The trip to Antioch was uneventful, but as they rounded the corner of the Mediterranean into Asia Minor, a fierce sleet storm tore down on them from the Taurus Mountain range, ripping open the canvas covers on one of their carriages. Emergency patchwork failed to repair the damage as they limped and skidded into Tarsus, the eastern port of entry to the Cilician Gates. Here they halted for several days, waiting for word that the pass was cleared of snow. They used the time to provision themselves and have the tarpaulin mended.
Just before resuming their journey, aides reported that the man who presented the bill for repairing the carriage canvas insisted on speaking to Pilate. They brought in a youngish, bearded fellow who looked like a Jew but dressed like a Roman. He stared at Pilate for several moments with a curious expression, the kind of glance someone might assume in observing a strange animal species at the zoo. Then, raising his finger and pointing directly at Pilate’s nose, he said, “You, Prefect, have committed the most heinous crime in history.”
“What crime, wretch?” Pilate glowered.
“The greatest atrocity of which a human being is capable, Excellency: crucifying the son of God.” He paused to let his words register. “But you were driven to it and can be forgiven…even for this.”
Pilate was startled at the reference, intrigued that a man five hundred miles from Jerusalem should know about the Passover which he had all but forgotten in his present difficulties. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“One closely related to you in guilt, for once I also persecuted followers of Jesus. My name is Saul. I am a Pharisee, formerly a student of the Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem, and now a tentmaker here in Tarsus until my time has come to teach the gentiles about the Christ.”
Impatient to resume his journey, Pilate scowled at Saul and said, “Enough of your effrontery. I should have you thrown into jail for addressing a Roman magistrate in this manner.”
“That won’t be necessary, Excellency. I, too, am a Roman citizen, and under the jurisdiction of the Proconsul Vitellius.” That statement, of course, neutralized Pilate’s threat. Saul continued, “I wanted to speak with you, because you, of all people, should know the truth of what happened in Jerusalem three years ago.”
“Then tell me,” Pilate sneered. “Who stole the body, and how did they succeed with guards camped at the tomb?” The same elusive puzzle had never really been solved.
“It wasn’t a grave theft. Yeshu returned to life. He rose from the dead.”
Pilate shrugged. “Then you’re just another devotee of the Jesus cult.”
But Saul insisted, “No, Prefect, not just another devotee. Once I hated the Nazarene and everything he stood for. You condemned only one innocent man, but I was so misguided in my zeal that I arrested many innocent followers of Yeshu in the name of the Sanhedrin.”
“You were the one responsible for Caiaphas’s drive against them?”
“Yes, in part. Did you know about the stoning of a man called Stephen?”
“The lynching?”
“Yes. Well, I helped organize it.”
“Then why are you now defending Jesus? Why do you call him ‘Son of God’?”
“Because I saw him…”
“So did I. So what?”
“I saw him a year after you crucified him.”
“You’re mad.”
“First hear my story, Prefect, then judge. Some time after the martyrdom of Stephen, I was traveling to Damascus in order to root out the followers of Yeshu there. But on the way, an overpowering event occurred…”
The story of the conversion of the man who would one day be known as St. Paul made little impression on Pilate. But Procula, who was listening unobtrusively, was deeply interested and added this to the store of information about Jesus which she had continued accumulating. What particularly struck her were Saul’s closing comments. Both Pilate and he had been part of God’s higher design for the human race, he tried to explain. What took place that Passover had cosmic significance. All history would turn on that event, Saul predicted. Someday Pilate would understand.
But he understood only that the whole conversation was verging too metaphysical for his tastes. He suggested that Saul take his money and be off. “If I, too, see Jesus on the road to Rome, I’ll begin to believe your story.” Pilate thought it a generous jocularity under the circumstances.
“Just remember,” Saul urged, “when the staggering realization of whom you crucified finally dawns on you, don’t commit suicide, like Ish-Kerioth, the man who betrayed him. You can be forgiven. I was!”
Pilate had dreaded his coming confrontation with Tiberius. But now he had one small consolation. In Rome, at least, he would escape the flaming religious fanaticism of the East.
Snow in the nearly mile-high pass of the Cilician Gates had melted enough to enable Pilate’s party to proceed. For forty miles they wound their way upward toward the Gates, a series of sharp defiles which notched the otherwise impregnable Taurus barrier. Near the summit, the pass tapered down to a precipitous narrows, where melted snow water gushed across the roadway. Here Pilate halted his entourage to remind them that Cyrus, Xerxes, Alexander the Great, and Caesar had all marched through the very gap in which they were now pausing. Procula was shivering. She wondered if Pilate might postpone his lecture until that evening.
They continued along the route used by the Roman imperial post, since it alone remained open at all seasons. Leading northwest across Asia Minor on the old Persian King’s Highway, then via a short ship run to Philippi, the route continued west through Greece on the Via Egnatia to the Adriatic, where there was ferry service to Brundisium in Italy. The distance from Caesarea to Rome along this route was about two thousand miles, and allowing the average carriage travel time of twenty-five miles per day, the total trip would require about eighty days.
The rest of the journey was a wearying succession of starting at dawn, traveling in the morning and early afternoon, halting at twilight. Evenings were spent either at the imperial mansiones or, occasionally, at public inns, where the best quarters were reserved for the Roman governor and his staff. Since the highway was virtually deserted during the winter, horses or accommodations posed no problem. Despite the constant cold drizzle which dogged their caravan, the journey was not as dreadful as Pilate and Procula had imagined, particularly since the inns were good, and the old cities of Sardis and Pergamum surprisingly impressive.
By the end of February, 37, they finally reached the port of Dyrrachium on the Adriatic, where they boarded a ferry for the passage across the narrows to Brundisium on the Italian mainland. Here Pilate sought out the praetorian commandant at the port to get the latest news from Rome and Capri. The tribune, newly arrived from the capital to relieve a colleague, was indeed full of news.
Tidings from Capri were not good. Tiberius’s mood had worsened over the last months, ever since the death of his friend and adviser Cocceius Nerva. Apparently, Nerva was so disenchanted with the direction of Roman government that he starved himself to death on Capri, despite Tiberius’s pleading at his bedside. Then, when Thrasyllus the astrologer also died, the princeps spent more time back on the mainland at villas of friends…But no, he had not returned to Rome. Yes, the senatorial trials, executions, suicides, and exiles were still continuing, the commandant assured Pilate, though not as many as in previous years. And yes, several of the suits still harked back to the Sejanian conspiracy. For example, Trio, the ex-consul, was finally implicated. He drew up a testament which taunted Tiberius for senility and for shirking imperial duties by his exile on Capri—after which, of course, he slit open his veins and died.