"In attempting to unravel the tangled skein of passions, prejudices, and political intrigues with which the last days of Jesus are interwoven, it has always seemed to me a sound principle to go straight to the heart of the mystery by studying closely the nature of the charge brought against Him" (Chapter 2, p. 13).

"If, therefore, by some magic reversal of the centuries we could have stood at some vantage point in old Jerusalem about midnight or shortly afterward on that memorable 14th of Nisan, we should probably have witnessed a small party of men leading a strangely unresisting figure through the darkness, along the rocky define that skirted the precipitous eastern face of the temple wall, up the historic causeway at the southeastern angle of the city wall to the headquarters of His avowed and inveterate enemies" (Chapter 2, p. 15).

"The prospective Prisoner Himself was strangely willing, and in...