I.N.R.I.: A prisoner's Story of the Cross

by Peter Rosegger

CHAPTER XXXIII

The judges were awakened at midnight; the Jewish High Priests that they might accuse Him, the heathen judges that they might condemn Him. The High Priest Caiaphas left his couch right gladly; he was delighted that they had caught Him at last, but he thought that the High Priest Annas should frame the accusation; he was younger, better acquainted with the Roman laws, and would carry through the ticklish business most effectively. He, Caiaphas, would hold himself ready for bearing testimony or sealing documents at any minute. Annas, too, was delighted that the Galilean, who had insulted the Pharisees in the Temple in so unheard-of a fashion, was caught at last. He would settle the matter this very night, before the people, on whom no reliance was to be placed, could interfere. With respect to the accusation, the whole high priesthood of Jerusalem must meet in order to take counsel over this knotty case. As a matter of fact there was nothing they could legally bring against the fellow. His speeches to the people. His proceedings in the Temple were, unfortunately, not sufficient. Some crime—a political one if possible—must be proved against Him, if that heathen, the Roman governor, was to condemn Him.

So they met at the house of Caiaphas to take counsel. They carried innumerable scrolls under their arms, in which were written all manner of things that had occurred since the first appearance of the Nazarene. The Galilean Rabbis especially had sent volumes in order to discredit and expose Him. Yet all this would not be sufficient for the governor. Some definite point must be clearly worked up.

Then Jesus was brought in. His hands were bound, His dress was soiled and torn. His countenance very sad. The crowd had already had proof of His courage. He stood there quietly. Terror He no longer felt, sadness alone lay in His eyes. They turned over the scrolls and spoke together in whispers. It was made known that they would be glad to hear anyone who could bring any evidence against Him. But no one offered. The priests looked at each other in bewilderment. Those who struck Him and insulted Him must surely know why they did it!

At length a deformed man came forward. He was certainly only a poor camel-dealer, but he knew something. The story of the whale! The Galilean said that, just as the whale cast up Jonah after three days, so would He come forth from His grave three days after His death. The man had also said that He would destroy Solomon's Temple, which had taken forty-seven years to build, and rebuild it in three days. Other witnesses could be found to testify to these things.

Some considered, however, that these stories were empty exaggerations, and nothing more.

"They are blasphemy," exclaimed Caiaphas. "Everything He says has a hidden meaning. What He meant was that three days after His death He would rise again, in order to destroy the Kingdom of the Jews and establish a new Kingdom." Then he turned to Jesus: "Did you say that?"

Jesus was silent.

"He does not deny it; He did say it. The wrath of Jehovah which presses heavily on Israel has been evoked by this blasphemer and false prophet. And the guilty creature does not deny it." Then Caiaphas turned to the people who were gathering in increasing numbers in the fore-court: "Let him who knows anything further against Him come forward and speak."

Then several voices exclaimed: "He is a blasphemer, He is a false prophet. He has brought on us the curse of Jehovah!"

"Do you hear?" said the High Priest. "That is the voice of the people! Yet in order to satisfy the nicest of consciences we will permit Him to speak once again that He may defend Himself. Jesus of Nazareth! many know that you have said that you are the Christ, sent by Heaven. Answer clearly and without ambiguity. I ask you, Are you Christ, the Son of God?"

"You say so," replied Jesus.

Again, and in a louder voice, Caiaphas asked: "By all you deem sacred, speak now on oath. Are you the Son of God?"

Then said Jesus to the High Priest: "If you do not believe it now that I stand before you as a malefactor, you will believe it when I come down from heaven in the clouds at the right hand of Almighty God."

When Jesus had spoken these words, Caiaphas turned to the assembly: "What do you want more? If that's not rank blasphemy, I'll resign my office. If that's not blasphemy, then we have punished others, who said less, far too severely. What shall we do with Him?"

Several priests rent their garments in anger, and shouted: "Let Him die!"

The cry was taken up by many voices out in the streets. The priests immediately put things in shape for the sentence to be pronounced that night, and, if possible, carried into effect before the festival, without making a stir.

If the matter had rested with Herod, King of the Jews, he would have rid himself of his rival from Nazareth with a snap of his lingers; but it was the Roman governor with whom they had to deal. So Pontius Pilate also was awakened in the night. He was a Roman, and had been appointed by the Emperor to hold Judaea in spite of Herod, whose Jewish kingdom had become as nothing. Pilate often declared that this office of ruling the Jewish people for the Emperor had been his evil star. He would rather have remained in cultured Rome, whose gods were much more amiable than the perverse Jehovah, about whom all kinds of sects disputed. And then came this Nazarene. When Pilate learnt the reason why he was disturbed from his sleep he cursed. "This stupid business again about the Nazarene who, accompanied by a few beggars, rode into Jerusalem on an ass, and said He was the Messiah. The people laughed at Him. And that's to be made a political case! They should expel Him from the Temple and let people sleep."

But the crowd shouted in front of his windows: "He is a blasphemer! A deceiver and a traitor! An anarchist! He must be tried!" Pilate did not know what to do. Then his wife came, and entreated him not to do anything to Jesus of Nazareth. She had had a horrible dream about Him. She had seen Him standing in a white garment that shone like the moon. Then he had descended into a deep abyss where the souls of the condemned were wailing, had raised them up and led them on high. Then dreadful angels with big black wings had seized the judges, and thrown them into the abyss. Pilate had been among them, and his cry of pain still rang in her ears.

"Don't make my head more confused than it is already with your talking," he commanded. The noise in the street became more threatening every moment.

Jesus was exhausted, and, surrounded by guards, sat down on a stone in the courtyard of Pilate's house. The crowd came up, mocked Him and insulted Him. They draped Him in the torn red cloak of a Bedouin for royal purple, they plucked thorns from a hedge in the neighbouring garden, wove them into a crown, and set it on His head. They broke off a dry reed and put it into His hand as a sceptre. They anointed His cheek with spittle. And then they bowed down to the ground before Him, and sang in a shrill voice: "Hail to Thee, O anointed Messiah-King!" and put out their tongues at Him.

Jesus sat there, calm and unmoved. He looked at His tormentors with sad eyes, not in anger, but in pity.

His disciples, terrified to death, had now come up, but remained outside the walls. Peter was furious over the infamous betrayal that had taken place, and could not understand what had possessed Judas. In sore distress he stood in the farthest courtyard where it was dark. Then a girl tripped up to him on her way to the well for water.

"Here's another!" she shouted. "Why are you standing here? Go and do homage to your King."

Peter turned in the direction of the gate.

"You're one of those Galileans, too," she continued.

"What have I to do with Galilee?" he said.

A gatekeeper interposed: "Of course he is a Galilean. You can see that by his dress. He belongs to the Nazarene."

"I do not know Him," said Peter, and tried to hurry off. The gatekeeper stopped him with the shaft of his spear. "Halt there, you Jew! Your King is seated yonder on His throne. Do homage to Him before He flies into the clouds."

"Let me alone; I do not know the man," exclaimed Peter, and hastened away. As he went out of the gate, a cock crowed just over his head. Peter started. Did He not speak of a cock at supper? "And another will deny me this night just before cock-crow." In a flash the old disciple saw what he had done. From terror that he, too, would be seized, he had lied about his Master, about Him who had been everything to him—everything—everything. Now in His need they had left Him alone, had not even had the courage to acknowledge themselves His supporters. "Oh, Simon!" he said to himself, "you should have stayed by your lake instead of playing at being the chosen of God. He gave me His Kingdom of Heaven and this is how I requite Him!" His life was now so broken that he crept out into the desert. There he threw himself on a stone, wrung his hands, and abandoned himself to weeping.

Jesus was at last brought into the hall before the Governor. When Pilate saw Him in that unheard-of disguise, his temper began to rise. He was not to be waked from His sleep for a joke. Well, the Jews had mocked at their Messiah-King, and He would mock at them through Him.

He heard the accusation but found nothing in it. "What?" he said to the High Priests and their supporters, "I'm to condemn your King? Why, what are you thinking of?" Instead of terrifying the accused with his judicial dignity, he desired to enter into conversation with Him. Although the Nazarene stood there in such wretched plight, He must have something in Him to have roused the masses as He did. He wanted to make His acquaintance. In a friendly manner he put mocking questions to Him. Did he really know anything special of God? Would He not tell him too, for even heathens were sometimes curious about the Kingdom of Heaven? How should a man set about loving a God whom no one had ever seen? Or which among the gods was the true one? And for the life of him he would like to know what truth really was.

Jesus said not a word.

"You do not seem to lack the virtue of pride," continued Pilate, "and that's in your favour. You know, of course, in whose presence you stand, in the presence of one who has the power, to put you to death, or to set you free."

Jesus was still silent.

The crowd which already filled the large courtyard became more and more noisy and unmanageable. Rabbis slipped through it in order to fan the fire, and on all sides sentence of death was eagerly demanded. Pilate shrugged his shoulders. He did not understand the people. But he could not condemn an innocent man to death. He would let the Nazarene just as He was step out on to the balcony. He himself took a torch from a slave's hand to light up the pitiful figure. "Look," he called down to the crowd, "look at the poor fellow!"

"To the gallows with him! To the cross with him!" shouted the crowd.

"If," said Pilate, preserving his ironical tone, "if you do not want to miss your Passover spectacle, go out there; no fear of criminals not being crucified to-day. What do you say to Barabbas, the desert king? O ye men of Jerusalem, be satisfied with one king."

"We want to see this Jesus crucified," raged the people.

"But why, by Jupiter? I cannot see that He is guilty of anything."

One of the High Priests came up to him.

"If you set free this blasphemer, this demagogue, who, so He says, intends to redeem the Jewish nation from bondage, who has the devil's eloquence with which to influence the masses, if you let this man go about among the people again, then you are your Emperor's bitterest enemy. Then we shall ask for a governor who is as true to the Emperor as we are!"

"You would be more imperial than Pontius Pilate!" He threw out that sentence to them, measuring their figures with contempt. Whenever Rome touched any of their chartered rights they seethed with anger; but whenever they needed power to accomplish some purpose hostile to the people, they cringed to Rome. They recognised no people and no Emperor; their Temple-law was all in all to them. And they dared to advise the Governor to be imperial! But the crowd murmured angrily. The storm of passion was increasing in the courtyard. A thousand voices threatening, shouting shrilly, demanded the Nazarene's death. At that moment his wife sent to Pilate and reminded him of her dream. He was inclined to set the accused free at once. Then in the dim light of the torches and the dawning day a dark mass appeared above the heads of the people. It was one of those criminals' stakes with the cross-beam like those erected out at Golgotha, only more massive and imposing. They had dragged the cross here, and when it became visible to the crowd they broke out in heightened fury: "Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Jesus or Pilate!"

"Jesus—or Pilate?" Was that what they shouted?

"Jesus or Pilate?" was re-echoed from courtyard to courtyard, from street to street.

"Do you hear, Governor?" one of the High Priests asked him. "There is nothing else to be done! You see, the people haven't been asleep to-night. They are mad!" So saying, he seized the staff of justice, and offered it to Pilate. He had turned pale at the sight of the raging mob. He signed with his hand that he wished to speak. The tumult subsided sufficiently for his words to be heard, and he shouted hoarsely:

"I cannot find that this man has committed any crime. But you wish to crucify Him. So be it, but His death is on your consciences!" Purposely following the Jewish custom, he washed his hands in a bowl, so that those who could not hear him might see; then holding them up, all dripping wet, before the people, he exclaimed: "My hands are clean from His blood. I accept no responsibility." He seized the staff, broke it in two with his hands, and threw the pieces at Jesus's feet.

Then there arose a storm of jubilation; "Hail to thee, Pilate! Hail to the Governor of the great Emperor! Hail to the great Governor of the Emperor!"

The High Priests humbly bowed before him, and the guards seized the condemned man.