The Roman eagles, the Roman statues, even the votive shields of Pilate, were deliberate insults to their religion.
The Roman taking of the census was an abomination.
Yet it had to be done, for it was the basis of taxation.
But there it was again.
Taxation by the State was a crime against their law and God.
Oh, that Law!
It was not the Roman law. It was their law, what they called God’s law.
There were the zealots, who murdered anybody who broke this law.
And for a procurator to punish a zealot caught red-handed was to raise a riot or an insurrection.
Everything, with these strange people, was done in the name of God.
There were what we Romans called the thaumaturgi.
They worked miracles to prove doctrine.
Ever has it seemed to me a witless thing to prove the multiplication table by turning a staff into a serpent, or even into two serpents.
Yet these things the thaumaturgi did, and always to the excitement of the common people.
Heavens, what sects and sects!
Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees—a legion of them!
No sooner did they start with a new quirk when it turned political.
Coponius, procurator fourth before Pilate, had a pretty time crushing the Gaulonite sedition which arose in this fashion and spread down from Gamala.
In Jerusalem, that last time I rode in, it was easy to note the increasing excitement of the Jews.
They ran about in crowds, chattering and spouting.
Some were proclaiming the end of the world.
Others satisfied themselves with the imminent destruction of the Temple.
And there were rank revolutionises who announced that Roman rule was over and the new Jewish kingdom about to begin.
Pilate, too, I noted, showed heavy anxiety.
That they were giving him a hard time of it was patent.
But I will say, as you shall see, that he matched their subtlety with equal subtlety; and from what I saw of him I have little doubt but what he would have confounded many a disputant in the synagogues.
“But half a legion of Romans,” he regretted to me, “and I would take Jerusalem by the throat . . . and then be recalled for my pains, I suppose.”
Like me, he had not too much faith in the auxiliaries; and of Roman soldiers we had but a scant handful.
Back again, I lodged in the palace, and to my great joy found Miriam there.
But little satisfaction was mine, for the talk ran long on the situation.
There was reason for this, for the city buzzed like the angry hornets’ nest it was.
The fast called the Passover—a religious affair, of course—was near, and thousands were pouring in from the country, according to custom, to celebrate the feast in Jerusalem.
These newcomers, naturally, were all excitable folk, else they would not be bent on such pilgrimage.
The city was packed with them, so that many camped outside the walls.
As for me, I could not distinguish how much of the ferment was due to the teachings of the wandering fisherman, and how much of it was due to Jewish hatred for Rome.
“A tithe, no more, and maybe not so much, is due to this Jesus,” Pilate answered my query. “Look to Caiaphas and Hanan for the main cause of the excitement.
They know what they are about.
They are stirring it up, to what end who can tell, except to cause me trouble.”
“Yes, it is certain that Caiaphas and Hanan are responsible,” Miriam said, “but you, Pontius Pilate, are only a Roman and do not understand.
Were you a Jew, you would realize that there is a greater seriousness at the bottom of it than mere dissension of the sectaries or trouble-making for you and Rome.
The high priests and Pharisees, every Jew of place or wealth, Philip, Antipas, myself—we are all fighting for very life.
“This fisherman may be a madman.
If so, there is a cunning in his madness.
He preaches the doctrine of the poor.
He threatens our law, and our law is our life, as you have learned ere this.
We are jealous of our law, as you would be jealous of the air denied your body by a throttling hand on your throat.
It is Caiaphas and Hanan and all they stand for, or it is the fisherman.
They must destroy him, else he will destroy them.”
“Is it not strange, so simple a man, a fisherman?” Pilate’s wife breathed forth. “What manner of man can he be to possess such power?
I would that I could see him.