The Trial Before Pilate

185:6.1In all that is tran­spir­ing early this Fri­day morn­ing be­fore Pi­late, only the en­e­mies of Je­sus are par­tic­i­pat­ing. His many friends ei­ther do not yet know of his night ar­rest and early morn­ing trial or are in hid­ing lest they also be ap­pre­hended and ad­judged wor­thy of death be­cause they be­lieve Je­sus’ teach­ings. In the mul­ti­tude which now clam­ors for the Mas­ter’s death are to be found only his sworn en­e­mies and the eas­ily led and un­think­ing pop­u­lace.

185:6.2Pi­late would make one last ap­peal to their pity. Be­ing afraid to defy the clamor of this mis­led mob who cried for the blood of Je­sus, he or­dered the Jew­ish guards and the Ro­man sol­diers to take Je­sus and scourge him. This was in it­self an un­just and il­le­gal pro­ce­dure since the Ro­man law pro­vided that only those con­demned to die by cru­ci­fix­ion should be thus sub­jected to scourg­ing. The guards took Je­sus into the open court­yard of the prae­to­rium for this or­deal. Though his en­e­mies did not wit­ness this scourg­ing, Pi­late did, and be­fore they had fin­ished this wicked abuse, he di­rected the scourg­ers to de­sist and in­di­cated that Je­sus should be brought to him. Be­fore the scourg­ers laid their knot­ted whips upon Je­sus as he was bound to the whip­ping post, they again put upon him the pur­ple robe, and plait­ing a crown of thorns, they placed it upon his brow. And when they had put a reed in his hand as a mock scepter, they knelt be­fore him and mocked him, say­ing, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they spit upon him and struck him in the face with their hands. And one of them, be­fore they re­turned him to Pi­late, took the reed from his hand and struck him upon the head.

185:6.3Then Pi­late led forth this bleed­ing and lac­er­ated pris­oner and, pre­sent­ing him be­fore the mixed mul­ti­tude, said: “Be­hold the man! Again I de­clare to you that I find no crime in him, and hav­ing scourged him, I would re­lease him.”

185:6.4There stood Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, clothed in an old pur­ple royal robe with a crown of thorns pierc­ing his kindly brow. His face was blood­stained and his form bowed down with suf­fer­ing and grief. But noth­ing can ap­peal to the un­feel­ing hearts of those who are vic­tims of in­tense emo­tional ha­tred and slaves to re­li­gious prej­u­dice. This sight sent a mighty shud­der through the realms of a vast uni­verse, but it did not touch the hearts of those who had set their minds to ef­fect the de­struc­tion of Je­sus.

185:6.5When they had re­cov­ered from the first shock of see­ing the Mas­ter’s plight, they only shouted the louder and the longer, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!”

185:6.6And now did Pi­late com­pre­hend that it was fu­tile to ap­peal to their sup­posed feel­ings of pity. He stepped for­ward and said: “I per­ceive that you are de­ter­mined this man shall die, but what has he done to de­serve death? Who will de­clare his crime?”

185:6.7Then the high priest him­self stepped for­ward and, go­ing up to Pi­late, an­grily de­clared: “We have a sa­cred law, and by that law this man ought to die be­cause he made him­self out to be the Son of God.” When Pi­late heard this, he was all the more afraid, not only of the Jews, but re­call­ing his wife’s note and the Greek mythol­ogy of the gods com­ing down on earth, he now trem­bled at the thought of Je­sus pos­si­bly be­ing a di­vine per­son­age. He waved to the crowd to hold its peace while he took Je­sus by the arm and again led him in­side the build­ing that he might fur­ther ex­am­ine him. Pi­late was now con­fused by fear, be­wil­dered by su­per­sti­tion, and ha­rassed by the stub­born at­ti­tude of the mob.