1875.] Human Levitation. 45 
of this tremendous spell. The only chance of remedy for 
the awful calamity, they agreed, was if some orthodox 
rabbi could, by similar trespass, obtain the same power, and 
then display it before the increasing multitudes now follow- 
ing the Nazarene, to convince them that such marvels were 
no credentials for the divinity he claimed. At this point, 
udas, the hero of these legends, and whom they place in a 
widely different social rank from what the evangelists seem 
to imply, for he is himself a member of the Sanhedrin, comes 
forward. He is an expert magician (or what would now be 
called a highly-developed ‘‘ physical medium”’), and he 
would undertake this patriotic task, were it not for the sin 
involved. They immediately all offer to relieve him of the 
sin; for the idea pervades these Hebrew tales, that any guilt 
whatever can be transferred to a voluntary substitute. 
** Upon us be all the guilt !” cry the whole council, if Judas 
will but take the trouble, dangers, and glory of the enter- 
prise. The means are then described by which he pene- 
trates the holy-of-holies, and gets out again, with the magic- 
ally guarded secret. He proceeds to the Galilean crowd, 
and repeats all the miracles of their Master, decidedly more 
extravagant as here told than in any of the gospels ; for each 
of the contending thaumaturgi invites the people to bring 
him cripples or invalids of any kind, and he will heal 
them ; lepers, and he will cleanse; blind, and he will give 
them sight; or corpses, and he will revive them. And to 
try the last, they in each case open an unknown tomb, and 
bring nothing but dry bones; which have to be endowed 
first with flesh and then with life, as in Ezekiel’s vision. 
The contest being a drawn one, the rivals now repair to 
Jerusalem, where, almost in the words of the fourth gospel, 
Jesus is made to say: “‘ Nunc autem ascendam ad Patrem 
meum czlestem, et sedebo ad dextram ejus; idque oculis 
vestris intuebimini. Tu verd, Juda, illuc non pertinges. 
Continuo enuntiat Jesus Nomen immensum, venitque ventus 
et eum stitit inter coelum et terram. Nihil moratus Juda et 
ipse Nomen eloquitur, atque hunc quoque ventus inter 
cceelum et terram suspendit. Sicque ambo per aéreas plagas 
circumvolitabant. Stupebant ista summopere omnes in- 
tuentes. Juda autem, prolato rursus Nomine, Jesum in- 
vadit, in terram illum deturbaturus: atque sic invicem 
colluctabantur.”” Now have we not here, and in the gospel 
accounts of the temptation on the summit (ro zrepvywov) of the 
Temple, a degree of coincidence in two opposite parties’ 
traditions, inexplicable unless both recorded a real event? 
In each, a preeminent adversary provokes a contest with 
