THE TRIAL OF JESUS CHRIST. 



469 



that at repeated meetings of what the fourth 

 gospel even calls a council, and what may have 

 been formal meetings of the acting committee of 

 that body, the suppression, and if need be the 

 death, of Jesus had been resolved upon. And in 

 these preliminary proceedings it was not merely 

 his acts as a prophet, or as an opposer of exist- 

 ing institutions, that were deliberated upon. His 

 claim to be the Christ, and even (as his nearer 

 followers had long ago acknowledged him to be) 

 the Son of God — whatever that mysterious claim 

 might mean — had during the second part of his 

 career 1 pressed heavily upon the Hebrew con- 

 science, especially in Jerusalem. The decision 

 alleged in the fourth gospel, "That if any man 

 did confess that he was the Christ, he should be 

 put out of the synagogue," does not indeed 

 negative that claim. It may only, as Neander 

 holds, have reserved it for the judgment of the 

 one competent tribunal, the great council of the 

 nation ; while it forbade all private persons, what- 

 ever their individual views, from in the mean time 

 publicly anticipating the solemn verdict. But it 

 combines with innumerable other parts of the 

 history to show the agitating questions which 

 pressed on the minds of the judges as they 

 listened to witness after witness in that early 

 dawn. 



The evidence, all agree, was not found suffi- 

 cient — perhaps not found " relevant " 5 — to infer 

 a conviction upon it alone. The rule of law in 

 such a case was clear, that the accused must be 

 at once liberated. And, even had the inculpa- 

 tory evidence been found sufficient, the next step 

 by the rules of the court was to call witnesses 

 for the defense. 3 Such a proposal would, of 

 course, have been a mockery in a trial at such 

 an hour. What was actually done was an at- 

 tempt to cross-examine the accused. "Answer- 

 est thou nothing ? What is it which these wit- 

 ness against thee?" are the exact words of the 

 high-priest repeated in two of the narratives. 

 But he " held his peace, and answered nothing." 

 The interrogation was unlawful. But I am not 

 able to represent this silence as caused by indig- 

 natiou at the errors of the accusers, or the un- 

 fairness of the judges. That the ordinary rights 

 of every accused Hebrew had been present to the 

 mind of Jesus we have already seen. But that 



1 Too little studied of recent years — e. g., in both Re- 

 nan and " Ecce Homo." 



a Which of these is the meaning of the Hebrew word 

 translated icnj ixaprvpta — an even testimony 1 



3 There seems to have been no advocate for the defense, 

 known as Eaal-rib, or Dominus Litis.— Friedlieb, " Ar- 

 chasol." 87. 



he had any expectation of escaping, or even any 

 desire at this stage to do so, there is no evidence 

 whatever. All the narratives combine to show 

 that he had for some time been consciously mov- 

 ing on to a tragical and tremendous close of his 

 brief career. His utterances in anticipation of 

 it during the previous weeks, and especially on 

 the preceding day, have held the world spell- 

 bound in each succeeding generation. A similar 

 height of self-possession marks him at this final 

 hour. The inaccurate or malicious recollections 

 of what he had said three years before were noth- 

 ing now to him. He had not come to Jerusalem 

 to perish by a mistake ; and, if we are to fill that 

 silence with thoughts at all, we may suppose that 

 they had reference to the scene that now sur- 

 rounded him. For there, at last, were gathered 

 before him the children of the house of Israel, 

 represented in their supreme council and great 

 assembly. To this people he had always held 

 himself sent and commissioned. Now, at last 

 they have met ; and all the ages of Israel's past 

 rise in the mind of him who stands to be judged 

 — or to judge. 



At what hour the great concluding scene, so 

 vividly described by three of the evangelists, 

 took place, it is impossible to say. 1 Plainly 

 enough, the private and public examinations of 

 the witnesses must have occupied a considerable 

 time, and whether or not these had been attended 

 by " all the council," or a portion of its members, 

 it is quite certain that by this time — at the point 

 where these examinations were discontinued — a 

 large number of the " great Sanhedrim " was met. 

 The members of that body numbered seventy- 

 one ; the " little Sanhedrim," which was probably 

 a committee or cabinet formed out of the larger, 

 numbered only twenty-three. 2 It is very possible 

 that the smaller body may have been summoned 

 at a somewhat earlier hour by CaLphas, and it 

 may be that no other ever assembled. Still the 

 narratives rather suggest that the great council, 

 which alone could at this time try a man for his 

 life, and which alone could at any time judge a 

 prophet, 3 was also called. Let us concede to the 

 language of the evangelists that so much of the 



1 ''They say their phylacteries," says the Talmud 

 Berachoth, i., 2), " from the first daylight to the third 

 hour," at which last time the "lesser Sanhediim" could 

 meet, while the greater sat only " after the daily morning 

 sacrifice."— Maimonides on ch. De Synedriis, iii. Luke 

 seems to fix the first daylight as the time when they 

 actually did " lead him into their council " — the arraign- 

 ment. 



2 Mishna, De Synedriis, i. 6. The quorum of the San- 

 hedrim was twenty-three. 



3 " Tribus, pseudo-prophetes, sacerdos magnus, non 



