My Dearest Father:
Jesus had from very weakness sunk upon the steps of the throne of the
Hall of Judgment. John knelt by him, bathing the wounds in his temples,
from off which he had boldly taken the crown of thorns. When Pilate,
after giving the order to release the robber chief Barabbas, came again
where Jesus was, he stopped and regarded him attentively, and with an
expression of sorrow and admiration. At length he spoke:
"If thou be indeed a god, O heroic young man, as thy patience would
seem to prove thee to be, thou needest not to fear these bloodhounds,
that bay so fiercely for thy blood. If thou art an impostor and a
seditionist, thou verily meritest death. I regard thee but as a
youthful enthusiast, and would let thee go free; but I cannot protect
thee. If I release thee, not only thou, but also all my troops, will be
massacred, for we are but a handful in their grasp. Tell me truly, art
thou a son of the divine Jupiter?"
When Jesus, instead of replying, remained silent, the Procurator said
sternly:
"What! speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to
crucify thee as a malefactor, and power, if I choose to meet the risk,
to release thee?"
Jesus looked up and calmly said:
"Thou couldst have no power against me except it were given thee from
above. Therefore he that delivered me into thy hands hath the greater
sin!"
And as Jesus said these words in an impressive tone, he glanced fixedly
at Caiaphas, who was looking in at the door, as if designating the High
Priest. Upon this Pilate pressed his hands against his forehead and
paced several times to and fro before the judgment seat, as if greatly
troubled. Caiaphas, seeing his irresolution, cried harshly:
"If thou lettest this self-styled king go, O Governor, thou art not
Cæsar's friend!"
Pilate's brow grew dark. He took Jesus by the hand, and leading him to
the portal, pointed to him, and said aloud:
"Behold your king! What will you that I should do with him? Looks he
like a man to be feared?"
"We have no king but Cæsar!"
"Crucify him!"
"To the cross with the false prophet!"
"Death to the usurper! Long live Cæsar! Death to the Nazarene! To the
cross! To the cross with him! Let him be crucified!"
These were the various cries from ten thousand throats that responded
to the Procurator's address. Remembering the warning message sent him
by his young and beautiful wife, who held great influence over him, he
trembled with indecision.
"Why will you compel me to crucify an innocent man? What evil hath he
done?"
"Crucify him! Crucify him!" was the deafening response.
"I will chastise him and let him go!"
"At your peril release him, O Roman!" exclaimed Caiaphas, in a menacing
tone. "Either he or you must die this day for the people! Blood must
flow to appease this tempest!"
When the Procurator saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather
the tumult increased, he called for water, which was brought to him
in a basin by his page, and in the presence of the whole multitude he
washed his hands, saying:
"I am innocent of the blood of this just person! See ye to it, O Jews,
ye and your High Priest!"
"His blood be upon us, and on our children!" answered Caiaphas; and all
the people re-echoed his language.
"Ay, on us and on our children rest the guilt of his blood!"
"Be it so," answered the Procurator, with a dark brow and face as pale
as the dead. "Take ye him and crucify him; and may the God he worships
judge you, not me, for this day's deed!"
Pilate then turned away from them and said to Jesus:
"Thou art, I feel, an innocent man, but thou seest that I cannot save
thee! I know thou wilt forgive me, and that death can have no terrors
for one of fortitude like thine!"
Jesus made him no answer; and Pilate, turning from him with a sad
countenance walked slowly away and left the Judgment Hall. As he did so
one of his captains said to him:
"Shall I scourge him, my lord, according to the Roman law, which
commands all who are sentenced to die to be scourged?"
"Do as the law commands," answered the weak-minded Roman.
His disappearance was the signal for a general rush towards Jesus,
chiefly by the rabble, who, indifferent about Gentile defilement,
crossed the threshold into the hall, which the chief priests had
refrained from doing. These base fellows seized Jesus and, aided by the
men-at-arms, dragged him forth into the outer or common hall. Here they
stripped him, and, by order of the chief captain, a soldier scourged
him with forty stripes, save one.
All this Jesus still bore with God-like majesty. Not a murmur escaped
his lips; not a glance of resentment kindled the holy depths of his
eyes, which, from time to time, were uplifted to heaven, as if he
sought for help and strength from thence.
Not only Æmilius but John was now separated from him; but my uncle, the
Rabbi stood near, in order to see what would follow, and to use his
influence, if possible, to induce the chief priests to abandon the idea
of killing him.
"Good Rabbi," said Jesus to him, "let them do with me what they list.
My Father hath given me into their hands. I die, but not for myself. I
can keep or yield up my life, as I will."
"Oh, then, dear Master!" cried my uncle, "why not save thyself? Why
shouldst thou suffer all this, and death also, if thou hast the power
over thy life?"
"If I die not, then were ye all dead. The Scripture must be fulfilled
which spoke of me. 'He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.'"
Here Rabbi Amos could speak no more to him, for the crowd dragged him
off out of the Court of Gabbatha, and so down the steep street in the
direction of the gate of the kings that leads out to Calvary, the
public place of execution.
Rabbi Amos accompanied the multitude, keeping as nigh to Jesus as the
Roman soldiers, who marched on each side of him, would permit. On the
way, as they crossed the open space where once stood the palace and
statue of Antiochus Seleucus, the eyes of the Rabbi were attracted by
the cries and pointed fingers of many of the people to the body of a
man lying dead at the foot of a withered fig tree. Upon drawing nearer,
he recognized the features of the man Judas, who had so basely betrayed
his Master. The spectacle which he exhibited was revolting and horrid
to look upon! About his neck was wound a fragment of his girdle, the
other half being still secured to a limb of the tree, showing how he
had met his fate.
By this time the people who were dragging Jesus to death were got well
beyond the gate, when a cross of heavy cypress was obtained by the
centurion from a yard near the lodge. Two others were also brought out,
and laid upon the shoulders of two men, the lieutenants of Barabbas,
who were also that day to be crucified.
By the time the great crowd had passed the gate, it was known
throughout all Jerusalem that Pilate had given orders for the
crucifixion of the Nazarene Prophet; and, with one mind, all who had
known him and believed in him or loved him left their houses to go
out after him to witness the crucifixion; for I forgot to say that
Caiaphas had promised, if Jesus were delivered up, that his followers
should not be molested. Therefore every person went out of the gate
towards Calvary. Mary his mother, my Cousin Mary, Martha and her
sister, Lazarus, John, Peter and Thomas, and some women, relatives
from Galilee, and many others, also went. When we got without the
walls, we seemed to leave a deserted city behind us. As far as the eye
could embrace there was a countless multitude. Jesus was borne in
front, where we could now and then catch the gleam of a Roman spear.
We hastened to get near him and, with difficulty, made our way to the
head of the throng, both foes and friends giving back when they saw his
weeping mother among us.
At the approach to Calvary we found that, from some cause, the course
of the mighty current of human beings was checked. We soon learned the
reason. Jesus had sunk to the ground under the weight of the wooden
beams on which he was to die, and fainted.
"He is dead!" was the cry of those about him; but, as we drew near, he
was just reviving, some one having offered wine to his lips and poured
water upon his brow. He stood up, looking mildly around, when meeting
his mother's gaze, he said touchingly:
"Weep not, my mother! Remember what I have often told thee of this
hour, and believe. Mine hour is come!"
Thus speaking he smiled upon his mother and upon us, with a certain
look of divine peace illuminating his countenance.
Barabbas, the robber chief, who had in some degree taken the lead of
the mob, now, with the aid of three men, raised the cross again to
the shoulders of Jesus, and the soldier ordered him to move on. But
the young victim sank at once beneath the insupportable load. Upon
this they were at a loss what to do, for it is ignominious for Jew or
Gentile to aid in bearing a malefactor's cross, and not a Roman would
touch it. At this crisis they discerned a Syro-Phœnician merchant,
Simon of Cyrene, a venerable man, well known to all in Jerusalem. This
man was for some reason particularly obnoxious to Abner, and, on seeing
him, he pointed him out to the centurion as "one of the Nazarenes," and
suggested that he should be compelled to bear the cross after Jesus.
The Cyrenian merchant was at once dragged from his mule and led to
the place where the cross lay, believing he was about to be himself
executed. But when he beheld Jesus standing, pale and bleeding, by the
fallen cross, and knew what was required of him, he burst into tears
and, kneeling at his feet, said:
"If they compel me to do this, Lord, think not that I aid thy death! I
know that thou art a prophet come from God."
"We brought thee not here to prate, old man, but to work. Thou art
strong-bodied. Up with this end of the cross and go on after him!"
cried the chief priests.
Simon, who is a powerful man, though threescore years of age, raised
the extremity of the beam, and Jesus essayed to move under the weight
of the other; but he failed.
"Let me bear it alone, Master," answered the stout Simon. "I am the
stronger. Thou hast enough to bear the weight of thine own sorrow. If
it be a shame to bear a cross after thee, I glory in my shame, as would
my two sons, were they here this day."
Thus speaking, he lifted the cross and bore it on his shoulders after
Jesus, who, weak from loss of blood and sleep, and weary unto death,
had to lean for support against one arm of the instrument of death.
Ah, my dear father, what a place was this across which we moved!
Skulls lay scattered beneath our footsteps, and everywhere human bones
bleached in the air, and we trod in heaps of ashes where the Romans had
burned the bodies of many of those whom they crucified.
The crosses carried by the thieves were now thrown down by them; by one
with an execration, by the other with a sigh, as he anticipated the
anguish he was to suffer upon it.
The larger cross of the three was that for Jesus. It was taken by
three soldiers from the back of the old Cyrenian merchant and cast
heavily upon the earth. It was now that a crisis approached of the
most painful interest. The centurion ordered his soldiers to clear
a circle about the place where the crosses were to be planted with
their spears. The Jews who had crowded near, in eager thirst for their
victim's blood, gave back slowly and reluctantly before the sharp
points of the Roman lances pushed against their breasts, for the
centurion had with him full threescore men-at-arms, besides a part
of Herod's guard. John, however, held his place close by his Master.
He relates that Jesus continued to evince the same sublime composure
when the centurion commanded the crucifiers to advance and nail the
malefactors to their crosses. The robber-lieutenant, Ishmerai, who was
an Edomite, upon seeing the man approach with the basket containing the
spikes and hammers, scowled fiercely upon him and looked defiance. He
was instantly seized by four savage-looking Parthian soldiers of the
Roman guard, and stripped and thrown upon his back upon the cross. His
struggles, for he was an athletic man, were so violent that it took six
persons to keep him held down upon the arms of the cross and his palms
spread open to receive the entering nail, which one of the crucifiers,
with naked and brawny arms, pressing one knee upon the wrist, drove in
through the flesh and wood, by three quick and powerful blows with his
short, heavy-headed hammer.
Thus secured he was left, bleeding and writhing, by the six crucifiers;
for there are four to bind the victim, one to hold the spikes, and the
sixth to drive them home with his hammer, and from the glance I caught
of their half-naked and blood-stained figures, they were worthy to
hold the dreadful office which made all men shun them as if they were
leprous.
They now approached Omri, the other robber, who was a young man with
a mild look, and a face whose noble lineaments did not betray his
profession. He was the son of a wealthy citizen in Jericho, and had by
riotous living, spent his patrimony and joined Barabbas. He had heard
Jesus preach in the wilderness of Jordan, and had once asked him with
deep interest many things touching the doctrines he taught.
When the crucifiers, with their cords, basket, nails and iron hammer,
drew near him, he said:
"I will not compel you to throw me down. I can die as I have lived,
without fear. As I have broken the laws, I am ready to suffer the
penalty of the laws."
Thus speaking, he stretched himself upon his cross and, extending his
palms along the transverse beam, he suffered them to nail him to the
wood, uttering not a moan. He glanced towards Jesus at the same time
with an expression of courage, as if he sought to show him that the
pain could be borne by a brave man. And perhaps, indeed, Jesus looked
as if he needed an heroic example before him to show him how to die
without shrinking, for his cheek was like the marble of Paros in its
whiteness, and he seemed ready to drop to the earth from weakness. His
youth, his almost divine beauty, which not even his tangled hair and
torn beard and blood-streaked countenance could wholly hide, the air
of celestial innocence that beamed from his eyes, drew upon him many
glances of sympathy even from some of his foes. The centurion, who was
a tall man with a grizzly beard, and with the hardy exterior of an old
Roman warrior, looked upon him with a sad gaze and said:
"I do not see what men hate thee for, for thou seemest more to be a
man of love; but I must do my duty, and I hope thou wilt forgive me
what I do. A soldier's honor is to obey."
Jesus smiled forgiveness upon him so sweetly that the stern Roman's
eyes filled with tears, and he placed his gauntleted hand to his face
to conceal his emotion.
But, my dear father, I can go on no longer now with my sad narrative.
I am weary weeping at the recollections it calls before me, and at
our present affliction. In my next I will complete my account of the
unhappy crucifixion of the Prophet of Nazareth.
Your affectionate daughter,
Adina.