Pontius Pilate: What is Truth?

First in a Lenten series looking at six characters from the Passion of Jesus

John 18:28-38

N1204PilateStoneIn 1961, archaeologists were excavating the Roman theater that was built by Herod the Great in the seaside town of Caesarea Maritimia, on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Herod built the theater in 30BC, along with the entire city patterned on the Roman model, as part of his tribute to the emperor Augustus. Somewhere during the fourth century, the original theater was remodeled and, as was very common in the ancient world, some of the stones from elsewhere in the town were repurposed for the construction. One of these stones was used as part of a set of stairs leading up to the seating area of the theater, the mason seeing it as simply another piece to the construction puzzle. When the archaeologists found it some 1600 years later, however, they discovered a faint Latin inscription on the stone that was a historical bombshell. The inscription read:

[DIS AUGUSTI]S TIBERIEUM

[PO]NTIUS PILATUS

[PRAEF]ECTUS IUD[EA]E

Filling in the blanks of the stone that had been weathered by the elements and trampled by centuries of Roman feet, the archaeologist recognized this as a dedication stone of a long lost building constructed to honor the Emperor Tiberias, who was the Roman ruler at the time of Jesus—but a building built by the “ Praefectus Iudeae”—the Prefect of Judea—one Pontius Pilate.

pilate 2Here was the first physical evidence that the man who sentenced Jesus to death actually existed, found in the place where he actually spent most of his time during his decade-long tenure as the Emperor’s representative in one of the easternmost parts of the Empire. The Gospels mention him, of course, as do a couple of other Jewish historians of the period—Josephus and Philo—but Pontius Pilate is otherwise a historical curiosity who had his only 15 minutes of fame (or infamy) on a Friday morning in Jerusalem when he was confronted with the case of a beaten and bloodied Jewish prophet from Galilee whom the Jewish authorities wanted crucified.

We wish we had more evidence to examine about Pilate. His secretaries would have taken notes with a stylus on a reusable wax tablet and then transcribed them on to papyrus for transport by ship to add to the correspondence coming into the Emperor daily. None of these notes survive, but if they did we might know a little more about this man at the center of the Good Friday storm. Who was he? Where did he come from? What was he thinking? Most importantly, what did he think about Jesus?

In the absence of more evidence, different traditions have emerged about Pilate’s origins. Some have him coming from Spain or the forests of Germania, but the most plausible of these stories has him growing up as part of the Roman knightly class—the son of a career soldier. Most Roman governors were knights who were the sons of knights, thus we can infer that Pilate spent most of his young life in relative wealth, getting a good education in mathematics, rhetoric, reading, writing, and philosophy, and training for a career in the military—the best path to advancement for ambitious young Romans. He would have spent his time currying the favor of potential patrons who could secure him a good billet, usually wealthy men with good connections.

praetorian guardHis army service would have taken him away from home for years. He may have fought in the campaigns of Tiberius against German barbarians in the early first century, but wherever his service took him, he no doubt dreamed of the day when he would rise to a posting of honor conveyed by the emperor himself, an opportunity to make a name for himself. He may have managed to wrestle a commission to be one of the emperor’s Praetorian Guard where he caught the eye of the commander, Sejanus, who had the emperor’s ear. Some traditions suggest that it was his marriage to Claudia Procula, the illegitimate daughter of Claudia, Tiberius’ third wife that put him in a position to be in the emperor’s good graces. Whatever happened to set him up for it, one day he received his imperial promotion. It came on a five-leaved wax tablet, the official form, with orders sending him to Judea.

Pilate must’ve known that this was a dubious promotion. That he was important to the emperor, but not important enough to receive a truly meaningful and prestigious post. No doubt disappointed, Pilate arrived in Judea in the year 26AD, just about the time Jesus had begun his public ministry in Galilee. He must’ve thought that if he did well in this minor posting, the Emperor would notice and thus he set about making sure that the Emperor’s name was everywhere. Philo and Josephus pick up the story here. One of his first acts was to send Romans standards with images of Caesar into Jerusalem under the cover of night. Worship of the emperor was the standard religion of the empire, and Pilate clearly believed that his subjects, including the Jews, should pay him homage. But it’s clear from this first incident that Pilate has no idea who he is dealing with—a fiercely monotheistic people whose law prohibited graven images of people and especially those of people who claimed to be gods themselves, as Tiberius’ own minted coins revealed. “Son of the Divine Augustus” was the mark around his image on the denarius.

Pilate’s night time raid on Jewish law was discovered in the morning, which led a large crowd of Jews to travel the 60 miles from Jerusalem to Caesarea. Pilate, after all, only came to Jerusalem during the festivals when the crowds needed to be kept in order. He much preferred to say in the Roman city on the coast where he could enjoy both the sea breeze and the usual Roman entertainments far away from these fanatical Jews.

caesarea_theatreThe crowd arrived in Caesarea and surrounded Pilate’s house, entreating him to remove the offensive standards from Jerusalem. Pilate made a show of listening to them and then ordered them to meet him in the theater the next day so that he could render his decision. In the meantime, he ordered his troops to surround the theater after the Jews had gathered and threatened to have every member of the crowd killed by the sword if they didn’t accept the Roman standards near the Temple and go home peacefully. Much to his surprise, however, the citizens of Jerusalem laid down en masse and bared their necks, shouting that they would rather die than submit to allowing these offensive images defile their sacred city. Realizing that a mass murder wouldn’t look good to the emperor, and stunned by the religious fervor of the Jews, Pilate backed off and had the images removed.

A Roman aqueduct. These ruins are from an aqueduct near Caesarea. The Jerusalem aqueduct does not survive.
A Roman aqueduct. These ruins are from an aqueduct near Caesarea. The Jerusalem aqueduct does not survive.

But this wasn’t the end of his trouble or of his misunderstanding his subject people. In another incident, Pilate took money from the Temple treasury—the “Corban” or money dedicated to God—and used it to build an aqueduct to bring more water into the city, a constant problem in the dry and mountainous terrain on which Jerusalem is built. Though he intended it as a civil improvement that would help the people and, perhaps, allow them to accept him, Pilate’s use of the sacred treasury was a serious miscalculation. Another crowd gathered outside Pilate’s Jerusalem quarters in the old palace of Herod the Great and began to shout down the governor. But Pilate had foreseen the disturbance and had placed some of his soldiers in the crowd disguised as members of the mob. At a prearranged signal, the soldiers threw off their disguises and began beating and slashing people in the crowd, causing a stampede in which many were killed. Since this happened in Jerusalem, this may be the event people told Jesus about in Luke 13:1 — the Galileans “whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.”

Philo reports that Pilate never learned from these incidents. In another story, he put up golden shields with Roman symbols around his palace in Jerusalem that again offended the Jews. This time it wasn’t a mob who approached him but a delegation of Jewish princes of the Herodian family. Their tactic was actually more effective than rioting—they threaten to send a delegation to the emperor to tell him what Pilate’s reign was really like. As Philo puts it:

He feared that if they actually sent an embassy they would also expose the rest of his conduct as governor by stating in full the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injustices, the executions without trial constantly repeated, the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty. So with all his vindictiveness and furious temper, he was in a difficult position. He had not the courage to take down what had been dedicated nor did he wish to do anything which would please his subjects. At the same time he knew full well the constant policy of Tiberius in these matters…

Well, they did actually send word to Tiberias and Pilate received a reprimand but not a recall. Could it be that Pilate built and dedicated his Tiberieum, a building in Caesarea, as a way of making it up to his boss?

The scant record reveals that Pilate was a man caught between two conflicting poles: On the one hand, he is bound and determined to not do what his Jewish subjects want and, on the other, he is driven by the fear of what Tiberius will think if the news of his obstinance and trouble-making leaks out. In the account of Jesus’ trial in John’s Gospel, the words that shake Pilate most are those spoken by the Jewish leaders, who know which button they need to push: “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend.”

Being Caesar’s friend was everything to Pilate.

pilate_questions_jesusThe trial of Jesus reveals Pilate’s political pragmatism. All four of the Gospels fill in details of the trial and Jesus’ exchanges with Pilate. It’s interesting to speculate on what Pilate must have thought when he looked at Jesus. They say he is the King of the Jews, but he doesn’t look like royalty. He has no army, just a ragged and small group of followers. If he was truly trying to be the King of the Jews, well, he wasn’t alone. There were plenty of others trying to wrest power by getting rid of the Romans, like Barabbas the revolutionary who was languishing in the dungeons below the palace. This bloodied and beaten man standing before him wasn’t an ordinary pretender to the throne. But, apparently, the Jewish leaders were foaming at the mouth about him, wanting him dead. Given Pilate’s propensity to give the Jewish leaders the opposite of what they wanted, Pilate was predisposed to release him just to frustrate them.

John’s version of the story moves inside and outside of the palace. Outside, Pilate speaks to the crowd, knowing that they won’t come into the home of a Gentile lest it make them unclean for the Passover. Inside, Pilate questions Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

I almost imagine Pilate smiling sarcastically as he asks it. Not a chance this man is a king, but he is good at conversation. Maybe a philosopher? Pilate knew the type—shifty, always answering questions with more questions. “Do you ask me this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Jesus asks him. Pilate is slightly offended, “I am not a Jew, am I?” he spit out the words. Your own nation and chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?”

To his surprise, Jesus offers a political answer. “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

And here’s the core of the story—a clash between two kingdoms. Pilate represents the kind of kingdom that typically comes from this world, a kingdom in which power is a commodity to buy and sell; a kingdom built on fear and the force of arms; a kingdom where people are stratified based on their social class, wealth, and influence; a kingdom where there are insiders and outsiders. Pilate cannot understand what Jesus is talking about and has no idea what to do with him. It’s outside his categories. If this man claims to be a king, and he’d seen many who had aspired to it, then why doesn’t he fight for it? Or at least why doesn’t he try to bribe me into letting him go? He has nothing, he rules nothing, and he really is nothing. He is only useful insofar as I can use him to poke these riotous Jews in the eye one more time.

PILATE AND CROWDPilate sees nothing wrong with Jesus, at least in terms of his Roman understanding of power. He’s harmless, more of a philosopher than a king. “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” Jesus says to Pilate, to which Pilate utters that famous question, “What is truth?” For Pilate, anything that got him advanced in status in the eyes of the emperor was truth. Truth is whatever you decide it is, whatever is most pragmatic, kind of like throwing darts at the wall and drawing targets around them. Actually, Pilate would have been right at home in the 21st century, where truth is always relative.

But Jesus is talking about the kind of truth that Pilate, Tiberius, modern people, and even the Jewish crowd couldn’t see—that truth is actually a person. Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus had declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to Father except by me.” Even earlier, at the beginning of the Gospel, John tells us that the Word, the hidden truth of God, actually put on flesh and lived among us. “We have seen his glory,” wrote John, “the glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

Pilate doesn’t realize that ultimate Truth is standing right in front of him; that the world’s true emperor didn’t live in a palace in Rome or on the Isle of Capri where Tiberius enjoyed a self-imposed exile in luxury. Instead of seeking power, this king was giving it away. Instead of ruling by force of arms and fear, he rules by the force of love. Instead of seeking his own advancement, he is humble and open. Instead of seeing people stratified into categories, the only category he cared about was obedience to his Father. Pilate doesn’t know what to do with Jesus, so he does the thing that is most politically expedient for himself. He gives the crowd what they want so that they will not complain to the Emperor again.

I think this is why Pontius Pilate, of all people, shows up in the Apostle’s Creed. Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” which puts Jesus crucifixion squarely in the midst of history, but his suffering under a duplicitous Roman ruler was actually a triumph. Pilate had the chance to do the right thing and release Jesus—that would have been the just thing to do. But Pilate wasn’t interested in justice, he was interested in his own skin which was tied to being a “friend of the emperor.” In Matthew’s Gospel he washes his hands of responsibility for Jesus’ death, a cynical irony given that he is the only one who really has the power to decide his fate. It’s the contrast between the rulers of this world and the world’s true ruler, the one who dies for his people rather than threatening them with death. One cares about himself more than justice, while the other cares about justifying his people through his own death.

KingOfJewsSignPilate’s final act in the Gospels is having the title “King of the Jews” nailed on the cross above Jesus’ head. He meant it to be ironic and to upset the Jewish leaders one more time. From there, he disappears from the biblical record but Josephus tells us what happens to him. In 36AD he is recalled to Rome after another incident where he used violence instead of tact in order to deal with a situation in Samaria. In 37, Tiberius, the one on whom Pilate had staked his hopes and dreams, died at the age of 78. Pilate’s career died with him. When he left Judea, he disappeared from history. Pilate had hoped his name would live forever, but instead it wound up being walked on for centuries by people who didn’t know who the faded words on the stepping stone referred to. He wanted to make a name for himself, but his name is now only associated in contrast with the one whose name is above all names.

Lent reminds us that our attempts to make a name for ourselves are futile unless we put our hope in the grace of Jesus, our ultimate Friend, Son of God, and Savior. The story of Pilate is thus a cautionary tale. As for Pilate, the defining question of our lives is this: What will we do with Jesus?

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