CHAP. That of Je sus a new cedented case. were repressed by his direct interference. Nor can capital religious offences have been of frequent occurrence, since it is evident that the rigour of the Mosaic Law had been greatly relaxed, partly by the feebleness of the judicial power, partly by the tendency of the age, which ran in a counter direction to those acts of idolatry against which the Mosaic statutes were chiefly framed, and left few crimes obnoxious to the extreme penalty. Nor, until the existence of their polity and religion was threatened, first by the progress of Christ, and afterwards of his religion, would they have cared to be armed with an authority, which it was rarely, if ever, necessary or expedient to put forth in its full force.* This, then, may have been, strictly speaking, a and unpre- new case, the first which had occurred since the reduction of Judæa to a Roman province. The Sanhedrin, from whom all jurisdiction in political cases was withdrawn; and who had no recent precedent for the infliction of capital punishment on any religious charge, might think it more prudent * It may be worth observing, that not merely were the pharisaic and sadducaic party at issue on the great question of the expediency of the severe administration of the law, which implied frequency of capital punishment; the latter party being notoriously sanguinary in the execution of public justice; but even in the pharisaic party one school, that of Hillel, was accused (Jost Geschichte der Israeliter), by the rival school of Shammai, of dangerous lenity in the administration of the law, and of culpable unwillingness to inflict the punishment of death. The authority of them, says Lightfoot (from the Rabbins), was not taken away by the Romans, but rather relinquished by themselves. The slothfulness of the council destroyed its own authority. Hear it justly upbraided in this matter: The council which puts one to death in seven years is called destructive." R. Lazar Ben Azariah said; which puts one to death in seventy years. Lightfoot, in loc. VII. the rulers in disclaim power. (particularly during this hurried and tumultuous proceeding, which commenced at midnight, and must be dispatched with the least possible delay) at once to disclaim an authority which, however the Roman governor seemed to attribute to them, he might at last prevent their carrying into execution. All the other motives then operating on their Motives of minds would concur in favour of this course of proceeding: - - their mistrust of the people, who ing their might attempt a rescue from their feeble and unrespected officers, and could only, if they should fall off to the other side, be controlled by the dread of the Roman military; and the reluctance to profane so sacred a day by a public execution, of which the odium would thus be cast on their foreign rulers. It was clearly their policy, at any cost, to secure the intervention of Pilate, as well to insure the destruction of their victim, as to shift the responsibility from their own head upon that of the Romans. They might, not unreasonably, suppose that Pilate, whose relentless disposition had been shown in a recent instance, would not hesitate, at once, and on their authority, on the first intimation of a dangerous and growing party, to act without further examination or inquiry, and without scruple, add one victim more to the robbers or turbulent insurgents who, it appears, were kept in prison, in order to be executed as a terrible example at that period of national concourse. fore Pilate. It should seem that while Jesus was sent in Jesus bechains to the Prætorium of Pilate, whether in the Antonia, the fortress adjacent to the Temple, or in VII. Remorse and death of Judas. CHAP. part of Herod's palace, which was connected with the mountain of the Temple by a bridge over the Tyropæon, the council adjourned to their usual place of assemblage, the chamber called Gazith, within the Temple. A deputation only accompanied the prisoner to explain and support the charge, and here probably it was that, in his agony of remorse, Judas brought back the reward that he had received *; and when the assembly, to his confession of his crime, in betraying the innocent blood, replied with cold and contumelious unconcern, he cast down the money on the pavement, and rushed away to close his miserable life. Nor must the characteristic incident be omitted, the Sanhedrin, who had not hesitated to reward the basest treachery, probably out of the Temple funds, scruple to receive back and replace in the sacred Treasury, the price of blood. sum, therefore, is set apart for the purchase of a field for the burial of strangers, long known by the name of Aceldama, the field of blood.† Such is ever the absurdity, as well as the heinousness, of crimes committed in the name of religion. Astonishment of Pilate, The The first emotion of Pilate at this strange accusation from the great tribunal of the nation, however rumours of the name and influence of Jesus had, * Matt. xxvii. 3—10. The sum appears extremely small for the purchase of a field, even should we adopt the very probable suggestion of Kuinoël, that it was a field in which the fuller's earth had been worked out, and which was therefore entirely barren and unproductive. Kuinoël, in loc. Matt. xxvii. 2—14.; Mark, xiv. 1-5.; Luke, xxiii. 1—6. John, xviii. 28—38. VII. no doubt, reached his ears, must have been the utmost СНАР. astonishment. To the Roman mind the Jewish character was ever an inexplicable problem. But if so when they were seen scattered about and mingled with the countless diversities of races of discordant habits, usages, and religions, which thronged to the metropolis of the world, or were dispersed through the principal cities of the empire; in their own country, where there was, as it were, a concentration of all their extraordinary national propensities, they must have appeared in still stronger opposition to the rest of mankind. To the loose manner in which religious belief hung on the greater part of the subjects of the Roman empire, their recluse and uncompromising attachment to the faith of their ancestors offered the most singular contrast. Every where else the temples were open, the rites free to the stranger by race or country, who rarely scrupled to do homage to the tutelar deity of the place. The Jewish Temple alone received, indeed, but with a kind of jealous condescension, the offerings even of the Emperor. Throughout the rest of the world, religious enthusiasm might not be uncommon, here and there, in individual cases, particularly in the East: the priests of some of the mystic religions at times excited a considerable body of followers, and drove them blindfold to the wildest acts of superstitious frenzy ; but the sudden access of religious fervour was, in general, as transient as violent; the flame burned with rapid and irresistible fury, and went out of itself. The Jews stood alone (according to the language CHAP. at the con duct of the and opinion of the Roman world), as a nation of religious fanatics; and this fanaticism was a deep, a settled, a conscientious feeling, and formed, an essential and inseparable part, the groundwork of their rigid and unsocial character. Yet even to one familiarised by a residence of several years with the Jewish nation, on the present occasion, the conduct of the Sanhedrin must have appeared utterly unaccountable. This senate, or municipal body, had left to the Roman governor to discover the danger, and suppress the turbulence, of the robbers and insurgents against whom Pilate had taken such decisive measures. Now, however, they appear suddenly seized with an access of loyalty for the Roman authority, and a trembling Sanhedrin: apprehension of the least invasion of the Roman title to supremacy. And against whom were they actuated by this unwonted caution, and burning with this unprecedented zeal? Against a man who, as far as he could discover, was a harmless, peaceful, and benevolent enthusiast, who had persuaded many of the lower orders to believe in certain unintelligible doctrines, which seemed to have no relation to the government of the country, and were, as yet, no way connected with insurrectionary movements. In fact, he could not but clearly see that they were enemies of the influence obtained by Jesus over the populace; but whether Jesus or the Sanhedrin governed the religious feelings and practices of the people, was a matter of perfect indifference to the Roman supremacy. The vehemence with which they pressed the |