The Herodians tempted him on a point of tribute. They had two taxes, one to God and one to Caesar, both were disputed, and they consulted him in order to involve him with God or Caesar; but he foiled them by confirming both:
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
They began to be astonished.
The Sadducees tempted him with their dogma of the non-resurrection. They told him sneeringly of a woman who had married seven husbands, and they wanted to know whose she would be in the life to come. Jesus replied calmly:
"In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven."
And the Sadducees with their philosophy, their learning, and their unbelief, retired in confusion.
On the Wednesday he remained in Bethany in seclusion, while Judas was arranging for his safe betrayal to Annas and the nobles.
Thursday Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover, and at sunset that day he and the twelve sat down to the last supper; Judas left to see Annas, and after singing a hymn, the other disciples rose from the table, passed through the sheep-gate into the Cedron valley, and came to Gethsemane. Here Jesus withdrew, and while his disciples were sleeping, he watched and prayed until the betrayers came, and the kiss of Judas revealed him to them. The Sanhedrim was summoned in the dead of the night, and when the members arrived they found Annas examining witnesses, but with no avail, they could not substantiate any charge against him that the Roman government would allow them to punish with death. Annas told him to speak for himself, but he would not. The high priest then said, "Art thou the Christ?" he said, "I am." Then Annas asked him who were his disciples, and Jesus replied: "I spake openly to the world, I taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews resort, in secret I have said nothing; ask them which heard me, they know what I have said." The officer of the temple smote him, and Annas ordered him to be bound with cords, and when it was day they went in a body to the palace of Caiaphas. Here Jesus was questioned again, and answered that he was the Christ, the high priest rent his clothes, in sign that it was blasphemy and worthy of death. The Sanhedrim pronounced him guilty, and the officers carried him to the Praetorian gates and delivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards. The vacillation of Pilate and the last scene in our Lord's career are known to all. Mr. Dixon leaves them with the observation, "They form a divine episode in the history of man, and must be left to the writers who could not err."
A good book is its own best eulogy, and we may safely leave this of Mr. Dixon's to itself; but we cannot refrain from testifying our appreciation of such a valuable addition to the records of eastern travel. It is superfluous to say that it is excellently written, as it emanates from the 10, not of a tyro, but of a master-craftsman, whose style is too well known to need eulogy, a style graphic, pointed, and impressive, the result of clear vision and accurate delineation, strengthened by a sort of Frith-like power of grouping as witness the description of the street life of Jaffa, which, as an exquisite piece of word-painting, is perfect.
The reader is led through the sacred scenes of the Holy Land by an artist as well as a scholar, who as he journeys on revives the life of the past; we see the patriarchal life, the tents, the flocks grazing on the hills, the ready-writer with his and lingering and the city gate. We here David's minstrelsy and the tramp of Maccabaean soldierly; we peer into the depths of [{513}] one of those ancient wells build by the patriarchs, and listen to the conversation of the Samaritan woman with that wonderful stranger; we linger at the wayside Khan, and see how natural is the tale of the gospel. As we near Jerusalem the grander figures of the panorama pass over the scene, the Herods in their luxury and pride, in their humiliation and their sins, the grim towers of Macherus and the dark deed behind its walls when the head of the messenger of God fell to please a wanton woman, and terror was struck into the heart of the tyrant; the splendid ceremonial service of the temple, with its altars, its sacrifices, and its robed priests; the Sadducees luxuriating in their palaces, with servants, carriages, gardens, living their voluptuous, godless lives; the Pharisees with their demure aspect, broad and multiplied phylacteries; the elements of Roman soldiery, the imperial eagles hovering over the scene as the Jews past by scowling at the pagan rulers of the holy city; and then that marvellous god-like figure wandering about the streets followed by crowds of people, now entering the temple courts to preach to them, and now stopping on his way to heal some lame man or leper; his wanderings' along the wearying roads of Galilee; his mingling with the people in the synagogues, the popular gathering-place; his taking part in the service and reading the Scriptures; his final coming up to the holy city, the betrayal, this scenes of his trial, the frantic eagerness of the Jews, the vacillation of Pilate, the terrible suspense and the ultimate triumph of his foes, all these and many more incidents of biblical and gospel history are revived and enacted, as it were, amid the very scenes and in the very places where they once took place. We repeat again, that this work is an excellent commentary and illustration of the gospel narrative; and though pen of its author has been nobly wielded in the controversial defence of that gospel, yet perhaps even greater good may be done by this exhibition and illustration of the life and work of Christ. To hold him up to the eyes of men is the best antidote to scepticism; and whatever tends to do that, to plant the image of Christ in the hearts of men, is a good work; the illustration of his individuality, standing out as he did in his times, and as he does in every time, distinct from all men and things. We take up the great work of any age, its characteristic achievement, and we find the impress of the age stamped indelibly upon it; it smacks of the time and the scenes. Homer is pervaded with the valor of a mythic heroism, bloodshed and victory. Dante is the very best reflection of mediaevalism—its deep, superstitious piety, its weird dreams, and its peculiar theology. Shakespeare, though he has written with spotless purity, yet bears traces of the tolerated licentiousness of the Elizabethan age. But Christ and his gospel stand out distinct, totally distinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel could not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to it; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony, and licentious unbelief; paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the ancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and Rabbinical fantasies, when, rising up in the midst of all this debasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his gospel, pure among rottenness, gentle in the midst of violence, holy among flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the preaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world, not from oriental barbarism, not from western paganism, not from Jewish corruption; it could then have come from no other place than heaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon what was compressed in that three years' labor, and compare it with systems which have occupied men's lives to sketch out merely, and taken [{514}] ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system, which has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its own truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every principle defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and an impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it advancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of every disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality, its superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the mind. Therefore we think, in conclusion. that the best thing for Christians still to do in this world is, to lift up Christ before the eyes of men, no matter how, so that he be listed up boldly and faithfully, be it by the voice, the pencil, or the pen (as in this instance before us), or, better still by the more impressive exhibition of Christ in a Christian life. If we wish to save men, let us display him always and everywhere in the confidence that he will fulfil his own divine promise—"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."