CHRIST CÆSER NAPOLEON

NZ Truth, Issue 473, 11 July 1914, Page 1

CHRIST CÆSER NAPOLEON

Haying piously disposed of £ontius Pilate^ hei; hiisband, and. to the/part he* played m the final phase of the tragedy of Calvary. It has already been shown what Were; his ;pera6Eial and official relations rwitli Vfiejrc^ fanatical' implacable Jews. Personally, the placatory pagan, Pilate, despised them for their; sectarian savagery; officially, hej; dreaded their truculent torbulency. Their turyulence- • xrecniently, , -m&nifefjbed : . it-* : < $Bj^lui^^ beDions, which .hej repressed wittL „a. ruthless and -sometimes / bloody sfcyerity that cransed i£te 'teyrs to tiate him- as a brutal oppressor of .tiieir race and religion. ] ehc h :■ ■■<■ - *). ■■-■"■..■•'"■ "^ In^^/details t>f ; these strain-ed^^atii^ns-between the governor a^4be;--g6yeriied, it ia not necessary to imjuire further than has already 1 been done m preceding articles. It only needs to be rexSalled^at the-Jews were ever m a. chronic^ state of revolt against Boman rule,* that Jerusalem was , a hot-bed of sedition, and a seeth- ■ cemtr^of^ insurrection; and that , Pflate did as he was yin duty bjormd, as procurator,: to do— put d^^ii all armed iresistanc'e with the nktern) strong hand of armed 'force.- - ■.■',.";;..■ ■ .. ■ N'■ "V^hat has now to be considered 16 l^late's actual kttitude toward^ JMak, and why and how "it', waa Hklt he permitted himself to be moved from his' purpose to Bave^ J«gas and set Him free, and compelled to consent to His crucifi|ion. The key to, this perplex-* .lag problem is to be found m the proven pusillanimity of C Pilate. IHie secret is solved if his characttp and temperament are carefully considered. He - a weak, riot .^ wicked, mimri. BBs coneciehce and condtict were. in conjalrt; hit^acts' at war with his -jrords. '^_ ;\- ' :, " . ■•■".■, •• : ;■ As a pagan cynic, Pilate had no religious sympathy with either Jesus or the Jo ws ; but as a toleraiit Boman citJssen and an impartial Boman ruler, his righteous instincts inclined him to lean to the side of Jesus, Whom he so strenuously sought to save. Why then did%e, at length, allow him«if to ]je driven ip \ consenting to the^commission of so cruel a crime iff the <ftrucdfying of the innocent San of* Man, m Whom he confess-«dhe-*ould find no fault? •-' * * ' * There is not much mystery as to the manner m which the Jews constrained Pilato into being "perticeps criminis," even if only m the secondary capacity of a consenting party, to the death of. ftesuiL The Synoptic Gospel narrative makes both the perversity tocPtho Jew and the pusillanimity of Pilate piifecily plain: they ginned from cruelty; ho 1 from cowftrdice. The Jews wished to muyder Jesus from motives of malevolence; Pilate dared not prevent them for fear of losing, his profitable places ■ • ■-•''■ \ ♦ s j^t>Pilate-^S4,iy.firjqi^a^

cient, and, on the whole, a ; successful governor, is proved- by the fact that he Retained- his difficult and delicate position;, during the long period of ten years, m spite, of repeated . ; riots and revolts, promptly suppressed. That ho wasVsevere, and* not reluctant .to resort to armed forcej even to the shedding of blood, m maintaining the* ' Pax Bdmana "m Palestine is to his credit as a Romans ruler. How came it, then, that so -stern and- s^ev<|i;^ a : goversg,Q3j.» aUqwed, liimself td be^ coercectj against v hii better judgment by the clant6rs of a cruel, priest-fanaticised Jerusalem mob in,to the commission of so cruel a crime ? \ t While little can be. said^in^extenuation of Pilate's' conduct, much may be said m explanation —much .more than can be gatiiered from the Scripture story, s In spite of the strength of his official position, due primarily to : his connection by marriage 1 with the gens of the Imperial House, circumstances conspired to make it precarious. ; The retirement of Tiberius to Capri had left the Government of the Empire largely m the hands of favorites, such as the satrap Sejanus, and his r upstart imitators and ■ successors/ The lucrative posts of consul- an'd pro-consul, praetor and pro-prae-■tor, and procurator, and other positions of Imperial and Senatonal appointment, had become "the objects of intrigue and purchase. • / ■•■ ■•'., -,■■'■■ . Tiberius, skeptic in' religion, • cynic m politkis, as he was, suspicious of c very - man, and" believing m the honesty and' loyalty of none, cared little and troubledless ; about the personalities or acts of the Boman provincial representatives, so that law and order were maintained, and the allotted tribute, continued to pour into, the Ijtoman iisc without stint or, interruption/ • It is historically established that, subject to these reservations,. Kfeerius was -incWffeireivt' as % who filled the provincial governorships, or how long .they filled them. Indeed, it is known, that he was adverse to the removal of these high officials, except for imperative Imperial reasons. •. ■ . '.• " ,' • It was the habit of this crafty, callous Emperor to liken the rapacious governors of- provinces to gorged leeches or blowflies, whom it was more prudent and economical to allow to; gorge their ali ready partially satisfied maw on i the prostrate provincials than to knock them off m order to make way for a fresh set of hungrier , harpies,, .whose newer and keener [ hunger would make them even . more rapacious than their plunderous predecessors. The first lot of succubi were already gorged almost to repletion; the second ; would be emptier, hungrier, and i keener plunderers than the, first 1 Their depredations would renew , the plunderous process "do • novo." Then why remove one bad r brood of blood-suckers to instal a worse? To do so would J-b«r to-- submit tho^^pjerM^rerveiiuo <

to a double depletion,, and; "thereby to imperil the peace, of the provinces. „'■.. : ■'"••.' ' : *••./: '>■'■>■■ •; :'»• Such were the --cynical princi-: pies , of the philosophy and the selfish maxims of the policy pro-r fessed and practised by the Skeptical sybarite of Capri, Tiberiuk, under whom Pilate held and exercised his Syrian* prdcuratorship, during ten years, with such signal,success.. But his success proved the source of his peril ; it made him to the Jews, and through ; their malignant misre-, presentations of him . at> Roms.' a subject of suspicion, not to Tiberius hiooself, but to his satraps and. [their satellites. These, affected to believe that, Pilate was dilatory or maladroit m enforcing the law of Rome, if Ec was not actually, disloyal' toy the Imperial house with. which he was connected by his marriage with Procia. !. ■•O'-< '*' \ '•.>'• " ■ ■■••//'■' "";.'•' t Here, again, naturally.•■.■CTpervenes the question: How came iv that a procurator so powerfully supported ■as ■ -an • Imperial protege . of , Rome, and so successful as air Imperial; Governor m Syria as, Pilate probably was, could,; hay.c been 50 ..-. easily scared or Meowed by the menaces of a priest|ridden r mob at Jerusalem? Thisj would! seem to the modern mind ?a&poli-r tical paradox, an Imperial enigma* to. the Imperialism of this 20th 1 * century. But it was m- no sense a^ •ntysfery' or '■pjß^oM^W^fb""*^^ Imperialism of the first half of the > Christian Era. The .modernBritish and the ancient Roman' Imperial systems are as different as chalk from cheese, and, their political results, as different as the .products of the ,two hemispheres. ~ . * / •, * t * Roman Imperialism stood for law and order, with pe^ce^or all those within the Roman pjict, who preferred peace at/any price; All those who would dwell m peace, might do so under Roman protection, provided they were prepared to do so according to Roman dictation or direction, andto pay Roman tribute without protest -or subtraction^ British Imperialism is a weak imitation^ of the Roman; .an attempt to control and rule hundreds of millions of colored subject races, widely scattered, continually warring one with another, when Britain is; not warring with them, and bayonetting and bolleting the,m into silent submission. * * ■■ * i There is one other difference between Roman and British Imperialism: the Romans fought and conquered as pagan patriots, and not as Christian prosclytisers. The ancient Romans did not re-gard-patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel: modern Britons do. With Romans, patriotism was a religion; with Britons it is a trade. In the palmy days of her patriotic piety, when Rome won her way as a Republic, she was the antetype of the British nation -\ under- Elizabeth and Cromwell, when, as a kingdom, England's Catholic and Protestant . sailors smashed the Roman Catholic Armada of Spain, and when later,, as a Commonwealth, her Puritan soldiers crushed the curled cavalier condottieri of that cryptic Catholic cuckold, King Charles the First, of perfidious memory. <- JOHN NORTON. Mount Victoria. s Bluo Mountains, New South Wales, Sunday, ' ~ Juno 21, 1914. Feast of S. Aloysius Gonzagu, "And they that axe CbTistJo . have crucified their flosh, with the vices and concupiscences.'*— Gal. v., 24. "Blessed la that man who for Thee, O Lortl, abandoneth all things created; who oftercth violence to nature and through i fervour of spirit crueiflelh the concupiscence^ of the flesh."— lmitation. Cardinal BeUarmlne,, the Saint's confessor, testified that he bad never morally "offended God. Yet he chastised hla body rigorously, roso *t sight to pray, and shod many

Second^ -Series : No. XX

tears for. his sins. Pray that not having followed ,hda-, innocence, you may yet imitate his penance^ ; '. S. ;. Aloysius ' was wont to: ; say -/.he .doubted .whether, without penance grace would continue to make head against nature, which, when not af-. .. flicted and. . chastified, .- tends, gradually to relapse into its old- state, -losing the habit of suffering acquir-, ed;>by the labor . of • years. "I am a crooked piece of iron," he said, "iind am come into religion to be made straight by "the hammer of mortification'and penance."