SERMON VIII.

CHARACTER OF PONTIUS PILATE.

AND PILATE GAVE SENTENCE THAT IT SHOULD BE AS THEY REQUired. Luke 23: 24.`

THERE is an air of veritable narrative about the New Testament, which distinguishes it from all other religious books. Its scenes and characters are many of them a part of general as well as sacred history. We look into the records of other religions, and we find that the beings and events they treat of are altogether of a supernatural character, and such, that as men and as historians we cannot sympathize with them. Even the Old Testament relates to a people peculiar and secluded, and as the incidents and persons it brings to our view are seldom recorded in the annals of classical literature, they often lack the breathing form of historical realities. But the New Testament marks the era of the blending of sacred with secular history, of the connection of the Jews with the civilized world, the world with which Livy and Tacitus have made us familiar; and this second revelation introduces us to the society of common life; we recognize as old acquaintances the characters and laws and customs brought to our view; with the group of martyrs and apostles there sometimes mingle the iron features of the Roman soldier, and our faith is appealed to with a directness and intimacy, which the

purely religious narrative could never acquire. It is a mark of peculiar wisdom, that the most momentous event which the bible records, is brought home to us from the tribunal of a well known Roman Procurator, and depicted in the familiar forms of a Roman scourge and cross.

The character and history of Pontius Pilate are not fully given in the gospels. But if we examine the secular traditions in connection with the inspired narrative, they cannot fail to throw light upon each other. The accounts of the trial of Jesus seem to present the governor, as characterized by general weakness of principle rather than strongly-marked depravity. But the record of his administration in profane history is stained with every atrocity. Philo describes him as a man of obstinate temper and imperturbable arrogance, and speaks of the wantonness with which he condemned the innocent, and the cruelty with which he executed the laws. Incidents are related by the several historians of the period which confirm this description. On one occasion he shocked the religious feelings of the Jews, by introducing triumphal images of Cæsar into the holy city, and even provoked the emperor to a rebuke. At another time he appropriated the sacred treasure to defray the expenses of an aqueduct to Jerusalem, and when the people were assembled to complain of the outrage, he let loose upon them his soldiers arrayed in the common costume, like so many blood-hounds to follow up and chastise every breathing of rebellion. To those stern features which became him as the representative of the Roman government, he seems to have added a natural love for cruelty, and that intense hatred of the Jews which had already began to hunt down the persons and the customs of that ill-fated race.

Such was the man selected by the enemies of Jesus, to consummate their own infamous proceedings. His ordinary residence was at Caesarea, but he had come up to Jerusalem at this time of the Passover, to hold a criminal court, as well

as to suppress any tumult which might rise amid the vast gathering, and the religious excitements of that noted festival. There were various reasons which may at this time have induced the Sanhedrim to transfer their criminal to the Roman judicatory. The power of inflicting capital punishment had been already removed from their hands, and although they need not have feared a strict enforcement of the regulation, they wished the punishment to be more ignominious and cruel than it was their own custom to inflict. They felt moreover secret misgivings of the flagrancy of their conduct, and they wished to throw off the responsibility of the final issue upon one whose hardened conscience could bear the weight. And they may have feared, that the fickle populace would frustrate their designs by some premature change of opinion, or that, after the victim had fallen, the buried affections of the multitude would rise up and call for vengeance on the persecutors. Agitated by a consciousness of wrong and terrified by a foreboding of judgment, they gladly sought refuge and aid in the very power which was their dread and hatred; and they felt safe in the coöperation of a government proverbial for its recklessness of human life, swift and savage enough to gratify their own insatiate cruelty, strong enough to silence every whisper of opposition, and wicked enough to make this outrage appear like a small drop in an ocean of crime.

It was at about five o'clock on Friday morning, soon after the hour of sunrise, when they hurried away from the scene of their own nefarious trial in the high-priest's court yard to the palace of Herod, where Pilate was then residing. They were a group of strongly marked figures. They wore the despairing aspect of the last men of a noble race. The dignity of the old prophet was not there, neither did the faithful waiting for the promises light up those features with the smiles of hope. They walked along that dolorous path like the ghosts of ancient greatness. The ruins of the Mosaic

law seemed to totter in their steps. It was as if they were going to their own execution. The hour of their degeneracy had arrived, and this morning it might be read in pale faces, and eyes bloodshot and strained from the sleepless and exciting night, and the curled lip that betokened uneasy malice. Yet they are eminently conscientious men, and in all the eagerness of their errand to the Pretorium, they will not venture within the heathenish enclosure, lest they become unfit to eat the passover. Praiseworthy punctiliousness! They had just forgotten the once fondly cherished" annise and cummin," in their heated disobedience to "the weightier matters of the law," for "to condemn the just," they had held the council by night, and consulted on a capital crime at the period of the festival; but now with the foolish inconsistency of uneasy, conscience smitten criminals, they stop at the threshold. "Woe to you," exclaims an old divine, "Woe to you, priests, scribes, elders, hypocrites! can there be any roof so unclean as that of your own breasts? Not Pilate's walls, but your hearts are impure. Is murder your errand, and do ye stick at a local infection? God shall smite you, ye whited walls. Do ye long to be stained with blood, with the blood of God? and do ye fear to be defiled with the touch of Pilate's pavement? Doth so small a gnat stick in your throat, while ye swallow such a camel of flagitious wickedness? Go out of yourselves, ye false dissemblers, if ye would not be unclean."

As it was the policy of the Roman tribunal to humor such prejudices, the governor came forth to meet them in the open air. The area which he occupied during the trial was somewhat elevated, and overlaid with a tesselated stone pavement. Upon this was placed the seat of judgment, one of those small painted pieces of marble which the Roman magistrates carried with them on their journeys. Thus he sat, surrounded by the accusers and the multitude, while Jesus was left bound and guarded in the porch. The parley began, "What accu

sation do you bring against the man?" There was an expression of firmness and force in this first question of Pilate, which surprised and intimidated the accusers. They had supposed he would condemn without a hearing. Many a time, had they seen him exult over the sufferings of the innocent, and they knew that he reveled in scenes of blood. But now with his lips pressed together, and with the attitude and mien of a man who meant to weigh the case and to do what was right, he comes forward and demands a fair trial. This was one of those days when the good Spirit was near to the governor. His savage nature seemed softened by the divine presence. He had heard of Jesus, and his conscience reproved him that he had already taken sides with the persecutors, and commissioned his soldiers to aid the band that apprehended him. And now a meek look from the prisoner as he had passed from his presence, spoke so serenely of innocence, that the heart of the Roman was touched with a tenderness that had not warmed it before. What is the accusation that you bring? But the accusers saw their plans thwarted; they read a reflection of their own guilt in the justice of this unjust judge; and it was with the petulance of mortified and baffled and remorseful men, that they smartly replied, "If he were not a malefactor we would not have delivered him unto thee." We, the patterns of morality and religion, so marvelously strict that we will not cross your polluted threshold-and can you, the representative of heathen Rome, the blood-stained governor, the merciless judge, can such as you question our justice? Remorse inflamed their suspicions, and disappointment roused their impudence. Irritated at this contempt of court, but awed by the determined feelings which prompted it, Pilate mingles in his answer a latent sarcasm, with his first attempt to throw off from himself the responsibility of what seemed inevitable. "Take ye him and judge him according to your law." yourselves if you can, as for me, I will have no concern in it.

Punish him