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Lu. xxii. 60.

dently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow also was Jerusalem. with him, for he is a Galilean".

And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest.
Mar.xiv.70. And they that stood by, said again to Peter,
Mt.xxvi.73. Surely thou also art one of them,

Mar. xiv.70. for thou art a Galilean: and thy speech agreeth thereto,
Mt.xxvi.73. for thy speech bewrayeth thee.

74. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know
not the man ;

Mar.xiv.71. I know not this man of whom ye speak.

Lu. xxii. 60.

And immediately while he yet spake, the cock crew;
Mar.xiv.72. the second time the cock crew.
Lu. xxii. 61.

And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter; and
Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how that he had
said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me
thrice.

Mar. xiv.72. Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.
And when he thought thereon, he wept;

Mt.xxvi.75. he went out and wept bitterly.

MATT. XXVI. part of ver. 73, 74, 75.

73 And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter

74 -And immediately the cock crew

75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

MARK XIV. part of ver. 70, 71, 72.

70 And a little after-Surely thou art one of them-
71 But be began to curse and to swear-

72-And Peter called to mind the word which Jesus said
unto bim-

9 Pfeiffer, in the last treatise of his Dubia Vexata, endeavours to prove that the common dialect, both of Galilee and Judea, was not Hebrew, but Syro-Chaldaic, or Aramaic, mixed with Greek, and that they differed only in accent and pronunciation. The learned men, of both countries, understood and conversed in pure Hebrew. The Galilean dialect consisted in a corrupt and confused pronunciation of the common Syro-Chaldaic; and this dialect was the vernacular language of the Apostle.

According to Lightfoot, y for (which change indeed is frequent in the Aramaic dialect, and by no means peculiar to the Galilean,) for 1, n for 7, and they also frequently changed the gutturals. Among other instances of the effects of these changes, he mentions the following amusing circumstance:-A certain woman intended to say to the judge, My Lord, I had a picture, which they stole, and it was so great, that if you had been placed in it, your feet would not have touched the ground. But her words, from the dialect she used, admitted this interpretation-Sir Slave, I had a beam, and they stole thee away; and it was so great, that if they bad hung thee on it, thy feet would not have touched the ground.

Schoetgen (a), among others, mentions, Brescith Rabba, sect. xxvi. fol. 26. 3. xx unb paing abban In Galilæa serpentem,' qui alias n dicitur, vocant " ut pro usurpat &.

Horne and Pfeiffer, as well as the two last mentioned authorities, have collected similar instances.

(a) Schoetgen, vol. i, p. 235.

Mark Xv. 1.

SECTION VIII.

Christ is taken before the Sanhedrim, and condemned. MATT. xxvii. 1. MARK XV. part of ver. 1. LUKE Xxii. 66. to the end.

And straightway in the morning,

Lu.xxii. 66, as soon as it was day,

Mark xv. 1. the Chief Priests held a consultation with the elders
Mat.xxvii.1. of the people,

Mark xv. .1. and the Scribes, and the whole council,

Mat.xxvii.1. [and] took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.
And they led him into their council,

Lu.xxii. 66.

67. saying, Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto
them, If I tell you, you will not believe.

68.

69.

70.

71.

Mat.xxvii.3.

And if I also ask you, you will not answer me, nor let me go.

Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of
the power of God.

Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God?
And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

And they said, What need we any further witness? for
we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.

MATT. XXVii. part of ver. 1.

1 When the morning was come, all the Chief Priests and elders

LUKE Xxii. part of ver. 66.

66 the elders of the people, and the Chief Priests, and the Scribes came together

SECTION IX.

Judas declares the Innocence of Christ".

MATT. XXVii. 3-10.

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw
that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought
again the thirty pieces of silver to the Chief Priests and
elders,

4. Saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the in-
nocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see
thou to that.

5. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple,
and departed, and went and hanged himself ".

10 I am induced to place this section here, because it does not
appear that the Sanhedrim returned to their council chamber
in the temple after our Lord had been condemned by Pilate, and
we must therefore refer the repentance of Judas to his condem-
nation by the Sanhedrim in the temple.

The account of the death of Judas is attended with some difficulty. The manner in which Weston reconciles St. Matthew and St. Luke, seems to be the most preferable. St. Matthew says, aýykaro, "he hanged himself," and St. Luke that he πρηvǹs yεvóμevoç, falling headlong, as we have translated it,

Jerusalem.

Mt.xxvii.6.

7.

8.

9.

And the Chief Priests took the silver pieces, and said, Jerusalem. 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.

Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy
the prophet 12, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of
silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the
children of Israel did value;

10. And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord ap-
pointed me.

(Acts i. 18.) burst asunder in the midst, and his bowels gushed.
out. Some suppose Judas to have fallen on his face after hang-
ing, by the breaking of the rope. Others, that he was choked
with grief, and burst asunder. Weston renders the passage,
Matt. xxvii. 5. he strangled himself, and the rope failing, he
fell headlong, and his bowels gushed out. This solution ap-
pears to be more satisfactory than any other. See Weston apud.
Bowyer's Critical Conjectures, p. 128, 129. See also the refer-
ences in Archbishop Newcome's note, and the commentators.

12 The words quoted bere are not in the prophet Jeremiah,
but in Zech. xi. 13. But St. Jerom says, that a Hebrew, of the
sect of the Nazarenes, shewed him this prophecy in a Hebrew
apocryphal copy of Jeremiah; but probably they were inserted
there, only to countenance the quotation here. One of Col-
bert's, a MS. of the eleventh century, has Zaxapiov, Zecha-
riab; so has the later Syriac in the margin, and a copy of the
Arabic, quoted by Bengel. In a very elegant and correct MS.
of the Vulgate, in the possession of Dr. A. Clarke, written
in the fourteenth century, Zachariam is in the margin, and Je-
rimiam is in the text; but the former is written by a later hand.
Jeremiah is wanting in two MSS. the Syriac, later Persic, two
of the Itala, and in some other Latin copies. It is very likely
that the original reading was διὰ τοῦ προφήτου, and the name of
no prophet mentioned. This is the more likely, as Matthew
often omits the name of the prophet in his quotations. See
chap. i. 22. ii. 5. 15. xiii. 35. xxi. 4. Bengel approves of the
omission.

It was an ancient custom among the Jews, says Lightfoot, to divide the Old Testament into three parts; the first, beginning with the law, is called the Law: the second, beginning with the Psalms,,was called the Psalms; the third, beginning with the prophet in question, was called Jeremiah: thus, then, the writings of Zechariah and the other prophets being included in that division that began with Jeremiah, all quotations from it would go under the name of this prophet. If this be admitted, it solves the difficulty at once. Lightfoot quotes Bava Bathra, and Rabbi David Kimchi's preface to the prophet Jeremiah, as his authorities; and insists that the word Jeremiah is perfectly correct, as standing at the head of that division from which the evangelist quoted, and which gave its denomi- nation to all the rest (a.)

(a) Vide Dr. A. Clarke's Comment. in loc. Lightfoot's Harmony, Pitman's 8vo. edit. vol. ii. p. 157, 158. and the note on the Prophecies of Zechariah, in the second volume of the Arrangement of the Old Tes

tament.

Lu. xxiii. 1.

SECTION X.

Christ is accused before Pilate, and is by Him also
declared to be Innocent.

MATT. xxvii. 2. and 11-14.

MARK XV. 1—5. LUKE

xxiii. 1-4. JOHN Xviii. 28-38.

And the whole multitude of them arose,

Mark xv. 1. and bound Jesus,

Mat.xxvii.2.

And when they had bound him, they led him away

Jo. xviii. 28. from Caiaphas, unto the hall of judgment:

Mat.xxvii.2. and delivered him unto Pontius Pilate the governor.
Jo. xviii. 28. and it was early; and they themselves went not into the
judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they
might eat the passover.

29. Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accu-
sation bring you against this man?

31.

30. They answered and said unto him, If he were not a
malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.
Then said Pilate unto them, Take_ye him, and judge
him according to your law. The Jews therefore said
unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death:
That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he
spake, signifying what death he should die 13.

32.

13 Much discussion has taken place on the question, whether
the Jews, in the time of our Lord, retained the power of life
and death. Lightfoot, Dr. Lardner, Doddridge, &e. have stre-
nuously defended the negative; Biscoe is the principal author,
of late date, who has adopted the affirmative.

Two kinds of arguments have been used, to prove that the
Jews were deprived of the power of inflicting capital punish-
ments: one taken from the Roman laws, or the nature of the
Roman government; the other from certain passages in the
New Testament.

The judge, according to the Roman laws, exerted in criminal
affairs the Imperium merum; in civil causes, Imperium mix-
tum. Proconsuls and presidents of provinces, as Pilate was,
possessed both these powers. They were the representatives of,
and next to, the emperor, in their respective provinces.

The arguments by which the position is defended, that the Jews had not the power of life and death at this time, are thus proposed, and answered by Biscoe (a).

1. There was a Roman law, which states that the municipal magistrate cannot do those things which have more of imperium than of jurisdiction; the municipal magistrates not having it in their power to enforce their orders.

Ans. It cannot be proved that this law existed at the time in question and even if it had, there is sufficient grounds for concluding it was confined to the municipes, who were Roman citizens, and therefore to be tried and punished by magistrates of the first rank; and that it did not extend to the provincials, who were less regarded, and left more under the power of their own magistrates.

2. The power of inflicting capital punishments could not be exercised by any magistrate, unless it were given him by some special law or constitution; therefore this power could not be transferable to magistrates who held a delegated jurisdiction.

Jerusalem.

Lukexxiii.2.

And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this Jerusalem. fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute

to Cesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king.

Ans. Nothing is more certain than that many cities, and some whole countries, had obtained from the people and emperors of Rome, the privilege of being governed by their own laws, and by their own magistrates, in a greater or less degree. The Carthaginians, after the second Punic war, had the power of executing their own laws, even in capital punishments; and many other instances might be enumerated. Why may we not then suppose that the people of Judea were equally favoured? It may indeed be shewn, from many things recorded in history, that the Romans were more peculiarly disposed to be favourable to the Jews.

3. According to the civil law of Rome, the presidents alone possessed the Merum Imperium, or the power of sitting in judgment on, and executing criminals, in those provinces over which they were placed.

Answ. This is taking for granted the thing that is questioned. It is acknowledged that the Jewish magistrates had the power of inflicting lesser punishments; but how could this be, if the cognizance of all criminal causes was solely in the president, and not the least part of this power could be delegated? The Jewish magistrates must have received their power to execute these minor punishments either by some special law; or, what is more probable, (as there is no record of such law in their favour,) they, like other nations, were allowed the privilege of their own laws.

We now proceed to the arguments from the New Testament. 1. The most plausible of all is, that saying of the Jews to Pilate, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, (John xviii. 31.) which is represented as an ample acknowledgment from the Jews themselves, that they had not at that time the power of inflicting capital punishments.

Ans. The context proves that these words do not imply that the Romans had deprived them of the liberty of judging men by their own law, but shew on the contrary, that they had the option of trying Jesus themselves, or of giving him up to the Roman Governor. For Pilate had only a moment before said, "Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." Their answer is evidently a refusal of the Governor's offer; and if we inter-` pret the words in any other way, we are naturally brought to the conclusion, that Pilate, when he said "Judge him according to your law," spoke in mere mockery, and intended to remind them of their subjection, which is not probable, as he was then called upon to act in his official capacity. Something more therefore must be understood than what is expressed; and nothing I think can be so reasonably supplied to make the sense complete, as that which regards the time in which the conversation took place, namely, the first day of the passover week, and the preparation for the Sabbath-" It is not lawful for us to put any man to death this holy festival." In the same manner it was not lawful for them to go into the judgment-hall (John xviii. 28.) Pilate, who had been long Governor, must have been well acquainted with their customs, and must have perfectly comprehended their meaning. St. Augustine, Cyril, and several other ancient fathers, put the same construction on these words, which agrees exactly with the rule laid down in the Talmud. The Mishna says expressly that capital causes, in which the criminal was condemned, were always to be finished after the trial began, for

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