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Pontius Pilate : The Biography of an Invented Man

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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.

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 leelawok@mmcable.com

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.

As Wroe admits, there is not enough hard evidence to allow one to write a true biography of Pilate. So she doesn't attempt this. Instead, she weaves together the fragments that do exist into a wonderful book, which can be roughly divided into 2main sections.

The first deals with the historical background. Firstly,what did it mean for a Roman to be named a provincial governor? What sorts of people acheived this status, and how would they have viewed their job?

Secondly, what was the situation in Judea during Pilate's time there? What was the relationship between the Romans and the Jews? What do we know about Pilate's specific acts while there? Although I knew quite a bit of Roman history, these sections were still very interesting, and did a better job of putting that history into a personal context than the usual political histories.

The second section is much more speculative, and recounts the Passion, using both the Gospels and numerous medieval Passion Plays to explore Pilate, his character, and his motives. I think it is this section that some reviewers have objected to, but it was what I found most interesting.

Pilate only shows up briefly in the Gospels, but the very existence of this book testifies to the continuing fascination that he has for people. Wroe traces some of the historical threads and interpretations on Pilate that have been created, and supplies a few speculations of her own. To me, this section read like nothing so much as _The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony_ by Calasso, with its telling and retelling of the Greek myths, sort of a theme and variations approach to the numerous alternative myths that have grown up around the central stories.

So, maybe it isn't biography, but it is an enjoyable, informative, and thought provoking work of non-fiction, wherever you want to shelve it.

Since there is bound to be a surge of interest about Pilate
in the wake of the Gibson film, I thought it might be helpful
to post this cautionary note to the curious.

Be advised that there is scant factual information about the
real, historical Pontius Pilate available anywhere.
Therefore, Ann Wroe's biography is, as her title indirectly reveals -
and which she thoroughly admits to within -
an invention; though all credit to her, a superbly researched invention.

This is a virtual biography of someone who has become a cultural icon.
There is considerable scholarship and erudition on display in this portrait,
but so much speculation and reliance
on the fictionalization of its subject that it is guaranteed
to frustrate anyone who hopes to discover the real person
buried within.

Pontius Pilate is lost in time and all we have left is our
cultural phantasms of him. Ann Wroe finds these projections
interesting, but you may not. If you enjoy cultural history,
then by all means appreciate Ann Wroe's considerable research.
If you prefer a more factual representation, this book is not for
you.

Fashionable rationalizations concerning the impossibility
of accurately reconstructing historical events or a person's
life actually work to this author's advantage in this case.
Otherwise, I think such arguments are sophistry at its worst.

Without a doubt, Ann Wroe is a great writer, and this a beautifully written book about a complex and obscure topic. She has an excellent grasp of the subject, a wonderful imagination, and was a real joy to read. However, it has many flaws. The biggest is the complete lack of goodies - no citations, no maps, no illustrations whatsoever. She also didn't even reprint in full the few sources available, i.e. the Gospels, Josephus, & Philo of Alexandrea. On the other hand, Wroe has an obsession with medieval passion plays, which aren't really relevant to the subject. The history of Judea under the procurators is mentioned often but not really discussed in detail. She has little respect for the Gospels, or for Christianity in general, but this is normal and acceptable by today's standards. This is a good but not great book, and is worth reading, but I was dissappointed. It's more a long 400 page essay than a true biography or history.

This is a very enjoyable book. Ann Wroe, in the preface says that there is almost no specific information available about the life of Pilate. Yet, much can be extrapolated from what is known about governors of Roman provinces during the early Empire. Wroe interweaves this information with depictions of Pilate throughout the centuries. She has done an amazing job of research and writes very well. I enjoyed reading Pontius Pilate very much.

Out front: This is the most interesting study of Christianity -- yes, that's what I said! of Christianity! -- that I've read in a long time. It's deeper and more challenging than the forthright rejections of Christian dogmata by Dawkins and Harris, or the diffident correctives by Bart Erdman. What's at stake in this book is the credibility of belief, any belief, sealed in the culturally determined 'mentality' of the believers. To ask for the Truth about Pontius Pilate is to restate precisely Pilate's own reported question: What is truth? Farther out front: I am not a Christian believer. But the Roman playwright Terence spoke for me when he said "Nothing human is alien to me," not even the most baleful superstition.

What would be the difference between a "conjectural history" and a "historical fiction'? Clearly both can be based on extensive research. Possibly there's spectrum, involving a certain amount of overlap, across which "explicit uncertainty" and "implicit certainty" are found in inverse proportion. Any biography of Pontius Pilate would have to be conjectural; the total documentation of the man's existence could be printed in full, in the original languages and translation, on a few pages. However, fear not! Ann Wroe's "Pontius Pilate" is NOT a conjectural biography, though it is replete with identified conjectures based on established knowledge of Jewish, Roman, and later European history. Rather, this book is a study of the representations of Pilate - the concepts of Pilate within Christian and non-Christian communities - from the divergent accounts given in the four canonic gospels, to that of Augustine, to the entertaining figure of Medieval Passion and Corpus Christi dramas, to the Pilate that intrigued 19th C philosphers, to the bathetic parody of Hollywood cinema. What Wroe reveals is that the representation of Pilate has varied immensely, and that each successive concept of Pilate has served its purpose in the paradigm of religious, as well as political, beliefs of the successive epochs. Pilate is, and has always been, what people need him to be.

Wroe's respectful treatment of the Biblical portrayal of Pilate in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John will probably not be palatable to fundamentalist/evangelical Christians in America. First of all, it doesn't conflate them; instead it exposes their inconsistencies. Second, noting that all four accounts were written long after the events they purport to describe, Wroe (like Erdmann) uncovers the motivations of their authors, suggesting for instance that the Gospel of John, the latest to be written, set out explicitly to exonerate the Roman State, by making Pilate indecisive about Jesus's identity, and to 'pin the guilt' on the Jews. Of course, the Roman administration of a province like Judea reserved all control of executions to itself; historically, if anyone executed a man named Jesus by crucifixion, it was the Romans who did the deed. One can find some of the roots of virulent anti-Semitism is St. John's politically expedient evasiveness.

There were, however, not only the canonic Biblical representations of Pontius Pilate in the earliest centuries of Christianity. In Apochryphal and Gnostic sources, there are tales of a repentant Pilate, a Pilate who achieves redemption and sanctity. Likewise there are accounts of Pilate's wife, after the crucifixion, performing acts of charity and penitence. That wife, Claudia Procula according to some, was designated Saint Procula by Eastern Orthodox believers.

Some of the most astonishing representations of Pilate, and of Judas, come from much more recent sources, from the Corpus Christi dramas written in English, probably by local clergymen, in the 15th and 16th Centuries, and performed annually as pageants in various English towns, notably in York and Chester. Those dramas, full of low comedy and high theological pedagogy, rank alongside Chaucer's poems as the foundation of English literature. They are also extremely valuable sources of insight into the mindset - religious and social - of the English people in their formative era. Wroe has translated passage after passage into 'modern' English in order to delineate the Medieval perception of Pontius Pilate as a "corrupt ruler", a bad king if you will.

Closer to our times, Wroe finds a subtler image of Pilate. Here she quotes British Prime Minister Tony Blair:
"It is possible to view Pilate as the archetypal politician, caught on the horns of an age-old dilemma. We know he did wrong, yet his is the struggle between what is right and what is expedient that has occurred throughout history. The Munich Agreement of 1938 was a classic example of this, as were the debates surrounding the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Corn Laws. And it is not always clear, even in retrospect, what is, in truth, right. Should we do what appears principled or what is politically expedient? Do you apply a utilitarian test or what is morally absolute?..." This is a passage that might well resonate in the minds of American politicians following the recent battle over universal health care. Pontius Pilate, we assume, chose the expedient utilitarian test. Nancy Pelosi and the other Democrats who chose the moral absolute of extending health care to all Americans can pride themselves on not emulating Pilate.

There is another, far deeper question, which Ann Wroe probes gently but relentlessly, in the representation of Pontius Pilate within the Drama of God's Salvation of mankind. That's the ultimate theological paradox of God's omnipotence/omniscience versus human free will. What Christian thinker, since the Gnostics and Manicheans, has maintained that God did not intend the Crucifixion? Did not foresee and foreordain it? And in essence, execute the execution of Jesus Christ in order to fulfill His own Divine justice? But then, what "free will" did Pontius Pilate have? Was he a corrupt agent of a decadent despotism, as the Medievals imagined him? In that case, how can he be ascribed a will of his own? Wasn't he merely a 'fall guy" or a 'victim of entrapment? On the other hand, if he was a man of some conscience, who equivocated and tried to elude responsibility, to "wash his hands" of it, could he REALLY have chosen to liberate Jesus and thereby abort the divine plan of sacrifice? Of course not! God had the script in hand. Pilate was as much God's 'agent' in this schema as Mary, John the Baptist, or Peter. Or Judas, or Barabbas. Pontius Pilate stands as the embodiment of the inconsistency of personal guilt within a predestined eschatology. Beware, Christians! Pilate's dilemma is yours.

The more determined any reader is to have a single declarative answer to the question "what is truth", the less that reader will appreciate Ann Wroe's methodology or comprehend Ann Wroe's (un)conclusions. Readers with a taste for subtleties will find this book immensely readable, enjoyable, informative, possibly even revolutionary. Readers deeply committed to an assurance of the eternal verity and unity of Christian faith will find the waters of this book extremely disturbing to walk on.

Excellent book covering views and folklore and historical data available on Pontius Pilate. Gives a great insight on the times, and culture during the time of Jesus. Best book on the subject of Pilate.

Wroe has taken every scrap of information she could find about Pilate and woven a beautiful tapestry by synthesizing it all through her stunning imagination and beautiful prose.

If you're looking for a work of archeology: NO.

If you're looking for an affirmation of dogmatic faith: NO.

If you're looking for a wonderfully written meditation on history, ambition, power, doubt, and the power of myth, among other things: YES.

Surely one of the best books I've read in my life, and that's saying something, I'd like to think.