BOOK V a Sanh. vii. 5, 10, 11; joined together, not in Jewish belief, but to express the claims of Jesus. No doubt or hesitation could here exist. Solemn, emphatic, calm, majestic, as before had been His silence, was now His speech. And His assertion of what He was, was conjoined with that of what God' would show Him to be, in His Resurrection and Sitting at the Right Hand of the Father, and of what they also would see and own, when He would come in those clouds of heaven that would break over their city and polity in the final storm of judgment. They all heard it-and, as the Law directed when blasphemy was spoken, the High Priest rent both his outer and inner garment, with a rent that might never be repaired. But the object was attained. Moed K. 26 a Christ would neither explain, modify, nor retract His claims. They had all heard it; what use was there of witnesses, He had spoken Giddupha, blaspheming.' Then, turning to those assembled, he put to them the usual question which preceded 2 the formal sentence of death. As given in the Rabbinic original, it is: What think ye, gentlemen? And they answered, if for life," "For life!" and if for Tanchuma death, " For death." But the formal sentence of death, which, if it Pikkudey, ed. Warsh. 6 had been a regular meeting of the Sanhedrin, must now have been Sanh. iii. 7 spoken by the President, was not pronounced." i. p. 132 b 44 C There is a curious Jewish conceit, that on the Day of Atonement the golden band on the High Priest's mitre, with the graven words, 4 Jer. Yoma Holiness unto Jehovah,' atoned for those who had blasphemed. It stands out in terrible contrast to the figure of Caiaphas on that awful night. Or did the unseen mitre on the True and Eternal High-Priest's Brow, marking the consecration of His Humiliation to Jehovah, plead for them who in that night were gathered there, the blind leaders of the blind? Yet amidst so many most solemn thoughts, some press prominently forward. On that night of terror, when all the enmity of man and the power of hell were unchained, even the falsehood of malevolence could not lay any crime to His charge, nor yet any accusation be brought against Him other than the misrepresentation of His symbolic Words. What testimony to Him this solitary false and ill-according witness! Again: They all condemned Him to be worthy of death.' Judaism itself dare not now re-echo this sentence of their Sanhedrists. And yet is Other designations for it are Chillul ha Shem, and, euphemistically, Birchath ha Shem. 2 But this does not seem to me to have been the actual sentence. In regard to the latter, see the formalities detailed in Sanh. iii, 7. סברי מרנן, והם אומרים אם לחיים 3 לחיים ואם למיתה למיתה. The President of the Judges said: 'Such an one, thou... art guilty' (Sanh. iii. 7). INSULTS HEAPED UPON THE CHRIST. XIII 561 it not after all true-that He was either the Christ, the Son of God, CHAP. or a blasphemer? This Man, alone so calm and majestic among those impassioned false judges and false witnesses; majestic in His silence, majestic in His speech; unmoved by threats to speak, undaunted by threats when He spoke; Who saw it all-the end from the beginning; the Judge among His judges, the Witness before His witnesses which was He-the Christ or a blaspheming impostor? Let history decide; let the heart and conscience of mankind give answer. If He had been what Israel said, He deserved the death of the Cross; if He is what the Christmas-bells of the Church, and the chimes of the Resurrection-morning ring out, then do we rightly worship Him as the Son of the Living God, the Christ, the Saviour of men. 1 5. It was after this meeting of the Sanhedrists had broken up, that, as we learn from the Gospel of St. Luke, the revolting insults and injuries were perpetrated on Him by the guards and servants of Caiaphas. All now rose in combined rebellion against the Perfect Man: the abject servility of the East, which delighted in insults on One Whom it could never have vanquished, and had not even dared to attack; that innate vulgarity, which loves to trample on fallen greatness, and to deck out in its own manner a triumph where no victory has been won; the brutality of the worse than animal in man (since in him it is not under the guidance of Divine instinct), and which, when unchained, seems to intensify in coarseness and ferocity; ' and the profanity and devilry which is wont to apply the wretched witticisms of its coarse common sense and the blows of its tyrannical usurpation of power to all that is higher and better, to what it cannot grasp and dare not look up to, and before the shadows of which, when cast by superstition, it cowers and trembles in abject fear! And yet these insults, taunts, and blows which fell upon that lonely Sufferer, not defenceless, but undefending, not vanquished, but uncontending, not helpless, but majestic in voluntary self-submission for the highest purpose of love-have not only exhibited the curse of humanity, but also removed it by letting it descend on Him, the Perfect Man, the Christ, the Son of God. And ever since has every noblehearted sufferer been able on the strangely clouded day to look up, and follow what, as it touches earth, is the black misty shadow, to where, illumined by light from behind, it passes into the golden light—a I Have we advanced much beyond this, when the Parisian democracy can inscribe on its banners such words as Ecrasez VOL. II. 00 l'Infâme '-and, horrible to relate it, BOOK V a Cheth. 37 b, top b St. Luke mantle of darkness as it enwraps us, merging in light up there where its folds seem held together by the Hand from heaven. This is our Sufferer-the Christ or a blasphemer; and in that alternative which of us would not choose the part of the Accused rather than of His judges? So far as recorded, not a word escaped His Lips; not a complaint, nor murmur; nor utterance of indignant rebuke, nor sharp cry of deeply sensitive, pained nature. He was drinking, slowly, with the consciousness of willing self-surrender, the Cup which His Father had given Him. And still His Father-and this also specially in His Messianic relationship to man. We have seen that, when Caiaphas and the Sanhedrists quitted the audience-chamber, Jesus was left to the unrestrained licence of the attendants. Even the Jewish Law had it, that no prolonged death' (Mithah Arichatha) might be inflicted, and that he who was condemned to death was not to be previously scourged. At last they were weary of insult and smiting, and the Sufferer was left alone, perhaps in the covered gallery, or at one of the windows that overlooked the court below. About one hour had passed since Peter's second denial had, so to speak, been interrupted by the arrival of the Sanhedrists. Since then the excitement of the mock-trial, with witnesses coming and going, and, no doubt, in Eastern fashion repeating what had passed to those gathered in the court around the fire; then the departure of the Sanhedrists, and again the insults and blows inflicted on the Sufferer, had diverted attention from Peter. Now it turned once more upon him; and, in the circumstances, naturally more intensely than before. The chattering of Peter, whom conscience and consciousness made nervously garrulous, betrayed him. This one also was with Jesus the Nazarene; truly, he was of them— for he was also a Galilean! So spake the bystanders; while, according to St. John, a fellow-servant and kinsman of that Malchus, whose ear Peter, in his zeal, had cut off in Gethsemane, asserted that he actually recognised him. To one and all these declarations Peter returned only a more vehement denial, accompanying it this time with oaths to God and imprecations on himself. The echo of his words had scarcely died out-their diastole had scarcely returned them with gurgling noise upon his conscience— when loud and shrill the second cock-crowing was heard. There was that in its harsh persistence of sound that also wakened his memory. He now remembered the words of warning prediction which the Lord had spoken. He looked up; and as he looked up, he saw, how up PETER'S REPENTANCE. there, just at that moment, the Lord turned round and looked upon him-yes, in all that assembly, upon Peter! His eyes spake His Words; nay, much more; they searched down to the innermost depths of Peter's heart, and broke them open. They had pierced through all self-delusion, false shame, and fear: they had reached the man, the disciple, the lover of Jesus. Forth they burst, the waters of conviction, of true shame, of heart-sorrow, of the agonies of selfcondemnation; and, bitterly weeping, he rushed from under those suns that had melted the ice of death and burnt into his heart-out from that cursed place of betrayal by Israel, by its High Priest-and even by the representative Disciple. Out he rushed into the night. Yet a night lit up by the stars of promise-chiefest among them this, that the Christ up there-the conquering Sufferer-had prayed for him. God grant us in the night of our conscious self-condemnation the same star-light of His Promises, the same assurance of the intercession of the Christ, that so, as Luther puts it, the particularness of the account of Peter's denial, as compared with the briefness of that of Christ's Passion, may carry to our hearts this lesson: The fruit and use of the sufferings of Christ is this, that in them we have the forgiveness of our sins.' There is not any indication in the text that, as Commentators suppose, Christ was at that moment led bound across the Court; nor, indeed, that till the morning He was at all removed from 563 CHAP. XIII BOOK V a St. John xviii. 29, 30 b St. Luke xxiii. 2 CHAPTER XIV. THE MORNING OF GOOD FRIDAY. (St. Matt. xxvii. 1, 2, 11-14; St. Mark xv. 1-5; St. Luke xxiii. 1-5; St. John xviii. 2838; St. Luke xxiii. 6-12; St. Matt. xxvii. 3-10; St. Matt. xxvii. 15-18; St. Mark xv. 6-10; St. Luke xxiii. 13-17; St. John xviii. 39, 40; St. Matt. xxvii. 19; St. Matt. xxvii. 20-31; St. Mark xv. 11-20; St. Luke xxiii. 18-25; St. John xix. 1-16.) THE pale grey light had passed into that of early morning, when the Sanhedrists once more assembled in the Palace of Caiaphas.' A comparison with the terms in which they who had formed the gathering of the previous night are described will convey the impression, that the number of those present was now increased, and that they who now came belonged to the wisest and most influential of the Council. It is not unreasonable to suppose, that some who would not take part in deliberations which were virtually a judicial murder might, once the resolution was taken, feel in Jewish casuistry absolved from guilt in advising how the informal sentence might best be carried into effect. It was this, and not the question of Christ's guilt, which formed the subject of deliberation on that early morning. The result of it was to bind' Jesus and hand Him over as a malefactor to Pilate, with the resolve, if possible, not to frame any definite charge; but, if this became necessary, to lay all the emphasis on the purely political, not the religious aspect of the claims of Jesus.b? a To us it may seem strange, that they who, in the lowest view of it, had committed so grossly unrighteous, and were now coming on so cruel and bloody a deed, should have been prevented by religious scruples from entering the 'Prætorium.' And yet the student of Jewish casuistry will understand it; nay, alas, history and even common observation furnish only too many parallel instances of unscrupulous scrupulosity and unrighteous conscientiousness. Alike This is so expressly stated in St. John xviii. 28, that it is difficult to understand whence the notion has been derived that the Council assembled in their ordinary council-chamber. 2 Comp. St. Matt. xxvii. 1 with xxvi. 59, where the words and elders' must be struck out; and St. Mark xv. 1 with xiv. 55. |