“Tu dixisti,” Jesus answered, and smiled as he had before, very gravely. “But my royalty is not of the earth.” And with a glance at his bonds, one which was so significant that it annulled the charge, he [pg 205]added, still in Latin, “I am Truth, and I preach it.”
Pilate with skeptical indulgence shook his head. Truth to him was an elenchicism, an abstraction of the Platonists, whom in Rome he had respected for their wisdom and avoided with care. He turned to Caiaphas. The latter had been regretting the absence of an interpreter. This amicable conversation, which he did not understand, was not in the least to his liking, and as Pilate turned to him he frowned in his beard.
“I am unable to find him guilty,” the procurator announced. “He may call himself king, but every philosopher does the same. You might yourself, for that matter.”
“A philosopher, this mesîth!” Caiaphas gnashed back. “Why, he seduces the people; he incites to sedition; he is a rebel to Rome. It is for you, my lord, to see the empire upheld. Would it be well to have another complaint laid before the Cæsar? Ask yourself, is this Galilean worth it?”
The thrust was as keen and as venomous as the tooth of a rat. Pilate had been rebuked by the emperor already; he had no wish to incur further displeasure. Sejanus, the emperor’s favorite, to whom he owed his procuratorship, had for suspected treason been strangled in a dumb dungeon only a little before. Under Tiberius there was quiet, a future historian was to note; and Pilate was aware that, should a disturbance occur, the disturbance would be quelled, but at his expense.
An idea presented itself. “Did I understand you to say he is a Galilean?” he asked.
“Yes,” Caiaphas answered, expecting, perhaps, the usual jibe that was flung at those who came from there. “Yes, he is a Nazarene.”
“Hm. In that case I have no jurisdiction. The tetrarch is my guest; take your prisoner to him.”
“My lord,” the high-priest objected, “our law is such that if we enter the [pg 207]palace we cannot officiate at the Passover to-night.”
Pilate appeared to reflect. “I suppose,” he said at last, “I might ask him whether he would care to come here. In which case,” he added, with a gesture of elaborate courtesy, “you may remain uncontaminated where you are. Ressala!”