| 127. Arrest of Jesus. | ||||
IN Strict Accordance With The Declaration of Jesus that even now the betrayer is at hand, Judas while he is yet speaking approaches with an armed force (Matt. xxvi. 47 parall. comp. John xviii. 3.). This band, which according to the Synoptic came from the chief priests and elders, was according to Luke led by the captains of the temple and hence was probably a detachment of the soldiers of the temple, to whom, judging from the word oxloj, and from staves culoi being mentioned among the weapons, was apparently joined a tumultuous crowd: according to the representation of John, who, together with the servants or officers of the chief priests and Pharisees, speaks of a band speira, and a captain xiliarxoj, without mentioning any tumultuary force, it appears as if the Jewish magistrates had procured as a support a detachment of Roman soldiery. | ||||
According to the three first evangelists, Judas steps forth and kisses Jesus, in order by this preconcerted sign to indicate him to the approaching band as the individual whom they were to seize; {P.737} according to the fourth gospel, on the contrary, Jesus advances apparently out of the garden to meet them, and presents himself as the person whom they seek. In order to reconcile this divergency, some have conceived the occurrences thus: Jesus, to prevent his disciples from being taken, first went towards the multitude and made himself known; hereupon Judas stepped forth, and indicated him by the kiss. But had Jesus already made himself known, Judas might have spared the kiss; for that the people did not believe the assertion of Jesus that he was the man whom they sought, and still waited for its confirmation by the kiss of the bribed disciple, is a supposition incompatible with the statement of the fourth gospel that the words "I am he" (e)gw ei)mi) made so strong an impression on them that they went backward and fell to the ground. Hence others have inverted the order of the scene, imagining that Judas first stepped forward and distinguished Jesus by the kiss, and that then, before the crowd could press ino the garden, Jesus himself advanced and made himself known. But if Judas had already indicated him by the kiss, and he had so well understood the object of the kiss as is implied in his answer to it, Luke v. 48: there was no need for him still to make himself known, seeing that he was already made known; to do so for the protection of the disciples was equally superfluous, since he must have inferred from the traitor's kiss, that it was intended to single him out and carry him away from his followers; if he did so merely to show his courage, this was almost theatrical: while, in general, the idea that Jesus, between the kiss of Judas, and the entrance of the crowd, which was certainly immediate, advanced towards the latter with questions and answers, throws into his demeanour a degree of hurry and precipitancy, so ill suited to his circumstances, that the evangelists can scarcely have meant such an inference to be drawn. It should therefore be acknowledged that neither of the two representations is designd as a supplement to the other, since each has a different conception of the manner in which Jesus was made known, and in which Judas was active in the affair. That Judas was guide to them that took Jesus, o(dhgoj touj sullabousi ton Ihsoun (Acts i. 16), all the evangelists agree. But while according to the synoptic account the task of Judas includes not only the pointing out of the place, but also the distinguishing of the person by the kiss, John makes the agency of Judas end with the indication of the place, and represents him after the arrival on the spot as standing inactive among the crowd (v. 5). Why John does not assign to Judas the task of personally indicating Jesus, it is {P.738} easy to see: because, namely, he would have Jesus appear, not as one delivered up, but as delivering himself up, so that his sufferings may be manifested in a higher degree as undertaken voluntarily. We have only to remember how the earliest opponents of Christianity imputed the retirement of Jesus out of the city into the distant garden, as an ignominious flight from his enemies, in order to find it conceivable, that there arose among the Christians at an early period the inclination to transcend the common Gospel tradition in representing his demeanour on his arrest in the light of a voluntary self-resignation. | ||||
In the Synoptics the kiss of Judas is followed by the cutting question of Jesus to the traitor; in John, after Jesus has uttered the egw eimi (I am he,) it is stated that under the influence of these commanding words, the multitude who had come out to seize him went backward and fell to the ground, so that Jesus had to repeat his declaration and as it were encourage the people to seize him. of late it has been denied that there was any miracle here: the impression of the personality of Jesus, it is said, acted psychologically on those among the crowd who had already often seen and heard Jesus; and in support of this opinion reference is made to the examples of this kind in the life of Harms, Coligny, and others, But neither in the synoptic account, according to which there needed the indication of Jesus by the kiss, nor in that of John, according to which there needed the declaration of Jesus, I am he, does Jesus appear to be known to the crowd, at least in such a manner as to exercise any profound inflence over them; while the above examples only show that sometimes the powerful impression of a man's personality has paralyzed the murderous hands of an individual or of a few, but not that a whole detachment of civil officers and soldiers has been made, not merely to draw back, but to fall to the ground. It .answers no purpose for L cke to make first a few fall down and then the whole crowd, except that of rendering it impossible to imagine the scene with gravity. Hence we turn to the old theologians, who here unanimously acknowledge a miracle. The Christ who by a word of his mouth cast down the hostile multitude, is no other than he who according to 2 Thess. ii. 8, shall consume the Antichrist with the spirit of his mouth, i.e. not the historical {P.739} Jesus, but the Christ of the Jewish and primitive Christian imagination. The author of the fourth gospel especially, who had so often remarked how the enemies of Jesus and their creatures were unable to lay hands on him, because his hour was not yet come (vii. 30. 32. 44 fF. viii. 20), had an inducement, now, when the hour was come, to represent the ultimately successful attempt as also failing at the first in a thoroughly astounding manner; especially as this fully accorded with the interest by which he is governed throughout the description of this whole scene the demonstrating that the capture of Jesus was purely an act of his own free will. When Jesus lays the soldiers prostrate by the power of his word, he gives them a proof of what he could do, if to liberate himself were his object; and when he allows himself to be seized immediately after, this appears as the most purely voluntary self-sacrifice. Thus in the fourth gospel Jesus gives a practical proof of that power, which in the first he only expresses by words, when he says to one of his disciples: "Do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me twelve legions of angels?" (v. 53) | ||||
After this, the author of the fourth gospel very inappropriately holds up the solicitude which Jesus manifested that his disciples should not be taken captive with him, as a fulfilment of the declaration of Jesus (xvii. 12), that he had lost none of those intrusted to him by the Father; a declaration which was previously more suitably referred to the spiritual preservation of his disciples. As the next feature in the scene, all the evangelists agree, that when the soldiers began to lay hands on Jesus, one of his disciples drew his sword, and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant, an act which met with a reproof from Jesus. Still Luke and John have eack a peculiar trait. Not to mention that both particularize the ear as the light ear, while their two predecessors had left this point undetermined; the latter not only gives the name of the wounded servant, but states that the disciple who wounded him was Peter. Why the Synoptics do not name Peter, it has been sought to explain in different ways. The spposition that they wished to avoid compromising the apostle, who at the time of the composition of their Gospels was yet living, belongs to the justly exploded fictions of an exegesis framed on the false principle of supplying conjectu-rally all those links in the chain of natural causation which are wanting in the Gospels. That these evangelists elsewhere for the most part omit names, is too sweeping an accusation as regards Matthew, though he does indeed leave unnamed indifferent persons, such as Jairus, or Bartimaeus; but that the real Matthew, or even the common Gospel tradition, thus early and generally should have lost the name from an story of Peter, so thoroughly accordant with the part played by this apostle, can scarcely be considered very probable. To me, the reverse would be much more conceivable, namely, that the story was originally current with- {P.740} out the mention of any name, (and why should not a less distinguished adherent of Jesus-for from the Synoptics it is not necessarily to be inferred that it was one of the twelve-whose name was therefore the more readily forgotten, have had courage and rashness enough to draw his sword at that crisis?) but a later narrator thought such a mode of conduct particularly suited to the impetuous character of Peter, and hence ascribed it to him by a combination of his own. On this supposition, we need not appeal, in support of the possibility that John could know the servant's name, to his acquaintance with the household of the high priest, any more than to a peculiar acquaintance of Mark with some inhabitants of Jericho, in explanation of his obtaining the name of the blind man. | ||||
The distinctive trait in Luke's account of this particular is, that Jesus heals the servant's ear, apparently by a miracle. Olshausen here makes the complacent remark, that this circumstance best explains how Peter could escape uninjured-astonishment at the cure absorbed the general attention: while according to Paulus, Jesus by touching the wounded ear only meant to examine it, and then told what must be done for the purpose of healing had he cured it by a miracle there must have been some notice of the astonishment of the spectators. Such pains-taking interpretations are here especially needless, since the fact that Luke stands alone in giving the trait in question, together with the whole tenor of the scene, tells us plainly enough what opinion we are to form on the subject. Should Jesus, who had removed by his miraculous power so much suffering of which he was innocent, leave uncured suffering which one of his disciples out of attachment to him, and thus indirectly he himslf, had caused? This must soon have been found inconceivable, and hence to the stroke of the sword of Peter was united a miraculous cure on the part of Jesus the last in the Gospel history. | ||||
Here, immediately before he is led away, the Synoptics 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 similai 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. {P.741} 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 story, 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. | ||||