t The condensed nature of his account here lends too pre- cipitate a character to the proceedings. Possibly the search for witnesses was loosely begun during the night ; but even so Luke's narrative is defective on this point. That he knew the Markan tradition of the false evidence is plain from the retention of In in 22"i. On his own scheme the word is superfluous, since no word of any pre\ioug witnesses occurs in the narrative.
t .So B. Weiss in Die Quellen des Lukasevangeliums (1907), 225-226.
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TRIAL OF JESUS
TRIAL OF JESUS
disciple who follows Jesus into the place of trial ; another disciple, who is probably to be identihed with the 'beloved disciple,' enters the high priest's palace, and, in virtue of his jjosition there ('he was known to the high priest'), is able to introduce Peter. The estimate of this assertion depends upon the general view taken of the relation between the historical and the religious element in the Gospel ; either (a) the anonymous disciple is the author, John (see vol. i. 880 f.), or (b) the authority to which the author refers, or (c) a jjurely ideal figure (cf. E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, 1907, pp. 51, 144, etc., and, from the opposite side, Lepin's L'Origine du QuatrUme ^vangile, 341-398).
While the Synoptic Gospels make the entire pro- ceedings before Pilate take place in the open air, the Fourth Evangelist makes Pilate repeatedly go between the Jews outside and Jesus inside the palace. *^ The attempts of the governor to save his prisoner are dramatically sharpened, if not multiplied ; Jesus speaks far more than in the earlier accounts ; and a certain superstitious fear is even attributed to Pilate as one result of these interviews (19^).
The two private conversations between Pilate and Jesus (18^^"^^ 19^"") bring out the Evangelist's conception of Christ's Kingdom as a reign of truth, not of political or military force. In dramatic juxtaposition, Pilate and Jesus, the representa- tives of Avorld-power and heavenly power, are con- fronted, and Jesus meets the Roman governor with undaunted calmness, actually putting questions to him as One possessed of independent authority. He
i'udges His judge, in fact.f The Evangelist uses lis favourite form of dialogue in order to bring out this conception of the meaning of the crisis. Pilate, to him, is less culpable than the Jews. He is first impatient, but soon impressed by Jesus, and finally convinced of His innocence. The insolence and rancour of the Jews form a foil to his anxiety to release the prisoner, and the dramatic conversa- tions between the governor and the accusers bring out the contempt felt by the former for the latter's intriguing spirit, but also the weakness of character upon which the Jews were clever enough to play. Threatening Pilate with high treason to the emperor Tiberius (cf. vol. i. 246*) if he acquits Jesus, they force his hand, until angry, like any weak man who is publicly forced to be disloyal to his convictions, he hands over the prisoner to be crucified. J
It is plausible to read, between the lines of this scene, the author's plea for the political innocence of Christians at the opening of the 2nd cent, (as in Luke's Gospel and Acts), and to this apologetic element may be added an emphasis on the malevo- lent instigation of persecution by the Jews (as at Polycarp's martyrdom in Smyrna), and a corre- sponding emphasis on the greater hopefulness of the Gentile mission. The Jesus of the Fourth Gospel's trial recognizes no duty of confession towards Judaism. While in the Synoptic Gospels He confesses His Messiahship to the Sanhedrin, and is silent on it before Pilate, the reverse is the
* Jn 1831- 32 ig the early Christian interpretation of what was necessary for several ordinary reasons. The Jews could not stone their false prophet to death with impunity. They pre- ferred to make the Romans responsible for the death of Jesus, as well as to make that death more infamous in the eyes of the people. Besides, they had no witnesses to cast the first stones, after the breakdown of the evidence about the Temple saying. Compare Nestle's Einfiihrung in das Griechisehe NT, p. 213.
t In V.37 Jesus appeals to a higher court than that of Pilate As the Evangelist suggests, the verdict passed on Jesus had been subsequently reversed.
t 'That a Roman administrator capable of taking this sensible view of a case so dishonestly got up should nevertheless suffer his sense of justice to be overborne by the outcry of a threaten- ing priesthood and a noisy populace, is indeed deploralsle, but only too credible in that age of decay of the civil virtues' (Martineau, Seat uf Authority in Religion, bk. v. ch. ii.).
case in the Fourth Gospel (cf. 1 Ti 6'^). But even in describing and defending His mission before the governor, Jesus appeals not to him but to the world of sincere, elect souls, who are ' of the truth ' (cf. 12-''*-)) Greeks or Jews, the latter having no precedence whatsoever. It is in this light, as Loisy points out, that Pilate's famous question, What is truth ? must be read, not as the Avord of an inquii'er, nor of melancholy regret, but as a reflexion of the half-contemptuous scepticism felt by some Roman authorities for the inconvenient enthusiasm of Christians, who persisted in taking seriously what no man of the world would allow to disturb his own conscience (cf. Truth).* The idea of a man letting himself suffer for the sake of ' truth,' a chimera of the schools ! As for the dramatic confession of the Jews, We have no king hut Ccesar {VS^'^), with its affectation of patriotism in order to get rid of the King of truth, what the author means to bring out, especially in the light of the crisis of 70 A.D., when Caesar destroyed the Jewish State, is the abnegation by Judaism of its proper mission. That mission was spiritual. ' Judaism was the sheath to a seed : if it ceased to enfold transcendent hope, it lost all meaning. What found its expression in the rejection of Christ was that renegade Judaism in alliance with the world which we know as Pharisaism. For Judaism to ally itself with Rome, with Herod, with any earthly dominion, is, for a race called on to uphold trust in God, to confess that in any real stress of need the recourse must be to material springs of power' (Julia Wedgwood, The Message of Israel, p. 302).