BY ANDREW MILNE
‘What is Truth?’ Pontius Pilate said at the trial of Christ. Pilate appears in all four gospels. Traditionally, the church has expressed a certain sympathy for the hapless Prefect of Judea. What is Truth, indeed?
The question is apposite to our own time when truth is widely regarded as subjective. This means truth can be whatever you want it to be. What is true for one person might not necessarily be true for you. Self-indulgence doesn’t come much better than that.
There is an alternative view of Pilate which more closely parallels our own time. Maybe Pilate, baffled, is jeering at Jesus when he says, ‘What is truth?’
Certainly truth-trashing was all the rage then as now. We see it in the bizarre reaction to Israel’s defence of its people. The truth is Israel was attacked by Hamas and local Gazans. Men, women and children were murdered, raped and kidnapped indiscriminately. It was a massacre unparalleled since the Second World War.
More recently Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump are reviled for going up against Iran. Never mind the Ayatollah-Horror regime which has murdered thousands of its own citizens. For nigh on 50 years Tehran’s Islamists have rained down missiles on Israelis and Arabs alike and murdered American, French and British soldiers whilst conjuring international terrorism from Lebanon to London. Al-Qaeda is headquartered in Tehran.
Closer to home truth is routinely trashed with ya-boo effrontery. Transgenderism emboldens woke ideologues. They command us to believe what is clearly unbelievable as evidenced by our own eyes.
Every word of the Bible is there for a reason.
Pilate is not just the accidental villain of the Easter story. Pilate represents us, not Rome. Pilate acts out our preference for expediency and the easy way out. At a deeper level he manifests a lack of moral compass common to our own time.
This view of Pontius Pilate is borne out by the surviving scraps of information about him. Pilate, far from being the weak individual of repute, was in fact a vicious ruler.
Prior to his encounter with Christ, Pilate had plundered the temple treasury to pay for a new aqueduct. The Israelites were outraged at this misuse of public funds. Similarly, he positioned flags portraying imperial Rome in the temple courtyard, further annoying the Jews. Pilate had no sympathy whatsoever for the children of the promise or their religion.
Parallels can be drawn between Pilate and our own time. Plunder public finance for pet projects, de-legitimise those who oppose you, and trash the beliefs of the faithful.
So violent did Pilate’s rule become that he was eventually recalled to Rome. We know this from the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus who recounts that he ordered the slaughter of Samaritans at Tirathana. The village stands by Mount Gerizim – the same mountain where the Israelites gave thanks for God’s guidance to the Promised Land.
Although Pilate returned to Rome to appear before the emperor and account for himself, Tiberius died before he arrived. His successor, the mad pervert Caligula, does not seem to have bothered with him. Nothing more is heard of Pilate.
Let his blood be upon us?
Tradition implies that Pilate was stampeded by the Jews into sentencing Jesus to torture and death.
This is not strictly true. Jesus had been welcomed just one week before on Sunday by the population of Jerusalem. The Children of the Promise strewed palms before his donkey. Jesus rode into the city to wild acclaim. He was condemned by the Sanhedrin.
Pilate was responsible for the Sanhedrin – having oversight of appointments. The chief priest, Caiaphas, later retired at the same time as Pilate left for Rome. It is reasonable to assume the two were allies. The Sanhedrin and the crowd in the courtyard hardly represented a nation and a religion.
On the night in question when Jesus was brought before him, Pilate, rather than play the sympathiser, may well have started jeering at both the Jews and their purported Messiah. His offer to free the rebel, Barabbas, can be read as an example of the bully teasing the weak: You people are so stupid, he implies, you would rather have a violent criminal walk among you than this harmless, gentle teacher.
This is not so strange when you consider that in our own time it is acceptable for rapists and perverts to walk the streets. Thieves rob with impunity making off with anything up to 30 pieces of silver. It’s not really a crime, just a social reaction, a misunderstanding, we’re told. We can almost imagine Pilate shucking his shoulders and spitting on the ground.
The Bible relates that he was scared of a popular uprising. The jews were impossible to govern, representing the innate freedom of the human spirit. However it was not the prospect of a popular uprising – he was used to them – but rather that he might be perceived as being weak that concerned him.
What do you want me to do with him? Pilate questions the crowd. Here he is demonstrating that they had no real power, political or military. It was Romans who called the shots. “Crucify” they shouted.
Was Pilate sympathetic to Jesus? Not even Pontius Pilate when confronted by Christ could fail to be moved by a sense of the divine, of a love and a power that passes all understanding. Ever the professional, this checked Pilate but momentarily. Easier to wash your hands covid-style and move on.
As we contemplate the empty tomb of our own hopes and aspirations this Easter weekend it is as well to step into the garden once more. Remember treading barefoot on mown grass as a child? Deep in our soul is the memory of the first man who trod Eden millennia ago. God’s call, ‘Adam where are you?’ echoes down the years. God calls Adam by name.
What is truth? Pilate said, unaware that truth was standing right in front of him. Pontius Pilate represents us all, everyone who puts themselves first.
“I am the way and the truth and the life,” Jesus said. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yeah right, but how might I believe this truth? No need to question. Only believe.
To contemplate the empty cross of our failings is to wish it had been different. Life is full of regrets. How difficult to move that stone away.
Amidst the daffodils and easter eggs we are called to look to the future, to step into the garden. Upset we buttonhole a passer by, mistaking him for the gardener. Eden may be lost to us but a kingdom not of this world is close by. Should we recognise him we will be greeted-not with an august Tiberian proclamation-but with one word. Our name, the name by which he knows us.
That is the invitation of Easter. To become a witness to the truth, a follower, the disciple whom Jesus loved. That is the truth of the matter.
Andy Milne is a writer and practicing Catholic. His book, Children of the Resurrection , is available from Amazon.