340. _Paulus._ Paul died about 64 A.D. The date of this poem is
therefore about the last quarter of the first century A.D. Cleon had
heard so vaguely about the Christian religion that he did not know the
difference between Christ and Paul. The "doctrine" spoken of in the last
line was the Christian teaching concerning immortality. The Greek,
Cleon, had felt a longing to believe in another existence in which man
would have unlimited capability for joy, but Zeus had revealed no such
doctrine, and the cultivated Greek was not ready to receive it at the
hands of a man like Paul.