arrestatie 5

The fifty soldiers... 

belonged to a company of three hundred men... 

who had been sent at once to guard the gates and streets of Ophel and its surroundings.

For Judas the traitor had drawn the High Priest's attention to the fact that the inhabitants of Ophel, who were mostly poor artisans, day laborers, and carriers of wood and water to the Temple  [Lc.22:10, Mc.14:13], were the most attached partisans of Jesus. 

It might easily be feared therefore, that some attempt would be made to free Him as He passed through. The traitor knew very well that Jesus had here bestowed upon many of the poor laborers consolation, instruction, healing, and alms. 

It was also here in Ophel... 

that Jesus had tarried [vertoefd] when, after the murder of John the Baptist in Machaerus, He was journeying back from Betha­nia to Hebron. 

He had paused awhile to console John's friends... 

and He had healed many of the poor day laborers and wood carriers who had been wounded at the overthrow of the great building and the tower of Siloam. 

Most of these people... 

after the descent of the Holy Ghost, joined the Christian Community, and when the separation of the Christians from the Jews took place and several settlements of the former were erected, they pitched their tents and built their huts across the valley as far as the Mount of Olives. 

Stephen resided there at that time. 

Ophel was on a hill south of the Temple. It was surrounded by walls and inhabited principally by day laborers. It appeared to me to be not much smaller than Dülmen.

The good inhabitants of Ophel were roused by the shouts of the garrison as their companions entered. They hurried from their houses and pressed to the streets and gates held by the soldiers, asking the cause of the uproar. 

But here they met with a rough reception. The military rabble, made up of a mix­ture of low, insolent slaves, roughly and jeeringly drove them back to their dwellings. 

But as here and there they heard such remarks as these: "Jesus, the evildoer, your false Prophet, is about to be led in a prisoner. The High Priests will put an end to His proceedings. He will have to pay the penalty of the Cross," the whole place was roused from sleep by the loud cries and lamentations of the people. 

The poor creatures, men and women, ran about wailing or, with outstretched arms, cast themselves on their knees, crying to Heaven and lauding Jesus' good deeds. 

The soldiers, thrusting them and dealing blows on all sides, drove them back to their homes, at the same time insulting Jesus, and saying: "Here is an evident proof that He is an agitator of the people!" 

They were, however, a little cautious... 

in acting with the populace, through fear of rousing them by greater violence to open insurrection. Consequently, they aimed only at clearing the streets by which the pro­cession was to pass through Ophel. Meanwhile the ill-used Jesus and His barbarous escort came nearer and nearer to the gates of Ophel. 

Our Lord had repeatedly fallen to the earth... 

and He now appeared utterly unable to proceed farther. 

Tak­ing advantage of this, a compassionate soldier said: 

"You see for yourselves that the poor Man can go no farther. If we are to take Him alive before the High Priests, we must loosen the cords that bind His hands, that He may be able to support Himself when He falls." 

-

While the procession halted for the execution­ers to loosen the cords... 

another good-hearted soldier brought Him a drink of water from a neighboring well. 

He scooped it up in a vessel made of bark formed into the shape of a cone, such as soldiers and travelers carried about them in that country as drink­ing vessels. 

When Jesus said to this man a few words of acknowledgment, uttering at the same time some prophetic expressions about "drinking from living fountains," and "the streams of living waters," the Pharisees mocked and reviled Him, accusing Him of vain boasting and blasphemy. 

He ought, they said, to give up His empty talk. 

He would never again give drink to a beast, much less to a human being. 

-

It was shown me that the two compassionate sol­diers... 

through whose intervention His bands had been loosened... 

and He had received a drink... 

were suddenly illuminated by grace. 

After Jesus' death they were converted, and later on joined the Community in the capacity of disciples. I once knew their names. Also those, that they afterward bore as disciples, and their whole history. But it would be impossible to remem­ber all that. 

It is too much.

[emmerich]