As to the examination by scourging,—singular enough will naturally appear this mode of collecting evidence: declared purpose of it, "that he," the captain, "might know wherefore they," the Jews, "cried out against him," meaning the defendant. A simpler way would have been to have asked them; and, as to the scourge, what use it could have been of is not altogether obvious. To begin with torturing a man, and proceed by questioning him, was, however, among the Romans a well-known mode of obtaining evidence. But, then and there, as now and everywhere, unless the United States form an exception, "whatever is—is right," provided always that it is by power that it is done.
[82] Acts 25:12-27.
"Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.—And after certain days king Agrippa and Bernice came unto Cæsarea to salute Festus.—And when they had been there many days, Festus declared Paul's cause unto the king, saying, There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix:—About whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him.—To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him.—Therefore, when they were come hither, without any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment-seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth:—Against whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed:—But had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.—And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these matters.—But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar.—Then Agrippa said unto Festus, I would also hear the man myself. To-morrow, said he, thou shalt hear him.—And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing, with the chief captains and principal men of the city, at Festus' commandment Paul was brought forth.—And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all men which are present with us, ye see this man about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt with me, both at Jerusalem and also here, crying that he ought not to live any longer.—But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death, and that he himself hath appealed to Augustus, I have determined to send him.—Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord, wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O, King Agrippa, that after examination had, I might have somewhat to write.—For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him."
CHAPTER XVI.
Paul's Doctrines Anti-apostolic.—Was he not Anti-Christ?
SECTION 1.
PAUL'S DOCTRINE WAS AT VARIANCE WITH THAT OF THE APOSTLES.
If Paul's pretensions to a supernatural intercourse with the Almighty were no better than a pretence;—his visit to Jerusalem, from first to last, an object of abhorrence to the Apostles and all their disciples; in a word, to all, who in the birthplace of Christianity, bore the name of Christian, and were regarded as belonging to the religion of Jesus;—if, not only to their knowledge, but to that of the whole population of Jerusalem, he was a depraved character, marked by the stain,—not merely of habitual insincerity, but of perjury in its most aggravated form;—if it was no otherwise than by his having declared himself a Roman citizen, that he escaped from the punishment—apparently a capital one—attached by the law of the land to the crimes of which he had been guilty; if, in a word, it was only in places, in which Jesus—his doctrines, and his Apostles—were alike unknown, that this self-declared Apostle of Jesus was received as such;—if all, or though it were but some, of these points may be regarded as established,—any further proof, in support of the position, that no doctrine of his, which is not contained in some one or other of the four Gospels, has any pretension to be regarded as part and parcel of the religion of Jesus, might well, in any ordinary case, be regarded as superfluous: and, of the several charges here brought to view, whether there be any one, of the truth of which the demonstration is not complete, the reader has all along been invited to consider with himself, and judge. If thereupon the judgment be condemnatory, the result is—that whatever is in Paul, and is not to be found in any one of the four Gospels, is not Christianity, but Paulism.