THE TRIAL OF JESUS CHRIST. 



461 



(after the first arrest) any touch of the super- 

 natural in that sense of the word. The whole 

 narrative of external fact might have been told 

 of any morning's work of the Sanhedrim, of any 

 forenoon condemnation by the procurator. We 

 may not, indeed, stretch this too far. The judi- 

 cial narrative, unbroken by actual portent or 

 marvel, maintains in each gospel the same tone 

 of supernatural consciousness which in previous 

 pages, apparently without surprise, or break, or 

 sense of effort, passes into actual external mir- 

 acle. Yet it remains true that, in the fragment 

 of fourfold history with which we at present 

 deal, there is nothing which the most determined 

 enemy of the supernatural needs as such to re- 

 gard even with suspicion. In truth, the inci- 

 dents of the trial are most natural and probable, 

 and, in so far as the four traditions agree, there 

 seems no excuse for doubting the history. Of 

 course, the four do not agree minutely here any 

 more than in other parts of the narrative. The 

 verbal variations of utterances reported in the 

 gospels warn us to expect similar variations in 

 the narration of facts. And, accordingly, we 

 find such variations in the present case ; some 

 of them more than usually puzzling, and per- 

 haps incapable of reconciliation. Yet, as we 

 shall see, they do not seriously vary the legal 

 problem ; and the fourfold independence of the 

 narratives by no means tends to make us doubt 

 the truth of the history which they contain. In- 

 deed, we may at once confess that the basis of 

 fact on which we are to discuss the legal ques- 

 tion before us is exceptionally clear, simple, and 

 satisfactory. The sources of the law, on the 

 other hand, may in each case require some pre- 

 liminary remarks. 



I.— THE HEBREW TRIAL. 

 All readers know that the Hebrew common- 

 wealth, and the institutions which regulated it, 

 were pervaded by a deep sentiment of justice, 

 righteousness, and law. But all are not aware 

 of the extent to which that sentiment, and its 

 characteristic maxim, " Thou sbalt do no unricht- 

 eousness in judgment," were developed in the 

 later history of the people. In the more ancient 

 part of the traditions of the Fathers we read : 

 " When a judge decides not according to truth, 

 he makes the majesty of God to depart from 

 Israel. But if he judges according to truth, 

 were it only for one hour, it is as if he estab- 

 lished the whole world, for it is in judgment that 

 the divine presence in Israel has its habitation." 

 It has recently been pointed out to English read- 



ers, that that whole vast later literature of the 

 Jews which we call the Talmud is " emphatically 

 a Corpus Juris — a cyclopaedia of all law," which 

 may best be judged by analogy and comparison 

 with other legal codes, more especially with that 

 of Rome and its commentaries. It contains many 

 other things, but this is its basis. And what is 

 more important for us to notice is, that this legal 

 basis is the older part. The whole Talmud con- 

 sists of forty folios — a mass of discussion, illus- 

 tration, and commentary. But the central part 

 of it, which is comprised in twelve volumes, is 

 called the Mishna. And the Mishna is nearly 

 wholly law. 1 It was, indeed, of old, translated 

 as the second or oral law — the Sevrepbicris — a de- 

 tailed traditional commentary on the law of 

 Moses, to which it professed complete subjection 

 while practically superseding it as a code. 2 Mr. 

 Deutsch, in striving to give English readers an 

 idea of the multiplicity and confusion of the 

 Talmud, likens it to Hansard : " the Parliamen- 

 tary discussions or episodes answering to the Ge- 

 mara or general commentary, while the Bills or 

 Acts are called the Mishna." The distinction of 

 course is, that in Hansard the legislative acts 

 are the result and termination of the discussions, 

 while in the Talmud the Mishna or law is the 

 older portion and the starting-point. Accord- 

 ingly, while portions of the general Talmud com- 

 mentary did not come into existence for centu- 

 ries after the introduction of Christianity, the 

 Mishna or central portion is generally admitted 

 to have been compiled by Rabbi Judah, some- 

 where about a. d. 200. But it was compiled as 

 an oral law which had been growing in use and 

 authority ever since the return of the nation 

 from Babylon— as a "brief abstract of about 

 eight hundred years' legal production." Hence, 

 modern Jewish writers refer to it without hesita- 

 tion as including the code of criminal law which 

 was in existence at the date of the high-priest- 

 ship of Annas and Caiaphas. Of course this 

 cannot be matter of demonstration in the case 



1 The quotations in this paper are made from the edi- 

 tion of the Mishna by Surenhusius (Amsterdam, 1672) ; 

 and especially from the chapter or tractate " De Syne- 

 driis," in the fourth of its twelve volumes. I accept the 

 Latin translation of the editor, and have only occasionally 

 verified a word of the original. 



a The Mishna (De Synedriis, x., 3) lays down the gen- 

 eral principle, "Gravius peccatur circa verba scribarunn 

 quam verba legis." As an enthusiastic and recent trans- 

 lator paraphrases it, " tie who teaches against the Penta- 

 teuch is not condemned to death, for all men know tlie 

 Bible. But if he teaches against the doctors he is con- 

 demned."— liabbinowics, Legislation criminelle du 7'al- 

 mud. Paris. 



