Why is Pontius Pilate in the Creed? Pilate and Herod: Images of the Fall

Summary:

Not merely Pilate and some of the Jews at Jesus’ time killed Jesus. We all did, our sins. Our sins scourged Him and our sins nailed Him to the cross. But from whence arise our sins? Lies, when we believe lies. And what are the supreme lies of the dragon? They are in fact the lies of the fall.

There are two:

1. Anti-Baptismal Desire: Do not seek to know and love God in this life; rather, believe as you wish and do as you wish.
2. Anti-Marital Desire toward God: Do not seek to be with God forever in the next life. Rather, find your ultimate desires in THIS life and this world: materialism

Pilate images the first lie: He says, “What is truth?” Knowing God is knowing the truth, of which he either does not believe in, or does not care to know. And whereas love of God means recognizing that we have sinned, that God determines what is sin, and that only God can absolve us of wrongdoing, both past, present, and future. Pilate absolves himself by washing his hands and presumes himself fit to declares what is right and wrong, and in doing so, justifies the greatest sin in human history: the murder of God!

Herod, on the other hand, images the second lie: Herod is not so much into the truth or what is right and wrong, as much as he is into materialistic wonder. He wants Jesus to perform a sign, that is, he is only satiated by the things of this world, for their own sake.

When the world does not care about knowing and loving God and one another [anti-Baptism], eventually crises and turmoil arise, regardless of how materially wonderful a society might be in terms of its temporal development [anti-Marriage]. When this exists, we can say the two lies are “enemies of one another.” But when the world is temporarily in an illusory peace of materialistic wonder and prosperity while yet at the same time godless, they are “friends.”

This friendship is the historical context for Christ’s First Coming: after Babel, “the unfinished tower” [Luke 14:28-], the world is divided into nations and kingdoms ever at war with one another, and yet, also, ever striving to recover the intrinsically perverse global, materialistic unity. Until the time of Rome, the war of man with God and himself (“10,000 going against 20,000” [cf Luke 14]) restrains the recovery of Babel. But by Christ’s time, godlessness and materialistic development are wedded once again [the “Pax Romana”].

Hence, since, again, Pilate images anti-Baptism and Herod, anti-Marriage, “That day [of the Passion] Herod and Pilate became friends--before this they had been enemies.”

Passion Sunday Meditation: Why is Pontius Pilate in the Creed? Pilate and Herod: Images of the Fall

“He was crucified under Pontius Pilate…” – Apostles Creed

“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” – Isiah 53, the Suffering Servant

Pontius Pilate, after silence from his new “friend”, Herod, formerly an “enemy”, is the one who “sentenced Christ to death.” Hence, again, “He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” Yet, is only Pilate guilty of this? Or even the crowd of Jewish persons who shouted for Jesus’ brutal execution?

Our Sins Killed Jesus!

Of course not! WE ARE ALL THE EXECUTIONERS OF CHRIST!

598 In her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that "sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured."389 Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself,390 the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus… - CCC

For not only did Jesus suffer and die FOR our iniquities but BY them. It was SIN, in ALL of us, and in ALL forms, that scourged our Lord, that beat Him, that spat upon Him, that reviled Him, that crowned Him with thorns, that set Him out to carry a great load of the cross, that further beat and whipped Him to move on, that brutally stripped Him of His garments, that nailed His hands, His feet, and that pierced Him through with a lance! We all did it. He died FOR sin, and He died BY our sin.

Whenever we have sinned in the flesh, we have brutally swung the whip of broken cords and glass across His already bloody, Divine Back. Whenever we have looked upon a person with lust or at pornography intentionally, we have stripped His garments and reopened His wounds. Whenever we have oppressed others by keeping them from exercising their will for needs or to go as they please in freedom, we have driven nails into Jesus’ hands and feet, to fixate his possibility of using His hands freely or to walk as He pleases. Whenever we mock or refuse to revere authority, whether parents, teachers, supervisors, dignitaries and rulers, have we not placed the crown of thorns on Jesus beloved Head?

The Lies of the Fall Killed Jesus

And therefore, if it is OUR sin, and OUR fallen nature that put Christ to death, was not also the root of His death the very LIES of the fall itself which we have believed? Indeed, the power of the dragon is in his lies, and they came forth from the very beginning, in that mystical garden, at the Fall. Therefore, if our sins put Him to death, if the LIES—the words—of the dragon put Him to death, and if Pontius Pilate put Him to death, then should not Pontius Pilate, in his whole being and words, be the mystical image of the very same words of the dragon at our preeminent spiritual demise?

It works! It is indeed the case, as we will see momentarily, that Pontius Pilate’s epic words of indifference and cowardice in exchange for concern to please the crowd rather than do what is right that image the very lies of the Fall. Let us probe it deeper.

What are the Lies of the Fall?

First, what ARE the lies of the Fall? For reference:

The Modern Darkness: Its Supreme Lies https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-pauline/the-modern-darkness-its-supreme-lies/10153459171167144

There, we saw the first step to the lies: What are the summarizing principles of all good? We know this, from Catechism of time immemorial:

1. To know, love, and serve God in this life

2. To be happy with God forever in the next life

And these work out to be the ultimate signs of the two great remnant sacraments of heretics, Baptism and Marriage:

1. Baptismal Desire: have faith, or know God, and repentance, or love of God

2. Apocalyptic Marriage: to seek as ultimate fulfillment of one’s end to Marry God forever in the next life, happiness forever

What then does the dragon do? Does he not tell humanity that these two great principles are a lie, that they do not bring fulfillment and happiness, but only bondage and constriction of truly self-actualizing freedom? Yes! And offers the anti-principles as counterfeits!

1. Anti-Baptismal Desire: have no regard to KNOW God, no FAITH: believe as you wish! And have no regard to LOVE God, no repentance: do as you wish! And you will be truly free, truly better off!

2. Anti-Marital Desire toward God: seek not your ultimate fulfillment in the Marriage to your CreaTOR in the next life—in holy, profound, and meaningful good: truth, beauty, goodness, mystery, life, love, gift, reception---but in Fornication [figurative] with the CreaTION in this life—in brute, superficial, and frivolous things: pleasures, possessions, egotistical accomplishments, in power, technology, and materialistic wonders. In short, MATERIALISM!

Pontius Pilate Images Anti-Baptism, the First Lie

Pontius Pilate most eminently images the first lie in all his words and actions:

The Sovereignty of God “So then, you are a king?”

Christ’s kingship, though spiritual in nature, is nevertheless the supreme sovereignty: all men should submit to the sovereignty of God as a loving Father and benevolent custodian of all good things. The absolute sovereignty of God is presupposed in our reason for existence. That we are called to know God means His truths, even He AS truth, is the highest source of all truth, of all things that can be known, or should! All men should recognize the authority of God as the source of truth and law for our own wellbeing. Pilate, on the other hand, is indifferent to this. He most certainly considers his own sovereignty to be independent and self-realized:

“Do you not realize that I have the power to kill you and to have you crucified?”

Truth: God’s Truth

Too, Pilate is either indifferent to truth, or in denial of it:

“I came into the world for one purpose: to testify to the truth! Whoever desires to know the truth listens to my voice.”

“What is truth?”

When man is fallen, he either denies and refuses to accept God’s truths (atheism, paganism, or denial moral obligation), or he is indifferent to what is true to God, believing it is either not important or is unattainable (the modern relativism: how can we really know what is true religion and morals? Everyone might as well be equally right. Or else, I have better things to do. Religion is boring.) Hence, “What is truth?” is the first great part of the first great lie of the dragon: “Seek not to know God, or have faith. Rather, believe as you wish!”

Repentance: Knowing Good and Evil

The second part is like it: repentance. Repentance means one has moral culpability and obligation to shun wrong doing, to do what is right, even when inconvenient and that God is the arbiter of the moral law, not us. It means that the waters of Baptism convey the great mystery: in immersion, or sprinkling, one is saying, may my wrongdoings of the past be forgiven by God on behalf of my contrite heart, and may, therefore, my future actions, which are still culpable before God, my judge, be holy and right.

The dragon, then, in Pilate’s epic act of betrayal and murder of God—in the washing of his hands—has in no wise contrition for former sins on account of Divine absolution and a contrite heart but a declaration of absolving himself, by himself, of forthcoming culpability, and with the idea that he, himself, judges what is right and wrong, not God!

“I am innocent of this man’s blood! Go and kill him yourself!”

These lies then clearly mock Baptism and form the first great lie. Pilate images anti-Baptism in his whole being, actions, and words. Pilate IS Anti-Baptism, the first lie of the Fall!

Herod Images Apocalyptic Anti-Marriage, the Second Lie

What about the other lie of the Fall, anti-marital desire toward God, or materialism. Let us recall that the one seduced by materialism only cares about this world, for what he can get from this world, not receive. He only cares about pleasures, possessions, egotistical accomplishments, and glorious signs and wonders of purely physical and worldly intellectual progress: science, technology, man-made grandeur.

This is emblematic of Herod. When Christ is sent to Herod, Herod is not so much bent on condemning him to death as that he is interested in seeing those very “material wonders”, or, in this case, miracles:

“When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort.”

Herod is a man of this world, not the other. He is only interested in what is fantastic from a worldly standpoint, in seeing a physical sign or miracle for its own sake. Christ, however, did not perform miracles as ends unto themselves but only as a means to end: to lead others to faith in God’s revelation, to repentance and eventual pursuit of holiness and grace, ultimately from His Church to come, the Bride, the one who represents the truths and graces of God to humanity, those things which alone can fully satiate, and not mere physical healings, feedings or any other mere physical prodigy.

But the ones of the second lie take the mere physical wonders and goods as the FINAL end of existence, of happiness, of well-being. Hence, Herod images Anti-Marriage.

Enemies or Friends? Herod and Pilate, Anti-Baptism and Apocalyptic Anti-Marriage

“That day Herod and Pilate became friends--before this they had been enemies.”

Now, if Pilate images Anti-Baptism, and Herod images Anti-Apocalyptic Marriage, what might his mean?

The profundity is imaged immensely in another marvelous meditation we have seen, regarding the Whore seated upon the Beast with Ten Horns.

The Whore of Babylon as Blasphemous, Materialistic Grandeur https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-pauline/the-whore-of-babylon-as-blasphemous-materialistic-grandeur/10153460139867144

There we saw that, for a while, seemingly, the joint amicability between the Harlot and the Beast seems to persist until the ten horns turn on the Whore and burn her up and eat her flesh:

“[3] And he took me away in spirit into the desert. And I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. [4] And the woman was clothed round about with purple and scarlet, and gilt with gold, and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of the abomination and filthiness of her fornication. [5] And on her forehead a name was written: A mystery; Babylon the great, the mother of the fornications, and the abominations of the earth.

“[16] And the ten horns which thou sawest in the beast: these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire. [17] For God hath given into their hearts to do that which pleaseth him: that they give their kingdom to the beast, till the words of God be fulfilled.” – Apocalypse 17

Here, we learned that the Whore is our Anti-Marital Lie toward God made Incarnate: materialism: when man does not want a spousal relationship with God forever in the next world, he chooses his fulfillment in an infatuated perverse relationship with this world; that is, he lives for this world alone, what it alone can give: the brute goods of physical pleasure, possession, accomplishment and mere material wonders, material grandeur.

Such perverse infatuation implies that man has abandoned God, and hence has no regard for the commandments of God, namely, the Ten Commandments. Hence, his moral dimension is the antithesis of the Ten Commandments or, that is, ten anti-principles against God, against the moral law. These ten anti-principles, we saw, were the ten horns of the beast.

So then, again, just as the teenager can enjoy the alcohol and sex for a time, seemingly fulfilling himself, so humanity can for a time flourish in both godlessness and materialism. This imaged in the “peaceful” state of the woman riding atop the beast.

BUT, just as the consequences of sex and alcohol eventually catch up to the hedonistic young person and bring suffering and ruin [alcoholism, failed relationships, multiple divorces, venereal disease, low self-esteem, psychological wounds…], so eventually the same consequences of shirking the Decalogue start rupturing what was merely an illusory peace in the society that had, seemingly, wedded materialistic prosperity and stability to an attitude of either indifference to God or coldness toward Him. For the end of sexual immorality is divorce and broken childhoods, which ruptures the children’s ability to grow up responsible, diligent, and trusting of authority and relationships. This then leads to children whose interests are less than noble: undisciplined, uncompassionate, superficial, hedonistic, and nonintellectual. Hence, lack of peace in families leads to lack of peace in communities: crime, devaluation of life, and so forth. And if communities have not peace, neither can cities. And if not cities, neither nations. And if not nations, neither the world.

Hence, the materialistic prosperity is destroyed, and the so-called great civilization collapses. The “anti-Ten Commandments” “eat the flesh of the Whore and burn her up”! “The flesh is of no avail, but My Words are Spirit and Truth!” The flesh of the whore is the grandeur of this of this world and what is possible merely materialistically. It has no real power to bring peace and prosperity, only the grace of God, which finds its apex in the very Flesh and Blood of Our Lord, the Eucharist. In fact, without grace, without love of God and neighbor—without the Ten Commandments—the flesh of this world and its power, the flesh of the Whore, will be eaten up by the power of corruption and burnt up in a great fall: “Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the Great!”

But it is when the Whore and the Beast are friends that the Lord is most crucified! For when the Whore and the Beast are mutually aiding one another that the world is in the worst condition: blind to God and His ways, and yet, at the same time, placing their faith in merely this world and its goods. It is then that it is totally mocking the Savior and spitting on Him, relishing its power and enjoyment of the brute things that are merely seen, and scoffing that their need for the things that are unseen. It is when it thinks that it can ignore God and His morals and yet escape the consequences that it crucifies Christ in His Feet and in His hands: crucifying His feet because it cares not to walk in the way of truth, and crucifying His hands because it cares not to use its hands to do the works of good, and rather only evil!

Hence, when Pilate and Herod are “friends,” Christ is scourged and crucified! But when they were “enemies”, Christ’s light shone for a time, in His Ministry. Too, in history, in the time of warfare, in the time when 10,000 and 20,000 spar, when the Tower is not being built, the anti-Decalogue is keeping the illusory peace of materialistic grandeur at bay, and man, not yet fully comfortable in this world, finds yet, in some sense, his need for the Divine Law and Assistance.

Was the Passion “Predestined”? Was Pilate? Herod? The Historical Period of Christ?

The Catechism comments on the mystery:

II. CHRIST'S REDEMPTIVE DEATH IN GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION

"Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God"

599 Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God's plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God."393 This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.394

600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."395 For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.396

Here, I think, a profound argument perhaps not entirely popular in post-Vatican II thought can be made: successive manifestations of the fall in human history are perpetually inevitable until the end because of the force and gravity of Original Sin: meaning, no matter how God responds with Redemptive activity at each great stage of His Plan, there is a very real, almost inevitable, tendency of Original Sin to drag humanity down, to “heal a wound of the head of the beast” [Apocalypse 13], to bring a sunset to the light of day [“evening came…, evening came, ….evening came…” Genesis], to cruelly pull down our Savior wounded by the effects of sinful men upon Himself (though He Himself without sin) crashing to the ground under the weight of our sins.

“And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy. ... [3] And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death: and his death's wound was healed. And all the earth was in admiration after the beast.”

That is, with each manifestation of Redemptive activity of God in human history, slaying an age of sin, or mortally wounding a head of the beast, humanity, under the weight of Original Sin, falls again, the wound is healed. The Christ falls carrying the cross. The sun sets into darkness once again. This is the story of Redemption.

The Fall and Noah’s day of Wickedness, the Flood

The Tower of Babel, the Confounding and formation of Hebrew People

Egypt, the Exodus

The Wickedness of the Jews prior to Babylon, their repentance in the Exile…

Does God ordain the sinful stages, or sin at all? Absolutely not! God only ALLOWS it. Yet, He has FORESEEN that the weight of an initial fall of man will continually tend to drag him down. God does not ordain it. God does not “cause” it directly, God does not DESIRE it, God only FOREES it and ALLOWS it. YET, He foresees that it will CONSTANTLY reemerge because not only of free will, but fallen free will!

The Predestined Historical Conditions of Christ’s Time

The Predestined Condition of the Jews

Hence, can we not imagine that if it is true that God, in His Infinite foreknowledge, knew that humanity could not efficaciously receive Him Incarnate immediately in human history but that, therefore, a preparatory covenant of pictures would need to be instituted to prepare for it, is it not highly likely that, precisely because of this fallen nature that effectively inevitably reemerges in history, the same predestined people would, dare we say, almost inevitably cling to the mere material pictures as ends unto themselves instead as what merely POINT to what really matters when the unveiling comes? In other words, was it not inevitable that the Jews, as a near whole, would NOT be able to accept the fulfillment of the Christ when He came? Was it not BOUND to happen, BECAUSE of the fallen nature as a force in human history?

The Predestined Condition of the Gentiles

And this misunderstanding of the prefiguring People was the first factor in the murder of Christ. The other, as we have seen, was the two great lies of the fall--Anti-Baptism, or anti-Decalogue, and anti-Marriage, or the Whore, Materialism—two lies as FRIENDS, that were formerly enemies. And how might be view that in “predestined history”?

Pagan Rome: the Two Lies “Friends”

Behold, the Roman Empire had wed the anti-Decalogue to the Whore. How? Again, a seeming, illusory utopia, when the Whore rides the Beast: On the one hand, the world, in the spirit of the beast, was godless, no Decalogue. They are all pagans, polytheists, and with Emperors self-deifying. Their beliefs, are the antithesis of the truths of God, of true religion. And they are all wicked: drunken, brute, hedonistic, fornicating, in orgies, sodomy, infanticide, abortion, gluttony, theft. Yet the Empire, in majestic materialistic glory, flourishes despite the anti-Decalogue: the glories of Rome’s accomplishments shine forth: magnificent temples and edifices, engineering feats of roads, bridges, viaducts, military might, the splendor of images of gods, tapestries, coliseums and the games. It is the best of both worlds: you can do what you please, but peace and prosperity will still remain by our power and grandeur. “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with it?” – Apocalypse 13.

Post -Babel History: the Second Lie Restrained: the Two Lies “Enemies”

And yet, before this apex of ancient history, the two lies were not yet friends but still enemies?

How? Remember, the two lies arise from the first primordial man: Noah’s Day, Anti-Baptism, and the Tower of Babel, Anti-Marriage. Each of these was a wound to human pride to “restrain” the full effects of Babel, which would be Rome:

The Covenant with Noah

56 After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the "nations", in other words, towards men grouped "in their lands, each with [its] own language, by their families, in their nations".9

57 This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity10 united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel.11 But, because of sin, both polytheism and the idolatry of the nation and of its rulers constantly threaten this provisional economy with the perversion of paganism.12 - CCC

Here, the parable of the Tower and the armies of 10,000 and 20,000 illustrates perfectly the mystery, as with a previous article. Let us explore it.

In the beginning, God “wounds Anti-Baptism”, or anti-Decalogue, with a Baptism, the Flood. Sin and scoff is washed away, and the world begins anew.

Then Anti-Marriage emerges, materialism: the exaltation of the Creation above the Creator, the human race united not in love of God and neighbor but in, as above in the CCC reference, perverse unity aimed at worldly utopia and physical grandeur, blasphemously asserted in place of God as the ultimate fulfillment of man; “Let us build a tower to heaven.”

As we have seen at previous times in writing, this condition, in antiquity, cannot be left to its own devices without a Redemptive action, else the Incarnation can be of no avail. For, once again, we recall God must send preparatory covenant before the ultimate covenant in Christ. Yet, since humanity, at Babel, is fixated in apocalyptic infatuation with this world, there must be a distraction, or a restraint, like the same CCC reference above.

The division of man into competing nations and tongues solves the conundrum. But, like the fallen nature, Babel is every strived for. Hence, one nation will rise up, conquer lesser nations, and continue to swallow lesser ones, until a world power has emerged, Babel renewed. That is, Luke 14: 28-:

For which of you having a mind to build a tower, doth not first sit down, and reckon the charges that are necessary, whether he have wherewithal to finish it: [29] Lest, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that see it begin to mock him, [30] Saying: This man began to build, and was not able to finish. [31] Or what king, about to go to make war against another king, doth not first sit down, and think whether he be able, with ten thousand, to meet him that, with twenty thousand, cometh against him? [32] Or else, whilst the other is yet afar off, sending an embassy, he desireth conditions of peace. [33] So likewise every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple.

The parallel mystery is here: humanity tries to build the tower of babel, in order that this world might satiate its needs and wants. It can never do so. This world alone cannot fulfill, only the next, in God. The tower, no matter how high, will never be enough, never enough to satisfy, never enough to secure peace and prosperity.

God, then, confounding humanity at Babel, leaves them in a state of disarray, nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, hence, “think whether he be able, with ten thousand, to meet him that, with twenty thousand, cometh against him?” Humanity, then, by the self-same lies that continue to arise [a mortally wounded head of the beast is healed], is ever tending toward trying to recover Babel. And this, by larger kingdoms progressively swallowing smaller ones (10,000 against 20,000). But until Babel is recovered, the war of man against himself, a supreme manifestation of the antitheses of the Decalogue, restrains Babel, and so is its enemy.

We now have a theology to understand the “predestined” condition of the world at the time of Christ: in the one hand, the Jews, after having reached spiritual maturity in Old Covenant, yet in condition to, effectively unavoidably, reject the fulfillment when it comes, clinging to the mere physical pictures of Old, are conjoined with a Gentile world that for centuries, even while the Jews were journeying in ever progressing maturity of the Old Covenant, was trying to recover Babel and that, now, at the apex, has, by Divine Providence, reattained Babel, it is now at the tower. Anti-Baptism and Anti-Marriage, having been enemies for so long, are now friends again; and Pilate and Herod, who were for so long enemies, are now friends, just in time for the Passion! Unfathomable!