And the homage he thus paid was genuine, and profound; for, as he himself explained, Judaism, by virtue of its secular and materialistic leanings, its socialism, its political adroitness, had actually more in common with Catholicism than the latter had with the mystic subjectivity and self-immolation of Protestantism; the conversion of a Jew to the Roman Catholic faith was accordingly a distinctly less violent spiritual rupture than was that of a Protestant.

Sundered from the shepherd of his original fold, orphaned, forsaken, full of craving after freer air and forms of existence upon which his native gifts gave him a claim, Naphta, who was long past the age of consent, was so impatient for profession that he saved his patron all the trouble of winning this soul⁠—or rather, this extraordinary head⁠—for his sect. Even before Leo’s baptism he had, at the Father’s instigation, found temporary lodgment in the Stella Matutina, where he was given food for both body and mind; and had migrated hither with the greatest equanimity, and the callousness of the born aristocrat, leaving his brothers and sisters to the care of the Poor Guardians and a destiny suited to their lesser gifts.