Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilate (died after 36 ce) was a Roman prefect (governor) of Judaea (26–36 ce) under the emperor Tiberius who presided at the final trial of Jesus and gave the order for his crucifixion.

Historical and traditional accounts of the life of Pontius Pilate

According to the traditional account of his life, Pilate was a Roman equestrian (knight) of the Samnite clan of the Pontii (hence his name Pontius). He was appointed prefect of Judaea through the intervention of Sejanus, a favorite of the Roman emperor Tiberius. (That his title was prefect is confirmed by an inscription from Caesarea in ancient Palestine.)

Protected by Sejanus, Pilate incurred the enmity of Jews in Roman-occupied Palestine by insulting their religious sensibilities, as when he hung worship images of the emperor throughout Jerusalem and had coins bearing Roman religious symbols minted. After Sejanus’s fall (31 ce), Pilate was exposed to sharper criticism from certain Jews, who may have capitalized on his vulnerability to obtain a legal death sentence on Jesus (John 19:12). The Samaritans reported Pilate to Vitellius, legate of Syria, after he attacked them on Mount Gerizim (36 ce). He was then ordered back to Rome to stand trial for cruelty and oppression, particularly on the charge that he had executed men without proper trial. According to Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, Pilate killed himself on orders from the emperor Caligula.

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Pilate in the New Testament

Judgments of the man himself must be made inferentially, almost entirely on the basis of later Jewish and Christian writings, chiefly those of Josephus and the New Testament. Josephus’s references appear to be consistent. They seem to picture a headstrong strict authoritarian Roman leader who, although both rational and practical, never knew how far he should go in a given case. He provoked both Jews and Samaritans to riot. Josephus tells us that “in order to abolish Jewish laws,” and with the intent of diminishing privileges Jews had hitherto enjoyed, Pilate ordered his troops to encamp in Jerusalem and sent them into the city with images of the emperor attached to their ensigns. When Jewish representatives demonstrated in Caesarea, Pilate’s city of residence, he threatened them with death unless they desisted, but, when they showed their readiness to die, he ordered the images of the emperor removed. Josephus states his inferential judgment that Pilate “was deeply affected with their firm resolution,” suggesting his own strength of character.

The New Testament suggests that Pilate had a weak, vacillating personality. Would the mob be just as happy if he released Barabbas instead of Jesus on the feast day (Mark 15:6 ff.)? Pilate weakly capitulates. His wife sends him word of a revelatory dream she has had about Jesus and urges him to “have nothing to do with that innocent man” (Matthew 27:19), and Pilate abdicates his responsibility to the emperor. In John (19:7–11), Pilate is depicted as having accepted the Christian interpretation of the meaning of Jesus, and he rejects Jewish leaders’ reminder that Jesus has merely said that he is “the king of the Jews” (19:21). On the other hand, John’s picture of Pilate delivering judgment from a tribunal in front of the prefect’s mansion fits typical Roman procedure. Clearly, as an index to the character and personality of Pilate, the New Testament is devastating, but it is preoccupied with concerns of the nascent Christian communities, increasingly making their way among the Gentiles and eager to avoid giving offense to Roman authorities.

An early church tradition that had taken a favorable opinion of Pilate persisted in some churches into the early 21st century. He and his wife—unnamed in the New Testament but identified in the apocrypha as Procla or Procula—are venerated in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church; their feast day is June 25. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the feast of St. Claudia Procula (as Pilate’s wife is known) is observed on October 27.