The next morning, they discussed the philosophical presuppositions of religion itself, and here there was less argument. Long ago, Pilate had abandoned Greco-Roman polytheism and now admitted, “If I were a religious man, Cornelius, I think I’d join Plato and Aristotle, or even Cicero and Vergil, for that matter, and be a monotheist. Aristotle’s First Cause, his argument that creation intuits a creator, commends itself to reason. A single deity seems the only intelligent recourse. Now to that extent the Jews were right, and I can see why you and my Procula found interest in that system. Why even our learned Varro confessed his belief in one god, the soul of the universe, who may also be identified as the god of the Jews, he wrote. But believing that this one god revealed himself in the man I crucified…that goes beyond reason.”
Somewhere Pilate hoped to find the key which would unlock and expose the mystery of the new faith, the chink which would disprove it, something in one of Cornelius’s stories about the Galilean which would refute his claims. Instead, the new data supplied by his friend seemed to forge links which connected facts Pilate already knew. For example, there was the unresolved question of the star over Judea and the baby rumored to be king of the Jews. When he learned that this was the infant Jesus of Nazareth who had not been killed, he was stupefied. Jesus, then, had carried the title “king of the Jews” from Bethlehem to Golgotha, thirty-six years later!
Now Pilate grew aroused and defensive. “Tell me this, Cornelius, don’t you really believe Jesus was son of god in the figurative sense in which all men are supposedly sons of a creating god?”
“No, friend. Jesus came from the essence of God.”
“Then you believe this as an inspiring religious myth, don’t you?”
“No. As history. As event. As fact. Just as Jesus rose from the dead in reality and not in myth.”
Cornelius had touched the most sensitive nerve in Pilate’s memory of the Nazarene affair. Pilate had never settled the question of the missing body. Pressing his hands to the sides of his head, he said, “But if what you say were true, then I would have executed deity!”
“The human expression of deity,” Cornelius responded gently.
“Then why didn’t your god burn me with a thunderbolt the moment I condemned his son to the cross? Yes!” Pilate brightened. “Why was no curse placed on me? As I sat on my tribunal that day, I had a faint recollection that this situation had occurred once before somewhere, but until now I couldn’t recall it. Yes, the Curse of Pentheus…from Greek mythology.”
“The Pentheus story?”
“It’s best told in a tragedy by Euripides. Pentheus was king of Thebes. One day, the god Bacchus, or Dionysus as the Greeks call him, came to Thebes for a celebration.—Now notice the amazing parallels in this story, Cornelius.—Dionysus was welcomed into town by women who were singing and waving garlands and branches of ivy. But Pentheus, who had no idea the stranger was an offspring of Zeus, a son of god, ordered him arrested. Dionysus was then led before Pentheus by a band of soldiers, who said their prisoner had not tried to resist arrest.—Sound familiar, Cornelius?—But word came that the maiden followers of the stranger, who were also imprisoned, had shaken off their fetters and escaped into the mountains…a great wonder!
“Now Pentheus threatened Dionysus, but he responded gently that the king would not be able to keep him in prison. ‘God will set me free,’ the son of god claimed. But Pentheus didn’t recognize his divinity and ordered him bound and scourged. Then Dionysus arranged a special curse for the king. While he hurried off into the mountains to chase down the Theban women, the god maddened Pentheus’s own mother and sisters who were also out in the hills. They saw Pentheus only as a mountain lion and tore him limb from limb in their frenzy. But at the last moment, Dionysus opened all eyes. Pentheus knew he was paying with his life for having punished a god, and the women saw their atrocity.”
“Oh, Pilate. Comparing a wild bacchanal to the Palm Sunday crowds? The god of drink to Jesus? You as Pentheus? The women as the disciples?”
“The point of comparison is merely that if your Jesus is a deity, a human judge unknowingly condemned a god in both instances. In the Greek myth, the judge was dismantled. Why didn’t some similar catastrophic punishment fall on me? After all, I would have committed the most horrendous crime possible: executing divinity. I’d be a god-killer!”
“But Pilate—”
“A cosmic crime! In the name of my sanity, I must believe that Jesus was perhaps innocent, a good man—but thoroughly mortal like everyone else.”
“Unless, of course, you’re mistaken. But to answer your question, Pilate, it happened by a higher design, according to which both Jews and gentiles were to be responsible for…for this final sacrifice. Just as all classes joined in condemning the Christos, so, by divine reflex, his death and resurrection atoned for all classes, all races. You, then, also took part in making the faith universal, Peter told me. Your unwitting error is forgivable, like any other sin, even if that error was spectacular, extraordinary. Peter was insistent on that point and told me to tell you about it if I ever saw you in Rome. So, again, you didn’t know it, but you were one of God’s instruments in the drama of salvation.”
Pilate was going to comment that he didn’t like being used without his knowledge, but he canceled the thought as petty. Finally he said, “It’s just too much to absorb, Cornelius. The implications for me personally…would be staggering.”
For several moments the tribune reflected, then said, “I know, Pilate, I know…Well, friend, we’ve abused your hospitality long enough. I must report to Rome. From now on I’ll be at the Castra, so we must get together again. But don’t worry: no more sermons.” He laughed, then added with a wink, “But I will be around to help answer any questions you might have.”
“And maybe I won’t ask any”—Pilate smiled, clapping him on the shoulder—“but you’re a good man, Cornelius.”
He and Procula bade the Cornelii farewell.
In the days following their visit, Pilate suspected from Procula’s random comments that she had more than a smoldering interest in Christianity. He was sure of it when they returned to Rome that fall. He discovered that she had started attending meetings for Christian worship at the home of a couple named Aquila and Priscilla. Cornelius and his family, together with a small group of Roman Christians also gathered here regularly for this purpose.
But Procula did not invite her husband to join them. She had learned never to try to push Pilate into anything. Meanwhile, she began to pray for him. For her, the visit of the Cornelii at Antium was the latest milestone in a journey to faith which had begun years before in Judea.
However, conversion to a belief centering in the man he had crucified was a grotesque hurdle for Pontius Pilate. If only Jesus had told him more that Friday. He might have released him. But in that case, what would have happened to Christianity?
Pilate did sense one strong, personal argument in favor of the faith: if Jesus were not divine, Pilate’s own life and career would ultimately prove insignificant, meaningless. History would truly pass him by. But if the Christians were right, his lifework would take on profound dimension indeed. Yet was that, in itself, a sufficient motive for accepting the faith? Was it honest?