“The Acts of Pilate, as they were called, seemed to have contained an account not only of the circumstances of the crucifixion, and the grounds upon which the Roman Governor regarded himself as justified in passing sentence of death upon the accused, but also the miracles of Christ, his cures performed upon the lame, the blind, the dumb; his cleansing of lepers, and his raising of the dead.

“If this valuable direct testimony had been preserved to us, continues Rawlinson, ‘it would scarcely have been necessary to enter on the consideration of those indirect proofs of the historical truth of the New Testament narrative that arises from the incidental allusions to the civil history of the times.’”

Because of the length of the Report, we will include in this issue only the “Death Warrant” of Christ, reserving Pontius Pilate’s Report to Caesar for the next issue.

Note.—The Sentence below is a translation from a Hebrew inscription on a copperplate tablet, first discovered in A. D. 1200, while excavating for antiquities at Awuil, the site of the ancient Amerium, whose ruins are still to be seen near St. Vittorino, 53 miles northeast of Rome. It was subsequently brought into prominence by Dominique Vivant Denon, the great French archaeologist—born at Chalon-sur-Saone, 1747, died at Paris, 1825. On the reverse side of the tablet is inscribed: “A like plate is sent to each of the tribes.”

“In the year seventeen of the empire of Tiberius Caesar, and the 24th of March, the city of the Holy Jerusalem; Annas and Caiaphas being priests, sacrificators of the people of God, I, Pontius Pilate, governor of the praetory, condemn Jesus of Nazareth to die on the cross between two thieves—the great and notorious of the people saying—”