- There are reports of formal Roman trials, such as most famously the trial of Gaius Verres that Cicero prosecuted, but these concern Romans citizens with rights of jus civile (with a presumption of innocence only introduced by Antoninus Pius in the second century CE). Jesus like most other Judeans was a peregrinus who only had rights of jus gentium and thus was subject to judicial discretion by the prefect or procurator. If the guilt in a capital offense was self-evident or admitted there could be summary justice with no trial at all. This distinction plays a role in the story of Paul in Jerusalem in Acts 22. The Roman tribune ordered that he be flogged but Paul asserts his rights of jus civile as a Roman citizen which eventually grants him a hearing before the emperor (ch. 25). He would have had none of those rights as a peregrinus. It was Jesus’ status as a peregrinus that made him subject to crucifixion as a form of execution. John Granger Cook (NTS, 2011) believes that the likely charge would have been seditio (sedition) or se turbulente gessere (causing disturbances), which were the typical crimes in Judea which called for crucifixion. There was often no formal trial needed for these; like the account of Jesus before Pilate it was more a matter of questioning by the Roman authorities to obtain a confession, but this was not necessary. Cook mentions many examples in his Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (Mohr Siebeck, 2014), but this one will do:
- “When it was told him that Eros, dioiketes in Egypt, had bought a quail which had defeated all others in fighting and was the undisputed champion, and that Eros had roasted this quail and eaten it, the emperor sent for him and examined him regarding the charge; and when the man admitted the fact, the emperor [Augustus] ordered him to be nailed to a ship’s mast” (p. 181)
- The passion narrative depicts Jesus as refusing to confess, with Pilate throwing his hands up declaring he is unable to find him guilty of any crime. This aspect of the narrative in my opinion probably does not reflect the historical Pilate. Philo (Legatio ad Gaium, 302) characterized Pilate’s executions (φόνους) as without trial (ἀκρίτους) and they happened one after the other (ἐπαλλήλους), i.e. this was Pilate’s general practice. Jesus would have already been charged with seditio, as an ἔνδειξις (a declaration made to public officials that forms the legal basis for arrest) would have been made prior to Jesus’ arrest. Jesus was not entitled to a trial to prove his innocence and Pilate is otherwise known in Josephus to have been very harsh on matters of seditions and tumults, and so may have summarily executed him without trial or even questioning, but it is likely there was questioning in order to uncover other co-conspirators and evidence to arrest others. The torture he endured may have been aimed less at mocking him and more towards these ends, if indeed the charge was sedition. There is a similar example in Josephus concerning the war in 67 CE: “For on a former occasion a man of Jotapata who had been taken prisoner had held out under every variety of torture, and without betraying to the enemy a word about the state of the town, even under the ordeal of fire, was finally crucified, meeting death with a smile” (BJ 3.321).