Page:As others saw Him.djvu/214

 208 these, by their talith and their faces, I knew to be Jews, and I went up to them, and greeted them with the greeting of peace. But among them one came to me with the look of recognition in his eyes, and said, "Knowest thou me not, Meshullam ben Zadok?" And, behold, it was Rufus ben Simon, whom I had known before I left the Holy City. So I welcomed him, and brought him home to this house of mine. And here he remaineth till the morrow, when he starteth forth to go to Cyrene.

Now, in my inquiries about old friends left behind, and new things that had happened since I went away, I failed not to ask about the followers of the Nazarene. To my wonder, I found that this Rufus had become one of them, even though he was but a child when Jesus died. Yet is he a good Jew in all else. He eateth only our meat, and keepeth our Sabbaths and festivals. But he avers that the Anointed One, whom we expect, has already appeared, and that he was Jesus the Nazarene. And upon my inquiry how he could know aught of Jesus but from the common