Chapter LX: Section 5

THE DESIGN OF THIS RECOMMENDATION JUSTIFIED.

But the Apostles--says somebody--what are we to think of the Apostles? If by Paul a _perjury_ was thus committed, were they not--all of them who joined in this recommendation--so many _suborners_ of this same perjury?

The answer will, it is hoped, by most readers at least, have been anticipated.--Yes or no, if so it be, that it was their expectation that he would commit it: no, assuredly; if it were their expectation--their assured expectation--that he would _not_ commit it: that, even in his person, even after all they had witnessed in him, the union of profligacy and rashness would never soar to so high a pitch. The necessity they were under, of ridding themselves of his presence was extreme:--of ridding _themselves_--and, what was so much more, their _cause_. Stay in the same town, and in the same company with them, he could not,--without being either their known _adversary_, or their known _associate_. Their known _adversary_ he could not be, without either continuing himself to be an object of universal horror, or else rendering _them_ objects of horror, to the whole body of their disciples. Their _associate_ he could not be, without involving _them_ in that odium, with which he himself was, by the confession of his own adherent and historiographer, covered. Under these circumstances, not to speak of the cause of mankind, for saving _themselves_ and _their_ cause from destruction,--what course could they take, so gentle, and at the same time, to all appearance, so surely effectual, as the proposing to him this test?--a test, which no man could rationally expect, that any man in his circumstances would take.