Christ on trial before Pilate

“I believe... in our Lord Jesus Christ... crucified for us under Pontius Pilate" "Christus Tiberio imperante per procuratorem P. Pilatum supplicio affectus erat." The last days of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ were accompanied by a number of deeply amazing and truly terrible events, which fully revealed to what terrible fury the dark forces of evil can reach when they try to deal a decisive blow to goodness and holiness. And it is impossible without a shudder to read those sacred pages where the evangelists set out before us the history of these very days, which, beginning with the day of the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem as the true Son of David and the king of the Jews, entering His capital amid popular rejoicings and greetings, quickly led to Calvary with its unimaginable horrors - to the shame and agony of death on the cross among the thieves. But among this series of events, especially striking from a historical point of view was the decisive scene that took place at the foot of the Roman tribunal, when the earthly Roman justice, although entrusted to a less than worthy representative, made a persistent attempt to protect embodied innocence from the furious malice of blinded untruth. It is not for nothing that this scene has been the subject of many scientific and artistic depictions, because it contains everything that is capable of stirring the human heart with all kinds of different feelings, and in the details its pious sense of truth will never cease to find a source of deepest edification. 1 It was early morning on the day that was called “preparation for Easter,” 2 therefore Good Friday. Life in the east usually awakens early, because everyone is in a hurry to take advantage of the pleasant coolness of the morning hours to carry out their business before the onset of the oppressive heat of the midday sun. Therefore, as soon as dawn began, the streets of Jerusalem quickly filled with lively crowds, hastily moving in all directions. Ancient Jerusalem, with its narrow streets and cramped bazaars, was generally extremely crowded, but for the Easter holiday so many people flocked to it that the holy city must have made a truly extraordinary impression. According to I. Flavius, 2,700,000 people took part in the celebration of one Easter along with the population of the city. 3 Huge caravans constantly arrived at the city, causing more and more excitement both in it and in its surroundings. Here one could see Jews of the Diaspora from all possible countries of the world. Under the shadow of the church, Jews from Parthia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamians in the clothes of the far east met with each other, stopping in the surrounding area or at the bazaars with their camels and mules; parties of pilgrims from all countries of Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Pontus and others, with distinctive features in clothing and language; masses of wealthy Jews from Egypt, the main seat of foreign Jews, from Divia and distant Cyrenaica in Africa; pilgrims even from world-power Rome and from distant cities and villages of inaccessible Arabia. In short, the entire Jewish world was gathering in one place. In this city everything was concentrated - both the past and the present of the people of God, and only the speaking of countless languages ​​was heard, which, filling the air, was truly a majestic testimony of the glory of the one true God to the whole world. The arrival of the day itself was announced to the city by the trumpets of the Roman garrison from the fortified tower of Antonia, followed by three trumpets from the church calling for prayer. But even before this, life with all its bustle came into its own. Sheep and cattle sellers, money changers and all kinds of industrialists hurried to the temple to take early seats in the pagan courtyard. Worshipers from all sides also flocked en masse to the temple, although at the same time all the numerous synagogues were opened for morning prayer. When the first ray of the rising sun appeared, everyone bowed their head in prayer, wherever they were at that moment. Some Pharisee in wide robes would deliberately, in anticipation of this moment, go out into the street, to a crowded intersection, suddenly stop and with ostentatious reverence tie “repositories” with the commandments of God to his forehead and hand and publicly perform his morning prayer. Everywhere one could see priests and Levites passing by, the sight of whom in their peculiar clothes gave a special flavor to the holy city. Among the masses of people there were also extremely peculiar figures of the Essenes - in their snow-white clothes, alien to any ritual desecration, the purity of which they guarded with fearful caution from contact with the publicans, Roman legionaries and all kinds of hurrying people. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of bustle and bustle dominated the streets of Jerusalem on such a day with such a huge crowd of people so heterogeneous in their habits; but on the particular morning described, it was impossible not to notice more than ordinary excitement in the crowd. The crowd in general, and the eastern crowd in particular, is extremely sensitive to the events taking place among them, and what happened the previous night could not escape it. The hundred-year-old rumor, of course, had already managed to spread the news everywhere that that Galilean Prophet, who so recently entered Jerusalem with extraordinary triumph and was glorified as the Son of David, was captured by the leaders of the Jews and brought to trial as a deceiver and seducer of the people, a blasphemer, and the Sanhedrin, in its night meeting, pronounced its terrible sentence on him: ish mavef - “a man of death” (t e. worthy of death). All that remained was to obtain approval of this sentence from the Roman procurator and the people were in for a spectacle for which they could still stay in Jerusalem for several days. And indeed, the rumor was not wrong. Around seven o'clock in the morning, according to our reckoning, an extraordinary procession appeared from the house of the high priest Caiaphas, which was heading along the narrow streets of the upper part of the city, apparently ascending Mount Zion. where stood a luxurious palace, once built with all the pomp of an exquisite style by Herod the Great, of course, for himself and his successors, but now mostly empty and only on major holidays served as a temporary residence for the representative of the Roman government, the procurator. Among this procession, consisting of the noblest leaders of the people, scribes and Pharisees, with calm grandeur, although with languid sadness on the divine face, moved with his hands tied back and with signs of gross mockery on his clothes, that Galilean Prophet, who was precisely accused as a seducer of the people and a blasphemer. One can imagine how the crowd, greedy for everything unusual, rushed with extreme curiosity into the gratuitous spectacle, so that as it approached the palace of the Roman procurator, the procession, of necessity, had to represent an immense mass of heads, over which rushed a multi-voiced and peculiar hubbub, which is a feature of an extremely excited and heterogeneous crowd. The procession stopped in front of the palace, which, as it sometimes served as the residence of the Roman dignitary praetor, was usually called the “praetorium”. A palace built on a prominent hill. with its colonnade it stood proudly above the houses surrounding it, so that from its windows a distant view of the city with its winding streets opened up. The procurator himself or his sentry could notice from afar the approach of an extraordinary procession and make the necessary inquiries and preparations. Judging by the excitement of the crowd, one could assume that some kind of outbreak of popular fanaticism had not occurred again, like those that happened every now and then on major holidays, causing a lot of trouble to the Roman procurator, who, in fact, in order to maintain public order, moved to Jerusalem for the holidays from his usual residence - Caesarea seaside, which provided more convenience for communication with Rome. But it soon became clear that there was no indignation, and the leaders of the people brought the prisoner to the praetorium to obtain approval from the procurator for the sentence pronounced on him. In the Praetorium there was a special chamber that served as a place for the examination of legal cases, with all the accessories necessary for formal legal proceedings. But the Jewish elders now did not want to enter the praetorium with its pagan decorations and emblems, since this would subject them to ritual desecration and deprive them of the opportunity to eat Passover. These coffins, filled with water, inside filled with all sorts of abomination and uncleanness, inhuman monsters, whose hearts burned with bloodthirsty anger at the innocent Sufferer, remained faithful to their crudely legalistic righteousness until the last moment and, without fear of offending the highest truth, feared even accidental, purely external desecration through contact with something that, according to the ritual law, could be considered unclean. In this sense, it was reported to the procurator, who therefore had to go to the praetorium platform in order to listen and examine the upcoming case. The procurator at this time was Pontius Pilate (from 26 to 36). In his rank, he was, so to speak, a governor, who was entrusted with the administration of Judea and Samaria, which formed a separate district, as part of the large province of Syria, under the control of a proconsul, whose rank can be compared with the rank of the governor-general. Procurators, or in Greek hegemons (“rulers”), usually came from the class of Roman equestrians and their duties especially lay, in addition to maintaining general order and obedience, collecting revenues from the districts entrusted to their management, as well as managing judicial affairs related thereto. In some cases, when the general condition of the district inspired significant political concerns, the procurators were also granted some proconsular rights, and in these cases they had at their disposal significant detachments of troops and, at their own discretion, could decide even criminal cases, although always in some subordination to the provincial proconsul. It was precisely these rights that were granted to the procurators of Palestine, since they constantly had to deal with serious political difficulties, namely the outbursts and rebellions of this dissatisfied Jewish people, indomitable in their political dreams, from whose midst desperate “zealots” constantly emerged, who considered the overthrow of the yoke of the pagans their duty before the law and Jehovah. To contain and suppress such fanaticism, the procurator needed to have an army at hand, which occupied the fortified Antonia Tower in Jerusalem, from where at any moment, at a certain signal, it was possible to call the necessary detachment of well-armed legionnaires. In view of this state of affairs, people of known military experience were predominantly appointed as procurators of Judea, and the very nickname of Pontius Pilatus, i.e. javelin thrower, indicates that at one time he was the head of a special detachment of javelin throwers, a position that required special courage and military experience. 4 Judging by the fact that he got to the extremely profitable position of procurator under the patronage of the fierce and insatiably ambitious temporary worker Sejanus, who held Rome in his hands under Tiberius, one can think that he owed such exceptional protection to his qualities, which in miniature made him a second Sejanus. And indeed, he was an extremely arrogant, power-hungry, greedy man, who treated the people entrusted to his management with extreme contempt, looking at them only as a source of the state treasury and his personal enrichment. It is not surprising that, with such a character and view of the governed people, Pontius Pilate, already at first, had to more than once come into extremely unpleasant collisions with the Jews, who, involuntarily feeling all the insult to their pride of such an attitude towards them on the part of a foreign pagan ruler, became extremely irritated by any more or less unpleasant measure of the procurator. Pilate had several such clashes during his ten-year service in Palestine, and for the most part they ended with the painfully proud Roman having to retreat before the fanaticism of the enraged people, who bared their breasts to the edge of Roman swords and tore out their hair in frenzy, howled furiously and shouted threats with complaints and denunciations to Tiberius about everything done by his procurator. lawlessness. 5 It is clear what a bitter aftertaste such clashes must have left in the soul of the Roman hegemon, which, in any case, extremely aggravated his relations with the leaders of the people he hated, and he, only for the sake of preserving his place, held out in relation to them as a coldly arrogant dignitary, barely restraining his inner hatred under the guise of outer decency. For the dignity of the representative of the Roman government, of course, it was not particularly pleasant for the leaders of Judaism to demand that he, taking into account the ritual subtleties of a religion that was incomprehensible to him, come out to them from the palace and listen to their statement in the open air. But Pilate had already learned from bitter experience how dangerous it was to touch upon the religious prejudices of the Jews, and therefore he was not slow to leave the praetorium, especially since Roman custom had nothing against the widest publicity in the analysis of judicial and all government cases. The Roman rulers, and after them the semi-pagan Herods, set up their tribunals indifferently, now in front of the palace, now in the bazaar, even in the theater, circus and on the highways, wherever there was a pressing need for the analysis of one or another case. 6 Therefore, Pilate ordered his “curule chair” to be taken out of the court chamber and placed on a special elevation, which was called “gavvafa,” i.e. high Place, or in Greek “lyphostroton”, i.e. a mosaic platform made of multi-colored stones, as was the custom of the Romans, who loved the curule chair of Roman rulers and dignitaries to always stand on a certain elevation above those around them - both as a sign of the visible greatness of Roman power, and in order to enable a larger number of those present to directly hear the decrees and decisions of this power 7. In this case, it was, in all likelihood, a permanent elevation, deliberately arranged for such cases, and one can think that, in accordance with the luxury of the palace, the gavwafa shone with the grace and beauty of multi-colored marbles, on which Herod the Great, a lover of exquisite luxury and architectural beauty, repeatedly set his judgment seat. When the curule chair, usually made of ivory and essentially a stool on crossed legs, was placed on the gavwafa, which provided enough space for the assistants inevitable at the request of Roman legal proceedings, then from the depths of the palace with the usual solemn importance, preceded, in the absence of the usual lictors in such cases, by 8 legionnaires and accompanied by assistants, appeared The hegemon took his place, at the foot of which, but still above the surrounding people, several honorary close associates of the procurator took their places. In the usual procedure of legal proceedings, before the tribunal of the judge there were seats for both the accusers and even the accused himself. But in Judea, whose people the Romans generally treated with extreme contempt, this custom was often not observed, and it is difficult to imagine that it would have been observed now, when the accusers were in an extremely excited state and were occupied with the only thought of somehow quickly achieving their bloodthirsty goal, namely the confirmation of their death sentence over the condemned. In conquered provinces, translators were usually relied upon in court, but in this case, apparently, there were none, since both Pilate and the Jewish leaders were probably familiar with the Greek language as the language of education and all kinds of international relations. In all likelihood, the divine Prisoner was also familiar with this language, since this language was very widespread in Galilee in His time. A detachment of Roman soldiers who protected the procurator's tribunal from the onslaught of the crowd completed the external setting of this Roman court in Palestine. Having taken his place and surveying the gathering with his penetrating gaze, Pilate immediately noticed among this excited crowd the infinitely meek Sufferer and, pointing at Him, sternly and briefly asked: “What do you accuse this man of?” villain, we would not betray Him to you." Such a rude response from the crowd could not help but hurt the dignity of the procurator, and he prepared to give the same rebuff to the accusers. Pilate was no longer a newcomer to Palestine, and since the entire public ministry of Christ was accomplished under his procuratorate, we can be sure that he had long had this “prophet" under the supervision of his agents, fearing that some new zealot and rebel would emerge from Him, like the one who had done so much trouble for the Romans Judas the Galilean. But through his agents, Pilate could have long been convinced that this Galilean avoided purely political popularity in every possible way, His very conversations with the people did not contain anything political, concerned only moral relations, and all His activities were directed towards exposing the emptiness and hypocrisy of the Jewish rabbis, scribes and Pharisees, whom the Romans themselves despised. When masses of people gathered around Christ, denunciations and warnings were probably sent to Caesarea Philippi every now and then, although accompanied by statements that this matter did not threaten any complications, since this new Jewish Teacher was completely harmless in a political sense, which was all that the Romans needed. If now, therefore, the high priests and scribes seized Him and brought Him before the Roman authorities, then this, of course, is only “out of envy,” 10 from the motives of offended pride. Judging by everything that Pilate knew about Christ, he looked at Him only as a carried away, but quite well-intentioned dreamer, of which there were many at that time not only in Palestine, and if He was dangerous for anyone, then only for these inflated, petty lawyers, whose absurd casuistry He exposed before the people with amazing force and directness, but not at all for the Roman authorities. Therefore, Pilate, immediately grasping the whole meaning of the case before him and hurt by the rude hubbub of the daring answer to his formal judicial question, with undisguised bitterness in his expression, answered the gathering that in this case the procurator had no business interfering in this matter: “Take Him, and judge Him according to your law.” In this answer of Pilate one cannot help but see a striking similarity with that answer. which a few years later was given to a similar Jewish gathering by the brother of the famous Seneca, Gallio, when he, while he was proconsul in Achaia, had to listen to an accusation against the apostle from the Corinthian Jews. Paul is that “he teaches people to honor God not according to the law.” To this accusation Gallio replied: "Jews! if there were any offense or evil intent, then I would have reason to listen to you. But when there is a dispute about doctrine, and about names, and about your law, then sort it out for yourself; I do not want to be a judge in this." 11 It is known that Gallio supported this decision in a purely Roman manner, ordering his lictors to disperse the entire gathering of Jews, hated by every decent Roman. Probably Pilate would not have been averse to doing the same; but, unfortunately, he was not in Corinth, where the Jews constituted only an insignificant colony, but in the very center of Judaism, where the Jews were a dangerous force. Therefore, he limited himself to a brief answer, which, however, contained the most subtle, extremely offensive to the pride of the Jews, a hint of their political lack of rights. Pilate, of course, knew that the Jewish leaders, at their night meeting, had already pronounced the death sentence over Christ and were now only seeking approval of this sentence by the Roman authorities, without which they had no right to put a single person to death; with his answer he now meant to force them to publicly admit their lack of rights and subject their pride to well-deserved humiliation. And indeed, he achieved his goal. The answer was heard from the crowd: “We are not allowed to put anyone to death.” 12 Otherwise, they would have dealt with this deceiver of the people long ago. Having achieved his goal and inflicted a well-deserved blow to Jewish pride in response to the impudent disrespect for the Roman tribunal, Pilate then again wanted to direct the legal proceedings on the correct formal path and again asked what they actually accused their Prisoner of. Then the Jews, convinced that nothing could be achieved by insolence and, on the contrary, the whole matter could be ruined, began to present the accusation to Pilate, and here Caiaphas did not fail to give a political character to the whole matter in order to immediately make it clear to the procurator that he had to decide a very serious matter, requiring the fullest attention of the Roman authorities. Supported by the voices of the congregation, Caiaphas began to accuse the Prisoner of the fact that “He corrupts the people and forbids giving taxes to Caesar, calling Himself Christ the King.” 13 It is impossible not to notice the strong, deliberate political overtones in the accusation. Indeed, at the night meeting of the Sanhedrin, the decisive basis for condemning Christ to death was that He “called Himself the Son of God, 14 from which His statement Caiaphas fell into sacred horror and even tore his clothes. But since this accusation could not have meaning for Pilate, as a pagan Roman, Caiaphas transferred the entire accusation to a purely political basis, giving it an extremely false character. Pilate was well aware that on the first two counts the accusation was completely false, and his agents at one time could inform him how the Galilean Teacher answered His co-questioners to their insidious question about whether it was permissible to pay tribute to Caesar. 15 Therefore, the procurator paid attention only to the last point of the accusation, that the Prisoner called Himself “Christ the King,” i.e. in the literal meaning of these words - “a king anointed to reign.” For the accusation, in essence, this one point was enough, because it contained everything that could arouse the threat of Roman law against oneself. To call oneself a king meant to commit the greatest crime in the eyes of the Romans, namely to insult the greatness of the Roman emperor, and it was all the more terrible because the Emperor Tiberius, in his morbid suspicion, knew no mercy for such applicants and many outstanding personalities had already become victims of his gloomy suspicion. Therefore, it was impossible to leave such an accusation without investigation, and Pilate decided to conduct a personal interrogation of the Prisoner. Having cast his curious gaze on this humble Sufferer, standing silently with the calm grandeur of innocence among the excited crowd of His fierce enemies, and not finding in His terrible humiliation the slightest correspondence with the claims attributed to Him, the Roman procurator wanted to interrogate Him in private, and therefore ordered Him to be brought with him into the praetorium itself. Here Christ entered the royal chambers for the first time, but he entered as a humiliated prisoner. The usurper Herod once shone in these very chambers with greatness and proud pomp, and the true Son of David now stood in them with his hands tied - in the face of a tensely menacing pagan judge! With a mixed feeling of surprise and arrogance, Pilate, looking at the divine Prisoner in His terrible humiliation, asked Him: “Are you the king of the Jews?” Are You really making this dangerous claim? In his heart, Pilate did not believe this, but formally he had to explain this dangerous accusation to himself, and he asked the Prisoner the very question obviously in order to get a negative answer from him. But, to his great amazement, the Prisoner did not give this negative answer, but, in turn, asked him in what sense he understood the word Tsar - in an exclusively political or religious sense? 16 When Pilate remarked with irritation at this that he was not a Jew to understand everything in a religious sense, then Christ replied that if in a political sense, then let him know that His kingdom is not of this world: “If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would fight for Me, so that I would not be betrayed to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” The procurator was perplexed what all this meant. He felt involuntary embarrassment at this mysterious statement from the strange Prisoner. To recover from his embarrassment, Pilate again seized on the word “kingdom.” The prisoner apparently wants to explain His kingdom in some other way; but the kingdom still presupposes a king. Emphasizing this, Pilate persistently asks the question again: “So You are a King?” - “Yes, Tsar!” Jesus answered, using a peculiar turn of affirmative expression. 17 Pilate could not help but be amazed at such a strange answer, with which the Prisoner Himself exposed Himself to the terrible danger of being accused of lese majeste, especially since, according to Roman laws, the consciousness of the criminal was enough to condemn him. But his astonished and stern expression could not help but turn into a complacent one when he listened to the further answer of the Prisoner, who said: “For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I came into the world, to testify to the truth; everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” This is the sense in which I am a king and this is who My followers are. This answer positively dispelled all doubts in Pilate about the accused. He became convinced that this Prisoner was by no means a rebel of the usual kind, but simply some completely harmless dreamer who, like the Greek philosophers and their Roman imitators, was entirely occupied with solving questions about truth and similar sublimely sterile subjects that had absolutely nothing to do with Roman power. Pilate, as an educated Roman, at one time, during the period of the hobbies of his youth, probably himself was carried away by similar dreams - to discover for himself the truth of all things, attended philosophical schools; but he only brought out the conviction that the more philosophers dealt with the question of truth, the more they obscured it, until finally some came to complete despair of the possibility of finding the truth at all. Yes, not only in philosophy, but also in life, truth is just a dream, empty nonsense, which is not at all fitting for a Roman dignitary to engage in, especially when he is forced to deal with the most deceitful and treacherous people in the world. Therefore, apparently, having sarcastically distorted his clean-shaven face and impatiently waved his hand, Pilate said disdainfully: “What is truth?” 18 and, turning, left the praetorium and publicly pronounced his verdict of acquittal: “I find no guilt in Him.” But this open justification of the Prisoner, hated by the elders, for Whom so much effort had been spent and so many sleepless nights spent, only infuriated His enemies even more. In response to Pilate’s acquittal, they furiously shouted that it was impossible to justify such a person, since He was a deceiver, “revolting the people, teaching throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee to this place.” 19 Among these cries of the accusers, only the accused remained with calm silence. Pilate found this extremely surprising. “Have you not heard how many are testifying against you?” he turned to the Prisoner. But Christ continued to maintain calm silence. Then Pilate, more and more imbued with secret sympathy for the Prisoner and wanting to somehow remove this extremely difficult matter for justice from himself, decided to take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself to him - to hand over Jesus to the authorities of the region from which He came. Having heard the name of Galilee from the shouts of the crowd and received the answer to his question: “Is He a Galilean?” - an affirmative answer, Pilate decided to send Him to the local regional ruler Herod Antipas, who was also in Jerusalem on the occasion of Easter, hoping to do this a courtesy to the ambitious king and together get away with a very difficult matter. Herod, who occupied a palace not far from the praetorium, rejoiced at the opportunity to see the man about whom he had heard so much and had long wanted to look at Him. Interested in rumors about His miracles, he now turned to Him with questions about His activities, suggesting that the Prisoner, to please him - the king who enjoys the favor of Tiberius himself - could perform some extraordinary miracle in his presence, which could be reported even to his friends in Rome. But what was his disappointment when Christ, knowing the low nature of this king, whom He had previously branded with the shameful name of “fox” (and not the name of “lion” - as, of course, the king imagined himself to be!), “answered him nothing.” Then the irritated Herod handed the Prisoner into the hands of his servants to be mocked and then again sent Him to Pilate, declaring, however, that he found nothing criminal in Him, as visible proof of which he even ordered Him to be dressed in white light clothes, 20 in which the divine Sufferer, even more majestic and justified for the second time. was again brought to the praetorium. The sun had already risen high and its bright rays, beginning to become very hot, at the same time gave a special shine to the light white clothes of the divine Prisoner. Faced with the need to again solve a matter that was unpleasant to him and wanting to somehow save a person who, in his conviction, was innocent, and also to maintain the dignity of his first acquittal, Pilate now tried to turn to the feeling and nobility - not of these, of course, dignitaries and proud scribes and Pharisees, who again stood before the praetorium led by the high priests - but of the simple people. According to an established custom, in all likelihood introduced by the Romans themselves in order to flatter the pride of the subject people, in order to force them to quickly come to terms with the bitterness of their political slavery, the 21 Roman rulers, on the occasion of Easter, freed some prisoner, at the request and choice of the people. Knowing that the entire accusation against Jesus was the work of the high priests and elders, and that the common people had recently revealed an enthusiastic affection for Christ (at His last entry into Jerusalem), he decided to offer a choice of two prisoners for the festive release, namely Jesus of Nazareth and the inveterate robber and murderer - Barabbas, who, according to one legend, was also called Jesus, in the hope that the people would prefer in their choice the one whom they the other day I enthusiastically greeted his famous King David, his national pride and glory, as the son of his son. Pilate's proposal threatened to upset the entire plan of the Jewish leaders, and if he was not opposed in time, it could win over the people, who were rapidly changing in their mood. Therefore, Caiaphas and his party immediately took care to avert this blow and began to persuade the people to ask for the release of Barabbas, and not the Galilean Teacher. After all, Barabbas, they argued, bears his punishment for the fact that, as a patriot, he rebelled against the wicked yoke of the Romans, which weighed such a terrible burden on the Jews, therefore, he stood for the people, and if he committed any murder, then all this is more than covered by his patriotic exploits. Like a zealot, he was at the same time jealous of the church and the law, and this Galilean subverted the law, violated sacred rites and customs, reviled the most zealous keepers of the fatherly traditions - the Pharisees and scribes, in a word, undermined the faith of the fathers and is fully worthy of exemplary punishment. Having thus prepared the ground, the elders shouted out the name of Barabbas and began to repeat these cries with such force and persistence that they were picked up by the surrounding crowd, which also began to demand that they release not Christ, but Barabbas. The voice of the people, when it serves as a direct expression of their inner conscience, is as if the voice of God Himself. 22 But the same voice of the people, when it emerges from the false infatuation that comes from the riot of passions, becomes, as it were, the voice of Satan himself, who often uses precisely to achieve his darkest goals the fact that he makes his instrument this very popular voice, often acting under the venerable guise of so-called public opinion. This was the case in this case, and Pilate, listening to this angry roar of voices, could immediately be convinced that the plan he had conceived had failed. The wave of popular cries, usually supported in the east by the most desperate gestures and body movements, waving of arms and stamping of feet, rose higher and higher, and things threatened to lead to a popular rebellion! Pilate was already familiar with similar scenes. When, several years ago, he decided to bring Roman banners with their pagan symbols and icons into Jerusalem, a deputation sent to him on this occasion in Caesarea, supported by a popular crowd, raised such rebellious cries that could not be stopped. even the threat of death, and the procurator had to yield. 23 The matter threatened to take the same turn now. Pilate began to hesitate, and the sense of legality characteristic of him as a Roman and of his own dignity in defending the sentence once pronounced began to give way to the desire to somehow end this so unpleasant matter as quickly as possible - and, of course, the interest of his own position was in the foreground. It is better to give in to these despicable Jews, whom it was not for nothing that the famous Roman philosopher Seneca called “the most villainous and damned people.” 24 But at the same time, he could not help but know the famous provision of the laws of the Twelve Tables, which read: “one should not listen to the empty cries of the people when they demand either the acquittal of the guilty or the condemnation of the innocent.” 25 The position of the procurator was truly difficult. And then another circumstance happened that plunged him even more into bewilderment. When he, having allowed the popular voice to become clear, perhaps wanted to sit back on his curule chair in order to pronounce the final verdict in accordance with the demand of the assembly, a servant appeared from the depths of the palace with an order from his wife Claudia Procula. According to Roman law, in fact, wives were not supposed to accompany their husbands when they were appointed to serve in the province; but this harsh decree of the times of the republic was abolished under Augustus, and although it still found ardent defenders, like Caecina Severus, who said that “this sex, if given free rein, is cruel, loves intrigue, is greedy for power,” 26 but time took its toll, and the Senate agreed with the opinion of Valerius Messalinus, who eloquently argued that “it is not good to deprive others of happiness because of one or two weak-minded husbands.” and misfortune." 27 And this last statement was fully justified, apparently, in the case of the procurator of Judea, whose wife, obviously, was not indifferent to the affairs of her husband, but tried to help him in case of any particularly important difficulties. According to legend, she was a proselyte of Judaism, and as a pious Roman, free from petty Pharisaic rituals and casuistry, she was completely accessible to the highest religious influences and therefore, as one can assume, she followed with great interest the teachings and deeds of the Galilean Prophet, and now, having learned about the sad fate that threatened Him, she deeply grieved for Him and even saw a terrible dream that caused her a lot of suffering. She told her to tell her husband: “Do not do anything to that righteous man, because now in a dream I have suffered a lot for Him.” 28 The position of the ruler-judge thus became more and more complicated. Of course, dreams can also be deceptive, but sometimes they are directly “inspired by Apollo,” and there was not a single Roman, even among the philosophically educated classes, who, skeptical of everything, even of truth itself, did not listen with superstitious fear to what dreams say. And Pilate was at a loss, not knowing what to do. But in any case it is necessary to maintain Roman dignity. To give in to the cries of the mob means to release a zealot rebel dangerous to public peace and Roman power, who in this excited time could cause a lot of trouble, while the release of this harmless “dreamer” would be a completely legal matter, a triumph of truth and mercy over the envy and bloodthirstiness of these hated leaders of Judaism, imbued to the marrow with malice and hypocrisy. Listening to the furious hubbub of the crowd, among which shouts were heard in a vaguely mixed roar: “Not Him, but Barabbas!” – Pilate decided to make another attempt to appeal to the common sense of the people. “Which of the two actually,” he asked, “do you want me to let you go?” But it was all in vain. “Barabbas, Barabbas!” - the crowd began to roar furiously again, incited by the high priests and elders, who did not miss a single moment to strike while the iron was hot. “Death to Him, but release Barabbas to us!” – frantic voices shouted in every possible way from the crowd. Struck by such frantic anger, Pilate, however, tried to delay the matter and asked: “What do you want me to do with the king of the Jews?” He deliberately used the last expression in order to awaken the conscience of the people, and for a while, abandoning even the direct interest of the Roman authorities, who demanded that there should be no mention of any king of the Jews, he wanted to point out to the people his extremely absurd position, in which he, blinded by malice, demands the release of not the one whom the high priests themselves accused of being an impostor, and the people greeted with palm branches, as the Son of David, but some kind of robber and murderer. But with this question he achieved nothing, but on the contrary, he only encouraged the leaders of the crowd to speak clearly about what they were actually seeking, and then for the first time a frantic cry was heard: “Crucify, crucify Him!” 29 Now it was obvious where things were heading. In vain Pilate, taking advantage of every lull in confusion, insisted on his own, insisted quite stubbornly, but - alas - with each moment weakening more and more. “What evil has He done?” - asks the completely confused ruler. - “I did not find anything worthy of death in Him; you brought this man to me as one who corrupts the people; I examined the matter in your presence and did not find Him guilty of anything of which you accuse Him. Herod Antipas also investigated this matter, and also did not find anything in Him worthy of death. Therefore, the most that can be done is to punish Him roughly and then release him." 30 But with such speeches it was no longer possible to convince the crowd, which had obviously come close to that terrible psychological moment when it no longer understands anything, and in a blind frenzy screams the words that have once been confirmed. Moreover, this speech completely revealed to the Jews all of Pilate’s indecisiveness and in fact showed that the advantage was already on the side of the crowd. Therefore, more and more they filled the air with their frantic, disgusting cries: “Death to Him! Crucify Him and release Barabbas to us!“ And Pilate, who was present at this orgy of dark forces of evil, could not help but remember again the scene that took place several years ago in front of his palace in Caesarea, when the same Jewish mob, led by their elders, furiously howled and screamed for six whole days, not fearing the death that threatened them from the legionnaires, and did not stop the siege of the palace until the proud Roman procurator did not give in to these unbearable, unrelenting cries and did not allow this most despicable crowd to triumph. 31 Then it was a matter of maintaining the honor of the Roman banners, and yet Pilate yielded; and now the matter is only about protecting an innocent person from the blinded malice of His enemies, and a Jew from the Jews: is it worth especially insisting? But when, exhausted in the struggle, he cast a glance at the Prisoner Himself, the Roman sense of truth could not help but awaken in him again, which in its best representatives placed justice above everything else in the world. 32 Before him stood the very embodiment of innocence. Among this frantically screaming, stomping and fiercely waving its arms crowd, among these distorted with anger, disgusting faces with sparkling bloodthirsty eyes, like a mysterious shadow, stood motionless the tall figure of the divine Prisoner, dressed in a white cloak, who, apparently immersed in His divine thoughts, as if he did not notice anything that was happening around Him, as if all this did not concern Him at all the bloodthirsty screams were directed at someone else. Such amazing calmness of the Prisoner, in view of the terrible fate that threatened Him, could not help but touch the most ardent feelings of sympathy in the Roman’s nature, since, to his surprise, he saw that among the Jews there were also Coriolani and Mutius Scaevola. But, of course, such noble courage is a rare exception among this generally despicable, impudent, and at the same time cowardly people, and therefore this Galilean must be saved. Then he makes another attempt to save the Prisoner. Believing that it would be possible to satisfy the bloodthirsty rage of His enemies without resorting to extremes, he decided to subject Him to scourging so that after such punishment, which constituted, so to speak, a compromise between justice and mercy (from the pagan-Jewish point of view), the whole matter could be put to an end. Therefore, the robber Barabbas was released, and Christ was sentenced to punishment. 33 Having made the appropriate order, Pilate stood up from the tribunal and retired to the inner chambers of the palace. According to established custom, scourging was usually a prelude to the death penalty, and therefore the gathering of Christ's enemies rejoiced. This punishment was terrible, and Roman citizens were exempted from it on the basis of various laws. But everyone who did not have the rights of Roman citizenship, and especially in the troubled provinces, was subjected to merciless scourging. Christ was taken by the soldiers standing nearby and, accompanied by the boom and hubbub of the gloating crowd, was taken to the courtyard of the praetorium, where all the necessary paraphernalia of punishment were located. The prisoner condemned to this punishment was tied to a pole and scourged on his bare back with special whips with barbed tips, from which the victim’s entire body turned into one continuous bloody wound. It is not surprising that those punished soon fell into insensibility, from which they awoke with a feeling of unimaginable suffering. Christian martyrs were often subjected to the same scourging during persecutions. “All those present (at one such scourging in Smyrna), says Eusebius of Caesarea, were horrified at the sight of how those being punished were so tormented with scourges that their very backs were exposed and their muscles, connections and even their very insides protruded.” 35 The Mosaic legislation, with its usual spirit of humanity, limited the punishment to a certain number of strokes. According to him, “forty blows can be given, and no more, so that from many blows your brother will not be disfigured before your eyes.” 36 But this humane law, given the lack of rights of that time, was not observed, and in this case, especially since the scourging was carried out by virtue of a sentence decided by the court, therefore, according to Roman legislation, which knew no restrictions. In the usual order of things, since scourging was considered one of the methods of inquiry, the judge himself was usually present, who encouraged the executioners in their terrible occupation, saying: “Give it to him!” We can be sure that Pilate relieved himself of this terrible duty, and, having retired to the inner chambers, wanted to calm down from excitement and think over a plan for further action, and also, in all likelihood, talk with his wife Claudia, who, as having taken such an ardent part in the fate of the Prisoner, of course did not fail to personally inform her husband about the suffering she experienced in a dream and, in general, about all her perplexities regarding the “Righteous One”. Meanwhile, in the courtyard of the Praetorium, things went on as usual. Having completed the scourging and having the Prisoner completely at their mercy, the rude legionnaires, usually recruited in the provinces from the scum of the population, as well as, of course, His closest enemies, who were afraid to enter the praetorium so as not to be defiled, but who were not able to deny themselves the malicious pleasure of looking at the cruel spectacle of the scourging, indulged in the usual mockery of the Prisoner at that time. Christ called Himself a king: therefore one could make fun of His royalty. A kind of holey red military cloak was thrown over His shoulders, a reed was placed in His hands instead of the imperial scepter, and on His head instead of the usual laurel wreath was a thorny crown of thorns, 37 which wounded the divine Sufferer. Pleased with their ingenuity, the scolders, mockingly bowing before Him, mockingly exclaimed: Long live the king of the Jews! 38 and accompanied these exclamations with blows to the head, spitting in the face and all sorts of general antics of which the rude, inventive in cruelty and baseness of the mob is capable. It is unknown how long this desecration lasted, but all the cruelties and bullying associated with it were unable to evoke a single sigh from the chest of the divine Sufferer. He could have asked for mercy, could have begged His executioners for compassion with sighs and painful cries. After all, the human heart beats even in the coarsest, most ossified breast. But He was silent - although He was silent only because He felt His endless triumph and superiority over them. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He fainted under the unbearable burden of His spiritual anguish and cried out to His Heavenly Father, begging Him: “Let this cup pass by” (Matthew 26:39) - and now, when He had already begun to drink this bitter cup of suffering, He revealed the calm joy of the victor. His silence was a clear sign of His complete self-devotion to the will of His Father. Uncomplainingly enduring reproaches, He carried out His life's work, in accordance with the eternal determination of the heavenly council and out of love for His lost people and the whole world. To human eyes His royal spirit was covered with clouds of bodily sorrow and torment; but the more clearly the triumphant end of His earthly life was presented to Him. He was approaching death in order to defeat and destroy death with its works of corruption and resurrect as the Giver of Life and founder of the Church, which must save the world. 39 Such a victorious triumph of the divine Sufferer, amid all the torments of humiliation, could hardly have escaped the attention of the Roman procurator, who, being himself deeply interested in the fate of this Prisoner, was probably imbued with even greater reverence and fear for Him when he had the opportunity to personally learn from his wife Claudia the reason for the perplexities that alarmed her regarding the “Righteous One,” and therefore, more than ever, he had a desire to protect the trampled innocence. But how to provide it? On the basis of a formal trial, the case was essentially already lost. The very scourging and desecration according to the order of Roman criminal proceedings was a sign that the accused was found guilty and the threshold of the punishment he deserved was coming for him. 40 This was how both the legionaries and the Jewish congregation understood it, and in vain Pilate tried to give this act a different, so to speak, redemptive meaning. But having lost the case on legal grounds, he nevertheless did not lose hope of the opportunity to save the innocent, in his opinion, Prisoner. Having calmed down from his excitement, he again went out to the gavwafa and, gathering all his courage, again repeated his acquittal: “Here,” he said, “I am bringing Him out to you, so that you know that I do not find any guilt in Him.” 41 The crowd, of course, did not expect such a statement, and before they had time to recover from their bewilderment, “Jesus came out of the praetorium wearing a crown of thorns and a scarlet robe.” He was tormented and wounded, blood flowed from His forehead down his face, but the same majestic calm shone in those wonderfully kind, all-forgiving eyes, and a victorious royalty was reflected in his entire figure and its movements. Even a stony heart had to soften at the sight of this humiliated and trampled upon royalty of an innocently suffering man, and Pilate, taking advantage of the favorable moment and appealing to simple human compassion, said: “Behold, a man!” Think about it, after all, this is also a person - and doesn’t He really deserve simple human compassion? “But the enemies of Christ had a heart harder than a granite rock, and they, recovering from involuntary embarrassment and fearing that the victim would escape from them, shouted and stamped even more furiously, and with bloodthirsty cries: “Crucify, crucify Him!” – they shook the air ominously. This irritated Pilate extremely, and he answered them: in that case, “take Him and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.” If Pilate had had greater moral and civic courage, then, in essence, this should have been the end of the whole matter. On the basis of Roman law, the Prisoner was found innocent, and the representative of this law recognized the accusation of lese majeste by his political imposture as unproven. This means that it remained to resolve the matter only according to Jewish law; and since the power of this law was limited and according to it it was impossible to execute a person by death, Pilate, saying to the Jews: “Take him and crucify him!” – he only again made a caustic hint that they do not have the right to dispose of people’s lives. All that remained was to close the meeting and disperse the gathering. But Pilate did not have enough determination for this, and with his indecision he ruined the whole matter. The Jews, seeing that the first charge of lèse-majesté, which they had actually most counted on, had failed, with amazing resourcefulness switched to another ground and boldly answered the procurator: if you do not find guilt in Him according to your Roman pagan law, then “we have (our) law, and according to our law He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” 42 This last statement now, after everything that had already happened and was felt by the procurator, had an extraordinary effect on him. Hearing him, Pilate was positively frightened. “Filius Dei“ - yes, everything about Him shows that He is more than a man. No wonder Claudia received a mysterious warning in a dream. Thus, by doing injustice to Him, one can be unfair to the deity himself. It is necessary to investigate this side of the matter, and Pilate, extremely confused, again called Christ inside the praetorium to again subject Him to unanimous interrogation. “Where are you from?” Pilate asks Him. – Are You an earthly being, or, in fact, are You not from heaven, the mysterious and terrible Filius Dei? – As an educated Roman, Pilate, of course, was aware of both Roman and Greek literature; and she was imbued with the expectation of some mysterious phenomenon on earth to renew the decrepit world. Even such sober and serious writers as Roman historians wrote down on the pages of their chronicles the widespread rumor that some extraordinary man was about to appear, and moreover, precisely in Judea, who would conquer the whole world. 43 As the ruler of Judea, this rumor should have been better known to Pilate than to anyone else, since it was associated with a dangerous thought for Roman rule. Isn’t this incarnate deity standing before him? It seemed to Pilate that he had attacked the true essence of the matter. If, in fact, there is a god or demigod standing before him, who suffered so cruelly at the hands of the Jews, then let him only reveal this, and then the procurator, confident in the support of a grateful deity, will immediately disperse this disgusting Jewish mob and himself is ready to become His right hand in the conquest of the world (in the hope of a decent, of course, reward later). Pilate was impatiently waiting for an answer to his question, “but Jesus did not give him an answer,” because his thought, correct at the beginning, fell on false, political soil at the end. Then, with the usual variability among superstitious pagans, Pilate’s reverent fear turned into angry irritation, and he passionately exclaimed: “Are you not answering me? Don’t you know that I have the power to crucify You, and the power to release You?” What pathetic self-delusion! If in the fight against the Jewish congregation all the powerlessness of the procurator was completely revealed, then it is all the more blasphemous to expose one’s autocracy when all power in reality comes from God. Christ answered Pilate: “You would have no power over Me if it had not been given to you from above; therefore (even though you commit a sin by not acting with sufficient courage in defense of justice, but) the greater sin is on him who delivered Me to you” (John 19:11). Even in his extreme humiliation, suffered through the fault of this Roman ruler, Christ is infinitely merciful and compassionate towards him, and having at that moment become a judge, before whom the proud pagan found himself on trial, He teaches him a lesson of eternal truth. Struck by such a profound answer, which could have been heard more likely from some profound philosopher, and not from the pitiful Galilean Prisoner, Pilate thought again and did not know what to do now. But in any case, the evangelist notes, from now on “Pilate (even more) wanted to let Him go.” Having tried all the means, he decided to make one last attempt, namely to influence the most sensitive chord of the Jewish people, their patriotism and national pride. Leaving the praetorium and taking his place on the gavwaf, he ordered Jesus to be brought out with him, and when the divine Sufferer again appeared at the gavwaf - still the same majestic and calm, so that the crown of thorns seemed on Him like a victorious laurel wreath, and the mocking scarlet like a magnificent royal purple, then Pilate, pointing to Him, solemnly said: “Behold your King!” But this twist was in vain. The elders managed to set up the crowd in such a way that no matter what arguments were given to them, they frantically shouted the same thing: “Crucify, crucify Him!” And when the procurator, confused by this new failure, asked in irritation: “Shall I crucify your king?” - then the high attackers, and after them the whole people, shouted: “We have no king except Caesar. If you let Him go, you are not a friend of Caesar. Anyone who makes himself a king (and also condones one) is an enemy of Caesar" (John 19:12). Pilate did not expect such a turn at all, since he did not imagine that the notorious haters of Roman rule, who openly and even more secretly preached that the chosen people have only one King, namely Jehovah, and constantly incited the people to rebellion by teaching that the true king of the Jews, the son of David, would soon come, who would overthrow the hated rule of the predatory Roman eagle, would come to such a state vile hypocrisy, declared so publicly. And he was seized with horror, since these same attackers, being the worst enemies of Roman rule, in this case could act as supporters of the Roman crown and denounce Pilate to Rome as a traitor who publicly supported some self-proclaimed “king of the Jews.” Something similar had happened to him before. When he, wanting to flatter Emperor Tiberius, once put up dedicatory shields with his and his name on Mount Zion, the Jewish Zealots, seeing this as an insult to their law, noisily demanded that he remove the shields, threatening otherwise to bring a complaint to Tiberius himself, “whose will, as they shouted, is that their laws should be respected.” Even then, this statement greatly frightened the procurator, because, according to Philo, he was afraid that the Jewish deputation would not reveal to the emperor all his crimes, “the corruption of his sentences, his robbery, the ruin of entire families by him, and all the shameful deeds he committed, the numerous executions of persons who were not convicted by any court, and the extreme cruelties of all kinds committed by him.” 44 Since he then wanted, however, to insist on his own, a complaint was actually brought against him and Tiberius, remaining dissatisfied with Pilate’s idea, ordered him to remove the shields from Jerusalem and hang them in the church of Augustus in Caesarea. If even then the outcome of his clash with the fanatical people turned out to be so unfavorable for him, then what could be expected now? He, of course, knew that at that very time the law of lese majeste was in force in Rome with inexorable cruelty, many important dignitaries had already fallen victim to Tiberius’ suspicion, and in this regard, as Tacitus says, “neither Tiberius nor the accusers-informers knew fatigue.” 45 A denunciation made under these conditions could cost him not only his position, but also his life. Then he completely lost his head and, now caring more about himself and his position than about justice, decided to give in to the cries of the people he hated. 46 But a pathetic, confused ruler, he still wanted to shield himself from the terrible responsibility of such a terrible violation of justice, and although by an outward sign he thought to declare to the Jews that he was not involved in the great crime. Hand washing has long been a natural symbol for this. This symbol was also used by pagans, but it had special ritual importance among Jews, where it was found already in remote antiquity. Thus, according to the Law of Moses, in the case of a murder committed by an unknown person, the elders of the city near which the murdered person was found were required to wash their hands and say the words: “Our hands did not shed this blood, neither did our eyes see.” 47 Hence, naturally, the very expression “washing one’s hands” became a proverb, and it is repeatedly found in the poetically enthusiastic psalms of David. 48 The Mishnah testifies that the ritual itself continued to retain its significance until later times. 49 And it was this ritual that Pilate used to declare his non-involvement in the condemnation of the Righteous One. It is remarkable that the very expression he used is fully consistent with the nature of the Jewish rite. Wanting to give special expressiveness to his action in the eyes of the Jews, he did not limit himself to a simple pagan symbol, but performed precisely the Jewish rite with all its legalized solemnity. Having ordered a vessel of water to be brought to him, he “washed his hands before the people and said: “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man. 50 "Look," he added with menacing solemnity. According to the mishna, when the elders, having performed the established ritual and washed their hands, declared their innocence in the blood of the murdered man, the priests responded to this statement with a prayer that read: “Forgive, O Lord God, this matter to Your people, which You have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood on Your people Israel!” This prayer could not but be known to the high priests and scribes present here, and therefore should, at least for a moment, touch their hardened conscience. Yes, she undoubtedly remembered them; but this only infuriated them even more, and Pilate’s statement was instantly drowned out by the cries of the mob and its leaders, mad with gloating: “His blood be on us and on our children!” Many of this very crowd probably vividly recalled this terrible oath when, thirty years later, at this very place, the enraged procurator Florus pronounced a sentence, by virtue of which 3,600 Jews, and among them many of the noblest, were subjected to scourging and crucifixion, 51 and a few years later, countless masses of the ill-fated people were subjected to the same punishment, so that, in a terrible way, According to the testimony of a Jewish historian, “there was not enough room for crosses, and there were not enough crosses for bodies.” 52 A truly insane oath took on its force, and the ancient law established by God, which threatened to exact the blood shed by human hands, was fully justified on the Jews. 53 But then, before the tribunal of Pilate, in their insane frenzy they trampled this law of their scripture and the law of their conscience, and wildly rejoiced when the procurator, finally, in despair, gave the order to the soldiers to prepare a cross and crucify the “king of the Jews” on it. According to Roman judicial laws, sentences always had to be formalized, i.e. put it in writing and sign it. According to one of the versions of this sentence that has come down to us, it read: “Jesus of Nazareth, the troubler of the people, the insulter of Caesar and the false Messiah, as proven by the testimony of the majority of His own people, be taken to the usual place of execution and, to the derision of His (imaginary) royal majesty, among two thieves, nailed to the cross. Go, lictor, prepare the crosses!” 54 Having pronounced this or a similar sentence, Pilate one way or another put an end to the extremely difficult matter that had caused him so much useless trouble and moral suffering. Having signed the verdict, he left Gavwafa with “washed hands,” but with a cleansed heart? 55 We can only speculate in what state of mind he went to report the contents of his verdict over the “Righteous Man” to his wife Claudia, who, having suffered a lot and ached at heart for the same Righteous Man, was, of course, the first to meet him in the inner chambers of the palace. We also don’t know how long this whole terrible matter weighed on Pilate’s conscience and how soon he managed (if he succeeded at all) with the help of deft twists of pagan-Roman legalistic casuistry to remove from himself this heavy burden of the untruth he committed; but one thing is certain, that he failed to justify himself before the conscience of mankind, and his name is forever associated with the terrible crime of deicide he committed or allowed. Already the pagan Tacitus, in his famous “chronicle,” as if expressing the conscience of the pagan world, wrote the fateful words that “Christ, during the reign of Tiberius, was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate,” 56 and this voice of pagan conscience found a thunderous echo in the creed of the Christian universal church, which, daily confessing its faith in Christ, confesses it only by remembering that our Lord Jesus Christ was “crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.” See G. A. Müller, Pontius Pilatus, Stuttgart 1888; “The Trial of Jesus Christ” in the appendix to the “Legislation of Moses” by A.L. o Pukhin; N. Mavkaveisky Archeology of the history of the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, Kyiv 1891, chapter II; Innocent, The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ, ed. 3rd, pp. 231 et seq., and corresponding chapters in the lives of Jesus Christ by Farrar, Edersheim, Geikie and others. In. 19:14: ποφοσχεοή τοῦ πάσχα, “Friday before Easter.” The Pontii were descended from an ancient Samnite family. In addition to Pontius Pilate, others known in Roman history are: Pontius Aquila, one of the murderers of Caesar, C. Pontius, leader of the Samnites under Candium, Pontius Telezin, Samnite leader, and others. See Cis. Off. II, 21, 75; ad fam. X, 33, 4; Suet. Caes. 78. Philo, Leg. ad Cajum 1030–1035. Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, 3, 2; Bell. Jud. II, 9, 4. Thus, it is known that Herod held his trial in the theater (Jos. Ant. XVII, 6:3); Philip - on the highways (XVIII, 4:6); Agrippa I - before the assembly of the people (Acts 12:4); Pilate - in the circus (Bell. Jud. II, 9:3); Florus in front of the palace in Jerusalem (II, 4:18). It is known about Caesar that even on campaigns he took with him not only a curule chair, but also a mosaic platform for it. Procurators were not entitled to lictors, who belonged only to the highest dignitaries, like consuls to praetors. OK. 20:22–25: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”… This is the meaning, apparently, of Christ’s question to Pilate; “Are you saying this on your own behalf, or have others told you about Me?” John 18:34. See Innocent, The Last Days, p. 237. Jesus answered: “You say that I am a King” (John 18:37). In exegesis there have been many different attempts to explain the meaning of this question of Pilate: Quid est veritas? or in Greek: τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; in Hebrew: “ma-gi gaemet?” - “What is truth?” (John 18:38). In view of the circumstances of the case, the explanation presented seems to us most consistent with the tone of the question itself, which was asked obviously not with the aim of resolving it, but directly expressing doubt in the very possibility of its solution, as well as in the general practical meaning of such objects. This custom, in any case, is not a national Jewish one. See Maccabees. Archaeology, p.144. "Sceleratissima gens." Priv. at bl. Augustine in De Civ. Dei, VI, 11. Matt. 27:19. For Proculus, see the Gospel of Nicodemus, ch. II; in Maccabees, p.146. “Hatzleb oto, gatzleb!” - Σταύρου, σταύρου αὐτόν! “Crucifige, crucifige eum!” - the crowd shouted, probably in all the languages ​​they knew. Pereat mundus, fiat Justitia! Eusebius, History, IV, 15. Probably from the thorny bush Nubka, which still grows in abundance near the walls of Jerusalem. Tristram, Natural History of the Bible, p.420. Opinions in this regard, however, differ. See Maccabees, p.153. “Rejoice, King of the Jews!” Χαῖρε oh βασιλεῦ! - Ave, Caesar! Matt. 27:29, Mark. 15:18. Wed. Martial, Epigr. XIV, 73: “Hoc didici per me dicere: Caesar, ave!” The Jews echoed this cry: “shalom leka, melek ha-yehudim!” See Geikie, Life of Christ. II, p.550. Bl. Jerome, in his explanation of Matt. 27, says: “It is known that Pilate acted in accordance with the Roman laws, in which it was decreed that a person condemned to crucifixion should first be scourged (prius flagellis verberetur.” Cp. Cic. in Ver. V, 63; Liv. X, 9; Sen. 12. III, 18; los. Bell. lud. II, 14, 9, etc. cited by Maccabees, p. 148, note 2. Tacitus, Histor. V, 13; Suetonius, Vesp. s. IV. See Christian Reading, Issue I, 1893. Art. "Magi from the East", pp. 22 and 23. Philo, Leg. ad Cajum, §38. Tacitus, Chronicles, III, 36–38; see also in translation, prof. V.I. Modestov, note 153 on page 160. “And the cry overcame them and the high priests,” St. Luke notes with sadness, and Pilate decided to comply with their request.” Luke 23:23–24. Ps. 25:6: “I will wash my hands in innocence”; Ps. 72:13: “Have I not purified my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence?” Sot. IX, 6. Cited. in Edersheim II, b. 578. Comp. Dan. 13:46: “I am clean from her blood” Matt. 27:24 – Edersheim rightly draws attention to the fact that Pilate’s very expression: ἀθῷός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος (free from blood) is Hebraism, lit. Hebrew translation: naki middam. T. II. p. 578. Wed. 2 Sam. 3:28: “I am innocent of the blood of Abner.” Bell. Jud. V, 11, 1. It is impossible not to note the deeply amazing judgment of God, as it manifested itself over the Jews. All the torments and tortures to which they subjected Christ, they had to experience on themselves: “first they were subjected to scourging, and then to all kinds of torture and torment before their death, and then they were crucified on crosses before the walls of the city.” Right there. The Latin original of this sentence is given in Maccabees, page 160. This version of the sentence, however, is very late (from the 16th century) and several other more detailed versions are known next to it. One very ancient manuscript of the so-called confession of Pilate was recently found in Abyssinia. This manuscript is written in the Ethiopian language and is probably of Coptic origin (according to Prof. James, it is part of the apocryphal gospel brought to Abyssinia by the Copts). One sheet of the manuscript contains an excerpt from Pilate’s conversation at the tomb of Christ, where it is said: I believe that You have risen and appeared to me, and I also believe that You, Lord, will not judge me, for I acted, condemning You, out of fear of the Jews. I believe in Your words and in the deeds that You did when you were among people. You have raised many dead." In Abyssinia, Pontius Pilate is known to be canonized, and the name of his wife Claudia Procula appears in some calendars and in the Greek Church (October 27). The fact that she believed in Christ is evidenced by Origen in his interpretation of the book. Matthew, St. I. Chrysostom and Hilary. The tradition about her was preserved by Nikephoros in church history I, 30, and in the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus (“Proclus” or “Claudius Proculus”). Tacitus, Chronicle XV, 44: "Christus Tiberio imperante per procuratorem P. Pilatum supplicio affectus erat." This is one of the clearest and most undoubted evidence from pagan antiquity in favor of the authenticity of the gospel story about the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.