Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell Page B

sorrow.
     
    “Who told you of this, Keptah, if even the noble Diodorus does not know?”
     
    Keptah looked at the boy quickly, and laughed with tenderness. “Ah, you have been questioning the master behind my back!” His laugh ceased abruptly. “Do not look so embarrassed, boy. I am not offended.” He sighed. “Let this be sufficient for you, Lucanus: I was told, but by whom I can never tell you. But I can tell you of Chaldea, or Babylonia, and my people, and it has been given to me to tell you though for what reason it is not as yet clear to me.
     
    “We are so ancient a people that even the Jews, who claim to be very ancient themselves, have not even a legend concerning our origin. But we gave one Abraham to the Jews, who now call him Father Abraham. We first came to the land of Ur from a place unrecorded, and once we had the most flourishing capital, more wise, urbane, and mature than any since on the earth, and its name was Bït Yakïn. But one can grow so wise, if that wisdom is without God, that one grows corrupt — Why do you start so, boy?”
     
    “Nothing,” whispered Lucanus. But Keptah commanded him with his hooded eyes, and the boy said, haltingly, “I am thinking of the Unknown God of the Greeks.”
     
    “Ah, yes. He is the same,” said Keptah, with abstraction.
     
    He went on: “In the beginning, and for centuries,Yakïn remembered God, and flourished, and was mighty, and wise men came from all places to study there under the Kalu, and some mysteries were cautiously imparted to them as well as wisdom. And the wise men took back these mysteries to their countries, and Egypt was one of them, and a man named Moses became acquainted with those mysteries through the Kalü who had been commanded to go to Egypt and teach the young Egyptian prince beyond what the priests of Egypt already knew. You have heard of Moses, Lucanus?”
     
    “Yes, the Jews have told me, in Antioch. He brought the Commandments of God to men.”
     
    Keptah sighed, and said ironically, “And men have been busy for centuries sedulously breaking them all!”
     
    Lucanus feared that Keptah had forgotten him, for he was silent again for so long. Then he spoke.
     
    “Because men are men, they become proud, especially when they have a reputation. Even many of the Kalü became proud, and when that happened they lost their wisdom, for they had forgotten from whence came their knowledge of mysteries. So they became charlatans instead of priests, and necromancers, for they remembered the hidden words of magic and used them for evil ends and gain. These priests, so engaged in raw magic, were no longer astronomers, physicians, scientists and priests. They were wicked men, occupied in vulgar divinations, which they passed on to their sons. And if a priesthood decays, then a people decays, and all Chaldea, betrayed by its priests, was slowly eaten by corruption. And she became as nothing, and fell to enemies. If a nation has not God that nation must fall, but if a nation has God then all the powers of evil, and all the armies, cannot shake its foundations; no, not even if the whole world is arrayed against it.”
     
    Keptah looked at the Star, and his lips moved silently for a few moments.
     
    “So the good Kalu, and there were so few of them, left Chaldea, weeping, and they went to many countries with their secrets, and in these countries they are the wise men of the East, and physicians, astronomers, divinators to the elect, astrologers, scientists and metaphysicians. Only they know who they are; only they will ever know who they are. For they have come to suspect mankind, and for the most excellent reasons. They form an occult Brotherhood, and they choose who shall enter.”
     
    Now Keptah gave his whole attention to Lucanus, and he thought to himself, Why was it I was so blind? He said, “This is not a story which you will learn in Alexandria, and I must charge you not to repeat it to dull ears, Lucanus.” His voice was