JESUS AGAIN BEFORE PILATE
The sending of Jesus to Herod had not ended the case; and Pilate was
undoubtedly very bitterly disappointed. He had hoped that the Galilean
Tetrarch would assume complete jurisdiction and dispose finally of the
matter. On the contrary, Herod simply mocked and brutalized the prisoner
and had him sent back to Pilate. The Roman construed the action of the
Idumæan to mean an acquittal, and he so stated to the Jews.
"And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the
rulers and the people, Said unto them, 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."[95]
The proposal to scourge the prisoner was the second of those criminal
and cowardly subterfuges through which Pilate sought at once to satisfy
his conscience and the demands of the mob. The chastisement was to be a
sop to the rage of the rabble, a sort of salve to the wounded pride of
the priests who were disappointed that no sentence of death had been
imposed. The release was intended as a tribute to justice, as a soothing
balm and an atoning sacrifice to his own outraged sense of justice. The
injustice of this monstrous proposal was not merely contemptible, it was
execrable. If Jesus was guilty, He should have been punished; if
innocent, he should have been set free and protected from the assaults
of the Jews.
The offer of scourging first and then the release of the prisoner was
indignantly rejected by the rabble. In his desperation, Pilate thought
of another loophole of escape.
The Evangelists tell us that it was a custom upon Passover day to
release to the people any single prisoner that they desired. St. Luke
asserts that the governor was under an obligation to do so.[96] Whether
this custom was of Roman or Hebrew origin is not certainly known. Many
New Testament interpreters have seen in the custom a symbol of the
liberty and deliverance realized by Israel in its passage from Egypt at
the time of the first great Passover. Others have traced this custom to
the Roman practice of releasing a slave at the Lectisternia, or banquets
to the gods.[97] Aside from its origin, it is interesting as an
illustration of a universal principle in enlightened jurisprudence of
lodging somewhere, usually with the chief executive of a race or
nation, a power of pardon which serves as an extinction of the penal
sanction. This merciful principle is a pathetic acknowledgment of the
weakness and imperfection of all human schemes of justice.
Pilate resolved to escape from his confusion and embarrassment by
delivering Jesus to the people, who happened to appear in great numbers
at the very moment when Christ returned from Herod. The multitude had
come to demand the usual Passover deliverance of a prisoner. The arrival
of the crowd of disinterested strangers was inopportune for the priests
and elders who were clamoring for the life of the prisoner in their
midst. They marked with keen discernment the resolution of the governor
to release Jesus. They were equal to the emergency, and began to whisper
among the crowd that Barabbas should be asked.
"And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas. Therefore when
they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I
release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew
that for envy they had delivered him."[98]
Pilate believed that the newly arrived multitude would be free from the
envy of the priests, and that they would be satisfied with Jesus whom
they had, a few days before, welcomed into Jerusalem with shouts of joy.
When they demanded Barabbas, he still believed that if he offered them
the alternative choice of a robber and a prophet, they would choose the
latter.
"But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they
should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said
unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They
said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus
which is called the Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be
crucified."[99]
"Barabbas, or Jesus which is called the Christ?" Such was the
alternative offered by a Roman governor to a Jewish mob. Barabbas was a
murderer and a robber. Jesus was the sinless Son of God. An erring race
wandering in the darkness of sin and perpetually tasting the bitterness
of life beneath the sun, preferred a criminal to a prophet. And to the
ghastliness of the choice was added a touch of the irony of fate. The
names of both the prisoners were in signification the same. Barabbas was
also called Jesus. And Jesus Barabbas meant Jesus the Son of the Father.
This frightful coincidence was so repugnant to the Gospel writers that
they are generally silent upon it. In this connection, Strauss remarks:
"According to one reading, the man's complete name was [Greek: hiêsous
barabbas], which fact is noted only because Olshausen considers it
noteworthy. Barabbas signifies 'son of the father,' and consequently
Olshausen exclaims: 'All that was essential to the Redeemer appears
ridiculous in the assassin!' and he deems applicable the verse: '_Ludit
in humanis divina potentia rebus._' We can see nothing in Olshausen's
remark but a _ludus humanæ impotentiæ_."[100]
Amidst the tumult provoked by the angry passions of the mob, a
messenger arrived from his wife bearing news that filled the soul of
Pilate with superstitious dread. Claudia had had a dream of strange and
ill-boding character.
"When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him,
saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: For I have suffered
many things this day in a dream because of him."[101]
This dream of Pilate's wife is nothing strange. Profane history mentions
many similar ones. Calpurnia, Cæsar's wife, forewarned him in a dream
not to go to the senate house; and the greatest of the Romans fell
beneath the daggers of Casca and Brutus, because he failed to heed the
admonition of his wife.
In the apocryphal report of Pilate to the emperor Tiberius of the facts
of the crucifixion, the words of warning sent by Claudia are given:
"Beware said she to me, beware and touch not that man, for he is holy.
Last night I saw him in a vision. He was walking on the waters. He was
flying on the wings of the winds. He spoke to the tempest and to the
fishes of the lake; all were obedient to him. Behold! the torrent in
Mount Kedron flows with blood, the statues of Cæsar are filled with the
filth of Gemoniæ, the columns of the Interium have given away and the
sun is veiled in mourning like a vestal in the tomb. O, Pilate, evil
awaits thee if thou wilt not listen to the prayer of thy wife. Dread the
curse of the Roman Senate, dread the powers of Cæsar."
This noble and lofty language, this tender and pathetic speech, may
appear strange to those who remember the hereditary stigma of the woman.
If this dream was sent from heaven, the recollection is forced upon us
that the medium of its communication was the illegitimate child of a
lewd woman. But then her character was probably not worse than that of
Mary Magdalene, who was very dear to the Master and has been canonized
not only by the church, but by the reverence of the world.
It is certain, however, that the dream of Claudia had no determining
effect upon the conduct of Pilate. Resolution and irresolution
alternately controlled him. Fear and superstition were uppermost in both
mind and heart. The Jews beheld with anxious and discerning glance the
manifestation of the deep anguish of his soul. They feared that the
governor was about to pronounce a final judgment of acquittal.
Exhibiting fierce faces and frenzied feelings, they moved closer to him
and exclaimed: "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because
he made himself the Son of God."[102]
Despairing of convicting Jesus on a political charge, they deliberately
revived a religious one, and presented to Pilate substantially the same
accusation upon which they had tried the prisoner before their own
tribunal.
"He made himself the Son of God!" These words filled Pilate's mind with
a strange and awful meaning. In the mythology and ancient annals of his
race, there were many legends of the sons of the gods who walked the
earth in human form and guise. They were thus indistinguishable from
mortal men. It was dangerous to meet them; for to offend them was to
provoke the wrath of the gods, their sires. These reflections, born of
superstition, now swept through Pilate's mind with terrific force; and
the cries of the mob, "He made himself the Son of God," called from out
the deep recesses of his memory the half-forgotten, half-remembered
stories of his childhood. Could not Jesus, reasoned Pilate, be the son
of the Hebrew Jehovah as Hercules was the son of Jupiter? Filled with
superstitious dread and trembling with emotion, Pilate called Jesus
inside the Temple a second time; and, looking with renewed awe and
wonder, asked: "Whence art thou?"[103] But Jesus answered him nothing.
Pilate came forth from the judgment hall a second time determined to
release the prisoner; but the Jews, marking his decision, began to cry
out: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!"[104] Maddened by the
relentless importunity of the mob, Pilate replied scornfully and
mockingly:
"Shall I crucify your king?"
The cringing, hypocritical priests shouted back their answer:
"We have no king but Cæsar."[105]
And on the kingly idea of loyalty to Roman sovereignty they framed their
last menace and accusation. From the quiver of their wrath they drew the
last arrow of spite and hate, and fired it straight at the heart of
Jesus through the hands of Pilate:
"If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh
himself a king speaketh against Cæsar."[106]
This last maneuver of the mob sealed the doom of the Christ. It teaches
also most clearly that Pilate was no match for the Jews when their
religious prejudices were aroused and they were bent on accomplishing
their desires. They knew Pilate and he knew them. They had been together
full six years. He had been compelled to yield to them in the matter of
the standards and the eagles. The sacred Corban funds had been
appropriated only after blood had been shed in the streets of Jerusalem.
The gilt shields of Tiberius that he had placed in Herod's palace were
taken down at the demands of the Jews and carried to the temple of
Augustus at Cæsarea. And now the same fanatical rabble was before him
demanding the blood of the Nazarene, and threatening to accuse him to
Cæsar if he released the prisoner. The position of Pilate was painfully
critical. He afterwards lost his procuratorship at the instance of
accusing Jews. The shadow of that distant day now fell like a curse
across his pathway. Nothing was so terrifying to a Roman governor as to
have the people send a complaining embassy to Rome. It was especially
dangerous at this time. The imperial throne was filled by a morbid and
suspicious tyrant who needed but a pretext to depose the governor of any
province who silently acquiesced in traitorous pretensions to kingship.
Pilate trembled at these reflections. His feelings of self-preservation
suggested immediate surrender to the Jews. But his innate sense of
justice, which was woven in the very fiber of his Roman nature, recoiled
at the thought of Roman sanction of judicial murder. He resolved,
therefore, to propitiate and temporize. The frenzied rabble continued to
cry: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Three times, in reply, Conscience sent
to Pilate's trembling lips the searching question: "Why, what evil hath
he done?" "Crucify him! Crucify him!" came back from the infuriated mob.
Pilate finally resolved to do their bidding and obey their will. But he
seems to have secretly cherished the hope that scourging, which was the
usual preliminary to crucifixion, might be made to satisfy the mob. But
this hope was soon dispelled; and he found himself compelled to yield
completely to their wishes by delivering the prisoner to be crucified.
Before this final step, however, which was an insult to the true courage
of the soul and an outrage upon all the charities of the heart, he
resolved to apply a soothing salve to wounded conscience. He resolved to
perform a ceremonial cleansing act. Calling for a basin of water, he
washed his hands before the multitude, saying: "I am innocent of the
blood of this just person: see ye to it."[107]
This was a simple, impressive, theatrical act; but little, mean,
contemptible, cowardly. He washed his hands when he should have used
them. He should have used them as Brutus or Gracchus or Pompeius Magnus
would have done, in pointing his legion to the field of duty and of
glory. He should have used them as Bonaparte did when he put down the
mob in the streets of Paris. But he was too craven and cowardly; and
herein is to be found the true meaning of the character and conduct of
Pilate. He believed that Jesus was innocent; and that the accusations
against Him were inspired by the envy of His countrymen. He had declared
to the Jews in an emphatic verdict of acquittal that he found in Him no
fault at all. And yet this very sentence, "I find in him no fault at
all," was the beginning of that course of cowardly and criminal
vacillation which finally sent Jesus to the cross. "Yet was this
utterance," says Innes, "as it turned out, only the first step in that
downward course of weakness the world knows so well: a course which,
beginning with indecision and complaisance, passed through all the
phases of alternate bluster and subserviency; persuasion, evasion,
protest, and compromise; superstitious dread, conscientious reluctance,
cautious duplicity, and sheer moral cowardice at last; until this Roman
remains photographed forever as the perfect feature of the unjust judge,
deciding 'against his better knowledge, not deceived.'"
"Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he
delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took
Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of
soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when
they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a
reed in his right hand: And they bowed the knee before him, and mocked
him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took
the reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him,
they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led
him away to crucify him."[108]
Thus ended the most memorable act of injustice recorded in history. At
every stage of the trial, whether before Caiaphas or Pilate, the
prisoner conducted Himself with that commanding dignity and majesty so
well worthy of His origin, mission, and destiny. His sublime deportment
at times caused His judges to marvel greatly. And through it all, He
stood alone. His friends and followers had deserted Him in His hour of
greatest need. Single-handed and unaided, the Galilean peasant had bared
His breast and brow to the combined authority, to the insults and
outrages, of both Jerusalem and Rome. "Not a single discordant voice was
raised amidst the tumultuous clamour: not a word of protest disturbed
the mighty concord of anger and reviling; not the faintest echo of the
late hosannas, which had wrung with wonder, fervour, and devotion, and
which had surrounded and exalted to the highest pitch of triumph the
bearer of good tidings on his entry into the Holy City. Where were the
throngs of the hopeful and believing, who had followed His beckoning as
a finger pointing toward the breaking dawn of truth and regeneration?
Where were they, what thinking and why silent? The bands at the humble
and poor, of the afflicted and outcast who had entrusted to His
controlling grace the salvation of soul and body--where were they, what
thinking and why silent? The troops of women and youths, who had drawn
fresh strength from the spell of a glance or a word from the Father of
all that liveth--where were they, what thinking and why silent? And the
multitudes of disciples and enthusiasts who had scattered sweet-scented
boughs and joyous utterances along the road to Sion, blessing Him that
came in the name of the Lord--where were they, what thinking and why
silent? Not a remembrance, not a sign, not a word of the great glory so
lately His. Jesus was alone."
[Illustration: CHRIST LEAVING THE PRÆTORIUM (DORÉ)]