torture and sacrifice his life without resistance in the
conviction that he would presently rise again in glory, you are
equally bound to admit that, far from behaving like a coward or a
sheep, he showed considerable physical fortitude in going through
a cruel ordeal against which he could have defended himself as
effectually as he cleared the moneychangers out of the temple.
"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild" is a snivelling modern invention,
with no warrant in the gospels. St. Matthew would as soon have
thought of applying such adjectives to Judas Maccabeus as to
Jesus; and even St. Luke, who makes Jesus polite and gracious,
does not make him meek. The picture of him as an English curate
of the farcical comedy type, too meek to fight a policeman, and
everybody's butt, may be useful in the nursery to soften
children; but that such a figure could ever have become a centre
of the world's attention is too absurd for discussion; grown men
and women may speak kindly of a harmless creature who utters
amiable sentiments and is a helpless nincompoop when he is called
on to defend them; but they will not follow him, nor do what he
tells them, because they do not wish to share his defeat and
disgrace.


WAS JESUS A MARTYR?

It is important therefore that we should clear our minds of the
notion that Jesus died, as some are in the habit of declaring,
for his social and political opinions. There have been many
martyrs to those opinions; but he was not one of them, nor, as
his words show, did he see any more sense in martyrdom than
Galileo did. He was executed by the Jews for the blasphemy of