The Redemption of Pontius Pilate

by Lewis Ben Smith

  I wish I could order you back to Rome, but I fear that the moment I breathed my last, Gaius would have you and your entire family murdered. The only thing that restrains him now is the fear of my ill will, and once I am gone, he will have no brakes at all. May the gods help poor Rome then! In the meantime, Lucius Pontius, keep the peace in Judea and continue to cherish your family. If you can find it in your heart, forgive the sad old man who once called you friend.

  Perhaps it was the wine he had drunk that evening, or maybe it was the lingering pain and frustration from his debilitating injury, but when Pilate put that letter down, he put his head in his hands and wept—for himself, for his lost daughter, for his wife’s pain, and even for the pitiful old man who ruled the known world. He found himself hoping that his own end would come swiftly and before his body had begun to wear out. At forty-seven, he wondered how many years he would have before he began to fail physically. Ten? Fifteen? Much would depend on how completely he was able to recover from his wound, he realized. With that in mind, he levered himself up and began climbing up and down the stairs, relying on his cane as little as possible. His healing joint screamed in outrage, but he kept it up until he was soaked in sweat and could not lift his leg up one more time. Then he collapsed onto a couch and fell asleep in his office.

  Little Decimus did not exactly understand why his tata had become so grumpy, but he did quickly pick up on the idea that it was no longer a good idea to climb into Pilate’s lap. Still, he ran around the family’s living quarters and his father’s office, destroying crockery with cheerful indifference, and generally provoking smiles and groans in his wake. Pilate found that he was incapable of remaining angry at the toddler, even when the boy bumped his injured leg.

  Meanwhile, Cassius Longinus had returned his family to Capernaum, since the Zealot threat was greatly reduced. With Pilate’s permission, he had stayed there for a couple of weeks before returning to Caesarea to escort Pilate and his cohorts to Jerusalem for the autumn festivals. He had been away from Caesarea for a couple of weeks when Pilate got a letter from the centurion that caught him by surprise.

  Gaius Cassius Longinus to Prefect Lucius Pontius Pilate:

  In the wake of recent events, I have been remiss in not reporting on the activities of Jesus of Nazareth. However, what happened yesterday was remarkable enough that I feel I have to share it with you. I know your skepticism well by now, but if you have a rational explanation for this, I would really like to hear it when I get back!

  We had only been in Capernaum for a day when my servant Stychius began to run a fever. The sickness grew steadily worse over the next three days, and by the end of the week it was obvious he was dying. His face was gray, his breathing labored, and his lungs rattled with each exhalation.

  Stychius was a gift from my father, and served me as my slave for years. Even when I freed him five years ago, he chose to remain with me as a paid servant. We have been in countless battles together, and he has saved my life on more than one occasion. Despite the way our relationship began, he is more of a brother to me than my real brothers ever were. Needless to say, I was deeply distressed at the thought that he might perish.

  About that time, one of my men said that Jesus was returning to Capernaum after preaching and healing at Bethsaida and Chorazin. Knowing his reputation as a healer, I decided to ask if he could help Stychius. I set out alone, and by the time I spotted the crowd approaching town, I was running, soaked in sweat and out of breath. Several of the locals knew me, and they helped me push through the ring of supplicants and curiosity seekers that surround Jesus everywhere he goes.

  So it was that I found myself speaking to the itinerant from Nazareth for the first time. I addressed him as Rabbi, and explained my servant’s plight to him. He looked at me with the most piercing eyes I have ever encountered, and said nothing for a moment.

  “Please, rabbi, do this for him,” said my friend Jacob, a rabbi from Capernaum. “He is the one who paid to rebuild our synagogue when the Zealots burned it.” Several other locals who know me also spoke up, urging him to help poor Stychius for my sake. He nodded his assent, and gestured for me to lead him to my home.

  I am not sure why I said what I said next, but the words came out of me before I knew what I was saying: “Lord, you do not have to come with me. I am a man under orders, but I also have a hundred men under my command. All I have to do is tell them what I want done, and they do it. If you will speak the word, I believe my servant will be made well.”

  Jesus looked at me, and his eyes widened with astonishment—and pure joy. I got the sense that there was enough merriment bottled up inside him to set all of Rome to laughter, were it let loose.

  “Did you hear this?” he said in that wonderfully mellow voice. “I tell you, not in all of Israel have I found such faith! Go your way, my friend. Your servant is healed.”

  I turned and walked slowly back to Capernaum—realizing as I did so that I must have run several miles in my desperation to find Jesus. When I got back to the house, I found Stychius sitting up and sipping some broth. His color had returned and his breathing was normal. When I asked them at what time he had begun to improve, they told me that the fever had broken an hour ago—which, by my reckoning, was at the moment Jesus told me ‘Your servant is healed.’

  What can I say? I have no explanation, except that this man’s powers of healing are real. The stories I have heard about him are remarkable, and I had discounted most of them—till now. If he could recall Stychius from the threshold of Hades, I have no doubt that he can cure lepers, give sight to the blind, and do all the other things they say of him. I can imagine your face as you read this, Prefect, but if you had been here, you too would believe.

  Pilate put the letter down with a frown. Longinus was so reliable in so many ways that it befuddled him to think that the man could be so gullible when it came to religion. So a man’s fever broke when he seemed at death’s door? Stranger things happened all the time. It did not mean that a carpenter had suddenly become Apollo incarnate! At least, he thought, this Galilean still showed no sign of urging his followers to revolutionary activity.

  A month later, Pilate set out with two cohorts for his fall visit to Jerusalem. Herod was returning to the city for the first time since the death of John the Baptist, and had invited Pilate to stay in his palace again—along with “as many soldiers as you care to bring with you,” the letter said. Pilate smirked—apparently Antipas was not very certain of his welcome in the city! Well, despite Pilate’s scorn for him, Herod was a tetrarch appointed by the Roman Senate, so Pilate figured it would not hurt to post a century of legionaries around his palace to keep his plump hide safe.

  His leg was definitely improving, but he still had to carry a cane, and riding on horseback was an exercise in misery. Wine dulled the ache a bit, but Pilate was trying to cut back on his drinking now that his recovery was near complete. So he gritted his teeth like a true Stoic and endured the misery as the three-day, fifty-mile journey dragged on. When they finally arrived in the city, Pilate ordered the main body of the troops to the Antonia Fortress, and took Quirinius and his century with him to Herod’s palace.

  The king was a bit slimmer and grayer than he had been, and the lines around his eyes had deepened. Herodias and Salome had remained at Machaerus—“for their own safety,” was how Herod put it, although it was obvious he was delighted to leave them behind for a while. His hostility to Pilate was still there, but veiled for the moment behind a mask of artificial charm. Pilate endured his greetings, then limped to his room and ordered the servants not to disturb him until noon the next day. He drank one glass of strong, costly wine from Herod’s extensive cellar, then removed his cuirass and boots and collapsed onto the bed.

  It was about mid-morning when he finally got up. He used the chamber pot and stretched, his injured knee still throbbing. He pulled up his tunic and studied the damage done by the Zealot arrow. The sharpened iron head had gone clean through the bone of his knee
cap, splitting it in two, and there was still a divot in the center where it had not fully healed, as well as an ugly, inch-wide scar. The point had then passed between the bones of his upper and lower leg, shearing through some of the tendons, and finally come to rest just under the skin behind his knee. There was a second scar, which felt identical to the first one, behind his knee, where the arrow had been pushed through so the barbed point could be removed. The major damage had been within the knee joint itself—the top and bottom bones of his leg had been forced apart, and probably chipped and damaged, by the arrow’s passage. The damage to his sinews was such that the leg had less than half the strength of the other, and his knee was liable to buckle without warning if he put his full weight on it. But as long as he used his cane, he could now limp along at a decent pace. Aristarchus had told him that the sinews might heal further in time, but that the knee would never be the same as before. He looked at the iron arrowhead, which he had kept after it was removed, and wondered that such a small thing could cause him so much misery.

  Pilate went to the door and called for bread, olive oil, and some grilled fish. As he was breaking his fast, a servant appeared, bearing a letter. Pilate set it aside until he was done eating, and then broke the seal and read it.

  Joseph Matthew Caiaphas, High Priest of the Temple, to Lucius Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea: Greetings, noble governor, and I pray that your recent injury is healing cleanly. I realize that you do not care much for me or for the Temple, but I know that you do care for the peace and order of our province, as we do. There is a matter which threatens that peace, which I would discuss with you at your earliest convenience. You can meet me at the guard house where we met before. Please let me know the most convenient time by letter.

  Pilate sent a short note back, offering to meet the High Priest the next morning. He then sent word through one of his soldiers to have Longinus report to him as soon as possible. The senior officer of the Judean legions responded with alacrity.

  “Good morning, Longinus,” Pilate greeted him. “How fares your servant Stychius?”

  “Most well, sir,” said the centurion. “He was fully recovered by the next day and is performing his duties as if he were never even sick.”

  “Now that you have had time to think about it, do you really think this Galilean healed him from miles away?” asked Pilate.

  “Sir, he was dying. I have no doubt that if I had not sought out Jesus, Stychius would not have lasted the rest of the day. I have no explanation for it, but I am convinced Jesus did it,” explained Longinus.

  “Most peculiar,” said Pilate. “But there are other matters to attend to. How goes the search for Bar Abbas?”

  “We have put a reward of five hundred denarii out on him,” said Longinus, “and we have also posted warnings throughout Galilee and the other provinces that anyone caught harboring him should be crucified alongside him.”

  “Has anyone come forward?” Pilate asked.

  “One young Greek, traveling through Galilee selling fabrics, said that he saw a man resembling Bar Abbas traveling through the hills north of Chorazin,” said the veteran soldier. “But we sent three patrols through the country, and all we found were a few cold campfires. A week later, a retired legionary named Milo Lammius and his Jewish wife were found stabbed to death in their beds at their home near Cana. The killer took every coin they had, as well as clothes and horses—and left the name Bar Abbas painted on the wall in their blood.”

  “Double the reward!” snapped Pilate. “And amend the earlier notice to read that anyone caught aiding or harboring Bar Abbas will be crucified, along with their entire family! I want this man caught!”

  Longinus nodded. “I think that it is only a matter of time now,” he said. “There was some popular support for Bar Abbas early on, but as he has become more violent and less discriminating in his targets, the people have become more and more resentful of him. Sooner or later, someone is going to bring him in, dead or alive.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Pilate. “Now, take a look at this.” He pushed the High Priest’s note from that morning across the table, and Longinus read it carefully. “Do you have any idea what is bothering him this time?”

  “I can guess,” said Longinus. “I imagine he wants you to arrest or kill Jesus of Nazareth.”

  “Whatever for?” said Pilate. “The Galilean has harmed no one, he does not preach insurrection, and the people are mad for him!”

  “You touched on the reason right there,” said the senior centurion. “Jesus has become enormously popular, and he has become increasingly scathing in his comments about the Temple cult, and about the Pharisees as well.”

  “Don’t the priests and the Pharisees hate each other?” asked the Prefect.

  “Normally yes,” replied Longinus. “But they are now united in their opposition to Jesus, and are working together to discredit him. He draws crowds in the thousands wherever he goes, and they are afraid he will spark an insurrection that will cause Judea to lose the small measure of independence it retains—which, of course, would also destroy the Temple’s political standing with the Empire.”

  Pilate nodded. “If I thought he was a danger to Rome, I would have dealt with him already,” he said.

  “I know that,” said Longinus, “but they do not know you as I do. They probably assume you to be completely ignorant about the matter.”

  Pilate shook his head. “Was there ever a race in all the gens humana as mad as the Jews?” he said. “I have bitterly atoned for my misdeeds by being sent to govern them! No matter, I suppose I will meet with old Caiaphas tomorrow and hear his side of the story. So what is it that Jesus says about the religious leaders that has them so upset?”

  Longinus laughed. “He compared the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs the other day—shining white on the outside, but full of corruption and rot within!”

  Pilate grunted: “Are you sure he was not talking about the Roman Senate?”

  Longinus said: “You would know the truth of that better than me, sir. He has repeatedly condemned the corruption and wickedness of the Temple, and said on more than one occasion that if the Temple was destroyed, he could rebuild it in three days!”

  Pilate shook his head. “No danger of testing that hypothesis!” he commented. “It would take an army with many siege engines to pull that massive thing down! But that is an odd comment. Didn’t the Temple take fifty years to build?”

  “It did that, sir,” replied the centurion, “and they are still working on the north tower.”

  “Is Jesus mad then?” asked Pilate.

  “I don’t think so,” said Longinus. “I think it may have been some sort of figure of speech.”

  “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” he said, rising with a groan as his knee protested.

  “So how are you healing, Prefect?” Longinus asked him.

  “Slowly and painfully, Centurion,” replied Pilate. “I never knew anything could hurt so much.”

  “Perhaps Jesus could heal it for you,” Longinus said with a smile.

  “Perhaps he could give you a mouth that knows when to shut!” Pilate jibed back at him.

  The next morning Pilate and Longinus walked across town to the long colonnade where Caiaphas was waiting. Pilate dismissed his lictors and sat down at the guard’s table while Caiaphas explained his reason for requesting the meeting.

  “Prefect, I must ask that you arrest this teacher named Jesus, from Nazareth, immediately. He should be jailed at the very least, or sold into slavery, or put to death!” exclaimed the priest. “Whatever the means, he must be silenced!”

  “If he has committed a crime, Caiaphas, then you should arrest him and judge him under your own laws!” Pilate responded.

  The angry Caiaphas glared at the Roman governor. “We cannot!” he replied. “He has too huge a following. If we move against him openly, the people will rise up and stone us to death.”

  “So you want Rome to do your dirty work for you?” asked Pilate.
“Why should I allow that?”

  “Because the man is as big a threat to Rome as he is to the Temple!” snapped Caiaphas.

  “Even if I believed that to be true, primary jurisdiction would still rest with the Sanhedrin,” said Pilate. “And the fact is that this Jesus has not preached rebellion or resistance to Rome. It seems to me that you simply are jealous of the man’s popularity.”

  Caiaphas scowled as if he had been confronted with a piece of roasted pork. “That is NOT the case at all!” he snapped. “It is his teachings that flout our laws and traditions. They threaten the Temple’s hold on the hearts of the people. Even the muleheaded Pharisees can see that his contempt for traditional values and our interpretations of the law are a danger to our nation and our people!”

  Pilate rose and took his cane. “Unless I can be persuaded that this Jesus is a political threat to Rome’s control of the province, then I cannot help you,” he said. “We do not generally persecute civilians because their religious beliefs differ from those of their countrymen.

  Caiaphas glared at Pilate with raw hatred. “I shall not forget this, Pontius Pilate!” he said, and swept out.

  After he left, Pilate and Longinus followed him through the door. Pilate kept his silence until they were back at the Fortress of Antonia—he did not want to have this conversation in Herod’s palace, where the walls had ears. Once they were safely sequestered in the sparely furnished commander’s office, Pilate spoke.

  “So what did you make of that?” he asked Longinus.