VICTORY THROUGH DEFEAT

It was in the garden of Gethsemane that the guards of the Temple, supported by a detachment of Roman soldiers, executed the warrant of arrest.  The course which the priests had determined to take against Jesus was in perfect conformity with the established law.  The warrant of arrest probably came from Hanan, and before this powerful man Jesus was first brought for examination as to his doctrine.  Jesus, with just pride, declined to enter into long explanations—­he asked the ex-high priest to question those who had listened to him.  Hanan then sent him to his son-in-law, Kaiapha, at whose house the Sanhedrim was assembled.  It is probable that here, too, he kept silence.  The sentence was already decided, and they only sought for pretexts.  With one voice the assembly declared him guilty of a capital crime.  The point now was to get Pilate to ratify the sentence.  On being informed of the accusation, Pilate showed his annoyance at being mixed up in the matter, and called upon to play a cruel part for the sake of a law he detested.  Perhaps the dignified and calm attitude of the accused made an impression upon him.  To excite the suspicion of the Roman authorities, the charges now made were those of sedition and treason against the government.  Nothing could be more unjust, for Jesus had always recognised the Roman government as the established power.  Asked by Pilate if he really were the king of the Jews, Jesus, according to the fourth gospel, avowed his kingship, but uttered at the same time the profound saying, “My kingdom is not of this world.”  Of this lofty idealism Pilate understood nothing.  No doubt Jesus impressed him as being a harmless dreamer.  When, however, the people began to denounce Pilate’s lack of zeal, in protecting an enemy of Caesar, he surrendered, throwing on the Jews the responsibility for what was about to take place.  It was not Pilate who condemned Jesus.  It was the old Jewish party; it was the Mosaic law.  Intolerance is a Jewish characteristic.  The Pentateuch has been the first code of religious terrorism in the world.  It was, however, the chimerical “King of the Jews,” not the heteradox dogmatist, who was punished, and the execution took the Roman form of crucifixion, carried out by Roman soldiers.

The horrors of that ignominious death were suffered by Jesus in all their atrocity.  For a moment, according to certain narratives, his heart failed him; a cloud hid from him the face of his Father; he endured an agony of despair more acute a thousand times than all his torments.  But his divine instinct again sustained him.  In measure as the life of the body flickered out, his soul grew serene, and by degrees returned to its heavenly source.  He regained the idea of his mission, in his death he saw the salvation of the world; the hideous spectacle spread at his feet melted from his sight, and profoundly united to his Father, he began upon the gibbet the divine life which he was to live in the heart of humanity through infinite years.