The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

In the mean time, the miserable Judas Iscariot, overwhelmed with remorse, threw away his thirty pieces of silver, and went and hanged himself. Pilate met the Jews with their victim as they approached the judgment-hall, and inquired, “What accusation bring ye against this man?” They replied, “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.” Pilate replied, “Take him and judge him according to your law.” They, thirsting for his blood, answered, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.” Pilate then addressed himself to Jesus, and inquired, “Art thou King of the Jews?” Jesus replied by asking the question,—

“Sayest thou this of thyself? or did others tell it thee of me?”

Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done?”

Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

Pilate rejoined, “Art thou a king, then?”

Jesus said, “Thou sayest” (i.e., it is so) “I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

Pilate, having carelessly inquired “What is truth?” without waiting for any answer, turned to the Jews, and said, “I find in him no fault at all. But ye have a custom that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye, therefore, that I release unto you the King of the Jews?”

There was then in prison a noted robber and murderer by the name of Barabbas. With one accord these Jewish rulers cried out, “Not this man, but Barabbas!”

Then Pilate, though he had already declared Jesus to be innocent, infamously ordered him to be scourged, that he might conciliate the favor of the Jews. It pales one’s cheek to think what it was to be scourged by the sinewy arms of the Roman soldiery.68 After Jesus had undergone this terrible infliction without the utterance of a word, while fainting with anguish and the loss of blood, the ribald soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and forced it upon his brow, piercing the flesh with its sharp points, and crimsoning his cheeks with blood. A purple robe they threw over his shoulders, and placed a reed, in mockery of a sceptre, in his hand: derisively they shouted, “Hail, King of the Jews!” while they smote him with their hands.

The infamous Pilate led Jesus forth thus, exhausted, bleeding, and held up to derision, to the Jews, saying at the same time, “Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.”

But the rulers, clamorous for his blood, not satisfied with even this aspect of misery, cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate, wicked as he was, recoiled from the thought of putting one so entirely innocent to death. He therefore said impatiently and sarcastically, “Take ye him, and crucify him; for I find no fault in him.” This he said, knowing that the Jews had no legal power to do this. But they replied, “We have a law; and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

Pilate was greatly troubled. The bearing of Jesus had deeply impressed him. He was fearful that there might be something divine in his character and mission. Turning to Jesus, he said, “Whence art thou?” (i.e., “What is thy origin and parentage?”) Jesus made no reply. Pilate then added,—

“Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and power to release thee?”

Jesus replied, “Thou couldst have no power at all except it were given thee from above. Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”69

Pilate was now really desirous of liberating Jesus; but being a weak and wavering man, totally deficient in moral courage, he knew not how to resist the clamors of the Jews. They endeavored to goad him to gratify them by the menace, “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend. Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.”

Pilate was not on very good terms with the imperial government. He knew that any report that he was unfaithful to Cæsar might cost him his office.

Pilate still persisted, “I find no fault in this man. And they were more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.” Pilate caught at this allusion to Galilee, and hoped that there was a new chance to extricate himself from his difficulties. As a Galilean, Jesus belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction; and it so chanced that Herod was at that time in Jerusalem. He therefore sent him under a guard to Herod. A band of chief priests and scribes accompanied the prisoner to this new tribunal, and vehemently accused him. Herod, with his men at war, set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. It was now about twelve o’clock at noon. Pilate presented Jesus to the Jews, saying scornfully, “Behold your King!”

A scene of tumult and clamor ensued, the rulers crying out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Then Pilate said, “Ye have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the people; and behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod; for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him and release him.”70

Still the clamor rose, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate was seriously troubled. While these scenes had been transpiring, his wife had sent a messenger to him, saying,—

“Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”

But Pilate had force of character only in wickedness. In violation of every dictate of his judgment, he surrendered Jesus to his foes. “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.”

The Jews replied, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Pilate then, having released Barabbas, again ordered Jesus to be scourged, and delivered him to the Jews to be crucified. The soldiers led Jesus into the common hall of the palace, and summoned all their comrades to take part in the awful tragedy in which they were engaged.

First they stripped Jesus, then put on him a scarlet robe, placed a crown of thorns upon his head, put a reed in his hand, and bowed the knee before him, and derisively exclaimed, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

At length, weary of the mockery, they took off his imperial robes, clothed him again in his own garments, spat upon him, smote him on the head with the reed, and led him away to crucify him. A heavy wooden cross was placed upon the shoulders of Jesus, which he was to bear outside of the walls of the city, where it was to be planted, and he was to be nailed to it. Exhausted by the sufferings which he had already endured, he soon sank fainting beneath the load. The soldiers met a stranger from Cyrene, and compelled him to bear the cross. Thus they proceeded, followed by an immense crowd of people, men and women, many of the women weeping bitterly. Jesus turned to them, and said,—

“Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For, if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry.”71

They came to a small eminence, a short distance from the city, and beyond its walls, which was called Mount Calvary, sometimes Golgotha. The place of the execution of Jesus is not now known. He was nailed by his hands and his feet to the cross, and the cross was planted in the ground. By his side two thieves suffered the same punishment. Jesus, as in this hour of terrible agony he looked down from the cross upon his foes, was heard to breathe the prayer, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Pilate wrote the inscription, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” This, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, was nailed over the cross. The Jews wished to have it changed to “He said I am the King of the Jews;” but Pilate refused to make the alteration. Of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus, one was obdurate. Even in that hour of suffering and death he could revile Jesus, saying, “If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us.” The other, in the spirit of true penitence, rebuked the companion of his crimes, saying,—

“Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss.” Then, turning his eyes to Jesus, he said, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”

Jesus replied, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

As Jesus hung upon the cross, his sufferings excited no pity on the part of his foes. They reviled him, saying, “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. He saved others: himself he cannot save. He trusted in God: let him deliver him now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God.”

The mother of Jesus, and two other women who had been his devoted friends, and the apostle John, stood by the side of the cross. Jesus, addressing his mother, and then turning his eyes to John, said, “Woman, behold thy son!” To John he said, “Behold thy mother!” From that hour John took Mary to his home.

There now came supernatural darkness over the whole land, which continued until about three o’clock. Jesus, being then in his dying agonies, exclaimed with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and then he added, “I thirst.” Some one, probably kindly disposed, ran, and, filling a sponge with vinegar, raised it upon a reed to the lips of the sufferer. Jesus, simply tasting of it, said, “It is finished!” and with a loud voice exclaimed, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!” and died.

At that moment, the massive veil of the temple in Jerusalem, which concealed the holy of holies, was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. There was an earthquake rending the solid rocks. Many graves were burst open, and the bodies of the saints which slumbered in them came forth to life, “and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”

These startling phenomena greatly alarmed the crowd which was gathered around the cross. “Truly,” many of them exclaimed, “this was the Son of God.” It was Friday afternoon. At the going-down of the sun, the Jewish sabbath would commence. Being the sabbath of the commencement of the paschal feast, it was a day of unusual solemnity. The Jews, unwilling that the