§ CXLIII. Pilate's fifth attempt to save Jesus. He absolutely refuses to condemn him; but yields at last. John xix. 8,-15. WHEN Pilate heard that Jesus called himself the Son of God, he was more perplexed than ever. John xix. 8. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid. Knowing the obstinacy of the Jews in all matters of religion, he was afraid they would make a tumult in earnest. Or the meaning may be, that when he heard this account of him, he became more afraid than ever to take his life, because he suspected it might be true. Perhaps he remembered the miracles said to have been performed by Jesus, and began to think that he was really the Son of God. For it is very well known, that the religion which the governor professed, directed him to acknowledge the existence of demi-gods and heroes, or men descended from the gods. Nay, the heathens believed that their gods themselves sometimes appeared on earth in the form of men, Acts xiv. 11, 12. Pilate, therefore, resolving to act cautiously, 9. (And) went again into the judgmenthall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? Пoley e av, that is, of what father art thou sprung, or from what country hast thou come? Art thou from Olympus, the mansion of the gods? But Jesus gave him no ansaver; lest Pilate had reversed his sentence, and absolutely refused to crucify him. The governor, marvelling at his silence, signified that he was displeased with it. 10. Then Pilate saith unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? 11. Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it avere given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. Being sensible that you are Cesar's servant, and accountable to him for your management, I forgive you any injury which, contrary to your inclination, the popular fury constrains you to do unto me. Thou hast thy power from above; from the emperor: for which cause the Jewish high-priest, who hath put me into thy hands, and by pretending that I am Cesar's enemy, obliges thee to condemn me; or if thou refusest, will accuse thee as negligent of the emperor's interest, he is more to blame than thou. This sweet and modest answer made such an impression on Pilate, that he went out to the people, and declared his resolution of releasing Jesus, whether they would or no. John xix. 12. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. An inattentive reader An inattentive reader may perhaps understand the words last mentioned, as if this was Pilate's first attempt to release Jesus. Nevertheless, they cannot justly be thus interpreted, in regard John himself tells us expressly, that Pilate offered once before to release him, xviii. $9. Besides, the answer of the priests corresponds to the sense I have put upon the passage: But the Jews cried out, saying, If the let this man

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go, thou art not Cesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cesar. Finding by what the governor said to them, that he was determined to release Jesus, they told him with an haughty menacing air, that if he released his prisoner who had set himself up for a king, and endeavoured to raise a rebellion in the country, he was not faithful to the emperor; by which they insinuated, that they would accuse him to his master if he did not do his duty. This argument was weighty, and shook Pilate's resolution to the foundation. He was frightened at the very thought of being accused to Tiberius, who in matters of government, as Tacitus and Suetonius testify, was apt to suspect the worst, and always punished the least crimes relative thereto with death. 13. When Pilate therefore heard that say ing, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat, in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King. The governor being thus constrained to yield, contrary to his inclination, was angry with the priests for stirring up the people to such a pitch of madness, and resolved to affront them. He therefore brought Jesus out a second time into the Pavement, wearing the purple robe and crown of thorns, with his hands manacled, and pointing to him, said, Behold your King: either in ridicule of the national expectation, or, which is more probable, to shew the Jews how vain the fears were which they pretended to entertain about the emperor's authority in Judea. The person who was the occasion of them, shewing in the whole of his deportment a temper of mind no ways consonant to the ambition which they branded him with. 15. But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? According to most commentators, Pilate said this mocking him. But it is more agreeable to his general behaviour in this affair, to suppose that he spake it with a view to move the populace, who he knew had once held Jesus in great esteem as Messiah. For John tells us, verse 12. that he

now

• Ver. 14. It was the preparation of the passover.] Augustus's rescript to the governors of provinces, preserved by Josephus, Ant. xvi. 1o. shews in what manner the Jews computed their preparation for the Sabbath. For among other things it is there ordered, "that the Jews should not be compelled to appear in courts of judicature, either on the Sabbaths, or on the day before the Sabbaths, after the ninth hour in the preparation.' The preparation, therefore, began at the ninth hour, or at three o'clock in the afternoon, which is the reason that the Jews were freed from attendance in law-suits then. Nevertheless, the manner in which the rescript is worded, shews that the whole of the day was called the preparation, corsequently the evangelist wrote accurately when he tells us, it was the preparation, and about the sixth hour. He means the Roman sixth hour, or our six o'clock in the morning, answering to the first Jewish hour, when Pilate brought Jesus out on the Pavement.

now sought to release him. The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cesar. In this reply they publicly renounced their hope of Messiah, which the whole economy of their religion had been calculated to cherish; likewise they acknowledged publicly their subjection to the Romans; and by so doing, condemned themselves when they afterwards rebelled.

The unwillingness which the governor shewed all along to pass the sentence of death upon Jesus, has something very remarkable in it. For by the character which he bears in the Roman history, he seems to have been far from possessing any true principle of virtue. To what then could it be owing, that so wicked a man thus steadily adhered to the cause of innocence, which he defended with an uncommon bravery, till the threatenings of the grandees vanquished him? And when he did yield, taking from our Lord his life, how came he to leave him his innocence? Cer-S tainly this can be attributed to no cause whatsoever, but to the secret powerful direction of the providence of God, who intended that at the same time his Son was condemned and executed as a malefactor, his innocence should be made to appear in the most public manner, and by the most authentic evidence; even by the testimony of his judges Herod and Pilate, the latter of whom frequently declared him innocent in the course of his trial. This, I suppose, was the reason also that Pilate's lady had the dream concerning Christ, which she sent her husband the account of; that Judas returned the money to the priests publicly, with an open confession that he had sinned in betraying the innocent blood; that one of the thieves on the cross declared Jesus had done nothing amiss; and that the centurion said he was certainly a righteous person, and even the Son of God.

§ CXLIV. Jesus is led forth, and crucified with thieves. Matt. xxvii. 31,-34. Mark xv. 20,-23. Luke xxiii. 26,-34. John xix. 16,-18.

THE governor having now laid aside all thoughts of saving Jesus, gave him up to the will of his enemies, and commanded the soldiers to prepare for his execution. John xix. 16. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be curucified. The soldiers obeyed, and led Jesus away, after they had clothed him in his own garments. It is not said that they took the crown of thorns off his head. Probably he died wearing it, that the title which was written over him might be the better understood. Mark xv. 20. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. According to custom, Jesus walked to the place of execution, bearing his cross, that is, the transverse beam to which he was to be nailed; the other being at the place already. But the fatigue of the preceding night spent without sleep, the sufferings

he

he had undergone in the garden, his having been hurried from place to place, and obliged to stand the whole time of his trials, the want of food, and loss of blood which he had sustained, and not his want of courage on this occasion, concurred to make him so faint that he was not long able to bear his cross. The soldiers therefore laid it on one Simon, a native of Cyrene in Egypt, the father of Alexander and Rufus, two noted men among the first Christians, at the time Mark wrote his gospel, and forced him to bear it after Jesus, (Luke) or bear it following him. Mark xv. 21. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, ta bear his cross. They did this, however, not out of compassion to Jesus, but for fear he had died with fatigue, and by that means eluded his punishment.

As Jesus went along, he was followed by a great crowd, particularly of women, who sighed, shed tears, beat their breasts, and bitterly lamented the severity of his lot. Luke xxiii. 27. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women which also bewailed and lamented him. 28. But Jesus turning unto them said―Jesus, who ever felt the woes of others more than he did his own, forgetting his distress at the very time that it lay heaviest upon him, turned about, and with a benevolence and tenderness truly divine, said to them, Daughters of Jerusa lem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. 29. For behold the days are coming, in the which they shall says Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps avhich never gave suck. 30. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us: The calamities about to fall on you and your children are most terrible, and call for the bitterest lamentations; for in those days of vengeance, you will vehemently wish that you had not given birth to a generation whose wickedness has rendered them objects of the divine wrath, to a degree that never was experienced in the world before. The thoughts of those calamities afflict my soul far more than the feeling of my own sufferings. 31. Fer if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If the Romans are permitted by heaven to inflict such heavy punishments on me, who am innocent, how dreadful must the vengeance be which they shall inflict on the nation, whose sins cry aloud to heaven, hastening the pace of the Divine judgments, and rendering the perpetrators as fit for punishment as dry wood is for burning! Compare Ezek. xx. 47. with Ezek. xxi. 3. where God's burning every green and every dry tree, is explained to be his destroying the righteous and the wicked together. See also Psal. i. 3. where a good man is compared to a green tree full of leaves. 32. And there were also two other malefactors, or rather, two others who were malefactors, were" led with him to be

put to death. John xix. 17. And he bearing his cross, went forth unto a place called the place of a skull, which is is called in the Hebrew Golgotha. The place of execution was called Golgotha, or the place of a skull, from the criminals bones which lay scattered there. Here some of Christ's friends offered him a stupifying potion, to render him insensible of the ignominy and pain of his punishment. But he refused it, because he would bear his sufferings, however sharp, not by intoxicating and stupifying himself, but through the strength of patience, fortitude, and faith. Matt. xxvii. 33. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, 34. They gave him

vinegar to drink, mingled with gall, (Mark, they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh): and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink, (Mark, he received it not.) When Jesus refused the potion, the soldiers, according to custom, stripped him quite naked; and in that condition began to fasten him to the tree. But while they were piercing his hands and his feet with the

• Matt. 34. Vinegar to drink, mingled with gall, &c.] Ogs μsta xonas pequeryμivov. Mark says, 23. I hey gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, Ισμυρνισμένον οίνον. But the two evangelists speak of the same ingredients. For though Mark terms that wine which Matthew calls vinegar, he may really have meant vinegar, which was a common drink among the ancients, (see Numb. vi. 6.) and such as might very properly be called wine, in re. gard it was usually made of wine, or of the juice of grapes. Besides, it is well known that the ancients gave the general name of wine to all fermented liquors whatsoever. It is evident, therefore, that to reconcile the evangelists here, we have no occasion for the reading of Beza's copy, which has vov instead of os. As to the other ingredient of this potion, mentioned by the sacred historians, let it be observed, that the word o in the LXX. is often used as the translation of the Hebrew word w, which properly was the name of a poisonous herb, common in those countries, and remarkable for its bitterness. Hence an infusion of it is called vdwg wingov, bitter water, Jer. xxiii. 15. and vowę xoàns, Jer. viii. 14. ix. 14. Frobably it was a weak infusion of this herb in vinegar and water, which our Lord's friends offered him, to make him insensible, and shorten his life. It is called indeed by Mark souvguiouevov aivov, myrrhed vinegar, perhaps because it had myrrh mixed with it; there being nothing more common than for a medicine compounded of many ingredients to take its name from some one of them that is prevalent in the composition. That myrrh was proper in a potion of this kind, has been shewed by Vossius, who proves from Dioscorides, lib. i. c. 70. that frankincense macerated in liquors makes those who drink them mad; and that if the quantity, taken be large, it sometimes produces death. Hence, when Ptolemy Philopater designed to engage his elephants, he gave them wine mingled with frankincense to enrage them, 3 Mac. v. 2. Or the evangelists may be reconciled more directly by supposing that xoλŋ signifies any bitter drug whatsoever. For it is applied to sormavood, Prov. v. 4. and by parity of reason may denote myrrh, which has its name from a Hebrew word signifying bitterness. Casaubon has given a third solution of this difficulty. He thinks, that our Lord's friends put a cup of myrrhed wine into the hands of one of the soldiers to give it to Jesus; but that he, out of contempt, added gall to it.