In spite of the fact that he condemned Jesus to death, the Gospels
present us a more favourable portrait of Pontius Pilate than that which
we derive from secular historians. Josephus relates incidents that
reveal him as the most insolent and provoking of governors. For
instance, the Jewish historian ascribes to him a gratuitous insult, the
story of which shows its perpetrator to have been as weak as he was
offensive. It was customary for Roman armies to carry an image of the
emperor on their standards; but previous governors of Judaea had
relaxed this rule when entering Jerusalem, in deference to the strong
objection of the Jews to admit "the likeness of anything."
Nevertheless Pilate ordered the usual images to be introduced at night.
When they were discovered, the citizens protested vehemently. Pilate
had the crowd that he had admitted to his presence surrounded with
soldiers, and threatened them with instant death. But they threw
themselves on the ground, protesting that they would submit to this
fate rather than that the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed.
The governor had not reckoned on this. He was only "bluffing," and now
he had to climb down, and the images were removed. On another
occasion, described by the same historian, Pilate had seized the sacred
money at the Temple and employed it in building an aqueduct, a piece of
utilitarian profanity which enraged the Jews to such an extent that a
vast crowd gathered, clamouring against Pilate and insisting on the
stoppage of the works. Then the governor sent soldiers among the
people, disguised in the garb of civilians, who at a given signal drew
their clubs and attacked them more savagely than Pilate had intended,
killing and wounding a great number. Although Josephus does not
mention the incident recorded by St Luke (xiii. 1), in which Pilate
mingled the blood of some Galilean pilgrims with their sacrifices, this
is entirely in accordance with his brutality of conduct in the events
the historian records. Philo goes further, giving a story told by
Agrippa, according to which Pilate hung gilt shields in the palace of
Herod at Jerusalem, but was compelled to take them down as the result
of an appeal to Tiberius Caesar, and adding that Agrippa described
Pilate as "inflexible, merciless, and obstinate." He says that Pilate
dreaded lest the Jews should go on an embassy to the emperor,
impeaching him for "his corruptions, his acts of insolence, his rapine,
and his habit of insulting people; his cruelty, and his continual
murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never-ending,
gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity." Josephus is not
trustworthy, always writing "with a motive," and Philo must be
considered prejudiced, since he saw too much of the worst side of the
Roman treatment of Jews; and the wholly unfavourable verdict of these
two writers should be qualified by what we read in the New Testament
concerning the subject of them. The interesting point is that we have
to go to the Christian documents for the more calm and just estimate of
the man who crucified Christ. This fact should deepen our sense of the
fairness of the evangelists. They evince nothing of that bitterness of
resentment which the Jews, quite naturally, as the world judges,
cherished towards their oppressors. They were the followers of One who
had taught them to love their enemies, and who, when in mortal agony,
prayed to God to forgive the men who had inflicted it. But further,
the early Christians discriminated between the Jewish authorities, who
planned and purposed the death of Christ and really compassed it, and
Pilate, who was but a weak instrument in the hands of these men. The
fact that the evangelists so clearly mark this distinction is a sign
that they are in close touch with the events, and that they faithfully
record what they know to have taken place. In a word, it is clear that
we have a more just and accurate portrait of Pilate in our Gospels than
the representations of him by Josephus and Philo, who are thus seen to
be less trustworthy historians than the New Testament writers.
The word "Pilate" as a proper name has been variously explained. Some
have derived it from the Latin _pileatus_, meaning one who wore the
_pileus_, the cap of a freed slave, and so have regarded the Roman
governor by whom Jesus was tried as a man who had been raised from the
ranks of slavery. The worst condemnation of slavery is, that it
degrades the characters of its victims, developing the servile vices of
cowardice, meanness, and cruelty--all of which vices are manifest in
Pilate's character. But such a promotion as this theory implies would
be most improbable. A more likely explanation connects the name with
_pilum_, a javelin. The earlier name Pontius suggests the family of
the Pontii, of Samnite origin, well-known in Roman history. It was
customary to confine such an office as that which Pilate held to
knights, men of the equestrian order. Nevertheless, it was not a very
dignified office. It is described indefinitely in the Gospels as that
of a "governor." But Pilate is designated more distinctly by Tacitus
and Josephus as _procurator_ of Judaea. This official served under the
Legate of Syria. His proper duty was simply to collect the taxes of
the district over which he was appointed. Thus he would be likely to
come into contact with the chief local collectors, such as Zaccheus;
and in this way he may have heard, and that not unfavourably, of One
who was known as the "Friend of publicans and sinners." But in the
turbulent districts--such as Judaea and Egypt--the procurators were
entrusted with almost unlimited powers, subject to an appeal to Caesar
on the part of Roman citizens. Soldiers were sometimes needed for the
forcible collection of taxes, and the disturbed condition of these
parts demanded an official in residence who could act at once and on
the spot. The punishment of turbulence was with the rigour of martial
law, which really means no law at all, but only the will of the man in
charge of the army. A subordinate official lifted to a position of
almost irresponsible power--such was Pilate. We can well understand
how a man with no moral backbone would succumb to its temptations.
Pilate was a much smaller man than Gallic the proconsul at Corinth, and
that other proconsul at Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, whom St Paul won over
to Christian faith. But his pettiness in the eyes of Roman society
would lead him to magnify his importance in the little world he was
trying to rule like a king, though often with consequences humiliating
to himself.
Pilate's headquarters were at Caesarea, by the sea coast, the Roman
capital of Palestine; but he came up to Jerusalem with a troop of
soldiers at the Passover, to prevent any disturbance among the vast
hosts of pilgrims then gathered together in the city, just as Turkish
soldiers now mount guard at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the
Easter celebrations, to prevent the Christians from quarrelling and
fighting. That is how it was he happened to be present when Jesus was
arrested and brought up for trial. In this fact also we may see why
the Jewish authorities felt it necessary to hand their Prisoner over to
the Roman governor; although, a few years later, they were able
themselves to execute the death sentence on Stephen in the Jewish mode,
by stoning, and still later to do the same with James, the Lord's
brother.
All four Gospels refer to the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate; but
the fullest information is to be obtained from the third and fourth.
St Luke throughout both his works seizes every suitable opportunity for
setting out the scene of his story on the large stage of the world's
history, and he is especially interested in showing it in relation to
the imperial government. Thus, while Matthew only connects the time of
the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod, a Jewish note of time, Luke
also associates it with Caesar Augustus and the chronology of Rome; and
later, while Matthew does not say when John the Baptist began his work,
but notes the imprisonment of John as the occasion of the commencement
of our Lord's public ministry, Luke carefully records that it was "in
the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, _Pontius Pilate
being governor of Judaea_" (Luke iii. 1), that John the Baptist began
preaching and baptizing. It is this same evangelist only who refers to
Pilate's savage slaughter of the Galileans at Jerusalem. The author of
the Fourth Gospel does not mention Pilate before the time of our Lord's
trial, but he gives us a much fuller account of that trial than any of
his companion evangelists. Next to John, our fullest account is in
Luke. On these two authorities therefore we must mainly rely. But
John's is not only the most ample and fully detailed narrative; it also
furnishes us with by far the most vivid and convincing portrait of the
Roman governor. This is one of the numerous cases of life-like
character-drawing with which the Fourth Gospel abounds. Nicodemus, the
woman of Samaria, Thomas, Judas, Mary Magdalene, and now Pilate, are
all known to history from St John's portraits of them. Should not this
significant fact lead us to attach great weight to his portrait of
Jesus Christ, which soars above the Christ-pictures of the synoptics in
the most exalted Divine glory?
Jesus had been tried soon after His arrest before Caiaphas and the
Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jews, and there He had been
condemned to death, not on the charge for which He had been
arrested--threatening to destroy the Temple--for the evidence against
Him had broken down, but for blasphemy during the course of His trial,
when adjured by the high priest to declare whether He was the Christ.
But the presence of Pilate prevented the council from executing their
sentence (as doubtless they would have done if he had been away at
Caesarea), in defiance of the law, which was entrusted to a weak and
capricious governor. Accordingly they brought their Prisoner to the
procurator's residence--probably Herod's palace, a magnificent building
with two marble wings, containing large rooms sumptuously furnished,
and spacious porticos surrounded by gardens and enclosed in a lofty
wall with towers, situated in the western district of the city, and
approached by a bridge across the Tyropaean valley. The facts that a
later governor, Gestius Florus, resided here, and that Pilate lived in
Herod's palace at Caesarea when in that city, and that he hung the
shields about which there was so much trouble in the Jerusalem palace,
make this view more probable than the traditional idea that the trial
of Jesus took place in the Castle of Antonio, the imperial barracks,
close to the Temple.
The Jews objected to enter this fine palace, because as a Gentile
residence it was defiled, and therefore defiling, and they wished to be
"clean" for the feast they were to eat in the evening. Pilate humoured
them, and had his conferences with them outside the building. Seeing
their object and observing their temper, he must have discovered at
once their miserable hypocrisy. These were the men who affected to be
the leaders of the one pure faith on earth, a faith which looked with
scorn on the "idolatry" of the cultured Roman. He must have regarded
them with immense contempt. If his tone is cynical, it is but a match
for the unmitigated cynicism of their conduct.
Pilate inquires as to the crime with which the Prisoner is charged. At
first, the Jews do not give an explicit reply, only stating that they
have already found Him guilty. Pilate catches at that. His weakness,
so pitiably apparent throughout the whole proceedings, appears at this
early stage. Desiring to shirk the responsibility of deciding the
case--he would use the first apparent loophole of escape. Since the
Jews have taken this case in hand, let them carry it through, dealing
with it according to their law. They are not to be caught by that
flattering suggestion. They know that they have not the power of life
and death. Pilate would not let them kill Jesus. His proposal, which
on the surface looks like the granting of a privilege, amounts to this,
that they may exercise ecclesiastical discipline, excommunicate their
Prisoner, or perhaps fling Him into jail, possibly scourge Him. But
the worst of these punishments will not satisfy their determined
hatred, or rid them of the haunting fear inspiring it, that Jesus will
undermine their influence with the people. Nothing less than His death
will put an end to that danger; so they thought, although the event
proved that it was this very death of Christ that was to lead to the
victory of Christianity over Judaism. This, however, even His own
disciples could not foresee, much less could it enter into the minds of
His enemies among the Jews.
Thwarted in his first attempt to escape, and compelled to try this
difficult case, Pilate enters the palace where Jesus is kept under
arrest, and questions Him. He has been informed that Jesus claims to
be the king of the Jews. Is that so? Is the charge but a piece of
malicious slander? If it is, there is an end of the matter. Pilate is
not going to lend himself to humour the whim of those hateful Jews,
whom he affects to despise while in his heart he is mortally afraid of
them. There is nothing of the bearing of the violent insurgent in this
calm peasant who stands before him. Surely this is some stupid
mistake, or there is more Jewish malice in it than Pilate can fathom.
But the Roman magistrate soon discovers that he is dealing with no
ordinary man. Jesus takes his measure in a moment. Pilate is a feeble
creature, with no character, insincere, dishonest. He must be made to
feel his littleness. We can imagine how our Lord would fix on him a
penetrating gaze before which the shallow nature of the man would
become apparent, as He asked whether this cross-examination was
genuine, or whether Pilate was prompted to it; whether, as we should
say, it was "a put-up affair"--"_Sayest thou this of thyself, or did
others say it concerning Me_?" Picture the situation--the great marble
palace, the representative of Imperial Rome clad in the purple robe of
office, and seated in his chair on the dais, the surrounding officials
and bodyguard; and then the peasant from Galilee, alone, unattended,
undefended, come straight from insult and mockery in another court, and
that after a night of mental agony. Observe how completely the
relative position of judge and Prisoner are reversed, at least, to the
eyes of the onlooker. Jesus calmly questions Pilate, calmly tells him
of the limit of his power, and calmly claims the kinship for
himself--there of all places--in the Roman governor's residence,
speaking to this governor himself, knowing that it must seal His own
fate. The two powers are now face to face--the world-power of Rome,
outwardly so imposing, but at this moment shrinking to insignificance,
looking so vulgar, so mean, so sordid, so unreal, so essentially weak,
in the person of the paltry governor; and the heavenly power, the power
of truth and goodness, the Kingdom of God represented by the provincial
Prisoner whose inherent dignity of Presence is seen to be all the more
sublime for the contrast. And Pilate? How does he view this? He is
manifestly disconcerted, but he tries to hide his awkwardness under a
mask of Roman scorn. "_Am I a Jew_?" he exclaims, in a tone of
measureless contempt. It is like the contempt of Agrippa when, in
response to St Paul's enthusiastic appeal and close home-thrust, he
cried, "_With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me a
Christian_!" Pilate reminds Jesus that He has been given up by His own
people. Jews might be expected to stand by a fellow-Jew under the
Roman tyranny. How comes it to pass that the Jewish people have
brought a man of their own race to the foreign tribunal, prosecuting
Him before this alien power, seeking His death from the hated Imperial
government? What can He have done to bring about so unusual a
situation? Pilate is perplexed; and the answer of Jesus does not
clarify the magistrate's ideas. It seems only more mystifying. Jesus
describes His kingdom, so different from any institution bearing the
name that Pilate has ever heard of. It is not of the order of things
in this world. If it were, of course Christ's servants would fight, as
do the servants of the claimants of earthly thrones. But they do not
resort to violence. The kingdom and its methods of government are both
unearthly. Pilate is interested, perhaps amused, with what now seem to
him the fancies of a fanatical dreamer. He pursues the inquiry, we may
suppose, with a smile on his lips, "_Art thou a king, then_?" he asked.
There is no ambiguity in his Prisoner's reply. He is a king. This
strange kingdom, not resting on any basis of earthly power, dispensing
with fighting, with all that an army suggests, with force, is the very
opposite to Pilate's idea of a state. Rome was materialistic to the
core. Her rule rested on brute force. The Empire, the _Imperium_, was
the dominion of the _Imperator_, that is to say, of the
commander-in-chief of the army. It was a military despotism.
Nominally the government was still republican, and the older and more
peaceable provinces were administered by proconsuls, whose appointment
rested with the senate, or was supposed by a legal fiction to rest with
that body. But the newer and more troublesome provinces were governed
as conquered territory directly by the emperor as the head of the army.
Now Judaea came in this latter division. Pontius Pilate and his
superior, the Legate of Syria, were both directly responsible to
Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was Caesar's officer under military direction.
Military methods characterised the procurator's rule. To a man placed
as Pilate, the notion of a ruler independent of fighting supporters,
and that in territory held down by force of arms, was simply absurd.
Our Lord's further explanation seems to Pilate still more out of
keeping with the notion of royalty. Jesus says He was born to be a
king in order that He might bear witness to the truth. A
king--truth--what have these two words in common, the one referring to
the most real region, the other to the most ideal? To Pilate, the
conjunction is absolutely incongruous. "_What is truth_?" he asks, as
he turns away, too contemptuous to wait for an answer. This famous
utterance has been quoted as a text for the anxious inquirer, and
preachers have gravely set themselves to answer it. Jesus did nothing
of the kind. Evidently it was not a serious inquiry. Pilate flung off
the very idea of truth--a mere abstraction, nothing to a practical
Roman. Still, though he was not seeking any answer to his question, by
the very tone of it he suggested that he did not possess that gem which
those who hold it prize above all things. "The Scepticism of Pilate"
is the title of one of Robertson's greatest sermons. The preacher
traces it to four sources: indecision; falseness to his own
convictions; the taint of the worldly temper of his day; and that
priestly bigotry which forbids inquiry, and makes doubt a crime.
Pilate is the typical sceptic, who is worlds removed from the "honest"
doubter. Serious doubt, which is pained and anxious in the search of
truth, is in essence belief, for it believes in the value of truth, if
only truth can be discovered; but typical scepticism not only does not
credit what the believer takes for truth, but despises it as not worth
seeking. That is the fatal doubt, a doubt that eats into the soul as a
moral canker.
Nevertheless, although what is of supreme value to Jesus is reckoned by
Pilate as of no importance whatever, the cross-examination has
satisfied the magistrate of the innocence of his Prisoner. His duty,
then, is plain. He should acquit the innocent man. But he dare not do
so immediately. That howling mob of Jews and those odious priests and
Sadducees of the council are determined on the death of their victim.
Pilate has made himself well hated by the roughness of his government.
Nothing would please the Jews and their leaders better than to have
some chance of impeaching him before his jealous master at Rome, on the
charge of leniency to treason. Pilate quails before the terrible
possibility. In face of it he simply dares not pronounce a verdict of
acquittal. Yet he means to do all he can to effect the escape of his
Prisoner. His inbred instinct for justice prompts him to this; for the
Romans cherished reverence for law, and even so corrupt a ruler as
Pilate was not independent of the atmosphere of his race. Then it
would be a bitter humiliation to let his judgment be overruled by those
contemptible Jews. He would be heartily glad to confound and
disappoint them. More than this, he had begun to feel some awakening
interest in his remarkable Prisoner. He had come to the conclusion
that Jesus was a harmless dreamer; but he had felt some faint shadow of
the spell of the wonderful Personality. If only it could be managed
with safety to himself, he would be glad to have Jesus set free.
Accordingly we now see Pilate resorting to a series of devices in order
to escape from his vexatious dilemma. From this point his conduct
opens out to us a curious study in psychological phenomena. The
ingenuity of Pilate in resorting to one expedient after another, is
very striking. Evidently he has keen wits, and he uses them with some
agility. But it is all in vain. He is pushed from each of the
positions he takes up by the same stubborn, relentless pressure which
he invariably finds to be irresistible. The explanation is, that
though he has intellect, he lacks will-power. On the other side there
is not much need for intelligence, but there is the most obstinate
will. The Jews possess a clear notion of what they want, and a set
determination to have their way. In such a contest there is no doubt
which side will win. When will is bitter against intellect, it is the
latter that succumbs. The determined will forces itself through all
opposition that rests only on intelligence, reasoning, contrivance.
Intellect does not count for nothing; allied to a strong will, as in
Calvin, Cromwell, Napoleon, it helps to effect gigantic results. But
in the sphere of action, it is will-power that tells in immediate
results. Even here, reason may conquer stupid obstinacy in the
long-run. But you must give it time; and you must have honesty of
character. Neither condition was present in this case of Pilate. He
had to decide promptly; and his moral nature was unsound. Such a man
under such circumstances will never find his most cunning devices a
match for the set determination of his opponents. So Pilate, feebly
protesting, helplessly scheming, is pushed back step by step; and
ultimately he concedes everything demanded of him, and the final issue
is more humiliating to himself and more cruel to the innocent Prisoner
whom he is trying to shield, than it would have been if he had yielded
at the beginning. The real victim of this tragedy in the palace is not
Jesus, it is the soul of Pilate. We seem to see a weak man being
thrust down a steep place, resisting and catching at the shrubs and
rocks that he passes, but torn from his grasp of them and finally flung
over the precipice.
Pilate's first device was to send Jesus to Herod Antipas, who happened
to be at Jerusalem at the time. It was a compliment to the frivolous
"king of Galilee" to remit a Galilean prisoner to his judgment, and
Pilate would gladly rid himself of the awkward case by this ingenious
device. But it was useless, for the simple reason that Herod had no
power of life and death in Jerusalem, and Pilate soon had his Prisoner
on his hands again. Next he clutched at the custom of releasing a
prisoner during the feast. Here was a chance for letting off Jesus
without declaring Him innocent. But this suggestion was hopeless. If
the Jews were set on effecting the death of Jesus, they would not give
up their right to choose their prisoners to be released, and take at
the dictation of Pilate the very man they wanted to have done to death.
They clamoured for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in
the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their
new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed.
The cynicism of their choice is palpable. By daring to make it, they
show in what contempt they hold Pilate. The governor loses ground
considerably by this false move. Then he tries to throw the blame of
the murder of Jesus, which he sees he cannot prevent, on the Jews. A
new motive urges him to escape from the responsibility of committing a
judicial murder. His wife had sent a private message warning him to
"_have nothing to do with that righteous man_." She had been much
disturbed by a dream about him. Romans were slaves to omens and
auguries, and the most materialistic of them felt some awe of dreams,
although they had lost faith in real religion. Your confirmed sceptic
is often slavishly superstitious in the secret of his soul. It is a
way the spiritual has of avenging itself on the man who openly flouts
it. Boldly flung out of the window, it creeps back into the cellar and
vexes the soul with petty tricks played on the subterranean
consciousness. The man who expels his good angel is haunted by imps
and elves. He who will not believe in God and despises truth succumbs
to the message of a dream.
More anxious now than ever to escape responsibility, Pilate calls for
water and publicly washes his hands, telling the Jews that the innocent
blood will be on their heads. They accept the awful responsibility.
What do they care for the weak Roman's scruples? He is doing their
will, and of course no hand-washing can cleanse his conscience from the
stain of guilty compliance.
Yet one thing more Pilate will do. He will scourge Jesus. Perhaps
that may satisfy these savage Jews. For scourging was a savage
punishment. The whip was loaded with lead and sharp fish-bones, and at
every stroke the flesh was cut. Men often died under this severe
treatment. Pilate had it inflicted on Jesus, knowing Him to be
innocent; but hoping that, if He survived, no more might be required.
It was an abominable compromise. If Jesus were innocent--and Pilate
knew He was innocent--He should have been set free unscathed, with
apologies for a mistaken arrest. If he were guilty, of course he ought
to receive the death-penalty for the crime of treason. Justice could
allow of no middle course. But Pilate is not thinking of Justice. He
only wants to escape the onus of killing an innocent man. Then he has
Jesus brought forth, bleeding, in agony, His lacerated flesh exposed to
the view of that heartless multitude. "_Behold the man_," says Pilate.
"Look at your victim; is not this enough?" If Pilate thought his
appeal _ad misericordiam_ would touch those hardened sinners of the
Sanhedrin, he was strangely mistaken. The sight of their victim in His
agony only maddens them. They are like hounds who had tasted blood.
Like hounds, they "give tongue," and yell for His death. Pilate can
resist no longer. He has played his last card, and it has been taken.
Thoroughly humiliated and quite helpless, he gives sentence, and so in
spite of the governor's desperate efforts to escape the stigma of his
awful crime, it goes down to all the ages that Jesus was "crucified
under Pontius Pilate."