by Jack London
Pilate smiled contemptuously, and I noted the quiet smile on Miriam’s face was equally contemptuous. And Pilate’s wife sat as if a corpse, scarce breathing, her eyes wide and unseeing.
Spoke Ambivius: “Caiaphas holds—he told me but yesterday—that the fisherman claims that he will bring God down on earth and make here a new kingdom over which God will rule—”
“Which would mean the end of Roman rule,” I broke in.
“That is where Caiaphas and Hanan plot to embroil Rome,” Miriam explained. “It is not true. It is a lie they have made.”
Pilate nodded and asked:
“Is there not somewhere in your ancient books a prophecy that the priests here twist into the intent of this fisherman’s mind?”
To this she agreed, and gave him the citation. I relate the incident to evidence the depth of Pilate’s study of this people he strove so hard to keep in order.
“What I have heard,” Miriam continued, “is that this Jesus preaches the end of the world and the beginning of God’s kingdom, not here, but in heaven.”
“I have had report of that,” Pilate raid. “It is true. This Jesus holds the justness of the Roman tax. He holds that Rome shall rule until all rule passes away with the passing of the world. I see more clearly the trick Hanan is playing me.”
“It is even claimed by some of his followers,” Ambivius volunteered, “that he is God Himself.”
“I have no report that he has so said,” Pilate replied.
“Why not?” his wife breathed. “Why not? Gods have descended to earth before.”
“Look you,” Pilate said. “I have it by creditable report, that after this Jesus had worked some wonder whereby a multitude was fed on several loaves and fishes, the foolish Galileans were for making him a king. Against his will they would make him a king. To escape them he fled into the mountains. No madness there. He was too wise to accept the fate they would have forced upon him.”
“Yet that is the very trick Hanan would force upon you,” Miriam reiterated. “They claim for him that he would be king of the Jews—an offence against Roman law, wherefore Rome must deal with him.”
Pilate shrugged his shoulders.
“A king of the beggars, rather; or a king of the dreamers. He is no fool. He is visionary, but not visionary of this world’s power. All luck go with him in the next world, for that is beyond Rome’s jurisdiction.”
“He holds that property is sin—that is what hits the Pharisees,” Ambivius spoke up.
Pilate laughed heartily.
“This king of the beggars and his fellow-beggars still do respect property,” he explained. “For, look you, not long ago they had even a treasurer for their wealth. Judas his name was, and there were words in that he stole from their common purse which he carried.”
“Jesus did not steal?” Pilate’s wife asked.
“No,” Pilate answered; “it was Judas, the treasurer.”
“Who was this John?” I questioned. “He was in trouble up Tiberias way and Antipas executed him.”
“Another one,” Miriam answered. “He was born near Hebron. He was an enthusiast and a desert-dweller. Either he or his followers claimed that he was Elijah raised from the dead. Elijah, you see, was one of our old prophets.”
“Was he seditious?” I asked.
Pilate grinned and shook his head, then said:
“He fell out with Antipas over the matter of Herodias. John was a moralist. It is too long a story, but he paid for it with his head. No, there was nothing political in that affair.”
“It is also claimed by some that Jesus is the Son of David,” Miriam said. “But it is absurd. Nobody at Nazareth believes it. You see, his whole family, including his married sisters, lives there and is known to all of them. They are a simple folk, mere common people.”
“I wish it were as simple, the report of all this complexity that I must send to Tiberius,” Pilate grumbled. “And now this fisherman is come to Jerusalem, the place is packed with pilgrims ripe for any trouble, and Hanan stirs and stirs the broth.”
“And before he is done he will have his way,” Miriam forecast. “He has laid the task for you, and you will perform it.”
“Which is?” Pilate queried.
“The execution of this fisherman.”
Pilate shook his head stubbornly, but his wife cried out:
“No! No! It would be a shameful wrong. The man has done no evil. He has not offended against Rome.”
She looked beseechingly to Pilate, who continued to shake his head.
“Let them do their own beheading, as Antipas did,” he growled. “The fisherman counts for nothing; but I shall be no catspaw to their schemes. If they must destroy him, they must destroy him. That is their affair.”
“But you will not permit it,” cried Pilate’s wife.
“A pretty time would I have explaining to Tiberius if I interfered,” was his reply.
“No matter what happens,” said Miriam, “I can see you writing explanations, and soon; for Jesus is already come up to Jerusalem and a number of his fishermen with him.”
Pilate showed the irritation this information caused him.
“I have no interest in his movements,” he pronounced. “I hope never to see him.”
“Trust Hanan to find him for you,” Miriam replied, “and to bring him to your gate.”
Pilate shrugged his shoulders, and there the talk ended. Pilate’s wife, nervous and overwrought, must claim Miriam to her apartments, so that nothing remained for me but to go to bed and doze off to the buzz and murmur of the city of madmen.
* * * * *
Events moved rapidly. Over night the white heat of the city had scorched upon itself. By midday, when I rode forth with half a dozen of my men, the streets were packed, and more reluctant than ever were the folk to give way before me. If looks could kill I should have been a dead man that day. Openly they spat at sight of me, and, everywhere arose snarls and cries.
Less was I a thing of wonder, and more was I the thing hated in that I wore the hated harness of Rome. Had it been any other city, I should have given command to my men to lay the flats of their swords on those snarling fanatics. But this was Jerusalem, at fever heat, and these were a people unable in thought to divorce the idea of State from the idea of God.
Hanan the Sadducee had done his work well. No matter what he and the Sanhedrim believed of the true inwardness of the situation, it was clear this rabble had been well tutored to believe that Rome was at the bottom of it.
I encountered Miriam in the press. She was on foot, attended only by a woman. It was no time in such turbulence for her to be abroad garbed as became her station. Through her sister she was indeed sister-in-law to Antipas for whom few bore love. So she was dressed discreetly, her face covered, so that she might pass as any Jewish woman of the lower orders. But not to my eye could she hide that fine stature of her, that carriage and walk, so different from other women’s, of which I had already dreamed more than once.
Few and quick were the words we were able to exchange, for the way jammed on the moment, and soon my men and horses were being pressed and jostled. Miriam was sheltered in an angle of house-wall.
“Have they got the fisherman yet?” I asked.
“No; but he is just outside the wall. He has ridden up to Jerusalem on an ass, with a multitude before and behind; and some, poor dupes, have hailed him as he passed as King of Israel. That finally is the pretext with which Hanan will compel Pilate. Truly, though not yet taken, the sentence is already written. This fisherman is a dead man.”
“But Pilate will not arrest him,” I defended. Miriam shook her head.
“Hanan will attend to that. They will bring him before the Sanhedrim. The sentence will be death. They may stone him.”
“But the Sanhedrim has not the right to execute,” I contended.
“Jesus is not a Roman,” she replied. “He is a Jew. By the law of the Talmud he is guilty of death, for he has blasphemed against the law.”
Still I shook my head.
“The Sanhedrim has not the right.”
“Pilate is willing that it should take that right.”
“But it is a fine question of legality,” I insisted. “You know what the Romans are in such matters.”
“Then will Hanan avoid the question,” she smiled, “by compelling Pilate to crucify him. In either event it will be well.”
A surging of the mob was sweeping our horses along and grinding our knees together. Some fanatic had fallen, and I could feel my horse recoil and half rear as it tramped on him, and I could hear the man screaming and the snarling menace from all about rising to a roar. But my head was over my shoulder as I called back to Miriam:
“You are hard on a man you have said yourself is without evil.”
“I am hard upon the evil that will come of him if he lives,” she replied.
Scarcely did I catch her words, for a man sprang in, seizing my bridle-rein and leg and struggling to unhorse me. With my open palm, leaning forward, I smote him full upon cheek and jaw. My hand covered the face of him, and a hearty will of weight was in the blow. The dwellers in Jerusalem are not used to man’s buffets. I have often wondered since if I broke the fellow’s neck.
* * * * *
Next I saw Miriam was the following day. I met her in the court of Pilate’s palace. She seemed in a dream. Scarce her eyes saw me. Scarce her wits embraced my identity. So strange was she, so in daze and amaze and far-seeing were her eyes, that I was reminded of the lepers I had seen healed in Samaria.
She became herself by an effort, but only her outward self. In her eyes was a message unreadable. Never before had I seen woman’s eyes so.
She would have passed me ungreeted had I not confronted her way. She paused and murmured words mechanically, but all the while her eyes dreamed through me and beyond me with the largeness of the vision that filled them.
“I have seen Him, Lodbrog,” she whispered. “I have seen Him.”
“The gods grant that he is not so ill-affected by the sight of you, whoever he may be,” I laughed.
She took no notice of my poor-timed jest, and her eyes remained full with vision, and she would have passed on had I not again blocked her way.
“Who is this he?” I demanded. “Some man raised from the dead to put such strange light in your eyes?”
“One who has raised others from the dead,” she replied. “Truly I believe that He, this Jesus, has raised the dead. He is the Prince of Light, the Son of God. I have seen Him. Truly I believe that He is the Son of God.”
Little could I glean from her words, save that she had met this wandering fisherman and been swept away by his folly. For surely this Miriam was not the Miriam who had branded him a plague and demanded that he be stamped out as any plague.
“He has charmed you,” I cried angrily.
Her eyes seemed to moisten and grow deeper as she gave confirmation.
“Oh, Lodbrog, His is charm beyond all thinking, beyond all describing. But to look upon Him is to know that here is the all-soul of goodness and of compassion. I have seen Him. I have heard Him. I shall give all I have to the poor, and I shall follow Him.”
Such was her certitude that I accepted it fully, as I had accepted the amazement of the lepers of Samaria staring at their smooth flesh; and I was bitter that so great a woman should be so easily wit-addled by a vagrant wonder-worker.
“Follow him,” I sneered. “Doubtless you will wear a crown when he wins to his kingdom.”
She nodded affirmation, and I could have struck her in the face for her folly. I drew aside, and as she moved slowly on she murmured:
“His kingdom is not here. He is the Son of David. He is the Son of God. He is whatever He has said, or whatever has been said of Him that is good and great.”
* * * * *
“A wise man of the East,” I found Pilate chuckling. “He is a thinker, this unlettered fisherman. I have sought more deeply into him. I have fresh report. He has no need of wonder-workings. He out-sophisticates the most sophistical of them. They have laid traps, and He has laughed at their traps. Look you. Listen to this.”
Whereupon he told me how Jesus had confounded his confounders when they brought to him for judgment a woman taken in adultery.
“And the tax,” Pilate exulted on. “‘To Cжsar what is Cжsar’s, to God what is God’s,’ was his answer to them. That was Hanan’s trick, and Hanan is confounded. At last has there appeared one Jew who understands our Roman conception of the State.”
* * * * *
Next I saw Pilate’s wife. Looking into her eyes I knew, on the instant, after having seen Miriam’s eyes, that this tense, distraught woman had likewise seen the fisherman.
“The Divine is within Him,” she murmured to me. “There is within Him a personal awareness of the indwelling of God.”
“Is he God?” I queried, gently, for say something I must.
She shook her head.
“I do not know. He has not said. But this I know: of such stuff gods are made.”
* * * * *
“A charmer of women,” was my privy judgment, as I left Pilate’s wife walking in dreams and visions.
The last days are known to all of you who read these lines, and it was in those last days that I learned that this Jesus was equally a charmer of men. He charmed Pilate. He charmed me.
After Hanan had sent Jesus to Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrim, assembled in Caiaphas’s house, had condemned Jesus to death, Jesus, escorted by a howling mob, was sent to Pilate for execution.
Now, for his own sake and for Rome’s sake, Pilate did not want to execute him. Pilate was little interested in the fisherman and greatly interested in peace and order. What cared Pilate for a man’s life?—for many men’s lives? The school of Rome was iron, and the governors sent out by Rome to rule conquered peoples were likewise iron. Pilate thought and acted in governmental abstractions. Yet, look: when Pilate went out scowling to meet the mob that had fetched the fisherman, he fell immediately under the charm of the man.
I was present. I know. It was the first time Pilate had ever seen him. Pilate went out angry. Our soldiers were in readiness to clear the court of its noisy vermin. And immediately Pilate laid eyes on the fisherman Pilate was subdued—nay, was solicitous. He disclaimed jurisdiction, demanded that they should judge the fisherman by their law and deal with him by their law, since the fisherman was a Jew and not a Roman. Never were there Jews so obedient to Roman rule. They cried out that it was unlawful, under Rome, for them to put any man to death. Yet Antipas had beheaded John and come to no grief of it.
And Pilate left them in the court, open under the sky, and took Jesus alone into the judgment hall. What happened therein I know not, save that when Pilate emerged he was changed. Whereas before he had been disinclined to execute because he would not be made a catspaw to Hanan, he was now disinclined to execute because of regard for the fisherman. His effort now was to save the fisherman. And all the while the mob cried: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
You, my reader, know the sincerity of Pilate’s effort. You know how he tried to befool the mob, first by mocking Jesus as a harmless fool; and second by offering to release him according to the custom of releasing one prisoner at time of the Passover. And you know how the priests’ quick whisperings led the mob to cry out for the release of the murderer Bar-Abba.
In vain Pilate struggled against the fate being thrust upon him by the priests. By sneer and jibe he hoped to make a farce of the transaction. He laughingly called Jesus the King of the Jews and ordered him to be scourged. His hope was that all would end in laughter and in laugher be forgotten.
I am glad to say that no Roman soldiers took part in what followed. It was the soldiers of the auxiliaries who crowned and cloaked Jesus, put the reed of sovereignty in his hand, and, kneeling, hailed him King of the Jews. Although it failed, it was a play to placate. And I, looking on, learned the charm of Jesus. Despite the cruel mockery of situation, he was
regal. And I was quiet as I gazed. It was his own quiet that went into me. I was soothed and satisfied, and was without bewilderment. This thing had to be. All was well. The serenity of Jesus in the heart of the tumult and pain became my serenity. I was scarce moved by any thought to save him.
On the other hand, I had gazed on too many wonders of the human in my wild and varied years to be affected to foolish acts by this particular wonder. I was all serenity. I had no word to say. I had no judgment to pass. I knew that things were occurring beyond my comprehension, and that they must occur.
Still Pilate struggled. The tumult increased. The cry for blood rang through the court, and all were clamouring for crucifixion. Again Pilate went back into the judgment hall. His effort at a farce having failed, he attempted to disclaim jurisdiction. Jesus was not of Jerusalem. He was a born subject of Antipas, and to Antipas Pilate was for sending Jesus.
But the uproar was by now communicating itself to the city. Our troops outside the palace were being swept away in the vast street mob. Rioting had begun that in the flash of an eye could turn into civil war and revolution. My own twenty legionaries were close to hand and in readiness. They loved the fanatic Jews no more than did I, and would have welcomed my command to clear the court with naked steel.
When Pilate came out again his words for Antipas’ jurisdiction could not be heard, for all the mob was shouting that Pilate was a traitor, that if he let the fisherman go he was no friend of Tiberius. Close before me, as I leaned against the wall, a mangy, bearded, long-haired fanatic sprang up and down unceasingly, and unceasingly chanted: “Tiberius is emperor; there is no king! Tiberius is emperor; there is no king!” I lost patience. The man’s near noise was an offence. Lurching sidewise, as if by accident, I ground my foot on his to a terrible crushing. The fool seemed not to notice. He was too mad to be aware of the pain, and he continued to chant: “Tiberius is emperor; there is no king!”
I saw Pilate hesitate. Pilate, the Roman governor, for the moment was Pilate the man, with a man’s anger against the miserable creatures clamouring for the blood of so sweet and simple, brave and good a spirit as this Jesus.