Who really was the procurator Pontius Pilate, who could save Christ: villain or benefactor

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

"In a white cloak with a bloody lining" - this is how Pontius Pilate appears in the novel "The Master and Margarita". Historians give very contradictory characteristics of this person. A cruel warrior, a cunning careerist, a man of a brilliant mind and a wise statesman. He gained worldwide fame and notoriety when he sentenced Jesus Christ to death. So what kind of person was he, the fifth procurator of Judea, Pilate of Pontus?

Pontius Pilate was appointed governor of the Jewish province in 26 C. E. by the Roman emperor Tiberius. Pilate belonged to the privileged class of horsemen, the second estate in the state after the senatorial. In his thirst for power, he did not stop at anything: be it the bloody suppression of Jewish uprisings or the waste of sacred money from the treasury of the temple on the construction of an aqueduct. Pilate was a very skilful steward by Roman standards. Despite the hatred of the Jews for him as an occupier, it cannot be denied that in his position the prefect did a lot for the city of David. In 1894, an ancient alley was discovered by British archaeologists. According to them, two thousand years ago, this alley was paved by order of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. For six years, researchers have been conducting archaeological excavations. The path or path of the pilgrim leads to the Siloam Tunnel and the Temple Mount. Both of these sites are of great importance to the followers of Judaism and Christianity. According to legend, when the road was being built, Jesus managed to heal a blind man by sending him to bathe in the pool of Siloam.

Excavations under the cobblestones of the road have unearthed more than 100 coins dating from AD 17 to AD 31, proving that work on the street began and ended when it was Pontius Pilate who ruled Judea. Here are the words of Israeli scholar Donald Ariel: “If a coin with this date is found under a street, the street should have been built in the same year or after the coin was minted,” he says. He also added: "Statistically, coins minted about 10 years later are the most common coins in Jerusalem, so their absence under the street means that the street was built before their appearance, in other words, only during the time of Pilate." In total, the street is 600 meters long and 8 meters wide, paved with large stone slabs, as was customary in the Roman Empire. During the construction, about 10 thousand tons of limestone were used. Huge boulders were found under the rubble - in 70 AD, the Romans captured and destroyed the city. On the wreckage, the researchers found parts of weapons, arrowheads.

Researchers believe that Pontius Pilate decided to create a road in the middle of the ancient city in order to immortalize his name with a large-scale construction project. But, unfortunately, he immortalized himself in the history of mankind as an official who presided over the trial of Jesus Christ and personally ordered him to be crucified.

An ambiguous complex matter, which seemed so simple at first glance, almost cost Pilate his post at that time. The Jews wanted Jesus dead. On the one hand, to give in to them is to show weakness, and to show firmness meant running into another complaint to the emperor, who ruthlessly cracked down on bad managers. The situation was very difficult. Pilate tried to turn the matter over to Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, because Jesus was from there. Failed. Then the procurator invited the Jews to release Jesus in honor of Passover - this was a tradition. And this also failed. The crowd demanded the release of Barabbas, who was a rebel and a robber, and the crucifixion of Christ. No matter how hard Pilate tried to do the right thing, he also tried very hard to save himself and please the crowd. And, although he considered the charges against Jesus far-fetched, he demanded to bring water, washed his hands and declared himself innocent of his death.

The last reliably known episode in Pilate's career was also associated with a bloody event. According to Flavius, many armed Samaritans gathered at Mount Garizim in the hope of finding the sacred vessels that Moses allegedly buried there. Pilate intervened, his troops staged a real massacre. The Samaritans complained to Lucius Vitellius, a Roman legate in Syria. Whether he thought that Pilate went too far is not known. But he ordered Pilate to go to Rome so that he would answer to the emperor for his actions. However, before Pilate arrived in the capital, Tiberius died.

“From that moment on, Pilate turned from a historical personality into a legend,” says one well-known magazine. However, many are trying to fill in the missing details. It is believed that Pilate became a Christian and died during the persecution of the Church. Other researchers believe that he committed suicide like Judas. It is believed that he was executed by the emperor. However, all this is just guesswork.

Pilate was a stubborn, headstrong, and cruel man, but he remained in office for ten years - longer than most other procurators. The attitude towards him has always been ambiguous. Some consider Pilate to be cowardly and cowardly, because defending his interests, he subjected an innocent person (which he knew about) to torture and crucifixion. Others object, saying that it was not Pilate's duty to uphold justice, but to maintain public peace and protect the interests of the Roman Empire. But let's face it, despite all the merits of the fifth procurator and his failures, if not for the meeting with Jesus, no one would have remembered the name of Pontius Pilate, as well as the names of the four previous Roman governors of the province of Judea. this our articleBased on materials