Pilate, PONTIUS, the fifth Roman procurator of Judæa and Samaria, from 26 to 36 A.D. He was personally convinced of the innocence of Jesus, and tried to save him, yet sent him to be crucified to appease the raving mob of Jerusalem, washing his hands before the people to show that he took no responsibility for his death. His rapacity and cruelties caused many outbreaks, which were sternly suppressed, and at length culminated in the murder of a number of Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, which caused such loud complaints that Vitellius sent him to Rome to answer to Cæsar (36 A.D.). Eusebius tells us that Pilate made away with himself; others say that he was banished to Vienna Allobrogum (Vienne), or beheaded under Nero. In the Eastern Church there is a persistent tradition that he eventually embraced Christianity like his wife, and indeed in the Ethiopic Church Pilate is commemorated as a saint, his day falling on June 25. Pilate is said by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Eusebius to have forwarded to Tiberius for his own justification an account of the judgment of Jesus, but the so-called Report, and Acts of Pilate, as well as the two letters of Pilate to Tiberius, have no claim to authenticity.
Many legends have clustered round the sinister figure of Pontius Pilate. One relates how his body was flung into the Tiber, and caused the river to overflow, and how it was next thrown into the Rhone near Vienne, but (according to the latest form of the mediæval legend) again caused so great a storm that it was carried to Mount Pilatus near Lucerne, and there sunk securely in the deep pool on its top. But here again it made storms arise, and every year to this day on Good Friday the devil lifts him out of the pool and sets him on a judgment-seat, where he washes his hands anew.—Pilate's wife, traditionally called Procla or Claudia Procula, from her solemn warning to her husband against putting Jesus to death, has been regarded as a Christian by Origen, Chrysostom, and Hilary. In the Greek Church she is a saint, her day falling on October 27. See R. A. Lipsius, Die Pilatus-Acten (Kiel, 1871).