Reader and friend JohnC posed a VERY long comment with a question buried in there… somewhere… about whether or not Pontius Pilate was guilty of condemning Jesus Christ to death, and whether he felt any guilt about casting out Our Lord to His death. I decided to take a stab at answering this via a Domain Query:
The long and short of it is that, based on what we know of Roman culture, history, and adherence to legal ethics, Pilate was faced with an extremely difficult choice: the high-minded application of justice, or the practical realities of empire.
He ultimately chose a middle way that, in his eyes at least, absolved him of guilt.
I do not believe that Pilate was completely guiltless. But I also do not think that he acted out of cowardice or fear. And I think that if you examine the Scriptures carefully, you will see that the presence of a Roman governor in the story of Jesus Christ is absolutely not an accident, given that Rome became the centre of the Christian world in the centuries to follow.
Here’s a documentary clip about Pilate’s life and times to shed some further light on things – note, however, that it starts off quite stupidly with a lot of nonsense about how Christians put the blame of the crucifixion upon Jews. We didn’t – they took it upon themselves.
And we haven’t been the greatest persecutors of Jews in history – Muslims have been. Yes, Christians have persecuted Jews, without question or doubt – but pretending that Jewish law and tradition had absolutely nothing to do with those persecutions is not only ignorant, it is ridiculous.
Anyway, draw your own conclusions from this:
4 Comments
prior to Constantine, it was common practice for Roman governors to execute Christians who refused to disavow Jesus and the Bible. that's the source of the apostasy of the Classical Church in regards to Donatism, when they decided that they couldn't be bothered to enforce the Biblical requirements for leadership in the Church.
i'm supposed to believe a Roman governor would "feel guilt" for executing Christ himself? this is a different question from whether or not he actually did bear guilt, according to God's Law. according to Roman Law, he was innocent.
he was certainly responsible in large part for Christ's death, the Sanhedrin would have had absolutely no authority to command Roman Legions to perform an execution of any sort.
otoh, had the Romans not been there, the Jews would certainly have stoned Jesus to death, as they did Stephen just a short while later.
There's a good piece on Pilate here- senseofevents.blogspot.com/2019/04/execution-day-case-against-christ.html
I think it's a leap to say that early Christians were trying to ingratiate themselves to the Romans in the Gospels. As my old pastor said, you have to look at the bible, especially the Gospels and consider who is talking, who is the audience, and what is he trying to tell them. That provides context. I believe John was written last, and the audience was gentiles, greeks mostly, I'm guessing. Not so much Romans, the power structure of which would've neither read, nor cared about the Gospels. You'll see this a lot where John goes into more detail than Matthew. Reason being, Matthews audience would've been Jews, so he took for granted they'd know this or that thing.
also, the only reason Islam is the greatest persecutor of the Jews is because Christianity destroyed the Pagan basis of Roman culture.
the Romans expelled the Jews from Italy proper multiple times, at least one of which was before Christ was even born. this is to say nothing of the multiple wars they conducted in Palestine.
go tell Masada how much the Romans loved the Jew.
Thank you didacts for the podcast. Next time I will make the question a lot more sensible and clear.
I will say I got carry away with the question of Pilate and his guilt. I was watching documentaries on the trials, death and resurrection of Christ, reading the bible on these chapters and discussing with fellow Christians during the Easter weekend. I receive different views on Pilate. Some saying he had no choice so no guilt, others claiming him more guilty than the High priest since he was in charge and of course everything in between.
You did a good job in the podcast. I can learn a thing or 2 about structuring episodes.