Herod thus opened the examination of Jesus by interrogating Him at length. The Master treated his insolent questions with contemptuous scorn and withering silence. No doubt this conduct of the lowly Nazarene greatly surprised and nettled the supercilious Idumæan. He had imagined that Jesus would be delighted to give an exhibition of His skill amidst royal surroundings. He could not conceive that a peasant would observe the contempt of silence in the presence of a prince. He found it difficult, therefore, to explain this silence. He probably mistook it for stupidity, and construed it to mean that the pretensions of Jesus were fraudulent. He doubtless believed that his captive would not work a miracle because He could not; and that in His failure to do so were exploded His claims to kingship and Messiahship. At all events, he was evidently deeply perplexed; and this perplexity of the Tetrarch, in its turn, only served to anger the accusing priests who stood by. "And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him."[91] This verse from St. Luke clearly reveals the difference in the temper and purposes of the Sanhedrists on the one hand, and of Herod on the other. The latter merely intended to make of the case of Jesus a farcical proceeding in which the jugglery of the prisoner would break the monotony of a day and banish all care during an idle hour. The priests, on the other hand, were desperately bent upon a serious outcome of the affair, as the words "vehemently accused" suggest. In the face of their repeated accusations, Jesus continued to maintain a noble and majestic silence.