Eternal Father, is ever mine, my work also is Thine; Thou in me and I in Thee, and thus though all things are Thine, I am glorified in them. Greatly do these, Thy servants, need Thy help, for I, their friend, am about to leave them, but they remain in the world that hates them for my sake. Without Thy heavenly aid and protection, they will not be able to do the work Thou hast appointed them. Therefore, Holy Father, keep them true to Thy name, which Thou gavest me to make known to them, that by their common faith and love they may be one, as Thou and I are one. While I was in the world, I watched and protected those whom Thou thus committedst to my care, and kept them faithful to Thy name-kept them from the evil one, from denying Thee, from falling away from Thee-and none of them has perished but the son of perdition, for the Scripture must be fulfilled.2 Thou must watch and keep them, now that I shall leave them! "But now I come to Thee, and these things I speak, being yet in the world,3 that they may have, in their own souls, the perfect joy that is in mine, feeling assured confidence that the grave will not have dominion over me, and that they will have Thee for their helper. I have given them Thy word, and the world has hated them for receiving it; because they do not belong to the world, as I do not. Therefore, O Father, keep them! I ask not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world because it hates them; for suffering and struggle are needed to perfect their spiritual life, and to spread abroad my Kingdom. But I ask that Thou shouldest protect them from the evil one, that they, too, become not sons of perdition. They, like me, are not of the world, for it is the kingdom of the evil one; therefore, they need Thy protecting care, and, as Thine own, will surely have it. 4 "Thou hast brought them out from amidst the unbelieving and hostile world, and hast given them to me, and they have received, and kept Thy Word, made known to them by me. Thus they live in the Truth, for Thy Word is Truth; sanctify them in this, the sphere of their new spiritual life; not only keep them in it, but consecrate and prepare them for their great work, by giving them, through the Spirit of holiness and truth, Divine enlightenment, power, boldness, love, zeal. 1 John xvii. 11. 2 John xvii. 12. John xvii. 13. COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. 469 Even as Thou didst send me into the world,1 but didst first consecrate me by the Spirit, given without measure, that I might accomplish the work Thou gavest me to do, I have also sent them into the world, and they, O Father, need a similar consecration, in Thine own measure, to prosper in Thy work. "For their sakes I consecrate myself to Thee, in my death, as a holy offering 2-for I am both high priest and sacrifice; that they, also, may be made holy in the Truth, by Thy Spirit, the Helper whom Thou wilt send, because I, the Holy One, have thus died for them. "But I pray not for these, Thy servants now before Thee, alone, but for all them, also, who will henceforth believe in me, through their word, that they all, teachers, believers, and converts, may be one, in mutual fellowship and communion of love; the copy of that between Thee, Father, and me; communion so deep and holy that Thou art in me, and I in Thee. May they be, thus, one in each other, by being one in Us, by loving vital communion with Thee and me, that the unbelieving world may have a visible proof, and may believe that Thou didst send me, the source, the centre, the stay of such heavenly love. 3 "That all who shall now or hereafter believe in me, may be thus one in holy love and life, even as We are One-1 have given them, as their future inheritance, at my coming in my eternal Kingdom, part in that heavenly glory which Thou hast given me; that they may share it with me for ever. I have given it them, that they may be one, even as We are one; for how strong must it be as a bond of unity, that they are heirs together of the same glory with me in heaven. I have given it them that they may thus be perfectly joined in one, I dwelling in them and Thou in me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them with the same Father's love with which Thou hast loved me, and may thus believe on me, the Saviour of the world.+ "Father, I will that they whom Thou hast given me, from all the generations of men, be with me hereafter, to enjoy eternal life and everlasting communion with me in that heavenly world whither I am now going. It is the high reward of their faithfulness, their supreme consolation amidst 1 John xvii. 18. 2 John xvii. 19. 3 John xvii. 22. 6 John xvii. 24. 4 John iv. 42; x. 16. all earthly trials, their glorious animating hope. I will that their joy may be full, in seeing and sharing my heavenly glory, as they have seen and shared my humiliation on earth-that glory with Thyself, which Thou hast given me because Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. "Righteous Father, I know that Thou wilt carry out this my will; for, though the world has not known or acknowledged Thee, as revealed in my words and deeds,1 I have known Thee, as working in me, and revealing Thyself through me-known Thee by direct immediate knowledgeand these, Thy servants before Thee, having opened their hearts, and received my word, have known and believed that Thou hast sent me. I have made known unto them Thy Name, and will make it known through the Spirit whom I will send; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved me, Thou mayest also make dwell in their hearts, and that I, by the Spirit, may dwell in them for ever." 2 How sublimely this prayer was realized in the history of the Apostles, the "Acts" and the Epistles abundantly illustrate. It was their common glory to believe that nothing could separate them from the love of God in Christ; that He, by His Spirit, was with them, and that through His help they overcame all that opposed. The contrast between the dejected, faint-hearted, materializing Galilæan fishermen and peasants of the Gospels, and the heroic, spiritual confessors of Pentecost and after-times, is, itself, a miracle, great beyond all others. The illumination of soul, the grandeur of conception, the loftiness of aim, are a transformation from a lower to an indefinitely higher mental and moral condition, as complete as the change from early twilight to noon, and find their only solution in the admission that they must have received the miraculous spiritual enlightenment from above which Jesus had promised to send them. CHAPTER LX. THE ARREST. THILE Jesus was tenderly bidding farewell to His few followers in the upper room, all was bustle and excitement among the Church authorities, now on the track of His blood by the help of Judas. It was the great holiday of the year at Jerusalem; the week in which, beyond any other time, the whole population gave themselves up to rejoicing. The citizens, from the highest to the lowest, were reaping the great golden harvest of the year from the myriads of pilgrims, and they, on their side, had the excitement of numbers, and novelty, and religious enthusiasm. A mere mountain city, Jerusalem lived by the Temple, either directly or indirectly, and it was now the loadstone that had drawn the whole Jewish world around it. With the craft that habitually marked him, the tetrarch Antipas had come up from Tiberias, to show how devoutly he honoured the Law, and had taken his residence in the old castle of the Asmoneans, which still remained in the hands of his family. It was near the Xystus, and exactly opposite the Temple, to which he could cross by the upper bridge, over the Tyropoon Valley between Zion and Moriah." Pilate, also, had arrived from Cæsarea, to secure, in person, the preservation of order in the dangerous days of the feast. His quarters were in the new palace, built by Herod the Great on Zion. It was the pride of Jerusalem. "The kinds of stone used in its construction," says Josephus, 66 were countless. Whatever was rare abounded in it. The roofs astonished every one by the length of their beams and the beauty of their adornment. Vessels, mostly of gold and silver, rich in chasing, shone on every side. The great dining-hall had been constructed to supply table-couches for three hundred guests. Others opened in all directions, each with a different style of pillar. The open space before the palace was laid out in broad walks, planted with long avenues of different trees, and bordered by broad deep canals and great ponds, flowing with cool, clear water, and set off along the banks with innumerable works of art." It was the vast citadel-palace in which the tragedies of the family of Herod had been enacted. Here Archelaus had reigned, and Glaphyra had died. By right of war, the Romans had taken it, as the chief building of the city, for the residence of the procurators, and had made it the Prætorium, or head-quarters. Its enclosure-large enough to permit almost an army to be gathered in it, if necessary-ran along the inner side of the first city wall, and was connected with the great castles of white stone, Mariamne, Hippicus, and Phasaelus, which Herod had built; the whole constituting, in fact, a vast fortification. The high priest at the time of the Passover, as we have seen, was Caiaphas. The real head of the priesthood, however, was the crafty Hannas, or Ananus, without whom nothing of moment was done in the affairs of the theocracy. As father of the greatest Sadducean family, he was fitly notorious for his harsh judgments, and was presently to take the chief part in the death of Jesus, as his son afterwards did in that of St. James. He had been appointed high priest by Quirinius in the year A.D. 7, but had been deprived of the dignity seven years later by Valerius Gratus. The unique honour was reserved to him, however, of seeing his five sons successively pontiff's-one of them twice-a distinction which, in later years gained for him, among his countrymen, the name of the most fortunate of men. Intrigue and unwearied plotting were the very life of Hannas and his house. The gliding, deadly, snakelike smoothness with which they seized their prey was a wonder even to their own generation, and had given them a by-name as hissing vipers. When Quirinius, after the census, degraded the high priest Joazer, who had brought on himself universal hatred by his services to the Romans, Hannas was chosen as the one of the Temple aristocracy least displeasing either to the Romans or the Jews. He had managed to maintain his influence with three procurators through difficult times. Under Valerius Gratus, he was forced to give way to Ismael Ben Phabi, but, after a year, had had him displaced, 1 Bell. Jud., ii. 9. 4. 2 Ant., xx. 9. 1. |