Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate[b] (Latin: Pontius Pilatus; Greek: Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, romanized: Póntios Pilátos) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of Jesus and ultimately ordered his crucifixion.[7] Pilate's importance in Christianity is underscored by his prominent place in both the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. Because the gospels portray Pilate as reluctant to execute Jesus, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church believes that Pilate became a Christian and venerates him as both a martyr and a saint, a belief which is historically shared by the Coptic Church,[8] with a feast day on 19 or 25 June, respectively.
"Pilate" redirects here. For other uses, see Pilate (disambiguation).
Pontius Pilate
Although Pilate is the best-attested governor of Judaea, few sources regarding his rule have survived. Nothing is known about his life before he became governor of Judaea, and nothing is known about the circumstances that led to his appointment to the governorship.[9] Coins that he minted have survived from Pilate's governorship, as well as a single inscription, the so-called Pilate stone. The Jewish historian Josephus, the philosopher Philo of Alexandria, and the Gospel of Luke all mention incidents of tension and violence between the Jewish population and Pilate's administration. Many of these incidents involve Pilate acting in ways that offended the religious sensibilities of the Jews. The Christian gospels record that Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus at some point during his time in office; Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus also record this information.
According to Josephus, Pilate was removed from office because he violently suppressed an armed Samaritan movement at Mount Gerizim. He was sent back to Rome by the legate of Syria to answer for this incident before Tiberius, but the emperor died before Pilate arrived in Rome.[10][11] Nothing is known about what happened to him after this event. On the basis of events which were documented by the second-century pagan philosopher Celsus and the Christian apologist Origen, most modern historians believe that Pilate simply retired after his dismissal.[12] Modern historians have differing assessments of Pilate as an effective ruler: while some believe that he was a particularly brutal and ineffective governor, others believe that his long time in office implies reasonable competence. According to one prominent post-World War II theory, Pilate's treatment of the Jews was motivated by antisemitism, but most contemporary historians do not accept this theory.[13]
In Late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Pilate became the focus of a large group of New Testament apocrypha expanding on his role in the gospels, the Pilate cycle. Attitudes split by region: in texts from the Eastern Roman Empire, Pilate was portrayed as a positive figure. He and his wife are portrayed as Christian converts and sometimes martyrs. In Western Christian texts, he was instead portrayed as a negative figure and villain, with traditions surrounding his death by suicide featuring prominently. Pilate was also the focus of numerous medieval legends, which invented a complete biography for him and portrayed him as villainous and cowardly. Many of these legends connected Pilate's place of birth or death to particular locations around Western Europe, such as claiming his body was buried in a particularly dangerous or cursed local area.
Pilate has frequently been a subject of artistic representation. Medieval art frequently portrays scenes of Pilate and Jesus, often in the scene where he washes his hands of guilt for Jesus's death. In the art of the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Pilate is often depicted as a Jew. He plays an important role in medieval passion plays, where he is often a more prominent character than Jesus. His characterization in these plays varies greatly, from weak-willed and coerced into crucifying Jesus to being an evil person who demands Jesus's crucifixion. Modern authors who feature Pilate prominently in their works include Anatole France, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Chingiz Aitmatov, with a majority of modern treatments of Pilate dating to after the Second World War. Pilate has also frequently been portrayed in film.
Life and political career[edit]
Sources[edit]
Sources on Pontius Pilate are limited, although modern scholars know more about him than about other Roman governors of Judaea.[14] The most important sources are the Embassy to Gaius (after the year 41) by contemporary Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria,[15] the Jewish Wars (c. 74) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94) by the Jewish historian Josephus, as well as the four canonical Christian gospels, Mark (composed between 66 and 70), Luke (composed between 85 and 90), Matthew (composed between 85 and 90), and John (composed between 90 and 110);[14] he is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (composed between 85 and 90) and in the First Epistle to Timothy (written in the second half of the 1st century).
Ignatius of Antioch mentions him in his epistles to the Trallians, Magnesians, and Smyrnaeans[16] (composed between 105 and 110).[17] He is also briefly mentioned in Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus (early 2nd century), who simply says that he put Jesus to death.[14] Two additional chapters of Tacitus's Annals that might have mentioned Pilate have been lost.[18] The written sources provide only limited information, and each has its own biases, with the gospels in particular providing a theological rather than historical perspective on Pilate.[19] Besides these texts, dated coins in the name of emperor Tiberius minted during Pilate's governorship have survived, as well as a fragmentary short inscription that names Pilate, known as the Pilate Stone, the only inscription about a Roman governor of Judaea predating the Jewish–Roman wars to survive.[20][21][22]
Early life[edit]
The sources give no indication of Pilate's life prior to his becoming governor of Judaea.[23] His praenomen (first name) is unknown;[24] his cognomen Pilatus might mean "skilled with the javelin (pilum)", but it could also refer to the pileus or Phrygian cap, possibly indicating that one of Pilate's ancestors was a freedman.[25] If it means "skilled with the javelin", it is possible that Pilate won the cognomen for himself while serving in the Roman military;[23] it is also possible that his father acquired the cognomen through military skill.[26] In the Gospels of Mark and John, Pilate is only called by his cognomen, which Marie-Joseph Ollivier takes to mean that this was the name by which he was generally known in common speech.[27] The name Pontius suggests that an ancestor of his came from Samnium in central, southern Italy, and he may have belonged to the family of Gavius Pontius and Pontius Telesinus, two leaders of the Samnites in the third and first centuries BC, respectively, before their full incorporation to the Roman Republic.[28] Like all but one other governor of Judaea, Pilate was of the equestrian order, a middle rank of the Roman nobility.[29] As one of the attested Pontii, Pontius Aquila (an assassin of Julius Caesar) was a tribune of the plebs; the family must have originally been of plebeian origin and later became ennobled as equestrians.[28]
Pilate was likely educated, somewhat wealthy, and well-connected politically and socially.[30] He was probably married, but the only extant reference to his wife, in which she tells him not to interact with Jesus after she has had a disturbing dream (Matthew 27:19), is generally dismissed as legendary.[31] According to the cursus honorum established by Augustus for office holders of equestrian rank, Pilate would have had a military command before becoming prefect of Judaea; historian Alexander Demandt speculates that this could have been with a legion stationed at the Rhine or Danube.[32] Although it is therefore likely Pilate served in the military, it is nevertheless not certain.[33]