they pretended that he forbade the payment of tribute to Caesar.[1] Pilate asked him if he was really the king of the Jews.[2] Jesus concealed nothing of what he thought.  But the great ambiguity of speech which had been the source of his strength, and which, after his death, was to establish his kingship, injured him on this occasion.  An idealist that is to say, not distinguishing the spirit from the substance, Jesus, whose words, to use the image of the Apocalypse, were as a two-edged sword, never completely satisfied the powers of earth.  If we may believe John, he avowed his royalty, but uttered at the same time this profound sentence:  “My kingdom is not of this world.”  He explained the nature of his kingdom, declaring that it consisted entirely in the possession and proclamation of truth.  Pilate understood nothing of this grand idealism.[3] Jesus doubtless impressed him as being an inoffensive dreamer.  The total absence of religious and philosophical proselytism among the Romans of this epoch made them regard devotion to truth as a chimera.  Such discussions annoyed them, and appeared to them devoid of meaning.  Not perceiving the element of danger to the empire that lay hidden in these new speculations, they had no reason to employ violence against them.  All their displeasure fell upon those who asked them to inflict punishment for what appeared to them to be vain subtleties.  Twenty years after, Gallio still adopted the same course toward the Jews.[4] Until the fall of Jerusalem, the rule which the Romans adopted in administration, was to remain completely indifferent to these sectarian quarrels.[5]

[Footnote 1:  Luke xxiii. 2, 5.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. xxvii. 11; Mark xv. 2; Luke xxiii. 3; John xviii. 33.]

[Footnote 3:  John xviii. 38.]

[Footnote 4:  Acts xviii. 14, 15.]

[Footnote 5:  Tacitus (Ann., xv. 44) describes the death of Jesus as a political execution by Pontius Pilate.  But at the epoch in which Tacitus wrote, the Roman policy toward the Christians was changed; they were held guilty of secretly conspiring against the state.  It was natural that the Latin historian should believe that Pilate, in putting Jesus to death, had been actuated by a desire for the public safety.  Josephus is much more exact (Ant., XVIII. iii. 3.)]

An expedient suggested itself to the mind of the governor by which he could reconcile his own feelings with the demands of the fanatical people, whose pressure he had already so often felt.  It was the custom to deliver a prisoner to the people at the time of the Passover.  Pilate, knowing that Jesus had only been arrested in consequence of the jealousy of the priests,[1] tried to obtain for him the benefit of this custom.  He appeared again upon the bima, and proposed to the multitude to release the “King of the Jews.”  The proposition made in these terms, though ironical, was characterized by a degree of liberality.  The priests saw the danger of