Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea. A simple Roman official among a legion of Roman officials whose name would have been buried under the dust of centuries if he had not crossed paths with Jesus of Nazareth. For centuries, millions of Christians around the world have named it every time they recite the Creed: « … a souffert sous Ponce
Pilate ». He is known as the one who, willy-nilly, pronounced the condemnation of Jesus and his memory, in the collective memory, remains associated with a popular gesture and expression: “Je m’en lave les mains.”
Although he has an unflattering reputation for harshness or cowardice among most Christians in the world, he is venerated as a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Tewahedo churches who have him canonized alongside his wife Procla. An angry tyrant for some, a more or less weak governor for others, sometimes converted at the last hour, the mystery of the man with many faces has inspired numerous contemporary writers, from Anatole France to Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt via Paul Claudel and, above all, the Russian master Mikhail Bulgakov, who delivered a portrait of rare virtuosity.
A sensitive position
But who was Pilate really? The first fact of importance is… that it really existed. In 1961, Italian archaeologists carrying out excavations at the Caesarea Maritime theater in Palestine made an exceptional discovery. They uncovered a limestone bearing the following inscription: « [DIS AUGUSTI]S. TIBERIV […PO]NTIVS
PILATVS […PRAEF]ECTVS JUDAS[EA]E […FECIT
D]E[DICAVIT] » : Ponce Pilate, préfet de Judée,
dédie un édifice à l’empereur Tibère.
Of his life before his arrival in Judea in 26, dating which can be established thanks to the Jewish historian of the Iis century Flavius Josephus, we know almost everything. His first name has been erased and remains unknown to this day. “The only certainty that
