Who was Pontius Pilate?

by Gunther Simmermacher · April 15, 2014

His name is in the Creed and we encounter him every Holy Week. But who was Pontius Pilate? GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER looks at the man who sentenced Jesus to death.

Pontius Pilate introduces Jesus in this statue at the base of the Holy Stairs in Rome. Rather than being the ditherer of the gospels, history records Pilate as a man of cruelty. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

Pontius Pilate: From the Gospels, we know the Roman prefect of occupied Palestine as the vaguely sympathetic ditherer who engages in a philosophical discussion with Jesus before he reluctantly sentenced him to death with the words: Ibis in crucem — crucify him. Part of that dreadful sentence was the whipping and humiliation of the condemned man, all in public so as to deter others from engaging in unruly behaviour.

The punishment Pilate ordered — and it wasn’t the Jewish religious leaders who urged that Jesus be scourged — supports the notion that Pilate was not a particularly mild man. His method of maintaining order was predicated on a cruel temperament, an image quite at odds with the handwringer of the Passion account. Mercilessness was a requirement of managing the Roman occupation.

History, written in the first century, has recorded Pilates unsavoury side, more of which later. But other than some recorded events during his ten years in Palestine, there is very little biographical material about the man who handed down history’s most famous and significant judgment.

Neither Pontius nor Pilate

To begin with, we do not know by what name his mother rocked him to sleep. We do know that it was neither Pontius nor Pilate. Pontius was a clan name, after the Pontii. They were ethnic Samnites from what today is the central Italian region of Abruzzo. The clan name counters the legends that he was born in Spain — even if Seville boasts a house dedicated to Pilates birth — or in Germany, a tale even its medieval chronicler acknowledged to be apocryphal, or in Scotland.

Mrs Pontius did not call her boy Pilate, or indeed Pilatus, either. That is a moniker he probably acquired in the army. It designated somebody who excelled at throwing the javelin — and here we are talking about killing prowess with a spear, not accomplishment in a discipline of field athletics. From this, we can surmise that Pontius Pilate was a soldier who had seen active battle. From his later appointment as prefect we learn that he was an equestrian knight, but of the lowest of the three aristocratic orders.

Pilate likely came from a middle-class family, and entered the army with some prospects of rising up the ranks, but with no hope of entering the patrician class, for that was hereditary. So a posting as prefect of a minor province was a stepping stone, rather than a reward, even if such an appointment created good opportunities for more prestigious offices in the future as well as the welcome accumulation of wealth.

The Roman empire was profoundly corrupt, and in Palestine Pilate would have expected to have his palms lavishly greased for all manner of concessions, permits and appointments to high positions and for their renewals. It is very likely that the high priest Josephus Caiaphas paid Pilate for his unusual successive re-appointments, and in return enjoyed his protection. It is probably no coincidence that Caiaphas’ long stint as high priest ended not long after Pilate’s departure from Judaea.

The prefect’s function was primarily that of colonial governance, but it also included responsibility for the collection of taxes and oversight of the judiciary, particularly in cases which the Jewish courts, the Sanhedrin, could not or were not authorised to adjudicate. This included capital cases, which is why we have cause to remember the man in the first place.

A replica of a stone bearing Pilates name is displayed in Caesarea, now in Israel, where the only physical proof of the prefects existence was found. First-century historians Josephus Flavius and Philo of Alexandra both referred to Pilate in their writings. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher)

Arrival in Judaea

Pilate arrived in Judaea in 26AD. He likely was still a young man when he arrived, perhaps just over 30, the youngest age at which one could be appointed a prefect. His relative youth is suggested by the ancient texts by the first-century Jewish historians Philo of Alexandria and Josephus Flavius whose testimonies introduce a man who was immature and arrogant, lacking in wisdom and tact.

His predecessors had treated Judaism with some respect. Like Pilate, they might have known Jews in Rome or other parts of the empire. Previous governors had been careful not to cause unnecessary offense to the Jews, and so removed all images of the Caesar from their standards whenever they entered Jerusalem, because depiction of craven images violated Mosaic Law. In receiving such special treatment, Jerusalem was unique in the entire Roman Empire.

Pilate, quite redundantly, sought to assert Roman power by revoking this special status. He provocatively restored human images and pagan effigies, and deliberately disregarded Jewish customs. On coins, hitherto decorated with plants and branches so as to placate the sensitive Jews, Pilate had imprinted pagan images.

With that he created avoidable unrest among the people whom he was appointed to keep peaceable and compliant. According to his contemporary Philo, Pilate even received a reprimand from the emperor, Tiberius, who, for all his cruelty and paranoia, used to counsel his governors to act like shepherds.

Philo, it must be said, was no friend of Pilate. A Jewish philosopher and Roman citizen living in Alexandria, Egypt, from about 20BC to 50AD, Philo had close links with Jerusalem’s priestly classes and visited the city at least once. He had so much influence that he persuaded Caligula not to erect a statue of himself in Jerusalem (at least according to his own account).

Philo described Pilate as being of vindictiveness and furious temper, naturally inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness. He accused Pilate of all sorts of injustices: The briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty.

Even when Pilate tried to do what he thought was benevolent, it backfired. When he decided to bring the people of Jerusalem a steady supply of clean water by building an aqueduct, he contrived to cause immense outrage by financing the project with qorban, the taxes raised by the temple authorities, ostensibly for holy projects.

But don’t feel sorry for the temple authorities. The exploitative extraction of qorban, which was demanded of people regardless of their other financial obligations, was condemned by Jesus (Mk 7:6-13). Their corrupt practices, the “den of thieves”, are attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the Jewish Mishna, and in Second Temple era Jewish texts. Even Josephus Flavius comments on corruption in the Temple.

When Jerusalem’s Jews protested in their thousands outside Pilates residence, he waited until the abuse became too excited. According to Josephus Flavius, he gave a sign to undercover soldiers dressed in local garb to start beating the protesters with clubs. The resultant massacre and stampede killed and injured multitudes.

Such was the man whom Jesus encountered in Herod’s palace, the headquarters Pilate occupied when he came from his base in Caesarea, on the Mediterranean coast, to Jerusalem, a place he no doubt despised.

Pilate would visit the city three times a year, to supervise his army in the case of sedition and insurrection during the three pilgrimage festivals Pesach (or Passover), Sukkot and Shavuot. At those times Jerusalem would be packed with pilgrims as well as potential rebels.

And it was on a Pesach, probably in the year 33, that he ordered Jesus of Nazareth executed on the grounds of sedition.

Pilate knew much about self-proclaimed messiahs. Messianic movements were a dime a dozen at the time, and they always spelled trouble. The Romans were quick to put these pesky messiahs to death. Josephus Flavius names four of them: Judas, son of Ezekias; Simon, slave of Herod; Athronges; and Jesus of Nazareth.

Pilate probably had few misgivings about putting to death another troublemaker, less so if it was demanded by his collaborator Caiaphas. If Pilate had any hesitation, then it might have related to Jesus popularity among other Jews. History records which consideration prevailed.

The sign which the condemned men would have to bear and which then would be affixed to their cross — in Jesus’ case inscribed with the mocking inscription Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews — was intended to shame and deter other insurrectionists.

We can also be fairly certain that Pilate did not, as Matthews Gospel has it, wash his hands off the case. That was a Jewish custom not used by Romans. It is improbable that Pilate, who despised the Jews, would have adopted their customs. Matthew, who wrote for a Jewish audience, presumably used the hand-washing to drive home a point in a way his readers would understand.

Pilates ten-year governorship came to an abrupt end in 36AD when he was removed following a massacre in Samaria for which he was responsible. His fate thereafter is not reliably recorded.

Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the fourth century in his Historia Ecclesiae, referred to unnamed accounts which reported that Pontius Pilate was exiled to Gaul where he committed suicide in 39 AD. Or he might have been ordered to kill himself during the reign of Caligula (37-41 AD).

It seems unlikely, however, that this cruel man, who was slavishly devoted to his pagan emperor, converted to Christianity, a curious legend that secured Pontius Pilate the unlikely honour of being a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Gunther Simmermacher is the author of The Holy Land Trek: A Pilgrim’s Guide, from which some passages are reproduced here.