The act was done in the night time. After having celebrated the Supper,
Jesus had conducted his disciples to the Mount of Olives. He prayed
fervently; but they fell asleep.
Jesus awakes them, with a gentle reproof for their weakness, and warns
them that the moment is approaching. “Rise, let us be going; behold he is
at hand that doth betray me.” Matt. xxvi. 46.
Judas was not alone; in his suite there was a kind of ruffian band, almost
entirely composed of servants of the high priest, but whom Mr. Salvador
honours with the title of the _legal soldiery_. If in the crowd there were
any Roman _soldiers_, they were there as spectators, and without having
been legally called on duty; for the Roman commanding officer, Pilate, had
not yet heard the affair spoken of.
This personal seizure of Jesus had so much the appearance of a forcible
arrest, an illegal act of violence, that his disciples made preparation to
repel force by force.
Malchus, the insolent servant of the high priest, having shown himself the
most eager to rush upon Jesus, Peter, not less zealous for his own master,
cut off the servant’s right ear.
This resistance might have been continued with success, if Jesus had not
immediately interfered. But what proves that Peter, even while causing
bloodshed, was not resisting a _legal order_, a _legal judgment_ or
decree, (which would have made his resistance an act of _rebellion by an
armed force against a judicial order_,) is this—that he was not arrested,
either at the moment or afterwards, at the house of the high priest, to
which he followed Jesus, and where he was most distinctly recognised by
the maid servant of the high priest, and even by a relative of Malchus.
Jesus alone was arrested; and although he had not individually offered any
active resistance, and had even restrained that of his disciples, they
bound him as a malefactor; which was a criminal degree of rigour, since
for the purpose of securing a single man by a numerous band of persons
armed with swords and staves it was not necessary. “Be ye come out as
against a thief with swords and staves?” Luke xxii. 52.