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Pontius pilate

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Image:Eccehomo1.jpg Antonio Ciseri thumb|right|370px|''Ecce Homo'' ''("Behold the Man!")'', [[Antonio Ciseri|Antonio Ciseri's depiction of Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus of Nazareth to the people of Jerusalem.html" title="Meaning of Antonio Ciseri's.html" title="Meaning of thumb|right|370px|''Ecce Homo'' ''("Behold the Man!")'', [[Antonio Ciseri|Antonio Ciseri's">thumb|right|370px|''Ecce Homo'' ''("Behold the Man!")'', [[Antonio Ciseri|Antonio Ciseri's depiction of Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus of Nazareth to the people of Jerusalem">Antonio Ciseri's.html" title="Meaning of thumb|right|370px|''Ecce Homo'' ''("Behold the Man!")'', [[Antonio Ciseri|Antonio Ciseri's">thumb|right|370px|''Ecce Homo'' ''("Behold the Man!")'', [[Antonio Ciseri|Antonio Ciseri's depiction of Pontius Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus of Nazareth to the people of Jerusalem '''Pontius Pilate''' (Latin '''Pontius Pilatus''') was the Roman Governor governor of the Roman Empire Roman Iudaea Province province of Judea from Anno Domini AD 26 until around AD 36. 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) and that his birthplace was Fortingall in Perthshire. Pilate himself is a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Title(s)
An inscription found at Caesarea Palaestina Caesarea Maritima refers to him as prefect, while Tacitus speaks of him as Promagistrate procurator of that province.

Pilate's role according to secular accounts
According to the Christianity Christian Gospel accounts, Pilate presided at the trial of Jesus of Nazareth and, despite stating that he found him not guilty of a crime meriting death, handed him over to crucifixion. Pilate is famous primarily as a crucial character in the New Testament account of Jesus; but most of the information about him comes from the accounts of the 1st century Jewish historiographer 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 two accounts of the event in Josephus' writings may be summarised as follows: On one occasion, when the soldiers under his command came to Jerusalem, he made them bring their ensigns with them, upon which were the usual images of the emperor. The ensigns were brought in secretly by night, but their presence was soon discovered. Immediately multitudes of excited Jews rushed to Caesarea Palaestina Caesarea to petition him for the removal of the obnoxious ensigns. H ignored them for five days, but the next day he admitted the Jews to hear their complaint. He had them surrounded with soldiers and threatened them with instant death unless they ceased to trouble him with the matter. The Jews then threw themselves to the ground and bared their necks, declaring that they preferred death to the violation of their laws. Pilate, unwilling to kill so many, succumbed and removed the ensigns. ::cf. 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. However, in his Antiquities of the Jews Antiquities he goes on to mention just four verses later (in Book 18.63-64, the so-called Testimonium Flavianum, the authenticity of which though is hotly disputed by modern scholars) that Pilate ordered the crucifixion of someone called ''Jesus'', identified by the reference in Book 18.64 to ''Christians being so named after him'' as Jesus the Christ. Benjamin Urrutia therefore argues that the anonymous leader at the incident with the standards in vv. 55-59 was probably Jesus of Nazareth, although mainstream historians reject this conclusion as baseless. Philo of Alexandria states that on one other occasion Pilate dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod Antipas 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 Gaium'', 38) Pilate is also said to have appropriated Herod's Temple Temple funds for the construction of an Aqueduct (Roman) aqueduct, as the following summary of Josephus' two accounts shows: :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. ::cf. 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 (Roman_province)#Syria_in_antiquity Syria was unable to provide him military support. In approximately AD 36, Pilate used arrests and executions to quash what appears to have been a Samaritan religious procession in arms that may have been interpreted as an uprising (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18:85). After complaints to the Roman Legatus 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 (inventory number 61-529; see Biblical archaeology for actual lettering).

Pilate in the Christian Gospel accounts
Image:Munkacsy - christ before pilate.jpg MihÃ¡ly_MunkÃ¡csy.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|300px|[[MihÃ¡ly MunkÃ¡csy - Christ before Pilate, 1881.html" title="Meaning of 300px|[[MihÃ¡ly MunkÃ¡csy">thumb|300px|[[MihÃ¡ly MunkÃ¡csy - Christ before Pilate, 1881">300px|[[MihÃ¡ly MunkÃ¡csy">thumb|300px|[[MihÃ¡ly MunkÃ¡csy - Christ before Pilate, 1881 According to the New Testament, Jesus was brought to Pilate by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem 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 an insurrectionist named Barabbas over Jesus. The Gospel of Mark makes it apparent that Pilate had been following the conflict between Jesus and the priests, knowing it was "out of envy" that they had handed Jesus over to him. He certainly does not seem to see Jesus' "kingdom" as any sort of a threat to Roman Empire Rome. Trained to carry out the Roman mandate (debellare superbos et parcere subjectis â€“ "cast down the haughty and spare the subjugated"), Pilate consistently asserts that Jesus is innocent of the charges brought against him and of the death penalty (Lk 23:4, 14, 22). Only when confronted with the choice between his own political future and Jesus' release (Jn 19:12), does Pilate succumb to the clamour of the people, who had accordingly been persuaded by the chief priests and elders (Mt 27:20; cf. Mk 15:11, Lk 23:13), and delivered Jesus that he might be crucified (Mt 27:26; cf. Mk 15:15, Lk 23:24, Jn 19:16). Pilate's distaste for what he is doing shows itself in his taunting of the Jews present, "Do you want me to crucify your king?" The answer of the chief priests, "We have no king but Caesar" (Jn 19:15) betrays their contentions, ever since 63 BC, that Judea was an independent nation allied to Rome, not a province conquered by her, and gives Pilate scant consolation for selling out justice for his personal gain. In the Gospel of Matthew (27:24), before 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; 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, and that it was part of the process by which Pauline Christianity Pauline Christians marginalized the still-observant Jewish Christians of the Levant (Ebionites). (See article Barabbas for a discussion of the theory 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#The_original_Nicene_Creed_of_325 Nicene Creed adopted in AD 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 a Pagan Rome. Others have sugested that the main reason for the inclusion was to state the belief in Jesus as a real man living in a precise moment and place, i.e. a Historical Jesus.

=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 (AD 37 - 41), was exiled to Gaul and eventually committed suicide there, in Vienne, IsÃ¨re 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 particularly about his birth according to which Pilate was born in the Franconian city of Forchheim (Oberfranken) 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 Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, 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 Procula (see Saint Procula). Pilate and Claudia are both commemorated as saints on June 25. 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''
:''Main article Acts of Pilate''. 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 is even later in origin. Nothing in the text suggests that it is in fact a translation from Hebrew. 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 Saint Veronica Veronica legend. 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
as is the peace maker, or so as is 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( ONE mOMENT) is also inserted into the Pseudo-Marcellus ''Passion of Peter and Paul''. We thus have it in both Greek orthadox,..oh my apologies..it's just greek NOT orthodox 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 ''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 "Loiusiana," 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 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).
- Brian Murdoch, "The ''Mors Pilati'' in the Cornish ''Resurrexio Domini''

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. 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 signifigance of the young Galilean thaumaturgist he condemns to death. In the Vestibule of Hell in Dante's ''The Divine Comedy 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 Stalin's crimes. Pilate appears in two stories in Karel ÄŒapek's collection ''Apocryphal Tales''. In "Pilate's Evening", the weary governor wonders why Jesus' friends and relatives didn't 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 scepticism sceptical humanism (Pilate's famous "What is truth?") and religion religious certainty (Joseph's reply, "The truth in which I believe"). In ''The Flame and the Wind'', a novel by John Blackburn (author) 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 (movie) Jesus of Nazareth''), Hurd Hatfield (''King of Kings (1961 film) King of Kings'') Frank Thring (''Ben-Hur (1959 film) Ben-Hur''), Richard Boone (''The Robe''), and Gary Oldman (''Jesus (1999 film) 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 comedy 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 verson of Pilate in both the Broadway theatre 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.

External links

- Pilate in history; the Tiberieum dedication block
- Pontius Pilate Texts and discussion of all sources
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Pilate, Pontius
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1911): Pontius Pilate
- The Hausen Legend of Pontius Pilate

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 (Tacitus) Annals'' 15.44. Category:Ancient Jewish Roman history Category:Ancient Romans Category:Characters_in_the_Divine_Comedy Category:Jesus Category:New Testament people Category:Saints af:Pontius Pilatus cs:PilÃ¡t PontskÃ½ de:Pontius Pilatus es:Poncio Pilato eo:Pontio Pilato fr:Ponce Pilate ko:í?°í‹°ìš°ìŠ¤ í•„ë?¼íˆ¬ìŠ¤ it:Ponzio Pilato he:×¤×•× ×˜×™×•×¡ ×¤×™×œ×?×˜×•×¡ hu:Poncius PilÃ¡tus nl:Pontius Pilatus ja:ãƒ?ãƒ³ãƒ†ã‚£ã‚¦ã‚¹ãƒ»ãƒ”ãƒ©ãƒˆã‚¥ã‚¹ pl:Poncjusz PiÅ‚at pt:PÃ´ncio Pilatos ru:ÐŸÐ¾Ð½Ñ‚Ð¸Ð¹ ÐŸÐ¸Ð»Ð°Ñ‚ sl:Poncij Pilat fi:Pontius Pilatus sv:Pontius Pilatus zh:æœ¬ä¸Ÿå½¼æ‹‰å¤š see : Pontius Pilate

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