He remained deeply troubled, however, by the Gospels’ accounts of the Crucifixion, for they had led to countless deaths and untold suffering on the part of the Jewish people. Father Jordan had made it his life’s work to find out what really happened that day in Jerusalem. He was convinced that somewhere there was a firsthand account. Not an apocryphal document but a genuine eyewitness report, written by an actual participant in the proceedings.

“Pontius Pilate?” asked Donati.

Father Jordan nodded. “I’m not alone in my belief that Pilate wrote about the Crucifixion. Tertullian, the very founder of Latin Christianity, the first theologian to use the word Trinity, was convinced that Pilate sent a detailed report to Emperor Tiberius. None other than Justin Martyr shared his opinion.”

“With all due respect to Tertullian and Justin, they couldn’t possibly have known whether that was true.”

“I concur. In fact, I believe they were wrong on at least one key point.”

“What’s that?”

“Pilate didn’t write about the Crucifixion until long after Tiberius was dead.” Father Jordan looked down at the page. “But I’m afraid we’re getting ahead of ourselves. To understand what happened, it’s necessary to go back in time.”

“How far?” asked Donati.

“Thirty-six C.E. Three years after the death of Jesus.”

Which is where Father Robert Jordan, in the common room of the Abbey of St. Peter in the sacred city of Assisi, picked up the thread of the story.

28

ABBEY OF ST. PETER, ASSISI

IT WAS THE SAMARITANS WHO finally did Pilate in. They had a holy mountain of their own, Mount Gerizim, where it was said that Moses had placed the Ark of the Covenant after the arrival of the Jews in the Promised Land. Jewish rebels had dealt the Romans a humiliating defeat there eighty years earlier. Pilate, in one final act of brutality, evened the score. Untold numbers were massacred or crucified, but a few survived. They informed the Roman governor of Syria of Pilate’s savagery, and the governor told Tiberius, who ordered Pilate to return to Rome at once. His decade-long reign as prefect of Judea was over.

He was given three months to put his affairs in order, say his goodbyes, and brief his successor. Some of his personal records he undoubtedly destroyed. But some he surely carried back to Rome, where Tiberius waited to pass judgment on his conduct. It promised to be an unpleasant encounter. The best he could hope for was exile. The worst was death, either at the emperor’s hand or his own. He was certainly in no hurry to get home.

By December of 36 C.E., he was finally ready to leave. A journey by sea was not possible, not in the dead of winter, the season of storms, so he traveled by Roman roads. Fortuna, however, was smiling on him. By the time he arrived, Tiberius was dead.

“It’s possible Pilate appeared before Tiberius’s successor,” said Father Jordan. “But there’s no record of it. Besides, the new emperor was probably too busy consolidating his own power to waste time on a disgraced prefect from a distant province. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. His name was Caligula.”

It is at this point, Father Jordan continued, that Pontius Pilate vanishes from the pages of history and enters the realm of legend and myth. In addition to the fabricated accounts of the apocryphal gospels, countless stories and folktales circulated throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. According to the thirteenth-century Golden Legend, a compendium of stories about the lives of saints, Pilate was allowed to live out his days in relative peace as an exile in Gaul. The author of a popular fourteenth-century chivalric romance disagreed. Pilate, went the tale, was cast by his enemies into a deep well near Lausanne, where he spent twelve years alone in the darkness, weeping inconsolably.

Much of the lore depicted him as a deathless soul condemned to wander the countryside for all eternity, his hands soaked with the blood of Jesus. One legend claimed he was living atop a mountain near Lucerne. The story was so persistent that in the fourteenth century the mountain’s name was changed to Pilatus. It was said that on Good Fridays, Pilate could be seen sitting atop the chair of judgment in the middle of a foul-smelling lake. Other times he was seen perched on a rock, writing. Richard Wagner scaled Pilatus in 1859 to have a look for himself. Nine years later, accompanied by a royal party, Queen Victoria did the same.

“I actually hiked up it once myself,” confessed Donati.

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

“That’s because he was never there.”

“Where was he?”

“Most of the Church Fathers believed he committed suicide not long after his return to Rome. But Origen, the early Church’s first great theologian and philosopher, was convinced that Pilate had been allowed to live out the remainder of his life in peace. On this matter, at least, I side with Origen. That said, I suspect we might disagree over how Pilate spent his retirement.”

“You believe he wrote?”

“No, Luigi. I know that Pontius Pilate wrote a detailed memoir of his tumultuous years as prefect of the Roman province of Judea, including his role in the most portentous execution in human history.” Father Jordan tapped the plastic-covered page. “And it was used as the source material for the pseudepigraphic gospel that bears his name.”

“Who was the real author?”

“If I were to hazard a guess, he was a highly educated Roman, fluent in Latin and Greek, with a deep knowledge of Jewish history and the Laws of Moses.”

“Was he a gentile or a Jew?”

“Probably a gentile. But what’s important is that he was a deeply committed Christian.”

“Are you suggesting that Pilate became a Christian as well?”

“Pilate? Heavens no. That’s apocryphal nonsense. I have no doubt he remained a pagan until his dying breath. The Gospel of Pilate is a work of history rather than faith. Unlike the authors of the canonical Gospels, Pilate had seen Jesus with his own eyes. He knew what he looked like, how he spoke. More important, he knew exactly why Jesus was put to death. After all, he was the one who sent him to the cross.”

“Why did he write about it?” asked Gabriel.

“A good question, Mr. Allon. Why does any public servant or political figure write about his role in an important event?”

“To make money,” quipped Gabriel.

“Not in the first century.” Father Jordan smiled. “Besides, Pilate had no need of money. He had used his position as prefect to enrich himself.”

“In that case,” said Gabriel, “I suppose he would have wanted to tell his side of the story.”

“Correct,” said Father Jordan. “Remember, Pilate was only a few years older than Jesus. If he had lived for fifteen years after the Crucifixion, he would have known that the followers of the man he executed in Jerusalem were in the early stages of forming a new religion. Had he lived to the age of seventy, not unheard of in the first century, he would have been hard pressed not to notice the flourishing early Church in Rome itself.”

“When do you think Pilate wrote his account?” asked Donati.

“That’s impossible to know. But I believe the book that became known as the Gospel of Pilate was written at approximately the same time as Mark.”