When Judas left the house of Mark he went at once to the priests, eager to complete his task. He probably knew from the conversation at the Supper that Jesus meant to go to Gethsemane for prayer and meditation, and no place could be better suited for his purpose. Perhaps it was this knowledge, as well as the knowledge that Christ had read his heart, which drove him so hurriedly from the table. He knew tha this midnight visit to Gethsemane gave him a chance that might never come again. The priests were equally conscious of their opportunity. It is probable that they at once communicated with the Roman cohort which was detailed for the duty of keeping public order in the Passover week. They may even have communicated with Pilate himself, representing that a dangerous revolutionary was abroad, whose arrest was necessary to the public safety. It was certainly a band of Roman soldiers who arrested Jesus, and this accounts for the odious act of Judas in betraying Him by a kiss. There was no one in the band sent for His arrest who knew Him, and it was necessary to identify Him. Judas, as he led the soldiers toward the recesses of the olive-garden, "gave them a token," saying, "Whomsoever I shall kiss, the same is He." And so he kissed Him: not timidly, or as a formal act, but, as the word leads us to infer, with effusion and many times. It is in this moment that Judas appears truly despicable. It is in this moment also that Jesus appears in all the dignity of moral heroism. As if to show Judas how unmeaning was that kiss of identification, He identifies Himself; "saying, Whom seek ye? And they answered, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am He." And then occurs the saddest episode in all this night of sorrow. In the very moment while Jesus pleads that His disciples may not be arrested with Him, utter panic seizes them, and they all forsake Him and flee. So He passes alone, but still majestic, through the moonlit garden, across the Kedron, and along the opposite slope to the house of Hanan. The work of Judas is complete, and He has earned his wages. CHAPTER XXVIII THE TRIAL OF JESUS JESUS was taken immediately upon His arrest to the house of Annas, or Hanan. This circumstance alone is sufficient to identify Hanan as the chief mover in the plot which led to the overthrow of Christ. He had long thirsted for vengeance on the Man who had dared to attack the system of legalized extortion by means of which he and his family had acquired enormous wealth. In all probability it was he who had conducted the negotiations with Judas. His malice and his enmity were now gratified. What the united Sanhedrim had been unable to achieve by legal means he had accomplished by unscrupulous stratagem. Judas was the first to inform him that Jesus was now safely delivered into his hands "without tumult." He, in turn, informs Caiaphas, and the members of the Sanhedrim are hastily assembled. Thus, at dead of night, with no attempt to observe legal forms, the mock trial of the Nazarene commenced. But no sooner does the examination of Christ begin, than it is quite evident that there will be great difficulty in proving any serious charge against Him. Jesus is Himself fully conscious of the strength of His position. When He is questioned concerning His teachings He replies boldly that His teachings have been sufficiently public for all the world to know their import. If they desire to know what these teachings were Jerusalem can supply a thousand witnesses. The boldness and justice of this reply fills the priests with angry amazement. They see the prisoner, for whose arrest they had so long plotted, slipping through their hands, and in their anger they permit Him to be struck upon the mouth by one of their own officers. They are the more angry because they already stand committed to Pontius Pilate. When Pilate placed at their disposal the Roman guard for the arrest of Christ, it was with the distinct understanding that a dangerous revolutionary was to be arrested, and Pilate is not the kind of man to accept a ridiculous position without resentment. Already they foresee those difficulties with Pilate which afterward occurred. Pilate will certainly demand some conclusive evidence of crime before he will pronounce a sentence of death which they are incompetent to execute. But what proof of guilt have they to offer? They seek eagerly for false witnesses, who may say something to incriminate their prisoner; but to their dismay the testimony of each of these men proves worthless. The worst that the most abandoned of these bribed ruffians can say is that Jesus had once threatened the destruction of the Temple. At last, in despair, Caiaphas appeals to the prisoner Himself. He adjures Him by the living God to declare whether He is in truth the Christ, the Son of God. And from those smitten lips the reply rings clear and loud, "Thou hast said," which was the strongest form of affirmation. With what seems to them insensate folly, with what seems to us deliberate acquiescence in a fate which He felt foreordained, Christ condemns Himself. Once more we will see how truly the initiative of events is from first to last in His own hands; for had Jesus not spoken He must have been acquitted. The question is at once put to the Sanhedrim, "What think ye?" The answer is unanimous, "He is guilty of death." And then, as if to show how little of a court of justice this tribunal was, the malice of its members breaks all bounds, and the hall of Caiaphas becomes a scene of insult, violence, and degraded rage. "Then did they spit in His face, and buffeted Him; and others smote Him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy, thou Christ, who is he that smote Thee?" Nothing in the history of Jesus, nothing perhaps in the history of the world, is so appalling as this scene in the house of Caiaphas. Jesus was after all the true Son of the Jewish Church, the Divine flower of her life, the perfect fruit of her teaching, and yet it was this very Church which slew Him. In the little Jewish synagogue at Nazareth He had learned all that He knew of the Hebrew Scriptures. His first boyish excursion had been to the Temple at Jerusalem, where the doctors of the law had treated Him as a prodigy. His teachings were full of quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures, and He often declared that He came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them. His career had been characterized by the utmost benevolence. In this disastrous hour, when many false witnesses came—hirelings and informers of the Sanhedrim, the paid creatures of Hanan and Caiaphas-ready to swear anything for money, it was impossible to prove anything to his discredit. His life had been lived in the honest daylight, and there was nothing hidden in it of which he was afraid, no record that could leap to light to shame Him. The Court of Caiaphas was the supreme tribunal of the national religion, and yet a glance is sufficient to assure us that it is not a court of justice, but a conclave of conspirators. Hatred, envy, and cruelty cast baleful shadows on every brow. It is a league of wolves against the Lamb. It is a hideous assembly, paralleled by that majestic and appalling vision of Satan and his fallen angels which the genius of Milton has made immortal; for even so Hanan towers amid the gloom of that disastrous night "His face Deep scars of thunder had intrencht, and care Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows |