[3] _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. pp. 5-16. The precise position of a 'Legatus' like Bassus is rather indistinct. If an officer, he need not have asked Dasius what his 'profession' was.
Mr. Frazer's argument about the Ride of the Beardless One, and the possible traces of a similar burlesque performance preluding to or succeeding the Crucifixion, is not easy to follow. Perhaps, in the text, I may have misconceived my author's meaning. We know the ride of the beardless one in Persia through the work of Hyde, published at Oxford in 1700, and again in 1760. I condense Hyde's account as given by Mr. Frazer.[1] The date of the festivity of the beardless one was 'the first day of the first month, which in the most ancient Persian calendar corresponds to March, so that the date of the ceremony agrees with that of the Babylonian New Year Festival of Zakmuk.' In Mr. Frazer's third volume, the Sacæa synchronise with Zakmuk, though in his second volume the Sacæa are of June-July. We shall suppose him, in the present passage, to adhere to the date of March for the Sacæa. The ride of the beardless one, if so, occurs at the Sacæan date. But Hyde found that some Persians regarded the ride of the beardless one as of recent institution; if they were right, it has no traceable connection with the ancient Sacæa. Nor was there any mock-king concerned in the ride of the beardless one; and there was no probable sacred harlot; still less were there two beardless ones, with two sacred harlots, as in Mr. Frazer's theory of the Sacæa. At all events Hyde says no more about the sacred harlots than Dio Chrysostom or any other ancient author records in the case of the Sacæa. Far from being attired as a king, the beardless buffoon was led about naked, on a horse, mule, or ass, fanning himself and complaining of heat, while people soused him in ice, snow, or cold water. Attended by the household of the king or governor, he extorted contributions. The goods seized between dawn and morning prayers fell to the governor or king; what the buffoon took between the first and second prayers he kept; and then he vanished. The populace might beat him later, if they caught him.
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.