It may seem a little arbitrary to connect these acts of Christ, not with what the Sacæan victim, to our knowledge, ever did, but with what was done by the beardless buffoon, his degenerate copy. We have first to guess that the Sacæan mock-king acted like him whom we have to guess to be his late 'degenerate copy;' and then to read into the Gospels an idea derived from accounts of the ancient or modern buffoon. Moreover, while Christ represents the mock-king of the Sacæa in 'the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony'--for _He_ is put to death--his counterpart, Barabbas, has a conjectural ride which is mere 'farce,' like that of the beardless buffoon. Now Mr. Frazer says that, 'after the serious meaning of the Sacæan custom had been forgotten, and the substitute was allowed to escape with his fife, the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony would rapidly degenerate into farce.'[2]
The degeneration was rapid indeed: in the twinkling of an eye. Christ was _not_ allowed to escape with his life: 'the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony' existed in his case. But instantly 'the high tragedy' was forgotten! Barabbas, Christ's counterpart, in Mr. Frazer's theory, 'may very well ... have been going about the streets, rigged out in tawdry splendour, with a tinsel crown on his head, and a sham sceptre in his hand, preceded and followed by all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town, hooting, jeering, and breaking coarse jests at his expense, while some pretended to salute his mock majesty, and others belaboured the donkey on which he rode. It was in this fashion, probably, that in Persia the beardless and one-eyed man made his undignified progress through the town, to the delight of ragamuffins and the terror of shopkeepers whose goods he confiscated if they did not hasten to lay their peace-offerings at his feet.'[3]
All this as to Barabbas implies that the 'high tragedy' of the Sacæa was already lost in the 'farce' of the 'degenerate copy,' the ride of the beardless. If so, why did Christ lose his life? If _He_ died solemnly as a recognised god (which Mr. Frazer seems to me to deny in iii. 120 and asserts in iii. 194-197), why is his no less sacred counterpart, Barabbas, also and simultaneously a counterpart of the beardless buffoon?