СПАР. VI. RAISING OF LAZARUS. 263 raising of Lazarus may be considered the proximate cause of the general conspiracy for his death, by throwing the popular feeling more decidedly on his side, and thereby deepening the fierce animosity of the rulers, who now saw that they had no alternative but to crush him at once, or to admit his triumph. Lazarus. We have supposed that it was at the house of Lazarus, or of his relatives, in the village of Raising of Bethany, that Jesus had passed the nights during his recent visits to Jerusalem. At some distance from the metropolis he receives information of the dangerous illness of that faithful adherent, whom he seems to have honoured with peculiar attachment. He at first assures his followers in ambiguous language of the favourable termination of the disorder; and after two days' delay, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his disciples, who feared that he was precipitately rushing, as it were, into the toils of his enemies, and who resolve to accompany him, though in acknowledged apprehension that his death was inevitable, Jesus first informs his disciples of the actual death of Lazarus, yet, nevertheless, persists in his determination of visiting Bethany. On his arrival at Bethany the dead man, who according to Jewish usage had no doubt been immediately buried, had been four days in the sepulchre. The house was full of Jews, who had come to console, according to their custom, the afflicted relatives; and the characters assigned in other parts of the history to the two sisters, are strikingly exemplified in their conduct on this mournful occasion. The more active Martha hastens to meet Jesus, laments his absence at the time of her brother's death, and, on his declaration of the resurrection of her brother, reverts only to the general resurrection of mankind, a truth embodied in a 264 ALARM OF THE SANHEDRIN. BOOK I. certain sense in the Jewish creed. So far Christ answers in language which intimates his own close connexion with that resurrection of mankind. The gentler Mary falls at the feet of Jesus, and with many tears expresses the same confidence in his power, had he been present, of averting her brother's death. So deep, however, is their reverence, that neither of them ventures the slightest word of expostulation at his delay; nor does either appear to have entertained the least hope of further relief. The tears of Jesus himself (for Jesus wept) appear to confirm the notion that the case is utterly desperate; and some of the Jews, in a less kindly spirit, begin to murmur at his apparent neglect of a friend, to whom, nevertheless, he appears so tenderly attached. It might seem that it was in the presence of some of these persons, by no means well disposed to his cause, that Jesus proceeded to the sepulchre, summoned the dead body to arise, and was obeyed. The intelligence of this inconceivable event spread with the utmost rapidity to Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin was instantly summoned, and a solemn debate commenced, finally to decide on their future proceedings towards Jesus. It had now become evident that his progress in the popular belief must be at once arrested, or the power of the Sanhedrin, the influence of the Pharisaic party, was lost for ever. With this may have mingled, in minds entirely ignorant of the real nature of the new religion, an honest and conscientious, though blind, dread of some tumult or insurrection taking place, which would give the Romans an excuse for wresting away the lingering semblance of national independence, to which they adhered with such passionate attachment. The high priesthood was now 1 CHAP. VI. DECISION OF CAIAPHAS. 265 filled by Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas or Ananus; for the Roman governors, as has been said, since the expulsion of Archelaus, either in the capricious or venal wantonness of power, or from jealousy of his authority, had perpetually deposed and reappointed this chief civil and religious magistrate of the nation. Caiaphas threw the weight of his official influence into the scale of the more decided and violent party; and endeavoured, as it were, to give an appearance of patriotism to the meditated crime, by declaring the expediency of sacrificing one life, even though innocent, for the welfare of the whole nation." His language was afterwards treasured in the memory of the Christians, as inadvertently prophetic of the more extensive benefits derived to mankind by the death of their Master. The death of Jesus was deliberately decreed; but Jesus for the present avoided the gathering storm, withdrew from the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and retired to Ephraim, on the border of Judæa, near the wild. and mountainous region which divided Judæa from Samaria.1 h John xi. 47-53. John xi. 54. 266 THE LAST PASSOVER. BOOK I. CHAPTER VII. The last Passover.-The Crucifixion. THE Passover rapidly approached; the roads from all quarters were already crowded with the assem Last Passover. bling worshippers. It is difficult for those who are ignorant of the extraordinary power which local religious reverence holds over Southern and Asiatic nations, to imagine the state of Judæa and of Jerusalem at the time of this great periodical festival. The rolling onward of countless and gathering masses of population to some of the temples in India; the caravans from all quarters of the Eastern world, which assemble at Mecca during the Holy Season; the multitudes which formerly flowed to Loreto or Rome at the great ceremonies, when the Roman Catholic religion held its unenfeebled sway over the mind of Europe-do not surpass, perhaps scarcely equal, the sudden, simultaneous confluence, not of the population of a single city, but of the whole Jewish nation, towards the capital of Judæa at the time of the Passover. Dispersed as they were throughout the world, it was not only the great mass of the inhabitants of Palestine, but many foreign Jews who thronged from every quarter-from Babylonia, from Arabia, from Egypt, • Μύριοι ἀπὸ μυρίων ὅσων πόλεων, | καὶ μεσημβρίας, καθ' εκάστην ἑορτὴν οἱ μὲν διὰ γῆς, οἱ δὲ διὰ θαλάττης, εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν καταίρουσιν. Philo, de ἐξ ἀνατολῆς καὶ δύσεως, καὶ ἄρκτου Monarch. 821. CHAP. VII. THE PASCH - ANXIETY AT JERUSALEM. 267 from Asia Minor and Greece, from Italy, probably even from Gaul and Spain. Some notion of the density and vastness of the multitude may be formed from the calculation of Josephus, who, having ascertained the number of paschal lambs sacrificed on one of these solemn occasions, which amounted to 256,500, and assigning the ordinary number to a company who could partake of the same victim, estimated the total number of the pilgrims and residents in Jerusalem at 2,700,000. Through all this concourse of the whole Jewish race, animated more or less profoundly, according to their peculiar temperament, with the same national and religious feelings, rumours about the appearance, the conduct, the pretensions, the language of Jesus, could not but have spread abroad, and be communicated with unchecked rapidity. The utmost anxiety prevails throughout the whole crowded city and its neighbourhood, to ascertain whether this new prophet-this more, perhaps, than prophet-will, as it were, confront at this solemn period the assembled nation; or, as on the last occasion, remain concealed in the remote parts of the country. The Sanhedrin are on their guard, and strict injunctions are issued that they may receive the earliest intelligence of his approach, in order that they may arrest him before He has attempted to make any impression on the multitude. Already Jesus had either crossed the Jordan, or b Or, according to Mr. Greswell's | jacent villages, compared together, seem reading, 266,500. I must confess that to me altogether irreconcileable with my general scepticism as to the num- reason and probability. Still I doubt bers in the Jewish history extends to not the fact of an uncalculated and inthis calculation. calculable concourse. The number and the space, embracing within that space all the ad • John xi. 55, 57. |