The kiss was then the ordinary mode of salutation, like shaking of hands now. Judas, followed by the band, approached his well-known Lord, and said, “Hail, Master; and kissed him.” Jesus calmly replied,—
“Friend, wherefore art thou come? Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”
Advancing towards the soldiers, he said to them, “Whom seek ye?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I am he.” There was something in his address and bearing which so overawed them, that for a moment they were powerless; and “they went backward, and fell to the ground.”
“Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If, therefore, ye seek me, let these go their way.”
Judas slunk away into the darkness, and the soldiers seized Jesus. The impetuous Peter “drew a sword,” probably snatching it from one of the soldiers, and “smote a servant of thehigh priest, and cut off his ear.” Jesus reproved him, saying,—
“Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how, then, shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?”
Turning to the wounded servant, he said to him, “Suffer ye thus far;” and, touching his ear, he healed him. Then, addressing the soldiers, he said,—
“Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves, to take me? I was daily with you in the temple, and ye took me not; but the scriptures must be fulfilled. This is your hour and the power of darkness.”
It seems incomprehensible, that, under these circumstances, the apostles could have been so terror-stricken, as, with one accord, to have abandoned Jesus, and fled; but they all did it,—the valiant Peter with the rest. Jesus, thus utterly forsaken, was left alone with his enemies.
The soldiers bound Jesus, and conducted him back into the city, and led him to the house of Annas. He had formerly been high priest. His son-in-law Caiaphas now occupied that office. Annas was a man of great influence, and it was important to obtain his sanction in the lawless enterprise in which the Jewish rulers were now engaged. It seems that Annas was not disposed to incur the responsibility of these deeds of violence; and Jesus was led to the house of Caiaphas. Of the dispersed apostles, two of them (Peter, and probably John) followed the guard at a distance, furtively creeping beneath the shadows of the trees and the houses. Though it was still night, a meeting of the Sanhedrim, but an illegal one, had been convened in the palace of Caiaphas. Twenty-three members constituted a court. Caiaphas presided. Jesus was led into the hall before them for a preliminary examination.