VIII AGNOSTICISM: A KEJOINDER 279 



founded on solid historical proofs, I must beg leave 

 to express a diametrically opposite conviction. 



What do we find when the accounts of the 

 events in question, contained in the three Synoptic 

 gospels, are compared together? In the oldest, 

 there is a simple, straightforward statement which, 

 for anything that I have to urge to the contrary, 

 may be exactly true. In the other two, there is, 

 round this possible and probable nucleus, a mass 

 of accretions of the most questionable character. 



The cruelty of -death by crucifixion depended 

 very much upon its lingering character. If there 

 were a support for the weight of the body, as not 

 unfrequently was the practice, the pain during 

 the first hours of the infliction was not, necessarily, 

 extreme ; nor need any serious physical symptoms, 

 at once, arise from the wounds made by the nails 

 in the hands and feet, supposing they were nailed, 

 which was not invariably the case. When 

 exhaustion set in, and hunger, thirst, and nervous 

 irritation had done their work, the agony of the 

 sufferer must have been terrible ; and the more 

 terrible that, in the absence of any effectual 

 disturbance of the machinery of physical life, it 

 might, be prolonged for many hours, or even days. 

 Temperate, strong men, such as were the ordinary 

 Galilean peasants, might live for several days on 

 the cross. It is necessary to bear these facts in 

 mind when we read the account contained in the 

 fifteenth chapter of the second gospel. 



