THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

THE MORNING OF GOOD FRIDAY.

CHAPTER XIV

(St. Matt. xxvii. 1, 2, 11-14; St. Mark xv. i-5; St. Luke xxiii. 1-5; St. John xviii. 28-38; St. Luke xxiii. 6-12; St. Matt. xxvii. 3-10; St. Matt. xxvii. 15-18; St. Mark St. Matt. xxvii. 20-31;; St. Mark xv. 11-20; St. Luke xxiii. 18-25; St. John St. Matt. xxvii. 20-31; St. Mark xv. 11-20; St. Luke xxiii. 18-25; St. John xix.1-16.)

The pale grey light had passed into that of early morning, when the Sanhedrists once more assembled in the Palace of Caiaphas. [1 This is so expressly stated in St. John xviii. 28, that it is difficult to understand whence the notion has been derived that the Council assembled in their ordinary council-chamber.] A comparison with the terms in which they who had formed the gathering of the previous night are described will convey the impression, that the number of those present was now increased, and that they who now came belonged to the wisest and most influential of the Council. It is not unreasonable to suppose, that some who would not take part in deliberations which were virtually a judicial murder might, once the resolution was taken, feel in Jewish casuitry absolved from guilt in advising how the informal sentence might best be carried into effect. It was this, and not the question of Christ's guilt, which formed the subject of deliberation on that early morning. The result of it was to 'bind' Jesus and hand Him over as a malefactor to Pilate, with the resolve, if possible, not to frame any definite charge; [a St. John xviii. 29, 30.] but, if this became necessary, to lay all the emphasis on the purely political, not the religious aspect of the claims of Jesus. [b St. Luke xxiii. 2.] [2 Comp. St. Matt. xxvii. 1 with. xxvi. 59, where the words 'and elders' must be struck out; and St. Mark xv. 1 with xiv. 55.]

To us it may seem strange, that they who, in the lowest view of it, had committed so grossly unrighteous, and were now coming on so cruel and bloody a deed, should have been prevented by religious scruples from entering the 'Praetorium.' And yet the student of Jewish casuistry will understand it; nay, alas, history and even common observation furnish only too many parallel instances of unscrupulous scrupulosity and unrighteous conscientiousness. Alike conscience and religiousness are only moral tendencies natural to man; whither they tend, must be decided by considerations outside of them: by enlightenment and truth. [1 These are the Urim and Thummim of the 'anima naturaliter Christiana.'] The 'Praetorium,' to which the Jewish leaders, or at least those of them who represented the leaders, for neither Annas nor Caiaphas seems to have been personally present, brought the bound Christ, was (as always in the provinces) the quarters occupied by the Roman Governor. In Caesarea this was the Palace of Herod, and there St. Paul was afterwards a prisoner. But in Jerusalem there were two such quarters: the fortress Antonia, and the magnificent Palace of Herod at the north-western angle of the Upper City. Although it is impossible to speak with certainty, the balance of probability is entirely in favour of the view that, when Pilate was in Jerusalem with his wife, he occupied the truly royal abode of Herod, and not the fortified barracks of Antonia. [2 This is, of course, not the traditional site, nor yet that which was formerly in favour. But as the Palace of Herod undoubtedly became (as all royal residences) the property of the State, and as we have distinct evidence that Roman Procurators resided there, and took their seat in front of that Palace on a raised pavement to pronounce judgment (Jos. War ii. 14. 8; comp. Philo, ad Caj. & 38), the inference is obvious, that Pilate, especially as he was accompanied by his wife, resided there also.] From the slope at the eastern angle, opposite the Temple-Mount, where the Palace of Caiaphas stood, up the narrow streets of the Upper City, the melancholy procession wound to the portals of the grand Palace of Herod. It is recorded, that they who brought Him would not themselves enter the portals of the Palace, 'that they might not be defile, but might eat the Passover.'

Few expressions have given rise to more earnest controversy than this. On two things at least we can speak with certainty. Entrance into a heathen house did Levitically render impure for that day, that is, till the evening. [3 The various reasons for this need not here be discussed. As these pages are passing through the press (for a second edition) my attention has been called to Dr. Schiirer's brochure ('Ueber Giessen, 1883), intended to controvert the interpretation of St. John xviii. 28, given in the text. This is not the place to enter on the subject at length. But I venture to think that, with all his learning, Dr. Schiirer has not quite met the case, nor fully answered the argument as put by Kirchner and Wieseler. Putting aside any argument from the supposed later date of the 'Priest-Codex,' as compared with Deuter., and indeed the purely Biblical argument, since the question is as to the views entertained in the time of Christ, Schiirer argues: 1. That the Chagigah was not designated by the term Pesach. 2. That the defilement from entering a heathen house would not have ceased in the evening (so as to allow them to eat the Passover), but have lasted for seven days, as being connected with the suspicion that an abortus, i.e. a dead body, might be buried in the house. On the first point we refer to Note 1 on the next page, only adding that, with all his ingenuity, Schiirer has not met all the passages adduced on the other side, and that the view advocated in the text is that adopted by many Jewish scholars.

The argument on the second point is even more unsatisfactory. The defilement from entering the Praetorium, which the Sanhedrists dreaded might be, or rather, in this case must have been, due to other causes than that the house might contain an abortus or a dead body. And of such many may be conceived, connected either with the suspected presence of an idol in the house or with contact with an idolator. It is, indeed, true that Ohol. xviii. 7 refers to the suspicion of a buried abortus as the cause of regarding the houses of Gentiles as defiled; but even so, it would be too much to suppose that a bare suspicion of this kind would make a man unclean for seven days. For this it would have been necessary that the dead body was actually within the house entered, or that what contained it had been touched. But there is another and weightier consideration. Ohol. xviii. 7 is not so indefinite as Dr. Schurer implies. It contains a most important limitation. In order to make a house thus defiled (from suspicion of an abortus buried in it), it states that the house must have been inhabited by the heathen for forty days, and even so the custody of a Jewish servant or maid would have rendered needless a bediqah, or investigation (to clear the house of suspicion). Evidently, the Praetorium would not have fallen under the category contemplated in Ohol. xviii. 7, even if (which we are not prepared to admit) such a case would have involved a defilement of seven days. Thus Schurer's argument falls to the ground. Lastly, although the Chagigah could only be brought by the offerer in person, the Paschal Lamb might be brought for another person, and then the tebhul yom partake of it. Thus, if the Sanhedrists had been defiled in the morning they might have eaten the Pascha at night. Dr. Schurer in his brochure repeatedly appeals to Delitzsch (Zeitschr. f. Luther. Theol. 1874, pp. 1-4); but there is nothing in the article of that eminent scholar to bear out the special contention of Schurer, except that he traces the defilement of heathen houses to the cause in Ohal.xviii.7.Delitzsch concludes his paper by pointing to this very case in evidence that the N.T. documents date from the first, and not the second century of our era. first, and not the second century of our era.] The fact of such defilement is clearly attested both in the New Testament [a Acts x 28.] and in the Mishnah, though itsreasons might be various. [b Ohol. xviii. 7; Tohar. vii. 3.] A person who had sobecome Levitically unclean was technically called Tebhul Yom ('bathed of the day'). The other point is, that, to have so become 'impure' for the day, would not have disqualified for eating the Paschal Lamb, since the meal was partaken of after the evening, and when a new day had begun. In fact, it is distinctly laid down [c Pes. 92 a.] that the 'bathed of the day,' that is, he who had been impure for the day and had bathed in the evening, did partake of the Paschal Supper, and an instance is related, [d Jer. Pes. 36 b, lines 14 and 15 from bottom.] when some soldiers whohad guarded the gates of Jerusalem 'immersed,' and ate the Paschal Lamb. It follows that those Sanhedrists could not have abstained from entering the Palace of Pilate because by so doing they would have been disqualified for the Paschal Supper.

The point is of importance, because many writers have interpreted the expression 'the Passover' as referring to the Paschal Supper, and have argued that, according to the Fourth Gospel, our Lord did not on the previous evening partake of the Paschal Lamb, or else that in this respect the account of the Fourth Gospel does not accord with that of the Synoptists. But as, for the reason just stated, it is impossible to refer the expression 'Passover' to the Paschal Supper, we have only to inquire whether the term is not also applied to other offerings. And here both the Old Testament [e Deut. xvi. 1-3; 2 Chron. xxxv. 1, 2, 6, 18] and Jewish writings [1 The subject has been so fully discussed in Wieseler, Beitr., and in Kirchner, Jud. Passahfeier, not to speak of many others, that it seems needless to enter further on the question. No competent Jewish archaeologist would care to deny that 'Pesach' may refer to the 'Chagigah,' while the motive assigned to the Sanhedrists by St. John implies, that in this instance it must refer to this, and not to the Paschal Lamb.] show, that the term Pesach, or 'Passover,' was applied not only to the Paschal Lamb, but to all the Passover sacrifices, especailly to what was called the Chagigah, or festive offering (from Chag, or Chagag, to bring the festive sacrifice usual at each of the three Great Feasts).' According to the express rule (Chag. i. 3) the Chagigah was brought on the first festive Paschal Day. [1 But concession was made to those who had neglected it on the first day to bring it during the festive week, which in the Feast of Tabernacles was extended to the Octave, and in that of Weeks (which lasted only one day) over a whole week (see Chag. 9 a; Jer. Chag. 76 c). The Chagigah could not, but the Paschal Lamb might be offered by a person on behalf of another.] It was offered immediately after the morning-service, and eaten on that day, probably some time before the evening, when, as we shall by-and-by see, another ceremony claimed public attention. We can therefore quite understand that, not on the eve of the Passover but on the first Paschal day, the Sanhedrists would avoid incurring a defilement which, lasting till the evening, would not only have involved them in the inconvenience of Levitical defilement on the first festive day, but have actually prevented their offering on that day the Passover, festive sacrifice, or Chagigah. For, we have these two express rules: that a person could not in Levitical defilement offer the Chagigah; and that the Chagigah could not be offered for a person by some one else who took his place (Jer. Chag. 76 a, lines 16 to 14 from bottom). These considerations and canons seem decisive as regards the views above expressed. There would have been no reason to fear 'defilement' on the morning of the Paschal Scrafice; but entrance into the Praetorium on the morning of the first Passover-day would have rendered it impossible for them to offer the Chagigah, which is also designated by the term Pesach.

It may have been about seven in the morning, probably even earlier, [2 Most commentators suppose it to have been much earlier. I have followed the view of Keim.] when Pilate went out to those who summoned him to dispense justice. The question which he addressed to them seems to have startled and disconcerted them. Their procedure had been private; it was of the very essence of proceedings at Roman Law that they were in public. Again, the procedure before the Sanhedrists had been in the form of a criminal investigation, while it was of the essence of Roman procedure to enter only on definite accusations. [3 Nocens, nisi accusatus fuerit, condemnari non potest. In regard to the publicity of Roman procedure, comp. Acts xvi. 19; xvii. 6; xviii. 12; xxv. 6; Jos. War ii. 9. 3; 14. 8; 'maxima frequentia amplissimorum ac sapientissimorum civium adstante' (Cicero).] Accordingly, the first question of Pilate was, what accusation they brought against Jesus. The question would come upon them the more unexpectedly, that Pilate must, on the previous evening, have given his consent to the employment of the Roman guard which effected the arrest of Jesus. Their answer displays humiliation, ill-humour, and an atempt at evasion. If He had not been 'a malefactor, they would not have 'delivered' [1 Signficantly the same as that in reference to the betrayal of Judas.] Him up! On this vague charge Pilate, in whom we mark throughout a strange reluctance to proceed, perhaps from unwillingness to please the Jews, perhaps from a desire to wound their feelings on the tenderest point, perhaps because restrained by a Higher Hand, refused to proceed. He proposed that the Sanhedrists should try Jesus according to the Jewish Law. This is another important trait, as apparently implying that Pilate had been previously aware both of the peculiar claims of Jesus, and that the action of the Jewish authorities had been determined by 'envy.' [a St. Matt. xxvii. 18] But, under ordinary circumstances, Pilate would not have wished to hand over a person accused of so grave a charge as that of setting up Messianic claims to the Jewish authorities, to try the case as a merely religious question. [b Acts. xxii. 30; xxii. 28, 29; xxiv. 9, 18-20] Taking this in connection with the other fact, apparently inconsistent with it, that on the previous evening the Governor had given a Roman guard for the arrest of the prisoner, and with this other fact of the dream and warning of Pilate's wife, a peculiar impression is conveyed to us. We can understand it all, if, on the previous evening, after the Roman guard had been granted, Pilate had spoken of it to his wife, whether because he knew her to be, or because she might be interested in the matter. Tradition has given her the name Procula; [c Nicephorus, H. E. i 30] while] an Apocryphal Gospel describes her as a convert to Judaism; [d Gospel according to Nicod. ch. ii.] while the Greek Church has actually placed her in the Catalogue of Saints. What if the truth lay between these statements, and Procula had not only been a proselyte, like the wife of a previous Roman Governor, [2 Staturnius(Jos. Ant. xviii. 3, 5).] but known about Jesus and spoken of Him to Pilate on that evening? This would best explain his relutance to condemn Jesus, as well as her dream of Him.

As the Jewish authorities had to decline the Governor's offer to proceed against Jesus before their own tribunal, on the avowed ground that they had not power to pronounce capital sentence, [3 The apparently strange statement, St. John xviii. 32, affords another undesigned confirmation of the Jewish authorship fo the Fourth Gospel. It seems to imply, that the Sanhedrin might have found a mode of putting Jesus to death in the same informal manner in which Stephen was killed and they sought to destroy Paul. The jewish law recognised a form of porcedure, or rather a want of procedure, when a person caught in flagrante delicto of blasphemy might be ddone to death without further inquiry.] it now behoved them to formulat a capital charge. This is recorded by St. Luke alone. [a St. Luke xxii. 2, 3] It was, that Jesus had said, He Himself was Christ a King. It will be noted, that in so saying they falsely imputed to Jesus their own political expectations concerning the Messiah. But even this is not all. They prefaced it by this, that He perverted the nation and forbade to give tirbute to Caesar. The latter charge was so grossly unfounded, that we can only regard it as in their mind a necessary inference from the premiss that He claimed to be King. And, as telling most against Him, they put this first and foremost, treating the inference as if it were a fact, a practice this only too common in controversies, political, religious, or private.

This charge of the Sanhedrists explains what, according to all the Evangelists, passed within the Praetorium. We presume that Christ was within, probably in charge of some guards. The words of the Sanhedrists brought peculiar thoughts of Pilate. He now called Jesus and asked Him: 'Thou art the King of the Jews?' There is that mixture of contempt for all that was Jewish, and of that general cynicism which could not believe in the existence of anything higher, we mark a feeling of awe in regard to Christ, even though the feeling may partly have been of superstition. Out of all that the Sanhedrists had said, Pilate took only this, that Jesus claimed to be a King. Christ, Who had not heard the charge of His accusers, now ignored it, in His desire to stretch out salvation even to a Pilate. Not heeding the implied irony, He first put it to Pilate, whether the question, be it criminal charge or inquiry, was his own, or merely the repeitition of what His Jewish accusers had told Pilate of Him. The Governor quickly disowned any personal inquiry. How could he raise any such question? he was not a Jew, and the subject had no general interest. Jesus' own nation and its leader had handed Him over as a criminal: what had He done?

The answer of Pilate left nothing else for Him Who, even in that supreme hour, thought only of others, not of Himself. but to bring before the Roman directly that truth for which his words had given the opening. It was not, as Pilate had implied, a Jewish question: it was one of absolute truth; it concerned all men. The Kingdom of Christ was not of this world at all, either Jewish or Gentile. Had it been otherwise, He would have led His followers to a contest for His claims and aims, and not have become a prisoner of the Jews. One word only in all this struck Pilate. 'So then a King art Thou!' He was incapable of apprehending the higher thought and truth. We mark in his words the same mixture of scoffing and misgiving. Pilate was now in no doubt as to the nature of the Kingdom; his exclamation and question applied to the Kingship. That fact Christ would now emphasise in the glory of His Humiliation. He accepted what Pilate said; He adopted his words. But He added to them an appeal, or rather an explanation of His claims, such as a heathen, and a Pilate, could understand. His Kingdom was not of this world, but of that other world which He had come to reveal, and to open to all believers. Here was the truth! His Birth or Incarnation, as the Sent of the Father, and His own voluntary Coming into this world, for both are referred to in His words [a St. John xviii. 37], had it for their object to testify of the truth concerning that other world, of which was His Kingdom. This was no Jewish-Messianic Kingdom, but one that appealed to all men. And all who had moral affinity to 'the truth' would listen to His testimony, and so come to own Him as 'King.'

But these words struck only a hollow void, as they fell on Pilate. It was not merely cynicism, but utter despair of all that is higher, a moral suicide, which appears in his question: 'What is truth?' He had understood Christ, but it was not in him to respond to His appeal. He, whose heart and life had so little kinship to 'the truth,' could not sympathise with, though he dimly perceived, the grand aim of Jesus' Life and Work. But even the question of Pilate seems an admission, an implied homage to Christ. Assuredly, he would not have so opened his inner being to one of the priestly accusers of Jesus.

That man was no rebel, no criminal! They who brought Him were moved by the lowest passions. And so he told them, as he went out, that he found no fault in Him. Then came from the assembled Sanhedrists a perfect hailstorm of accusations. As we picture it to ourselves, all this while the Christ stood near, perhaps behind Pilate, just within the portals of the Praetorium. And to all this clamour of charges He made no reply. It was as if the surging of the wild waves broke far beneath against the base of the rock, which, untouched, reared its head far aloft to the heavens. But as He stood in the calm silence of Majesty, Pilate greatly wondered. Did this Man not even fear death; was He so conscious of innocence, so infinitely superior to those around and against Him, or had He so far conquered Death, that He would not condescend to their words? And why then had He spoken to him of His Kingdom and of that truth?

Fain would he have withdrawn from it all; not that he was moved for absolute truth or by the personal innocence of the Sufferer, but that there was that in the Christ which, perhaps for the first time in his life, had made him reluctant to be unrighteous and unjust. And so, when, amidst these confused cries, he caught the name Galilee as the scene of Jesus' labours, he gladly seized on what offered the prospect of devolving the responsibility on another. Jesus was a Galilean, and therefore belonged to the jurisdiction of King Herod. To Herod, therefore, who had come for the Feast to Jerusalem, and there occupied the old Maccabean Palace, close to that of the High-Priest, Jesus was now sent. [a St. Luke xxiii. 6-12] [1 Meyer marks this as the technical term in handing over a criminal to the proper judicial authority.]

To St. Luke alone we owe the account of what passed there, as, indeed, of so many traits in this last scene of the terrible drama. [2 It is worse than idle, it is trifling to ask, whence the Evangelists derived their accounts. As if those things had been done in a corner, or none of those who now were guilty had afterwards become disciples!] The opportunity now offered was welcome to Herod. It was a mark of reconciliation (or might be viewed as such) between himself and the Roman, and in a manner flattering to himself, since the first step had been taken by the Governor, and that, by an almost ostentatious acknowledgement of the rights of the Tetrarch, on which possibly their former feud may have turned. Besides, Herod had long wished to see Jesus, of Whom he had heard so many things. [b St. Luke ix. 7-9] In that hour coarse curiosity, a hope of seeing some magic performances, was the only feeling that moved the Tetrarch. But in vain did he ply Christ with questions. He was as silent to him as formerly against the virulent charges of the Sanhedrists. But a Christ Who would or could do no signs, nor even kindle into the same denunciations as the Baptist, was, to the coarse realism of Antipas, only a helpless figure that might be insulted and scoffed at, as did the Tetrarch and his men of war. [3 It is impossible to say, whether 'the gorgeous apparel' in which Herod arrayed Christ was purple, or white. Certainly it was not, as Bishop Haneberg suggests (Relig. Alterth. p. 554), an old high-priestly garment of the Maccabees.] And so Jesus was once more sent back tothe Praetorium.

It is in the interval during which Jesus was before Herod, or probably soon afterwards, that we place the last weird scene in the life of Judas, recorded by St. Matthew. [a St. Matt. xxvii. 3-10] We infer this from the circumstance, that, on the return of Jesus from Herod, the Sanhedrists do not seem to have been present, since Pilate had to call them together, [b St Luke xxiii. 13; comp. St. Matt. xxvii. 17.] presumably from the Temple. And here we recall that the Temple was close to the Maccabean Palace. Lastly, the impression left on our minds is, that henceforth the principal part before Pilate was sustained by 'the people,' the Priests and Scribes rather instigating them than conducting the case against Jesus. It may therefore well have been, that, when the Sanhedrists went from the Maccabean Palace into the Temple, as might be expected on that day, only a part of them returned to the Praetorium on the summons of Pilate.

But, however that may have been, sufficient had already passed to convince Judas what the end would be. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that he could have deceived himself on this point from the first, however he had failed to realise the fact in its terrible import till after his deed. The words which Jesus had spoken to him in the Garden must have burnt into his soul. He was among the soldiery that fell back at His look. Since then Jesus had been led bound to Annas, to Caiaphas, to the Praetorium, to Herod. Even if Judas had not been present at any of these occasions, and we do not suppose that his conscience had allowed this, all Jerusalem must by that time have been full of the report, probably in even exaggerated form. One thing he saw: that Jesus was condemned. Judas did not 'repent' in the Scriptural sense; but 'a change of mind and feeling' came over him. [1 The verb designatingScriptural repentance is (); that here used is (), as in St. Matt. xxi. 29, as in St. Matt. xxi. 29, 32; 2 Cor. vii. 8; Heb. vii. 21.] Even had Jesus been an ordinary man, and the relation to Him of Judas been the ordinary one, we could understand his feelings, especially considering his ardent temperament. The instant before and after sin represents the difference of feeling as portrayed in the history of the Fall of our first parents. With the commission of sin, all the bewitching, intoxicating influence, which incited to it, has passed away, and only the naked fact remains. All the glamour has been dispelled; all the reality abideth. If we knew it, probably scarcely one out of many criminals but would give all he has, nay, life itself, if he could recall the deed done, or awake from it to find it only an evil dream. But it cannot be; and the increasingly terrible is, that it is done, and done for ever. Yet this is not 'repentance,' or, at least, God alone knows whether it is such; it may be, and in the case of Judas it only was, 'change of mind and feeling' towards Jesus. Whether this might have passed into repentance, whether, if he had cast himself at the Feet of Jesus, as undoubtedly he might have done, this would have been so, we need not here ask. The mind and feelings of Judas, as regarded the deed he had done, and as regarded Jesus, were now quite other; they became increasingly so with ever-growing intensity. The road, the streets, the people's faces, all seemed now to bear witness against him and for Jesus. He read it everywhere; he felt it always; he imagined it, till his whole being was on flame. What had been; what was; what would be! Heaven and earth receded from him; there were voices in the air, and pangs in the soul, and no escape, help, counsel, or hope anywhere.

It was despair, and his a desperate resolve. He must get rid of these thirty pieces of silver, which, like thirty serpents, coiled round his soul with terrible hissing of death. Then at least his deed would have nothing of the selfish in it: only a terrible error, a mistake, to which he had been incited by these Sanhedrists. Back to them with the money, and let them have it again! And so forward he pressed amidst the wondering crowd, which would give way before that haggard face with the wild eyes, that crime had made old in those few hours, till he came upon that knot of priests and Sanhedrists, perhaps at that very moment speaking of it all. A most unwelcome sight and intrusion on them, this necessary but odious figure in the drama, belonging to its past, and who should rest in its obscurity. But he would be heard; nay, his words would cast the burden on them to share it with him, as with hoarse cry he broke into this: 'I have sinned, in that I have betrayed, innocent blood!' They turned from him with impatience, in contempt, as so often the seducer turns from the seduced, and, God help such, with the same fiendish guilt of hell: 'What is that to us? See thou to it!' And presently they were again deep in conversation or consultation. For a moment he stared wildly before him, the very thirty pieces of silver that had been weighed to him, and which he had now brought back, and would fain have given them, still clutched in his hand. For a moment only, and then he wildly rushed forward, towards the Sanctuary itself, [1 The expression is always used in the N.T. of the Sanctuary itself, and not of the outer courts; but it would include the Court of the Priests, where the sacrifices were offered.] probably to where the Court of Israel bounded on that of the Priests, where generally the penitents stood in waiting, while in the Priests' Court the sacrifice was offered for them. He bent forward, and with all his might hurled from him [2 I so understand the of St. Matt. xxvii. 5.] those thirty pieces of silver, so that each resounded as it fell on the marble pavement.

Out he rushed from the Temple, out of Jerusalem, 'into solitude.' pieces of silver, so that each resounded as it fell on the marble pavement.