Anus hic solet cubitare custos janitrix.

Why they, in preference to men, should be pitched upon for this office, I cannot conceive; but we find the usage was common in all ancient nations. See the notes on Matthew 26:69.

Verse 18. Servants and officers— These belonged to the chief priests, etc.; the Roman soldiers had probably been dismissed after having conducted Christ to Annas.

Verse 19. Asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine.— He probably asked him by what authority, or in virtue of what right, he collected disciples, formed a different sect, preached a new doctrine, and set himself up for a public reformer? As religion was interested in these things, the high priest was considered as being the proper judge. But all this, with what follows, was transacted by night, and this was contrary to established laws. For the Talmud states, Sanhed. c. iv. s. 1, that-”Criminal processes can neither commence not terminate, but during the course of the day. If the person be acquitted, the sentence may be pronounced during that day; but, if he be condemned, the sentence cannot be pronounced till the next day. But no kind of judgment is to be executed, either on the eve of the Sabbath, or the eve of any festival.” Nevertheless, to the lasting infamy of this people, Christ was judicially interrogated and condemned during the night; and on the night too of the passover, or, according to others, on the eve of that feast. Thus, as I have remarked before, all the forms of justice were insulted and outraged in the case of our Lord. In this his humiliation his judgment was taken away. See Acts 8:33.

Verse 20. I spake openly to the world— To every person in the land indiscriminately-to the people at large: the tw kosmw, here, is tantamount to the French tout le monde, all the world, i.e. every person within reach. This is another proof that St. John uses the term world to mean the Jewish people only; for it is certain our Lord did not preach to the Gentiles. The answer of our Lord, mentioned in this and the following verse, is such as became a person conscious of his own innocence, and confident in the righteousness of his cause. I have taught in the temple, in the synagogues, in all the principal cities, towns, and villages, and through all the country. I have had no secret school. You and your emissaries have watched me every where. No doctrine has ever proceeded from my lips, but what was agreeable to the righteousness of the law and the purity of God. My disciples, when they have taught, have taught in the same way, and had the same witnesses. Ask those who have attended our public ministrations, and hear whether they can prove that I or my disciples have preached any false doctrines, have ever troubled society, or disturbed the state. Attend to the ordinary course of justice, call witnesses, let them make their depositions, and then proceed to judge according to the evidence brought before you.

Verse 22. One of the officers-struck Jesus— This was an outrage to all justice: for a prisoner, before he is condemned, is ever considered to be under the especial protection of justice; nor has any one a right to touch him, but according to the direction of the law. But it has been observed before that, if justice had been done to Christ, he could neither have suffered nor died.

Verse 24. Now Annas had sent him, etc.— It has been observed before that the proper place of this verse is immediately after the 13th; and, if it be allowed to stand here, it should be read in a parenthesis, and considered as a recapitulation of what had been before done.

Verse 27. And-the cock crew.— Peter denied our Lord three times: —

Peter’s first denial.

I. This took place, when he was without, or beneath, in the hall of Caiaphas’s house. He was not in the higher part where Christ stood before the high priest; but without that division of the hall, and in the lower part with the servants and officers, at the fire kindled in the midst of the hall, John 18:16, 18; and the girl who kept the door had entered into the hall, where she charged Peter.

Peter’s second denial.

II. This was in a short time after the first, Luke 22:58. Having once denied his Master, he naturally retired from the place where his accuser was to the vestibule of the hall, Matthew 26:71, and it was the time of the first cock-crowing, or soon after midnight. After remaining here a short time, perhaps an hour, another girl sees him, and says to them who were standing by in the vestibule, that he was one of them. Peter, to avoid this charge, withdraws into the hall, and warms himself. The girl, and those to whom she had spoken, follow him; the communication between the two places being immediate. Here a man enforces the charge of the girl, according to Luke; and others urge it, according to St. John; and Peter denies Jesus vehemently.

Peter’s third denial.

III. He was now in the hall, and also within sight of Jesus, though at such a distance from him that Jesus could not know what passed, but in a supernatural way. And, about an hour after his second denial, those who stood by founded a third charge against him, on his being a Galilean, which St. Luke says, Luke 22:59, one in particular strongly affirmed; and which, according to John, John 18:26, was supported by one of Malchus’s relations. This occasioned a more vehement denial than before, and immediately the cock crew the second time, which is eminently called alektorofwnia. The first denial may have been between our twelve and one; and the second between our two and three.

At the time of the third denial, Luke 22:61 proves that Jesus was in the same room with Peter. We must farther observe that Matthew, Matthew 26:57, lays the scene of Peter’s denials in the house of Caiaphas: whereas John, John 18:15-23, seems to intimate that these transactions took place in the house of Annas; but this difficulty arises from the injudicious insertion of the particle oun, therefore, in John 18:24, which should be omitted, on the authority of ADES, Mt. BH, many others; besides some versions, and some of the primitive fathers. Griesbach has left it out of the text. See Bishop Newcome’s Harm. notes, p. 48.

The time of Peter’s denials happened during the space of the third Roman watch, or that division of the night, between twelve and three, which is called alektorofwnia, or cock-crowing, Mark 13:35. Concerning the nature and progress of Peter’s denial, see the notes on Matthew 26:58, 69-75.

Verse 28. The hall of judgment— eiv to praitwriov, To the praetorium. This was the house where Pilate lodged; hence called in our margin, Pilate’s house. The praetorium is so called from being the dwelling-place of the praetor, or chief of the province. It was also the place where he held his court, and tried causes.

St. John has omitted all that passed in the house of Caiaphas-the accusations brought against Christ-the false witnesses-the insults which he received in the house of the high priest-and the assembling of the grand council, or Sanhedrin. These he found amply detailed by the other three evangelists; and for this reason it appears that he omitted them. John’s is properly a supplementary Gospel.

Lest they should be defiled— The Jews considered even the touch of a Gentile as a legal defilement; and therefore would not venture into the praetorium, for fear of contracting some impurity, which would have obliged them to separate themselves from all religious ordinances till the evening, Leviticus 15:10, 11, 19, 20.

That they might eat the passover.— Some maintain that to pasca here does not mean the paschal lamb, but the other sacrifices which were offered during the paschal solemnity-for this had been eaten the evening before; and that our Lord was crucified the day after the passover. Others have maintained that the paschal lamb is here meant; that this was the proper day for sacrificing it; that it was on the very hour in which it was offered that Christ expired on the cross; and that therefore our Lord did not eat the Paschal lamb this year, or that he ate it some hours before the common time. Bishop Pearce supposes that it was lawful for the Jews to eat the paschal lamb any time between the evening of Thursday and that of Friday. He conjectures too that this permission was necessary on account of the immense number of lambs which were to be killed for that purpose. When Cestius desired to know the number of the Jews, he asked the priests how he might accomplish his wish? They informed him that this might be known by the number of the lambs slain at the passover, as never less than ten partook of one lamb, though twenty might feast on it. On this mode of computation he found the lambs to be 256,500; eikosi pente muriadav hriqmhsan, prov de exakiscilia kai pentakosia. See Josephus, War, b. vi. c. 9. s. 3.

That Jesus ate a passover this last year of his life is sufficiently evident from Matthew 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-18; Luke 22:8-15; and that he ate this passover some hours before the ordinary time, and was himself slain at that hour in which the paschal lamb was ordered by the law to be sacrificed, is highly probable, if not absolutely certain. See the note on Matthew 26:20, and at the conclusion of the chapter, where the subject, and the different opinions on it, are largely considered. {Matthew 26:26}

Verse 29. Pilate then went out— This was an act of condescension; but, as the Romans had confirmed to the Jews the free use of all their rites and ceremonies, the governor could not do less than comply with them in this matter. He went out to them, that they might not be obliged to come into the hall, and thus run the risk of being defiled.

Verse 30. If he were not a malefactor— So they did not wish to make Pilate the judge, but the executor of the sentence which they had already illegally passed.

Verse 31. It is not lawful for us to put any man to death— They might have judged Jesus according to their law, as Pilate bade them do; but they could only excommunicate or scourge him. They might have voted him worthy of death; but they could not put him to death, if any thing of a secular nature were charged against him. The power of life and death was in all probability taken from the Jews when Archelaus, king of Judea, was banished to Vienna, and Judea was made a Roman province; and this happened more than fifty years before the destruction of Jerusalem. But the Romans suffered Herod, mentioned Acts 12:1, etc., to exercise the power of life and death during his reign. See much on this point in Calmet and Pearce. After all, I think it probable that, though the power of life and death was taken away from the Jews, as far as it concerned affairs of state, yet it was continued to them in matters which were wholly of an ecclesiastical nature; and that they only applied thus to Pilate to persuade him that they were proceeding against Christ as an enemy of the state, and not as a transgressor of their own peculiar laws and customs. Hence, though they assert that he should die according to their law, because he made himself the Son of God, John 19:7, yet they lay peculiar stress on his being an enemy to the Roman government; and, when they found Pilate disposed to let him go, they asserted that if he did he was not Caesar’s friend, John 18:12. It was this that intimidated Pilate, and induced him to give him up, that they might crucify him. How they came to lose this power is accounted for in a different manner by Dr. Lightfoot. His observations are very curious, and are subjoined to the end of this chapter. {John 18:40}

Verse 32. That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled— Or, thus the word was fulfilled. God permitted the Jews to lose the power of life and death, in the sense before stated, that according to the Roman laws, which punished sedition, etc., with the cross, Christ might be crucified, according to his own prediction: John 12:32, 3:14.

Verse 33. Art thou the king of the Jews?— St. Luke says, expressly, Luke 23:2, that when the Jews brought him to Pilate they began to accuse him as a rebel, who said he was king of the Jews, and forbade the people to pay tribute to Caesar. It was in consequence of this accusation that Pilate asked the question mentioned in the text.

Verse 34. Sayest thou this thing of thyself— That is, Is it because my enemies thus accuse me, or because thou hast any suspicion of me, that thou askest this question?

Verse 35. Amos I a Jew?— That is, I am not a Jew, and cannot judge whether thou art what is called the Christ, the king of the Jews. It is thy own countrymen, and their spiritual rulers, who delivered thee up to me with the above accusation.

What hast thou done?— If thou dost not profess thyself king over this people, and an enemy to Caesar, what is it that thou hast done, for which they desire thy condemnation?

Verse 36. My kingdom is not of this world— It is purely spiritual and Divine. If it had been of a secular nature, then my servants would have contended-they would have opposed force with force, as the kingdoms of this world do in their wars; but as my kingdom as not of this world, therefore no resistance has been made. Eusebius relates, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. c. 20, that “The relatives of our Lord were brought before Domitian, and interrogated whether they were of the family of David; and what sort the kingdom of Christ was, and where it would appear? They answered, that this kingdom was neither of this world, nor of an earthly nature; that it was altogether heavenly and angelical; and that it would not take place till the end of the world.”

Verse 37. Thou sayest— A common form of expression for, yes, it is so. I was born into the world that I might set up and maintain a spiritual government: but this government is established in and by truth. All that love truth, hear my voice and attend to the spiritual doctrines I preach. It is by truth alone that I influence the minds and govern the manners of my subjects.

Verse 38. What is truth— Among the sages of that time there were many opinions concerning truth; and some had even supposed that it was a thing utterly out of the reach of men. Pilate perhaps might have asked the question in a mocking way; and his not staying to get an answer indicated that he either despaired of getting a satisfactory one, or that he was indifferent about it. This is the case with thousands: they appear desirous of knowing the truth, but have not patience to wait in a proper way to receive an answer to their question.

I find in him no fault— Having asked the above question, and being convinced of our Lord’s innocence, he went out to the Jews to testify his convictions and to deliver him, if possible, out of their hands.

Verse 39. But ye have a custom— Nothing relative to the origin or reason of this custom is known. Commentators have swam in an ocean of conjecture on this point. They have lost their labor, and made nothing out: see the notes on Matthew 27:15; Luke 23:17.