The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920
They took off the straw crown, and put on another made of reeds. They took off his outer garments and put on him an old worn-out mantle. Around his neck they placed an iron chain. They tied his hands and put between them a reed as a scepter. All this time they ceased not from striking, scratching, kicking him, and spitting in his face. They threw all kinds of filth over him, and his hair was matted with dirt. They bowed their knees before him and mocked him with genuflections saying: " Prophesy to us, O Christ, who is he that struck thee." This the prophet saw. " My enemies have surrounded my soul. They have shut up their fat, their mouths have spoken proudly. They have cast me forth, and now they have surrounded me. . . . They have take i me as a lion prepared for the prey." (Psalm xvi. 9.12.) "Thou hast protected me from the assembly of the malignant, from the multitude of the workers of iniquity." (Psalm lxiii. 3.)
After a while they tired of this kind of insult, and seizing the chain around his neck, they dragged him towards the room into which some of the members of the Sanhedrin had withdrawn; those in front dragging him, and those behind punching him with sticks ; shouting: "March forward, thou Straw King. Show thyself to the Council with the marks of honor we have decked thee with." The members of the Sanhedrin with Caiphas at their head burst out in loud laughter at the sight. Thus they fulfilled the prophecy, "And their prince shall triumph over kings, and princes shall be his laughing stock." (Habacuc i. 10.)
Then they dragged him out into the open space before the house, and there they covered him with mud, spittle and all kinds of filth, saying: "Receive prophetic unction." For it was the custom to anoint priests and prophets with olive oil on the head, when they dedicated them to the ministry. Then one of them, seizing a basin of dirty water, threw it over his head and face, saying: " How canst thou presume to appear before the Council in such a condition. Others thou didst purify, but art thou pure thyself ? We will soon purify thee." They bent their knees before him again, saying: " Behold thy precious unction. Behold the spikenard worth three hundred pence. Thou hast been baptized in the pool of Bethsaida." By this they wanted to turn into ridicule his baptism by John the Baptist, and the honor shown him, when Mary Magdalen poured the ointment on his head, in Bethany that Sunday night.
By this they unconsciously showed his resemblance to the Paschal lambs, which were always washed in the pool of Bethsaida, before they were brought to the Temple to be sacrificed. The lambs were also washed afterwards with scented water, and tied to a stake on the tenth day of the moon, to foretell how he was tied and treated that night. The prophets foretold the filth with which they covered him. " My flesh is clothed with rottenness and the filth of dust.'(Job vii. 5.)" " Yet thou shalt plunge me in filth, and my garments shall abhor me." (Job ix. 31.) " Thy uncleanness is execrable. . . neither shalt thou be cleansed before I cause my indignation to rest in thee." (Ezechiel xxiv. 13.) " And the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. And the Lord that chose Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this the brand plucked out of the fire? And Jesus was clothed with filthy garments and he stood before the face of the angel." (Zacharias iii. 2, 3.)
While these terrible scenes were being enacted Peter and John were at the fire warming themselves. " And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall and were sitting about it, Peter was in the midst of them." (Luke xxii. 55.) " And Simon Peter was standing and warming himself." (John xviii. 25.) " Whom when a certain servant maid had seen sitting at the light, and had looked upon him she said: (Luke xxii. 56.) This man was also with him.' (Mark xiv. 67-68.) " Thou wast also with Jesus of Nazareth." "But he denied, saying : 'I neither know nor understand what thou sayest.' And he went forth before the court." (Jer. v. 12.)
How hard it is to find a man with courage strong enough to stand out against the whole crowd. All, without a single exception, had turned against Jesus; even his best friend Peter denied him as the prophet foretold. " They have denied the Lord, and said: It is not he." (Job viii. 18.) " He shall deny him and shall say, I know thee not." (Matt, xxvi. 71.)
Peter was afraid lest he might get into difficulties in the palace. He had not yet received the Holy Ghost. He was then a spiritually weak man. He had not yet learned the lesson of Calvary. He got up. " And as he went out of the gate, another maid saw him, and she saith to them that were there;. 'This man also was with Jesus of Nazareth,' (Luke xxii. 57.) " A servant maid seeing him began to say to the standers by, 'This is one of them.' She was a relative of Malchus, whose ear Peter had cut off hi the garden. Peter knew her and got still more frightened. But he denied him, saying: " Woman, I know him not."' She insisted that he was one of the Master's followers. " And again with an oath he denied." The royal prophet saw it: "My friends and my neighbors have drawn near and stood against me." (Psalm lxxxvii. 9.) "Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me."
"And after a little while he that stood by (Malchus, whose ear he had cut off), came and said to Peter, 'Surely thou art one of them, for even thy speech doth discover thee." (Matt. xxvi. 73.) And about the space of an hour after, another man affirmed saying : " Surely this man was also with him, for he is also a Galilean." And immediately, while he was yet speaking, the cock, the Geber, crew. "And the Lord turning, looked on Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ' Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.' And Peter went out and wept bitterly." (Luke xxii. 59-62.) It was at the Last Supper, when Peter protested that he was ready to die for Jesus, that the latter foretold his denial.
Poultry was not allowed in the city (Baba-Kamma vii. 7.) lest they might pollute the sacred places. But in the Cedron valley on the east, and in the Hinnom valley, but a few hundred feet to the west, were hen-coops, and in the still night the rooster's voice was heard on Sion. Often in the calm night, the cock's crow can be heard across the strait from Asia to Constantinople. Ever after during his life, in the night, when he heard the cock crow, Peter rose and spent the rest of the night in prayer, doing penance for his sin.
The Galilean dialect of the Aramean differed in accent, and the pronunciation of the gutturals, from the more refined tongue of Jerusalem. Country people fall into mannerisms, for they are more or less isolated from the cities, and they do not travel. "We find that peculiar provincialisms arise in country places in Europe and in the East. Peter was a fisherman of Galilee, and they knew him by his language. The Galileans were called ''Poor clowns of Galilee," and the Rabbis never allowed one of them to read the Scriptures in the synagogues, because his faulty pronunciation would cause laughter. (Talmud of Babyl, Erou, 53.)
