xxvii. 40, he puts the same declaration into the mouth of those who

insulted Jesus at the foot of the cross; but he does not put it into the mouth of Christ. He is in accordance with St. Mark.

St. John, chapter ii. 19, makes Jesus speak in these words: “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And St. John adds: “He spake of the temple of his body.”

Thus Jesus did not say in an affirmative and somewhat menacing manner, _I will destroy this temple_, as the witnesses _falsely_ assumed; he only said, hypothetically, _Destroy this temple_, that is to say, suppose this temple should be destroyed, I will raise it up in three days. Besides, they could not dissemble, that he referred to a temple altogether different from theirs, because he said, I will raise up another in three days, _which will not be made by the hands of man_.

It hence results, at least, that the Jews did not understand him, for they cried out, “Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?”

Thus, then, the witnesses did not agree together, and their declarations had nothing conclusive. Mark xiv. 59. We must, therefore, look for other proofs.

“Then the high priest, (we must not forget, that he is still the accuser,) the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it, which these witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing.” Mark xiv. 60. In truth, since the question was not concerning the temple of the Jews, but an ideal temple, not made by the hand of man, and which was alone in the thoughts of Jesus, the explanation was to be found in the very evidence itself.

The high priest continued: “I adjure thee, by the living God, that thou tell us, whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.” Matt. xxvi. 63. I adjure thee, I call upon thee on oath! a gross infraction of that rule of morals and jurisprudence, which forbids our placing an accused person between the danger of perjury and the fear of inculpating himself, and thus making his situation more hazardous. The high priest, however, persists, and says to him: Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?(406) Jesus answered, _Thou hast said_. Matthew xxvi. 64; _I am_. Mark xiv. 62.

“Then 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_. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.” Matt. xxvi. 66.

Let us now compare this scene of violence with the mild deduction of principles, which we find in the chapter of Mr. Salvador _On the Administration of Justice_; and let us ask ourselves, if, as he alleges, we find a just _application_ of them in the proceedings against Christ?

Do we discover here that _respect_ of the Hebrew judge towards the party accused, when we see that Caiaphas permitted him to be struck, in his presence, _with impunity_?

What was this Caiaphas, at once an accuser and judge?(407) A passionate man, and too much resembling the odious portrait which the historian Josephus has given us of him!(408) A judge, who was irritated to such a degree, that he rent his clothes; who imposed upon the accused a most solemn oath, and who gave to his answers the criminal character, that _he had spoken_ blasphemy! And, from that moment, he wanted no more witnesses, notwithstanding the law required them. He would not have an inquiry, which he perceived would be insufficient; he attempts to supply it by captious questions. He is desirous of having him condemned _upon his own declaration alone_, (interpreted, too, as he chooses to understand it,) though that was forbidden by the laws of the Hebrews! And, in the midst of a most violent transport of passion, this accuser himself, a high priest, who means to speak in the name of the living God, is the first to pass sentence of death, and carries with him the opinions of the rest!

In this hideous picture I cannot recognise that justice of the Hebrews, of which Mr. Salvador has given so fine a view in _his theory_!

Section VII.—SUBSEQUENT ACTS OF VIOLENCE.

Immediately after this kind of sacerdotal verdict rendered against Jesus, the acts of violence and insults recommenced with increased strength; the fury of the judge must have communicated itself to the bystanders. St. Matthew says: “Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ; who is he that smote thee?” Matt. xxvi. 67, 68.

Mr. Salvador does not contest the truth of this ill treatment. In page 88 he says, “It was contrary to the spirit of the Hebrew law, and that it was not according to the order of nature, that a senate composed of the most respectable men of a nation,—that a senate, which might perhaps be mistaken, but which thought it was acting mildly, should have permitted such outrages against him whose life it held in its own hands. The writers who have transmitted these details to us, not having been present themselves at the trial, were disposed to overcharge the picture, either on account of their own feelings, or to throw upon their judges a greater odium.”

I repeat; this ill treatment was entirely contrary to the spirit of the law. And what do I want more, since my object is to make prominent _all the violations of law_.

“It is not in nature to see a body, which respects itself, authorize such attempts.” But of what consequence is that, when the fact is established? “The historians, it is said, were not present at the trial.” But was Mr. Salvador there present himself, so that he could give a flat denial of their statements? And when even an able writer, who was not an eye-witness, relates the same events after the lapse of more than eighteen centuries, he ought at least to bring opposing evidence, if he would impeach that of contemporaries; who, if they were not in the very hall of the council, were certainly on the spot, in the vicinity, perhaps in the court yard, inquiring anxiously of every thing that was happening to the man whose disciples they were.(409) Besides, the learned author whom I am combating says, in the outset (p. 81), “it is from the Gospels themselves that he will take all his facts.” He must then take the whole together, as well those which go to condemn, as those which are in palliation or excuse.

Those gross insults, those inhuman acts of violence, even if they are to be cast upon the servants of the high priest and the persons in his train, do not excuse those individuals, who, when they took upon themselves the authority of judges, were bound at the same time to throw around him all the protection of the law. Caiaphas, too, was culpable as the master of the house (for every thing took place in his house), even if he should not be responsible as high priest and president of the council for having permitted excesses, which, indeed were but too much in accordance with the rage he had himself displayed upon the bench.

These outrages, which would be inexcusable even towards a man irrevocably condemned to punishment, were the more criminal towards Jesus, because, legally and judicially speaking, there had not yet been any sentence properly passed against him according to the public law of the country; as we shall see in the following section, which will deserve the undivided attention of the reader.

Section VIII.—THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN RESPECT TO THE ROMANS.

We must not forget, _that Judea was a conquered country_. After the death of Herod—most inappropriately surnamed _the Great_—Augustus had confirmed his last will, by which that king of the Jews had arranged the division of his dominions between _his_ two sons: but Augustus did not continue their title of _king_, which their father had borne.

Archeläus, on whom Judea devolved, having been recalled on account of his cruelties, the territory, which was at first intrusted to his command, was united to the province of Syria. (_Josephus_, Antiq. Jud. lib. 17, cap. 15.)

Augustus then appointed particular officers for Judea. Tiberius did the same; and at the time of which we are speaking, Pilate was one of those officers. (_Josephus_, lib. 18, cap. 3 & 8.)

Some have considered Pilate as governor, by title, and have given him the Latin appellation, _Præses_, president or governor. But they have mistaken the force of the word. Pilate was one of those public officers, who were called by the Romans, _procuratores Cæsaris_, Imperial procurators. With this title of _procurator_, he was placed under the superior authority of the governor of Syria, the true _præses_, or governor of that province, of which Judea was then only one of the dependencies.

To the governor (_præses_) peculiarly belonged the right of taking cognizance of _capital_ cases.(410) The _procurator_, on the contrary, had, for his principal duty, nothing but the collection of the revenue, and the trial of revenue causes. But the right of taking cognizance of _capital_ cases did, in some instances, belong to certain _procurators_, who were sent into small provinces to fill the places of governors (_vice præsides_), as appears clearly from the Roman laws.(411) Such was _Pilate_ at Jerusalem.(412)

The Jews, placed in this political position—notwithstanding they were left in the enjoyment of their civil laws, the public exercise of their religion, and many things merely relating to their police and municipal regulations—the Jews, I say, had not the _power of life and death_; this was a principal attribute of sovereignty, which the Romans always took great care to reserve to themselves, even if they neglected other things. _Apud Romanos, jus valet gladii; cætera transmittuntur_. TACIT.

What then was the right of the Jewish authorities in regard to Jesus? Without doubt the scribes, and their friends the Pharisees, might well have been alarmed, as a body and individually, at the preaching and success of Jesus; they might be concerned for their worship; and they might have interrogated the man respecting his creed and his doctrines,—they might have made a kind of preparatory proceeding,—they might have declared, in point of fact, that those doctrines, which threatened their own, were contrary to their law, as understood by themselves.

But that law, although it had not undergone any alteration as to the affairs of religion, had no longer any coercive power as to the external or civil regulations of society. In vain would they have undertaken to pronounce sentence of death under the circumstances of the case of Jesus; the council of the Jews had not the power to pass a _sentence of death_; it only would have had power to make _an accusation_ against him before the governor, or his deputy, and then deliver him over to be tried by him.

Let us distinctly establish this point; for here I entirely differ in opinion from Mr. Salvador. According to him, (p. 88), “the Jews had _reserved the power of trying, according to their law_; but it was in the hands of the _procurator_ alone, that the executive power was vested; every culprit must be put to death by _his_ consent, in order that the senate should not have the means of reaching persons that were sold to foreigners.”

No; the Jews had not reserved _the right of passing sentence of death_. This right had been transferred to the Romans by the very act of conquest; and this was not merely that the senate should not have the means of reaching persons who were sold to foreign countries; but it was done, in order that the conqueror might be able to reach those individuals who should become _impatient of the yoke_; it was, in short, for the equal protection of all, as all had become Roman subjects; and to Rome alone belonged the highest judicial power, which is the principal attribute of sovereignty. Pilate, as the representative of Cæsar in Judea, was not merely an agent of the _executive authority_, which would have left the _judiciary_ and _legislative_ power in the hands of the conquered people—he was not simply an officer appointed to give an _exequatur_ or mere approval (_visa_) to sentences passed by _another authority_, the _authority of the Jews_. When the matter in question was a _capital_ case, the Roman authorities not only ordered the _execution_ of a sentence, but also took cognizance (_cognitio_) of the crime; it had the right of jurisdiction _à priori_, and that of _passing judgment in the last resort_. If Pilate himself had not had this power by special delegation, _vice præsidis_, it was vested in the governor, within whose territorial jurisdiction the case occurred; but in any event we hold it to be clear, that the Jews had lost the right of _condemning to death_ any person whatever, not only so far as respects the _execution_ but the _passing_ of the sentence. This is one of the best settled points in the provincial law of the Romans.

The Jews were not ignorant of this; for when they went before Pilate, to ask of him the condemnation of Jesus, they themselves declared, that it was not permitted to them to put any person to death: “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.” John xviii. 31.

Here I am happy to be able to support myself by the opinion of a very respectable authority, the celebrated Loiseau, in his treatise on _Seigneuries_, in the chapter on the administration of _justice belonging to cities_. “In truth,” says he, “there is some evidence, that the _police_, in which the people had the sole interest, was administered by officers of the people; but I know not upon what were founded the concessions of power to some cities of France to exercise criminal jurisdiction; nor why the Ordinance of Moulins left that to them rather than civil cases; for the criminal jurisdiction is the _right of the sword_, the _merum imperium_, or absolute sovereignty. Accordingly, by the Roman law, the administration of justice was so far prohibited to the officers of cities, that they could not punish even by a simple fine. _Thus it is doubtless that we must understand_ that passage of the Gospel, where the Jews say to Pilate, _It is not lawful for us to put any man to death_; for, after they were subjected to the Romans, they had not jurisdiction of crimes.”

Let us now follow Jesus to the presence of Pilate.

Section IX.—THE ACCUSATION MADE BEFORE PILATE.

At this point I must entreat the particular attention of the reader. The irregularities and acts of violence, which I have hitherto remarked upon, are nothing in comparison with the unbridled fury, which is about to display itself before the _Roman Judge_, in order to extort from him, against his own conviction, a sentence of death.

“And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders, and scribes, and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate.” Mark xv. 1.

_As soon as the morning was come_; for, as I have observed already, every thing which had been done thus far against Jesus was done _during the night_.

They then led Jesus from Caiaphas unto the Hall of Judgment of Pilate.(413) It was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest _they should be defiled_; but that they might eat the passover. John xviii. 28.

Singular scrupulousness! and truly worthy of the Pharisees! They were afraid of _defiling themselves on the day of the passover_ by entering _the house of_ a heathen! And yet, the same day, only some hours before presenting themselves to Pilate, they had, in contempt of their own law, committed the outrage of _holding a council_ and deliberating upon _an accusation of a capital crime_.

As they would not enter, “Pilate went out to them.” John xviii. 29. Now observe his language. He did not say to them, _Where is the sentence you have passed_; as he must have done, if he was only to give them his simple _exequatur_, or permission to execute the sentence; but he takes up the matter from the beginning, as would be done by one who had _plenary jurisdiction_; and he says to them: What accusation bring ye against this man?

They answered, with their accustomed haughtiness: If he were not _a malefactor_ we would not have delivered him up to thee. John xviii. 30. They wished to have it understood, that, being a question of _blasphemy_, it was the _cause of their religion_, which they could appreciate better than any others could. Pilate, then, would have been under the necessity of believing them _on their word_. But this Roman, indignant at their proposed course of proceeding, which would have restricted his jurisdiction by making him the passive instrument of the wishes of the Jews, answered them in an ironical manner: Well, since you say he has sinned against your law, take him yourselves and judge him according to your law. John xviii. 31. This was an absolute mystification to them, for they knew their own want of power to condemn him to death. But they were obliged to yield the point, and to submit to Pilate himself their _articles of accusation_.

Now what were the grounds of this accusation? Were they _the same_ which had hitherto been alleged against Jesus—the charge of _blasphemy_—which was the only one brought forward by Caiaphas before the council of the Jews? Not at all; despairing of obtaining from the Roman judge a sentence of _death_ for a _religious_ quarrel, which was of no interest to the Romans,(414) they suddenly changed their plan; they abandoned their first accusation, the charge of blasphemy, and substituted for it a _political_ accusation, an _offence against the state_.

Here we have the very crisis, or essential incident, of the passion; and that which makes the heaviest accusation of guilt on the part of the informers against Jesus. For, being fully bent on destroying him in any manner whatever, they no longer exhibited themselves as the avengers of _their religion_, which was alleged to have been outraged, or of their worship, which it was pretended was threatened; but, ceasing to appear as Jews, in order to affect sentiments belonging to a foreign nation, those hypocrites held out the appearance of being concerned for the interests of _Rome_; they accused their own countryman of an intention to restore the kingdom of Jerusalem, to make himself _king_ of the _Jews_, and to make an insurrection of the people against their conquerors. Let us hear them speak for themselves:

“And they began to _accuse_ him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying, that he himself is Christ a _king_.” Luke xxiii. 2.

What a calumny! Jesus forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar! when he had answered the Pharisees themselves, in presence of the whole people, by showing them the image of Cæsar upon a Roman piece of money, and saying, Give unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s. But this accusation was one mode of interesting Pilate in respect to his jurisdiction; for, as an imperial _procurator_, he was specially to superintend the collection of the revenue. The second branch of the accusation still more directly affected the sovereignty of the Romans: “He holds himself up for a _king_.”

The accusation having thus assumed a character purely _political_, Pilate thought he must pay attention to it. “Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall,” (the place where justice was administered,) and having _summoned Jesus to appear_ before him, he proceeds to his Examination, and says to him: “Art thou the king of the Jews?” John xviii. 33.

This question, so different from those which had been addressed to him at the house of the high priest, appears to have excited the astonishment of Jesus; and, in his turn, he asked Pilate: “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?” Ib. 24. In reality, Jesus was desirous of knowing, first of all, the authors of this new accusation—Is this an accusation brought against me by the _Romans_ or by the _Jews_?

Pilate replied to him—“Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me; what hast thou done?” Ib. 35.

All the particulars of this procedure are important; I cannot too often repeat the remark, that in no part of the transactions before Pilate is there any question at all respecting a previous sentence, a judgment already passed—a judgment, the execution of which was the only subject of consideration; it was a case of a capital accusation; but an accusation which was then just beginning; they were about the preliminary _interrogatories_ put to the accused, and Pilate says to him, “What hast thou done?”

Jesus, seeing by the explanation what was the source of the _prejudging_ of his case, and knowing the secret thoughts which predominated in making the accusation, and that his enemies wanted to arrive at the same end by an artifice, answered Pilate—“_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;” (we see, in fact, that Jesus had forbidden his people to resist) but, he added, “now is my kingdom not from hence.” John xviii. 36.

This answer of Jesus is very remarkable; it became the foundation of his religion, and the pledge of its universality, because it detached it from the interests of all governments. It rests not merely in assertion, in doctrine; it was given in _justification_, in _defence_ against the accusation of intending to make himself _King of the Jews_. Indeed, if Jesus had affected a _temporal_ royal authority, if there had been the least attempt, on his part, to usurp _the power of Cæsar_, he would have been guilty of treason in the eyes of the magistrate. But, by answering twice, _my kingdom is not of this world_, my kingdom _is not from hence_, his justification was complete.

Pilate, however, persisted and said to him: “Art thou a king then?” Jesus replied, Thou sayest that 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. John xviii. 37.

Pilate then said to him: _What is the truth?_

This question proves, that Pilate had not a very clear idea of what Jesus called _the truth_. He perceived nothing in it but _ideology_; and, satisfied with having said (less in the manner of a question than of an exclamation) “_What is the truth_,” he went on to the Jews (who remained outside) and said to them, “_I find in him no fault at all_.” John xviii. 38.

Here, then, we see Jesus absolved from the accusation by the declaration of the Roman judge himself.

But the accusers, persisting still farther, added—“_He stirreth up the people, teaching_ throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.” Luke xxiii. 5.

“He stirreth up the people!” This is a charge of sedition; and for Pilate. But observe, it was _by the doctrine which he teaches_; these words comprehend the real complaint of the Jews. To them it was equivalent to saying—He _teaches_ the people, he instructs them, he enlightens them; he preaches _new doctrines_ which are not _ours_. “He stirs up the people!” This, in their months signified—the people hear him willingly; the people follow and become attached to him; for he preaches a doctrine that is friendly and consolatory to the people; he unmasks our pride, our avarice, our insatiable spirit of domination!

Pilate, however, does not appear to have attached much importance to this new turn given to the accusation; but he here betrays a weakness. He heard the word _Galilee_; and he makes that the occasion of shifting off the responsibility upon another public officer, and seizes the occasion with avidity. He says to Jesus—you are a _Galilean_ then? and, upon the answer being in the affirmative, considering Jesus as belonging to the jurisdiction of Herod-Antipas, who, by the good pleasure of Cæsar, was then tetrarch of Galilee, he sent him to Herod. Luke xxiii. 6, 7.

But Herod, who, as St. Luke says, had been long desirous of _seeing Jesus_ and had hoped to see some miracle done by him, after satisfying an idle curiosity and putting several questions to him, which Jesus did not deign to answer,—Herod, notwithstanding the presence of the priests, (who had not yet gone off, but stood there with their scribes,) and notwithstanding the pertinacity with which they continued to accuse Jesus, perceiving nothing but what was merely chimerical in the _accusation of being a king_, made a mockery of the affair, and sent Jesus back to Pilate, _after having arrayed him in a gorgeous robe_, in order to show that he thought this pretended royalty was a subject of ridicule rather than of apprehensions. Luke xxiii. 8, &c., and De Sacy. Ib.

Section X.—THE LAST EFFORTS BEFORE PILATE.

No person, then, was willing to condemn Jesus; neither Herod, who only made the case a subject of mockery, nor Pilate, who had openly declared that he found nothing criminal in him.

But the hatred of the priests was not disarmed—so far from it, that the chief priests, with a numerous train of their partisans, returned to Pilate with a determination to force him to a decision.

The unfortunate Pilate, reviewing his proceedings in their presence, said to them again: “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.” Luke xxiii. 14, 15.

After “chastising” him! And was not this a piece of cruelty, when he considered him to be innocent?(415) But this was an act of condescension by which Pilate hoped to quiet the rage with which he saw they were agitated.

“Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him.” John xix. 1. And, supposing that he had done enough to disarm their fury, he exhibited him to them in that pitiable condition; saying to them at the same time, Behold the man! _Ecce homo_. John xix. 5.

Now, in my turn, I say, here is indeed a decree of Pilate, and an unjust decree; but it is not the pretended decree alleged to have been made by the Jews. It is a decision wholly different; an unjust decision, it is true; but sufficient to avail as _a legal bar_ to any new proceedings against Jesus for the same act. _Non bis in idem_, no man shall be put twice in jeopardy, &c. is a maxim, which has come down to us from the Romans.

Accordingly, “from thenceforth Pilate sought to _release_ Jesus.” John xix. 12.

Here, now, observe the deep perfidy of his accusers. “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend; whosoever maketh himself a _king_ speaketh against Cæsar.” Ib.

It does not appear that Pilate was malignant; we see all the efforts he had made at different times to save Jesus. But he was a _public officer_, and was attached to _his office_; he was intimidated by the outcry which called in question his _fidelity to the emperor_; he was afraid of a _dismissal_: and he yielded. He immediately reascended the judgment-seat; (Matt. xxvii. 19), and, as new light had thus come upon him, he proceeded to make a second decree!

But being for a moment stopped by the voice of his own conscience, and by the advice which his terrified wife sent to him—“_Have thou nothing to do with that just man_”—(Matt. xxvii. 19)—he made his last effort, by attempting to influence the populace to accept of Barabbas instead of Jesus. “But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.” Mark xv. 11. Barabbas! a murderer! an assassin!

Pilate spoke to them again: _What will ye then, that I should do with Jesus?_ And they cried out, _Away with him, crucify him_. Pilate still persisted: _Shall I crucify your king?_ thus using terms of raillery, in order to disarm them. But here showing themselves to be more truly Roman than Pilate himself, the chief priests hypocritically answered: _We have no king but Cæsar._ John xix. 15.

The outcry was renewed—Crucify him, crucify him! And the clamour became more and more threatening; “and the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.” Luke xxiii. 23.

At length Pilate, _being desirous of pleasing the multitude_, proceeds to speak. But can we call it a legal adjudication, a _judgment_, that he is about to pronounce? Is he, at the moment, in that free state of mind which is necessary for a judge, who is about to pass a _sentence of death_? What new witnesses, what proofs have been brought forward to change his conviction and opinion, which had been so energetically declared, of the innocence of Jesus?

“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. Matt. xxvii. 24. And Pilate gave sentence, that it should be as they required. Luke xxiii. 24. And he delivered him to them to be crucified.” Matt. xxvii. 26.

Well mayest thou wash thy hands, Pilate, stained as they are with innocent blood! Thou hast authorised the act in thy weakness; thou art not less culpable, than if thou hadst sacrificed him through wickedness! All generations, down to our own time, have repeated that the _Just One_ suffered _under Pontius Pilate_. Thy name has remained in history, to serve for the instruction of all public men, all pusillanimous judges, in order to hold up to them the shame of _yielding contrary to one’s own convictions_. The populace, in its fury, made an outcry at the foot of thy judgment-seat, where, perhaps, thou thyself didst not sit securely! But of what importance was that? Thy _duty_ spoke out; and in such a case, better would it be to suffer death, than to inflict it on another.(416)

We will now come to a conclusion.

The _proof_ that Jesus was not, as Mr. Salvador maintains, put to death for the crime of blasphemy or sacrilege, and for having preached a new religious worship in contravention of the Mosaic law, results from _the very sentence_ pronounced by Pilate; a sentence, in pursuance of which he was led to execution by Roman soldiers.

There was among the Romans a custom, which we borrowed from their jurisprudence, and which is still followed, of placing over the head of a condemned criminal a writing containing _an extract from his sentence_, in order that the public might know _for what crime_ he was condemned. This was the reason why Pilate put on the cross a label, on which he had written these words: _Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judæorum_, (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), which has since been denoted by the initials J. N. R. J. This was the alleged cause of his condemnation. St. Mark says—“And the superscription of his _accusation_ was written over—_The King of the Jews_.” Mark xv. 26.

This inscription was first in _Latin_, which was the legal language of the _Roman_ judge; and it was repeated in _Hebrew_ and _Greek_, in order to be understood by the people of the nation and by foreigners.

The chief priests, whose indefatigable hatred did not overlook the most minute details, being apprehensive that people would take it to be literally a fact affirmed, that Jesus _was the King of the Jews_, said to Pilate: “Write not _King of the Jews_, but that _he said_ I am king of the Jews.” But Pilate answered: “What I have written I have written.” John xix. 21, 22.

This is a conclusive answer to one of the last assertions of Mr. Salvador, (p. 88,) that “the Roman Pilate signed the sentence;” by which he always means that Pilate did nothing but sign a sentence, which he supposes to have been passed by the Sanhedrim; but in this he is mistaken. Pilate did not merely _sign_ the sentence, or decree, but _drew it up_; and, when his draft was objected to by the priests, he still adhered to it, saying, what I have written shall remain as written.

Here then we see the true cause of the condemnation of Jesus! Here we have the “_judicial and legal proof_.” Jesus was the victim of a _political_ accusation! He was put to death for the imaginary crime of having aimed at the power of Cæsar, by calling himself _King of the Jews_! Absurd accusation; which Pilate never believed, and which the chief priests and the Pharisees themselves did not believe. For they were not authorized to arrest Jesus on that account; it was a new, and totally different, accusation from that which they first planned—a sudden accusation of the moment, when they saw that Pilate was but little affected by their _religious_ zeal, and they found it necessary to arouse _his zeal for_ Cæsar.

“_If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend!_” This alarming language has too often, since that time, reverberated in the ears of timid judges, who, like Pilate, have rendered themselves criminal by delivering up victims through want of firmness, whom they would never have condemned, if they had listened to the voice of their own consciences.

Let us now recapitulate the case, as I have considered it from the beginning.

Is it not evident, contrary to the conclusion of Mr. Salvador, that Jesus, considered merely as _a simple citizen_, was not tried and sentenced either _according to law_, or _agreeably to the forms of legal proceedings then existing_?

God, according to his eternal design, might permit the just to suffer by the malice of men; but he also intended, that this should at least happen by a disregard of all laws, and by a violation of all established rules, in order that the entire contempt of forms should stand as the first warning of the violation of law.

Let us not be surprised then, that in another part of his work, Mr. Salvador (who, it is gratifying to observe, discusses his subject dispassionately) expresses some regret in speaking of the “_unfortunate sentence against Jesus_.” Vol. i. p. 59. He has wished to excuse the Hebrews; but, one of that nation, in giving utterance to the feelings of his heart, still says—in language which I took from his own mouth, “We should be very cautious of condemning him at this day.”

I pass over the excesses which followed the order of Pilate; as, the violence shown to Simon, the Cyrenian, who was made in some degree a sharer in the punishment, by being compelled to carry the cross; the injurious treatment which attended the victim to the place of the sacrifice, and even to the cross, where Jesus still prayed for his brethren and his executioners!

To the heathen themselves I would say—You, who have gloried in the death of Socrates, how much must you be struck with wonder at that of Jesus! Ye, censors of the Areopagus, how could you undertake to excuse the Synagogue, and justify the sentence of the Hall of Judgment? Philosophy herself has not hesitated to proclaim, and we may repeat with her—“Yes, if the life and death of _Socrates_ were those of a sage, the life and death of _Jesus_ were those of a divinity.”

FOOTNOTES

1 Cicero, Philip. II. § 43.

2 Nov. Org. 1. 68. “Ut non alius fere sit aditus ad regnum hominus, quod fundatur in scientiis, quam ad regnum cœlorum, in quod, nisi sub persona infantis, intrare non datur.”

3 Bishop Wilson’s Evidences, p. 38.

4 See Dr. Hopkins’s Lowell Lectures, particularly Lect. 2. Bp. Wilson’s Evidences of Christianity, Vol. i. pp. 45-61. Horne’s Introduction, Vol. i. pp. 1-39. Mr. Horne having cited all the best English writers on this subject, it is sufficient to refer to his work alone.

5 Hopkins’s Lowell Lect., p. 48.

6 It has been well remarked, that, if we regard man as in a state of innocence, we should naturally expect that God would hold communications with him; that if we regard him as guilty, and as having lost the knowledge and moral image of God, such a communication would be absolutely necessary, if man was to be restored.—Dr. Hopkins’s Lowell Lect., p. 62.

7 The argument here briefly sketched, is stated more at large, and with great clearness and force, in an essay entitled “The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,” pp. 13-107.

8 See Professor Stuart’s Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon, where this is abundantly proved.

9 Per Tindal, Ch. Just., in the case of the Bishop of Meath v. the Marquis of Winchester, 3 Bing. N. C. 183, 200, 201. “It is when documents are found in other than their proper places of deposit,” observed the Chief Justice, “that the investigation commences, whether it was reasonable and natural, under the circumstances of the particular case, to expect that they should have been in the place where they are actually found; for it is obvious, that, which there can be only one place of deposit strictly and absolutely proper, there may be many and various, that are reasonable and probable, though differing in degree, some being more so, some less; and in these cases the proposition to be determined is, whether the actual custody is so reasonably and probably accounted for, that it impresses the mind with the conviction that the instrument found in such custody must be genuine.” See the cases cited in 1 Greenleaf on Evidence § 142. See also 1 Stark. on Evidence, pp. 332-335, 381-386. Croughton v. Blake, 12 Mees. & Welsb. 205, 208. Doe v. Phillips, 10 Jurist, p. 34. It is this defect, namely, that they do not come from the proper or natural repository, which shows the fabulous character of many pretended revelations, from the Gospel of the Infancy to the Book of Mormon.

10 1 Greenleaf on Evid. § 34, 142, 570.

11 Morewood v. Wood, 14 East, 329, n. Per Lord Kenyon. Weeks v. Sparke, 1 M. & S. 686; the Berkeley Peerage Case, 4 Campb. 416. Per Mansfield, Ch. J. See 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, § 128.

12 1 Starkie on Evidence, pp. 195, 230; 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, § 483.

13 The arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the Holy Scriptures are briefly, yet very fully stated, and almost all the writers of authority are referred to by Mr. Horne, in his Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i., passim. The same subject is discussed in a more popular manner in the Lectures of Bp. Wilson, and of Bp. Sumner of Chester, on the Evidences of Christianity; and, in America, the same question, as it relates to the Gospels, has been argued by Bp. M’Ilvaine, in his Lectures.

14 See the case of the Slane Peerage, 5 Clark & Finelly’s Rep., p. 24. See also the case of the Fitzwalter Peerage, 10 Clark & Finelly’s Rep., p. 948.

15 Matt. ix. 10; Mark ii. 14, 15; Luke v. 29.

16 The authorities on this subject are collected in Horne’s Introduction, vol. iv. pp. 234-238, part 2, chap. ii. sec. 2.

17 See Horne’s Introduction, vol. iv. p. 229-232.

18 See Campbell on the Four Gospels, vol. iii. pp. 35, 36; Preface to St. Matthew’s Gospel, § 22, 23.

19 See Gibbon’s Rome, vol. i. ch. vi. and vol. iii. ch. xvii. and authorities there cited. Cod. Theod. Lib. xi. tit. 1-28, with the notes of Gothofred. Gibbon treats particularly of the revenues of a later period than our Saviour’s time; but the general course of proceeding, in the levy and collection of taxes, is not known to have been changed since the beginning of the empire.

20 Acts xii. 12, 25; xiii. 5, 13; and xv. 36-41; 2 Tim. iv. 11; Phil. 24; Col. iv. 10; 1 Pet. v. 13.

21 Horne’s Introduction, vol. iv. pp. 252, 253.

22 Mark vii. 2, 11; and ix. 43, and elsewhere.

23 Mr. Norton has conclusively disposed of this objection, in his Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. i. Additional Notes, see. 2, pp. cxv-cxxxii.

24 Compare Mark x. 46, and xiv. 69, and iv. 35, and i. 35, and ix. 28, with Matthew’s narrative of the same events.

25 See Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. pp 252-259.

26 Acts xvi. 10, 11.

27 Col. iv. 14. Luke, the beloved physician.

28 Luke v. 12; Matt. viii. 2; Mark i. 40.

29 Luke vi. 6; Matt. xii. 10; Mark iii. 1.

30 Luke viii. 55; Matt. ix. 25; Mark v. 42.

31 Luke vi. 19.

32 Luke xxii. 44, 45, 51.

33 See Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. pp. 260-272, where references may be found to earlier writers.

34 See Lardner’s Works, 8vo. vol. vi. pp. 138, 139; 4to. vol. iii. pp. 203, 204; and other authors, cited in Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. p. 267.

35 2 Phillips on Evidence, p. 95, (9th edition.)

36 When Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, in shooting at deer with a cross-bow, in Bramsil park, accidentally killed the keeper, King James I. by a letter dated Oct. 3, 1621, requested the Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice, and others, to inquire into the circumstances and consider the case and “the scandal that may have risen thereupon,” and to certify the King what it may amount to. Could there be any reasonable doubt of their report of the facts, thus ascertained? See Spelman’s Posthumous Works, p. 121.

37 The case of the ill-fated steamer President furnishes an example of this sort of inquiry. This vessel, it is well-known, sailed from New York for London in the month of March, 1841 having on board many passengers, some of whom were highly connected. The ship was soon overtaken by a storm, after which she was never heard of. A few months afterwards a solemn inquiry was instituted by three gentlemen of respectability, one of whom was a British admiral, another was agent for the underwriters at Lloyd’s, and the other a government packet agent, concerning the time, circumstances and causes of that disaster; the result of which was communicated to the public, under their hands. This document received universal confidence, and no further inquiry was made.

38 Mark i. 20.

39 John xix. 26, 27.

40 John xiii. 23.

41 Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41.

42 John xviii. 15, 16.

43 Luke viii. 51; Matt. xvii. 1, and xxvi. 37.

44 This account is abridged from Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. pp. 286-288.

45 Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. p. 289, and authors there cited.

46 See, among others, John i. 38, 41, and ii. 6, 13, and iv. 9, and xi. 55.

47 See Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. pp. 297, 298.

48 See Gambier’s Guide to the Study of Moral Evidence, p. 121.

49 1 Stark. Evid. pp. 514, 577; 1 Greenl. on Evid. §§ 1, 2; Wills on Circumstantial Evid., p. 2; Whately’s Logic, b. iv. ch. iii. § 1.

50 See 1 Stark. Evid. pp. 16, 480, 521.

51 This subject has been treated by Dr. Chalmers, in his Evidences of the Christian Revelation, chapter iii. The following extract from his observations will not be unacceptable to the reader. “In other cases, when we compare the narratives of contemporary historians, it is not expected that all the circumstances alluded to by one will be taken notice of by the rest; and it often happens that an event or a custom is admitted upon the faith of a single historian; and the silence of all other writers is not suffered to attach suspicion or discredit to his testimony. It is an allowed principle, that a scrupulous resemblance betwixt two histories is very far from necessary to their being held consistent with one another. And what is more, it sometimes happens that, with contemporary historians, there may be an apparent contradiction, and the credit of both parties remain as entire and unsuspicious as before. Posterity is, in these cases, disposed to make the most liberal allowances. Instead of calling it a contradiction, they often call it a difficulty. They are sensible that, in many instances a seeming variety of statement has, upon a more extensive knowledge of ancient history, admitted of a perfect reconciliation. Instead, then, of referring the difficulty in question to the inaccuracy or bad faith of any of the parties, they, with more justness and more modesty, refer it to their own ignorance, and to that obscurity which necessarily hangs over the history of every remote age. These principles are suffered to have great influence in every secular investigation; but so soon as, instead of a secular, it becomes a sacred investigation, every ordinary principle is abandoned, and the suspicion annexed to the teachers of religion is carried to the dereliction of all that candour and liberality with which every other document of antiquity is judged of and appreciated. How does it happen that the authority of Josephus should be acquiesced in as a first principle, while every step, in the narrative of the evangelists, must have foreign testimony to confirm and support it? How comes it, that the silence of Josephus should be construed into an impeachment of the testimony of the evangelists, while it is never admitted, for a single moment, that the silence of the evangelists can impart the slightest blemish to the testimony of Josephus? How comes it, that the supposition of two Philips in one family should throw a damp of scepticism over the Gospel narrative, while the only circumstance which renders that supposition necessary is the single testimony of Josephus; in which very testimony it is necessarily implied that there are two Herods in that same family? How comes it, that the evangelists, with as much internal, and a vast deal more of external evidence in their favour, should be made to stand before Josephus, like so many prisoners at the bar of justice? In any other case, we are convinced that this would be looked upon as _rough handling_. But we are not sorry for it. It has given more triumph and confidence to the argument. And it is no small addition to our faith, that its first teachers have survived an examination, which, in point of rigour and severity, we believe to be quite unexampled in the annals of criticism.” See Chalmers’s Evidences, pp. 72-74.

52 See 1 Stark. Evid. pp. 480, 545.

53 If the witnesses could be supposed to have been biassed, this would destroy their testimony to matters of fact; it would only detract from the weight of their judgment in matters of opinion. The rule of law on this subject has been thus stated by Dr. Lushington: “When you examine the testimony of witnesses nearly connected with the parties, and there is nothing very peculiar tending to destroy their credit, when they depose to mere facts, their testimony is to be believed; when they depose as to matter of opinion, it is to be received with suspicion.” Dillon _v._ Dillon, 3 Curteis’s Eccl. Rep. pp. 96, 102.

54 This subject has been so fully treated by Dr. Paley, in his view of the Evidences of Christianity, Part I., Prop. I., that is it unnecessary to pursue it farther in this place.

55 1 Stark. Evid., pp. 483, 548.

56 Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric, c. v. b. 1. Part 3, p. 125. Whately’s Rhetoric, Part 1. ch. 2. § 4. 1 Stark. Evid., p. 487.

57 See the Quarterly Review, vol. xxviii. p. 465. These narrators were, the Duchess D’Angoulême herself, the two Messrs. De Bouillè, the Duc De Choiseul, his servant, James Brissac, Messrs. De Damas and Deslons, two of the officers commanding detachments on the road, Messrs. De Moustier and Valori, the garde du corps who accompanied the king, and finally M. de Fontanges, archbishop of Toulouse, who though not himself a party to the transaction, is supposed to have written from the information of the queen. An earlier instance of similar discrepancy is mentioned by Sully. After the battle of Aumale, in which Henry IV. was wounded, when the officers were around the king’s bed, conversing upon the events of the day, there were not two who agreed in the recital of the most particular circumstances of the action. D’Aubigné, a contemporary writer, does not even mention the king’s wound, though it was the only one he ever received in his life. See Memoirs of Sully, vol. i. p. 245. If we treated these narratives as sceptics would have us treat these of the sacred writers, what evidence should we have of any battle at Aumale, or of any flight to Varennes?

58 Far greater discrepancies can be found in the different reports of the same case, given by the reporters of legal judgments than are shown among the evangelists; and yet we do not consider them as detracting from the credit of the reporters, to whom we still resort with confidence, as to good authority. Some of these discrepancies seem utterly irreconcilable. Thus, in a case, 45 Edw. III. 19, where the question was upon a gift of lands to J. de C. with Joan, the sister of the donor, and to their heirs, Fitzherbert (tit. _Tail_, 14) says it was adjudged fee simple, and not frankmarriage; Statham (tit. _Tail_) says it was adjudged a gift in frankmarriage; while Brook (tit. _Frankmarriage_) says it was not decided. (Vid. 10 Co. 118.) Others are irreconcilable, until the aid of a third reporter is invoked. Thus, in the case of Cooper v. Franklin, Croke says it was not decided, but adjourned; (Cro. Jac. 100); Godbolt says it was decided in a certain way, which he mentions; (Godb. 269); Moor also reports it as decided, but gives a different account of the question raised; (Moor, 848); while Bulstrode gives a still different report of the judgment of the court, which he says was delivered by Croke himself. But by his account it further appears, that the case was previously twice argued; and thus it at length results that the other reporters relate only what fell from the court on each of the previous occasions. Other similar examples may be found in 1 Dougl. 6, n. compared with 5 East, 475, n. in the case of Galbraith _v_. Neville; and in that of Stoughton _v_. Reynolds, reported by Fortescue, Strange, and in Cases temp. Hardwicke. (See 3 Barnw. & Ald. 247, 248.) Indeed, the books abound in such instances. Other discrepancies are found in the names of the same litigating parties, as differently given by reporters; such as, Putt _v_. Roster, (2 Mod. 318); Foot _v_. Rastall, (Skin. 49), and Putt _v_. Royston, (2 Show. 211); also, Hosdell _v_. Harris, (2 Keb. 462); Hodson _v_. Harwich, (Ib. 533), and Hodsden _v_. Harridge, (2 Saund. 64), and a multitude of others, which are universally admitted to mean the same cases, even when they are not precisely within the rule of _idem sonans_. These diversities, it is well known, have never detracted in the slightest degree from the estimation in which the reporters are all deservedly held, as authors of merit, enjoying, to this day, the confidence of the profession. Admitting now, for the sake of argument, (what is not conceded in fact,) that diversities equally great exist among the sacred writers; how can we consistently, and as lawyers, raise any serious objection against them on that account, or treat them in any manner different from that which we observe towards our own reporters?

59 Mr. Hume’s argument is thus refuted by Lord Brougham. “Here are two answers, to which the doctrine proposed by Mr. Hume is exposed, and either appears sufficient to shake it.

“_First_—Our belief in the uniformity of the laws of nature rests not altogether upon our own experience. We believe no man ever was raised from the dead,—not merely because we ourselves never saw it, for indeed that would be a very limited ground of deduction; and our belief was fixed on the subject long before we had any considerable experience,—fixed chiefly by authority,—that is, by deference to other men’s experience. We found our confident belief in this negative position partly, perhaps chiefly, upon the testimony of others; and at all events, our belief that in times before our own the same position held good, must of necessity be drawn from our trusting relations of other men—that is, it depends upon the evidence of testimony. If, then, the existence of the law of nature is proved, in great part at least, by such evidence, can we wholly reject the like evidence when it comes to prove an exception to the rule—a deviation from the law? The more numerous are the cases of the law being kept—the more rare those of its being broken—the more scrupulous certainly ought we to be in admitting the proofs of the breach. But that testimony is capable of making good the proof there seems no doubt. In truth, the degree of excellence and of strength to which testimony may arise seems almost indefinite. There is hardly any cogency which it is not capable by possible supposition of attaining. The endless multiplication of witnesses,—the unbounded variety of their habits of thinking, their prejudices, their interests,—afford the means of conceiving the force of their testimony, augmented _ad infinitum_, because these circumstances afford the means of diminishing indefinitely the chances of their being mistaken, all misled, or all combining to deceive us. Let any man try to calculate the chances of a thousand persons who come from different quarters, and never saw each other before, and who all vary in their habits, stations, opinions, interests,—being mistaken or combining to deceive us, when they give the same account of an event as having happened before their eyes,—these chances are many hundreds of thousands to one. And yet we can conceive them multiplied indefinitely; for one hundred thousand such witnesses may in all like manner bear the same testimony; and they may all tell us their story within twenty-four hours after the transaction, and in the next parish. And yet, according to Mr. Hume’s argument, we are bound to disbelieve them all, because they speak to a thing contrary to our own experience, and to the accounts which other witnesses had formerly given us of the law of nature, and which our forefathers had handed down to us as derived from witnesses who lived in the old time before them. It is unnecessary to add that no testimony of the witnesses, whom we are supposing to concur in their relation, contradicts any testimony of our own senses. If it did, the argument would resemble Archbishop Tillotson’s upon the Real Presence, and our disbelief would be at once warranted.

“_Secondly_—This leads us to the next objection to which Mr. Hume’s argument is liable, and which we have in part anticipated while illustrating the first. He requires us to withhold our belief in circumstances which would force every man of common understanding to lend his assent, and to act upon the supposition of the story told being true. For, suppose either such numbers of various witnesses as we have spoken of; or, what is perhaps stronger, suppose a miracle reported to us, first by a number of relators, and then by three or four of the very soundest judges and most incorruptibly honest men we know,—men noted for their difficult belief of wonders, and, above all, steady unbelievers in miracles, without any bias in favour of religion, but rather accustomed to doubt, if not disbelieve,—most people would lend an easy belief to any miracles thus vouched. But let us add this circumstance, that a friend on his death-bed had been attended by us, and that we had told him a fact known only to ourselves,—something that we had secretly done the very moment before we told it to the dying man, and which to no other being we had ever revealed,—and that the credible witnesses we are supposing, informed us that the deceased appeared to them, conversed with them, remained with them a day or two, accompanying them, and to avouch the fact of his reappearance on this earth, communicated to them the secret of which we had made him the sole depository the moment before his death;—according to Mr. Hume, we are bound rather to believe, not only that those credible witnesses deceive us, or that those sound and unprejudiced men were themselves deceived, and fancied things without real existence, but further, that they all hit by chance upon the discovery of a real secret, known only to ourselves and the dead man. Mr. Hume’s argument requires us to believe this as the lesser improbability of the two—as less unlikely than the rising of one from the dead; and yet every one must feel convinced, that were he placed in the situation we have been figuring, he would not only lend his belief to the relation, but if the relators accompanied it with a special warning from the deceased person to avoid a certain contemplated act, he would, acting upon the belief of their story, take the warning, and avoid doing the forbidden deed. Mr. Hume’s argument makes no exception. This is its scope; and whether he chooses to push it thus far or no, all miracles are of necessity denied by it, without the least regard to the kind or the quantity of the proof on which they are rested; and the testimony which we have supposed, accompanied by the test or check we have supposed, would fall within the grasp of the argument just as much and as clearly as any other miracle avouched by more ordinary combinations of evidence.

“The use of Mr. Hume’s argument is this, and it is an important and a valuable one. It teaches us to sift closely and rigorously the evidence for miraculous events. It bids us remember that the probabilities are always, and must always be incomparably greater against, than for, the truth of these relations, because it is always far more likely that the testimony should be mistaken or false, than that the general laws of nature should be suspended. Further than this the doctrine cannot in soundness of reason be carried. It does not go the length of proving that those general laws cannot, by the force of human testimony, be shown to have been, in a particular instance, and with a particular purpose, suspended.” See his Discourse of Natural Theology, Note 5, p. 210-214. (Ed. 1835.)

Laplace, in his Essai sur les Probabilités, maintains that, the more extraordinary the fact attested, the greater the probability of error or falsehood in the attestor. Simple good sense, he says, suggests this; and the calculation of probabilities confirms its suggestion. There are some things, he adds, so extraordinary, that nothing can balance their improbability. The position here laid down is, that the probability of error, or of the falsehood of testimony, becomes in _proportion_ greater, as the fact which is attested is more extraordinary. And hence a fact extraordinary in the highest possible degree, becomes in the highest possible degree improbable; or so much so, that nothing can counterbalance its improbability.

This argument has been made much use of, to discredit the evidence of miracles, and the truth of that divine religion which is attested by them. But however sound it may be, in one sense, this application of it is fallacious. The fallacy lies in the meaning affixed to the term “extraordinary.” If Laplace means a fact extraordinary _under_ its existing circumstances and relations, that is, a fact remaining extraordinary, notwithstanding all its circumstances, the position need not here to be controverted. But if the term means extraordinary _in the abstract_, it is far from being universally true, or affording a correct test of truth, or rule of evidence. Thus, it is extraordinary that a man should leap fifteen feet at a bound; but not extraordinary that a strong and active man should do it, under a sudden impulse to save his life. The former is improbable in the abstract; the latter is rendered probable by the circumstances. So, things extraordinary, and therefore improbable under one hypothesis, become the reverse under another. Thus, the occurrence of a violent storm at sea, and the utterance by Jesus of the the words, “Peace, be still,” succeeded instantly by a perfect calm, are facts which, taken separately from each other, are not in themselves extraordinary. The connexion between the command of Jesus and the ensuing calm, as cause and effect, would be extraordinary and improbable if he were a mere man; but it becomes perfectly natural and probable, when his divine power is considered. Each of those facts is in its nature so simple and obvious, that the most ignorant person is capable of observing it. There is nothing extraordinary in the facts themselves; and the extraordinary coincidence, in which the miracle consists, becomes both intelligible and probable upon the hypothesis of the Christian. (See the Christian Observer for Oct. 1838, p. 617.) The theory of Laplace may, with the same propriety, be applied to the creation of the world. That matter was created out of nothing is extremely improbable, in the abstract, that is, if there is no God; and therefore it is not to be believed. But if the existence of a Supreme Being is conceded, the fact is perfectly credible.

Laplace was so fascinated with his theory, that he thought the calculus of probabilities might be usefully employed in discovering the value of the different methods resorted to, in those sciences which are in a great measure conjectural, as medicine, agriculture, and political economy. And he proposed that there should be kept, in every branch of the administration, an exact register of the trials made of different measures, and of the results, whether good or bad, to which they have led. (See the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxiii. pp 335, 336.) Napoleon, who appointed him Minister of the Interior, has thus described him: “A geometrician of the first class, he did not reach mediocrity as a statesman. He never viewed any subject in its true light; he was always occupied with subtleties; his notions were all problematic; and he carried into the administration the spirit of the _infinitely_ small.” See the Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Laplace, vol. xiii. p. 101. Memoires Ecrits à Ste. Helena, i. 3. The injurious effect of deductive reasoning, upon the minds of those who addict themselves to this method alone, to the exclusion of all other modes of arriving at the knowledge of truth in fact, is shown with great clearness and success, by Mr. Whewel in the ninth of the Bridgewater Treatises, book 3, ch. 6. The calculus of probabilities has been applied by some writers, to judicial evidence; but its very slight value as a test, is clearly shown in an able article on Presumptive Evidence, in the Law Magazine, vol. i. pp. 28-32 (New Series.)

60 See Mr. Norton’s “Discourse on the latest form of Infidelity,” p. 18.

61 The arguments on this subject are stated in a condensed form, by Mr. Horne, in his Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i. ch. 4, sec. 2; in which he refers, among others, to Doctor Gregory’s Letters on the Evidences of the Christian Revelation; Dr. Campbell’s Dissertation on Miracles; Vince’s Sermons on the Credibility of Miracles; Bishop Marsh’s Lectures, part 6, lect. 30; Dr. Adam’s Treatise in reply to Mr. Hume; Bishop Gleig’s Dissertation on Miracles, (in the third volume of his edition of Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, p. 240, &c.); Dr. Key’s Norissian Lectures, vol. i. See also Dr. Hopkins’s Lowell Lectures, lect. I. and II. delivered in Boston in 1844, where this topic is treated with great perspicuity and cogency.

Among the more popular treatises on miracles, are Bogue’s Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament, ch. 5; Bishop Wilson’s Evidences of Christianity, vol. i. lect. 7; Bishop Sumner’s Evidences, ch. 10; Gambier’s Guide to the Study of Moral Evidence, ch. v.; Mr. Norton’s Discourse on the latest form of Infidelity, and Dr. Dewey’s Dudleian Lecture, delivered before Harvard University, in May, 1836.

62 See Bishop Wilson’s Evidences, lect. 7, p. 130.

63 1 Stark on Evid. p. 496-499.

64 1 Stark. on Evid. p. 523.

65 1 Stark. Evid. 487. The Gospels abound in instances of this. See, for example, Mark, xv. 21. John, xviii. 10. Luke, xxiii. 6. Matt. xxvii. 58-60, John xi. 1.

66 1 Stark. Evid. 522, 585.

67 See 1 Stark. Evid. 498. Wills on Circumstantial Evidence, pp. 128, 129.

68 See Chalmers’s Evidence, chap. iii.

69 See Chalmers’s Evidence, pp. 76-78, Amer. ed. Proofs of this kind are copiously referred to by Mr. Horne, in his Introduction, &c. vol. i., ch. 3, sect. II. 2.

70 See Mark viii. 32; ix. 5; and xiv. 29; Matt. xvi. 22; and xvii. 5; Luke ix. 33; and xviii. 18; John xiii, 8; and xviii. 15.

71 Mark viii. 29; Matt. xvi. 16; Luke ix. 20.

72 Matt. xviii. 21; and xix. 27; John xiii. 36.

73 Gal. ii. 11.

74 John xx. 3-6.

75 Matt. xiv. 30.

76 Acts i. 15.

77 Acts ii. 14.

78 Matt. xvi. 16; Mark viii. 29; Luke ix. 20; John vi. 69.

79 Matt. xxvi. 33, 35; Mark xiv. 29.

80 See Paley’s view of the Evidences of Christianity, part ii. chapters iii. iv. v. vi. vii; Ibid. part iii. ch. i.; Chalmers on the Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, ch. iii. iv. viii.; Wilson’s Evidences of Christianity, lect. vi.; Bogue’s Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament, chap. iii. iv.

81 See Bogue’s Essay, chap. i. sect. 2; Newcome’s Obs. part ii. ch. i. sec. 14.

82 Mal. iv. 5, 6.

83 Mic. iv. 7.

84 Is. xli. 8, 9; Gen. xxii. 16, seq.

85 Gen. xxii. 16, seq.

86 Matt. i. 19.

_husband_. There was commonly an interval of ten or twelve months, between the making of the contract of marriage and the time of its celebration. _Gen_. xxiv. 55; _Judg_. xiv. 8. During this period, though there was no intercourse between the bride and bridegroom, not even so much as an interchange of conversation, yet they were considered and spoken of as husband and wife. If, at the end of this probationary period, the bridegroom was unwilling to solemnize his engagements by the marriage of the bride, he was bound to give her a bill of divorce, as if she had been his wife. And if she, during the same period, had illicit intercourse with another man, she was liable to punishment, as an adulteress. JAHN’S Archæol. § 154.

87 Is. vii. 14.

88 Luke ii. 1. _a decree_. This decree was issued eleven years before it was carried into effect, the delay having been procured by Herod. This fact reconciles the evangelist with the Roman historians, from whom it appears that Cyrenius was not governor when the decree was issued, though he held that office when the census was taken and the tax assessed. See TOWNSEND, _in loc._

89 Gen. xvii. 12; Lev. xii. 3.

90 Ex. xiii. 2; Numb. viii. 16, 17.

91 Lev. xii. 6, 8.

92 Is. viii. 14.

93 Matth. ii. 3, _he was troubled_. According to Josephus, Herod was always in fear for the stability of his throne, and anxious to pry into futurity to discover whether it was likely to endure. Thus, when advanced to regal power, he sent for Manahem, an Essene, who had predicted of him when a boy that he would be a king, to inquire of him how long he should reign. JOSEPH. Ant. xv. § 5. BLUNT, Veracity, &c. § ii. 2.

94 Mic. v. 2.

95 Hos. xi. 1.

96 Jer. xxxi. 15, and xl. 1.

97 Matth. ii. 22, _he was afraid_. The naked statement of this fact, without explanation, is a mark of the sincerity of the evangelist, for the value of which we are indebted to Josephus, who relates, (Ant. b. 17, ch. 9, § 3,) an instance of savage cruelty in Archelaus, immediately on his coming to the throne, in causing three thousand persons to be butchered in cold blood, at the first passover after Herod’s death. Such an act, committed under such circumstances, must have been rapidly made known abroad, and inspired all persons with horror. Well, therefore, might Joseph fear to return. But Matthew’s incidental allusion to the cause, is characteristic of a man intent only upon the statement of the main facts, and regardless of appearances or explanations. BLUNT, Veracity, &c. § ii. 3.

98 Is. xi. 1, and liii. 2; Zech. vi. 12; Rev. v. 5.

99 Luke ii. 42; _twelve years old_. Jewish children were not obliged to the observances of the ceremonial law, until they attained to years of discretion, which, in males, was fixed by common consent at twelve years. On arriving at this age, they were taken to Jerusalem at the passover, of which they thenceforth participated, as “sons of commandment,” being fully initiated into the doctrines and ceremonies of the Jewish church, probably after examination by the doctors. This accounts for the circumstance of his being found among them, both hearing, and asking them questions. STACKHOUSE, Hist. N. T. ch. i.; BLOOMFIELD, _in loc_.

100 Luke ii. 44; _in the company_. All who came, not only from the same city, but from the same canton or district, made one company. They carried necessaries along with them, and tents for their lodging at night. Such companies they now call _caravans_, and in several places have houses fitted up for their reception, called _caravanseries_. This account of their manner of travelling furnishes a ready answer to the question, How could Joseph and Mary make a day’s journey, without discovering, before night, that Jesus was not in the company? In the day-time, we may reasonably presume, the travellers would mingle with different parties of their friends and acquaintance; but in the evening, when they were about to encamp, every one would join the family to which he belonged. CAMPBELL, _in loc_.

101 The Genealogy of Jesus, as given by Luke, is here inverted for the sake of more convenient comparison with that given by Matthew.

The apparent discrepancies in these accounts are reconciled by Dr. Robinson, in the following manner:

“I. In the genealogy given by Matthew, considered by itself, some difficulties present themselves.

“1. There is some diversity among commentators in making out the three divisions, each of fourteen generations, v. 17. It is, however, obvious, that the first division begins with Abraham and ends with David. But does the second begin with David, or with Solomon? Assuredly with the former; because, just as the first begins _apo Abraham_, so the second also is said to begin _apo David_. The first extends _heos David_, and includes him; the second extends to an epoch and not to a person; and therefore the persons who are mentioned as coeval with this epoch are not reckoned before it. After the epoch the enumeration begins again with Jechoniah, and ends with Jesus. In this way the three divisions are made out thus:—

1. Abraham. 2. Isaac. 3. Jacob. 4. Judah. 5. Phares. 6. Esrom. 7. Aram. 8. Aminadab. 9. Naasson. 10. Salmon. 11. Boaz. 12. Obed. 13. Jesse. 14. David.

1. David. 2. Solomon. 3. Roboam. 4. Abiah. 5. Asa. 6. Josaphat. 7. Joram. 8. Uzziah (Ozias). 9. Jotham. 10. Ahaz. 11. Hezekiah. 12. Manasseh. 13. Amon. 14. Josiah.

1. Jechoniah. 2. Salathiel. 3. Zorobabel. 4. Abiud. 5. Eliakim. 6. Azor. 7. Sadoc. 8. Achim. 9. Eliud. 10. Eleazar. 11. Matthan. 12. Jacob. 13. Joseph. 14. Jesus.

“2. Another difficulty arises from the fact, that between Joram and Ozias, in v. 8, three names of Jewish kings are omitted, viz. Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah; see 2 K. 8, 25 and Chr. 22, 1. 2 K. 11, 2. 21 and 2 Chr. 22, 11. 2 K. 12, 21. 14, 1 and 2 Chr. 24, 27. Further, between Josiah and Jechoniah in v. 11, the name of Jehoiakim is also omitted; 2 K. 23, 34. 2 Chr. 36, 4. comp. 1 Chr. 3, 15, 16. If these four names are to be reckoned, then the second division, instead of fourteen generations, will contain eighteen, in contradiction to v. 17. To avoid this difficulty, Newcome and some others have regarded v. 17 as a mere gloss, ‘a marginal note taken into the text.’ This indeed is in itself possible; yet all the external testimony of manuscripts and versions is in favour of the genuineness of that verse. It is better therefore to regard these names as having been customarily omitted in the current genealogical tables, from which Matthew copied. Such omissions of particular generations did sometimes actually occur, ‘propteres quod malæ essent et impiæ,’ according to R. Sal. Jarchi; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Matth. 1, 8. A striking example of an omission of this kind, apparently without any such reason, is found in Ezra 7, 1-5, compared with 1 Chr. 6, 3-15. This latter passage contains the lineal descent of the high-priests from Aaron to the captivity; while Ezra, in the place cited, in tracing back his own genealogy through the very same line of descent, omits at least six generations. A similar omission is necessarily implied in the genealogy of David, as given Ruth 4, 20-22. 1 Chr. 2, 10-12. Matth. 1, 5, 6. Salmon was contemporary with the capture of Jericho by Joshua, and married Rahab. But from that time until David, an interval of at least four hundred and fifty years (Acts 13, 20,) there intervened, according to the list, only four generations, averaging of course more than one hundred years to each. But the highest average in point of fact is _three_ generations to a century; and if reckoned by the eldest sons they are usually shorter, or three generations for every seventy-five or eighty years. See Sir I. Newton’s Chronol. p. 53. Lond. 1728.

“We may therefore rest in the necessary conclusion, that as our Lord’s regular descent from David was always asserted, and was never denied even by the Jews; so Matthew, in tracing this admitted descent, appealed to genealogical tables, which were public and acknowledged in the family and tribe from which Christ sprang. He could not indeed do otherwise. How much stress was laid by the Jews upon lineage in general, and how much care and attention were bestowed upon such tables, is well known. See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. in Matth. 1, 1. Comp. Phil. 3, 4, 5.

“II. Other questions of some difficulty present themselves, when we compare together the two genealogies.

“1. Both tables at first view purport to give the lineage of our Lord through Joseph. But Joseph cannot have been the son by natural descent of both Joseph and Heli (Eli), Matth. 1, 16. Luke 3, 23. Only one of the tables therefore can give his true lineage by generation. This is done apparently in that of Matthew; because, beginning at Abraham, it proceeds by natural descent, as we know from history, until after the exile; and then continues on in the same mode of expression until Joseph. Here the phrase is changed; and it is no longer Joseph who ’begat’ Jesus, but Joseph ‘the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called the Christ.’ See Augustine, de Consensu Evangel. II. 5.

“2. To whom then does the genealogy in Luke chiefly relate? If in any way to Joseph, as the language purports, then it must be because he in some way bore the legal relation of son to Heli, either by adoption or by marriage. If the former simply, it is difficult to comprehend why, along with his true personal lineage as traced by Matthew up through the royal line of Jewish kings to David, there should be given also another subordinate genealogy, not personally his own, and running back through a different and inferior line to the same great ancestor. If, on the other hand, as is most probable, this relation to Heli came by marriage with his daughter, so that Joseph was truly his _son-in-law_ (comp. Ruth 1, 8. 11. 12); then it follows, that the genealogy in Luke is in fact that of Mary the mother of Jesus. This being so, we can perceive a sufficient reason why this genealogy should be thus given, viz. in order to show definitely, that Jesus was in the most full and perfect sense a descendant of David: not only by law in the royal line of kings, through his reputed father, but also in fact by direct personal descent through his mother.

“That Mary, like Joseph, was a descendant of David, is not indeed elsewhere expressly said in the New Testament. Yet a very strong presumption to that effect is to be drawn from the address of the angel in Luke 1, 32; as also from the language of Luke 2, 5, where Joseph, as one of the posterity of David, is said to have gone up to Bethlehem, to _enroll himself with Mary his espoused wife_. The ground and circumstances of Mary’s enrolment must obviously have been the same as in the case of Joseph himself. Whether all this arose from her having been an only child and heiress, as some suppose, so that she was espoused to Joseph in accordance with Num. 36, 8, 9, it is not necessary here to inquire. See Michaelis ‘Commentaries on the Laws of Moses,’ Part II. § 78.

“It is indeed objected, that it was not customary among the Jews to trace back descent through the female line, that is, on the mother’s side. There are, however, examples to show that this was sometimes done; and in the case of Jesus, as we have seen, there was a sufficient reason for it. Thus in 1 Chr. 2, 22, Jair is enumerated among the posterity of Judah by regular descent. But the grandfather of Jair had married the daughter of Machir, one of the heads of Manasseh, 1 Chr. 2, 21. 7, 14; and therefore in Num. 32, 40. 41, Jair is called the son (descendant) of Manasseh. In like manner, in Ezra, 2, 61, and Neh. 7, 63, a certain family is spoken of as ‘the children of Barzillai;’ because their ancestor ‘took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called after their name.’

“3. A question is raised as to the identity, in the two genealogies, of the Salathiel and Zorobabel named as father and son, Matth. 1, 12. Luke 3, 27. The Zorobabel of Matthew is no doubt the chief, who led back the first band of captives from Babylon, and rebuilt the temple, Ezra c. 2-6. He is also called the son of Salathiel in Ezra 3, 2. Neb. 12, 1. Hagg. 1, 1. 2, 2. 23. Were then the Salathiel and Zorobabel of Luke the same persons? Those who assume this, must rest solely on the identity of the names; for there is no other possible evidence to prove, either that they were contemporary, or that they were not different persons. On the other hand, there are one or two considerations, of some force, which go to show that they were probably not the same persons.

“First, if Salathiel and Zorobabel are indeed the same in both genealogies, then Salathiel who, according to Matthew, was the son of Jechoniah by natural descent, must have been called the son of Neri in Luke either from adoption or marriage. In that case, his connection with David through Nathan, as given by Luke, was not his own personal genealogy. It is difficult, therefore, to see Luke, after tracing back the descent of Jesus to Salathiel, should abandon the true personal lineage in the royal line of kings, and turn aside again to a merely collateral and humbler line. If the mother of Jesus was in fact descended from the Zorobabel and Salathiel of Matthew, she, like them, was descended also from David through the royal line. Why rob her of this dignity, and ascribe to her only a descent through an inferior lineage? See Spanheim Dubia Evangel. I. p. 108, sq.

“Again, the mere identity of names under these circumstances, affords no proof; for nothing is more common even among contemporaries. Thus we have two Ezras; one in Neh. 12, 1. 13, 33; from whom Ezra the scribe is expressly distinguished in v. 36. We have likewise two Nehemiahs; one who went up with Zorobabel, Ezra 2, 2; and the other the governor who went later to Jerusalem, Neh. 2, 9, sq. So too, as contemporaries, Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, and Joram (Jehoram,) son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; 2 K. 8, 16, coll. v. 23, 24. Also Joash king of Judah, and Joash king of Israel; 2 K. 13, 9, 10. Further, we find in succession among the descendants of Cain the following names: Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, Lamech, Gen. 4, 17, 18; and later among the descendants of Seth these similar ones: Enoch, Methusalah, Lamech, Gen. 5, 21-25.” See Dr. Robinson’s Greek Harmony of the Gospels, pp. 183-187.

102 Mal. iii. 1; Is. xl. 3.

103 In the New Testament, the same word is used for _the high priests_, and the chief priests, who were the heads of the twenty-four courses. So that the two persons whom the Roman governor considered as the chief of the priests, and whose names stood as such in those public registers which seem here referred to, may be intended. An irregularity had arisen out of the confusion of the times: and the ruler or prince under the Romans, though a chief priest, was a distinct person from the high priest: Annas being the one, and Caiaphas the other. Scott, _in loc._ See also Campbell, _in loc._

104 Is. xl. 3, seq.

105 Deut. viii. 3.

106 Deut. vi. 16.

107 Ps. xci. 11.

108 Deut. vi. 13.

109 There is a seeming discrepancy between Matthew and Luke, in the order of the temptations; but Luke does not affirm the order; whereas Matthew uses particles, in v. 2 and 8, which seem to fix it as he has written. NEWCOME.

110 John means that he was not really Elias risen from the dead. But when Jesus says, (Matth. xvii. 12, and xi. 14,) that Elias was come already, he means that John had appeared _in the spirit and power of Elias_. Luke i. 17. Thus likewise, John here denies that he is one of the ancient prophets again appearing on earth: see Luke ix 19; with which our Lord’s assertion that he was an eminent prophet, Luke vii. 28, seems perfectly consistent. Newcome.

111 Is. xl. 3.

112 Kings and princes very often changed the names of those who held offices under them, particularly when they first attracted their notice and were taken into their employ; and when subsequently they were elevated to some new station, and crowned with additional honours. Gen. xli. 45; and xvii. 5; and xxxii. 28; and xxxv. 10; 2 Kin. xxiii. 34, 35; and xxiv. 17; Dan. i. 6. Hence a name (_a new name_) occurs topically, as a token of honour, in Phil. ii. 9; Heb. i. 4; Rev. ii. 17. See also Mark iii. 17. Jahn’s Archæol. § 164.

_ 113 Nathanael_. This apostle is supposed to be the same with _Bartholomew_, of whom John says nothing; and the others make no mention of _Nathanael_. This seems to have been his proper name; since the name of _Bartholomew_ is not a proper name, but only signifies _the son of Ptolomy_. _Nathanael_ is also ranked among the Apostles to whom Jesus showed himself. _John_ xxi. 2-4. A. Clarke, _in loc_.

114 Gen. xxviii. 12.

115 Ps. lxix. 9.

116 Numb. xxi. 8, seq.

117 Is. ix. 1.

118 Is. lxi. 1, and lviii. 6.

119 This word denotes only a subordinate officer, who attended the minister and obeyed his orders in what concerned the more servile part of the work. Among other things he had charge of the sacred books, and delivered them to those to whom he was commanded by his superiors to deliver them. After the reading was over, he deposited them in their proper place. CAMPBELL, _in loc_.

120 The service of the synagogue consisted of reading the scriptures, prayer, and preaching. The posture in which the latter was performed, whether in the synagogue or elsewhere, (see _Matth_. v. 1; _Luke_ v. 3,) was sitting. Accordingly when our Saviour had read the portion of scripture, in the synagogue at Nazareth, of which he was a member, having been brought up in that city, and then, instead of retiring to his place, _sat down_ in the desk or pulpit, it is said “the eyes of all that were present were fastened upon him,” because they perceived, by this posture, that he was about to preach to them. See also Acts xiii. 14, 15. JENNINGS, Ant. 375.

121 1 Kings xvii. 1, 9.

122 2 Kings v. 14.

123 The accuracy of this description is attested by travellers, to this day. See ROBINSON’S Travels in Palestine, vol. iii., pp. 186, 187.

124 Matthew says that the disciples were called by Christ while walking by the sea, because that calling followed the walk by the sea. “We say that a thing was done by one walking in this or that place, because he took such a walk, whether he who did the act was then walking, or sitting or standing.” Spanb. dub. lxxii. v. 2. This remark reconciles “_walking_,” Matth. iv. 18 with “_stood_,” Luke v. 1. A like remark may be made with respect to the passages placed parallel to Luke v. 6. Jesus is concisely represented as if he had at first seen Peter and Andrew casting a net into the sea, because they were employed thus in consequence of the interview.

Luke does not deny that more than Simon were seen, nor does he affirm that Simon was seen. Indeed our Lord is said to have seen two ships by the lake. The calling of others beside Simon not only is not denied by Luke, but is sufficiently indicated in v. 11. The words of Matthew (v. 21) “going on from thence,” are not to be understood as implying a great distance, but as relating to the neighbouring shore. Matthew relates the principal fact, the calling and the following; Luke has the accompanying circumstances. And there is a remarkable harmony between them. Matthew records the repairing of their nets by the fishermen; Luke shows how they became broken,—by the great draught they had taken. What is related by Luke, is not denied by Matthew, but omitted only. Nothing, indeed, is more common than to find the omission of some supplied by the other Evangelists. NEWCOME.

125 The death of Zebedee is nowhere mentioned in the gospels; yet an undesigned coincidence, and proof of the veracity of the Evangelists, is evident by comparing this place with others, in which his death is tacitly alluded to. Thus, in Chap. viii. 21, it is related that “another of his _disciples_ said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and _bury my father_;” and in Chap. xx. 20, it is said, “Then came to him the _mother of Zebedee’s children_ with her sons, worshipping him,” &c. See also Chap. xxvii. 55. BLUNT, Veracity of the Gospels, Sec. I. 2. See note on Mark vi. 3; Post, § 55.

126 There is no inconsistency between this place and the last clause of Luke iv. 35. The word translated _torn_, signifies to move, agitate, convulse. It occurs only twice in the Septuagint. In 2. Sam. xxii. 8, the Hebrew signifies to be shaken, _ut in terræ motu_. In Jer. iv. 19, it is applied to commotion of mind. Here, the demoniac was violently agitated; but the agitation left no lasting bad effect; he was restored to perfect health and soundness. NEWCOME.

127 Is. liii. 4.

128 This clause may be rendered “when the day was coming on,” and thus be reconciled with the words of Mark, who says it was a great while before day, namely, before broad day-light. SCOTT, _in loc_

129 “The miraculous cure of the leprosy was thought by the Jews to be characteristic of the Messiah; and therefore there was peculiar reason for enjoining this man silence.” _Benson’s Life of Christ_, p. 340. NEWCOME. For the consequences of a premature full manifestation of himself as the Messiah, by awakening the jealousy of the Roman government, might, humanly speaking, have impeded his ministry. Yet there was great propriety in the private exhibition, to the priesthood, of full proof that he was the Messiah; after which, their obstinacy in rejecting him was inexcusable. In this, and divers other instances, our Lord manifested his intent not to be generally known to the Jews as their Messiah, till the consummation of his ministry. A general announcement of his divine character at the outset would have been productive of no good; on the contrary it would have excited the malice of the Scribes, Pharisees and Herodians against him; would have favoured the conceit of the Jews that he was to be their temporal king; would have awakened the jealousy of the Roman government; and in the natural course of things, would have prevented him from giving the many miraculous proofs which he gave of his ministry, and thus laying solid foundations for faith in his divine mission; would have exposed him and his religion to the charge of ostentation, vanity, and love of power and display; and would have deprived the world of that example which he gave, of meekness, humility and patient suffering and self-denial. According to human experience, an early assumption of regal splendour, supported by the miracles he wrought, would have been successful, and carried him to the throne instead of the cross; but it would have deprived the world of the great object of his mission. A sufficient number were enlightened to attest his miracles and proclaim his religion, and enough were left in their ignorance, to condemn and crucify him. See A. CLARKE, and SCOTT, _in loc_.

130 Lev. xiv. 2, seq.

131 When a Jew became a Roman citizen, he usually assumed a Roman name. It is therefore supposed that Levi was the original Hebrew, and Matthew the assumed Roman name of this evangelist. STOWE’S Introd. 120. See also, HARMER’S Obs. vol. iv. p. 330; Obs. 94.

132 It is observable that though John speaks of this pool or bath as existing at the time he wrote, which was upwards of sixty years after the crucifixion, yet he speaks of the efficacy of its waters in the past tense, as something which had long ceased. This may account for the silence of Josephus concerning it; whether we suppose it to have been really a miraculous virtue, existing only in the time of our Saviour; or merely a groundless belief of the populace.

133 Spanheim, dub. evang. ii. 185, doubts how the latter part of this verse is reconcilable with Matthew iii. 17, and the parallel verses. But the voice from heaven was not God’s _immediate_ voice; but uttered at his command, and in his person. See Deut. iv. 33; Ex. xx. 1, 2; Comp. Hebr. ii. 2; Gal. iii. 19; Acts vii. 53. NEWCOME.

134 Deut. xxiii. 25.

135 The act of plucking the ears of corn by the hand, in another’s field, was expressly permitted, by the law of Moses, Deut. xxiii. 23; but it was considered so far a species of reaping as to be servile work, and therefore not lawful to be done on the Sabbath. CAMPBELL, _in loc_. See ROBINSON’S Biblical Researches in Palestine, Vol. 2, pp. 192, 201, that this custom is still in use.

136 Hos. vi. 6.

137 It appears from 1 Sam. xxi. 1, that Abimelech was the high priest at the time referred to; but Abiathar his son was the _chief_ priest under him, and probably superintended the tabernacle and its stated concerns. Abimelech was soon after slain; and Abiathar succeeded him in that office, and continued in it about forty years, until after the death of David. This circumstance, and his great eminence, above his father, may account for the use of his name rather than his father’s, as illustrating the times of David and Saul. See SCOTT, _in loc_.

138 Numb. xxviii. 9, 10; xviii. 19.

139 1 Sam. xxi. 1-7.

140 Is. xlii. 1, seq.; Is. xi. 10.

141 There may be an allusion, in these words of the prophet, to an Eastern custom, for those who were grievously afflicted to come to the sovereign for relief or redress, having pots of fire, or of burning straw, or other combustible on their heads, in token of their extreme trouble. Not one of these, the prophet seems to intimate, should go away without redress; he will certainly remove the cause of their complaints, and render truth and justice victorious over falsehood and oppression. 3 CALM. 394.

142 It appears from Mark vi. 7, that the apostles were sent forth by _two and two_ to preach; and this accounts for their being here and in the parallel places named in couples. Luke mentions Matthew first, as being regarded as the senior of Thomas, his companion; but Matthew modestly places his own name last. Mark is less observant of the order of the names, but he alone states that they were thus associated. The others give the names in couples, but state no reason for it. This is not the method of false witnesses; such incidental corroborations belong only to the narratives of truth.

143 Thaddeus, Theudas and Judas (or Jude) are probably names of the same signification, the Greek termination being added to different forms of a Hebrew verb. “The Canaanite,” Matth. x. 4, is the same with “Zelotes” in Luke. “Cognomen erat Chald. quod Lucas reddidit Zelotem.” Wetstein. Thus, Thomas is rendered Didymus, or, the twin; Cephas, Peter; and Silas, Tertius. Some suppose that this name had been given to Simon on account of his religious zeal; or, because he had been of a Jewish sect called Zealots, who were addicted to the Pharisees, and justified themselves by the example of Phinehas, for punishing offenders without waiting for the sentence of the magistrate. NEWCOME.

“Between Matthew (x. 2,) and Mark (iii. 16,) we observe a strict correspondence, but the catalogue in St. Luke (vi. 14,) differs from both the first-mentioned writers, in two particulars. 1, ‘Simon the Canaanite,’ of Matthew and Mark is introduced as ‘Simon called Zelotes.’ Now if any difference was admitted in this place, we might expect it to extend no farther than to the order of the names, or the addition of a surname; as, for instance, Matthew calls the ‘Thaddeus’ of Mark also ‘Lebbeus;’ but here we have one surname changed for another. It is indeed easy to conceive, that Simon might have been commonly distinguished by either appellative, but this we can only conjecture; neither Evangelist adds a word to explain the point. 2, The other discrepancy, however, appears more serious. The Lebbeus or Thaddeus of St. Matthew and Mark, is entirely omitted in the list of St. Luke, who substitutes ‘Judas the brother of James.’ Here is certainly a marked difference, for it would not seem very probable, that the Apostle in question passed by three distinct names. Nor could this be a mere oversight in St. Luke, for, in Acts