St. Pontius Pilate

Yet another guest post from Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace.

Plenty of documentation exists to support the existence of Pontius Pilate, a certain Roman governor of Judea. He is mentioned in all four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and in the letter to Timothy. He is also mentioned in three important contemporaneous Jewish sources, such as Josephus’ The Wars of the Jews and Philo of Alexandria’s Legatio ad Gaium. Physical evidence of his existence was discovered at Caesarea Maritima in 1961 in the form of a stone indicating he was Prefect of Judea at the time of the Crucifixion. What else do we know about him?

Pontius Pilate was appointed to Judea in 26 AD during the rule of Emperor Tiberius, and seems to have worked hard at keeping his Jewish subjects reasonably content with Roman rule. He learned from the mistakes of his predecessors and did not impose Roman religious symbols in Jewish religious spaces, built an aqueduct (albeit with temple money), but eventually fell foul of Jewish sensibilities when he put down a Samaritan rebellion. He was recalled to Rome in 36 AD and disappears from the historical record. Tradition has him buried in Vienne, in modern day France.

All four Gospels describe Jesus’ appearance before Pilate, albeit with subtly different descriptions. John has the famous interchange ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’

All four Gospels also portray Pilate as absolving Jesus of guilt, but agreeing to crucify him to pacify the populace. Matthew has him washing his hands and saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”

This was enough for the Ethiopian Orthodox church to canonize him and his wife (who warned him that Jesus was an innocent man). The Greek Orthodox Church also canonized Pilate’s wife (although not her husband). Although she is anonymous in the Gospel, she is known as Saint Procula.

The Western world has been less generous. Most portrayals of Pilate show him a weak politician prepared to sacrifice an innocent life to maintain the status quo. Whether we should blame him for this is open to debate (especially since his role is so central to our celebration of Easter), but he has served as a perennial villain. Some have seen him as doing the devil’s bidding. As the Rolling Stones reminded us in Sympathy for the Devil, “I was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands, and sealed his fate.” As much of his biography is uncknown, he has been portrayed as a hard governor who ruled with an iron fist, or a sympathetic man who sees clearly how the story of Jesus will affect human history, or a mindless miltiary governor.