Jesus dead then? The
centurion answered for Joseph: yes, sir; he died to-day at the ninth
hour. I put a lance into him to make sure, and blood and water came from
his side. At which statement Joseph trembled, for he was acquiescing in
a lie; but he did not dare to contradict the centurion, who was speaking
in his favour for the sake of the money he had received, and in the hope
of receiving more for the lie that he told. On the cross at noon and
dead before the ninth hour! Pilate muttered: he could but bear the cross
for three hours! After the scourging we gave him, Sir, the centurion
answered, he was so weak and feeble that we had to pass on his cross to
the shoulders of a Jew named Simon of Cyrene, who carried it to the top
of the mount for him. If he be dead there is no reason for my not giving
up the body, Pilate answered. Which I shall bury, Joseph replied, in my
own sepulchre. What, Joseph, have you already ordered your sepulchre? To
my eyes you do not look more than five or six and twenty years, and to
my eyes you look as if you would live for sixty more years at least; but
you Jews never lose sight of death, as if it were the only good. We
Romans think so too sometimes, but not so frequently as you.

And then this tall, grave, handsome man, whose face reflected a friendly
but somewhat formal soul, took Joseph by the arm and walked with him up
and down the tessellated pavement, talking in his ear, showing himself
so well disposed towards him that the centurion congratulated himself
that he had accepted Joseph's bribe. If I had only known that you were a
close friend, Pilate said to Joseph--but if I had known as much it would
only have made things more difficult for me. A remarkable man. And now,
on thinking it over, it must have been that I was well disposed to him
for that reason, for there could have been no other; for what concern of
mine is it that you Jews quarrel and would tear each other to pieces for
your various beliefs in God and his angels? So Jesus was your friend?
Tell me about him; I would know more about him than I could learn from a
brief interview with him in the Praetorium, where I took him and talked
to him alone. A brief account I pray you give me. And Joseph, who was
thinking all the while that the Sabbath was approaching, gave to Pilate
some brief account of Jesus in Galilee.

So you too, Joseph, are susceptible to this belief that the bodies of
men are raised out of the earth into heaven?