45. Trial before Pilate

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The trial of Christ the Prophet was over; now began the trial of Christ the King. The religious judges had found Our Lord too Divine because He had called Himself God; now the civil judges will condemn Him for being too human. When a higher court hears a case presented to it by a lower court, there is a continuity of charges. The religious judges did not have the power of life and death, since the Romans had conquered their land. It was to be expected, therefore, that when Our Blessed Lord was led before the superior court of Pilate, exactly the same charge would be filed against Him, namely, blasphemy. The approval and sentence of death required, however, the seal of Pilate. There were two ways in which the Sanhedrin could have done this: either by Pilate accepting the judgment of the religious court, or by opening a new trial in the civil court of their conquerors. The second was the method chosen, and shrewdly enough. The Sanhedrin knew very well that Pilate would laugh at them, if they told him that Christ was guilty of blasphemy. They had their God; he had his gods. Furthermore, since this was a purely religious charge, Pilate might have referred it back to their own court without sentencing Christ to death.

In order to understand the relationship between the conquered and the conqueror, a word must be said about Pilate and the Jewish hatred of him. Pilate, the sixth Roman procurator of Judea since the conquest, had held his office for some ten years during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. His arbitrary and sometimes cruel conduct had led to repeated uprisings by the Jews which he had suppressed with violent measures. The people of Jerusalem despised him not only because he was the representative of the Roman Emperor and was not of their own race but also because he once caused painted portraits of the Emperor to be brought by night into Jerusalem and set up in the temple. Pilate threatened to slay the Jews with swords if they protested this act; but the Jews offered their necks to Pilate and complained to Tiberius. The result was that the emblems were removed. It was Herod Antipas who brought the petition of the Jews to Tiberius. This might have been the reason for the friction which existed between Pilate and Herod.

Another reason why Pilate was hated was that he had confiscated some treasury funds, which he used for building an aqueduct. Some Jews from Galilee were murdered in a disturbance during its building, and it could have been during some such riot as this that Barabbas was arrested as a leader of the rioters and a robber besides. Pilate had to be very careful about his position in Rome, since Rome had on one occasion failed to sustain him in his action against the Jews.

Very early in the morning, all the members of the Sanhedrin—including the priests, elders, and Scribes—decided to bring Christ to Pilate and ask for the death sentence. The priests were indignant that He had spoken of Himself as the Lamb of God; the elders were offended because, as opposed to their fixed traditionalism, He affirmed that He was the Word of God; the Scribes hated Him because He opposed the letter of the word and promised the Spirit that would illumine it. After completing plans for putting Him to death:

They led Him away in bonds, and gave Him

Up to the governor, Pontius Pilate.

MATTHEW 27:2

Several times Our Lord had been bound, when they first seized Him and when He was led into the courts of Annas and Caiphas. Putting Him in fetters for Pilate to see would create the impression that He had committed some fearful crime. Leading Him away to Pilate was one of the turning points in the Passion, for it fulfilled the prophecy that Our Blessed Lord had uttered:

He will be given up to the Gentiles,

And mocked, and beaten, and spat upon;

They will scourge Him, and then they will kill Him;

But on the third day He will rise again.

LUKE 18:32, 33

The Sanhedrin led Him away because they had rejected the promise of Salvation that came from the Messias; now it remained for the Gentiles to decide what they would do, whether they would reject the King as the Sanhedrin had rejected the Prophet. The great wall between the Jew and the Gentile was eventually broken down, since both condemned Him to death. As St. Paul wrote:

He has made the two nations one,

Breaking down the wall that was a barrier between us,

The enmity there was between us, in His own mortal nature.

EPHESIANS 2:14

Thus the responsibility for His death cannot be put upon any one people, but upon all mankind:

The whole world shall own itself liable.

ROMANS 3:19

The Sanhedrin—which had scruples about using the Judas money that purchased blood—also had scruples about entering the house of a Gentile, in this case, that of Pilate. In bringing the Divine Prisoner to Pilate, there was one thing the sensitive consciences of the Sanhedrin members feared—defilement. Pilate was a Gentile; to enter his praetorium would defile them so that they could not celebrate the Passover. They had to keep themselves pure in order to shed the innocent blood of the Passover Lamb. On this account they preferred to shed the innocent Blood of the Lamb of God rather than step over a Gentile’s threshold. Our Lord had once called the Pharisees “whitened sepulchres,” because, like whitewashed tombs, they were clean on the outside, but on the inside were filled with dead men’s bones. The judgment was now fulfilled in their dread of contamination with uncircumcised flesh while living with uncircumcised hearts. There were other scruples too; if they entered a house from which all leaven had not been removed, they could not partake of the Passover.

When the officials of the Sanhedrin arrived at the praetorium (or the house of the Governor), Pilate went out to meet them, for he knew that they would consider themselves unclean if forced to come in. Carrying on the Roman tradition of respect for law, he declared that he would not pass sentence unless the evidence showed the accused to be guilty. So he asked the Sanhedrin:

What charge do you bring against this man?

JOHN 18:29

In order to capture Pilate’s good will, they invited him to trust the judgment that they had already pronounced. Furthermore, they assured Pilate that they would certainly never do anything wrong to an innocent man:

We would not have given Him up to thee,

If He had not been a malefactor.

JOHN 18:30

Nothing was said about blasphemy. They knew that charge would be useless before a Gentile, a conqueror, and one whom they despised; so they used the general term “malefactor.” And here they were more right than they knew, for Christ was indeed a malefactor or one “bearing the sins of many.”

Pilate, knowing their status under Rome was not such as to protect his authority and not wishing to handle the case, told them to judge Him according to their own law. But they answered that they had no power to put any man to death—which indeed was true, since that belonged to Rome. Furthermore, they did not dare put anyone to death on the feast day when they sacrificed the Paschal Lamb.

They now brought three charges against Our Lord in order to force Pilate to hear the case:

We have discovered that this Man is subverting

The loyalty of our people,

Forbids the payment of tribute to Caesar,

And calls Himself Christ the King.

LUKE 23:2

Still no mention of blasphemy; the charge now was sedition; Christ was unpatriotic, He was too worldly, He was too political, He was anti-Caesar, anti-Rome. In short, He was a deceiver who was inducing people to follow another direction than that dictated by Rome. Secondly, He was urging the people not to pay taxes to the king or to Caesar. And thirdly, He was setting Himself up as a rival king to Pilate; this was an abuse of majesty. The Romans, they said, must be on their guard against this political upstart. They even spoke of “the loyalty of our people” to Rome, whereas in their hearts they really despised Pilate and Rome.

Every word was a lie. If Christ had been a ringleader of sedition or if there had been any signs of insurrection connected with His name, Pilate would have heard of it. So would have suspicious Herod; but never had the slightest complaint been brought against Him previously. As for the charge that He had failed to give tribute to Caesar, only a short time before when an attempt was made to entrap Him in the temple, He had told the people “to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The third charge—that He was king—was not that He had made Himself King of the Jews, but rather that He was a king that challenged Caesar. This too was a lie, because when the people sought to make Him that kind of king, He fled into the mountains alone.

Pilate suspected their sincerity because He knew how much the Jews hated him and Caesar. But one charge worried him slightly. Was this Prisoner before him a king? Pilate summoned Our Lord inside the house. Once in the judgment hall, Pilate asked:

Art Thou the King of the Jews?

JOHN 18:33

The charge was only that He was a king. Pilate knew that if Christ was setting Himself up as a rival king to the Romans, the Gentiles would be there to testify against Him. So he asked if He were King of the Jews. Our Lord in answer to the question penetrated the conscience of Pilate; He asked him if he was saying that because his suspicions had been aroused by the false charge of His enemies. Pilate had expected a direct answer. Our Lord now made clear that a distinction had to be made between a political and religious kingship; political kingship, which was the only interest Pilate had in the case, the Master rejected; religious Kingship which meant that He was the Messias, Our Lord admitted. To the skeptical Pilate, Our Blessed Lord had to make clear that His Kingship was not that of an earthly kingdom obtained by military power; it was rather a spiritual Kingdom to be established in truth. He would have only moral subjects, not political ones; He would reign in hearts, not in armies.

My Kingdom does not belong to this world.

If My Kingdom were one which belonged to this world,

My servants would be fighting, to prevent My

Falling into the hands of the Jews; but no,

My Kingdom does not take its origin here.

JOHN 18:36

Pilate’s worry about a challenge to Roman power was, for the moment, put at ease. Christ’s Kingdom was not of this world; therefore He was not like Judas the Galilean, the son of Ezechias, who had led a rebellion against Rome a few decades before by inciting the people not to pay taxes. Pilate may have heard that the night before, when Peter had argued with the sword, Our Lord had reprimanded the wielder of the weapon and had healed the injured man. If His Kingdom were of the world, Our Lord argued, He would need the help of armies of men; but a Heavenly Kingdom was sufficient unto itself, for its power came from above. His Kingdom was in the world, but not of it.

The quiet and dignified bearing of the One before him so helplessly bound with ropes —His face marred with the beatings after the first trial, His assertion that His Kingdom was not of this world, that He had servants who would not use the sword, and that He was to establish a Kingdom without fighting—all this puzzled Pilate, who changed his question. The first time Pilate had asked, “Art Thou King of the Jews?” Now he asked:

Thou art a King, then?

JOHN 18:37

The religious trial centered on Christ the Prophet, the Messias, the Son of God. The civil trial revolved about His Kingship. Strange how the Gentiles were associated with Christ under this royal title! The Magi at His birth asked where the King was born; it was the imperial edict of Caesar that fulfilled the prophecy of Micheas that He would be born in Bethlehem.

Pilate, satisfied that Christ was not a political rival, in wonderment prodded a little deeper into the mystery of His Kingly claim. Our Lord, having already avowed His Kingly state, acknowledged the inference which Pilate had somewhat scornfully drawn and answered:

It is thy own lips that have called Me a King.

What I was born for, what I came into the world for,

Is to bear witness of the truth.

Whoever belongs to the truth,

Listens to My voice.

JOHN 18:37

All during Our Lord’s life He had spoken of Himself as coming into this world; this was the only time that He ever spoke of being born. Being born of a woman is one fact, coming into the world is another. But He immediately followed up this reference to His human birth with the reaffirmation that He had come into the world. When He said that He was born, He was acknowledging His human temporal origin as the Son of Man; when He said He came into the world, He affirmed His Divinity. Furthermore, He Who came from heaven, came to bear witness, which meant to die for the truth. He laid down the moral condition of discovering truth and affirmed that it was not only an intellectual quest; what one discovered depended in part on one’s moral behavior. It was in this sense, Our Lord said once, that His sheep heard His voice. Pilate evidently caught the idea that moral conduct had something to do with the discovery of truth, so he resorted to pragmatism and utilitarianism, and sneered the question:

What is truth?

JOHN 18:38

Then he turned his back on truth—better not on it, but on Him Who is Truth. It remained to be seen that tolerance of truth and error in a stroke of broadmindedness leads to intolerance and persecution; “What is truth?” when sneered, is followed up with the second sneer, “What is justice?” Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right. He who was so tolerant of error as to deny an Absolute Truth was the one who would crucify Truth. It was the religious judge who challenged Him, “I adjure thee” but the secular judge asked, “What is truth?” He who was in the robe of the high priest called upon God to repudiate the things that are God’s; he who was in the Roman toga just professed a skepticism and doubt.

When Our Lord said that everyone that is of the truth would hear His voice, He enunciated the law that truth assimilates all that is congenial to itself. The same idea He had told Nicodemus:

Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light,

Will not come into the light,

For fear that his doings will be found out.

Whereas the man whose life is true

Comes to the light, so that his deeds may be

Seen for what they are, deeds done in God.

JOHN 3:20, 21

If therefore, the impulse toward truth was in Pilate, he would know that Truth Itself stood before him; if it was not in him, he would sentence Christ to death.

Pilate was one of those who believed that truth was not objective but subjective, that each man determined for himself what was to be true. It is often the fault of practical men, such as Pilate, to regard the search for objective truth as useless theorizing. Skepticism is not an intellectual position; it is a moral position, in the sense that it is determined not so much by reason as by the way one acts and behaves. Pilate’s desire to save Jesus was due to a kind of liberalism which combined disbelief in Absolute Truth with a half-benevolent unwillingness to disturb such dreamers and their superstitions. Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” of the only Person in the world Who could answer it in all its fullness.

Pilate now began the first of several attempts to rescue Christ, such as a declaration of His innocence, a choice between prisoners, a scourging, an appeal to sympathy, a change of judges. Pilate, not understanding how anyone could die for truth, naturally could not understand how Truth Itself could die for those who erred. After turning his back upon the Logos Incarnate, he carried to the people outside his conviction that the Prisoner before him was innocent.

I can find no fault in Him.

JOHN 18:38

If there was no fault in Him, Pilate should have released Him. On hearing the Roman Governor’s declaration that the Prisoner was innocent, the members of the Sanhedrin became more violent in their accusation that He was an insurrectionist and revolutionist:

He rouses sedition among the people;

He has gone round the whole of Judea preaching,

Beginning in Galilee and ending here.

LUKE 23:5

Pilate’s supreme interest was the peace of the state; hence the supreme interest of the Sanhedrin was to prove that Christ was a disturber of the peace. As soon as Pilate heard the word “Galilee,” he saw an escape from judging Christ…. As the Sanhedrin had changed the charge from blasphemy to sedition, so Pilate would turn over jurisdiction of the trial to one who had power in Galilee.

Herod, by reason of the Passover, was now in Jerusalem. Though he and Herod were enemies, Pilate nevertheless was anxious to shift the responsibility of acquitting or condemning Christ to Herod.

TRIAL BEFORE HEROD

This Herod was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who had caused all the male children under two years of age to be murdered at Bethlehem. Herod’s family was Idumaean, that is to say, descendants from Esau, the father of Edom. It was the seed of Esau which seemed to carry on enmity against the seed of Jacob. Herod Antipas was the uncle of Herod Agrippa who later on slew James the Apostle, and would have slain Peter, if Peter had not been miraculously delivered from prison. Herod was a sensual, worldly man; he had murdered John the Baptist because John condemned him for divorcing his wife and living with his brother’s wife. Herod had an uneasy conscience, not only because he had slain the announcer of Christ but also because his superstitions made him believe that John the Baptist had risen and was haunting his soul.

When Our Lord was brought to Herod:

Herod was overjoyed at seeing Jesus;

For a long time he had been eager to have sight of Him,

Because he had heard so much of Him,

And now he hoped to witness some miracle of His.

LUKE 23:8

The Savior Who had never worked a miracle on His own behalf would certainly not work one now to release Himself. But the frivolous tetrarch, who regarded the Prisoner in the way an audience might regard a juggler, looked for the thrill of some brief moment of magic. As a Sadducee, he did not believe in a future life; and as a man entirely devoted to licentiousness, he identified religion and magic. Herod was the type of man who was curious about religion, studying, reading and sometimes knowing it well, but he also kept his vices. That is why he asked Our Lord many questions. Although the Scribes and the chief priests joined Herod in goading Our Lord, He refused to speak to Herod. If He had spoken, He would only have added to the guilt of the moral trifler. The temptation to accept all the kingdoms of the world by compromising the Cross was once more presented to the Savior. Pilate He could have won—and Herod too with a word— but He refused to speak. He had warned about preaching to those who were insincere in the Sermon on the Mount:

You must not give that which is holy to dogs.

Do not cast your pearls before swine,

Or the swine may trample them under foot,

And then turn on you and tear you to pieces.

MATTHEW 7:6

Religion is not to be given to everyone, but only to those who are “of the truth.” Though Herod was glad to see Our Lord, his gladness did not arise from noble motives of repentance. Hence, the Christ, Who spoke to a penitent thief and to Magdalen and Judas, would not speak to the Galilean king, for Herod’s conscience was dead. He was too familiar with religion. He wanted miracles, not as motives of credibility, but as delights to his curiosity. His soul was so blinded by appeals, including even the Baptist’s, that one more appeal would have only deepened his guilt. It was not his soul for salvation that Herod offered the Lord, but only his nerves for titillation. So the Lord of the world spoke not a word to the worldling. The Book of Proverbs expressed well the Divine attitude to Herod:

It will be their turn, then, to call aloud;

My turn, then, to refuse an answer.

They will be early abroad looking for me,

But find me never;

Fools, that grew weary of instruction,

And would not fear the Lord.

PROVERBS 1:28

The silence of Our Lord so irritated Herod that his insulted pride turned to scoffing and mockery:

So Herod and his attendants made a jest of Him,

Arraying Him in festal attire out of mockery,

And sent Him back to Pilate.

LUKE 23:11

The voice that commanded that the head of John the Baptist be given to the daughter of Herodias now commanded that the white garment of humiliation be draped about the shoulders of the Prisoner. The robe that was put upon Him was probably a white robe as a mockery of His claim to be a King. All candidates for public office in Rome wore a toga candida or white robe, from which comes the word “candidate.” Thus Herod intimated that the pretended King was worthy of contempt, but the white robe was unwittingly also a declaration of innocence.

It is the way of the world for those who have small hates to bury them for the sake of a higher hate. Nazism and Communism united because of a common hatred of God; so did Pilate and Herod:

That day Herod and Pilate,

Who had hitherto been at enmity

With one another, became friends.

LUKE 23:12

Pharisaism and Sadduceeism, which were enemies, united in the Crucifixion. The Cross of Christ unites His friends—that is obvious; but the Cross also unites His enemies. The worldly always drop their lesser hates in the face of the hatred of the Divine. It was a good joke, this Prisoner covered with His own Blood, hated by His own people, claiming to be a King. Herod could trust Pilate to see the humor of it. When Pilate and he would laugh over it together, they would no longer be enemies—even when the butt of the humor was God. The only time laughter is wicked is when it is turned against Him Who gave it. One wonders if, as Herod sent the Divine Prisoner back to Pilate to be condemned, he remembered that the Lord had said that He would die in Jerusalem, not Galilee. After the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit, when Peter and John would be led before judges for preaching Christ and Him Crucified, those who were in their company sent up the first prayer of the Christian Church. In that prayer these two judges would be mentioned together; so would the Jews and Gentiles, for the whole world that shared in His condemnation shared or would share in His Redemption.

True enough, in this city of ours,

Herod and Pontius Pilate,

With the Gentiles and the people of Israel

To aid them, made common cause

Against Thy holy Servant Jesus,

So accomplishing all that Thy power

And wisdom had decreed.

Look down upon their threats,

Lord, now as of old.

ACTS 4:27–29

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