Then Pilate leaned forward and I thought, “Now, now he will deliver Jesus.” But the crowd cried suddenly, “He is opposed to Caesar. Who is friend to this man is no friend of Caesar.” Then I saw fear like a substance, and hard and white, slip over his face, the hands, the very robes of Pontius. He looked this way and that, at the guards, the crowd, the priests. Then he said dryly, like a philosopher: “What is truth?” And stayed not for any answer.
At the corridor leading to the Sanhadrin, I fell before Pontius on my knees. “Pontius,” I cried, “This is Jesus, Jesus the very Christ, the Son of God. And Pontius, it is Pilo’s dear Jesus, He who healed our boy. Have no part in His death. I have suffered many things in a dream this night of Him. For thine own, for even the sake of all those judges in this world who will come after thee and judge in Christ’s name without fear, for our child, for me, Claudia, thy wife, Pontius, save Jesus the Christ.”
But Pontius’s sweat was gray upon his face. He could not decide. He said, and staggered, “This is fearful. Now am I in hell. I can not stem this outbreak of the priests, for they are powerful here. Herod has asked me to make an example of the powerful here. Herod has asked me to make an example of this man. If not he will speak ill of me to Caesar. And if this Jesus be truth or not, I can not decide, for I am a philosopher and must argue the matter further. My mind rejects this man who is but a carpenter, and yet” he pushed his hands forward and groaned from his deeps “I feel, I feel…”
And then the guards came forward. They stepped briskly, for they held scourging a fine sport. And a shriek rose everywhere, “Crucify Him!” Then I heard the sound of splitting flesh when I came to the outer prison yard. Even in faint, something of myself saw, very clearly, Jesus, bound to a pillar and standing in a red pool of His own blood. And Pretorius, one of our body guards, whose broken hand Jesus had once healed, now scourged Him the hardest.
And now they put a crown of thorns on His head and pressed it down, and the eyes bulged. And they wrapped Him in an old fine robe of Pontius’s own. And Pontius staggered even in the judgement seat, and said like a dead man: “Why, I find no fault in Him.” And he washed his hands in the silver gilt basin, and sought every which way increasingly to save Jesus. But they would not release Him even for the custom of their Passover, but preferred some robber whose name has left me. And now a runner brought a scroll with the secret seal of Herod saying, :Have done quickly with all prisoners this night, for tomorrow I set early for Rome and would speak well of thee to Caesar. Do thou set out early with me for a bit of the way, for I have found a new little brook and many fine trout.”
And Pontius and Herod had made themselves into friends that day, one to further the other with Caesar.
And when Pontius said to the the mob which shrieked, “What shall I do with this man?” they shouted as one, “Crucify Him as you are Caesar’s friend, crucify Him!” He delivered Jesus unto them.
And before Pontius went afishing with Herod he wrote this title for the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
Thou,O Fulvia, who art a Christian, need not be told of what followed. Thou knowest how Jesus Himself dragged His cross to the Hill of Death, and at the last of His agony died upon it, and that Mary, His mother, stood with Him to the end, and so looked upon her son, who had healed my son, and was condemned by mine own husband unto death.
In the fever and long delirium that seized upon Pontius we lived terribly through many events. For, at the death of our Jesus, the earth trembled and darkness fell upon us, and many, even our centurion, said, “This was in truth the Son of God.”
And many more believed on Him when He rolled the stone away from His own sepulcher and walked among His people in company with His disciples, who now themselves, did heal and teach His words.
But now, tho my soul was on its knees before Him in supplication for Pontius, Pontius could not believe, but he studied increasingly, and was wretched to look upon. Such calamity fell upon him, and my heart ached for this man, my husband. Blow on blow fell upon Pontius, even as once the scourge of Christ.
When Pilo returned and heard his father had condemned Jesus to death, he fell and was dead. Nor did I wish him to live, for never could my child have forgiven his father, for he loved Jesus dearly.
Then Herod, for whose fear Pontius had delivered Jesus, spoke against Pontius privately to Caesar and had his own cousin appointed at Jerusalem. And Pilate was judged and sentenced by the Senate at Rome unjustly, for there were false witnesses, and suffered greatly in this, for until he falsely judged the Christ, he had been very upright. With his honor, he lost friends. His lands at Rome were taken, and he had no penny, but must walk like a slave. His library was scattered.
Gnawed with his remorse, Pilate sees in me the witness to his crime, and everywhere we feel the eyes of the Christians burning into us, as did those eyes of Christ. At their meetings they tell the life of Jesus and have a sentence which forever sentences Pontius. “He suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
And Pontius is a scholar and knows that words live forever. So his own learning too betrayed him. Now we are driven to this mountain crag in Gallia, whence Euphonius will bring you this scroll.
Pontius has become old and ill and very weak, so he is at last a child. In his weakness is my hope. O Fulvia, if only now, when every moment presses to his last, if now the learned mind would forget itself the love of Christ and with the pitiful heart be healed as once was healed my Pilo. If he now, my husband, who condemned Jesus for fear of others to death, could without fear go to his own judgement by the Son of God.
Ye who pray, pray now for Pontius.
Lisa Y life coach
www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach
