In executing these orders, the courtiers discovered that Pilate wore under his usual garments the “seamless robe” of Our Lord, which he had purchased from the soldier to whom it had fallen by lot. Stripped of this talisman, Pilate stood before Caligula, who, no longer restrained from anger and vituperation by the presence of the holy relic, poured out all the vials of his wrath upon the prisoner’s head, and sentenced him to an ignominious death.
To avoid the jeers of the Roman mob, and the disgrace of a public execution, Pilate is said to have committed suicide in his prison by stabbing himself with his table-knife. His corpse—as was then customary in cases of self-murder—was cast into the Tiber. But the waters, refusing to suffer such pollution, rose with unprecedented fury and overflowed their banks, while the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the earth shook with such violence that all hearts were filled with awe. The terrified Romans therefore hastened to consult their oracles, and learning that the dreadful tumult was occasioned by Pilate’s corpse, they quickly withdrew it from the Tiber, whose fury immediately subsided as if by magic. To dispose of the body,—which could not be buried in the usual way,—it was now cast into the Mediterranean Sea. But there, too, its presence caused such dire commotion that to ward off further misfortunes it was again removed.
Finding earth and water equally loath to harbour such an abhorred tenant, the Romans, remembering they owed a grudge to the inhabitants of Vienne, in Gaul, carefully placed Pilate’s corpse upon a barge, and sent it up the Rhône. Arrived at Vienne, the Roman envoys obediently cast the body into the deepest spot in the river. But its presence there caused such damages that the frightened inhabitants hastened to forward it on to Lausanne. The same unpleasant phenomena recurring there also, Pilate’s remains were finally sent out into the wilderness, far from the haunts of men. After carrying them for many days up hill and down dale, the bearers finally reached an almost inaccessible mountain. Convinced that this point was sufficiently remote from civilisation to satisfy all reasonable requirements, they cast their uncanny burden into a small lake at the foot of a barren peak, and hastened away as quickly as they could. Still, it was only with the utmost difficulty that they managed to reach home, for no sooner had Pilate’s body touched the waters of the lonely tarn, than it stirred up such a tempest as had never before been seen in that region.
Night and day, year in and year out, the storm went on raging around the lonely mountain-top, filling with awe the hearts of the simple peasant-folk who dwelt in the neighbouring valleys. They too soon longed to be rid of the unquiet spirit, but could find no people willing to harbour a ghost which raged round the mountain, waded about the lake until it overflowed, stormed up and down the jagged rocks howling with fear and remorse, and which occasionally indulged in fearful wrestling-bouts with the spirit of King Herod, or those of other famous malefactors. Even in his comparatively quiet moments, Pilate was dreaded, for then he sat aloft on the Güppe,—one of the peaks of the mountain,—grimly conjuring new storms, washing his hands in the dripping clouds, and shaking huge rain-drops from his trembling fingers down upon the fertile pastures below him. None of the shepherds dared venture near him, because he stampeded their flocks by his violent gestures, and often hurled cows and goats over the precipices and down on the sharp rocks, where they were dashed to pieces.
Years, therefore, passed by without Pilate’s being molested in any way; but at last there came a travelling scholar, who, having mastered the Black Art at Salamanca, was fully competent to deal with spirits of all kinds. The people no sooner heard of his unusual accomplishments than they crowded around him, eagerly imploring him to cast a quieting spell upon Pilate’s restless ghost, and proffering rich rewards if he would only put an end to their woes.
Thus urged, the magician consented to try his skill. Journeying up the mountain, he came, after several hours of hard climbing, to the foot of the peak upon which Pontius Pilate sat watching his approach with lowering brows. Placing himself upon a large stone, the conjurer drew a magic circle around him, and then began his incantations. But even his most powerful formulas left Pilate unmoved, although they made the rocks around him quiver and shake as if about to fall. When the magician perceived this, he changed his position to a peak directly opposite the one Pilate had chosen for his favourite seat, and undismayed by his first failure, again began reciting all the most potent exorcisms he knew. This time they were not without effect, for Pilate suddenly rose in anger from his rocky throne and rushed toward the intruder as if to sweep him off the face of the earth. But balked of this amiable intention by the magic circle, instead of whisking the magician off into space, Pilate could only rage around and around him, trampling the ground with such fury that no grass can even now grow on that spot. Indeed, his mere footprints laid such a curse upon the soil that no dew has fallen upon it, nor any animal ventured to cross it since that day!
After careering thus wildly around the scholar for some time, Pilate’s ghost, weakening perceptibly, finally agreed to retire to the tarn high up the mountain side. There he promised to remain in peace, provided no one wantonly disturbed his rest, and he was allowed to range the mountain at will one day in the year.
The exorcist having consented to this stipulation, Pilate further proved he had not sojourned among the Jews in vain, by carefully bargaining that a steed should be provided to bear him off in state to his last resting-place. The Salamancan scholar therefore called up from the depths a flame-breathing steed of the blackest hue, which bore Pontius Pilate off at a truly infernal pace. As they dashed over the rocks, the steed’s clattering hoofs struck out so many sparks that the mountain was illumined from base to summit, and it stamped so hard that the marks of its flying feet can still be seen in the rocks near the tarn.
Arriving there, Pontius Pilate vanished in the depths of the lake, or morass, where he quietly stayed, thus honestly keeping his part of the agreement. Since then, unless disturbed by sceptics coming to mock at him, or cast sticks and stones into his retreat, Pilate has quietly reposed in the depths of his lake. But although sure to resent any mark of disrespect, by rising to stir up a fearful storm, his spirit has always been sufficiently discriminating to make no demonstration when his rest is broken by accident or through ignorance.
Such was the dread of rousing Pilate’s wrath, that the magistrates of Lucerne solemnly issued a decree forbidding all strangers to visit the tarn. They also made all the herdsmen take a yearly oath not to guide any foreigner thither, or to point out the road which led there. Any infringement of this edict was punished with the utmost severity, as can still be seen in the annals of Lucerne; and the law remained in force until 1585, the time of the Reformation.