Pilate glanced down at the gold ring of a “Caesar’s friend” which Tiberius had sent him upon embarkation at Puteoli. With his thumb he twirled it round his finger, the symbol of an amicus Caesaris, with all rights and privileges pertaining thereunto. The significance of the ring was not lost on the brilliant Ananias, who had focused on it while making his statement. Release Jesus and the ring would surely be plucked from Pilate’s finger, with all the attendant indignities and loss of status. Yes, that was it. Call it political blackmail or just strategic threat, but Ananias’s statement could be translated in only one way: “If you free this man, the Sanhedrin will send a delegation to Tiberius to bring the following two charges against you: (1) disobedience to the emperor in failing to uphold Jewish law; and (2) criminal neglect of duty for failing to punish someone who committed maiestas in setting himself up as subversive counter-king to the Roman emperor.” Considering Pilate’s probationary status ever since the fall of Sejanus and his various troubles with the Jews, such a dual arraignment before Tiberius could lead to loss of office, political career, or even life itself if the charge of treason were sustained. Fantasy? Hardly. If the Judean authorities had complained to Tiberius about something so minimal as a few gilded shields, they would most certainly appeal to him in a matter they obviously considered of much greater import. The trial was over.
It was getting late in the morning. The sun was hot. Pilate wanted to have done with the sorry affair. He ordered the prisoner brought out of the palace for sentencing.
His practical Roman mind did remind him that there was one alternative to sentencing an apparently innocent man to save oneself: acquitting Jesus…and sacrificing himself. Pilate canvassed history to see if any man, were he in this situation, would so immolate himself on the altar of principle. Possibly the blind Appius Claudius, or crusty old Cato from Rome’s heroic past? Perhaps Socrates? No. Even these idealists would have surrendered their lives for some cause higher than one visionary and unfathomable prisoner, a man seemingly so resigned to death that he made no defense for himself.
Whenever one acts in opposition to conscience, several justifying crumbs are usually thrown in its direction to ensure peace of mind. While preparing as graceful an exit as possible for himself, Pilate gathered his crumbs. The first would be that he would continue to defend Jesus until the end. So when the prisoner, still dressed in purple and thorns, was brought out for the last time, Pilate announced, “Here is your king!” It was more of the same, defensive mockery which might yet wring some kind of sympathy from the people.
A smallish scribe, hatred twisting his features, clenched his fist at Jesus and cried, “Away with him!”
“AWAY WITH HIM! AWAY WITH HIM!” the mass responded. “CRUCIFY HIM!”
“Shall I crucify…your king?”
“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests objected, thus appearing to be even more loyal to the emperor than Pilate, his representative. It was a shrewd underscoring of their latest threat.
Another self-justifying gesture Pilate found in Roman law. Those who did not defend themselves in Roman trials were usually given three opportunities to change their minds before sentence was pronounced. And so Pilate asked, “Jesus of Nazareth, have you anything to say in your defense?”
Jesus did not reply. He was bleeding, perspiring, and apparently weakening physically.
“Jesus of Nazareth, do you have anything to say in your defense?”
There was no response.
And a third time Pilate asked the prescribed question, but heard no reply. Legally and juridically, he could now hope to salve his conscience. Since there was no defense, he had no alternative but to convict.
Pilate’s temporizing was cut short by the multitude. Simmering under the sun, they were restive and impatient by now, each contributing to an aroma of sweat which hovered over the palace plaza. For almost three hours they had stood, watching one man defy their will and that of the Great Sanhedrin. Some young firebrands had started mixing catcalls with the shouts for crucifixion, and several were screaming obscenities at Pilate. Isolated scuffles had broken out between auxiliaries and people at the edge of the esplanade. Demands for crucifixion were droning on to a sickening crescendo, as if the crowd were trying to change Pilate’s mind by the sheer force of sound itself. The palace square was a writhing mass of shaking fists. Some of the people were holding their arms straight out in cruciform fashion while yelling “Crucify!” so Pilate would not miss the message. All the storm flags, indicating the approach of a full-dress uproar, were being hoisted. Pilate eyed his troops. At that moment he did not feel he could take another riot, so he waved his arms overhead to silence the tumult, an indication that he was finally ready to pass sentence.
He had a golden basin of water brought out to the tribunal. Then he announced, “Hear me, Men of Israel! This court cannot pronounce Jesus of Nazareth guilty, but because your Great Sanhedrin has condemned him to death, and since the Roman prefect must respect and protect Jewish religious law, the prisoner will be crucified.”
A great roar of approval filled the air. When it finally subsided, Pilate, in full view of the multitude, washed his hands in the basin. “My hands are clean of this man’s blood,” he said.
“HIS BLOOD BE ON US AND ON OUR CHILDREN!” the people cried, using the words of the Old Testament formula to assume accountability for themselves.
Pilate dried his hands. With inner revulsion he ordered the release of the murderous insurrectionary, Bar-Abbas. Then he looked at Jesus. “Staurotheto,” he told a centurion of the guard—“Let him be crucified.”
The soldiers took the condemned into the courtyard, stripped off the purple cloak, and, after additional mockery, dressed him in his own clothes again. Then they made him shoulder the patibulum, a wooden transverse beam which, to form the cross, would be fastened to one of the upright stakes already standing at Skull Place.
A contingent of Pilate’s auxiliaries led Jesus out of the palace esplanade and directly north to Golgotha. The two convicted bandits, whose sentencing had been postponed to that morning, were also marched in that procession of death, since Pilate’s execution detail preferred handling all distasteful crucifixion cases at the same time.
The route out to the lethal hillock, just beyond the northwestern walls of Jerusalem, was clogged with people lining the streets. Many were part of the crowd which had called for Jesus’ condemnation, and they lavished ridicule and derision on him. But some were admirers or followers of the condemned, who commiserated his fate. Most of them had learned of the trial only after it was over. Clearly, Jesus’ enemies had been organized; his friends had not. Fear of a Galilean-style political rebellion under his aegis had proved a fantasy. In fact, the only finger in all Jerusalem raised in Jesus’ behalf was unintentional. Halfway to Golgotha, he stumbled under the weight of his crossbeam. The execution squad cursed him for clumsiness, then compelled a broad-shouldered bystander named Simon, from Cyrene in North Africa, to carry the beam for him.
A courier from Pilate ran to catch up with the procession before it reached Golgotha. He bore the titulus or inscription which had to be carried before a condemned man to identify him and the cause for his execution. The sign would then be affixed to the cross. Written with gypsum on a wooden board, the titulus was spelled out in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek so that nearly everyone would be able to read: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
Pilate had barely returned inside his palace when several of the chief priests asked to see him.