Explore "The Greatest Story Ever Told" by Fulton Oursler on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In tue dark and early chill of Friday, April 8, Pilate was waiting. Because of what was going on in the Hall of Hewn Stones, he had to remain up all night in his gloomy reception hall. He must be ready for the official hearing he would soon be called upon to give the Nazarene prisoner. By now the first and second sessions of the Sanhedrin had been held; messengers had been keeping well informed the brusque Spanish giant, called by the people Lord Pilate; reports of all the legal quibbling over small points while a life hung in the balance; he even knew about the insults and mockery of those who stood in a sniggering and drunken ring around the prisoner during the intermission between the hearings.
Pilate felt a persecuted man himself. The Roman governor, a warrior and a most distinguished soldier, hated the mean fate that had sent him to rule a poor colony like Palestine. In the present turmoil he knew that while he was facing a local situation, it nevertheless had explosive political aspects, dangerous to his own interests.