Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  “I’m coming to it. Jesus had the people sit down on the grass. Then he prayed and started handing out the loaves and fish. He multiplied them, and everyone had so much to eat that twelve baskets full of crumbs were collected afterward.”

  “All from five loaves and two fish, I suppose?”

  “Yes.”

  “What they did was to unload food supplies from their ship.”

  “No.”

  “The people brought lunch baskets along for the day’s outing and shared.”

  “No.”

  Pilate reflected a moment, then commented, “Well, I don’t know what you heard or what the people actually saw, but what you report is impossible, that’s all.”

  “I knew that would be your attitude, but Cornelius says there are people here in Caesarea who ate bread and fish up there that evening.”

  This time Pilate was intrigued enough to trace down the fantastic story and find a reasonable explanation for it. He asked Cornelius to locate and bring to the palace any Caesareans who had actually participated in the now-famous outdoor meal. Two days later, the centurion presented six people who had made the pilgrimage to Galilee. They were rather nervous at being summoned before the governor of Judea, but when they understood that he only wanted to hear their versions of the event which was now being discussed throughout Palestine, they readily told their stories.

  But the accounts agreed substantially with Procula’s version, though there were differing opinions on the size of the multitude. And one old woman insisted it was two loaves and five fish, rather than vice versa. Pilate dismissed the people with thanks.

  Later he related the interviews to Procula, but insisted, “Regardless of what they saw, there has to be some explanation. If I’d been there, I’d have found it, I’m sure.” Then he wrinkled his brow. “But one bit of information from these people rings true.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The reaction of the crowd. Once they were fed, some shouted, ‘Let this man be our king.’ Now that part of it I believe. A man who can heal the sick and produce food for the masses, he could become king. But fortunately for this Jesus, he made the right decision when the people offered him a crown.”

  “By withdrawing into the hills? Why do you say ‘fortunately’?” Procula asked.

  “Because if he had in any way accepted the title of king, Herod Antipas would have had to indict him for high treason against the emperor.”

  Something else about this phenomenon bothered Pilate. The people referred to Jesus as “the Christos.” He knew that this meant “the Anointed One,” but he was startled to learn that it was merely the Greek translation of the Hebrew term “Messiah.” Messiahs were dangerous to Rome.

  Throughout 32 A.D., Pilate scanned every straw in the winds from Rome, and the news was very discouraging. Tiberius remained in his self-imposed exile on Capri, except for one sailing excursion up the shores of Italy to the mouth of the Tiber. Here he landed, and Rome prepared a glittering welcome for the returning emperor only to learn that Tiberius had changed his mind and returned to the rocky solitude of Capri. Tongues wagged that the lusty princeps could not stand being away from the lewd games he concocted in the villas and groves of Capri. But Pilate was skeptical about the gossip. Would an embittered seventy-two-year-old actually engage in such gymnastics, especially when his only real appetite now was for revenge on the partisans of Sejanus?

  Since the prefect had fallen late in 31 A.D., most of the treason trials took place in 32. Pilate learned that the actual reign of terror had ended in the weeks following the execution of Sejanus, when senators finally wore themselves out attacking each other. But now the more orderly trials were taking place. Typically, a letter would arrive from Capri, charging some high official with complicity in the Sejanian conspiracy and supplying what evidence there was. If the Senate found the man guilty, he was executed or allowed to commit suicide. The innocent, fewer in number, were acquitted. In the judiciary storm sweeping Rome, Pilate found one fact abundantly clear: friendship with Sejanus, once an asset, was now a mortal liability. Many prominent Romans were living, like him, in daily dread of being cited for maiestas, treason against state and emperor.

  Pilate and Procula were deeply concerned also for their parents. So far, they had escaped any accusations, although Proculeius did appear as a defense witness in the trial of one of his friends. But their point of contact with Sejanus had been Pilate, so the first indictment to blight their families would likely be the case of Rome versus the prefect of Judea.

  By now, Pilate had accustomed himself to living under this political sword of Damocles, although reports that the princeps was reaching down into the equestrian class to ferret out Sejanians was hardly comforting. More disturbing was Tiberius’s failure to acknowledge the golden shield. Certainly he was busy with his incriminations, but might not his secretary on Capri have had the decency to write that the trophy had been received?

  The princeps was always unpredictable, of course, but now he was touchy too. A letter from Proculeius gave the latest example of the imperial spleen. A senator named Gallio moved that retired praetorians be given the honor of sitting with equestrians in the lowest fourteen rows of seats at the theater. But a letter from Tiberius blasted the proposal, suggesting that Gallio was trying to turn the guards’ heads in a treasonable manner. As reward for his innocent motion, Gallio was banished from Italy. Then, when it was learned that he planned to live on the beautiful island of Lesbos, he was dragged back to detention in Rome, since Tiberius thought such an exile too pleasant for him.

  It was late summer when Pilate received another letter bearing the large, purple imperial seals, his second from Tiberius since the fall of Sejanus. The mere act of opening messages from the princeps made him taste anxiety, but this time Pilate had more confidence. Here, finally, would be the emperor’s acknowledgment for the golden shield. The letter read:

  Tiberius Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, consul five times, acclaimed imperator, holding the tribunician power for the thirty-fourth year, to Pontius Pilatus, praefectus Iudaeae, greeting.

  Have you forgotten that a prefect represents the will of the princeps in his province, rather than his own? Or did you fail to read my last letter which expressed that will? Or are you, perhaps, still taking orders from the shade of Sejanus rather than the living Tiberius? In that case, you ought to join him!

  A shuddering horror clutched at Pilate and beads of perspiration broke over his face, blotching with dread. His hand shook so much that he had trouble reading the quivering scroll. Finally he set it down on a table.

  In my last letter—I shall not say “if memory serves me correctly,” for it does—I told you distinctly that you were not to disturb Jewish customs, but, on the contrary, to uphold, even defend them. What, then, is this new indiscretion of yours regarding the golden shields? I shall not play the ingrate and withhold my appreciation for your motive in this gesture. But it was a gesture in the wrong place, since the Jews are nearly fanatic about what does or does not happen in their Holy City. You ought to know that by now.

  Herod Antipas, his brothers, and the chief priests of the Sanhedrin have written me, pleading that the shields be removed from the palace in Jerusalem. I have written them that their request will be honored. You will remove the shields immediately. But they are handsome and should be exhibited: I suggest that you transfer them to the Temple of Augustus at Caesarea.

  You are to conciliate the Jews, Pilatus. Do not try our patience again, or we shall have to review the full extent of your past relationship with the murderous traitor Sejanus—after recalling you to Rome. Farewell.

  Given the Calends of July, A.V.C. 785.

  Pilate spent the next minutes collecting himself. Could one man fear, hate, despair, and be shocked, frustrated, angry, and vengeful all at the same time? He could. Most of all he was swept with a sickening anxiety for himself and a deadly hatred for the Herods.

  His first strictly logical thought was
to send a courier to the tribune of Jerusalem with an order to remove the shields from the palace. Only then could he indulge his fury at the audacity of Antipas and the Sanhedrists in making good their threat to contact Tiberius, which he had thought only bluff.

  Obviously he should never have gotten himself into this predicament in the first place. Hanging the trophies in Caesarea would have been quite enough for his purposes. Why, then, had he chosen Jerusalem? The reason he had given his council was: to neutralize any lingering memory Tiberius might have had of the old standards affair, which, technically, had been a symbolic disgrace for the emperor. The shields would honor Tiberius in the very city which had rejected his images—without offending the Jews. But was this the only reason? Pilate finally asked himself. Or had removal of the medallions really vexed the princeps? Crises have this merit, that they often shake a person into candor with himself. Pilate probed his motives and finally uncovered another explanation for his shields scheme. The standards had been a personal setback for him, in Jerusalem; the shields were to be his personal vindication, in Jerusalem. No one likes to be thwarted.

  Yet even in his mood of personal honesty, Pilate branded Herod Antipas as the chief cause for his plight, not himself. He had sincerely thought the shields would not offend the Jews—there was the glittering precedent of the synagogues in Alexandria—and the objections of the chief priests were not supported by any Hebrew law. Nor had they proved their case logically. If Tiberius could only have heard the dialogue, he would surely have exonerated, no, applauded him for upholding Rome’s interests, Pilate felt. In this light, Antipas knew he was justified in putting up the kind of ornaments he wished in his own praetorium, and yet he switched out of character, wrapped himself in the mantle of Jewish piety, and went over Pilate’s head to complain, instead of providing his good offices to soothe the ruffled feelings between the prefect and the priests. The hypocrite! He objected to imageless shields, the man who offended Judaism by adorning his own palace in Tiberias with images of animals. It was another item Pilate wished he had recalled earlier.

  Why did Antipas deal him this low a blow? Clear. If, at Rome, friends were informing on friends in their anxiety to appear anti-Sejanus, why not a rival accusing a rival in Judea? Though Sejanus had openly patronized Antipas, the tetrarch had always managed to keep a solid reserve of favor with Tiberius. By casting Pilate in the role of a disobedient prefect who was spurning the emperor’s directives, possibly with hints at Pilate’s previous dependence on Sejanus, Antipas would contrast favorably in the princeps’ estimation. And if it came to Pilate’s recall, who might better succeed him than the only man who had proved he could get on well with both Roman and Jew? “The tetrarch of Galilee…and Judea,” a virtual restoration of the kingdom of Herod the Great. Before this, it would not have been possible, since Antipas was disliked by the Sanhedrin. But now that he had successfully championed their cause before Rome, his stock would soar in Judea. After his marital misadventures, his antagonizing of King Aretas, and his beheading of the Baptizer, Herod Antipas had finally staged a diplomatic coup. The fact that it had also been at Pilate’s expense must have been doubly sweet to him, as it was twice as bitter for Pilate.

  His future now seemed drastically uncertain. Without telling Procula, he drew up a last will and testament. Tiberius’s letter implied that one more provocation would cause his recall, and the awful language about “reviewing the full extent of your past relationship with Sejanus” only brought into the open what he had long suspected anyway: Tiberius had not, in fact, forgotten.

  After living a week under the precarious new circumstances, Pilate composed a long reply to the emperor. He wrote and rewrote it several times, then tried it out on Procula and finally edited it again. The language had to be perfect, the argumentation flawless. Above all, there could be no double meanings for the suspicious and resentful Tiberius to interpret the wrong way. It was an incredible situation: his very life might depend on the arrangement of ink scratchings on a slip of papyrus!

  The letter began by assuring the emperor that the shields had been removed immediately, but it went on to explain why Pilate had originally hung them. Prominent reference was made to Jewish law and to the Alexandrian synagogues. The letter closed with the statement that he had not seen Sejanus for five years prior to his fall, and that he had certainly had no idea of his treacherous conspiracy.

  Such a reply was a calculated risk. It was not servile, for that would only have further demeaned him in Tiberius’s estimation while saving his skin. But in defending his conduct, he might hazard immediate recall if Tiberius were in a black mood when he opened the letter. Yet there are times when personal integrity allows no other option. For Pilate, this was one of them.

  The next weeks would tell. A quick response from Capri would augur doom even before the seals were broken. No word, on the other hand, would be good word indeed.

  The autumn months of 32 brought no further communication from Tiberius. Pilate’s attention now shifted back to Jerusalem. Ever since the shields episode, he had warned the Antonia cohort, under threat of severest military discipline, not to offend the Jews in any way. Many of the Judean riots over the years had been triggered by incidents of friction between soldiers and people. A thumbed nose, a yelled curse, an obscene gesture easily escalated into bloodshed. Pilate simply could not afford another uproar of any kind at this time.

  He also asked the tribune of Jerusalem to report on the activities of the puzzling personage who was high priest of the Jews. Joseph Caiaphas had not been part of the delegation which sought the removal of the shields. And so it had been with the other crises between Pilate and the Jews, including the water system and the standards. Caiaphas never openly opposed him. Why?

  Reportedly, Caiaphas was a worldly-wise Sadducee, a reasonable pontiff who disliked rioting and disorder as much as Pilate did. In fact, the Zealots and most of the Pharisees thought him too Rome-serving for their blood. Yet if his sympathies were pro-Roman, Pilate wished he would better exercise them in moments of crisis to save him repeated embarrassment. But was Caiaphas truly Romanophile? Pilate doubted. The most obvious reason for the high priest’s failure to move against him publicly was a simple matter of self-preservation. Since Pilate could replace him at the drop of his governor’s staff, he would necessarily remain in the background during any anti-Roman demonstrations, even if his sympathies would naturally be with his fellow Jews—up to a point. If a protest broke into civil disorder or open rebellion, Caiaphas would wash his hands of it. Indeed, he would probably conspire with Pilate to put it down, for such turmoil could invite massive Roman intervention, and then his own position would be lost. Nor would he be apt to agitate for Pilate’s replacement, since a new governor might well mean a new high priest.

  The pontiff, then, was another man-in-the-middle between Jerusalem and Rome, Pilate reasoned. What he now feared was that Caiaphas might be tempted by Tiberius’s new Jewish policy to upset the arrangement by which the two had controlled Judea for the past six years and venture into occasional open defiance of himself. This is why Pilate had directed the tribune in Jerusalem to keep the high priest’s activities under surveillance.

  But the tribune reported that lately Caiaphas and his ruling coterie had no time for any hostility to Rome, since their attention was claimed by growing domestic turmoil. The people were restless, excited, he wrote, and the Sanhedrin was trying to keep them calm. Probably it would not come to insurrection, but something was in the air. There were anti-Roman elements in the movement, but just as much anti-Sanhedral feeling.

  “Cornelius,” Pilate called, “read this note from the Jerusalem commandant and see if you can make any sense out of it.”

  The centurion studied the communiqué, then admitted, “Seems like gibberish to me.”

  “A good tribune should have ferreted out better information than that. I’m concerned. Maybe something dangerous is developing; maybe it’s only everyone’s nerves. But I can’t afford to
be caught off guard. Why not go down to Jerusalem, Cornelius, and sniff out what’s happening?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Take your time. Don’t come back till you have all the facts.”

  Cornelius left for Jerusalem in mid-December, returning to Caesarea in late January of 33. He began his extended report with a curious statement: “The leaven of Messianism is at work throughout Judea.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Pilate scowled.

  “This is how my wife’s relatives in Jerusalem explained the present mood. The common people are longing for a patriotic and religious deliverer, who will inaugurate some great era of independence and peace and plenty here in Palestine.”

  “The old hope for the Messiah-king. Well, has he shown up yet?”

  “There seem to be several candidates. In Samaria, one of the favorites is a charlatan named Simon Magus, a practitioner of black magic who astounds the Samaritans with his tricks and modestly calls himself ‘the Great Power of God.’ But the Jews pay him little heed. Now, the Galilean Zealots have an aspirant called Jesus Bar-Abbas, which means ‘Savior, Son of a Priest,’ but there’s a rabbi’s son who went wrong! He lost his head and raised an insurrection near Jerusalem. He succeeded only in robbing and killing some defenseless Jews. Our Antonia cohort crushed that uprising in short order, and now Bar-Abbas and his gang are in prison awaiting your judgment.”

  “Did he have any support from the people?”

  “No. The Jews knew he was the falsest of false Messiahs. He only wanted to turn a fast shekel by capitalizing on the popular mood.”

  “By the way, whatever became of that other Jesus who supposedly fed that crowd in Galilee but refused a crown?”

  “He’s a logical candidate for Messiah.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t misunderstand—Jesus doesn’t seem to be after political power. You see, there are two schools of thought on the Messiah concept, my relatives told me. One believes that the Messiah will be a political monarch, a conquering king. The other insists he’ll be a spiritual reformer who will rule as ‘king’ only over men’s hearts and minds. Jesus seems more this type.”