SECTION V

Jesus before the ecclesiastical tribunal of the Jews. before Annas and Caiaphas. the false witnesses. the true witness, with the acknowledgment that he is the son of god. the sentence of death. the denial of peter, and his repentance. the first mockery of the lord. the final ecclesiastical determination

(Mat 26:57-75. Mar 14:53-72. Luk 22:54-71. Joh 18:13-27)

The armed men that were sent were charged to lead the captive Jesus before the high priest. This duty was naturally discharged by the Jewish temple-watch. But they brought Him at first, not to Caiaphas, the officiating high priest, but to Annas, who had previously been the high priest, but had been removed by the Roman authority.

This, as we have already seen,¹ was entirely according to the theocratic feeling of legitimate right on the part of the Jews. They considered Annas as their real high priest; Caiaphas, on the other hand, they were compelled to acquiesce in, as the high priest ‘of the year.’ Moreover, very probably Annas, and Caiaphas, who was his son-in-law, were so settled in respect of their habitations, that this double play of the Jews with their two high priests was as little manifest as possible. Probably they inhabited together the same high-priestly palace, and thus it might happen that the greatest part of the watch was waiting in the same hall of the house, while the locality of the judicial inquiry was changed. We are led to this assumption by the narrative of Peter’s denial in John, in its relation to the account of the same circumstance in the synoptic Gospels. The fact also that the latter represent the Lord as being led away at once to Caiaphas, is explained on the like supposition.

John lays stress upon this previous examination, because it was decisive. He even hints as much in the remark, that Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, and that Caiaphas was the high priest of the year; and that he was the same who gave counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. After this introduction, it was not necessary that John should make any more account of the examination by Caiaphas; for he had already, by anticipation, pronounced the sentence of death upon Jesus. If Annas also came to the same decision, the business was already done. The high priest Annas put to the prisoner questions about His disciples and about His doctrine. In both respects He must give exact explanations. In this demand of the hoary inquisitor was involved the supposition that Jesus had a secret doctrine, and that He had delivered this to a secret society of dependants. This supposition Jesus by His answer rejects in the most decided manner. ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.² Why askest thou Me? Ask them which heard Me what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said.’ In these words, Jesus characterizes His teaching as the public and free expression of His life; and He points to the whole world as His school, both with perfect truth, but also with the most conscious exultation of these two characteristics of His work, by which it is raised above all suspicions of secrecy. Rightly might Christ assert in this forensic sense that He had spoken nothing in secret; for even the confidential communications which He had made to the disciples, He had confided to them still with the view of their being made public. And when He called upon the high priest to ascertain from His hearers about His doctrine, He directed him not only in the more limited sense to His disciples, but to the people. Annas knew well that the whole people had been in the school of Jesus, and was filled with His words and deeds. But when Jesus challenged him to take the people into council, He directly reproved the malicious secrecy with which the high priests had taken Him prisoner in the night, and had withdrawn Him from the presence of the people, of the better people, in Israel.

It is nevertheless not to be denied that the answer of Jesus has a distinctly evasive form; and this perhaps is consistent with the fact that He was not willing to acknowledge the competency of this pharisaic hole-and-corner court of justice. If the Jews had publicly acknowledged Caiaphas, it was contrary to the truth to continue to receive in secret the high-priestly decrees from Annas. The attendants of Annas, in fact, appeared to take the answer of Christ as a refusal to recognize this authority: with fierce fanaticism they seem to have regarded the unexpected answer of Christ; for scarcely had He spoken, when one of the servants who stood near Him gave Him a blow with his hand on the face, with the words, ‘Answerest thou the high priest so?’ The reproof is entirely significant;³ and just as keenly significant is the answer of Jesus: ‘If I have spoken falsely, bring forward evidence of the falsehood; but if I have spoken truly, why smitest thou Me?’ It was not a merely moral discussion that was in question here, but about the proof legally that Annas was the high priest.

Thus, in the preliminary examination, the first blow profaned the sacred countenance of the Lord, because He asserted the publicity of His doctrine and of His people, and would not recognize an uncalled, disorderly, hole-and-corner tribunal, which gained its authority from the wicked equivocation of His people. But in His sacred bearing and meek reproof of the fanatic, He remembered His own saying, Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left also; and He taught how spiritually to understand and practise the injunction.⁴

Annas now knew certainly that Jesus would endure no further speech with him. He sent Him therefore over to the official judgment-hall of Caiaphas. But his not allowing His bonds to be removed, but sending Him bound as He had been brought, conveyed to Caiaphas an evident assurance that the deeply considered judgment of death was confirmed.⁵

At the court of the high priest Caiaphas were now assembled so many members of the Sanhedrim, that from the assembly a session of the Sanhedrim might be made. This gathering may be regarded as an unforeseen one, formed from the vehement opposers of Jesus.⁶ Here again Jesus was brought to examination. But another proceeding was now adopted to convict Him of being guilty of death. The first time it was attempted to stamp Him as a secret teacher; this time the assumption was proceeded on, that, as an open teacher of error, He had said blasphemous things against the Jewish religion. They proceeded in a sarcastic manner upon His claim that they should inform themselves of His doctrine from His hearers, by bringing forward men who were to assert that they had heard scandalous words from His mouth. They sought thus to adduce false witnesses against Him. In fact, many willingly allowed themselves to be found to testify against Him: one would have heard this, and another that. Probably there were such misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the words of Jesus, as the Evangelists have frequently informed us of, which now were to be formally adopted as an accusation against Him. But as the witnesses appeared, their testimony melted into nothing: one thing contradicted the other (Mar 14:56), and thus they destroyed one another. The Lord looked on in silence, while the devices of His opponents thus came to nothing. The high priest was compelled to let drop many charges at once, from policy; for instance, all those which concerned the violation of the pharisaic institutions, in a narrower sense, on the part of Jesus, because otherwise the party of the Sadducees could very easily have been induced to make resistance.⁷ At length came forward two men, who thought that they were certain of their case. They asserted that they had heard Him say, I can destroy the temple of God, and build it up again in three days. According to Mark, several came forward, and the accusation ran, I will destroy this temple, which is made with hands, and will in three days build up another, which is made without hands. The Evangelist adds, Even thus there was no unanimous testimony. Here he refers to another view of the testimony which he relates, as it probably occurs in Matthew. These people alluded to that word which Jesus had spoken two years before in the temple, by way of credentials of His purification of the temple. The word, in its simple form, as Jesus had spoken it, could not be used as an accusation, because it pointed to the Jews themselves, as the destroyers of the temple—to Himself, as Him who would build again the destroyed temple in a wonderful manner. But now, while they turned it about, they disagreed with one another. Some did not make the charge strong enough for the others, whose judgment Mark relates. The meaning of the accusation, indeed, was the same in all. Jesus must have threatened the temple, consequently the Israelitish religion, whose type the temple was,⁸ with destruction. Even at these charges Jesus was silent, not only because they contradicted one another, but also because the Sanhedrim were fully aware that the witnesses were false.⁹ How strongly this silence spoke, is shown by the impatience with which at length the high priest sprung up from his seat, and came forward into the middle of the hall to the accused, with the question, ‘Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee?’

Jesus persisted in His silence. The wonderful effect of this silence disconcerted the inquisitor himself. For a while the judge confronted the accused as if he himself were condemned. It is felt that the official high priest, whom Jesus was to have stood before as a culprit, was himself the culprit. The assumed culprit revealed a dignity which attested the real High Priest. Finally, the judge actually set aside the greatest part of the false testimonies; only he continued to hold the appearance of thinking that Jesus had promised to build up the temple again in a marvellous manner—that in these words He had thus given Himself out for acknowledgment, as in other ways, as the Messiah, and indeed as Messiah in the highest sense, as the Son of God. Thus from that false testimony, apparently, he advanced at a bound to the very solemn appeal: ‘I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the Blessed!’

Jesus answered, ‘I am!’¹⁰

He knew that this word, in which He declared His consciousness of His divine nature and of His heavenly dignity, brought death to Him. Nevertheless He declared it. He assented to the adjuration of the high priest with this acknowledgment; and thus He confirmed His statement of His consciousness, and mediately His whole doctrine, with a judicial oath, in the presence of death. He stood fast as the true, the faithful witness (Rev 1:5), who here, and before Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good confession, as the great Prince of all martyrs—of all confessors.

It was a moment which was filled with the powers of eternity in a most mysterious manner. Here, in the oath of Christ, the Everlasting swore by Himself (Isa 45:23).

But it was a tragical moment, as never any other was. For this word—I am He, the Messiah—the people of Israel had waited for centuries as for the watchword of their redemption. The Jews had for years sought to elicit this word from the Lord; and at first, perhaps, with the desire to worship Him, if only He would be a Messiah after their sense; and now, when He declares it, it is to them a savour of death unto death. They charge it upon Him as a crime worthy of death.

Jesus sees that His judges had expected, in the obduracy of unbelief, the statement that He was the Messiah. He feels how little they are now capable of recognizing in His poor and suffering condition His spiritual and essential glory. Therefore He announces to them how He will authenticate Himself to them, must authenticate Himself by the judicial revelation of His glory. ‘Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.’¹¹

In this address the high priest perceived nothing of the rolling thunder. He had expected such a declaration. He had, doubtless, previously considered the ceremony which now accompanied the exclamation, Blasphemy! He rent his clothes, with the words, ‘He hath blasphemed God!’¹²

‘What need we now any further witnesses?’ he adds, with a word which acknowledges how terribly the self-destructiveness of the testimonies of the bribed false witnesses had brought him and his companions into perplexity. It was a deeply recovering sigh of stupid malignity, which here betrayed its whole device, its whole work. But at the same time there was a craft in the word. Caiaphas called the attention of his colleagues to the fact, that at this word it was finally time that the accused should be dealt with, as the stock of false witnesses was come to an end; and immediately he abruptly tendered to them the sentence that they were to pass.

‘Behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy. What think ye?’

He does not leave their judgment in the least free as to the fact of Jesus having uttered blasphemy, although this is the substantial question. And yet they are to declare their opinion, to deliver their vote. This can have no other meaning than that they are, without further consideration, to declare the sentence of death. Caiaphas, however, well knew that he could thus anticipate his companions. They all agreed in the sentence: ‘He is worthy of death!’

In this sentence of death, Israel had in legal form, but in substantially false application of the law, rejected their Messiah. Thus had the people rejected itself, and abolished the theocratic political value of their law.¹³

As soon as the high council had designated the Lord as a heretic, He was at once treated as a heretic by the surrounding servants of the temple. They spat in His face;¹⁴ they smote Him on the head, on the ear and cheek, with their fists.¹⁵ This might happen here, in the presence of the high council; it was even looked upon as the national exercise of the right of zealots against the Lord. This whole confederacy, stirred up by hellish passions, ventures, in the manner of Zion, to avenge the honour of Jehovah upon a blasphemer.

The judgment of death was declared against the Lord. But it could not at once be executed, because its confirmation must still be applied for at the hands of the Roman governor.¹⁶ And as the morning had not yet dawned, the condemned could not yet be led forthwith to the Roman procurator.¹⁷ Moreover, this was not practicable on other grounds. The Sanhedrim, which had just condemned Jesus, was a college which, by concert and agitation, had been formed from the concourse of vehement opponents of Jesus. Thus there must still be a more legitimate session of the college, called together in a formal manner, which might then, indeed, confirm in form what was already decreed. This morning session, moreover, seemed to be requisite for other reasons. The Sanhedrim might not sit in the night for judgment upon capital crimes. Moreover, the sentences were not to be accepted hastily; nay, sentences of death were not to be pronounced on the same day in which the hearing occurred.¹⁸ With these requisitions probably the enemies of Jesus might be satisfied, seeing that they had determined to hold a formal session of judgment again at break of day. But in addition, the accusation must be brought in another form if they wanted to be certain of carrying their purpose into effect with Pilate. Thus a pause occurred. Jesus was led away out of the council chamber.

According to intimations in Mark and Luke,¹⁹ it is most probable that He was taken through the hall in which the servants were warming themselves to another guard-room,²⁰ and, indeed, actually at that moment when Peter had just, for the third and last time, denied Him.

Among the fugitive disciples, Peter first of all took heart again, in conjunction with a second disciple, of whom only John knows any closer particulars, and in whom, according to his usual custom of designating himself by a circumlocution, we are to recognize himself. They followed the procession which led Jesus away, although only at some distance. When they came to the palace of the high priest, that other disciple found direct entrance into the front hall, because he was known to the high priest. He appears boldly to make use of an old access to the house, the ground of which is unknown to us.²¹ Peter, on the other hand, appears to have been rejected at the door by a female doorkeeper,²² and his companion seems not to have missed him until he himself had entered the hall. Then he goes back and speaks to the doorkeeper, and immediately he is allowed to bring Peter in.

This intimation is of inestimable value. We could not suppose that the other disciple of Jesus had here denied his relation to Him. Certainly he was not prepared in his spirit to enter into the judgment-hall, and there to testify against the false witnesses on behalf of Jesus; but he submitted to the sentence of his Master, seeing that he was not yet qualified for anything else, and deliberately took the place of being a sympathizing observant friend of the accused. Neither can we suppose that he would have been spared on account of his connection with the house of the high priest, if it had been generally intended to take proceedings against the disciples of Jesus at the same time as against Himself. At the best, this connection only gave him the necessary consideration among the servants of the house, and the power of passing freely in and out so long as they were willing to take no notice of him. If he thus stood with such security on this ground, it is a proof to us that Peter might have entered with equal security under his guidance. That he was purposely overlooked, although it was probably known that he had given the sword-cut to Malchus, is proved by the circumstance, that he had been allowed to escape, in Gethsemane just after the event. Probably they were very glad to let him go, because they must have acknowledged the wonderful healing of Malchus by the hand of Jesus, if ever they took proceedings against him on account of what he had done.

We must thus recognize in the difference between the security of the one and of the other disciple, under their circumstances, a very great contrast between their states of mind. The other disciple might also have found special reason to be afraid, for the fact of his being known in that house might just as easily be mischievous to him as afford him protection. But with great inward security he depended upon this precarious acquaintance, and seems therewith to act perfectly freely. Certainly, however, he is not yet a perfect master of the knowledge of the soul, or he would not, under existing circumstances, have led Peter on this slippery ground; but, in any case, he acted in a good faith, which even here refuses to take any advantage over his companions in the following of Jesus. It may, perhaps, be supposed that this disciple depended with peculiar confidence on the word of Jesus, by which He obtains for him and his companions free passage among the enemies. But this very security with which he enters, gives us a glimpse of the great insecurity with which Peter goes into the hall of the palace. The explanation of this is, perhaps, in the fact, that Peter went in with the consciousness that he had just before drawn the sword against the servants of this house—that he had wounded a servant of the high priest. He can only pass over the threshold of this house with an evil conscience and with great anxiety. Nay, he cannot occupy this position without a sad presentiment, for Jesus has very plainly announced to him that he would deny Him. This great insecurity of his soul cannot fail to impress itself plainly, in so lively a character, and all the more in proportion as he wishes to suppress it. And it was just this effort which appears to have given the first suggestion to his temptation. It was a cold night; the servants had lighted a fire of coals, which was burning in the hall, and were seated around it warming themselves. Peter came into the midst of them to warm himself also. According to Matthew, we must at once suppose that at first he sat himself down, probably to make the expression of his ease and security more perfect. But still his inward disquiet would soon induce him to stand up again. This association of the disciple with the servants attracted the girl who kept the door, who probably found at once that he did not belong to them. She stept forward and asked him, ‘Art thou not also one of this man’s disciples?’ He thus saw himself betrayed in the company of the avengers of the blood of his enemy: trembling and confused, he forgot himself and denied. This first denial, however, seems almost to be willing to deny itself. Very probably Matthew has here transmitted to us the accurate expression of the falling disciple: ‘I know not what thou sayest.’ In the troubled state of mind in which he now was, he might at first persuade himself that this answer was only a prudent evasion. According to Luke, the maid, with this charge, had sharply fixed her eyes upon him in the firelight; he, on the other hand, repelled her with an anger which made his excitement evident: ‘Woman, I know Him not.’ This was the first denial; it occurred in the hearing of the whole company. Peter had already fallen in the trial of the maid.

It was about the time when Jesus referred Himself in the high priest’s trial to His hearers: ‘Ask them; they know what I have said.’

According to the two first synoptists, Peter appears immediately after the first denial to have purposed leaving the dangerous place. But, according to John, it might be supposed that he still remained some time at the fire with the servants. Probably he did not want to betray his inward perplexity, but thought to secure his retreat by a little delay. But at the moment when for that purpose he wanted to go back from the hall into the outer hall (in which probably the other disciple had cautiously remained), the second temptation fell in his way. This time the mental disturbance of the distressed disciple was very great. According to Mark, the first cock-crowing was heard without bringing the wavering disciple to recollection. Even in the narratives his excitement has expressed itself. The maid looked on him again, says Mark, and began to say about him to the bystanders. ‘This also is one of them.’ Another maid looked upon him, says Matthew—the statement which he attributes to her is in meaning the same. Another looked upon him, says Luke, and he said, Thou also art one of them. And according to John several of the servants which stood around the fire asked him, Art thou also one of His disciples? And then, also, the reports of the second answer of Peter are not alike. This apparent complication without constraint assumes a very expressive form. This time it was the girl who kept the door again—the terrible, who accused him. But the earlier doorkeeper appears, since Peter’s first denial, to have been replaced by another, to whom Peter is quite a new appearance, and who feels herself likewise impelled to denounce and provoke him, and to make him uneasy. Possibly her predecessor had told her of the reserved and yet defiant man. For it was a duty of doorkeepers to keep in view suspicious persons who intruded. One conceives it,—from the disposition of the servants in the high-priestly house, from female fanaticism, or even from female desire to provoke and to practise mere mischief,—that now this one repeats the evil game of the first doorkeeper. She found the special inducement to do so in the fact that the stranger was just purposing to leave the company of the servants. He approached the door, he seemed to wish to slink out of it. But when he was thus laid hold of for the second time, the position of the disciple seemed to be in the highest degree critical. He denied once more, he confirmed the word with an oath—‘I know not the man.’ In the meantime, the maid’s word had taken fire in the company of servants. At first one individual called him to account with the assertion, ‘Thou also art one of them.’ This one also he deceived, once more recollecting himself, and saying, ‘Man! I am not.’ He attained thus much by the energetic declaration, that the men of that company became uncertain, and only pressed him with the question, ‘Art thou not also one of His disciples?’ Hereupon he confirmed the previous statement that he was not.

But now Peter found it probably no more desirable to withdraw at once. He must now wait, as it appeared, till the attention of the dangerous men has passed away again from him. Thus, according to Luke, he spent about an hour more among them—a time which in that painful position must have been to him almost an eternity. We know not whether he was silent or spoke during that time. It might almost be supposed that he must have spoken a good deal to divert the company from the notion of his being a disciple of Jesus. At least he said so much, that they came to a decided impression of his Galilean dialect. The observation of this, that he spoke the Galilean dialect, brought one man to the full conviction that he must be a Galilean; consequently, also a disciple of Jesus. For what could a Galilean have to do in the general way, at this hour, in this place? If he had spoken the Jewish dialect, the man might have thought that he belonged to the elements of the mob, which had already assembled, and to which was destined by the high priest so momentous a problem for the next morning. The more, however, Peter had asserted that he was no disciple of Jesus, the more this man became aroused; and he doubtless would vindicate in a lively manner his clever combination, since it had become certain to him that he belonged to the company of Jesus’ disciples. Suddenly he confronted him with the assertion that he must positively be a disciple of Jesus, for his speech betrayed him. Even this man also Peter passionately contradicted: ‘Man, I know not what thou sayest!’ But this accusation aroused the whole company, which only a little while before probably had troubled itself about him; and soon they were standing in numbers around him, to provoke him with the assurance that he was certainly a disciple, for his speech betrayed him. They could not, indeed, found any absolute certainty upon this indication; but now the peril increased once more to an immense degree when another man in the company recognized him again, and cried out, ‘Did not I see thee in the garden with Him?’ And this man, says John, was a servant of the high priest, a kinsman of him whose ear Peter cut off. John continues simply, that he denied again; but Matthew and Mark add, with their significant ‘and he began,’—And he began to curse and to swear, I know not the man!

At this fatal moment the cock was heard to crow! It was for the second time.

At this same moment Jesus was led past the group which threateningly surrounded the denying disciple. He probably heard the last words of his imprecations. He turned round and looked upon him!

His look declared how deeply the disciple had fallen—how terribly he had wounded His heart—and how it bled, not only by his means, but also for his sake. Moreover, probably the disciple could still see the traces of the ill-treatment which Jesus had undergone; or the excitement of the rabble, which could not fail to have ill-treated the Lord, told him that He was condemned by the high council, and sentenced to death.

And now he came to himself again. How he remembered in the depth of his soul the word of Jesus, Before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice! and he went out and wept bitterly.²³

We read no further of his being now any more stayed, hindered, or checked. In the depth of his sorrow he saw no more enemies, he knew no more danger, he feared no more death. He felt that he carried all enemies, all dangers, and even death itself, in his heart; and without consideration of them he passed forth through the group of opponents; and although even the circumstance that now the leading away of Christ was occupying the attention of the whole household of the high-priestly palace had not favoured his departure, still the view of the terrible sorrow in the broken man of rock might have arrested, as a sign of God, the profane disposition of the common crowd, and made a way for the contrite one.

Peter went out. He felt that here there was no help in an ordinary recantation. He knew only one satisfaction which could avert the curse of the guilt, and this had announced itself to him in the look with which Christ looked on him. He knew only one way of appropriating this satisfaction—the way of the deepest humiliation before God. Hence it was that he willingly allowed to fall upon him the shame of being a denier among men, while he declared himself guilty in the judgment of God.

He went out into the night—but not into the night of despair, like Judas. Bitterly weeping, he went to meet the morning twilight. The angel of grace led him on his painful way into the judgment of the spirit, which was to doom his old life, especially his old arrogance, to death; and he was so reconciled to death, that he could go to death with Christ in an entirely different, but a far more wholesome sense, from that which he had contemplated. His repentance must first be completed; he must first obtain the peace of grace and reconciliation from the mouth of Christ, before he could offer the satisfaction of his guilt towards men in a great confession, before which the scandal of his terrible guilt disappeared.

It is carefully to be observed that Peter, in the progress of his conversion, stands as the first great and brilliant type of the true course of salvation; while Judas, in his remorse, took the contrary way, and would be the first to afford the human satisfaction to the enemies with whom he had guiltily involved himself—but not in this way coming to Christ. Moreover, we must not overlook the typical significance that is found in the inducement to Peter’s fall. It was a little maid who kept the door who caused the denial of the first disciple—of him to whom were committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Girls terrified him; and his fall became more and more deplorable the longer he remained among the servants by the fire of coals. And thus also a church-fellowship may prepare for itself a downfall by false popularity, by slavishly succumbing to servile and fanatical tendencies among the people, by association with the multitude in their ungodly aims.

The watch to whose keeping the Lord had been entrusted until the morning, entirely participated in the fanatical disposition of their superiors, and appeared by degrees to be changed into a band of assassins. They occupied the time in ill-treating the Lord. The first cruelties had begun while they were yet in the presence of the high council. While they were leading Him away also, they seem to have struck Him; and now that they had brought Him into the guard-room, mockings and blows seem to have alternated one with the other. Thence they soon devised a mischievous game, which combined both mockery and violence. They threw a veil over His face, and striking Him, asked, ‘Prophesy unto us, Thou Christ! Who is he that smote Thee?’

This was the treatment of the long-desired Messiah among the watchmen of Zion. They derided His Messianic dignity, especially His prophetic office. He could not have suffered so fearfully if He had fallen into the hands of cannibals,—at least, they would not have racked His inmost heart with that frightful insensibility with which these men denied and mocked the dignity of their Lord and King. Moreover, according to Luke, they devised many other blasphemies of a similar kind, and a round of wanton tricks, in which they derided everything which ought to be sacred in Him to His people. At those moments, when He in this manner was abandoned to the devilish licence of a savage troop, He might well recall that passage in the Psalms, ‘Be not Thou far from me; for trouble is hard at hand, and there is none to help me. Great oxen are come about me; bulls of Bashan surround me. They gape upon me with their mouths, as it were a ramping and a roaring lion’ (Ps. 22) The prophetic feeling of that theocratic singer, which he expressed in these words, found its fulfilment in these circumstances.

Towards the break of day the formal meeting of the members of the Sanhedrim occurred (Luk 22:66).²⁴ And there assembled there all the priests, and elders, and scribes. Every one of these three classes had special motives of enmity against the Lord beside the common one. The one class it offended, that He exalted obedience above sacrifice; the second, that He made revelation the test of institutions; the third, that He opposed the spirit of the word to the service of the letter.²⁵ They felt that they had been in a thousand ways attacked in their delusion by Him; and now they believed that the day of vengeance had come for them. Thus they led Him up before their high council.²⁶ The expression seems to imply that they conducted Him in a large procession out of the palace of the high priest into the regular council-chamber, on the mount of the temple. They had now an interest in making a decidedly formal appearance; on the one hand, that they might prevent contradiction among their own people; on the other hand, that they might obviate opposition from Pilate. The trial which now once more they were preparing for Jesus was intended, as has been already hinted, so to formulate His statement that He was the Messiah, that it might be used as an accusation against Him before Pilate. He had confirmed this assertion by oath in the form of His being Christ the Son of God—a form in which they had charged His assertion upon Him as blasphemy against God. But now it was their anxiety to leave., on one side as much as possible the theological import of the expression, and to bring forward, on the other hand, the political significance which the name Christ might assume; or, in other words, to make out of the ‘Christ the Son of God,’ in the sense of Jesus, a ‘Christ the King of the Jews,’ in their sense.²⁷ For only in the form of such a Christ, according to their view, could they charge the Lord before Pilate as a criminal, namely, as a rebel. They could only obtain their end by bringing their Messianic ideal—their hope, the thought and aim of their heart—their own darkened nature in the form of Christ—before Pilate, and effecting His condemnation—effecting it in complete self-blinding and self-contempt. Christ observed at once that in this false purpose they now asked Him once more, ‘Art thou the Christ? tell us!’ He answered, ‘If I tell you, ye will not believe Me; and if I also would ask you (asking by way of instruction), ye would not answer Me, nor let Me go’ (if it turned out that ye could not answer Me).

In every case, He says, it is entirely in vain if He tells them that He is Christ. The first case, that they should believe on Him, cannot at all be supposed. The second case would be, that by asking He should prove to them that He was Christ; but then He says they would not answer Him, and so accept His proof. And plainly for this reason, lest they should be compelled to let Him go. Thus He has sharply characterized the desperately evil purpose of their question. And doubtless He now retreats again into the consciousness which alone could maintain Him in this fearfully painful crisis of His deepest humiliation with the words, Henceforth shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.

There is no difficulty in the fact of Jesus making this assertion for the second time. As He had for the first time declared this to the smaller assembly of the Sanhedrim, so it was probable that He would repeat it also before the greater assembly. He must announce to them that His judicial control over them would begin from the moment in which they in their judgment rejected Him. It was His purpose to cut off from them every pretext in respect to the meaning in which He had made Himself known to them as the Messiah. Just as easily is explained the circumstance, that the Sanhedrim would have Him once more to repeat the assertion that He is the Son of God; as in this assembly there might be many members who had taken no part in the previous trial.

Although, however, they did not succeed in obtaining from the Lord Himself a declaration which might be misinterpreted still more easily than the previous one, they nevertheless knew how to manage, when they decided to avail themselves of His statement that He was the Christ first of all in a political sense, before Pilate. Probably their last secret consultation, which occurred immediately before the leading away of Jesus, referred to that. They determined upon the leading Him before the forum of Pilate, and agreed upon the course of proceeding; probably also the measures were discussed by which the Jewish people were to be stirred up.

Their manœuvring began by their now breaking up in a mass, as the morning broke, to transfer the judgment to the Roman procurator (Luk 23:1). They probably calculated that a cause which induced them, the whole respectable community, to appear so early in the morning, on the morning of the feast, in procession before the house of the judge with the accused, must assume in the view of the judge the appearance of an altogether aggravated crime.

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Notes

1. The peculiar relation between Annas and Caiaphas has been explained in many ways. According to Hug, they must both have been high priests by agreement between themselves, and have interchanged by years or by festivals. The former plan Hug thinks the more probable. Friedlieb also follows him in p. 73. But an official change of dignity of this kind would have contradicted the hierarchical assumptions of the Jews, and the Roman arrangement as well. But it is historical that Annas, after his official deposition, still in a political capacity exercised an influence upon the reappointment to the high priest’s chair. His son-in-law Caiaphas followed many of his sons in that office. No wonder that the Jews, in their spirit of opposition against the Roman appointment of the high priest, looked upon him as the peculiarly legitimate high priest.

2. The difficulty arising from the fact, that, according to John, the denial of Peter takes place in the house of Annas, according to the synoptists in the house of Caiaphas, has been explained by different people in different ways. It is remarkable that it should be thought necessary to start from the hypothesis generally, that those men dwelt in two houses remote from one another, and not from the supposition that Peter was guilty of the three denials in one and the same hall during the trial at the house of Annas and of Caiaphas, and that it should be at once decided to argue from the former hypothesis against the actuality of the evangelical representations. At the bottom of this treatment of the subject lies the unreasonable opinion, that two respectable men must necessarily have two houses remote from one another, even in the case of one of them being a rightful, the other an officiating high priest, and besides of one being the father-in-law of the other. From this fixed idea, for which there is no historical foundation, an argument is gathered against actual historical statements, instead of proceeding upon an actual historical observation, namely, the narrative of the three denials of Peter in one household, near a coal-fire. It is natural that Strauss should find this solution of the difficulty too artificial, as Euthymius found it before (ii. 473). It may also be attempted to find a solution by supposing, with Schleiermacher, Neander, and Olshausen, that the second and third denials of Peter occurred during the leading away of Jesus from Annas to Caiaphas. But this is contradicted by the long period of about an hour which intervened, according to Luke, between the second and third denial. Moreover, according to the course which John represents the trial as taking immediately in the house of Annas, it must have been very soon ended.—For the supposition that Annas and Caiaphas inhabited the same palace, compare also Ebrard, 425.

3. The Galilean dialect was so coarse, and generally so unintelligible to the Jews, that the Galileans were not suffered to read in the Jewish synagogues. The Talmudists relate a number of anecdotes of ludicrous misunderstandings arising from the unintelligibleness of the Galilean manner of speaking. Friedlieb, 84; Sepp, iii. 478.

4. It is true that it was contrary to the Levitical notion of purity to keep fowls in Jerusalem, ‘because, as they hunted for their food in the dirt, they scratched up all kinds of unclean creatures, and therewith made the sacrifices and other sacred things unclean.’ But ‘what did the Roman soldiery in the citadel of Antonia care for Jewish ordinances? And even of the Jews themselves we read, that once at Jerusalem a cock was stoned by the sentence of the Sanhedrim, because it had picked out the eyes of a little boy and killed him.’—Sepp, iii. 475; [or Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. on Mat 26:34; who also shows that ‘cock-crowing’ was commonly used among the Jews as a designation of time.—ED.]

5. Pliny names as the time of the second cock-crow (gallicinium) the time of the fourth watch of the night, that is, the time after three o’clock in the morning. On the regular recurrence of the nightly cock-crowing in the East, comp. Sepp, iii. 477. [Greswell says, ‘At the equinox, the last cock-crow would, it may be supposed, be about four in the morning, and consequently the first about two, and the second about three; for experience shows that between two successive cock-crows, as such, the interval is commonly one hour; from which natural effect, too, the division of time itself, as founded upon it, must have been originally taken.’—Dissert. iii. 216.—ED.]

6. It is entirely characteristic that John records the first trial, Luke the third, Matthew and Mark the intervening one. The first comprised the rejection by the Jews of Christ in its distinct origin, the hatred of Annas,—the second in its secular conclusion,—the two others in its visible centre.

7. That the evangelic history has only related three denials of Peter, is sufficiently explained by Bengel in his Gnomon: ‘Abnegatio ad plures plurium interrogationes, facta uno paroxysmo, pro una numeratur.’ And although Paulus and Strauss make out a considerable round of denials (Strauss, ii. 476), they owe this attainment to that modern contention about trifles which has so often lost the meaning of the inward characteristics of the history in question.

8. The denial of Peter has been palliated on several opposite grounds. On the rationalistic apologies, see Hase, 242; a Roman Catholic one see in Sepp, iii. 481.

1) Vol. ii. 500.

2) In spite of the similarity of this address to that which, according to Luke, He made to the men who arrested Him, it is evidently wholly distinct both in expression and tendency.

3) Paul underwent a similar maltreatment in Acts xxiii. 2.

4) According to Jewish justice, maltreatments of a similar kind were prohibited under heavy penalties (Sepp, iii. 467). Spitting in the face, a sign of the deepest contempt, was punished with a fine of 400 drachmas (Friedlieb, 94). [The words of the law referred to are given by Bynoeus, ii. 320, where there is also a collection of references showing the insult implied in spitting among the western nations, as well as in the east. Compare Num. xii. 14. He also tells us (ii. 267), that a blow with the open hand incurred the penalty of 200, with the fist of 400 drachmas. With reference to the precept Matt. v. 39, he justifies the conduct of Jesus on the ground that His silence under the blow might have been construed into a confession that He was in fault.—ED.]

5) Consequently the ἀπέστειλεν, ver. 24, needs not to be understood as the pluperfect.

6) Sepp supposes (iii. 484) that the midnight session had only been opened by the little council of the three-and-twenty, or the members of the priesthood in the house of Caiaphas.

7) Sepp, iii. 472 ; Acts xxiii. 7.

8) Thus Stephen also, in Acts vi. 14.

9) The Talmud specifies the manner in which the false witnesses were employed against the supposed false prophets. See the quotation in Sepp, iii. 467.

10) inst the supposed false prophets. See the quotation in Sepp, iii. 467. 4 The manner of expression, Thou sayest it, is also common among the Rabbis.—Friedlieb, 91.

11) Dan. vii. 13, 14. From these words of Christ, it does not follow, as Strauss thinks (ii. 469), that He foretells His speedy parousia, and indeed precisely as second advent (in the chronological sense of the critics). For the coming in the clouds of heaven is evidently to be understood, first of all, of the spiritual reign of Christ in His glory (comp. Neander, 456), certainly so far as this reign brings about pre- cedently the visible second advent of Christ (vide Ebrard, 423).

12) It was a Jewish ordinance, that the clothes should be rent on the hearing of a blasphemy ; and herein it was specially ordered that the high priest should rend his clothes from below upward, whereas ordinarily the rent was made from above down ward. This rent was not to be sewn up again, Sepp, iii. 473. Upon the ceremony of the rending of the clothes, see Friedlieb, 92. The high priest certainly was not to rend his sacred garments ; but he wore them only on high festivals in the temple, 92. [The passages forbidding the high priests to rend their garments are Lev. x. 6 and xxi. 10. Bynams tells us (ii. 311) that the Jewish doctors understand this to refer only to the sacred robe used in the temple-service. He adds, that it may refer only to the rending of garments as a sign of mourning, which the connection of the passage seems indeed to indicate. He also tells us the rent was to be in front, from the bottom to the top. Ellicott, however (p. 337, note), says, the rent was to be from the neck downwards. This Bynseus gives as the rule for ordinary persons. Lightfoot, on Matt. xxvi. 65, quotes from the tract Sanhedrim: They that judge a blasphemer first ask the witness, and bid him speak out plainly what he hath heard ; and when he speaks it, the judges, standing on their feet, rend their garments, and do not sew them up again.—ED.]

13) Against late vindications of the proceeding of the Jews against Jesus, the remark is sufficient, that Jesus was only condemned because He declared that He was the Messiah, and indeed, more precisely, the Son of God. Vide Hase, 246.

14) See above, vol. ii. p. 104.

15) Olshausen has rightly discovered a type of these experiences of the Messiah in the prophets (Isa. 1. 6 ; comp. Micah iv. 14), especially in Isaiah. Strauss, however, thinks (ii. 470) that it is against the connection of the passage to find here a prophecy of the Messiah, because he does not understand the conception of the typical prophecy.

16) See Neander, 457 ; Joseph. Antiq. 20, 9, 1.

17) According to Roman law, no judicial sentence given before break of day was valid. Sepp, iii. 484.

18) Vide Friedlieb, 95: ‘Because the Sanhedrim, to which, in its business with Jesus, haste was everything, had appointed the trial in the night, and then again in the morning, it probably thought that this would satisfy the above requisitions and so evade the law. For, although they did not thus pass judgment of death at the first hearing, it still occurred on one and the same day, because the day was reckoned from evening to evening’—P. 96. Upon other violations of the legal appointments for judicial procedure, of which the Sanhedrim was guilty, see the same, p. 87; [or Lightfoot on Matt, xxvii. 1, who quotes the Jewish canon: ‘They handle capital causes in the daytime, and finish them by day. Three other irregularities are also dwelt upon in the same place.—ED. ]

19) According to Mark, Peter was in the hall below, in opposition to the judgment hall, which was thus above. In Luke, Jesus turned Himself round and ‘looked on Peter when he denied for the third time. He must thus have come again from the judgment-hall above into the hall below: [i.e., into the court a few steps lower than the judgment-hall. Robinson says (see Andrews, 424): ‘An oriental house is usually built around a quadrangular interior court, into Which there is a passage arched) through the front part of the house closed next the street by a heavy folding gate, with a smaller wicket for single persons, kept by a porter. In the text, the interior court, often paved and flagged and open to the sky, is the αὐλή (translated “palace,” “hall,” “court”), where the attendants made a fire ; and the passage beneath the front of the house, from the street to this court, is the προαύλιον or πυλών (both translated “porch”)? The place where Jesus stood before the high priest may have been an open room on the ground-floor ; so that from the place where He stood, He might look upon Peter.—ED, ]

20) Sepp goes so far as to assert (484) that after the servants had indulged their petulance on Jesus, they had cast Him into the dungeon. But nothing is said of this; rather from the context it seems plain, that Jesus was guarded by the servants of the temple in a kind of prison-room, and that they there spent their time in ill-treating Him. The reading in Mark, ἔλαβον, ver. 65, which has been found a difficult thus be explained by this leading away into the prison-chamber or room : ῥαπίσμασιν αὑτὸν ἔλαβον—They took Him into custody with abuse. Certainly also the other reading, ἔβαλλον, attains its true force under the point of view referred to—They drove Him tumultuously forth out the hall of judgment. Still the reading ἔλαβον is the best attested.

21) According to the tradition, John must heave been known in the house of the high priest as a young fisherman, Sepp, iii. 474.

22) On the female doorkeepers among the ancients, see Sepp, iii. 474.

23) [Bynaeus devotes sixteen pages (ii. 371-86) to an investigation of the meaning of ἐπιβαλών (Mark xiv. 72), which is rendered in the E. V. 'when he thought thereon.' He agrees with the interpretation of Theophylact, who judged it equivalent to veiling his head. The fitness of this meaning to the sense, and its appropriateness as occurring in the narrative of Mark, are strongly in its favour; but no instance has been produced of ἐπιβάλλειν used in this sense without a following accusative, indicating the object that has been drawn over the head. Alford takes it to mean the thinking, or, as we say, "casting it over," going back step by step through the sad history.—ED.]

24) It is plain that this examination which Luke describes is an entirely new one, having its own peculiar character. We arrive at this conclusion also from the observation, Luke xxiii. 51, that Joseph of Arimathea had not given his voice (συγκατατεθειμένος) to their counsel and plan. The nocturnal judgment at the house of Caiaphas was composed, indeed, of fanatics voluntarily assembled, and of one mind (Mark xiv. 64) ; the formal court in the morning, in which even the few friends of Jesus in the Sanhedrim could bear a part, was not unanimous: so far Luke s reference to it leads us to conclude that Joseph of Arimathea took part in this session.

25) Compare Sepp, iii. 486.

26) Ἀνήγαγον αὑτὸν εἰς τὸ συνέδριον. It is not to be supposed that they could have led Him openly out of the guard-chamber into the upper hall of the high priest's palace. According to the Talmud, the sentences of death must be pronounced in the Gazith (Friedlieb, p. 97; where, however, this statement is questioned). In any case it seemed necessary to a thoroughly formal session, that the Sanhedrim should assemble on the temple mountain. Thus it usually assembled on the Sabbaths and feast-days in a locality within the lower walls (Tholuck, John, 385).

27) This formulating, strictly taken, was no introduction of another ground of complaint, as Neander thinks, p. 458; but only the transferring of the same charge into another form, as he says ; or, more strictly, a misrepresentation of the same assertion of Christ on another side.