Another class of writers contend that the governor, by this language, merely proposed to them one of the minor penalties which they were already empowered to execute. The objection to the first interpretation is that the Jews would have been delighted to have such power conferred upon them, and would have exercised it; unless it is true, as has been held, that they were desirous of throwing the odium of Christ's death upon the Romans. The second construction is entirely admissible, because it is consonant with the theory that jurisdiction in capital cases had been withdrawn from the Sanhedrin, but that the trial and punishment of petty offenses still remained with it. A third and more reasonable interpretation still is that when Pilate said, "Take ye him and judge him according to your law," he intended to give expression to the hatred and bitterness of his cynical and sarcastic soul. He despised the Jews most heartily, and he knew that they hated him. He had repeatedly outraged their religious feelings by introducing images and shields into the Holy City. He had devoted the Corban funds to unhallowed purposes, and had mingled the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices. In short, he had left nothing undone to humiliate and degrade them. Now here was another opportunity. By telling them to judge Jesus according to their own laws, he knew that they must make a reply which would be wounding and galling to their race and national pride. He knew that they would have to confess that sovereignty and nationality were gone from them. Such a confession from them would be music to his ear. The substance of his advice to the Jews was to exercise their rights to a certain point, to the moment of condemnation; but to stop at the place where their sweetest desires would be gratified with the exercise of the rights of sovereignty and nationality. Modern poetry supports this interpretation of ancient history. "The Merchant of Venice" reveals the same method of heaping ridicule upon a Jew by making him impotent to execute the law. Shylock, the Jew, in contracting a usurious loan, inserted a stipulation that if the debt should not be paid when due, the debtor must allow a pound of flesh to be cut from his body. The debt was not discharged at the maturity of the bond, and Shylock made application to the Doge to have the pound of human flesh delivered to him in accordance with the compact. But Portia, a friend of the debtor, though a woman, assumed the garb and affected the speech of a lawyer in his defense; and, in pleading the case, called tauntingly and exultingly to the Jew: This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are, a pound of flesh: Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh; But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods Are by the laws of Venice confiscate Unto the State of Venice.[70]