Gethsemane.——This place has already been alluded to in the description of Mount Olivet. [Note on p. [96].] From the same source I extract a further brief notice of the present aspect of this most holy ground. “Proceeding along the valley of Kedron, at the foot of Mount Olivet, is the garden of Gethsemane: an even plat of ground, not above fifty-seven yards square, where are shown some old olive trees, supposed to identify the spot to which our Lord was wont to repair. John xviii. 1, 2.” [Modern Traveler, Palestine, p. 156.] It is also remarked by Dr. Richardson, [p. 78 of the same work,] that “the gardens of Gethsemane are still in the sort of a ruined cultivation; the fences are broken down, and the olive trees decaying, as if the hand that dressed and fed them was withdrawn.”
The etymology and meaning of the name Gethsemane, is given by Lightfoot, (Centuria Chorographica in Matthew, chapter 41.) The name is derived from the product of the tree which was so abundantly raised there, and which gave name also to the mountain. Gethsemane is compounded of גת, “a press,” and שמנא, “olive oil,”——“an oil-press;” because the oil was pressed out and manufactured on the spot where the olive was raised.
Ten o’clock.——This I conclude to have been about the time, because (in Matthew xxvi. 20) it is said that it was evening already, (that is, about 6 o’clock,) when Jesus sat down to supper with his disciples, and allowing time on the one hand for the events at the supper-table and on the walk, as well as those in the garden,——and on the other hand for those which took place before midnight, (cock crowing,) we must fix the time as I have above.
The glare of torches.——John (xviii. 3.) is the only evangelist who brings in this highly picturesque circumstance of the equipment of the band with the means of searching the dark shades and bowers of the garden.
HIS THREE-FOLD DENIAL.
Peter, however, had he not so soon forgot his zealous attachment to Jesus, as to leave him in such hands, without farther knowledge of his fate; but as soon as he was satisfied that the pursuit of the disciples was given up, he, in company with John, followed the band of officers at safe distance, and ascertained whither they were carrying the captive. After they had seen the train proceed to the palace of the high priest, they proceeded directly to the same place. Here John, being known to the high priest, and having friends in the family, went boldly in, feeling secure by his friendship in that quarter, against any danger in consequence of his connection with Jesus. Being known to the servant girl who kept the door, as a friend of the family, he got in without difficulty, and had also influence enough to get leave to introduce Peter, as a friend of his who had some curiosity to see what was going on. Peter, who had stood without the door waiting for the result of John’s maneuver, was now brought into the palace, and walked boldly into the hall where the examination of Jesus was going on, hoping to escape entirely unnoticed by keeping in the dimly lighted parts of the hall, by which he would be secure, at the same time that he would the better see what was going on near the lights. Standing thus out of the way in the back part of the room, he might have witnessed the whole without incurring the notice of anybody. But the servants and others, who had been out over the damp valley of the Kedron after Jesus, feeling chilled with the walk, (for the long nights of that season are in Jerusalem frequently in strong contrast with the warmth of mid-day,) made up a good fire of coal in the back part of the hall, where they stood looking on. Peter himself being, too, no doubt thoroughly chilled with his long exposure to the cold night air, very naturally and unreflectingly came forward to the fire, where he sat down and warmed himself among the servants and soldiers. The bright light of the coals shining directly on his anxious face, those who stood by, noticing a stranger taking such interest in the proceedings, began to scrutinize him more narrowly. At last, the servant girl who had let him in at the door, with the inquisitive curiosity so peculiarly strong in her sex, knowing that he had come in with John as his particular acquaintance, and concluding that he was like him associated with Jesus, boldly said to him, “Thou also art one of this man’s disciples.” But Peter, like a true Galilean, as ready to lie as to fight, thinking only of the danger of the recognition, at once denied him, forgetting the lately offensive prediction, in his sudden alarm. He said before them all, “Woman, I am not!——I know him not; neither do I understand what thou sayest.” This bold and downright denial silenced the forward impertinence of the girl, and for a time may have quieted the suspicions of those around. Peter, however, startled by this sudden attack, all at once perceived the danger into which he had unthinkingly thrust himself, and drawing back from his prominent station before the fire, which had made him so unfortunately conspicuous, went out into the porch of the building, notwithstanding the cold night air, preferring the discomfort of the exposure, to the danger of his late position. As he walked there in the open air, he heard the note of the cock sounding clear, through the stillness of midnight, announcing the beginning of the third watch. The sound had a sad import to him, and must have recalled to his mind some thought of his master’s warning; but before it could have made much impression, it was instantly banished altogether from his mind, by a new alarm from the inquisitiveness of some of the retainers of the palace, who, seeing a stranger lurking in a covert manner about the building at that time of night, very naturally felt suspicious enough of him to examine his appearance narrowly. Among those who came about him, was another of those pert damsels who seem to have been very numerous and forward about the house of the head of the Jewish faith. She, after a satisfactory inspection of the suspicious person, very promptly informed those that were there also about him, “This fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth.” Peter’s patience being at last worn out with the pertinacious annoyances of these spiteful lasses, not only flatly contradicted the positive assertion of the girl, but backed his words with an oath, which seems to have had the decisive effect of hushing his female accusers entirely, and he considered himself to have turned off suspicion for a time so effectually, that, after cooling himself sufficiently in the porch, being distracted with anxiety about the probable fate of his beloved Master, he at last ventured again into the great hall of the palace, where the examination of Jesus was still going on. Here he remained a deeply interested spectator and auditor for about an hour, without being disturbed, when some of the bystanders who were not so much interested in the affair before them as to be prevented by it from looking about them, had their attention again drawn to the stranger who had been an object of such suspicion. There were probably more than one that recognized the active and zealous follower of the Nazarene, as Peter had been in such constant attendance on him throughout his whole stay in Jerusalem. But no one seems to have cared to provoke an irascible Galilean by an accusation which he might resent in the characteristic manner of his countrymen; till another of the servants of the high priest, a relation of Malchus, whose ear Peter had cut off, after looking well at him, and being provoked at the impudence of such a vagabond in thrusting himself into the home of the very man whom he had so shockingly mutilated and so nearly murdered, determined to bring the offender to punishment, and speaking to his fellow-servants, he indignantly and confidently affirmed, “This fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean.” And turning to Peter, whom he had seen in Gethsemane, when engaged at the time of the capture of Jesus, he imperiously asked him, “Did I not see thee in the garden with him?” And others, joining in the charge, said decidedly to him, “Surely thou art one of them also: for thy very speech, thy accent, unquestionably, betrays thee to be a Galilean.” Peter began at last to see that his situation was growing quite desperate, and finding that his distress about his Lord had brought him within a chance of the same fate, determined to extricate himself by as unscrupulously using his tongue in his own defense as he had before used his sword for his Master. Besides, he had already told two flat lies within about three hours, and it was not for a Galilean in such a pass to hesitate about one more, even though seconded by a perjury. For he then began to curse and to swear, saying, “Man, I know not what thou sayest.——I know not the man of whom ye speak.” And immediately, while he was yet speaking, the cock crew the second time. At that moment, the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and at the same sound the conscience-stricken disciple turning towards his Lord, met that glance. And what a look! He who cannot imagine it for himself, cannot conceive it from the ideal picture of another; but its effect was sufficiently dramatic to impress the least picturesque imagination. As the Lord turned and looked upon him, Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock shall crow twice this night, thou shalt deny me thrice.” And thinking thereon, he went out, and wept bitterly. Tears of rebuked conceit,——of self-humbled pride, over fallen glory and sullied honor,——flowed down his manly cheeks. Where was now the fiery spirit once in word so ready to brave death, with all the low malice of base foes, for the sake of Jesus? Where was that unshaken steadiness, that dauntless energy that once won him from the lips of his Master, when first his searching eye fell on him, the name of the ROCK,——that name by which again he had been consecrated as the mighty foundation-ROCK of the church of God? Was this the chief of the apostles?——the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven?——binding and loosing on earth what should be bound or loosed in heaven? Where were the brave, high hopes of earthly glory to be won under the warlike banners of his kingly Master? Where was that Master and Lord? The hands of the rude were now laid on him, in insult and abuse,——his glories broken and faded,——his power vain for his own rescue from sufferings vastly greater than those so often relieved by him in others,——his followers dispirited and scattered,——disowning and casting out as evil the name they had so long adored. The haughty lords of Judaism were now exulting in their cruel victory, re-established in their dignity, and strengthened in their tyranny by this long-wished triumph over their deadly foe. He wept for bright hopes dimmed,——for crushed ambition,——but more than all, for broken faith,——for trampled truth,——and for the three-fold and perjured denial of his betrayed and forsaken Lord. Well might he weep——
“There’s bliss in tears,
When he who sheds them inly feels
Some lingering stain of early years
Effaced by every drop that steals.