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" (24) That one sentence condemns eternally the whole Sanhedrin. It speaks volumes against the whole Jewish conclave. There they are, condemning (20) How many times in court have I seen important cases won and lost by the addition of one or two false words, Jesus prob- ably said: "Destroy this Temple (of the body) and in three days 1 shall raise it up," John 2: v, 19, Matt. 26: v. 61, (21) Deut. 13: V. 1 to 10. Acts 6: v. 8 to 14. Levit, 24: v. 14 to 16, Acts 25: v. 8 to 12. (22) Matt, 26: v, 66. Mark 14: v. 64. (23) Luke 22: v. 63 to 66. (24) Matt. 27: v. 3 to 10. The inspiration of Matthew, which Bays Judas hanged himself, and Acts 1: v. 18, which says he fell headlong and burst asunder, do not quite agree. One or the other statement is false. Both cannot be true. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 255 an innocent man to death on the evidence of a con- fessed perjurer, and they know it to be perjured evi- dence; yet they proceed. When morning came, the priests and Scribes, after consultation, led Jesus bound unto Pontius Pilate, to obtain his approval of the decree of death which they had pronounced against him. Here they falsely charged him with being a malefactor and forbidding tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be king. (25) They were liars, and they knew they were lying. Pilate asked him: "Art thou king of the Jews?" "Thou sayest it," was the reply. "Dost thou not hear," said Pilate, "the many things they witness against thee?" And Pilate marveled that Jesus made no reply. (26) And, turning to the priests, he said: "I find no fault in this man." (27) At this the priests became furious and charged Jesus with stirring up strife from Galilee to Jerusalem. (28) Galilee being in Herod's jurisdiction, as soon as Pilate found that Jesus was a Galilean, he sent him to Herod, who was at that time in the city. The Scribes and priests rushed headlong on after him, still demanding Jesus' death. Herod was very desirous of seeing Jesus and hoped to see him perform a miracle; and he ques- tioned him for a long time, but Jesus made no reply. The Scribes and priests were meanwhile violently ac- (25) Luke 23: v. 2 and 3. Mark 15: v. 2 to 5. John 18: v. 20. (26) Matt. 27: v. 11 to 14. (27) Pilate's wife sent out and begged him to have nothing to do with Jesus, as she had had a troublesome dream about him. Matt. 27: v. 19. (28) Luke 23: v. 5, 6 and 7. 256 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES cusing liiiTi. Finally Ilerod sent him back to Pilate with the message that he found no acts or words of Jesus worthy of death. But he allowed his soldiers to dress him like a harlequin, and mock him and jeer him, and thus returned him to Pilate. (29) Section 4. Jesus not being a Roman citizen, Pi- late had no authority, as governor of Judea, to con- demn him to death. Three times he told the Jews he found no fault in him. But they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him ! We have a law, and by our law he ought to die because he hath made himself the Son of God and he blasphemeth." (30) Pilate then took some water and washed his hands, saying: "I am innocent of the blood of this just per- son ; see ye to it." Then all the people answered back : "His blood be on us and on our children." (31) And truly, if ever a scorching, withering curse did follow an evil deed, that curse has pursued the chil- dren of those murderous Jews for now more than fifty generations ; and the end is not yet. For it looks, after the lapse of nineteen hundred years, as if Annas and Caiphas, and all those other shameless wretches of that Sanhedrin, and their posterity, will continue to be abhorred and detested to the very end of time. In fact, the taint and ignominy of that hor- rid crime has pursued them like an avenging Nemesis — not only them, but the whole Jewish race, every (29) Luke 23: v. 8 to 15. This is the Herod who murdered John the Baptist. Matt. 14: v. 1 to 10. Luke 9: v. 7. (30) John 9: v. 4 to 7. Levit. 24: v. IG. (31) Matt. 27: v. 24 and 25. Deut. 21: v. 6. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 257 member of it, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. And as the record lengthens, the turpitude of those Jews increases at every turn. It was now Friday morning, Nisan 14 (our April 3), and Passover, a feast day, a holiday with the Jews, was at hand. At Passover it had been a custom for generations to ask the liberation of some prisoner — one whom the people loved. There were many other prisoners beside Jesus, and among them, one Barabbas, a robber and a murderer. Now it would naturally be supposed that a self-re- specting people would ask the release of Jesus rather than that of Barabbas, a thief and murderer. Here now transpires an act so utterly cruel, so wicked, so heinous, so despicable that it finds no par- allel anywhere on earth. Jesus had committed no crime; he had simply undertaken to teach those Jews a better religion than that of Moses. It was a religion of peace and good-will to man; no matter if he had borrowed some ideas of Buddha; no matter if he had adopted from Leviticus "love thy neighbor as thy- self" (32) ; no matter if he had followed Macca- bees (33) and taught the resurrection of the body; it was better than the old Mosaic doctrine, which ex- tinguishes man in the grave forever. The Jews were a quarrelsome, hateful race, and Jesus had said : "Blessed are the peace-makers." They were a people who knew no mercy, and he said : (32) Levit. 19: v. 18. (33) 2nd Maccabees, ch. 7, v. 9 to 23, is where Jesus learned and found the doctrine of a resurrection, and a life everlasting. 258 A QUESTION OF MIRACLES "Blessed are the merciful." They were inhumanly wicked, and he preached repentance. Section 5. One of those prisoners is now to be set free, and Pilate asks : "Shall I release unto you the King of the Jews?" (34) Instantly there was a loud clamor of voices, and the priests were leaders in this : "Crucify him, crucify him! Release unto us Bar- abbas," said they. Pilate was willing to release Jesus, but when the priests and people clamored so furiously for his execution, he asked : "What hath he done? He is not guilty of death. I will therefore scourge him and let him go." (35) Pilate would have liked to save Jesus; but Pilate was a politician and loved office. "If thou let this man go," said the Jev^s, "thou art not Cresar's friend. He who maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar." Pilate despised the Jews, and they so hated him that he feared they might report at home that he had refused to destroy a rival king; he therefore let the mob have its way ; and the mob, led on by the priests, still furiously demanding Jesus' death, Pilate tamely yielded and released unto them Barabbas, a murderer; but delivered to the scourge and the cross the greatest and best man of the age, and the greatest one Pales- tine has ever produced. The soldiers at once led Jesus to a hall, called Pre- torium, where they stripped ofT his clothes and lashed (34) Mark 15: v. 9, and following. (35) Luke 23: v. 22. Mark 15: v. 11 to 14. A QUESTION OF MIRACLES 259 him to a post about four feet high, and there they whipped him with leather straps. Sometimes these leather straps had pieces of bone or small pieces of lead attached to the end, which cut to the blood at every blow. Not infrequently, scourging produced death, and Jesus must have been most terribly scourged for he was unable afterwards to bear the cross upon which he was to be nailed. When they had scourged him, they clothed him in purple and put a crown of thorns on his head, and saluted him mockingly — "King of the Jews." Then they spit upon him, and in derision bowed before him; then put his clothes back on him and led him away to Golgotha, where they crucified him. (36) Crucifixion was an accursed death. (37) Even the Romans held it to be so ignominious that they crucified only slaves, robbers, murderers and traitors. (38) Section 6. Jesus not being a Roman citizen, it is to the eternal disgrace of Pilate that he surrendered to the mob a man whom he had three times declared innocent. Besides, if Jesus had been justly condemned, under Leviticus 24 or under Deuteronomy 13 he should have been stoned to death, which was less ignomini- ous and less terrible than a death on the tree. (39) But that his ignominy might be complete, they (36) Mark 15: v. 15 to 23. Matt. 27: v. 33. (37) Deut. 21: v. 22 to 23.