53 And they led Jesus away to the High Priest : and with him were as- sembled all the Chief Priests and the elders and the Scribes.
54 And Peter followed him afar off, even unto the palace of the High Priest : and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire.
55 And the Chief Priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death ; and found none.
56 For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.
57 And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying,
58 We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build an- other made without hands.
59 But neither so did their witness agree together.
60 And the High Priest stood up
in the midst, and asked Jesus, say- ing, Answerest thou nothing ? what is it which these witness against thee ?
61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the High Priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
62 And Jesus said, I am : and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."
63 Then the High Priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses ?
64 Ye have heard the blasphemy : what think ye? And they all con- demned him to be guilty of death.
65 And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy : and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands.
Solomon tells us in the book of Ecclesiastes, that one evil he has seen under the sun, is when " folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place." (Eccles. x. 6.) We can imagine no more complete illustration of his words than the state of things we have recorded in the
which the disciples were, and to make it plain that they saved their lives only by their flight
One eminent divine regards the whole event as strongly figura- tive. He sees in it an antitype of what took place on the day of atonement, and at the cleansing of a leper. He considers the young man escaping to represent the goat let go free, and the bird let loose ; while our Lord represents the goat offered up, and the bird slain. See Lev. xiv. 7, and xvi. 22.
I offer no opinion on any of the above explanations, excepting that I look on the last as eminently fanciful and unsatisfactory. Bullin- ger remarks sensibly, " It does not interest us much to know who this young man was, and it would not bring any very great fruit to us, if we did know. If it had been useful and wholesome for us to know, the Spirit of God would not have been silent, seeing that He is often marvellously diligent in relating very minute things.