SECTION XIX.

THE SUFFERINGS OF THE MESSIAH; OR, THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND THE WORLD ON THE KING OF THE JEWS.

(Matt. xxvi. xxvii.)

The germ for the Messiah's judgment on Israel and the world, which He had just announced to His disciples, was now cast into the womb of the future by His people in their holding judgment on Him; and in this awful deed they involved the heathen also.

Because Israel and the world passed judgment on the Lord of glory, He must, according to God's arrangement, come to judge the world. For He must be justified in presence of the world. This justification is His glorification. And in proportion as this is made manifest, naturally, and in its light, the judgment of the world also is made manifest. Thus the completion of His glorification is the last judgment itself; His appearing before all the world, the decision of the judgment.

After our Lord had, with His disciples, beheld in spirit the flames of Jerusalem and of the last judgment. He could with confidence meet the world's fearful judgment on Him without being perplexed by these awful experiences, and without the disciples sinking under this searching trial.

And as He had announced to His disciples His future coming for judgment, so He now foretold them the day on which the world would hold judgment on Him. 'Ye know,' said He, 'that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and (then) the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.'

The clearness, certainty, and composure with which He foretold this, forms a marvellous contrast to the dark uncertainty in which His enemies still find themselves with respect to the time of His execution. Then — most probably on the evening of the day on which He took leave of the temple — assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people (for a session of the Sanhedrim), and consulted how they might take Him by subtilty and kill Him. But they said, 'Not on the feast-day, lest there be an uproar among the people.' Thus they themselves did not yet know that they should put the Lord to death on the very day of the Passover; but He knew it.

And the occasion which was to bring them to a different determination was already prepared. It had come to maturity a few days before this, at a feast given to our Lord in Bethany. The Evangelist here first relates this occurrence, because it serves to account for the alteration in the determination of the council. Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper (see above, iii. 21), there came unto Him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on His head as He sat at meat. But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, 'To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.' When Jesus understood it. He said unto them, 'Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon Me. For ye have the poor always with you; but Me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on My body, she did it for My burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.'

So high in this moment did this woman stand above the disciples. She had the distinct presentiment of the death of Jesus, and exhibited it in her act. The disciples, again, in general had no understanding of her deed; they could even evince an utterly wrong feeling in regard to it. True, this wrong feeling of the circle proceeded from a single member — from Judas Iscariot.

This one of the Twelve, whose deep displeasure against the Lord is sufficiently evident from the disapproval of the anointing, of which he was the originator, was so embittered by Jesus' word in defence of the anointing, that he now went to the chief priests and said unto them, 'What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you?' And they bargained with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.

So this agreement between the traitor and the high priests had already taken place when Jesus told the disciples He would be crucified on the Passover-day, But undecided as still were the members of the council in regard to the favourable moment, equally undecided was Judas likewise, until a second great feast was the occasion which brought to full maturity the dark thought of his mind.

When the day of unleavened bread was come, which preceded the eve of the Passover (14th Nisan), the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, 'Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover?' He told them (namely, the two whom He sent), 'Go into the city to such a man' — to a man whom He had reasons for not now naming to them, but for finding whom He gave them a distinct signal.¹ His commission to this man was this, 'The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at thy house with My disciples.' This mission bore the same mysterious character as the message to Bethphage for bringing the ass' colt. The Master knew His man, the man knew his Master: without a doubt the prophetic spirit of Christ was working here in connection with the suppositions of former friendship. The disciples did as Jesus had appointed them, and made ready for Him the Passover. At even the Lord came and sat down with the Twelve. And as they did eat, He said, 'Verily I say unto you, That one of you shall betray Me.' The disciples were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto Him, 'Lord, is it I?' Jesus answered, 'He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.' Probably this mark characterized the conduct of the traitor in reaching over to dip his morsel as near to Jesus as possible. Jesus then continued, 'The Son of man goeth as it is written of Him (according to the counsel of God, and therefore for salvation); but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.'

After this word of thunder from our Lord, the traitor was bold enough to venture to ask Him, in the same words as the rest, 'Master, is it I?' Jesus said unto him, 'Thou hast said.'

The Evangelist (who alone relates this last circumstance) tells us nothing of the departure of Judas from the circle of the disciples. We may assume, however, that he departed now. Another destroying angel than the one who on the first paschal night smote the first-born of Egypt, now hurried him on to his ruin. But Jesus instituted the feast of love 'in the night on which He was betrayed.' And as they were eating (the Passover), Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body.' And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink ye all of it; for this is My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.'

They then sang a concluding hymn, and went out unto the Mount of Olives. On the way thither, Jesus told them, 'AH ye shall be offended (stumble, to fall) because of Me this night; for it is written (Zech. xiii. 7), I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. Bat after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.' Then Peter answered, 'Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended.' Jesus said unto him, 'Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shaft deny Me thrice.' Peter affirmed again, 'Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee.' Likewise also said all the disciples.

Then came Jesus with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, 'Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder.' And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy (to be shaken by a feeling of oppression and desertion). In this state He said to them, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me.' And He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, 'O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' He then returned to His disciples and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, 'What! could ye not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray,' added He, warningly, 'that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He then went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, 'O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done.' Thus this second prayer had (according to Matthew) an essentially altered form, although it was in spirit the same as the first. In this form it expresses the sacrifice which Jesus performed in spirit. When He now returned again. He found them asleep the second time, for their eyes were heavy. They could scarcely be again brought to consciousness. So He left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. And now He had drunk the cup of this mysterious affliction, and offered Himself to the Father in the nameless distress and anguish of His soul. Now, after His soul had been thrice strongly agitated, and thrice strengthened strongly in devoting Himself to God, His soul stood immoveably firm, and so He came again to His three sleeping companions, who had left Him to tread 'the winepress alone' (Isa. lxiii. 3), and gave them the gentle reprimand, 'Do ye sleep and take your rest? behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. Rise, let us be going; behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.'

And while He yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the Twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. The traitor had given them a sign, saying. Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is He; hold Him fast. And forthwith (in wild haste) he came to Jesus, and said, 'Hail, Master,' and kissed Him (sought to kiss Him with the expression of tenderness). And Jesus said unto him, 'Friend, wherefore art thou come? 'Then came the officials and laid hands on Jesus, and took Him. And, behold, one of them who were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, 'Put up again thy sword into its place (the sheath, which is its right place); for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.'

He then added the saying (which Matthew again alone gives), 'Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? 'Christ spoke not merely to Peter in his individuality, but at the same time to the Peter which continues to live in the Church, in the stretching forth of the hand in a thousand forms to grasp the sword of outward power. By this saying He at the same time declared to the Israelite mind, which was so very vexed at His sufferings, that He suffered voluntarily, and indeed according to the Scriptures of the Old Covenant; that the suffering of the Messiah was contained in the appointment of the Messiah.

In that same hour He also uttered a solemn protest against His enemies. 'Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves to take Me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on Me. But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.'

When the disciples saw and heard that Jesus thus gave Himself up to the power of His enemies, their courage gave way: they all forsook Him, and fled.

And they that had laid hold on Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. Peter followed Him afar off unto the high priest's palace, and went in (into the hall), and sat with the servants to see the end.

The Evangelist now describes to us the judicial procedure in Caiaphas' house, by which Jesus was solemnly condemned to death. The chief priests, the elders, and all the council (as it had now assembled, composed of those who were like-minded; see above, vol. iii. p. 234), sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none; yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, and said, 'This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.' The high priest now arose and said, 'Answerest Thou nothing to that which these witness against Thee? 'But Jesus held His peace. The high priest appeared willing to take this silence as at least an assent to the main idea in that expression; for the Evangelist observes, that he, answering, said to Him, 'I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God.' The living God answered him in the answer of Jesus. As the faithful witness, Jesus expressed the mystery of His consciousness, the word of life for the world, on which His death depended. His answer was, 'Thou hast said: nevertheless, I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.' He announces to them the judgment of His coming. He announced to them that henceforth they should be always visited with alarming indications of His supremacy. They should see Him always. Wherever Omnipotence displays itself, there will He appear with it as heir of its effects. On the many clouds which should still darken the sky, He will always be manifest as the light of the latter days, the morning star, the sun of a better future; and this from that time until the revelation of His glory, when seated on the last clouds of the world's conflagration. On this solemn declaration of Jesus, the high priest rent his clothes, saying, 'He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard His blasphemy.' And further and further proceeds he in the same breath, 'What think ye? 'They answered, 'He is guilty of death.' Then they did spit in His face, and buffeted Him. They intended by this to represent Him with praiseworthy zeal as a heretic.² Some likewise struck Him on the face with their hands, and jeered at His claim to the dignity of prophet, saying, 'Prophesy unto us, Thou Christ, who is he that smote Thee? '

But the blow He felt most was given Him about this same time by the most prominent of His disciples, Peter, who had most strongly asserted his devotedness to Him. He was sitting without in the court of the palace. One of the maid-servants came to him there, saying, 'Thou also hast with Jesus of Galilee' (thou belongest to His associates). And this one word of a maid-servant could bring him to his fall: he denied before them all, saying, 'I know not what thou sayest.' And when he was gone into the porch, another maid saw him, and said to them that were there, 'This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.' He denied again, and this time with an oath. The first time he had said, I know not what thou sayest; he now used a stronger expression: 'I do not know the man.' And after a while came unto him they that stood by (the high priest's servants), and declared decidedly, 'Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.' Upon this, he went so far as to curse and to swear, saying, 'I know not the man.' And immediately the cock crew. And Peter then remembered the word of Jesus, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And he went out and w^ept bitterly.

Thus the delivering of Jesus to the judgment of the heathen was decided. His people had, through their rulers, condemned Him; even His disciples dared not to confess Him; the boldest of them had just denied Him, and gone out, with his courage broken, weeping bitterly in the morning twilight, which the cockcrow had with startling tones announced to him.

The work of the night was completed when morning came. First of all, once more a session of the Sanhedrim, composed of all the chief priests and elders of the people, was held with all due formality, in contrast to the improvised and irregular assembling of the council which had taken place in the night (see above, vol. iii. p. 244). This assembly confirmed the sentence of death. The bonds, which probably had been taken off our Lord during the examination, were put on Him anew. So they led Him away in formal procession, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.

It is very remarkable, that just here Matthew relates to us the end of Judas, of which the other Evangelists tell us nothing. We may venture to assume, that the unhappy course of Judas appeared to him a type of this unhappy course of his people, in which they went to lay hands on themselves in spiritual suicide. 'Then Judas, who had betrayed Him, when he saw that He was condemned, repented.' But his repentance showed itself to be a despairing repentance by its crooked course and awful issue. He brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 'I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.' They replied, 'What is that to us? see thou to that.' So the priests dismissed him again with his wages. Upon this, he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple for the temple- treasury, and attempted to retreat to a hermit life, as anchoret. Yet thus he found no rest; so he took the last step, and went and hanged himself. Thus he died hanging; a fearful contrast to his Master, whom he had brought to hang on the cross. But the chief priests would not keep the thirty pieces of silver as a gift to the temple. They judged it unlawful to put them into the treasury, because they were the price of blood. As finished hypocrites, they would draw a distinction between Levitical and political consciousness; as statesmen, they had themselves paid out the blood-money; as priests, they thought it necessary to separate the same as unclean from the temple-gifts, and apply it to another purpose. They soon came to a decision; for they bought with it that field in the vale of Hinnom on which Judas died, which, as a exhausted potter's field, was perhaps to be had cheap, especially since that suicide had desecrated it; and appointed this place to be a burial-place for strangers who died in Jerusalem. This, then, was the way that the Pharisee mind came to do something for strangers. They hoped, perhaps, that among the bodies of strangers, the traitor would be first forgotten, and with him also their deed. But probably they looked upon this, which cost them nothing but a few pieces of silver which they knew not how otherwise to invest, as a meritorious work, by which they for once paid homage to the duty of humanity to strangers which the Nazarene had so strenuously preached, and to the progress which the time seemed to demand. The Evangelist makes the observation, 'Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day;' and he adds, 'Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potters field, as the Lord appointed me.' According to the thirty-second chapter of the prophet Jeremiah, this should serve, in a time when Jerusalem seemed to be lost, to buy a field at Anathoth, for a sign that Jerusalem must not yet be given up — that it should be again inhabited. That appointment was now fulfilled in its highest sense. The members of the Sanhedrim bought the curse-laden spot in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and that to bury strangers in. Thus they unconsciously did what formerly the Lord had commanded Jeremiah, But that they so did is told by the Evangelist in words which unmistakeably refer to another passage, Zech. xi. 13, which he blended into one with the typical prophecy of Jeremiah.

As the Jews consciously present to strangers a miserable burying-place, so they unconsciously throw to them their most precious treasure, the Messiah. Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked Him, 'Art Thou the King of the Jews? 'And Jesus answered him, 'Thou sayest.' The Evangelist omits to mention that He (according to John) did not at once answer him thus definitely, but first fixed the sense in which he asked Him. Matthew deals with the main matter: Jesus represented Himself to Pilate as the King of the Jews in the theocratic sense. Again, he observes that Jesus answered nothing when accused by the chief priests and scribes. For He did not find it necessary to defend Himself against the religious accusation of the Jews, that He had committed blasphemy by making Himself the Son of God, after He had assured the Roman that His kingdom was not of this world, and that so He had foi'raed no political plots. Pilate therefore asked Him, 'Hearest Thou not how many things they witness against Thee? 'And He answered him never a word, insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly. So this is the brief result of the whole examination of Jesus before Pilate: He confessed to His Messiahship and His people before the heathen judge to whom His people had delivered Him, and before whom they denied Him; He declared that He was the King of the Jews. He gave not the least answer to other accusations. Thus the King of the Jews stands denied and accused by His people before the heathen judge. He confesses nothing but that He is the King of the Jews. So that, when He is judged, the people of the Jews in their higher tendency, and thus the hope of the Jews, is judged in Him.

This first placing of Christ in judgment was by His people. The second was by Pilate before His people. For he placed Him alongside of Barabbas. The governor was wont at the Passover to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would. He had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas. He now assembled the multitude in a more orderly manner, and then proposed to them the question, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas,³ or Jesus who is called Christ? 'The Evangelist adds. For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him. By this he intimates that Pilate knew that many among the people were favourably disposed to Jesus, and he might hope that these would decide in His favour. For this reason he would be desirous to obtain as numerous an assembly of the people as possible. So now the judgment on our Lord [assumed the fearful aspect, that the people had to decide which they would ask to be released — Barabbas the noted criminal, or Jesus.

The Evangelist next describes to us a very significant "pause, into which entered a kind of contest of spirits, which raised to a violent conflict the outward struggle between Pilate, who sought to set our Lord free, and the people who were to pronounce sentence on Him. A good spirit sought, in the message of his wife, to strengthen Pilate as he sat on the judgment-seat. She sent unto him, saying, 'Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for 1 have suffered many things this day in a dream, because of him.' But in the meantime an evil spirit wrought upon the people with more success: the chief priests and elders persuaded the assembled multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.

This is one of the strongest contrasts, and, without a doubt, Matthew related it with the deepest consciousness. The good spirit which sought to strengthen Pilate in his design of rescuing the 'King of the Jews 'spoke through a dream, through the dream of a heatheness, from the heart of a noble Roman matron, the wife of a vain, haughty worldling. And the evil spirit which made these warnings of no effect, by misleading the Jewish people with its suggestions to reject their King for a malefactor, spoke through the deliberate resolution and concerted agreement of the elders in Israel, who were familiar with the letter of revelation, and through the advice of their high priest, who bore upon his breastplate the motto. Light and judgment! — it spoke through the hearts of the fathers of Israel to the people committed to their charge.

The judicial exercise of God's authority manifested itself, in that the evil counsel of the watchmen of Israel prevailed over the pious dream of the heatheness. When now the governor asked the multitude, 'Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? 'they said, 'Barabbas.' And when he further asked, 'What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ? 'they all answered, 'Let Him be crucified; 'and when asked, 'Why, what evil hath He done? 'they cried out the more, saying, 'Let Him be crucified.'

No voice was raised in favour of our Lord. The minority which might have been so inclined was completely terrorized, and silent as the grave.

And now followed a scene which Matthew alone describes, and which was of the highest significance for the future of the Jewish people. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, 'I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it.' Then answered all the people (says Matthew, with an emphasis which expresses the full consciousness of the significance of this moment for Israel), 'His blood be on us and on our children! 'True, the Roman could not wash his hands clean from the blood-guiltiness which he was just about to contract, yet its heaviest curse fell on the people, which in this moment imprecates such an awful curse upon itself.

Thus the people had thrice, with increased decisiveness, condemned our Lord to the cross. Then Pilate released Barabbas unto them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him⁴ to be crucified. The crowning of Christ in mockery, now performed by the Roman soldiers, shows that it was not merely under compulsion from the Jews, but willingly, and with devilish delight, that the heathen took part in the crucifixion of Christ. They brought Him into the prætorium, and gathered around Him the whole band. They then stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe to represent the royal purple. They platted a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and they put a reed in His hand. They then bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews! 'Lastly, they spit upon Him, and took the reed and smote Him on the head.

Thus, in one short but decisive act, they represented the participation of the heathen world in the crucifixion of Christ. But the act, doubtless, denotes specially the particular kind of the culpabilities of the heathen against the life of Christ. The heathen mind denies and assails chiefly His Royal dignity, His Royal rule, and His Royal kingdom.

And while the Jewish mind wounds Him mainly with bitter, gloomy fanaticism, in scorn and blasphemy, the heathen mind sins against Him chiefly in the form of wild merriment, of rude, unthinking mockery.

After they had thus mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him, and put on Him His own raiment, and led Him away to be crucified. And when they had come out of the city, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear His cross. The name of the man w^as sufficiently remarkable to be specially noticed. Another Simon in the circle of the disciples had boasted to the Lord of his readiness to go with Him to death, and had not stood firm; and now this Simon, from a distant heathen city, had, under compulsion, to accompany Him to Golgotha and support Him.

And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha — that is to say, a place of a skull — they gave Him a cup from which, according to their custom and as they deemed meet, He should drink contempt of death, 'vinegar mingled with gall.' The Evangelist chooses here an expression in the Psalms, which indicates that that passage may be considered as a typical presage of what now took place (Ps. lxix, 21). The wine was sour as vinegar, for they thought the worst drink good enough for Him. The mixture was bitter as gall, and in the same high degree stupefying. He tasted the dangerous drink, and refused it. The wine which the fathers of Israel were to give to their Lord, the King of Glory, to glorify Him, and which they gave Him 'without the camp 'of the Levitical Church, on the accursed place of a skull, was vinegar mingled with gall.

After they had crucified Him, they parted His garments and cast lots for them.⁵ And, sitting down, they watched Him there. That was the guard of honour which the great King received. He hung, nailed to the cross, naked, dispoiled of His raiment; but His guard, which parted His raiment, and, like gamblers, cast lots for them, were comfortably seated on the ground.

In this position, the title of honour, indeed, which was His due, was, by a peculiar dispensation of providence, given to Him. They set up over His head the inscription meant to denote the cause of His execution, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. But this inscription was only intended to deride in Him the kingdom of the Jews; and this derision was augmented by the circumstance that with Him they crucified two thieves, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

This derision proceeded from the heathen governor, and was aimed rather at the Jews than at Jesus. Yet so much the more zealous were the Jews to renounce connection with Him in His death. They that passed by, says the Evangelist, reviled Him, wagging their heads, and saying, 'Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it (again) in three days, save Thyself.' Likewise also the chief priests, mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, 'He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. And, unconsciously to them, their mockery passed into blasphemy, which is always the end of fanaticism, when they said, 'He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him; for He said, I am the Son of God.' The thieves also, who were crucified with Him, cast the same (the latter) in his teeth.

When the rejection of the Messiah had thus reached its climax, creation itself began to testify to Him. From the sixth hour a darkness spread over the land, which continued until the ninth hour. In this darkness was revealed the mysterious connection between the development of the earth and the life of humanity, which now in its Head was enduring the utmost suffering on its way to its glorification. It was a miraculous sign; for there could not have been a natural darkening of the sun about this time (full moon).

Nature appeared unconsciously to imitate the mental frame of its dying King. This mental frame of our Lord was finally revealed when it had reached its utmost tension in the exclamation, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! 'that is to say, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? That was the decisive and last word of His warfare, expressing at the same time His last struggle and His victory. And because of its sublime depth, it has been misunderstood in a thousand ways. The grossest misunderstanding, or the most frivolous misinterpretation of it, was that expressed by those who stood around. For some of them said, 'This man calleth for Elias.' And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink. The rest said, 'Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save Him.' But Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

The great revolution which, with the death of Jesus, entered into all the regions of the world of man, announced itself in great and significant signs, the second and the third of which Matthew alone relates to us.

And, behold, says the Evangelist, the veil of the temple (which concealed the holy of holies) was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. This symbolic event announced to the world, that the Old Testament symbolic system of sacrifice was abolished by the real reconciliation in the death of Christ, that now the symbolic theocracy was changed into the real kingdom of heaven, and that so access to the throne of the grace of God was free to all the world.

And further, it is said, the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. A change was going on in the depths of the cosmic life of this world corresponding to the great change in humanity; it was as if death throes and birth-throes anticipatory of its future transformation had shaken the earth.

And the graves were opened, continues Matthew; and many bodies (bodily forms) of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Thus the world of spirits was also moved. The redemption of believers, the resurrection of humanity, was now decided; the godly of the Old Covenant in the kingdom of the dead rejoiced in anticipation of their resurrection, and passed into a higher condition. This was made manifest during the time of Easter by their appearing to many of the believers in Jerusalem.

And when the heathen centurion, and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, and said, 'Truly this was the Son of God.' Thus the victory of the death of Christ over the heathen world also was expressed in a definite prognostic full of promise.

But the effect of the death of Jesus appeared still more strongly in the sphere of the disciples. And many women, it is further said, were there beholding afar off, who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him; among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children (Salome). Thus the death of Jesus gave these weak women the courage to continue there on the place of martyrdom, amid dangers and alarms, and the strength to bear the agonizing sight of the unutterable sufferings of their beloved Lord. With equal power did the death of Jesus now appeal to His secret adherents, and draw them from their concealment. When the even was come, continues Matthew, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: he went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, wdiich he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

And how high the heroic courage of the women had risen was shown in this, that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat down (in the evening twilight) over against the (lonesome) sepulchre.

But while the death of Jesus exercised such animating and deeply tranquillizing influences upon receptive minds, and especially upon the souls of faithful disciples, it became for His enemies a source of fresh disquiet, which increased to an agony which betrayed in some of its features their mental derangement. On the one hand, weak women were changed to lionesses; on the other, men grown grey in experience as members of the council were visited with irresistible terrors. Next morning it was evident how restlessly these men had slept, or rather how sleeplessly they had passed the night. On that morning, the morning which followed the day of the preparation (for the Sabbath), significantly says Matthew, who alone has preserved this fact for us, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate. They appear to have assembled in the house of the heathen without formal concert, but all impelled by the same demon of a torturing anxiety and fear. Their address to Pilate ran thus: 'Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.' Pilate answered them, 'Ye have a watch; go your way, make it as sure as ye can.' So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch.

Thus they who had hunted our Lord to death specially under the reproach of Sabbath desecration, were now obliged, according to God's judgment, to go into the house of the heathen governor on the morning of the great paschal Sabbath, to entitle him 'Lord (Κύριε), to hold a conference in his house, to set out to visit the sepulchre of one executed as a criminal, and over this tomb to break the high Sabbath-day with their foolish solicitude and toil.

In this way, then, they sealed the stone of the sepulchre, intending to bury for ever in the night of death, in the reproach of the cross, the honour of Jesus, the misjudged Messiah, the King of the Jews.

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