Simon and George Catechumens

"I've seen a god of the Canaanites and Tyrians destroyed, and a Catholic priest did it ..." Simon White spoke that.

Father Brown blushed.

"Oh, the least I can do for the true one - once the physical odds are not too daunting immediately."

"All of my life, I have regarded Christians, especially Catholics, as worshippers of Bopheth."

"And today you have seen we are not."

"Tell us about the true Messiah!"

"How do you know Jesus Christ is the true one?"

"I saw you handle the demon. But more important, I saw you not be impressed by the swagger of the mage."

"I thought he was a fake mage, I had the habit. Never met a true one before."

"But your argument rests? The true God is neither cruel nor a lover of mystery for its own sake, but a loving father of his creatures and truth without a shade of lie?"

"That remains my answer."

"Even in front of the magic you saw?"

"You saw its unmaking, did you not?"

"Yes, of course ... I did. But once you had not seen it. Would you have doubted while he was strong?"

"Not one second. I mean, Odin did the same tricks in front of poor old Gylfi* in Sweden."

"If you had been brought to a previous life, would you have accepted that you were a reincarnation?"

"No."

"But if you had had memories of it?"

"I might conclude that either hypnosis opened my mind defenselessly to some show of demons, or some show of elves who did not want to be taken too seriously, or that my life had been extended into some loop of time, or anything leaving my soul and my body same relation since they were created in my mothers womb, nine months before my birth, and will remain until they are separated at the hour of my death (which may be soon, considering my age, Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us!). But I would not conclude my religion was in error."

"Then it shall be mine and my son's. I am Simon Ben Ruben White, my son is George White."

"George is a Greek name - has he no Hebrew name?"

"Ha, I thought I would trick you on that one, if only for a moment ... no, I did not, here is his full name: George Ruben Ben Simon White."

"Your father died when he was born?"

"He did."

"George Ruben - will you also study the Christian faith as your father wants you to?"

"Well, I can hardly ask Georgina to become Jewish, since she is not."

And that is how two conversions were decided, but Susan was not told this until some time later.



*Gylfi is pronounced with f like v. G is hard or like J or like Y. The vowel Y is best like French u or German ü, but an I (short) will do. He was the first known King of Upsala, the last of the previous régime, whether he was also first or not. He allowed Odin to usurp his place after being shown some hypnotic stuff and told a cock-and-bull story of the grand Marduk-killed-a-monster-and-created-the-earth style. Snorri wrote about it in Gylfaginning. Since Odin's cock-and-bull story was accepted by Swedes and Norse and Icelanders before they became Christian, it was just afterwards, so to speak, "required reading" for those wishing to understand recent pagan poetry. And Snorri was one Christian who did wish that. St. Olaf, the Christian convert and Martyr King of Norway, who descended from Odin or from his stepson Frey, was content to say "he must be dead, since he appears as a ghost" - after getting one such visit at night.