conversation between Jesus and his judges.

Compare in the next place the manner in which the public trials of
Socrates and Jesus are conducted. There is order in the Athenian
court; there is anarchy in the Jerusalem court. Witnesses and accusers
walk up to Jesus and slap him on the face, and the judge does not
reprove them for it. The court is in the hands of rowdies and
hoodlums, who shout "Crucify him," and again, "Crucify him." A Roman
judge, while admitting that he finds no guilt in Jesus deserving of
death, is nevertheless represented as handing him over to the mob to
be killed, after he has himself scourged him. No Roman judge could
have behaved as this Pilate is reported to have behaved toward an
accused person on trial for his life. All that we know of civilized
government, all that we know of the jurisprudence of Rome, contradicts
this "inspired" account of a pretended historical event. If Jesus was
ever tried and condemned to death in a Roman court, an account of it
that can command belief has yet to be written.

Again, when we come to consider the random, disconnected and
fragmentary form in which the teachings of Jesus are presented, we
cannot avoid the conclusion that he is a _dramatis persona_ brought
upon the stage to give expression not to a consistent, connected and
carefully worked-out thought, but to voice with many breaks and
interruptions, the ideas of his changing managers. He is made to play
a number of contradictory roles, and appears in the same story in
totally different characters.

One editor or compiler of the Gospel describes Jesus as an ascetic and
a mendicant, wandering from place to place, without a roof over his
head, and crawling at eventide into his cave in the Mount of Olives.