Note 101 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

According to all the Evangelists it was in the morning when the Jewish magistrates, after having declared Jesus worthy of death,101 caused him to be led away to the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate (Matt. xxvii. 1 ff. parall.; John xviii. 28). According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus was bound preparatory to his being conducted before Pilate, according to John xviii. 12, immediately on his arrest in the garden; Luke says nothing of his being bound. To this measure of sending him to Pilate they were compelled, according to John xviii. 31, by the circumstance that the Sanhedrim was deprived of the authority to execute the punishment of death (without the concurrence of the Roman government):102 but at all events the Jewish rulers must in this instance have been anxious to call in the agency of the Romans, since only their power could afford security against an uproar among the people θόρυβος ἐν τῷ λαῷ, which the former feared as a result of the execution of Jesus during the feast time (Matt. xxvi. 5 parall.).