22. THE DESPAIR OF JUDAS
Judas, the traitor, lurking at no great distance, heard the noise of the advancing procession, and words such as these dropped by stragglers hurrying after it: “They are taking Him to Pilate. The Sanhedrin has condemned the Galilean to death. He has to die on the Cross. He cannot live much longer, for they have already handled Him shockingly. He is patient as one beside himself with horror. He speaks not, excepting to say that He is the Messiah and that He will one day sit at the right hand of God. That is all that He says, therefore He must be crucified. If He had not said that, they could have brought no cause of death against Him, but now He must hang on the cross. The wretch that sold Him was one of His own disciples and he had only a short time previously eaten the Paschal lamb with Him. I should not like to have a share in that deed. Whatever the Galilean may be, He has never delivered a friend to death for money. In truth, the wretch that sold Him deserves to hang!” Then anguish, despair, and remorse began to struggle in the soul of Judas, but all too late. Satan instigated him to flee. The bag of silver pieces hanging from his girdle under his mantle was for him like a hellish spur. He grasped it tightly in his hand, to prevent its rattling and striking him at every step. On he ran at full speed, not after the procession, not to cast himself in Jesus’ path to implore mercy and forgiveness, not to die with Jesus. No, not to confess with contrition before God his awful crime, but to disburden himself of his guilt and the price of his treachery before men. Like one bereft of his senses, he rushed into the Temple, whither several of the Council, as superintendents of the priests whose duty it was to serve, also some of the Elders, had gone directly after the condemnation of Jesus. They glanced wonderingly at one another, and then fixed their gaze with a proud and scornful smile upon Judas, who stood before them, his countenance distorted by despairing grief. He tore the bag of silver pieces from his girdle and held it toward them with the right hand, while in a voice of agony he cried: “Take back your money! By it ye have led me to betray the Just One. Take back your money! Release Jesus! I recall my contract. I have sinned grievously by betraying innocent blood!” The priests poured out upon him the whole measure of their contempt. Raising their hands, they stepped back before the offered silver, as if to preserve themselves from pollution, and said: “What is it to us that thou hast sinned? Thinkest thou to have sold innocent blood? Look thou to it! It is thine own affair! We know what we have bought from thee, and we find Him deserving of death. Thou hast thy money. We want none of it!” With these and similar words spoken quickly and in the manner of men that have business on hand and that wish to get away from an importunate visitor, they turned from Judas. Their treatment inspired him with such rage and despair that he became like one insane. His hair stood on end, with both hands he rent asunder the chain that held the silver pieces together, scattered them in the Temple, and fled from the city.
I saw him again running like a maniac in the Vale of Himmon with Satan under a horrible form at his side. The evil one, to drive him to despair, was whispering into his ear all the curses the Prophets had ever invoked upon this vale, wherein the Jews had once sacrificed their own children to idols. It seemed to him that all those maledictions were directed against himself; as, for instance, “They shall go forth, and behold the carcasses of those that have sinned against Me, whose worm dieth not, and whose fire shall never be extinguished.” Then sounded again in his ears: “Cain, where is Abel, thy brother? What hast thou done? His blood cries to Me. Cursed be thou upon the earth, a wanderer and a fugitive!” And when, reaching the brook Cedron, he gazed over at the Mount of Olives, he shuddered and turned his eyes away, while in his ears rang the words: “Friend, whereto hast thou come? Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”
Oh, then horror filled his soul! His mind began to wander, and the fiend again whispered into his ear: “It was here that David crossed the Cedron when fleeing from Absalom. Absalom died hanging on a tree. David also sang of thee when he said: “And they repaid me evil for good. May he have a hard judge! May Satan stand at his right hand, and may every tribunal of justice condemn him! Let his days be few, and his bishopric let another take! May the iniquity of his father be remembered in the sight of the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out, because he persecuted the poor without mercy and put to death the broken in heart! He has loved cursing, and it shall come unto him. And he put on cursing like a garment, and like water it went into his entrails, like oil into his bones. May it be unto him like a garment which covereth him, and like a girdle may it enclose him forever!” Amid these frightful torments of conscience, Judas reached a desolate spot full of rubbish, refuse, and swampy water southeast of Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of Scandals where no one could see him. From the city came repeated sounds of noisy tumult, and Satan whispered again: “Now He is being led to death! Thou hast sold Him! Knowest thou not how the law runs: he who sells a soul among his brethren, and receives the price of it, let him die the death? Put an end to thyself, thou wretched one! Put an end to thyself!” Overcome by despair, Judas took his girdle and hung himself on a tree. The tree was one that consisted of several trunks, and rose out of a hollow in the ground. As he hung, his body burst asunder, and his bowels poured out upon the earth.
23. JESUS IS TAKEN TO PILATE
The inhuman crowd that conducted Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate passed through the most populous part of the city, which was now swarming with Paschal guests and countless strangers from all parts of the country. The procession proceeded northward from Mount Sion, down through a closely built street that crossed the valley, then through a section of the city called Acre, along the west side of the Temple to the palace and tribunal of Pilate, which stood at the northwest corner of the Temple opposite the great forum, or market.
Caiaphas and Annas, with a large number of the Chief Council in robes of state, stalked on in advance of the procession. After them were carried rolls of writing. They were followed by numerous Scribes and other Jews, among them all the false witnesses and the exasperated Pharisees who had been particularly active at the preceding accusation of the Lord. Then after a short intervening distance, surrounded by a crowd of soldiers and those six functionaries who had been present at the capture, came our dear Lord Jesus bound as before with ropes which were held by the executioners. The mob came streaming from all sides and joined the procession with shouts and cries of mockery. Crowds of people were standing along the way.
Jesus was now clothed in His woven undergarment, which was covered with dirt and mud. From His neck hung the heavy, rough chain, which struck His knees painfully as He walked. His hands were fettered as on the day before, and the four executioners dragged Him again by the cords fastened to His girdle. By the frightful ill-treatment of the preceding night, He was perfectly disfigured. He tottered along, a picture of utter misery—haggard, His hair and beard torn, His face livid and swollen with blows. Amid fresh outrage and mockery, He was driven onward. Many of the mob had been instigated by those in power to scoff in this procession at Jesus’ royal entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They saluted Him in mockery with all kinds of regal titles; cast on the road at His feet stones, clubs, pieces of wood, and filthy rags; and in all kinds of satirical songs and shouts reproached Him with His solemn entrance. The executioners pushed Him and dragged Him by the cords over the objects that impeded His path, so that the whole way was one of uninterrupted maltreatment.
Not very far from the house of Caiaphas, crowded together in the corner of a building, and waiting for the coming procession, were the blessed and afflicted Mother of Jesus, Magdalen, and John. Mary’s soul was always with Jesus, but wherever she could approach Him in body also, her love gave her no rest. It drove her out upon His path and into His footsteps. After her midnight visit to Caiaphas’s tribunal, she had in speechless grief tarried only a short time in the Cenacle; for scarcely was Jesus led forth from prison for the morning trial when she too arose. Enveloped in mantle and veil, and taking the lead of John and Magdalen, she said: “Let us follow My Son to Pilate. My eyes must again behold Him.” Taking a bypath, they got in advance of the procession, and here the Blessed Virgin stood and waited along with the others. The Mother of Jesus knew how things were going with her Son. Her soul had Him always before her eyes, but that interior view could never have depicted Him so disfigured and maltreated as He really was by the wickedness of human creatures. She did, in truth, see constantly His frightful sufferings, but all aglow with the light of His love and His sanctity, with the glory of that patient endurance with which He was accomplishing His sacrifice. But now passed before her gaze the frightful reality in all its ignoble significance. The proud and enraged enemies of Jesus, the High Priests of the true God, in their robes of ceremony, full of malice, fraud, falsehood, and blasphemy, passed before her, revolving deicidal designs. The priests of God had become priests of Satan. Oh, terrible spectacle! And then that uproar, those cries of the populace! And lastly, Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man, Mary’s own Son, disfigured and maltreated, fettered and covered with blows, driven along by the executioners, tottering rather than walking, jerked forward by the barbarous executioners who held the ropes that bound Him, and overwhelmed by a storm of mockery and malediction! Ah! Had He not been the most wretched, the most miserable in that tempest of Hell unchained, had He not been the only one calm and in loving prayer, Mary would never have known Him, so terribly was He disfigured. He had, besides, only His undergarment on, and that had been covered with dirt by the malicious executioners. As He approached her, she lamented as any Mother might have done: “Alas! Is this my Son? Ah! Is this my Son! O Jesus, my Jesus!” The procession hurried by. Jesus cast upon His Mother a side glance full of emotion. She became unconscious of all around, and John and Magdalen bore her away. But scarcely had she somewhat recovered herself when she requested John to accompany her again to Pilate’s palace.
That friends abandon us in our hour of need, Jesus likewise experienced on this journey, for the inhabitants of Ophel were all assembled at a certain point on the way. But when they beheld Jesus so despised and disfigured, led forward in the midst of the executioners, they too wavered in their faith. They could not imagine that the King, the Prophet, the Messiah, the Son of God could possibly be in such a situation. They heard their attachment to Jesus jeered at by the Pharisees as they passed. “There, look at your fine King!” they cried. “Salute Him! Ah, now you hang your head when He is going to His coronation, when He will so soon mount His throne! It is all over with His prodigies. The High Priest has put an end to His witchcraft.” The poor people, who had received so many cures and favours from Jesus, were shaken in their faith by the frightful spectacle exhibited before them by the most venerable personages of the land, the High Priest and the members of the Sanhedrin. The best of them turned away in doubt, while the viciously inclined, with scoffs and jeers, joined the procession wherever they could, for the avenues of approach were here and there occupied by guards appointed by the Pharisees in order to prevent a tumult.
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