“Yes, it is certain that Caiaphas and Hanan are responsible,” Miriam said, “but you, Pontius Pilate, are only a Roman and do not understand. Were you a Jew, you would realize that there is a greater seriousness at the bottom of it than mere dissension of the sectaries or trouble-making for you and Rome. The high priests and Pharisees, every Jew of place or wealth, Philip, Antipas, myself—we are all fighting for very life.
“This fisherman may be a madman. If so, there is a cunning in his madness. He preaches the doctrine of the poor. He threatens our law, and our law is our life, as you have learned ere this. We are jealous of our law, as you would be jealous of the air denied your body by a throttling hand on your throat. It is Caiaphas and Hanan and all they stand for, or it is the fisherman. They must destroy him, else he will destroy them.”
“Is it not strange, so simple a man, a fisherman?” Pilate’s wife breathed forth. “What manner of man can he be to possess such power? I would that I could see him. I would that with my own eyes I could see so remarkable a man.”
Pilate’s brows corrugated at her words, and it was clear that to the burden on his nerves was added the overwrought state of his wife’s nerves.
“If you would see him, beat up the dens of the town,” Miriam laughed spitefully. “You will find him wine-bibbing or in the company of nameless women. Never so strange a prophet came up to Jerusalem.”
“And what harm in that?” I demanded, driven against my will to take the part of the fisherman. “Have I not wine-guzzled a-plenty and passed strange nights in all the provinces? The man is a man, and his ways are men’s ways, else am I a madman, which I here deny.”
Miriam shook her head as she spoke.
“He is not mad. Worse, he is dangerous. All Ebionism is dangerous. He would destroy all things that are fixed. He is a revolutionist. He would destroy what little is left to us of the Jewish state and Temple.”
Here Pilate shook his head.
“He is not political. I have had report of him. He is a visionary. There is no sedition in him. He affirms the Roman tax even.”