That the conduct of Pilate was, however, highly criminal, cannot be denied. But his guilt was light in comparison of the criminal depravity of the Jews, especially the priests. His was the guilt of weakness and fear, theirs the guilt of settled and deliberate malice. His state of mind prompted him to attempt the release of an accused person in opposition to the clamours of a mis guided mob ; theirs urged them to compass the ruin of an acquitted person by instigating the po pulace, calumniating the prisoner, and terrifying the judge. If Pilate yielded against his judgment under the fear of personal danger, and so took part in an act of unparalleled injustice, the priests and their ready tools originated the false accusa tion, sustained it by subornation of perjury, and when it was declared invalid, enforced their own unfounded sentence by appealing to the lowest passions. Pilate, it is clear, was utterly destitute of principle. He was willing, indeed, to do right, if he could do right without personal disadvantage. Of gratuitous wickedness he was perhaps incapable ; certainly, in the condemnation of Jesus, he has the merit of being for a time on the side of innocence. But he yielded to violence, and so committed an awful crime. In his hands was the life of the prisoner. Convinced of his innocence, he ought to have set him at liberty, thus doing right regardless of consequences. But this is an act of high virtue which we hardly require at the hands of a Roman governor of Juda ; and though Pilate must bear the reproach of acting contrary to his own declared convictions, yet he may equally claim some credit for the apparently sincere efforts which he made in order to defeat the malice of the Jews, and procure the liberation of Jesus.
If now we wish to form a judgment of Pilate's character, we easily see that he was one of that large class of men who aspire to public offices, not from a pure and lofty desire of benefiting the public and advancing the good of the world, but from selfish and personal considerations, from a Love of distinction, from a love of power, from a love of self-indulgence ; being destitute of any fixed principles, and having no ahn but office and in fluence, they act right only by chance and when convenient, and are wholly incapable of pursuing a consistent course, or of acting with firmness and self-denial in cases in which the preservation of integrity requires the exercise of these qualities. Pilate was obviously a man of weak, and there fore, with his temptations, of corrupt character. The view given in the Apostolical Constitutions (v. r4) where unmanliness (avavlpia) is ascribed to him, we take to be correct. This want of strength will readily account for his failing to rescue Jesus from the rage of his enemies, and also for the acts of injustice and cruelty which he prac tised in his government—acts which, considered in themselves, wear a deeper dye than does the conduct which he observed in surrendering Jesus to the malice of the Jews. And this same weak ness may serve to explain to the reader how much influence would be exerted on this unjust judge, not only by the stern bigotry and persecuting wrath of the Jewish priesthood, but specially by the not concealed intimations which they threw out against Pilate, that if he liberated Jesus he was no friend of Tiberius, and must expect to have to give an account of his conduct at Rome. And that this was no idle threat, nothing beyond the limits of probability, Pilate's subsequent depo sition by Vitellius shows very plainly ; nor could the procurator have been ignorant either of the stern determination of the Jewish character, or of the offence he had by his acts given to the heads of the nation, or of the insecurity, at that very hour, when the contest between him and the priests was proceeding regarding the innocent victim whom they lusted to destroy, of his own position in the office which he held, and which, of course, he desired to retain. On the whole, then, viewing the entire conduct of Pilate, his previous iniquities as well as his bearing on the condemnation of Jesus ; viewing his own actual position and the malignity of the Jews ; we cannot, we confess, give our vote with those who have passed the severest condemnation on this weak and guilty governor.
That Pilate made an official report to Tiberius of the condemnation and punishment of Jesus Christ is likely in itself, and becomes the more likely if the view we have given of Pilate's cha racter is substantially correct, for then the gover nor did not regard the case of Jesus as an ordinary, and therefore inconsiderable one, but must have felt its importance alike in connection with the administration of justice, the civil and religious character of the Jews, and therefore with the tenure of the Roman power. The voice of anti quity intimates that Pilate did make such a report ; the words of Justin Martyr are : That these things were so done you may know from the Acts made in the time of Pontius Pilate' (Apol. i. 76). A similar passage is found a little further on in the same work. Now, when it is considered that Justin's Apology was a set defence of Chris tianity, in the shape of an appeal to the heathen world through the persons of its highest func tionaries, it must seem very unlikely that the words would have been used had no such docu ments existed ; and nearly as improbable that those Acts would have been referred to had they not been genuine. Tertullian also uses language equally decisive (Apol. v. 2t). Eusebius gives a still fuller account (Hist. Eccles. ii. 2). These important passages may be found in Lardner (vi. 606, seq.) See also Ord's Acta Pilati, or Pilate's Report (vii. 4), long circulated in the early church, being received without a suspicion (Chrysost. Hom. viii. in Pasch. ; Epiphan. Herr. 1. t ; Euseb. i. 9 and rt ; 9, 5, and 7). There can be little doubt that the documents were genuine (Hencke, Opzzsc. Acad., p. 2or, seq.) Such is the opinion of Winer (Real-wgrterb.) Lardner, who has fully discussed the subject, decides, that it must be allowed by all that Pontius Pilate composed some memoirs concerning our Saviour, and sent them to the emperor' (vi. 61o). Winer adds, What we now have in Greek under this title (Pilate's Report), see Fabricii 2/peer., i. 237, 239 ; 456, as well as the two letters of Pilate to Tiberius, are fabrications of a later age.' So Lardner : ' The Acts of Pontius Pilate, and his letter to Tiberius, which we now have, are not genuine, but manifestly spurious.' We have not space here to review the arguments which have been adduced in favour of and against these docu ments ; but we must add, that we attach some importance to them, thinking it by no means unlikely that, if they are fabrications, they are fabricated in some keeping with the genuine pieces, which were in some way lost, and the loss of which the composers of our actual pieces sought as well as they could to repair. If this view can be sustained, then the documents we have may serve to help us, in the use of discre tion, to the substance of the original Acts. At all events, it seems certain that an official report was made by Pilate ; and thus we gain another proof that these things were not done in a cor ner.' Those who wish to enter into this sub ject should first consult Lardner (zit supra), and the valuable references he gives. See also J. G. Altman, De Epist. Pil. ad Tiber., Bern. 1755 ; Van Dale, De Orac., p. 6o9, seq. ; Schmidt, Ein leitzing ins N. T., ii. 249, seq. Of especial value is Hermansson, De Pontio Pilat., Upsal 1624; also Burger, De Fantle Pilat., Misen. 1782.
On the general subject of this article, the reader may refer to Germar, Docetur ad loco P. Pilati facinora, cat., Thorun 1785 ; J. M. Muller, De P. Christina servandi Studio, Hamb. 1751 ; Nie meyer, Charakt., i. 129, seq. ; Paulus, Comment., iii. 697, seq. ; Lucke, On john XIX. ; Got ter, De Con jug-is Pilati SO1711110, Jen. 1704 ; Kluge, De Sbmnio Uxoris Pilati, Hal. 1720 ; Herbart, Examen Somali Ux. Pil., Oldenb. 5735 ; Schus ter's Urtheil iib. Pilatus, in Eichhorn's Biblioth. d. Bibl. Liter., x. 823, seq. ; Olshausen, Comment., ii. 453, seq. ; Mounier, De Pilati in Causa Servat. agendi ratione, 1825. Hase, in his Leben 7esu, p. 245, affords valuable literary references on this, as on so many other N. T. subjects.—J. R. B.