Jesus, knowing too well that this was the state of the case, made for them a way of escape, and "they all forsook Him and fled." It was perhaps as well, for they might have done worse. Yet what an anticlimax to the asseveration which everyone of them had made that very evening, "If I should die with Thee, I will not deny Thee in any wise!" I have sometimes thought what an honour it would have been to Christianity, what a golden leaf in the history of human nature, had one or two of them--say, the brothers James and John--been strong enough to go with Him to prison and to death. We should, indeed, have missed St. John's writings in that case--his Revelation, Gospel and Epistles. But what a revelation that would have been, what a gospel, what a living epistle!
It was not, however, to be. Jesus had to go unaccompanied: "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with Me." So they "bound Him and led Him away."
[1] _Speira_=cohors, tenth part of legion. See Ramsay, R.A., 381.
[2] _katephilesen_. It is used of the woman who was a sinner, when she kissed the feet of the Saviour.
[4] Other instances in Süskind, _Passionsschule_, _in loc_.
[5] See fuller details in _Imago Christi_, last chapter.
Over the Kedron, up the slope to the city, through the gates, along the silent streets, the procession passed, with Jesus in the midst; midnight stragglers, perhaps, hurrying forward from point to point to ask what was ado, and peering towards the Prisoner's face, before they diverged again towards their own homes.[1] He was conducted to the residence of the high priest, where His trial ensued.
Jesus had to undergo two trials--the one ecclesiastical, the other civil; the one before Caiaphas the high priest, the other before Pontius Pilate the governor.
The reason of this was, that Judaea was at that time under Roman rule, forming a portion of the Roman province of Syria and administered by a Roman official, who resided in the splendid new seaport of Caesarea, fifty miles away from Jerusalem, but had also a palace in Jerusalem, which he occasionally visited.
It was not the policy of Rome to strip the countries of which she became mistress of all power. She flattered them by leaving in their hands at least the insignia of self-government, and she conceded to them as much home rule as was compatible with the retention of her paramount authority. She was specially tolerant in matters of religion. Thus the ancient ecclesiastical tribunal of the Jews, the Sanhedrim, was still allowed to try all religious questions and punish offenders. Only, if the sentence chanced to be a capital one, the case had to be re-tried by the governor, and the carrying out of the sentence, if it was confirmed, devolved upon him.