were threatened by the person of the Nazarene, so that no difficulty might arise when the Roman governor was applied to for the necessary confirmation of the sentence of death. In a word, the high priest wished to draw from Jesus some declaration concerning his Messianic dignity. The judges had not any doubt that he had intended to assume this dignity, but they had no legal proof of the fact. His first entry into Jerusalem had been accompanied with a sort of Messianic demonstration. It was notorious that some, or perhaps many, of his followers cherished the expectation of seeing him found the kingdom and ascend the throne of the Messiah. A reference to the same expectation might also be traced in that presumptuous saying about the temple. But no one present had ever heard him say, in so many words, that he laid claim to the title and rank of Messiah, though it was easy to fer as much from his bearing, and still more from his preaching, especially in recent days. The question was how to draw an unequivocal declaration from him.

The president's adroitness was equal to the occasion. He knew enough of human nature to find means of forcing his prisoner to answer. "If you are the Messiah, tell us so!" he cried. Jesus could not remain silent after that. It was the high priest, the representative at that moment of the whole people, who called upon him to give an account of his pretensions. No one had a better right to make the demand; and Jesus could neither neglect it nor simply meet it with an unqualified affirmative. "If I told you, you would not believe me; and if I asked you, you would not answer me," he replied with quiet dignity. But Caiaphas was not yet satisfied, and pressed his advantage by resuming in a solemn tone, with the usual Jewish formula for taking an oath under an invocation of the All-seeing Witness and the Holy Judge: " In the presence of the living God I call upon you to say plainly whether you are the Messiah, the Son of God, or not!" There was a single moment of breathless silence. All eyes were fixed on Jesus in suspense. Then his voice rang proud and clear through the hall: You have said it! And henceforth you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Omnipotence, see him coming with the clouds of heaven!" Then the high priest rent his clothes, as was customary on hearing blasphemy, exposing his naked breast, and cried, with bitter triumph and unmasked fury in his voice: 'Blasphemy! What do we want with any further witnesses? 2 Psalm cx. 1; Daniel vii. 13.

66

1 Luke xxii. 67, 68.

You have heard his blasphemy upon the very spot! What think you?" Then rose on every side one cry of, "He must die!"

Sentence was passed. The trial was over. The Nazarene, as a blasphemer, was condemned to the punishment prescribed by the law for the false prophet.1

Upon this the meeting of the Council was dissolved or adjourned till the early morning, while the prisoner, now condemned, was put under careful guard. They were dark hours that succeeded! It was reported afterwards that Jesus was exposed to the coarse license of the court attendants. Matthew, partly confirmed by Mark, declares that the inembers of the Sanhedrim themselves subjected him to the extreme of vulgar insult; but this is hardly credible. The dependants of the high priest practised but too well the lesson given in the Law, which bade them not to fear or reverence a lying prophet. One would spit in his face, while another struck him with his open hand; and others again took occasion, by the crime for which he was condemned, to drive their cruel sport with him as a false prophet, tying a cloth across his eyes and then striking him with their fists and saying, "If you are a prophet, tell us who it was that struck you!

Jesus bore it all without a complaint and without a threat. Though reviled, he reviled not again. He opened not his mouth, but was like a lamb that is led to the slaughter-house, like a sheep that is dumb before her shearers.3

Though far from certain, this account of the course of the trial seems to us the most probable. But the declaration of Jesus that, before the very eyes of his judges, he would immediately be glorified with heavenly splendor and return to earth, can hardly be genuine as it stands. But neither can his answer to the high priest's adjuration have consisted in a simple affirmative; for the contrast between his claims and his position, between his royal title and the sentence that was all but passed, would force him to give some emphatic utterance to his confidence in himself and in his dignity, as a protest against the scorn which his outward circumstances would seem to justify. He may have said that his judges would themselves behold him as the Messiah, since their condemna

VOL. III.

1 Deuteronomy xiii., xviii. 19–22.

2 Deuteronomy xviii. 22.

8 See Isaiah 1. 6, liii. 7; 1 Peter ii. 23; vol. ii. p. 421.
4 Compare pp. 315, 334, 335.

19

tion was itself the pledge of the establishment of the kingdo of God, and that they would see that kingdom come to their own terror should they not repent. Some such short declaration he may have made; but the words which our Gospels give are hardly intelligible, for we are not at liberty to take them figuratively and understand them to signify the spread of Messiah's spiritual power upon earth, for instance. Such a conception is quite modern, and is foreign to the New Testament, where sitting on God's right hand and coming upon the clouds must always be taken literally. Now taken thus and introduced by "henceforth," this announcement of a very speedy return in glory would be quite natural towards the end of the apostolic age, when expectation was ever rising to a higher and a higher strain, and men exclaimed: "The Lord is near! He is coming quickly! The Judge is standing at the door!" 1 But on the lips of Jesus, still on earth, still in life, and standing there before his judges, it is quite out of place.

2

Of still greater interest is the question what the grounds of the condemnation really were. In the first place, what was the exact meaning of the crime of blasphemy? On this point we may gain a satisfactory answer by considering the evidence given about "destroying the temple," the subsequent mockery to which Jesus was exposed as a false prophet, and the final charge of "seducing the people." The last shade of doubt as to the meaning of the word "blasphemy" is removed by the account of Stephen's trial, which closely resembles that of Jesus, and in which the expression "blasphemous words against Moses and against God" is explained to mean, "words against the temple and the Law." It further appears that Stephen's "blasphemy" consisted in the statement that when the kingdom of God was established Jesus would destroy the temple and change the institutions of Moses. Blasphemy, then, was teaching at variance with and in direct contradiction of the only true and established religion. It was a similar conception to that of "heresy" in Christendom. It was an attack upon the infallible truth revealed by God, an attempt to draw away the people from the institutions of Moses and the true faith. Jesus stood before the Sanhedrim as the Protestants subsequently stood before the Inquisition.

1 Revelation xxii. 10, 12, 20; James v. 8, 9, et seq.

2 Luke xxiii. 2, 5; Matthew xxvii. 63.

8 Acts vi. 11, 13, 14.

If we go on to ask the bearing of this upon the condemna tion of Jesus for claiming to be the Messiah, it must be admitted that the answer is not clear. For a man to consider and proclaim himself the future Messiah might well appear to the Sadducees fanaticism and political treason; and for Jesus to do so without any thing whatever to substantiate his claim might brand him as a false prophet in the eyes of the Pharisees, but it was no blasphemy. In the eyes of his enemies, however, the guilt of his desperate attempt to reform the national religion was aggravated by his pretensions to the title of Messiah, which brought out the full danger of his schemes, and showed how thoroughly in earnest he was with his shameful plans, and how completely he considered himself personally qualified to carry them out. This is why Caiaphas was so anxious to have his suspicions confirmed upon this point, and in lack of direct testimony determined to extract the declaration from Jesus himself.

Finally, if called upon to say whether Jesus was justly or unjustly condemned, we should answer that from the point of the Law that is to say, on the principles of Israelitish jarisprudence he was guilty. We must remember that eligious freedom was not dreamed of in the Jewish State any more than it subsequently was in the States of the Church, for instance, as long as the chief priest of Rome had temporal jurisdiction. Indeed, before the French Revolution there was hardly such a thing as religious freedom anywhere, and for how short a time have Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia known it! Now Jesus had most certainly come into open antagonism with the Jewish religion, with the essential principle and with many special utterances of the Law, with the established practice of the temple service, with the inviolable institutions of tradition, and with the sacred persons of the priests and leaders. From the Jewish point of view, accordingly, that is to say, on the assumption of the infallible, absolutely divine character of the revelation, of the Scripture, of the Law, Jesus deserved condign punishment. Any ecclesiastical religion resting upon a revelation would have condemned him to death as a blasphemer.

The real guilt lay with the religious prejudice, the orthodoxy, with which Jesus had come into collision, and with which at last he had closed in a struggle for life and death.

We left Peter in the courtyard, from which there was an ascent of several steps into the judgment-hall, - warming

himself at the fire with some of the attendants; but when the members of the Council left the palace to snatch a few hours' rest he was no longer there, so that if Jesus was

led there after his condemnation he must have found himself without a single friend.

ciple, then?

What had become of his dis

He had not considered the danger to which he was exposing himself, or whether he was really able to face it. This appeared but too soon. As he stood there assuming the air of an indifferent spectator as best he could, he excited the attention of one of the female servants of Caiaphas, who looked hard at him, went up to him, and said, "Why! you are one of the followers of Jesus of Galilee!" Perhaps it was only a chance impression; perhaps she had some reason for it, but in any case Peter was taken quite by surprise. Every one looked at him; and he, utterly unnerved and fearing he might be driven out with ignominy, or perhaps made a prisoner, answered, scarcely knowing what he said, "I don't know what you mean!"

But if he expected to escape in this way he was mistaken. Attention was now fixed upon him. Presently he moved towards the porch, — for though as yet he had come to no true sense of his own cowardice and faithlessness, he was no longer at his ease. Here the same or another girl noticed him, and said to the people standing by, "He is one of that Nazarene's company; and Peter, thinking it was now too late to retreat, repeated the denial more emphatically: “I do not know the man!" Then, to carry the matter off, he began to speak to them about other things; but he only succeeded in exposing himself, for his Galilæan accent at once betrayed him, — and several of them turned upon him with the words, "Well, but you are one of them, for we can tell by your talk that you come from Galilee!" Then Peter

was driven to desperation, and said, with an oath and an imprecation on himself if it were not true, "I do not know him!"

The servants shrugged their shoulders in contempt, while Peter staggered through the passage and out of the gate, burning with shame and confusion. Out there in the stillness of night he came to himself, and knew that he had shamefully denied his Master! Fool that he had been, in his reckless self-confidence and blindness, to fling those earnest warnings of his Master to the wind! And now he had denied him again and yet again!