Here’s an wryly amusing excerpt from the underrated 1978 novel The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir. The story involves an ancient Roman, Eugeni, who is revived after being cryogenically frozen in an ice drift. In this scene, told from the Roman’s point of view, Eugeni is in conversation with two moderns whom he calls Semyonus (a Soviet doctor, a hardcore materialist, whose real name is Semyon) and Olava (Sister Olav, a nun fluent in classical Latin).
The excerpt begins with Eugeni asking:
"You mean your miracles are only recent? They have not been built carefully, like Rome?"
And at this, the man who called himself Semyonus the physician became excited. Olava had to talk quickly and sometimes to interrupt Semyonus to keep up with him.
"There is no such thing as magic," she translated. "There are scientific principles, which scientists discover and write down, and these principles are followed by engineers who invent such things as what you call the flying monster or the electric lights. Scientists discover principles, engineers act on them. Yes?"
"Hail the priests of Science and their temple slaves the engineers," I said. "Truly the god Science is a great god. You worship a great god."
"It is not worship. It is science." Semyonus angry, Olava smiling.
"I am sorry to have given offense to the god Science but you must understand this is a strange land to me. Will your god understand?"
Semyonus was very angry. Olava translated for him.
"Science, Eugeni, is immutable. It understands nothing and forgives nothing. It is what it is."
"A mysterious god, great for the Pantheon."
"Science is not a god. It would not like you calling it a god. If you think of it as a god, it will never let you know its mysteries. You must approach it in a scientific manner, with an open mind. Men devote years of their lives to it, their entire lives. It has given us everything we have today." Thus said Olava for Semyonus.
"Hail Science, giver of things," I said. "Let us sacrifice to it."