I confess here that the only temptation to which I shall truly succumb is that of presenting myself to myself — when I write about myself in the third person — in a more worthy, more sympathetic light. The truth is not so beautiful.
But that temptation to act … that all too human temptation …
III
Caesar: I have been able to find nothing more obscure among my papers, or in the deepest recesses of my memory, Theodorus said to Tiberius that midday, while the naked Emperor, before eating, stood near a great fire as servants showered him with cold water and then rubbed his body with oil; nothing more obscure, nothing more forgotten.
You are Mercury, herald of the gods, Tiberius laughed. No, Caesar, a simple archivist mouse, and a humble traveler of the East; consider my method: first I thought about something no one had ever thought before; that is, I thought the impossible, what I did not know, beginning from your premise: find the most unknown testimony of an individual rebellion that originated in the mob. I reviewed the history of Rome; it is too well documented. Then I reviewed the history of the provinces, one by one, until I came to one of the poorest, the most isolated and insignificant, Judea. Examining its history, I found a recent event (unknown because it was recent, for only the ancient has had time to become memorable) that attracted my attention.
One of your Procurators, Pontius Pilate by name, a subordinate of the Roman governor of Syria and a protégé of your favorite, Sejanus, was deposed and forced to commit suicide last year because of a complaint of excessive cruelty issued by the so-called Samaritans, who centuries ago populated and dominated the northern part of the kingdom of Israel. I asked myself, Caesar, what, however dark a deed, could force the abdication and death of one of Tiberius’s Procurators; what strength could a sect or tribe of the desert land of Judea exert to achieve that; and why?; and what are the antecedents?
Suddenly I remembered something I had completely forgotten: five or six years ago in the extreme heat of the month of Nisan I was passing through Jerusalem on the way to Laodicea. I crossed through the heights of the city, through a square called Antonius, or Gabbatha, where there was gathered a great rabble of Jews. I could see, from a distance, two figures standing in the atrium of the praetorium: a man dressed in a toga, washing his hands before the multitude, and beside him, head bowed and crowned with thorns, a figure of mockery, a bearded beggar, lacerated, bleeding, motionless. What is happening? I asked my guide; and he answered: “Caesar’s Procurator is administering justice here.”
We passed by; I was thirsty; I was tired; I wished to reach Laodicea. I had not remembered that incident until today. But beginning from that, I was able to conjecture upon the answers to my questions. The Procurator is charged both with imparting justice and with maintaining peace; the only threat against the peace of Judea is Hebraic messianism, which preaches the coming of a redeemer of the Jewish people, a descendant of King David who will restore the political sovereignty of Israel. There is a surplus of these redeemers, or messiahs, in Judea, Sire; shake any palm tree in the desert, and from it will fall twenty date clusters and ten redeemers. My inquiry became more circumscribed: was the Procurator Pilate involved in one of these cases? Was I, that afternoon during the dog days, an unconscious witness to an encounter between the Procurator and one of those Jewish prophets?
I unearthed the least-consulted papers in our archives; finally I found a brief bureaucratic report telling of an execution, scarcely five years ago, of a Hebrew magus or prophet or rogue of questionable behavior who fraternized with prostitutes and lived with twelve workmen; he was called the Nazarite, or, as that is translated, the Saint of God. This man, the Nazarite, said he was descended from David and that he was the Messiah of prophecy, the King of the Jews. For some months he wandered about the most remote areas of Judea, preaching this rebel-lion-of-one that coincides with what you asked me to find, Caesar: a purely individual revolt that originated in the mob, for the Nazarite was the son of a carpenter and was born in a stable. He said, nonetheless, that he was the son of God, born independently of man, and he affirmed that earthly power and riches are of no worth, for all that matters is to save one’s soul and win the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the kingdom of that unique God, the supposed father of the Nazarite.
With these ideas he either irritated or disheartened everyone. He discouraged, Caesar, those who were awaiting a call to arms; instead, the Nazarite preached love for one’s fellow, meekness, and other, not in the least martial, virtues, such as offering the other cheek to those who smite us. And he irritated the priests of Jerusalem and the Sadducean aristocracy, our allies, because he expounded before the mob criticisms and reproaches against the Hebrew order and their wise alliance with Rome. He literally walked into the mouth of the wolf: he went to Jerusalem and there incited disorders, outraging the sellers of doves, whipping the money-changers installed in the atrium of the temple, and violating the Sabbath with healings the Jews attributed to Beelzebub, although their only debt was to Aesculapius. He grossly insulted the learned doctors of the law, the Scribes and Pharisees, calling them whited sepulchers and other such pretty names. This permitted the Hebraic aristocracy to denounce him as a dangerous agitator before Pilate, and at first, Caesar, your Procurator seemed doubtful, in spite of the insistence of his wife, who sent him messages telling him to have nothing to do with “The Just” because he made her suffer in dreams; but in the end he capitulated to this argument: the Nazarite says he is King of the Jews; but we, the Hebrew hierarchs, recognize no king but Tiberius; if you free the agitator, Pilate, you will demonstrate that you are no friend of Tiberius Caesar.
Pilate converted necessity into policy; he saw an opportunity in all this to ingratiate himself with the priesthood and the aristocracy, and at the same time to frighten other Jewish insurgents; they, like the Nazarite, threaten both the dominion of Rome and the stability of the Hebrew powers allied with Rome. And, as I have told you, such men abound: one who called himself the Anointed said he had the power to resurrect the dead; another called Jehohanan drowned evildoers in the Jordan as he walked upon the waters. And so on and so forth.
As everyone had agreed, the Nazarite was led to the cross and died there on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan; but his stubborn disciples say he arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, and that his kingdom of slaves will be eternal, whereas your kingdom of patricians is but transitory; and in recollection of the sacrifice of their Master, these followers have the custom of making with their hand the sign of the cross upon their face or breast, in the same way we Romans, as a sign of adoration, place our right hand to our lips.
But to return to your Procurator, Caesar. The crucifixion of the Nazarite was the last instance of equilibrium between the power of Rome and that of her Hebrew collaborators. Made arrogant by his political success in ridding himself of the Nazarite, Pilate believed he could use that event to advantage and extend the local power of Rome by confusing it with his own. He had eliminated the prophet; he thought, too, to subject those who had helped crucify him. Naively, he did not perceive that the priests and Jewish aristocracy were well aware of the popularity of the Nazarite and that as they forced Pilate’s hand they were in truth effecting the lessening of prestige of Roman justice, they were weakening our power and strengthening their own. The truth is that poor Pilate succumbed to this human temptation: not to be content with the balance of power he thought he had achieved and, not being content, desiring to upset it. Why?