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Authors: Elaine Pagels
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that
Pilate withdraw the garrison. When Pilate refused, the crowds
continued to demonstrate. After five days, Pilate, exasperated
but adamant, decided to force an end to the demonstrations.
Pretending to offer the demonstrators a formal hearing, he
summoned them to appear before him in the stadium. There
Pilate had amassed soldiers, ordered them to surround the
crowd, and threatened to massacre the demonstrators unless
they gave in. To Pilate’s surprise, the Jews declared that they
would rather die than see their law violated. At this point Pilate
capitulated and withdrew the unit. As Mary Smallwood
comments:
The Jews had won a decisive victory in the first round against
their new governor, but now they knew what sort of man they
were up against, and thereafter anything he did was liable to be
suspect. . . . But more was to follow.38
Roman authorities also respected Jewish sensitivity by
banning images considered idolatrous from coins minted in
Judea. Only during Pilate’s administration was this practice
violated: coins depicting pagan cult symbols have been found
dated 29-31 C.E. Did Pilate order the change, as the German
scholar E. Stauffer believes, “to force [his] subjects to handle
representations of pagan culture”?39 Raymond Brown suggests
that Pilate simply “underestimated Jewish sensitivity” on such
matters.40
Pilate next decided to build an aqueduct in Jerusalem. But to
finance the project, he appropriated money from the Temple
treasury, an act of sacrilege even from the Roman point of view,
since the Temple funds were, by law, regarded as sacrosanct.41
This direct assault upon the Temple and its treasury aroused
vehement opposition. When Pilate next visited Jerusalem, he
was met with larger demonstrations than ever; now the angry
crowds became abusive and threatening. Anticipating trouble,
Pilate had ordered soldiers to dress in plain clothes, conceal their
weapons, and mingle with the people. When the crowd refused
to disperse, he signaled to the soldiers to break it up with force.
Several peo-
32 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN
ple were killed, and others were trampled to death in the
stampede that followed.42 Even the gospel of Luke, which gives
an astonishingly benign portrait of Pilate in the trial narrative,
elsewhere mentions how people told Jesus about certain
Galileans “whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices”
(13:1).
Late in Pilate’s tenure as governor other provocative incidents
prompted Jewish leaders to protest to the emperor Tiberius
against Pilate’s attacks on their religion. In 31 C.E. Pilate angered
his subjects by dedicating golden shields in the Herodian palace
in Jerusalem. We cannot be certain what occasioned the protest;
the scholar B. C. McGinny suggests that the shields were
dedicated to the “divine” emperor, a description that would have
incensed many Jews.43 Again Pilate faced popular protest: a
crowd assembled, led by four Herodian princes. When Pilate
refused to remove the shields, perhaps claiming he was acting
only out of respect for the emperor, Josephus says, they replied,
“Do not take [the emperor] Tiberius as your pretext for outraging
the nation; he does not wish any of our customs to be
overthrown.”44 When Pilate proved adamant, the Jewish princes
appealed to the emperor, who rebuked Pilate and ordered him to
remove the shields from Jerusalem. One recent commentator
remarks that
the bullying of Pilate by his Jewish adversaries in the case of
the shields resembles strongly the bullying of Pilate in [the
gospel of] John’s account of the passion, including the threat of
appeal to the emperor.45
Yet characterizing these protests as “bullying” seems strange;
what recourse did a subject people have to challenge the
governor’s decision, except to appeal over his head to a higher
authority? Five years later, when a Samaritan leader assembled a
large multitude, some of them armed, to
Pilate withdraw the garrison. When Pilate refused, the crowds
continued to demonstrate. After five days, Pilate, exasperated
but adamant, decided to force an end to the demonstrations.
Pretending to offer the demonstrators a formal hearing, he
summoned them to appear before him in the stadium. There
Pilate had amassed soldiers, ordered them to surround the
crowd, and threatened to massacre the demonstrators unless
they gave in. To Pilate’s surprise, the Jews declared that they
would rather die than see their law violated. At this point Pilate
capitulated and withdrew the unit. As Mary Smallwood
comments:
The Jews had won a decisive victory in the first round against
their new governor, but now they knew what sort of man they
were up against, and thereafter anything he did was liable to be
suspect. . . . But more was to follow.38
Roman authorities also respected Jewish sensitivity by
banning images considered idolatrous from coins minted in
Judea. Only during Pilate’s administration was this practice
violated: coins depicting pagan cult symbols have been found
dated 29-31 C.E. Did Pilate order the change, as the German
scholar E. Stauffer believes, “to force [his] subjects to handle
representations of pagan culture”?39 Raymond Brown suggests
that Pilate simply “underestimated Jewish sensitivity” on such
matters.40
Pilate next decided to build an aqueduct in Jerusalem. But to
finance the project, he appropriated money from the Temple
treasury, an act of sacrilege even from the Roman point of view,
since the Temple funds were, by law, regarded as sacrosanct.41
This direct assault upon the Temple and its treasury aroused
vehement opposition. When Pilate next visited Jerusalem, he
was met with larger demonstrations than ever; now the angry
crowds became abusive and threatening. Anticipating trouble,
Pilate had ordered soldiers to dress in plain clothes, conceal their
weapons, and mingle with the people. When the crowd refused
to disperse, he signaled to the soldiers to break it up with force.
Several peo-
32 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN
ple were killed, and others were trampled to death in the
stampede that followed.42 Even the gospel of Luke, which gives
an astonishingly benign portrait of Pilate in the trial narrative,
elsewhere mentions how people told Jesus about certain
Galileans “whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices”
(13:1).
Late in Pilate’s tenure as governor other provocative incidents
prompted Jewish leaders to protest to the emperor Tiberius
against Pilate’s attacks on their religion. In 31 C.E. Pilate angered
his subjects by dedicating golden shields in the Herodian palace
in Jerusalem. We cannot be certain what occasioned the protest;
the scholar B. C. McGinny suggests that the shields were
dedicated to the “divine” emperor, a description that would have
incensed many Jews.43 Again Pilate faced popular protest: a
crowd assembled, led by four Herodian princes. When Pilate
refused to remove the shields, perhaps claiming he was acting
only out of respect for the emperor, Josephus says, they replied,
“Do not take [the emperor] Tiberius as your pretext for outraging
the nation; he does not wish any of our customs to be
overthrown.”44 When Pilate proved adamant, the Jewish princes
appealed to the emperor, who rebuked Pilate and ordered him to
remove the shields from Jerusalem. One recent commentator
remarks that
the bullying of Pilate by his Jewish adversaries in the case of
the shields resembles strongly the bullying of Pilate in [the
gospel of] John’s account of the passion, including the threat of
appeal to the emperor.45
Yet characterizing these protests as “bullying” seems strange;
what recourse did a subject people have to challenge the
governor’s decision, except to appeal over his head to a higher
authority? Five years later, when a Samaritan leader assembled a
large multitude, some of them armed, to
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