“But according to Caiaphas, you finally did get involved. He said that he requested your assistance to arrest Jesus and you supplied him with soldiers.”

“Caiaphas came here, late at night, rousing both me and my wife from our sleep. He sat there, where you are sitting now, in a state of great agitation. He pleaded for my help as he had never done before, saying that he knew where Jesus could be taken, away from the crowds, but his Temple guards were afraid to arrest him, just as they had been in the courtyard.”

“Afraid? Of Jesus?” I forced a halfhearted smile.

“I, too, laughed at him,” Pilate recalled, “but Caiaphas said that his men feared that Jesus might work a miracle and destroy them, for if he could make a dead man come alive, they believed he could certainly make one who was alive fall dead. He begged me to lend him a few of my troops, for he was certain that if my soldiers were present his men would have the courage to fulfill their duties. At first I refused, telling him that false prophets were his business, but finally I agreed since it would still be his responsibility for the actual arrest and trial and execution. I even promised to grant him my sanction, early on the following morning, to what he assured me would be a verdict of guilty by the Sanhedrin, punishable by death, so that they could do away with Jesus before their Passover and Sabbath began at sundown. Then I returned to bed.”

“So the two of you had already agreed that Jesus would die?”

“A well-deserved fate for such as he. Yes.”

“Caiaphas told me that he only requested a dozen or so soldiers but you supplied him with a small army. Why?”

Pilate’s raucous, high-pitched laughter filled the room. He sat up and clapped his hands together as if he were applauding himself. “Several months earlier, a report had come to me that Jesus had fed many thousands in the wilderness of Galilee by multiplying five barley loaves and two small fish into enough food for all. According to my informer, the people were so impressed with his magic that they wanted to make him their king. Since some of the Jews considered this man powerful enough to be their ruler, I thought the least I could do was dispatch an army to arrest him that was worthy of his exalted position. The privileges of rank, you know.” He snickered, still enjoying his practical joke on Caiaphas after all this time.