Fifth Gospel(129)

After that he had not returned to bed but had paced the halls, waiting on further reports, thinking on his wife’s dream and on her sudden confession of faith. It was clear to him why she had so often urged him to be lenient with the man, why she advised him to allow Jesus to come and go freely and to speak as he saw fit in the city.

These last days his men had reported to him that Jesus seemed peaceable, a man who spoke of a heavenly kingdom not an earthly one. But Pilate had sensed ferment in the people –why he had not listened to his reason, he did not know.

Before the sun rose pale and cheerless over Jerusalem he had washed, anointed himself and waited for word. The message had come as the sounds of horn blasts announced the break of day. The message was from Caiaphas. The priests would bring Jesus of Nazareth to him for sentencing when the city had quieted down. Pilate knew the Jews would not be coming to him for a light sentence, since they were given the sanction to punish any crime against their religious laws as they saw fit. They were coming to him for a civil judgement and had no doubt already found him guilty.

He stood now upon his court thinking on Claudia’s warning to him of the terrible reprisals he would suffer should he condemn a living God, and at the same time feeling keenly how tight was Rome’s leash around his neck. The Governor of Syria would not look kindly upon him if he defended a Jew at the expense of the peace of an entire province.

Now as the members of the Sanhedrin and scribes came flowing like a malignant smell into the forum, he looked to the moment and prepared to exercise his mind’s best guidance.

The forum was a large area that stood opposite the praetorium. It was used as both a market place on ordinary days and also a public place of punishment. It was usually crowded with people and merchants but since this day was a holiday it stood empty. An archway connected the forum to the square outside the praetorium and it was here that the party of priests stood paused at the threshold of his square, and he knew why. This day marked the commencement of their Feast of Unleavened Bread and the priests could not risk contact with a gentile.

He squinted away the sun whose light edged a green-grey cloud to see Jesus being led in chains to the foot of the steps leading to the pavement. The Jew had been beaten to a pulp and walked with a limp.

Pilate made a sigh of distaste. ‘Why do you bring this man here?’ he said to Caiaphas in Latin, forcing the man to speak the tongue he despised.

‘For sentencing,’ Caiaphas told him.

‘At this early hour?’

‘It is urgent, procurator.’

‘What has he done? Look at him! Will you tear the man to pieces and execute him before he is judged by me?’

Caiaphas spoke with a ring of apology in his voice, ‘We would not have disturbed the Roman Governor if this man were not already judged a malefactor. Take him to you and listen to our accusations.’

‘Bring him to me then…hurry up!’ Pilate told the Jew guards with a n impatient hand.

The temple guards moved at once to deliver Jesus to his men and they contrived to bring him up the steps but it was a slow work since the man’s chains prevented him from moving freely and he near fell from the obvious exhaustion, and perhaps from the pain of those wounds. Once on the Pavement he was left to stand midway between Pilate and his centurion.

Pilate moved an eye over him.

The nearness of the man he had seen only from a distance made Pilate feel overtaken with conflict. Though he was made small and ravaged from his beatings something in the man spoke to him of eloquence and some hidden, inner power affixed to that frail and sorry form.

‘What is the accusation?’ Pilate said to the priests.

‘He is a blasphemer!’ Caiaphas told him.

‘Why do you bother me, then? If he has transgressed your religious laws it is not for me to judge him but for you to sentence him according to the dictate of your laws! I will have nothing to do with it!’ he said, and made a turn to go.

Caiaphas forestalled him.

‘You know well, Governor, that we cannot condemn a man to death!’

Pilate turned around again. His head ached.

‘What has he done that you judge him so harshly?’

‘He has violated the Sabbath by curing the sick.’ Caiaphas gave back.

Pilate made his voice laconic, ‘It seems to me that compassion should make no distinction between one day and another. Surely if you were sick you would not care if you were healed on a Sabbath! This is not a good cause, you waste my time!’

‘It is our law!’ Caiaphas shrieked.

‘Then you should look to change it,’ Pilate answered.

The old priest, Ananias, shuffled forward. ‘Governor, he is a magician, he turns water into wine and bread into flesh and tells that if one eats of his flesh and drinks of his blood they will have eternal life!’