a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council against Jesus to put Him to death: and when they had bound Him, the whole multitude of them arose, and led Him away, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

tumult, have murdered Jesus, they preferred to fall back on their want of power to put any man to death. They were well aware that, if Christ were put to death by Roman law, it would give to His cause the aspect of sedition: He would seem to be one of the number of false Christs. They had also certain scruples about defiling themselves with blood at the festival; therefore, they determined finally to take Him before the governor. But they knew that a Roman, who cared nothing about questions concerning their law, would not enter into a charge of blasphemy. The Romans had incorporated too many national deities into their own Pantheon, and tolerated too many contending sects, and rival schools of philosophy, to care much what divinity any man honoured, or the contrary; or what religious sentiments he professed. Pilate would only take cognizance of political or criminal charges arising out of religious questions; they decided, therefore, to prefer a charge of conspiracy against the government. This was not exactly a new charge, as some writers suppose, but another aspect of the charge of blasphemy. The Jewish people would never rise against Christ, if only accused of planning insurrection against Rome; they rejected Him because He would not do this. The rulers, therefore, represented to the people that Christ had blasphemed God, and the law, in His religious teaching, and therefore was no Messiah: to the governor, that His peculiar religious views were dangerous; that He had an organization throughout the country, especially in the populous and disaffected districts of the northern division; that He claimed royal honours, and therefore was an enemy to Cæsar. Thus, to a group consisting of Jewish people and Romans, such a group as might surround the governor's tribunal, they preferred the charge, Jesus "hath blasphemed God, and the king."

32. bound him.-(See xxx. b. 2.) These may have been chains, or stronger bonds than before, or with a cord round the neck; for with the daylight, the chances increased of a popular rising in His favour, and of rescue. It was well also to stamp Him as a dangerous malcontent in the eyes of Pilate.

33. the whole multitude.-How carefully is expressed the united action of the priesthood, Rabbis, teachers, and elders, the rulers spiritual and temporal of the nation, against the person and claims of Christ; the very word rendered “delivered” has in it a sense of betrayal.

34. Pontius Pilate.-The character of this man was notorious, as an oppressive and unscrupulous ruler. He held the office of Procurator

Judas hangs himself.

S. Matt. xxvii. 3-10 [Acts i. 18, 19].

Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, when he saw in Palestine, under the Prefect of Syria. His residence was at Cæsarea, it being unadvisable to have the Roman standards, and the religious observances which took place about the governor, introduced into the holy city. Pilate, soon after his entering upon his office, attempted to change this, and nearly caused an insurrection. He was now at Jerusalem on account of the festival, when there was always danger of some outburst of fanaticism. He was capable of violent and sanguinary acts (Luke xiii. 1). On one occasion he seized the Corban (the treasure in the Temple) for public works, being in want of money to construct an aqueduct; but he did not care to lend himself to the Jews in their oppression of Christ. (See App. XVI.; and xxx. f. 13.) He had no interest to serve by Christ's death, and his superstition inclined him not to take part against Him. But in the end he found himself unable to prevail against the Jews: the circumstances of his previous political life formed a strong chain upon his actions; he did not dare to break with the Jews altogether. It is often thus, that the fetters of past errors bind one who would fain do right. Pilate was weak and timid by nature; the Jews knew him well; and they had little doubt of being able to gain from his fears, and want of moral courage, what he was at first inclined to deny to them. He ruled in Judea about four years after the death of Christ; and then was ordered to Rome, to answer the complaints the Jews had made against him, and was deposed, having been in office about ten years. He is said by some to have died at Vienne on the Rhone, by his own hand; others say that he lived for some time in remorse and solitude, upon the mountain, near the Lake of Lucerne, which bears his name, and that he drowned himself at last, in the small and gloomy lake upon its summit. All accounts seem to coincide in the fact of his suicide; though possibly that was occasioned by the worldly trouble of his evil life, rather than by any remorse he felt for the death of Christ, though such a connection would be sure to suggest itself to early writers, who would justly infer the retributive providence of God's justice. Bishop Ellicott's sketch of his character is excellent: "Pilate was a thorough and complete type of the later Roman man of the world. Stern but not relentless; shrewd and world-worn, prompt and practical, haughty, just, and yet, as the early writers correctly perceived, self-seeking and cowardly; able to perceive what was right, but without moral strength to follow it out; the sixth Procurator of Judea stands forth a sad and terrible instance of a man whom the fear of endangered self-interest

that He was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and

drove not only to act against the deliberate convictions of his heart and his conscience, but further, to commit an act of the utmost cruelty, even after those convictions had been deepened by warnings and strengthened by presentiments." Through all time his name goes down to posterity, even on the lips of little children, with the brand, "He suffered under Pontius Pilate."

35. when he saw, etc.-Judas had not anticipated all that followed from his act. This did not, however, at all excuse his sin; for who ever does anticipate all the evil consequences which may result from his particular crime? The theory which represents Judas as expecting that Christ would deliver Himself, or declare Himself as the Messiah, is pleasant and plausible; but it is not supported by any hint in Scripture that Judas entertained such romantic, though mistaken views. There is nothing said of him from which we can receive the impression, that he was one of those who held (with his particular attention to his own advantage) the general principle, that it is allowable to do evil that good may come. Few men are altogether bad; fw but have some better motives mingled even with bad actions; and Judas, so long a disciple, must have had such. But they do not better his character; they must have been founded on a misconception of Christ's mission, resulting from the imperfection of his own devotion. If he intended less than the death of Christ, he was also guilty of treachery towards the rulers. (See xxix. 10.) He truly does not appear in a much more moral guise, if we suppose that he did not imagine that Christ would be put to death, but would be forced to declare Himself; he would thus betray Christ, deceive the rulers, and be himself ready for any grander opportunities for making gain, on the extension of Christ's influence. But, of all passions, avarice is perhaps the most degrading; it is a master passion, and "the root of all evil; and it is quite in accordance with the ordinary characteristics of avarice, that Judas was capable of selling his Lord, and sacrificing, or hazarding, His cause for the most paltry gain. It is equally in accordance with the experience of crime, that he should feel remorse as soon as he had attained success; that he would now give the world to undo the mischief he had done. He awakened to a sense of the enormity of his sin; his petty gains lost their attraction the moment his attention was diverted from their pursuit; and the consequence was remorse, not repentance thorough self-reproach for his folly, not that contrition which turns to God for forgiveness, and gains pardon. He could not bear the misery of his own conscience; he could not lay it upon the Saviour, for his misconception of Christ drove him from Him; and, in the possession of Satan, he hurried to destroy himself. He is the type of many a suicide.

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elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

36. I have sinned.-This seems (as Origen notices) like a momentary impulse of penitence; and Judas certainly tried to undo what he had done; not, however, for Christ's sake, but for his own. He went not to Christ for pardon-he had no faith in His mercy, and atonement-nor to Pilate to clear Him; but went to tell his fellow conspirators, the chief priests, what they were equally aware of, that Christ was innocent. Judas had not been a witness, and therefore his testimony, though important to the world as that of one who had been a constant companion of Christ, had no weight with reference to the proceedings which had been concluded in the Jewish courts. His bargain had been to betray Christ, and he now makes restitution of the bloodmoney; but neither he, nor the chief priests, had then spoken of His guilt. He now declares his sin, and his remorse, for which the rulers care less than nothing. Their heartless reply (and a more fiendlike and cruel repulse never drove sinner to despair) that Christ's innocence, and the traitor's remorse, were nothing to them, but simply his own concern, was the last blow that made the self-accusation of Jndas insupportable to him. The contrast of his remorse with the penitence of Peter is most striking. Peter turned at once to Christ, and met His eye already looking for him; he knew his Master well enough to trust to His pardon. Judas turned away from Christ, and sought comfort from his associates in sin; and finding none, hurried despairingly to die. He is the only man concerning whom the place "prepared for the devil and his angels" is spoken as "his own place." We have seen the loving way in which Christ tried to turn this disciple from his crime. God had foretold the death of Christ; but it was not a necessary part of His plans that the soul of Judas must perish. We cannot at all doubt that, had Judas repented and turned to Christ for pardon, the mercy showed to others would not have been denied to him. Judas was not the one man to whom mercy was denied; the one to whom salvation was impossible; the only one for whom Christ did not die, a failure therefore in the perfection of His redemption. He threw away his own soul in the face of constant and repeated efforts for his salvation. (See xxix. 13.)

37. innocent blood.-The word "blood" is forcible here; it marks the consciousness of Judas that his crime has proved one against the life of Christ.

38. in the temple.-The original specifies that inner part of the Temple in which the priests (now probably engaged in preparation for

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. the Paschal services) officiated, and to which they alone had access; into this, across the barrier, he threw the money. The fact of his doing this seems to imply, that some of those with whom he had made his iniquitous bargain, had already hurried back from the council to their official duties in the temple, which were especially urgent on this day. Dean Milman, however, thinks that the chamber Gazith, the usual place of meeting of the council in the Temple, was the scene of this transaction.

39. hanged himself.—In the Acts of the Apostles (i. 18), it is said that "falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." The usual, and the simplest, explanation of this is, that the rope broke with his weight, and that he fell down some considerable distance, and was ruptured and torn open by the fall. An old tradition says he was crushed and disembowelled by a waggon which happened to be passing; it is quoted by Papias (Fragment III.), who was a hearer of S. John, and also by other ancient writers. It is valuable as affording, if not (as it probably does) the true explanation, yet a means of reconciling the difference between the accounts in S. Matthew and the Acts; showing that, whilst one gives the cause of death, and there leaves the subject, the other alludes to the horrible after-consequences, which were notorious and memorable.

40. not lawful.-Not lawful to put the price of blood into the treasury of God: but not unlawful to strike an infamous bargain for the betrayal of Christ's life; to hold a mock trial, with all its shameful incidents, supported by false witnesses; to condemn falsely to death; and then, with their hands full of all this iniquity and blood-guiltiness, to hurry back to their duties, sacrificial and ministerial, before God. Our Lord's words are true concerning them: "Ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel."

41. strangers. It is noticeable how scrupulous they are about so small a sum; it is worth a consultation, and so they "take counsel," and the result affords a characteristic touch of prejudice and spite. This money is blood-money, and therefore must be put to no good purpose. The season reminds them of the many foreigners in Jerusalem, who have come up to witness the feast of the Jews; some of these die at the holy city, where their very presence is a defilement, and their interment in Jewish ground an offence. But a cemetery, appropriately accursed by its circumstances of purchase, will be most admirably suited to the necessities of Gentile burial; and whereas the Lord would give His life a ransom for His people, they will only allow its price to purchase a burial-place for dead strangers, after that VOL. II.

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