Pontius Pilate: A Novel

by Paul L Maier

  Chapter 26

  The Pontius Pilati now spent much of the warmer half of each year at a seaside villa near Antium on sunny Mediterranean coastlands about thirty-five miles south of Rome. The country estate was one of several owned by Procula’s father, who was disposing of his properties before death claimed him in extreme old age.

  The salubrious climate and natural beauty around Antium revived Pilate’s spirit and helped inter the morbid memories of Sejanus, Tiberius, and Caligula, who occasionally still haunted his dreams.

  He had aged physically. There were fissures setting in on each side of his nose, crow’s-feet flanking his eyes, and a rather well-corrugated brow. His receding hairline now reached across much of his scalp, leaving an island of graying thatch in the center. Pilate ascribed it to Rome’s political terror. Procula called it normal, male-pattern baldness.

  She was only in her late thirties—it was not yet a question of aging with her. Procula’s maturing countenance still retained its youthful beauty and formed a progressive contrast with that of her husband. She chuckled at his ire the first time an innkeeper at Antium inquired whether he and his daughter wished to order dinner. Though motherhood was denied her, Procula felt fulfilled and, for the first time in their marriage, a genuinely happy woman. She no longer had to plot to keep her husband out of trouble.

  Fulfillment, however, remained a problem for Pilate. After a busy administrative career, retirement freighted too much time to his address. Whenever they went to Antium, he took along a young library of scrolls to read. A deepening interest in philosophy now seized him. He suggested to Procula that they finally take their long-planned, always-interrupted tour of Greece and the Aegean. It would enable him to sit in the lectures of the ranking philosophers of the day and explore with them a question he had once asked—he forgot under what circumstances—and which now seemed of growing significance to him: What is truth?

  A monopoly on truth was confidently proclaimed by every philosophical school in the Empire, and by each religious cult—and just as confidently contradicted by all the rest. Pilate feared it might be a frustrating search, this quest for truth. Perhaps, he thought, the philosopher Nausiphanes was right after all when he taught, “The one thing certain is that nothing is certain.”

  One day, while Pilate was walking along the Mediterranean shore “in dialogue with my soul,” as he described his sandy peregrinations, someone in a military tunic came running along the beach toward him.

  “Stop, Pontius Pilate,” he cried. “I’ve come to arrest you! Claudius wants to see you in chains!” But the man was smiling.

  “Cornelius!” Pilate beamed. “I thought you’d never return. Did you bring along your wife and family?”

  “Yes. They’re inside the villa visiting with Procula. We’re five now: two boys and a girl…And I’ve been transferred to the Castra Praetoria.”

  “Congratulations, Tribune, also on the promotion.”

  “Thanks, Prefect.”

  “But why didn’t you return to Rome before this? Surely the Italian Cohort didn’t stay on in Caesarea after Herod Agrippa became king.”

  “Oh, no. Everything Roman moved out of Palestine, from the prefect of Judea down to the gilded Roman eagles. Agrippa kept the Sebastenian auxiliaries, but our cohort was transferred to the legions in Syria. I just returned from there…But I wager the Italian Cohort will move back to Caesarea in short order now.”

  “Why?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Agrippa is dead.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Happened shortly after the Passover this year.”

  “After only three years as king of Judea? How did it happen? Assassination?”

  “No. It was all very strange. He was in Caesarea, presiding over festive games in honor of Claudius. On the second day of the spectacles, he entered the theater at daybreak and delivered his address, wearing a garment woven entirely of spun silver. It caught the rays of the rising sun and glittered so radiantly that some of the credulous and the flatterers actually started hailing him as a deity. ‘This is a god speaking, not a man!’ they cried.”

  “And what did Agrippa say to that,” Pilate smirked, “admit it?”

  “He said nothing. And that was his downfall, he claimed. He should have condemned the blasphemous flattery. Feeling an intense stab of pain in his heart and stomach, he staggered and said, ‘An immortal god am I? No, just a mortal man on his way to the grave. God wills it. I must accept.’ They carried him back to the palace—your home for ten years. After five days of horrible pain, Agrippa died.”

  “Incredible! Who’ll govern Palestine now?”

  “His son, Agrippa the Younger, is here in Rome getting his education at the palace school. I understand Claudius at first thought of appointing him king, but his advisers suggested that the lad would have a terrible time of it since he’s only seventeen. So the princeps is set to appoint Cuspius Fadus as procurator of Judea. Once again, it seems, Rome will govern Judea directly.”

  “Fadus as procurator?”

  “Yes. Prefects of Judea are to be called procurators from now on. Same job, different title.” He hesitated, then added, “I just happened to recall. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this after all the trouble you had with the Jews regarding images, but Agrippa sinned in this respect more than you ever thought of doing. The coinage which he minted outside of Jerusalem was stamped with his own image. And he even had statues of his daughters sculptured and set up in the forum at Caesarea. Yet the Pharisees loved him.”

  “But for me they staged riots, demonstrations, protests, letters.” Pilate shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s a closed chapter…So, Cornelius, tell me more about yourself: how’s my favorite Jew?”

  “Fine. But I’m a Christian now.”

  The word Christian had no significance whatever for Pilate. “Oh,” he said, “I see Procula waving us in for dinner. Come on, Cornelius. You can’t imagine how the sea adds an edge to the appetite.”

  Back at the villa. Pilate was delighted to see the rest of Cornelius’s family, particularly the younger boy, who had been named Pilatus in his honor.

  “First of all, I categorically insist,” said Pilate, with contrived bombast, “you folks have to spend some time with us. At least a week. It’s been so long.”

  The Cornelii protested, only out of courtesy, and then gladly gave in.

  Several hours later, after a tasty seafood dinner, Pilate began once more to speculate about the sudden death of Herod Agrippa.

  “I have my own reasons for despising that man,” commented Cornelius.

  “Oh? Why?”

  Cornelius looked at his hosts, then knowingly at his wife. Finally he took a long breath and said, “Because Agrippa executed James ben-Zebedee and would have done the same to Simon Peter if he hadn’t escaped from prison.”

  “And who might they be?” Pilate wondered.

  “James and Peter? Two of the leading disciples of Jesus the Christ.”

  Pilate paused and pondered. “Jesus the Christ?”

  “Yes. Don’t you remember? The one you sentenced at the Passover…It must be eleven years ago now.”

  Pilate searched his memory. “No…or…yes,” he finally said. “Galilean. Came from Nazareth, correct? Yes, I remember now. That old puzzle! But what’s your interest in his disciples?”

  Again Cornelius assumed the expression of one who had a long story to tell and knew the telling must come shortly, but who was apprehensive about his hearers’ reaction. Finally he declared, “Pilate, I—our whole family—are Christians.”

  “Are what? Didn’t you use that term before?”

  “Christians. Yes, I did. The followers of Jesus the Messiah—the Christos—are now called Christians.”

  For some moments Pilate stared blankly at Cornelius.

  “It’s quite a story. If you’ll listen,” Cornelius continued, “I’ll—”

  “You?” Pilate blurted. “You’re members of that Jewish cult?”

&n
bsp; “Yes.”

  “But didn’t that sect die out long ago?”

  “No. On the contrary.”

  “But Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin had all but hounded them out of existence, hadn’t they?”

  “They didn’t succeed. The Christians have organized themselves into congregations in each major town in Palestine. Now they’re spreading as far as Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, and beyond. There are isolated households even in Rome which are Christian.”

  “But what does Agrippa have to do with it?”

  “Agrippa thought the whole movement was subversive—he had hoped that you had put an end to Jewish Messianism by crucifying Jesus—so he was determined to root out the ringleaders. The outspoken and courageous James was first. He was beheaded. When Agrippa saw how this pleased the priests, he went on to arrest Peter, the leader of the disciples. But although he was under constant guard at the Antonia, Peter escaped prison in the dead of night and Agrippa never caught him again.”

  Pilate started nodding his head toward the close of Cornelius’s statement and said, “He’s the one, then.”

  “The one what?”

  “Peter. He’s the one who must have engineered the grave robbery.”

  “What grave robbery?”

  “Stealing the body of Jesus from under the noses of the guards. A clever fellow this Peter, an escape artist evidently.”

  “Pilate, Peter was chained between two guards. If somehow he escaped them, he would have had to get beyond the bars of his cell. If he got out of the cell, he would have had to go through four squads of sentries and two separate guard posts. You know how the Antonia is laid out. Then there’d be the wall and the iron gate, always barred at night. How could he have escaped through all that?”

  “Well, how did he then?”

  “The same way that Jesus’ sepulcher was empty on Sunday morning.”

  “How?”

  “By divine intervention. Just as Jesus most assuredly rose from the dead.”

  Pilate studied his friend for some time with a quizzical expression. Finally he shook his head and said, “Do you really believe that, Cornelius? A solid, sensible citizen like yourself?”

  “I do.”

  “But I thought you were a good Jew.”

  “I never became a full proselyte. But even if I had it wouldn’t have made any difference. My wife is Jewish and Christian at the same time. So are my children. So, in fact, are most members of the Christian congregations.”

  An element of strain had intruded in the dinner-table conversation, so the women quietly retired while Cornelius and Pilate continued their discussion.

  “I can’t believe how credulous you are, Cornelius. I, your friend, put a man to death, and now you believe that man has come back to life and is the object of your faith. Yet you still consider me your friend?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Pilate shook his head in dismay. Then he asked, “When did you go beyond Judaism to join this…this cult? And why do Peter and James, if those are the names, mean something special to you?”

  “I was converted to Christianity by Peter.”

  “When? How?”

  “It was in a mid-afternoon, shortly after you left Caesarea, that I had a terribly realistic perception or vision—now don’t scoff, Pilate: this thing happened.” Cornelius was glaring in earnest. “I was instructed in this perception to send to Joppa for a man named Simon Peter, who was staying at the seaside home of another Simon, a tanner by trade. Naturally, after this vision passed, I questioned the reality of the whole experience. But obviously I had one check on its validity. I sent two servants and my orderly off to Joppa. They came back with Peter, who was staying at precisely the address indicated in the perception.”

  By now Pilate wished Cornelius would either suppress his new fanaticism or leave him in peace. Only visionaries had visions. Only enthusiasts were so enthusiastic. He wondered how to terminate the conversation with any shred of decency.

  “I don’t trust visions any more than you do, Pilate, especially since our late, crazed emperor used to specialize in them.” Cornelius chuckled. “But hear me out. I most solemnly swear to you as a friend and as a Roman that I had not previously known the location of this Simon Peter. You see, I didn’t believe the perception either. I was just testing out my sanity in sending for the man. When he arrived, I couldn’t help but recognize the intervention of a higher power. Wouldn’t you have?”

  Pilate shifted uneasily in his couch and replied, “If what you say is precisely what happened, there may be an explanation. Perhaps you had already heard that Peter was in that area but forgot you’d heard he was. Or it might—”

  “Explanations!” Cornelius erupted. “Excuses! An old habit of yours! I brought you eyewitness reports about Jesus’ healings and the phenomenon of raising the dead, and you only opened your bag of logical tricks and came up with some threadbare explanation which was far more fantastic than the event it was supposed to explain. Even though I wasn’t in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection—would that you’d taken me along—from even your reports of what happened I was far more impressed with the facts, even your version of the facts, than the explanations for them which you volunteered.”

  “But every effect must have its natural cause!” Pilate bellowed.

  “Every effect must have its cause,” Cornelius corrected. “And the cause in these cases is Jesus the Christ, the power of God-become-man.”

  At this point Cornelius ventured his core explanation of Christianity. The universe, he explained, was created by God, but its perfection was violated by man. Instead of condemning humanity, the Creator-God sent an extension of himself—his Son—into the world in the form of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, who atoned for human disobedience by suffering, dying, and rising again for all mankind. Through faith in him, sinful men are forgiven, despite their unworthiness, and gain everlasting life. Cornelius elaborated on this theme, using the thinking and language of the Roman military.

  Pilate said nothing. He reflected for some time, then went down to the cellar of the villa to fetch more wine. After pouring two large goblets and handing one to Cornelius, he asked, “Where did you learn all this?”

  “From Peter. Let me finish that story. Before my men met him, Peter had had a similar perception indicating that I would be sending for him. So he came without further ado, bringing along six members of the Christian congregation at Joppa. I invited some of my closer Roman friends and my wife’s Jewish relatives to meet Peter, and we had quite a conference.”

  “I can imagine,” Pilate observed, his comment only barely disguising his skepticism.

  Cornelius ignored the tone and continued. “Peter is a most impressive man, and held us spellbound for several hours. He was exuberant about what he called ‘the universal faith.’ His visit proved that Christianity was to become more than a special brand of Judaism: now gentiles were to be welcomed into the faith as well as Jews. ‘Truly, God shows no partiality,’ he said, ‘but in every nation anyone who is god-fearing and does what is right is acceptable to him.’”

  Pilate continued sipping his wine carefully.

  “When Peter finished, we found his message so convincing and the faith so magnificent that we asked to join the movement. Peter welcomed and baptized us.”

  “You mean everyone at your gathering? The Romans too?”

  “Everyone. My wife, our children, the Jewish relatives, and Roman friends. Peter stayed on with us for about a week, teaching us more of the faith and filling in details about Jesus’ life which I hadn’t known. In leaving, he told me, ‘You, Centurion, are the first in what will be a great army of gentile converts to the faith. Since you were selected for this honor, battle nobly for the Christ.’”

  Pilate felt Cornelius’s eyes boring in on him. He took a long quaff from his goblet and said, “I believe in your sincerity, Cornelius. I also believe we’ve discussed this enough for one day.”

  They moved on to po
litics, a far more congenial theme, thought Pilate, and they downed additional flagons of wine. Finally the household and the guests retired for the night.

  In bed, just one or two comments from Procula told Pilate that the women had been discussing the same matters as the men. Before dropping off to sleep, he wondered when the Jesus phenomenon would finally leave him in peace…all but forgotten in recent years, and now revived.

  The next day, Cornelius was careful not to mention Christianity to Pilate. He realized he had administered a concentrated dose of religion to an unsuspecting and unwilling patient, and there was risk of undesirable reactions. And the faith was not a medicine.

  But it was the factor which had altered Cornelius’s life, and therefore, also his relationship with Pilate. It had to be discussed, and, surprisingly, it was Pilate who broached the matter that evening.

  On balance, he had received so much additional information about Christianity that the movement strangely intrigued him. Not that he had a moment’s sympathy for the new faith. He saw that Cornelius was indirectly but unabashedly trying to convert him, a prospect Pilate found too bizarre for further thought. But, after all, he had unwittingly served as midwife at the birth of what evidently was becoming a new religion—a rare enough situation—and so he felt something of an obstetrician’s responsibility for it.

  There was also the undercurrent of the mysterious, the occult, the inexplicable which had attended the entire career of the man whom he had crucified but whose memory clung. Pilate had at least a philosopher’s interest in this phenomenon. As Cornelius related new details of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, many additional supernatural incursions studded the story, establishing the Christ in a metaphysical dimension.

  The next morning, they discussed the philosophical presuppositions of religion itself, and here there was less argument. Long ago, Pilate had abandoned Greco-Roman polytheism and now admitted, “If I were a religious man, Cornelius, I think I’d join Plato and Aristotle, or even Cicero and Vergil, for that matter, and be a monotheist. Aristotle’s First Cause, his argument that creation intuits a creator, commends itself to reason. A single deity seems the only intelligent recourse. Now to that extent the Jews were right, and I can see why you and my Procula found interest in that system. Why even our learned Varro confessed his belief in one god, the soul of the universe, who may also be identified as the god of the Jews, he wrote. But believing that this one god revealed himself in the man I crucified…that goes beyond reason.”