Examples of prompt and keen retort are not confined to the Old Testament.
When we turn to the New Testament, we find additional illustrations.
When Paul was making his defence before the Council, he said, "Men and
brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day."
This declaration of innocence offended the High Priest Ananias, and he
commanded those who stood by, to smite the speaker on the mouth. This
raised the indignation of Paul, and with the swiftness of an arrow he
transfixed the Priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for
sittest thou to judge me after the law and commandest me to be smitten
contrary to the law?" This was understood as a bolt of invective by those
who heard it, for they asked in alarm, "Revilest thou God's High Priest?"
The answer of Paul was a still more subtle sarcasm: "_I wist not,
brethren, that he was the High Priest_." There was nothing in the conduct
of the man to betoken the dignity of his office. God's High Priest must
surely be fair and impartial. God's High Priest would never counsel
violence. The mistake, Paul would imply, was perfectly natural and
excusable.
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.