Early in the morning
on the fourteenth of the spring month of Nisan the
Procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, in a white cloak lined with blood-red,
emerged with his shuffling cavalryman's walk into the arcade connecting the
two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.
More than anything else in the world the Procurator hated the smell of
attar of roses. The omens for the day were bad, as this scent had been
haunting him since dawn.
It seemed to the Procurator that the very cypresses and palms in the
garden were exuding the smell of roses, that this damned stench of roses was
even mingling with the smell of leather tackle and sweat from his mounted
bodyguard.
A haze of smoke was drifting towards the arcade across the upper
courtyard of the garden, coming from the wing at the rear of the palace, the
quarters of the first cohort of the XII Legion ; known as the ' Lightning',
it had been stationed in Jerusalem since the Procurator's arrival. The same
oily perfume of roses was mixed with the acrid smoke that showed that the
centuries' cooks had started to prepare breakfast.
'Oh gods, what are you punishing me for? . . . No, there's no doubt, I
have it again, this terrible incurable pain . . . hemicrania, when half the
head aches . . . there's no cure for it, nothing helps. ... I must try not
to move my head. . . . '
A chair had already been placed on the mosaic floor by the fountain;
without a glance round, the Procurator sat in it and stretched out his hand
to one side. His secretary deferentially laid a piece of parchment in his
hand. Unable to restrain a grimace of agony the Procurator gave a fleeting
sideways look at its contents, returned the parchment to his secretary and
said painfully:
'The accused comes from Galilee, does he? Was the case sent to the
tetrarch? '
'Yes, Procurator,' replied the secretary. ' He declined to confirm the
finding of the court and passed the Sanhedrin's sentence of death to you for
confirmation.'
The Procurator's cheek twitched and he said quietly :
'Bring in the accused.'
Procurator of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, in a white cloak lined with blood-red,
emerged with his shuffling cavalryman's walk into the arcade connecting the
two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.
More than anything else in the world the Procurator hated the smell of
attar of roses. The omens for the day were bad, as this scent had been
haunting him since dawn.
It seemed to the Procurator that the very cypresses and palms in the
garden were exuding the smell of roses, that this damned stench of roses was
even mingling with the smell of leather tackle and sweat from his mounted
bodyguard.
A haze of smoke was drifting towards the arcade across the upper
courtyard of the garden, coming from the wing at the rear of the palace, the
quarters of the first cohort of the XII Legion ; known as the ' Lightning',
it had been stationed in Jerusalem since the Procurator's arrival. The same
oily perfume of roses was mixed with the acrid smoke that showed that the
centuries' cooks had started to prepare breakfast.
'Oh gods, what are you punishing me for? . . . No, there's no doubt, I
have it again, this terrible incurable pain . . . hemicrania, when half the
head aches . . . there's no cure for it, nothing helps. ... I must try not
to move my head. . . . '
A chair had already been placed on the mosaic floor by the fountain;
without a glance round, the Procurator sat in it and stretched out his hand
to one side. His secretary deferentially laid a piece of parchment in his
hand. Unable to restrain a grimace of agony the Procurator gave a fleeting
sideways look at its contents, returned the parchment to his secretary and
said painfully:
'The accused comes from Galilee, does he? Was the case sent to the
tetrarch? '
'Yes, Procurator,' replied the secretary. ' He declined to confirm the
finding of the court and passed the Sanhedrin's sentence of death to you for
confirmation.'
The Procurator's cheek twitched and he said quietly :
'Bring in the accused.'
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courtyard, under the arcade and up to the balcony, where they placed him
before the Procurator's chair. The man was dressed in a shabby, torn blue
chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage fastened round his
forehead, his hands tied behind his back. There was a large bruise under the
man's left eye and a scab of dried blood in one corner of his mouth. The
prisoner stared at the Procurator with anxious curiosity.
The Procurator was silent at first, then asked quietly in Aramaic:
'So you have been inciting the people to destroy the temple of
Jerusalem? '
The Procurator sat as though carved in stone, his lips barely moving as
he pronounced the words. The Procurator was like stone from fear of shaking
his fiendishly aching head.
The man with bound hands made a slight move forwards and began
speaking:
'Good man! Believe me . . . '
But the Procurator, immobile as before and without raising his voice,
at once interrupted him :
'You call me good man? You are making a mistake. The rumour about me
in Jerusalem is that I am a raving monster and that is absolutely correct,'
and he added in the same monotone :
'Send centurion Muribellum to me.'
The balcony seemed to darken when the centurion of the first century.
Mark surnamed Muribellum, appeared before the Procurator. Muribellum was a
head taller than the tallest soldier in the legion and so broad in the
shoulders that he completely obscured the rising sun.
The Procurator said to the centurion in Latin:
'This criminal calls me " good man ". Take him away for a minute and
show him the proper way to address me. But do not mutilate him.'
All except the motionless Procurator watched Mark Muribellum as he
gestured to the prisoner to follow him. Because of his height people always
watched Muribellum wherever he went. Those who saw him for the first time
were inevitably fascinated by his disfigured face : his nose had once been
smashed by a blow from a German club.
Mark's heavy boots resounded on the mosaic, the bound man followed him
noiselessly. There was complete silence under the arcade except for the
cooing of doves in the garden below and the water singing its seductive tune
in the fountain.
The Procurator had a sudden urge to get up and put his temples under
the stream of water until they were numb. But he knew that even that would
not help.
Having led the prisoner out of the arcade into the garden, Muribellum
took a whip from the hands of a legionary standing by the plinth of a bronze
statue and with a gentle swing struck the prisoner across the shoulders. The
centurion's movement was slight, almost negligent, but the bound man
collapsed instantly as though his legs had been struck from under him and he
gasped for air. The colour fled from his face and his eyes clouded.
lightly as an empty sack, set him on his feet and said in broken, nasal
Aramaic:
'You call a Roman Procurator " hegemon " Don't say anything else.
Stand to attention. Do you understand or must I hit you again? '
The prisoner staggered helplessly, his colour returned, he gulped and
answered hoarsely :
'I understand you. Don't beat me.'
A minute later he was again standing in front of the Procurator. The
harsh, suffering voice rang out:
'Name?'
'Mine? ' enquired the prisoner hurriedly, his whole being expressing
readiness to answer sensibly and to forestall any further anger.
The Procurator said quietly :
'I know my own name. Don't pretend to be stupider than you are. Your
name.'
'Yeshua,' replied the prisoner hastily.
'Surname?'
'Ha-Notsri.'
'Where are you from? '
'From the town of Gamala,' replied the prisoner, nodding his head to
show that far over there to his right, in the north, was the town of Gamala.
'Who are you by birth? '
'I don't know exactly,' promptly answered the prisoner, ' I don't
remember my parents. I was told that my father was a Syrian. . . .'
'Where is your fixed abode? '
'I have no home,' said the prisoner shamefacedly, ' I move from town
to town.'
'There is a shorter way of saying that--in a word you are a vagrant,'
said the Procurator and asked: ' Have you any relations?'
'No, none. Not one in the world.'
'Can you read and write? ' ' Yes.'
'Do you know any language besides Aramaic?
'' Yes. Greek.'
One swollen eyelid was raised and a pain-clouded eye stared at the
prisoner. The other eye remained closed. Pilate said in Greek :
'So you intended to destroy the temple building and incited the people
to do so?'
'Never, goo . . . ' Terror flashed across the prisoner's face for
having so nearly said the wrong word. ' Never in my life, hegemon, have I
intended to destroy the temple. Nor have I ever tried to persuade anyone to
do such a senseless thing.'
A look of amazement came over the secretary's face as he bent over a
low table recording the evidence. He raised his head but immediately lowered
it again over his parchment.
'People of all kinds are streaming into the city for the feast-day.
Among them there are magicians, astrologers, seers and murderers,' said the
Procurator in a monotone. ' There are also liars. You, for instance, are a
liar. It is clearly written down : he incited people to destroy the temple.
Witnesses have said so.'
'These good people,' the prisoner began, and hastily adding '
hegemon', he went on, ' are unlearned and have confused everything I said. I
am beginning to fear that this confusion will last for a very long time. And
all because he untruthfully wrote down what I said.'
There was silence. Now both pain-filled eyes stared heavily at the
prisoner.
'I repeat, but for the last time--stop pretending to be mad,
scoundrel,' said Pilate softly and evenly. ' What has been written down
about you is little enough, but it is sufficient to hang you.'
'No, no, hegemon,' said the prisoner, straining with the desire to
convince. ' This man follows me everywhere with nothing but his goatskin
parchment and writes incessantly. But I once caught a glimpse of that
parchment and I was horrified. I had not said a word of what was written
there. I begged him-- please burn this parchment of yours! But he tore it
out of my hands and ran away.'
his temple.
'Matthew the Levite,' said the prisoner eagerly. ' He was a
tax-collector. I first met him on the road to Bethlehem at the corner where
the road skirts a fig orchard and I started talking to him. At first he was
rude and even insulted me, or rather he thought he was insulting me by
calling me a dog.' The prisoner laughed. ' Personally I see nothing wrong
with that animal so I was not offended by the word. . . .'
The secretary stopped taking notes and glanced surreptitiously, not at
the prisoner, but at the Procurator.
'However, when he had heard me out he grew milder,' went on Yeshua,'
and in the end he threw his money into the road and said that he would go
travelling with me. . . .'
Pilate laughed with one cheek. Baring his yellow teeth and turning
fully round to his secretary he said :
'Oh, city of Jerusalem! What tales you have to tell! A tax-collector,
did you hear, throwing away his money!'
Not knowing what reply was expected of him, the secretary chose to
return Pilate's smile.
'And he said that henceforth he loathed his money,' said Yeshua in
explanation of Matthew the Levite's strange action, adding : ' And since
then he has been my companion.'
His teeth still bared in a grin, the Procurator glanced at the
prisoner, then at the sun rising inexorably over the equestrian statues of
the hippodrome far below to his left, and suddenly in a moment of agonising
nausea it occurred to him that the simplest thing would be to dismiss this
curious rascal from his balcony with no more than two words : ' Hang him. '
Dismiss the body-guard too, leave the arcade and go indoors, order the room
to be darkened, fall on to his couch, send for cold water, call for his dog
Banga in a pitiful voice and complain to the dog about his hemicrania.
Suddenly the tempting thought of poison flashed through the Procurator's
mind.
He stared dully at the prisoner for a while, trying painfully to recall
why this man with the bruised face was standing in front of him in the
pitiless Jerusalem morning sunshine and what further useless questions he
should put to him.
'Matthew the Levite? ' asked the suffering man in a hoarse voice,
closing his eyes.
'Yes, Matthew the Levite,' came the grating, high-pitched reply.
forecourt? '
The voice that answered seemed to strike Pilate on the forehead,
causing him inexpressible torture and it said:
'I spoke, hegemon, of how the temple of the old beliefs would fall
down and the new temple of truth would be built up. I used those words to
make my meaning easier to understand.'
'Why should a tramp like you upset the crowd in the bazaar by talking
about truth, something of which you have no conception? What is truth? '
At this the Procurator thought: ' Ye gods! This is a court of law and I
am asking him an irrelevant question . . . my mind no longer obeys me. . . .
' Once more he had a vision of a goblet of dark liquid. ' Poison, I need
poison.. .. ' And again he heard the voice :
'At this moment the truth is chiefly that your head is aching and
aching so hard that you are having cowardly thoughts about death. Not only
are you in no condition to talk to me, but it even hurts you to look at me.
This makes me seem to be your torturer, which distresses me. You cannot even
think and you can only long for your dog, who is clearly the only creature
for whom you have any affection. But the pain will stop soon and your
headache will go.'
The secretary stared at the prisoner, his note-taking abandoned. Pilate
raised his martyred eyes to the prisoner and saw how high the sun now stood
above the hippodrome, how a ray had penetrated the arcade, had crept towards
Yeshua's patched sandals and how the man moved aside from the sunlight. The
Procurator stood up and clasped his head in his hands. Horror came over his
yellowish, clean-shaven face. With an effort of will he controlled his
expression and sank back into his chair.
Meanwhile the prisoner continued talking, but the secretary had stopped
writing, craning his neck like a goose in the effort not to miss a single
word.
'There, it has gone,' said the prisoner, with a kindly glance at
Pilate. ' I am so glad. I would advise you, hegemon, to leave the palace for
a while and take a walk somewhere nearby, perhaps in the gardens or on Mount
Eleona. There will be thunder . . .' The prisoner turned and squinted into
the sun . . . ' later, towards evening. A walk would do you a great deal of
good and I should be happy to go with you. Some new thoughts have just come
into my head which you might, I think, find interesting and I should like to
discuss them with you, the more so as you strike me as a man of great
intelligence.' The secretary turned mortally pale and dropped his scroll to
the ground. ' Your trouble is,' went on the unstoppable prisoner, ' that
your mind is too closed and you have finally lost your faith in human
beings. You must admit that no one ought to lavish all their devotion on a
dog. Your life is a cramped one, hegemon.' Here the speaker allowed himself
to smile.
believe his ears. He had to believe them. He then tried to guess in what
strange form the Procurator's fiery temper might break out at the prisoner's
unheard-of insolence. Although he knew the Procurator well the secretary's
imagination failed him.
Then the hoarse, broken voice of the Procurator barked out in Latin:
'Untie his hands.'
One of the legionary escorts tapped the ground with his lance, gave it
to his neighbour, approached and removed the prisoner's bonds. The secretary
picked up his scroll, decided to take no more notes for a while and to be
astonished at nothing he might hear.
'Tell me,' said Pilate softly in Latin, ' are you a great physician?'
'No, Procurator, I am no physician,' replied the prisoner, gratefully
rubbing his twisted, swollen, purpling wrist.
Staring from beneath his eyelids, Pilate's eyes bored into the prisoner
and those eyes were no longer dull. They now flashed with their familiar
sparkle. ' I did not ask you,' said Pilate. ' Do you know Latin too? '
'Yes, I do,' replied the prisoner.
The colour flowed back into Pilate's yellowed cheeks and he asked in
Latin:
'How did you know that I wanted to call my dog? '
'Quite simple,' the prisoner answered in Latin. ' You moved your hand
through the air . . . ' the prisoner repeated Pilate's gesture . . . ' as
though to stroke something and your lips . . .'
'Yes,' said Pilate.
There was silence. Then Pilate put a question in Greek :
'So you are a physician? '
'No, no,' was the prisoner's eager reply. ' Believe me I am not.'
'Very well, if you wish to keep it a secret, do so. It has no direct
bearing on the case. So you maintain that you never incited people to tear
down ... or burn, or by any means destroy the temple?'
'I repeat, hegemon, that I have never tried to persuade anyone to
attempt any such thing. Do I look weak in the head? '
'Oh no, you do not,' replied the Procurator quietly, and smiled an
ominous smile. ' Very well, swear that it is not so.'
'What would you have me swear by? ' enquired the unbound prisoner with
great urgency.
'Well, by your life,' replied the Procurator. ' It is high time to
swear by it because you should know that it is hanging by a thread.'
'You do not believe, do you, hegemon, that it is you who have strung
it up?' asked the prisoner. ' If you do you are mistaken.'
Pilate shuddered and answered through clenched teeth :
'I can cut that thread.'
'You are mistaken there too,' objected the prisoner, beaming and
shading himself from the sun with his hand. ' You must agree, I think, that
the thread can only be cut by the one who has suspended it? '
gapers of Jerusalem have been pursuing you. I do not know who strung up your
tongue, but he strung it well. By the way. tell me, is it true that you
entered Jerusalem by the Susim Gate mounted on a donkey, accompanied by a
rabble who greeted you as though you were a prophet? ' Here the Procurator
pointed to a scroll of parchment.
The prisoner stared dubiously at the Procurator.
'I have no donkey, hegemon,' he said. ' I certainly came into
Jerusalem through the Susim Gate, but I came on foot alone except for
Matthew the Levite and nobody shouted a word to me as no one in Jerusalem
knew me then.'
'Do you happen to know,' went on Pilate without taking his eyes off
the prisoner, ' anyone called Dismas? Or Hestas? Or a third--Bar-Abba? '
'I do not know these good men,' replied the prisoner.
'Is that the truth? '
'It is.'
'And now tell me why you always use that expression " good men "? Is
that what you call everybody? '
'Yes, everybody,' answered the prisoner. ' There are no evil people on
earth.'
ignorant of life. You need take no further notes,' he said to the secretary,
although the man had taken none for some time. Pilate turned back to the
prisoner :
'Did you read about that in some Greek book? '
'No, I reached that conclusion in my own mind.'
'And is that what you preach? '
‘ Yes.'
'Centurion Mark Muribellum, for instance--is he good? '
'Yes,' replied the prisoner. ' He is, it is true, an unhappy man.
Since the good people disfigured him he has become harsh and callous. It
would be interesting to know who mutilated him.'
'That I will gladly tell you,' rejoined Pilate, ' because I was a
witness to it. These good men threw themselves at him like dogs at a bear.
The Germans clung to his neck, his arms, his legs. An infantry maniple had
been ambushed and had it not been for a troop of cavalry breaking through
from the flank--a troop commanded by me--you, philosopher, would not have
been talking to Muribellum just now. It happened at the battle of Idistavizo
in the Valley of the Virgins.'
'If I were to talk to him,' the prisoner suddenly said in a reflective
voice, ' I am sure that he would change greatly.'
best pleased if you took it into your head to talk to one of his officers or
soldiers. Fortunately for us all any such thing is forbidden and the first
person to ensure that it cannot occur would be myself.'
At that moment a swallow darted into the arcade, circled under the
gilded ceiling, flew lower, almost brushed its pointed wingtip over the face
of a bronze statue in a niche and disappeared behind the capital of a
column, perhaps with the thought of nesting there.
As it flew an idea formed itself in the Procurator's mind, which was
now bright and clear. It was thus : the hegemon had examined the case of the
vagrant philosopher Yeshua, surnamed Ha-Notsri, and could not substantiate
the criminal charge made against him. In particular he could not find the
slightest connection between Yeshua's actions and the recent disorders in
Jerusalem. The vagrant philosopher was mentally ill, as a result of which
the sentence of death pronounced on Ha-Notsri by the Lesser Sanhedrin would
not be confirmed. But in view of the danger of unrest liable to be caused by
Yeshua's mad, Utopian preaching, the Procurator would remove the man from
Jerusalem and sentence him to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the
Mediterranean--the place of the Procurator's own residence. It only remained
to dictate this to the secretary.
The swallow's wings fluttered over the hegemon's head, the bird flew
towards the fountain and out into freedom.
dust had swirled up beside him.
'Is that all there is on this man? ' Pilate asked the secretary.
'No, unfortunately,' replied the secretary unexpectedly, and handed
Pilate another parchment.
'What else is there? ' enquired Pilate and frowned.
Having read the further evidence a change came over his expression.
Whether it was blood flowing back into his neck and face or from something
else that occurred, his skin changed from yellow to red-brown and his eyes
appeared to collapse. Probably caused by the increased blood-pressure in his
temples, something happened to the Procurator's sight. He seemed to see the
prisoner's head vanish and another appear in its place, bald and crowned
with a spiked golden diadem. The skin of the forehead was split by a round,
livid scar smeared with ointment. A sunken, toothless mouth with a
capricious, pendulous lower lip. Pilate had the sensation that the pink
columns of his balcony and the roofscape of Jerusalem below and beyond the
garden had all vanished, drowned in the thick foliage of cypress groves. His
hearing, too, was strangely affected--there was a sound as of distant
trumpets, muted and threatening, and a nasal voice could clearly be heard
arrogantly intoning the words: ' The law pertaining to high treason . . .'
Strange, rapid, disconnected thoughts passed through his mind. ' Dead!
' Then : ' They have killed him! . . .' And an absurd notion about
immortality, the thought of which aroused a sense of unbearable grief.
the balcony and again the prisoner's eyes met his.
'Listen, Ha-Notsri,' began the Procurator, giving Yeshua a strange
look. His expression was grim but his eyes betrayed anxiety. ' Have you ever
said anything about great Caesar? Answer! Did you say anything of the sort?
Or did you . . . not? ' Pilate gave the word 'not' more emphasis than was
proper in a court of law and his look seemed to be trying to project a
particular thought into the prisoner's mind. ' Telling the truth is easy and
pleasant,' remarked the prisoner.
'I do not want to know,' replied Pilate in a voice of suppressed
anger, ' whether you enjoy telling the truth or not. You are obliged to tell
me the truth. But when you speak weigh every word, if you wish to avoid a
painful death.'
No one knows what passed through the mind of the Procurator of Judaea,
but he permitted himself to raise his hand as though shading himself from a
ray of sunlight and, shielded by that hand, to throw the prisoner a glance
that conveyed a hint.
'So,' he said, ' answer this question : do you know a certain Judas of
Karioth and if you have ever spoken to him what did you say to him about
Caesar? '
'It happened thus,' began the prisoner readily. ' The day before
yesterday, in the evening, I met a young man near the temple who called
himself Judas, from the town of Karioth. He invited me to his home in the
Lower City and gave me supper...'
'Is he a good man? ' asked Pilate, a diabolical glitter in his eyes.
'A very good man and eager to learn,' affirmed the prisoner. ' He
expressed the greatest interest in my ideas and welcomed me joyfully .. . '
'Lit the candles. . . .' said Pilate through clenched teeth to the
prisoner, his eyes glittering.
'Yes,' said Yeshua, slightly astonished that the Procurator should be
so well informed, and went on : ' He asked me for my views on the
government. The question interested him very much.'
'And so what did you say? ' asked Pilate. ' Or are you going to reply
that you have forgotten what you said? ' But there was already a note of
hopelessness in Pilate's voice.
'Among other things I said,' continued the prisoner, ' that all power
is a form of violence exercised over people and that the time will come when
there will be no rule by Caesar nor any other form of rule. Man will pass
into the kingdom of truth and justice where no sort of power will be
needed.'
'There is no more to tell,' said the prisoner. ' After that some men
came running in, tied me up and took me to prison.'
The secretary, straining not to miss a word, rapidly scribbled the
statement on his parchment.
'There never has been, nor yet shall be a greater and more perfect
government in this world than the rule of the emperor Tiberius!' Pilate's
voice rang out harshly and painfully. The Procurator stared at his secretary
and at the bodyguard with what seemed like hatred. ' And what business have
you, a criminal lunatic, to discuss such matters! ' Pilate shouted. ' Remove
the guards from the balcony! ' And turning to his secretary he added: '
Leave me alone with this criminal. This is a case of treason.'
The bodyguard raised their lances and with the measured tread of their
iron-shod caligae marched from the balcony towards the garden followed by
the secretary.
For a while the silence on the balcony was only disturbed bv the
splashing of the fountain. Pilate watched the water splay out at the apex of
the jet and drip downwards.
The prisoner was the first to speak :
'I see that there has been some trouble as a result of my conversation
with that young man from Karioth. I have a presentiment, hegemon, that some
misfortune will befall him and I feel very sorry for him.'
is someone else in this world for whom you should feel sorrier than for
Judas of Karioth and who is destined for a fate much worse than Judas'! ...
So Mark Muribellum, a coldblooded killer, the people who I see '--the
Procurator pointed to Yeshua's disfigured face--' beat you for what you
preached, the robbers Dismas and Hestas who with their confederates killed
four soldiers, and finally this dirty informer Judas--are they all good men?'
'Yes,' answered the prisoner.
'And will the kingdom of truth come? ' ' It will, hegemon,' replied
Yeshua with conviction.
'It will never come! ' Pilate suddenly shouted in a voice so terrible
that Yeshua staggered back. Many years ago in the Valley of the Virgins
Pilate had shouted in that same voice to his horsemen : ' Cut them down! Cut
them down! They have caught the giant Muribellum!' And again he raised his
parade-ground voice, barking out the words so that they would be heard in
the garden : ' Criminal! Criminal! Criminal! ' Then lowering his voice he
asked : ' Yeshua Ha-Notsri, do you believe in any gods?'
'Then pray to him! Pray hard! However,' at this Pilate's voice fell
again, ' it will do no good. Have you a wife? ' asked Pilate with a sudden
inexplicable access of depression.
'No, I am alone.'
'I hate this city,' the Procurator suddenly mumbled, hunching his
shoulders as though from cold and wiping his hands as though washing them. '
If they had murdered you before your meeting with Judas of Karioth I really
believe it would have been better.'
'You should let me go, hegemon,' was the prisoner's unexpected
request, his voice full of anxiety. ' I see now that they want to kill me.'
A spasm distorted Pilate's face as he turned his blood-shot eyes on
Yeshua and said :
'Do you imagine, you miserable creature, that a Roman Procurator could
release a man who has said what you have said to me? Oh gods, oh gods! Or do
you think I'm prepared to take your place? I don't believe in your ideas!
And listen to me : if from this moment onward you say so much as a word or
try to talk to anybody, beware! I repeat--beware!'
'Hegemon . ..'
'Be quiet! ' shouted Pilate, his infuriated stare following the
swallow which had flown on to the balcony again. ' Here!' shouted Pilate.
The secretary and the guards returned to their places and Pilate
announced that he confirmed the sentence of death pronounced by the Lesser
Sanhedrin on the accused Yeshua Ha-Notsri and the secretary recorded
Pilate's words.
He was ordered by the Procurator to hand the felon over to the captain of
the secret service and in doing so to transmit the Procurator's directive
that Yeshua Ha-Notsri was to be segregated from the other convicts, also
that the captain of the secret service was forbidden on pain of severe
punishment to talk to Yeshua or to answer any questions he might ask.
At a signal from Mark the guard closed ranks around Yeshua and escorted
him from the balcony.
Later the Procurator received a call from a handsome man with a blond
beard, eagles' feathers in the crest of his helmet, glittering lions'
muzzles on his breastplate, a gold-studded sword belt, triple-soled boots
laced to the knee and a purple cloak thrown over his left shoulder. He was
the commanding officer, the Legate of the Legion.
The Procurator asked him where the Sebastian cohort was stationed. The
Legate reported that the Sebastian was on cordon duty in the square in front
of the hippodrome, where the sentences on the prisoners would be announced
to the crowd.
Then the Procurator instructed the Legate to detach two centuries from
the Roman cohort. One of them, under the command of Muribellum, was to
escort the convicts, the carts transporting the executioners' equipment and
the executioners themselves to Mount Golgotha and on arrival to cordon off
the summit area. The other was to proceed at once to Mount Golgotha and to
form a cordon immediately on arrival. To assist in the task of guarding the
hill, the Procurator asked the Legate to despatch an auxiliary cavalry
regiment, the Syrian ala.
When the Legate had left the balcony, the Procurator ordered his
secretary to summon to the palace the president of the Sanhedrin, two of its
members and the captain of the Jerusalem temple guard, but added that he
wished arrangements to be made which would allow him, before conferring with
all these people, to have a private meeting with the president of the
Sanhedrin.
sun, which had lately seemed to scorch Jerusalem with such particular
vehemence, had not yet reached its zenith when the meeting took place
between the Procurator and the president of the Sanhedrin, the High Priest
of Judaea, Joseph Caiaphas. They met on the upper terrace of the garden
between two white marble lions guarding the staircase.
It was quiet in the garden. But as he emerged from the arcade on to the
sun-drenched upper terrace of the garden with its palms on their monstrous
elephantine legs, the terrace from which the whole of Pilate's detested city
of Jerusalem lay spread out before the Procurator with its suspension
bridges, its fortresses and over it all that indescribable lump of marble
with a golden dragon's scale instead of a roof--the temple of Jerusalem--the
Procurator's sharp hearing detected far below, down there where a stone wall
divided the lower terraces of the palace garden from the city square, a low
rumbling broken now and again by faint sounds, half groans, half cries.
The Procurator realised that already there was assembling in the square
a numberless crowd of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, excited by the recent
disorders; that this crowd was waiting impatiently for the pronouncement of
sentence and that the water-sellers were busily shouting their wares.
The Procurator began by inviting the High Priest on to the balcony to
find some shade from the pitiless heat, but Caiaphas politely excused
himself, explaining that he could not do that on the eve of a feast-day.
Pilate pulled his cowl over his slightly balding head and began the
conversation, which was conducted in Greek.
Pilate remarked that he had examined the case of Yeshua Ha-Notsri and
had confirmed the sentence of death. Consequently those due for execution
that day were the three robbers--Hestas, Dismas and Bar-Abba--and now this
other man, Yeshua Ha- Notsri. The first two, who had tried to incite the
people to rebel against Caesar, had been forcibly apprehended by the Roman
authorities; they were therefore the Procurator's responsibility and there
was no reason to discuss their case. The last two, however, Bar-Abba and
Ha-Notsri, had been arrested by the local authorities and tried before the
Sanhedrin. In accordance with law and custom, one of these two criminals
should be released in honour of the imminent great feast of Passover. The
Procurator therefore wished to know which of these two felons the Sanhedrin
proposed to discharge--Bar-Abba or Ha-Notsri?
and replied:
'The Sanhedrin requests the release of Bar-Abba.' The Procurator well
knew that this would be the High Priest's reply; his problem was to show
that the request aroused his astonishment.
This Pilate did with great skill. The eyebrows rose on his proud
forehead and the Procurator looked the High Priest straight in the eye with
amazement.
'I confess that your reply surprises me,' began the Procurator softly.
' I fear there may have been some misunderstanding here.'
Pilate stressed that the Roman government wished to make no inroads
into the prerogatives of the local priestly authority, the High Priest was
well aware of that, but in this particular case an obvious error seemed to
have occurred. And the Roman government naturally had an interest in
correcting such an error. The crimes of Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri were after
all not comparable in gravity. If the latter, a man who was clearly insane,
were guilty of making some absurd speeches in Jerusalem and various other
localities, the former stood convicted of offences that were infinitely more
serious. Not only had he permitted himself to make direct appeals to
rebellion, but he had killed a sentry while resisting arrest. Bar-Abba was
immeasurably more dangerous than Ha-Notsri. In view of all these facts, the
Procurator requested the High Priest to reconsider his decision and to
discharge the least dangerous of the two convicts and that one was
undoubtedly Ha-Notsri . . . Therefore?
Caiaphas said in a quiet but firm voice that the Sanhedrin had taken
due cognisance of the case and repeated its intention to release Bar-Abba.
'What? Even after my intervention? The intervention of the
representative of the Roman government? High Priest, say it for the third
time.'
'And for the third time I say that we shall release Bar-Abba,' said
Caiaphas softly.
It was over and there was no more to be discussed. Ha-Notsri had gone
for ever and there was no one to heal the Procurator's terrible, savage
pains ; there was no cure for them now except death. But this thought did
not strike Pilate immediately. At first his whole being was seized with the
same incomprehensible sense of grief which had come to him on the balcony.
He at once sought for its explanation and its cause was a strange one : the
Procurator was obscurely aware that he still had something to say to the
prisoner and that perhaps, too, he had more to learn from him.
passed, yet that grievous ache remained a mystery, for it could not be
explained by another thought that had flashed in and out of his mind like
lightning--' Immortality ... immortality has come . . .' Whose immortality
had come? The Procurator could not understand it, but that puzzling thought
of immortality sent a chill over him despite the sun's heat.
'Very well,' said Pilate. ' So be it.'
With that he looked round. The visible world vanished from his sight
and an astonishing change occurred. The flower-laden rosebush disappeared,
the cypresses fringing the upper terrace disappeared, as did the pomegranate
tree, the white statue among the foliage and the foliage itself. In their
place came a kind of dense purple mass in which seaweed waved and swayed and
Pilate himself was swaying with it. He was seized, suffocating and burning,
by the most terrible rage of all rage--the rage of impotence.
'I am suffocating,' said Pilate. ' Suffocating! '
With a cold damp hand he tore the buckle from the collar of his cloak
and it fell on to the sand.
'It is stifling today, there is a thunderstorm brewing,' said
Caiaphas, his gaze fixed on the Procurator's reddening face, foreseeing all
the discomfort that the weather was yet to bring. ' The month of Nisan has
been terrible this year! '
'No,' said Pilate. ' That is not why I am suffocating. I feel stifled
by your presence, Caiaphas.' Narrowing his eyes Pilate added : ' Beware,
High Priest! '
The High Priest's dark eyes flashed and--no less cunningly than the
Procurator--his face showed astonishment.
'What do I hear, Procurator? ' Caiaphas answered proudly and calmly. '
Are you threatening me--when sentence has been duly pronounced and confirmed
by yourself? Can this be so? We are accustomed to the Roman Procurator
choosing his words carefully before saying anything. I trust no one can have
overheard us, hegemon?'
smile.
'Come now. High Priest! Who can overhear us here? Do you take me for a
fool, like that crazy young vagrant who is to be executed today? Am I a
child, Caiphas? I know what I'm saying and where I'm saying it. This garden,
this whole palace is so well cordoned that there's not a crack for a mouse
to slip through. Not a mouse--and not even that man--what's his name . .?
That man from Karioth. You do know him, don't you, High Priest? Yes ... if
someone like that were to get in here, he would bitterly regret it. You
believe me when I say that, don't you? I tell you, High Priest, that from
henceforth you shall have no peace! Neither you nor your people '--Pilate
pointed to the right where the pinnacle of the temple flashed in the
distance. ' I, Pontius Pilate, knight of the Golden Lance, tell you so! ' '
I know it! ' fearlessly replied the bearded Caiaphas. His eyes flashed as he
raised his hand to the sky and went on : ' The Jewish people knows that you
hate it with a terrible hatred and that you have brought it much
suffering--but you will never destroy it! God will protect it. And he shall
hear us--mighty Caesar shall hear us and protect us from Pilate the
oppressor! '
'Oh no! ' rejoined Pilate, feeling more and more relieved with every
word that he spoke; there was no longer any need to dissemble, no need to
pick his words : ' You have complained of me to Caesar too often and now my
hour has come, Caiaphas! Now I shall send word--but not to the viceroy in
Antioch, not even to Rome but straight to Capreia, to the emperor himself,
word of how you in Jerusalem are saving convicted rebels from death. And
then it will not be water from Solomon's pool, as I once intended for your
benefit, that I shall give Jerusalem to drink--no, it will not be water!
Remember how thanks to you I was made to remove the shields with the
imperial cipher from the walls, to transfer troops, to come and take charge
here myself! Remember my words. High Priest: you are going to see more than
one cohort here in Jerusalem! Under the city walls you are going to see the
Fulminata legion at full strength and Arab cavalry too. Then the weeping and
lamentation will be bitter! Then you will remember that you saved Bar-Abba
and you will regret that you sent that preacher of peace to his death!
Flecks of colour spread over the High Priest's face, his eyes burned.
Like the Procurator he grinned mirthlessly and replied:
'Do you really believe what you have just said, Procurator? No, you do
not! It was not peace that this rabble-rouser brought to Jerusalem and of
that, hegamon, you are well aware. You wanted to release him so that he
could stir up the people, curse our faith and deliver the people to your
Roman swords! But as long as I, the High Priest of Judaea, am alive I shall
not allow the faith to be defamed and I shall protect the people! Do you
hear, Pilate?' With this Caiaphas raised his arm threateningly;
'Take heed. Procurator! '
the sea, rolling up to the very walls of Herod the Great's garden. The sound
flowed upwards from below until it seemed to swirl round the Procurator's
legs and into his face. Behind his back, from beyond the wings of the
palace, came urgent trumpet calls, the heavy crunch of hundreds of feet, the
clank of metal. It told the Procurator that the Roman infantry was marching
out, on his orders, to the execution parade that was to strike terror into
the hearts of all thieves and rebels
'Do you hear. Procurator? ' the High Priest quietly repeated his
words. ' Surely you are not trying to tell me that all this '-- here the
High Priest raised both arms and his dark cowl slipped from his head--' can
have been evoked by that miserable thief Bar-Abba?'
With the back of his wrist the Procurator wiped his damp, cold
forehead, stared at the ground, then frowning skywards he saw that the
incandescent ball was nearly overhead, that Caiaphas' shadow had shrunk to
almost nothing and he said in a calm, expressionless voice :
'The execution will be at noon. We have enjoyed this conversation, but
matters must proceed.'
Excusing himself to the High Priest in a few artificial phrases, he
invited him to sit down on a bench in the shade of a magnolia and to wait
while he summoned the others necessary for the final short consultation and
to give one more order concerning the execution.
Caiaphas bowed politely, placing his hand on his heart, and remained in
the garden while Pilate returned to the balcony. There he ordered his
waiting secretary to call the Legate of the Legion and the Tribune of the
cohort into the garden, also the two members of the Sanhedrin and the
captain of the temple guard, who were standing grouped round the fountain on
the lower terrace awaiting his call. Pilate added that he would himself
shortly return to join them in the garden, and disappeared inside the
palace.
While the secretary convened the meeting, inside his darken-ed,
shuttered room the Procurator spoke to a man whose face, despite the
complete absence of sunlight from the room, remained half covered by a hood.
The interview was very short. The Procurator whispered a few words to the
man, who immediately departed. Pilate passed through the arcade into the
garden.
Procurator solemnly and curtly repeated that he confirmed the sentence of
death on Yeshua Ha-Notsri and enquired officially of the Sanhedrin members
as to which of the prisoners it had pleased them to release. On being told
that it was Bar-Abba, the Procurator said:
'Very well,' and ordered the secretary to enter it in the minutes. He
clutched the buckle which the secretary had picked up from the sand and
announced solemnly : ' It is time! '
At this all present set off down the broad marble staircase between the
lines of rose bushes, exuding their stupefying aroma, down towards the
palace wall, to a gate leading to the smoothly paved square at whose end
could be seen the columns and statues of the Jerusalem hippodrome.
As soon as the group entered the square and began climbing up to the
broad temporary wooden platform raised high above the square, Pilate
assessed the situation through narrowed eyelids.
The cleared passage that he had just crossed between the palace walls
and the scaffolding platform was empty, but in front of Pilate the square
could no longer be seen--it had been devoured by the crowd. The mob would
have poured on to the platform and the passage too if there had not been two
triple rows of soldiers, one from the Sebastian cohort on Pilate's left and
on his right another from the Ituraean auxiliary cohort, to keep it clear.
Pilate climbed the platform, mechanically clenching and unclenching his
fist on the useless buckle and frowning hard. The Procurator was not
frowning because the sun was blinding him but to somehow avoid seeing the
group of prisoners which, as he well knew, would shortly be led out on the
platform behind him.
The moment the white cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the
stone block at the edge of that human sea a wave of sound--' Aaahh '--struck
the unseeing Pilate's ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end
of the square, then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began
to diminish again. ' They have seen me,' thought the Procurator. The wave of
sound did not recede altogether and began unexpectedly to grow again and
waveringly rose to a higher pitch than the first and on top of the second
surge of noise, like foam on the crest of a wave at sea, could be heard
whistles and the shrieks of several women audible above the roar. ' That
means they have led them out on to the platform,' thought Pilate, ' and
those screams are from women who were crushed when the crowd surged
forward.'
until it had let loose its pent-up feelings and quietened of its own accord.
When that moment came tlie Procurator threw up his right hand and the
last murmurings of the crowd expired. Then Pilate took as deep a breath as
he could of the hot air and his cracked voice rang out over the thousands of
heads :
'In the name of imperial Caesar! . . .'
At once his ears were struck by a clipped, metallic chorus as the
cohorts, raising lances and standards, roared out their fearful response:
'Hail, Caesar! '
Pilate jerked his head up straight at the sun. He had a sensation of
green fire piercing his eyelids, his brain seemed to burn. In hoarse Aramaic
he flung his words out over the crowd :
'Four criminals, arrested in Jerusalem for murder, incitement to
rebellion, contempt of the law and blasphemy, have been condemned to the
most shameful form of execution--crucifixion! Their execution will be
carried out shortly on Mount Golgotha The names of these felons are Dismas,
Hestas, Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri and there they stand before you! '
Pilate pointed to the right, unable to see the prisoners but knowing
that they were standing where they should be.
The crowd responded with a long rumble that could have been surprise or
relief. When it had subsided Pilate went on :
'But only three of them are to be executed for, in accordance with law
and custom, in honour of the great feast of Passover the emperor Caesar in
his magnanimity will, at the choice of the Lesser Sanhedrin and with the
approval of the Roman government, render back to one of these convicted men
his contemptible life!'
As Pilate rasped out his words he noticed that the rumbling had given
way to a great silence. Now not a sigh, not a rustle reached his ears and
there even came a moment when it seemed to Pilate that the people around him
had vanished altogether. The city he so hated might have died and only he
alone stood there, scorched by the vertical rays of the sun, his face
craning skywards. Pilate allowed the silence to continue and then began to
shout again: ' The name of the man who is about to be released before you .
. .'
He paused once more, holding back the name, mentally confirming that he
had said everything, because he knew that as soon as he pronounced the name
of the fortunate man the lifeless city would awaken and nothing more that he
might say would be audible.
'Is that everything? ' Pilate whispered soundlessly to himself. ' Yes,
it is. Now the name! ' And rolling his ' r 's over the heads of the silent
populace he roared : ' Bar-Abba! '
It was as though the sun detonated above him and drowned his ears in
fire, a fire that roared, shrieked, groaned, laughed and whistled.
Pilate turned and walked back along the platform towards the steps,
glancing only at the parti-coloured wooden blocks of the steps beneath his
feet to save himself from stumbling. He knew that behind his back a hail of
bronze coins and dates was showering the platform, that people in the
whooping crowd, elbowing each other aside, were climbing on to shoulders to
see a miracle with their own eyes--a man already in the arms of death and
torn from their grasp! They watched the legionaries as they untied his
bonds, involuntarily causing him searing pain in his swollen arms, watched
as grimacing and complaining he nevertheless smiled an insane, senseless
smile.
to the side steps of the platform to lead them off on the road westward, out
of the city, towards Mount Golgotha. Only when he stood beneath and behind
the platform did Pilate open his eyes, knowing that he was now safe--he
could no longer see the convicted men.
As the roar of the crowd began to die down the separate, piercing
voices of the heralds could be heard repeating, one in Aramaic, the others
in Greek, the announcement that the Procurator had just made from the
platform. Besides that his ears caught the approaching irregular clatter of
horses' hoofs and the sharp, bright call of a trumpet. This sound was echoed
by the piercing whistles of boys from the rooftops and by shouts of ' Look
out! '
A lone soldier, standing in the space cleared in the square, waved his
standard in warning, at which the Procurator, the Legate of the Legion and
their escort halted.
A squadron of cavalry entered the square at a fast trot, cutting across
it diagonally, past a knot of people, then down a side-street along a
vine-covered stone wall in order to gallop on to Mount Golgotha by the
shortest route.
As the squadron commander, a Syrian as small as a boy and as dark as a
mulatto, trotted past Pilate he gave a high-pitched cry and drew his sword
from its scabbard. His sweating, ugly-tempered black horse snorted and
reared up on its hind legs. Sheathing his sword the commander struck the
horse's neck with his whip, brought its forelegs down and moved off down the
side street, breaking into a gallop. Behind him in columns of three galloped
the horsemen in a ha2e of dust, the tips of their bamboo lances bobbing
rhythmically. They swept past the Procurator, their faces unnaturally dark
in contrast with their white turbans, grinning cheerfully, teeth flashing.
Raising a cloud of dust the squadron surged down the street, the last
trooper to pass Pilate carrying a glinting trumpet slung across his back.
Shielding his face from the dust with his hand and frowning with
annoyance Pilate walked on, hurrying towards the gate of the palace garden
followed by the Legate, the secretary and the escort.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning.