“I’m terribly sorry that you were crucified to begin with,” Seven replied quickly. “I hope you don’t hold a grudge against the world, though. I mean, well, I didn’t have a thing to do with it at all.”

Someone chuckled, and Seven suddenly became aware of Zeus, who appeared at Christ’s right side. Zeus was eating from a leg of roasted mutton. Still laughing, he offered some to Christ, who shook his gray curls impatiently and said, “No. This whole affair has taken away my appetite for dinner.”

Zeus stared rather compassionately at Seven, who was just beginning to get his breath, and asked in a voice that was somehow sweet and threatening at the same time, “So you have a taste for the gods, huh?”

Seven whispered, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. No, that isn’t right. It’s render unto God the things that … Um, well, surely you recognize the quote. What I mean is that I let the gods go their way, and hopefully they allow me to do the same.” Seven paused, then added to Christ, “The quote was yours, wasn’t it, uh, Sir? Or perhaps I should say, ‘Your Excellency’?”

“Oh, all right. I’ll take a bit of that mutton,” Christ said quarrelsomely to Zeus. And to Seven, “I don’t care how you address me, but that quote isn’t mine. I never said that. I don’t care if it makes good sense or poor sense, the fact is that I never said those words in that manner.”

“I didn’t mean to misquote you,” Seven said uneasily. “If you say you didn’t say it, well, that’s enough for me.” Actually, Seven was growing more ill at ease every moment. Earlier he’d been frightened, but now Christ’s power seemed to be diminishing to a point where Seven was almost embarrassed for him. Christ was nibbling from the mutton, for example: eating without a knife or fork—he and Zeus both taking very full mouthfuls, with Christ having trouble with the tougher portions. As Seven tried to look away politely, Zeus put his chunk of meat down on the coffee table and said thoughtfully, “You know, Christ, you could have said that Give-to-Caesar quote, and forgotten. In a lifetime, a person, even a god, speaks so many words that surely it’s possible that your divine tongue enunciated that particular verbal sequence and—”