with him whom ye call the King of the Jews?" They answer with a shout, "Crucify him!" In vain Palate remonstrated— they cry out only the more vehemently, "Crucify him, crucify him!" And as Luke says, "the voices of them, and of the chief priests, prevailed."

But

The opposition of the procurator was now removed. though he had yielded, he was unwilling to be understood as sanctioning the crime which the Jews were about to commit. Accordingly taking water, he washed his hands in their presence, at the same time saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person."

This was a Jewish custom, and a symbol of innocence. Thus in Deut. xxi. 1-10, we learn that if a man were found slain in a field, and it were not known who had committed the murder, the elders and the judges of the nearest city were to slay a heifer, and having then washed their hands, were to say, "Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it." So, likewise, David, in Psalm xxvi, says, "I will wash mine hands in innocency." Pilate, however, by this symbolic act, not only asserted his perfect innocence in the matter, but at the same time, administered a cutting rebuke to the members of the Sanhedrim who had decreed the Saviour's death. Yet they, satisfied in that they had gained their point, answered with a contemptuous sneer, "His blood be on us, and on our children."

Having accordingly given orders for the release of Barabbas, Pilate led Jesus away to be scourged. Among the Jews, this was the usual punishment for violations of the law, and was inflicted not only by order of the regular judicial tribunals, but also, it would seem, by ecclesiastical authority. Among the Romans it was the custom to scourge those condemned to be crucified; and oftentimes the punishment was so severe, that during its infliction, the victim died. This mode of punishment was also employed by them, both in order to extort from the delinquent a confession, and as a penalty for some criminal offense. Scourging, however, according to the Porcian and Sempronian laws, could not be inflicted on Roman citizens, but only on slaves. That this principle was not always regarded in the provinces of the empire, is illustrated by Cicero in his oration against Verres.

The instruments employed in scourging were either slender rods of wood, or, in severe cases, leathern thongs, into which were fastened pointed bones, or pieces of lead.

The scene is again changed, and we behold, within the Prætorium, the Saviour, faint from bitter scourging, enduring the cruel mockeries of Pilate's guard. Over his lacerated body they throw a scarlet cloak, such as was usually worn at that time by the Roman soldiers, and upon his head they bind a crown of thorns. Then having placed a reed in his hand for a sceptre, they bow the knee before him in derision, exclaiming: "Hail, King of the Jews!" Adding insult to insult, they spit upon him, and smite upon his head with the sceptre reed.

The sufferings which Christ had already undergone moved Pilate now to make still another effort to save his life. He could not but believe that if the multitude should see him bleeding and in pain, their hearts would beat in sympathy with his own, and that they would at once recall their cruel sentence. But no! Having again brought the Saviour without the Prætorium, he had hardly uttered the words, "Behold the man!" when, with a shout, the priestly mob renewed their demand, "Crucify him, crucify him!" In their impatience, they betrayed to Pilate the true cause of their hatred to Christ by bringing forward the charge on which they had condemned him to death: he had said that he was the "Son of God." The procurator now more clearly saw that this was purely a matter of the Jews, a question of their religion, and he still hesitated. The words, "Son of God," had caught his ear, and perhaps, as Ellicott suggests, caused him to feel that he might "be braving the wrath of some unknown deity." Again he returned to the Prætorium, and after the memorable conversation with our Lord which followed, reappeared before the multitude without, fully determined, it would seem, to release their prisoner. But the Jews understood well the character of Pilate, and had in reserve another and yet more powerful argument; so that no sooner had he declared this resolve, than they exclaimed, "If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend. Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar."

Pilate, ambitious and calculating, knew that in these words there was concealed no idle threat. As procurator, he had

never been popular among the Jews, while the Emperor Tiberius, "gloomy and superficial," was one with whom such charges would easily prevail. Trampling, therefore, upon his convictions of duty, he now determined to sacrifice Christ rather than peril his official existence. But as we have already seen, what now he so greatly feared came to pass in the first years of Caligula.

Having taken again his place on the judgment seat, Pilate now formally declared the sentence of death: "Thou shalt go to the cross." Christ was then delivered to the soldiers, who after they had stripped off the scarlet robe, and had clothed him in his own garments, led him forth without the city to be cru

cified.

JESUS ON HIS WAY TO CALVARY.

Crucifixion as a mode of punishment was known to most of the nations of antiquity. Whether it was practised by the Jews is a disputed question. Among the Romans it was almost wholly confined to the punishment of criminals of the lower classes, slaves the most worthless and degraded. Hence the cross was regarded with the profoundest horror, and closely connected, as Gibbon says, "with the ideas of guilt and of ignominy." Hence, too, the preaching of the cross was considered by the Greeks "foolishness." Says Justin Martyr: "From this circumstance," the crucifixion of Christ, "the heathen are fully convinced of our madness for giving the second place after the immutable and eternal God, and Father of all, to a person who was crucified." So, too, the preaching of the cross became "a stumbling block" to the Jews. Says Trypho: "We need hesitate before we believe that a person who was so ignominiously crucified could have been the Messiah; for it is written in the law 'cursed is every one who is hanged on a

The cross was sometimes constructed in the form of the letter X, and sometimes in the form of the letter T; but more generally in the form familiarly known to us as the Roman cross. The latter, according to tradition, was the one on which the Saviour was crucified.

It was the custom to compel those thus condemned to die to bear their cross to the place of execution. In this manner Jesus

went forth until, fainting from loss of blood; and oppressed by the sorrows of the hour, he sank under the heavy burden, and his cross was laid on Simon, a Cyrenian, who was just then entering the city. Nothing more is known of him than may be learned from this statement of the Evangelists. Bengel supposes that he lived in one of the villages near Jerusalem. From Mark's words, "the father of Alexander and Rufus," we may perhaps infer that he was one of the disciples of Christ.

The place where Jesus was led to the crucifixion is called by Matthew, Mark, and John, Golgotha, but by Luke,Calvary ; Calvaria being the Latin version of Golgotha, which is an Aramaic form of a Hebrew word meaning a skull. The term is explained by the sacred writers as meaning the place of a skull.. Some suppose that the spot was the usual place of crucifixion, and from the burial of those executed there came to abound in skulls; others suppose that the word was employed on account of the skull-like appearance of the place itself. The latter view is especially unsatisfactory, for, as has been observed by Stanley and others, there is no indication, whatever, in the sacred narrative, that would lead us to accept the common expression Mount Calvary.

The situation of Golgotha has been the subject of much dispute. Tradition has fixed upon the spot now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But as this is within the limits of Jerusalem as described by Josephus, and as the Saviour was crucified without the gate, Heb. xiii. 12, the traditionary site is generally rejected. Dr. Robinson conjectures "that the place was probably on a great road leading from one of the gates; and such a spot could only be found upon the western or northern sides of the city on the roads leading towards Joppa or Damascus."

When the condemned had borne his cross to the place of execution he was stripped of his clothes, and, in accordance with a Jewish custom, a stupifying potion was given him for the purpose of deadening the nerves, and thereby lessening the pain to be endured. He was then nailed, or secured to the cross. In some instances this was done before the cross was erected, but more commonly, however, as in Esther vii. 10, after it had been placed in its position. When the criminal was bound to the

cross, and thus left to die, his sufferings were greatly prolonged. The nailing, which was through the hands and the feet, though more painful, brought to the sufferer a speedier release.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

Surrounded by a Roman guard, and followed by jeering foes and weeping friends, Jesus comes at length to Golgotha. The soldiers, under the direction of the centurion, make ready the cross. Then the clothes are stripped from the Saviour's body, and he is offered the usual cup of "wine mingled with myrrh.” But no; about to pour out his soul unto death an offering for sin, he will do it with an unclouded mind, knowing that it hath pleased the Lord to bruise him. All is now prepared, and lifting him up to the cross, and nailing his hands and feet, with two robbers, one on either side, they crucify the world's Redeemer.

The title which was written by Pilate and placed over the Saviour's head, was, say the Evangelists, in letters of Greek, of Latin and of Hebrew. All of these languages had their representatives in the pilgrims which at this season of the year crowded the sacred city.

With regard to the time of the crucifixion there arises a difficulty in harmonizing Mark's statement with John's. Mark xv. 25, says, "and it was the third hour, and they crucified him," while John xix. 14, says that it was about the sixth hour when Pilate pronounced the sentence and delivered Jesus to be crucified. Some suppose that the Saviour was crucified between "the third and sixth hours, and that one Evangelist specified the hither the other the farther terminus." The objection, of course, to such a view is, that while John mentions the further terminus, or the sixth hour, he connects it with events which preceded the crucifixion. Others suppose that on account of an error by the copyists we have in John Ezt for pin. Another view, and one more plausible than either of these, is that John designed his Gospel primarily for the churches of Asia Minor, and accordingly adopted the Roman method of computing time, that is, from midnight, and not from sunrise as among the Hebrews.

From the third until the sixth hour, that is until midday,