that prophet shall die.
SHALLUM (to Eliakim): It was an act of God that separated Paul from his companion, Timothy.
ELIAKIM: And it was the hand of God that upheld him in the path now for evermore sacred to us. Come, let us look upon it, and take instruction from him, how since the coming of the Messiah all things have changed.
PAUL: And that the Lord Jesus has raised the curse of the law from you.
saddoc: The curse of the law! (Aside to Mathias.) When he says such things it's like running a knife into me.
MaTHIAS: Hush!
PAUL: Once we were as children lost in a desert, and the law was our guide, and it led us to the Lord Jesus. But now we are under a guide no longer; the love of the Lord Jesus is enough.
(The Essenes crowd round Paul and lead him on to the balcony, leaving Saddoc and Mathias alone in the middle of the stage.)
MATHIAS: Art thou with Paul, Saddoc, or against him?
saddoc: With a man who has said that the law has passed away? Thou mockest me, Mathias, as is thy wont. But methinks the moment is one rather for dust and ashes and the rending of garments.
MATHIAS: Seeing all the brethren in cluster about this wandering
