WAS CHRIST’S TRIAL ILLEGAL?

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 15, 10 January 1929, Page 7

WAS CHRIST’S TRIAL ILLEGAL?

LORD OF APPEAL SAYS “YES.”

A closely reasoned and dispassionate judicial study of the “Trial of Jesus Christ,’’ hy Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, .a Lord of Appeal since 1909, forms an interesting feature of Khe current issue of John o’ London's Weekly. He points out, in a first article, various illegalities in what Tie describes as this “death trial,” his most romantic point, being the fateful hours during which it was held. “These proceedings,” he says, “according to the careful provisions of Hebrew jurisprudence, were illegal from beginning to end, because they were conducted by night.” “There was another difficulty,” continues Lord Shaw, “namely, the difficulty of th e count on which the accused man was to be tried. By the Hebrew law it was undoubtedly the case that it was the -witnesses themselves who had to satisfy the court that there was triable majtter. Trouble began. The; witnesses agreed n'ot witch each other. Let us assume that according to law they were put on oath. It was an adjuration or arresting solemnity. ‘Forget not, O witness that..in his trial for life, if thou sinnest, the blood of the accused and the blood of his seed to the end of time shall be imputed unto thee.’ It was from the agreed testimony of two witnesses, thus swearing and adjured, that alone a charge could spring. There was no such concurrent evidence. It followed inevitably as matter of law that no formulation of a charge was possible. “It is manifest that Caiaphas and the tribuanl were conscious of this, and that it was for this cause that he overleaped the legal barrier by a final act of illegality. Caiaphas >took to questioning the accused and contrary to Hebrew law, he founded upon accused’s own answers, and, there and then he formulatd a charge himself —a charge importing death. • “There came those questions cu - minating in ‘Art thou Ithe Christ, the sen of Glod?” and the supreme hour in Jesus’ human life had come. He made the confession and the ackuowledgemjenU, It was m accord with his whole teaching. The High Priest rent his clothes and ended th 6 so-called trial hy declaration that there .was no need of further witnesses. In that sentence he abandoned the humane prescriptions cf Hebiew law and the trial plunged on, through informality and illegality to condemnation, to death.