The Historical Reality:
What Did Happen?
Robert Luedke: Pilate Yelling at Jesus
SOURCE: S.G.F. Brandon, The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth
(New York: Stein and Day, Publishers - Copyright © 1968 by S.G.F. Brandon)
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Investigation of the Gospel accounts of the trial of Jesus has led us to one certain conclusion. it is, admittedly, of a somewhat negative character; but it is pregnant with sugestion concerning the real situation. This conclusion is that all four Evangelists were deeply embarrassed by the scandal of the Roman cross. The fact that Jesus had been executed for sedition on the order of Pontius Pilate was too well known for them to deny; it could only be explained away.
But this embarrassment, it is important to note, was one felt exclusively by Gentile Christians; it did not trouble the original Jewish followers of Jesus. these latter had, in effect, emphasised the Roman cross, because it enhanced the reputation of Jesus as the martyred Messiah of Israel. They had looked to the speedy return of Jesus, with supernatural power, to "restore the kingdom to Israel", which meant the overthrow of the Roman rule in the Holy Land of Yahweh. The chief concern of these original disciples, resident in Jerusalem, was to rebut the charge that Jesus had threatened to destroy the Temple. Hence, the record which they had composed of the last fatal days of Jesus' career was conditioned by this concern. It refuted the accusation about the Temple, brought during the Sanhedrin enquiry, as being "false-witness", and it described how the unpopular Jewish leaders had cooperated with Pilate in crucifying Jesus as a rebel against the Roman government of Judaea.
It was Mark, writing for the Christians of Rome, embarrassed and endangered by the Flavian triumph there in AD 71 over rebel Judaea, who initiated a different version of the trial of Jesus. Presenging Jesus as endorsing the Jewish obligation to pay tribute to Rome, he went on to show that the Jewish leaders condemned Jesus for blasphemy and forced Pilate to crucify him. He set the pattern, elaborated by the later Evangelists, of representing the Roman trial as a contest between Pilate, who recognised the innocence of Jesus and sought to save him, and the Jews, who were intent on his destruction. Mark's account of the trial of Jesus is thus essentially apologetic, not history. But it was successful; for, despite its discrepancies so obvious to the modern historian, it gave Christians of that time what they wanted. The scandal of the Roman cross was explained. The Jews were shown to be criminally responsible for its infliction on Jesus - those Jews, whom the Roman world hated for their fanaticism and rebellion, and on whom condign punishment had fallen in AD 70. This anti-Jewish pattern, with its concomitant attestation by Pilate of Jesus' innocence, once it was formulated, inspired the writers of the other Gospels to develop the portrait of the Pacific Christ. The conception had the dual virtue of compatibility with the divinisation of Jesus, and of assuring the Roman government that Christianity was not politically subversive.
Though theologically necessary and politically convenient, these versions of the trial of Jesus were essentially misrepresentations of what had actually happened. They have, consequently, had the effect of obscuring or transforming the real historical jesus and the true reason for his tragic death. In their nature and effect, the Gospel accounts of Jesus are hybrid compositions. For they assume his divinity and the saving efficacy of his death; but, unlike Paul, they are unable to cut loose from the setting of the historical Crucifixion and present it as a transcendental event, accomplished by the daemonic powers that rule the lower universe. That they were thus unable to follow Paul completely, and that they remained preoccupied with the historical situation, is certainly fortunate. For, although they misrepresent that situation, the Gospels, in their accounts of the trial of Jesus, have preserved the only detailed evidence we have of it. Consequently, they present the modern historian with both an opportunity and a challenge. An opportunity, in that they provide him with the earliest extant traditions of the trial of Jesus; a challenge, in that they prompt him to try to understand, from such tendentious material, what really did happen.
That challenge we shall now accept, and endeavour to discern behind the Gospel presentations some more probable semblance of historical reality. But such an undertaking can only construct an interpretation out of the material provided by the Gospels. Our reconstruction will thus be an interpretation based on other interpretations, for that is what the Gospel accounts essentially are. But we can at least claim that its aim is to achieve somethign like historical probability, and not theological apologetic. And we may perhaps hope that from the attempt a more credible portrait of Jesus of Nazareth will emerge - credible, that is, in terms of the contemporary situation in first-century Judaea.
Our attempt at reconstruction will best begin from the one fact of which we can be certain, namely, the Roman execution of Jesus for sedition. The natural inference to draw from this fact is that Pontius Pilate, as the Roman governor of Judaea, was convinced that Jesus was guilty of sedition, and so ordered his crucifixion as other rebels were similarly sentenced. How Pilate became convinced of the seditious activity of Jesus is the problem which we have to investigate. The Gospel writers deny that Jesus was thus guilty; but we have found their accounts to be so unconvincing on this point that we have to conclude that Pilate did verily believe that Jesus was guilty, and the brute fact of the Roman cross inevitably requires this conclusion. The conclusion does not necessarily mean that Jesus was guilty; for it is conceivable, though not probable, that Pilate could have been mistaken or misled about the evidence, or even induced to execute an innocent man. The prima facie case, to be drawn from the fact that he did order the crucifixion of Jesus, is that Pilate was convinced of his guilt. Our task now will be to see whether, from what evidence can be gleaned from the Gospel accounts of the activity of Jesus, that prima facie case is corroborated or not.
The Gospels trace the public career of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist, with whom he appears to have been in some way associated for a time. Considerable obscurity invests the character and activity of John and his relations with Jesus. He certainly seems to have been in the line of Jewish prophetic and apocalyptic tradition. According to the Gospel writers, John's purpose was to prepare an elect community, by repentance of sins and baptism, for the coming of the Messianic Kingdom. He incurred the wrath of Herod Antipas and Herodias by denouncing their illegal marraige, and Mark gives a colourful account of the occasion of his execution. Josephus, however, attributes the execution to the tetrarch's fear that John's preaching would cause a rebellion. The fact is significant, and it does not necessarily contradict the cause of John's death given by Mark. In other words, Jesus was connected at the beginning of his career with an apocalyptic movement which the Jewish ruler of Galilee regarded as politically dangerous. It is to be noted also, in this connection, that, according to Luke, Herod Antipas sought to suppress Jesus, whom he recognised as the successor of John.
That Jesus did in fact continue the theme of John's apocalyptic message is attested by Mark, who records: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.'" What is meant by the "kingdom of God" is not defined; but there can be little doubt that, in terms of current Jewish apocalyptic belief, it denoted the establishment of Yahweh's sovereignty, and that it signified in turn the overthrow of the existing political and social order. That Jesus was to be the chief agent in this apocalyptic revolution is evident from th fact that he was regarded as "the mightier one", whose advent John had foretold. Such a rôle was in fact that of the Messiah, and all the evidence points both the Jesus' claim to be the Messiah and to his popular acceptance as such.
But how did Jesus conceive of the way in which he was to fulfil his Messianic rôle and establish the kingdom of God? So far as an answer can be inferred from the disparate evidence of the Gospels, it would seem that at first it was by continuing John's programme. This was the preparation of a holy people, qualified to inherit the divine kingdom. The basic idea was that Israel would be delivered, by God, from its bondage, so soon as its members repented and kept the sacred Law. Hence the ethical aspect of Jesus' teaching, which is a characteristic feature of the Gospel tradition. However, in the Palestine of those days, as indeed in other human situations, an ethical teaching alone, however eloquently preached, was not calculated to effect a revolution. More immediate and dynamic aims were needed, and these were supplied by contemporary Messianic expectation and the plight in which the Jews, as Yahweh's chosen people, found themselves in their Holy Land. The Jews were looking for a saviour who would deliver them from the oppression of the Romans and the tyranny of Herod.
Jesus first proclaimed his message in Galilee, the home of Judas, the founder of Zealotism, where there was a strong tradition of religious patriotism. Those who heard and responded to that message were not placid country-folk, of quiet-going ways, content to wait patiently on God for better times, practising in simple piety a code of good-neighbourly conduct. They were people who had been nourished on the Maccabean tradition of holy war against the oppressors of Israel; Zealotism, with its gospel of violent resistance and readiness for martyrdom, was their natural response.
It was from among such Men that Jesus drew his apostles. One, Simon, was actually a professed Zealot; Peter, an impetuous character, bore the suspicious sobriquet of Barjona ("Terrorist"), while James and John were called Boanerges, which Mark euphemistically interprets as "Sons of Thunder". The fact that one of Jesus' apostles was known specifically as "the Zealot" has an ambivalent significance. On the one hand, it implies that the rest of the apostles were not professed Zealots, for the title "the Zealot" was surely meant to distinguish Simon by this means from the rest. On the other hand, the fact that Jesus chose a Zealot for an apostle means that he saw nothing incompatible between the profession of Zealotism and his own movement. From what we know of the principles of both movements this is not surprising. Judas of Galilee maintained the absolute soveregnty of God, and exhorted his followers to call no man "lord". Jesus of Nazareth, being also a Galilean, similarly maintained God's absolute sovereignty, and forbade the giving of the things of God to Caesar, just as Judas had done. Like the Zealots, the disciples of Jesus went about armed, and Jesus was prepared for them to use their arms.
It is understandable, therefore, that in proclaiming the imminence of the kingdom of God and being regarded as the Messiah, jesus encouraged a movement that had dangerous political possibilities. Moreover, like the goëtes, whom Josephus describes, Jesus performed "signs of salvation", thus attesting his Messiahship. One of his more notable miracles seems to have led to the brink of rebellion. The "Feeding of the Five Thousand", assembled significantly in the desert, resulted in an attempt to make hiim king. The true nature of the incident has been discrettly concealed in the Gospel recordes; but enough is revealed to make intelligible the titulus of his condemnation, placed on the cross on which he was crucified, "The King of the Jews".
The fact that Jesus began his movement in Galilee meant that he did not come immediately into contact with the realities of Roman rule. That Herod Antipas, the Roman-appointed tetrarch of Galilee, tried to destroy him, as we have already noted, is significant. However, his chief opponents were the Jewish religious leaders. They repudiated his claims to spiritual authority, even going to the extent of ascribing his miraculous powers to daemonic possession. Thus, in his eyes, they became the main enemy; for, by their high status and influence, they were preventing the conversion of Israel to that state of spiritual preparedness requisite for the coming of the kingdom of God. Until their power was broken, Israel would never achieve the state of grace that would merit its salvation. Hence, they had to be attacked in the very citadel of their power, namely, the Temple.
What was Jesus' attitude to Roman power during the Galilean period of his activity is unknown. Although obvious evidence of that power did not appear in Galilee, Jesus must have been well acquainted with its brutal reality on his visits to Jerusalem for the festivals. As we have seen, he was very familiar with the Zealot attitude to the cause of Israel's freedom, with which he surely symathised, though not identifying hismelf with it. He must have known of the affair of the standards and shields, described severally by Josephus and Philo; but of his reaction we know nothing. In deciding to attack the priestly aristocracy in the Temple, he doubtless realised that he was in effect challenging the Roman government, which appointed the high priest and upon whose power the position of the priestly aristocracy depended. But a Roman-appointed high priest was surely as obnoxious to him as to the Zealots. If Israel were to be spiritually regenerated, the hierarchy would have to be purged of such time-serving collaborators with the heahen oppressors of Israel. Thus Jesus was faced with the same problem as that which the Zealots sought to solve in the year 66, when they deposed the Roman appointee and replaced him by a high priest chosen by lot, according to the sacred Law.
At what stage in his career came Jesus' first pronouncement on the burning issue of the Roman tribute is not clearly indicated in the Gospels. The famous episode of the Tribute Money is located in Jerusalem during his last fatal visit there; but Luke's report of the accusation of the Jewish leaders suggests that Jesus' denunciation of the tribute was a general feature of his teaching. The location of the Tribute Money episode in Jerusalem at the end of Jesus' career is intelligible; for the Roman tribute would not have been an immediate issue in Galilee. On the other hand, an issue of such basic importance would surely have faced Jesus while in Galilee. For he is scarcely likely to have discriminated carefully in this matter between Herod's area of jurisdiction and that controlled by the Romans - to him, as to all Jews, Judaea and Galilee were indivisible parts of the Holy Land of Yahweh, and the tribute levied on Judaea concerned every patriotic Jew. Of Jesus' attitude towards this Roman tribute there can be no doubt.... His ruling: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are Gods" was a definitive condemnation of the giving of the resources of the Holy Land in tribute to the heathen Emperor of Rome.
The Synoptic Gospels agree in representing Jesus as finally deciding to go to Jerusalem for some undefined, but obviously fateful, purpose. Matthew and Luke follow Mark in anticipating the outcome of this visit by depicting Jesus as prophesying:
"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again."
This carefully articulated prophecy, exactly foretelling the pattern of events which were later to be described, is clearly a literary composition. However, it may well reflect the sense of crisis felt by Jesus and his disciples when he decided to go to Jerusalem at the Passover, perhaps in the year 30. This was to be no ordinary pilgrim-visit, but the occasion for some decisive action. What the plan was we can only infer from what subsequently happened. It was to be a Messianic coup d'état, aimed primarily at the sacerdotal aristocracy, whose policy and opposition were deemed obstacles to the conversion of Israel and the establishment of God's kingdom. Jesus must, however, have forseen that such an attack was likely to involve him with the Romans, and we may well ask whether it was on this occasion that he uttered that saying, nuanced by Zealot martyrdom: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." The anticipation of the Roman penalty of crucifixion for rebellion in this saying, is very remarkable; if the saying is authentic, it is surely of the greatest signficance that Jesus foresaw that he might suffer the death of a rebel at the hands of the Romans.
That Jesus planned his entry into Jerusalem as a Messianic demonstration is clearly implied in Mark's account of the event. In so doing, he must have realised the political seriousness of his action. To enter Jerusalem, riding on the Messianic animal, acclaimed by his followers and the crowd as the "King of Israel", was virtually a proclamation of rebellion, and a direct public challenge to the authorities, both Jewish and Roman. Matthew records that the whole city was "shaken" (eseisthë) by the demonstration. But more drastic action was to follow. Either on that day, directly following on his triumphal entry into the city, or on the next day, Jesus attacked the establishment of the Temple. As we have already seen, this action was far more serious than the Gospel records represent it, and it was probably an attempt, made in force, to seize the Temple and reform its hierarchy as was done by the Zealots in 66.
These actions, it must be appreciated, were planned and initiated by Jesus himself, and supported by his followers and the people, who believed him to be the Messiah, the Son of David, and the divinely designated King of Israel. It was dynamic political action of a revolutionary kind, and it constituted a direct challenge to the Roman government of Judaea, and to the Jewish authorities responsible for domestic affairs. In undertaking such action, Jesus must have reckoned with its consequences: that it meant armed revolt and that it would provoke armed reaction to suppress it. The fact that it was undertaken about the same time as the insurrection led by Barabbas, and perhaps coincided with it, is also very significant. For it would be passing strange, if two such disturbances in Jerusalem at this time were wholly unconnected with each other. The fact...that Jesus fate becaje involved with that of Barabbas, and that Pilate ordered two lëstai (Zealots) to be crucified with Jesus, suggests that, in the minds of the authorities, the two operations were regarded as connected.
That a concerted attack on the Temple and the Roman positions in the Upper City or the Antonia would be a good tactical move is obvious. That Jesus should have cooperated with the Zealots in such an operation is not, as we can now see, surprising. Their joint aim would doubtless have been that so movingly proclaimed on the Zealot coins issued during the revolt of AD 66-70 - the "Deliverance of Zion". But both attacks failed. The Romans were evidently successfull in supressing the Zealot assault and capturing its leader, Barabbas, though at the cost of casualties to themselves. The operations in the Temple appear to have been less decisive. Jesus and his followers failed to seize the Temple; but they were too strong to be routed and captured.
The events of the next few days are obscure. Jesus was apparently able to enter the city, nd even the Temple, during the day-time, being too strongly supported by the crowd to be arrested openly. But the impetus of the movement had obviously been lost, and Jesus was perplexed as to his future action. He seems to have stayed on until the day of the Passover, probably having arranged a secret rendezvous with his intimate disciples for eating the Passover meal within the Holy City. After the meal, they withdrew in the darkness from Jerusalem, across the Kedron valley, to Gethsemane. There Jesus seems to have been sorely tried in coming to a decision about the future of his movement. he evidently realised by now that he had failed in his original intention, and that, if he stayed in Jerusalem, his enemies would eventually seize and punish him. Mark attributes to Jesus that night the statement: "I will go before you to Galilee", which he interprets as referring to his subsequent post-Resurrection appearance there. The statement could, however, very reasonably indicate his actual intention then. From the dangers that now threatened him in Jerusalem he would withdraw, probably alone to avoid detection, to the comparative safety of Galilee, where his followers were to rejoin him. One fact, in this connectin, which is quite evident, is that Jesus did not intend to surrender himself to his enemies. Luke reveales that he had specially checked, to see that his disciples were armed, before going to Gethsemane. This precaution can have only one meaning: Jesus intended to resist clandestine arrest.
But, during these last days of disillusionment and preplexity, the enemies of Jesus had also been making their lans. Unable to seize him openly, because of the attitude of the people, the Jewish leaders were suddenly given the chance of making a clandestine arrest by the defectin of one of Jesus' disciples. The act of betrayal then made by Judas iscariot has earned him undying infamy, and his motive has long perplexed scholars, unconvinced by the Gospel record that he did it for thirty pieces of silver. Many have sought a clue in his name "Iscariot". In its extant form it is meaningless; but there is reason for thinking that it is a corruption of the original form, and much ingenuity has been expended in tring to reconstruct this. Among the more suggestive reconstructions is that which derives "Iscariot" from sicarius, the name given to the Zealot extremists who, armed with a concealed sica or curved dagger, secretly assassinated Jewish collaborators with the Roman government. There are, however, several objections to this interpretation, which, though not insurmountable, would make it unwise to conclude that this disciple was a sicarius. If he were, the fact would, of course, be of the highest significance, both because of Jesus' choice of such a political terrorist for an apostle and his betrayal of Jesus. As it is, we can only speculate why one of Jesus' apostles did so betray him to his enemies. Greed seems an inadequate motive for such a crime. From our reconstruction of the last fatal days in Jerusalem several more intelligible motives suggest themselves: disillusionment at the failure of Jesus to effect the expected Messianic coup d'état; fear of coming retribution for all involved in his attempt; even, perhaps, to force Jesus to use the supernatural power attributed to him by placing him in a desperate position.
Whatever the motives of Judas Iscariot, he gave the Jewish authorities the opportunity they needed. For he revealed the secret rendezvous of Jesus in Gethsemane, where he might be seized, with his chief lieutenants, without the interference of the crowd. It is evident from the Gospel accounts that the Jewish leaders took no chances in arresting Jesus. They sent a strong, well-armed party to Gethsemane; if the record of John is to be trusted, it was a combined Roman-Jewish operation. The function of Judas was to identify Jesus among the shadowy figures of his followers in the garden. The arrest met with armed resistance; but the force sent by the authorities was too strong. They succeeded in seizing Jesus; but in the darkness and confused fighting they failed to arrest the disciples, who made good their escape.
Having at last secured the person of this dangerous revolutionary, for such Jesus surely was in their eyes, the Jewish leaders evidently felt that they had to act swiftly that night. Doubtless they still feared the temper of the people when the arrest of Jesus became known, and so deemed it advisable to deliver him to Pilate for execution early the next morning. Their task that night, therefore, was to discover the full dimensions of the attempted coup, particularly the identities of the chief followers of Jesus, who had escaped them. Hence the interrogation by either the ex-high priest Annas, or the Sanhedrin, about the assault in the Temple and Jesus' Messianic claims. Enough was learned from these enquiries, and probably from other sources, to enable an indictment to be drawn up, ready for the handing over of the prisoner to Pilate in the morning. From our investigation of the Gospel accounts, it would seem that the main charge was that of the assumption of royal power as the "King of the Jews", with subsidiary charges of inciting the people to revolt and not to pay the Roman tribute. Further, Jesus was presented as the real leader of the insurrection, and not Barrabas.
These charges, relating to matters about which Pilate would doubtless already have had some acquaintance, were accepted by him after he had formally questioned Jesus on them. The execution of the consequent sentence for seditious action was ordered forthwith. After the customary scourging, Jesus was crucified, with the titulus of his condemnation placed on his cross: the King of the Jews. To complete this warning against rebellion, Pilate also ordered two Zealots, taken during the insurrection, to be crucified on either side of Jesus. Thus was Jesus executed as the leader of the revolt which occurred in Jerusalem, at that historic Passover of the year 30.
In the context of Jewish-Roman relations in Judaea, during the first six decades of the first century, the activity and execution of Jesus of Nazareth constituted one of a number of similar incidents. Josephus describes many Messianic claimants, reputedly endowed with miraculous power, who promised "signs of deliverance", but who the Romans promptly suppressed. Their deaths ended their Messianic reputations, even though they were regarded as martyrs for the cause of Israel's freedom. Why, then, should jesus, who shared a like fate, have become the founder, or rather the deity, of a new religion? To answer this question would require another volume, larger than this.... Suffice it to say that the disciples' subsequent conviction, that Jesus had been raised from the dead, caused them to believe that he would shortly return, with supernatural power, to complete his Messianic rôle. This original form of Christianity was essentially a Messianic movement, intelligible only within the terms of contemporary Judaism. According to the insight of its members, it had continued faithful to the teaching and purpose of Jesus. But it was virtually wiped out when the Jerusalem Church perished in the Jewish catastrophe of AD 70. That Christianity did not disappear then, but survived to become a universal salvation-religion, was due to the transforming genius of Paul. Though defeated in his own lifetime, Paul's interpretation of the death of Christ as a divinely planned event, transcending time and place, was rehabilitated after AD 70 and became the foundational doctrine of Catholic Christianity. Hence, as we have seen, the later Gospel writers were not really describing the trial of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, despite the apparent historical setting of their accounts. They were explaining away an embarrassing involvement of the incarnate Son of God with the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate.
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