Part 35 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: In criminal matters, eye-witnesses alone were admitted

Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, iv 5]

[Footnote 2: Talm of Jerus, _Sanhedrim_, xiv 16; Talm of Bab, same treatise, 43 _a_, 67 _a_ Cf _Shabbath_, 104 _b_]

We learn from the disciples of Jesus theed was that of ”corruption;”[1] and apart froination, the narrative of the Gospels corresponds exactly with the procedure described by the Talmud The plan of the enemies of Jesus was to convict him, by the testimony of witnesses and by his own avowals, of blaspheion, to condeet the condemnation sanctioned by Pilate The priestly authority, as we have already seen, was in reality entirely in the hands of Hanan The order for the arrest probably cae that Jesus was first brought[2] Hanan questioned him as to his doctrine and his disciples Jesus, with proper pride, refused to enter into long explanations He referred Hanan to his teachings, which had been public; he declared he had never held any secret doctrine; and desired the ex-high priest to interrogate those who had listened to hierated respect hich the old priest was surrounded made it appear audacious; and one of those present replied to it, it is said, by a blow

[Footnote 1: Matt xxvii 63; John vii 12, 47]

[Footnote 2: John xviii 13, and following This circuest proof of the historic value of the fourth Gospel]

Peter and John had followed their Master to the dwelling of Hanan

John, as known in the house, was admitted without difficulty; but Peter was stopped at the entrance, and John was obliged to beg the porter to let hiht was cold Peter stopped in the antechamber, and approached a brasier, around which the servants arnized as a disciple of the accused The unfortunate man, betrayed by his Galilean accent, and pestered by questions from the servants, one of whom, a kinsman of Malchus, had seen him at Gethsemane, denied thrice that he had ever had the least connection with Jesus He thought that Jesus could not hear hiht to hide by his dissily dishonorable But his better nature soon revealed to him the fault he had co of the cock, recalled to him a remark that Jesus had made Touched to the heart, he went out and wept bitterly[1]

[Footnote 1: Matt xxvi 69, and following; Mark xiv 66, and following; Luke xxii 54, and following; John xviii 15, and following, 25, and following]

Hanan, although the true author of the judicial murder about to be accomplished, had not power to pronounce the sentence upon Jesus; he sent him to his son-in-law, Kaapha, who bore the official title This man, the blind instru that had been done The Sanhedrim was assembled at his house[1] The inquiry co to the inquisitorial process described in the Talmud, appeared before the tribunal The fatal sentence which Jesus had really uttered: ”I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days,” was cited by titnesses To blasphe to the Jewish law, to blaspheme God himself[2] Jesus remained silent, and refused to explain the incrih priest then adjured him to say if he were the Messiah; Jesus confessed it, and proclaimed before the assee of Jesus, who had resolved to die, renders this narrative superfluous It is probable that here, as when before Hanan, he re his last ht for pretexts Jesus felt this, and did not undertake a useless defense In the light of orthodox Judaism, he was truly a blasphemer, a destroyer of the established worshi+p Now, these crimes were punished by the laith death[4] With one voice, the asseuilty of a capital crime The members of the council who secretly leaned to him, were absent or did not vote[5] The frivolity which characterizes old established aristocracies, did not per upon the consequences of the sentence they had passed Huhtly sacrificed; doubtless the members of the Sanhedrim did not dreary posterity for the sentence pronounced with such careless disdain

[Footnote 1: Matt xvi 57; Mark xiv 53; Luke xxii 66]

[Footnote 2: Matt xxiii 16, and following]

[Footnote 3: Matt xxvi 64; Mark xiv 62; Luke xxii 69 John knows nothing of this scene]

[Footnote 4: _Levit_ xxiv 14, and following; _Deut_ xiii 1, and following]

[Footnote 5: Luke xxiii 50, 51]

The Sanhedriht to execute a sentence of death[1] But in the confusion of pohich then reigned in Judea, Jesus was, from that moht exposed to the ill-treatnity[2]

[Footnote 1: John xviii 31; Jos, _Ant_, XX ix 1]

[Footnote 2: Matt xxvi 67, 68; Mark xiv 65; Luke xxii 63-65]

In the ain asseet Pilate to ratify the condemnation pronounced by the Sanhedrier sufficient The procurator was not invested, like the iate, with the disposal of life and death But Jesus was not a Roovernor in order that the sentence pronounced against him should take its course As always happens, when a political people subjects a nation in which the civil and the religious laws are confounded, the Roive to the Jewish law a sort of official support The Roman law did not apply to Jews The latter remained under the canonical lahich we find recorded in the Taloverned by the code of Islaion, the Roious faults The situation was nearly that of the sacred cities of India under the English dominion, or rather that which would be the state of Damascus if Syria were conquered by a European nation Josephus asserts, though this may be doubted, that if a Roman trespassed beyond the pillars which bore inscriptions forbidding pagans to advance, the Romans themselves would have delivered him to the Jews to be put to death[2]

[Footnote 1: Matt xxvii 1; Mark xv 1; Luke xxii 66, xxiii 1; John xviii 28]

[Footnote 2: Jos, _Ant_, XV xi 5; _BJ_, VI ii 4]

The agents of the priests therefore bound Jesus and led hi the Tower of Antonia[2] It was theof the day on which the Paschal lamb was to be eaten (Friday the 14th of Nisan, our 3d of April) The Jeould have been defiled by entering the judgment-hall, and would not have been able to share in the sacred feast They therefore re informed of their presence, ascended the _bima_[4] or tribunal, situated in the open air,[5] at the place named _Gabbatha_, or in Greek, _Lithostrotos_, on account of the paveatio ad Caium_, -- 38 Jos, _BJ_, II xiv

8]

[Footnote 2: The exact place now occupied by the seraglio of the Pacha of Jerusalem]