"_If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend!_" This alarming language has too often, since that time, reverberated in the ears of timid judges, who, like Pilate, have rendered themselves criminal by delivering up victims through want of firmness, whom they would never have condemned, if they had listened to the voice of their own consciences.
Let us now recapitulate the case, as I have considered it from the beginning.
Is it not evident, contrary to the conclusion of Mr. Salvador, that Jesus, considered merely as _a simple citizen_, was not tried and sentenced either _according to law_, or _agreeably to the forms of legal proceedings then existing_?
God, according to his eternal design, might permit the just to suffer by the malice of men; but he also intended, that this should at least happen by a disregard of all laws, and by a violation of all established rules, in order that the entire contempt of forms should stand as the first warning of the violation of law.
Let us not be surprised then, that in another part of his work, Mr. Salvador (who, it is gratifying to observe, discusses his subject dispassionately) expresses some regret in speaking of the "_unfortunate sentence against Jesus_." Vol. i. p. 59. He has wished to excuse the Hebrews; but, one of that nation, in giving utterance to the feelings of his heart, still says--in language which I took from his own mouth, "We should be very cautious of condemning him at this day."
I pass over the excesses which followed the order of Pilate; as, the violence shown to Simon, the Cyrenian, who was made in some degree a sharer in the punishment, by being compelled to carry the cross; the injurious treatment which attended the victim to the place of the sacrifice, and even to the cross, where Jesus still prayed for his brethren and his executioners!
To the heathen themselves I would say--You, who have gloried in the death of Socrates, how much must you be struck with wonder at that of Jesus! Ye, censors of the Areopagus, how could you undertake to excuse the Synagogue, and justify the sentence of the Hall of Judgment? Philosophy herself has not hesitated to proclaim, and we may repeat with her--"Yes, if the life and death of _Socrates_ were those of a sage, the life and death of _Jesus_ were those of a divinity."