Pontius Pilate : The Biography of an Invented Man [Paperback]

Ann Wroe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2001 | Series: Modern Library Paperbacks

The foil to Jesus, the defiant antihero of the Easter story, mocking, skeptical Pilate is a historical figure who haunts our imagination. For some he is a saint, for others the embodiment of human weakness, an archetypal politician willing to sacrifice one man for the sake of stability. In this dazzlingly conceived biography, a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize, Ann Wroe brings man and myth to life. Working from classical sources, she plunges us into the world of biblical Judaea under the reign of the erratic and licentious emperor Tiberius and lets us see the trial of Jesus, in all its confusion, from the point of view of his executioner.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pontius Pilate, by Ann Wroe, is beautifully written, imaginatively researched, and intricately structured. Most importantly, it provides readers with a valuable emotional experience: a chance to rediscover and redeem Pilate's famous question--"What is truth?"--in a spirit of humility and hope. A handful of small coins and one inscribed stone are the only physical evidence that Pilate existed. All of the textual sources that mention Pilate, Wroe notes, are "so wrapped in propaganda or agendas that it is difficult to detect what, if anything, may be true." But since Pilate "stands at the center of the Christian story and God's plan of redemption," Wroe persevered in her efforts to discern the profile of his life. "Without his climactic judgment of Jesus, the world would not have been saved. To have a faceless bureaucrat at the heart of all this drama was unacceptable: something had to be made of this man." The book's bold ambition, however, is not blind. "This is not a search for the 'real' Pilate," Wroe admits. "At best, all we have are glints and hypotheses." To learn about her subject, Wroe had to sacrifice most of her sympathetic impulses and shift her concentration to the elements of Roman life that she did not understand. And oddly enough, the passages in which Wroe describes her ignorance most clearly are where we begin to glimpse "a man actually walking on a marble floor in Caesarea, feeling his shoes pinch, clicking his fingers for a slave, while clouds of lasting infamy gather overhead." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Wroe takes current trends in the genre of biography one step further in this eloquent yet frustrating book, offering a reconstructed life of the Roman official who, by ordering the execution of Jesus of Nazareth but otherwise serving with little distinction, managed to become simultaneously famous and obscure. Outside the Gospels, which each bring the governor on stage for a brief if highly charged cameo appearance, there are only a few references to Pilate in contemporary sources. Where other biographers would see a historical desert, Wroe sees the tantalizing mirages that have sprung up over the centuries, from the fourth-century Acta Pilati to medieval mystery plays. She weaves these nonhistorical speculations together with well-researched accounts of first-century Roman lives, producing a shifting but suggestive portrait of an ultimately very human functionary. The writing is both precise and rich (as one might expect from the American editor of the Economist), and the insights into human character ring consistently true, but Wroe's bibliography is alarmingly scant when it comes to historical research on Jesus (who, after all, presents similar problems to biographers). And unlike Jaroslav Pelikan in his masterful Jesus Through the Centuries, Wroe often forfeits the opportunity to show how Pilate's reimagining served changing historical situations, juxtaposing quotes from mystery plays and letters from Cicero with deliberate abandon. "What did he look like? However men imagine him," Wroe writes. Readers who know the satisfactions of more conventional history will find such equivocations disappointing, but those who take Wroe's project on its own terms will find much to ponder. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (March 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375753974
• ISBN-13: 978-0375753978
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #470,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done...evenly balanced, May 25, 2000

By 

Luciano D'Orazio - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pontius Pilate (Hardcover)

This book is unique in that it does not assume to have all the facts about Pontius Pilate's life. Rather, Wroe takes what little we know of him, coupled with classical writings of Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius, as well as medieval and modern representations through drama and prose, and creates a general character that is as complex as any person should be under those circumstances. This is not a history of Christianity or the Jews, but an attempt to create a living character out of what little we know. I think any other method to examining Pilate's life would be reduced to crude hagiography.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars eloquent studies of pilate, judaea, tiberias, and jesus, October 30, 2000

By 

David W. Lee (edmond, ok United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pontius Pilate (Hardcover)

I was deeply moved by the feeling, eloquence and power of this book, and valued its interlacing of the lives of Pilate, Tiberias Caesar, and Jesus in a historical context. An especially powerful rendering, on pages 137 and 138, conveys the presence of Jesus as follows: ". . . the stars were in alignment, and the land of Judaea swarmed with intimations of Christ. . . . The leaves shivered and, before the wind, exposed the name of Christ on their pale undersides. . . . [W]ord came to the swallows that darted around the eaves of the houses . . . . All day they swooped and dashed across the terraces and into the cool tiles halls, squeaking the name of Christ."

It is impossible not to be affected by the spirit of what transpired during Pilate's life. This is a wonderful book, and a valued one.

David W. Lee [e-mail]

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, July 9, 2006

By 

Dr. James Gardner (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pontius Pilate : The Biography of an Invented Man (Paperback)

Ann Wroe's Pontius Pilate begins with the disclaimer that there isn't very much historical information about the former Prefect of Judea, and then goes on for 400+ pages. In fact, this book could be subtitled - "More than you ever wanted to know about who Pilate might have been." Wroe begins by giving us 3 different scenarios about Pilate's birth, with origins in Italy, or Germany, or Spain. Take your pick. Wroe provides three different stories with little guidance as to which is most likely. She then proceeds to tell us what life was like for the young adult when he lived in Rome. It's not about Pilate, per se, but about life in general for someone like Pilate, although we're not sure if it's the peasant Italian pilot, the swashbucking Spanaird, or the brooding German. Apparently it didn't make too much difference.

Wroe is a very good writer and she's obviously done her homework. So the fanciful sections about what life was like is very interesting and informative, but a reader who was drawn by the title "Pontius Pilate" might feel cheated that Wroe's central character is actually missing.

Here's some examples...

"...we have little more to rely on when we come to his age, or his marriage, or how bright he was. Of his age, we can only be certain that he was not younger than 30 when he went to Judea. That was the minimum age for governors..." (p. 40)

"The presence of Procula [his wife] in Judea, if she was there, has often been taken as an indicator of love. In the early years of the empire, wives did not normally accompany their husbands to the provinces." (p. 44)

"Ti estim alethia? was what he [Pilate] said, according to John; and if indeed he said it, Greek was very probably the language he used. This was the lingua franca of the eastern empire. Even a rough soldier would have a smattering of it, and a governor could not work without it, unless he dared to put himself at the mercy of interpreters....It is easy to imagine him mangling his Greek as English-speaking diplomates still mangle French...The state of Pilate's Greek, possibly fluent, possible awful, adds a peculiar poignancy to his supposed exchanges with Jesus... " (p. 50-51)

Wroe is stronger when she looks at the changes in perceptions of Pilate as she dissects the Medieval and later literary and stage personas. We see him change in appearance and temperament as each age re-invents him for their own purposes. She thoroughly documents each turn in the saga of the Pilate family, from his wife to his kids and dog. There is no history here, except the history of the history, which I guess is better than no history at all, but (as Albert Schweitzer said about Jesus) we shouldn't mistake this for history.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in history, especially as it pertains to Christianity. But it should be approached as a general study of the times, and not as a biography of Pontius Pilate.