Pilate scoffed at the report, but toward evening he and the tribune of the Antonia garrison visited the site. Escorted by troops who shouldered them through the ranks of curiosity seekers, they peered inside the tomb. A large, circular stone which served as door had been rolled aside to reveal an ample rock-hewn sepulcher, hollowed out of the side of a hill. Inside were linen grave wrappings lying on the slab of stone where a body would repose, and at the head end, rolled up separately, was a burial napkin intended to cover the face of the corpse. The cloths still exuded a spicy and resinous odor of myrrh and aloes. But there was no body.
“Are you sure this is the right tomb?” Pilate asked his tribune.
“This was the one sealed up by the temple guard.”
“And just where is the guard?”
“They left after the earth tremor early Sunday morning. We couldn’t learn much from them over at the Antonia, but it seems this stone broke its seal and rolled open in connection with the earthquake.”
“How? And the body—how did it disappear?”
“The guards claim the disciples of this Jesus stole the body while they slept.”
“Right from under their noses?”
“We couldn’t get any more out of them—they’re pretty sheepish about it.”
“Small wonder, the incompetents,” Pilate sneered. He examined the seal, which was fractured in two, part attached to the edge of the door stone, and part hanging from the lintel. He also searched the walls and floor of the tomb chamber for any hidden exits or passageways, but found none.
“Tribune, find Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, and bring him here. Check with him if this is the sepulcher in which he buried Jesus. If not, we’ll put a Roman guard on the right one. Any police who can let a dead man ‘escape’ are stupid enough to seal and guard a wrong tomb!”
Late that evening, the tribune reported that he had taken Joseph of Arimathea to the sepulcher which they had examined. It was the right one.
Pilate reflected for several moments, then grinned. “Those rascally disciples of his, they certainly brought it off. Imagine, right under the noses of the guards!”
“Shall I have his followers rounded up and arrested, sir?”
“No, I don’t think so, Tribune. Rome doesn’t much care who has possession of a body after crucifixion. Besides, Caiaphas will be hard pressed to explain an empty tomb. Why should we help him out by locating the body?”
For all his jocularity, Pilate still had trouble falling asleep that night. His logical Roman mind first had to find a solution to the puzzle which had been thrust on him by the missing corpse. Of course it was the disciples’ work. Who else would have a motive for stealing the body? Caiaphas’s thinking was correct on that score. But how could that Galilean cadre have been clever enough to outwit a detail of some fifteen temple police? Granted even that they were all sleeping Saturday night, which was unlikely, rolling away that huge stone should have caused a commotion and a grinding which would have awakened them. No. It was impossible. The disciples would probably have had to step on their slumbering faces in order to move the stone and extricate the body…How did it happen then? Pilate ground a fist into his other palm, weighing the riddle.
Of course! The solution was so delightfully obvious that anyone would have missed it at first blush. The chief priests had come asking for a guard on Saturday morning. Jesus had died late Friday afternoon. Therefore there was no guard at the tomb during all of Friday night! The disciples must have come that very night, while all Jerusalem was sleeping off the Passover meal, and removed the body of their dead teacher, replacing the stone at the doorway to hide the empty tomb. That was it! Rather pleased with himself, Pilate could now drop off to sleep.
The dinner Tuesday evening at the Hasmonean palace was a feast of friendship to honor repaired relations between Herod Antipas and Pilate. Not that either of them had any delusions about a genuine cordiality being established. It was more an unofficial peace treaty or at least a truce, an agreement to cooperate with each other in maintaining their separate positions in the uncertain world of a suspicious Tiberius. There would be no more tattling to Rome, they agreed, which was a small diplomatic victory for Pilate, since Antipas had been the chief offender on that score.
Not much was said about the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. Though Antipas was privately happy that he now had company in the select fraternity of Palestinian prophet-killers, he did not want to embarrass his guest. What talk there was centered rather on speculations about the empty tomb and the resurrection rumor which had now saturated Jerusalem. It was all that Antipas’s aides Chuza and Manaen seemed able to talk about, Pilate noticed. They were exchanging the latest information, cheerfully careless of the fact that the man who had condemned Jesus was sitting at the head of the table and overhearing them.
Antipas would have silenced the pair, but for his own inordinate interest in the supernatural and the spectacular. The man who once feared that John the Baptizer might have risen from the dead now cocked his ears to learn the latest gossip on the empty sepulcher. When his guests left that night, he would ask Chuza and Manaen for all the details. Pilate would also learn them from Procula.
As was fitting for Jerusalem, the ladies of the party were dining separately, and their whole evening was devoted to bartering news about the missing body. One of them could speak authoritatively, but earlier in the banquet she had hesitated to do so. It was only after much coaxing that Joanna told her story. She was the wife of Chuza, Antipas’s chief steward and general manager of estates.
“Our Joanna was there when it happened,” Herodias told Procula with a sarcastic leer. “Why she’s been a follower of Jesus ever since he supposedly healed her in Galilee. She used to keep that confidential, but now she doesn’t care who knows, do you, Joanna?”
“Please, Joanna, tell us your story,” Procula interrupted, to stop Herodias’s badgering.
A little hesitant, yet deliberate, Joanna began. “Well, several women followers of his and I were worried that he had not been buried properly. So we went out to Joseph’s tomb early Sunday morning to anoint the body of Jesus with spices. You see, we didn’t know this had already been done.”
“You say you went out Sunday at dawn?” Procula inquired.
“Yes.”
“Why not Saturday morning, just after he died?”
“The Sabbath, Lady Procula.”
“Of course.”
“Just as we got to the sepulcher, the earth trembled and the great stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. We were frightened, of course, but also a little relieved because we had no idea how we women would be able to budge that stone.” She smiled shyly. “But then we were terrified: standing inside the sepulcher was some white and radiant personage, who said, ‘Don’t be afraid. You’re looking for Jesus who was crucified. But he is not here. He has risen, as he promised. Come, see the place where he lay. And then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.’”
“Who said all this?” Herodias snarled. “And where were the guards?”
“I think he was an angelos, Mistress, a messenger from God. The guards were there, but they were horrified. I believe they ran back into Jerusalem.”
“My, but the story grows!” Herodias observed sardonically.
“Please continue, Joanna,” urged Procula.
With a look of joyful serenity, she said, “Naturally, we were still shaken by it all. But thrilled at the incredible news. Then we hurried off to tell the disciples. But—but—”
“Out with it!” Herodias snapped.