COUNSEL: No, m'lud.

JUDGE: Are they signed?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud.

JUDGE: Are they in the handwriting of this Paul of Tarsus?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud. They are copies; the originals are lost.

JUDGE: Who was Paul of Tarsus?

COUNSEL: M'lud, he was the apostle to the Gentiles.

JUDGE: You intend to call some of these Gentiles?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud. There are none living.

JUDGE: But you don't mean to, say--how long has this shadowy witness,
Paul of Tarsus, been dead?

COUNSEL: Not two thousand years, m'lud.

JUDGE: Thousand years dead? Can you bring evidence to prove that he was
ever alive?

COUNSEL: Circumstantial, m'lud.

JUDGE: I cannot allow you to read the alleged statements of a
hypothetical witness who is acknowledged to have been dead for nearly
two thousand years. I cannot admit the alleged letters of Paul as
evidence.

COUNSEL: I shall show that the act of resurrection was witnessed by one
Mary Magdalene, by a Roman soldier--

JUDGE: What is the soldier's name?

COUNSEL: I don't know, m'lud.

JUDGE: Call him.

COUNSEL: He is dead, m'lud.

JUDGE: Deposition?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud.

JUDGE: Strike out his evidence. Call Mary Magdalene.

COUNSEL: She is dead, m'lud. But I shall show that she told the
disciples--

JUDGE: What she told the disciples is not evidence.

COUNSEL: Well, m'lud, I shall give the statements of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. Matthew states very plainly that--

JUDGE: Of course, you intend to call Matthew?

COUNSEL: No, m'lud. He is--he is dead.

JUDGE: It seems to me, that to prove this resurrection you will have to
perform a great many more. Are Mark and John dead, also?

COUNSEL: Yes, m'lud.

JUDGE: Who were they?

COUNSEL: I--I don't know, m'lud.

JUDGE: These statements of theirs, to which you allude: are they in
their own handwriting?

COUNSEL: May it please your ludship, they did not write them. The
statements are not given as their own statements, but only as statements
"according to them." The statements are really copies of translations
of copies of translations of statements supposed to be based upon what
someone told Matthew, and--

JUDGE: Who copied and translated, and re-copied and re-translated, this
hearsay evidence?

COUNSEL: I do not know, m'lud.

JUDGE: Were the copies seen and revised by the authors? Did they correct
the proofs?

COUNSEL: I don't know, m'lud.

JUDGE: Don't know? Why?

COUNSEL: There is no evidence that the