1. Compelled to take the leading part in a transaction where high moral qualities were supremely demanded, Pilate proved himself to be without them, and made a great crime possible by his feebleness of character. This is quite consistent with his bravado and recklessness on other occasions.
He seems to have been a man with some refinement, reflective, almost philosophical, possessing the literary habit, and with it, as so often happens, an impatience of the vulgar matters which excite the crowd, with a certain indolence which nevertheless did not kill his ambition or dull his interest in philosophical questions, with more love of speculation than desire for decision; weak morally, timid politically, and yet driven by weakness into acts which looked like relentless cruelty; for the worst cruelties of the world are the product of weakness and fear. He was one of those men whom we wonder at and pity, for they are weak men placed in circumstances which need vigour and calmness. Such are the men who, if placed in quiet and peaceful times, might ripen into philosophical mildness and dilettante amiability, tinged with a pleasant and not very serious cynicism; but who, in stormy and troublous days, being thrust into positions of high trust and imperative responsibility, hesitate, evade, vacillate, resolve and unresolve, and end by being the perpetrators of horrors which revolt the world, and which would have been impossible to sterner and stronger natures.
I don't quite understand you about Pilate. Surely his strength, at any rate, was not “to sit still.” He sat still and washed his hands, and it was all wrong. If he had “put a decisive act between himself and temptation,” he would have seized his chance. What he did was the weakest thing he could do, not the strongest. It is only when sitting still is the hardest, most difficult, course that there is strength in it. Again I sympathize. I have so often made my own temptations much harder in the end, because I did not pluck up courage enough to do the decisive act, when I knew it ought to be done. We are not taught that we should let the temptation get as bad as possible before we try to do anything; else why should we pray, “Lead us not into temptation”?1 [Note: Gathered Leaves from the Prose of Mary E. Coleridge, 275.]
One of the greatest of English novelists has drawn for us, in a manner wonderfully true to human nature, the character of one who reached the depths of depravity simply through the habit of always yielding to selfish interest in little things. Such is Tito Melema in George Eliot's Romola. In describing one of Melema's base actions, the writer sets down a sentence which every young man and woman would do well to lay to heart. “Tito,” she says, “now experienced that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil which gradually determines character.” Pilate in real life points the same moral as Tito Melema in fiction, and it is one that is terribly serious because of the subtlety and frequency of the temptation. The habit of wrongdoing in little things is the certain preparation for a fatal fall in a great time of testing. The fearless doing of right in defiance of self-interest or peril is the training of a hero and a saint.1 [Note: W. E. Skinner, A Book of Lay Sermons, 15.]
There was one peculiarity in Goethe's nature, namely, a singular hesitation in adopting any decisive course of action-singular, in a man so resolute and imperious when once his decision had been made. This is the weakness of imaginative men. However strong the volition, when once it is set going, there is in men of active intellects, and especially in men of imaginative apprehensive intellects, a fluctuation of motives keeping the volition in abeyance, which practically amounts to weakness; and is only distinguished from weakness by the strength of the volition when let loose. Goethe, who was aware of this peculiarity, used to attribute it to his never having been placed in circumstances which required prompt resolutions, and to his not having educated his will; but I believe the cause lay much deeper, lying in the nature of psychological actions, not in the accidents of education.2 [Note: G. H. Lewes, The Life of Goethe, 492.]
2. We may pity the weak who fail, but can we blame them? It is not for us to judge; but we can learn. One lesson is clear. Weakness often fails, because it does not make use of the strength which is at hand. No man is beaten without remembering in the hour of his defeat the lost opportunities which might have been turned into means of victory. Pilate failed, and Pilate's name is covered with the memory of his shameful weakness; but Pilate did not fall unwarned, or fail for want of helpful and stimulating influences.
(1) He was a Roman, and the national and traditional characteristics of his race might have been summoned to his aid. Roman firmness and vigorous Roman administration, however much enervating vice may have become fashionable, were not wholly dead. They must still have appealed as ideals to men who had any knowledge and any patriotic love of the history of Rome. If weakness was a vice in Roman eyes, was not the consciousness of this a witness against feebleness and unjust irresolution in any Roman governor?
Bad execution of your designs does less harm than irresolution in forming them. Streams do less harm flowing than when dammed up. There are some men so infirm of purpose that they always require direction from others, and this not on account of any perplexity, for they judge clearly, but from sheer incapacity for action. It needs some skill to find out difficulties, but more to find a way out of them. There are others who are never in straits: their clear judgment and determined character fit them for the highest callings; their intelligence tells them where to insert the thin end of the wedge, their resolution how to drive it home. They soon get through anything: as soon as they have done with one sphere of action, they are ready for another. Affianced to Fortune, they make themselves sure of success.1 [Note: Balthasar Gracian. The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 42.]
(2) He had a home, and the partner of his home joys was a woman who at least was no dullard, but whose thought and sagacity went forth with sympathy to her husband in his work. Her voice spoke to him in the moment of his temptation, and was lifted up against the fatal policy of evasion and feebleness. The dream of Pilate's wife, and the message to which it gave rise, must not be flung aside as a mere picturesque addition to the story. People do not dream of matters of which they know nothing. The occurrence of the incident suggests to us that there must have been previous thought and previous knowledge. “That just man” whose memory haunted the woman in her dreams was one who must have been more than a casual prisoner brought before the ruler. Can it have been that His fame had reached Pilate's household beforehand? Can it have been that some of His strange utterances and wonderful works had been told in the hearing of Pilate or his wife? Whatever the earlier history may have been, this woman, whose thoughtful disposition made her a helpmeet to Pilate, was evidently impressed in some way with the moral beauty and spiritual dignity of the Prophet of Nazareth, and her influence was exerted to stay the feet of her husband on the fatal downward path of irresolution and injustice.
In Luther's day a distinction was drawn between different kinds of dreams. One class was sent, as men of that age believed, directly by the devil. To this class they thought the dream of Pilate's wife belonged. Some one asked Luther what was the purpose of the evil one, in seeking thus, through a dream, to hinder the crucifixion of Christ. The doctor answered that perhaps he thought, “I have murdered many prophets, and yet things have got worse and worse. They are too faithful, and this Man also has no fear. I prefer that He should remain alive. Perhaps I might be able to kill or mislead Him through some temptation. In this way I might accomplish more!”
So you went and you told him my word, as he sat on the ivory throne;
He was troubled and pale as he heard, but he gave you an answer? None!
He is dazed and daunted, the Roman, by Jews, and the venomous gleam
Of their eyes-can he list to a woman or hearken the tale of a dream?
Can he argue of mercy or ruth, while they cry for the cross and the rods?
He smiles, and he asks “What is truth?” when they show him the signs of the gods;
By the washing and wiping of hands he is cleansed from the blood of the just;
As the water is dried upon sands, so a life flieth back to the dust.
For the murderous multitude foam, and the palace is pale with alarm,
He looks, and the pitiless dome of the heavens is empty and calm,
He heard not the hurrying sound as of ghosts that arose from the deep;
He saw not the gathering round me of terrors that torture sleep.
But they clouded the glass of my brain, the Powers of the Air, while I slept,
Infinite ominous train, out of void into void as they swept.
Are the myriad Manes warning that evil shall come as a flood?
Or the kindly divinities mourning for the sorrow of innocent blood?
For above came a crowd and a sighing; as late in the last watch of night,
When in cities besieged is a crying of people run wild with affright;
When the streets are all thronged in the gloom, for with day comes slaughter and storm,
So my ear rang with voices of doom, and mine eye saw a vanishing Form.
Who is He for whom spectres are risen to threaten, and spirits to weep?
Who is this whom ye bear from your prison, the face which I saw in my sleep?
The hours seem to hover and wait-is a Nemesis loading their wings?
I am stirred by forebodings of fate, and the sense of unspeakable things.1 [Note: Sir A. C. Lyall, The Dream of Pilate's Wife.]
(3) There was yet another restraining hand which the providence of the hour brought to Pilate's aid. This was the hand of the Prisoner at the judgment-seat. The narrative shows us the singular spectacle of the weak and the accused man giving mora, aid to the strong one who was His judge. Christ's replies to Pilate are not so much replies on the case as replies on the moral responsibility of Pilate at the moment. He is more anxious to save Pilate from moral ruin than Himself from death. He turns Pilate's thoughts upon himself. “Sayest thou this thing of thyself?” He speaks to him of the sublime and spiritual kingdom of the truth, higher and more enduring than any splendour of imperial Rome. He lifts His judge into the serene atmosphere of heaven. “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” He reminds Pilate of that Divine source of all judgment and power to whom every judge and mighty one of the world is finally responsible. He tells that power is not a thing of pride, but a responsibility and a trust. It is given from on high. In all these the hand of help is reached forth to Pilate. Pilate sees it; his conscience makes him uneasy; he is aware that he is thrusting away from him some truly spiritual and real aid. But the weakness and ambition of his nature are too much. He struggles, but he struggles in vain, and he is swept away, a worthless and unresisting piece of wreckage, on the wave of popular tumult.
It is interesting to think what Pilate might have become had he, like one of his officers, confessed the Crucified to be the Son of God. What an Easter Day the resurrection morning would have been to him and his wife! What a tribute of gratitude men of succeeding ages would have paid him: churches in his honour, children named after him, books written about him! It was a great opportunity, but he missed it, missed it because it awakened no need. And Pilate passes away as a disappointed, broken life. The old legend, that he still haunts one of the Swiss lakes, is only typical of the feeling his memory awakes: a restless shadow ever seeking, but in vain, the opportunity he flung away.1 [Note: G. H. S. Walpole, Personality and Power, 135.]
There is a well-known short story by Anatole France where Pontius Pilate is represented in retirement near the end of his life talking over old times with a pleasure-loving friend who had known him in Judæa. During supper the talk falls upon the qualities of the Jewish women, and the friend speaks of Mary of Magdala whom he had known during her unrepentant days in Jerusalem. He recounts the manner of his parting from Mary, who left him to join the band of a young miracle-worker from Galilee. “His name was Jesus; He came from Nazareth, and was crucified at last for some crime or other. Pontius, do you remember the man?” The old procurator frowned and raised a hand to his forehead as one who searches through his memory. Then, after some moments of silence, “Jesus,” he muttered, “Jesus of Nazareth? No, I don‘t remember Him.”2 [Note: H. Sturt, The Idea of a Free Church, 224.]
