“What now?” he demanded.
“The titulus, sir. It should not read, ‘the King of the Jews,’ but ‘He claimed to be king of the Jews.’”
“What I have written, I have written.” Pilate stalked off, leaving the priests standing at the door. There would be no further capitulation to the Sanhedrin.
Actually, Pilate had chosen the wording of the titulus for a purpose. There was subtle sarcasm, to be sure, directed less at the crucified and more at the crucifiers: “Jews rate such a king as this” was one clear implication. But there was also a legal consideration. For the record, Pilate wanted a solid reason for conviction. Crucifixion would not be an appropriate Roman punishment for the purely Jewish crime of blasphemy, but it was perfectly proper for high treason perpetrated by a self-styled king.
In his office at the Herodian palace, Pilate dictated a memorandum to one of his aides which would explain the legality of Jesus’ case for his records:
Form of triaclass="underline" cognitio [investigation] of the prefect.
Advisers or jury: none
Sentence: crucifixion
Stated basis of sentence: constructive treason—implied maiestas
Secondary basis of sentence:
endorsement of Sanhedrin’s conviction of Jesus on a capital religious offense.
Appeaclass="underline" none. The convicted was not a Roman citizen.
Chapter 19
Drained by the events of that morning, Pilate reclined alone for lunch. Procula sent word that she would not join him until dinner because of her indisposition. He drank more wine than usual, since he would not be holding court that afternoon. He drank also to dull the immediate memory of the morning’s ordeal.
Governing Judea was a corrosive experience, Pilate decided. One day soon he might follow Gratus’s example and ask to be relieved of the prefecture and transferred elsewhere, hopefully back to Rome. Almost seven years had passed since he’d been there. Too long; too terribly long. Seven years of confrontation with the Jews—could anyone really govern them successfully? Except Jews themselves? Perhaps that was the real reason for their agitation. They felt that only they could rule themselves. Though even that was debatable, considering their intense inner rivalries. “Two Jews, three opinions,” went the aphorism, and Pilate thought it sober truth.
After lunch and a fitful nap, he called for his afternoon bath earlier than usual. He took it outside in the garden pool just off the inner courtyard.
While splashing about in the crystal blue waters of Herod’s lavish natatorium, Pilate continued his musing…How would Herod the Great have judged the case this morning? He certainly wouldn’t have shied away from it like his son Antipas. Pilate grinned. No, Jesus would never even have come to trial. Very quietly, very efficiently, Herod would have had him assassinated, since he dreaded anyone using the term king…like the time those sages came to Jerusalem asking about a newborn king of the Jews.
Now there’s a coincidence, Pilate startled…a baby and a man I just condemned to death both called “king of the Jews.” Herod killed the baby, I the man. Does that make me as bad as Herod? No, I was forced into it…I wonder how he’s doing out there—Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. Probably silent, determined, resigned as ever.
Why didn’t he make a defense? Why was he so uncooperative? Or too cooperative for his own conviction? I had to act not only as judge, but as his defense attorney too…I wonder if Procula knows. “Have nothing to do with that innocent man,” she wrote. She’ll think I spurned her note, of course…“That innocent man.” Where have I heard that before? Yes, I was reading it in Plato.
Pilate pulled himself out of the water and walked over to a chair where he had left a scroll of the Republic. Turning back a few sections he found the passage:
The innocent man will be scourged, tortured, bound, blinded with fire, and finally, after enduring every extremity of suffering, he will be impaled on the cross…
A strange coincidence, he thought to himself. And how curious of Plato, writing against the background of Socrates’s martyrdom, to use the figure of the cross when Socrates had quietly sipped his hemlock…
He dove back into the pool and swam its length, then turned over to float. By this time, he noticed, something distinctly uncanny was happening. Shortly after lunch, the sun had started to dim from some kind of overcast, and the sky was now a dreadfully glowering purple. Pilate thought a severe thunderstorm was brewing, but there was no wind, no lightning, no approaching rumbles.
He slipped out of the pool, dressed, and then climbed to an upper turret of the palace. The sky was blackening more deeply, yet no rain fell. He was startled to see that the entire countryside was darkened—no patch of brighter blue showed anywhere on the horizon. He could barely see across Jerusalem to the cluster of people gathered at Golgotha around the silhouette of the three crosses. Was it a solar eclipse? In the city below, oil lamps were flickering—at three o’clock in the afternoon.
Suddenly, Pilate seemed to hear and feel it at the same time. A tremor shook Jerusalem, then a moderately severe earthquake filled the air with grinding and buckling, tearing and clatter. Down on the esplanade he watched a fissure yawn open, which seemed to run eastward across the city to the temple mount. Foundations near this crevasse were ripped apart, and there were screams from the city. Pilate heard a creaking from the south and looked in horror as one of the arches of his aqueduct parted and crumbled into the Hinnom Valley. Water cascaded from the ruptured trough.
Summoning his palace guard, he dispatched them through Jerusalem to report on the damage. Then he ordered the Antonia cohort out of their barracks to patrol the city and maintain order. His engineers were to take a construction detail out to the aqueduct and make emergency repairs.
It was all very weird. First the mysterious darkness, then the earthquake. But the crisis seemed to pass as quickly as it had come. The sun and a normally bright sky nearly burst upon Jerusalem, and in minutes the heavens resumed their regular blue, the strangest celestial phenomenon Pilate had ever witnessed.
He was just rearranging his nerves when an aide reported that the high priest’s servant requested a moment of his time. “Will they never leave me in peace?” Pilate fretted. “Let him in…Yes, Malchus?”
“Excellency,” he bowed, “since the most solemn Sabbath in the Jewish year begins at sundown, my Lord Caiaphas and the priests request that toward the end of the day you permit the legs of the crucified prisoners to be broken so that they will die and can be buried. Then their bodies will not be left hanging on the crosses to desecrate the Sabbath.”
Pilate dashed off a note, authorizing the centurion at Golgotha to do as the priests requested, and gave it to Malchus. Breaking the legs of those who were crucified hastened death by suffocation, since the diaphragm and rib cage were severely pressured by being hung from the arms above, rather than resting on the normal support provided by the legs.
Late in the afternoon, a member of the Sanhedrin requested an audience with the governor. His patience ebbing, Pilate was about to roast the caller when he saw that this one had never bothered him before. “Didn’t I meet you some years ago in Caesarea, Councilor?” he inquired.
“Yes, Excellency. I am Joseph of Arimathea. I’ll take only a moment of your time. My colleague Nicodemus and I seek your permission to bury the body of Jesus of Nazareth. I have a sepulcher rather close to Golgotha.”