Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (843 page)

Here, immediately before he is led away, the synoptists place the remonstrance which Jesus addressed to those who had come to take him prisoner: that though, by his daily public appearance in the temple he had given the best opportunity for them to lay hands upon him, yet — a bad augury for the purity of their cause — they came to a distance to seek him with as many preparations, as against a thief? In the fourth gospel, he is made to say something similar to Annas, to whose inquiries concerning his disciples and his doctrine, he replies by referring him to the publicity of his entire agency, to his teaching in the temple and synagogue (xviii. 20 f.). Luke, as if he had gathered from both, that Jesus had said something of this kind to the high priest, and also at the time of his arrest, represents the chief priests and elders themselves as being present in the garden, and Jesus as here speaking to them in the above manner, which is certainly a mere blunder.†

^*
As Lücke, Tholuck and Olshausen, in loc.

^†
Schleiermacher, über den Lukas, s.
290.According to the two first Evangelists, all the disciples now fled. Here Mark has the special particular, that a young man with a linen cloth cast about his naked body, when he was in danger of being seized, left the linen cloth and fled naked. Apart from the industrious conjectures of ancient and even modern expositors, as to who this young man was; this information of Mark’s has been regarded as a proof of the very early origin of this gospel, on the ground that so unimportant an anecdote, and one moreover to which no name is attached, could have no interest except for those who stood in close proximity to the persons and events.* But this inference is erroneous; for the above trait gives even to us, at this remote distance of time, a vivid idea of the panic and rapid flight of the adherents of Jesus, and must therefore have been welcome to Mark, from whatever source he may have received it, or how late soever he may have written.

§
128. EXAMINATION OF JESUS BEFORE THE HIGH PRIEST.

From the place of arrest the synoptists state Jesus to have been led to the high priest, whose name, Caiaphas, is, however, only mentioned by Matthew; while John represents him as being led in the first instance to Annas, the father-in-law of the existing high priest; and only subsequently to Caiaphas (Matt. xxvi. 57 ff
.
parall. ; John xviii. 12 ff.). The important rank of Annas renders this representation of John as conceivable as the silence of the synoptists is explicable, on the ground that the ex-high priest had no power of deciding in this cause. But it is more surprising that, as must be believed from the first glance, the fourth Evangelist merely gives some details of the transaction with Annas, and appears entirely to pass by the decisive trial before the actual high priest, except that he states Jesus to have been led away to Caiaphas. There was no more ready expedient for the harmonists than the supposition, which is found e.g. in Euthymius, that John, in consistency with the supplementary character of his gospel, perserved the examination before Annas as being omitted by the synoptists, while he passed by that before Calaphas, because it was described with sufficient particularity by his predecessors.† This opinion, that John and the synoptists speak of two entirely distinct trials, has a confirmation in the fact that the tenor of the respective trials is totally different. In that which the synoptists describe, according to Matthew and Mark, the false witnesses first appear against Jesus; the high priest then asks him if he really pretends to be the Messiah, and on receiving an affirmative answer, declares him guilty of blasphemy, and worthy of death, whereupon follows maltreatment of his person. In the trial depicted by John, Jesus is merely questioned concerning his disciples and his doctrine, he appeals to the publicity of his conduct,

^*
Paulus, exeg. Handb. 3, b, s. 576.

^†
Paulus, ut sup. s. 577
;
Olshausen,
2
, s. 244.and after having been maltreated for this reply by an attendant (
u
p
h
r
e
t
h
V
)
,
is sent away without the passing of any sentence. That the fourth Evangelist should thus give no particulars concerning the trial before Caiaphas is the more surprising, since in the one before Annas, if it be this which he narrates, according to his own representation nothing was decided, and consequently the grounds for the condemnation of Jesus by the Jewish authorities, and the sentence itself, are altogether wanting in his gospel. To explain this by the supplementary object of John is to impute to him too irrational a mode of procedure; for if he omitted facts because the other Evangelists had already given them, without intimating that he did so purely for that reason, he could only reckon on introducing confusion, and entailing on himself the suspicion of having given a false narrative, He can hardly have had the opinion, that the trial before Annas was the principal one, and that therefore it was allowable to omit the other, since he reports no judgment as having been passed in the former; but if he knew the trial before Caiaphas to have been the principal one, and yet gave no more particular information concerning it, this also was a highly singular course for him to take.

Thus the very simplest view of the case seems at once to point to the attempt to discover in the account of the fourth gospel indications that it also is to be understood of the trial before Caiaphas. What affords the strongest presumption of the identity of the two trials is the identity of an incident concomitant with both, John as well as the synoptists making Peter deny Jesus during the trial detailed. It is further remarkable that after Annas has been spoken of, at v. 13, as the father-in-law of Caiaphas, there follows at V. 14, a more precise designation of Caiaphas as the author of the fatal counsel, recorded in John xi. 50, although apparently the Evangelist proceeds to narrate a trial held, not before Caiaphas, but before Annas. Moreover in the description of the trial itself, there is mention throughout of the palace and of questions from the
high priest,
a title which John nowhere else applies to Annas, but only to Caiaphas. But that in accordance with the above supposition, the Evangelist from v. 15, should be describing something which passed before Caiaphas, appears impossible from v. 24
,
for it is there first said that Annas sent Jesus to Caiaphas, so that he must until then have been before Annas. With ready thought this difficulty was first met by removing the 24th verse to the place where it was wanted, namely, after v. 13, and laying the blame of its present too late position on the negligence of transcribers.* As, however, this transposition, being destitute of any critical authority, must appear an arbitrary and violent expedient for getting rid of the difficulty, it was next tried whether the statement in v. 24
,
without being actually moved from its place, might not receive such an interpretation as to come in point of sense after v. 13; i.e., the word

^*
Thus e.g. Erasmus, in loc.
a
p
e
s
t
e
i
l
e
n
was taken as a pluperfect, and it was supposed that John intended here to supply retrospectively what he had forgotten to observe at v. 13, namely, that Annas immediately sent Jesus to Caiaphas, so that the trial just described was conducted by the latter.* As the general possibility of such an
enallage temporum
is admissible, the only question is whether it be accordant with the style of the present writer, and whether it be intimated in the context. In the latter respect it is certainly true that if nothing important had occurred in the presence of Annas, the Evangelist, in annexing to his notice of the relationship of Annas to Caiaphas the more precise designation of the latter, might be drawn on to speak without further preface of the trial before Caiaphas, and might afterwards, by way of appendix, at some resting place, as here at the close of the transactions of the high priest with Jesus, intimate the transition which he had made. An accurate Greek writer certainly in this case, if he did not use the pluperfect, would at least have made evident the explanatory reference to what had preceded, by the addition of a
g
a
r
to the aorist. Our Evangelist, however, in whom the characteristic of the Hellenistic writers to connect their propositions but loosely, in accordance with the genius of the Hebrew language, is very strongly marked, might perhaps have introduced that supplementary observation even without a particle, or, according to the ordinary reading, by
o
u
n
, which is not merely indicative that a subject is continued, but also that it is resumed.† If these considerations be held to establish that he also intended to narrate the trial before Caiaphas: it is clear from the aspect of his account taken by itself, as well as from the previous comparison with the synoptical one, that his narrative cannot be complete.

We turn, therefore, to the account of the synoptists, and among them also, namely, between the two first and the third, we find numerous divergencies. According to the former, when Jesus was brought into the palace of the high priest, the scribes and elders were already assembled, and while it was still night proceeded to hold a trial, in which first witnesses appeared, and then the high priest addressed to him the decisive question, on the answer to which the assembly declared him worthy of death (in John also the trial goes forward in the night, but there is no intimation of the presence of the great council). According to the representation of the third gospel, on the other hand, Jesus throughout the night is merely kept under guard in the high priest’s palace, and maltreated by the underlings; and when at the break of day the Sanhedrin assembles, no witnesses appear, but the high priest precipitates the sentence by the decisive question. Now, that in the depth of the night, while Judas was gone out with the guard, the members of the council should have assembled themselves for the reception of Jesus, might he regarded as improbable, and in so far, the preference might

^*
Thus Winer, N. T. Gramm., § 41, 5
;
Thuluck and Lücke, in loc.

^†
Winer, Gramm., § 57, 4.be given to the representation of the third gospel, which makes them assemble at daybreak only:
^*
were it not that Luke himself neutralizes this advantage by making the high priests and elders present at the arrest; a zeal which might well have driven them straightway to assemble for the sake of accelerating the conclusion. But in the account of Matthew and Mark also there is this singularity, that after they have narrated to us the whole trial together with the sentence, they yet (xxvii. 1 and xv. 1) say :
when the morning was come, they took counsel,
p
r
o
i
a
V
d
e
g
e
n
o
m
e
n
h
V
s
u
m
b
o
u
l
i
o
n
e
l
a
b
o
n
,
thus making it appear, if not that the members of the Sanhedrim reassembled in the morning, which could hardly be, seeing that they had been together the whole night; yet that they now first came to a definite resolution against Jesus, though, according to these same Evangelists, this had already been done in the nocturnal council. † It may be said that to the sentence of death already passed in the night, was added in the morning the resolution to deliver Jesus to Pilate: but according to the then existing state of the law, this followed as a matter of course, and needed no special resolution. That Luke and John omit the production of the false witnesses, is to be regarded as a deficiency in their narrative. For from the coincidence of John ii. 19
and Acts vi. 14 with Matthew and Mark, it is highly probably that the declaration about the destruction and rebuilding of the temple was really uttered by Jesus; while that that declaration should be used as an article of accusation against him on his trial was an almost necessary result. The absence of this weighty point in Luke, Schleiermacher explains by the circumstance, that the author of this passage in the third gospel had indeed followed the escort which conducted Jesus from the garden, but had with most others been excluded from the palace of the high priest, and consequently narrated what occurred there merely from hearsay. But, not to anticipate future points, the single trait of the cure of the servant’s ear suffices to preclude our attributing to the author of this portion of Luke’s gospel so close a proximity to the fact. It rather appears that the above declaration came to the third Evangelist under the form of an article of accusation against Stephen, instead of Jesus; while the fourth has it only as a declaration from Jesus, and not as an article of accusation against him. This subject having however necessarily come under our observation at an earlier point of our inquiry, it is needless to pursue it further here.‡