“Why not?” his wife breathed. “Why not? Gods have descended to earth before.”
“Look you,” Pilate said. “I have it by creditable report, that after this Jesus had worked some wonder whereby a multitude was fed on several loaves and fishes, the foolish Galileans were for making him a king. Against his will they would make him a king. To escape them he fled into the mountains. No madness there. He was too wise to accept the fate they would have forced upon him.”
“Yet that is the very trick Hanan would force upon you,” Miriam reiterated. “They claim for him that he would be king of the Jews—an offence against Roman law, wherefore Rome must deal with him.”
Pilate shrugged his shoulders.
“A king of the beggars, rather; or a king of the dreamers. He is no fool. He is visionary, but not visionary of this world’s power. All luck go with him in the next world, for that is beyond Rome’s jurisdiction.”
“He holds that property is sin—that is what hits the Pharisees,” Ambivius spoke up.
Pilate laughed heartily.
“This king of the beggars and his fellow-beggars still do respect property,” he explained. “For, look you, not long ago they had even a treasurer for their wealth. Judas his name was, and there were words in that he stole from their common purse which he carried.”
“Jesus did not steal?” Pilate’s wife asked.
“No,” Pilate answered; “it was Judas, the treasurer.”