Jesus Christ at the Trial of Pilate

The Roman procurator of Judea, to whose unhappy lot fell the sentencing of the Lord of glory to crucifixion, was Pontius Pilate—a man who, by the testimony of Jewish writers, was arrogant, cruel, and covetous. Yet such a verdict may well have been the fruit of a national prejudice against a foreign ruler, and if Pilate deserved it, it was most likely only in the last years of his rule. At the very least, the history of Pilate’s trial of Jesus Christ shows in him no particular arrogance, still less covetousness. Had the procurator’s verdict been purchasable with silver, the chief priests would probably not have spared the temple treasury, only to reach their end the sooner and spare themselves the humiliation they underwent in the praetorium.

Pontius was, properly speaking, procurator of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea—an office which in itself was limited to the collection of state taxes, but which carried with it the full authority of a praetor to decide every case and to put to death; such a combination of powers was granted in certain provinces of lesser importance, to which it was not thought necessary to send separate praetors and proconsuls. Such procurators were usually appointed from men of equestrian rank, sometimes from freedmen (libertini) who had distinguished themselves in some way, and, like other chief governors, were called hegemons, or rulers. Pilate belonged to the equestrian order. The usual residence of the Judean procurators was the city of Caesarea; but for the feasts, especially the Passover, they moved to Jerusalem to keep direct watch over the people’s peace and to suppress the disturbances that not infrequently arose during the feasts.

It was hard for the Roman hegemon to live at peace with the Jewish Sanhedrin, for two authorities so different, and so wholly opposed in spirit, often collided. Pilate had no small cause for indignation against the Jews and their Sanhedrin. Soon after entering upon the office of Judean procurator, he had wished (probably to please the emperor) to bring Roman standards bearing the emperor’s image into Jerusalem—an act unimportant in itself, but contrary to Jewish custom. The people’s stubbornness, preferring to lose their lives rather than see pagan images in the holy city, forced Pilate to remove the standards from Jerusalem. Later Pilate conceived the idea of building an aqueduct for Jerusalem at the expense of the temple treasury—a project quite beneficial to the inhabitants of the capital, who often, especially during the feasts, suffered from a want of good, wholesome water, but displeasing to the Sanhedrin, to whom the money belonged. On this occasion a popular uprising broke out, so that Pilate had difficulty calming the crowd that surrounded his tribunal and insolently demanded that he leave them—without water.

Pilate could hardly have failed to hear of Jesus Christ and His works, though no doubt he had no accurate notion of them beyond the fact that they posed no danger at all to the Roman government. Pilate was, of course, also informed of the past night’s events—the seizing of Jesus Christ, the session of the Sanhedrin, and the rest—for the Roman guard, which redoubled its vigilance during the feasts, reported to the procurators every occurrence worthy of attention. Pilate even knew a good deal more than the chief priests had wished, or perhaps expected, him to know: that they were persecuting the Prophet of Galilee for purely personal reasons, out of envy and malice (Mt 27:18). Thus the appearance of Jesus Christ as a prisoner was not, for the procurator, altogether unexpected; what was unexpected was that the whole Sanhedrin should appear to accuse Him so early, and on the very day when every Israelite, whether sincerely or hypocritically devout, tried as much as possible to keep away from Gentiles and everything Gentile, so as not to lose the ritual purity necessary for keeping the Passover.

The chief priests and scribes, «swallowing», in the Gospel’s own phrase, «camels», had indeed not now forgotten to «strain out a gnat» (Mt 23:24). Coming to Pilate’s praetorium, they did not enter it, «so as not to be defiled»; and they sent word to the hegemon that they awaited him at the tribunal for a matter that would brook no delay. Nor, no doubt, did they forget to apologize to the hegemon that the law did not permit them to enter the praetorium for a personal audience with him.

«A wretched people! blind fanatics!» — the proud Roman no doubt thought, stung that his subjects considered his house so unclean and abhorrent to God that they were afraid to enter it. But Roman authority always indulged the prejudices of conquered peoples; and Pilate came out to the tribunal at once.

The chief priests declared in a few words why they had come and what they demanded—hoping that Pilate would not force them to argue the case of a criminal already condemned by the whole Sanhedrin.

But to Pilate such haste and insistence were suspicious. Caesar’s deputy was least of all inclined to serve as a blind instrument of Caiaphas’s cunning. As though not noticing that the accusers were in great haste and desired the Accused’s ruin with all their hearts, the Roman dignitary assumed the calm bearing of an impartial judge and asked: «What accusation, then, do you bring against this Man?»

To hear the accusation, and not to condemn the guilty without an examination of the case, was a distinguishing feature of Roman justice (Act 25:15-16).

«If He were not a criminal, would we (all the members of the Sanhedrin) have delivered Him to you for execution?» was the elders’ answer, still hoping that their own personal standing would take the place of proof.

But this vague, evasive language betrayed the secret of Jesus’s enemies all the more; and their presumption stung Pilate’s pride all the more sharply—a Pilate who was perhaps, inwardly, glad of the chance to vex his enemies…

«Since that is so—the hegemon retorted—since you want me to condemn this Man without an examination of the case, then what need is there for my involvement at all? Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your own law—and punish Him as you see fit. I do not wish to meddle in your affairs.»

«But His crime—the accusers answered—demands the death penalty, for He set Himself up as the Messiah, the King of Israel; and it is not lawful for us to put anyone to death without your consent.»

Such regard for Caesar’s interests—and above all, this shrinking from condemning a supposed criminal to death—in the mouths of the chief priests, must have seemed to Pilate exceedingly strange. Those who had always prized their rights, and who never ceased disputing with the procurators over them, were now renouncing those very rights.

Yet the gravity of the accusation no longer allowed further evasion of the proceedings; an examination had to begin. Since the chief priests, in proof that Jesus Christ was a disturber of the public peace, appealed solely to His assumption of the royal title; and since, for a Roman procurator, the gravity of a charge that someone had assumed the title of the Jewish Messiah lay solely in the fact that, by the Sanhedrin’s own account, this title carried with it the name of king—Pilate, instead of any further inquiry, turned to the Lord and asked Him: «Are You the King of the Jews?»

Under the present circumstances such a question could hardly be asked without a smile. Before Pilate stood a Man of whom it was impossible even to imagine that He aspired to the Judean throne, and dared to dispute Judea’s rights with Caesar. The outcome of the trial seemed to depend on what the Accused would say in answer: whether or not He would acknowledge Himself a king. The judge, of course, did not expect the Prisoner to declare Himself a king before him; nor, perhaps, did he expect Him flatly to deny the Jews’ accusation: for in any case some ground had to be presumed for a charge brought by the whole Sanhedrin. What, then, must have been Pilate’s astonishment when the Lord answered decisively: «I am a king!» (Mk 15:2.)

Jesus’s enemies could have wished for no better answer; Pilate could have imagined none more dangerous. On such an answer the Jews might at once say the matter was settled, since the Accused testified against Himself. Pilate might indeed, even now, have ended his trial by confirming the Sanhedrin’s sentence against Jesus Christ, had not the Lord’s own awe-inspiring bearing, and the firmness and calm with which His admission that He was a King had been spoken—together with Pilate’s own personal dislike of the Sanhedrin, and a self-regard that wished to carry through the defense of innocence he had already begun—moved him to continue the inquiry.

Justice, moreover, demanded such an inquiry. In calling Himself a king, Jesus Christ was not thereby admitting, as His enemies slanderously claimed, that He corrupted the people and forbade paying tribute to Caesar (Lk 23:2). Such an ambiguous answer gave the judge sufficient grounds to demand an explanation of the sense in which He called Himself a king.

Thinking, perhaps, that the Prisoner had particular reasons for not fully disclosing His thoughts in the presence of His accusers, and wishing, in general, to give Him greater freedom in explaining His own person and His own actions, Pilate went into the praetorium, signaling Jesus to follow him there as well.

The chief priests, for all their wish to be witnesses to the private examination, remained in the courtyard, for fear of losing their ritual purity, watching with displeasure how little effect that same confession of the Lord—which in the Sanhedrin had served as the ground for the death sentence—had upon the procurator.

«So then, You claim to be King of the Jews?» — Pilate began, with a look that, if it showed no particular goodwill, still invited an open explanation. Judging by ordinary standards, a plain denial would obviously have served the Accused best, toward whom the procurator was already showing evident leniency. But could the Lord of heaven and earth, the Judge of the living and the dead, avail Himself of a Roman judge’s personal leniency? The point was not to escape death by any means available—say, as now, by a deliberate evasion—but to make the judge weigh, rightly and impartially, the real force of the accusation contained in the word «king». The political, so to speak Roman, sense—the only sense in which the word carried, before Pilate, the weight of a capital crime—was absent from it as applied to Jesus Christ; while in its moral, prophetic, theocratic sense it carried no guilt at all before the procurator, and belonged to Jesus Christ in its fullest force. For the answer to be accurate, then, it was necessary to know in exactly which sense Pilate took the word «king» when he asked: «Are You a king?» — And so the Lord did. «Do you say this of yourself—the Lord asked Pilate—or have others told you this about Me?» (Are you asking this of your own judgment and understanding of the word, or from the standpoint of My accusers, on the basis of their words and their notion of the matter?)

Despite the soundness of this question, it seemed to the Roman dignitary, vested as he was with the power of life and death, not altogether fitting. «Am I a Jew—Pilate answered with hauteur (why should I concern myself with the prejudices that blind the Jewish people, whose violation they lay to Your charge?) — Your own people and the chief priests have handed You over (as guilty of assuming the name of king; so that I, as procurator, whose duty it is to confirm the Sanhedrin’s sentences, must, against my own will, put You to question, though up to now I have seen nothing Myself in You contrary to the laws). What, then, have You done? (what have You done to give grounds for thinking that, in Your accusers’ opinion, You seek a kingdom?) Answer!»

«My kingdom» (the word «king» was, above all, the whole substance of the Jews’ accusation)—the Lord answered — «does not belong to this world» (it is not any earthly kingdom of the sort the Jews are expecting). «If My kingdom belonged to this world, My own servants would have fought, that I might not be handed over to the Jews. But My kingdom is not of this order» (it is not earthly, and therefore entirely harmless to the Romans).

Pilate appeared satisfied with this answer.

Only the word «kingdom» (the Lord had not spoken it without purpose) rang doubtful in the politician’s ears—all the more since Jesus’s enemies might interpret it in a bad sense. Besides, the Lord had said only what His kingdom did not consist in, not what it did consist in—something the hegemon also needed to know.

«So then, You are a king?» — Pilate asked, no doubt making plain how ill-suited this word seemed in the mouth of the Accused.

«You say that I am a king», the Lord answered, letting Pilate know, for His own part, that this name, however dangerous it might seem to him, could not but be used, once His accusers had already used it, and that in its true sense it agreed entirely with the truth. «For this I was born», He continued, as though in justification of His firmness in using a name at once dangerous and true, «and for this I came into the world: to testify to the truth» (whatever danger that testimony might carry with it), «and everyone who belongs to the truth» (everyone to whom it is dear, and in whose soul there lives a sense of the truth) «listens to My voice».

St. Paul, moreover, called this confession of the Lord’s, that He was a king, before Pilate’s tribunal, the good confession (1Tim 6:13). And indeed it showed the highest degree of self-denial together with wisdom. By the words, «I was born for this, that I might testify to the truth,» the Lord showed, among other things, that even Pilate’s silent hint—that He should refrain from calling Himself a king, as too dangerous—was wholly unworthy of Him, because He truly is a King, in the most exalted sense of that word, the one, eternal King. And yet, by these very same words, the nature of Christ’s kingdom, and its harmlessness to Roman power, became perfectly evident.

The Roman knight was, of course, incapable of understanding all this in a Christian sense—only in a philosophical one. The Romans, and especially Roman dignitaries, were at that time acquainted with Stoic philosophy, according to whose teaching the truly wise and virtuous man is a king. Horace’s saying, «You are a ruler (rex), if you act rightly,» had become, in Rome, almost a household proverb. One thing, perhaps, did not please the hegemon: that this king, this sage, subject to his judgment, was stubborn not only in his thoughts but even in his expressions, dangerous as they were—the ordinary failing, he thought, of enthusiast-sages who know nothing of politics…

Since the Lord attached so much weight to the truth, Pilate, as if involuntarily, asked Him: «What is truth?» — and, without waiting for an answer, went out of the praetorium to the chief priests.

It is not easy at once to determine the true sense of Pilate’s question about truth. That the procurator had no intention of listening to Jesus Christ’s teaching on truth is shown already by his immediate departure from the praetorium. Perhaps, having in mind the Lord’s last words, «everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice», and being inwardly touched by the moral greatness of the Lord, the Roman wished to show, in passing, that he too was not indifferent to truth, and would gladly, at some idle hour, have entered into conversation about it. Perhaps the political-minded dignitary meant, by his question about truth—and still more by the tone in which he asked it—to give the Accused a further hint of caution, as though saying: «You are ready to sacrifice everything for truth, but what is truth? To this day not one philosopher has so much as found it, let alone defined it: think not of truth, but of your life». Such a turn of mind may very well be ascribed to Pilate, in whose day the favorite philosophy at Rome was that of the Academics, who, affirming nothing in the realm of truth, tore everything down and called everything into doubt.

Be that as it may, on coming out of the praetorium Pilate declared to the Jews flatly that, on the basis of his examination, he found Jesus Christ entirely innocent (Jn 18:38).

Had the chief priests not been so personally and so heavily invested in the matter now under review, had they been accusing Jesus Christ merely as an ordinary criminal, even then Pilate’s words would have struck them as harsh indeed. To utter them was tantamount to saying that the whole Sanhedrin was blind, undeserving of trust, and slandering an innocent man. After such a disgrace, the Sanhedrin had nothing to look forward to, on either side, but stubborn demands and insolent refusals.

The chief priests concealed their personal indignation at the procurator, but with all the greater bitterness began to slander Jesus Christ: they «spoke», in St. Mark’s phrase, «much» (Mk 15:3; Lk 23:5). What exactly? They probably represented what disturbances might arise among the people if enterprising men were allowed, unpunished, to take the title of king upon themselves. Not long before, the revolt of Judas the Galilean had broken out, accompanied by a wave of murders and destruction, and could serve Pharisaic eloquence as ready proof of the very dangers they were now predicting to Pilate from Jesus Christ. In confirmation that nothing better could be expected from this Galilean either, they might have pointed to the people’s extraordinary devotion to Him, to the multitude of His followers, who were only waiting for a favorable moment to join together and act by open force; they might even have presented some of the Lord’s own deeds as a disturbance of the public order (though not His miracles, which they took care to conceal)—for instance, His cleansing of the temple of the money-changers. Among other charges, some of the scribes noted (Lk 23:5) that Jesus Christ had shown Himself a breaker of the law not in Judea alone, that He had long ago won over to His side countless Galileans, where He had first begun His work. Such a remark was meant to present Jesus as the most dangerous of rebels, one with designs not on Judea alone, but on the surrounding regions as well.

When the accusers fell silent, and it fell to the divine Prisoner, in turn, to answer their charges, He said not a word. «Why do You not answer—Pilate asked, astonished at so extraordinary an indifference—do You see how many charges there are against You!»

But the Lord went on saying nothing…

Such silence might have astonished anyone. Even the Lord’s own enemies must have found it very strange. They knew that the Accused, had He wished, could have said much in His own defense; they knew that He possessed an extraordinary power of speech, and all the more should have made use of His gifts, when His very life was at stake, to persuade a procurator who seemed favorably disposed toward Him. Probably—so they might have thought—He had entirely lost His presence of mind, or was relying too much on the procurator’s leniency toward Him, or was waiting for someone from the crowd to speak up for Him and tell of His praiseworthy deeds. Yet the Lord’s silence must have been, in many respects, welcome to the chief priests. Had He spoken, they might have feared that He would expose not only the innocence of His own conduct, but the Sanhedrin leaders’ personal hatred of Him; that He might somehow draw Pilate’s attention to His miracles, which, if they did not move him to release Him at once, would at least force the trial to continue and the case to be examined in detail. That would require inquiries and time—precisely what Jesus’s enemies were so anxious to avoid.

Pilate marveled at the Lord’s silence more than anyone; yet he never for a moment supposed it the result of any inability to defend Himself. The chief priests’ pretended zeal for upholding the Roman government was, if anything, more likely to raise a smile in the crafty Roman, who knew very well what Annas and Caiaphas really thought on that score. On the other hand, the Lord’s gentle composure, His lofty and luminous view of the kingdom of truth, the inexplicable majesty of His countenance and His gaze, made it impossible even to imagine that a soul so pure could be nursing any unclean designs. Everything disposed Pilate in the Prisoner’s favor. «But how am I to defend Him from the persecution of enemies so stubborn, so powerful, and so cunning, when He Himself openly disregards His own vindication and, it seems, is not even seeking to escape death?» The procurator’s shrewd calculation found, in the very accusations against Jesus, a means—if not of saving the innocent Prisoner from execution, then at least of escaping the harsh necessity of condemning Him to it himself.

«You said—Pilate said, turning to the Jews—that He began stirring up the people from Galilee; is He then a Galilean?»

«A Galilean!» — the accusers cried out with several voices, supposing that this fact would have its effect on Pilate, who was particularly ill-disposed toward Galileans and at odds with their ruler, Herod Antipas, over the killing of some of his subjects during a sacrifice (Lk 13:1).

But the procurator had something quite different in mind. Under the pretext of an unwillingness to meddle in matters belonging to another’s jurisdiction, Pilate resolved to send Jesus Christ to Herod’s tribunal. At any other time, carrying out this intention would have taken several weeks, since the tetrarch of Galilee’s usual residence, Tiberias, lay at a great distance from Jerusalem; but now it could be done within a single hour, since Herod Antipas, professing the Jewish religion, was in Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. By so plausibly deflecting from himself the trial of Jesus Christ, Pilate could also hope that so unexpected a courtesy would help toward a reconciliation with the descendant of Herod the Great. For these reasons the divine Prisoner was at once sent on to Herod, in the very same condition in which He had been brought from the Sanhedrin—that is, bound and under guard. There too, against their will, the chief priests and the rest of the members of the Sanhedrin had to follow, having not the slightest right or pretext to protest against such a transfer of the case from one tribunal to another.