THE ROMAN GOVERNOR BEFORE WHOM THE CASE OF JESUS WAS LAID DID NOT CARE WHAT HAPPENED AS LONG AS AN OUTWARD SEMBLANCE OF PEACE AND TRANQUILLITY WAS MAINTAINED WITHIN HIS PROVINCE.HE ALLOWED JESUS TO BE CONDEMNED TO DEATH.
The end of course was inevitable,as Jesus knew very well and as he had intimated to his disciples and his relatives more than once when he was still in Galilee and among his friends.
Jerusalem for many centuries had been the centre of a religious monopoly which not only brought great personal profits to most of the inhabitants but depended for its continued success upon the strictest observance of the ancient laws,as they had been laid down in the days of Moses.
Ever since the great exile,the vast majority of the Jewish people had insisted upon living abroad.They were much happier in the cities of Egypt and Greece and of the Italian peninsula and of Spain and of northern Africa,where trade was brisk and money flowed freely,than in Judaea,where the barren and exhausted soil could only be coaxed into a faint activity by endless hours of toil.
When the Persians had allowed the Jews to return to their home-land it had been impossible to bring a sufficient number of inhabitants back to the city without the use of soldiers.Since then,conditions had not improved.
The Jews,wherever found,continued to regard Jerusalem with deep respect as the religious centre of their nation,but their fatherland was there where they happened to have found a comfortable home and nothing short of absolute force would bring them back to the land of their birth.
As a result,those people who dwelt within the gates of the old national capital were almost without exception connected with the Temple,just as to-day the inhabitants of many of our smaller college towns depend directly or indirectly upon the University for their daily bread and butter and would either starve or be obliged to move if the University were obliged to close its doors.
The economic and spiritual aristocracy of this group consisted of a small number of professional priests.
Next came their assistants who had to look after the complicated ritual of the burnt offerings and the minor sacrifices.They were really highly trained and skilful butchers,personally interested in the number and the quality of the animals which were brought to them and which provided them with the greater part of their daily food.
Then there were the common servants who kept the Temple clean and washed the courts in the evening after the crowd had dispersed.
Then there were the money-changers,the bankers as we would call them to-day,who trafficked in the strange metals that were brought to them from every part of the world.
Then there were the hotel-keepers and the inn-keepers and the boarding-housekeepers,who offered board and lodging to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who annually travelled to Jerusalem that they might keep the law and worship at the appointed time at the ancestral altar.
Then there were all the usual shopkeepers and tailors and shoemakers and wine merchants and candlestick makers who are to be found in any city which has become a tourist centre.
For that is what Jerusalem really was.
A religious tourist centre to which the people flocked,not for the purpose of amusement,but to perform certain rites which (so they firmly believed)could not possibly be performed in another place or by another set of men than those who since time immemorial had exercised the office of Priest.
You must get firm hold of these facts if you are to understand the scorching looks of hatred which were thrown at Jesus when he once more dared to enter the city.
There he came,this carpenter,from a forlorn village in Galilee—this humble teacher whose great love embraced even sinners and publicans.
Twice before he had been told to leave.
He was not wanted in Jerusalem.
Had he returned to cause more trouble?or would he content himself with a few speeches?
It is true,these little talks which he sometimes delivered to his companions sounded very harmless.But they were really most dangerous.The man was for ever hinting at things.Not in those vague terms which were so popular with the learned scribes who loved to hide the meaning of everything they said underneath a copious verbiage of Hebrew sentences which created an impression of profound erudition.
No,he used words which all the people could understand.Jesus said:“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,and with all thy soul,and with all thy mind.This is the first and great commandment.And the second is like unto it:Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
And then,there were those parables about shepherds and all sorts of every-day things which went straight to the heart of the matter.
Some people had tried to answer the unmistakable allusions to false leaders and to unworthy gods.
But Jesus had confused them with a new array of stories and the crowd had laughed its approval.Even the children had come to listen and because they had liked this man they had clambered upon his knees.Jesus said:“Suffer little children to come unto me:and forbid them not;for of such is the kingdom of God.”
In short,the Nazarene was for ever doing and saying those things which a decent and self-respecting rabbi would never have done or said,and he went his way so pleasantly and so quietly that the police were powerless to interfere.
And then the doctrines which this man seemed to hold!
Had he not stated,upon more than one occasion,that the Kingdom of God was everywhere and stretched far and wide beyond the borders of Judaea where dwelt the chosen few of Jehovah's predilection?
Had he not openly broken the Sabbath under the pretext of curing a sick woman?
Didn't they say in Galilee that he had dined in the homes of foreigners and Roman officials and people who would never be tolerated within the outer portals of the Temple?