Chap. 8.—And others, a multitude both of men and women, cried out, saying: This man is a prophet, and the demons are subject to him. Pilate says to them who said that the demons were subject to him: Why, then, were not your teachers also subject to him? They say to Pilate: We do not know. And others said: He raised Lazarus from the tomb after he had been dead four days. And the procurator trembled, and said to all the multitude of the Jews: Why do you wish to pour out innocent blood?
Chap. 9.—And, having summoned Nicodemus and the twelve men that said he was not born of fornication, he says to them: What shall I do, because there is an insurrection among the people? They say to him: We know not; let them see to it. Again Pilate, having summoned all the multitude of the Jews, says: You know that it is customary, at the feast of unleavened bread, to release one prisoner to you. I have one condemned prisoner in the prison, a murderer named Bar Abbas, and this man standing in your presence, Jesus in whom I find no fault. Which of them do you wish me to release to you? And they cry out: Bar Abbas. Pilate says: What, then, shall we do to Jesus, who is called Christ? The Jews say: Let him be crucified. And others said: Thou art no friend of Cæsar's if thou release this man, because he called himself the Son of God and King. You wish this man, then, to be a king, and not Cæsar?
And Pilate, in a rage, says to the Jews: Always has your nation been rebellious, and you always speak against your benefactors. The Jews say: What benefactors? He says to them: Your God led you out of the land of Egypt from bitter slavery, and brought you safe through the sea as through dry land, and in the desert fed you with manna and gave you quails, and quenched your thirst with water from a rock, and gave you a law; and in all these things have you provoked your God to anger, and sought a molten calf. And you exasperated your God, and he sought to slay you. And Moses prayed for you, and you were not put to death. And now you charge me with hating the emperor.
And, rising up from the tribunal, he sought to go out. And the Jews cry out and say: We know that Cæsar is king, and not Jesus. For assuredly the magi brought gifts to him as to a king. And when Herod heard from the magi that a king had been born, he sought to slay him, and his father, Joseph, knowing this, took him and his mother, and they fled into Egypt. And Herod, hearing of it, destroyed the children of the Hebrews that had been born in Bethlehem.
And when Pilate heard these words he was afraid; and, ordering the crowd to keep silence, because they were crying out, he says to them: So this is he whom Herod sought? The Jews say: Yes, it is he. And, taking water, Pilate washed his hands in the face of the sun, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man: see you to it. Again the Jews cry out: His blood be upon us and upon our children.
Then Pilate ordered the curtain of the tribunal where he was sitting to be drawn, and says to Jesus: Thy nation has charged thee with being a king. On this account, I sentence thee first to be scourged, according to the enactment of venerable kings, and then to be fastened on the cross in the garden where thou was seized. And let Dysmas and Gestas, the two malefactors, be crucified with thee.
Chap. 10.—And Jesus went forth out of the Pretorium, and the malefactors with him. And when they came to the place they stripped him of his clothes and girded him with a towel, and put a crown of thorns on him round his head. And they crucified him; and at the same time, also, they hung up the two malefactors along with him. And Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And the soldiers parted his clothes among them; and the people stood looking at him. And the chief priests and the rulers with them mocked him, saying: He saved others, let him save himself. If he be the Son of God, let him come down from the cross. And the soldiers made sport of him, coming near and offering him vinegar mixed with gall, and said: Thou art the king of the Jews; save thyself.
And Pilate, after the sentence, ordered the charge against him to be inscribed as a superscription in Greek and Latin and Hebrew, according to what the Jews had said: He is king of the Jews.