Pilate, Pontius, << PY luht, PON shus, >> was a Roman governor of Judea from A.D. 26 to 36, at the time of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Information about Pilate comes from two sources, the New Testament and Jewish writers from Pilate’s time to about A.D. 100. The New Testament portrays him as generally weak and poor at making decisions, while the Jewish sources depict him as a strong figure of authority. Both sources report that he was unjustly hostile toward the Jews. His name was found in 1961 inscribed on a stone slab near Caesarea in modern Israel.
All four Gospels indicate that Jewish authorities manipulated Pilate in their desire to have Jesus crucified. Matthew is the only Gospel to report the famous scene of Pilate’s washing his hands, saying: “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it” (Matt. 27:24). The Gospel of Luke says that Pilate found out that Jesus was from Galilee and sent Him to Herod Antipas, the governor of Galilee, who was staying in Jerusalem at the time. Pilate apparently wanted to avoid having to make a decision about Jesus’ fate. At one point in the trial, Pilate offered to release Jesus, probably because he was not convinced of Jesus’ guilt.
Some traditions claim that Pilate died in A.D. 39 on the orders of the Roman emperor Caligula, either by committing suicide or by execution. According to another tradition, he and his wife, Procla, became converts to Christianity. Procla is considered a saint in the Greek Orthodox Church, and both she and Pilate are saints in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
