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'Art thou the King of the Jews?'-though it is inconceivable how he could have asked so irrelevant a question, seeing that the alleged crime was against the Jewish law !-Jesus answered him, 'Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?' Pilate answered, 'Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?'* Could anything be more preposterous than all these fancies? Sceptics object to the supernatural in the fourth Gospel: with more reason may they object to the unnatural. Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews'-the Messiah' delivered to the Jews!'' But now is my kingdom not from hence.' Pilate therefore said unto him, 'Art thou a king then?' Jesus answered, 'Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.' Pilate saith unto him, 'What is truth?' no reply on the part of our Lord is recorded in the fourth Gospel. But in another apocryphal document of fully equal value, known as the Gospel of Nicodemus, the conversation is thus continued: Jesus saith, “Truth is from heaven." Pilate saith, "Is not then truth on earth?" Jesus saith to Pilate, "See how those who speak the truth on earth are judged by them who have power upon earth."

To this

Leaving these romances, we turn to the plain historical fact, about which there ought to be no question, that Jesus was accused before Pilate of claiming to be the Messiah, and as such pretending to the sovereignty of the kingdom of Israel, or of 'the Jews,' as the expression was then vulgarly understood. M. Renan contends, indeed, that Jesus never professed to be the King of the Jews;' but this is surely a mere play upon words. To the charge of claiming to be the Messiah, the lineal descendant of King David, who had lived more than a thousand years previously, and in this sense to be the King of the Jews, *John xviii. 33-35. † John xviii. 36-38.

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Jesus pleaded guilty. Beyond this he answered nothing to the many things of which the chief priests accused him; which things were manifestly irrelevant, or they would have been noticed by Pilate in his judgment, or by the several historians. Pilate is, however, recorded to have marvelled greatly at Jesus's silence, the reason for his wonder doubtless being that the accused should have so patiently put up with the injurious and even foul language, which we may well imagine a number of excited natives of Judæa would have been as capable of using then as at the present day.

When the chief priests and their associates were tired of bringing charges which Jesus did not even condescend to notice, the Roman magistrate delivered his judgment in these words, 'I find no fault in this man'. The attempt to attach to him criminality against the State in claiming to be the descendant of David-which, from a Roman point of view, would be much like the pretension, here in England, to be a lineal descendant of Alfred the Great-was seen to be merely frivolous and vexatious. But this decision only made the accusers more furious, and they exclaimed, 'He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Judæa, beginning from Galilee to this place'.

When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man was a Galilean; and as soon as he learned that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod (who also was at Jerusalem at that time, having come to keep the Passover), -heartily rejoiced, no doubt, at having found such a convenient means of getting rid of so troublesome a case. 'And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad; for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing' §.

Herod Antipas was a Jew, and therefore understood the popular notion of his nation respecting the Messiah. Had Jesus

*Matth. xxvii. 12-14.

Luke xxiii. 5.

+ Luke xxiii. 4.
§ Luke xxiii. 8, 9.

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deigned to answer him, as Paul answered his nephew, Herod Agrippa, thirty years afterwards, the former might probably have said to Jesus, as the latter said to Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to believe that thou art really the Messiah'-'to be a Christian '*. But this was not our Lord's object. He held his peace; and Herod with his men of war set him at nought,that is to say, disbelieved him, thought him to be an impostor,and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, as befitting the title he had so madly assumed, and sent him back again to Pilate +.

From the Jewish prince's treatment of Jesus, the Roman governor was convinced, even more than before, of the frivolousness of the accusation against him. He therefore called together the chief priests and the rulers of the people, and said unto them, 'Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people; and behold, I, having examined him before you,'-the fourth Gospel says that he examined him in private, and afterwards went out again to the Jews',- have found no fault in him touching those things whereof ye accuse him. No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of death has been done by him' §. Pilate added, however, I will therefore chastise him and release him;' by which he must be understood to have meant, that, though he exonerated Jesus from the charge of perverting the people,' (that is to say maliciously inciting the Jews to rebel against Cæsar in favour of himself as their lawful native sovereign,) still the mere fact of his calling himself, or allowing himself to be called, the King of the Jews, even though without any evil intention, might easily have led to a breach of the peace. In fact, the difficulty with Jesus had been all along to prevent himself from being publicly acclaimed as the Messiah; he well knowing what would have been the inevitable consequences of such a manifestation on the part of an excited populace, chafing under the bonds of their Roman conquerors. For such conduct, then, as provocative to evil, Pilate

* See above, Chapter V. page 66.

John xviii. 38.

† Luke xxiii. 11.

§ Luke xxiii. 13-15.

might well deem the prisoner deserving of a slight beating with 'virgæ' or rods, though even in this he would seem to have desired to conciliate the high priest and his party, rather than because he found any fault in Jesus. But this was far from satisfying the accusers, whom nothing less would serve than that Jesus should be condemned to death for the crimen læsæ majestatis;' and Pilate was so weak as at length to give way to them.

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The three historical Gospels, though differing slightly in the details, all agree in representing Pilate as most unwilling to condemn Jesus on an unfounded charge; for he knew that for envy they had delivered him. And even after he had passed on him a sentence which involved the penalty of death, Pilate was in hopes he might yet be able to free him, by means of the custom which prevailed, that at the annual national festival the Roman governor should release to the people a prisoner whom they would. Now they had a notable prisoner, named Barabbas, who was under sentence of death for insurrection and murder; therefore, when the people were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, 'Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called the Messiah?' The people, if left to themselves, might probably have preferred to liberate the prophet of Galilee, of whom they had never heard anything but good, even if they did not all believe him to be the true Messiah, as many of them doubtless did. But, like the populace in all countries and in all ages, they were easily swayed by specious demagogues; and the chief priests and elders easily 'persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus' *.

When therefore the governor said unto them, 'Which of the twain will ye that I release unto you?' they said 'Barabbas.' On this Pilate said unto them, 'What shall I do then with Jesus, who is called the Messiah?' They all said unto him, 'Let him be crucified.' And the governor said, 'Why, what evil hath he done?' But they cried out the more, saying, 'Let him be crucified.' It was like the cry 'ad leones,' afterwards so frequently * Matth. xxvii. 15-20.

used to express the condemnation of the followers of Jesus at Rome by the demoralized inhabitants of the capital, who cared for nothing as long as they had 'panem et circenses '—food and the inhuman amusements of the circus. The same rabble that had joined in shouting Hosannas on the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem only a few days previously, now cried out Crucify him!' But this was as natural to the mob of Jerusalem as it is to the rabble of every other city. When the famous John Wilkes was complimented by a friend on the crowds assembled to greet him on his liberation from the Tower of London, he cynically replied, 'There would be a much larger crowd to see me if I were going to be hanged!' And at the present moment, the fate of the Emperor Napoleon, so recently the chosen of millions of Frenchmen, affords a melancholy proof of the little dependance to be placed on the 'arbitrium popularis auræ.'

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE MESSIAH.

Ir is unnecessary to enter into all the details of what occurred previously to and during the Crucifixion of our Lord: so well are the facts known by all, that they might have been passed over here with merely a general allusion to them, were it not for the endeavour of M. Renan*-on the authority of the fourth Gospel and of the Talmud!-to represent the condemnation and execution of Jesus, not as having been for treason in setting himself up as the Messiah or King of the Jews, but for blasphemy in declaring himself to be the Son of God. We have a law,' the chief priests are made to say in the fourth Gospel, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God'+. But were this the case, the whole history would be inconsistent

* Vie de Jésus,' p. 415.

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† John xix. 7.

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