among the people. The prophet let slip some words of condemnation
against these two incestuous adulterers, and this was enough for
Herodias to persuade her new husband to have him taken and shut up in
the fortress of Machærus. Every one knows how the foul Tetrarch,
inflamed by cruel Salome’s lascivious arts, and perhaps meditating a new
incest, was forced to offer her the bearded head of the Prophet of Fire
on a golden platter.
But even after his decapitation John’s shade disturbed Herod, and when
he began to hear talk of Jesus and of His miracles he said to his
courtiers, “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead.”
It seems that he kept his eye on the new prophet, and that at one time
he thought of serving Him as he had his precursor; but either for
political or superstitious reasons, deciding that he would have no more
to do with prophets, he saw that the best way was to force Jesus to
leave his Tetrarchy. One day some Pharisees, very probably acting on
Herod’s instructions, went to say to Jesus: “Get thee out, and depart
hence: for Herod will kill thee.”
“And he said unto them, Go ye and tell that fox ... nevertheless I must
walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that
a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.”
And now at Jerusalem near His death, He appeared before that fox. That
traitor and spy, incestuous adulterer, assassin of John and enemy of the
prophets was the most fitting person to condemn innocence. But Jesus had
named him well: he was more fox than tiger, and he shrank from being a
substitute for Pilate. Luke tells us, “When Herod saw Jesus he was
exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because
he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle
done by him.”
The son of the Idumean and the Samaritan woman had scorched himself in
John’s fire, and he received Jesus as an old tamer of animals, with the
marks of the lion’s teeth still on his arm, looks at a new wild animal
brought for him to see. But, like all Oriental barbarians, his mind was
obsessed by prodigies, and he imagined Jesus to be a wandering wizard
who could, whenever He wished, repeat some of His sorcery. Herod hated
Him as he had hated John, but he hated Him partly because he feared Him;
the prophets had a power which Herod did not understand and which
intimidated him: perhaps the beheading of John had brought him bad luck.
He too wished Jesus to be killed, but he had no mind to be in any way
responsible for His death.
Seeing that there were no miracles to be expected, he began to put many
questions, to which Jesus made no answer. He had broken His silence for
Annas, for Caiaphas, for Pilate, but He would not for this crowned
rascal! Annas and Caiaphas were His declared enemies, Pilate was a blind
man groping along, thinking that he was saving Him, but this Herod was a
cowardly fox and did not deserve even an insult. The High Priests and
the Scribes, fearing that John’s assassin would be too cowardly to kill
Jesus, as in fact he was, had followed their victim there and vehemently
accused him. These furious accusations and the silence of the accused
man deepened the hidden rancor of Antipas, who, together with his
soldiers, abused the Man of divine silences, threw over his shoulders a
gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate.
Like Pilate, but for other reasons, he was not willing to condemn the
man baptized by John, and who perhaps was John himself returned from the
dead to avenge himself. But when he sent Him away he made Him a gift
which bears unconscious witness to the rank of the man about to die. The
mantle, shining with whiteness, was, so Josephus says, the garment of
the Jewish Kings, and Jesus was accused of wishing to make Himself King
of the Jews. Antipas, the astute, wished to ridicule the pretensions of
Jesus by ironically making him a present of the regal robe; but when he
covered Him with that whiteness, which is the symbol of innocence and of
sovereignty, the ignoble fox sent to Pilate a symbolical message which
involuntarily confirmed the message of Claudia Procula, the accusation
of Caiaphas, and what Christ Himself had said.
CRUCIFY HIM!
Pilate had thought that he had succeeded in extracting himself from the
troublesome position in which his adversaries had tried to place him.
But when he saw Jesus return wrapped in that regal white garment he
understood that he must at any cost get the matter settled.
The bitter fury of those who for so many reasons were objects of
suspicion to him, his wife’s compassion, the answers of Christ, the fact
that Antipas had refrained from action, all inclined him to refuse to
give the Jews the life for which they were asking. Perhaps while Jesus
was with the Tetrarch, Pilate had asked some one of his followers about
the pretended King, and the information confirmed him in his decision.
Jesus had never said anything that would be offensive to Pilate: rather
there was much in what He said calculated to please the Roman, or at
least that would seem advantageous to the authority of Rome.
Jesus taught love for enemies, and in Judea the Romans were considered
enemies; He called the poor blessed, hence He exhorted them to
resignation and not to revolt; He advised men to render unto Cæsar that
which was Cæsar’s, that is, to pay tribute to the Emperor; He was
opposed to the Pharisaical formalism which made the relations of the
Romans with their subjects so difficult; He did not respect the Sabbath;
He ate with publicans and with Gentiles; and finally He announced that
His Kingdom was not of this world, but of a world so metaphysical and
remote that it could never endanger Tiberius or his successors. If
Pilate knew these things, he must have said to himself with the
superficiality of all skeptics, especially when they think themselves
expert politicians, that it would be a good thing for him and for Rome
if many Jews followed Jesus, rather than fomented rebellion in the
councils of the Zealots.
He had therefore decided to save Jesus, but in this indulgence he wanted
to put a sarcastic note, something that would be offensive to the High
Priests, who three times had set themselves against him and now were
importuning him to be their hangman. Up to the last he would pretend to
treat Jesus like the King of the Jews. Here is your King, the King that
you deserve, wretched and perfidious people! A village carpenter, a
vagabond, a beggar, who vapored of reigning beyond earthly life, and who
as a matter of fact had as followers only a few fishermen and peasants
and a few silly women. See how wretched He is, how miserable! Why do you
want to kill Him? Keep Him; you deserve no better King than He. I will
follow your example, will amuse myself a little by tormenting Him, and
then I will let Him go.
And causing Jesus to be led out, Pilate went to the door and said to the
High Priests and the others who crowded about, their faces thrust
forward to hear the sentence given at last, “Ye have brought this man
unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having
examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those
things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him;
and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore
chastise him and release him.”
This was not the answer awaited by the ravening hounds, yelling in the
square before the Procurator’s house. A bestial cry burst out from those
gaping mouths, “Kill Him!”
A flogging would be too light a punishment for this dangerous enemy of
the God of Armies and the God of Business. Something quite different
from that was necessary to satisfy these butchers of the Temple. They
had come to ask for blood and not for pardon.
“Kill Him!” yelled Annas and Caiaphas, and with them the Pharisaical
vipers hissed, the sellers of the holy animals shrieked, the
money-changers, the men who rented beasts of burden, the porters of the
caravans. “Kill Him!” howled the Scribes, wrapped in their theological
cloaks, the vendors of the Passover fair, the tavern-keepers of the
upper city, the Levites, the servants of the Temple, the hired helpers
of the usurers, the errand boys of the priests, all the servile horde
assembled before the Procurator’s house.
As soon as this uproar was a little quieted, Pilate asked, “What will ye
then that I shall do unto him whom ye call King of the Jews?”
And they all answered, “Crucify him!”
But the Procurator resisted, “Why, what evil hath he done?”
And they cried out the more exceedingly, “Crucify him!”
Jesus, pale and calm in the whiteness of the mocking cloak, looked
quietly at the crowd, which desired to give Him what in His heart He had
been seeking. He was dying for them, with the divine hope of saving even
them by His death, and they were assailing Him, howling as if He had
wished to escape His accepted fate. His friends were not there, were
hidden; all His people wished to pierce His flesh with nails, and only a
foreigner, an idolater, defended His life. Why was Pilate not moved to
compassion? Why did He not give Him at once to the crucifiers? Did he
not realize that his false pity only lengthened and embittered the
anguish? He loved and it was fitting that He should be hated; He brought
men back from death and it was fitting that He should be killed; He
wished to save others and it was fitting that all men should wish to
destroy Him; He was innocent and it was fitting that He should be
sacrificed.
But obstinate Pilate did not surrender to the howls of the Jews nor to
Jesus’ silent prayer. At any cost he wanted to win his point. He would
not give in once more to that fierce, filthy mob. He had not succeeded
in transferring to Antipas the disagreeable responsibility of a
death-sentence; he had not succeeded in persuading this tigerish and
mulish people of the innocence of their wretched king. What they wanted
was to see a little blood; on these festival days they wanted to enjoy
the spectacle of a crucifixion. He would satisfy them with a bargain,
giving them the carcass of a murderer in exchange for the body of an
innocent man.
BARABBAS
“I find in him no fault at all. But ye have a custom, that I should
release unto you one at the passover. Whom will ye that I release unto
you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?”
Taken by surprise, the people did not know what to answer. Until then
there had been but one name, one victim, one punishment asked for;
everything was as clear as the sky on that mid-April morning. But now,
in order to save that scandal-maker, this impertinent pagan brought into
question another name which confused the whole matter. Pilate wanted to
flog Him only, instead of crucifying Him: and now he wanted to crucify
another delinquent in His place. By good fortune the Elders, Scribes and
Priests were still there and they had no intention of letting Jesus
escape. In a flash they suggested the right reply. So that when Pilate
asked them a second time which of the two they wished him to free, they
answered with one voice, “Away with this man, and release unto us
Barabbas!”
He was not an ordinary delinquent, the man whom the Procurator offered
as blood-ransom to those men with such a morbid relish for crucifixions.
The common tradition has preserved his memory as a street ruffian, a
criminal by profession. But his surname—Bar Rabban, which means Son of
Rab, or rather disciple of the Master, since the scholars of the Rabbis
were called their sons—shows us that through birth or through study he
belonged to the caste of Doctors of Law. Mark and Luke say expressly
that he was accused of having committed murder during a sedition, hence
a political assassin. Jesus Barabbas, a student in the school of the
Scribes, lamenting over the loss of the Jewish Kingdom, and hating
Judea’s pagan masters, was probably a Zealot and had been captured in
one of the unsuccessful revolts, so common at that time. Was it likely
that such an absurd bargain would satisfy the Sadducee and Pharisee
assembly which shared the sentiments of the Zealots, even if for reasons
of state they hid them, or out of weakness of soul forgot them?
Barabbas, although an assassin, and indeed precisely because he was an
assassin—was a patriot, a martyr, persecuted by the foreigners. Jesus,
on the other hand, although He had never killed any one, had wished to
overturn the law of Moses, and to ruin the Temple. The first, in short,
was a sort of national hero, the other an enemy of the nation: there
could be no doubt about their choice. “Free Barabbas! Let this man die!”
Once more Pontius Pilate had failed to save Christ or himself. He ought
to have realized before this, that the leaders of the Jews would not
loose their hold on the flesh into which they had already set their
teeth, the only flesh which could stay their hunger. Their need for it
that day was like their need for bread and air. They would not have left
that spot, not even to eat, until they had seen that Bastard Messiah
fastened with four nails upon two beams.
Pontius Pilate was cowardly. He was afraid that he was committing an
injustice; he was afraid of displeasing his wife; he was afraid of
giving satisfaction to his enemies; but at the same time he was afraid
to put Jesus in a place of safety; he was afraid to have his soldiers
disperse that sullen, arrogant crowd; he was afraid to decide with a
clear-cut act of authority that Jesus, the innocent man, should be
released, and not Barabbas, the assassin. A real Roman, a Roman of
antiquity, of the true Roman stock, would either at once have satisfied
the demands of that turbulent crowd and would not have wasted a moment
in defending an obscure visionary; or would at once have decreed, from
the beginning, that this man was innocent and was under the august
protection of the Empire.
By his stratagems, half-measures, indolent questionings, hesitations and
partially executed maneuvers Pilate found himself slowly pushed towards
a decision he did not wish to make. The fact that he had not at once
decided the question with a yes or no had increased the insolence of the
High Priests and the excitement of the people. Now there were only two
alternatives: either to give in shamefully after resisting so long, or
to risk starting a tumult which on those days, when Jerusalem included
almost a third of the population of Judea, might become a perilous
uprising.
Undone by his cowardly wavering, deafened by the yells, the only thing
that came into his mind was to ask once more the advice of men to whom
he should have issued orders.
“What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?”
“Crucify him, let him be crucified!”
“Why, what evil hath he done?”
“Crucify him! Crucify him!”
What affair is it of this odious foreigner if Jesus had done evil or
not? According to our faith He is an impostor, a blasphemer, an enemy of
the people and deserves death. Even if He has done no evil He deserves
death because His words are more dangerous than any wicked actions.
“Crucify him! Crucify him!”
“Take ye him and crucify him,” cried Pilate, “for I find no fault in
him.”
“We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself
the Son of God.”
The silence of Jesus was more potent than this bestial outcry. They were
fighting for the possession of His body, and He seemed scarcely to be
aware of it. He knew that from the beginning of time His destiny was
sealed and that this was His day. The battle was so uneven! On one side
a Gentile, who knew nothing and understood nothing of Him, who did not
defend Him through love but through Hate, who did not defend Him openly
but with tricks and quibbles, who was more afraid of a revolt than of an
injustice, who was stubborn through punctilio and not because of his
certainty of Christ’s innocence. On the other hand, a threatened clergy,
a vindictive bourgeoisie, a crowd, like all crowds, easily incited to
evil deeds. It was easy enough to foresee the outcome.
But Pontius Pilate would not yield the point. He would restore Barabbas
to his accomplices, but he would not give up Jesus. His first idea came
into his head again: to have Him scourged; perhaps when they saw the
bruises and the blood dripping from His back they would be satisfied
with that punishment and would leave in peace the innocent man who
looked with equal pity on the cowardly shepherd and the unruly wolves.
The Procurator had said that he found no fault with Him, and yet he was
to have Him scourged with rods. This contradiction, this half-injustice,
this compromise, is characteristic of Pilate. But it was to be of no
avail; like his other efforts, it was merely to add one more shame to
his final defeat.
The Jews were still shrieking, “Let him be crucified!” But Pilate went
back into his house and gave Jesus over to the Roman soldiers to be
flogged.
A CROWNED KING
The mercenaries, who (in the provinces) were the majority in the
legions, had been waiting for this decision. Throughout the long dispute
the soldiers of the Procurator’s guard had been obliged to look on,
silent and motionless, at this mysterious colonial uproar, of which only
one thing seemed clear to them, that their commanding officer was not
cutting the best figure. For a while they had been amused by watching
the sinister faces, the excitability and the gesticulation of that
Jewish swarm; and they had become aware that the Procurator, somber and
perplexed, was vainly trying to unravel the tangled threads of this
early-morning quarrel. They kept their eyes on him, as dogs watch an
unskillful hunter, circling about without making up his mind to fire,
although the quarry is close at hand.
Now at last something to their taste happened. They were to have their
turn at amusing themselves. To flog a Jew, hated by the Jews themselves,
was an amusement neither dangerous nor very tiring,—just enough to
exercise their arms, to stretch the muscles contracted by the morning
chill, and to start the blood circulating.
All the company was ordered into the court-yard of the palace, and the
white cloak given by Antipas was taken from Jesus’ back—the first spoils
of the enterprise—together with part of His other clothes. The lictors
chose the rods, and the strongest among the soldiers snatched at them.
They were practical people who knew how to flog energetically and
according to the rules.
Jesus, half of His body bared, tied to a pillar, that He might not
lessen the force of the blows by bending forward, silently prayed to the
Father for the soldiers about to scourge Him. Had He not said: “Love
those who hate you, do good to those who persecute you, offer the left
cheek to him who has struck the right”? At that moment He could reward
his scourgers only by interceding with God for their forgiveness. These
soldiers were prisoners as much as He, and they knew not whom they were
flogging with such innocent heartiness. They themselves had been flogged
sometimes for small breaches of discipline, and they saw nothing out of
the way in the fact that the Procurator, a Roman officer, had them
scourge a delinquent belonging to a subject and inferior race.
Strike hard, O legionaries, for of this blood which now begins to flow,
some drops are shed for you. This was the first blood drawn by men from
the Son of Man. At the Last Supper His blood had been symbolized by the
wine, on the Mount of Olives the blood which mixed with the sweat, stood
in drops on His face, came from a suffering altogether spiritual and
inner. But now, at last, men’s hands shed blood from the veins of
Christ; knotty hands of soldiers in the service of the rich and the
powerful, hands which wield the scourge before taking up the nails. That
livid back, swollen and bloody, was ready for the cross; torn and raw as
it was, it would add to the suffering of crucifixion when they stretched
it out on the rough wood of the cross. Now they could stop, the
courtyard of the cowardly stranger was stained with blood. Servants that
very day might wash away those spots, but they would start out again on
the well-washed white hands of Pontius Pilate.
The number of blows prescribed had been duly administered, but now,
after their taste of amusement, the legionaries did not wish to let
their plaything escape at once. All they had done so far was to execute
an order; now they wished to have some entertainment of their own. This
man, so said the Jews howling out there in the public square, pretended
to be a king. Let us give Him His wish, this madman, and thus we will
enrage those who refuse Him His royal dignity.
A soldier took off his scarlet cloak, the red chlamys of the
legionaries, and threw it over those shoulders, red with blood; another
took up a handful of dry thorns, kindling for the brazier of the
night-watch, twisted a couple of them together like a crown and put it
on His head; a third had a slave give Him a reed and forced it into the
fingers of His right hand; then, roaring with laughter, they pushed Him
upon a seat. One by one, passing before Him, they bent their knees
awkwardly, crying: “Hail, King of the Jews!”
But some were not satisfied with this burlesque homage, and one of them
struck a blow at the cheek, still showing the marks of the fingers of
Caiaphas’ servants; one, snatching the reed out of His hand, gave Him a
blow on the head, so that the thorns of His crown pierced the skin and
made about His forehead a border of drops red as His cloak.
They would perhaps have thought of some other amusing diversion if the
Procurator, coming up when they were making merry, had not ordered them
to lead the scourged King outside. The jocose disguise invented by the
legionaries fitted in with the sarcastic intention of Pilate. He smiled,
and taking Jesus by the hand, led Him to the crowd of wild animals
there, and cried: “Behold the man!”
THE WASHING OF THE HANDS
“Behold the man!”
And he turned Christ’s shoulders towards that expanse of yelling muzzles
that they might see the welts left by the rods, red with oozing blood.
It was as if he said: Look at Him, your King, the only King that you
deserve, in His true majesty, tricked out as befits such a King. His
crown is of sharp thorns; His purple cloak is the chlamys of a
mercenary; His scepter is a dry reed. These are the ornaments merited by
your degraded King, unjustly rejected by a degraded people like
yourselves. Was it His blood you desired? Here is His blood; see how it
drops from the thorns of His crown. There is not much of it, but it
ought to be enough for you, since it is innocent blood. It is shed as a
great favor to you—to satisfy you. And now be off from here, for you
have troubled me long enough!
But the Jews were quieted neither by these words nor by that spectacle.
They demanded something quite other than a flogging and a masquerade
before they would go their ways. Pilate thought that he could make mock
of them, but he would realize that this was no time for feeble jokes.
They had had the best of him twice already and they would again. A few
bruises and a practical joke played by the soldiery were not enough to
punish this enemy of God as He deserved; there were trees in Judea and
nails to nail Him to them. And their hoarse voices shouted all together,
“Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!”
Too late Pilate realized that they had driven him into a tangle from
which he could not disengage himself. All his decisions were combated
with a pertinacity he had not foreseen. By a flash of inspiration he had
pronounced the great words, “Behold the man!” But he himself did not
understand that proclamation which transcended his base soul. He did not
realize that he had found the truth he was seeking: a half-truth, but
deeper than all the teachings of the philosophers of Rome and Greece. He
did not understand how Jesus was really Man, the symbol of all humanity,
sorrowing and humiliated, betrayed by its rulers, deceived by its
masters, crucified every day by the Kings who oppress their subjects, by
the rich who cause the poor to weep, by priests who think of their
bellies rather than of God. Jesus is the Man of Sorrows announced by
Isaiah, the man without form or comeliness, despised and rejected of
men, who was to be killed for all men; He is God’s only son who had
taken on man’s flesh, and who would ascend in the glory of power and of
the new sun, in the midst of the blaring of the trumpets calling the
dead to life. But now to the eyes of Pilate, to the eyes of Pilate’s
enemies, He was only a wretched, insignificant man, flesh for rods and
for nails, a man and not Man, a mortal and not a God. Why did Pilate
lose time with those sibylline remarks before delivering Him to the
executioner?