When Pilate received the account from the centurion of the guard, he said:
"We have crucified a god, as I believed! Henceforth I am accursed!" and leaving his Hall of Judgment, he went and shut himself up in his own room, which he has not since left.
Caiaphas and the chief priests and scribes, in the meanwhile assembled together in full Sanhedrim, and hearing the testimony of the centurion, were convinced that the fact could not be concealed of Jesus' resurrection.
"Who has seen him alive?" demanded the High Priest.
"I have seen him, my lord," answered the centurion. "I saw his pierced feet and hands as he walked past me; and the morning breeze blew aside his mantle and exposed to my eyes the open wound made by the spear of my soldier, Philippus. He was alive, and in full strength of limb!"
"Thou sawest a vision, Roman!" answered Caiaphas. "Come aside with us, and let us talk with thee."
In a few minutes afterwards the centurion left the court of the High Priest's palace, followed by a Gibeonite slave, bearing after him a vase of Persian gold. He has told every one since, that he must have seen a spirit, for "the disciples of Jesus came by night and stole away the body of their master, while they slept, overcome with watching." His soldiers have also been bribed to tell the same tale!
Such is the false version that now goes about the city, my dear father; but there are few that give it credence, even of our enemies. As Æmilius, who is filled with great joy at the resurrection of Jesus, to-day very justly says:
"If these soldiers slept on guard, they merited death therefor, by the military laws of the empire. If, while sleeping, their charge—the dead body of Jesus—was taken away, they deserve death for failing to prevent it. Why then are they not placed under arrest by Pilate's orders, if this story be true? Because Pilate well knows that it is not true! He knows, because he has privately examined many of the soldiers, that Jesus did burst his tomb, and that angels rolled away the stone without breaking his seals, which could not have been left unmarred but by a miracle. He knows that Jesus has arisen—for it is believed that he has also beheld him—at least such is the rumor at the Pretorium. It was the form of Jesus visible before him, doubtless, that drove him in such amazement from his Hall to his secret chamber; for it was remarked that he started, turned deadly pale, and essayed to address the invisible space before him, as if he saw a spirit."
Besides the facts which I have stated, is the increasing testimony of the thousands who, to-day, have gone out of the city to see the sepulchre where He was laid. They say, both enemies of Jesus as well as our friends, that it was impossible for the door to have been opened by any human being, not by Pilate himself, without marring the seals. They also assert that, to remove the stone by night, which would require four men, and to bear forth the body, would have been impossible, if the guard had been present; and if they had been asleep, they must have been awakened with the heavy noise made by rolling the massive door along the hollow pavement outside the sepulchre.