The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus

183:5.1Be­fore they started away from the gar­den with Je­sus, a dis­pute arose be­tween the Jew­ish cap­tain of the tem­ple guards and the Ro­man cap­tain of the com­pany of sol­diers as to where they were to take Je­sus. The cap­tain of the tem­ple guards gave or­ders that he should be taken to Cai­a­phas, the act­ing high priest. The cap­tain of the Ro­man sol­diers di­rected that Je­sus be taken to the palace of An­nas, the for­mer high priest and fa­ther-in-law of Cai­a­phas. And this he did be­cause the Ro­mans were in the habit of deal­ing di­rectly with An­nas in all mat­ters hav­ing to do with the en­force­ment of the Jew­ish ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal laws. And the or­ders of the Ro­man cap­tain were obeyed; they took Je­sus to the home of An­nas for his pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion.

183:5.2Ju­das marched along near the cap­tains, over­hear­ing all that was said, but took no part in the dis­pute, for nei­ther the Jew­ish cap­tain nor the Ro­man of­fi­cer would so much as speak to the be­trayer—they held him in such con­tempt.

183:5.3About this time John Zeb­e­dee, re­mem­ber­ing his Mas­ter’s in­struc­tions to re­main al­ways near at hand, hur­ried up near Je­sus as he marched along be­tween the two cap­tains. The com­man­der of the tem­ple guards, see­ing John come up along­side, said to his as­sis­tant: “Take this man and bind him. He is one of this fel­low’s fol­low­ers.” But when the Ro­man cap­tain heard this and, look­ing around, saw John, he gave or­ders that the apos­tle should come over by him, and that no man should mo­lest him. Then the Ro­man cap­tain said to the Jew­ish cap­tain: “This man is nei­ther a traitor nor a cow­ard. I saw him in the gar­den, and he did not draw a sword to re­sist us. He has the cour­age to come for­ward to be with his Mas­ter, and no man shall lay hands on him. The Ro­man law al­lows that any pris­oner may have at least one friend to stand with him be­fore the judg­ment bar, and this man shall not be pre­vented from stand­ing by the side of his Mas­ter, the pris­oner.” And when Ju­das heard this, he was so ashamed and hu­mil­i­ated that he dropped back be­hind the marchers, com­ing up to the palace of An­nas alone.

183:5.4And this ex­plains why John Zeb­e­dee was per­mit­ted to re­main near Je­sus all the way through his try­ing ex­pe­ri­ences this night and the next day. The Jews feared to say aught to John or to mo­lest him in any way be­cause he had some­thing of the sta­tus of a Ro­man coun­selor des­ig­nated to act as ob­server of the trans­ac­tions of the Jew­ish ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court. John’s po­si­tion of priv­i­lege was made all the more se­cure when, in turn­ing Je­sus over to the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards at the gate of An­nas’s palace, the Ro­man, ad­dress­ing his as­sis­tant, said: “Go along with this pris­oner and see that these Jews do not kill him with­out Pi­late’s con­sent. Watch that they do not as­sas­si­nate him, and see that his friend, the Galilean, is per­mit­ted to stand by and ob­serve all that goes on.” And thus was John able to be near Je­sus right on up to the time of his death on the cross, though the other ten apos­tles were com­pelled to re­main in hid­ing. John was act­ing un­der Ro­man pro­tec­tion, and the Jews dared not mo­lest him un­til af­ter the Mas­ter’s death.

183:5.5And all the way to the palace of An­nas, Je­sus opened not his mouth. From the time of his ar­rest to the time of his ap­pear­ance be­fore An­nas, the Son of Man spoke no word.