Come to think about it, it’s a perfect day for moaning about politicians. That Pontius Pilate, what a bastard.
The Good Friday Post
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5 responses
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Worst sort of ruler; does what he’s told by a high priest.
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Hm…the historical Pilate wasn’t prone to taking orders from his subjects (cf. Philo and others).
The Biblical account is pretty clear–Pilate didn’t order Jesus’ execution on a priest’s say so, but to prevent rioting by an unruly mob. I don’t think Pilate would’ve needed the counsel of any cleric when he could see and hear the always-volatile citizenry of Jerusalem just outside the governor’s palace.
But I forget–this is the so-sophisticated modern age, in which we know better than those silly religious folk.
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I’ve just read Sanders’ book on the historical Jesus and so am a temporary know-all. And that’s what he reckoned happened.
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Unfortunately, that’s not what actually happened. Even a cursory reading of historical sources portrays Pilate as a brutal, venal governor of the sort which still occasionally crept into the Imperial system. Indeed, he’s only known because of his unusually nasty nature; most Roman governors in the early Empire were conscientious, decent men who did the best they could for their provinces.
And nobody–nobody but the Emperor–‘told’ governors what to do. Pilate owed his authority to the Roman government, and to it alone; anything else would’ve had him yanked back to Italy on charges of malfeasance. -
Eric, no-one knows “what actually happened”. That’s why chappies like Sanders try to infer what might have happened from the sparse sources available. “The Historical Figure of Jesus”, Penguin, 1995, especially pp 265-27, is my source. The point of my comment was to pull the leg of Worstball, who formerly belonged to a Church whose High Priest, over the centuries, meddled endlessly in the political affairs of sundry nations, yielding mountains of corpses.
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