THE TRIAL OF JESUS CHRIST. 



71 



it raises the distinction between the judicial and 

 the administrative. What Pilate, as administra- 

 tor of the province, might do in the way of de- 

 porting or even killing an innocent man for the 

 sake of its peace, is one question. What he 

 might do sitting as a judge and inquiring whether 

 there was " fault in this man touching those 

 things whereof ye accuse him," is another matter ; 

 and it is the one with which we have to deal. 

 The distinction, kept sacred in all jurisprudences, 

 is beginning to be confused in the minds of Eng- 

 lish lawyers by the powerful but provincial theory 

 of utility which they are taught, but the spread 

 of which from the professor's chair to the judg- 

 ment-seat will, I think, be prevented by both 

 the scientific traditions of Europe and the moral 

 sense of mankind. In saying so, I do not forget 

 the story of the English judge who told a pris- 

 oner, " I sentence you to die, not at all because 

 vou have robbed this house, but in order that 

 other people may not rob other houses in future." 

 That judge, if he existed and pronounced such a 

 sentence, simply committed murder. But it was 

 Caiaphas, not Pilate, who thought it expedient 

 that one man should die for the people. And 

 neither the one nor the other grounded the ex- 

 pediency on any immediately apprehended out- 

 break or on any danger to the peace. There 

 was, indeed, no such immediate danger. How 

 far there might be ultimate danger to the Roman 

 state from the spread of convictions and the ac- 

 ceptance of claims like those of Jesus, was an- 

 other matter, and it was the really important one. 

 The true question, as the critic of the " Liberty, 

 Equality, and Fraternity" watchword soon dis- 

 cerns, is between the universal supremacy of a 

 government whose functions extended to some- 

 thing much higher than keeping the peace on the 

 one hand, and the claims of a kingdom not of 

 this world on the other. 



3. Accordingly, the final defense made for the 

 Roman governor — the only one which can be of 

 any weight in consistency with the history, and 

 the only one also which bears on the great ques- 

 tion of liberty of conscience or repression of 

 opinion — is contained in the following passage of 

 very general theory, illustrated in the. quotation 

 in my note on the previous page : 



hold that mere hesitation by a British officer to do 

 such an act would infer ignominy or disgrace to the 

 service. As to the further step of becoming personally 

 a disciple of a " higher form of morals " than any pre- 

 viously known (the immediate peace of the region 

 being first cared for), there does not seem any other 

 difficulty than what is dealt with in the test, in next 

 column. 



" Pilate's duty was to maintain peace and ordei 

 in Judea, and to maintain the Roman power. It is 

 surely impossible to contend seriously that it was 

 his duty, or that it coidd be the duty of any one in 

 his position, to recognize in the person brought to 

 his judgment-seat, I do not say God incarnate, but 

 the teacher and preacher of a higher form of morals 

 and a more enduring form of social order than that 

 of which he was himself the representative. To a 

 man in Pilate's position, the morals and the social 

 order which he represents are for all practical pur- 

 poses absolute standards."— P. 93. 



Whether this was the theory of Roman law, 

 we may afterward see. But it is here presented 

 as the universal and true theory, against which it 

 is difficult to contend seriously. It may be so. 

 This at all events is not the place to deal directly 

 with it, further than by recording a fundamental 

 dissent and implacable opposition. 1 But it is ex- 

 actly the place to point out that this was the 

 theory which the defense of the accused seems 

 directed to meet. The doctrine of the powerful 

 book from which we quote is that " skeptical ar- 

 guments in favor of moderation about religion 

 are the only conclusive ones." To suggest such 

 arguments to the governor, or at least to leave 

 his mind to the skeptical poise of the average 

 educated Roman of the day, might have seemed 

 the prudent part in a prophet accused of treason. 

 His words take very much the opposite course. 

 The assertion of a kingdom— a higher and ruling 

 " form of morals and social order "—set up in the 

 earth, but in a different plane and cosmos from 

 the secular power of Rome, might of itself have 

 implied the assertion of a duty to recognize that 

 kingdom. But when its assertion was backed by 

 an immediate appeal to the truth, as that which 

 men are born into the world to confess, the de- 

 fense plainly resolved into a claim that this truth, 

 and not any social order or traditional belief, 

 should be the "final and absolute standard." 

 And the last words addressed to Pilate clinch 

 " the duty of any one in his position to recognize 

 the teacher" of that higher order and extra- 

 mundane truth ; for " every one that is of the 

 truth heareth my voice." Besides, even if we 

 should prefer to disbelieve this conversation, we 

 cannot escape from the fact that this was precise- 



J It is the same theory, mutatis rnutandia,witt Ultra - 

 montanism, and that not merely because in both the indi- 

 vidual conscience is crushed under authority. " It appears 

 to me," says the author, " that the Ultramontane view of 

 the relation between church and state is the true one " (p. 

 109), because, as is explained, Ultramontanes correctly 

 hold that of the two powers one must be supreme and the 

 other must obey, and that there is no real distinction of a 

 spiritual and a secular province in human life. 



