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The Green Bug.
the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father : for which of these works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy, and because that thou being a man makest thy self God." In the reply to this statement of the Jews it is noticeable that Jesus makes no attempt at denial of the fact that he claimed to be the Son of God, but justified this claim, as he said : " Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came . . . say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works : that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him." This reply called their attention to the Jews' scriptural law as it appeared in the Eighty-second Psalm : " I have said, Ye are gods : and all of you are children of the Most High." And its evident object was to show that God had designated his people to whom the Scriptures came as gods, and that the Jews were inconsistent in charging him with blasphemy, when he but used the same title, inasmuch as his claim was substantiated and upheld by the character of his works, which indicated the intervention of super human power, and should convey to their minds that God was in him. " Believe the works, that ye may know . . . that the Father is in me, and I in him." From these accounts it is evident that the conclu sion may be drawn, and so far as the Jews, honestly rejecting the divine mission and character of Jesus, acting under their law as interpreted by the Rabbins, were warranted in drawing the conclusion, that Jesus claimed to be God, and was therefore guilty of the offence of which he was accused. Thus far two facts are disclosed. There was by Jew ish law the crime of blasphemy; its punish
ment was death. In the character of a citizen Jesus had offended. We now come to a most interesting phase in the history of this momentous tragedy. Upon the basis now established we may decree guilt. But such decree may not be pronounced, or be executed arbitrarily, in the case of guilt, any more than in the case of innocence. When it rests for its sanction upon power and that alone, it becomes murder; and judicial murder is the most hor rible that can be committed. Nor need we invoke the aid of modern authority in sup port of this statement; for, as we shall see, under the administration of law by the Jewish Theocracy as it existed when Jesus lived and died, no modern judicial tribunal has ever thrown its protecting arm over accused persons with such exacting care and such scrupulous, rigid adherence to form. At the coming of Jesus, Judaea was a conquered province, under the domination of Rome, which still left to them their religious worship and jurisdiction of offences committed against their laws. The governing power was a Hierocracy, composed of a High Priest, as sociated with him seventy other priests : this was called the Great Sanhedrim, or Synhedrion, and was the Municipal Council of Jerusalem. It is with this body that we have to do. No tribunal has ever existed, and in all human probability none ever will exist, to whose hands shall come such a momentous task. It is fraught with awful interest, for it was the tribunal that tried and sentenced to death the Saviour of the world. The Sanhedrim had unlimited jurisdiction in the trial and sentence of offenders, but it had no authority to execute in a capital case until authorized by the Roman Procurators. This last is denied by many respectable authorities as to religious offences, but it was asserted by the Jews as applicable to Jesus. There were three well-authenticated tribunals of the Jews: one composed of three judges, who had jurisdiction over the recovery of debts, damages, beating, robbery and slander, which did not include the judgment of souls; one
