"We have bought them and bullied them; we are fighting the Romans for them; we are preaching patience in the will of the Lord.

What more, lady ?" "What have you to offer them in their hope of a Messiah ?" she said pointedly.
"Messiah! What else is preached in the Temple but the Messiah, or in the proseuchae or the streets or on the walls?
We eat, drink, sleep, fight, buy, sell, rob or restore in the name of the Messiah! They are surfeited with religion." "Are they ?" she asked sententiously.

"But you haven't given them a Messiah." He looked at her without comprehending.
"You have a mad city here; you can not reason with it; indulge it, then, as you indulge your lunatics," she suggested.
He shook his head, smiling that he did not understand her.

She turned again to Seraiah.
"Watch him," she insisted.

"He possesses me." After a long silence in which John trifled with his wine, she prepared to rise.
"Send me the roll of the law," the woman said suddenly.
"Posthumus shall bring it.