Roman felt his heart heavy with an oppression he had never known before.
Who could this man be whom all the people wished to kill, and whom he
could neither save nor sacrifice? He turned once more to Jesus, “Whence
art thou?”
But Jesus gave him no answer.
“Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to
crucify thee, and have power to release thee?”
Then the insulted King raised His head, “Thou couldest have no power at
all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that
delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”
Caiaphas and his associates were the guilty ones; the others were dogs
incited by Caiaphas, mere tools of Caiaphas. Even Pilate was only an
indocile instrument of priestly hatred and of the Divine will.
But the Procurator in his perplexity found no new expedient to free
himself from the net about him, and returned to his fixed idea, “Behold
your King!”
The Jews, infuriated by this repeated insult, burst out, enraged, “If
thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend; whosoever maketh
himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.”
At last they had hit on the right words to bring pressure on weak,
cowardly Pilate. Every Roman magistrate, no matter how high his rank,
depended on Cæsar’s favor. Pilate’s reputation might be ruined by an
accusation of this sort, presented with ability, by malicious
advocates—and there were plenty of those among the Hebrews, as was shown
later by the memorial of Philo. But in spite of the threat, Pilate cried
out his last and weakest question, “Shall I crucify your king?”
The High Priests, feeling that they were on the point of winning,
answered with their last lie, “We have no king but Cæsar.”
Pilate surrendered. He was forced to yield unless he wished to start an
uproar which might set all Judea on fire. His conscience did not disturb
him: had he not tried everything possible to save this man who did not
wish to save Himself?
He had tried to save Him by referring the matter to the Sanhedrin, which
could not pronounce a death sentence; he had tried to save Him by
sending Him to Herod; he had tried to save Him by affirming that he
found no fault in Him; he had tried to save Him by offering to free Him
in the place of Barabbas; he had tried to save Him by having Him
scourged in the hope that this ignominious punishment would pacify them;
he had tried to save Him by seeking to arouse a little pity in those
hardened hearts. But all his maneuvers had failed, and he certainly did
not wish the whole province to rise on account of that unfortunate
Prophet; and even less was he willing that on His account they should
accuse him before Tiberius and have him deposed.
Pilate thought himself innocent of the blood of this innocent man. And
in order that they might all have a visible representation of that
innocence which they would not forget, he had a basin of water brought
to him and washed his hands there before them all, saying, “I am
innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.”
Then answered all the people and said, “His blood be on us, and on our
children.”
“Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus he
delivered him to be crucified.”
But the water which flowed over his hands was not enough to cleanse
them. His hands are still blood-stained, and will be to all eternity. He
might have saved Christ if he had really wished. Jesus was sent to
Golgotha by Pilate’s subterfuges, by the multiple forms taken by the
cowardice of Pilate’s soul, poisoned by the irony of skeptics. He would
have been less base if he had really believed Christ guilty and had
given his consent to the assassination. But he knew that there was no
fault in Jesus, that Jesus was a just man as Claudia Procula had said,
as he himself had repeated after her. There is no excuse for a man in
authority who, fearing for himself, allows a just man to be killed: he
holds office in order to protect the just against assassins. But Pilate
said, “I have done everything that I could to save Him from the hands of
the unjust.” That was not true; he had tried many ways, but not the only
way which could have succeeded. He had not offered himself, had not
sacrificed himself, had not been willing to risk his dignity and his
fortune. The Jews hated Jesus, but they also hated Pilate, who had
harassed and derided them so many times. Instead of proposing the
seditious Barabbas in exchange for Jesus, he ought to have proposed
himself, Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judea, and perhaps the people
might have accepted the bargain. No other victim except himself would
have satisfied the rage of the Jews. It would not have been necessary
for him to die. It would have been enough to let them denounce him to
Cæsar as Cæsar’s enemy. Tiberius would have deposed him and perhaps have
banished him, but he would have taken into exile and into disgrace a
comforting certainty of innocence. Little did his shifts avail him; for
the fate he now sought to avert by giving Jesus over into the hands of
his adversaries fell upon him a few years later. The Jews and the
Samaritans accused him; the Governor of Syria deposed him, and Caligula
banished him to the frontiers of Gaul. But he was followed into his
exile by the shade of that great, silent man, assassinated with his
consent. In vain had he constructed in Jerusalem the great reservoir
full of water, in vain had he washed himself with that water before the
multitude. That water was Jewish water, turbid and ill-omened water that
did not cleanse. No washing will ever cleanse his hands from the stains
left on them by the divine blood of Christ.
GOOD FRIDAY
The sun rose higher in the clear April sky and now it was near to noon.
The contest between the flaccid defender and the furious assailants had
wasted most of the morning, and there was no time to lose. According to
Mosaic law, the bodies of executed criminals could not remain after
sunset on the place of punishment, and April days are not as long as
June days.
Moreover, Caiaphas, reënforced though he was by so many furiously
enraged partisans, could not draw a tranquil breath until the Vagabond’s
feet were forever halted, fastened with iron nails on the cross. He
remembered how, a few days before, Jesus had entered the city surrounded
with waving branches and joyful hymns. He was sure of the city itself,
but at this period it was full of provincials come from everywhere, who
had not the same interests and the same passions as the clientele
dependent on the Temple. Those Galileans especially, who had followed
Him until now, who loved Him, might make some effort at resistance and
put off, even if they did not actually prevent, the real votive offering
of that day.
Pilate, too, was in haste to have that troublesome, innocent man taken
away. He did not wish to think of Him again. He hoped that he would
forget after His death that look, those words and, above all, his own
corroding uneasiness, so painfully like remorse. Although he had washed
and dried his hands, that man in His silence, it seemed to him, was
sentencing him to a penalty worse than death itself. Before that
scourged man, at the point of death, he felt himself the guilty one. To
vent his uneasiness on those who really caused it, he dictated the
wording of the titulus or superscription, which the condemned man was to
wear about His neck until it was fastened above His head at the top of
the cross, as follows: “Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.” The
Scribe wrote these words three times in three languages in clear, red
letters on the white wood.
The leaders of the Jews, who had remained there, craning their necks, to
hasten the preparations, read this sarcastic inscription and protested.
They said to Pilate, “Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said,
I am King of the Jews.”
But the Procurator cut them short with a dry brevity: “What I have
written I have written.”
These are the last words recorded of him, and the most profound! I am
forced to make you a present of the life of this man, but I do not deny
what I have said. Jesus is a Nazarene, which means also, saint. And He
is your King, the wretched King who fits your wretchedness. I wish all
men to know how your ill-born race treats saints and kings. It is for
this I have written these words in Latin and Greek as well as in Hebrew.
And now be off, for I have endured you long enough, “Quod scripsi,
scripsi.”
In the meantime the soldiers had put back on the King His poor man’s
garments and had tied the notice about His neck. Others had brought out
from the storerooms three massive crosses of pine, the nails, the hammer
and the pincers. The escort was ready. Pilate pronounced the usual
formula: “I lictor, expedi crucem.” And the sinister procession moved
forward.
The Centurion rode at the head, he whom Tacitus calls with terrible
brevity, “exactor mortis.” Immediately after him came, in the midst of
the armed legionaries, Jesus and the two thieves who were to be
crucified with Him. Each of them carried a cross on his shoulders,
according to the Roman rule. And behind them, the shuffling steps and
the uproar of the excited crowd, increased at every step by accomplices
and idle sight-seers.
It was Parasceve, the day of preparations, the last night before the
Passover. Thousands of lambs’ skins were stretched out on the sunlit
roofs; and from every house rose a column of smoke, delicate as a
flower-bud, which opened out in the air and then was lost in the clear,
festal sky. Old women with malignant faces, mumbling anathemas, emerged
from the dark alley-ways; dirty-faced little children trotted along with
bundles under their arms; bearded men carried on their shoulders a kid
or a cask of wine; drovers were dragging along asses with hanging heads;
children stared with impudent and melancholy eyes at the foreigners who
were walking about circumspectly, impeded by this festal bustling. In
every home the house-mother was busy, preparing everything needful for
the next day, because with the setting of the sun every one was exempt
for twenty-four hours from the curse of Adam. The lambs, skinned and
quartered, were all ready for the fire; the loaves of unleavened bread
were piled up fresh from the oven; men were decanting the wine, and the
children to lend a hand somewhere were cleaning the bitter herbs.
There was no one idle, no one whose heart was not rejoicing at the
thought of that festal day of repose, when all families would be
gathered about the father, when they would eat in peace and drink the
wine of Thanksgiving from the same cup; and God would be witness of this
cheer because the psalms of the grateful would go up to Him from every
house. On that day even the poor felt themselves almost rich; and the
rich, because of their unusual profits, felt themselves almost generous;
and children whose hopes had not yet been dashed by experience of life
felt themselves more loving; and women more loved.
Everywhere there was that peaceful confusion, that good-natured tumult,
that joyous bustle which goes before a great, popular feast-day. An odor
of hope and of Spring purified the old filth of the Jewish ant-heap. And
the great eastern sun sent down a flood of light upon the four Hills.
SIMON OF CYRENE
Under that festal sky, through that festal crowd, slow as a funeral
procession, the sinister column of the bearers of the cross made its
way. About them everything spoke of joy and of life, and they were going
to burning thirst and to death. About them all men were waiting joyfully
to spend the evening with their loved ones, to sit down at the
well-garnished table, to drink the bright, genial wine served on
feast-days, to stretch themselves out on their beds to wait for the most
longed-for Sabbath morning of the year. And the three, cut off forever
from those who loved them, would be stretched upon the cross of infamy,
would drink only a sip of bitter wine, and, cold in death, would be
thrown into the cold earth.
At the sound of the Centurion’s horse, people stepped to one side and
stopped to look at the wretched men toiling and sweating under their
terrible burden. The two thieves seemed more sturdy and callous, but the
first, the Man of Sorrows, seemed scarcely able to take another step.
Worn out by the terrible night, by His four questionings, by the
buffetings, by the beatings, by the flogging, disfigured with blood,
sweat, saliva, and by the terrible effort of this last task set Him, He
did not seem like the fearless young man who a few days before had
scourged the vermin out of the Temple. His fair, shining face was drawn
and contracted by the convulsions of pain; His eyes, red with suppressed
tears, were sunken in their sockets; on His shoulders, torn by the rods,
His clothes clung to the wounds, increasing His sufferings; His legs,
more than His other members, felt this terrible weakness, and they bent
under His weight and under that of the cross. “The spirit is willing but
the flesh is weak.” After the vigil, which had been the beginning of His
agony, how many blows had been struck upon that flesh! Judas’ kiss, the
flight of His friends, the rope on His wrists, the threats of the
judges, the blows of the guard, the cowardice of Pilate, the howling
demands for His death, the insults of the legionaries, and now this
weight of the cross, carried along amid the sneers and scoffing of those
whom He loved!
Those who saw Him pass took no notice of Him, or at the most, those who
knew how to read tried to make out the inscription which hung down on
His chest. Many, however, knew Him by sight and by name, and pointed Him
out to their neighbors with learned and complacent airs. Some of them
mingled with the crowd, following behind to enjoy to the end the
spectacle, always new, of a man’s death; and more would have followed if
it had not been a day when there was much to do at home. Those who had
begun to hope in Him now despised Him because He had not been stronger,
because He had let Himself be taken like any sneak-thief; and to
ingratiate themselves with the Priests and Elders mingled with the
crowd, they cast out at the false Messiah as He went by some neatly
phrased insult. Very few were those who felt any movement of pity to see
Him in that situation and among those few were some who did not know who
He was, who were moved merely by the natural pity which any crowd feels
for condemned men. Some few there were who still felt a little love in
their hearts for the Master who had loved the poor, who had healed the
sick, who had announced the Kingdom so much more righteous and holy than
the kingdoms then in existence and ruining the earth. But these were
few, and they were almost ashamed of that secret tenderness for one whom
they had believed to be less hated or more powerful. The greater part
laughed, satisfied and contented, as if this funeral procession had been
a part of the feast-day.
Only some women, their heads wrapped in their cloaks, came behind all
the rest, weeping, but trying to hide this seditious grief.
They had not yet come to the Gate of Gardens, but they were almost there
when Jesus, His strength utterly exhausted, fell to the ground and lay
there stretched under His cross. His face had suddenly gone white as
snow; the reddened eyelids were dropped over His eyes; He would have
seemed dead if it had not been for the painful breath coming and going
through His half-open mouth.
They all stopped, and a dense circle of jeering men stretched out their
faces and hands towards the fallen man. The Jews, who had followed Him
from Caiaphas’ house, would not listen to reason.
“He is only pretending,” they cried. “Lift Him up! He is a hypocrite! He
ought to carry the cross to the last! That is the law! Give Him a kick,
as you would to an ass, and let Him get along!”
Others said, “Look at the great King who was to conquer Kingdoms. He
cannot manage even two sticks of wood, and yet He wanted to wear armor.
He said that He was more than a man, and see, He is a womanish creature
who faints away at the first work given Him. He made paralytics walk and
He Himself cannot stand up. Give Him a cup of wine to bring back His
strength.”
But the Centurion who, like Pilate, was in great haste to finish his
distasteful task, was experienced in the handling of men, and saw
clearly that the unfortunate Jesus would never be able to drag the cross
along all the way to Golgotha. He cast his eyes about to find some one
to carry that weight. Just at that moment there came in from the country
a Cyrenian called Simon, who, at the sight of so many people, had
stepped into the crowd and was looking with an astonished and pitying
expression at the body prostrate and panting under the two beams. The
Centurion saw that he had a kindly look, and furthermore that he was
strongly built, and called to him, saying, “Take this cross and come
after us.”
Without a word the Cyrenian obeyed, perhaps out of goodness of heart,
but in any case from necessity, because the Roman soldiers in the
countries which they occupied had the right to force any one to help
them. “If a soldier gives you some task to do,” wrote Arrian, “be
careful not to resist him and not to murmur, otherwise you will be
beaten.”
We know nothing more of the merciful-hearted man who lent his broad
countryman’s shoulders to lighten Jesus’ load, but we know that his
sons, Alexander and Rufus, were Christians, and it is extremely probable
that they were converted by their father’s telling them of the death of
which he was an enforced witness.
Two soldiers helped the fallen man up on His feet, and urged Him
forward. The procession took up its way again under the noon-day sun,
but the two thieves muttered between their teeth that no one thought of
them, and that it was not right that that other man by pretending to
fall should be freed of His burden while they still were forced to carry
theirs. It was favoritism, nothing less, especially as that fellow, to
hear what the priests said about Him, was much more guilty than they.
From that moment His two companions in punishment, jealous of Him, began
to hate Him, and were to insult Him even when they were nailed at His
side on the crosses which they were then carrying on their backs.
FORGIVE THEM
The Centurion halted outside the old walled city, in the midst of the
young verdure of the suburban gardens. The city of Caiaphas did not
allow capital punishment within its walls; the air perfumed with the
virtue of the Pharisees would be polluted; and the soft hearts of the
Sadducees would be distressed; hence, condemned prisoners were expelled
from the city before their death.
They had stopped on the summit of a rounded mound of limestone
resembling a skull. This resemblance might seem to be the reason for
choosing this place for executions, but the real reason was rather
because the two great roads from Jaffa and Damascus crossed each other
close at hand, and it was well that the cross should show its terrible
warning to the traveling multitude of pilgrims, merchants and
provincials.
The sun, the benign sun of the solstice, the high noon-day sun, shone on
the white mound and on the mattocks ringing sonorously in the rock. In
the nearby gardens the spring flowers expanded in the mild air; singing
birds, hidden in the trees, rent the sky with the silver arrows of their
warblings; doves flew about in pairs in the warm, pastoral peace. It
would be sweet to live there in some well-watered garden beside a well,
in the perfume of the earth awakening and clothing itself, awaiting the
harvest moon, in company with loving friends! Days of Galilee, days of
peace, days of sunshine and friendship among the vineyards, beside the
lake, days of light and liberty, wandering with friends who listened
understandingly, days drawing to a close with the well-earned
cheerfulness of supper, days which seemed eternal, although they were so
short!
Now Thou hast no one with Thee, Jesus, called the Christ. These soldiers
preparing that appalling bed, these thieves insulting Thee, those hounds
awaiting Thy blood, are only shadows, cast by the great shadow of God.
Thou art alone as Thou wert alone at night; the sun that warms Thy
assassins is not for Thee. Before Thee lies no other day, no other
journey; ended are Thy wanderings and now at last Thou canst rest; this
skull of rock is Thy goal. A few hours hence, Thine imprisoned spirit
shall be torn from its dungeon.
God’s human face is wet with cold sweat. The blows of the mattocks ring
in His head, as if they struck at Him; the sun which He loved so much,
symbol of the Father, just even to the unjust, now falls harshly on His
aching eyes and swollen eyelids. His whole body aches with weariness,
trembles in a yearning for rest which He resists with all His soul. Has
He not promised to suffer as much as is needful up to the very last? At
the same time it seems to Him that He loves with a more intimate
tenderness those whom He is leaving, even those who are working for His
death. And from the depths of His soul, like a song of victory over the
torn and weary flesh, rise up the words, never to be forgotten by men,
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
No more divine prayer was ever raised to Heaven since men have lived and
prayed; it is not the prayer of a man, but of a God to a God. Men, who
cannot pardon even the innocence of an innocent man, had never before
that day dreamed that a man might pray for the forgiveness of those who
were putting him to death.
For they know not what they do! Wrongs consciously wrought cannot be
absolved without assurance of repentance. But the ignorance of men is so
appallingly great that only a few really know what they do.
Jesus had taught what men should know; but how many knew it? Even His
own Disciples, the only ones to know that Jesus was Christ, had been
overcome by the fear of losing this last remnant of their lives; even as
they fled away, they had shown that they did not know what they did. And
even more ignorant of what they really did were the Pharisees, fearful
of losing their preëminence; the Doctors, fearful of losing their
privileges; the rich, fearful of losing their money; Pilate, fearful of
losing his office; and most ignorant of all were the Jews, misled by
their leaders, and the soldiers obedient to orders. None of them knew
who Christ was and what He came to do, and why He was killed. Some of
them were to know it, but afterwards, and they came to know it only
through the intercession of the Man whom they were killing.
Now, at the point of death, He had confirmed His most difficult and
divine teaching, “Love for enemies,” and He could now hold out His hands
to the hammer. The crosses had been raised; now they were piling stones
about them to steady them under the weight, and were filling the holes
with earth, stamping it down with their feet.
The women of Jerusalem approached the condemned Man with a pitcher. It
contained a mixture of wine, incense and myrrh, which the executioners,
out of the goodness of their hearts, imagined would dull consciousness.
Those very people who were making Him suffer pretended as a last insult
that they had mercy on that suffering, and by reducing it by the merest
trifle they thought they had the greater right to demand that the rest
of the cup of suffering be drained. But Jesus, as soon as He had tasted
this mixture, bitter as gall, pushed it away. He would have accepted a
single word in place of the wine, but the only one on that day who could
find the word to say was one of the thieves whom they had dragged up to
the place of the skull with Him.
The incense and the myrrh which they offered Him on that day were not
perfumed like that incense and myrrh brought to Him in the stable by the
Wise Men from the distant Orient. And in place of the gold which had
lighted the dingy darkness of the stable, there was the iron of the
nails, gray now, waiting to be reddened. And that wine which seemed
poisoned so bitter was it, was not the genial nuptial wine of Cana, nor
that which He had drunk the evening before, warm and dark as blood
dripping from a wound.
FOUR NAILS