The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ (41 page)

Caiaphas had not accompanied Elam and the others. It was not in keeping with his high office to demand personally the death of any man. He had foreseen the possibility that Pontius Pilate might hesitate, however, and by having the crowd protest against the procurator’s decision if it went against that of the Sanhedrin, he hoped to remind Pilate of what a disturbance here in Jerusalem over the Nazarene could mean.

Pilate hesitated, but before Elam could break into the tirade that was upon his tongue, the centurion Pelonius, standing behind Pilate, said, “This man is a Galilean, sir. And the tetrarch Herod is still in Jerusalem.”

Pilate’s face cleared. Here was a way out; let Herod take the blame since the Nazarene was a subject of his.

“Take Him to Herod,” he ordered. “A man should be judged by His own ruler.”

As a sop to the religious sensitivity of the Jews living in his tetrarchy, Herod Antipas usually came to Jerusalem for the Passover. He was not devout himself; in fact, like his father before him, Herod was a Jew by adoption and had assumed only a thin veneer of Jewish faith. But he was ambitious and had hopes of one day adding Judea and the enormous tax revenue of Jerusalem to his domain. For that reason, it was expedient to show himself here at this time and pretend to a certain amount of piety.

Herod had been relieved that morning when word came that Caiaphas had arrested the Nazarene Teacher who had stirred up Galilee not so long before. Of late he had no trouble from Jesus, but most of the time the Nazarene had remained in the domain of his brother Philip. Herod would still be pleased to hear of His destruction, however, and since the Nazarene had many followers it was best that the blame for His death should fall upon the high priest and Pontius Pilate, so that Herod could claim his own hands were clean.

Herod was dismayed when word was brought by one of the servants that Pilate had sent Jesus of Nazareth under guard to the palace of the Hasmoneans for Herod to judge. But he did not let himself be troubled long. This fellow was reputed to perform miracles; He would no doubt, Herod told himself, be eager to do everything He could to impress the tetrarch of Galilee in the hope of gaining favor and perhaps a lighter sentence.

Herod sent his servants around the palace to gather his guests into the audience chamber to which he now ordered Jesus brought. Elam and the priests who would present the charges of the Sanhedrin against Jesus were admitted to the room. And as soon as Herod entered, Elam began to deliver a tirade of false charges against Jesus. The tetrarch listened a while and then raised his hand for silence.

“What do You say to these charges?” he demanded of Jesus, who had not yet spoken.

When Jesus did not answer, Herod frowned with annoyance. He could almost believe the man was pitying him; certainly the Nazarene’s manner and His refusal to speak fitted the assumption: But how could a man under sentence of death by the Sanhedrin pity the powerful tetrarch of Galilee?

“Do you not defend Yourself?” Herod demanded angrily. “If these charges are true, You should be stoned—or crucified.”

Jesus still did not answer and Herod turned to the chamberlain who stood beside his chair. “Bring me a—” He started to say “whip,” but then he stopped and a sly smile stole over his face. “No. The King of the Jews must be properly honored. Bring me a robe of purple. It is not right that a king wear such a garment as He does. And bring sandals for His feet.”

The guests realized what Herod had in mind and began to laugh. It had been a long time since Judea had had a king, and the last had been the ill-fated Archelaus. Herod would give them one now and the joke would be on the leading citizens, men like Elam and the other rich Pharisees in the audience chamber who had always fought the ambition of Herod Antipas to rule over the province.

The chamberlain quickly brought a robe of Tyrenian purple which he draped about Jesus’ shoulders. Another servant took off the worn sandals and laced on fine leather footgear from Herod’s own wardrobe.

“Now you look like a king, Nazarene!” Herod said. “Go back to Pontius Pilate and tell him I have named You King of the Jews.”

Elam started to protest, but the tetrarch cut him off. “Neither you nor Pilate shall make me a scapegoat,” he said. “You state that this man claims to be King of the Jews, so I have made Him king for you. If you do not want Him, depose Him and get another.”

Elam and the other Sanhedrists now had no choice except to bring Jesus back to Pilate and report that Herod had refused to take jurisdiction over Him.

By the time Mary Magdalene reached the Antonia with Mary of Nazareth, Jesus had already been taken to the nearby palace of the Hasmoneans for the interview with Herod. Since Mary of Magdala lived in Galilee and was a close friend of many influential members of Herod’s court, she decided to go at once to Herod on Jesus’ behalf. But before she could arrange for Mary of Nazareth to be cared for by some of the Master’s followers in the crowd, word came that Herod had sent the prisoner back to Pontius Pilate.

Shortly Jesus appeared, followed by a jeering crowd and wearing the purple robe which Herod had put upon Him in derision. At the sight of the blood and the bruises on His face where He had been beaten by the guards, Mary Magdalene could not help crying out. She would have run to throw herself at His feet, had not the press of the crowd prevented her.

While Jesus was in the house of the Sanhedrin, Jonas had gone back to his hovel outside the gate to feed Eleazar, and since, if Abiathar paid him the shekel, he might be able to buy grain when the shops opened, he took the old mule back with him. Now, as he led the patient animal through the crowd, he saw the beautiful woman of Galilee standing with tears upon her cheeks and recognized her as the one he had seen in the train of Jesus when he had waited beside the Jericho road during the Nazarene’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Appreciating the irony in Herod’s action as a joke upon the high priest, the crowd laughed uproariously when they saw Jesus wearing the purple robe of a king. But Pontius Pilate was annoyed when Jesus was presented to him again with word that Herod had refused to order the Nazarene’s death. “You have brought this man to me as one who perverts the people,” he told Elam and the Sanhedrists sharply. “I have examined Him before you and found no fault in Him touching the things of which you accuse Him. Neither has Herod. I will therefore chastise Him and release Him.”

Elam stepped forward. “Noble Pilate,” he said, “we have a custom that on this day, you release one prisoner to us. Will you follow that custom again at this season?”

“Do you wish me to release the King of the Jews?” Pilate asked contemptuously.

“There is Barabbas,” Elam reminded him. Since they had returned from the palace of the Hasmoneans, Abiathar had been quietly giving instructions to the rabble pressing against the gate of the praetorium. At the mention of Barabbas’s name, the beggars and thieves at the front of the crowd set up a sudden clamor.

“Release Barabbasl” they cried, drowning out those who called for Jesus to be released instead.

Pilate looked at Jesus and was struck once again by His regal bearing in spite of the indignities which had been heaped upon Him. Behind Him, Pilate saw that Claudia Procula had come to the edge of the terrace; she was looking at him with a light of pleading in her eyes and he knew that she was silently begging him to be merciful with the Galilean.

“Take Him and scourge Him,” he ordered the centurion Pelonius “Then bring Him back to me.”

Turning on his heel, Pilate left the terrace without giving the crowd any indication of what his final decision would be. Calling a servant to bring him wine, he sank down upon a bench and put his head between his hands. But still he heard the cries of the crowd outside, clamoring that Barabbas be the one to be released.

When Pilate felt a familiar soft hand upon his cheek he reached up and pressed Claudia Procula’s fingers against his face. “Please have nothing to do with this righteous man, Pontius,” she begged. “I suffered much because of Him in a dream.’’

“I wish this were all a dream,” Pilate said fervently. “And that it were over.”

“Why didn’t you let Him go?”

“If I let the Nazarene go free, Procula, Caiaphas will have the Sanhedrin protest my action to Rome. And you know how much I want to get away from this cursed land.”

“Could they make trouble for you because of a just decision?”

Pilate nodded wearily. “In this case, yes. The man was openly named King of the Jews by His followers; many heard them and He did not deny it. Just now He explained to me that He means a spiritual kingdom. But how could I ever convince Tiberius of that?”

“What will you do then?”

“Caiaphas has stirred up a crowd of beggars and thieves to demand the Nazarene’s death. I recognized some of them at the gate just now. But there are many in Jerusalem who believe He is a prophet. If I have Him scourged, part of the rabble will be satisfied. Then the rest can demand that He be released instead of Barabbas.”

From the open window that gave upon the courtyard, came the shouts of the soldiers as they started to scourge the prisoner. The scourge was a whip with several thongs, each loaded with acorn-shaped balls of lead, sharp pieces of bone, or spikes. Stripped of His clothes, His hands tied to a column or stake with His back bent, the victim was lashed with the flagels by six lictors who plied these instruments of torture almost to the point of the prisoner’s death.

Scourging was not a pretty sight, and Claudia Procula drew the curtains across the window to shut away the sound, but not before she saw the plaited lash with its weighted ends fall upon the slender back bared to it, the cruel thongs cutting into the flesh. She gave a soft cry of pain and protest, for she had seen before what scourging could do to a man, shredding the flesh upon his body and, if one of the leaden balls at the end of the lash happened to strike his eyes, sometimes bursting them from their sockets.

No cries came from the victim and no entreaties for mercy. Presently Pilate went to the window and shouted for the scourging to stop and the prisoner to be brought back to the praetorium. Shortly Jesus appeared there again, His face bloody from the wounds inflicted by the lash and the leaden weights. The soldiers had dropped His robe to His waist to scourge Him and had not raised it, so the crowd could see how cruelly lacerated the upper part of His body was from the scourging.

Even the group of hardened thieves and beggars at the gate were silent at what had been done to the prisoner. They knew the same fate would come to any one of them judged guilty of a capital crime before they were put to death. In the silence, Pilate’s voice was loud.

“Behold!” he shouted. “I bring Him out to you that you may know I find no fault in Him.” With a gesture he indicated Jesus who stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the terrace, still holding Himself proudly in spite of the agony from His many wounds.

“Behold the man!” Pontius Pilate cried again.

The crowd was still silent. Then Elam, realizing that in a moment Pilate might release Jesus and that the Sanhedrin could make no complaint for he had already been cruelly punished, shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Immediately others took up the cry, and the beggars and the thieves at the gate, knowing that Abiathar would punish them if they did not follow his instructions, added their voices to the din.

“Take Him and crucify Him!” Pilate shouted. “I find no fault in Him.”

The Sanhedrists had no intention of allowing Pilate to taunt the crowd into executing Jesus without official Roman approval, however. For that they could themselves be punished during one of the unpredictable moods which often seized the procurator.

“We have a Law!” the Pharisee shouted. “And by our Law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God!”

Pilate turned to Jesus. “Will You not speak to me?” he almost pleaded. “Do you not know I have the power to crucify You or to release You?”

Jesus’ lips were swollen, but when the words came they were clear and distinct. “You could have no power against Me,” He said, “unless it were given you from above. He that delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”

Pilate hesitated, wishing to free Jesus but afraid still of the effect a protest to Rome by the Sanhedrin might have on his career. Elam, watching Pilate and sensing what was in his mind, spoke directly to the harried governor.

“If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend,” he said. “Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.”

In his heart Pilate believed Jesus innocent, yet if he released Him, a charge would surely be brought by the Jews that he had failed to approve the death sentence for one who sought to be a king in Judea, in itself a capital offense. And that, Pilate knew, would mean the end of his so far distinguished career as a Roman governor.

To a man of Pilate’s ambitions there was only one answer. “Shall I crucify your king?” he asked Elam and the other Sanhedrists again.

“We have no king but Caesar,” they answered, by their own words committing the ultimate sin of blasphemy according to their Law.

Pilate turned to an aide who stood behind him. “Bring me a basin of water,” he said wearily. When it was brought, he washed his hands and dried them on a towel, holding them up for the crowd to see.

“I am innocent of the blood of this just person,” he said. “See you to it.”

From the crowd came the answering shout, “His blood be on us and on our children.”

“Have Barabbas released,” Pilate directed Pelonius. “And turn the Nazarene over to them to be crucified.”

As Pilate went back into the palace, moving like a man whose shoulders were weighted down by a heavy burden, Abiathar stepped up to Jesus. Placing upon Jesus’ head a chaplet plaited from the green thorns that Jonas had brought to the palace of Caiaphas the night before, he drove it down with a blow from a reed which he then thrust into Jesus’ hands as a scepter.

“Hail, King of the Jews!” he shouted derisively. As blood started to drip down Jesus’ face from the wounds of the thorns, the crowd surged forward to drag Him from the praetorium into the street leading to Golgotha, the place of execution.