(2) That the Messiah was to be born of a virgin:

(3) That the Messiah was to spring from the house of David:

(4) That the Messiah should not come until the scepter had departed from Judah and the lawgiver from between his feet:

(5) That a forerunner like unto Elijah should prepare the way of the Messiah:

(6) That the Messiah should begin to preach in Galilee:

(7) That the Messiah should perform many miracles:

(8) That the Messiah should make his public entry into Jerusalem riding upon an ass:

(9) That the Messiah should be betrayed by one of his followers for thirty pieces of silver which would finally be thrown into the potter's field:

(10) That the Messiah should be a man of poverty and of suffering; and should be despised and rejected of men:

Through reasonable diligence, witnesses might have been secured to testify to a majority, at least, of the points above enumerated, touching Messianic prophecy and fulfillment. Besides these are many others too numerous to mention in a treatise of this kind.

The question then arises at once: Admitting that all the evidence above suggested, marked "Prophecy" and "Fulfillment," could have been introduced in evidence at the trial before the Sanhedrin; were the judges morally and legally bound to acquit and release Jesus, if they believed this testimony to be true? We answer unhesitatingly, yes; as far as the count in the accusation relating to Messiahship was concerned. But we must remember that the charge against Jesus was not limited to His claims to Messiahship. The indictment against Him was that He claimed to be "the Christ, the Son of God." "Christ" is the English form of the Greek translation of the word meaning "Messiah." The real nature of the charge against the prisoner, then, was that He claimed to be not only the Messiah but also the Son of God. We have seen that "Son of God" conveyed to the Sanhedrin the notion of divine origin and of equality with Jehovah. Even to-day there is no dispute between Jews and Christians in regard to this construction. Jews charge that Jesus made such a claim and Christians agree with them. They are compelled to do so, indeed, or else abjure the fundamental dogma of their faith—the doctrine of the Trinity.

Now we approach the consideration of a phase of the subject where theology and law meet and blend. It has been sought to ridicule the contention that Jesus should have been heard on the charge of being the Son of God, in the sense that He was God Himself, because such a claim was not only ridiculous and frivolous as a plea, but because it was blasphemous upon its face; as being opposed, by bare assertion, to the most fundamental and sacred precept of the Mosaic Code and of the teachings of the Prophets: that God was purely and wholly spiritual; that He was not only incorporeal but invisible, indivisible, and incomprehensible. The advocates of this theory declare that Jesus asserted, in the face of this primary belief of the Hebrews, a plurality of gods of which He was a member, and that this assertion destroyed the very cornerstone of Judaism, founded in the teaching of the celebrated passage: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." They further declare that when Jesus presented Himself in the flesh, and declared that He was God, He insulted both the intelligence and religious consciousness of His judges by a complete anthropomorphism; and that when He did this, He was not entitled to be heard.

One of the most radical of this class is Rabbi Wise who, in "The Martyrdom of Jesus," says: "Had Jesus maintained before a Jewish court to be the Son of God, in the trinitarian sense of the terms, viz., that He was part, person, or incarnation of the Deity, He must have said it in terms to be understood to that effect, as ambiguous words amount to nothing. But if even clearly understood, the court could only have found Him insane, but not guilty of any crime." This is strong language, indeed, and deserves serious consideration. It means nothing less than that Jesus, upon His confession of equality and identity with God, should have been committed as a lunatic, and not tried as a criminal. And the real meaning of this too extreme view is that the claims of Jesus, being a man in the flesh, to membership in a plurality of gods was such an outrageous and unheard-of thing that it amounted to insanity; and that an insane person was not one to be listened to, but to be committed and protected. The purpose of the distinguished Hebrew theologian was to show by the absurdity of the thing that Jesus was never tried before a Hebrew court; that He never claimed to be the Son of God, and that the Evangelical narratives are simply false. The same writer thus continues in the same connection: "Mark reports furthermore, that Jesus did not simply affirm the high priest's question but added: 'And ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.' Jesus cannot have said these words. Our reasons are: they are not true; none of the judges and witnesses present ever did see him either sitting on the right hand of power or coming in the clouds of heaven. These words could have originated only after the death of Jesus, when the Jewish Christians expected his immediate return as the Messiah and restorer of the kingdom of heaven, so that those very men could see him coming in the clouds of heaven. Besides, Jesus, the Pharisean Jew, could not have entertained the anthropomorphism that God had a right hand."[326] It is only necessary to add that Rabbi Wise may be right, if the Gospel writers were untruthful men. Suffice it to say that we have said enough in support of the veracity of the Evangelists in Part I of this volume. If we are right that they were truthful historians when they published these biographies to the world, Rabbi Wise is wrong; for according to these writers the Sanhedrin did not take the view that Jesus was a crazy man, but that He was a criminal. They accordingly tried Him to the extent of bringing an accusation against Him and of supporting it with a certain kind and amount of testimony, and by then leading Him away to be crucified by the Romans. Our contention is that the trial was not complete, in that His judges did not consider the merits of the defense of Jesus in the proceedings which they conducted against Him.

It would be entirely consistent with the plan of this treatise and of the special treatment of this theme to ignore completely the question of the divinity of Jesus; since we have announced a legal and not a theological consideration of the subject. But we repeat that the theological and the legal are inseparably interwoven in a proper handling of Point XII. If Rabbi Wise and others are right that the anthropomorphic pretensions of Jesus robbed Him of the protection of the law, in the sense that His claims to be God in the flesh were not worthy of consideration by a Hebrew court, then we are wrong in making the point that the merits of His defense should have been considered.

Our contention is that the claims of Jesus were not so strange and shocking as to place Him without the pale of the law and to deny Him its ordinary protection; that His pretensions were not those of an insane man; that if He was not the Son of God He was guilty of blasphemy; and that if He was the Son of God He was innocent. We further contend that all these things were subjects of legitimate judicial examination by Hebrew judges under Hebrew law, and that Jesus should have had His day in court.

A very brief examination of the question of anthropomorphism in its connection with the claims of Jesus will demonstrate the fallacy of the arguments of Rabbi Wise and of those who agree with him. Candor compels us to admit that the Jewish conception of Jehovah at the time of the crucifixion was very foreign to the notion of a God of flesh and bone. Hebrew monotheism taught the doctrine of one God who was purely spiritual, and therefore invisible, intangible, and unapproachable. Judaism delighted to lift its deity above the sensual, material, and corporeal things of earth, and to represent Him as a pure and sinless spirit in a state of awful and supreme transcendence. Our first impression, then, is that this dogma of divine unity and spirituality must have received a dreadful shock when Jesus, a carpenter of Nazareth, whose mother, father, brothers, and sisters were known, confronted the high priest and declared to him that He was God. But the shock was certainly not so great that Caiaphas and his colleagues, after a moment's composure and reflection, could not have concluded that the pretensions of Jesus were not wholly at variance with the revelations of Hebrew theology in the earlier years of the Commonwealth of Israel. They might have judged His claims to be unfounded, but they were certainly not justified in pronouncing Him insane, or in ignoring His rights under the law to be heard and to have His defense considered. Their arrest and trial of the prisoner was the consummation of a number of secret meetings in which the astounding personality and marvelous performances of Jesus were debated and discussed with fear and trembling. The raising of Lazarus from the dead had created a frightful panic among the Sadducean oligarchy. Far from regarding Him as an obscure person whose claims were ridiculous and whose mind was unbalanced, the priests feared lest all men might believe on Him, and boldly declared that such was the influence of His deeds that His single life might be balanced against the existence of a whole nation.[327]

What the judges of the Sanhedrin should have done in examining the merits of the defense of Jesus was: (1) To consider whether, in the light of Hebrew scripture and tradition, a god of flesh and bone, representing the second person of a Duality or a Trinity of gods, was possible; (2) to weigh thoroughly the claims of Jesus, in the light of testimony properly adduced at the trial, that He was this second person of a Duality or Trinity of gods.

In making this examination, let us bear in mind, the members of the court were not to look forward, but backward. They were to examine the past, not the future, in reference to the present. Furthermore, they were not to consider so much a Trinity as a Duality of gods; for it must be remembered that the Holy Ghost was not a feature of the trial. The Athanasian creed and the proceedings of the Nicene Council were not binding upon Caiaphas and his fellow-judges. Nor were the teachings of the New Testament scriptures published to the world more than a generation after the trial. They were to consider the divine pretensions of Jesus in the light of the teachings and revelations of the Law and the Prophets. They were to measure His claims by these standards in the light of the evidence adduced before them.

With a view to a thorough and systematic examination of the merits of the defense of Jesus, Caiaphas, as presiding officer of the Sanhedrin, should have propounded to his fellow-judges the following initial questions: (1) Do the Law and the Prophets reveal the doctrine of a plurality of gods among the Israelites? That is, has Jehovah ever begotten, or has He ever promised to beget, a Son of equal divinity with Himself? Was this Son to be, or is He to be born of a woman; and to have, therefore, the form of a man and the attributes of a human being? Was this Son to be, or is He to be at any time identical with the Father? Do the Law and the Prophets tell us unmistakably that Jehovah ever appeared upon the earth in human form and exhibited human attributes? Do they contain a promise from the Father that He would send His Son to the earth to be the Redeemer of men and the Regenerator of the world? (2) Do the credentials of Jesus, the prisoner at the bar, in the light of the evidence before us, entitle Him to be considered this Son and Ambassador of God, sent from the Father to redeem mankind?

It follows logically and necessarily that if affirmative answers were not given to the first set of questions an examination of the second would be useless. Let us conceive, then, that the judges of the Sanhedrin had employed this method. What answers, we may ask, would they have developed to these questions from the Sacred Books?

At the outset it is safe to say that negative answers would have been given, if the judges had considered the claims of Jesus with reference alone to the prevailing Pharisaic teachings of the days of Jesus. And in this connection let us note that the Hebrew conception of Jehovah had materially changed in the time intervening between the Mosaic dispensation and the coming of the Christ. The spiritual growth of the nation had been characterized at every step by marked aversion to anthropomorphism—the ascription to God of human form and attributes. In the Pentateuch there is a prevailing anthropomorphic idea of Jehovah. He is frequently talked about as if He were a man. Human passions and emotions are repeatedly ascribed to Him. This was inevitable among a primitive people whose crude religious consciousness sought to frame from the analogy of human nature a visible symbol of the Deity and a sensible emblem of religious faith. All early religions have manifested the same anthropomorphic tendencies. Both Judaism and Christianity have long since planted themselves upon the fundamental proposition that God is a spirit. But both these systems of religion have in all ages been compelled to run the gantlet of two opposing tendencies: one of which sought by a living, personal communion with God through Moses and through Christ, by means of human attributes and symbols, an intimate knowledge and immediate benefit of the divine nature; the other, from a horror of anthropomorphism, tending to make God purely passionless and impersonal, thus reducing Him to a bare conception without form or quality, thus making Him a blank negation.

The successive steps in the progress of weeding out anthropomorphisms from the Pentateuch may be clearly traced in later Hebrew literature. The Prophets themselves were at times repelled by the sensuous conceptions of God revealed by the writings of Moses. The great lawgiver had attributed to Jehovah the quality of repentance, a human attribute. "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart," says Genesis vi. 6. But a later writer, the prophet Samuel, denied that God had such a quality. "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent."[328] And the prophet Hosea affirms this declaration when he places in the mouth of Jehovah the affirmation: "For I am God and not man."[329]

At a still later age, when the notion of the supreme transcendence of Jehovah had become prevalent, it was considered objectionable to make God say, "I will dwell in your midst"; as a substitute, "I shall cause you to dwell" was adopted. "To behold the face of God" was not a repulsive phrase in the ancient days of Hebrew plainness and simplicity, but later times sought to eradicate the anthropomorphism by saying instead, "to appear before God."

The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible in use at the time of Christ, reveals the same tendency toward paraphrasing or spiritualizing the anthropomorphic phrases of the older Bible. In this translation the "image of God" of the older Hebrew literature becomes "the glory of God," and "the mouth of God" is expressed by "the voice of the Lord."

The Septuagint was written more than a century before the birth of Jesus, and we may safely assert that at the beginning of our era the Jews not only affirmatively proclaimed the doctrine of divine unity and pure spirituality, in relation to the person and character of Jehovah, but that they boldly and indignantly denied and denounced any attempt to make of God a man or to attribute to Him human qualities. But when we say "the Jews," we mean the dominant religious sect of the nation, the Pharisees. We should not forget, in this connection, that the primary difference between the Sadducees and the Pharisees was in the varying intensity with which they loved the Law of Moses and adhered to its teachings. We have seen in Part II of this volume that the Mishna, the oral law, was really more highly esteemed by the Pharisaic Jews than was the Mosaic Code. But the Sadducees planted themselves squarely upon the Pentateuch and denied that the traditions of the Scribes were of binding force. "The Sadducees were a body of aristocrats opposed to the oral law and the later developments of Judaism."

Now what views, we may ask, did the Sadducees entertain of the possibility of God appearing to men in the flesh? In other words, what was their notion, at the time of Christ, of the anthropomorphisms of the Pentateuch, which was their ultimate guide and standard in all matters of legal and religious interpretation? These questions are important in this connection, since Caiaphas and the large majority of his colleagues in the Great Sanhedrin were Sadducees and held the fate of Jesus in their hands. Candor compels us to admit that we believe that the Sadducees agreed with the Pharisees that Jehovah was a pure and sinless spirit. But we feel equally sure that their knowledge of the Pentateuch, in which at times anthropomorphism is strongly accentuated, taught them that Jehovah had not only appeared in the flesh among men in olden times, but that it was not at all impossible or unreasonable that He should come again in the same form. But this much is certain: that in determining whether Jesus could be both man and God the Sadducees would be disposed to ignore the traditions of the Pharisees and "the later developments of Judaism," and appeal direct to the law of Moses. Jesus Himself, if He had been disposed to make a defense of His claims, and His judges had been disposed to hear Him, would have appealed to the same legal standard. Christ more than once manifested a disposition to appeal to the Mosaic Code, as a modern citizen would appeal from mere statutes and the decisions of the courts, to the constitution, as the fundamental law of the land. Mark tells us that in denouncing the Pharisees, He used this language: "And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.... Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye."[330] Hebrew sacred literature is filled with anecdotes, often characterized by raillery and jests, of how the Sadducces denounced the Pharisees for their attempts to nullify Mosaic injunction by their peculiar interpretation.

Now in view of what we have just said, are we not justified in assuming that if the judges had accorded Jesus full liberty of defense He would have appealed to the Pentateuch, with the approbation of His judges, to show that God had appeared among men in the flesh, and that a plurality in the Godhead was plainly taught? Would He not then have appealed to the Prophets to show that Jehovah had spoken of a begotten Son who was none other than Almighty God Himself? Would He not have shown from both the Law and the Prophets that the angel of Jehovah, who was none other than Himself, had frequently, in ages past, acted as the ambassador of God in numerous visits to the earth, on missions of love and mercy among men? Would He not have proved to them that this angel of Jehovah had been at certain times in the past none other than Jehovah Himself? Could He not have pointed out to them that their whole sacred literature was filled with prophecies foretelling the coming of this Son and Ambassador of God to the earth to redeem fallen man? Could He not then have summoned a hundred witnesses to prove His own connection with these prophecies, to show His virgin birth, and to give an account of the numerous miracles which He had wrought, and that were the best evidence of His divine character?

Let us imagine that Caiaphas, as judge, had demanded of Jesus, the prisoner, to produce Biblical evidence that God had ever begotten or had promised to beget a Son who was equal with Himself. The following passages might have been produced:

What closer identity, we may ask, could be demanded between the Father and the Son than is revealed by this language of Isaiah, "and his (the son's) name shall be called The mighty God, The everlasting Father?" What more exact equality could be asked than the same words suggest? What stronger proof of plurality in the Godhead could be demanded?

Again, let us suppose that His judges had demanded of Jesus scriptural proof that the divine Son of God was to be born of a woman, and was to have, therefore, the form of a man and the attributes of a human being. The following passages might have been produced:

The first of these passages needs no comment. It is perfectly clear and speaks for itself. Regarding the second, it may be observed that after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden it was announced that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. This announcement contained, when viewed in the light of subsequent revelations, both a promise and a prophecy; a promise of a Redeemer of fallen man, and a prophecy that He would finally triumph over all the powers of sin and darkness whose father was Satan, who had entered into the serpent. The "seed of the woman" foretold that the Redeemer would have a human nature; His triumph over Satan suggested His divine origin and power.

Again, continuing the examination, let us suppose that Caiaphas had informed Jesus that His pretensions to be God in the flesh were not only not sanctioned by but were offensive to the current teachings of Judaism in relation to the person and character of Jehovah. Let us suppose, further, that the high priest had informed the prisoner that he and his fellow-judges, who were Sadducees in faith and a majority in number of the Sanhedrin, did not feel themselves bound by Pharisaic tradition and "the later developments of Judaism"; that they preferred the Mosaic Code as a standard of legal and religious judgment; that the anthropomorphisms of the Pentateuch were not particularly offensive to them, for the reason that they had not been to Moses; and that if He, the prisoner at the bar, could cite instances related by Moses where Jehovah had appeared among men, having the form of a human being, His case would be greatly strengthened; on the ground that if God had ever appeared in the flesh on one occasion it was not unreasonable, or at least impossible, that He should so appear again.

In proof that God had appeared in the flesh, or at least in human form, among men, the following passages might have been adduced:

From the first passage above cited it is clear that Jehovah, in the form of a man, appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. A contributor to "The Jewish Encyclopedia" declares that these three men were angels in the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty but that they were not at once recognized as angels.[331] The Christian commentators are generally agreed that it was Jehovah who was present in human form.[332] The other members of the company are declared by some of them to be the second and third persons of the Trinity. Plausibility is given to this contention by the fact that Abraham first saw one person, the Lord; then he looked up and saw three; he then advanced to meet the three, and, addressing them, used a singular epithet, "My Lord." The form of the address, together with the movements of Abraham, seem to suggest three in one and one in three. But with this theory we are not seriously concerned, as our present purpose is to show that Jehovah occasionally appeared in human form upon the earth in the olden days. A plurality of gods is suggested, however, by the passage, if Christian interpretation be applied; for if one of these men was Jehovah, as Abraham's language seems to indicate, and as modern Christian interpretation generally maintains, why could not the other two men have also been gods in the form of the Son and the Holy Spirit? If the Jewish commentator's opinion, to which we have referred heretofore, be plausible—that the three men were angels in human form—why is it not equally as plausible to suppose that a god or gods should also appear in human form? But at all events these three men were not ordinary human beings. He who maintains that they were assaults the intelligence of either the translators of the Bible or of Abraham, or both; for the Hebrew patriarch believed that Jehovah was present as a guest in his house, and he spread a hospitable meal for him. The language of Genesis very clearly indicates as much. And the question may be asked: If Abraham could not recognize Jehovah, who could or can?

In the second of the above extracts from Genesis the angel of the Lord appeared unto Hagar and said to her: "I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude." And Hagar made reply: "And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me." This passage plainly teaches that the angel of the Lord and Jehovah were sometimes identical.

The third passage heretofore cited from Genesis also teaches the identity of the angel of the Lord and of God Himself, in the matter of the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. It was the same voice, that of the angel of the Lord, that said: "For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."

Again, the identity of the angel of the Lord and of Jehovah is unmistakably shown from the account of the voice that cried from the burning bush: "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God."

Concerning the manifestation of Jehovah to men in angelic and human form a modern writer says: "Much has been written concerning a certain Mal'akh Yaweh (messenger of Jehovah) who appears in the Old Testament. I say 'a certain' Mal'akh Yaweh, because it is not every Mal'akh Yaweh that appears to which I refer. In most passages the Mal'akh Yaweh is simply an angel sent by the Almighty to communicate his will or purposes to men. These angels are distinctly apprehended as created intelligences, wholly separate and diverse from God. But there is a class of passages in which the Mal'akh Yaweh appears as a self-manifestation of God. He appears indeed in human form and speaks of God in the third person. But those to whom he appears are oppressed by the consciousness that they have seen God and must die. They see in him an impersonation of Deity such as is found in no other angel. He is to their minds not merely a messenger from God but the revelation of the being of God. The Christian fathers for the most part identify him with the Logos of the New Testament. But there is as much reason to adopt the opinion of many modern writers who hold that he is Jehovah himself appearing in human form, for he is explicitly addressed as Jehovah (Judges vi. 11-24)."[333]

The identity of the angel of Jehovah and of Jehovah Himself could not be more conclusively proved than in the appearance to Gideon, related in the passage above cited, Judges vi. 11-24. The absolute identity is revealed in verses 22, 23: "And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God! for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face. And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die."

Now let us suppose that Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin had received these passages favorably; that they had become convinced that Jehovah had appeared in the olden days in the form of angels and of men; that at one time He was identical with a man, and at another with an angel whom He had sent. Let us suppose further that the judges of Jesus had demanded of Him a passage of ancient Scriptures connecting Him even remotely with this messenger of God. The following passage might have been produced:

The concluding paragraph of the last cited passage, "My name is in him," is equivalent to "I am in him." The mere name of God is often used to denote God Himself as manifested. For instance, in I Kings viii. 29 is contained the statement, "My name shall be there"; that is, "There will I dwell." And when it is said that the name of Jehovah would be in the angel of Jehovah it is equivalent to saying that Jehovah Himself would be present in His messenger which He had sent before Him. The passage further teaches that the messenger of Jehovah to the earth bore a commission to pardon sin, or not to, according to his pleasure. The Sanhedrin were undoubtedly aware that Jesus claimed the same power by virtue of authority vested in Him by His Father.

But it may be imagined that Caiaphas was perfectly willing to concede that Jehovah had appeared in human form upon the earth, but was not inclined to believe that He had ever manifested human passions and emotions, as Jesus had done when He denounced on several occasions the hypocrisy of the Pharisees; and, above all, when He overthrew the tables in the Temple, and, applying a lash to their backs, drove out the money-changers.[334] Let us imagine that the high priest demanded of the prisoner proof from the ancient Scriptures that Jehovah was possessed of ordinary human attributes; and particularly that He was at times disposed to fight. Jesus might have produced the following passages to show that Jehovah, His Father, had manifested in times past the ordinary human passions and emotions of repentance, grief, jealousy, anger, graciousness, love, and hate:

And as a final step in the examination let us imagine that Caiaphas and his colleagues had stated to Jesus that they were satisfied, from the authorities cited, that Jehovah had, in ancient days, appeared upon the earth in human form and had exhibited human attributes; that Jehovah had begotten a Son who was equal in power and majesty with Himself; that this Son had been begotten of a woman and possessed, therefore, human form and attributes; that this Jehovah had sent an angel messenger to the earth with a commission to pardon sins. Let us imagine further that the judges had demanded of the prisoner that He present and prove His credentials as the divine ambassador of God from heaven to men on earth; that He conform His personal claims to heavenly Messiahship to ancient prophecy by producing evidence before them in court. What facts, we may ask, could Jesus have shown to establish His claims to Messiahship and to Sonship of the Father?

To attempt to originate a defense for Jesus would be unnecessary, if not actually impertinent and sacrilegious. We are fully justified, however, in assuming that if called upon to prove His claims to Messiahship He would have made the same reply to the Sanhedrin that He had already made to the Jews out of court who asked Him: "What sign shewest thou, then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?"[335] "How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me."[336] Again, He would have doubtless made the same reply to Caiaphas that He did to the embassy from John the Baptist who came to inquire if He was really the Messiah. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."[337]

Under a fair trial, in daylight, with full freedom of defense to the accused, abundant evidence could have been secured of the miraculous powers of Jesus and of the truthfulness of His pretensions to a divine origin. Testimony could have been introduced that would have been not only competent but entirely satisfactory. The New Testament narratives tell us of about forty miracles that Jesus performed during His life. The closing verse of St. John intimates that He performed many that were never reported. The circumstances surrounding the working of these wonders were such as to make them peculiarly competent as evidence and to carry conviction of their genuineness, when they were once introduced.

In the first place, miracles were entirely capable of being proved by testimony. If those persons who had known Lazarus intimately during his lifetime saw him dead on one day, and on the fourth day afterwards saw him alive and walking the streets, the senses would be perfectly competent to decide and the fact that a miracle had been performed would be conclusively proved. And it may be added that a dozen witnesses who were entirely competent to testify could have been summoned to the defense of Jesus in the matter of raising Lazarus from the dead.

Again, we must remember that the miracles of Jesus were performed in the most public manner, in the street, on the highway, in far-away Galilee, and at the very gates of Jerusalem. Both His friends and enemies, men and women, were witnesses of their performance. The number and publicity of these wonder-working performances rendered it possible for the Sanhedrin to call before them hundreds and thousands of competent witnesses who had seen and felt the manifestation of the divine power of the prisoner in their presence.

Again, the miracles of Jesus were such as to render them subject to the test of the senses, when submitted to examination. If Caiaphas and his fellow-judges had decided that there was fraud in the matter of the alleged raising of Lazarus from the dead, because the brother of Martha and Mary was not really dead, but simply swooned or slept; if they had decided that the man sick of the palsy was not cured by miracle, but by faith; nevertheless, they could not have charged fraud and faith cure in the matter of the stilling of the tempest or the feeding of the five thousand or the walking on the sea. They would have been forced to conclude that the witnesses had lied or that miracles had been wrought. In the case of the feeding of the five thousand, the witnesses would have been too numerous to brand with falsehood.

But, we may ask, was the performance of miracles by Jesus, if believed by the Sanhedrin, sufficient evidence of the divine origin of Jesus? This question we are not prepared to answer positively, either yes or no. We can only venture the personal opinion that the act of raising a person indisputably dead, to life again, would be an astounding miracle, an achievement that could be wrought by the hand of a God alone. The trouble with the question is that men like Elijah raised the dead.[338] It is true that there is no pretension that Elijah was divine or that he wrought the miracle by virtue of any peculiar power within himself. The Scriptures plainly state that he asked God to raise the dead to life through him. The same is true of the raising of Lazarus by Jesus.[339] But Christ seems to have raised the daughter of Jairus[340] and the son of the widow of Nain[341] from the dead by virtue of the strength of His own divinity; for there is no suggestion that the power of God was either previously invoked or subsequently acknowledged.

As to the weight which the testimony of the miracles of Jesus should have had with Caiaphas and the other members of the court, we have a valuable indication in the opinion expressed by Nicodemus, who was himself a member of the Sanhedrin, when he said to Jesus: "We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him."[342] If Nicodemus, "a ruler of the Jews" and one of the leading members of their highest tribunal, believed that Jesus was divine because of the wonders that He had wrought, why should not a knowledge of these miracles by the other members of the Sanhedrin have produced the same impression? Nicodemus, it is true, was a friend of Jesus, but he was not a disciple. And the very timidity with which he expressed his friendship, having come at night to pay his compliments to the Master, demonstrates the deep impression that the miraculous powers of the Christ had made upon him.

But the judges of Jesus were not limited to the evidence of miracles as a proof of the divinity of the prisoner in their midst. They should have weighed "in the sincerity of their conscience" the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of the prophecy contained in Micah v. 2; that He was sprung from the House of David in conformity with the teachings in Jeremiah xxiii. 5, 6; that John the Baptist was His forerunner like unto Elijah, who had come to prepare the way according to the prophecy in Malachi iii. 1; that He had begun to preach in Galilee, as foretold in Isaiah ix. 1, 2; that the scepter had departed from Judah and the lawgiver from between his feet, as prophesied in Genesis xlix. 10, which fact it was believed would herald the approach of the Messiah; that He had made His public entry into Jerusalem riding upon an ass, as foretold in Zechariah ix. 9; and that He had been betrayed into their hands by one of His own friends, in fulfillment of prophecies contained in Psalms xli. 9 and Zechariah xi. 12, 13.

This cumulative evidence, this collective proof, must have carried overwhelming conviction to the minds and the hearts of fair and impartial judges. More than one Nicodemus would have arisen to plead the cause of Jesus if this testimony had been adduced before a free-minded, open-hearted, disinterested tribunal. More than one Joseph of Arimathea would have refused assent in a hostile verdict against a prisoner in whose favor the record of fact was so pronounced.

In determining the weight that this evidence should have had in affecting the decision of the judges we must not forget that a Jewish prisoner was not required to prove his innocence. It was incumbent upon the Commonwealth of Israel to establish guilt beyond all doubt. We should also remember that the peculiar tendency of the Hebrew system of criminal procedure was in the direction of complete protection to the accused. Not reasonable doubt merely, but all doubt was resolved in his favor. It was a maxim of the Hebrew law that "the Sanhedrin was to save, not to destroy life." Pretext after pretext was sought to acquit. "The primary object of the Hebrew judicial system," says Benny, "was to render the conviction of an innocent person impossible. All the ingenuity of the Jewish legists was directed to the attainment of this end." If this generous and merciful tendency of Hebrew law had been duly observed, would not the production of the evidence above noted have resulted in the acquittal of Jesus?

But, at this point, let us return to the consideration of the real meaning of the objection urged in Point XII. The irregularity therein alleged is that the Sanhedrin paid no attention whatever to the defense of Jesus. And herein was the real error. The members of that court might have rejected as false the claims of the Nazarene to Messiahship. They might have denounced as fraudulent his pretensions to miraculous powers. They could not for this reason have been charged with judicial unfairness, if they had first heard his defense and had then "weighed it in the sincerity of their conscience." Infallibility of judgment cannot be demanded of judicial officers.

In closing the discussion of errors committed at the night trial in the palace of Caiaphas, the reader should be reminded that the twelve Points above mentioned are not exhaustive of the irregularities. Others might be mentioned. It seems that Jesus, being the accused, should not have been put under oath.[343] On the days on which capital verdicts were pronounced Hebrew judges were required to mourn and fast.[344] But there was evidently no mourning and fasting by Caiaphas and his colleagues at the time of the condemnation of Jesus. Again, there is no evidence that Antecedent Warning was properly administered. Still other errors might be noted, if a legal presumption in favor of the correctness of the record did not prevent. The irregularities which we have heretofore discussed, it is believed, exhaust all the material errors committed at the first session of the Sanhedrin. At least, no others are revealed by the Gospel records.

The Morning Session of the Sanhedrin.—About three hours after the close of the night session in the palace of Caiaphas, that is about six o'clock in the morning, the Sanhedrin reconvened in a second session. In the interval between these sittings Jesus was brutalized by His keepers. Exactly what the priests were doing we do not know. They were probably busily engaged in perfecting plans for the destruction of the prisoner in their charge.

The daylight meeting is thus reported in Matthew xxvii. 1: "When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death." In Mark xv. 1 the same session is thus recorded: "And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate."

The exact nature of this morning sitting, whether a regular trial or an informal gathering, is not certainly known. Meyer, Ellicott, and Lichtenstein maintain that this second session was nothing more than a prolongation of the night trial, perhaps with a brief recess, and that its special object was to convene for consultation concerning the carrying out of the sentence which had already been pronounced against Jesus.[345] But this view is entirely exceptional. It is maintained by the greater number of reputable authorities that the second sitting was in the nature of a second trial. The solution of the difficulty seems to turn upon the account given by St. Luke, for St. John records the details of neither the night nor the morning session. St. Luke describes a regular trial, but it is not positively known whether his account refers to the night or to the morning meeting. If his report refers to the same trial as that described in Matthew xxvi. 57-68 and in Mark xiv. 53-65, then we have only the brief notices in Matthew xxvii. 1 and in Mark xv. 1 concerning the morning session, which indicate only a very brief and informal meeting of the Sanhedrin at daybreak. On the other hand, if the report of St. Luke refers to the daylight meeting of the Sanhedrin referred to by St. Matthew and St. Mark then we have received from the third Evangelist a description of a regular trial at the second session of the Sanhedrin. Andrews has thus expressed himself very cogently concerning this matter: