Judging Pilate

In Christianity Pontius Pilate is remembered nefariously, almost as a stereotype of evil. I've wondered about that. I have no illusions about the man; he was a Roman, after all. He had concerns about his position of being procurator. He had a job to do, and he was committed to doing it, even though he didn't want to be in
Jerusalem; but there he was.

Thrust upon the stage of history in “virtue” of this political position, he had an enviable conversation with an itinerant prophet. His question about “What is truth?” echoes through the ages. Christ’s answer is not recorded. Perhaps He told Pilate that He was the way, the truth, and the life. Pilate did understand one fact though, that Jesus was an innocent man, and he asserted this to the chief priests.

Within the parameters of his position, he tried to save Christ. He offered Barabbas as a possibility for release to slake the bloodthirstiness of the crowd. In that case he didn't seem to want to put Christ to death; and yet, he had Christ scourged.

Most, if not all, men would not have survived that punishment. Did he think that because Jesus claimed to be God, that He wouldn't die? He sent Christ to Herod, passing Him off to another ruler, so that Pilate wouldn't have the responsibility of taking His life, or was it because his wife, Claudia, cautioned him about not having to have anything to do with this man because of her disturbing dreams? In the end he washed his hands “of the blood of this innocent man.”

In the end, practicality won out. Pilate didn't need a bad report sent to Tiberius about yet another altercation with the Jewish leadership. He caved in; he didn't want to lose his job. Fear stalked him. When I realized this, I understood that we all have a bit of Pilate inside of us. Whenever we are paralyzed from doing something, saying something, achieving something because we are afraid of losing our standing at work, being ridiculed or held in disdain or doing a difficult job itself, we are having “a Pilate moment.” Some of the research postulates that Pilate later became a Christian. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church he is cast as a saint. Certainly, it is not out of the realm of possibility to think that he had a conversion as St. Paul did. However, other sources state that he committed suicide. We will never know.

All of this—his conversation with Christ, his concern over his job, his refusal to take responsibility for Christ’s death, even refusing to change the inscription on the cross, breaks Pilate out of his stereotype of his being purely evil, and shows us that his constitution makes him more of a person like you and me, prey to many of the same emotions and motivations, not purely evil, but a sinner all the same.

If Pilate became a Christian, then he ultimately came to recognize Christ as more than just a man, and perhaps like St. Peter, he spent the rest of his life asking for forgiveness.

I’m not as quick to judge Pilate anymore because of our shared humanity. I too sin, want to be forgiven, and hope in divine forgiveness. Perhaps Pontius Pilate did the same, even if I am fanciful in thinking it might be so.

- S. Becker