This provoked a general outcry from the crowd for the first time, a rising, sullen rumble of disapproval, punctuated by isolated shouts of “Away with him! Convict him! He’s guilty!” The sickeningly familiar atmosphere of tension was building.
Pilate looked down at the plaintiffs, speaking in a conversational tone so that only they would hear him. “I see you’ve managed the masses rather well. But this also means that if the people get out of hand, you’ll have to answer for the consequences. Now, in order to preserve the peace, I ask that you withdraw the charges against this man, since they’ve not stood up in court. Such a gesture will effectively end this hearing, without my being compelled to declare the defendant innocent. Perhaps you can build your case against him another time when you have more conclusive evidence. For my part, I’ll flog him as an object lesson for disturbing the peace and release him.”
He searched the faces of the Sanhedrists for some sign of concession, but found only unbending resolution. Therefore he had no choice but to reopen the sorry business. But to what good? All the evidence for the prosecution, such as it was, had been presented in the earlier hearing. The defense, such as it was, had also been enunciated in the one sentence, “My kingship is not of this world.” Perspiring in the mid-morning sun, Pilate groped for a solution.
Inside the palace, meanwhile, Procula had awakened to find Pilate gone to his morning’s business. She felt somewhat ill—the change of diet from Caesarea to Jerusalem often brought her dysentery—so she decided to stay in bed for the rest of the morning and soon dropped off to sleep again.
But the trial being conducted in front of the palace disturbed her, and she was shocked to see that Jesus was being judged by her husband. Yet, as she watched, she grew proud of Pilate. He was the only one who seemed to be defending the innocent prophet; no one else had a word to say in his behalf. Now, as the case was reaching its climax, Pilate formally declared Jesus innocent.
“Away with him!” the people cried. “Condemn him! Crucify him!”
Pilate looked nonplused. But finally, with a nobility Procula was sure had always been a part of his character, he announced to the crowd: “Hear me! As prefect of Judea and representative of his imperial majesty, Tiberius Caesar, and as judge of the provincial tribunal of Jerusalem, I herewith declare Jesus of Nazareth not guilty of the charges you have brought against him. I am releasing the defendant. This court is adjourned.”
With that, Pilate rose from his curule chair and ordered a contingent from the Jerusalem cohort to untie Jesus and escort him under imperial safe-conduct as far as Galilee.
Then, while the dumbfounded multitude watched the last auxiliaries leave the esplanade with Jesus securely in their protection, a young scribe pointed to Pilate and cried, “Crucify him!” A bloodcurdling yell arose as the people, now a lynch mob, stormed up to the tribunal from all sides and tore into Pilate before any of the palace guards could assist him, pommeling his head and body and lacerating his flesh. Pontius Pilate was dead even before he could be hoisted onto a crude cross fashioned by the mob from scrap timbers.
With a muted scream, Procula awoke from her grisly nightmare, that amalgam of truth and grotesque fantasy of which morning dreams are made. Shouts from the crowd had in fact penetrated the palace, and her fears had supplied the framework in which to arrange those shouts.
Overcome with relief, she summoned an attendant to ask where her husband was. Learning of the trial in progress, she was alarmed once again. Ever since the notice of Jesus’ arrest was delivered to the palace, Procula had intuited that Pilate would eventually have to hear the case, since capital charges were involved. But she had not imagined the trial would take place that soon. Now her dream took on prophetic dimension, the usual posture for Roman dreams. Every school child in the Mediterranean knew about Calpurnia’s dream of Caesar’s torn and bloodied toga on the night before his assassination in the Senate house. In anxiety, Procula called for a wax tablet and quickly scribbled this warning:
Procula to Pilate: keep your guard closely about you. And have nothing to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered much today in a dream because of him.
Sitting on his dais in front of the palace, Pilate had finally found a solution to his judicial quandary, one prompted by the Jewish calendar itself. Since it was his custom each Passover to release one prisoner chosen by the people, he now reminded the multitude of this annual festival amnesty. But instead of allowing unlimited free choice of candidates for pardon, he narrowed the selection to just two. “Whom do you want me to release?” he asked, “Jesus Bar-Abbas…or Jesus of Nazareth?”
Momentarily, the throng seemed to hold its breath. Then it broke into a bubbling cauldron of contention, for Pilate’s alternatives had been cleverly chosen. Against the controversial Jesus he had pitted one who was guilty beyond all controversy, a notorious public enemy. Pilate had calculated that the present hatred of Jesus would be far outbalanced by public dread at having a murdering insurrectionist turned loose in Jerusalem. Also, the people would never want to forego the Bar-Abbas show trial.
The prosecution huddled for strategy, then sent messengers throughout the crowd. At this point, Procula’s message was delivered to Pilate. Recognizing his wife’s handwriting, he almost cast it aside as nothing more than a housewifely note which should not have bothered him at such a time. But since it was brief, he read it—a strange message, he thought, though Pilate placed little credence in dreams. Perhaps Procula was ill. At any rate, the warning could hardly apply, since he was well guarded, and he quite unavoidably did indeed have something “to do with that innocent man,” even if he agreed with his wife’s own, albeit unsolicited, verdict on Jesus.
“Well, which of the two Jesuses shall I release for you?” he called out, now quite sure of victory.—“The Nazarene…or Bar-Abbas?”
A great, almost unified cry arose, “BAR-ABBAS!…BAR-ABBAS!” A few lone voices called “the Nazarene,” but they were hopelessly drowned out by the majority of the crowd, which took up the name of the public enemy as a near war chant.
Now it was Pilate’s turn to be dumbfounded. The prosecutors had done their work well. In the interval, which Pilate had interpreted as confusion, they had marshaled the crowd through couriers who persuaded the people, in the name of the Great Sanhedrin, to demand the release of Bar-Abbas instead of Jesus. Theologically, they said, the crime of the Messiah-so-called was far more serious than anything Bar-Abbas had committed.
Bewildered, Pilate finally found his tongue. “Then what am I to do with Jesus of Nazareth?”
Again the great voice cried out, “LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED!”
“Why? What evil has he done?”
They shouted all the louder, “AWAY WITH HIM!” “GIVE US BAR-ABBAS!” “CRUCIFY HIM!”
Stung by the intransigence, Pilate challenged again, “Why? For what crime? I have not found him guilty of any capital offense. I will therefore flog him and then free him.”
Amid further shouts for a death sentence, Pilate had Jesus brought inside the palace courtyard for scourging. The captain of the troops who had been keeping an eye on the crowd from inside the praetorium now barked a command to his auxiliaries. They gathered round the prisoner, stripped him, and administered the fustigatio, that Roman flogging which punished someone as a warning against further wrongdoing. It was lighter than the severe scourging which preceded capital punishment.