3 22 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



Him with their clenched fists and their open palms. Dr. 

 Farrar says that " in the fertility of their furious and 

 hateful insolence they invented against Him a sort of 

 game. Blindfolding His eyes, they hit Him again and 

 again, with the repeated question, ' Prophesy to us, O 

 Messiah, who it is that smote thee.'" But we have seen 

 that the sport in which they so basely indulged was no 

 new thing no invention of their own. It was an old 

 game practised by their own innocent little children, 

 and shamelessly perverted by them to hold up the Holy 

 One of Israel to derision. Three of the Evangelists re- 

 late the incident in very nearly the same terms, except 

 that in the accounts given by St. Matthew and St. 

 Mark the words in the original which are translated 

 " buffeted" are ekolophisan and kolophizein derived 

 from the name by which, as I have said, the buffet-game 

 was known among the Greeks. The Jews doubtless 

 obtained their knowledge of the game from the Egyp- 

 tians; and the incident in the palace of Caiaphas 

 irresistibly connects itself in our imaginations with the 

 picture in the tomb of Beni-Hassan, that takes us back 

 to the days of Jacob's visit to Egypt. 



We cannot but regard it as a significant circum- 

 stance that it was the Jews and not the Romans who 

 compelled Jesus to take part in this humiliating sport. 

 The Komans, as I have said, were well acquainted 

 with the game ; but they would have deemed it utterly 

 out of place to introduce it on such an occasion. 

 Everything connected with their judicial procedure was 

 grave, orderly, and subdued to the majesty of law. 



