It is at this point, as we suppose, that the notices from St. John's Gospel [5870] come in. Leaving the traitor, and ignoring the signal which he had given them, Jesus advanced to the band, and asked them: Whom seek ye?' To the brief spoken, perhaps somewhat contemptuous, Jesus the Nazarene,' He replied with infinite calmness and majesty: I am He.' The immediate effect of these words was, we shall not say magical, but Divine. They had no doubt been prepared for quite other: either compromise, fear, or resistance. But the appearance and majesty of that calm Christ - heaven in His look and peace on His lips - was too overpowering in its effects on that untutored heathen soldiery, who perhaps cherished in their hearts secret misgivings of the work they had in hand. The foremost of them went backward, and they fell to the ground. But Christ's hour had come. And once more He now asked them the same question as before, and, on repeating their former answer, He said: I told you that I am He; if therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way,' - the Evangelist seeing in this watchful care over His own the initial fulfilment of the words which the Lord had previously spoken concerning their safe preservation, [5871] not only in the sense of their outward preservation, but in that of their being guarded from such temptations as, in their then state, they could not have endured.
The words of Christ about those that were with Him seem to have recalled the leaders of the guard to full consciousness - perhaps awakened in them fears of a possible rising at the incitement of His adherents. Accordingly, it is here that we insert the notice of St. Matthew, [5872] and of St. Mark, [5873] that they laid hands on Jesus and took Him. Then it was that Peter, [5874] seeing what was coming, drew the sword which he carried, and putting the question to Jesus, but without awaiting His answer, struck at Malchus, [5875] the servant [5876] of the High-Priest - perhaps the Jewish leader of the band - cutting off his ear. But Jesus immediately restrained all such violence, and rebuked all self-vindication by outward violence (the taking of the sword that had not been received) - nay, with it all merely outward zeal, pointing to the fact how easily He might, as against this cohort,' have commanded Angelic legions. [5877] [5878] He had in wrestling Agony received from His Father that Cup to drink, [5879] [5880] and the Scriptures must in that wise be fulfilled. And so saying, He touched the ear of Malchus, and healed him. [5881]
But this faint appearance of resistance was enough for the guard. Their leaders now bound Jesus. [5882] It was to this last, most underserved and uncalled-for indignity that Jesus replied by asking them, why they had come against Him as against a robber - one of those wild, murderous Sicarii. Had He not been all that week daily in the Temple, teaching? Why not then seize Him? But this hour' of theirs that had come, and the power of darkness' - this also had been foretold in Scripture!
And as the ranks of the armed men now closed around the bound Christ, none dared to stay with Him, lest they also should be bound as resisting authority. So they all forsook Him and fled. But there was one there who joined not in the flight, but remained, a deeply interested onlooker. When the soldiers had come to seek Jesus in the Upper Chamber of his home, Mark, roused from sleep, had hastily cast about him the loose linen garment or wrapper [5883] that lay by his bedside, and followed the armed band to see what would come of it. He now lingered in the rear, and followed as they led away Jesus, never imagining that they would attempt to lay hold on him, since he had not been with the disciples nor yet in the Garden. But they, [5884] perhaps the Jewish servants of the High-Priest, had noticed him. They attempted to lay hold on him, when, disengaging himself from their grasp, he left his upper garment in their hands, and fled.