Seeing that there were no miracles to be expected, he began to put many questions, to which Jesus made no answer. He had broken His silence for Annas, for Caiaphas, for Pilate, but He would not for this crowned rascal! Annas and Caiaphas were His declared enemies, Pilate was a blind man groping along, thinking that he was saving Him, but this Herod was a cowardly fox and did not deserve even an insult. The High Priests and the Scribes, fearing that John’s assassin would be too cowardly to kill Jesus, as in fact he was, had followed their victim there and vehemently accused him. These furious accusations and the silence of the accused man deepened the hidden rancor of Antipas, who, together with his soldiers, abused the Man of divine silences, threw over his shoulders a gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate.
Like Pilate, but for other reasons, he was not willing to condemn the man baptized by John, and who perhaps was John himself returned from the dead to avenge himself. But when he sent Him away he made Him a gift which bears unconscious witness to the rank of the man about to die. The mantle, shining with whiteness, was, so Josephus says, the garment of the Jewish Kings, and Jesus was accused of wishing to make Himself King of the Jews. Antipas, the astute, wished to ridicule the pretensions of Jesus by ironically making him a present of the regal robe; but when he covered Him with that whiteness, which is the symbol of innocence and of sovereignty, the ignoble fox sent to Pilate a symbolical message which involuntarily confirmed the message of Claudia Procula, the accusation of Caiaphas, and what Christ Himself had said.
CRUCIFY HIM!
Pilate had thought that he had succeeded in extracting himself from the troublesome position in which his adversaries had tried to place him. But when he saw Jesus return wrapped in that regal white garment he understood that he must at any cost get the matter settled.
The bitter fury of those who for so many reasons were objects of suspicion to him, his wife’s compassion, the answers of Christ, the fact that Antipas had refrained from action, all inclined him to refuse to give the Jews the life for which they were asking. Perhaps while Jesus was with the Tetrarch, Pilate had asked some one of his followers about the pretended King, and the information confirmed him in his decision. Jesus had never said anything that would be offensive to Pilate: rather there was much in what He said calculated to please the Roman, or at least that would seem advantageous to the authority of Rome.
Jesus taught love for enemies, and in Judea the Romans were considered enemies; He called the poor blessed, hence He exhorted them to resignation and not to revolt; He advised men to render unto Cæsar that which was Cæsar’s, that is, to pay tribute to the Emperor; He was opposed to the Pharisaical formalism which made the relations of the Romans with their subjects so difficult; He did not respect the Sabbath; He ate with publicans and with Gentiles; and finally He announced that His Kingdom was not of this world, but of a world so metaphysical and remote that it could never endanger Tiberius or his successors. If Pilate knew these things, he must have said to himself with the superficiality of all skeptics, especially when they think themselves expert politicians, that it would be a good thing for him and for Rome if many Jews followed Jesus, rather than fomented rebellion in the councils of the Zealots.
He had therefore decided to save Jesus, but in this indulgence he wanted to put a sarcastic note, something that would be offensive to the High Priests, who three times had set themselves against him and now were importuning him to be their hangman. Up to the last he would pretend to treat Jesus like the King of the Jews. Here is your King, the King that you deserve, wretched and perfidious people! A village carpenter, a vagabond, a beggar, who vapored of reigning beyond earthly life, and who as a matter of fact had as followers only a few fishermen and peasants and a few silly women. See how wretched He is, how miserable! Why do you want to kill Him? Keep Him; you deserve no better King than He. I will follow your example, will amuse myself a little by tormenting Him, and then I will let Him go.
And causing Jesus to be led out, Pilate went to the door and said to the High Priests and the others who crowded about, their faces thrust forward to hear the sentence given at last, “Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him and release him.”
This was not the answer awaited by the ravening hounds, yelling in the square before the Procurator’s house. A bestial cry burst out from those gaping mouths, “Kill Him!”
A flogging would be too light a punishment for this dangerous enemy of the God of Armies and the God of Business. Something quite different from that was necessary to satisfy these butchers of the Temple. They had come to ask for blood and not for pardon.