Nevertheless, although what is of supreme value to Jesus is reckoned by
Pilate as of no importance whatever, the cross-examination has
satisfied the magistrate of the innocence of his Prisoner. His duty,
then, is plain. He should acquit the innocent man. But he dare not do
so immediately. That howling mob of Jews and those odious priests and
Sadducees of the council are determined on the death of their victim.
Pilate has made himself well hated by the roughness of his government.
Nothing would please the Jews and their leaders better than to have
some chance of impeaching him before his jealous master at Rome, on the
charge of leniency to treason. Pilate quails before the terrible
possibility. In face of it he simply dares not pronounce a verdict of
acquittal. Yet he means to do all he can to effect the escape of his
Prisoner. His inbred instinct for justice prompts him to this; for the
Romans cherished reverence for law, and even so corrupt a ruler as
Pilate was not independent of the atmosphere of his race. Then it
would be a bitter humiliation to let his judgment be overruled by those
contemptible Jews. He would be heartily glad to confound and
disappoint them. More than this, he had begun to feel some awakening
interest in his remarkable Prisoner. He had come to the conclusion
that Jesus was a harmless dreamer; but he had felt some faint shadow of
the spell of the wonderful Personality. If only it could be managed
with safety to himself, he would be glad to have Jesus set free.

Accordingly we now see Pilate resorting to a series of devices in order
to escape from his vexatious dilemma. From this point his conduct
opens out to us a curious study in psychological phenomena. The
ingenuity of Pilate in resorting to one expedient after another, is
very striking. Evidently he has keen wits, and he uses them with some
agility. But it is all in vain. He is pushed from each of the
positions he takes up by the same stubborn, relentless pressure which