by Paul L Maier
Notes
Though Pilate used to delight the morbid imagination in the Middle Ages, there is very little modern scholarship on his life or career. The study by Gustav Adolf Müller, Pontius Pilatus, der fünfte Prokurator von Judäa und Richter Jesu von Nazareth (Stuttgart, 1888) is ably corrected and supplemented by Hermann Peter, “Pontius Pilatus, der Römische Landpfleger in Judäa,” Neue Jahrbücher, I (1907), 1–40. A fair estimate of Pilate and an excellent investigation of his aqueduct to Jerusalem is provided by Frank Morison, And Pilate Said…(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940). Periodical literature concerning Pilate is cited in the notes below. The few historical novels on Pilate have been of minimal historical or literary value.
CHAPTER 1 (PAGES 17–28)
TIBERIUS AND SEJANUS: This and following sketches of Roman politics as of 26 A.D. are drawn from Tacitus, Annals, iv, 1–54; Suetonius, Tiberius, i–xxxviii; and Dio Cassius, Roman History (hereafter merely “Dio Cassius”), lvii.
THE PONTII: For a catalogue of the prominent members of Pilate’s gens, see the article “Pontius” in Georg Wissowa, ed., Paulys Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart: Metzlersche and Druckenmüller Verlag, 1953 ff.).
THE FULVIA SCANDAL: Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (hereafter Antiq.), xviii, 3, 5.
PILATE’S SALARY: A stipend of 100,000 sesterces for the prefect of Judea is posited by Otto Hirschfeld, Die Kaiserlichen Venwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1905), pp. 436 f.; and by H. G. Pflaum, Les Procurateurs Equestres sous Le Haut-Empire Romain (Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1950), pp. 150 f. Cp. also Dio Cassius, liii, 15, 3–6. Because of the chronic inflation of the American dollar, it becomes very difficult to assign a meaningful value to the sesterce in current terms. The suggested salary of $10,000, for example, would have a far greater buying-power in imperial Rome.
L. AELIUS LAMIA: Tacitus, Annals, iv, 13; vi, 27. and Dio Cassius, lviii, 19.
CHAPTER 2 (PAGES 29–42)
GAIUS PROCULEIUS: Dio Cassius, li, 2; liii, 24; liv, 3; Horace, Carmina, ii, 2; Pliny, Natural History, xxxvi, 183; Plutarch, Antony, lxxvii, 7; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, ix, 3, 68; and Tacitus, Annals, iv, 40. While Proculeius is accurately portrayed in the text, his relationship to the wife of Pilate is necessarily only assumed in the absence of other evidence.
THE DEBATE ON GOVERNORS’ WIVES: Tacitus, Annals, iii. 33–34.
HEROD AS MESSIAH: Hermann Vogelstein, History of Jews in Rome (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1940), pp. 28 f.
ANNIUS RUFUS: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 2, 2.
THE ASS IMAGE: Rome’s information about Judaism was astonishingly inaccurate, considering the fact that a Jewish community had existed in Rome ever since the second century B.C., which grew when Pompey returned with Judean captives in 61 B.C. In a short time, Roman Jews were supposedly so numerous that Cicero once told a jury he would have to speak softly so that the many Jews present would not be able to hear. While this was merely a lawyer’s stratagem, Jews were taking part in public affairs, and Romans should have understood them better. The abhorrent misinformation about the Exodus and the ass image, for example, should have been corrected by Pompey’s experience, and yet the great historian Tacitus, writing as late as 110 A.D., would record the same tired calumny as gospel in his Histories, v, 3 ff.
CHAPTER 3 (PAGES 43–56)
GAIUS PONTIUS: Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, ix, 1 ff.
PONTIUS TELESINUS: Velleius Paterculus, Historia Romana, ii, 27, 2.
AEMILIUS RECTUS: Dio Cassius, lvii, 10, 5.
THRASYLLUS: Tacitus, Annals, vi, 20–21; Suetonius, Tiberius, xiv. Thrasyllus was referring to the Great Conjunction of planets in 7 B.C., which appears only once in eight centuries.
PONTIUS AQUILA: Suetonius, Divus Iulius, lxxviii; Appian, Roman History—The Civil Wars, xi, 16 (113); and Dio Cassius, xlvi, 38, 40.
TIBERIUS’S ENTOURAGE AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE GROTTO: Tacitus, Annals, iv, 57–59; Suetonius, Tiberius, xxxix–xl. A description of the modern excavation of the grotto at Sperlonga is given in Paul MacKendrick, The Mute Stones Speak (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1960), pp. 173–78. Later emperors tried to reclaim the grotto, but it was not really used again until World War II, when it served as an ammunition cache. The great cavern was first excavated in the summer of 1957, in connection with road improvements along the Italian west coast, when ruins of the pool and much statuary were discovered.
CHAPTER 4 (PAGES 57–65)
“CAESAR’S FRIENDS”: Suetonius, Tiberius, xlvi. It was Pilate’s status as amicus Caesaris which was threatened during Jesus’ trial. Cp. John 19:12 and Ernst Bammel, “Philos tou Kaisaros,” Theologische Literaturzeitung, 77 (April, 1952), 206–10.
PROCULEIUS AND CLEOPATRA: see the first note under Chapter 2, above.
ANTIPATER AND CAESAR: Josephus. Antiq., xiv, 8.
CHAPTER 5 (PAGES 66–75)
CAESAREA: This description of the harbor and the city is based on Josephus, Antiq., xv, 9, 6; and Jewish Wars (hereafter Wars), i, 21, 5–8.
VALERIUS GRATUS: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 2, 2.
“HEROD’S PIG”: Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii, 4.
HEROD AND ROME: Josephus, Antiq., xiv, 14 and xv, 6; Wars, i, 14 and 20.
HEROD’S DEATH: Josephus, Antiq., xvii, 6–8.
HEROD AND THE MAGI: Matthew 2:1–12.
“YOU MUST NOT PUT A FOREIGNER…” Deuteronomy 17:15.
MEMBERS OF THE SANHEDRIN: Besides the New Testament, reference to CAIAPHAS, ELEAZAR, JONATHAN, and BEN-PHABI is found in Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 2, 2, and 4, 3. Additional information on Ishmael ben-Phabi comes from Pesahim 57a (Babylonian Talmud) and Yoma 35b. ALEXANDER: Acts 4:6; Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 6, 3. ANANIAS BEN-NEBEDEUS: Acts 24:1; Josephus, Antiq., xx, 5, 2. The Babylonian Talmud also calls him Johanan ben Narbai or Nidbai, and charges him with gluttony in Pesahim 57a. Cp. also Kerithoth 28b. HELCIAS (or Helkias): Josephus, Antiq., xx, 8, 11. GAMALIEL: Acts 5:34–39; 22:3 and passim in the Mishnah and Talmud. JOCHANAN BEN-ZAKKAI: Sotah 27b ff.; 40a; 49b; Gittin 56a; and passim in Mishnah and Talmud.
CHAPTER 6 (PAGES 76–92)
COHORS AUGUSTA SEBASTENORUM: presumed from Acts 27:1, and named in Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, vi, No. 3508.
“…NOT MAKE YOURSELVES A GRAVEN IMAGE”: Exodus 20:4–5, the classic restriction against idolatry.
RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF ENSIGNS: see Josephus, Wars, vi, 6, 1 for an instance of Roman soldiers sacrificing to their standards in Jerusalem after the fall of the city.
“GOD IS OUR REFUGE…”: Psalm 46:1–2, 6, 9–11.
JEWISH PAINTING AND SCULPTURE: Vogelstein, op. cit., pp. 35 ff., cites instances in Mesopotamia and Rome.
HEROD AND THE GOLDEN EAGLE: Josephus, Antiq., xvii. 6, 3.
THE AFFAIR OF THE STANDARDS: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 3, 1; Wars, ii, 9, 2–3. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, ii, 5, 7 ff., is just a reflection of Josephus. A modern scholarly interpretation of this incident is provided by Carl H. Kraeling, “The Episode of the Roman Standards at Jerusalem,” Harvard Theological Review 35 (October, 1942), 263–89.
CHAPTER 7 (PAGES 93–105)
CAESAREA: Josephus, Antiq., xv, 9, 6; Wars, i, 21, 7.
PILATE’S TIBERIÉUM INSCRIPTION: Probably in tribute to Tiberius, Pilate used Latin at a time and place where Greek would ordinarily have been used. Originally embedded in the Tiberiéum, the inscribed stone was reused—long after Pilate’s time—in constructing a theater, among whose ruins it was found by the Italian archaeologists. Unfortunately, some of the facing of the inscription had been chipped away, leaving only the lettering shown to the left. To the right is the suggested reconstruction:
–STIBERIÉVM [CAESARIENS]S. (IBVS)TIBERIÉVM
–TIVSPILATVS [PON]TIVSPILATVS
–ECTVSIVDAE [PRAEF]ECTVSIVDA[EA]E
–È [D]È[DIT]
See Antonio Frova, “L’Iscrizione di Ponzio Pilato a Cesarea,” Rendiconti Istituto Lombardo (Accademia
di Scienze e Lettere), 95 (1961), 419–34.
Of great importance is the inscription’s reference to Pilate as “prefect,” which corrects the title of “procurator” usually ascribed to him, based on anachronisms in Josephus (Wars, ii, 9, 2) and Tacitus (Annals, xv, 44). During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, governors of Judea were called prefects. Claudius first changed their title to procurator. The New Testament very accurately refrains from calling Pilate procurator, using the Greek for governor instead.
Frova conjectures that the Tiberiéum might have been a “piazza porticata” near the theater of Herod, possibly a kind of “porticus post scaenam.” The Pilate inscription at Caesarea is also discussed by B. Lifshitz, “Inscriptions latines de Césarée,” Latomus, XXII (1963), 783; and by Attilio Degrassi, “Sull’Iscrizione di Ponzio Pilato,” Rendiconti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, XIX (Marzo–Aprile, 1964), 59–65, who suggests “[Dis Augusti]s” instead of Frova’s “[Caesarien s.” in the first line. While it is possible that Pilate might have dedicated the Tiberiéum to the “divine Augustans” (i.e., Augustus and Livia), as Degrassi admits, Livia was not officially consecrated until 42 A.D., and even allowing for such an eastern-style anticipatory gesture as this, it would seem unlikely that Pilate, knowing Tiberius’s attitude toward his mother and step-father, would have made such a dedication. Frova’s original suggestion, then, seems most appropriate.
ARCHELAUS: Josephus, Antiq., xvii, 13, 1–5; Matthew 2:22.
PHILIP: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 4, 6. Philip was the first Jewish ruler to impress the effigy of any human being on his coins. For his coinage, see Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1900), I, ii, p. 15.
TIBERIAS: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 2, 3.
MARRYING A BROTHER’S WIFE: prohibited in Leviticus 20:21.
ANTIPAS’S DIVORCE AND ARETAS: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 5, 1.
CHAPTER 8 (PAGES 106–120)
HEROD AND JERUSALEM: Josephus, Antiq., xv, 8, 1 ff.; xvii, 10, 2.
TEMPLE NOTICE PROHIBITING GENTILES: Josephus, Antiq., xv, 11, 5; Wars, vi, 2, 4. Archaeologists have discovered two notices with this inscription at Jerusalem.
HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL: 2 Chronicles 32:2–4, 30. Cp. also 2 Kings 20:20, and, for David and the Jebusites, 2 Samuel 5:6 ff. The cited Siloam inscription is authentic. It was since chiseled out of the rock wall near the tunnel entrance and is now in the Turkish Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul. Gihon has continued its small but steady flow down to the present day, and people can still wade through Hezekiah’s tunnel, probably the only Biblical site which is entirely extant.
JEWISH TAX APPEAL UNDER GRATUS: Tacitus, Annals, ii, 42.
USE OF SHEKALIM: Surplus from the half-shekel temple dues is discussed in Shekalim, iv, 2., and the citation in the text is translated by Herbert Danby, The Mishnah (London: Oxford, 1938), p. 115. See also the discussion by E. Mary Smallwood, ed., Philo Judaeus, Legatio ad Gaium (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1961), p. 301. The Jewish traditional laws grouped under the rubric Shekalim would later constitute a tractate and be incorporated into the Mishnah, the collection of Jewish sacred traditions.
THE JERUSALEM AQUEDUCT: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 3, 2; Wars, ii, 9, 4. Nothing in the sources indicates Pilate’s negotiations with the Judean authorities prior to construction of the aqueduct, but it would seem obvious that such an enterprise, involving massive building operations in the vicinity of the temple, could not possibly have been undertaken without at least tacit approval of the temple authorities. Nor could Pilate have seized the temple treasury to finance construction of the aqueduct, as a cursory reading of Josephus might seem to indicate. For gentiles to enter the temple, where the sacred treasure was stored, would have been impossible—short of war between Rome and Judea—and seizing the sacred treasury would have elicited an immediate embassy from the Jews to Tiberius, which would have demanded Pilate’s recall. He must, therefore, have had some cooperation from the temple authorities. The subsequent popular outcry was, apparently, just that: a protest of the people, not the authorities, who may even have warned Pilate in advance of the approaching demonstration, see Josephus, Wars, ii, 9, 4.
CHAPTER 9 (PAGES 121–131)
PACUVIUS: Tacitus, Annals, ii, 79; Seneca, Epistulae Morales, xii, 8.
THE AQUEDUCT RIOT: Josephus, Wars, ii, 9, 4. Cp, also Antiq., xviii, 3, 2. For further discussion of Pilate and the water system of Jerusalem, see Frank Morison, And Pilate Said… (New York: Scribner’s, 1940), pp. 105 ff., to which this portrayal of the aqueduct episode is indebted.
VOLESUS MESSALA: Seneca, De Ira, ii, 5, 5.
VARUS: Josephus, Antiq., xvii, 10, 10. ALEXANDER JANNAEUS: Antiq., xiii, 14, 2.
CHAPTER 10 (PAGES 132–140)
JOHN THE BAPTIZER: Matthew 3:1 ff.; Mark 1:2 ff.; Luke 3:1 ff.; John 1:19 ff.
EVENTS AT ROME IN 29–30 A.D.: Suetonius, Tiberius, liv; Gaius Caligula, vii; Tacitus, Annals, iv, 68–70; v, 3 f.; vi, 23; Dio Cassius, lviii, 1, 1 ff.; 2, 7; 3, 8 ff. Pliny, Natural History, viii, 145. Besides Caligula, Tiberius had a natural grandson, Gemellus, but he was only ten at this time—too young for serious consideration as successor.
SEJANUS AND THE JEWS: Philo, De Legatione ad Gaium, xxiii, 159 ff.; In Flaccum, i, 1 ff. Cp, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, ii, 5.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE SANHEDRIN: In Shabbath 15a of the Babylonian Talmud, the following statement is germane: “Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin went into exile and took its seat in the Trade Halls…. They did not adjudicate in capital cases.” (Trans. by H. Freedman in Shabbath, Moed I, The Babylonian Talmud [London: Soncino Press, 1938] who explains that the Sanhedrin left their Chamber of Hewn Stone in the temple at this time for another place on the temple mount [p. 63].) Since the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., “forty years before the destruction of the Temple” would be 30 A.D., or under Pilate’s administration. Moreover, Sanhedrin 18a and 24b of the Palestinian Talmud (the Yerushalmi) states: “Capital punishment was abolished forty years before the destruction of the Temple.” (Trans. by M. Movsky.) See also Ethelbert Stauffer, Jerusalem und Rom im Zeitalter Jew Christi (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1957), p. 121. Also, by the same author, Jesus and His Story (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p. 72. However, Schürer, op. cit. II, i, p. 188, suggests that the date for the withdrawal of this right from the Sanhedrin, i.e., 30 A.D., need not be considered precise, since the jus gladii may have been suspended when Judea became a Roman province rather than first under Pilate’s administration. Nevertheless, a literal reading of the sources would indeed point to 30 A.D.
THE SANHEDRIN VACATES BALL OF HEWN STONE: Shabbath, loc. cit. (above).
CHAPTER 11 (PAGES 141–155)
THE ESSENES: Josephus, Wars, ii, 8, 2 ff. The Essene monastery was recently excavated at Khirbet Qumran. Its library included the famed “Dead Sea Scrolls” found in nearby caves during the spring of 1947.
DEAD SEA GASES: Strabo, Geographica, xvi, 2, 42; Genesis 18:20 ff.
HEROD AT CALLIRRHOë: Josephus, Antiq., xvii, 6, 5; Wars, i, 33, 5.
“TIBERIUS ONLY AN ISLAND POTENTATE”: Dio Cassius, lviii, 5, 1.
THE EXECUTION OF JOHN: Mark 6:17 ff.; cp. also Matthew 14:3 ff., and Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 5, 2. Pilate’s presence on this occasion is only presumed.
MACHEARUS: now called Tell Mukawir by the Arabs, the citadel remains a huge, trapezoidal mound, dead as the Sea over which it towers. Buried within it are the ruins of Antipas’s citadel, but they have never been excavated.
CHAPTER 12 (PAGES 156–165)
SALOME AND PHILIP: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 5, 4.
GAIUS GALERIUS: Seneca, ad Helviam, xix, 4–6; Pliny, Natural History, xix, 3.
SEJANUS AND LIVILLA: Although Zonaras’s epitome of Dio Cassius, lviii, 3, states that it was Livilla’s daughter Julia to whom Sejanus was engaged, Frank B. Marsh, The Reign of Tiberius (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959),
p. 192, and other scholars would seem to be correct in assuming that the lady in question was indeed Livilla, not Julia, the error intruding via Zonaras.
CORNELIUS AND THE ITALIAN COHORT: Acts 10:1. For the identity and full name of the Cohors II ltalica, see the article “Cohors” in Paulys Realencyclopädie, VII, pp. 304 ff. There is some debate over whether the Italian Cohort could have been in Judea prior to Vespasian, but also scholarly support for the implication in Acts that this cohort and Cornelius must have been in Caesarea at least by ca. 35–36 A.D., if not earlier.
THE GALILEAN VICTIMS: Luke 13:1–3. This incident is not further explained in the New Testament. While this may have been a cruel action on the part of Pilate and is used by some in building a case against him, it need not have been. In commenting on the episode, Jesus did not fault Pilate, and, by the context of the Siloam tower collapse, the implication is probable that this also may have been an accident involving the innocent. Cp. also Kraeling, op. cit., p. 288, who points out that Pilate might not have had anything to do with the event, since everything perpetrated by Roman auxiliaries in Palestine would be ascribed to him.
CHAPTER 13 (PAGES 166–176)
MEMMIUS REGULUS: Although Tiberlus and Sejanus were consuls for the year 31, they had appointed Regulus and Fulcinius Trio to succeed them as consules suffecti (“substitute consuls”) later that year, a common practice. See Tacitus, Annals, v, 11.
THE FALL OF SEJANUS: The chief source is Dio Cassius, lviii, 9 ff., since the relevant passages in books v and vi of Tacitus’s Annals are lost. See also Suetonius, Tiberius, lxv, and Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, xi, 11. For the FATE OF SEJANUS’S CHILDREN, see Tacitus, Annals, v (vi), 9; Dio Cassius, lviii, 11.
ANTONIA: Josephus, Antiq., xviii, 6, 6, is the sole source on Antonia’s crucial role in unmasking Sejanus.
SOURCES FOR THE SEJANIAN CONSPIRACY: Tacitus, Annals, iv, 1 to vi, 2; Suetonius, Tiberius, lxi, lxv; Dio Cassius, lvii, 19 to lviii, 16.
