ul statement falling from the
lips of a man weakened by the scourging, Pilate makes one more effort to
save Him. But now the Jews play their last card and play it
successfully. "If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar's friend."
To lay himself open to a charge of treason or neglect of the interests
of Caesar was what Pilate could not risk. At once his compassion for the
Prisoner, his sense of justice, his apprehensions, his proud
unwillingness to let the Jews have their way, are overcome by his fear
of being reported to the most suspicious of emperors. He prepared to
give his judgment, taking his place on the official seat, which stood on
a tesselated pavement, called in Aramaic "Gabbatha," from its elevated
position in sight of the crowds standing outside. Here, after venting
his spleen in the weak sarcasm "Shall I crucify your King?" he formally
hands over his Prisoner to be crucified. This decision was at last come
to, as John records, about noon of the day which prepared for and
terminated in the Paschal Supper.

Pilate's vacillation receives from John a long and careful treatment.
Light is shed upon it, and upon the threat which forced him at last to
make up his mind, from the account which Philo gives of his character
and administration. "With a view," he says, "to vex the Jews, Pilate
hung up some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, which they judged a
profanation of the holy city, and therefore petitioned him to remove
them. But when he steadfastly refused to do so, for he was a man of
very inflexible disposition and very merciless as well as very
obstinate, they cried out, 'Beware of causing a tumult, for Tiberius
will not sanction this act of yours; and if you say that he will, we
ourselves will go to him and supplicate your master.' This threat
exasperated Pilate in the highest degree, as he feared that they might
really go to the Emperor and impeach him with respect to other acts of
his government--his corruption, his acts of insolence, his habit of
insulting people, his cruelty, his continual murders of people untried
and uncondemned, and his never-ending and gratuitous and most grievous
inhumanity. Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a
man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither
venturing to take down what he had once set up nor wishing to do
anything which could be acceptable to his subjects, and yet fearing the
anger of Tiberius. And those who were in