Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  “All right. That’s enough,” Herod directed. “Now take this magnificent prophet-Messiah-monarch back to Pontius Pilate.”

  The Sanhedrists thought they had not heard correctly, and Helcias asked, “Did the tetrarch say ‘back to Pilate’?”

  “He did. I herewith waive my jurisdiction over this subject. Since most of your accusations focus on events in Judea, let the prefect of Judea judge him.”

  “But Excellency,” protested Rabbi Zadok, “the prefect remanded this case to your tribunal, and—”

  “And I’m referring it back to his. Do you suggest I don’t have this prerogative? My Galileans are judiciable in Judea if they break the law here. Besides, those charges of yours which involve Yeshu calling himself king are something for Rome to adjudicate, not I.”

  Finally Caiaphas himself, who had remained silent throughout Antipas’s hearing, approached his throne and said, “Worthy Tetrarch, you have protected our most holy faith in the past. You have defended our cause admirably, as in the appeal to Tiberius regarding the golden shields, and on other occasions. Why do you now fail to condemn this arch-heretic who blasphemes the name of our Holy God by calling himself His Son?”

  “Most Honorable Pontiff Caiaphas, I think this tongue-tied wretch deserves our sympathy, not our stoning. Today we’ve proven him a hoax. How could he possibly have a following after this? But if you think he deserves punishment, just remember this: I didn’t set him free. I might have acquitted him entirely, rather than returning the case to Pilate. As it is, you can simply resume his trial before the prefect at the point where you left off.”

  Caiaphas was about to reply, but Antipas ended the hearing by standing to announce, “This court is adjourned.”

  Slowly, the chief priests filed out, followed by members of the Sanhedrin, the temple guard surrounding Jesus, and then all the rest who had crowded into the atrium of the Hasmonean palace. The parade of accusers headed back to the Roman praetorium. But now it was almost nine A.M.

  Surrounded again by his wife and relatives, Antipas watched them leave. He knew he had been less than candid with Caiaphas in posing as something of the forgiving humanitarian. This was only to mask the real motive behind his failure to judge the case. Many of his Galilean subjects believed in Jesus, and some of them were in Jerusalem at the time, camped on the surrounding hills. Even if riots did not break out, were he to condemn the Nazarene, he could still look forward to reaping a fine harvest of hatred upon his return to Galilee, for then he would have killed his second prophet. Besides, two of those who believed in the man were standing very close to his own tribunal during the hearing: Chuza, his chief steward; and Manaen, his close friend and adviser. Antipas was man enough to taunt Jesus before people who believed in him, but not to have him stoned.

  And why should he relieve Pilate of this thorny case? Let Rome and Rome’s prefect bear the odium for prophet-killing, if it came to that. But it was decent of Pilate to make such a conciliatory gesture as deferring to his tribunal; very decent, in fact, especially after the shields altercation. Perhaps Pilate was basically a good man after all, and he had been misjudging him all these years.

  Antipas took a stylus, prepared a note for Pilate, and sent it to the Herodian palace by a courier who was told to reach the prefect before the multitude returned. The message commended Pilate for having referred the case of Jesus of Nazareth to him, but he thought in view of the forum delicti, the mood of the Sanhedrin in having approached the Roman tribunal in the first instance, and the political implications of some of the charges, that Pilate’s would be the more appropriate court. He herewith waived his jurisdiction over Jesus. Nevertheless, he appreciated Pilate’s kind gesture, and could he and Procula come over to the Hasmonean palace the following Tuesday evening for a dinner party?

  The communication reached Pilate at his inner tribunal. He read it with only moderate surprise. A political sixth sense had told him Antipas might react as he did. With a renewed frown, he rose from his ivory sella, postponing the remaining cases, and went out to face the crowds, which by now had largely reconvened in the palace square. There, again, were the chief priests, the Sanhedrin, Jesus, the masses—the same unpleasant cast which had confronted him earlier in what evidently had been merely Act I of a Greek tragedy played by Jewish actors before a Roman judge.

  This time, without waiting for the prosecution to enter a formal request for a reopening and continuation of the trial, Pilate seized the initiative and announced, “You brought the defendant before this tribunal on a charge of subversion. But, after personally and publicly examining him, I did not find this man guilty of any of your prime charges against him. Neither did the tetrarch Herod Antipas, for he has referred the case back to me. Even if he committed infractions of your religious law, Jesus of Nazareth has done nothing to deserve death.”

  This provoked a general outcry from the crowd for the first time, a rising, sullen rumble of disapproval, punctuated by isolated shouts of “Away with him! Convict him! He’s guilty!” The sickeningly familiar atmosphere of tension was building.

  Pilate looked down at the plaintiffs, speaking in a conversational tone so that only they would hear him. “I see you’ve managed the masses rather well. But this also means that if the people get out of hand, you’ll have to answer for the consequences. Now, in order to preserve the peace, I ask that you withdraw the charges against this man, since they’ve not stood up in court. Such a gesture will effectively end this hearing, without my being compelled to declare the defendant innocent. Perhaps you can build your case against him another time when you have more conclusive evidence. For my part, I’ll flog him as an object lesson for disturbing the peace and release him.”

  He searched the faces of the Sanhedrists for some sign of concession, but found only unbending resolution. Therefore he had no choice but to reopen the sorry business. But to what good? All the evidence for the prosecution, such as it was, had been presented in the earlier hearing. The defense, such as it was, had also been enunciated in the one sentence, “My kingship is not of this world.” Perspiring in the mid-morning sun, Pilate groped for a solution.

  Inside the palace, meanwhile, Procula had awakened to find Pilate gone to his morning’s business. She felt somewhat ill—the change of diet from Caesarea to Jerusalem often brought her dysentery—so she decided to stay in bed for the rest of the morning and soon dropped off to sleep again.

  But the trial being conducted in front of the palace disturbed her, and she was shocked to see that Jesus was being judged by her husband. Yet, as she watched, she grew proud of Pilate. He was the only one who seemed to be defending the innocent prophet; no one else had a word to say in his behalf. Now, as the case was reaching its climax, Pilate formally declared Jesus innocent.

  “Away with him!” the people cried. “Condemn him! Crucify him!”

  Pilate looked nonplused. But finally, with a nobility Procula was sure had always been a part of his character, he announced to the crowd: “Hear me! As prefect of Judea and representative of his imperial majesty, Tiberius Caesar, and as judge of the provincial tribunal of Jerusalem, I herewith declare Jesus of Nazareth not guilty of the charges you have brought against him. I am releasing the defendant. This court is adjourned.”

  With that, Pilate rose from his curule chair and ordered a contingent from the Jerusalem cohort to untie Jesus and escort him under imperial safe-conduct as far as Galilee.

  Then, while the dumbfounded multitude watched the last auxiliaries leave the esplanade with Jesus securely in their protection, a young scribe pointed to Pilate and cried, “Crucify him!” A bloodcurdling yell arose as the people, now a lynch mob, stormed up to the tribunal from all sides and tore into Pilate before any of the palace guards could assist him, pommeling his head and body and lacerating his flesh. Pontius Pilate was dead even before he could be hoisted onto a crude cross fashioned by the mob from scrap timbers.

  With a muted scream, Procula awoke from her grisly nightmare, that amalgam
of truth and grotesque fantasy of which morning dreams are made. Shouts from the crowd had in fact penetrated the palace, and her fears had supplied the framework in which to arrange those shouts.

  Overcome with relief, she summoned an attendant to ask where her husband was. Learning of the trial in progress, she was alarmed once again. Ever since the notice of Jesus’ arrest was delivered to the palace, Procula had intuited that Pilate would eventually have to hear the case, since capital charges were involved. But she had not imagined the trial would take place that soon. Now her dream took on prophetic dimension, the usual posture for Roman dreams. Every school child in the Mediterranean knew about Calpurnia’s dream of Caesar’s torn and bloodied toga on the night before his assassination in the Senate house. In anxiety, Procula called for a wax tablet and quickly scribbled this warning:

  Procula to Pilate: keep your guard closely about you. And have nothing to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered much today in a dream because of him.

  Sitting on his dais in front of the palace, Pilate had finally found a solution to his judicial quandary, one prompted by the Jewish calendar itself. Since it was his custom each Passover to release one prisoner chosen by the people, he now reminded the multitude of this annual festival amnesty. But instead of allowing unlimited free choice of candidates for pardon, he narrowed the selection to just two. “Whom do you want me to release?” he asked, “Jesus Bar-Abbas…or Jesus of Nazareth?”

  Momentarily, the throng seemed to hold its breath. Then it broke into a bubbling cauldron of contention, for Pilate’s alternatives had been cleverly chosen. Against the controversial Jesus he had pitted one who was guilty beyond all controversy, a notorious public enemy. Pilate had calculated that the present hatred of Jesus would be far outbalanced by public dread at having a murdering insurrectionist turned loose in Jerusalem. Also, the people would never want to forego the Bar-Abbas show trial.

  The prosecution huddled for strategy, then sent messengers throughout the crowd. At this point, Procula’s message was delivered to Pilate. Recognizing his wife’s handwriting, he almost cast it aside as nothing more than a housewifely note which should not have bothered him at such a time. But since it was brief, he read it—a strange message, he thought, though Pilate placed little credence in dreams. Perhaps Procula was ill. At any rate, the warning could hardly apply, since he was well guarded, and he quite unavoidably did indeed have something “to do with that innocent man,” even if he agreed with his wife’s own, albeit unsolicited, verdict on Jesus.

  “Well, which of the two Jesuses shall I release for you?” he called out, now quite sure of victory.—“The Nazarene…or Bar-Abbas?”

  A great, almost unified cry arose, “BAR-ABBAS!…BAR-ABBAS!” A few lone voices called “the Nazarene,” but they were hopelessly drowned out by the majority of the crowd, which took up the name of the public enemy as a near war chant.

  Now it was Pilate’s turn to be dumbfounded. The prosecutors had done their work well. In the interval, which Pilate had interpreted as confusion, they had marshaled the crowd through couriers who persuaded the people, in the name of the Great Sanhedrin, to demand the release of Bar-Abbas instead of Jesus. Theologically, they said, the crime of the Messiah-so-called was far more serious than anything Bar-Abbas had committed.

  Bewildered, Pilate finally found his tongue. “Then what am I to do with Jesus of Nazareth?”

  Again the great voice cried out, “LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED!”

  “Why? What evil has he done?”

  They shouted all the louder, “AWAY WITH HIM!” “GIVE US BAR-ABBAS!” “CRUCIFY HIM!”

  Stung by the intransigence, Pilate challenged again, “Why? For what crime? I have not found him guilty of any capital offense. I will therefore flog him and then free him.”

  Amid further shouts for a death sentence, Pilate had Jesus brought inside the palace courtyard for scourging. The captain of the troops who had been keeping an eye on the crowd from inside the praetorium now barked a command to his auxiliaries. They gathered round the prisoner, stripped him, and administered the fustigatio, that Roman flogging which punished someone as a warning against further wrongdoing. It was lighter than the severe scourging which preceded capital punishment.

  Pilate witnessed the scene, half hoping that the stripes would bring Jesus sufficiently to his senses to make a better defense of himself. Playing on human behavior, he also intended the scourging to win the people’s sympathy for the accused.

  Then it came time for a Roman magistrate to turn his back on a prisoner’s punishment while the soldiers played their games of mockery with him, a barbaric custom which Rome had not shaken off from her ancient past. The only charge against Jesus which had registered with the troops was the claim that this unlikely figure should be a king in any sense, and of the Jews in particular. As anti-Semites, they found the idea doubly humorous. So their mockery focused on this theme. A sneering centurion who had located a purple lictor’s mantle draped it around Jesus’ shoulders and his men broke into lusty laughter. One hulking veteran with fat calluses covering his hands tore out several branches from thorn bushes growing in the courtyard and braided these into a prickly crown which he solemnly planted on Jesus’ head in a sham coronation. A reed shoved into his right hand as scepter completed the royal ensemble. The whole rowdy company of troops now fell on their knees and jeeringly saluted him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then, one by one, they filed by to do him honor, slapping his cheeks and spitting in his face. When Jesus refused to hold the reed and dropped it, the centurion picked it up and used it to beat the crown of thorns into his scalp. Bleeding from scourge and thorn, Jesus said nothing.

  Pilate reappeared in the courtyard and halted the mock homage. Then he led Jesus out to the tribunal and exhibited him to the multitude. “Here he is,” said Pilate. “I bring him out to let you know that I find no crime in him, but this scourging has punished him for offending you. Look at him! You charged him with claiming to be king. Well, here’s your king…wearing the purple, but crowned with thorns.”

  The soldiers started laughing, and Pilate encouraged it, hoping that mockery might slake the crowd’s thirst for blood. It was one thing to demand execution of a healthy and unharmed prisoner, quite another to insist on it for a defenseless, beaten, and ridiculed wretch.

  “Behold the man,” said Pilate, in a tone of condescending compassion.

  “Crucify! Crucify!” the chief priests and the elders exclaimed. At first the shouting came only from the comparatively small knot of prosecutors below the tribunal, since some sympathy for the beaten Jesus had been generated in the mass assembly. But soon more and more took up the chant, and the general mood was once again galvanized for condemning Jesus.

  Pilate was losing his patience. “You crucify him,” he snarled. “Take him and crucify him yourselves, for I’ve found no case against him.”

  This invitation went begging, of course, for it was merely angry sarcasm. At this point, Pilate was preparing to announce final acquittal and the closing of court.

  The chief priests took quick counsel. Then Caiaphas walked up to the tribunal and spoke with Pilate face to face. “We have a law, Honorable Prefect, and according to our law this man ought to die, because he has claimed to be the Son of God.”

  “The Son of God?” asked Pilate, plainly disturbed, but also irritated.

  “Yes. This is the greatest offense in Hebrew law, the worst blasphemy.”

  While a ripple of superstition was aroused in Pilate by the new information, his juridical sense was infuriated. The prosecution was introducing an entirely new charge, a religious one, which was apparently unrelated to the previous political indictments. In fairness to the judge, the court, and the defendant, it should have been cited much earlier. However, Pilate understood why it had not been: the Sanhedrin feared that he would not adjudicate in matters religious. Now, however, backed against the wall by his refusal to condemn, the prosecution was honest enough to supply what had undoub
tedly been their main charge against Jesus at the Sanhedral hearing.

  Scowling at the plaintiffs, Pilate finally grumbled, “This is an entirely new charge. You should have raised it when I called for accusations at the start of the trial. Now I’ll have to hold a private hearing on this alleged claim to be…‘Son of God.’” With that, Pilate had Jesus brought back again into the palace.

  A claim to divinity was always a bit unnerving for Romans. Fundamentally, they were a rather religious—or at least superstitious—breed, even if, like Pilate, they thought themselves enlightened skeptics.

  He began his careful probe into Jesus’ alleged claim to divinity with a frankly metaphysical question. “Where have you come from?”

  Jesus did not reply.

  “You won’t speak to me? Don’t you know that I have the authority to release you or to crucify you?”

  “You would have no authority at all over me if it had not been given you from above,” Jesus responded. “Therefore the prosecution has the greater sin.”

  The inscrutable language, the reference to higher, possibly fatalistic powers, for which he was evidently a tool, convinced Pilate that further conversation with Jesus would lead nowhere. The man seemed resolved not to enter any defense for himself.

  Pilate left Jesus inside the praetorium while he returned to his tribunal. He then realized that for the second time Jesus had in fact mentioned something in his defense. It was only a sentence, like the first occasion (“My kingship is not of this world”). He had said, “The prosecution has the greater sin.” The last word also meant “failure” or “error.” Pilate knew, and clearly Jesus also knew, that the legal process now taking place was “sin…error…failure.”