by Randy Singer
“Your Excellency,” I said.
Pilate held up his hand to stop the witness, and I stepped forward for a brief conference. In criminal trials, a prisoner could be transferred from the forum apprehensionis, the place where he was arrested, to the forum originis, his home region. Pilate apparently hadn’t noticed the reference to Galilee, but I had. And now, in this brief moment, I was torn between my duty toward the law and my desire to help this prisoner. Galilee was the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, the bizarre son of Herod the Great. We could send Jesus there—we should send Jesus there. But there was no telling what would happen.
“The man said Galilee,” I whispered to Pilate. “He said the prisoner was from Galilee.”
Pilate’s eyes lit up. I didn’t have to spell it out for him.
He turned and looked down at the witness. “Say that again,” Pilate demanded.
The man seemed to wilt. “I think I was saying that he was stirring up trouble, um, pretty much everywhere.”
Pilate bored into him. “Go on. What else did you say?”
“From Galilee all throughout Judea,” the man admitted. His voice could barely be heard.
“This man is a Galilean!” Pilate exclaimed. “Take him to Herod!”
CHAPTER 25
Two hours later Jesus was back, looking worse than before. I was struck by the contrast between his battered appearance and the elegant purple robe Herod’s men had draped around his shoulders. A guard told me Herod had mocked him, disdainfully calling him the “King of the Jews.” But he had found no fault in the man, so he had sent him back to Pilate. Technically, Herod could have released him. But Jesus had been our problem from the start. It would now be up to Pilate to render a final decision.
The crowd crammed even tighter into the Stone Pavement Courtyard, growing to nearly a thousand. There was a sense of desperation in the air. The soldiers paraded Jesus to the bottom of the steps, forming a wedge around him, using their shields to keep the crowd at bay. Around the perimeter, troops were being jostled by the crowd, and I could see the hatred fomenting in the eyes of the soldiers. They looked at Pilate and Longinus with exasperation. How long before you give the order?
Many of these same men had been involved in the attack on the Jews following the aqueduct fiasco. I wasn’t there for that debacle, but I thought it must have begun just like this. Tensions simmering until Pilate became so aggravated that he issued the order he would later regret. Once the bloodshed started, there was no stopping the soldiers.
Pilate stood motionless as he prepared to address the crowd, announce his final verdict, and take his place on the judgment seat. Even as his closest adviser, I had no idea what he was going to say.
While Jesus was gone, Pilate had been nearly despondent, speaking in a low, gruff voice about the choices before him. He was convinced the entire trial was a setup by Caiaphas and Annas, a ruse so that they could write another letter to Tiberius and end Pilate’s reign.
Procula had weighed in, and she wasn’t making it easy for him. She had watched the proceedings from a second-story window and recognized the face of the prisoner with astonishing clarity. It was the same face, she told Pilate, that she had seen in the temple of Aesculapius on the night she was healed. This man was innocent! She begged Pilate not to sentence him to death. “Have nothing to do with that innocent man,” she pleaded. “How can you execute the one who healed me?”
Pilate had looked at me.
“She’s right,” I said. “The man is innocent.”
But now the decision belonged to Pilate and Pilate alone.
He took his time and surveyed the courtyard, mindful that his next words might well start a massacre. He held his head high, the imperial look that he had learned so well in Rome, and thrust his chin out. “You brought this man to me and accused him of leading a revolt. I have examined him thoroughly on this point in your presence and have found him innocent. Herod came to the same conclusion and sent him back to us.”
A malicious murmur rippled through the crowd. The faces of the leaders darkened with rage. I thought the crowd might rush the portico.
Pilate glanced up toward a second-story window on the west side of the courtyard, and I could see the shadow of Procula there. He seemed to gain strength from her and continued, his voice rising. “Nothing this man has done calls for the death penalty. I will have him flogged and then release him.”
Pilate took his seat, signaling an end to the matter, but the crowd wasn’t having it. Someone in the back yelled, “Crucify him!” Others joined in. The crowd found a rhythm, and a collective chant of “Crucify him!” rolled from one end of the courtyard to the other. A soldier on the outskirts scuffled with a man and knocked a Jewish woman to the ground. Other soldiers were being taunted and bumped from behind.
I decided the time had come to make my final recommendation. I had been thinking about an alternate strategy the entire time Jesus was with Herod. I didn’t want to suggest it until we had tried everything else.
“Pilate,” I called out.
He stood and huddled with me again.
I looked down at the stoic prisoner, the cause of so much turmoil. He was about to be flogged, the skin ripped from his back, yet when his eyes met mine, I sensed that he was at peace with his destiny. If he only knew that I was about to gamble with his life.
“There is an old custom, Your Excellency,” I said. “And it may be time to revive it.”
“Go on.”
“Your predecessors used to release a prisoner every year at Passover. It was a symbolic concession to the Jewish holiday. I suggest we reinstitute that now and give them a choice: Jesus or Barabbas.”
“Barabbas?” Pilate asked disdainfully. He kept his voice low, his eyes on the crowd. Barabbas had killed a Temple guard and tried to lead a revolt against Rome. He was one prisoner Pilate couldn’t wait to put on the cross. But more important, the Jewish leaders hated him too.
“We’ve got to make it easy,” I said.
Pilate glanced at the second-story window, but Procula was gone. He stepped away from me and raised his hand. For a long time, the crowd chanted on defiantly, ignoring him. Eventually their own leaders urged them to stop so they could hear Pilate out.
“Bring out Barabbas!” he ordered Longinus.
A few minutes later, the wild man was dragged to the bottom of the portico steps, hair disheveled, a maniacal look in his eyes. They stood him next to Jesus. As if on cue, Barabbas cursed and tried to attack his Roman guards. They beat him into submission and drove him to the ground.
“We have a custom,” Pilate shouted. “Historically, at the Passover, we have released one prisoner. Do you want me to release Jesus or Barabbas?”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the crowd started shouting the name of Barabbas. I searched for my Jewish friends—Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, a dozen other leaders with whom I had developed relationships. I saw a few of them on the edge of the mob, looks of concern on their faces. But not one person shouted the name of the rabbi.
Pilate was as stunned as I. He shot me a look, and I knew this entire debacle would now be my fault. Longinus was getting antsy, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he couldn’t control his troops any longer.
“Release Barabbas,” Pilate ordered. A cheer rose up, and the soldiers unchained the man. He stood there for a moment in his loincloth, his body covered with hair. He rubbed his wrists where the shackles had been. He squinted at the sun. He looked at Pilate, then at Longinus. He laughed. He started backing away, then turned and pushed his way through the crowd.
“What should I do with Jesus?” Pilate asked.
Again the chant resounded: “Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!”
I stared in hatred at the high priest and his cohorts, men with arrogant smirks on their faces. My stomach was in a knot. I realized that my desperate gamble might have cost an innocent man his life.
Pilate rose to his full height. “I will have
him flogged, and then I will release him,” he said for the second time. Most of the crowd couldn’t hear, their chants drowning out the words of the prefect. But the soldiers at the foot of the steps had heard.
They forced the crowd back, clearing out a space immediately in front of the steps where the flogging would occur. There was a hole in the pavement there. Two soldiers brought out a whipping pole that they slid into the hole and anchored it by chains to two iron rings bolted to the pavement. The entire time the crowd continued its chant.
Pilate took his place on the judgment seat, and the Syrian guard in charge of the punishment unwound his whip. It had jagged pieces of metal woven into the end. The crowd gathered closer, those in back standing on their toes. The chants died down as the guards tied the hands of Jesus to the whipping post.
The Syrian looked up at Pilate, and the prefect nodded. Under Roman law, only the prefect possessed the power to spill blood, the right of the sword, the responsibility to pronounce the exact number of lashes. Pilate would have to count them out until the bright flow of blood spattered the stone pavement. Only Pilate could stop them.
My job would be to stand behind the prefect and never flinch, never take my eyes off the pitiful sight of the prisoner being torn to shreds. My job was to watch the punishment my reckless gamble had caused.
I had never been so ashamed of being a Roman.
CHAPTER 26
One.
Pilate sat stone-faced as the whip whistled through the air and landed on the prisoner’s back.
Jesus flinched and gasped; the metal shards dug in and took their bite of flesh.
Two.
The Syrian guard seemed to be enjoying himself and leaned into the lash with his entire body. The whip wrapped around Jesus’ torso, and its tips tore into his flesh, drawing blood from his back, chest, and side. I winced and wondered just how much the prisoner could stand. He stared straight ahead, hands tied tightly to the post, his upper body and legs exposed.
Three.
It was easy now to spot his followers in the crowd. A few women, standing near the front of the circle of onlookers, with tears flowing down their cheeks. The oldest one had her head in her hands, sobbing. Was that his mother?
Four.
A man next to the woman shook his head and placed an arm around her. He covered her face with his hand, and she buried her head in his shoulder.
Five.
Even some of the leaders who had been calling for the prisoner’s crucifixion just minutes ago could no longer watch. They looked at the ground or stared at Pilate as if wondering when the torture would stop.
Six.
Jesus’ back was already crisscrossed with ragged red lines, the torn skin exposing muscle.
Seven.
And so it went. Thirty-nine lashes in all. Thirty-nine times the whip whistled through the air, landed, and ripped flesh and muscle. The last few times the Syrian hesitated before unleashing the next blow and glanced at Pilate, thinking that the prefect would call a halt. Finally Pilate raised a hand, and I felt the bile rising in my throat. Somehow, after thirty-nine lashes, the prisoner was still standing. His back was lacerated into ribbons of flesh, muscle, and blood. Would they even need to crucify him now?
As they untied Jesus’ hands, he looked up at Pilate. He struggled to straighten but seemed disoriented and dropped to one knee. A soldier on each side grabbed an elbow and jerked him to his feet. Another soldier appeared with a circle of woven thorns and jammed it on Jesus’ head like a crown. A third picked up the purple robe that had been provided courtesy of Herod and placed it around the prisoner’s shoulders, then pressed the cloth against his gaping wounds. The soldiers laughed, bent at the waist, and brought their arms down in adulation for a great king.
Some of the crowd egged them on. Others were silent and had seen enough.
“Hail! The King of the Jews!” the soldiers said.
“Enough!” Pilate snapped. “Bring him up.”
They pulled Jesus up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood behind. When the prisoner reached the top, Pilate gave an order to turn him around. Pilate stood next to him and surveyed the crowd. The chanting had stopped. The flogging seemed to have taken the wind out of some of the main accusers.
“Behold the man!” Pilate said. He pointed to Jesus. Blood trickled down the rabbi’s face and collected around his swollen eyes and lips. His beard was matted with it. I hardly recognized the man I had first seen just a few short days ago.
What more do you want us to do?
This time the crowd hesitated. But the chief priest and officers of the Temple started the relentless chant again. “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
Pilate shook his head, disgusted and saddened.
“We have no king but Caesar!” Annas shouted.
“I need to speak with him again,” Pilate said. Once more, he turned and headed inside.
A moment later, for the second time that day, I found myself inside the Praetorium with Pilate and the Nazarene.
Pilate was desperate. “Where are you from?” he asked, his voice strident.
The prisoner stared at the ground, the same way that Roman governors did in order to show no emotion.
“Where are you from?” Pilate took a step closer. “Talk to me!”
Still, the purple-robed prisoner said nothing.
“Don’t you know what power I have? Don’t you understand that I have the power to set you free? Give me something to work with.”
Jesus looked up, his face streaked with blood and sweat. He took a breath and spoke softly, yet still loud enough that I heard it a few feet away. “You have no power except that given you from above. The one who turned me over to you has the greater sin.”
Pilate seemed startled by the answer. This man’s life was about to be taken from him, and yet here he stood, judging the prefect of all of Judea? Telling Pilate how much sin he committed because of his role in these proceedings?
“Take him back out,” Pilate ordered.
When the guards and Jesus exited, we were left alone. Through the open doors we could hear the reaction of the crowd when Jesus reappeared. The people seemed to have regained their bloodlust and roared insults when they caught sight of him. Quickly the jeering and angry shouts coalesced into a chant. “We have no king but Caesar.”
Pilate looked stricken, ashen with worry. I was afraid the riot would begin before we returned to the portico. The crowd would press too tight, and the soldiers would strike out, starting the slaughter. Whatever we decided, it had to be quick.
Pilate walked to the smooth marble wall, and I followed him. He touched the holes in the concrete seams of the enormous stones. “You know what these are?” he asked.
“No, Your Excellency.”
“This is where we mounted the shields,” he said. “Every time I walk this hall, I think about the letter from Tiberius.”
The crowd outside seemed to be more in sync now, their chants ringing louder.
“We have no king but Caesar!”
“You are no friend of Caesar!”
“How would I explain this one to him?” Pilate asked. “If I set the man free, if we slaughter half that crowd when they protest, how would I explain it?”
“He’s an innocent man, Your Excellency. Tell Caesar that we upheld the glory of Roman law. Tell Caesar that we refused to be intimidated by a mob, that we did what was right.”
Pilate snorted at the answer, and it wasn’t hard to read his thoughts. What is right? What is truth? Don’t give me platitudes, Theophilus; give me solutions.
The chants crescendoed as if somebody had incited the crowd anew. They sounded so close that I wondered if they had somehow moved just outside the door.
“We have no king but Caesar!”
“You are no friend of Caesar!”
The noise distorted my thinking. I was anxious to return to our place at the top of the steps. Longinus could not be trusted to control the soldiers or the crowd.
“P
lay it out, Theophilus,” Pilate said. “If I stand my ground, what happens?”
“We lock up the prisoner. The crowd eventually goes away.”
“Or perhaps they don’t. Somebody panics. Somebody pulls out a weapon,” Pilate said. “Our guards react, butchering hundreds. Annas writes to Tiberius and tells him that the man I protected claimed to be a king.”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what to say. Pilate was right; there was no honorable way out.
“Speak to me!” he demanded between clenched teeth. “Tell me where I’m wrong.”
Like the prisoner, I maintained my silence. Pilate wasn’t wrong. If I told him he was, he would explode in anger. Freeing the rabbi would be costly, perhaps devastating. Pilate’s mind was made up. I could see it in his eyes.
“Sometimes,” Pilate said, his voice suddenly calm, “one man must die for the good of a nation.”
I wanted to argue the point, to tell Pilate that the law required an innocent man to be set free regardless of the cost. But the prisoner wouldn’t even speak in his own defense. It was almost as if he wanted to die. If Jesus wouldn’t defend himself, why should I stick out my neck to take up his cause?
“This is the shields all over again, isn’t it?” Pilate asked.
The chanting continued as I weighed the question. The Jewish leaders had been willing to lay down their lives to protest the shields—harmless symbols honoring Caesar that were hanging in Pilate’s own palace. How much more would they be willing to die for this—to punish a man who had ridiculed them and upended their Temple? And how would Tiberius react when he learned that Pilate had refused to condemn a man who claimed to be a king?
“Yes, Your Excellency,” I said. “It’s the shields all over again.”
It must have been the answer Pilate needed. He steeled himself and turned toward the door.
“Let’s go,” he said.
CHAPTER 27
Pilate brushed back his cape and took his place on the judgment seat for the final time. He waited for the defiant chant of the crowd to stop, and even then there were a few stray cries of those who wanted Jesus crucified.
