Part 24

But Pilate paid them little heed. Turning his back upon the High Priest and the clamoring throng on the esplanade below, he withdrew into the Praetorium. “Bring him inside,” he said, motioning with his head as he looked back. And then he spoke to the soldier guarding Bar Abbas. “And remove that one from the sight of the multitude. But presently I shall call for him again.”

The Procurator had hardly mounted the tribunal when a soldier entered the chamber from the courtyard and handed a tablet to one of the attendants. The two whispered, heads together, for a moment. Then the attendant strode quickly to the tribunal, saluted, and presented Pilate the wax tablet. “A message, sir, from the Procurator’s wife,” he explained. “The messenger reported it was urgent.”

Hastily Pilate scanned the tablet. He scowled, then beckoned to the man. “Fetch me the soldier who brought this tablet.”

In another moment the soldier was standing stiffly before the tribunal. “Soldier,” Pilate inquired, “did you bring this message from the hand of the Lady Claudia?”

“No, sir,” he answered. “It was handed to me in the courtyard over there.”

“By whom?”

“The Centurion Longinus, sir; he had just come, I understood, from the Palace of the Herods.”

A quick frown darkened the Procurator’s countenance. “And where is the Centurion Longinus now?”

“Sir, I think he went up to his apartment in the fortress.”

Pilate nodded and waved the man aside; his face was heavy as once again he read his wife’s message:

_Hear me, Pilate_:

_Take no responsibility for that righteous man’s blood, for in the night I had a frightful dream concerning him._

What on earth, he wondered, could Claudia have dreamed about this Galilean fanatic? And how did she know that the man had been brought before the Procurator’s tribunal? Yes, and by all the gods, why had the message come from Longinus, and why, moreover, had Longinus not delivered it himself?

Still frowning, Pilate turned once again to question the prisoner standing calmly before the tribunal, his face streaked with drying sweat and blood, his robe turned deep crimson from the whip’s fearful wounds, his matted hair still crowned with the circlet of thorns. “They say you claim to be the son of their god,” he said. “What do they mean? Tell me, where _do_ you come from?”

Jesus appeared lost in introspection. If he heard the Procurator’s question, he ignored it. An infinite sadness seemed to possess him.

But Pilate, still scowling, perhaps upset further because of his wife’s message and the manner in which it had been brought to him, revealed his impatience. “Will you answer me?” he asked testily. “Don’t you know that I have the power either to release you or to condemn you?”

Calmly, looking the Procurator in the eyes and with no tone of rancor, Jesus replied. “You would have no power over me were it not granted you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me to you”—he pointed toward the esplanade where the High Priest and his cohorts awaited—“has a greater guilt than you.”

Once again the Procurator stepped down from the tribunal and strode out to the pavement in front of the Praetorium. “Bring forth the prisoner,” he commanded. “And have Bar Abbas brought to me, too.”

“I shall release to you a Passover prisoner,” he announced to the multitude when the two scourged prisoners stood before him. “Here stand a robber and assassin”—he pointed toward Bar Abbas—“and”—he smiled grimly as he waved his hand toward the Galilean—“your King of the Jews. Which shall I release?”

“Bar Abbas! Bar Abbas!” the people howled, and Pilate could see the priests exhorting them to shout their demands. “Release Bar Abbas! Bar Abbas!”

“But what shall I do with the King of the Jews?”

“Crucify him! Crucify him!” they stormed. “Release unto us Bar Abbas!”

“He is not our king!” shouted Caiaphas. “We have no king but Caesar!”

Grudgingly, Pilate nodded to the robber chief’s guards. “Release him.” The Procurator had lost. He had been sure the Galilean’s followers would outnumber the vociferous Zealots. But Caiaphas had been the better schemer.

Quickly the soldiers freed the hulking Bar Abbas, and in another moment he disappeared with a tumultuously happy group of his supporters, probably members of his own band, in the mass of people thronging the Court of the Gentiles. But the High Priest and his hirelings kept their places on the pavement before the Praetorium. Now the Procurator, pointing toward the Galilean, spoke to them.

“What then shall I do with the King of the Jews?” His tone was sarcastic. “_I_ find no fault in him. I shall release him, just as I have already released your robber.”

“No! No! Crucify him! He is not our king! He is a blasphemer who would destroy us!”

“Crucify your king?” A cold smile lifted the corners of the Procurator’s heavy lips. “Crucify the King of the Jews?”

“We have no king, O Procurator,” Caiaphas declared evenly, when he had lifted his hands to still the clamor, “no king but Caesar. And if you are a friend of Caesar, O Excellency, you will rid us of this one who not only seeks to destroy our religion but also to set himself upon the restored throne of King David. Should word get to Tiberius or Sejanus in Rome....” The High Priest shrugged and smiled suggestively.

Word would certainly reach the capital. And the story would be of the High Priest’s coloring. The Procurator Pontius Pilate, despite repeated warning and ample testimony establishing the guilt of the accused, it would be told, had released a dangerously clever revolutionary intent upon restoring the ancient kingdom of the Jews in Palestine with himself as king.

“But he declares that his kingdom is not of this world,” Pilate tried to protest. “He’s nothing but a harmless babbler, a religious fanatic whom too much reasoning has driven mad....”

“So he would have you think, O Procurator. The man is cunning, amazingly clever, captivating.” Caiaphas smiled indulgently. “Has he not already deceived even the wise and discerning Procurator?”

The High Priest Joseph Caiaphas had won. Already too many reports of the conduct of the Procurator’s office had gone to Rome; one more might be sufficient to arouse the wrath of the Prefect Sejanus. Nevertheless, since the High Priest had forced the verdict, the responsibility would rest on him. He clapped his hands and when a servant came running, called for a basin of water. A moment later, as the servant held the basin before him, the Procurator plunged his hands into the water and rubbed them together vigorously. “Let the people heed,” he said loudly and with ostentation, “that I wash my hands of the blood of this man. I am guiltless. His blood is not upon me.”

“Indeed, O Procurator”—the High Priest’s smile was scornful, his tone sneeringly derisive—“let his blood be upon us, yea, and our children!”

“Then take him, and crucify him.” Pilate glanced toward the prisoner, standing tall and calm and regal in the blood-drenched discarded purple. But when their eyes met, Pilate’s shifted in that same instant to the mosaic at the Galilean’s feet, so that momentarily the judge’s head was bowed to the prisoner. Then, in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper, Pilate spoke to the guard who held the fetter binding Jesus’ wrists. “Lead him into the courtyard.”

As they were going out he summoned an attendant. “Fetch a tablet that I may prepare the titulus.” His eyes fell upon the wax tablet that his wife had sent him. “Wait,” he said. “This one will suffice. There’s space enough on it for what I have in mind.” The soldier picked up the tablet with the attached stylus. “Write this,” Pilate commanded, “and when you have written it, take the tablet into the courtyard and have the words inscribed on the headboard in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.” He paused, reflecting. “Write what I say: _This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews_.”

Joseph Caiaphas had heard. “No, O Procurator! Write that he says he is King of the Jews!”

Pontius Pilate stared in stony silence at the furious High Priest. “What I have written,” he said after a moment, “I have written.” He turned to the soldier. “Go prepare the titulus board.” Then, without a glance toward the High Priest and his group, he returned to the Praetorium and mounted the tribunal. Only the few soldiers in attendance remained in the vaulted great chamber. Pilate sat down upon the curule; his eyes, unseeing, were fixed on the pattern of the mosaic at the foot of the tribunal steps.

_... Great Rome’s vaunted justice. But must not justice yield sometimes to expediency, the expediency of the greater good for the greater number? Will not his death end a developing tumult in Palestine that might have brought even bloodshed and death for many Jews and perhaps even Roman soldiers? And now no report will go to Sejanus from Joseph Caiaphas._

_... The Galilean. A dreamer, a devotee of the Jewish religion, a visionary ... a righteous man, Claudia said. “Take no responsibility for that righteous man’s blood.” Claudia’s dream, bah. Superstition, astrology maybe, foolishness. Calpurnia had a dream, and Caesar laughed at her warning. Caesar laughed, and Caesar died._

_... But no report will go to Rome of the Procurator’s releasing a dangerous revolutionary who was planning to establish himself on the restored throne of ancient Israel. Joseph Caiaphas has been silenced...._

Suddenly a cold, numbing fear clutched Pontius Pilate. “By great Jove!” But he had not exclaimed aloud. No report would go to Rome from the High Priest, no fawning spies would tell how the Procurator had freed a cunning revolutionary, but Claudia had warned him not to judge the Galilean. Could his wife, by all the gods, be a secret follower of this mystic? Didn’t many high-placed women of Rome become devotees of this strange Jewish one-god religion? Could the Emperor’s stepdaughter, by great Jove, have become, of all persons, interested in religion, in any religion? Could Claudia really feel strongly about this Nazarene fellow?

_... And Longinus had fetched her message. Longinus, yes, by all the gods...._

The soldier who had led Jesus forth from the pavement into the courtyard had returned to the Praetorium. “Sir, the titulus board is complete. They are ready to proceed with the crucifixions, except....”

“Then start at once with the three prisoners to the Hill of the Skull.” He paused. “Except? What were you going to say?”

“You have assigned no centurion, sir, to have charge of the crucifixion of this fellow whom you have just condemned. Do you wish Porcius, who was to have crucified Bar Abbas....”

“No.” Then, in a flash came an idea. Pilate maintained a sternly impassive countenance, but inwardly he exulted in the suddenly revealed manner of solving his dilemma. Now _no one_ would be sending stories to Rome, for certainly nobody would be foolish enough to reveal to Sejanus the execution of an innocent Jew if _he himself_ had participated with the Procurator in that Jew’s crucifixion. “I wish Porcius for another duty today.” He pointed upward. “Go at once to the apartment of the Centurion Longinus and inform him that the Procurator assigns him to take charge of the quaternion and orders him to proceed immediately with the crucifixion of the Galilean.”

50

Beside a cluster of gnarled olive trees along the Bethany road Centurion Cornelius halted his weary cavalcade. They had attained the summit of the Mount of Olives. Steady climbing from the Jericho plain had lathered the laboring horses, and the dust-grimed faces of the men were streaked with perspiration. Since the passing of midday the heat had grown increasingly oppressive; now, as they approached Jerusalem in the eerie half-darkness, it weighed upon them like a heavy blanket.

The dark cloud over the city that hardly two hours ago they had seen from the narrow defile between the boulders had grown to envelop them, and as they came over the rise and looked across toward the walled density of flat-roofed stone structures, they could scarcely make out the usually dominating mass of the Temple. Ordinarily on an early afternoon in April the sun would have been reflected brilliantly in the gold plates of the Temple’s roof, but today it was barely able to penetrate the overcast. In the strangely thickening gloom the resplendent plates had taken on a dull coating of bilious green. Faintly discernible to the right were the darker masses of the Fortress Antonia towers upthrust in the cloaking shadows; but westward, beyond Antonia, the great Palace of the Herods and the other splendid abodes of the privileged were completely shrouded; Mount Zion and the Ophel shared equally in oblivion.

“What is it, Centurion?” Decius shook his head perplexedly. “I’ve been out here a long time, but I’ve never seen anything like it. This strange darkness, this stillness, and the peculiar blue-green cast. Centurion, this isn’t just another storm coming up, another thunderstorm following excessive heat. It’s got a queer, ghastly look, as if the gods might be angry ...”

“The gods, Decius?”

The soldier laughed uneasily. “I use the term broadly, for want of one more accurate.” He waved an arm in the direction of the darkened city. “But it does have a sort of supernatural look, doesn’t it, Centurion?”—he smiled—“though of course I have little belief in the supernatural.” He shrugged. “How do you explain it?”

“It does have a strange, unearthly look,” Cornelius agreed. “But I don’t believe it’s a manifestation of the gods’ anger, though I’ve never seen one before like this. Could it be a heavy mass of sand borne in from the desert? If that’s it, then maybe the sun shining through the concentration of sand accounts for this strange greenish color.”

“That’s probably it,” Decius agreed. “But then, where is the wind?”

“It may be the lull before the wind. This unseasonable heat is bound to bring on a storm. Look!” He pointed. “The sun.”

High above the city, beyond its southern wall and past the ever smoldering refuse heaps in the Vale of Hinnom, the sun rode like a pale copper disk behind a thinning portion of the veiling cloud. In the same instant its rays found a rift in the mantle covering the city and shot a pinpoint of light to bathe in sudden brilliance a small eminence just beyond and slightly to the right of the Fortress Antonia.

“By all the gods! Bar Abbas and the two henchmen we captured last week!”

On the summit of the little hill stood three crosses, and stretched upon each cross was the body of a man. A staring throng of spectators stood scattered about below.

Then suddenly the rift in the covering cloud was healed; darkness swallowed the burdened crosses.

“Poor devils,” Cornelius said. “That’s an assignment I’m glad I didn’t get. Being late returning may have saved me.” He looked up again toward the lowering sky. “But we’d better be getting on to Antonia. This storm may break at any moment, and when it does, I don’t want to be in it.”

Quickly the cavalcade moved down the slope toward the Garden of Gethsemane and the Brook Kidron beyond. Entering the walled city by Dung Gate, it went through Ophel and ascended the slope westward to move along the lower level of Mount Zion and cross the bridge spanning the Tyropoeon Valley. At the eastern end of the bridge the procession turned northward and marched along the way paralleling the Temple’s wall to the entrance gate of the Antonia.

When Cornelius had dismissed his men, he went up at once to his apartment in the officers’ quarters on the south side of the fortress. He had been looking forward eagerly to a refreshing bath and a short nap before dressing in fresh clothing for the evening meal. But as he was about to enter his quarters he encountered a centurion coming into the corridor from the apartment next to his.

“By Hercules, Cornelius!”

“Porcius!” He clapped a hand on the other’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you were quartered here.”

“I’ve come since you left, Cornelius. I heard you were out pursuing a gang of those Zealots. Did you overtake any of them?”

“Yes, and killed several. But we didn’t capture any.”

“This morning they crucified two of the ones you captured last week.”

“Three, you mean, don’t you? Bar Abbas and two of his company.”

“But Pilate released Bar Abbas.”

“Released him? Bar Abbas?”

“Yes, released him. It’s amazing, isn’t it? But the mob demanded his release as the Passover prisoner—you know, don’t you, that the Procurator each year, in accordance with tradition, releases one prisoner at Passover time?”

Cornelius nodded. “But weren’t there three men crucified?”

“Yes. I was supposed to have had charge of the crucifixion of Bar Abbas. Pilate had already condemned him to the cross when the demand for his release was made. So he released him, and I was relieved of a most unpleasant task.”

“You were fortunate, Porcius. But if three men were crucified, who was the third? I didn’t know another revolutionary had been captured.”

“He was no revolutionary, Cornelius. Pilate knew he wasn’t and wanted to free him. But the High Priest insisted that the fellow was a troublemaker who planned to attempt to set himself up as King of Israel. So, rather than run the risk of having the Temple leaders report him to Rome as protector of the Emperor’s enemies, Pilate yielded and sent the fellow to the cross. And luckily for me, he assigned Centurion Longinus the task of conducting the man’s execution.”

“Longinus! By all the gods, Porcius, who was the fellow?”

“A Galilean. A religious fanatic, I judged him to be, but entirely harmless. His name, if I recall it correctly, was Jesus, I think, one Jesus from a place in Galilee called Nazareth, they said.”

“Jesus! Oh, by all the gods, when....”

“But do you know the man, Centurion?”

“When did they lead him to the Hill of the Skull?” Cornelius ignored the centurion’s question. “How long...?”

“It was in mid-morning. He’s been on the cross for several hours now. And he was unmercifully scourged before they started with him to the crucifixion ground.” He stared at his companion’s suddenly ashen face. “But, Cornelius, why...?”

“Jesus! Oh, great Jove!” Anger, utter amazement and pain were written in swift succession on his still sweating, dust-covered face. “O God of Israel! O his God! O _my_ God, Jesus!”

Turning, he raced along the corridor toward the steps that a moment ago he had ascended, stone stairs that went down to the ground-floor open area just inside the great western entrance to the fortress.

51

Cornelius had reached the gate in the north wall when the storm broke with sudden fury. He darted beneath the flimsy awning of a fish stall to wait out the blast.

“Here, let me help,” he said to the frantic shopkeeper as he caught a side of the filthy cloth with which the squat Jew was trying desperately to cover his malodorous fish to protect them from the dust and powdered dung swirling along the cobblestones. “You’re lucky your market has the protection of the wall, or everything would be blown away. This is one of the worst storms I’ve ever.... By all the gods!” The ground had begun to tremble.

“An earthquake!” the shopkeeper shouted. “Wind and torrents of rain, and now the earth shakes!” His eyes were round and frightened. But in another moment the tremors subsided, and the man regained his calm. “I’m not surprised, soldier,” he observed, lifting his hands, palms up, and shaking his head solemnly. “And it makes no difference, I’m thinking, that my stall sits in the lee of the great wall. By the beard of the High Priest, it, too, will be leveled to the ground!”

“What do you mean? Hasn’t this wall survived many an earthquake before this one?”

“Indeed, soldier. But we’ve never had anything like that before.” He indicated with a quick nod of his head the hill beyond the gate’s square. “Never _him_ on a cross.” He looked the centurion in the eyes, and Cornelius fancied he saw a sudden hostility. “Soldier, have you been up there?”

“No, I’ve just come from the Fortress Antonia, and only an hour ago I arrived in Jerusalem. What do you mean?”

“I mean that one up there, soldier, on the middle cross.” He pointed. “It’s that rabbi from Galilee. Your Pilate tried him this morning and sent him to the cross, and unjustly, too, it’s my opinion. And I heard it said that the Galilean told how he would cause the Temple to be destroyed and in three days raise it up again.” He dabbed a greasy forefinger against the centurion’s soiled toga. “And I’m of the opinion, soldier, he’s got the power to do it. Didn’t he raise that fellow over at Bethany from the dead? This storm and this earthquake”—he paused and on his countenance was an expression of understanding suddenly gained—“soldier, maybe he’s doing it now! Nor could I blame him.” He shook his head slowly. “I’d hate to be in Pilate’s sandals, or those soldiers’ up there!”

Almost as quickly as it had burst upon them, the storm was ended. The rain ceased with the blowing away of the clouds, the winds quieted, and the great blazing disk of the sun, still high in the sky toward the Great Sea, shone down bright and searing. The shopkeeper rolled back the grimy cloth, crumpled it into a heap, and with it dabbed lightly at several fish it had failed to protect; then he hurled it into a corner and turned to wait upon pilgrims in the vanguard of a procession Cornelius saw coming down the slope of the Hill of the Skull.

“The Galilean, is he...?”

“He’s dead,” the man answered before the fish merchant could complete his question. “He died just as the storm broke. This fish”—he pointed—“where was it caught?”

“No earlier than the day before yesterday, and fetched by fast cart from the Sea of Galilee. Good, fresh carp, perches, bream.” With grimy fingers he poked at now one and now another of his offerings. “The finest fish in Jerusalem, and the most weight for your money!”

Cornelius stepped away from the stall into the warmth of the freshly cleansed air. As he walked quickly along the road he could now see plainly revealed the three crosses and their inert, mutilated burdens. The pause in the fish market during the raging of the storm had given him time to catch his breath after racing over the cobblestones from the square in front of Antonia.

But why had he come on the run to the Hill of the Skull? Why had he come at all? Porcius had said that Jesus had already been nailed to the cross for several hours. Had the centurion hoped in some mysterious manner to save the Galilean, to get him down from the cross and revive him? Had he thought he might countermand Pilate’s judgment and sentence?

He hadn’t thought. He had acted on his emotions. He had wanted to see Jesus, to protest to Longinus, to scream out his denunciation of everyone who’d had a hand in this abominable act. He hadn’t reasoned any course of action. He had only come as fast as he could to the place of horrors, his whole being seething with resentment and anger and a terrible bitterness.

And now Jesus was dead. The good man who had done no man ill, who had done countless men good, who had restored Lucian, and Chuza’s son. Or had he really?

Would he be up there now, perhaps already dead on a Roman cross, if he had had the power to heal Chuza’s little boy, if he had been able by his own mighty will to rid Lucian of the fever that was consuming him? Would he?

Longinus had been right. Those “miracles” had been only remarkable coincidences. The Galilean wonder worker, the good man, the son of the Jews’ one god—Cornelius ventured to raise his head from the ascending path and look upward toward the central cross—was hanging spiked to a crossbeam, crumpled and lifeless, as dead, or soon to be, as those two revolutionaries who hung there with him. And Longinus, though unhappy that Pilate had required him to crucify an innocent man, would remind him that all along he had been right in denying that Jesus of Galilee had been anything more than a good man.