Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”  After he had said this, he went out…” (NRSV, John 18:38)

Pontius Pilate was the Roman Procurator or governor of the southern area of Palestine which formed the imperial province of Judea.  As such he had been personally appointed by, and was directly responsible to, the Emperor Tiberius himself.  His principal duties were to maintain law and order among the turbulent Jewish people and to arrange for the collection of the annual tribute which was then paid into the Emperor’s private treasury.

Pilate had been appointed governor four years before Our Lord’s trial on Good Friday, and during that time his record had been far from good.  Whereas the official policy of the central Roman government was to respect the customs of the Jews, Pilate treated them with contempt.  He had gone out of his way to be offensive and had been recklessly severe in suppressing disorders.

Yet essentially he was a mixture of obstinacy and weakness, the one quality leading him to overreach himself, the other causing him to back down in the face of the opposition he had succeeded in arousing.

Pilate must have received reports about Our Lord before he actually met him on Good Friday, and what he had heard had satisfied him that Christ was no danger to the State.  From the outset of the trial he realised that what really lay behind it all was the hatred and envy of the chief priests.  The latter, on arriving at the Castle of Antonia – the Roman military headquarters – at once demanded Our Lord’s execution.  This punishment could not be inflicted unless due sentence had been passed by the governor on a prisoner who had been found guilty on a capital charge under Roman Law.

Therefore, in response to Pilate’s enquiry, they laid three main charges all of which were political: of being a seditious agitator; opposing the payment of tribute; and claiming to be a King.  The last accusation in particular affected the Emperor personally and was therefore too serious for Pilate to ignore.  He therefore put a straight question to Our Lord, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Our Lord’s reply was, “That is your word”, meaning that he did not accept the title of King in a political sense; and he went on to explain the other-worldly character of his Kingdom.

At the same time he suggested that the course which Pilate should adopt was to do what was right by supporting the truth as he knew it.  Pilate, however, had never been governed by moral principles, and he was not prepared to submit to them now.  Practical politics and personal prejudice were the determining factors in his conduct of affairs, and therefore he dismissed Our Lord’s suggestion with the cynical question, “What is truth?”

Although Pilate had made up his mind to release Our Lord, he was afraid to dismiss the case there and then as he should have done.  The confident hostility of the chief priests and the long-standing grounds of complaint which they already had against him, made it all too likely that they could and would make trouble for him with the Emperor who could dismiss him at a moment’s notice.  He decided, therefore, to find some other way out.

First, he sent Our Lord to Herod Antipas, hoping that way to relieve himself of his responsibility.  This move failed and Herod, who was far too wily to get involved in a treason trial, sent the Prisoner back.  Pilate then made his first compromise with wrong, and the ground thus lost he was never again to recover: he proposed to please the Jews by flogging Jesus, and his own conscience by releasing him.  In fact, such a concession was bound to be interpreted as the first crack in his resistance.

At this point the crowd was swollen by new arrivals asking for the release, in accordance with an old Passover custom, of a prisoner named Barabbas.  At once Pilate clutched at the possibility of securing their support and getting them to clamour instead for Our Lord’s release.

However, the chief priests persuaded the crowd to gang up with them and to clamour for the crucifixion of Christ.  Then Pilate, having already yielded his true ground when he failed to make his stand on moral principles, caved in before this ugly situation and delivered Jesus to the preliminary flogging.  He feebly sought, by his hand washing, to calm his conscience by publicly putting the responsibility on his opponents.

In view of the monstrous crime which he was going to authorise, however, his conscience was not so easily silenced, and he made one last bid to avert Our Lord’s crucifixion.  He appealed to their pity and presented Jesus to them, bleeding and derided, with the words, “Behold the Man”, and again affirmed his Prisoner’s innocence (John 19: 4-6).

Pilate was still showing some sort of resistance, but the chief priests knew now that they had him, and they brought a more powerful argument to bear – blackmail.  They taunted him with disloyalty to the Emperor in favouring a pretended King and rival.

It was their appeal to Pilate’s political ambitions which turned the scale and he weakly handed Our Lord over to be crucified. But his obstinacy would not permit him to comply with the Jews’ request that he should change the title on the Cross – “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (NRSV, John 19: 19-22) – its very offensiveness to them being its principal merit in his eyes.

Now Pilate, whatever other faults he may have had, was not lacking in the Roman sense of justice, but that sense of justice, being unsupported either by moral principles or by religious faith, was at the mercy of purely personal considerations.

It is commonly imagined that it does not matter what one believes, as what one does.  Pilate’s trial of Christ is a good example that the exact contrary is true, that people’s actions accurately reflect their beliefs.

Unless we are convinced that what is right must never be sacrificed to what is wrong, and unless we take that as our guide in life, we shall find that in practical matters our conduct will be decided by the circumstances of the moment.  We shall then be swayed by such considerations as fear of incurring unpopularity or ridicule or by a desire to gain personal prestige or advantage.

All the time we take our stand on the solid ground of what is right and true, no matter how difficult the right may be, we know exactly where we are.  But directly we shift from that position and allow other motives to play their part and influence our thinking, then no amount of obstinacy will save us, for so often obstinacy is just a self-willed pride in not giving way, and as we all know, we pocket our pride if sufficiently powerful pressures are brought to bear.

What is required is a stronger opposing force.  For that reason moral principles are never so strong as when they are buttressed by a personal devotion to God.  If we are convinced that in the last analysis our loyalty to him is what is really at stake, then we shall clearly see that, when it comes to the point, we have no other course but to stand firm.

Hesitation or wavering is usually the prelude to muffling the voice of conscience, or to making a compromise by coming to terms with wrong at the expense of right.

When, however, our innermost convictions are firmly rooted in the truths and principles of the Christian Faith, and are supported by a personal loyalty and devotion to Our Blessed Lord, then we may face our difficulties and trials with confidence.  For however strong the influences hostile to the truth may be, when we resist them steadfast in the Faith, we are then conscious that we do not resist them alone.

Note

The Castle of Antonia is the traditional site of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, and the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem start at the site of the Castle.  However, some authorities believe that the trial took place at what was once Herod’s Palace in the Upper City.