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Pontius Pilate (Latin Pontius Pilatus) was the
Roman Governor|governor of the small Roman
Empire|Roman Roman province|province of Judea from
Anno Domini|AD 26 until around AD 36, although
Tacitus believed him to be the
Promagistrate|procurator of that province.
According to the Christianity|Christian Gospels,
he presided at the trial of Jesus and gave the
order for his crucifixion. His biographical
details before and after his appointment to Judea
are unknown, but have been supplied by legend,
which included the detail that his wife's name was
Saint Procula|Procula; she is canonized as a saint
in Orthodox Christianity.

==Biblical role==

Pilate is famous primarily as a crucial character
in the New Testament account of Jesus, but most of
our knowledge of him comes from the account of the
Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (for more
detail, see the entry Josephus on Jesus).

Pilate is said to have displayed a serious lack of
empathy for Jewish sensibilities, for example by
displaying Aquila (Roman)|Roman battle standards.
The story is worth quoting:

:On one occasion, when the soldiers under his
command came to Jerusalem, he caused them to bring
with them their ensigns, upon which were the usual
images of the emperor. The ensigns were brought in
privily by night, but their presence was soon
discovered. Immediately multitudes of excited Jews
hastened to Caesarea Palaestina|Caesarea to
petition him for the removal of the obnoxious
ensigns. For five days he refused to hear them,
but on the sixth he took his place on the judgment
seat, and when the Jews were admitted he had them
surrounded with soldiers and threatened them with
instant death unless they ceased to trouble him
with the matter. The Jews thereupon flung
themselves on the ground and bared their necks,
declaring that they preferred death to the
violation of their laws. Pilate, unwilling to slay
so many, yielded the point and removed the
ensigns.
::—Josephus, Jewish War 2.169-174;
Antiquities of the Jews 18.55-59

Josephus does not name the leader of this act of
nonviolent resistance, but he goes on to mention
that Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus.
Benjamin Urrutia believes that the anonymous
leader was probably Jesus.

Philo of Alexandria tells us that on one other
occasion he dedicated some gilt shields in the
palace of Herod in honor of the emperor. On these
shields there was no representation of any
forbidden thing, but simply an inscription of the
name of the donor and of him in whose honor they
were set up. The Jews petitioned him to have them
removed; when he refused, they appealed to
Tiberius, who sent an order that they should be
removed to Caesarea. (Philo, Legatio ad Caium, 38)

He further erred by appropriating Temple in
Jerusalem|Temple funds for the construction of an
aqueduct:

:At another time he used the sacred treasure of
the temple, called corban (qorban), to pay for
bringing water into Jerusalem by an aqueduct. A
crowd came together and clamored against him; but
he had caused soldiers dressed as civilians to
mingle with the multitude, and at a given signal
they fell upon the rioters and beat them so
severely with staves that the riot was quelled.
::—Josephus, Jewish War 2.175-177;
Antiquities 18.60-62.

Pilate may possibly have responded so harshly to
the unrest because, due to political machinations,
the powerful neighboring Roman province of Syria
was unable to provide him military support. 

In approximately AD 36, Pilate used arrests and
executions to quash a Samaritan religious
uprising. After complaints to the Roman legate of
Syria, Pilate was recalled to Rome; many readers
are surprised to find that his suicide is merely
part of the legend. 

In contrast, Pilate's actual history was
supplemented in 1961, when a block of limestone
was found in the Roman theatre at Caesarea
Palaestina|Caesarea, the capital of the province
of Judea, bearing a damaged dedication by Pilate
of a Tiberieum. This dedication states that he was
prefectus (usually seen as praefectus), that is,
governor, of Judea. The word Tiberieum is
otherwise unknown: some scholars speculate that it
was some kind of structure, perhaps a temple,
built to honor the emperor Tiberius. This
inscription is currently in the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem.

===Pilate in the Gospels===

According to the New Testament, Jesus was brought
to Pilate by the Jewish authorities in Jersusalem
after they had arrested him, questioned him, and
received answers from him that they considered
blasphemous.

Pilate's main question to Jesus was whether he
considered himself to be the "king of the Jews".

In the continuing interrogation by Pilate, related
in the Gospel of John, Jesus states that he "came
into the world ... to bear witness to the truth;
and all who are on the side of truth listen to my
voice", to which Pilate replies, "What is truth?"
Pilate then offers the Jews the choice of a
prisoner to release, said to be a Passover
tradition, and they choose a murderer named
Barabbas over Jesus. John 18 makes it apparent
that Pilate could not have cared less about the
conflict between Jesus and the priests, or about
executing Jesus; he certainly does not seem to see
Jesus' "kingdom" as any sort of a threat to Roman
Empire|Rome.

In the Gospel of Matthew, after condemning Jesus
to death, Pilate washes his hands with water in
front of the crowd, who had demanded that Jesus be
crucifixion|crucified, and says, "I am innocent of
this man's blood. It is your concern."
The story told by Josephus of the nonviolent
resistance to the battle standards does not
mention who was the leader of the Jewish people in
this endeavor, but the crucifixion of Jesus is
mentioned almost immediately afterwards,
suggesting that the leader in question was Jesus
himself.

===The question of responsibility for Jesus'
death===
In all New Testament accounts, Pilate hesitates to
condemn Jesus until the crowd insists. Some have
suggested that this may have been an effort by
early Christian polemicists to curry favor with
Rome by placing the blame for Jesus' execution on
the Jews, and that it was part of the process by
which Pauline Christians marginalized the
still-observant Christian Jews of the Levant
(Ebionites). See article "Barabbas" for the
evidence that "Jesus Barabbas" - Yeshua Bar Abba -
was another name for Jesus of Nazareth himself.
Later, after state-sponsored persecution of
Christians was stopped, the Nicene Creed adopted
in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea convoked by
the Emperor himself, stated unambiguously that
Jesus "was crucified under Pontius Pilate," for
Christian Rome was fully prepared to criticize
even recent actions of pagan Rome. However, the
main reason for the inclusion was to state the
belief in Jesus as a real man living in a precise
moment and place.

====Western traditions: the guilty Pilate====

sect-stub

====Eastern traditions: the exonerated Pilate====

See the entry Barabbas.

==Pilate in mythology==

Little enough is still known about Pilate, but
mythology has filled the gap. A body of fiction
built up around the dramatic figure of Pontius
Pilate, about whom the Christian faithful hungered
to learn more than the canonical gospels revealed.
Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiae book ii: 7), quotes
some early apocryphal accounts that he does not
name, which already relate that Pilate fell under
misfortunes in the reign of Caligula (37 - 41
A.D.), was exiled to Gaul and eventually committed
suicide there, in Vienne. Other details come from
less respectable sources. His body, says the Mors
Pilati ('Death of Pilate') was thrown first into
the Tiber, but the waters were so disturbed by
evil spirits that the body was taken to Vienne and
sunk in the Rhone: a monument at Vienne, called
Pilate's tomb, is still to be seen. As the waters
of the Rhone likewise rejected Pilate's corpse, it
was again removed and sunk in the lake at
Lausanne. Its final disposition was in a deep and
lonely mountain tarn, which, according to later
tradition, was on a mountain, still called Mount
Pilatus|Pilatus (actually pileatus or
'cloud-capped'), overlooking Lucerne. Every Good
Friday the body re-emerges from the waters and
washes its hands.  There are many other legends
about Pilate in the folklore of Germany, and his
death was (unusually) dramatized in a medieval
mystery play cycle from Cornwall, the Cornish
Ordinalia.

Pilate's role in the events leading to the
crucifixion lent themselves to melodrama, even
tragedy, and Pilate often has a role in medieval
mystery plays.

In the Coptic Orthodox Church (predominantly
African), Pontius Pilate is commemorated as a
saint. According to their tradition, he secretly
converted to Christianity sometime after the death
of Jesus Christ, through the influence of his wife
Claudia. Pilate and Claudia are both commemorated
as saints on June 25. In the Eastern Orthodox
Church, Claudia is commemorated as a saint, but
not Pilate, because in the Gospel accounts Claudia
urged Pilate to have nothing to do with Jesus. In
some Eastern Orthodox traditions, Pilate committed
suicide out of remorse for having sentenced Jesus
to death.

===Acts of Pilate===

The 4th century forgery that is called the Acts of
Pilate presents itself in a preface (missing in
some mss) as derived from the official acts
preserved in the praetorium at Jerusalem. Though
the alleged Hebrew original of the document is
attributed to Nicodemus, the title Gospel of
Nicodemus for this fictional account is even later
in origin. Nothing in the text suggests that it is
in fact a translation from Hebrew. 

This forgery gained wide credit in the Middle
Ages, and has considerably affected the legends
surrounding the events of the crucifixion, which,
taken together, are called the Passion.  Its
popularity is attested by the number of languages
in which it exists, each of these being
represented by two or more variant 'editions':
Greek (the original), Coptic, Armenian and Latin
versions. The Latin versions were printed several
times in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

One class of the Latin manuscripts contain as an
appendix or continuation, the Cura Sanitatis
Tiberii, the oldest form of the  Veronica legend.
There is more detail at the entry Saint Veronica.

The Acta Pilati consist of three sections, whose
styles reveal three authors, writing at three
different times.

The first section (i-xi) contains a fanciful and
dramatic circumstantial account of the trial of
Jesus, based upon Luke, xxiii. 

The second part (xii-xvi) regards the
Resurrection. An appendix, detailing the Descensus
ad Infernos was added to the Greek text. This
"Harrowing of Hell" has chiefly flourished in
Latin, and was translated into many European
versions. It doesn't exist in the eastern
versions, Syriac and Armenian, that derive
directly from Greek versions.  In it, Leucius and
Charinus, the two souls raised from the dead after
the Crucifixion, relate to the Sanhedrin the
circumstances of Christ's  descent to Limbo.
(Leucius Charinus is the traditional name to which
many late apocryphal Acta of Apostles is
attached.) 

The well-informed Eusebius (325), although he
mentions an Acta Pilati that had been referred to
by Justin and Tertullian and other pseudo-Acts of
this kind, shows no acquaintance with this work. 
Almost surely it is of later origin, and scholars
agree in assigning it to the middle of the 4th
century.  Epiphanius refers to an Acta Pilati
similar to this, as early as 376, but there are
indications that the current Greek text, the
earliest extant form, is a revision of an earlier
one.

===Minor Pilate literature===

The minor legendary material is as deeply divided
as the rest: in the Coptic Orthodox Church Pilate
is a Christian convert and a saint, while in other
traditions he is a lost soul condemned to restless
wandering in the West.

There is a forged letter reporting on the
crucifixion, purporting to have been sent by
Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Claudius, embodied
in the pseudepigraphic forgery known as the Acts
of Peter and Paul, of which the Catholic
Encyclopedia  states, "This composition is clearly
apocryphal though unexpectedly brief and
restrained." There is no internal relation between
this feigned letter and the 4th century Acts of
Pilate (Acta Pilati).     

This Epistle or Report of Pilate is also inserted
into the Pseudo-Marcellus Passion of Peter and
Paul. We thus have it in both Greek and Latin
versions.

The Mors Pilati ("Death of Pilate") legend is a
Latin tradition, thus treating Pilate as a
monster, not a saint; it is attached usually to
the more sympathetic Gospel of Nicodemus of Greek
origin. The narrative of the Mors Pilati set of
manuscripts is set in motion by an illness of
Tiberius, who sends Volusanius to Judea to fetch
the Christ for a cure. In Judea Pilate covers for
the fact that Christ has been crucified, and asks
for a delay. But Volusanius encounters Saint
Veronica|Veronica who informs him of the truth but
sends him back to Rome with her Saint
Veronica|veronica of Christ's face on her
kerchief, which heals Tiberius. Tiberius then
calls for Pontius Pilate, but when Pilate appears,
he is wearing the seamless robe of the Christ and
Tiberius' heart is softened, but only until Pilate
is induced to doff the garment, whereupon he is
treated to a ghastly execution. His body, when
thrown into the Tiber, however, raises such storm
demons that it is sent to Vienne (Gehenna|via
gehennae) in France and thrown to the Rhone. That
river's spirits reject it too, and the body is
driven east into "Losania," where it is plunged in
the bay of the lake near Lucerne, near Mont
Pilatus— originally Mons Pileatus or
"cloud-capped" as John Ruskin pointed out in
Modern Painters—  whence the uncorrupting
corpse rises every Good Friday to sit on the bank
and wash unavailing hands.

This version combined with anecdotes of Pilate's
wicked early life were incorporated in Jacobus de
Voragine's Golden Legend, which ensured a wide
circulation for it in the later Middle Ages. 

In the Cornish cycle of mystery plays the "death
of Pilate" forms a dramatic scene in the
Resurrexio Domini cycle.

More of Pilate's fictional correspondence is found
in the minor Pilate apocrypha, the Anaphora Pilati
('Relation of Pilate,'), an 'Epistle of Herod to
Pilate,' and an 'Epistle of Pilate to Herod,'
spurious texts that are no older than the fifth
century.

The Netherlands|Dutch writer Simon Vestdijk wrote
a novel (1938) about the life of Pilate after the
crucifixion: De nadagen van Pilatus (The last days
of Pilate). 

*http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/celtica/c23/
c23-211.pdf Brian Murdoch, "The Mors Pilati in the
Cornish Resurrexio Domini

==The role of Pilate in fiction==
Plays and movies dealing with life of Jesus Christ
often include the character of Pontius Pilate due
to the central role he played in the final days of
Christ's life.  Pilate has been interpreted in a
number of different ways.  At times he was
portrayed as a weak and harried bureaucrat.  Some
portrayals showed Pilate as a hard governor who
ruled with an iron fist.

Pontius Pilate is portrayed in the classic work of
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita.

Notable figures who have played Pontius Pilate in
various dramas include Telly Savalas (The Greatest
Story Ever Told), Rod Steiger (Jesus of Nazareth
(movie)|Jesus of Nazareth), and Frank Thring
(Ben-Hur (1959 film)|Ben-Hur).  In the Mel Gibson
film The Passion of the Christ Pontius Pilate was
portrayed by the Bulgarian actor Hristo Naumov
Shopov. In Martin Scorsese's controversial The
Last Temptation of Christ, David Bowie portrayed a
somewhat sympathetic Pilate. A satire on Pilate
was played by Michael Palin in the Monty Python
film Life of Brian. In the film, he had an Elmer
Fudd style of talking, replacing "r" with "w".

In the summer of 2004, as part of its New Works
festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company debuted a
'work in progress' performance of a piece called
The Pilate Workshop. Inspired by the book Pontius
Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man by Ann
Wroe, the piece explores the life of Pontius
Pilate in the style of a mystery play. The
workshop was developed by RSC artistic director
Michael Boyd and ran for only five performances.

==External links==

* http://www.bible-history.com/empires/pilate.html
Pilate in history; the Tiberieum dedication block
* http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate01.htm
Pontius Pilate Texts and discussion of all sources

==References==

The references to Pilate, outside the New
Testament:
Josephus, Antiquities  18.35, 55-64, 85-89, 177; 
War 2.169-177;
Philo, Legatio ad Caium (Embassy to Gaius) 38; 
Tacitus, Annals (Tacitus)|Annals 15.44.