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Now Peter sat without in the palace. And a damsel came unto 70 him, saying: Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee. But he denied 71 before them all, saying: I know not what thou sayest. And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there: This fellow was also with Jesus of Naza

Sanhedrim? When the first court of the nation had fallen to this depth of brutality and injustice, it was time for the avenger to come. The lying, apostate race were no longer to affront Heaven with their hypocrisy. The Roman eagle already scented his prey, and spread his wings for Judea and for Jerusalem.

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69-75. Parallel to Mark xiv. 66 -72, Luke xxii. 56-62, John xviii. 17, 25-27. There are some slight variations in the history of Peter's denial, but they serve to confirm rather than to shake either the veracity of the writers or the genuineness of their record. The tumult of the scene would naturally lead to discrepancy in the accounts. 69. Without in the palace. Or, as Mark writes, "beneath in the palace. The place where the Sanhedrim met was elevated above the rest of the hall or court. Peter appears to have been in the lower part of the court among the attendants and officers, near the fire of coals.-A damsel came unto him, i. e. a maidservant, probably a door-keeper, for females discharged that office among the Jews. The uneasy and distressed manner of one so vehement in his feelings as Peter would naturally cause him to be noticed. -Thou also. In reference, perhaps, to John's being known as a disciple.-Wast with Jesus of Galilee, i. e. of his party, or on his side. He was designated as belonging to Galilee, because he was of Nazareth, and to distinguish him from others of the same name.

It was a generous act for Peter thus to fol

low his Master into the midst of danger, but he was too confident of his own strength to realize his peril, and to be prepared by watching and prayer to overcome temptation. It is our duty to shun danger when possible, and, when we cannot do that innocently, to put on the whole armor of God, and commend ourselves to his Divine aid who is ever near and ready to assist his exposed children, and who "will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it."

70. I know not what thou sayest. There is great naturalness in these words; such is the manner of persons accused. He feigns to be ignorant of the whole matter. He professes not to know what the question referred to. What a stroke of reality! Can any one believe that the book, which is inscribed every where with such luminous marks of truth, could ever have been the work of deceivers or deceived? Our faith in the Scriptures and their important contents will be immensely strengthened, if in reading them we trace these countless evidences of veracity and honesty. After this first denial, Mark states that the cock crew, or, as some with less reason suppose, the trumpet of the Roman watch now sounded, at the hour of midnight, which would bring the first denial to the time when Peter first came in.

71. And when he was gone out into the porch. Frightened at what had happened, it would appear that he was about to withdraw himself from the place. But his movements were watched, and, as he

reth. And again he denied with an oath: I do not know the man. 72 And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Pe- 73 ter: Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying: I know not the man. 74 And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word 75 of Jesus, which said unto him: Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out and wept bitterly.

goes out into the porch or entry, he encounters another servant, who repeats the same charge. Even a woman's voice is able to terrify him who a short time before had said, "Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee."

72. Denied with an oath. This was a new step in his guilt. He denies under the solemnity of an oath. When the limit of virtue is once broken over, it is easier and easier to wander on into forbidden paths. "Resist the beginnings" is a rule of the first importance to the moral character.

73. Thy speech bewrayeth thee, i. e. pointed him out as a Galilean, for we are told that the people of that province spoke in a peculiar dialect and brogue, which was considered barbarous by the rest of the Jews. This was occasioned by the admixture of foreigners with the native inhabitants. See note on Mat. xv. 22. The very eagerness of his asseverations to the contrary only proved more conclusively, by his native accent, the truth of their charge.-Bewrayeth is an obsolete word, meaning betrayeth. The treatment Jesus was receiving from his brutal foes perhaps shook Peter's faith in his Messiahship. It occurred to him that the blow he had inflicted on Malchus might be brought up against him. In a moment of doubt and fear he fell.

74. To curse and to swear. He sinks deeper from step to step. He imprecates curses upon himself, de

nying that he knew Jesus. Let me perish if I am acquainted with this man.-The cock crew. See note on verse 34. It is supposed to have been now about three o'clock, or at the dawn of day.

75. Remembered the word of Jesus, verse 34. Luke says, that "the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter." Though at a distance from him, Jesus' look recalled him to himself. "Those eyes, through which beamed the most generous spirit that ever dwelt in a human bosom, were turned full, in all their awful clearness and serenity, upon the apostate disciple, and they dissolved his heart in the tears of an agonizing repentance."And he went out and wept bitterly. "If that look taught Peter to repent, it may teach us to believe. The fraud and the folly which we witness have no such singleness of heart and such plain majesty of action. Wherever we behold such signs as these, we hail them as the marks which God has put upon truth and good faith; premeditated sophistry may destroy the first burst of nature, but in reading the history of Christ's death, the fresh and sudden feelings of the heart all acquit him, all praise him, all believe in him."

1. We learn from this account the strict honesty and candor of the Evangelists, all four of whom have without exculpation related the sad history of the fall of the chief Apostle, the Rock of the Church. How beautiful is the simple and severe

WHEN

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus.

HEN the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus, to put him to death. 2 And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

truth, though it makes against ourselves!

2. We see the folly of self-confidence, and man's liability to fall at his most unguarded moment. We may practically deny our Saviour now, by abjuring the principles of his religion. To watch and pray is our only safe or reasonable course.

3. In the mildness with which Jesus treated his fallen disciple, we witness the power of love, and discern an image of God's forgiveness of his penitent children.

4. In the quick sorrow of Peter, we behold the true heart of faith still remaining, 66 a repentance to salvation, not to be repented of," and his tears are

"Like blessed showers, Which leave the skies they come from bright and holy." CHAP. XXVII. 1-2. See Mark xv. 1, John xviii. 28.

.1, Luke xxiii.

1. When the morning was come. Their proceedings thus far had been in the night, which was contrary to their laws. Their hostility to Jesus broke through every restraint of custom or justice.-Took counsel to put him to death. They had already condemned Jesus to death, but the power to execute their unrighteous decision did not come within their jurisdiction. For the Romans were masters, and they had reserved in their own hands the power of life and death. The next step for the enemies of Jesus to take was, therefore, to carry him before the Roman

tribunal, and procure, through Gentile aid, the execution of their sentence against their Messiah. The counsel spoken of in the text was the concerting of measures to effect this object.

2. Bound him. Whilst before the council the bonds with which they had bound him at his arrest were probably taken off, but now put on again as he is conducted to another part of the city. This is termed by Dupin a criminal degree of rigor.-To Pontius Pilate the governor. During the great festivals it was customary for this officer to be at Jerusalem, though his proper residence was at Cæsarea. The title of president or governor properly belonged to the chief officer of Syria, under which province Judea was then included as one of its dependencies; though the procurator of Judea exercised some of the prerogatives of that office, as in capital cases, and was therefore sometimes called governor, as in the text, or vice-governor. Pilate, the fifth incumbent of this post, was appointed A. D. 26 or 27, and continued about ten years. His government was very unpopular with the Jews, as he acted in ignorance or in contempt of the feelings of the people whom he ruled. Repeated difficulties and rebellions arose. He was finally superseded and summoned to Rome to account for his conduct. Accused and convicted of mal-administration, he was banished to Vienne, in Gaul,

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was 3 condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying: I have sinned in that I 4 have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said: What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, 5

where he is reported to have put an end to his life in a fit of remorse and despair two years after. John, xviii. 28, relates in this connection a fact which reveals the deep hypocrisy of the priests and Scribes, who were scrupulous of external observances at the moment they were trampling justice and mercy in the dust.

3. Saw that he was condemned, i. e. by the Jewish Sanhedrim. A key is here given to the state of Judas' mind. He had betrayed his Master, expecting, that, as he had miraculous power, he would free himself, and vindicate his dignity as King of the Jews. But when he beholds him an unresisting prisoner, a capital sentence pronounced against him, and matters hastening to extremity, he is seized with grief and despair. Avaricious as he is, he forgets his love of money in this new and overwhelming emotion; he casts the silver from him as accursed, for he sees it already, in imagination, red with the blood of his Master, his innocent Master.-Repented himself. Was sorry, but his sorrow was that of the world, dark and despairing, not the filial, hopeful penitence of a child of God. See 2 Cor. vii. 10. It should be remarked that the account of Judas' tragic fate, from the third to the tenth verse inclusive, is an episode or parenthetical passage.-Thirty pieces of silver. See note on chap. xxvi. 15. 4. The innocent blood. In the original no article is used. A Hebraism for an innocent person. Judas confesses his great sin before those who had instigated him to its

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commission. His testimony to the innocence of our Master is invaluable, because he had long been one of his intimate associates and privy to his daily life and conversation, and if any thing of a wrong or criminal nature could have been wrung from the past, now was the time, when it was likely to be done to justify his baseness in his own eyes and those of others. But no. he surveyed the life and character of his injured Master, only images of his purity and goodness, only recollections of his beneficent miracles and his divine instructions rose to view, and served but to drive the iron of remorse still deeper into his soul.-See thou to that. Or, according to a common phrase, that is your concern. With a frigid indifference, and even a taunting disclaimer of any participation in his crime, the priests and elders answer the poor wretch whom they had made the tool of their abominable purposes. "So all wicked men, who make use of the agency of others for the accomplishment of crime, or the gratification of their passions, care little for the effect produced on the instruments they employ. They soon cast them off and despise them; and in thousands of instances the agents of villany, and the panders to the pleasures of others, are coldly abandoned to remorse, wretchedness, crime, and death," when the purpose for which they were enlisted has been compassed.

5. Cast down the pieces of silver. The identical money, that had a short time before glittered so tempt

6 and departed; and went and hanged himself.—And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said: It is not lawful for to put them into 7 the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. 8 Wherefore that field was called the field of blood, unto this day. 9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet,

ingly in his eye, had now become so many bright witnesses to flash upon him his dreadful offence. He can no longer carry it with him. It weighs him down as an intolerable burden.-Hanged himself. Matthew here describes the suicidal act of Judas, while Peter, in Acts i. 18, gives additional particulars, by which it would appear that the cord or rope by which he was suspended gave way, and that he was precipitated down a steep place, probably the height on which the temple was built, and dashed in pieces; so that, in reality, there is no serious discrepancy, but rather a reciprocal confirmation of the account. We are here taught an impressive lesson of the tremendous power of a condemning conscience, and the liability of the deeply wicked to be driven into a desperate remorse rather than an humble penitence. We are warned too of the insidious nature of sin and its progressive tendency. It appears that Judas had been gradually yielding to the pressure of temptation, and committing small acts of wrong during his office as treasurer to the little fraternity. John xii. 6. Let us learn that there is no moral safety but in absolute compliance with science.

"Its slighted touches instant pause,-
Debar a' side pretences,
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences."

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6. It is not lawful. A scrupulousness becoming these hypocrites. They fear to violate ceremonial

requisitions, Deut. xxiii. 18, but express no compunction at receiving the silver with which they had paid the traitor for delivering up his guileless Master.-Treasury. This was a part of the temple in the court of the women, where the offerings made to God were kept.

The price of blood, i. e. of life. It was money by which the life of Jesus had been bartered away.

7. Bought with them the potter's field. In Acts i. 18, we are told that Judas purchased a field. The variance is easily reconciled. He might be properly said to purchase it, inasmuch as he was the cause or occasion of its being purchased, though others actually executed the bargain after his death. It would be unnecessary to mention these things, had not the ingenuity of skepticism fastened on the minutest objections arising from differences in the sacred narratives, to promote its bad cause. The potter's field was probably some well known field, or plat of ground, where earthen wares had been manufactured, but which had now become comparatively useless.-To bury strangers in, i. e. foreign Jews who had come from distant parts, and died at Jerusalem during the feasts, or, as Bloomfield contends, Gentile foreigners.

8. The field of blood. Called, in Acts i. 19, Aceldama, by the Jews, which signified, in the dialect then used, the field of blood.

9, 10. Then was fulfilled, i. e. the the words of the old prophet might

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