The Life of Jesus Part 33

CHAPTER XXIII.

LAST WEEK OF JESUS.

Jesus did in fact set out with his disciples to see once more, and for the last time, the unbelieving city. The hopes of his companions were more and more exalted. All believed, in going up to Jerusalem, that the kingdom of G.o.d was about to be realized there.[1] The impiety of men being at its height, was regarded as a great sign that the consummation was at hand. The persuasion in this respect was such, that they already disputed for precedence in the kingdom.[2] This was, it is said, the moment chosen by Salome to ask, on behalf of her sons, the two seats on the right and left of the Son of man.[3] The Master, on the other hand, was beset by grave thoughts. Sometimes he allowed a gloomy resentment against his enemies to appear; he related the parable of a n.o.bleman, who went to take possession of a kingdom in a far country; but no sooner had he gone than his fellow-citizens wished to get rid of him. The king returned, and commanded those who had conspired against him to be brought before him, and had them all put to death.[4] At other times he summarily destroyed the illusions of the disciples. As they marched along the stony roads to the north of Jerusalem, Jesus pensively preceded the group of his companions. All regarded him in silence, experiencing a feeling of fear, and not daring to interrogate him. Already, on various occasions, he had spoken to them of his future sufferings, and they had listened to him reluctantly.[5] Jesus at last spoke to them, and no longer concealing his presentiments, discoursed to them of his approaching end.[6] There was great sadness in the whole company. The disciples were expecting soon to see the sign appear in the clouds. The inaugural cry of the kingdom of G.o.d: "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,"[7] resounded already in joyous accents in their ears. The fearful prospect he foreshadowed, troubled them. At each step of the fatal road, the kingdom of G.o.d became nearer or more remote in the mirage of their dreams. As to Jesus, he became confirmed in the idea that he was about to die, but that his death would save the world.[8]

The misunderstanding between him and his disciples became greater each moment.

[Footnote 1: Luke xix. 11.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 24, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Luke xix. 12-27.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xvi. 21, and following; Mark viii. 31, and following.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. xx. 17, and following; Mark x. 31, and following; Luke xviii. 31, and following.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. xxiii. 39; Luke xiii. 35.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. xx. 28.]

The custom was to come to Jerusalem several days before the Pa.s.sover, in order to prepare for it. Jesus arrived late, and at one time his enemies thought they were frustrated in their hope of seizing him.[1]

The sixth day before the feast (Sat.u.r.day, 8th of Nisan, equal to the 28th March[2]) he at last reached Bethany. He entered, according to his custom, the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, or of Simon the leper. They gave him a great reception. There was a dinner at Simon the leper's,[3] where many persons were a.s.sembled, drawn thither by the desire of seeing him, and also of seeing Lazarus, of whom for some time so many things had been related. Lazarus was seated at the table, and attracted much attention. Martha served, according to her custom.[4] It seems that they sought, by an increased show of respect, to overcome the coolness of the public, and to a.s.sert the high dignity of their guest. Mary, in order to give to the event a more festive appearance, entered during dinner, bearing a vase of perfume which she poured upon the feet of Jesus. She afterward broke the vase, according to an ancient custom by which the vessel that had been employed in the entertainment of a stranger of distinction was broken.[5] Then, to testify her wors.h.i.+p in an extraordinary manner, she prostrated herself at the feet of her Master and wiped them with her long hair.[6] All the house was filled with the odor of the perfume, to the great delight of every one except the avaricious Judas of Kerioth.

Considering the economical habits of the community, this was certainly prodigality. The greedy treasurer calculated immediately how much the perfume might have been sold for, and what it would have realized for the poor. This not very affectionate feeling, which seemed to place something above Jesus, dissatisfied him. He liked to be honored, for honors served his aim and established his t.i.tle of Son of David.

Therefore, when they spoke to him of the poor, he replied rather sharply: "Ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always." And, exalting himself, he promised immortality to the woman who in this critical moment gave him a token of love.[7]

[Footnote 1: John xi. 56.]

[Footnote 2: The Pa.s.sover was celebrated on the 14th of Nisan. Now in the year 33, the 1st of Nisan corresponded with Sat.u.r.day, 21st of March.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3. Cf. Luke vii. 40, 43, 44.]

[Footnote 4: It is customary, in the East, for a person who is attached to any one by a tie of affection or of domesticity, to attend upon him when he goes to eat at the house of another.]

[Footnote 5: I have seen this custom still practised at Sour (Zoar.)]

[Footnote 6: We must remember that the feet of the guests were not, as amongst us, concealed under the table, but extended on a level with the body on the divan, or _triclinium_.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvi. 6, and following; Mark xiv. 3, and following; John xi. 2, xii. 2, and following. Compare Luke vii. 36, and following.]

The next day (Sunday, 9th of Nisan), Jesus descended from Bethany to Jerusalem.[1] When, at a bend of the road, upon the summit of the Mount of Olives, he saw the city spread before him, it is said he wept over it, and addressed to it a last appeal.[2] At the base of the mountain, at some steps from the gate, on entering the neighboring portion of the eastern wall of the city, which was called _Bethphage_, no doubt on account of the fig-trees with which it was planted,[3] he had experienced a momentary pleasure.[4] His arrival was noised abroad. The Galileans who had come to the feast were highly elated, and prepared a little triumph for him. An a.s.s was brought to him, followed, according to custom, by its colt. The Galileans spread their finest garments upon the back of this humble animal as saddle-cloths, and seated him thereon. Others, however, spread their garments upon the road, and strewed it with green branches. The mult.i.tude which preceded and followed him, carrying palms, cried: "Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" Some persons even gave him the t.i.tle of king of Israel.[5] "Master, rebuke thy disciples," said the Pharisees to him. "If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out," replied Jesus, and he entered into the city. The Hierosolymites, who scarcely knew him, asked who he was. "It is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, in Galilee,"

was the reply. Jerusalem was a city of about 50,000 souls.[6] A trifling event, such as the entrance of a stranger, however little celebrated, or the arrival of a band of provincials, or a movement of people to the avenues of the city, could not fail, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, to be quickly noised about. But at the time of the feast, the confusion was extreme.[7] Jerusalem at these times was taken possession of by strangers. It was amongst the latter that the excitement appears to have been most lively. Some proselytes, speaking Greek, who had come to the feast, had their curiosity piqued, and wished to see Jesus. They addressed themselves to his disciples;[8]

but we do not know the result of the interview. Jesus, according to his custom, went to pa.s.s the night at his beloved village of Bethany.[9] The three following days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) he descended regularly to Jerusalem; and, after the setting of the sun, he returned either to Bethany, or to the farms on the western side of the Mount of Olives, where he had many friends.[10]

[Footnote 1: John xii. 12.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xix. 41, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Menachoth_, xi. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 14 _b_; _Pesachim_, 63 _b_, 91 _a_; _Sota_, 45 _a_; _Baba metsia_, 85 _a_. It follows from these pa.s.sages that Bethphage was a kind of _pomaerium_, which extended to the foot of the eastern bas.e.m.e.nt of the temple, and which had itself its wall of inclosure. The pa.s.sages Matt.

xxi. 1, Mark xi. 1, Luke xix. 29, do not plainly imply that Bethphage was a village, as Eusebius and St. Jerome have supposed.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 1, and following; Mark xi. 1, and following; Luke xix. 29, and following; John xii. 12, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 38; John xii. 13.]

[Footnote 6: The number of 120,000, given by Hecataeus (in Josephus, _Contra Apion_, I. xxii.), appears exaggerated. Cicero speaks of Jerusalem as of a paltry little town (_Ad Attic.u.m_, II. ix.) The ancient boundaries, whichever calculation we adopt, do not allow of a population quadruple of that of the present time, which does not reach 15,000. See Robinson, _Bibl. Res._, i. 421, 422 (2d edition); Fergusson, _Topogr. of Jerus._, p. 51; Forster, _Syria and Palestine_, p. 82.]

[Footnote 7: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 3, VI. ix. 3.]

[Footnote 8: John xii. 20, and following.]

[Footnote 9: Matt. xxi. 17; Mark xi. 11.]

[Footnote 10: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12, 19; Luke xxi. 37, 38.]

A deep melancholy appears, during these last days, to have filled the soul of Jesus, who was generally so joyous and serene. All the narratives agree in relating that, before his arrest, he underwent a short experience of doubt and trouble; a kind of antic.i.p.ated agony.

According to some, he suddenly exclaimed, "Now is my soul troubled. O Father, save me from this hour."[1] It was believed that a voice from heaven was heard at this moment: others said that an angel came to console him.[2] According to one widely spread version, the incident took place in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus, it was said, went about a stone's throw from his sleeping disciples, taking with him only Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and fell on his face and prayed.

His soul was sad even unto death; a terrible anguish weighed upon him; but resignation to the divine will sustained him.[3] This scene, owing to the instinctive art which regulated the compilation of the synoptics, and often led them in the arrangement of the narrative to study adaptability and effect, has been given as occurring on the last night of the life of Jesus, and at the precise moment of his arrest.

If this version were the true one, we should scarcely understand why John, who had been the intimate witness of so touching an episode, should not mention it in the very circ.u.mstantial narrative which he has furnished of the evening of the Thursday.[4] All that we can safely say is, that, during his last days, the enormous weight of the mission he had accepted pressed cruelly upon Jesus. Human nature a.s.serted itself for a time. Perhaps he began to hesitate about his work. Terror and doubt took possession of him, and threw him into a state of exhaustion worse than death. He who has sacrificed his repose, and the legitimate rewards of life, to a great idea, always experiences a feeling of revulsion when the image of death presents itself to him for the first time, and seeks to persuade him that all has been in vain. Perhaps some of those touching reminiscences which the strongest souls preserve, and which at times pierce like a sword, came upon him at this moment. Did he remember the clear fountains of Galilee where he was wont to refresh himself; the vine and the fig-tree under which he had reposed, and the young maidens who, perhaps, would have consented to love him? Did he curse the hard destiny which had denied him the joys conceded to all others? Did he regret his too lofty nature, and, victim of his greatness, did he mourn that he had not remained a simple artisan of Nazareth? We know not. For all these internal troubles evidently were a sealed letter to his disciples. They understood nothing of them, and supplied by simple conjectures that which in the great soul of their Master was obscure to them. It is certain, at least, that his divine nature soon regained the supremacy. He might still have avoided death; but he would not.

Love for his work sustained him. He was willing to drink the cup to the dregs. Henceforth we behold Jesus entirely himself; his character unclouded. The subtleties of the polemic, the credulity of the thaumaturgus and of the exorcist, are forgotten. There remains only the incomparable hero of the Pa.s.sion, the founder of the rights of free conscience, and the complete model which all suffering souls will contemplate in order to fortify and console themselves.

[Footnote 1: John xii. 27, and following. We can easily imagine that the exalted tone of John, and his exclusive preoccupation with the divine character of Jesus, may have effaced from the narrative the circ.u.mstances of natural weakness related by the synoptics.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 43; John xii. 28, 29.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 36, and following; Mark xiv. 32, and following; Luke xxii. 39, and following.]

[Footnote 4: This is the less to be understood, as John is affectedly particular in noticing the circ.u.mstances which were personal to him, or of which he had been the only witness (xiii. 23, and following, xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, and following, 35, xx. 2, and following, xxi. 20, and following.)]

The triumph of Bethphage--that bold act of the provincials in celebrating at the very gates of Jerusalem the advent of their Messiah-King--completed the exasperation of the Pharisees and the aristocracy of the temple. A new council was held on the Wednesday (12th of Nisan) in the house of Joseph Kaapha.[1] The immediate arrest of Jesus was resolved upon. A great idea of order and of conservative policy governed all their plans. The desire was to avoid a scene. As the feast of the Pa.s.sover, which commenced that year on the Friday evening, was a time of bustle and excitement, it was resolved to antic.i.p.ate it. Jesus being popular,[2] they feared an outbreak; the arrest was therefore fixed for the next day, Thursday.

It was resolved, also, not to seize him in the temple, where he came every day,[3] but to observe his habits, in order to seize him in some retired place. The agents of the priests sounded his disciples, hoping to obtain useful information from their weakness or their simplicity.

They found what they sought in Judas of Kerioth. This wretch, actuated by motives impossible to explain, betrayed his Master, gave all the necessary information, and even undertook himself (although such an excess of vileness is scarcely credible) to guide the troop which was to effect his arrest. The remembrance of horror which the folly or the wickedness of this man has left in the Christian tradition has doubtless given rise to some exaggeration on this point. Judas, until then, had been a disciple like the others; he had even the t.i.tle of apostle; and he had performed miracles and driven out demons. Legend, which always uses strong and decisive language, describes the occupants of the little supper-room as eleven saints and one reprobate. Reality does not proceed by such absolute categories.

Avarice, which the synoptics give as the motive of the crime in question, does not suffice to explain it. It would be very singular if a man who kept the purse, and who knew what he would lose by the death of his chief, were to abandon the profits of his occupation[4] in exchange for a very small sum of money.[5] Had the self-love of Judas been wounded by the rebuff which he had received at the dinner at Bethany? Even that would not explain his conduct. John would have us regard him as a thief, an unbeliever from the beginning,[6] for which, however, there is no probability. We would rather ascribe it to some feeling of jealousy or to some dissension amongst the disciples. The peculiar hatred John manifests toward Judas[7] confirms this hypothesis. Less pure in heart than the others, Judas had, from the very nature of his office, become unconsciously narrow-minded. By a caprice very common to men engaged in active duties, he had come to regard the interests of the treasury as superior even to those of the work for which it was intended. The treasurer had overcome the apostle. The murmurings which escaped him at Bethany seem to indicate that sometimes he thought the Master cost his spiritual family too dear. No doubt this mean economy had caused many other collisions in the little society.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 1, 5; Mark xiv. 1, 2; Luke xxii. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 46.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 55.]

[Footnote 4: John xii. 6.]

[Footnote 5: John does not even speak of a payment in money.]