The Redemption of Pontius Pilate (42 page)

His leg was definitely improving, but he still had to carry a cane, and riding on horseback was an exercise in misery. Wine dulled the ache a bit, but Pilate was trying to cut back on his drinking now that his recovery was near complete. So he gritted his teeth like a true Stoic and endured the misery as the three-day, fifty-mile journey dragged on. When they finally arrived in the city, Pilate ordered the main body of the troops to the Antonia Fortress, and took Quirinius and his century with him to Herod's palace.

The king was a bit slimmer and grayer than he had been, and the lines around his eyes had deepened. Herodias and Salome had remained at Machaerus—“for their own safety,” was how Herod put it, although it was obvious he was delighted to leave them behind for a while. His hostility to Pilate was still there, but veiled for the moment behind a mask of artificial charm. Pilate endured his greetings, then limped to his room and ordered the servants not to disturb him until noon the next day. He drank one glass of strong, costly wine from Herod's extensive cellar, then removed his cuirass and boots and collapsed onto the bed.

It was about mid-morning when he finally got up. He used the chamber pot and stretched, his injured knee still throbbing. He pulled up his tunic and studied the damage done by the Zealot arrow. The sharpened iron head had gone clean through the bone of his kneecap, splitting it in two, and there was still a divot in the center where it had not fully healed, as well as an ugly, inch-wide scar. The point had then passed between the bones of his upper and lower leg, shearing through some of the tendons, and finally come to rest just under the skin behind his knee. There was a second scar, which felt identical to the first one, behind his knee, where the arrow had been pushed through so the barbed point could be removed. The major damage had been within the knee joint itself—the top and bottom bones of his leg had been forced apart, and probably chipped and damaged, by the arrow's passage. The damage to his sinews was such that the leg had less than half the strength of the other, and his knee was liable to buckle without warning if he put his full weight on it. But as long as he used his cane, he could now limp along at a decent pace. Aristarchus had told him that the sinews might heal further in time, but that the knee would never be the same as before. He looked at the iron arrowhead, which he had kept after it was removed, and wondered that such a small thing could cause him so much misery.

Pilate went to the door and called for bread, olive oil, and some grilled fish. As he was breaking his fast, a servant appeared, bearing a letter. Pilate set it aside until he was done eating, and then broke the seal and read it.

Joseph Matthew Caiaphas, High Priest of the Temple, to Lucius Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea: Greetings, noble governor, and I pray that your recent injury is healing cleanly. I realize that you do not care much for me or for the Temple, but I know that you do care for the peace and order of our province, as we do. There is a matter which threatens that peace, which I would discuss with you at your earliest convenience. You can meet me at the guard house where we met before. Please let me know the most convenient time by letter.

Pilate sent a short note back, offering to meet the High Priest the next morning. He then sent word through one of his soldiers to have Longinus report to him as soon as possible. The senior officer of the Judean legions responded with alacrity.

“Good morning, Longinus,” Pilate greeted him. “How fares your servant Stychius?”

“Most well, sir,” said the centurion. “He was fully recovered by the next day and is performing his duties as if he were never even sick.”

“Now that you have had time to think about it, do you really think this Galilean healed him from miles away?” asked Pilate.

“Sir, he was dying. I have no doubt that if I had not sought out Jesus, Stychius would not have lasted the rest of the day. I have no explanation for it, but I am convinced Jesus did it,” explained Longinus.

“Most peculiar,” said Pilate. “But there are other matters to attend to. How goes the search for Bar Abbas?”

“We have put a reward of five hundred denarii out on him,” said Longinus, “and we have also posted warnings throughout Galilee and the other provinces that anyone caught harboring him should be crucified alongside him.”

“Has anyone come forward?” Pilate asked.

“One young Greek, traveling through Galilee selling fabrics, said that he saw a man resembling Bar Abbas traveling through the hills north of Chorazin,” said the veteran soldier. “But we sent three patrols through the country, and all we found were a few cold campfires. A week later, a retired legionary named Milo Lammius and his Jewish wife were found stabbed to death in their beds at their home near Cana. The killer took every coin they had, as well as clothes and horses—and left the name Bar Abbas painted on the wall in their blood.”

“Double the reward!” snapped Pilate. “And amend the earlier notice to read that anyone caught aiding or harboring Bar Abbas will be crucified, along with their entire family! I want this man caught!”

Longinus nodded. “I think that it is only a matter of time now,” he said. “There was some popular support for Bar Abbas early on, but as he has become more violent and less discriminating in his targets, the people have become more and more resentful of him. Sooner or later, someone is going to bring him in, dead or alive.”

“Let's hope so,” said Pilate. “Now, take a look at this.” He pushed the High Priest's note from that morning across the table, and Longinus read it carefully. “Do you have any idea what is bothering him this time?”

“I can guess,” said Longinus. “I imagine he wants you to arrest or kill Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Whatever for?” said Pilate. “The Galilean has harmed no one, he does not preach insurrection, and the people are mad for him!”

“You touched on the reason right there,” said the senior centurion. “Jesus has become enormously popular, and he has become increasingly scathing in his comments about the Temple cult, and about the Pharisees as well.”

“Don't the priests and the Pharisees hate each other?” asked the Prefect.

“Normally yes,” replied Longinus. “But they are now united in their opposition to Jesus, and are working together to discredit him. He draws crowds in the thousands wherever he goes, and they are afraid he will spark an insurrection that will cause Judea to lose the small measure of independence it retains—which, of course, would also destroy the Temple's political standing with the Empire.”

Pilate nodded. “If I thought he was a danger to Rome, I would have dealt with him already,” he said.

“I know that,” said Longinus, “but they do not know you as I do. They probably assume you to be completely ignorant about the matter.”

Pilate shook his head. “Was there ever a race in all the
gens humana
as mad as the Jews?” he said. “I have bitterly atoned for my misdeeds by being sent to govern them! No matter, I suppose I will meet with old Caiaphas tomorrow and hear his side of the story. So what is it that Jesus says about the religious leaders that has them so upset?”

Longinus laughed. “He compared the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs the other day—shining white on the outside, but full of corruption and rot within!”

Pilate grunted: “Are you sure he was not talking about the Roman Senate?”

Longinus said: “You would know the truth of that better than me, sir. He has repeatedly condemned the corruption and wickedness of the Temple, and said on more than one occasion that if the Temple was destroyed, he could rebuild it in three days!”

Pilate shook his head. “No danger of testing that hypothesis!” he commented. “It would take an army with many siege engines to pull that massive thing down! But that is an odd comment. Didn't the Temple take fifty years to build?”

“It did that, sir,” replied the centurion, “and they are still working on the north tower.”

“Is Jesus mad then?” asked Pilate.

“I don't think so,” said Longinus. “I think it may have been some sort of figure of speech.”

“I guess we'll find out tomorrow,” he said, rising with a groan as his knee protested.

“So how are you healing, Prefect?” Longinus asked him.

“Slowly and painfully, Centurion,” replied Pilate. “I never knew anything could hurt so much.”

“Perhaps Jesus could heal it for you,” Longinus said with a smile.

“Perhaps he could give you a mouth that knows when to shut!” Pilate jibed back at him.

The next morning Pilate and Longinus walked across town to the long colonnade where Caiaphas was waiting. Pilate dismissed his lictors and sat down at the guard's table while Caiaphas explained his reason for requesting the meeting.

“Prefect, I must ask that you arrest this teacher named Jesus, from Nazareth, immediately. He should be jailed at the very least, or sold into slavery, or put to death!” exclaimed the priest. “Whatever the means, he must be silenced!”

“If he has committed a crime, Caiaphas, then you should arrest him and judge him under your own laws!” Pilate responded.

The angry Caiaphas glared at the Roman governor. “We cannot!” he replied. “He has too huge a following. If we move against him openly, the people will rise up and stone us to death.”

“So you want Rome to do your dirty work for you?” asked Pilate. “Why should I allow that?”

“Because the man is as big a threat to Rome as he is to the Temple!” snapped Caiaphas.

“Even if I believed that to be true, primary jurisdiction would still rest with the Sanhedrin,” said Pilate. “And the fact is that this Jesus has not preached rebellion or resistance to Rome. It seems to me that you simply are jealous of the man's popularity.”

Caiaphas scowled as if he had been confronted with a piece of roasted pork. “That is NOT the case at all!” he snapped. “It is his teachings that flout our laws and traditions. They threaten the Temple's hold on the hearts of the people. Even the muleheaded Pharisees can see that his contempt for traditional values and our interpretations of the law are a danger to our nation and our people!”

Pilate rose and took his cane. “Unless I can be persuaded that this Jesus is a political threat to Rome's control of the province, then I cannot help you,” he said. “We do not generally persecute civilians because their religious beliefs differ from those of their countrymen.

Caiaphas glared at Pilate with raw hatred. “I shall not forget this, Pontius Pilate!” he said, and swept out.

After he left, Pilate and Longinus followed him through the door. Pilate kept his silence until they were back at the Fortress of Antonia—he did not want to have this conversation in Herod's palace, where the walls had ears. Once they were safely sequestered in the sparely furnished commander's office, Pilate spoke.

“So what did you make of that?” he asked Longinus.

“Not a great deal,” said the
Primus Pilus
centurion. “But if I am not mistaken, you, my dear commander, made a new enemy!”

Pilate made a wry expression. “I'll have to add him to my collection,” he quipped. “He'll look lovely on the shelf between Bar Abbas and Gaius Caligula!”

Longinus looked at his commander with interest. “Caligula?” he asked. “What have you done to make Gaius Little Boots your enemy? Isn't he just a boy?”

Pilate looked at his senior centurion for a long moment. He knew that there was gossip around the barracks as to how he had gone from being a rising political star in Rome to governing the Empire's least desirable province, but the details of his fall from favor were known only to a small handful of family and friends, and the reclusive Tiberius discouraged inquiries into family matters. At the same time, he genuinely liked Longinus, and the centurion had shown himself to be a man of discretion. Perhaps it would be good to let someone else know his story. Perhaps sharing his pain might even diminish it in some degree. Pilate decided it was worth a chance.

“Pour yourself a glass of wine,” he said. “While you're at it, pour me one too. This is a long story.”

When he was done telling it, Gaius Cassius Longinus looked at him in astonishment. Pilate had held back very little, other than the nature of some of the confidential work he had done for the Emperor. The actual story of his daughter's rape, Pilate's attack on Caligula, and the response of Tiberius he laid out in raw, short sentences. The words ripped out of him almost involuntarily at times. After the tale was told, Pilate felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Longinus, on the other hand, looked as if he had taken a hard blow to the midsection.

“By Jupiter!” he said, reverting to the common Roman invocation in his shock. “I always figured you were sent here for angering the Emperor, but I had no idea you nearly killed the heir to the purple!”

Pilate nodded. “If I hadn't been knocked out cold, I would have finished the job, regardless of the consequences. Now my family and I live in fear every day of what will happen when that abomination succeeds the Emperor.” He looked Longinus dead in the eye with his coldest gaze. “Needless to say, Centurion, you must never speak of this!”

Longinus nodded. “By the God of Israel I swear it!” he said with fervor. “I would not dream of betraying your confidence. And I am honored that you chose to share it with me.”

“The only other person besides my wife and steward who knows the full story is a longtime friend in Rome,” said Pilate. “I prefer to keep it that way.”

The autumn festival season went by without any major incidents. Jesus and his followers came to town for the Feast of Booths and stayed for two weeks. A delegation from the Temple and Sanhedrin followed him around the whole time, trying to pin him down on controversial statements he had made, or to provoke him into saying or doing something that would dampen the people's affections for the Galilean rabbi. Jesus answered every challenge carefully and creatively, healed several gravely ill people, and then told a series of parables that were pointedly aimed at the religious establishment. About the time that the High Priest had made up his mind that he needed to arrest Jesus, the Galilean holy man retreated back to his native province, along with all of his followers. Jerusalem buzzed with gossip about him for a week or two, then things calmed down and Pilate returned to Caesarea.