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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



faith that what he did was necessary for the pres- 

 ervation of the peace of Palestine," is purely gra- 

 tuitous. Whether that would have justified him in 

 condemning a man he believed to be innocent, we 

 may touch upon hereafter. But, in the mean time, 

 there is not the slightest ground for the suggestion 

 itself. The narratives are uniform in asserting his 

 expressed conviction of his prisoner's innocence, 

 his knowledge that Jesus had been delivered 

 "for envy," his scoffing incredulity in speaking 

 to the Jews of their king, and his final yielding, 

 as a judge, to those vance voces populi against 

 which his own law warned him, only when his 

 personal and private interests were menaced. 

 And the Christian narratives which have handed 

 this down are, strange to say, in no respect hos- 

 tile to Pilate. Jewish and other writers who ex- 

 pressly treat of the character of this governor 

 give us his portrait as rapacious, cruel, and un- 

 just. The Christian historians give no portrait, 

 and have occasion to refer to him incidentally 

 only where his actions are fitted to excite the 

 keenest exasperation. Yet these few historical 

 side-touches represent the man within the gov- 

 ernor with a delicacy, and even tenderness, which 

 make the accusing portrait of Philo and Joseph us 

 look like a hard, revengeful daub. 1 Is there, in 

 the Tito or Bulstrode of modern delineation, any- 

 thing more true to Nature, more provocative of 

 sudden sympathy from men who know the press- 

 ure of public life, than that morning's mental 

 history of the sixth Procurator of Judea, as given 

 by the friends of the man whom he crucified ? 

 The motives for Pilate's vacillation are only too 

 intelligible. But that at any point of it he be- 

 lieved his sentence was called for to preserve 

 the peace of the province is an unhistorical sug- 

 gestion. 



2. Had the history run at all in that direction, 

 there are various situations which might be fig- 

 Pilate's paramount duty was to preserve the peace in 

 Palestine, to form the best judgment he could as to the 

 means required for that pin-pose, and to act upon it 

 when it was formed. Therefore, if and in so far as he 

 believed in good faith and on reasonable grounds that 

 what he did was necessary for the preservation of the 

 peace of Palestine, he was right." — "Liberty, Equality, 

 Fraternity," by J. Fitzjames Stephen, Q. C, p. 87. 



1 My view of his true character scarcely varies from 

 that so tersely given by Dr. Ellicott : " A thorough and 

 complete type of the later-Roman man of the world : 

 Stern, but not relentless shrewd and world-worn, 

 prompt and practical, haughtily just, and yet, as the 

 early writers correctly perceived, self-seeking and 

 cowardly ; able to perceive what was right, but with- 

 out moral strength to fol'ow it out."—" Historical Lect- 

 ures,'" sixth edition, p. 3.-.O. Compare with Philo, in his 

 letter on " Ambassadors." 



ured. That a j»dge, even if he were not a mili- 

 tary governor with merum imperium delegated 

 from Borne, should slay a man who was overtly 

 and iu intent seditious, raises no question. Nei- 

 ther Mr. Mill, nor any other advocate of liberty, 

 questions the duty of government to preserve the 

 peace. That a governor, sitting or not sitting as 

 a judge, should deliver to death a man whom he 

 believed to have no intentions against the peace, 

 because he was in point of fact dangerous to it, 

 might raise a serious question. 1 In particular, 



1 "If this should appear harsh [the assertion that 

 Pilate's duty was simply to maintain the Roman 

 power], I would appeal again to Indian experience. 

 Suppose that some great religious reformer— say, for 

 instance, some one claiming to be the Guru of the 

 Sikhs, or the Imam in whose advent many Moham- 

 medans devoutly believe— were to make his appear- 

 ance in the Punjaub or the Northwest Provinces. 

 Suppose that there was good reason to believe— and 

 nothing is more probable — that, tvhatever might be the 

 preacher's own jxrsonal intentions, his preaching was 

 calculated to disturb the public peace and produce 

 mutiny and rebellion ; and suppose, further (though 

 the supposition is one which it is hardly possible to 

 make even in imagination), that a British officer, in- 

 stead of doing whatever might be necessary, or ex- 

 ecuting whatever orders he might receive, for the 

 maintenance of British authority, were to consider 

 whether he ought not to become a disciple of the Guru 

 or Imam : what course would be taken toward him? 

 He would be instantly dismissed with ignominy from 

 the service which he would disgrace ; and, if he acted 

 up to his convictions, and preferred his religion to his 

 queen and country, he would be hanged as a rebel and 

 a traitor."—" Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," p. 94. 



Of course, the true parallel would rather be: Sup 

 pose that the Guru or Imam were delivered to a 

 British officer by his coreligionists on a charge of 

 erecting a national system against the English raj, 

 and refusing to pay an English tax ; that the officer, 

 ou personal examination, came to be satisfied that the 

 man was innocent and the charge was false ; that, to 

 pacify the other priests, he proposed an intermediate 

 punishment of one iu whom he found no fault; that, 

 under great pressure brought against him to act con- 

 trary to his view, he vacillated half a day ; and that, 

 at last, on being threatened with a complaint to his 

 official superiors, which might endanger his place or 

 promotion, he ordered his prisoner to torture or to 

 death. Suppose all this, and suppose tlTat the story 

 came out fully on his arrival in London, in how many 

 drawing-rooms would he be received ? 



But take it even that the case were not so bad. 

 Assume that a British officer thought himself com. 

 pclled to order for execution a native preacher whose 

 "personal intentions " were not in the least hostile or 

 seditious, because his preaching might in point of 

 fact be, or had in point of fact been, dangerous to the 

 English power, and because the example would have 

 a good effect. This is about the best case made for 

 Pilate. If done judicially, it would be a judicial mur- 

 der. If done administratively, what ought it to be 

 called ? I believe there are few circles which would 



