But though the great council of the nation had thus passed sentence, there remained a serious obstacle before they could carry it out. Cases punishable with death, such as false claims to prophetic inspiration, or blasphemy, they were fully competent to _try_[520] (Comp. Acts iv. 5–21; v. 17–40; vi. 12–15; xxiii. 1–10), but they could not _execute_ the sentence of death, for the right had been taken from them ever since Judæa became a Roman province[521]. Mistrusting, therefore, the people who might attempt to rescue the Holy One from the hands of their own officers, reluctant to incur the odium of profaning so sacred a day with a public execution, anxious to shift the responsibility from their own head upon that of the Romans, yet determined to insure the destruction of their Victim, they again reassembled their court (Mtt. xxvii. 1; Mk. xv. 1), and resolved to send the Redeemer before the tribunal of Pilate, who, they might not unreasonably suppose, “would not hesitate, at once, and on their authority, on the first intimation of a dangerous and growing party, to act without further examination or inquiry, and without scruple add one victim more to the robbers and turbulent insurgents, who, it appears, were kept in prison, in order to be executed, as a terrible example at that period of national concourse[522].” Pilate had, as usual, come up to Jerusalem to preserve order during the Passover, and was now residing either in a palace near the tower of Antonia[523], or in the splendid and luxurious structure which had been erected by Herod the Great[524]. Thither, therefore, the Saviour, after He had been again placed in bonds (Mtt. xxvii. 2), was led, attended by a deputation of the Sanhedrin to support and explain the charge[525].