had resolved to take the matter into their own hands they would probably have done it with impunity, but there was one grave reason to prevent their doing so. They had condemned Jesus on a charge of blasphemy, the penalty for which was stoning. This in their eyes was too honourable a death for Him to die. Nothing would satisfy them Tacit. Hist. short of crucifixion 5-the Roman punishment reserved for slaves or their worst criminals. Their only course thereupon was to deliver Him up to the civil power. Its chief representative, Pontius Pilate, was then at Jerusalem. It was Passover-time, and his presence was indispensable for the good order of the populace. iv. II. Juven. Sat. vi. 219. S. Matt. xxvii. 3-10. The Sanhedrists went in a body with the Prisoner, hoping no doubt to overawe the Governor by their number and the weight of their office. It was most probably as Jesus was being conducted from the council-chamber to Pilate's residence, that Judas realised that He was sentenced to death. Before then the next stage of the trial begins, we shall do well to see what effect it produced upon him. When once the excitement of the arrest was over, and his part had been played, he was left to his own reflections. And in the darkness of the night the awful truth of his deed of shame must have forced itself upon his conscience, and many visions have come up before him-visions of the past, so full of unspeakable love and tenderness-visions of the future, so big with doom and retribution. No doubt the Evil One buoyed him up with hopes-hopes that were only destined to mock and increase his misery. Perhaps he persuaded him that his remorse was wasted, for even at the last the Divine power might be exercised, and Jesus be saved from the hands of His enemies, and so the traitor's act would ultimately redound to His greatness. But now, to his unutterable dismay, he realised that Jesus was condemned, and on the point of being delivered up to the Roman Governor, and he was seized with horror. Instead however of taking the only step that could possibly have helped him : instead of hurrying at once to His Lord, and flinging himself upon His mercy for pardon and forgiveness, he fled to the chief priests, who had shared with him the guilt of the betrayal, and implored them to undo the awful crime. "I have sinned," he cries, "in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." But he might as well have cried to the stones of the Temple, for they had no word of comfort to give him he had accomplished their purpose, and had been paid for his work, and might take the conse quences. "Whichever way he looked was hell: Himself was hell." In a wild moment of distracting frenzy his life was closed by a suicidal hand—that life of which alone it may ever be said without fear of contradiction that there is no hope. "It were good for that man if he had never been born." NOTES. 1 The reading ἀπήγαγον however is adopted for ἀνήγαγον in the Revised Version. The fact that Judas, on hearing that the sentence was pronounced, flung the money down in the Temple, seems to favour the view that the Chamber was 'Haggazith," not the "Booths." 2 In later times his Presidency was confined to legal and ritual cases only. 3 There is a tradition that heralds were sent forth for forty days before our Lord's execution, inviting witnesses to speak in His favour; and finding none, they hanged Him on the eve of the Passover. This is absent from the ordinary editions of the Talmud, but is found in the unmutilated edition published at Amsterdam, 1645. Cf. Talm. Bab. Synhed. 43 a. Such a supposition, however, is contradicted by the whole proceedings at the trial. 4 Some have thought they merely meant that it was illegal to do so at the Passover; but it is an unnatural explanation of the words. Pilate assumes that the power resides with himself. S. John xix. 10; cf. note in Westcott on S. John xviii. 31. 5 Crucifixion was common among Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Assyrians, and many other nations. Among the Jews there was a kind of crucifixion, in which the body was tied to a stake after death-Deut. xxi. 22, 23,-and this was held in great horror because of the saying, "He that is hanged is accursed of God." 6 His usual residence was at Cæsarea. He had made himself so unpopular in Jerusalem by his disregard of Jewish customs and prejudices that he generally kept away from the Holy City. It is doubtful whether he resided, when at Jerusalem, in the Fortress of Antonia, or in the Herodian Palace, on the northwestern corner of the Upper City. Josephus, Wars, i. 21. 1, and v. 4. 4. |