This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;The words expressly are, a pound of flesh:Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shedOne drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goodsAre by the laws of Venice confiscateUnto the State of Venice.[70]
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;The words expressly are, a pound of flesh:Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shedOne drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goodsAre by the laws of Venice confiscateUnto the State of Venice.[70]
But whatever special interpretation may be placed upon the opening words passed between the priestly accusers and the Roman judge, it is clearly evident that the latter did not intend to surrender to the former the right to impose and execute a sentence of death. The substance of Pilate's address to the Jews, when they sought to evade his question concerning the accusation which they had to bring against Jesus, was this: I have asked for a specific charge against the man whom you have brought bound to me. You have given not a direct, but an equivocal answer. I infer that the crime with which you charge him is one against your own laws. With such offenses I do not wish to meddle. Therefore, I say unto you: "Take ye him and judge him according to your law." If I am not to know the specific charge against him, I will not assume cognizance of the case. If the accusation and the facts relied upon to support it are not placed before me, I will not sentence the man to death; and, under the law, you cannot.
The Jews were thus thwarted in their designs. They had hoped to secure a countersign of their own judgment without a retrial by the governor. They now found him in no yielding and accommodating mood. They were thus forced against their will and expectationto formulate specific charges against the prisoner in their midst. The indictment as they presented it, is given in a single verse of St. Luke:
"And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ, a King."[71]
It is noteworthy that in this general accusation is a radical departure from the charges of the night before. In the passage from the Sanhedrin to the Prætorium, the indictment had completely changed. Jesus had not been condemned on any of the charges recorded in this sentence of St. Luke. He had been convicted on the charge of blasphemy. But before Pilate he is now charged with high treason. To meet the emergency of a change of jurisdiction, the priestly accusers converted the accusation from a religious into a political offense. It may be asked why the Sanhedrists did not maintain the same charges before Pilate that they themselves had considered before their own tribunal. Why did they not lead Jesus into the presence of the Roman magistrate and say: O Governor, we have here a Galilean blasphemer of Jehovah. We want him tried on the charge of blasphemy, convicted and sentenced to death. Why did they not do this? They were evidently too shrewd. Why? Because, in legal parlance, they would have had no standing in court. Why? Because blasphemy was not an offense against Roman law, and Roman judges would generally assume cognizance of no such charges.
The Jews understood perfectly well at the trial before Pilate the principle of Roman procedure so admirably expressed a few years later by Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and brother of Seneca: "If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters."[72]This attitude of Roman governors toward offenses of a religious nature perfectly explains the Jewish change of front in the matter of the accusation against Jesus. They merely wanted to get themselves into a Roman court on charges that a Roman judge would consent to try. In the threefold accusation recorded by the third Evangelist, they fully accomplished this result.
The first count in the indictment, that He was perverting the nation, was vague and indefinite, but was undoubtedly against Roman law, because it was in the nature of sedition, which was one of the forms of treason under Roman jurisprudence. This charge of perverting the nation was in the nature of the revival of the accusation of sedition which they had first brought forward by means of the false witnesses before their own tribunal, and that had been abandoned because of the contradictory testimony of these witnesses.
The second count in the indictment, that He had forbidden to give tribute to Cæsar, was of a more serious nature than the first. A refusal, in modern times, to pay taxes or an attempt to obstruct their collection, is a mild offense compared with a similar act under ancientRoman law. To forbid to pay tribute to Cæsar in Judea was a form of treason, not only because it was an open defiance of the laws of the Roman state, but also because it was a direct denial of Roman sovereignty in Palestine. Such conduct was treason under the definitions of both Ulpian and Cicero. The Jews knew the gravity of the offense when they sought to entrap Jesus in the matter of paying tribute to Cæsar. They believed that any answer to the question that they had asked, would be fatal to Him. If He advised to pay the imperial tribute, He could be charged with being an enemy to His countrymen, the Jews. If He advised not to pay the tribute, He would be charged with being a rebellious subject of Cæsar. His reply disconcerted and bewildered them when He said: "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's."[73]In this sublime declaration, the Nazarene announced the immortal principle of the separation of church and state, and of religious freedom in all the ages. And when, in the face of His answer, they still charged Him with forbidding to pay tribute to Cæsar, they seem to have been guilty of deliberate falsehood. Keim calls the charge "a very flagrant lie." Both at Capernaum,[74]where Roman taxes were gathered, and at Jerusalem,[75]where religious dues were offered, Jesus seems to have been both a good citizen and a pious Jew. "Jésus bon citoyen" (Jesus a good citizen) is the title of a chapter in the famous work of Bossuet entitled "Politique tirée de l'Ecriture sainte." In itthe great French ecclesiastic describes very beautifully the law-abiding qualities of the citizen-prophet of Galilee. In pressing the false charge that he had advised not to pay taxes to Rome, the enemies of Jesus revealed a peculiar and wanton malignity.
The third count in the indictment, that the prisoner had claimed to be "Christ a King," was the last and greatest of the charges. By this He was deliberately accused of high treason against Cæsar, the gravest offense known to Roman law. Such an accusation could not be ignored by Pilate as a loyal deputy of Tiberius. The Roman monarch saw high treason in every word and act that was uncomplimentary to his person or dangerous to his power. Fifty-two prosecutions for treason, says Tacitus, took place during his reign.
The charges of high treason and sedition against Jesus were all the more serious because the Romans believed Palestine to be the hotbed of insurrection and sedition, and the birthplace of pretenders to kingly powers. They had recently had trouble with claimants to thrones, some of them from the lowest and most ignoble ranks. Judas, the son of Hezekiah, whom Herod had caused to be put to death, proclaimed royal intentions, gathered quite a multitude of adherents about him in the neighborhood of Sepphoris in Galilee, raised an insurrection, assaulted and captured the palace of the king at Sepphoris, seized all the weapons that were stored away in it, and armed his followers with them. Josephus does not tell us what became of this royal pretender; but he does say that"he became terrible to all men, by tearing and rending those that came near him."[76]
In the province of Perea, a certain Simon, who was formerly a slave of Herod, collected a band of followers, and had himself proclaimed king by them. He burned down the royal palace at Jericho, after having plundered it. A detachment under the command of the Roman general Gratus made short work of the pretensions of Simon by capturing his adherents and putting him to death.[77]
Again, a certain peasant named Athronges, formerly a shepherd, claimed to be a king, and for a long time, in concert with his four brothers, annoyed the authorities of the country, until the insurrection was finally broken up by Gratus and Ptolemy.[78]
In short, during the life of Jesus, Judea was passing through a period of great religious and political excitement. The Messiah was expected and a king was hoped for; and numerous pretenders appeared from time to time. The Roman governors were constantly on the outlook for acts of sedition and treason. And when the Jews led Jesus into the presence of Pilate and charged Him with claiming to be a king, the recent cases of Judas, Simon, and Athronges must have arisen in his mind, quickened his interest in the pretensions of the prisoner of the Jews, and must have awakened his sense of loyalty as Cæsar's representative. The lowliness of Jesus, being a carpenter, did not greatly allay his fears; for he must have rememberedthat Simon was once a slave and that Athronges was nothing more than a simple shepherd.
When Pilate had heard the accusations of the Jews, he deliberately arose from his judgment seat, gathered his toga about him, motioned the mob to stand back, and beckoned Jesus to follow him into the palace. St. John alone tells us of this occurrence.[79]
At another time, in the Galilean simplicity and freedom of His nature, the Prophet of Nazareth had spoken with a tinge of censure and sarcasm of the rulers of the Gentiles that lorded it over their subjects,[80]and had declared that "they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses."[81]Now the lowly Jewish peasant was entering for the first time a palace of one of the rulers of the Gentiles in which were soft raiment and royal purple. The imagination is helpless to picture the historical reflections born of the memories of that hour. A meek and lowly carpenter enters a king's palace on his way to an ignominious death upon the cross; and yet the greatest kings of all the centuries that followed were humble worshipers in their palaces before the cross that had been the instrument of his torture and degradation. Such is the irony of history; such is the mystery of God's providence; such is the mystic ebb and flow of the tides and currents of destiny and fate.
Of the examination of Jesus inside the palace, little is known. Pilate, it seems, brushed the first two charges aside as unworthy of serious consideration; and proceeded at once to examine the prisoner on thecharge that he pretended to be a king. "If," Pilate must have said, "the fellow pretends to be a king, as Simon and Athronges did before him; if he says that Judea has a right to have a king other than Cæsar, he is guilty of treason, and it is my solemn duty as deputy of Tiberius to ascertain the fact and have him put to death."
The beginning of the interrogation of Jesus within the palace is reported by all the Evangelists in the same words. Addressing the prisoner, Pilate asked: "Art thou the King of the Jews?" "Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?"[82]
This was a most natural and fitting response of the Nazarene to the Roman. It was necessary first to understand the exact nature of the question before an appropriate answer could be made. Jesus simply wished to know whether the question was asked from a Roman or a Jewish, from a temporal or a spiritual standpoint. If the interrogation was directed from a Roman, a temporal point of view, His answer would be an emphatic negative. If the inquiry had been prompted by the Jews, it was then pregnant with religious meaning, and called for a different reply; one that would at once repudiate pretensions to earthly royalty, and, at the same time, assert His claims to the Messiahship and heavenly sovereignty.
"Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: What hast thou done?"
To this Jesus replied: "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."[83]
This reply of the Master is couched in that involved, aphoristic, strangely beautiful style that characterized His speech at critical moments in His career. Its import is clear, though expressed in a double sense: first from the Roman political, and then from the Jewish religious side.
First He answered negatively: "My kingdom is not of this world."
By this He meant that there was no possible rivalry between Him and Cæsar. But, in making this denial, He had used two words of grave import: My Kingdom. He had used one word that struck the ear of Pilate with electric force: the word Kingdom. In the use of that word, according to Pilate's reasoning, Jesus stood self-convicted. For how, thought Pilate, can He pretend to have a Kingdom, unless He pretends to be a king? And then, as if to cow and intimidate the prisoner, as if to avoid an unpleasant issue of the affair, he probably advanced threateningly upon the Christ, and asked the question which the Bible puts in his mouth: "Art thou a king then?"
Rising from the simple dignity of a man to the beauty and glory and grandeur of a God, Jesus used the most wonderful, beautiful, meaningful words in the literature of the earth: "Thou sayest that I am aking. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice."[84]
This language contains a perfectly clear description of the kingdom of Christ and of His title to spiritual sovereignty. His was not an empire of matter, but a realm of truth. His kingdom differed widely from that of Cæsar. Cæsar's empire was over the bodies of men; Christ's over their souls. The strength of Cæsar's kingdom was in citadels, armies, navies, the towering Alps, the all-engirdling seas. The strength of the kingdom of the Christ was and is and will ever be in sentiments, principles, ideas, and the saving power of a divine word. But, as clever and brilliant as he must have been, Pilate could not grasp the true meaning of the words of the Prophet. The spiritual and intellectual grandeur of the Galilean peasant was beyond the reach of the Roman lord and governor. In a cynical and sarcastic mood, Pilate turned to Jesus and asked: "What is truth?"[85]
This pointed question was the legitimate offspring of the soul of Pilate and a natural product of the Roman civilization of his age. It was not asked with any real desire to know the truth; for he turned to leave the palace before an answer could be given. It was simply a blank response born of mental wretchedness and doubt. If prompted by any silent yearning for a knowledge of the truth, his conduct indicated clearly that he did not hope to have that longing satisfiedby the words of the humble prisoner in his charge. "What is truth?" An instinctive utterance this, prompted by previous sad reflections upon the wrecks of philosophy in search of truth.
We have reason to believe that Pilate was a man of brilliant parts and studious habits. His marriage into the Roman royal family argued not only splendid physical endowments, but rare intellectual gifts as well. Only on this hypothesis can we explain his rise from obscurity in Spain to a place in the royal family as husband of the granddaughter of Augustus and foster daughter of Tiberius. Then he was familiar, if he was thus endowed and accomplished, with the despairing efforts of his age and country to solve the mysteries of life and to ascertain the end of man. He had doubtless, as a student, "mused and mourned over Greece, and its search of truth intellectual—its keen and fruitless search, never-ending, ever beginning, across wastes of doubt and seas of speculation lighted by uncertain stars." He knew full well that Roman philosophy had been wrecked and stranded amidst the floating débris of Grecian thought and speculation. He had thought that theultima ratioof Academicians and Peripatetics, of Stoics and Epicureans had been reached. But here was a new proposition—a kingdom of truth whose sovereign had as subjects mere vagaries, simple mental conceptions called truths—a kingdom whose boundaries were not mountains, seas, and rivers, but clouds, hopes, and dreams.
What did Pilate think of Jesus? He evidently regarded Him as an amiable enthusiast, a harmless religiousfanatic from whom Cæsar had nothing to fear. While alone with Jesus in the palace, he must have reasoned thus with himself, silently and contemptuously: The mob outside tells me that this man is Rome's enemy. Foolish thought! We know who Cæsar's enemies are. We have seen and heard and felt the enemies of Rome—barbarians from beyond the Danube and the Rhine—great strong men, who can drive a javelin not only through a man, but a horse, as well. These are Cæsar's enemies. This strange and melancholy man, whose subjects are mere abstract truths, and whose kingdom is beyond the skies, can be no enemy of Cæsar.
Believing this, he went out to the rabble and pronounced a verdict of acquittal: "I find in him no fault at all."
Pilate had tried and acquitted Jesus. Why did he not release Him, and, if need be, protect Him with his cohort from the assaults of the Jews? Mankind has asked for nearly two thousand years why a Roman, with the blood of a Roman in him, with the glorious prestige and stern authority of the Roman empire at his back, with a Roman legion at his command, did not have the courage to do the high Roman act. Pilate was a moral and intellectual coward of arrant type. This is his proper characterization and a fitting answer to the world's eternal question.
The Jews heard his sentence of acquittal in sullen silence. Desperately resolved to prevent His release, they began at once to frame new accusations.
"And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirrethup the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place."[86]
This charge was intended by the Jews to serve a double purpose: to strengthen the general accusation of high treason recorded by St. Luke; and to embitter and poison the mind of the judge against the prisoner by telling Pilate that Jesus was from Galilee. In ancient times Galilee was noted as the hotbed of riot and sedition. The Galileans were brave and hardy mountaineers who feared neither Rome nor Judea. As champions of Jewish nationality, they were the fiercest opponents of Roman rule; and in the final catastrophe of Jewish history they were the last to be driven from the battlements of Jerusalem. As advocates and preservers of the purity of the primitive Jewish faith, they were relentless foes of Pharisaic and Sadducean hypocrisy as it was manifested by the Judean keepers of the Temple. The Galileans were hated, therefore, by both Romans and Judeans; and the Sanhedrists believed that Pilate would make short work of Jesus if he learned that the prisoner was from Galilee. But a different train of thought was excited in the mind of the Roman governor. He was thinking about one thing, and they about another. Pilate showed himself throughout the trial a craven coward and contemptible timeserver. From beginning to end, his conduct was a record of cowardice and subterfuge. He was constantly looking for loopholes of escape. His heart's desire was to satisfy at once both his conscience and the mob. The mention of Galilee was a ray of light thatfell across the troubled path of the cowardly and vacillating judge. He believed that he saw an avenue of escape. He asked the Jews if Jesus was a Galilean. An affirmative reply was given. Pilate then determined to rid himself of responsibility by sending Jesus to be tried by the governor of the province to which He belonged. He felt that fortune favored his design; for Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, was at that very moment in Jerusalem in attendance upon the Passover feast. He acted at once upon the happy idea; and, under the escort of a detachment of the Prætorian Cohort, Jesus was led away to the palace of the Maccabees where Herod was accustomed to stop when he came to the Holy City.
IIT was still early morning whenJesus, guarded by Roman soldiers and surrounded by a jeering, scoffing, raging multitude of Jews, was conducted to the palace of the Maccabees on the slope of Zion, the official residence of Herod when he came to Jerusalem to attend the sacred festivals. This place was to the northeast of the palace of Herod and only a few streets distant from it. The journey must have lasted therefore only a few minutes.
But who was this Herod before whom Jesus now appeared in chains? History mentions many Herods, the greatest and meanest of whom was Herod I, surnamed the Great, who ordered the massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem. At his death, he bequeathed his kingdom to his sons. But being a client-prince, arex socius, he could not finally dispose of his realm without the consent of Rome. Herod had made several wills, and, at his death, contests arose between his sons for the vacant throne of the father. Several embassieswere sent to Rome to argue the rights of the different claimants. Augustus granted the petitioners many audiences; and, after long delay, finally confirmed practically the last will of Herod. This decision gave Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, with a tribute of six hundred talents, to Archelaus. Philip received the regions of Gaulanitis, Auranitis, Trachonitis, Batanea, and Iturea, with an income of one hundred talents. Herod Antipas was given the provinces of Galilee and Perea, with an annual tribute of two hundred talents and the title of Tetrarch. The title of Ethnarch was conferred upon Archelaus.
Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, was the man before whom Jesus, his subject, was now led to be judged. The pages of sacred history mention the name of no more shallow and contemptible character than this petty princeling, this dissolute Idumæan Sadducee. Compared with him, Judas is eminently respectable. Judas had a conscience which, when smitten with remorse, drove him to suicide. It is doubtful whether Herod had a spark of that celestial fire which we call conscience. He was a typical Oriental prince whose chief aim in life was the gratification of his passions. The worthlessness of his character was so pronounced that it excited a nauseating disgust in the mind of Jesus, and disturbed for a moment that serene and lofty magnanimity which characterized His whole life and conduct. To Herod is addressed the only purely contemptuous epithet that the Master is ever recorded to have used. "And he said unto them, Go ye, and tellthat fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and Ido cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected."[87]
The son of a father who was ten times married and had murdered many of his wives; the murderer himself of John the Baptist; the slave of a lewd and wicked woman—what better could be expected than a cruel, crafty, worthless character, whose attributes were those of the fox?
But why was Jesus sent to Herod? Doubtless because Pilate wished to shift the responsibility from his own shoulders, as a Roman judge, to those of the Galilean Tetrarch. A subsidiary purpose may have been to conciliate Herod, with whom, history says, he had had a quarrel. The cause of the trouble between them is not known. Many believe that the murder of the Galileans while sacrificing in the Temple was the origin of the unpleasantness. Others contend that this occurrence was the result and not the cause of the quarrel between Pilate and Herod. Still others believe that the question of the occupancy of the magnificent palace of Herod engendered ill feeling between the rival potentates. Herod had all the love of gorgeous architecture and luxurious living that characterized the whole Herodian family. And, besides, he doubtless felt that he should be permitted to occupy the palace of his ancestors on the occasion of his visits to Jerusalem. But Pilate would naturally object to this, as he was the representative of almighty Rome in a conquered province and could not afford to give way, in a matter of palatial residence, to a petty local prince.But, whatever the cause, the unfriendliness between them undoubtedly had much to do with the transfer of Jesus from the Prætorium to the palace of the Maccabees.
"And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him for a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him."[88]
This passage of Scripture throws much light upon Herod's opinion and estimate of Jesus. Fearing that he was the successor and imitator of Judas the Gaulonite, Herod at first sought to drive Him from his province by sending spies to warn Him to flee. The courageous and contemptuous reply of Jesus, in which he styled Herod "that fox," put an end to further attempts at intimidation.
The notions of the Galilean Tetrarch concerning the Galilean Prophet seem to have changed from time to time. Herod had once regarded Jesus with feelings of superstitious dread and awe, as the risen Baptist. But these apprehensions had now partially passed away, and he had come to look upon the Christ as a clever impostor whose claims to kingship and Messiahship were mere vulgar dreams. For three years, Galilee had been ringing with the fame of the Miracle-worker; but Herod had never seen his famous subject. Now was his chance. And he anticipated a rare occasion of magic and merriment. He doubtless regarded Jesus as a clever magician whose performance would make a rich and racy programme for an hour'samusement of his court. This was no doubt his dominant feeling regarding the Nazarene. But it is nevertheless very probable that his Idumæan cowardice and superstition still conjured images of a drunken debauch, the dance of death, and the bloody head; and connected them with the strange man now before him.
No doubt he felt highly pleased and gratified to have Jesus sent to him. The petty and obsequious vassal king was caught in Pilate's snare of flattery. The sending of a noted prisoner to his judgment seat by a Roman procurator was no ordinary compliment. But Herod was at once too serious and too frivolous to assume jurisdiction of any charges against this prisoner, who had offended both the religious and secular powers of Palestine. To condemn Jesus would be to incur the ill will and resentment of his many followers in his own province of Galilee. Besides, he had already suffered keenly from dread and apprehension, caused by the association of the names of John and Jesus, and he had learned that from the blood of one murdered prophet would spring the message and mission of another still more powerful and majestic. He was, therefore, unwilling to embroil himself and his dominions with the heavenly powers by condemning their earthly representatives.
Again, though weak, crafty and vacillating, he still had enough of the cunning of the fox not to wish to excite the enmity of Cæsar by a false judgment upon a noted character whose devoted followers might, at any moment, send an embassy to Rome to make seriousand successful charges to the Emperor. He afterwards lost his place as Tetrarch through the suspicions of Caligula, who received news from Galilee that Herod was conspiring against him.[89]The premonitions of that unhappy day probably now filled the mind of the Idumæan.
On the other hand, Herod was too frivolous to conduct from beginning to end a solemn judicial proceeding. He evidently intended to ignore the pretensions of Jesus, and to convert the occasion of His coming into a festive hour in which languor and drowsiness would be banished from his court. He had heard much of the miracles of the prisoner in his presence. Rumor had wafted to his ears strange accounts of marvelous feats. One messenger had brought news that the Prophet of Nazareth had raised from the dead a man named Lazarus from Bethany, and also the son of the widow of Nain. Another had declared that the laws of nature suspended themselves on occasion at His behest; that when He walked out on the sea, He did not sink; and that He stilled the tempests with a mere motion of His hand. Still another reported that the mighty magician could take mud from the pool and restore sight; that a woman, ill for many months, need only touch the hem of His garment to be made whole again; and that if He but touched the flesh of a leper, it would become as tender and beautiful as that of a new-born babe. These reports had doubtless been received by Herod with sneers and mocking. But he gathered from them that Jesus was a clever jugglerwhose powers of entertainment were very fine; and this was sufficient for him and his court.
"Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing."[90]
Herod thus opened the examination of Jesus by interrogating Him at length. The Master treated his insolent questions with contemptuous scorn and withering silence. No doubt this conduct of the lowly Nazarene greatly surprised and nettled the supercilious Idumæan. He had imagined that Jesus would be delighted to give an exhibition of His skill amidst royal surroundings. He could not conceive that a peasant would observe the contempt of silence in the presence of a prince. He found it difficult, therefore, to explain this silence. He probably mistook it for stupidity, and construed it to mean that the pretensions of Jesus were fraudulent. He doubtless believed that his captive would not work a miracle because He could not; and that in His failure to do so were exploded His claims to kingship and Messiahship. At all events, he was evidently deeply perplexed; and this perplexity of the Tetrarch, in its turn, only served to anger the accusing priests who stood by.
"And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him."[91]
This verse from St. Luke clearly reveals the difference in the temper and purposes of the Sanhedrists on the one hand, and of Herod on the other. The latter merely intended to make of the case of Jesus a farcical proceeding in which the jugglery of the prisonerwould break the monotony of a day and banish all care during an idle hour. The priests, on the other hand, were desperately bent upon a serious outcome of the affair, as the words "vehemently accused" suggest. In the face of their repeated accusations, Jesus continued to maintain a noble and majestic silence.
Modern criticism has sought to analyze and to explain the behavior of Christ at the court of Herod. "How comes it," asks Strauss, "that Jesus, not only the Jesus without sin of the orthodox school, but also the Jesus who bowed to the constituted authorities, who says 'Give unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar's'—how comes it that he refuses the answer due to Herod?" The trouble with this question is that it falsely assumes that there was an "answer due to Herod." In the first place, it must be considered that Herod was not Cæsar. In the next place, we must remember that St. Luke, the sole Evangelist who records the event, does not explain the character of the questions asked by Herod. Strauss himself says that they "displayed simple curiosity." Admitting that Jesus acknowledged the jurisdiction of Herod, was He compelled to answer irrelevant and impertinent questions? We do not know what these questions were. But we have reason to believe that, coming from Herod, they were not such as Jesus was called upon to answer. It is very probable that the prisoner knew His legal rights; and that He did not believe that Herod, sitting at Jerusalem, a place without his province, was judicially empowered to examine Him. If He was not legally compelled to answer, we are not surprised that Jesus refused to do soas a matter of graciousness and accommodation; for we must not forget that the Man-God felt that He was being questioned by a vulgar animal of the most cunning type.
But what is certain from the Scriptural context is that Herod felt chagrined and mortified at his failure to evoke from Jesus any response. He was enraged that his plans had been foiled by one of his own subjects, a simple Galilean peasant. To show his resentment, he then resorted to mockery and abuse.
"And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate."[92]
We are not informed by St. Luke what special charge the priests brought against Jesus at the judgment seat of Herod. He simply says that they "stood and vehemently accused him." But we are justified in inferring that they repeated substantially the same accusations which had been made before Pilate, that He had claimed to be Christ a King. This conclusion best explains the mockery which they sought to heap upon Him; for in ancient times, when men became candidates for office, they put on white gowns to notify the people of their candidacy. Again, Tacitus assures us that white garments were the peculiar dress of illustrious persons; and that the tribunes and consuls wore them when marching before the eagles of the legions into battle.[93]
The meaning of the mockery of Herod was simply this: Behold O Pilate, the illustrious candidate for thekingship of the Jews! Behold the imperial gown of the royal peasant pretender!
The appearance before Herod resulted only in the humiliation of Jesus and the reconciliation of Pilate and Herod.
"And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves."[94]
TTHE sending of Jesus to Herodhad not ended the case; and Pilate was undoubtedly very bitterly disappointed. He had hoped that the Galilean Tetrarch would assume complete jurisdiction and dispose finally of the matter. On the contrary, Herod simply mocked and brutalized the prisoner and had him sent back to Pilate. The Roman construed the action of the Idumæan to mean an acquittal, and he so stated to the Jews.
"And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him."[95]
The proposal to scourge the prisoner was the second of those criminal and cowardly subterfuges throughwhich Pilate sought at once to satisfy his conscience and the demands of the mob. The chastisement was to be a sop to the rage of the rabble, a sort of salve to the wounded pride of the priests who were disappointed that no sentence of death had been imposed. The release was intended as a tribute to justice, as a soothing balm and an atoning sacrifice to his own outraged sense of justice. The injustice of this monstrous proposal was not merely contemptible, it was execrable. If Jesus was guilty, He should have been punished; if innocent, he should have been set free and protected from the assaults of the Jews.
The offer of scourging first and then the release of the prisoner was indignantly rejected by the rabble. In his desperation, Pilate thought of another loophole of escape.
The Evangelists tell us that it was a custom upon Passover day to release to the people any single prisoner that they desired. St. Luke asserts that the governor was under an obligation to do so.[96]Whether this custom was of Roman or Hebrew origin is not certainly known. Many New Testament interpreters have seen in the custom a symbol of the liberty and deliverance realized by Israel in its passage from Egypt at the time of the first great Passover. Others have traced this custom to the Roman practice of releasing a slave at the Lectisternia, or banquets to the gods.[97]Aside from its origin, it is interesting as an illustration of a universal principle in enlightened jurisprudence of lodging somewhere, usually with thechief executive of a race or nation, a power of pardon which serves as an extinction of the penal sanction. This merciful principle is a pathetic acknowledgment of the weakness and imperfection of all human schemes of justice.
Pilate resolved to escape from his confusion and embarrassment by delivering Jesus to the people, who happened to appear in great numbers at the very moment when Christ returned from Herod. The multitude had come to demand the usual Passover deliverance of a prisoner. The arrival of the crowd of disinterested strangers was inopportune for the priests and elders who were clamoring for the life of the prisoner in their midst. They marked with keen discernment the resolution of the governor to release Jesus. They were equal to the emergency, and began to whisper among the crowd that Barabbas should be asked.
"And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas. Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him."[98]
Pilate believed that the newly arrived multitude would be free from the envy of the priests, and that they would be satisfied with Jesus whom they had, a few days before, welcomed into Jerusalem with shouts of joy. When they demanded Barabbas, he still believed that if he offered them the alternative choice of a robber and a prophet, they would choose the latter.
"But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called the Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified."[99]
"Barabbas, or Jesus which is called the Christ?" Such was the alternative offered by a Roman governor to a Jewish mob. Barabbas was a murderer and a robber. Jesus was the sinless Son of God. An erring race wandering in the darkness of sin and perpetually tasting the bitterness of life beneath the sun, preferred a criminal to a prophet. And to the ghastliness of the choice was added a touch of the irony of fate. The names of both the prisoners were in signification the same. Barabbas was also called Jesus. And Jesus Barabbas meant Jesus the Son of the Father. This frightful coincidence was so repugnant to the Gospel writers that they are generally silent upon it. In this connection, Strauss remarks: "According to one reading, the man's complete name wasἱησοῦς βαρραβας, which fact is noted only because Olshausen considers it noteworthy. Barabbas signifies 'son of the father,' and consequently Olshausen exclaims: 'All that was essential to the Redeemer appears ridiculous in the assassin!' and he deems applicable the verse: 'Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus.' We can see nothing in Olshausen's remark but aludus humanæ impotentiæ."[100]
Amidst the tumult provoked by the angry passions of the mob, a messenger arrived from his wife bearing news that filled the soul of Pilate with superstitious dread. Claudia had had a dream of strange and ill-boding character.
"When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him."[101]
This dream of Pilate's wife is nothing strange. Profane history mentions many similar ones. Calpurnia, Cæsar's wife, forewarned him in a dream not to go to the senate house; and the greatest of the Romans fell beneath the daggers of Casca and Brutus, because he failed to heed the admonition of his wife.
In the apocryphal report of Pilate to the emperor Tiberius of the facts of the crucifixion, the words of warning sent by Claudia are given: "Beware said she to me, beware and touch not that man, for he is holy. Last night I saw him in a vision. He was walking on the waters. He was flying on the wings of the winds. He spoke to the tempest and to the fishes of the lake; all were obedient to him. Behold! the torrent in Mount Kedron flows with blood, the statues of Cæsar are filled with the filth of Gemoniæ, the columns of the Interium have given away and the sun is veiled in mourning like a vestal in the tomb. O, Pilate, evil awaits thee if thou wilt not listen to the prayer of thy wife. Dread the curse of the Roman Senate, dread the powers of Cæsar."
This noble and lofty language, this tender and pathetic speech, may appear strange to those who remember the hereditary stigma of the woman. If this dream was sent from heaven, the recollection is forced upon us that the medium of its communication was the illegitimate child of a lewd woman. But then her character was probably not worse than that of Mary Magdalene, who was very dear to the Master and has been canonized not only by the church, but by the reverence of the world.
It is certain, however, that the dream of Claudia had no determining effect upon the conduct of Pilate. Resolution and irresolution alternately controlled him. Fear and superstition were uppermost in both mind and heart. The Jews beheld with anxious and discerning glance the manifestation of the deep anguish of his soul. They feared that the governor was about to pronounce a final judgment of acquittal. Exhibiting fierce faces and frenzied feelings, they moved closer to him and exclaimed: "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God."[102]
Despairing of convicting Jesus on a political charge, they deliberately revived a religious one, and presented to Pilate substantially the same accusation upon which they had tried the prisoner before their own tribunal.
"He made himself the Son of God!" These words filled Pilate's mind with a strange and awful meaning. In the mythology and ancient annals of his race, therewere many legends of the sons of the gods who walked the earth in human form and guise. They were thus indistinguishable from mortal men. It was dangerous to meet them; for to offend them was to provoke the wrath of the gods, their sires. These reflections, born of superstition, now swept through Pilate's mind with terrific force; and the cries of the mob, "He made himself the Son of God," called from out the deep recesses of his memory the half-forgotten, half-remembered stories of his childhood. Could not Jesus, reasoned Pilate, be the son of the Hebrew Jehovah as Hercules was the son of Jupiter? Filled with superstitious dread and trembling with emotion, Pilate called Jesus inside the Temple a second time; and, looking with renewed awe and wonder, asked: "Whence art thou?"[103]But Jesus answered him nothing.
Pilate came forth from the judgment hall a second time determined to release the prisoner; but the Jews, marking his decision, began to cry out: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!"[104]Maddened by the relentless importunity of the mob, Pilate replied scornfully and mockingly:
"Shall I crucify your king?"
The cringing, hypocritical priests shouted back their answer:
"We have no king but Cæsar."[105]
And on the kingly idea of loyalty to Roman sovereignty they framed their last menace and accusation. From the quiver of their wrath they drew the lastarrow of spite and hate, and fired it straight at the heart of Jesus through the hands of Pilate:
"If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar."[106]
This last maneuver of the mob sealed the doom of the Christ. It teaches also most clearly that Pilate was no match for the Jews when their religious prejudices were aroused and they were bent on accomplishing their desires. They knew Pilate and he knew them. They had been together full six years. He had been compelled to yield to them in the matter of the standards and the eagles. The sacred Corban funds had been appropriated only after blood had been shed in the streets of Jerusalem. The gilt shields of Tiberius that he had placed in Herod's palace were taken down at the demands of the Jews and carried to the temple of Augustus at Cæsarea. And now the same fanatical rabble was before him demanding the blood of the Nazarene, and threatening to accuse him to Cæsar if he released the prisoner. The position of Pilate was painfully critical. He afterwards lost his procuratorship at the instance of accusing Jews. The shadow of that distant day now fell like a curse across his pathway. Nothing was so terrifying to a Roman governor as to have the people send a complaining embassy to Rome. It was especially dangerous at this time. The imperial throne was filled by a morbid and suspicious tyrant who needed but a pretext to depose the governor of any province who silently acquiesced in traitorouspretensions to kingship. Pilate trembled at these reflections. His feelings of self-preservation suggested immediate surrender to the Jews. But his innate sense of justice, which was woven in the very fiber of his Roman nature, recoiled at the thought of Roman sanction of judicial murder. He resolved, therefore, to propitiate and temporize. The frenzied rabble continued to cry: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Three times, in reply, Conscience sent to Pilate's trembling lips the searching question: "Why, what evil hath he done?" "Crucify him! Crucify him!" came back from the infuriated mob.
Pilate finally resolved to do their bidding and obey their will. But he seems to have secretly cherished the hope that scourging, which was the usual preliminary to crucifixion, might be made to satisfy the mob. But this hope was soon dispelled; and he found himself compelled to yield completely to their wishes by delivering the prisoner to be crucified. Before this final step, however, which was an insult to the true courage of the soul and an outrage upon all the charities of the heart, he resolved to apply a soothing salve to wounded conscience. He resolved to perform a ceremonial cleansing act. Calling for a basin of water, he washed his hands before the multitude, saying: "I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it."[107]
This was a simple, impressive, theatrical act; but little, mean, contemptible, cowardly. He washed his hands when he should have used them. He should have used them as Brutus or Gracchus or PompeiusMagnus would have done, in pointing his legion to the field of duty and of glory. He should have used them as Bonaparte did when he put down the mob in the streets of Paris. But he was too craven and cowardly; and herein is to be found the true meaning of the character and conduct of Pilate. He believed that Jesus was innocent; and that the accusations against Him were inspired by the envy of His countrymen. He had declared to the Jews in an emphatic verdict of acquittal that he found in Him no fault at all. And yet this very sentence, "I find in him no fault at all," was the beginning of that course of cowardly and criminal vacillation which finally sent Jesus to the cross. "Yet was this utterance," says Innes, "as it turned out, only the first step in that downward course of weakness the world knows so well: a course which, beginning with indecision and complaisance, passed through all the phases of alternate bluster and subserviency; persuasion, evasion, protest, and compromise; superstitious dread, conscientious reluctance, cautious duplicity, and sheer moral cowardice at last; until this Roman remains photographed forever as the perfect feature of the unjust judge, deciding 'against his better knowledge, not deceived.'"
"Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reedin his right hand: And they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him."[108]
Thus ended the most memorable act of injustice recorded in history. At every stage of the trial, whether before Caiaphas or Pilate, the prisoner conducted Himself with that commanding dignity and majesty so well worthy of His origin, mission, and destiny. His sublime deportment at times caused His judges to marvel greatly. And through it all, He stood alone. His friends and followers had deserted Him in His hour of greatest need. Single-handed and unaided, the Galilean peasant had bared His breast and brow to the combined authority, to the insults and outrages, of both Jerusalem and Rome. "Not a single discordant voice was raised amidst the tumultuous clamour: not a word of protest disturbed the mighty concord of anger and reviling; not the faintest echo of the late hosannas, which had wrung with wonder, fervour, and devotion, and which had surrounded and exalted to the highest pitch of triumph the bearer of good tidings on his entry into the Holy City. Where were the throngs of the hopeful and believing, who had followed His beckoning as a finger pointing toward the breaking dawn of truth and regeneration? Where were they, what thinking and why silent? The bands at the humble and poor, of the afflicted and outcast who had entrustedto His controlling grace the salvation of soul and body—where were they, what thinking and why silent? The troops of women and youths, who had drawn fresh strength from the spell of a glance or a word from the Father of all that liveth—where were they, what thinking and why silent? And the multitudes of disciples and enthusiasts who had scattered sweet-scented boughs and joyous utterances along the road to Sion, blessing Him that came in the name of the Lord—where were they, what thinking and why silent? Not a remembrance, not a sign, not a word of the great glory so lately His. Jesus was alone."