fluities and adornments of which, thank God' our earth and our life upon it are so full. Not only the useful, but the beautiful as well, and all the utterances of a beautiful soul, have a right of existence on their own account.

From a historical point of view the story is valuable as Illustrating the tone of feeling among the disciples: while some of them longed impatiently for their Master to proceed to action, they were all of them more or less completely blind to what was immediately before them. But we are most impressed by the deep feeling of the words of Jesus, "She has embalmed my body for the grave." The perfume of the ointment called up the reflection, "Corpses are anointed so!" and the next moment Jesus thought with a shudder, "Soon I shall be a corpse myself." Under the influence of this idea he gave the gloomy interpretation we have seen to the woman's act. Of course he perfectly understood what she meant by it; but he could only accept it as a tribute to the dead, as the last honor shown to a venerated Master by the lavish hand of fervent love. Before long there would be nothing they could do for him. You will not always have me with you."

His forebodings were not false !

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE LAST EVENING.

MARK XIV. 10-25.1

T was Thursday, the fourteenth of Nisan. At six o'clock

begin. Jesus had looked forward in eager suspense to this day and this hour. Would he live to see it? While every other family or band of friends was celebrating the joyful festival of Israel's great deliverance, would he too, with the Twelve, join in the commemorative meal in the City of the Lord? He longed for it with all his heart, but did not conceal from himself that it was far from certain. Meanwhile he had made the necessary arrangements, that all might at least be in readiness. On such an evening Jerusalem was so

1 Matthew xxvi. 14-29; Luke xxii. 3-30.

crowded that every available place was pressed into service, and it was absolutely necessary to bespeak a room at any rate some days beforehand. To do this safely, Jesus must select a friend upon whose fidelity and secrecy he could absolutely rely; and to prevent any chance of his arrangements becoming known he did not even tell the Twelve what he had done.

In the morning, therefore, they came to him at Bethany and asked him where he wished them to prepare the Passover, in order that they might make the necessary purchases and get every thing ready. They must buy a lamb, and slaughter and cook it; and must provide the wine and unleavened bread, with a dish of bitter herbs (lettuce, endive, parsley, cress, and radishes) and a mess of dried dates, almonds, grapes, nuts, and figs prepared with vinegar and cinnamon. Some of these viands were intended to remind the consumers of the slavery in Egypt, while others had some long-forgotten symbolical meaning in connection with the primitive significance of the feast. Of course the disciples would get every thing ready; but the great question was where they were to meet.

In answer to their inquiries on this point, Jesus commissioned two of the disciples- perhaps Peter and John — to go to the city to a certain man and say, "The Master says, The hour of my death draws near. I will keep the Passover with my disciples in your house.' Such is the account in Matthew; but the message is rather strange and incoherent, and Mark and Luke give it thus: "The Master says, 'Where is the room in which I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?' Then," continues Jesus, "he will show you a large room upstairs, with a table and couches and all that is needful. Make ready for us there." The same Evangelists, however, introduce the message in the following legendary form: "Go to the city, and at the gate a man will meet you with a jug of water on his shoulder; follow him, and whatever house he enters, say to the householder, The Master,'" and so on. This cannot refer to a preconcerted token, which would be unnecessary, since Peter and John must surely have been definitely told to whom they were to go; and if a token had been needed at all this would have been a very bad one, for on the morning of such a busy day water-carriers would be passing to and fro in every direction. Obviously, the Evangelists mean that Jesus had supernatural 1 See vol. i. pp. 278 ff.

knowledge who would meet the disciples at the precise moment of their entry. We need therefore pay no, further attention to this portion of the story; for the fact appears to be simply that tradition has not preserved the name of the householder. And this is also indicated from the impersonal form of expression used by the first Evangelist in speaking of him.

We suspect that Jesus had special reasons for even greater caution than usual. There was a member of the inner circle of his friends in whose bearing there had been a change during the last few days. His fellow-disciples had not noticed it, and perhaps were incapable of doing so; but the quick eye of the Master had detected it, and it had been a painful surprise and a source of growing uneasiness to him. The disciple in question was Judas of Karioth. For some time past his zeal had been cooling, and a certain reserved and uneasy air of hesitation had deepened during the last few hours into a restless and perturbed deportment, which he sought in vain. to hide by a show of greater love and intimacy, and which gave the Master only too good cause for anxiety. Perhaps he had warned him indirectly before, or had taken him aside to speak with him; but now he watched him with a mournful narrowness of observation that nothing could escape, and before evening he felt almost sure that his enemies had a tool in the inner circle of his friends!

And, in truth, the evening or day before Judas had withdrawn in secret from Bethany and gone to Jerusalem to secure an audience from the ecclesiastical authorities, by the instrumentality of the officers of the temple-guard, or by any other means that he could find. When a private interview was granted him, he told the high priests that he was one of the twelve chosen disciples of the Nazarene, and was ready to help them in getting this dangerous leader into their power. It need hardly be said that they greedily caught at his invaluable offer of help; that they showered praises on the new ally who had come of his own accord from so unexpected a quarter, and confirmed him in the intention which they represented as so highly meritorious and acceptable to God. was only the day before that they had determined to wait a week before doing any thing, but now they might hasten the execution of their schemes without prejudice to the cautious policy they had then adopted; for if they could seize him and carry out their further plans at once without any danger of tumult, it would be much better than leaving him at liberty

It

all through the feast; for it was impossible to tell whether he might not cause disturbances in the very week of Passover itself.

So the plan was soon concerted. Judas was to watch for the very earliest opportunity of putting Jesus into the power of the magistrates, and they on their side were to reward his faithful zeal for the honor and service of the Lord by giving him a sum of money.

A traitor among the friends of Jesus! How can we help pausing for a moment and exclaiming, Is it possible?

Our authorities leave us without guidance. The account, which we have ventured to expand a little, is characterized in the original by pathetic brevity: "And Judas Iskariot, one of the Twelve, went to the high priests to betray him to them. And when they heard it they were glad, and promised to give him money; and he sought how best he might put him into their hands." Not an attempt at explanation. And yet what a terrible enigma!

Luke adds that Satan entered the heart of Judas; but no one can call that an explanation. Matthew makes him go to the authorities and say, "What will you give ine to put him into your hands?" upon which they weigh out, or pay him, thirty shekels of silver (something under £4). But it is extremely improbable that Judas was moved by simple love of gain, and opened the conference by attempting to strike his bargain at once; and the paltry sum of thirty shekels, the traditional average price of a slave,1 is borrowed from the prophet Zechariah, when speaking of the miserable wages offered by the people to their shepherd. We are, therefore, left entirely to our own conjectures.

Every attempt to solve the mystery must start from these two facts: Firstly, that Judas, like the Eleven, had joined the Master because he was genuinely moved by him, and had been selected by him, as one of the best and most promising of his disciples, to be admitted and trained in the inner circle of daily intercourse with him. He, too, had left all things for the Master's sake, had been true to him through all vicissitudes; had probably been sent out by him to preach;" had reverenced him as the Messiah that was to be; and had seen a glorious future opened through him to himself and his

1 Exodus xxi. 32.

2 Zechariah xi. 12, 13; see vol. ii. pp. 238, 239; and Matthew xxvii. 7- 10. See pp. 181, 182.

fellow-disciples. And, secondly, he was thoroughly imbued, in common again with his fellow-disciples, with the worldly expectations of his people; and therefore the Master's constant predictions of suffering so far as he took them in, and the failure of his decisive efforts at Jerusalem which became clearer and clearer each day, were a bitter disappointmentnay, a grievance, an enigma, an offence to him.

It seems highly probable, therefore, that he took his fatal step because he considered that he had been grossly deceived in Jesus. The event, he thought, had shown that Jesus was not the Messiah he had given himself out to be. And with his Master's promises all his own prospects had vanished in smoke. And what was he to think of Jesus himself after all these futile pretensions? Perhaps the distinctness with which the Master had announced his death as close at hand, at that supper at Bethany,' gave Judas the last impulse. But why he especially deserted his Master and even went over to his enemies, while all the rest were faithful, it is impossible to say. One might perhaps suppose that, as a Judæan, he was more susceptible of the influence and amenable to the authority of the priests than his Galilæan fellow-disciples were; and that when once he was thrown out of harmony with Jesus his reverence for the high priests reasserted itself, and induced him to look upon his Master as a false prophet whom it was his duty to hand over to the authorities. As regards the factor contributed by his own individual character, we may perhaps assume that he was of a phlegmatic and eminently practical disposition, and that his "plain common sense made him feel less enthusiasm for the Master than the others did; made him realize more fully the unfavorable turn that things had taken, and determine after long hesitation and long deliberation perhaps to change sides before the worst should come! Finally, despair of finding a better solution has sometimes suggested the groundless supposition, intended to lighten the guilt and explain the conduct of the traitor, that a main or subsidiary motive, or at any rate a palliative to his own conscience, was the idea that by putting an end to the Maste:'s indecision and procrastination, and by forcing on the crisis, he would really lay him under an obligation should he turn out in truth to be the Messiah or monarch; for by precipitating the collision with the authorities, he would compel him to declare himself openly, to set a great popular movement on foot at the Passover, to ascend the throne, and establish the kingdom of God.

1 See pp. 406, 407.