Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  But it did. With regret, Pilate noticed the beginnings of a change in their relationship. The old camaraderie had waned when Cornelius became a family man, which was understandable. But beyond this was the man’s new religiosity: he attended worship in the local synagogue and soon began contributing to its support. He was even known to pray privately on occasion. It was all very un-Roman, a bitter disappointment to Pilate. On the other hand, the Jewish community in Caesarea was pleased that a highly placed Roman in the provincial capital should follow their faith, even if he had not become a full proselyte. This might well diminish future friction between Pilate and the Jews.

  But there was less chance of such abrasions now. The Sanhedrin, in full alarm at the growth of the Nazarene movement, had no time for any further tilts with Pilate. A general persecution against the sect was instituted, a house-by-house search for adherents of Jesus, who now fled Jerusalem and scattered across the country districts of Palestine. An ardent young student of Gamaliel named Saul was serving as zealous inquisitor in ferreting out any who remained and packing them off to prison. Finally, only the disciples stayed in Jerusalem, and even they left periodically to spread the rapidly growing new faith.

  Pilate had no time to plumb the theological niceties of the movement, nor did he concern himself with any of the journeying apostles. His total attention was now claimed by the arrival of the new governor of Syria, Lucius Vitellius, fresh from his consulship at Rome. He had had a highly successful administration, and Tiberius placed such great confidence in Vitellius that he came armed with an extraordinary command to settle all affairs in the turbulent Roman East, not just in his appointed province of Syria.

  The Near East was in turmoil because the Parthian Empire, that perennial dagger in Rome’s eastern flank, was now making a renewed twist. Convinced that Tiberius was an unpopular old man who would do nothing to oppose him, King Artabanus III of Parthia moved to control Armenia, which was Rome’s protectorate. But by building disaffection inside Parthia and allying with her enemies, Tiberius resisted. The capable Vitellius was dispatched to carry out this policy, and his intrigues with leading Parthian magnates to replace Artabanus so rattled the king that he was ready to talk terms. Vitellius marched his Syrian legions to the banks of the Euphrates and negotiated a settlement with Artabanus in the middle of a specially constructed bridge spanning the river. They agreed that Rome would recognize Artabanus in Parthia, while he would recognize Rome’s control of Armenia. It was an astute diplomatic coup for Vitellius, who had triumphed without shedding a drop of Roman blood or spending a needless sesterce.

  And Pontius Pilate had watched it all happen with a good deal of chagrin, because Vitellius’s assistant at the negotiations was none other than the sometime foe-and-friend, Herod Antipas. Friends they might he, ever since the reconciliation in Jerusalem, but rivals they would remain, and each had sought an opportunity to pay court to Vitellius upon his arrival in Syria. Antipas had won—handsomely. Vitellius had taken the tetrarch with him to the Euphrates parley because he could speak Aramaic, the diplomatic language of the entire Near East. And Antipas made the most of this foray into international affairs. He entertained the negotiating parties at a sumptuous banquet in a pavilion pitched on the bridge itself, and immediately afterward wrote Tiberius a glowing account of the whole affair. While this annoyed Vitellius, whose official report to the princeps arrived later as old news, Antipas’s stock was never higher in Rome.

  Just when Herod Antipas was looking his best, events in Samaria were daubing an unflattering portrait of Pilate. Samaria comprised the northern third of his province, a hilly country peopled by half-breed Israelites of mixed Semitic stock. The Jews despised these neighboring cousins, and were despised by them, not merely because of racial but also religious differences. Pilate had paid scant attention to the Samaritans, but when rumbles developed among them, he turned to his advisers for a briefing.

  The Samaritans, he was told, recognized only the five books of Moses as true Scripture, banning all the other Hebrew prophets from their canon. They had even erected a rival temple to counter Jerusalem’s on Mount Gerizim, which lay south of their capital, Sebaste, but a Jewish prince had destroyed the temple a century and a half ago, and it was never rebuilt. Mount Gerizim, however, remained sacred to the Samaritans, so holy in fact that an unscrupulous demagogue who specialized in mendacity was now using the mountain as his prime prop in a mass religious confidence game. For weeks he had been advertising himself as the long-awaited Messianic Taheb or “Restorer,” and many credulous Samaritans believed that he was truly the prophet Moses had predicted when he had said, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren: him you shall heed.”

  And the people were certainly paying heed to the counterfeit holy man. Fresh information reaching Caesarea told of a mass movement developing under his aegis. As proof for his claims, the would-be Second Moses now promised to perform the gesture expected of the Samaritan Messiah: he would lead them up Mount Gerizim and unearth the sacred vessels from the Ark of the Covenant which Moses had secretly concealed in a cave somewhere in the mount. After that, Pilate’s council advised, the Samaritan masses would probably hail the man as the Restorer and inaugurate his rule by rebuilding their temple and fortifying Gerizim. In Samaritan beliefs, it would be the beginning of the millennium, when the holy mount, which had once been the site of the Garden of Eden, so they taught, would again constitute Paradise.

  The tragic deception in all this was not merely that the imposter himself had most likely hidden bogus vessels in a spot on the mountain where he would “discover” them, but that the people did not catch the glaring error in Samaritan belief itself. Not only had Moses never hidden anything on Mount Gerizim, he had never even set foot in Palestine west of the Jordan. Pilate recalled that item from Antipas’s travelogue at the Dead Sea.

  But sober historical fact could never stand in the way of the promised spectacular. A date for the great event was finally announced, and the multitudes were to assemble at the village of Tirathana near the base of Gerizim. The men were to bring weapons, for the ministry of the Restorer also had military implications. Many Samaritans believed he would conquer eleven nations and eventually triumph over the whole world.

  Since Mount Gerizim was only thirty miles from Caesarea, Pilate learned the date almost as soon as the Samaritans. He had planned to send only an auxiliary guard to police the situation and, if necessary, prevent the people from being exploited. But when he learned of the call to arms, he drastically revised his plans, for Gerizim lay astride the major north-south highway of central Palestine, the shortest route from Jerusalem to Galilee. With the imposter’s Messianic claims, anything might be possible from an armed crowd.

  Marshaling two detachments of heavily armed infantry and half his cavalry, Pilate set out for Samaria’s holy mountain. His auxiliaries included men from the Italian Cohort in the unlikely event that, if it came to blows, his Samaritan auxiliaries might lose heart at having to battle their brother Samaritans. His cavalry squadron, the Ala I Gemina Sebastenorum. “First Wing of Sebastenians,” was totally Samaritan.

  The gravity of the situation was underscored by the pseudo-prophet’s call for weapons, the first potential armed resistance Pilate faced in his almost ten years as prefect of Judea. Many threatening multitudes had gathered in Judea during this time, but they had never been armed. Coupled with the Egyptian prefect’s warning of growing anti-Roman sentiment supported by secret caches of weapons, Pilate’s concern mounted. Incipient insurrection had to be crushed at its birth, or his five cohorts would never be able to control it. Calling to Vitellius for emergency help would hardly be an appropriate overture to their first meeting.

  Pilate and his troops arrived late in the evening before the day of the projected climb of Mount Gerizim. He saw that it would be strategically foolish to attempt a blockade of Tirathana, the village where the Samaritans were encamped, so he had his men bivouac
secretly along the path which would be used for the ascent.

  The next day, an enthusiastic horde surged out of the village and headed for the lower reaches of Gerizim, the one mountain which, they swore, had kept its peak dry in the Great Flood, the holy hill toward which all pious Samaritans faced in prayer. But soon they found their route blocked by ranks of infantry, with cavalry moving in on their flanks.

  Pilate had his herald trumpet the throng to attention. Then he called out to the Samaritans: “If you are merely on a religious pilgrimage to the top of your sacred mountain, why do you need weapons? Lay down your arms!”

  Loud protests and grumbling answered him, then hissing and jeers. One spokesman shouted, “We won’t leave ourselves defenseless, Prefect! If we throw down our weapons, your men will attack us.”

  “No harm will come to you if you lay down your arms. But it’s treasonable to assemble a crowd of this size fully armed. You have an illegal army here.”

  There was a short pause, then a yell from the Samaritan ranks: “And this illegal army shall be victorious! Under the guidance of our Holy Restorer, no harm can come to us. Fellow Samaritans, drive these pagans off our sacred mountain!”

  A lusty war whoop followed, and the battle was on. The Roman troops were taken by surprise, since they had not really expected resistance, and the center line of Pilate’s outnumbered infantry bent into a concave crescent from the onslaught. He himself was gashed on the cheek by a flailing Samaritan sword, and barely managed to beat off his attacker. It was his first pitched battle as prefect of Judea.

  The Samaritans fought with blazing religious enthusiasm on their own holy ground. Though cut down steadily, they advanced rank after rank. The hills re-echoed the strident clang of swords smashing on shields, the triumphant yell of men driving javelins into their mark, the shrieks of the wounded.

  Wheezing in the whirling dust, Pilate quickly checked the position of his forces, then signaled his infantry to counterattack while his herald trumpeted the cavalry to swoop down from the sides. The Roman forces soon regained control. The horse closed in on the Samaritan flanks and pressed them hard. Fortunately, women and children in the multitude had fled the scene, and now some of the men joined them. But the Samaritan core continued fighting surprisingly well, and troops fell on both sides. Finally, however, the professional discipline of the auxiliaries made the difference. Although outnumbered by the Samaritans, they now put their motley army to flight and then chased down the fugitives. Some escaped, but many more were taken prisoner.

  Outraged at the resistance and smarting from his own wound, Pilate declared martial law and set up a military tribunal shortly after the battle. The ringleaders of the armed rebellion he sentenced to death, as well as several who were most influential in the religious hoax, including the pseudo-Restorer himself. Since crucifixion would take too long, they resorted to simple field execution by sword. The uprising was quelled entirely.

  Pilate hoped the Samaritans would eventually appreciate his liberating them from belief in an obviously false Messiah who was trying to deceive them. Unlike Judea’s “king of the Jews,” this one was truly guilty. Leaving a tribune with one cohort to police the area, he returned to Caesarea in triumph.

  It was late in November of 36. After the Samaritan tumult, things had gone better for Pilate. Judea was again peaceful enough to warrant his planning a trip with Procula to Greece and the Aegean islands in the new year. She needed the change; so did he. There were no quarrels with the Jews. In fact, Caiaphas had commended him for his handling of the Samaritan challenge. Even the chronic neighboring rivalry with Herod Antipas seemed to swing once again in Pilate’s favor, despite the tetrarch’s coup at the Euphrates. Earlier that month, Antipas was ignominiously defeated in a war with King Aretas, who had finally launched his long-expected attack against the man who had divorced his daughter and insulted their royal house.

  While savoring this development, Pilate was informed that a special envoy named Marcellus waited to see him with an important message from the governor of Syria. As he was shown into Pilate’s office, Marcellus gave a smart Roman salute, clenched hand on chest. Pilate returned it. Then he was handed Vitellius’s letter. While slitting the seals, he assumed it was an invitation to a state visit in Antioch, for which he had been angling in order to meet the powerful Vitellius. Then he read:

  Lucius Vitellius, proconsul Suriae, to Pontius Pilatus, praefectus Iudaeae, greeting.

  The Council of Samaria has formally accused you of a needless massacre of their countrymen at Mount Gerizim in your province. They have sworn to me that the gathering intended no sedition or rebellion against Rome, but assembled at Tirathana only as refugees from your violence. Members of the Council have reaffirmed their allegiance to the princeps.

  By authority of his imperial majesty, Tiberius Caesar Augustus, and as his special commissioner for eastern affairs, I herewith suspend you from your duties as praefectus Iudaeae, effective immediately, and cite you to return to Rome as soon as possible in order to give the emperor your account of the affair at Mount Gerizim in defense against charges brought against you by the Council of Samaria. A Samaritan delegation will serve as accusatores at your arraignment in Rome.

  Marcellus, my associate who delivers this message, will serve as acting prefect of Judea during your absence. You will be kind enough to spend the next week in familiarizing Marcellus with the functions of your office. Late in December, I will arrive in Judea to assist him, as well as to review affairs in your province. I trust you will not delay your return to Rome, and that a guard will not prove necessary to assist in that return. Farewell.

  Pilate felt a cramping pressure at the pit of his stomach, and his heart thumped in a mad cadence as his nerves caught fire. The letter spelled the end of his governorship, perhaps the end of his career, but for the moment he had only one thought: to maintain a Stoic calm in front of the man appointed to succeed him. Was it grim Roman efficiency or cruel calculation which had led Vitellius to notify him of his suspension in this embarrassing manner?

  Pilate stared at his successor, who somewhat nervously avoided his eyes. “I need not tell you, Marcellus, that the proconsul is grossly mistaken in his opinion of the Samaritans,” he said with studied serenity, “and that his conduct in this discharge is extraordinary.”

  A patrician-looking man, somewhat Pilate’s junior, Marcellus straightened and replied, “Extraordinary? The princeps will decide that…”

  Pilate reread the message hurriedly, then commented, “For example, this passage about the Samaritans assembling at Tirathana ‘only as refugees from my violence.’ That’s a bald lie, their own perjury to explain the embarrassing fact that they were fully armed, all of them.”

  Marcellus said nothing.

  Pilate continued his case. “And what would you do, Marcellus, if you had to face an armed rebellion of thousands of your subjects astride the main highway in your province? Cheer them on?”

  “Are you certain it was a rebellion, Prefect? Perhaps diplomacy might have won the day. But all this is beside the point. I’m not here to review your case but to assume your command. Will you show me where my aides are to be quartered?”

  Late that night, Cornelius filled Pilate in on the background of Vitellius’s action; he had wormed the information out of one of Marcellus’s aides after a long evening of wining the man in Caesarea’s finest tavern. The Council of Samaria, the Samaritan analogue to the Jewish Sanhedrin, was so furious at Pilate’s field executions that members of the Council had traveled to Antioch to present their case to Vitellius, formally denouncing Pilate “for the slaughter of innocent Samaritan victims.” Under normal circumstances, Cornelius continued, Vitellius should have summoned Pilate to Antioch to hear his side of it before deciding guilt in the matter, but he did not do so for several reasons. Tiberius had alerted Vitellius to “keep an eye on Pontius Pilatus, who might be outliving his usefulness in Judea.” Also, on the trip to the Euphrates, Herod Antipas had been dropp
ing gentle hints that his rival governor did not understand the Jews nearly as well as—well, he for one. Even though Vitellius knew Antipas well enough to surmise what motivated these comments, he deduced that there was no smoke without some fire. And finally, since Pilate could appeal his decision to the emperor anyway, Vitellius decided not to hear his defense. Instead, he had dismissed the Samaritan embassy with a promise of redress for their grievances, and dispatched his friend Marcellus to Caesarea.

  Pilate embraced Cornelius in gratitude. The centurion had risked his whole future in the new Judean administration in order to get vital information—for a friend.

  The week which followed was one which Pilate wished might have been deleted from his life, as he tried later to obscure it from memory. There was the galling task of closing a decade of administration in a few days, and in a climate of dishonor. Perfunctorily Pilate groomed Marcellus, and presumptuously Marcellus learned. Because of the legal cloud hovering over him, Pilate discouraged any social amenities by his friends in Caesarea to honor his departure.

  Procula was shocked by the abrupt nature of the suspension, but she adapted rapidly to the new circumstances. Though very apprehensive about the future hearing before Tiberius, she reminded her husband that they both had been anxious to return to Rome. For him it had been ten years.

  But this was scant consolation for Pilate. What galled him as much as Vitellius’s arbitrary action in the affair was his own ironical miscalculation. In his later administration, Pilate’s one fear had been that the Jews would complain about him to Tiberius and cause his recall. Now it had happened, but not because of Jews. Curiously, the despised Samaritans had done what the Jews only threatened to do. Who would have thought that their ignored, clannish, half-breed relatives would have unseated him? Pilate knew very little about the Samaritans other than that they made decent auxiliary troops. As part of his defense, which he was already framing, he would use the fact that his auxiliaries fought loyally against their racial brothers.