The Redemption of Pontius Pilate (45 page)

To help you understand the choices that were thrust upon me during the Jewish festival of Passover this year, Caesar, I will have to summarize the events over the last three years that led up to it. As I am sure you are aware, the Jews' rather odd religion has for centuries prophesied about the coming of a savior they call the Messiah—Christos in Greek—who would redeem them from slavery and restore the great kingdom that was theirs at one time. This belief makes them particularly vulnerable to various charlatans and lunatics who pop up from time to time claiming to be this Messiah. Such men invariably spell trouble for whoever is currently holding the Jews on a leash—be it the Assyrians, the Greeks, or we Romans.

However, most of these men in the past were quickly exposed as the frauds that they were. For all their protestations of holiness and religious fervor, the House of Zadok which controls the Jewish high priesthood is quite comfortable with the mutual arrangement they enjoy with Rome. Indeed, since Pompey the Great added this troublesome province to the Empire nearly a hundred years ago, the Priests have been Rome's staunchest allies, and an invaluable aid in keeping the peace. So when rumors began to circulate of a new would-be Messiah rising up in Galilee, I figured they would take care of him soon enough.

This particular would-be Messiah of the Jews was a former carpenter who apparently claimed descent from their ancient King David—founder of a dynasty that was toppled by the Babylonians over five centuries ago! I first heard the stories and asked the centurions whom I have stationed in the various cities of Judea to keep me informed if this fellow gave signs of making trouble. However, he seemed to have no interest whatsoever in politics. He wandered about with a small band of farmers and fishermen—and, oddly enough, one Jewish publicani who chose to renounce tax farming and join him for some reason. His activities seemed to focus on long, rambling sermons commanding people to love one another, and describing a “kingdom of God” that would rule over men's hearts rather than their bodies. Harmless mystical nonsense, it seemed to me. The other stories about him were so incredible that I ignored them at first, but they continued over so long a period that I eventually began to pay them heed. This man, Jesus of Nazareth, apparently had a remarkable power of healing that was widely witnessed. Indeed, one of my senior centurions told me that Jesus had healed a servant of his by merely saying a few words from miles away! I scoffed at that account, but he swore that it was true. But, as you will (I hope) agree, I saw nothing in this man that caused me any concern for the Empire or its control of Judea. However, the religious leaders of the Jews were adamantly opposed to this man's teachings—he claimed some sort of direct relationship to their God that they said was blasphemous. As governor, I saw no reason to involve myself in a minor religious dispute.

By the time of the most recent Passover, this Jesus of Nazareth had acquired a huge following, and the stories about him were becoming fanciful to the extreme. They said, just before Passover, that he had actually brought a man back to life that had been dead for FOUR days! It was after this story began circulating in the city that the Jewish leadership decided that Jesus must die. His followers now numbered in the thousands, and the Priests feared an armed revolution. When he came to the city for the Passover feast, their plans for his demise were already cemented into place—even though he refused the offering of a crown that the enthusiastic mob made when he entered the city.

You may be wondering why I did not step in at this point. While I do have several informants who are seated on the Jewish Grand Council, the Sanhedrin, at this time, the high priest and his cronies only met with a select few that did not include my agents. This small group bought off one of Jesus' disciples (that man has subsequently disappeared; rumors abound that he hung himself after the events that followed) and sent a large mob, accompanied by the Temple guard (and a single cohort of legionaries whose centurion wisely saw the commotion and followed along to see what was going on and keep the peace if necessary). They proceeded to a quiet garden outside the city walls where the Nazarene was known to meet with his disciples. Jesus was arrested without any major incident—apparently he was with only a small group of followers, and only one of them even tried to defend him. He was then interrogated before both the former High Priest, that evil old serpent named Annas, and the current holder of that office, Caiaphas, whom you and I know all too well. Finally, in the third hour past midnight, the enormous mob showed up, with a bloodied and battered Jesus, at the Praetorium, angrily demanding that I sentence him to death.

This I was reluctant to do. First and foremost, I believed and still believe that the man was innocent of any offense against Roman law. The second reason is more personal, but you of all people should understand it. For each of the three previous nights, my wife had woken me with her screams. She was not entirely coherent, but one thing she said on each occasion was, ‘Do not kill the Galilean! He is innocent! You will be damned forever if you do!' These statements troubled me deeply. Every Roman knows the story of how the noble Calpurnia sought to dissuade the Divus Julius from going to the Forum on the Ides of March. Dreams are powerful things, and sometimes the gods use them to speak to us. Even as I stood before this angry mob, trying to make sense of their accusations, she sent me a note that read ‘Have nothing to do with the death of this innocent man.' At this moment, I remembered that Jesus was actually a subject of King Herod Antipas, since he was from Galilee rather than Judea, so I sent him to stand trial before Herod. Unfortunately, Herod was unwilling to pronounce judgment on him, and two hours later Jesus was brought before me once more. The only positive development from this incident was that Herod, who had been quite hostile to me for some time, has become friendlier ever since—although given his mercurial nature, I have no confidence the improvement in our relations will be permanent.

At this point, most excellent Tiberius, I felt that I could not proceed any further without at least trying to find out what this Galilean holy man had to say for himself. My Aramaic is not the best, so I sent one of my centurions into the crowd to find an interpreter. He returned a few moments later with a terrified-looking youth of about 20 years of age, whom he described as one of Jesus' disciples. I found myself admiring his courage, following a screaming mob that was howling for his master's blood! The young fellow did not speak Latin very well, but his Greek was quite passable. Although the mob outside and their religious leaders had voiced many charges against the bloodied figure before me, I asked him about the only one that really mattered to me as a Roman magistrate. “Are you the King of the Jews?” I demanded, nodding at the youth to translate.

My interpreter proved unnecessary. Jesus looked at me with a deep and curious gaze that I found quite unnerving, then spoke in clear, excellent Latin without a trace of an accent. “Do you say this of your own accord?” he asked. “Or did someone else tell you this about me?”

“Am I a Jew?” I asked, more harshly than I intended. His intense stare was throwing me off balance. “Your own people—your own priests!—have delivered you up to me as an evildoer. What do you say for yourself?”

He was silent for a long moment, his lips moving as if he was speaking to someone I could not see. Finally, his eyes met mine again, and he spoke with incredible force and clarity. “My kingdom,” he said, “is not of this world!”

Caesar, I have stood in the presence of majesty on many occasions. I can remember your noble father, the Imperator Augustus, speaking before his armies and the Senate, and you know that I fought as a legate under you in Germania as well, and saw the honor your legionaries rightly accorded you there. I have stood in the presence of many foreign potentates as well, from Herod to King Juba. As you know, most Eastern monarchs are grasping, venal creatures whose only nobility is in the trappings they cover themselves with. Trust me when I say that this bloodied and battered Galilean itinerant radiated as much honor and dignitas as any Roman patrician. But there was also something . . . alien about him. Otherworldly. His statement, as ridiculous as it no doubt sounds when I recount it, made perfect sense to me as I stood there looking into his eyes. But he was not done—he continued: “If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would be fighting to rescue me as we speak. As it is, my kingdom is not of this realm.”

I asked the question more directly. “So you are a king, then?”

He nodded, and replied: “You say correctly that I am a king. For this purpose I have been born, and come into this world, that I might testify to the truth. Everyone who welcomes truth will hear my voice.”

I pondered his statement a moment, and I said out loud the thought that leaped into my mind. “Quid est veritas?” But I had heard all I needed for the moment, and did not wait for his answer. This man was no threat to Rome, I was convinced of that. I stepped out onto the balcony and addressed the mob below.

“Absolvo!” I cried. “I find no guilt in this man!”

The crowd exploded with rage.

Noble Caesar, anyone who has lived in Rome for any time has seen a Roman mob in action at some point or other. But I have never seen such raw hatred for any human being expressed so loudly and strongly as this crowd of Jews screamed its hate at Jesus. Ironic, since a few days before, half the city had been ready to crown him as their king. Now for the first time, they took up that awful cry: “CRUCIFY! CRUCIFY!!”

“Why?” I shouted. “What evil has he done?”

One of the priests stepped forward—although not so far as to step past the threshold of the Praetorium. Hounding an innocent man to his death was apparently fine according to his religious convictions, but setting foot in the home of a pagan like me would have made him unclean! “We have a law,” he shouted. “And by that law he ought to die, for being a man, he made himself out to be a god!”

The situation was deteriorating, so I removed Jesus from their sight—as well as myself. They were determined to see blood, it seemed. Very well, I would give them blood. But not as much as they wanted. I turned to Brutus Appius, the centurion who led my household guard. “Take him and flog him,” I said. “But don't kill him!”

The young Jew that had been brought in to interpret leaped to his feet in protest. I had forgotten he was there, but I looked at him now and saw his raw fear, barely held at bay in his concern for his master. “I am trying to save his life,” I said, as gently as I could, and retreated to my quarters until the deed was done.

I was not pleased when my legionaries brought the Galilean back to me. As I had ordered, they had not killed him, but they had come very close. His back was scored to the bone in places, and they had placed an old purple robe over his shoulders and a crown of poisonous Galilean thorn branches upon his head. Most legionaries hate the Jews, of course—this is not a choice posting for a hard-drinking, hard-fighting Roman man—and given a chance to humiliate one of them, the men had taken full advantage of it. But, I thought, perhaps I could play Jesus' pitiful condition to my own advantage. I led him back out onto the porch of the Praetorium and shoved him in front of me, giving the mob a good view. “Ecce homo!” I shouted. Some of the crowd cried out in pity, but the priests once again took up that hateful cry: “Crucify! Crucify!”

I held up my hands for silence. For the life of me I did not know what to do. This man had an enormous following. If I put him to death, would the common people who loved him rise up in open revolt? But if I spared him, the ruling class, whose cooperation is so vital to our government here, would be turned against me, perhaps permanently. What to do?

I thought of something. Raising my hands for silence, I cried out, “People of Jerusalem, you know that it is my custom to release one prisoner to you during your Passover each year. This year, I give you a choice. Shall I release this Jesus of Nazareth, your king?” I laced my voice with sarcasm, trying to throw scorn on the very idea that this wretched figure could ever be considered royalty. “Or shall I release to you the murderer Bar Abbas?”

Once more the crowd roared. “Bar Abbas! Bar Abbas!!” they cried.

By this time, Your Excellency, I was rapidly running out of options. I pulled Jesus back into the Praetorium and looked at him in frustration. Those remarkable eyes stared into mine through the blood, bruises, and grime without a trace of fear, which began to anger me. “Where are you really from?” I demanded. He gave no answer. “Why will you not speak to me?” I shouted. “Don't you know that I have the authority to crucify you, or to set you free?”

He answered softly, “You would have no authority over me at all except for that which is given you from Heaven,” he said. “You do not understand what you are doing; therefore the ones who delivered me up to you have the greater guilt.”

Caesar, I am not a superstitious man, and I am certainly no coward. But I will tell you in truth that his words shook me to the core. I felt as if I was the one on trial, and that this strange figure before me had somehow found me wanting. I led him back out before the mob. They were still screaming for the Galilean's blood.

“Behold, I bring him forth to tell you that I find no guilt in him!” I cried for the last time.

Then the former High Priest, Annas, lifted his voice to be heard. “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar! Everyone who proclaims himself a king is Caesar's enemy!” The threat was very clear—he would report me to you unless I did his bidding.

I had done everything in my power, Caesar, to prevent the execution of an innocent man. But at this point the continued government of this troublesome province seemed to be hanging by a hair. Personally, I have never been more revolted by the hypocrisy of the Jewish leadership. I called for a basin of water, and sat down in the judgment seat overlooking the crowd. I dipped my hands in the water three times and carefully dried them, then spoke.