"The chorus is really the author. Their act is to repudiate responsibility; this is part of the net of lies in which they entangle the hero, their bull, their victim.

This is what Freud calls their "refined hypocrisy," as they say, "not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name. The hypocrisy of the chorus makes them too an actor (hypocrites)."

The chorus identifies with the hero: he is their vicar; in whose actions they take vicarious pleasure. The hero is created to perform deeds which the community would like to perform but which are forbidden to it.

 Their vicar also in vicarious punishment: their victim, the scapegoat, the lamb which takes away their sins; through whom they obtain vicarious redemption.

"Vicarious satisfaction:" the deed is both theirs and not theirs. On this self-contradiction, this hypocrisy, this illusion.

In vicarious experience there is both identification and distance. The mediator is to keep reality at a distance, to keep the multitude in remote contact with reality.

"Hobbes saw the paradigm in Exodus XX, 18-19: “And all the people saw the thundering, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when they saw it, they removed, and stood far off. And they said unto Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die."
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