Hebrew Legends
He had such remarkable beauty in childhood that Josephus says, when he was carried along the road, people stopped to gaze at him, and workmen would leave their work to admire him. When the king playfully put his crown upon this boy, he threw it off indignantly, and put his foot on it. The king, fearing that this might be a sign that the child might yet take down his crown, applied another test. According to the Jewish legend, the king ordered two bowls to be put before the child, one containing rubies, and the other burning coals. And if he took the coals he was to live, and if he took the rubies he was to die. For some reason the child took one of the coals, and put it in his mouth, so that his life was spared, although it burned the tongue till he was indistinct of utterance ever after. Having come to manhood, he spread open the palms of his hands in prayer and the Red Sea parted to let two million five hundred thousand people escape. And he put the palms of his hands together in prayer and the Red Sea closed on a strangulated host.