Pilate yielded to the demands of the mob when his country's laws forbade it. His intellect willed the execution of an innocent man when his conscience condemned it. "Such was the man whose cowardice, made manifest in the most supreme and memorable act of injustice the world has ever known, was destined to earn him eternal infamy. To him and to no others pointed the poet as
'colui
Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto;'
to him, the prototype of that long train of those who were never quite alive, who vainly sought glory in this world, vainly dreaded infamy; who, ever wavering betwixt good and evil, washed their hands; who, like the neutral angels of the threshold, were neither faithful nor rebellious; who are equally despised by pity and justice; who render themselves
'A Dio spiacenti ed ai nemici sui.'
And what man other than Pilate was ever placed so typically, in such accordance with the eyes of the poet, between the Son of God and His enemies, between justice and mercy, between right and wrong, between the Emperor and the Jews, and has refused either issue of the dilemma?
"Was it Celestine, Diocletian, or Esau? But they of two things chose the one; and who knows but that they chose the better? A hermitage and a mess of pottage may under many aspects be better worth than the papacy renounced by Celestine, than the empire abdicated by Diocletian, or than the birthright bartered by Esau. But Pilate refused to choose, and his refusal was great—great enough to justify the antonomasia of Dante—and it was cowardly. He refused not only the great gift of free will in a case when a free choice was his absolute duty. When admitted, like the fallen angels, to the great choice between good and evil, he did not cleave for ever to the good, as did St. Michael, or to the evil, as did Lucifer, but he refused a power which for him was the fount of duty and which cost the life of a man and the right of an innocent."
But was Pilate alone guilty of the crime of the crucifixion? Were the Jews wholly blameless? This raises the question: Who were the real crucifiers of the Christ, the Jews or the Romans? That the Jews were the instigators and the Romans the consummators of the crucifixion is evident from the Gospel narratives. The Jews made the complaint, and the Romans ordered and effected the arrest of the prisoner in Gethsemane. Having tried Him before their own tribunal, the Jews then led Jesus away to the Roman governor, and in the Prætorium accused Him and furnished evidence against Him. But the final act of crucifying was a Roman act. It is true that Jewish elements were present in the crucifixion of Jesus. The death draught offered Him on the cross suggests a humane provision of Hebrew law. This drink was usury administered among the Hebrews "so that the delinquent might lose clear consciousness through the ensuing intoxication." Again, the body of Jesus was removed from the cross and buried before it was night. This was in deference to an ancient custom of the Jews to bury criminals before sunset who had first been executed by stoning for the crime of blasphemy and had then been subjected to the indignity of being hung upon a tree, in conformity with a Mosaic ordinance contained in Deut. xxi. 22. But these two incidents exhaust the Jewish features of the crucifixion; and, besides, these elements were merely physical. The spiritual or moral features, involving turpitude and crime, are entirely different considerations from those that are simply historical. The question still arises: Who were the morally guilty parties? Who were the directly responsible agents of the crucifixion, the Jews or the Romans? Upon whom should the greater blame rest, if both were guilty? A passage from St. John seems to indicate that the Jews were the bearers of the greater sin. Replying to a question of Pilate concerning the procurator's power to crucify Him, "Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above; therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin."[122] According to many commentators, Jesus referred to Caiaphas; according to others, He spoke of Judas as the person who had the greater sin. But in any case it is certain that He did not intend to involve the whole Jewish nation in the crime of His arrest and execution. The language of the scriptural context indicates a single person. Pilate, on the one hand, is made the silent instrument in the hands of God for the accomplishment of the designs of Heaven. Caiaphas, on the other hand, is probably referred to as the one having the greater sin, because, being the high priest of the Sanhedrin, he better understood the questions involved in the religious charge of blasphemy, and was, therefore, the greater sinner against the laws of God, in the matter of the injustice then being perpetrated.
