11

It is Finished

THE little plantation of Gethsemane was a favourite spot for Jesus while he stayed at Bethany. We are told that he often went there with his disciples. It was quiet, and he had Jerusalem and the Temple in full view. He came there again now as he had done at other times. He wanted to pray, but tonight he felt in need of the solace of human companionship. He therefore took Peter, James and John with him when he went aside from the others. Mark says he was restless and depressed, and confessed to them, ‘I am in very low spirits.’1

Until this day he had regarded the physical suffering in store for him almost impersonally. It had always been in the future, the most solemn ordeal which the Messiah was destined to undergo. There had been a certain glory and majesty about it, a sublimity of heroic behaviour as it was set down in the prophetic passages. Jesus had been so involved with his planning, with move and counter move, with the exhilarating exercise of his wits to bring events into conformity with the predictions, that he had had neither the leisure nor the inclination to dwell upon the details of what he must experience. Now it was different. The hour had come, and his flesh and his spirit quailed. To die under torture! Had he the strength and the fortitude to go through with it? What was written was going to happen to him, Jesus, not to some ideal figure of the imagination.

The Gospels have captured the agony of Jesus at this juncture, though we must appreciate that the tradition behind them is an imaginative one since no soul was present. Jesus prays that if possible he may not have to drain the bitter cup, yet only if this be God's will. Coming back to his three intimates he finds them sleeping. It is brought home to him that he is now on his own. No longer will there be any human prop to lean on, no friend on earth to whom he can turn in facing his ordeal. He addresses the drowsing Peter almost desperately: ‘Are you asleep, Simon? Could you not manage to stay awake a single hour? Be vigilant and prayerful, or you may find yourself tempted. The spirit is willing enough, but the flesh is frail.’ But he is speaking as much to himself as to his follower, and from Peter there comes no reply. Unnoticed, Jesus goes away again, and prays as before, so earnestly that Luke says the sweat poured from his brow like great drops of blood.

Again we have the emphatic three of Hebrew idiom. Three times Jesus prayed, according to Mark, and three times he returned to his sleeping disciples. The excitement and sadness, the meal they had eaten, the wine they had drunk, had proved too much for them. They could not keep their eyes open. Only Jesus was alert, with every nerve in his body taut, and his brain functioning with crystal clarity. ‘Are you going on sleeping,’ he said, ‘and taking your rest? That's enough! The time has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners! Come, let us be going. See, my betrayer approaches!’

Hardly had Jesus finished speaking when Judas arrived and with him a force dispatched by the Council armed with swords and clubs. From the description in the Gospels they were members of the Civil Guard under the authority of the Sanhedrin together with some of the servants of the chief priests. The reference to ‘sinners’ in the words of Jesus indicates that the force consisted mainly of Gentiles.2 Judas had given instructions to secure the man he would embrace.

The arrest was made with speed. Jesus said something to Judas and to the captain of the band. The texts disagree on what it was. There must have been considerable confusion with the disciples in their dazed condition. Someone, the Fourth Gospel says it was Peter, drew a sword and struck at the high priest's officer whose name was Malchus, and therefore probably an Arab,3 severing his ear. But otherwise there was no resistance. With Jesus taken the disciples scattered and fled, and it is unlikely that any attempt was made to pursue them. It was the ringleader who was wanted, not the small fry.

Mark alone has a postscript about a young man clad only in a linen wrap, who followed behind when Jesus was led away. They seized him; but he struggled free, leaving the wrap in their hands, and escaped naked. It is tempting to think that this may have been the Beloved Disciple, since there are so many tantalising gaps in the records. Could it be that news reached him at Jerusalem that the Council was sending a troop with Judas to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? He at least knew that Judas had left the Last Supper to betray him, because Jesus had pointed out the traitor to him, and it would be surprising if he had taken no steps whatever to find out what was afoot. Definite information may have come when John had retired, and just as he was in his night robe he raced to Gethsemane to warn Jesus. But he was too late. When he arrived Jesus had just been taken prisoner. He began to follow, was seized, and only got away by leaving his garment in the hands of the guards. He ran back to the city, dressed hurriedly, and made at once for the house of Annas where, according to the information he had had, Jesus was being conducted. Where so much is a mystery, this possibility—it is rated no higher—is by no means fanciful. The Fourth Gospel says that John did follow Jesus to the high priest's palace, and went in after him; but it omits any explanation of how he came to be there. The only one of the twelve to recover himself and follow at a discreet distance was the faithful Peter. But he had to stay outside the palace until the other disciple, who was known to the high priest,4 spoke to the porteress and had him admitted to the courtyard.

It was a chilly spring night, and a charcoal fire was burning in a brazier. The servants and guards were standing around, and Peter joined them to warm himself. From his speech he was recognised as a Galilean, and strongly suspected of being a follower of Jesus. A kinsman of Malchus was convinced he had seen Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane. Thus challenged, Peter swore he did not know Jesus, but it was risky to remain any longer, and he left. Recalling what Jesus had said he wept bitterly.5

Meanwhile the prisoner had been brought before Annas son of Seth, former high priest and head of the most powerful sacerdotal family of the time. He was also the father-in-law of the reigning high priest Caiaphas. Annas proceeded to question Jesus closely about his teaching and following. He was anxious to discover if he could how far things had gone, and what was the extent of the danger of a rising. What was Jesus aiming at? How many people were at present involved? Was the conspiracy still in its infancy, limited to a handful of the pretender's peasant dupes who would be helpless if deprived of their leader, or were more important individuals implicated? Jesus had fully regained his composure and flatly denied that he was engaged in any secret subversive activities. What he taught had been spoken openly and publicly in the synagogues and in the Temple. ‘Why do you ask me?’ he said. ‘Ask those who listened what I said to them. They know what I said.’

He was cuffed by a guard for insolence to the high priest; but the shrewd Annas judged that he was sincere. He was convinced that as yet they really had only one person to deal with, and he was greatly relieved. Sending Jesus on to the Council, manacled and under escort, he no doubt communicated this opinion by a verbal message or written note to Caiaphas. It was only necessary to have Jesus executed and whatever was brewing would be nipped in the bud. The man was clearly a deluded fanatic, and for that very reason dangerous in the present state of Jewish affairs.

We have no certain information where the Sanhedrin was meeting, probably it was in the Council Hall (Bouleuterion) on the west of the Temple precincts and not far from the high priest's palace at the north-eastern end of Mount Zion. The Gospels tell us nothing of where Peter went, or what had become of the rest of the eleven. They appear later to have made their way to the house of John the priest on the Ophel where the Last Supper had been held and which was known to all of them. Some of the women of Jesus’ company were staying there. The Beloved Disciple was perhaps the only follower of Jesus who kept on the track of where he was taken that night and the next morning.

For what transpired from the arrest of Jesus to his agony on the cross we are dependent on the varying accounts of the Gospels. These are reconstructions from traditions of what could be gleaned afterwards from various sources, interlarded with legends and deductions from Old Testament testimonies. The story has also been amplified and adapted in accordance with the development of Christian doctrine and apologetic needs. We must be content, therefore, to use this material with reservations and qualifications, following as much as can be perceived of the authentic drift of the narrative.

There has been much learned discussion of the trial of Jesus, citing the rules of the Sanhedrin as they were ideally represented long after this body had ceased to function. Nowadays reputable scholars do not set much store by this evidence. In fact we know comparatively little about the procedure, and in the case of Jesus there does not seem to have been a trial at all. The Sanhedrin met in special session that night not to try Jesus but to find grounds on which to formulate the indictment which would procure from the Roman governor the condemnation of Jesus to summary execution. This is plainly stated by Mark. It was not the theology of Jesus which was at issue or any offence against the laws of Moses: it was his political pretensions. To make a political charge stick, meriting capital punishment, it was desirable to be able to produce witnesses. Some individuals had been got hold of or bribed to act as informers, but their statements were indecisive and contradictory. Jesus had been much too circumspect in his public utterances for any words of his to be used to establish that he was engaged in treasonable activities. The nearest indication offered by any of the witnesses was a cryptic remark he had made about the Temple. He had said something like, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rebuild it.’ The Fourth Gospel claims that he was speaking of his own body. The witnesses converted his words into a positive intention, ‘I will destroy this Temple.’ Here was some sort of threat to the existing order; but even so, the saying as a whole with its suggestion of the miraculous sounded more like the language of a madman or a charlatan than of a dangerous rebel. It would never convince Pilate.

While all this went on Jesus remained silent. He was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, ‘As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.’ The Council was getting restive and anxious. At last the high priest challenged him, ‘Have you no answer to make to these charges?’ Jesus made no reply. The only hope now was to force him to incriminate himself. Caiaphas bluntly put the question to him on oath, ‘Are you the Messiah?’

This time Jesus answered: ‘Yes I am. And hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.’

It was enough for the Sadducean rulers. The high priest rent his tunic, a formal sign of sorrow. ‘What further evidence do we need?’ he cried. ‘You have heard his traitorous confession. What is your decision?’ The Council judged him to be deserving of the death-penalty. By admitting that he was the Messiah, the rightful and foreordained king of Israel, Jesus had committed a ‘blasphemy’, not of God in Jewish law but of Tiberius Caesar in Roman law. He was guilty, they held, of laesa maiestas, violation of the emperor's sovereignty, and it was therefore proper for the scandalised authorities, not as Jews but as Roman subjects, to act as delatores and inform against Jesus to Caesar's representative.

Because a Jewish court reached this verdict, we are not to imagine, as the Church was later concerned to establish, that Jesus had declared his deity, and consequently from the viewpoint of the Mosaic Law6 had blasphemed the name of the Lord. In that case the penalty would have been stoning, not crucifixion. Jesus had not even uttered the sacred Name of God, and referred to himself as the Son of Man. Early Nazorean teaching knew nothing of trinitarianism. The Council had neither cause nor any interest to condemn Jesus on religious grounds, since their whole purpose was to stand well with Rome and at the same time to divert the odium of the Jewish people for what they were doing from themselves to Pontius Pilate.

The calumny that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus has all along been an antisemitic fraud perpetrated by the Church when it became paganised, and has been a direct cause of untold suffering and persecution inflicted on the Jews down the centuries. The present-day qualified second thoughts of the Roman Church on the subject of Jewish ‘deicide’ has come very belatedly and is a totally inadequate retraction. But the Church is obviously in a quandary, for it can only go all the way to remove the stigma it has inflicted by relinquishing the absolute veracity of its sacred doctrines and documents.

Yet the oldest tradition in the Gospels witnesses against the Church. Jesus never said he would fall into the hands of the Jewish people, but into the hands of the chief priests, elders and scribes. The Gospels testify that the commons of the Jewish nation heard him gladly, and that the Council acted secretly without the knowledge of the people, because they feared a popular demonstration by the Jews in Jesus’ favour. We have the evidence that they decided on the removal of Jesus in private conclave, and, taking advantage of his betrayal by one of his own disciples, arrested and interrogated him by night so that the Jewish people assembled in their multitudes at Jerusalem for the Passover should be totally ignorant of what was taking place.

We have already considered the motives of the Council, which in the main were those of self-preservation and self-interest, though not wholly divorced from considerations of national and spiritual survival. These wealthy aristocrats knew they were out of favour with the Jewish masses while they served a foreign heathen government and that their standing with Rome was precarious. Shorn of many of their former powers they were walking a tightrope, clinging to office, inherited prestige and luxurious living, maintaining their position by high-handed action and tortuous intrigue. There were good men among them, a dissentient minority, chiefly Pharisees, who endeavoured to use their influence to curb the dominant Sadducean party as much as they could. Probably some of the Pharisee members of the Council absented themselves from the assembly which dealt with Jesus. Certain of them may not even have been called to attend the hastily convened gathering. The fact that not long after this the presiding high priest Caiaphas was deposed from office by the legate of Syria suggests that some serious representations were made against him.7 But fully granting that the action of the lordly hierarchy and its supporters was dictated by expediency and was morally indefensible, we must remind ourselves again that Jesus had deliberately manœuvred them into the position where they were forced to proceed against him. Had he not roused their ire, and given them cause to anticipate some nationalistic demonstration, they would not have concerned themselves with him at all.

As early as possible on Friday morning Jesus was brought before the governor Pontius Pilate. The indictment formulated by the Council was in purely political terms. ‘We have found this man subverting our nation, forbidding the payment of tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be the Messiah, a king.’

The scene was the Herodian Palace on the west of the city, close to the modern Jaffa Gate. It was the official residence of the Roman procurator when he came to Jerusalem from his seat at Caesarea. Pilate would not at all relish being called upon at an early hour by a deputation from the chief priests bringing with them a Jewish prisoner. The circumstances were highly suspicious, and he came out to them on the broad terrace—they would not enter the building and incur defilement—gruffly demanding to know what the charge was. He was told that the man was a criminal. ‘In that case,’ said Pilate, ‘take him yourselves and sentence him in accordance with your own law.’ They reminded him that they no longer had authority to execute anyone. They had lately been deprived of that power by the Romans. So the crime was a capital one, and not religious, and Pilate was bound to deal with it. But he had the feeling that something was wrong, and that an attempt was being made to trap him. He did not trust these priests, and well knew the hostility of the Council towards him because of his disrespect for Jewish institutions. It seemed unnatural that the chief priests should be accusing a fellow Jew of conspiracy against Rome. Likely as not the prisoner was a man of no consequence who was being used to make trouble. He had heard no reports of agitation in Jerusalem lately. The man standing passively before him did not look in the least like a militant Zealot.

Incredulously, Pilate asked Jesus, ‘Are you king of the Jews?’ He expected either a denial or an indication that the prisoner was a harmless lunatic. Irritatingly, Jesus replied, ‘Are you asking this of your own accord, or did others suggest it to you about me?’

‘Am I a Jew?’ roared Pilate. ‘Your own people, the chief priests, have handed you over to me. What have you done?’

Jesus explained that his kingdom did not belong to the existing world order. Had it been otherwise his followers would have fought to save him from arrest. How could the coming messianic kingdom be made intelligible to a heathen Roman official? It was quite beyond his comprehension.

To Pilate the man was talking nonsense. ‘You are a king, then?’ he persisted, trying to get him to be more explicit.

‘I am a king, as you say,’ Jesus answered. ‘I was born and came into the world to witness to this truth. All who heed the truth listen to me.’

Now Pilate was sure he was dealing with a deluded maniac. ‘What does truth mean?’ he shouted. It was impossible to treat the charge seriously. He jumped up, and went out to the waiting accusers. ‘I find nothing against him,’ he told them shortly.

In substance we have followed the Fourth Gospel so far, but here we have to make room for a tradition preserved by Luke. According to this version the chief priests pressed their charge, insisting, ‘He rouses the people, teaching all over Judea, beginning with Galilee and ending up here.’

The governor was quick to see an opportunity to end the business. He inquired whether the man was a Galilean, and learning that he came under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas tetrarch of Galilee he told them to take Jesus and their accusations to him. Herod was in Jerusalem for the Passover staying at the Hasmonean Palace further east along the hill. For a long time he had wished to see Jesus, and hoped to see him perform some wonder. He questioned him at length while the representatives of the Council vehemently accused him. Jesus made no response, even when Herod and his men mocked him. Tiring of the sport, the tetrarch returned the prisoner to Pilate with a message that he was quite harmless. ‘That day,’ says Luke, ‘Herod and Pilate became friends with one another; for previously they had been at enmity.’ They had quarrelled, no doubt, because Pilate's soldiers had killed many Galileans in the recent demonstration of protest over the seizure of the sacred funds for the aqueduct.

The chief priests were now in difficulties, and realised that they would have to bring strong pressure on Pilate. They therefore packed the courtyard of the praetorium with their slaves and henchmen. The governor still insisted that the charge was frivolous. He would have Jesus flogged and then release him in accordance with a Passover amnesty custom. But instigated by the chief priests the crowd shouted that they wanted Barabbas not Jesus released. Pilate must have become choleric at this demand, because Barabbas was in prison for fighting back when his troops had attacked the aqueduct demonstrators, and there was reason to believe he had caused the death of at least one Roman soldier. So this was it. The prisoner was being used by the priests as a means of taking revenge on himself for requisitioning the Temple treasure. They did not forgive, these arrogant priests.

Pilate was forced on the defensive, but he was not yet beaten. He had Jesus flogged, and his guards decked the prisoner out as a mock king with a crimson cloak round his shoulders and a wreath on his head made of thorns. Cruelly the governor presented this pitiful insult to Jewish sentiment to the crowd. ‘There's your king!’

It would have been an intolerable spectacle for the Jewish people, and probably caused a riot. But the crowd consisted of the chief priests’ men, including many Gentiles, and obediently they yelled, ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’8

Pilate cared nothing about Jesus. He did care about his own position if he should be accused to Tiberius of fomenting disaffection by executing a Jew on unsupported testimony. At Rome they did not take kindly these days to provocative action in the Provinces, and the governor was already in trouble enough because of the disturbances resulting from his flouting of Jewish customs. What decided him finally to give way was the threat of an even more sinister accusation: ‘If you free the man you are no friend of Caesar's. Whoever claims to be a king is in opposition to Caesar.’

Barabbas was released, and Jesus was condemned to be crucified. But Pilate could still strike back at his tormentors by having their own charge posted upon the cross: JESUS THE NAZOREAN, KING OF THE JEWS. He refused point-blank to change the wording to, ‘He said, I am king of the Jews.’

The chief priests had had their way. They had browbeaten the governor into compliance, but they could take little comfort from their victory. It had been a necessary yet nasty business, and they were by no means confident now that the death of Jesus would be the end of the matter and that they were free from blood-guilt. The Jewish people might react to their deed if it leaked out that they had taken the initiative, and hold them in greater disfavour. The future held little promise of peace. History indeed records that within thirty-five years the palaces of the nobility were sacked by mobs and the chief priests were hunted down and murdered.

Weakened by his flogging Jesus was led out of the western gate of the city by Roman guards, with two others who were being crucified with him. A Cyrenian called Simon was requisitioned to bear the cross-beam of his cross. Tardily Jerusalem began to awaken to what was going forward. There had been rumours of the arrest of Jesus; but for the most part, as had been intended, the people knew nothing of what had transpired on Government Hill. It was the beginning of the festival, and everything had happened too quickly and secretly for any organised demonstration. There was no one to give a lead. The crosses were up on Golgotha and the victims were suspended on them before the ill news had penetrated very far. Fear and horror and respect for the sufferers decided the majority of those who heard to keep away from the scene. Perhaps some hirelings of the chief priests were there to watch and to jeer, but it is quite incredible, and probably the result of delving into the testimonies, that the chief priests, elders and scribes were present in person as the synoptic tradition states.9 The Jerusalem tradition of the Fourth Gospel makes no such assertion. But we may believe that some angry and pious people were there to lend the solace of their presence and to pray for the dying. A retinue of mourning women had been furnished, according to Luke, to accompany Jesus to the place of execution. Of those near to him who stood by the cross, we have mention only of his mother and the Beloved Disciple. None of the apostles was there, but Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, Salome the mother of Zebedee's sons James and John, and some other women of his following, were looking on at a distance.

The traditions which have come down to us of what happened on Golgotha are not in full agreement, as we would expect, since it could not have been easy afterwards to collect reliable information. Each of the Gospels has some circumstance which is not in the others. Imagination has clearly been employed to build up a picture and to lend solemnity and significance to the Crucifixion. Some of the effects are reminiscent of the revelation on Sinai and convey an anticipation of the Last Judgement.10 We are told of darkness, an earthquake, and the rending of the veil of the Temple, even of the resurrection of the bodies of dead saints. With various incidents there is a reflection of the language of the Scriptures, especially of Psalm xxii, the psalm which begins: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ The soldiers cast lots for robe of Jesus in fulfilment of Psalm xxii. 18. They pierce his hands and his feet in fulfilment of xxii. 16. The chief priests and scribes mock him and wag their heads in derision in fulfilment of xxii. 7. They cry, ‘He trusted in the Lord to deliver him: let him deliver him, if he delight in him,’ in fulfilment of xxii. 8. Bystanders give Jesus vinegar mingled with gall in fulfilment of Psalm lxix. 21. When he is believed to be dead they do not break his legs, as they do those of the robbers, in fulfilment of Exodus xii. 46. Instead, his side is pierced with a lance in fulfilment of Zechariah xii. 10.

There is the strongest consciousness here of the prophetic testimonies. We may grant that certain things happened, some of them usual, which seemed to answer to such Scriptures. But there has been invention as well to obtain a more exact correspondence and to supplement the paucity of facts.

The question arises, how far, anticipating as he did the detailed realisation of the predictions, was Jesus in his pain concerned with all that was taking place, of prophecies coming to pass? We would expect him to cling grimly to the last to what had been the motivation of his whole life in his role of Messiah. When Jesus cried aloud the opening words of Psalm xxii: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’; was this only an exclamation of anguish, or did he continue the silent recitation of the psalm which was so relevant to his sufferings until he reached and voiced its closing words? It is customary among Jews at prayer to emphasise in speech the commencement and conclusion of a liturgical composition, psalm, praise or prayer, covering the intermediate matter in an undertone. Possibly the Fourth Gospel unrealising makes Jesus say, ‘It is finished,’ when in fact he had come to the last words of Psalm xxii: ‘He has done it.’ However this may be, the Gospel does at least credit him with the assurance ‘that all things were now accomplished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.’11

In his sufferings Jesus could know that he had triumphantly passed the messianic test, successfully carrying out the exacting stipulations of the Oracles. The tremendous task to which he had applied his mind and heart was concluded. But in these moments he still had something to do, to provide for the mother he had been forced to neglect to pursue his mission: he now entrusted her to the care of his dear disciple. His last effort was to call out, ‘I thirst.’ In response someone standing by raised to his lips a sponge saturated with wine vinegar. Almost immediately he passed into oblivion.

Never had Jesus been more the Messiah of his oppressed people than when he hung there with bowed head at rest, on a cross of imperial Caesar bearing a placard which announced him poignantly to all the world in Greek, in Latin, and in Hebrew, as king of the Jews. Wretched representatives of human degradation and of pitiless society were his royal attendants. Thus lifted up as an ensign to the nations12 he had already begun to reign.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. This is the meaning of the Hebraic words, ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.’

2. The Gentiles were thought of as sinners because they did not observe the laws of God given to Moses, just as those Jews were sinners who lived like Gentiles in violation of the Law. See Gal. ii. 14–15; Mt. ix. 10–11. The chief priests had at their disposal a small force recruited from many nationalities, and also non-Jewish servants and slaves.

3. From inscriptions and from Josephus the name Malchus or Malichus was in common use among Arabs and Syrians.

4. The nature of the connection is not certain. Some scholars hold that John the priest was a kinsman of Annas, reading gnorimos instead of gnostos as in the Purple Codex of Patmos. It is clear at any rate that he was a person of some standing, and not to be confused with the stormy Galilean fisherman John the son of Zebedee.

5. See Chapter 10, Note 12.

6. See Lev. xxiv. 16.

7. The Syrian legate Vitellius was eager to conciliate the Jewish people by making concessions to national sentiment, and one of his acts in this connection was to depose Caiaphas (Josephus, Antiq. XVIII. iv. 3). Many years later when Annas son of the Annas of the Gospels was high priest James the brother of Jesus was arrested and executed by an illegally convened meeting of the Sanhedrin while a new governor of Judea was on the way to take up his appointment. Some of the leading citizens of Jerusalem protested to the governor at this highhanded action, whereupon he wrote threatening the high priest with punishment and Agrippa II deposed Annas from the highpriesthood after he had been only three months in office (Antiq. XX. ix. 1).

8. The reiteration is found only in Luke, but John has the repetition of the cry, ‘Away with him, away with him!’ (Jn. xix. 15). If we can rely on these reflections of the Jerusalem tradition they would point to a largely non-Jewish crowd customarily given to ‘vain repetitions’ (Mt. vi. 7). An example is, ‘Caesar, let the prisoners be dragged! Caesar, let the prisoners be dragged!’

9. These august personages would not have demeaned themselves by attending the crucifixion in person, and in any case it is clear from the Gospels that they were most anxious not to be associated with the execution in the minds of the Jewish people. John the priest, who was at the cross, makes no mention of their presence. Jesus had said he would fall into the hands of these authorities and that they would mock him. This was enough to create the story on the basis of the testimony in Psalm xxii. 7–8.

10. See Part Two, Chapter 6, Some Gospel Mysteries.

11. Jn. xix. 28–30.

12. Isa. xi. 10–12.