But Pilate was obdurate. “You would ask a Roman magistrate to find a man guilty and send him to the cross, even though no accusation had been made against him and no witnesses had confronted him,” he declared. “Don’t you know that were I to do so I would violate every principle of Roman justice?” He jabbed a pudgy forefinger toward Caiaphas. “Would you, O High Priest, ask the Procurator thus to violate his oath as Rome’s regent in Judaea?”
The Procurator, however, had failed to gauge the High Priest’s cunning. “Indeed, O Excellency, of course I would not seek to lead the Procurator into violating his oath to uphold Roman justice.” He smiled and bowed, mockingly. “Nor would I stand silent and unprotesting while the Procurator released a clever though iniquitous criminal who seeks not only the demoralization of Israel’s religion and the perversion of her people but also the overthrow of Rome in this province and the establishment of himself as King of Israel.”
The High Priest’s answer was not only a skilful parry of the Procurator’s question but it was, moreover, a well-aimed thrust of his own most effective weapon. Caiaphas knew that Pilate lived always in mortal fear of being reported to Rome; he knew that the Procurator would not dare to ignore any situation in Judaea, or even the hint of it, that might be fostering incipient revolt against Roman rule.
But Pilate maintained his composure; he would not yield obsequiously to this hateful symbol of Jewry’s stubborn pride of race and nationality and her cold scorn of everything Roman. He studied the group for whom the High Priest professed to be speaking; it was a nondescript assemblage, Temple hirelings, a knot of Pharisees, and surrounding the High Priest himself, his own Sadducean coterie; the others were, for the most part, sunburnt fellows who might well be, the thought came to him suddenly, Galilean and Judaean revolutionaries come in for the Passover feast from their mountain and Wilderness strongholds. Scowling, Pilate confronted the cynically smiling Caiaphas. “You say this man is guilty of heinous crimes, you declare he would set himself up as King of Judaea, but, O High Priest, you have made before me no accusation, you have brought no witnesses to testify against him.” He turned to point with a sweep of his arm toward the Galilean, standing calmly beside his guards. “There stands the prisoner before the tribunal. I ask you again, O High Priest, what charges do you bring against him? Where are his accusers?”
Caiaphas realized that the Procurator was refusing to admit what he had assumed, at last night’s meeting, had been a tacit agreement, that a retrial of the prisoner would be unnecessary; perhaps he was fearful that Rome would disapprove such a disposition of the case. At any rate, reasoned the High Priest, further verbal sparring would mean delay in sending the upstart Galilean to the cross, and he wished this Jesus dead and taken down before the beginning at sunset of the sacred Sabbath. Too, the longer they delayed, the more likely it was that other hot-blooded Galileans would get noise of the trial and come storming to their leader’s support; they might even succeed in effecting the fellow’s release. He would not, therefore, challenge Pilate further.
“O Excellency”—Caiaphas raised his hand and the rays of the morning sun flashed in the gems of his rings—“we charge that this fellow not only sought to lead astray the people from the true worship of our God of Israel, but that he did also forbid them to pay tribute to Caesar, and that he did declare that he himself was rightful King of Israel and would so establish himself!”
Pilate would give no consideration to the first charge, the High Priest was sure, but, he reasoned, the Procurator could not ignore the other two. And the soundness of his reasoning was immediately demonstrated. Pilate turned his back upon Caiaphas and the crowd and returned to the Praetorium, where he mounted the tribunal and sat down. “Are you”—he pointed toward the prisoner, who still, though weary, stood erect and calm—“the King of the Jews?”
“Do you ask this of your own desire to know”—the trace of a smile lightened the solemn countenance—“or has someone else said it of me?”
The Procurator shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Am I a Jew?” he asked sarcastically. “Your own nation, your High Priest, and the others of the Temple leadership have delivered you unto me. What have you done?”
“I am a King,” Jesus replied calmly. “But my Kingdom is not a worldly kingdom; if it were, then my servants would fight against my being delivered to these leaders of the Jews. The Kingdom I rule is not of this world.”