These pious priests, too scrupulous to put such money in the treasury of the Lord, thought it exactly fitted to procure unconsecrated ground for the burial of Gentiles. For this purpose it was accordingly appropriated. Thus the firstfruits of Jesus's death were unwittingly, almost prophetically applied by the Jewish priesthood to purchase for the Gentiles a typical resting-place.*

It was now broad daylight. The sun rises at Jerusalem, in the month of April, about five o'clock. It could hardly have been less than an hour high when Jesus was rebound and led by a delegation of the Sanhedrim to the judgmenthall of Pilate.

At the same time, some of the priests, undertaking to create a public sentiment against Jesus, if it should be necessary in order to wrest from the Roman government a ratification of the death-sentence, went out to mingle with the rabble, and circulate among them the priestly representation of the events of the trial and the conduct of the prisoner.

Built upon the same broad platform of solid rock with the Temple was the fortress of Antonia, which Herod, its founder, had named in honor of his friend Antoninus. This was at once the palace of Pilate and the barracks of his legions. Here five hundred soldiers found commodious quarters. Its capacious halls seemed like the streets of a little city, its suites of rooms like independent mansions. Its polished stones so adjoined the Temple walls that the Gentile camp seemed a part of the Jewish sanctuary. Four towers at its four corners gave it the appearance of a castle and the strength of a fortress. One of these towers, lifting its head far above the Temple walls, looked down into its broad courts, and thus subjected all the tumultuous gatherings there to the oversight of the hated heathen. Its gates, opening directly into those courts, rendered it easy, at a moment's notice, to quell any disturbance which might occur there.

* Matt. xxvii., 3-10; Acts i., 18, 19.

The Jewish feast-days were the Roman assizes. On these occasions Pilate, who united the offices of judge and governor in one person, was accustomed to hear complaints and adjudicate cases which had arisen during his absence from the city. Thus the fortress of Antonia was not only palace and barracks, it was also a court-house.

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Hither the priesthood now led their prisoner. A motley rabble followed in their train. To the same hill, whither the triumphal procession had accompanied Jesus four days before, a very different procession accompanied him now. ger eyes searched out this prisoner condemned to death. Angry faces frowned hate upon him. Hoarse voices repeated to one another the sentence of the court, “Guilty of death!"

The Passover feast, commencing on Thursday evening, lasted, as a religious rite, the whole of the following week. The subsequent Sabbath was a high day in the Jewish calendar. These priests were too pious to pollute their persons by treading on the Gentile pavement. They stopped at the castle door. The muttered threatenings of a gathering tumult reached the ears of Pilate. The management of the Jewish province was one of peculiar difficulty. To quell an outbreak even before it had occurred was an act of prudence. Pilate therefore came out at their request to give them audience. He found a prisoner presented to him for sentence. Military courts are rarely scrupulous about methods of procedure. Pilate was hampered by no legal forms. He was an irresponsible judge. The Roman senate would never inquire curiously after the life of a single Jew. The fate of Jesus was, humanly speaking, in his hands.

The Sanhedrim were not inclined to submit their proceedings to the revision of this heathen. How reluctantly their national pride submitted to such humiliation is evidenced by their later history, by the repeated attempts on the life of the apostle Paul, by the illegal execution of the martyr Stephen, by the martyrdom of James, brother of Jesus, for which

Annas the younger, bolder, but less crafty than his brother-inlaw Caiaphas, suffered deposition. The priests at first declined, therefore, to report to Pilate any accusation. They demanded a ratification without a rehearing. "If he were not an evil-doer," said they," we would not have delivered him up unto thee."

But Pilate was not so sure of that. At all events, it was not Roman justice to condemn any man unheard; and he peremptorily declined to be responsible for the prisoner's execution without knowledge of the circumstances of the case. "Take ye him and judge him," said he, scornfully," according to your law."

The priesthood were prepared for this emergency. They presented a new indictment. A sedition had just occurred in the city. Three prisoners were awaiting execution that very morning for participating in these acts of violence. The priests accused Jesus of being the ringleader of the Galilean faction which was always foremost in these outbreaks. "We found this fellow," they said, " perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.

Such was their general charge. It is not difficult to conjecture the specifications which they produced to sustain it. Jesus had indeed always so guarded his utterances that honest hearers could not misapprehend their meaning. He had never been careful so to qualify them that they could not be perverted by dishonest foes.

He had claimed to be a king. He had assumed all the prerogatives of royalty. He had demanded absolute and supreme allegiance of his followers. He had promulgated laws. He had announced himself to be the supreme and final judge of mankind. He had organized in the heart of Cæsar's province the germ of an imperishable community. He had marched into Jerusalem attended by a multitude that hailed him "King of the Jews." In unmistakable parable, and more than once, he had proclaimed himself the prince royal,

come to take possession of his inheritance. His little bodyguard were armed with swords; and his arrest had been finally accomplished only despite violent resistance. From these facts, repeated in perverted and exaggerated forms, it was easy for the priesthood to weave a charge of sedition, plausible, and seemingly well sustained.. At the same time, they would be careful to conceal the facts that the legislation which Jesus had promulgated was for the government of the individual, not for the regulation of a political community; that he had steadfastly refused to arbitrate in civil disputes, or to act as judge in enforcing civil law; that first among the precepts for the government of his spiritual community was that of unconditional non-resistance; that he had repeatedly cautioned the enthusiastic multitude that his kingdom was not of this world, and would not immediately appear; and that the resistance which a single misguided follower had offered to his arrest was instantly rebuked, and its evil effects miraculously cured.

As to the charge that Jesus forbade to give tribute to Cæsar, it was not only wholly false, but in direct contradiction to the facts.

By thus misrepresenting much that Jesus had said, adding something and suppressing more-a method not unknown to modern priestcraft in ecclesiastical controversies—it was not difficult to present a case that really demanded of the procurator official investigation. He therefore assumed jurisdiction of the case, summoned Jesus within the fortress for a quieter examination, and asked him for an explanation of these charges.

Jesus would not defend himself before a dishonest tribunal. But the procurator, ignorant alike of the character and mission of Jesus, was really perplexed. It was his duty to prevent and punish sedition. And Jesus readily vouchsafed him the explanation he requested in a few brief but significant words, whose meaning a paraphrase may help to make clear.

He was a king, but he was no preacher of sedition. He

had formed no purpose of interfering with the government of Rome. He had no need to call witnesses. Two sufficient evidences were before the procurator now. Who had brought this accusation against him? The Jews. If it had been preferred by a Roman centurion, it might have been worthy of examination. But when was it ever known that the Jewish priesthood complained to their Gentile government of one who sought the political emancipation of the nation? None knew better than Pilate how restive were the people under the Roman yoke. The voices of the mob before the judgmentseat crying out for Jesus's blood were unwitting witnesses of his innocence. He was a king, but his kingdom was not of this world-was not, that is, formed on the principles nor maintained by the methods of political empires. If it had been, then surely from among the hundreds who only four days before had accompanied him to Jerusalem, as Pilate well knew, hailing him as their monarch, some would have been found ready to defend his person with their lives. Not to found a new dynasty nor to frame a new political organization had Christ come into the world, but to bear witness to the truth. His subjects swear allegiance only to the truthto Jesus, because Jesus is the truth. And they only to whom truth is of higher worth than all else comprehend his voice and participate in his kingdom.*

Pilate half pityingly, half contemptuously replied with his famous question, "What is truth?" To this Roman Realist, knowing only kingdoms that are built by the sword and cemented by blood, this conception of an invisible kingdom of truth seemed but the baseless vision of a religious enthusiast.

But, though he lacked moral, he did not lack political pene tration. It was clear this Galilean Rabbi was no rival to the Cæsars. The suspicions which he had from the first entertained of the motives of his old-time enemies were confirmed, and from this brief interview he returned to the accusers of Jesus to announce his judgment of acquittal.

*John xviii., 33-38.