As others saw Him/chapter 16
XVI.
CONDEMNATION AND EXECUTION.
XVI.
And after a while of waiting, Pontius Pilate reappeared, and coming down to Caiaphas said, "He hath confessed; he shall join the other criminals that are to be executed this day." Then one among those who were waiting in the crowd came forward unto Pilate, and said unto him, "Master, it is a grace of our lord the Emperor that at our Passover there be released unto us one of the prisoners that are condemned to death." And Pilate answered and said, "That is so: whom will ye that I release?" And many of those in the crowd called out, "Jesus." And Pilate stepped back, and summoned to him a lictor. And shortly after soldiers came forward in the portico, bearing with them Jesus the Nazarene. Upon him was a purple robe of royalty, and upon his brow had been placed the faded rose-wreath of some reveller which had been put on in haste, and some of the thorns had torn the flesh, and blood was trickling down. When the people saw him, many cried out, "Not this Jesus, but Jesus Bar Abbas." And one man among the crowd called out, "Better Jesus Bar Abba[1] than Jesus Bar Amma;"[2] and laughter and jeers followed. Then Pilate seemed puzzled, and called to him one of his lictors, who spake earnestly to him for a time, and then received an order from him. And going up the steps, he entered the palace. And shortly afterwards there came forward the man Jesus Bar Abbas of Jerusalem, of whom I have spoken to thee before. Now, he had been very popular among the folk, and had lost his liberty in a rising against the Romans, in which a Roman sentry had been slain. And there stood the two Jesuses—the one that had risen against the Romans, and the one that had told the people they should pay tribute to their Roman lords. It was manifest that the new-comer, who had done naught against the Romans, was more in favor with Pilate the Procurator, while the folk who had welcomed him on the first day of the week, on this the sixth day reviled and despised him because he had refused to lead a rising against the Romans as the other one had done. Then Pilate called out to them and said, "Whom will ye that I release unto you: Jesus who is called Bar Abbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" And almost all the multitude cried, "Jesus Bar Abbas! Jesus Bar Abbas!" Then Pilate gave command, and the soldiers took back Jesus the Nazarene into the palace again, while others removed the fetters from Jesus Bar Abbas, and he came down the steps and disappeared among the crowd.
After a while, there came forward from the side gate a company of Roman soldiers, who took their stand in front of the steps of the palace, moving the crowd away therefrom. And shortly after, other soldiers brought down from above three men, each carrying two pieces of timber, one fixed across the top of the other, like unto the letter tau. One of these was Jesus the Nazarene, clad once more in his own garments, and without the rose-wreath; yet couldst thou see the mark of the thorns upon his brow. The others were, as I learnt, malefactors that had been condemned for robbery.
Just at this moment one touched me on the shoulder, and, turning, I found it was one of the servants of my household, who spake unto me and said, "Meshullam ben Zadok, thy father would speak with thee." And as the house was not far off, I went with him and spake to my father, who would have me accompany him on the search for leaven on that morn. For at that time I was betrothed, and next year I should have a house of my own, and would have to conduct the search for leaven as a master of a household. So I went round the house with my father—peace be upon him!—and searched for the leaven.
By the time the search for the leaven had been concluded, the hour had come for the mid-day meal, at which all the members of my family assembled. But I hurried forth, as soon as the grace after meals had been said, to ascertain what had been the fate of the Nazarene. I could not go to the place of execution, for it is not seemly for a member of the Sanhedrim to attend an execution. I soon learnt that the Roman soldiers had conducted Jesus and the two others to the Hill Golgotha, somewhat apart from the place of stoning, where our Jewish executions were held.
As I have explained to thee, Aglaophonos, our Sages have mercifully interpreted the words of the Law relating to the four modes of capital punishment among us—stoning, burning, beheading, and strangulation. For stoning they have substituted throwing down from a height after the criminal has been made to feel naught by drinking a mixture of frankincense, myrrh, and vinegar, which the ladies of Jerusalem supply as one of their pious duties. The criminal condemned to be burnt is in reality strangled, and then a lighted wick placed for a moment in his open mouth. In every way the aim of the Sages is to shorten the sufferings of the condemned man. But the Romans, at least in their execution of all but Roman citizens, seem rather to aim at the opposite of this; for they have selected, as their method of execution for slaves and criminals that are not citizens, suspension on a cross, by which all the organs of the body are strained and tortured till some vital organ gives way. It was this cruel form of punishment that the Romans were dealing out to Jesus the Nazarene. It happeneth oft that men live for two or three days on the cross, till they die even of hunger. I learnt to my dismay that Jesus had refused, with words of menace, to take the draught of myrrh and wine which the ladies of Jerusalem, as I have said, prepare for all men condemned to capital punishment, so that they may not feel the pain and torture.
I could not go to the place of execution, as a member of the Sanhedrim. I hurried, therefore, to the northern slopes of the Temple mount, whence one can see Golgotha. At first I could discern naught, for sombre clouds covered all the heights of Scopus. But suddenly a flash came forth from them, followed by a dull roll of thunder, and I could see for a moment three crosses raised side by side on the top of Golgotha. Which of these held Jesus I knew not. I only knew that there was dying one who had seemed born to do honor to his nation, to help to deliver Israel from the men who were now torturing him to his death. Since the night before, events had so hurried past me that I had had no time to think of their import till now, when I sat me down in the purple shadow of Antonia, and gazed upon the hill of execution, where from time to time flashes showed me the three crosses on the hill.
This, then, was the end of the hopes connected with Jesus of Nazara, and of the empire which he had wielded over men's minds! But five days agone welcomed as a king, to-day executed with the ignominy reserved for the basest slave. Each day of his sojourn in Jerusalem he had made another and yet another class of the nation his enemies. First he threatens the power of the priests; next he insults their opposites, the Pharisees; and then he puts to naught the hope of the common folk that he would help them rise against the Romans. Between Sabbath and Sabbath he had lost every friend; not even his immediate followers stood by his side in the hour of trial.
And yet no man had appeared in Israel for many generations endowed in so high a degree with all the qualities which mark us Israelites out from the nations around. He was tender to the poor; and which of the nations has given thought for its poor, their feelings as well as their welfare, like unto Israel? He bare the yoke of the Law willingly, yet as a son, not as a slave, of the Most High. God was to him, as to all of us, as an ever-present Father, to love, to chasten, and to reward; not as a harsh taskmaster or as a boon-companion, as with the commoner minds of thy people, Aglaophonos; nor as a vain figment of the reason, as with thy higher minds.
Even in what thou regardest as defects in our nation, this Jesus seemed also to share. Thou makest us the reproach that we give no thought to the beauties and grandeur of nature, and in nothing that I had seen and heard of him did the Nazarene differ from the rest of us in this. Thou complainest that we look upon life with all too much seriousness. "Ye cannot see the smile upon the face of things," thou saidst once to me. In this surely Jesus was a Jew of the Jews. We never saw him smile, still less heard him laugh. Thou wouldst hold up to me as a model Socrates thy teacher, who taught the Hellenes truth with a smile. That man there, dying upon the cross, had tried to teach Israel the truth with tears and threats.
Herein he followed the exemplar of our prophets. Only in Israel have the men who have led us farthest reviled us most. As our God, who has been to us a Father, has chastened us while he loved us, so our prophets have rebuked us their brethren. Many generations of men have passed since the last of the prophets spake his words of loving reproof. Now has appeared this Jesus, who again takes up their work.
But in one thing, and that a great thing, he differs from our prophets. All these spake never but as messengers of the Most High. This man alone of the prophets speaketh in his own name: therefore he hath been a stumbling-block and an offence unto us. He spake as one having authority, and it seemed to us as arrogance. And when we would speak with him in the gates, and know his own thought, he evaded our questionings and eluded our testings. He seemed aloof from us and our desires. All Israel was pining to be freed from the Roman yoke, and he would have us pay tribute to Rome for aye. Did he feel himself in some way as not of our nation? I know not; but in all ways we failed to know him.
And as I was communing thus, the sun shone forth from a rift in the clouds and illumined for a space the crown of Calvary, and I stretched forth my hands to the figures on the cross, and cried aloud in my perplexity, "Jesus, what art thou?" And then I bethought me, and my hands fell to my side, and I said, "What wert thou, Jesus?" Naught answered me but the distant rumbling from the gloomy clouds.
But the sun was setting over Israel, and I turned to my father's house, there once more to celebrate the Feast of the Deliverance from Egypt.