“Insolent Jew!” he muttered. “He would not only tell the Procurator what
to do, but when to do it! By the great Jove, I may surprise him!” He
threw back the covering and rose ponderously to his feet. “Go tell the
High Priest to have his witnesses ready. I shall be there shortly.”
The great Fortress of Antonia, Rome’s bastion in the Jerusalem region,
consisted actually of four straight-walled, high buildings joined
together by corner towers to compose an impregnable stone structure some
fifty by one hundred paces on the outside walls. The space within the
inside four walls had been paved with great stone slabs to form a
tremendous courtyard reached by huge gateways, one on each of the
edifice’s four sides. Massive gates guarded the fortress against sudden
attack; when opened, they admitted a flow of nondescript traffic into
the courtyard.
Along the southern side of the fortress there was another paved court
from which a wide flight of stone steps led up to a terrace; the
terrace, in turn, led into the interior courtyard. In a high-ceilinged
chamber on the ground floor of this structure, Pontius Pilate had set up
his Praetorium. A Roman praetorium, or trial place of a praetor,
consisted of a semicircular dais on which the curule, or magistrate’s
chair, had been placed.
In the rear of this chamber was a small doorway, and it was through this
doorway that Pilate, shortly after the orderly had reported to High
Priest Caiaphas, came into the Praetorium.
The Procurator strode straight to the dais, mounted its several steps,
and sat down on the curule. Frowning, he glanced toward the tall,
manacled prisoner. Flanking the man on both sides were several guards,
all Roman soldiers, who had been assigned to the Temple detail. Though a
throng had already assembled in the court beyond the gateway, the
Procurator could see from where he sat on the tribunal that not a Jew
had followed the prisoner inside the vaulted chamber. “What charge is
brought against this man?” Pilate snapped. “And where are his accusers?”
The captain of the guard saluted. “High Priest Caiaphas commanded me,
Excellency, to bring the prisoner before you with instructions that he
has been tried before the Jewish Sanhedrin and found guilty of crimes
punishable by death. He said you, O Excellency, were to confirm the
verdict of the Jewish court and order its sentence put into execution.”
Anger suffused the Procurator’s round, usually bland face. “And why
hasn’t the High Priest come himself to bear witness to the Sanhedrin’s
action? Why has this man no accusers confronting him?”
The captain was plainly ill at ease. He shifted his weight from one foot
to the other, started to speak, then swallowed. “The Jews, O Excellency,
will not enter the Praetorium for fear that to do so will be a
profanation, that it will render them unfit to eat of their Passover
evening meal,” he finally revealed. “They will come no nearer than the
steps”—he pointed—“out there.”
Pilate, as the captain had expected, was furious. “Profanation!
Profanation! All I hear in this rebellious, proud province is
profanation! Hah! They would profane themselves by entering a Roman hall
of justice!” His already flushed cheeks were purpling. He stood up
quickly, strode down the steps of the tribunal, and stalked forward to
the stairway; from there he could survey the mass of excited, chattering
Jews, who quieted perceptibly on seeing him emerge from the Praetorium.
“The prisoner,” he said, motioning with his head toward the chamber from
which he had just come, “what charge do you bring against him? And where
are his accusers?”
The multitude was silent. Eyes turned toward a group near the foot of
the steps; in the center of the knot stood the High Priest. He advanced
a pace and bowed to the Procurator. “O Excellency, this man has been
tried by our Sanhedrin and found guilty of grievous crimes. If he had
not been found to be a criminal of desperate wickedness, then we would
not have brought him before the Procurator to be sentenced.”
The bold insolence of the High Priest’s reply did not escape Pilate. “If
you have tried him then and found him guilty, why don’t you also take
him and execute upon him your sentence?”
Caiaphas stood silent for a moment. “But the Procurator must know, O
Excellency,” he replied at length, a humorless smile lifting the corners
of his mouth, “that under the dominion of Rome the Sanhedrin has not the
authority, however heinous the criminal’s deeds may have been, to
execute upon him the sentence of death. Therefore, O sir, we petition
the Procurator to order executed upon this vicious criminal the sentence
of death which the Sanhedrin has found him so fully to deserve.”
But Pilate was obdurate. “You would ask a Roman magistrate to find a man
guilty and send him to the cross, even though no accusation had been
made against him and no witnesses had confronted him,” he declared.
“Don’t you know that were I to do so I would violate every principle of
Roman justice?” He jabbed a pudgy forefinger toward Caiaphas. “Would
you, O High Priest, ask the Procurator thus to violate his oath as
Rome’s regent in Judaea?”
The Procurator, however, had failed to gauge the High Priest’s cunning.
“Indeed, O Excellency, of course I would not seek to lead the Procurator
into violating his oath to uphold Roman justice.” He smiled and bowed,
mockingly. “Nor would I stand silent and unprotesting while the
Procurator released a clever though iniquitous criminal who seeks not
only the demoralization of Israel’s religion and the perversion of her
people but also the overthrow of Rome in this province and the
establishment of himself as King of Israel.”
The High Priest’s answer was not only a skilful parry of the
Procurator’s question but it was, moreover, a well-aimed thrust of his
own most effective weapon. Caiaphas knew that Pilate lived always in
mortal fear of being reported to Rome; he knew that the Procurator would
not dare to ignore any situation in Judaea, or even the hint of it, that
might be fostering incipient revolt against Roman rule.
But Pilate maintained his composure; he would not yield obsequiously to
this hateful symbol of Jewry’s stubborn pride of race and nationality
and her cold scorn of everything Roman. He studied the group for whom
the High Priest professed to be speaking; it was a nondescript
assemblage, Temple hirelings, a knot of Pharisees, and surrounding the
High Priest himself, his own Sadducean coterie; the others were, for the
most part, sunburnt fellows who might well be, the thought came to him
suddenly, Galilean and Judaean revolutionaries come in for the Passover
feast from their mountain and Wilderness strongholds. Scowling, Pilate
confronted the cynically smiling Caiaphas. “You say this man is guilty
of heinous crimes, you declare he would set himself up as King of
Judaea, but, O High Priest, you have made before me no accusation, you
have brought no witnesses to testify against him.” He turned to point
with a sweep of his arm toward the Galilean, standing calmly beside his
guards. “There stands the prisoner before the tribunal. I ask you again,
O High Priest, what charges do you bring against him? Where are his
accusers?”
Caiaphas realized that the Procurator was refusing to admit what he had
assumed, at last night’s meeting, had been a tacit agreement, that a
retrial of the prisoner would be unnecessary; perhaps he was fearful
that Rome would disapprove such a disposition of the case. At any rate,
reasoned the High Priest, further verbal sparring would mean delay in
sending the upstart Galilean to the cross, and he wished this Jesus dead
and taken down before the beginning at sunset of the sacred Sabbath.
Too, the longer they delayed, the more likely it was that other
hot-blooded Galileans would get noise of the trial and come storming to
their leader’s support; they might even succeed in effecting the
fellow’s release. He would not, therefore, challenge Pilate further.
“O Excellency”—Caiaphas raised his hand and the rays of the morning sun
flashed in the gems of his rings—“we charge that this fellow not only
sought to lead astray the people from the true worship of our God of
Israel, but that he did also forbid them to pay tribute to Caesar, and
that he did declare that he himself was rightful King of Israel and
would so establish himself!”
Pilate would give no consideration to the first charge, the High Priest
was sure, but, he reasoned, the Procurator could not ignore the other
two. And the soundness of his reasoning was immediately demonstrated.
Pilate turned his back upon Caiaphas and the crowd and returned to the
Praetorium, where he mounted the tribunal and sat down. “Are you”—he
pointed toward the prisoner, who still, though weary, stood erect and
calm—“the King of the Jews?”
“Do you ask this of your own desire to know”—the trace of a smile
lightened the solemn countenance—“or has someone else said it of me?”
The Procurator shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Am I a Jew?” he asked
sarcastically. “Your own nation, your High Priest, and the others of the
Temple leadership have delivered you unto me. What have you done?”
“I am a King,” Jesus replied calmly. “But my Kingdom is not a worldly
kingdom; if it were, then my servants would fight against my being
delivered to these leaders of the Jews. The Kingdom I rule is not of
this world.”
Pilate’s round face betrayed bafflement. “Then you profess to be a king,
but in another realm, the world of magic, spirits...?”
“I was born into this world to bear testimony to the truth,” Jesus
answered. “Everyone who is of the truth will understand and acknowledge
my Kingship.”
Then this man was, as Pilate had suspected all along, in no sense a
revolutionary planning Rome’s overthrow; he was but another of these
eastern mystics, dreaming of the imponderable and intangible. Hadn’t
Herod Antipas beheaded another such fellow because of his slurs against
Herodias, slurs undoubtedly deserved at that? The man before him, Pilate
realized, was simply a religious leader, someone whom, perhaps, Caiaphas
feared as a possible rival, who Caiaphas felt might even supplant him in
the office of High Priest. Of course, reasoned the Procurator, the
fellow might well be a little addled through too long immersion in this
utterly foolish and depraved one-god religion of Israel. “Those who know
the truth,” the fellow had just proclaimed, “will recognize me,
acknowledge me as their king.” Hah!
“Truth”—Pilate shot forth his finger toward the prisoner—“what is
truth?” He hunched his shoulders and waved his hands, palms up, in a
gesture he had borrowed from the Jews. And without looking toward the
man of whom he had asked the question, he stepped down from the tribunal
and strode out to the High Priest and his restive throng.
“I have examined the prisoner as to the charges you have brought against
him,” he announced to Caiaphas. “I find nothing criminal in him. He’s a
religious man, a dreamer, but he is no revolutionary.” He was glad to be
rid of the man, though, he confessed to himself; he was happy to wash
his hands of this Jesus, Caiaphas, and the rest of them; if he could
only be freed of all Palestine, if he could never lay eyes again upon
another Jew. “I find no fault in the man; I shall release him.”
“No! No! O Excellency, no!” Hands were waving wildly in the air. “No! O
Pilate!” The Procurator, scanning the throng, saw the priests fomenting
the agitation into a swell of shouted disapproval of his verdict. Once
more the High Priest stepped forward a pace or two from the front ranks.
“The man is amazingly clever, O Excellency,” he declared, smiling
agreeably, “as he has just demonstrated in thus deceiving the
Procurator. But he is a criminal, and one of the most vicious and
depraved order, O sir. And he is a revolutionary. Beginning in his
native Galilee, he has deceived and perverted the people, and by his
dangerous and evil perverting, his criminal teachings in opposition to
our religion and Rome’s government, he has brought into Peraea and
Judaea....”
“Beginning, you say, in Galilee? Then this man is a Galilean?”
“Indeed, O Excellency, and one of the worst of the Galilean
revolutionaries, one of the most dastardly clever,” He smiled
sardonically. “He smites with words rather than a dagger.”
_... A Galilean, by great Jove! Then send him to Herod Antipas. Let the
Tetrarch dispose of this case. He assumed jurisdiction over that
fanatical Wilderness prophet and ordered him beheaded. Well, this man,
too, is a Galilean. Let Herod stand between this persistent, obstinate
High Priest and old Sejanus. Let the Tetrarch, for once, bear the brunt
of any reports sent back to Rome; this time Sejanus may not overlook
what he considers a mistake of administration in this gods-abandoned
province. If there’s to be a mistake, let the Tetrarch make it...._
“Then this man,” he said to the High Priest, “is a subject of the
Tetrarch Herod Antipas. He should be remanded to the Tetrarch for
trial.”
Pilate returned quickly to the Praetorium. “Captain of the Guards,” he
commanded, “conduct this prisoner to the Tetrarch Herod Antipas. Bear to
the Tetrarch the Procurator’s compliments and say to him that the
Procurator is sending him the King of the Jews”—a sneering smile for an
instant pushed away the scowl on his round face—“a Galilean. It may be
that the Tetrarch will wish to examine the prisoner concerning the
charges that have been brought against him by the High Priest Caiaphas.
At any rate, the prisoner, being from Galilee, is a subject of the
Tetrarch and under his jurisdiction.” He nodded curtly. “Go.”
Quickly the guards formed about the tall prisoner and led him from the
Praetorium, down the steps into the Court of the Gentiles. Leaving the
Temple area through the Gate Shalleketh, they crossed the bridge above
the Valley of the Tyropoeon and arrived shortly in front of the
sprawling Xystus. A few moments later they paused before the gate giving
admittance to the gloomy and forbidding ancient stone residence of the
Hasmonean kings.
47
Perhaps it was the thin slash of early sunlight venturing across her bed
that had aroused her; perhaps she had awakened early because she had
retired early. Pleading weariness and an aching head, Joanna had stayed
away from the Tetrarch’s lavish dinner, the preparation of which she had
directed. She had felt certain that the banquet, safely hidden within
the old palace’s thick walls from the prying, sanctimonious eyes of the
priests, would turn into a drunken debauch, and the Feast of the
Passover, she held strongly, was no occasion for such frivolity.
The drafty old palace and the grounds about it were quiet. With the
exception of the servants, she surmised, there was likely to be no one
astir in the Tetrarch’s household, particularly Herod Antipas himself.
No doubt he would arise late, in time to bathe and dress for his
ceremonious partaking of the Passover meal.
Joanna, who had come up from Tiberias with her husband Chuza and others
of the Tetrarch’s staff, lay still and listened to the small sounds of
early morning in old Jerusalem: birds twittering on the sill of her open
window, cattle lowing in the stalls at the Temple, the rising hum of the
densely packed city’s coming alive.
So, lying quiet and keenly awake now, she heard in the court below her
window a babble of men’s voices and the uncadenced slap and shuffle of
sandaled feet on paving stones. Quickly she slipped from the bed and
crossed her chamber. Peering out from behind the draperies, she saw,
hardly twenty paces from the palace wall, a motley throng that numbered
several Temple priests resplendently robed, with their luxuriant beards
fastidiously plaited and oiled. One of the elegant ones, she was
surprised to discover, was the High Priest Joseph Caiaphas himself. But
why, she wondered, would the High Priest and his Temple aristocracy be
coming with such a nondescript mob as this into the palace courtyard?
She ventured to open wider the slit between the draperies and the window
frame and lean further forward. Ahead, leading the strangely discordant
procession, was a detachment of Roman soldiers, currently assigned, no
doubt, as guardsmen in the Temple service, since they were in the
vanguard of the High Priest and others of the Temple leadership.
Then, in the center of the marching soldiers, she saw the manacled
prisoner. Bareheaded, he was half a head taller than his guards; his
reddish-brown hair fell straight to curl at his shoulders. He held his
head erect, but he seemed to be walking with labored stride to keep in
step with his captors; his wide shoulders sloped as though pulled down
by the weight of his long arms and the pinioned hands; his brown
homespun robe, already sweat-stained, hung awry and loosely open at the
neck.
Though his back was toward her, there was something vaguely familiar
about the tall one, his carriage, manner of walking, the way he arched
his back, weary though he must have been for a long while. Then he
turned his head to look over his shoulder, and she saw the twin-spiked
short beard and the curling earlocks.
“By the beard of the High Priest!” She had almost screamed it aloud, but
she restrained herself. “The rabbi of Nazareth!” The man who had healed
her son of the deadly fever, who had also cured the Centurion Cornelius’
Lucian, the good teacher whom many believed—and she, too!—to have in
those fettered hands the veritable healing power of God Himself.
The procession stopped. A soldier stepped to the entrance way and spoke
to the sentry on duty there. Now the sentry was talking with a
manservant who had appeared at the portal. In another instant the
servant disappeared inside.
“It’s the High Priest’s doing!” she said aloud. “He’s bringing the
Nazarene here for the Tetrarch to condemn; he’s determined to destroy
Jesus.”
She stepped back from the window and began quickly to dress. As she
pulled on her clothes she tried desperately to evolve some plan that
might thwart the High Priest’s evil scheme. Certainly Antipas,
incredibly fearful of displeasing Caiaphas and his fellows in the Temple
leadership, would be disposed to yield to the High Priest’s demands,
even to beheading the Galilean. Had he not beheaded the Wilderness
prophet? Had he not yielded then, against his better judgment, to
Herodias? Herod would be more inclined to give way to Caiaphas than
would the Procurator Pontius Pilate. But if Herodias would intervene....
The Tetrarchess indeed! Hurriedly Joanna finished dressing and rushed
downstairs as quickly as she could without exciting undue attention, to
find the palace servant with whom the sentry a moment ago had spoken.
“They have brought the Galilean wonder worker to the Tetrarch for
trial,” the servant revealed. “The High Priest is charging him with many
crimes, the soldier said. They took him first before the Procurator, but
when Pilate discovered he was a Galilean, he ordered him delivered here
for trial before Tetrarch Herod. Now they are in the judgment hall
awaiting the Tetrarch’s arrival.” He smiled glumly. “Herod, I suppose,
was fit to burst at being awakened so early.”
Next, Joanna went in search of Herodias. She found her in her apartment;
the Tetrarchess had finished her bath and now Neaera was doing her hair.
In a few words Joanna revealed that Pilate had just sent the Galilean
teacher and miracle worker to the Tetrarch for trial and that the High
Priest Caiaphas and other Sadducean leaders were awaiting Herod’s
arrival in the judgment hall; they planned to present charges that Jesus
was guilty of crimes deserving of death.
Herodias listened patiently. When Joanna finished her recital, the
Tetrarchess shrugged. “But what do you wish me to do? How does this
Galilean’s fate concern me? Just because he beguiled you and Chuza into
believing that he drove out the fever and healed your son....” She broke
off with a patronizing smile.
“He concerns you, Tetrarchess, in that the Tetrarch is greatly
concerned, though he may not suspect it. The High Priest schemed this
man’s arrest and carried him before the Procurator, who rules in Judaea.
But Pilate, realizing that whatever judgment he might render, whether to
release the prisoner or execute him, would cause a great outcry in the
province and be reported to the rulers in Rome, has cleverly sought to
evade his responsibility and put it upon the Tetrarch. Thus, the
Tetrarch in trying the Galilean, will be the one to be judged both in
Israel and in Rome.”
The smile on the face of the crafty Herodias had vanished, and her
forehead wrinkled in sudden concern. “But the man is a Galilean, and
Pilate in sending him before Antipas recognizes the Tetrarch’s authority
and compliments him....”
“He professes to do that, but what he’s really doing is shifting the
burden onto the Tetrarch. And when this commotion develops into a great
storm in Rome, then the Tetrarch, too late, I’m afraid, will know he’s
been tricked. Let him free this prisoner, and the High Priest will
inform the Emperor that the Tetrarch has released someone who was
plotting to overthrow Rome. On the other hand, let him execute the
Galilean and the report will go by fastest ship to Rome that another
prophet in the Wilderness....”
“No! No! Joanna, never mention that man!” Herodias cried out. But
quickly she recovered her poise and smiled weakly. “You see, mere
mention of that Wilderness fellow still frightens Antipas. When he began
to get reports of this Nazarene’s appearance before throngs in Galilee
and other places, Antipas was obsessed with the idea that this one was
the Wilderness preacher returned to life. Lately he seems to have
returned to his senses, but, as you know, he’s a very superstitious
person. And frankly, Joanna, I myself don’t like to be reminded of the
Wilderness prophet.” She relaxed somewhat. “You’re right about Pilate, I
daresay. He probably does wish to evade trying the Galilean. Claudia,
though, would want him to get himself involved in further difficulty;
that would make it easier for her and Longinus.” She turned to speak to
her maid. “Hurry, Neaera,” she ordered, “I’ve got to get out of here
quickly. We can finish all this later. I must see the Tetrarch before he
goes.” Then she spoke again to the wife of Herod’s steward. “Thank you,
Joanna; you have done Antipas and me a great service.”
48
As the Temple guardsmen withdrew with their prisoner from the
Praetorium, Pilate beckoned to one of the Antonia soldiers.
“I wish to proceed with the trials of the revolutionaries captured last
week by Centurion Cornelius,” he announced. “If the centurion has
returned with any other captives, have them brought in too.”
“He has not returned, sir,” the soldier said.
“Then we shall try the three we have.”
Bar Abbas and his two henchmen had already been brought up from their
cells deep under Antonia; the witnesses who would testify against them,
including several soldiers from Cornelius’ century, were waiting in an
anteroom. In the group of witnesses were several Temple priests,
elegantly robed, their beards elaborately braided and oiled, their plump
fingers weighted with rings.
The prisoners, shackled at wrists and ankles, were led shuffling into
the chamber to stand before the tribunal. After a week in the blackness
of the dungeon, their eyes were unaccustomed to light; they stood
blinking in the growing brightness of the chamber. Then from an anteroom
on the other side of the courtroom another soldier escorted the
witnesses to a position facing Pilate’s curule several paces across from
the three bound men.
Quickly the prisoners were identified: one Bar Abbas, long sought
chieftain of a Zealot band preying upon travelers in various sections of
the province, particularly the boulder-bordered steep ascent of the
Jericho road, and two others of his fellow revolutionaries, one Dysmas
and one Gesmas, all three of Galilee.
“With what crimes are these men charged?” the Procurator asked. He made
no reference to their being Galileans, nor did he question his
jurisdiction over them, though he had just sent another Galilean to the
Tetrarch.