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Chapter 9.

And having summoned Nicodemus and the twelve men that said He was not born of fornication, he says to them:  What shall I do, because there is an insurrection among the people?  They say to him:  We know not; let them see to it.  Again Pilate, having summoned all the multitude of the Jews, says:  You know that it is customary, at the feast of unleavened bread, to release one prisoner to you.  I have one condemned prisoner in the prison, a murderer named Barabbas, and this man standing in your presence, Jesus, in whom I find no fault.  Which of them do you wish me to release to you?  And they cry out:  Barabbas.  Pilate says:  What, then, shall we do to Jesus who is called Christ?  The Jews say:  Let him be crucified.  And others said:  Thou art no friend of Cæsar’s if thou release this man, because he called himself Son of God and king.  You wish, then, this man to be king, and not Cæsar? 1831

And Pilate, in a rage, says to the Jews:  Always has your nation been rebellious, and you always speak against your benefactors.  The Jews say:  What benefactors?  He says to them:  Your God led you out of the land of Egypt from bitter slavery, and brought you safe through the sea as through dry land, and in the desert fed you with manna, and gave you quails, and quenched your thirst with water from a rock, and gave you a law; and in all these things you provoked your God to anger, and sought a molten calf.  And you exasperated your God, and He sought to slay you.  And Moses prayed for you, and you were not put to death.  And now you charge me with hating the emperor. 1832

And rising up from the tribunal, he sought to go out.  And the Jews cry out, and say:  We know that Cæsar is king, and not Jesus.  For assuredly the magi brought gifts to him as to a king.  And when Herod heard from the magi that a king had been born, he sought to slay him; and his father Joseph, knowing this, took him and his mother, and they fled into Egypt.  And Herod hearing of it, destroyed the children of the Hebrews that had been born in Bethlehem. 1833

And when Pilate heard these words, he was afraid; and ordering the crowd to keep silence, because they were crying out, he said to them:  So this is he whom Herod sought?  The Jews say:  Yes, it is he.  And, taking water, Pilate washed his hands in the face of the sun, saying:  I am innocent of the blood of this just man; see you to it.  Again the Jews cry out:  His blood be upon us, and upon our children.

Then Pilate ordered the curtain of the tribunal where he was sitting to be drawn, 1834 and says to Jesus:  Thy nation has charged thee with being a king.  On this account I sentence thee, first to be scourged, according to the enactment of venerable kings, and then to be fastened on the cross in the garden where thou wast seized.  And let Dysmas and Gestas, the two malefactors, be crucified with thee.

Footnotes

Matt. xxvii. 15-26, etc.

Lit., king.  Other readings are:  with wishing another king; with seeking Jesus for king.

One ms. adds:  from two years old and under.

This was customary before pronouncing sentence.  See Apost. Const., ii. 56.