after one in the morning, or the first hour of the third watch.

XIII. With regard to the subsequent events, the supplementary character of St. John's Gospel enables us to arrange them as follows. First, upon the approach of the band, our Lord issued from the garden for the purpose specified by that Evangelist; and those particulars ensued, including the prostration of the band, which are recorded John xviii. 3-9. The provision of lamps and torches, which is mentioned by St. John alone, might be no excess of precaution even in a moonlight night, especially two days before the full; but due to various conceivable reasons, which it is not necessary to specify.

Secondly, the supernatural impression produced, both upon the band and on their conductor, by the appearance and the address of Jesus, being now removed; the accounts of the other Evangelists may come in to fill up a perceptible hiatus in St. John's. For it is clear that at this moment, though he does not mention the fact, our Lord must have been arrested, or some attempt made to arrest him; if Simon Peter now drew his sword, (a fact which he does mention,) and began to offer resistance. At this point of time, then, the preconcerted signal, by which Jesus was to be recognised, might take place in Judas' stepping up to and kissing him; and if our Lord's address to him, in consequence of this act, is differently represented in St. Matthew and in St. Luke, respectively, the difference may be accounted for by supposing it to have been really made up of both : Ἰούδα, ἑταῖρε, ἐφ ̓ ᾧ πάρει ; φιλήματι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδως; The recognition of Jesus would be followed directly by the seizure of his person; and the seizure of his person

by the attempted resistance of Peter; whose possession of a páxaupa, or sword, is critically explained by Luke xxii. 8. and 38: the owner of the other sword being probably St. John.

The suppression of the name of Peter, in the three former accounts, may be attributed to the circumstance of his being alive when they were written; which would be an argument that none of these Gospels was later than the eleventh of Nero, which was probably the time when he suffered and its mention by St.John we may attribute to the circumstance of his being dead when St. John's Gospel was written; a conclusion, which is suggested also by John xxi. 19. The name of the wounded servant, likewise omitted by them, is similarly supplied by him; but in return he omits, what they had mentioned, the fact of his immediate cure: a miracle, which proved so strikingly the prudence and composure of our Lord on this trying occasion. The rest of the narrative of the present transaction; comprehending what Jesus said to Peter and to the multitude, before the cure of Malchus, what to the members of the Sanhedrim, or their confidential officers, who conducted the band, down to the time of the desertion and the dispersion of all the Apostles, except Peter and John who still followed him afar off: is easily to be reconciled together, as the Harmony will shew. The last fact in particular, as having been distinctly recorded by St. Matthew and by St. Mark, and yet as not creditable to the disciples themselves, St. Luke, with a becoming regard to their honour, does not unnecessarily repeat and the anecdote, over and above all this, concerning the young man whose seizure and escape are next mentioned by St. Mark, and are peculiar to his Gospel, we have considered and endeavoured to explain

elsewhere. And now the apprehension of our Lord being complete, the subject-matter of the first division expires here.

The second division extends from Matthew xxvi. 57-xxvii. 2, from Mark xiv. 53-xv. 1, from Luke xxii. 54-xxiii. 1, and from John xviii. 12-28, all inclusive. The difficulties, if there are any, which belong to it regard exclusively the order of the examinations of Jesus, and the times of the denials of Peter. To consider each of these questions in its turn.

The first thing done with our Lord, as we learn from St. John, was to conduct him to the house of Annas; partly, perhaps, because in proceeding to the palace of the high priest, it might be necessary to pass by the house of Annas: for that palace, being somewhere contiguous to the temple, was probably situated in the northern division of the city; whereas the mount of Olives lay to the east*: partly because he was the father-in-law of the high priest himself: and partly and principally because he was also his vicar, the next in dignity to him, and the vice-president of the Sanhedrim. In doing this, however, from whatsoever motive, it seems certain that the band acted of their own accord, and not in obedience to any orders before received for, according to John xviii. 24, (a notice parenthetically inserted, and to be taken in conjunction

*The exact site of the temple, according to Josephus' account, Bell. v. iv. 3. and v. seems to have been the north-eastern angle of the city wall, standing in that situation opposite to the Psephine tower on the northwest. The palace of the high

priest was most probably somewhere in the same division, between these two; though the modern delineations of Jerusalem exhibit it in a much different situation; viz. in the quarter called Mount Sion, to the southwest.

h Dissertation ii. Vol. i. 99.

with verse 13, in order to explain what follows from verse 15-where the scene is evidently placed in the palace of Caiaphas itself,) our Lord was directly consigned, still bound and without any examination, to the high priest, as to the proper authority before whom his trial was to take place. With the arrival at the palace of the high priest, St. John's account begins to be so far joined by the rest; but the history of our Lord's examinations is still distinct in each: and if St. Matthew's and St. Mark's be both reckoned an account of one and the same examination, there are three such examinations on record in all.

I. An examination before Caiaphas, and Caiaphas alone, when Jesus was first brought in, and the assembling of any part of the Sanhedrim besides had not yet taken place; which will be peculiar to St. John: a supposition by no means improbable; first, from the hour when he would be brought in, which we shall see by and by was not later than two in the morning at the utmost secondly, from the uncertainty respecting the time of his apprehension which must have preceded; in consequence of which the Sanhedrim, though they might be got together either wholly or in part after the event, could not have been ready assembled at any particular hour, in the palace of the high priest, expecting it: thirdly, from the demeanour of our Lord himself; who answers the questions of the high priest now, but declines to answer them on the next occasion; for that may justly imply that he knew himself not to be put formally on his trial now, as he certainly was then: fourthly, from the nature of the examination itself, which was purely preliminary, turning upon two points only, our Lord's doctrine and his disciples: or, as these topics were never alluded to again, being designed for the gratification of the private cu

riosity of the high priest himself: fifthly, from the supplementary character of St. John's Gospel throughout, and especially in this part of his narrative, where nothing is recorded in detail by him which had not been passed over by the rest. It follows, therefore, that the insult also, now offered to our Saviour, as related at verse 22, though it might be the first of its kind, was yet a different incident from any thing like it which transpired afterwards.

II. An examination, about one hour, as I shall shew hereafter, if not somewhat more, later than the former, recorded by St Matthew and St. Mark; whose account of it is in every circumstance the same. This was an examination before the Sanhedrim; as might be inferred even from the circumstance that it is the only examination which these two Evangelists record, before the delivery up of our Saviour to Pilate: for, Our Law, say the Jews to the high priest Hyrcanus i, forbids even a malefactor to be put to death, who has not been previously condemned by the Sanhedrim. Some examination, then, of our Lord by the Sanhedrim, before his condemnation and much more his execution, was necessarily to be expected: which examination, as far as regards St. Matthew or St. Mark, must be either this present one, or none. It is strongly implied by Mark xiv. 53, that the council had been convoked and came together, posterior to the arrival of Jesus; and the place in which they assembled was certainly the palace of the high priest, whither Jesus had been first conducted. Nor is this at variance with Matt. xxvi. 57: for though they were not actually collected when our Lord first came in, the assertion would still be true if they were got together before the ensuing examination itself. The interval of an hour, or somei Jos. Ant. Jud. xiv. ix. 3. ̧