Vers. 16—41. Parallel passages: Matt. xxvii. 27—56; Luke xxiii. 26—49; John xix. 17—87.—The closing scene. 1. THE CRUCIFIXION AND ACCOMPANYING EVENTS. 1. The words of the Creed. The words of the Creed, “ crucified under Pontius Pilate,” are familiar to almost every young person who has been trained in the Christian religion. All down the centuries the name of this Roman knight, who was Procurator of Judea under the Propreetor of Syria, has been associated with the greatest crime that has blotted and blackened the page of history since the beginning of the world. He was a descendant of the great Samnite general, C. Pontius Telesinus, and so belonged to the Pontian gens. His surname, Pilatus, is usually derived from pilum, a javelin, and so means “‘ armed with a javelin;” though others connect it with pileatus, from pileus, a cap worn by manumitted slaves, implying that he had been a freedman, or the son of one. His head-quarters were at Caesarea, on the sea, but during the Jewish feasts, when such crowds assembled in Jerusalem, in discharge of his duty he came up to Jerusalem to keep order. In like manner Herod, whose usual residence was at Tiberias, had come up to Jerusalem to keep the feast, ostensibly in conformity to the Jews’ religion, but more especially to conciliate the favour of the Jewish people. It thus happened that the tetrarch and Roman governor were both at Jerusalem at the same time—the former occupying the old Asmonean palace, and the latter Herod’s Prestorium a palace of Herod the Great, or perhaps a part of Fort Antonia. 2. Pilate’s embarrassment and earnestness to secure the Saviour’s acquittal. He had offended the Jews by bringing the Roman standards to Jerusalem, and had been obliged to retrace this step; he had quarrelled with them about secularizing the corban, or sacred treasury money, to provide a suitable water-supply for Jerusalem; he had been engaged in a deadly feud with the Samaritans; and had minglea the blood of the Galileans with their own sacrifices. He was thus on bad terms with the people of every province in the land, and could not, therefore, afford further to provoke their wrath. On the other hand, he had had three warnings—the voice of his own conscience, the dream of his wife, Claudia Procula, and the announcement of Jesus’ mysterious title of “Son of God.” On the one side was the fear of the Jews whom he had so deeply offended, and fear also of compromising himself with the emperor, now that his patron Sejanus had fallen ; on the other were his remaining sense of justice, his respect for Jesus as an inaocent man, perhaps as something more—so that Tertullian says of him, “ Jam pro conscientia Christianus ”—and the threefold warning already mentioned, In consequence he does his best, in his perplexing circumstances, to have Jesus released; ‘or he sent him to Herod, then offered to release him as a favour, according to an established custom. Next he thought to substitute scourging for crucifixion; and when that haa tailed, he appealed to their pity. But all to no purpose. What was he to do ? Why, assert, as he was bound to do, the power of the Roman law, maintain the cause of justice, and obey the voice of conscience at all hazards. But instead of this he vacillated at the beginning, temporized afterwards, and yielded to his fears in the end. Unhappily, he allowed fear for his personal safety to stifle the voice of conscience. 3. The crucifixion. Crosses were of different sorts and shapes. There was the crue simplex, or simple cross, which was rather a stake on which the body was impaled; there was the crux decussator, or St. Andrew’s cross, in the form of the letter X ; there was the crux immissa, or Latin cross, in the form of a dagger with point downward +s there was the cruw comméissa, in the form of the letter T. On account of the inscriptien the form of the cross on which our Lord suffered is generally supposed to have been
oH. xv. 1—47.] THE GOSPEL AUCORDING TO ST. MARK. 331