Truly he has died a most ignominious death, whose own hand has not spared him. He was therefore fastened to a great block of stone and sunk in the river Tiber. But wicked and unclean spirits, rejoicing in his wicked and unclean body, all moved about in the water, and caused in the air dreadful lightning and tempests, thunder and hail, so that all were seized with horrible fear. On which account the Romans dragged him out of the river Tiber, bore him away in derision to Vienne, and sunk him in the river Rhone. For Vienne means as it were, Way of Gehenna, because it was then a place of cursing. And evil spirits were there and did the same things.[1]
Those men, therefore, not enduring to be so harassed by demons, removed the vessel of cursing from them and sent it to be buried in the territory of Losania. But when they were troubled exceedingly by the aforesaid vexations, they put it away from them and sunk it in a certain pool surrounded by mountains, where even yet, according to the account of some, sundry diabolical contrivances are said to issue forth.[2]
- ↑ Various legends connecting Pilate with the neighbourhood of Vienne are still current on the banks of the Rhone, but I do not think it needful to repeat them here. The explanation of Vienne in the text is simply ridiculous.
- ↑ By Losania we must understand the Swiss canton of Lucerne, at some distance to the South of which is a mountain bearing the name of Pilate, and a small lake also called after him. The people of the country have plenty of legends relating to poor Pilate, who, it seems, could rest neither alive nor dead. I fancy that the story I have here translated is a mediæval Latin concoction of elements of various dates. The Latin name of Lucerne is properly Luceria.
