Pontius Pilate (redirected from Pontius Pilot)

Pontius Pilate (pŏn`shəs pī`lət), Roman prefect of Judaea (A.D. 26–36?). He was supposedly a ruthless governor, and he was removed at the complaint of Samaritans, among whom he engineered a massacre. His attempt to evade responsibility in the trial of Jesus was caused by his fear of the high priests' power and his difficult responsibility for the peace of Palestine. According to tradition he committed suicide at Rome. He is attested in the works of Josephus and Eusebius. The Acts of Pilate, one of the Pseudepigrapha (part of the Gospel of Nicodemus) tell of him as a Christian. In the Coptic and Ethiopic churches, Pilate has been canonized. Legend connects him with Mt. Pilatus.

Bibliography

See study by A. Wroe (2000).

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Pontius Pilate 

Roman procurator of Judea from A.D. 26 to 36.

A cruel and insidious man, Pilate’s administration was marked by violence and executions. His oppressive tax and political policies and various provocations that offended the religious beliefs and customs of the Jews aroused mass popular opposition, which was mercilessly suppressed. According to Flavius Josephus and the tradition of the New Testament, he sentenced Jesus Christ to be crucified. According to the Gospel account, in connection with this, Pontius Pilate “took water and washed his hands before the multitude,” thereby following the ancient Jewish custom that symbolized innocence in the shedding of blood (hence the expression “to wash one’s hands of something”). After the Samaritans’ complaints concerning Pilate’s bloody reprisals, the Roman legate in Syria, Vitellius, removed him from his post in A.D. 36 and sent him to Rome. The subsequent fate of Pilate is unknown. According to the fourth-century church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, he committed suicide. Other sources claim he was executed by Nero.

Christianity’s initial hostility toward Pontius Pilate gradually disappeared, and a Pilate who had “repented” and “turned to Christianity” became the hero of many apocryphal works. The Coptic Church went so far as to canonize him and his wife. Pilate has been depicted in works of fiction, such as M. Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and A. France’s The Procurator of Judea, and in the fine arts, as in Rembrandt’s Christ Before Pilate and N. N. Ge’s What Is Truth?

I. D. AMUSIN