A monopoly on truth was confidently proclaimed by every philosophical school in the Empire, and by each religious cult—and just as confidently contradicted by all the rest. Pilate feared it might be a frustrating search, this quest for truth. Perhaps, he thought, the philosopher Nausiphanes was right after all when he taught, “The one thing certain is that nothing is certain.”
One day, while Pilate was walking along the Mediterranean shore “in dialogue with my soul,” as he described his sandy peregrinations, someone in a military tunic came running along the beach toward him.
“Stop, Pontius Pilate,” he cried. “I’ve come to arrest you! Claudius wants to see you in chains!” But the man was smiling.
“Cornelius!” Pilate beamed. “I thought you’d never return. Did you bring along your wife and family?”
“Yes. They’re inside the villa visiting with Procula. We’re five now: two boys and a girl…And I’ve been transferred to the Castra Praetoria.”
“Congratulations, Tribune, also on the promotion.”
“Thanks, Prefect.”
“But why didn’t you return to Rome before this? Surely the Italian Cohort didn’t stay on in Caesarea after Herod Agrippa became king.”
“Oh, no. Everything Roman moved out of Palestine, from the prefect of Judea down to the gilded Roman eagles. Agrippa kept the Sebastenian auxiliaries, but our cohort was transferred to the legions in Syria. I just returned from there…But I wager the Italian Cohort will move back to Caesarea in short order now.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you heard? Agrippa is dead.”
“What?”
“Yes. Happened shortly after the Passover this year.”
“After only three years as king of Judea? How did it happen? Assassination?”
“No. It was all very strange. He was in Caesarea, presiding over festive games in honor of Claudius. On the second day of the spectacles, he entered the theater at daybreak and delivered his address, wearing a garment woven entirely of spun silver. It caught the rays of the rising sun and glittered so radiantly that some of the credulous and the flatterers actually started hailing him as a deity. ‘This is a god speaking, not a man!’ they cried.”
“And what did Agrippa say to that,” Pilate smirked, “admit it?”
“He said nothing. And that was his downfall, he claimed. He should have condemned the blasphemous flattery. Feeling an intense stab of pain in his heart and stomach, he staggered and said, ‘An immortal god am I? No, just a mortal man on his way to the grave. God wills it. I must accept.’ They carried him back to the palace—your home for ten years. After five days of horrible pain, Agrippa died.”
“Incredible! Who’ll govern Palestine now?”
“His son, Agrippa the Younger, is here in Rome getting his education at the palace school. I understand Claudius at first thought of appointing him king, but his advisers suggested that the lad would have a terrible time of it since he’s only seventeen. So the princeps is set to appoint Cuspius Fadus as procurator of Judea. Once again, it seems, Rome will govern Judea directly.”
“Fadus as procurator?”
“Yes. Prefects of Judea are to be called procurators from now on. Same job, different title.” He hesitated, then added, “I just happened to recall. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this after all the trouble you had with the Jews regarding images, but Agrippa sinned in this respect more than you ever thought of doing. The coinage which he minted outside of Jerusalem was stamped with his own image. And he even had statues of his daughters sculptured and set up in the forum at Caesarea. Yet the Pharisees loved him.”
“But for me they staged riots, demonstrations, protests, letters.” Pilate shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s a closed chapter…So, Cornelius, tell me more about yourself: how’s my favorite Jew?”
“Fine. But I’m a Christian now.”
The word Christian had no significance whatever for Pilate. “Oh,” he said, “I see Procula waving us in for dinner. Come on, Cornelius. You can’t imagine how the sea adds an edge to the appetite.”
Back at the villa. Pilate was delighted to see the rest of Cornelius’s family, particularly the younger boy, who had been named Pilatus in his honor.
“First of all, I categorically insist,” said Pilate, with contrived bombast, “you folks have to spend some time with us. At least a week. It’s been so long.”
The Cornelii protested, only out of courtesy, and then gladly gave in.
Several hours later, after a tasty seafood dinner, Pilate began once more to speculate about the sudden death of Herod Agrippa.
“I have my own reasons for despising that man,” commented Cornelius.
“Oh? Why?”
Cornelius looked at his hosts, then knowingly at his wife. Finally he took a long breath and said, “Because Agrippa executed James ben-Zebedee and would have done the same to Simon Peter if he hadn’t escaped from prison.”
“And who might they be?” Pilate wondered.
“James and Peter? Two of the leading disciples of Jesus the Christ.”
Pilate paused and pondered. “Jesus the Christ?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember? The one you sentenced at the Passover…It must be eleven years ago now.”
Pilate searched his memory. “No…or…yes,” he finally said. “Galilean. Came from Nazareth, correct? Yes, I remember now. That old puzzle! But what’s your interest in his disciples?”
Again Cornelius assumed the expression of one who had a long story to tell and knew the telling must come shortly, but who was apprehensive about his hearers’ reaction. Finally he declared, “Pilate, I—our whole family—are Christians.”
“Are what? Didn’t you use that term before?”
“Christians. Yes, I did. The followers of Jesus the Messiah—the Christos—are now called Christians.”
For some moments Pilate stared blankly at Cornelius.
“It’s quite a story. If you’ll listen,” Cornelius continued, “I’ll—”
“You?” Pilate blurted. “You’re members of that Jewish cult?”
“Yes.”
“But didn’t that sect die out long ago?”
“No. On the contrary.”
“But Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin had all but hounded them out of existence, hadn’t they?”
“They didn’t succeed. The Christians have organized themselves into congregations in each major town in Palestine. Now they’re spreading as far as Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, and beyond. There are isolated households even in Rome which are Christian.”
“But what does Agrippa have to do with it?”
“Agrippa thought the whole movement was subversive—he had hoped that you had put an end to Jewish Messianism by crucifying Jesus—so he was determined to root out the ringleaders. The outspoken and courageous James was first. He was beheaded. When Agrippa saw how this pleased the priests, he went on to arrest Peter, the leader of the disciples. But although he was under constant guard at the Antonia, Peter escaped prison in the dead of night and Agrippa never caught him again.”
Pilate started nodding his head toward the close of Cornelius’s statement and said, “He’s the one, then.”
“The one what?”
“Peter. He’s the one who must have engineered the grave robbery.”
“What grave robbery?”
“Stealing the body of Jesus from under the noses of the guards. A clever fellow this Peter, an escape artist evidently.”
“Pilate, Peter was chained between two guards. If somehow he escaped them, he would have had to get beyond the bars of his cell. If he got out of the cell, he would have had to go through four squads of sentries and two separate guard posts. You know how the Antonia is laid out. Then there’d be the wall and the iron gate, always barred at night. How could he have escaped through all that?”