Trial and Condemnation of Jesus As a Legal Question, The
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THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF JESUS AS A LEGAL QUESTION.
II
By HON. EDWARD W. HATCH.
LASPHEMY was an offence so odious
to the Jews that they conducted the
trial in all its aspects in such a manner that
the words used by7 the offender, constituting
the crime, were not spoken by the witnesses ;
but fictitious words and personages were in-
troduced. As they could not execute under
the fictitious name, they finally excluded the
public, and calling the principal witness said
to him, Tell us clearly what thou hast heard ;
and then the witness, naming the person,
stated the words constituting the offence.
Then the judges stood upon their feet and
rent their garments, which were never sewn
again. The second and third witnesses were
not allowed to speak the words, but said,
Even I [heard] as he. The Mishna also
provided that judgments in souls should not
be held for the purpose of condemning, but
for clearing, and this is evident from its pro-
visions. The Hebrew lawyers expressed
the opinion that a tribunal which con-
demns to death once in seven years may be
called 'sanguinary.' And Dr. Elizer said,
It deserves this appellation when it pro-
nounces a like sentence once in seventy
years. Rabbis Tryphon and Akiba, Jewish
leaders, declared that they would not pass
sentence of death. The boasted nineteenth
century will search its judicial practice in
vain to find such safeguards thrown around
an offender as were contained in this Jewish
code. Certainty in evidence, presumption of
innocence, humanity in procedure, hedged it
about until a false conviction was almost
impossible. England may well blush with
its blood-stained code of the eighteenth
and early part of the nineteenth centuries
in comparison with such humane rules and
course of procedure followed out by centuries
of practice. It seems incredible that they
should have been utterly violated in letter
and spirit upon the occasion to which we
now call attention. Bear well in mind these
rules while we follow the course of the pre-
sent trial.
From the time that Jesus commenced
to teach, after his temptation, it was early
discovered by both Pharisees and Sadducees
that his was not a religion of forms, whose
ostentatious observance fulfilled the highest
law; and in consequence they became ar-
rayed against him, and the whole record
shows that they sought his life for the reason
that his teaching tended to the destruction
of their ceremonial religion and the power of
the priesthood. Thus it was that they re-
fused to recognize Divine Power in his
works, seeking to inculpate him by questions
in a violation of law that they might find
excuse to destroy him. John says, Chap.
V., that they tried to slay him for directing
the man healed at the pool of Bethesda to
take up his bed and walk, it being on the
Sabbath. He healed the withered hand, and
they held counsel with the Herodians how
they might destroy him. When he ate with-
out washing and denounced the Pharisees
for their hypocrisy, they tried to provoke
him that he might say that of which they
could accuse him. They also asked for a
sign, not to be satisfied that Jesus was the
Christ, but because by their law one who
showed a sign was to be tried as a false
prophet and punished by death. At the
feast of the Tabernacle, as Jesus taught in
the Temple, they sent officers for him ; but at
that time there was a division of the people
concerning him, and no man dare lay hands
upon him. The officers make reply to the
Chief Priests and Pharisees: Never man
spake like this man. And when the Phari-](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/tgb5&div=108&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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