Only a short time had passed since this last encounter and now these very priests who three times had risen against his authority, the very ones who had tried to obtain his deposition, the very ones who hated him heartily, hated him as a Roman, as a symbol of the foreign dominion and of their slavery, and hated him still more personally as Pontius Pilate, as plotter against their religion and thief of their money—these very High Priests were forced to have recourse to him in order to vent another hatred, which for the moment was more bitter in their wicked hearts. Only hard necessity drove them to it, because death sentences could not be carried out if they were not confirmed by Cæsar’s representative. That Friday, at dawn, Pontius Pilate, wrapped in his toga, still sleepy and yawning, was waiting for them in Herod’s palace, very ill-disposed towards those tiresome trouble-makers, whose contentions had forced him to rise earlier than usual. WHAT IS TRUTH? The crowd of the accusers and of the rough populace finally came out into the open place which was before Herod’s palace, but they stopped outside, because if they went into a house where there was leaven and bread baked with leaven, they would be contaminated all day long and could not eat the Passover. Innocent blood does not pollute, but leaven does. Pilate, warned of their coming, went out on the door-sill and asked abruptly: “What accusation bring ye against this man?” Those who were before him were his enemies. It appeared that this man was their enemy and Pilate instinctively took his part. Not that he had any pity for him—was he not a Jew like the others, and poor into the bargain? But if he were by any chance innocent, Pilate had no mind to lend himself to a whim of those detestable vermin. Caiaphas answered at once as if offended: “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto you.” Then Pilate who wished to lose no time with ecclesiastical squabbles, and did not think that there was any question of a capital crime, answered dryly: “Take ye him, and judge him according to your law.” Already in these words appears his wish to save the man without being forced to take sides openly. But the concession of the Procurator, which in any other case would have delighted Caiaphas and his party, this time did not suit them, because the Sanhedrin could inflict only light sentences and now they desired the most extreme sentence of all and could not dispense with the Roman arm. They answered: “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.” Pilate suddenly understood what sentence they wished passed on the wretched man who stood before him, and he wished to find out what crime He had committed. What might seem worthy of a death sentence to those bigoted rabbis might seem a venial fault in the eyes of a Roman.