There is a story of John Randolph not unlike this. Indeed, the sarcasm is the same in spirit and purpose. Paul admitted that “one must not revile God’s High Priest,” but he did not perceive that the High Priest was present. The coarse, loud, ill-tempered person who commanded to smite him on the mouth could not be High Priest! The following was the occasion of Randolph’s sarcasm: During the winter of 1834 a member of the House, to whom he was much attached, died. His place was taken by a young man, vain and ambitious, who began his career by making a bitter attack on Mr. Randolph. No reply was made by the latter. Several days passed, when a question came up in which he was deeply interested, and he delivered a very earnest and impressive speech. As he closed, he said, “I should not, Mr. Speaker, have returned to press this matter with so much earnestness, had not my views possessed the sanction and concurrence of my late departed friend, whose seat, I lament, is now unhappily vacant.”
How skillfully, in the story of the young man who had been healed of his blindness, does the subject of the cure parry the thrusts of the synagogue authorities! “Give God the praise,” they exhort, “we know that this man is a sinner!” “Whether he be a sinner or no,” says the young man, “I can not tell; one thing I know that whereas I was blind, now I see.” Thus repulsed, they begin again. “What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes?” He replies, “I have told you already, and ye did not hear; wherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be his disciples?” Stung to the quick, they revile him, “Thou art his disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses, but as for this fellow we know not from whence he is!” Thoroughly aroused, the young man sends home to them a final thrust: “Why herein is a marvelous thing that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes? Now we know that God heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing!” Abuse and excision alone remain to the rulers of the synagogue. “Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?” And they cast him out. Excommunication is the sole answer of priest-craft and bigotry to reason.
III.
To many readers it may seem impious to say that under the head of Repartee we must classify many of those words of Jesus with which he cuts through the sophistry of opponents and disentangles himself from the webs that are woven about him. Let it be remembered, however, that we are dealing with his utterances simply as literature; with their religious significance, we are not now concerned. We are discussing the sayings of Jesus as we would the sayings of Johnson or Goldsmith.
One of the most striking instances is found in the controversy over exorcism. When the scribes who came down from Jerusalem charged, “He hath Beelzebub and by the prince of the devils casts he out devils,” he quickly reduced the accusation to an absurdity: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If he rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.” He goes further—“If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?”
There was one occasion, however, when Jesus himself seems to have been vanquished by a swift rejoinder. When the Syro-Phenician woman came to him in behalf of her daughter, in order to test her faith he said,—“Let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it unto the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she answered, “yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” These words came from a bright intellect as well as from a trusting heart. Jesus appreciated the keenness of the reply no less than the confidence it expressed. “For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” “For once,” says Macbeth, “Jesus was refuted and that by his own figure; and he wished to be refuted.”
How we enjoy such a dilemma as the one in which he placed the chief priests and the scribes and the elders! They asked him, “By what authority doest thou these things? And who gave thee authority to do these things?” “I will also ask of you one question,” says Jesus, “and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things—the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me.” “And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? But if we shall say of men,—they feared the people; for all men counted John that he was a prophet, indeed. And they answered and said unto Jesus, We can not tell.” “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.”
Another time “came to Jesus Scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread?” How quick and effective the reply: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” Nothing could be said in response. The question was absolutely closed. The disciples violate your tradition? Very good; but what does your tradition violate? Can we not see his opponents, falling back beaten, knitting their brows, taking counsel together, planning some overwhelming defeat for this impudent young heretic? What Thersites said of Ajax would well apply to them: “He bites his lips with a politic regard, as who should say, There were wit in this head an’ ’twould out; and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.”
When the woman poured the spikenard on the head of Jesus, Judas, the virtuous Judas, forsooth! made objection. “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?” Why not, indeed,—for Judas is custodian of the poor fund. “Judas,” returns his Master,—and there was pathos as well as rebuke in the words,—“Judas, the poor ye have with you always, and whenever ye will, ye may do them good.” This was the first time Judas had ever manifested any solicitude for the poor. “But me, ye have not always.” Judas was silenced; but he began to brood revenge. Soon he stole out and went to the chief priests. He had not secured the price of the spikenard, but he would indemnify himself by selling his Master!
With what relish do we read the trenchant replies of Jesus to the Scribes and Pharisees and Herodians who had leagued to “entangle him in his talk.” Easily as Samson broke the green withes, did he break the verbal fetters they forged. “In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage!” “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” What can be more admirable viewed simply as repartee,—as illustrations of the “dexterous leap of thought by which the mind escapes from a seemingly hopeless dilemma?” If one were to read such fragments of Gospel history for the first time, without the idea that he must attach a solemn and awful meaning to every word, how would he delight in these intellectual contests and hail the genius of the victor!