If they did, by Mr. Frazer's own statement the killing might be
thought that of a vulgar malefactor,[9] and could not cast on all or on
any one of the victims a halo of divinity.
Finally, our own history, in the case of the Earl of Atholl (who
pretended to the crown at the murder of James I. of Scotland) and
in the case of Sir William Wallace (who was accused of saying that
he would be crowned in Westminster Hall), proves that pretenders to
royalty have been mocked by being indued with symbols of royalty.
Wallace was crowned at his trial with laurel; Atholl was tortured to
death with a red-hot iron crown. The Victim of Calvary was accused of
aiming at a kingdom, and, like Wallace and Atholl, was crowned--with
thorns. The preliminary scourging is illustrated by the tyranny of
Verres in Sicily.
May we not conclude that Mr. Frazer's 'light bridges' of hypothesis
have 'broken down'?[10]
'The importance and interest of the subject' have induced me to examine
the hypotheses. But it was needless.
One point has been clear from the beginning. Even if the Sacæan victims
were _originally_ supposed to be gods, they could not bequeath a halo
of divinity to Christ, unless, as late as the reign of Tiberius, their
own godhead was still commonly recognised. Now it certainly was _not_
recognised. When Mr. Frazer published the first edition of his 'Golden
Bough,' he doubted that the Sacæan victim could, as civilisation
advanced, be identified with a god. But, before publishing his second
edition, Mr. Frazer evolved his theory of the origin or partial origin
of the belief in the divinity of Christ, as inherited from the criminal
slaves at the Sacæa. In his second edition, therefore, the godhead of
the Sacæan victims is usually regarded as commonly recognised; though
Mr. Frazer had doubted the possibility of this in his first, and
preserves the doubt in his second edition. It is needless to say more.
Mr. Frazer, in vol. iii. 120, had already shaken his own theory as
given in vol. iii. 195-198.[11] I might have contented myself with
comparing these two passages, but in the interest of the nascent
science of religion it seemed desirable to point out what I am
constrained to think the errors of method that now prevail. In the
following essay criticism is applied to an hypothesis with which modern
orthodoxy has no concern.
[1] _G. B_. iii. 195-197.
[2] _G. B_. ii. 192.
[3] _G. B_. iii. 197.
[4] _G. B_. iii. 120.
[5] The passage in which Mr. Frazer thus appears to demolish his
own theory represents his opinion before his theory was evolved. It
appeared in his first edition, but he retains it in his remodelled work.
[6] _G. B_. iii. 193.
[7] _G. B_. iii. 195.
[8] See the contradictory attempts to get out of this difficulty in
iii. 189.
[9] _G. B_. iii. 120.
[10] _G. B_. i. xv. xvi.
[11] See also Appendix C, pp. 303-304.