populace

68:1.4Prim­i­tive hu­man be­ings early learned that groups are vastly greater and stronger than the mere sum of their in­di­vid­ual units. One hun­dred men united and work­ing in uni­son can move a great stone; a score of well-trained guard­i­ans of the peace can re­strain an an­gry mob. And so so­ci­ety was born, not of mere as­so­ci­a­tion of num­bers, but rather as a re­sult of the or­ga­ni­za­tion of in­tel­li­gent co-op­er­a­tors. But co-op­er­a­tion is not a nat­u­ral trait of man; he learns to co-op­er­ate first through fear and then later be­cause he dis­cov­ers it is most ben­e­fi­cial in meet­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties of time and guard­ing against the sup­posed per­ils of eter­nity.

185:5.5A few days be­fore this the mul­ti­tude had stood in awe of Je­sus, but the mob did not look up to one who, hav­ing claimed to be the Son of God, now found him­self in the cus­tody of the chief priests and the rulers and on trial be­fore Pi­late for his life. Je­sus could be a hero in the eyes of the pop­u­lace when he was driv­ing the money-chang­ers and the traders out of the tem­ple, but not when he was a non­re­sist­ing pris­oner in the hands of his en­e­mies and on trial for his life.

185:5.4Pi­late stood up and ex­plained to the crowd that Je­sus had been brought to him by the chief priests, who sought to have him put to death on cer­tain charges, and that he did not think the man was wor­thy of death. Said Pi­late: “Which, there­fore, would you pre­fer that I re­lease to you, this Barab­bas, the mur­derer, or this Je­sus of Gal­i­lee?” And when Pi­late had thus spo­ken, the chief priests and the San­hedrin coun­cilors all shouted at the top of their voices, “Barab­bas, Barab­bas!” And when the peo­ple saw that the chief priests were minded to have Je­sus put to death, they quickly joined in the clamor for his life while they loudly shouted for the re­lease of Barab­bas.

185:5.6Pi­late was an­gered at the sight of the chief priests clam­or­ing for the par­don of a no­to­ri­ous mur­derer while they shouted for the blood of Je­sus. He saw their mal­ice and ha­tred and per­ceived their prej­u­dice and envy. There­fore he said to them: “How could you choose the life of a mur­derer in pref­er­ence to this man’s whose worst crime is that he fig­u­ra­tively calls him­self the king of the Jews?” But this was not a wise state­ment for Pi­late to make. The Jews were a proud peo­ple, now sub­ject to the Ro­man po­lit­i­cal yoke but hop­ing for the com­ing of a Mes­siah who would de­liver them from gen­tile bond­age with a great show of power and glory. They re­sented, more than Pi­late could know, the in­ti­ma­tion that this meek-man­nered teacher of strange doc­trines, now un­der ar­rest and charged with crimes wor­thy of death, should be re­ferred to as “the king of the Jews.” They looked upon such a re­mark as an in­sult to ev­ery­thing which they held sa­cred and hon­or­able in their na­tional ex­is­tence, and there­fore did they all let loose their mighty shouts for Barab­bas’s re­lease and Je­sus’ death.

185:5.7Pi­late knew Je­sus was in­no­cent of the charges brought against him, and had he been a just and coura­geous judge, he would have ac­quit­ted him and turned him loose. But he was afraid to defy these an­gry Jews, and while he hes­i­tated to do his duty, a mes­sen­ger came up and pre­sented him with a sealed mes­sage from his wife, Clau­dia.

185:5.8Pi­late in­di­cated to those as­sem­bled be­fore him that he wished to read the com­mu­ni­ca­tion which he had just re­ceived be­fore he pro­ceeded fur­ther with the mat­ter be­fore him. When Pi­late opened this let­ter from his wife, he read: “I pray you have noth­ing to do with this in­no­cent and just man whom they call Je­sus. I have suf­fered many things in a dream this night be­cause of him.” This note from Clau­dia not only greatly up­set Pi­late and thereby de­layed the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of this mat­ter, but it un­for­tu­nately also pro­vided con­sid­er­able time in which the Jew­ish rulers freely cir­cu­lated among the crowd and urged the peo­ple to call for the re­lease of Barab­bas and to clamor for the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus.

185:5.9Fi­nally, Pi­late ad­dressed him­self once more to the so­lu­tion of the prob­lem which con­fronted him, by ask­ing the mixed as­sem­bly of Jew­ish rulers and the par­don-seek­ing crowd, “What shall I do with him who is called the king of the Jews?” And they all shouted with one ac­cord, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!” The una­nim­ity of this de­mand from the mixed mul­ti­tude star­tled and alarmed Pi­late, the un­just and fear-rid­den judge.

185:5.10Then once more Pi­late said: “Why would you cru­cify this man? What evil has he done? Who will come for­ward to tes­tify against him?” But when they heard Pi­late speak in de­fense of Je­sus, they only cried out all the more, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!”

185:5.11Then again Pi­late ap­pealed to them re­gard­ing the re­lease of the Pass­over pris­oner, say­ing: “Once more I ask you, which of these pris­on­ers shall I re­lease to you at this, your Pass­over time?” And again the crowd shouted, “Give us Barab­bas!”

98:2.10But the av­er­age men of these times could not grasp, nor were they much in­ter­ested in, the Greek phi­los­o­phy of self-re­al­iza­tion and an ab­stract De­ity; they rather craved promises of sal­va­tion, cou­pled with a per­sonal God who could hear their prayers. They ex­iled the philoso­phers, per­se­cuted the rem­nants of the Salem cult, both doc­trines hav­ing be­come much blended, and made ready for that ter­ri­ble or­gias­tic plunge into the fol­lies of the mys­tery cults which were then over­spread­ing the Med­i­ter­ra­nean lands. The Eleusinian mys­ter­ies grew up within the Olympian pan­theon, a Greek ver­sion of the wor­ship of fer­til­ity; Diony­sus na­ture wor­ship flour­ished; the best of the cults was the Or­phic broth­er­hood, whose moral preach­ments and promises of sal­va­tion made a great ap­peal to many.

98:4.1The ma­jor­ity of peo­ple in the Greco-Ro­man world, hav­ing lost their prim­i­tive fam­ily and state re­li­gions and be­ing un­able or un­will­ing to grasp the mean­ing of Greek phi­los­o­phy, turned their at­ten­tion to the spec­tac­u­lar and emo­tional mys­tery cults from Egypt and the Lev­ant. The com­mon peo­ple craved promises of sal­va­tion—re­li­gious con­so­la­tion for to­day and as­sur­ances of hope for im­mor­tal­ity af­ter death.

173:2.8And it was this ge­nius of the Mas­ter for deal­ing with his ad­ver­saries that made them so afraid of him. They at­tempted no more ques­tions that day; they re­tired to take fur­ther coun­sel among them­selves. But the peo­ple were not slow to dis­cern the dis­hon­esty and in­sin­cer­ity in these ques­tions asked by the Jew­ish rulers. Even the com­mon folk could not fail to dis­tin­guish be­tween the moral majesty of the Mas­ter and the de­sign­ing hypocrisy of his en­e­mies. But the cleans­ing of the tem­ple had brought the Sad­ducees over to the side of the Phar­isees in per­fect­ing the plan to de­stroy Je­sus. And the Sad­ducees now rep­re­sented a ma­jor­ity of the San­hedrin.

172:3.15There re­ally was no deep sig­nif­i­cance to be at­tached to this su­per­fi­cial and spon­ta­neous out­burst of pop­u­lar en­thu­si­asm. This wel­come, al­though it was joy­ous and sin­cere, did not be­to­ken any real or deep-seated con­vic­tion in the hearts of this fes­tive mul­ti­tude. These same crowds were equally as will­ing quickly to re­ject Je­sus later on this week when the San­hedrin once took a firm and de­cided stand against him, and when they be­came dis­il­lu­sioned—when they re­al­ized that Je­sus was not go­ing to es­tab­lish the king­dom in ac­cor­dance with their long-cher­ished ex­pec­ta­tions.

185:6.1In all that is tran­spir­ing early this Fri­day morn­ing be­fore Pi­late, only the en­e­mies of Je­sus are par­tic­i­pat­ing. His many friends ei­ther do not yet know of his night ar­rest and early morn­ing trial or are in hid­ing lest they also be ap­pre­hended and ad­judged wor­thy of death be­cause they be­lieve Je­sus’ teach­ings. In the mul­ti­tude which now clam­ors for the Mas­ter’s death are to be found only his sworn en­e­mies and the eas­ily led and un­think­ing pop­u­lace.

185:5.12Then said Pi­late: “If I re­lease the mur­derer, Barab­bas, what shall I do with Je­sus?” And once more the mul­ti­tude shouted in uni­son, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!”

• people turned against

185:7.2But Je­sus could hardly an­swer such ques­tions when asked by a man-fear­ing, weak, and vac­il­lat­ing judge who was so un­just as to sub­ject him to flog­ging even when he had de­clared him in­no­cent of all crime, and be­fore he had been duly sen­tenced to die. Je­sus looked Pi­late straight in the face, but he did not an­swer him. Then said Pi­late: “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not re­al­ize that I still have power to re­lease you or to cru­cify you?” Then said Je­sus: “You could have no power over me ex­cept it were per­mit­ted from above. You could ex­er­cise no au­thor­ity over the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven al­lowed it. But you are not so guilty since you are ig­no­rant of the gospel. He who be­trayed me and he who de­liv­ered me to you, they have the greater sin.”

185:8.1Here stood the Son of God in­car­nate as the Son of Man. He was ar­rested with­out in­dict­ment; ac­cused with­out ev­i­dence; ad­judged with­out wit­nesses; pun­ished with­out a ver­dict; and now was soon to be con­demned to die by an un­just judge who con­fessed that he could find no fault in him. If Pi­late had thought to ap­peal to their pa­tri­o­tism by re­fer­ring to Je­sus as the “king of the Jews,” he ut­terly failed. The Jews were not ex­pect­ing any such a king. The dec­la­ra­tion of the chief priests and the Sad­ducees, “We have no king but Cae­sar,” was a shock even to the un­think­ing pop­u­lace, but it was too late now to save Je­sus even had the mob dared to es­pouse the Mas­ter’s cause.

185:8.2Pi­late was afraid of a tu­mult or a riot. He dared not risk hav­ing such a dis­tur­bance dur­ing Pass­over time in Je­ru­sa­lem. He had re­cently re­ceived a rep­ri­mand from Cae­sar, and he would not risk an­other. The mob cheered when he or­dered the re­lease of Barab­bas. Then he or­dered a basin and some wa­ter, and there be­fore the mul­ti­tude he washed his hands, say­ing: “I am in­no­cent of the blood of this man. You are de­ter­mined that he shall die, but I have found no guilt in him. See you to it. The sol­diers will lead him forth.” And then the mob cheered and replied, “His blood be on us and on our chil­dren.”

• common people heard gladly

196:1.4The com­mon peo­ple heard Je­sus gladly, and they will again re­spond to the pre­sen­ta­tion of his sin­cere hu­man life of con­se­crated re­li­gious mo­ti­va­tion if such truths shall again be pro­claimed to the world. The peo­ple heard him gladly be­cause he was one of them, an un­pre­ten­tious lay­man; the world’s great­est re­li­gious teacher was in­deed a lay­man.

99:1.5A god­less hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism is, hu­manly speak­ing, a no­ble ges­ture, but true re­li­gion is the only power which can last­ingly in­crease the re­spon­sive­ness of one so­cial group to the needs and suf­fer­ings of other groups. In the past, in­sti­tu­tional re­li­gion could re­main pas­sive while the up­per strata of so­ci­ety turned a deaf ear to the suf­fer­ings and op­pres­sion of the help­less lower strata, but in mod­ern times these lower so­cial or­ders are no longer so ab­jectly ig­no­rant nor so po­lit­i­cally help­less.

121:3.54. The free pro­le­tariat. This group had lit­tle or no so­cial stand­ing. Though proud of their free­dom, they were placed at great dis­ad­van­tage be­cause they were forced to com­pete with slave la­bor. The up­per classes re­garded them dis­dain­fully, al­low­ing that they were use­less ex­cept for “breed­ing pur­poses.”

172:3.12Along with the mul­ti­tude which poured out to wel­come the Mas­ter, there came also many of the Phar­isees and his other en­e­mies. They were so much per­turbed by this sud­den and un­ex­pected out­burst of pop­u­lar ac­claim that they feared to ar­rest him lest such ac­tion pre­cip­i­tate an open re­volt of the pop­u­lace. They greatly feared the at­ti­tude of the large num­bers of vis­i­tors, who had heard much of Je­sus, and who, many of them, be­lieved in him.

172:3.13As they neared Je­ru­sa­lem, the crowd be­came more demon­stra­tive, so much so that some of the Phar­isees made their way up along­side Je­sus and said: “Teacher, you should re­buke your dis­ci­ples and ex­hort them to be­have more seemly.” Je­sus an­swered: “It is only fit­ting that these chil­dren should wel­come the Son of Peace, whom the chief priests have re­jected. It would be use­less to stop them lest in their stead these stones by the road­side cry out.”

172:3.14The Phar­isees has­tened on ahead of the pro­ces­sion to re­join the San­hedrin, which was then in ses­sion at the tem­ple, and they re­ported to their as­so­ciates: “Be­hold, all that we do is of no avail; we are con­founded by this Galilean. The peo­ple have gone mad over him; if we do not stop these ig­no­rant ones, all the world will go af­ter him.”

172:4.1While the Al­pheus twins re­turned the don­key to its owner, Je­sus and the ten apos­tles de­tached them­selves from their im­me­di­ate as­so­ciates and strolled about the tem­ple, view­ing the prepa­ra­tions for the Pass­over. No at­tempt was made to mo­lest Je­sus as the San­hedrin greatly feared the peo­ple, and that was, af­ter all, one of the rea­sons Je­sus had for al­low­ing the mul­ti­tude thus to ac­claim him. The apos­tles lit­tle un­der­stood that this was the only hu­man pro­ce­dure which could have been ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing Je­sus’ im­me­di­ate ar­rest upon en­ter­ing the city. The Mas­ter de­sired to give the in­hab­i­tants of Je­ru­sa­lem, high and low, as well as the tens of thou­sands of Pass­over vis­i­tors, this one more and last chance to hear the gospel and re­ceive, if they would, the Son of Peace.

173:1.9When the chief priests and the scribes heard about these hap­pen­ings, they were dum­founded. All the more they feared the Mas­ter, and all the more they de­ter­mined to de­stroy him. But they were non­plused. They did not know how to ac­com­plish his death, for they greatly feared the mul­ti­tudes, who were now so out­spo­ken in their ap­proval of his over­throw of the pro­fane prof­i­teers. And all this day, a day of quiet and peace in the tem­ple courts, the peo­ple heard Je­sus’ teach­ing and lit­er­ally hung on his words.

173:2.1On Sun­day the tri­umphal en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem so over­awed the Jew­ish lead­ers that they re­frained from plac­ing Je­sus un­der ar­rest. To­day, this spec­tac­u­lar cleans­ing of the tem­ple like­wise ef­fec­tively post­poned the Mas­ter’s ap­pre­hen­sion. Day by day the rulers of the Jews were be­com­ing more and more de­ter­mined to de­stroy him, but they were dis­traught by two fears, which con­spired to de­lay the hour of strik­ing. The chief priests and the scribes were un­will­ing to ar­rest Je­sus in pub­lic for fear the mul­ti­tude might turn upon them in a fury of re­sent­ment; they also dreaded the pos­si­bil­ity of the Ro­man guards be­ing called upon to quell a pop­u­lar up­ris­ing.

173:4.5When the Phar­isees heard these words, they un­der­stood that Je­sus re­ferred to them­selves and the other Jew­ish lead­ers. They greatly de­sired to lay hold on him then and there, but they feared the mul­ti­tude. How­ever, they were so an­gered by the Mas­ter’s words that they with­drew and held fur­ther coun­sel among them­selves as to how they might bring about his death. And that night both the Sad­ducees and the Phar­isees joined hands in the plan to en­trap him the next day.

174:2.1On Mon­day evening there had been held a coun­cil be­tween the San­hedrin and some fifty ad­di­tional lead­ers se­lected from among the scribes, Phar­isees, and the Sad­ducees. It was the con­sen­sus of this meet­ing that it would be dan­ger­ous to ar­rest Je­sus in pub­lic be­cause of his hold upon the af­fec­tions of the com­mon peo­ple. It was also the opin­ion of the ma­jor­ity that a de­ter­mined ef­fort should be made to dis­credit him in the eyes of the mul­ti­tude be­fore he should be ar­rested and brought to trial. Ac­cord­ingly, sev­eral groups of learned men were des­ig­nated to be on hand the next morn­ing in the tem­ple to un­der­take to en­trap him with dif­fi­cult ques­tions and oth­er­wise to seek to em­bar­rass him be­fore the peo­ple. At last, the Phar­isees, Sad­ducees, and even the Hero­di­ans were all united in this ef­fort to dis­credit Je­sus in the eyes of the Pass­over mul­ti­tudes.