THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL
Over the Kedron, up the slope to the city, through the gates, along the
silent streets, the procession passed, with Jesus in the midst;
midnight stragglers, perhaps, hurrying forward from point to point to
ask what was ado, and peering towards the Prisoner's face, before they
diverged again towards their own homes.[1] He was conducted to the
residence of the high priest, where His trial ensued.
Jesus had to undergo two trials--the one ecclesiastical, the other
civil; the one before Caiaphas the high priest, the other before
Pontius Pilate the governor.
The reason of this was, that Judaea was at that time under Roman rule,
forming a portion of the Roman province of Syria and administered by a
Roman official, who resided in the splendid new seaport of Caesarea,
fifty miles away from Jerusalem, but had also a palace in Jerusalem,
which he occasionally visited.
It was not the policy of Rome to strip the countries of which she
became mistress of all power. She flattered them by leaving in their
hands at least the insignia of self-government, and she conceded to
them as much home rule as was compatible with the retention of her
paramount authority. She was specially tolerant in matters of
religion. Thus the ancient ecclesiastical tribunal of the Jews, the
Sanhedrim, was still allowed to try all religious questions and punish
offenders. Only, if the sentence chanced to be a capital one, the case
had to be re-tried by the governor, and the carrying out of the
sentence, if it was confirmed, devolved upon him.
It was at the instance of the ecclesiastical authorities that Jesus was
arrested, and they condemned Him to death; but they were not at liberty
to carry out their sentence: they had to take Him before Pilate, who
chanced at the time to be in the city, and he tried the case over
again, they of course being the accusers at his bar.
Not only were there two trials, but in each trial there were three
separate stages or acts. In the first, or ecclesiastical trial, Jesus
had first to appear before Annas, then before Caiaphas and the
Sanhedrim during the night, and again before the same body after
daybreak. And in the second, or civil trial, He appeared first before
Pilate, who refused to confirm the judgment of the Jews; then Pilate
attempted to rid himself of the case by sending the Culprit to Herod of
Galilee, who happened also to be at the time in Jerusalem; but the case
came back to the Roman governor again, and, against his conscience, he
confirmed the capital sentence.
But let me explain more fully what were the three acts in the
ecclesiastical trial.[2]
Jesus, we are informed by St. John, was taken first to Annas. This was
an old man of seventy years, who had been high priest twenty years
before. As many as five of his sons succeeded him in this office,
which at that period was not a life appointment, but was generally held
only for a short time; and the reigning high priest at this time,
Caiaphas, was his son-in-law. Annas was a man of very great
consequence, the virtual head of ecclesiastical affairs, though
Caiaphas was the nominal head. He had come originally from Alexandria
in Egypt on the invitation of Herod the Great. He and his family were
an able, ambitious and arrogant race. As their numbers multiplied,
they became a sort of ruling caste, pushing themselves into all
important offices. They were Sadducees, and were perfect types of that
party--cold, haughty, worldly. They were intensely unpopular in the
country; but they were feared as much as they were disliked. Greedy of
gain, they ground the people with heavy ritual imposts. It is said
that the traffic within the courts of the temple, which Jesus condemned
so sternly a few days before, was carried on not only with their
connivance but for their enrichment. If this was the case, the conduct
of Jesus on that occasion may have profoundly incensed the
high-priestly caste against Him.
Indeed, it was probably the depth of his hatred which made Annas wish
to see Jesus in the hands of justice. The wary Sadducee had in all
likelihood taken a leading part in the transaction with Judas and in
the sending out of the troops for Christ's apprehension. He,
therefore, waited out of bed to see what the upshot was to be; and
those who took Jesus brought Him to Annas first. But whatever
interrogation Annas may have subjected Him to was entirely informal.[3]
It allowed time, however, to get together the Sanhedrim. Messengers
were dispatched to scour the city for the members at the midnight hour,
because the case was urgent and could not brook delay. None knew what
might happen if the multitude, when it awoke in the morning, found the
popular Teacher in the hands of His unpopular enemies. But, if the
trial were all over before daybreak and Jesus already in the strong
hands of the Romans before the multitude had learnt that anything was
going on, there would be nothing to fear. So the Sanhedrim was
assembled under cloud of night; and the proceedings went forward in the
small hours of the morning in the house of Caiaphas, to which Jesus had
been removed.
This was not strictly legal, however, because the letter of the law did
not allow this court to meet by night. On this account, although the
proceedings were complete and the sentence agreed upon during the
night, it was considered necessary to hold another sitting at daybreak.
This was the third stage of the trial; but it was merely a brief
rehearsal, for form's sake, of what had been already done.[4]
Therefore, we must return to the proceedings during the night, which
contain the kernel of the matter.
Imagine, then, a large room forming one side of the court of an
Oriental house, from which it is separated only by a row of pillars, so
that what is going on in the lighted interior is visible to those
outside. The room is semicircular. Round the arc of the semicircle
the half-hundred or more[5] members sit on a divan. Caiaphas, the
president, occupies a kind of throne in the centre of the opposite
wall. In front stands the Accused, facing him, with the jailers on the
one side and the witnesses on the other.
How ought any trial to commence? Surely with a clear statement of the
crime alleged and with the production of witnesses to support the
charge. But, instead of beginning in this way, "the high priest asked
Jesus of His disciples and of His doctrine."
The insinuation was that He was multiplying disciples for some secret
design and teaching them a secret doctrine, which might be construed
into a project of revolution. Jesus, still throbbing with the
indignity of being arrested under cloud of night, as if He were anxious
to escape, and by a force so large as to suggest that He was the head
of a revolutionary band, replied, with lofty self-consciousness, "Why
askest thou Me? Ask them that heard Me what I have said unto them;
behold, they know what I said." Why had they arrested Him if they had
yet to learn what He had said and done? They were trying to make Him
out to be an underground schemer; but they, with their arrests in
secrecy and their midnight trials, were themselves the sons of darkness.
Such simple and courageous speech was alien to that place, which knew
only the whining of suppliants, the smooth flatteries of sycophants,
and the diplomatic phrases of advocates; and a jailer, perhaps seeing
the indignant blush mount into the face of the high priest, clenched
his fist and struck Jesus on the mouth, asking, "Answerest Thou the
high priest so?" Poor hireling! better for him that his hand had
withered ere it struck that blow. Almost the same thing once happened
to St. Paul in the same place, and he could not help hurling back a
stinging epithet of contempt and indignation. Jesus was betrayed into
no such loss of temper. But what shall be said of a tribunal, and an
ecclesiastical tribunal, which could allow an untried Prisoner to be
thus abused in open court by one of its minions?
The high priest had, however, been stopped on the tack which he had
first tried, and was compelled to do what he ought to have begun
with--to call witnesses. But this, too, turned out a pitiful failure.
They had not had time to get a charge properly made out and witnesses
cited; and there was no time to wait. Evidence had to be extemporized;
and it was swept up apparently from the underlings and hangers on of
the court. It is expressly said by St. Matthew that "they sought false
witness against Jesus to put Him to death." To put Him to death was
what in their hearts they were resolved upon,--they were only trying to
trump up a legal pretext, and they were not scrupulous. The attempt
was, however, far from successful. The witnesses could not be got to
agree together or to tell a consistent story. Many were tried, but the
fiasco grew more and more ridiculous.
At length two were got to agree about something they had heard from
Him, out of which, it was hoped, a charge could be constructed. They
had heard Him say, "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,
and within three days I will build another made without hands." It was
a sentence of His early ministry, obviously of high poetic meaning,
which they were reproducing as the vulgarest prose; although, even thus
interpreted, it is difficult to see what they could have made of it;
because, if the first half of it meant that He was to destroy the
temple, the second promised to restore it again. The high priest saw
too well that they were making nothing of it; and, starting up and
springing forward, he demanded of Jesus, "Answerest Thou nothing? What
is it which these witness against Thee?" He affected to believe that
it was something of enormity that had been alleged; but it was really
because he knew that nothing could be founded on it that he gave way to
such unseemly excitement.
Jesus had looked on in absolute silence while the witnesses against Him
were annihilating one another; nor did He now answer a word in response
to the high priest's interruption. He did not need to speak: silence
spoke better than the loudest words could have done. It brought home
to His judges the ridiculousness and the shamefulness of their
position. Even their hardened consciences began to be uneasy, as that
calm Face looked down on them and their procedure with silent dignity.
It was by the uneasiness which he was feeling that the high priest was
made so loud and shrill.
In short, he had been beaten along this second line quite as completely
as he had been along the first. But he had still a last card, and now
he played it. Returning to his throne and confronting Jesus with
theatrical solemnity, he said, "I adjure Thee by the living God that
Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God." That is to
say, he put Him on oath to tell what He claimed to be; for among the
Jews the oath was pronounced by the judge, not by the prisoner.
This was one of the great moments in the life of Christ. Apparently He
recognised the right of the high priest to put Him on oath; or at least
He saw that silence now might be construed into the withdrawal of His
claims. He knew, indeed, that the question was put merely for the
purpose of incriminating Him, and that to answer it meant death to
Himself. But He who had silenced those by whom the title of Messiah
had been thrust upon Him, when they wished to make Him a king, now
claimed the title when it was the signal for condemnation. Decidedly
and solemnly He answered, "Yes, I am"; and, as if the crisis had caused
within Him a great access of self-consciousness, He proceeded,
"Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
power and coming in the clouds of heaven." [6] For the moment they
were His judges, but one day He would be their Judge; it was only of
His earthly life that they could dispose, but He would have to dispose
of their eternal destiny.
It has often been said that Christians have claimed for Christ what He
never claimed for Himself; that He never claimed to be any more than a
man, but they have made Him a God. But this great statement, made upon
oath, must impress every honest mind. Every effort has, indeed, been
made to deplete its terms of their importance and to reduce them to the
lowest possible value. It is argued, for example, that, when the high
priest asked if He were "the Son of God," he meant no more than when he
asked if He were "the Christ." But what is to be said of Christ's
description of Himself as "sitting on the right hand of power and
coming in the clouds of heaven"? Can He who is to be the Judge of men,
searching their hearts to the bottom, estimating the value of their
performances, and, in accordance with these estimates, fixing their
eternal station and degree, be a mere man? The greatest and the wisest
of men are well aware that in the history of every brother man, and
even in the heart of a little child, there are secrets and mysteries
which they cannot fathom. No mere man can accurately measure the
character of a fellow-creature; he cannot even estimate his own.
How this great confession lifts the whole scene! We see no longer
these small men and their sordid proceedings; but the Son of man
bearing witness to Himself in the audience of the universe. How little
we care now what the Jewish judges will say about Him! This great
confession reverberates down the ages, and the heart of the world, as
it hears it from His lips, says, Amen.
The high priest had achieved his end at last. As a high priest was
expected to do when he heard blasphemy, he rent his clothes, and,
turning to his colleagues, he said, "What need have we of witnesses?
behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy." And they all assented that
Jesus was guilty, and that the sentence must be death.
Sometimes good-hearted Bible-readers, in perusing these scenes, are
troubled with the thought that the judges of Jesus were conscientious.
Was it not their duty, when anyone came forward with Messianic
pretensions, to judge whether or not his claim was just? and did they
not honestly believe that Jesus was not what He professed to be? No
doubt they did honestly believe so. We must ascend to a much earlier
period to be able to judge their conduct accurately. It was when the
claims of Jesus were first submitted to them that they went astray.
He, being such as He was, could only have been welcomed and appreciated
by expectant, receptive, holy minds. The ecclesiastical authorities of
Judaea in that age were anything but expectant, receptive and holy.
They were totally incapable of understanding Him, and saw no beauty
that they should desire Him. As He often told them Himself, being such
as they were, they could not believe. The fault lay not so much in
what they did as in what they were. Being in the wrong path, they went
forward to the end. It may be said that they walked according to their
light; but the light that was in them was darkness. Their proceedings,
however, on this occasion will not tend to soften the heart of anyone
who looks into them carefully. They had hardly the least show of
justice. There was no regular charge or regular evidence, and no
thought whatever of allowing the Accused to bring counter-evidence; the
same persons were both accusers and judges; the sentence was a foregone
conclusion; and the entire proceedings consisted of a series of devices
to force the Accused into some statement which would supply a
colourable pretext for condemning Him.[7]
But it was by what ensued after the sentence of condemnation was passed
that these men cut themselves off forever from the sympathy of the
tolerant and generous. A court of law ought to be a place of dignity;
when a great issue is tried and a solemn judgment passed, it ought to
impress the judges themselves; even the condemned, when a death
sentence has been passed, ought to be hedged round with a certain awe
and respect. But that blow inflicted with impunity at the commencement
of the trial by a minion of the court was too clear an index of the
state of mind of all present. There was no solemnity or greatness of
any kind in their thoughts; nothing but resentment and spite at Him who
had thwarted and defied them, lessened them in the public estimation
and stopped their unholy gains. A perfect sea of such feelings had
long been gathering in their hearts; and now, when the opportunity
came, it broke loose upon Him. They struck Him with their sticks; they
spat in His face; they drew something over His head and, smiting Him
again, cried, "Christ, prophesy who smote Thee." [8] One would wish to
believe that it was only by the miserable underlings that such things
were done; but the narrative makes it too clear that the masters led
the way and the servants followed.
There are terrible things in man. There are some depths in human
nature into which it is scarcely safe to look. It was by the very
perfection of Christ that the uttermost evil of His enemies was brought
out. There is a passage in "Paradise Lost," where a band of angels,
sent out to scour Paradise in search of Satan, who is hidden in the
garden, discover him in the shape of a toad "squat at the ear of Eve."
Ithuriel, one of the band, touches him with his spear, whereat,
surprised, he starts up in his own shape,--
"for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper, but returns
Of force to its own likeness."
But the touch of perfect goodness has often the opposite effect: it
transforms the angel into the toad, which is evil's own likeness.
Christ was now getting into close grips with the enemy He had come to
this world to overcome; and, as it clutched Him for the final wrestle,
it exhibited all its ugliness and discharged all its venom.[9] The claw
of the dragon was in His flesh, and its foul breath in His mouth. We
cannot conceive what such insult and dishonour must have been to His
sensitive and regal mind. But He rallied His heart to endure and not
to faint; for He had come to be the death of sin, and its death was to
be the salvation of the world.
[1] Here would come in the curious little notice in St. Mark: "And
there followed Him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about
his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him; and he left the
linen cloth and fled from them naked"; on which I have not commented,
not well knowing, in truth, what to make of it. It may be designed to
show the rudeness of the soldiery, and the peril in which any follower
of Jesus would have been had he been caught. Some have supposed that
the young man was St. Mark, and that this is the painter's signature in
an obscure corner of his picture. (See Holzmann in _Handcommentar zum
Neuen Testament_.) In the first volume of the _Expositor_ there is a
paper on the subject by Dr. Cox, but it does not throw much light on it.
[2] On the Sanhedrim and the high priests see Schürer, _The Jewish
People in the Time of Christ_, div. ii., vol. i.
[3] This, many think, is what is given in St. John.
[4] Many think that this is what is given in St. Luke.
[5] The full number was seventy-one, including the president.
[6] See Psalm cx. 1, and Dan. vii. 13.
[7] Even Jost, the Jewish historian, calls it a murder; but he does not
believe that there was an actual trial; and in this Edersheim agrees
with him.
[8] In allusion to His claim to be the Messianic Prophet. The Roman
soldiers, on the other hand, ridiculed His claim to be a King.
[9] "The central figure is the holiest Person in history, but round Him
stand or strive the most opposed and contrasted moral types. . . . The
men who touch Him in this supreme hour of His history do so only to
have their essential character disclosed."--FAIRBAIRN.