=45, 46. Then came the officers.= Not Roman soldiers, but temple police, answering to the modern constable or the Roman lictor or the English beadle. They had been directed by the officers of the Sanhedrim to arrest Jesus (ver. 32). Presumptively this return of the officers occurred several days after their commission to make the arrest. They had been watching him during the feast.--=Never man spake like this man.= They were not overawed by the multitude, but by the words of Christ himself. There is no stronger testimony, even in the Gospels, to the marvellous moral power of Christ’s personality and words than this declaration of the temple police, who were probably ignorant but also simple men, without the culture, but also without the religious prejudices, of the rulers. In the life of Whitefield are several illustrations of analogous moral power over roughs who had come to the preaching to break it up, but who remained spell-bound under its influence. To have elicited such testimony as this from such men as these, Jesus must have possessed the power of a true oratory. 47 Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? 48 Have any of the rulers[301] or of the Pharisees believed on him? [301] ch. 12:42; Jer. 5:4, 5; 1 Cor. 1:26. 49 But this people, who knoweth not the law, are cursed. =47-49.= The language of the Pharisaic rulers is that of unbounded scorn for Jesus and for the multitude. The latter are declared to be under divine wrath and cursed with moral blindness because they have an admiration for such a Sabbath-breaker. “All here is wonderfully living and characteristic. The faint effort of the officers to execute the command of their masters; the awe which held them back; their simple confession of the power which they found in the words of Jesus; the surprise of the Sanhedrim that the infection should have reached even their servants; their terror lest there might be traitors in the camp, lest any Pharisee or lawyer (probably some eyes were turned on Nicodemus) should have been carried away by the impulse to which the crowd, naturally enough, had yielded; their scorn of the people, as wretched, ‘accursed’ men, utterly ignorant of the law--who does not feel as if he were present in that convocation of doctors? as if he were looking at their perplexed and angry faces? as if he were hearing their contemptuous words?”--(_Maurice._) 50 Nicodemus saith unto them, (he[302] that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) [302] ch. 3:2. 51 Doth[303] our law judge _any_ man before it hear him, and know what he doeth? [303] Deut. 17:8; Prov. 18:13. 52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search and look: for out of Galilee[304] ariseth no prophet. [304] Isa. 9:1, 2.