Was Pilate really sympathetic?

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One day last month I was in conversation with my parish priest and he told me that in Orthodox tradition it’s known that after Christ was crucified Pontius Pilate was deeply regretful and wanted nothing to do with Jews or Apostles and asked his superiors to relocate him somewhere else. He was sent to Africa where some of the disciples were doing some heavy evangelization. Well, in the latter part of his life he and his wife converted and repented of their sins and became Christians. As were shown hints in the Gospels of his hesitantcy to condemn Christ to death. I think that he is even a Saint in the Orthodox Churches. :eek:
 
Pontius Pilate was a governor of the worst sorts. He was a real pragmatic too, in other words his belief was “whatever is true in this generation is not true in this generation”.
 
There’s a little bit of Pilate in all of us.

I believe his role in the Passion was to show it wasn’t just Jews who killed Christ, but all of us. His indifference to the plight of the innocent is something we all are guilty of from time to time. How many times have I “washed my hands” of a homeless person who asked me for some spare change. *(Please spare me the lecture on not giving money to the homeless becasue they will buy drugs) * His simple question, “What is truth?” haunts all of us every now and then.

Was Pilate sympathetic…I don’t know. What I do know is that he was absolutely…human.
 
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Ghosty:
I think that there’s nothing wrong with the conclusion that, to a certain extent, he was at their mercy and they knew it. The Sanhedrin of that day was notoriously corrupt, and the Jews of that time are far from being held up as saints by Orthodox Jews. Indeed, the Talmud expresses the opinion that it was because of their general evil and “hatred against their brothers” that the Second Temple was allowed by God to be destroyed. Caiaphas and Annas especially are regarded as heretics and wicked men by Orthodox Jews and in the Talmud. In fact, in my opinion the Gospels paint a “rosier” picture of them than the Orthodox Jewish tradition does; they are not considered to be a part of Orthodoxy, and are considered both heretical (for being Sadducees) and wicked. Indeed, the entire “House of Annas” is considered accursed.

Peace and God bless!
That is also an important issue to address and I’m glad you mentioned it. Some Christians need to realize that it wasn’t “the Jews” in general that wanted Jesus crucified. It would seem incredibly strange that the man that the Jews had welcomed with homage into the city of Jerusalem just days earlier was suddenly turned against by that same group of people. Caiaphas and Annas cannot be seen as representative of the Jewish population in Jerusalem. Recall that the Gospels identify Caiaphas as the “high priest of that year.” High priest was apparently not an “office” held for a long time. I’m not certain that it was even an elected position. So perhaps these two corrupt men saw Jesus as dangerous, yet the majority of the Jewish people did not.

But where does Pilate fit into all of this? There is an interesting article concerning Pilate’s view of Jesus and how he dealt with the Jews here.
 
I think the picture given in the gospels is not a sympathetic Goventor but a cynical man whose response to Jesus “…what is truth” shows a pragmatic pagan who is avoiding having to do what is right and Just.

The similarity to Pilate and many modern politicians who say they are personally opposed to abortion but support a woman’s right to choose is almost eery.
I would also conclude that Pilate was brought a man charged with a crime; Pilate probably did not consider the supposed crime to be crimminal. As such, it would be natural that he would have some level of sympathy for Christ.
 
Was Pilate really sympathetic?
No. Pilate masterfully manipulated the situation to his advantage.

Rulers are always looking for ways to increase their authority. When the magi asked Harod about the newborn king of the Jews, Harod sought to kill the newborn king, to maintain his own authority.

Remember, I am looking at the situation from Pilate’s perspective. Sometimes it is counterproductive to kill the leader of a popular movement because that would make the followers more rebellious. In the case of Jesus, the Jewish religious authorities were asking Pilate to kill the leader of the popular movement. This is a golden opportunity. He gave them the choice between Jesus and Barabbas. They chose Jesus! Pilate ceremoniously washed his hands of the whole affair. Brilliant! He even got them to say “We have no king but Cæsar”.

Roman soldiers dressed him in purple robes and gave him a crown (of thorns). The plaque above his head read “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Pilate was putting on a demonstration.

The king of the Jews is being crucified very publicly, at the insistence of the Jews themselves. If you are Pilate looking to increase your own authority, it doesn’t get any better than this.

The chief priests gave a weak protest. “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
 
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