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nations, has been held to be an expression of the utmost contempt and abhorrence. The persons who inflicted this and other indignities were probably the officers and creatures of the sanhedrim, then in attendance, to whose rudeness he was surrendered as soon as the sentence of guilty had been pronounced.

Buffeted him; and others smote, &c.— Κολαφίζειν signifies to smite with clenched fist; page, to strike with the palm of the hand. And to blows, no doubt severe, they added derision of his prophetic character; for, having blindfolded him, they said, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is it that smote thee? Such is the first affecting scene of our Lord's humiliation and passion; and yet in these minor circumstances of contumely and insult, with what astonishing particularity were the words of prophecy fulfilled, and that by the perfect free-agency of these violent men.! "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting."

Verse 69. Peter sat without in the palace. In the avλn, or open interior court, which is said by Mark to be “beneath;" so that the vestibule, Tvλwv, in which the sanhedrim had assembled, was somewhat elevated; and what was transacted there was probably visible to those in the court. The three first evangelists give the denials of Peter in a continuous narrative, which, as being distinct from, though contemporaneous with, the trial of our Lord, was a matter of indifference. It

was also, as Macknight observes, optional whether it was related before or after our Lord's trial. The two first evangelists narrate it after, St. Luke before; but "St. John has preserved the exact order of the proceedings, beginning with the first denial, which happened immediately after Peter entered the court of the high priest's house, then giving the history of the trial as the principal fact, and concluding with the subsequent denials.”

Verse 69. A damsel came to him.-This female servant was the portress of the gate, the same who had let in Peter, through the intercession of John, who was already in the court: this circumstance probably made the woman conIclude that Peter as well as John was a disciple of Christ; for if John obtained admission, he was "known to the high priest," John xviii. 15; and it could scarcely be unknown that for several years he had been in attendance upon Christ. St. Matthew makes the damsel directly charge Peter with being a disciple: St. John speaks interrogatively; but the interrogation there, is not to be understood as used for inquiry, but as a stronger mode of putting an affirmation.

Verse 70. Denied before all-Before all the officers of justice, and others, who were in the court, and that in the most explicit manner; I know not what thou sayest, being a common form of denying any knowledge of a fact or person. The publicity of this denial was a great aggravation of Peter's sin.

Verse 71. And when he was gone out

man.

73 And after a while came and said to Peter, Surely thou speech bewrayeth thee.

into the porch.-The porch, Tuλwv, was the vestibule or hall in which the trial of our Lord was conducted, and opened into the interior court in which Peter was, at the fire, with the servants. In this place and company he still was at his second denial, John xviii. 25; and St. Matthew's words, εξελθοντα δε αυτόν εις τον πυλωνα, είδεν αυτον αλλη, may indicate no more than, that he was in the act of going, or gave indications of his intention to go, into the hall where the court sat, when a second maid challenged him with being a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. From Peter's reply, as recorded by St. Luke, "MAN, I am not," it may be presumed that the maid's challenge was taken up by the by-standers, in whose presence it was made, and to whom the information was indeed given, and by one of the men it was pressed more eagerly than the rest, and to him therefore Peter's denial of the maid's allegation was directed. This denial was, however, accompanied by an oath he denied μe оркoυ, thinking, no doubt, that a second accusation needed to be rebutted by a solemn appeal to hea

ven ;

his fears and a carnal policy hiding, for the moment, from his conscience the enormity of the foul crime of a direct perjury.

Verse 73. They that stood by.-Peter, according to St. Matthew and St. Mark, was the third time charged with being a follower of Jesus, by those "that stood by;" but as all did not probably speak at once, but having observed, no doubt, something peculiar in Peter's manner, as was natural, considering his circumstances, they prosecuted their scrutiny into the strongly suspected fact, by put ting one forward to urge their suspicions upon him. St. Luke therefore relates generally, that another man now charged him; and St. John, with greater particu

unto him they that stood by, also art one of them; for thy

larity, tells us, that this man was the kinsınan of Malchus, whose ear Peter had cut off. From St. Luke we learn that about an hour elapsed between Peter's second and third denial: yet that space had not brought him to any due sense of the great fault which he had committed; for he now began to curse and to swear, I know not the man. The charge had indeed been brought so close to him, that he probably thought that only the most desperate course could extricate him from present danger, the fear of which absorbed every other consideration. What indeed could he say?"Truly thou art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee;" his most intimate followers are known to be Galileans, and thy speech shows that thou art a Galilean; and besides, did I not see thee in the garden with him?- -a shrewd hint that he suspected him to be the man who had cut off the ear of his relative; and this no doubt increased Peter's terror. Thus was this once bold but frail man placed in circumstances in which he must take the risk of suffering and dying with his Lord, or of sinning in a high and almost desperate degree. He failed again in the trial; for no man gains strength to resist greater evils by complying with the lesser, but is, on the contrary, the more powerfully disposed to add one offence to another. On the first charge he simply though explicitly denies; on the second, he appeals by an oath to God; on the third, he adds violent and gross profaneness to perjury: Then began he to curse and to swear, to accompany his appeals to God, with imprecations upon himself if he spoke falsely, when he declared, I know not the man. Καταναθεματίζειν is to declare any one to be κaтavaleμa, accursed, and execrable, and therefore liable to the greatest punishments in this and the fu

ture world; and when used of a man's own self, is, under some condition, to imprecate the divine vengeance upon himself. Many мss. read катabeμatiče, but the sense shows that a mistake must have occurred in transcription; for the softer import of this word not only does not agree with the swearing which is also ascribed to him, but is contrary to Mark xiv. 71 : “ But he began αναθεματίζειν και oμvve, to curse and to swear;" as in the text, only without the intensive kaтa. Ouvve is to swear by the name of God. So deep and shameful was the fall of Peter! It is recorded by all the evangelists; and is both a striking proof of their integrity, and a lasting admonition to all to beware of the two fatal evils, self-confidence and unwatchfulness. "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall."

Thy speech bewrayeth thee.—Bewray is an old English word which signifies to reveal or discover. Thus Spenser :

"Man by nothing is so well bewrayed
As by his manners."

not careful of their language." Peter was therefore known to be a Galilean by his style and pronunciation, just as the men of Ephraim were detected by the testword Shibboleth.

Verse 74. And immediately the cock crew. -And at the fulfilment of this signal, we learn from St. Luke, that "the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." The interior of the vestibule or hall in which our Lord was enduring his trial was within view of those who were in the court, so distant that they could not hear distinctly what was said, but near enough for our Lord to convey by his look to Peter that he KNEW what had occurred, that he FELT that he had committed the sin against which he had warned him, and to fix his attention upon the crowing of the cock as the accomplishment of his predic

tion. This was the last cock-crow, or about three in the morning.

Verse 75. And he went out, &c.-Overwhelmed by remorse and shame, he left the place, going out of the court, probably into some secret place, and wept bitterly ; the depth of his sorrow, and the abun dance of his tears, poured forth from a truly broken and a contrite spirit, answering to the greatness of his offence. St. Mark has expressed this with inimitable pathos and simplicity: "And when Hr THOUGHT THEREON, he wept." See note on Mark xiv. 72.

a

CHAPTER XXVII. Verse 1. Took counsel to put him to death.-They had already pronounced him "guilty of death," and now they take counsel to carry the sentence into effect. In this two things were to be effected: one was to obtain the confirmation of their sentence from Pilate; the other, so to mix up charges of seditious designs against the Roman power, with the pretended offence against their religion, as to engage the Roman governor to take his execution upon himself, and to carry it into effect in the Roman mode by crucifixion. See note on chap. xxvi. 66.

Verse 2. Pontius Pilate the governor.— Pilate has here the title of nyeuwv, which properly belonged to the proconsular or proprætorian governors of the Roman provinces; because, though only procurator of Judea, which was an inferior dignity, he had the proconsular power of life and death, which was not unusual in the lesser provinces. Hence, although Josephus calls him εTроTоs, or procurator, he sometimes gives him the higher title also, and thus confirms the accuracy of the evangelist.

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c.-This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his con.

science that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved, that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;" it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the WOE was upon him, the woe of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled, as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the pur

chase of a field, and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord, and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as all other the most moving scenes. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refuse to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life, and bear the light of offended heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose, as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to

:

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c.-The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, kopẞavar, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord's words, "Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel," purcha sing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place; but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if "the hire of a harlot," Deut. xxiii. 18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling providence, to purchase "the