For centuries, there has been a debate over the existence of a historical Pilate.[citation needed]
The first physical evidence for his existence was discovered in 1961, when a block of limestone was found in the Roman theatre at Caesarea Palaestina, the capital of the province of Iudaea, bearing a damaged dedication by Pilate of a Tiberieum [5]. This dedication states that he was [...]ECTVS IUDA[...] (usually read as praefectus iudaeae), that is, prefect/governor of Iudaea. The early governors of Iudaea were of prefect rank, the later were of procurator rank, beginning with Cuspius Fadus in 44.
According to the canonical Christian Gospels, Pilate presided at the trial of Jesus and, despite stating that he personally found him not guilty of a crime meriting death, handed him over to crucifixion. Pilate is thus a pivotal character in the New Testament accounts of Jesus.
According to the New Testament, Jesus was brought to Pilate by the Sanhedrin, who had arrested Jesus, and questioned him themselves. The Sanhedrin had, according to the Gospels, only been given answers by Jesus that they considered blasphemous, and Pilate's main question to Jesus was whether he considered himself to be the King of the Jews, and thus a political threat.
Unlike the synoptic gospels, the Gospel of John states that Jesus said to Pilate that he is a king and 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 famously replies, What is truth?. Mark 15:2 in the NIV translation states: ""Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate. "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied." However, that is a debatable translation. The KJV has Jesus' reply as: "Thou sayest it", the NRSV has: "You say so", the Jesus Seminar's Scholars Version has: "If you say so."
The Gospel of Luke also reports that such questions were asked of Jesus, in Luke's case it being the priests that repeatedly accuse him, though Luke states that Jesus remained silent to such inquisition, causing Pilate to hand Jesus over to the jurisdiction (Galilee) of Herod Antipas. Although initially excited at meeting Jesus, about whom he had heard, Luke states that Herod ended up mocking Jesus, and so sent him back to Pilate. This intermediate episode with Herod is not reported by the other Gospels, which appear to present a continuous and singular trial in front of Pilate.
The Synoptic Gospels and John then state that it had been a tradition of the Jews to release a prisoner at the time of the Passover. Pilate offers them the choice of an insurrectionist named Barabbas or Jesus, somewhat confusing because Barabbas had the full name Jesus Barabbas, and Barabbas (bar-Abbas) means Son of the Father, so the crowd had been given the choice of Jesus Son of the Father or Jesus. The crowd state that they wish to save Barabbas (i.e. Jesus Son of the Father). According to the Synoptics, Pilate is aware that the priests had handed Jesus over because they considered him a threat, but Pilate himself does not feel that Jesus is any threat to the Roman Empire, and, upholding a Roman tradition of sparing the subjugated, asserts that Jesus is innocent of the charges.
Pilate is forced to condemn Jesus to crucifixion, due to the pressure of the crowd, who according to the Synoptics had been coached to shout against Jesus by the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Gospel of Matthew adds that before condemning Jesus to death, Pilate washes his hands with water in front of the crowd, saying I am innocent of this man's blood; you will see.
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. Yet Pilate's ability to be swayed by the crowd and his subsequent unjust decision to execute the innocent man hardly seem complimentary of Rome.
Roman magistrates had wide discretion in executing their tasks, and some readers question whether Pilate would have been so captive to the demands of the crowd (Miller 49-50). Summarily executing someone to calm the situation would however have been a tool a Roman governor could have used, and Pilate's reputation for cruelty and violence in secular accounts of the era makes it quite plausible he would have had no hesitation in using this tool.
With the Edict of Milan in AD 313 the state-sponsored persecution of Christians came to an end, and Christianity became officially tolerated as one of the religions of the Roman Empire. Afterward, in AD 325 the First Ecumencial Council at Nicaea promulgated a creed which was amended at the subsequent First Council of Constantinople in 381. The Nicene Creed, incorporated for the first time the clause was crucified under Pontius Pilate (which had already been long established in the Old Roman Symbol, an ancient form of the Apostles’ Creed dating as far back as the 2nd century AD) in a creed that was intended to be authoritative for all Christians in the Roman Empire. The main reason for this clause was to state the belief in Jesus as a real person, living in a precise moment and place, i.e. a Historical Jesus. It is less clear that it was intended to implicate Pilate in Jesus' death. In modern times, Western traditions regard Pilate as guilty, but those of Eastern Orthodoxy argue that he was clearly exonerated, and did all that he could to release Jesus.
Pilate in the Apocrypha
Little enough is 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 (AD 37 - 41), 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 Rhône: 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. The sequence was a simple way to harmonize conflicting local traditions.
The corpse's final disposition was in a deep and lonely mountain tarn, which, according to later tradition, was on a mountain, still called 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, particularly about his birth according to which Pilate was born in the Franconian city of Forchheim or the small village of Hausen only 5 km away from it. 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 Eastern Orthodox Church, Claudia Procula 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
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The 4th century apocryphal text 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 only appeared in mediaeval times, after the document had been substantially elaborated. Nothing in the text suggests that it is in fact a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic.
This text 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.
The Acts of Pilate consist of three sections, whose styles reveal three authors, writing at three different times.
- The first section (1-11) contains a fanciful and dramatic circumstantial account of the trial of Jesus, based upon Luke 23.
- The second part (12-16) regards the Resurrection.
- An appendix, detailing the Descensus ad Infernos was added to the Greek text. This legend of a 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
There is a pseudepigrapha letter reporting on the crucifixion, purporting to have been sent by Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Claudius, embodied in the pseudepigrapha 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 Passio sanctorum Petri et Pauli ("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 Veronica who informs him of the truth but sends him back to Rome with her 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 (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.
Other legendary versions of Pilate death exist: Antoine de la Sale, reported from a travel in Central Italy on some local traditions asserting that after the death the body of Pontius Pilate was driven until a little lake near Vettore Peak, (2478 mt. in Sibillini Mounts ) and plunged in. The lake, today, is still named (in Italian) Lago di Pilato.
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 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).
Veneration
The Ethiopian Church recognized Pilate as a saint in the sixth century, based on the account in the Acts of Pilate.[6]
Pilate in later 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. Authors have also found reason to make Pilate a main character and fill in unknown details of his life. Pilate has been interpreted in a number of different ways. At times he was portrayed as a weak and harried bureaucrat. Some portrayals show Pilate as a hard governor who ruled with an iron fist. Also, some authors have portrayed Pilate as a man who sees clearly how the story of Jesus will affect human history. Other writers have portrayed a Pilate oblivious to the significance of the Galilean thaumaturgist he condemns to death.
In the Vestibule of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy, a figure is seen "who made the great refusal." This is interpreted to be either Pontius Pilate, or Pope Celestine V.
A ruthless, but human and complex, Pontius Pilate is portrayed in the classic work of Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita. In it, he exemplifies the statement "Cowardice is the worst of vices" and, thus, serves a model, in an allegorical interpretation of the work, of all the people who "washed their hands" by silently or actively agreeing with the crimes of Joseph Stalin.
Pilate appears in two stories in Karel Čapek's collection Apocryphal Tales. In "Pilate's Evening", the weary governor wonders why Jesus' friends and relatives did not come to try and save him, and wishes that they had. "Pilate's Creed" features a dialogue between Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea. Their argument reflects the conflict between sceptical humanism (Pilate's famous "What is truth?") and religious certainty (Joseph's reply, "The truth in which I believe").
In The Flame and the Wind, a novel by John Blackburn, the aged Pilate is wracked by guilt over Jesus' death and directs his heir to find out if Jesus was really the son of God.
The imperial bureaucrat has retired to Sicily to become a gentleman farmer in the Anatole France short story The Procurator of Judea.
Notable figures who have played Pontius Pilate in various dramas include Telly Savalas (The Greatest Story Ever Told), Rod Steiger (Jesus of Nazareth), Hurd Hatfield (King of Kings) Frank Thring (Ben-Hur), Richard Boone (The Robe), and Gary Oldman (Jesus). 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.
In the Monty Python film Life of Brian, Michael Palin plays a comical Pilate who cannot pronounce the letter R and is a close friend of Roman legion commander Biggus Dickus. Barry Dennen played the harried, hesitant version of Pilate in both the Broadway and silver screen versions of Jesus Christ Superstar.
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.
Notes
- ^ Fortingall in Perthshire, Scotland; Tarraco (now Tarragona) in Spain, and Forchheim and its suburb Hausen in Germany have all developed local legends. The author of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 article noted that that Pontius suggested a Samnite origin—among the Pontii—and his cognomen Pileatus, if it derived from the pileus or cap of liberty, descent from a freedman
- ^ Administrative and military organization of Roman Palestine. Retrieved on 2006-05-08.
- ^ Josephus, Wars of the Jews 2.169-174; Antiquities of the Jews 18.55-59
- ^ Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18:85
- ^ 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.
- ^ Pontius Pilate from the Catholic Encyclopedia
External links
References
The references to Pilate, outside the New Testament: Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.35, 55-64, 85-89, 177; Jewish War 2.169-177; Philo, Legatio ad Gaium (Embassy to Gaius) 38; Tacitus, Annals 15.44.