Now if this holiday farce existed, at the Sacæa and at Zakmuk, during the time of the exile, the Jews could not borrow the Sacæan custom of hanging a mock-king, for, on Mr. Frazer's theory (if I do not misunderstand it), the ride of the beardless one came in 'after the serious meaning of the custom' (the hanging of the mock-king) 'had been forgotten.' The ride of the beardless one is 'a degenerate copy of the original'--of the Sacæan whipping, hanging, and scourging a condemned criminal--which had fallen out of use, I presume. Lagarde is not of that opinion: he thinks that the author of the Book of Esther knew and combined the colours of the Persian Magophonia, the Sacæa, and the ride of the beardless. In fact, Dio Chrysostom does not tell us that the Sacæan mock-king rode, whether naked or in splendour, through the city; nor that he made a forced collection, which he was not allowed to live to enjoy. These things may have occurred, but no record proves them. Yet Mr. Frazer has, provisionally, to conjecture that the Sacæan victim had a ride of honour, and made a collection, and that our Lord enjoyed the same privileges. 'The description of His last triumphal ride into Jerusalem reads almost like an echo of that brilliant progress through the streets of Susa which Haman aspired to and Mordecai accomplished.' Our Lord does not appear to have been either naked, like the beardless one, or clad in splendour, like Mordecai, or crowned and robed, or attended by the men-at-arms of Pilate or Herod. He borrowed an ass, with her colt, and the multitude strewed branches and cried, 'Hosanna to the Son of David.' He then 'overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple: 'a raid,' as Mr. Frazer says. But it is not on record that He seized any property, and His motive has been regarded as an objection to commercial transactions in a sacred edifice. It may seem a little arbitrary to connect these acts of Christ, not with what the Sacæan victim, to our knowledge, ever did, but with what was done by the beardless buffoon, his degenerate copy. We have first to guess that the Sacæan mock-king acted like him whom we have to guess to be his late 'degenerate copy;' and then to read into the Gospels an idea derived from accounts of the ancient or modern buffoon. Moreover, while Christ represents the mock-king of the Sacæa in 'the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony'--for _He_ is put to death--his counterpart, Barabbas, has a conjectural ride which is mere 'farce,' like that of the beardless buffoon. Now Mr. Frazer says that, 'after the serious meaning of the Sacæan custom had been forgotten, and the substitute was allowed to escape with his fife, the high tragedy of the ancient ceremony would rapidly degenerate into farce.'[2]