unsound.  Such a man under such circumstances will never find his most cunning devices a match for the set determination of his opponents.  So Pilate, feebly protesting, helplessly scheming, is pushed back step by step; and ultimately he concedes everything demanded of him, and the final issue is more humiliating to himself and more cruel to the innocent Prisoner whom he is trying to shield, than it would have been if he had yielded at the beginning.  The real victim of this tragedy in the palace is not Jesus, it is the soul of Pilate.  We seem to see a weak man being thrust down a steep place, resisting and catching at the shrubs and rocks that he passes, but torn from his grasp of them and finally flung over the precipice.

Pilate’s first device was to send Jesus to Herod Antipas, who happened to be at Jerusalem at the time.  It was a compliment to the frivolous “king of Galilee” to remit a Galilean prisoner to his judgment, and Pilate would gladly rid himself of the awkward case by this ingenious device.  But it was useless, for the simple reason that Herod had no power of life and death in Jerusalem, and Pilate soon had his Prisoner on his hands again.  Next he clutched at the custom of releasing a prisoner during the feast.  Here was a chance for letting off Jesus without declaring Him innocent.  But this suggestion was hopeless.  If the Jews were set on effecting the death of Jesus, they would not give up their right to choose their prisoners to be released, and take at the dictation of Pilate the very man they wanted to have done to death.  They clamoured for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed.  The cynicism of their choice is palpable.  By daring to make it, they show in what contempt they hold Pilate.  The governor loses ground considerably by this false move.  Then he tries to throw the blame of the murder of Jesus, which he sees he cannot prevent, on the Jews.  A new motive urges him to escape from the responsibility of committing a judicial murder.  His wife had sent a private message warning him to “have nothing to do with that righteous man.”  She had been much disturbed by a dream about him.  Romans were slaves to omens and auguries, and the most materialistic of them felt some awe of dreams, although they had lost faith in real religion.  Your confirmed sceptic is often slavishly superstitious in the secret of his soul.  It is a way the spiritual has of avenging itself on the man who openly flouts it.  Boldly flung out of the window, it creeps back into the cellar and vexes the soul with petty tricks played on the subterranean consciousness.  The man who expels his good angel is haunted by imps and elves.  He who will not believe in God and despises truth succumbs to the message of a dream.

More anxious now than ever to escape responsibility, Pilate calls for water and publicly washes his hands, telling the Jews that the innocent blood will be on their heads.  They accept the awful responsibility.  What do they care for the weak Roman’s scruples?  He is doing their will, and of course no hand-washing can cleanse his conscience from the stain of guilty compliance.