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Men of the Bible

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which really means no law at all, but only the will of the man in charge of the army. A subordinate official lifted to a position of almost irresponsible power--such was Pilate. We can well understand how a man with no moral backbone would succumb to its temptations. Pilate was a much smaller man than Gallic the proconsul at Corinth, and that other proconsul at Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, whom St Paul won over to Christian faith. But his pettiness in the eyes of Roman society would lead him to magnify his importance in the little world he was trying to rule like a king, though often with consequences humiliating to himself. Pilate's headquarters were at Caesarea, by the sea coast, the Roman capital of Palestine; but he came up to Jerusalem with a troop of soldiers at the Passover, to prevent any disturbance among the vast hosts of pilgrims then gathered together in the city, just as Turkish soldiers now mount guard at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the Easter celebrations, to prevent the Christians from quarrelling and fighting. That is how it was he happened to be present when Jesus was arrested and brought up for trial. In this fact also we may see why the Jewish authorities felt it necessary to hand their Prisoner over to the Roman governor; although, a few years later, they were able themselves to execute the death sentence on Stephen in the Jewish mode, by stoning, and still later to do the same with James, the Lord's brother. All four Gospels refer to the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate; but the fullest information is to be obtained from the third and fourth. St Luke throughout both his works seizes every suitable opportunity for setting out the scene of his story on the large stage of the world's history, and he is especially interested in showing it in relation to the imperial government. Thus, while Matthew only connects the time of the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod, a Jewish note of time, Luke also associates it with Caesar Augustus and the chronology of Rome; and later, while Matthew does not say when John the Baptist began his work, but notes the imprisonment of John as the occasion of the commencement of our Lord's public ministry, Luke carefully records that it was "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, _Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea_" (Luke iii. 1), that John the Baptist began preaching and baptizing. It is this same evangelist only who refers to Pilate's savage slaughter of the Galileans at Jerusalem. The author of the Fourth Gospel does not mention Pilate before the time of our Lord's trial, but he gives us a much fuller account of that trial than any of his companion evangelists. Next to John, our fullest account is in Luke. On these two authorities therefore we must mainly rely. But John's is not only the most ample and fully detailed narrative; it also furnishes us with by far the most vivid and convincing portrait of the Roman governor. This is one of the numerous cases of life-like character-drawing with which the Fourth Gospel abounds. Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria, Thomas, Judas, Mary Magdalene, and now Pilate, are all known to history from St John's portraits of them. Should not this significant fact lead us to attach great weight to his portrait of Jesus Christ, which soars above the Christ-pictures of the synoptics in the most exalted Divine glory? Jesus had been tried soon after His arrest before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jews, and there He had been condemned to death, not on the charge for which He had been arrested--threatening to destroy the Temple--for the evidence against Him had broken down, but for blasphemy during the course of His trial, when adjured by the high priest to declare whether He was the Christ. But the presence of Pilate prevented the council from executing their sentence (as doubtless they would have done if he had been away at Caesarea), in defiance of the law, which was entrusted to a weak and capricious governor. Accordingly they brought their Prisoner to the procurator's residence--probably Herod's palace, a magnificent building with two marble wings, containing large rooms sumptuously furnished, and spacious porticos surrounded by gardens and enclosed in a lofty wall with towers, situated in the western district of the city, and approached by a bridge across the Tyropaean valley. The facts that a later governor, Gestius Florus, resided here, and that Pilate lived in Herod's palace at Caesarea when in that city, and that he hung the shields about which there was so much trouble in the Jerusalem palace, make this view more probable than the traditional idea that the trial of Jesus took place in the Castle of Antonio, the imperial barracks, close to the Temple. The Jews objected to enter this fine palace, because as a Gentile residence it was defiled, and therefore defiling, and they wished to be "clean" for the feast they were to eat in the evening. Pilate humoured them, and had his conferences with them outside the building. Seeing their object and observing their temper, he must have discovered at once their miserable hypocrisy. These were the men who affected to be the leaders of the one pure faith on earth, a faith which looked with scorn on the "idolatry" of the cultured Roman. He must have regarded them with immense contempt. If his tone is cynical, it is but a match for the unmitigated cynicism of their conduct. Pilate inquires as to the crime with which the Prisoner is charged. At first, the Jews do not give an explicit reply, only stating that they have already found Him guilty. Pilate catches at that. His weakness, so pitiably apparent throughout the whole proceedings, appears at this early stage. Desiring to shirk the responsibility of deciding the case--he would use the first apparent loophole of escape. Since the Jews have taken this case in hand, let them carry it through, dealing with it according to their law. They are not to be caught by that flattering suggestion. They know that they have not the power of life and death. Pilate would not let them kill Jesus. His proposal, which on the surface looks like the granting of a privilege, amounts to this, that they may exercise ecclesiastical discipline, excommunicate their

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