Jesus and Christ - стр. 21

Now we are going to the world where the events that took place in our world at the time, which later we defined as the beginning of a new era, are taking place. And there we will try to make adjustments, taking into account our earthly history, so that this, reflected in other worlds, will affect the course of events in our world and prevent the prediction – a certain event, which we call the apocalypse.

Guided by the principle "informed means armed", let us take into account some peculiarities: the first and very important note – in that era, punishment in the form of death penalty was imposed for a small number of crimes, mostly crucifixion was sentenced for political crimes. And non-recognition of the religious cult of the emperor was equated to a conspiracy to overthrow the emperor, an attempt on his life or the lives of his officials. And the religious cult of the emperor's personality meant equating him with the divine essence. Accordingly, asserting oneself as a son of God, vicar of the deity on Earth and the like was an unprecedented insolence and insult to the emperor. As for the method of execution itself – crucifixion – the Romans used it frequently, in all metropolises of the Republic. At home, in their native lands, although they did not execute their citizens (to denote the highest caste), but the method of execution was widely used. Suffice it to recall the three great slave revolts. Let me remind: only supporters of Spartacus were executed more than 6 thousand by the method of nailing to the cross. In Judea no less were crucified in the aggregate. For example, in 4 B.C. the Roman commander Varus crucified 2 thousand Jews. In the times leading up to and after the Gospel events, the Romans carried out many mass crucifixions in the territories where the theater of these events took place, as the historian Josephus Flavius testifies. However, according to the Gospel, Pilate put the fate of Jesus in the hands of the crowd, which demanded his crucifixion, accusing him of heresy. According to the laws of Judea, the punishment for such a crime was stoning. Crucifixion was a Roman penalty for sedition, not for religious beliefs.

That is, Pilate was trying to implement a kind of popular trial or jury trial. But he executed according to Roman rules. That is, he doubted the reality of the threat to Jesus from the high priests. He suspected that there was a playfulness, a spectacle, which always accompanies the struggle for power. He also realized that the representatives of the religious authorities wanted to have Jesus punished by the representative of Rome in order to show the people the unanimity of the imperial power.