Jesus before Pilate, a monograph of the crucifixion, including the reports, letters and acts of pontius Pilate concerning the trial and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth--

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JESUS BEFORE PILATE

VIII Pharisee —From “Christ before Pilate.” - 283

PREFATORY NOTICE

The “Reports, Letters and Acts of Pilate” were first published by me in 1880 , which was their first publication in this country.

A new edition, embracing a history of these old documents from A. d. 138 down to tne time of their discovery on 5 th century manuscripts by the emi¬ nent Tischendorf, was issued by me in 1883 .

The last and third which is the one here oftered, combines all the matter of the former editions, greatly enhanced in value by still further additions of new matter explanatory and illustrative, and by notes embodying new facts brought to light by late historical research.

The whole work has been carried forward by its first editor, whose labor in investigating the field of history in which it lies has been unremitting.

The illustrations are taken, with one exception, from the celebrated paintings of M. de Munkacsy, the foremost artist of to-day and whose produc¬ tions in “Christ before Pilate” and “Christ on Calvary” both in European and American capi¬ tals have been hailed with an enthusiasm created

IV

PREFATORY NOTICE.

by no similar productions since the times of Mich¬ ael Angelo.

These great pictures are framed about with a history truly descriptive of their every detail in the Old Records that lie around them written out con¬ temporary with the deeds of the great drama they depict.

Together they are here respectfully and rever¬ ently dedicated to the Christian world as a por¬ traiture of the central fact of human history —The Crucifixion of Jesus the Christ.

July 10, 1891. Robert Douglass.

The main object of this volume is the presenta¬ tion of certain Ancient Documents descriptive of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, and which to a certain extent illustrate and supplement the history of his life as contained in our four Gospels.

These Documents are taken from the most re¬ spectable sources of authority ; and in themselves carry a strong argument of being faithful delinea¬ tions of the events narrated.

In their main expression it cannot be doubted that their details are reliable.

They must have been drawn up very close to the real events which they picture ; and they give us much help in arriving at a more vivid concep¬ tion than could be arrived at without them.

This being true, no apology is felt to be neces¬ sary for offering them as part of the history of that most remarkable life attributed to Jesus the Saviour.

The editor and compiler feels that in offering these Documents therefore, that he is but adding to our knowledge that which shall further advance

VI

INTRODUCTORY.

the history of a Person so little alluded to by co¬ temporary writers, whose writings lie outside our Sacred Records.

The accepted history of the life of Jesus has been preserved to us in four little books called the Gospels—written respectively by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—inside of the century in which He lived.

Outside of these it has been generally believed by nearly all, that nothing has been left in the way of biographical record, save a mere mention by the Jewish historian Josephus, born about 37 a. d. and who died 100 a. d. and the Latin historian, Tacitus, born 56 a. d. and who died after a. d. 97. The writings of these two historians are the only records outside the New Testament that mention Jesus during the century.in which Relived.

So has run modern thought as to the knowledge left us in history concerning Jesus.

And yet it would seem strange that a man should have come so prominently before the people as a public teacher as to be tried and crucified for heresy and rebellion against the laws of a whole people and be publicly tried and executed under a Roman governor and yet no account be taken of it, and no record be made of it; especially so, un¬ der a government so strict as the Roman, and un¬ der an Emperoi - who kept his subordinate gover¬ nors in a very wholesome fear of vengeance if they dared oppress those beneath them , or encouraged irregularity of any kind.

To crucify a public and well known teacher,

INTRODUCTORY.

Vll

and one for whose popular teaching the Jewish Senate arraigned before Pilate under sentence of death for public law-breaking, and as an open and public offender, and not make a record of it was simply an impossibility under the Roman system.

Either one fact or the other must be admitted here:—that Jesus was not crucified at all (in which case no record could be made of it) or that Pilate did make a report of it. We know from Tacitus that He was crucified and it follows that Pilate did record it—did report it , or else laid him¬ self liable to the vengeance of Tiberius. This under the circumstances Pilate would not have done.

It was an important and an imperative duty which would cost him nothing to perform—but the omission of which might cost him his political head, and his citizenship by banishment. For Rome in his day had a “Siberia” terrible as that of Russia to-day, and was often made the sad home of political and official delinquency. If Pi¬ late made a record of that trial he did a duty to his emperor and government at Rome ; and a fa¬ vor to all history: if he did not make it, then in the light of history it is impossible to see how he escaped the penalty his omission incurred.

The records of notable events are always valuble. Without them we should be completely at sea in knowing how the present state of things came to exist, and much more at a loss to tell what is like or possible in the future, whether in one de¬ partment of human interest or another.

Vlll

INTRODUCTORY.

If we had no records of the life of Jesus, we should be unable to connect Him in any way with the great world we call Christendom.

If we have only myths, then, certainly Christen¬ dom is founded on a basis not of real forces at work in humanity, but on shadows that sooner or later will fade—as light shall reveal the foundation of the baseless fabric.

In this real world of ours men as they grow wiser cling to reality. For there is a divinity in that which stays and endures, that humanity loves to tie to.

It loves not the evanescent, the ephemeral.

There is no word that has so deep a root in man’s love of good as the double 4 Torever-andforever.”

Facts, real things, unending action, is what man believes to be and feels to be part of, and akin to, the great corner stone of Being and Life.

This is altogether true of man’s religious nature.

In that field he longs for fact—for reality—for that which cannot pass away—but abides forever. Hence enlightened men have long since thrown aside the mere myth and fable in Religion.

The imaginary, the mere ideal are beautiful to them, ’tis true:—but the highest picture in Poesy or Painting must be drawn from the real and sub¬ stantial model of the living , or ’tis soon forgot as a shadow fading into formlessness.

Reason, the handmaid of trne Religion, guides our Faith not to bow to the inconstant chimeras of Fancy; it asks our Faith to twine its arms around

INTRODUCTORY.

IX the altar-horns of Reality, and not to hug a phan¬ tom or myth , or revel in the flowery shadows of a baseless dream, however fascinating.

Therefore it is that we have the word history, holding the first place in the great temple-home of the Past:—therefore ’twas that when God first wrote the Law, He wrote in stone that alphabet of the Moral code suited to the whole constitution of man in his conduct for all ages. Facts , then, first; and after them, their record—viz. hi.sto?'y.

In any case such records are important: and in a case like that before us here, more important than is often appreciated, and that cannot be over-esti¬ mated.

The value of History—the Record of the Past— is beyond estimation. Tablets, manuscripts, Iconographs, cut on stone, engraved on metal, im¬ pressed in clay, written on papyrus, and on skins of animals are preserved in all the great museums of the world with the greatest care for the simple reason of their great value to history. They form the only doorway and avenue to the great Realm of the mighty Past.

Without them the by-gone of humanity would be forever closed. Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Palestine in their past without these old musty and curious relics would be a blank.

These footsteps of the march of years are val¬ uable beyond all others for the reason that they come from the very times of the events. They are pictures from life, so to speak, and not fancy sketches or conjectures as to those events.

INTRODUCTORY.

Modern exploration and research have done much in unearthing these old leaves of history.

In the department of Bible history so far as that history depends upon the oldest manuscript forms of the book, no name stands higher or prouder than Constantine Tischendorf s.

His Sinai Copy of the Bible discovered in a Convent on that mountain some years ago—is kept as a sacred treasure in the imperial Capital of Rus¬ sia. In whatever belongs to a critical knowledge of the oldest form of our sacred writings no name is more honored than that of Tischendorf.

The main contents of this volume offered here rest on manuscripts discovered by Tischendorf, that were copied from still older ones more than 1,350 years ago. They are true copies of the Acts of Pilate cited, before the Roman Senate, in whose archives they were kept, as early as a. d. 138 by the learned Justin Martyr.

They were in the Archives of Rome at that time.

George Rawlinson the great historian, and au¬ thor of “The Ancient Monarchies” says that it is probable that copies of them were disseminated among the early Christians through the Christians that were members of Caesar’s household.* About 170 years after Justin’s citation of these Acts of Pilate, they had gotten abroad among the Chris¬ tians : and their force felt to such a degree by the opponents of Christianity, that we find the Roman Emperor Maximin issuing a decree for their collec-

*See Colossians, iv. 22. The historical evidences of the truth of the Scripture Records stated anew, with special reference to the doubts and discoveries of modern times. Lecture vii.

INTRODUCTORY.

XI lection and destruction—or worse, their mutila¬ tion.*

These few facts concerning them are enough to establish the conclusion of their genuineness and authenticity as originating under the procuratorship and sanction of Pilate himself, and as being records composed in the very face of the events they narrate.

They show “the Acts of Pilate” to have been part of the coinage of history, struck then under his governorship in Judea, and passing as current then as passed in the days of Justin not as coun¬ terfeits, but with every mark of the mint of fact enstamped upon them—as did the coins of money bearing the image and superscription of Caesar— when shown to Jesus.

Destructive Criticism has done its best under the Tubingen School to invalidate the historicalness of both Gospel and Apocrypha, and following in its wake, a horde of minor critics as well as a school of higher men have tried to destroy the personality of Abraham, of Moses, of David and of Jesus—nay following later, of the existence of Homer, and of Shakespeare alike. But a more conservative and reasonable and patient school has in the last few decades unearthed indisputable evi¬ dence to the contrary. We are standing again amidst the rums of these former men and things, and do handle the very armor of the real men that have been so cheaply counted myths, but the dis-

*See Eusebius Eccl . Hist, book ix. chap. 5.

INTRODUCTORY.

xii

covered remains of whom are to-day serving still as armor and shield for Truth.

The story of Joseph in Egypt—among her Phar¬ aohs—grows more real as we unwrap the mummy bandages from the very kings under whom he served.

The poet-history of the battles around old windy Troy painted three thousand years ago in the Iliad of Homer, king of all poets, rises like reality as we view the spade of Schlieman lifting the sand and mold buried three-foundations deep—off the skulls and shields of those ancient Captains of the Trojan war—and bearing up to light the buckler, shield and spear of men who perished ere H£neas sailed, or Virgil sang “Ilium’s lofty temples robed in fire.” We have a right to these. They but il luminate what was but an uncertain page. They make real to our sight again the heroes whose mighty example in peaceful glory, or mighty deeds of war, seemed too godlike to be true.

And so in this whole field called Literature, called Poetry, called History. We want those older things —the true realities of what there truly was. Noth¬ ing can bring them here to us but the tablet, the iconograph, the old manuscript, the mummy wrap unearthed by the spade of patient investigation.

How new these old things are from the fountain head. They refresh the spirit of Faith like goblets filled at the spring.

The old documents that follow here are pre¬ sented in this mind and offered in this spirit.

Some of their pictures are new to most of us.

INTRODUCTORY. xiii

The descriptions here and there, of the Saviour Himself as a person while here on earth, of the robe He wore—that spotless robe of white that Herod put on Him ; of the three Marys weeping where he hung on the tree : of the' shriek and wail of her whose mother-heart was sword-pierced by woe, and many other details, are notunworthy of his reading who would draw nearer to the Cross of Jesus.

They are truly worthy of a place in Christian Literature, and as to truth, in the likeness of his life-history, they will not dim one star in the bright diadem He wears. They add no gloss, and lend no trace unwortlry of the tale we oft have heard— nor do they steal away a single ray where light shines through to break upon his Cross or Crown.

These pictures from the Crucifixion, whether from history or legend, will serve to broaden the landscape that lies around the Cross that divides the Darkness from the Light; to heighten the great ideal of a Life glorified by purity, peace and love, and to fix the signet seal of His truth of whom ’twas said, “He is the Light of the world.”

Their argument is one addressed to the Heart, as well as to the Head, and ’twixt the two reason¬ ings let him who reads make choice.

If the soul’s heart be greatest let it be—if the soul’s head be greatest let it be. But of the music made by either one—if but one, give us the music of the heart—that rising around the sea and in the dells of Galilee—dove-like fills alike the leafy nest

XIV

INTRODUCTORY.

of spring no less than the leafless forest sear, with the soul of promise and of new life.

Let the poet’s quill, the painter’s pencil touch each word He spake, each deed He did—no matter where—let Magdalen, or Lazarus, or Pilate with his Roman spear or soldier’s reed with hyssop speak—you cannot hide the Story there enacted.

True souls will bleed at every pore the bloody sweat He felt, when bowed to bear the bruises of a broken heart, each man must feel some other where, when other years shall tell how well He bore Gethsemane, the Roman Cross and Soldier’s Spear—to come again crowned with blossoms from that other Sphere that has no death, nor change to fear. W. O. Clough.

Indianapolis, July 10, 1891.

I

V

*

Hasselman Photo. Eng.

The original by M. de Munkaesy.

CHRIST

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

Dying—while those who loved Him, helplessly Gazing far-off, held from His bleeding feet By Pilate’s spears and guards of Caiaphas,

And Roman Soldiers, casting lots to share Ilis sacred vestments.

Sir Edwin Arnold.

Crucifixion was an ancient Oriental mode of in¬ flicting the death-penalty applied in rare instances by the Greeks and more commonly by the Ro¬ mans ; by both Greeks and Romans considered an infamous form of death, and reserved in general for slaves and highway robbers.

Among the Romans the instrument of death was properly either a cross in form now so familiar, or the cross known as St. Andrew’s , sometimes a standing tree was made to serve the purpose.

The person was attached to the cross either by nails driven through the hands and feet or by cords, and was left to die of exhaustion or received the mercy of a quicker death according to circum¬ stances.

The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that a man might live three or four days in this horrible condition upon the tree of anguish. The hemor¬ rhage of the hands very soon ceased and was not mortal. The true cause of death was the unnatjp:sus crucified.

ural position of the body which induced a hideous disturbance of the circulation, fearful pains in the head and heart, and finally rigidity of the limbs. Men of strong constitutions died only of hunger.

The principal idea of this cruel punishment was not to kill the criminal directly by absolute lesions, but to expose the victim nailed up by the hands of which he had not known how to make proper use —and let him slowly die on the tree.

The delicate constitution of Jesus saved Him from this slow agony. Every thing leads to the belief that in His case death was produced by rup¬ ture of blood vessels after suffering three hours.

The desolate knoll on which Jesus yielded up his life was the centre around which the fury of human rage, at intervals, had played for more than a thousand years.

Death and bloodshed were not new to Calvary.

For more than a thousand years to come they were still to hover about this ‘‘place of a skull”— and in that “field of blood,” purchased with the price of love’s betrayal, how many pilgrims were yet to be given a stranger’s burial!

History has recorded no Heights more historic of Death than the Heights of Zion. Whoever has read the history of Jerusalem from the times of David down to the last Crusade, and of all Pales¬ tine from the times of Abraham, will remember that, for much of the time the Heights about Jeru¬ salem, and of all that land, have drunk much more blood than perhaps any other recorded fields of death.

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

Here on this mount of paradox—sacred to prayer, devoted to blood, scarred by the ravages of ruthless wars—theatre of a thousand desolations, seemed a most fitting place for His cross who had come as the Prince of Peace.

Drenched had it been not only with the sacrifi¬ cial blood of beasts, but with the gore of contend¬ ing legions from Egypt and Assyria—from Media and Rome and the uttermost parts of earth.

Surely the “Mount of Conflict” had not been, and would not be a name unfitting to Mount Zion.

Around her rocky dome has played the vortex of the wildest contention of passions.

From the day that David stormed her strong cit¬ adel even down till now no capital has been more central of human conflict than the “City of David. ”

No city we think has seen such extreme vicissi¬ tudes—and kept alive so long such intense interest in the hearts of men. Like that “sacred fire” on her altars—whether burning in the humble tent of skins or in the temple of her proudest kings—hu¬ manity’s interest in Mount Zion has never ceased to burn with a devotion and fervor most wonderful —whether in one age or another, and under what¬ ever change of circumstance.

When Jesus came he saw Jerusalem bearing the civil yoke of pagan Rome and writhing under the seditions of a corrupted Jewish priesthood ; filled with political hate as well as political despair.

Yet He had doubtless learned in boyhood, and knew in manhood, the glorious history of His people.

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

He must have read of David and Solomon, of that Golden Age—when God Himself seemed to be king and guide in Israel. He must have com¬ pared those palmy days with the times in which He was then living—and the glory of Solomon so faded to the poverty of a broken foreign province.

He must have read those glorious passages from the hand of His forefather David, the poet king, long ago descriptive of Zion :—“Beautiful for situa¬ tion, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for refuge. Let Mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go around about her, tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces ; that ye may tell it to the generations fol¬ lowing.” Ps. xlviii.

“The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah. Of Zion it shall be said, this and that man was born in her. The Lord shall count when He writeth up the people that this man was born there.” Ps. lxxxvii. The sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for her¬ self where she may lay her young, even thine altars O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. They go from strength to strength ; every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a door¬ keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Ps. lxxxiv.

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

With what feelings of sadness he must have read that other psalm of David so descriptive of Jerusa¬ lem under the sway of the Caesars:—“O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance ; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem in heaps. The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh .of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem ; and there was none to bury them. Ps. Ixxiv.

How like a fulfilled prophecy this psalm must have read to Jesus ; how sadly real of his country, of its capital and of His people in the days of His own time!

Jerusalem did not reach her highest glory, how¬ ever under David.

Jesus must have read more tearfully of her golden age under Solomon, the son of king David ; when the Lord “had given rest on every side,” so that there was neither adversary nor evil occurrent, (1 Kings v, 4 ;) and of that golden house whose “stones made ready before they were brought thither, echoed neither hammer nor ax, nor gave sound of tool of iron” in all its building.

He must have read and remembered the dedica¬ tion of that house ; and that wonderful prayer of Solomon, whose eloquence in speech and concep¬ tion echoes still a rival of the finest ancient or mod¬ ern oratorios.

Above all Jesus must have recalled with deepest pathos, after that prayer, that “God appeared unto

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

Solomon the second time, as He had appeared unto him at Gibeon,” and said: “I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me : I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there forever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.

And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in upright¬ ness, to do all that I have commanded thee, and will keep my statutes and my judgments ; then will I establish the throne of thy kingdom forever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, “there shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.”

I Kings ix, 2-5.

It must have crucified the heart of Jesus to read of these glories of Israel and her temple under Sol¬ omon ; and then turn to contemplate her state as He saw it under Rome—even under Pilate—and Caesar holding the pagan sword over Jerusalem.

We must not forget that Jesus was a Jew. We must never forget that love of country so deeply rooted in the heart of the Jew as could pour forth in exile a song like this :—

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

Ho 7U shall 7ve sing the Lord's song in a strange landt

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand for¬ get her cunning.

If I do ?iot remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

That Mercy Seat at Jerusalem, shadowed by the wings of the golden cherubim, has never been re¬ moved from the Jewish heart.

It was like the altar, our mother’s knee in the old homestead, where first we knelt to say, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

It’s the last stronghold in human memory that In¬ fidelity shall ever take away from religion.

We must not forget that Jesus was human as well as divine—and that as human He loved His people, loved His country and her time-honored memories.

He had His social friends and comrades too, as other men have: and when He chose His apostles and gave them “power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease ,” He sent them forth “not into the way oj the Gentiles , or into any city of the Samaritans , but rather to the lost sheef of the house of Israel ’ to proclaim to them “the king¬ dom of heaven is at hand, ’ "first of all. Matt, x ; 1, 7.

His visits to the home of Martha and Mary and * Lazarus with the tender incidents recorded of them touch against our hearts as tenderly as the coming of our loved ones did in the happy days of our child¬ hood, when family reunions were had at feast or funeral, in our own homes.

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

Yes, His human-heartedness touched the whole picture He has left of His life, from John the "‘be¬ loved” apostle even down to His love of little chil¬ dren curiously scanning the wonderful man whose presence in the wilderness emptied all homes to see Him, and to hear His wonderful words.

Christian people of to-day are too much afraid of hearing Jesus called human —as much indeed, as if He was not of our species, and had never worn this poor robe of flesh that hides the divine soul.

We have forgotten Him as “ the man of sorrozus and acquainted with grieff we have lost sight of Him as a neighbor, and friend, and visitor, and helper, and brother as He used to be when “ He came to His own and His own knew Him notf while He walked among the hills and in the groves of Galilee.

He does not come about our homes so familiarly as He ought to come, that the little ones of our house might recognize Him in the feeling of a kin¬ dred touch that made them once the “ greatest in the kingdom of heaven ” even in the presence of His apostles!

We do not remember as we ought that this man Jesus was a citizen, a son, a brother, a friend, a neighbor, having the native instincts common to hu¬ manity, and, that in a thousand ways, His heart was crucified like the heart of all those who truly follow Him.

He was the citizen of a poor and bleeding country.

He saw Herod and Pilate, the minions of a heathen empire, lording it over a downtrodden people.

JESUS CRUCIFIED.

He saw Annas and Caiaphas—the mere perfunctories of the highest and most solemn trusts—and that sacred temple, “the house of frayer ,” made “a den of thieves . ”

He saw all this, felt all this—how keenly !

Humanly speaking, He was known but as a ‘‘Jewish peasant.” Yet, He knew better. He was descended of a line of kings, and He knew it.

The genealogies of earth may pass for nothing when war and carnage and captivity grind a nation to powder in any age—and kingly titles may be made but sewage for the Euphrates, the Tiber or the Thames. But there remains “a Seed,” in blood, whose line of life no change of circumstance can break asunder.

Remembering that‘‘Seed” and looking up that proud stair of lineage—even human lineage—Jesus could call king David, father, and Abraham his an¬ cestor.

Whose ancestry was ever higher on a kingly line ?

Whoever wore a crown, bore a sword, or swept a harp like David’s? Whoever saw a glory like Sol¬ omon’s?