Trial and Condemnation of Jesus as a Legal Question. 449
THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF JESUS AS A LEGAL QUESTION. II BY HON. EDWARD W. HATCH. BLASPHEMY was an offence so odious to the Jews that they conducted the trial in all its aspects in such a manner that the words used by the offender, constituting the crime, were not spoken by the witnesses; but fictitious words and personages were in troduced. As they could not execute under the fictitious name, they finally excluded the public, and calling the principal witness said to him, "Tell us clearly what thou hast heard;" and then the witness, naming the person, stated the words constituting the offence. Then the judges stood upon their feet and rent their garments, which were never sewn again. The second and third witnesses were not allowed to speak the words, but said, "Even I [heard] as he." The Mishna also provided that judgments in souls should not be held for the purpose of condemning, but for clearing, and this is evident from its pro visions. The Hebrew lawyers expressed the opinion that " a tribunal which con demns to death once in seven years may be called 'sanguinary.'" And Dr. Elizer said, "It deserves this appellation when ic pro nounces a like sentence once in seventy years." Rabbis Tryphon and Akiba, Jewish leaders, declared that they would not pass sentence of death. The boasted nineteenth century will search its judicial practice in vain to find such safeguards thrown around an offender as were contained in this Jewish code. Certainty in evidence, presumption of innocence, humanity in procedure, hedged it about until a false conviction was almost impossible. England may well blush with its blood-stained code of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries in comparison with such humane rules and course of procedure followed out by centuries of practice. It seems incredible that they 57
should have been utterly violated in letter and spirit upon the occasion to which we now call attention. Bear well in mind these rules while we follow the course of the pre sent trial. From the time that Je«us commenced to teach, after his temptation, it was early discovered by both Pharisees and Sadducees that his was not a religion of forms, whose ostentatious observance fulfilled the highest law; and in consequence they became ar rayed against him, and the whole record shows that they sought his life for the reason that his teaching tended to the destruction of their ceremonial religion and the power of the priesthood. Thus it was that they re fused to recognize Divine Power in his works, seeking to inculpate him by questions in a violation of law that they might find excuse to destroy him. John says, Chap. V., that they tried to slay him for directing the man healed at the pool of Bethcsda to take up his bed and walk, it being on the Sabbath. He healed the withered hand, and they held counsel with the Herodians how they might destroy him. When he ate with out washing and denounced the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, they tried to provoke him that he might say that of which they could accuse him. They also asked for a sign, not to be satisfied that Jesus was the Christ, but because by their law one who showed a sign was to be tried as a false prophet and punished by death. At the feast of the Tabernacle, as Jesus taught in the Temple, they sent officers for him; but at that time there was a division of the people concerning him, and no man dare lay hands upon him. The officers make reply to the Chief Priests and Pharisees : " Never man spake like this man." And when the Phari
