The Redemption of Pontius Pilate (46 page)

“I am innocent of this man's blood!” I cried. “I wash my hands of this whole affair!”

Old Annas spoke again. “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” he shouted back. Even his son-in-law Caiaphas scowled at this remark, and many in the crowd howled their opposition, but the old man glared at them and refused to retract his ridiculous statement. But then that hateful cry of “Crucify, Crucify!” drowned out their argument.

I had had enough. “Take him then, and crucify him!” I snapped to the legionaries. “But I find no guilt in him,” I muttered as they left. There was one duty left to attend—listing the formal charge against Jesus, to be posted on the cross above his head. I took a broad-tipped quill and wrote in bold letters: “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews!” and ordered my scribe to copy it in Greek and Hebrew. I would accord the strange man this much honor, at least. For in my heart, I think he may have been a king of some sort.

As I returned to my quarters, I found the young disciple of Jesus, whom I had quite forgotten, staring at me with tears streaming down his face. “Get him out of here!” I snapped.

Even after I had granted them their wish, Caesar, the Jewish priests were still not happy with my handling of the Galilean. I had just sat down to my noontide meal when I got word that one of Caiaphas' secretaries wanted to see me. Once more I had to leave the Praetorium, since their ridiculous religion would not allow them to cross the threshold of a Roman. “What is it now?” I snapped.

“The inscription,” he said. “You wrote ‘This is the King of the Jews.' It should read that he called himself the King of the Jews.”

I had had just about enough from these fools at this point. “I have written what I have written!” I snapped. “I will hear no more of this!”

It was a strange day after that. Within the next hour, the sky grew black as night, even though there was not a cloud in view. The light of the sun simply faded—not blotted out gradually, as in an eclipse, but all at once, and did not return to normal for three hours. At the third hour past noon, a huge earthquake shook the city. My centurion told me that it happened at the exact moment that Jesus died, and he was much shaken, babbling that we had murdered a living god—although he was quite drunk when he said it.

Not long after that, a very different sort of Jew came to see me. His name was Joseph, and he ignored protocol and entered the Praetorium to speak with me. He explained that, while he was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish Senate, he had not even been informed of the charges against Jesus, nor was he present at the trial. He asked me for Jesus' body, that he might give the Galilean a decent burial. I instructed my soldiers that he could take custody of the body as soon as they had made sure that Jesus was truly dead. The least I could do for this harmless man I had failed to save was let those who loved him bury him according to their own religious rituals.

I am sorry to have troubled you for so long about this matter, Caesar, but I am afraid that the story does not yet end. The sun had not yet set on that endless Friday when emissaries from the High Priest came to see me yet again. As you can imagine, they found me in no good mood. Why could they not return to their sacrificial Passover lambs and leave me be?

“Noble procurator,” purred old Annas. “While he was alive, this troublemaker repeatedly said that if he was killed, he would return to life on the third day. Could we trouble you for some guards to watch over the tomb until after the first day of the week? We fear his disciples may try to steal his body and proclaim him alive again, and then the deception will only grow worse!”

“You have your Temple guards,” I growled. “Guard the bloody tomb yourselves!”

They bowed and scurried out, anxious to return to their families before sunset, when their religious observance actually began. After they left, I called in primus pilus centurion, Gaius Cassius Longinus, who had headed the crucifixion detail. He had sobered up some, but was obviously still deeply troubled over his afternoon's work.

“The Jews think someone may attempt to disturb the Galilean's grave,” I told him. “First of all, are you sure that he was dead when his family cut him down from the cross?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he said. “He had quit breathing a half hour before, but I still had one of my boys skewer his heart with a spear before I allowed them to cut him down. I have never seen anyone die so bravely, sir. Not a curse! In fact, he even prayed for us as he hung there. Asked his father to forgive us! I've never heard the like!”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Just make sure a couple of your legionaries keep an eye on that tomb for the next few days.”

That Saturday, Caesar, was one of the quietest days during my entire tenure here in Judea. The Jewish leaders, having gotten their way, were quiescent the whole time, absorbed in their Passover rituals. The Galilean's followers were in hiding, no doubt in shock and grief at his death. After that incredibly long and difficult Friday, I began to feel I could breathe again.

But Sunday morning, shortly before the noontide meal, Longinus came to see me. He saluted crisply, but his countenance was grim. Not just grim, either. He was afraid.

“He's gone,” he said.

“Who is gone?” I asked.

“That bloody Galilean! Jesus of Nazareth! His tomb is empty, his shroud an empty shell, and his body is missing!”

Rage filled me. “How could this happen?” I demanded.

“My three legionaries were camped some distance away,” he said. “But there were twenty of those Jewish Temple guards watching the tomb, and the stone across the entrance would have taken a dozen men to move! They had even sealed it with a big wax seal, proclaiming death to any who violated the tomb.”

“Then what happened?” I demanded.

“Just before dawn, they heard the ground shake, and the Jewish Temple guards shrieking. My two boys started towards the tomb, and saw the Jews lying on the grass as if dead. The huge stone was moved several yards away from the entrance. Decius Carmella approached the opening, and then a blinding flash of light knocked both of them out cold. When they woke up, the Jews had fled, and there was a group of women at the tomb wondering what had happened. That is when they came and reported to me!”

Caesar, I write these last pages with my own hand, because I am not sure that I trust even my faithful scribe with the words that follow. As soon as Longinus made his report, I ordered him to arrest some of the Temple guards and bring them to me immediately. It took a couple of hours, as they were closeted with the priests in some secret meeting. My legionaries discreetly nabbed two of them as soon as they left, and dragged them to the Praetorium.

At first they tried to pass off the story that the disciples of Jesus had stolen the body as they slept near the tomb. This tale was obviously a concoction—a guard detachment of twenty all asleep at the same time? The band of frightened rabbits that was too afraid to rescue their beloved rabbi, suddenly risking life and limb to retrieve his ravaged corpse? Ridiculous! I ordered them scourged, and their story soon changed.

What they told us was that before dawn Sunday morning, about half the detachment was asleep as the other half stood in front of the tomb, bored and talking among themselves. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light and a great earthquake that knocked them all to their knees, and the stone in front of the tomb was flung about ten yards away, nearly crushing one of them. As they stared at the entrance of the tomb, two glowing balls of light descended from the sky and assumed human form at the entrance. They turned and looked at the guards, and every one of them fell down as if dead. When they came to, the tomb was empty, and three Roman soldiers were there unconscious as well. They fled to the Temple to report what they had seen to the High Priest, leaving my men stretched out on the grass.

The story sounds unbelievable, but even after another dose of the cat-o-nine-tails, they refused to change it. I ordered them both put to death and buried outside the city walls, so that no one would know what they had told me. Then I summoned the High Priest and met him outside the Temple District.

“What has happened?” I demanded.

“Exactly what I warned you of!” he snapped. “The Galileans came at night and stole the body of the Nazarene!”

“You mean all of your Temple guards let themselves be overpowered by a dozen frightened fishermen?” I sneered.

“There were nearly a hundred of them!” he said, obviously shaken that I refused to believe him.

“So how many did your guards kill?” I asked.

“None!” he said. “The blackguards overwhelmed them as they slept!”

His lies were so preposterous I did not want to listen any more. I turned on my heel and called over my shoulder: “It sounds like your guards were derelict in their duty. Let me know if you want them crucified, too!”

By evening the city was abuzz with rumors that the crucified Galilean had been seen again, by several of his disciples and by a group of women as well. There were also stories that the earthquake had torn the veil of the Temple, that several long-dead holy men had been seen wandering the streets preaching about the Messiah, and that the disciple who betrayed Jesus had hung himself. The priests were strangely silent, and I did not know what to believe myself.

The next morning, I walked down to the tomb where the crucified Jesus had been interred four days before. The heavy stone that had been rolled across the entrance was indeed several yards away, and one side of it was strangely scorched. The seal that had been placed on it was a half molten blob of wax. I looked into the tomb, but there was only the lingering scent of myrrh and some empty linen wrappings lying where the body of the Nazarene prophet had been placed. I sat down on the stone outside, lost in thought.

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead?” a voice asked me.

I looked up to see the young disciple of Jesus whom I had recruited to act as my interpreter at the trial. He was alone and unarmed, and I motioned my legionaries to let him approach. He looked to be just out of his teens, and his expression was one of confidence and . . . for lack of a better word, joy.

“What happened here?” I demanded.

“Here the man you killed returned to life,” he said simply.

“That is impossible!” I snapped.

“All things are possible with God,” he calmly replied. “Our prophets have long predicted that the Lord's Messiah would be betrayed, tormented, and killed, and then rise again from the dead. I watched it happen. I saw him tried, I saw him nailed to the cross, and I saw your soldiers drive a spear through his heart. I wrapped his body in the shroud, and I stepped into the tomb yesterday morning to see the same empty cloths you just did.”

“An empty tomb and an abandoned shroud don't mean a corpse came back to life!” I snapped. “They mean a grave was robbed, and I intend to find out who did it!”

His eyes softened. “Noble Governor,” he said. “I saw that you did your best to spare him, and I am grateful. As long as I live to tell the story, I will tell that you did your best to save his life. But there is more to the story than the empty tomb. I know that he lives because I have seen him myself! Alive, healthy, eating supper, the wounds of his ordeal healed! I have touched the nail scars in his hands! If you had seen what I have seen since yesterday morning, you too would believe in him!”

The audacity of this peasant stunned me! That he would dare to
forgive
me for simply carrying out my duties as governor! I raised my hand to strike him, and then lowered it again, unnerved by his unwavering stare. Whatever he had seen, I realized that it had left him utterly without fear. As quickly as my dignitas would allow, I turned on my heel and left that accursed place.

And that is the end of my tale, Caesar. I have tried to conduct myself as a Roman prefect and nobleman should. I still do not know what it is I have done. Have I been the victim of an incredibly elaborate fraud? Have I lost my mind? Or was I the unwitting accomplice in the murder of a god? I do not know. So I leave judgment of this matter in your hands. Mine are too stained with blood to deal with it any further. I beg you, Caesar, recall me from this benighted place and let me return to Rome! I know that it was my own actions that drove you to send me here, but surely I have paid for them by now. Please let me come home! I remain, respectfully yours, Lucius Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea.

Forty days, thought Pilate. What a horrific forty days they had been! First, the reports that had kept pouring in that the man he crucified was somehow alive again, no matter how impossible that seemed to be. Jesus had been seen by eleven of his surviving disciples. Jesus had been seen by his own brothers in Nazareth. Jesus had appeared inside a locked room in Jerusalem. Jesus had cooked breakfast for some fishermen on the shores of Lake Gennesaret. Finally, Jesus had appeared to a gathering of some five hundred of his followers in the hills outside Jerusalem. Manifestly impossible, yet the tales kept coming!

Then Pilate had lost the services of a man he had come to depend on greatly during his years in Judea. Cassius Longinus had come in to see him about a month after the crucifixion of Jesus, carrying his sword and armor, clad in a simple tunic and a homespun robe.

“I'm done, sir,” he said quietly when Pilate looked up at him curiously.

“What do you mean, Centurion?” asked the prefect.

“I've been a soldier over twenty years, Pilate. I've killed more men than I care to remember and seen horrors I can't forget,” said Longinus. “I've always been able to live with myself until now. I've told myself that my service to Rome was for the greater good. There were times it was hard for me to keep thinking that, but serving with you had made it easier—till now.”

“So what has changed?” Pilate asked.