Jesus condemned to be crucified.
Pilate, who did not desire to know the truth, but was solely anxious
to get out of the difficulty without harm to himself, became more
undecided than ever; his conscience whispered--'Jesus is innocent;' his wife
said, 'he is holy;' his superstitious feelings made him fear that Jesus was
the enemy of his gods; and his cowardice filled him with dread lest
Jesus, if he was a god, should wreak his vengeance upon his judge. He
was both irritated and alarmed at the last words of Jesus, and he made
another attempt for his release; but the Jews instantly threatened to
lay an accusation against him before the Emperor. This menace terrified
him, and he determined to accede to their wishes, although firmly
convinced in his own mind of the innocence of Jesus, and perfectly
conscious that by pronouncing sentence of death upon him he should
violate every law of justice, besides breaking the promise he had made
to his wife in the morning. Thus did he sacrifice Jesus to the enmity
of the Jews, and endeavour to stifle remorse by washing his hands
before the people, saying, 'I am innocent of the blood of this just man;
look you to it.' Vainly dost thou pronounce these words, O Pilate! for
his blood is on thy head likewise; thou canst not wash his blood from
thy soul, as thou dost from thy hands.
Those fearful words, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children,' had
scarcely ceased to resound, when Pilate commenced his preparations for
passing sentence. He called for the dress which he wore on state
occasions, put a species of diadem, set in precious stones, on his
head, changed his mantle, and caused a staff to be carried before him.
He was surrounded with soldiers, preceded by officers belonging to the
tribunal, and followed by Scribes, who carried rolls of parchments and
books used for inscribing names and dates. One man walked in front, who
carried the trumpet. The procession marched in this order from Pilate's
palace to the forum, where an elevated seat, used on these particular
occasions, was placed opposite to the pillar where Jesus was scourged.
This tribunal was called Gabbatha; it was a kind of round terrace,
ascended by means of staircases; on the top was a seat for Pilate, and
behind this seat a bench for those in minor offices, while a number of
soldiers were stationed round the terrace and upon the staircases. Many
of the Pharisees had left the palace and were gone to the Temple, so
that Annas, Caiphas, and twenty-eight priests alone followed the Roman
governor on to the forum, and the two thieves were taken there at the
time that Pilate presented our Saviour to the people, saying: 'Ecce homo!'
Our Lord was still clothed in his purple garment, his crown of
thorns upon his head, and his hands manacled, when the archers brought
him up to the tribunal, and placed him between the two malefactors. As
soon as Pilate was seated, he again addressed the enemies of Jesus, in
these words, 'Behold your King!' But the cries of 'Crucify him! Crucify him!'
resounded on all sides.
'Shall I crucify your King?' said Pilate.
'We have no King but Caesar!' responded the High Priests.
Pilate found it was utterly hopeless to say anything more, and
therefore commenced his preparations for passing sentence. The two
thieves had received their sentence of crucifixion some time before;
but the High Priests had obtained a respite for them, in order that our
Lord might suffer the additional ignominy of being executed with two
criminals of the most infamous description. The crosses of the two
thieves were by their sides; that intended fro our Lord was not
brought, because he was not as yet sentenced to death.
The Blessed Virgin, who had retired to some distance after the
scourging of Jesus, again approached to hear the sentence of death
pronounced upon her Son and her God. Jesus stood in the midst of the
archers, at the foot of the staircase leading up to the tribunal. The
trumpet was sounded to demand silence, and then the cowardly, the base
judge, in a tremulous undecided voice, pronounced the sentence of death
on the Just Man. The sight of the cowardice and duplicity of this
despicable being, who was nevertheless puffed up with pride at his
important position, almost overcame me, and the ferocious joy of the
executioners--the triumphant countenances of the High Priests, added to
the deplorable condition to which our loving Saviour was reduced, and
the agonising grief of his beloved Mother--still further increased my
pain. I looked up again, and saw the cruel Jews almost devouring their
victim with their eyes, the soldiers standing coldly by, and multitudes
of horrible demons passing to and fro and mixing in the crowd. I felt
that I ought to have been in the place of Jesus, my beloved Spouse, for
the sentence would not then have been unjust; but I was so overcome
with anguish, and my sufferings were so intense, that I cannot exactly
remember all that I did see. However, I will relate all as nearly as I
can.
After a long preamble, which was composed principally of the most
pompous and exaggerated eulogy of the Emperor Tiberias, Pilate spoke of
the accusations which had been brought against Jesus by the High
Priests. He said that they had condemned him to death for having
disturbed the public peace, and broken their laws by calling himself
the Son of God and King of the Jews; and that the people had
unanimously demanded that their decree should be carried out.
Notwithstanding his oft repeated conviction of the innocence of Jesus,
this mean and worthless judge was not ashamed of saying that he
likewise considered their decision a just one, and that he should
therefore pronounce sentence--which he did in these words: 'I condemn Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, to be crucified;' and he ordered the
executioners to bring the cross. I think I remember likewise that he
took a long stick in his hands, broke it, and threw the fragments at
the feet of Jesus.
On hearing these words of Pilate the Mother of Jesus became for a
few moments totally unconscious, for she was now certain that her
beloved Son must die the most ignominious and the most painful of all
deaths. John and the holy women carried her away, to prevent the
heartless beings who surrounded them from adding crime to crime by
jeering at her grief; but no sooner did she revive a little than she
begged to be taken again to each spot which had been sanctified by the
sufferings of her Son, in order to bedew them with her tears; and thus
did the Mother of our Lord, in the name of the Church, take possession
of those holy places.
Pilate then wrote down the sentence, and those who stood behind him
copied it out three times. The words which he wrote were quite
different from those he had pronounced; I could see plainly that his
mind was dreadfully agitated--an angel of wrath appeared to guide his
hand. The substance of the written sentence was this: 'I have been
compelled, for fear of an insurrection, to yield to the wishes of the
High Priests, the Sanhedrin, and the people, who tumultuously demanded
the death of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they accused of having disturbed
the public peace, and also of having blasphemed and broken their laws.
I have given him up to them to be crucified, although their accusations
appeared to be groundless. I have done so for fear of their alleging to
the Emperor that I encourage insurrections, and cause dissatisfaction
among the Jews by denying them the rights of justice.'
He then wrote the inscription for the cross, while his clerks copied
out the sentence several times, that these copies might be sent to
distant parts of the country.
The High Priests were extremely dissatisfied at the words of the
sentence, which they said were not true; and they clamorously
surrounded the tribunal to endeavour to persuade him to alter the
inscription; and not to put King of the Jews, but that he said, I am
the King of the Jews.
Pilate was vexed, and answered impatiently, 'What I have written I
have written!' They were likewise anxious that the cross of our Lord
should not be higher than those of the two thieves, but it was
necessary for it to be so, because there would otherwise not have been
sufficient place for Pilate's inscription; they therefore endeavoured to
persuade him not to have this obnoxious inscription put up at all. But
Pilate was determined, and their words made no impression upon him; the
cross was therefore obliged to be lengthened by a fresh bit of wood.
Consequently the form of the cross was peculiar--the two arms stood out
like the branches of a tree growing from the stem, and the shape was
very like that of the letter Y, with the lower part lengthened so as to
rise between the arms, which had been put on separately, and were
thinner than the body of the cross. A piece of wood was likewise nailed
at the bottom of the cross for the feet to rest upon.
During the time that Pilate was pronouncing the iniquitous sentence,
I saw his wife, Claudia Procles, send him back the pledge which he had
given her, and in the evening she left his palace and joined the
friends of our Lord, who concealed her in a subterraneous vault in the
house of Lazarus at Jerusalem. Later in the same day, I likewise saw a
friend of our Lord engrave the words, Judex injustus, and the name of
Claudia Procles, on a greenlooking stone, which was behind the terrace
called Gabbatha--this stone is still to be found in the foundations of a
church or house at Jerusalem, which stands on the spot formerly called
Gabbatha. Claudia Procles became a Christian, followed St. Paul, and
became his particular friend.
No sooner had Pilate pronounced sentence than Jesus was given up
into the hands of the archers, and the clothes which he had taken off
in the court of Caiphas were brought for him to put on again. I think
some charitable persons had washed them, for they looked clean. The
ruffians who surrounded Jesus untied his hands for his dress to be
changed, and roughly dragged off the scarlet mantle with which they had
clothed him in mockery, thereby reopening all his wounds; he put on his
own linen under-garment with trembling hands, and they threw his
scapular over his shoulders. As the crown of thorns was too large and
prevented the seamless robe, which his Mother had made for him, from
going over his head, they pulled it off violently, heedless of the pain
thus inflicted upon him. His white woollen dress was next thrown over
his shoulders, and then his wide belt and cloak. After this, they again
tied round his waist a ring covered with sharp iron points, and to it
they fastened the cords by which he was led, doing all with their usual
brutal cruelty.
The two thieves were standing, one on the right and the other on the
left of Jesus, with their hands tied and a chain round their necks;
they were covered with black and lived marks, the effects of the
scourging of the previous day. The demeanour of the one who was
afterwards converted was quiet and peaceable, while that of the other,
on the contrary, was rough and insolent, and he joined the archers in
abusing and insulting Jesus, who looked upon his two companions with
love and compassion, and offered up his sufferings for their salvation.
The archers gathered together all the implements necessary for the
crucifixions, and prepared everything for the terrible and painful
journey to Calvary.
Annas and Caiphas at last left off disputing with Pilate, and
angrily retired, taking with them the sheets of parchment on which the
sentence was written; they went away in haste, fearing that they should
get to the Temple too late for the Paschal sacrifice. Thus did the High
Priests, unknowingly to themselves, leave the true Paschal Lamb. They
went to a temple made of stone, to immolate and to sacrifice that lamb
which was but a symbol, and they left the true Paschal Lamb, who was
being led to the Altar of the Cross by the cruel executioners; they
were most careful not to contract exterior defilement, while their
souls were completely defiled by anger, hatred, and envy. They had
said, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children!' And by these words they
had performed the ceremony, and had placed the hand of the sacrificer
upon the head of the Victim. Thus were the two paths formed--the one
leading to the altar belonging to the Jewish law, the other leading to
the Altar of Grace: Pilate, that proud and irresolute pagan, that slave
of the world, who trembled in the presence of the true God, and yet
adored his false gods, took a middle path, and returned to his palace.
The iniquitous sentence was given at about ten in the morning.