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57 And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders. were assembled.

58 But Peter followed him afar off unto the high priest's palace, and went in, and sat with the servants, to see the end. 59 Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death;

66

s Mark xiv. 53; I ke xxii. 54; John xviii. 13.

ed and treated as the lowest criminals. Thus, as to Judas, Psalm xli. 9: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." And, with reference to his being treated as a transgressor, and as a thief, Isaiah's words, he was numbered with the transgressors," may apply both to his apprehension in the manner of criminals of this class, and his being placed between two of them on the cross; although, doubt less, it has also a more extended meaning. The desertion of the disciples, immediately added, fulfilled another scripture before quoted from Zechariah. The shepherd being smitten, the sheep were then scattered.

Verse 57. To Caiaphas, the high priest. -He was led first to Annas, the fatherin-law of Caiaphas; but as nothing of importance took place there, this circumstance is omitted by all the evangelists except John. Why he was first taken to Annas, who had been deposed from the high priest's office by the Romans, does not appear. He, however, sent him bound to Caiaphas, in whose palace the great council had assembled to determine his

case.

Verse 58. Peter followed him afar off. Betwixt the period of Christ's being taken to Annas, and thence to Caiaphas, Peter, and also John, appear to have recovered their fright, and to have followed their Master to his place of trial; but Peter afar off, as fearful of being discovered; and it was probably this parleying with his fears which increased them, and led to those shameful acts which followed.

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Verse 59. Sought false witnesses.-They sought them among the bye-standers, probably offering bribes by their officers, or inviting those who were zealous for their law to come forward to secure the condemnation of so great a reputed subverter of it. False prophets, seducers of the people to idolatry, and blasphemers were to be put to death; and the object was, to obtain witnesses to prove either that he was a false prophet or a blasphemer; but as the law required that, in capital cases, two or three witnesses should agree in their testimony, and it was necessary also to lay something like consistent and plausible evidence before the Roman governor, in order to secure his confirmation of their sentence, they kept up some appearance of regard at least to their forms of justice. These, however, appear, from Maimonides, to have been extremely lax in case of persons charged with the spiritual offences above mentioned. "The judgment of a deceiver is not as the rest of capital punishments: his witnesses are hid, and he has no premonition or warning as the rest of those that are put to death; and if he goes out of the sanhedrim acquitted, and one says, I can prove the charge against him, they turn him back; but if he goes out condemned, and one says, I can prove

60 But found none: yet found they none.

yea, though many false witnesses came, At the last came two false witnesses,

61 And said, This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

62 And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

t John ii. 19.

him innocent, they do not put him again on his trial." Of these loose notions in the administration of justice, on such occasions, the Jewish council appear in the case of our Lord to have largely availed themselves, to proceed against him in the most unjust and malignant manner.

Verse 60. They found none.-They found many willing, but none who said what was to their purpose; many ready to pervert some acts or words of our Lord to support a criminal charge, but all so vague or incredible, that even they could not receive their testimony; and thus his real innocence was made the more apparent from the encouragement held out to present charges against him.

At the last came two false witnesses, &c. -Two who seemed to be agreed to depose that he had said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. To speak against the temple was deemed a capital offence. For prophesying against the city and temple Jeremiah was said to be worthy of death by the priests and prophets of his day, Jer. xxvi. 11, 12. And it was one of the capital charges laid by the false witnesses against Ste. phen, that he had spoken "blasphemous words against this holy place." "Yet," adds St. Mark, "their witness did not agree together." It was a perversion of his words, "Destroy this temple," meaning the temple of his body, "and in three days will I raise it up; "their version of which was, I WILL destroy, or, as St. Mark has it, I am ABLE to destroy, the temple of God; two different propositions,

which point out the discrepancy of those two witnesses, if we suppose St. Matthew to give the words of one, and St. Mark those of the other. Even had the words been as they stated, yet, as the declaration as to the destruction of the temple was accompanied with the promise to build it up again in three days, the words could not fairly be construed into speaking AGAINST, or blaspheming the temple because of the promise of its restoration. All this, however, availed nothing; and, his condemnation being resolved upon, the high priest assumes that the witnesses had deposed a consistent capital charge; and, seeing no eagerness in our Lord to reply, he arose, as if for the purpose of intimidation, and in order to draw from Christ something which, by his own perverse handling, might corroborate the accusation, and demands, Answerest thou nothing to what these witness against thee?

Verse 63. But Jesus held his peace, &c.— The silence of our Lord has been often accounted for by interpreters, from his perceiving that this unjust tribunal was determined upon his destruction; but that would have been a reason for his preserving the same silence throughout the trial. His silence had a deeper meaning: he knew that the wisdom of God had a pointed that he should be found guilty upon a charge which was in fact the great truth by which he was glorified, namely, that he professed to be the Son of God; and his silence wholly baffled the intention of the high priest, who evidently was not quite bold enough to pro

64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you," Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

65 Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

u Matt. xvi. 27; 1 Thess. iv. 16; Rom. xiv. 9.

nounce sentence upon so vague a charge without fortifying it by what he might draw forth from our Lord himself. To that charge therefore our Lord answered nothing; and the high priest wholly quits it in order to question him upon a higher and graver matter, as to whether, as had been commonly reported, he had professed to be, not merely the Messiah, but the Christ, the Son of God. No one appears to have been present who had heard our Lord make this profession, although he had done it on a few occasions publicly; and this gives the reason why the high priest, who knew how certainly this would decide the case against him with the sanhedrim, laid him under so solemn an adjuration, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. This was a Jewish mode of placing a witness under oath; and after such a sanction, when adjured by a magistrate, the answer of the witness was, as we should express it, upon oath. By some it is affirmed that an accused person so adjured. was obliged to answer; but this does not certainly appear from any authority adduced. Silence would, how ever, after so solemn a form, tend greatly to increase suspicion against him. Our Lord, however, hesitated not, but answered under the oath laid upon him: a sufficient proof that his own command in the sermon on the mount, Swear not at all, did not relate to judicial oaths; for he himself submitted in this respect to the practice of the Jewish courts.

Verse 64. Thou hast said.-This is a Hebrew form of assent or affirmation, equivalent to, "It is truly so as thou hast said;" I am the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Nevertheless I say unto you. · Πλην ought here, as the connexion shows, to be rendered, not nevertheless, but moreover; for Christ in addition to this confession uttered a solemn prediction of his coming in glory to judge the world.

The right hand of power.-That is, the right hand of God; for in the language of the Jews God is sometimes called POWER. St. Luke has "the power of God." The meaning is, at the right hand of the powerful or almighty God.

The clouds of heaven.-This phrase not only marks the majesty and glory of Christ's advent, making as it were "the clouds his chariot, and riding upon the wings of the wind;" but shows that he referred to the celebrated prophecy in Dan. vii., "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like unto the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom," &c. This prophecy our Lord applied to himself, and declared that as THE SON OF MAN, as well as THE SON OF GOD, having received this universal kingdom, they who now sat as his judges should see him invested with its glories, and armed with its sovereign authority; and that thus his claims both as the CHRIST, and THE SON OF GOD, should be established, to the confusion and punishment of those that rejected him.

Verse 65. Rent his clothes.-The high priest was forbidden by the law to rend his garments; but this appears to be intended only of funeral occasions. Upon the hearing of blasphemy the Jewish canons of more modern times obliged every Israelite to rend his clothes, as a token of indignation, astonishment, and

66 What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.

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Caiaphas probably followed the custom of his age, or else, by this affectation of peculiar and passionate indignation, gave rise to it in future times. The dress of the high priest out of the temple was not different from that of other Jews, so that the proper pontifical garments were not on this occasion rent.

Blasphemy.—That species of blasphemy which consisted, not in denying God's attributes, or using reproachful and irreverent language against him, but in attributing to himself, deemed by them a mere man, the majesty and glory peculiar to God.

is

ενοχος,

Verse 66. He is guilty of death. — He obnoxious, liable to death; that is, he deserves to die. This is to be considered as the sentence of the council, to whom, as the president, the high priest put the case; artfully, however, endeavouring to influence their suffrages, by assuming that he had spoken blasphemy, and that there was now no need of witnesses. In all civil cases the power of life and death had been taken away from the Jewish courts by the Romans; but in matters of their religion they had still the power to inflict capital punishments, yet the sentence of the sanhedrim was to be confirmed by the Roman governor before it could be executed. The proper punishment of a blasphemer by their law was stoning; but they were anxious to have our Lord crucified, which was a Roman punishment they therefore not only sought from Pilate a confirmation of their sentence; but set themselves to induce Pilate to treat him also as an enemy to Cæsar, and a seditious opposer of the Roman government, in order that the Roman soldiery might have the charge of his execution. Their motive probably was the fear lest the populace, who favoured him,

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Two questions may now be briefly considered: What was the alleged blasphemy for which our Lord was condemned? and in what did the guilt of his judges consist? As to the first, nothing can be more plain than that he could not be condemned simply for professing to be the Messiah, against which there was no law; and it would have been most absurd for a people who were anxiously waiting from age to age for the appearance of Messiah, to have made it capital for any one to profess himself to be the Messiah. Nor was he condemned because, professing to be the Messiah, he failed to prove himself so, and was therefore "a deceiver; " for no proof was demanded, no trial of his claim established; but from his own simple confession of what he was, not even with reference to the deposition of the two witnesses respecting his threatening to destroy the temple, he was adjudged "guilty of death." If then it was not because he said, I AM THE CHRIST, that he was so condemned, it follows that it was because he added to this, the profession that he was the Son of God, and would be demonstrated as such by the dignity and glory of his second coming in the clouds of heaven. And as we find that on having previously professed himself to be the Son of God, the Jews took up stones to stone him as a blasphemer, it is clear that they understood that this profession implied an assumption of divinity; which our Lord himself never treated as a mistake, by explaining the phrase in any lower sense than they understood it in, either on the

67 Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,

v Isaiah 1. 6.

occasions referred to, or on his trial. This then was the alleged blasphemy for which our Lord was sentenced to death by the sanhedrim; and this was acknowledged by the Jews themselves, who urged his death, and mocked him upon the cross, "because he said he was the Son of God." Thus our Lord witnessed to this great truth before his judges, not only that he was "the Son of Man," and the Messiah; but also, as implying the lofty claim of divinity, that he was THE SON OF GOD. As to the second point, the guilt of his judges, it may indeed be said, that, believing him to be a mere man, and yet hearing him assume to himself a claim and a title of divinity, on their own principles and views they could do nothing less than convict him. But this plausible palliation has no foundation. The trial was for an alleged spiritual offence, and involved therefore theological principles to be determined solely by their own scriptures. Our Lord professed to be the Messiah; there could be no blasphemy simply in that: and if he added to that the claim of "Son of God," and declared also that he would come "in the clouds of heaven," their own scriptures had entitled the Messiah "the Son of God," as in the second Psalm; and had declared that he should come in the clouds of heaven, as in the prophecy of Daniel, to which our Lord referred. Both these passages their most ancient commentators, authorities in their own church, refer to the Messiah; and the whole question, therefore, betwixt the sanhedrim and Jesus, had his trial been conducted with any thing like honesty and fairness, was whether he had given, or could give, sufficient proofs of his being the Messiah; for if so, the rest, according to their scriptures, the only law they could follow in this case, necessarily followed: he was the Son of God, according to David; and he would come in the clouds of heaven, according to Daniel. Instead, however, of proceeding in this

* Or, rods.

manner, they closed their eyes upon all the proofs he had given of his being the Messiah,-upon the evidence especially of that stupendous miracle which he had so lately wrought in the neighbourhood of Jesusalem, the raising of Lazarus; of which, indeed, it is probable that some of the council had been witnesses, and of which none could be ignorant: nor did they seek on the occasion of his trial any new or more satisfactory proof; but, surrendering themselves at once to their prejudices and hatred, first assumed that he was an impostor, then suborned witnesses to substantiate a charge of blasphemy, and finally determined his own confession to be blasphemous; which it could not be, provided he was the Messiah,-the grand point on which the whole turned, but which they determined not to investigate. Thus justice could not be more violently outraged by a court; and the fierce determination with which they sought his death is the strongest proof that the truth of his professions, and consequently his innocence, was a subject on which they not only did not desire information, but on which these bloodthirsty persecutors determined to admit

none.

The circumstances of the case also demonstrated this: their bargaining with one of his disciples to betray him; their apprehension of him secretly in the night, although he was, as he himself alleged, daily in the temple; and the indecent haste with which they proceeded on so important a trial, beginning and completing it in the night, contrary to the Jewish canons, which enjoined that “ capital causes should be tried in the day, and finished in the day ;" and, finally, the tumultuous manner in which they resisted all the efforts of the Roman governor to save him,-preferring the liberation of a notorious and pestilent robber, to one who had gone about doing good, and against whom they could find no consistent accusation.

Verse 67. Spit in his face.-This, in all

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