The gospels and ancient historians agree: Jesus was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, the Roman imperial prefect in Jerusalem. To this day, Christians of all churches confess that Jesus died 'under Pontius Pilate'. But what exactly does that mean?
Within decades of Jesus' death, Christians began suggesting that it was the Judaean authorities who had crucified Jesus—a notion later echoed in the Qur'an. In the third century, one philosopher raised the notion that, although Pilate had condemned Jesus, he'd done so justly; this idea survives in one of the main strands of modern New Testament criticism. So what is the truth of the matter? And what is the history of that truth?
David Lloyd Dusenbury reveals Pilate's 'innocence' as not only a neglected theological question, but a recurring theme in the history of European political thought. He argues that Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, and Augustine of Hippo's North African sermon on that trial, led to the concept of secularity and the logic of tolerance emerging in early modern Europe. Without the Roman trial of Jesus, and the arguments over Pilate's innocence, the history of empire—from the first century to the twenty-first—would have been radically different.
ISBN-13: 9780197764923
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press - USA
Publication Date: 02-01-2024
Product Dimensions: 8.20h x 5.70w x 2.60d
David Lloyd Dusenbury is a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Platonic Legislations: An Essay on Legal Critique in Ancient Greece, and The Space of Time: A Sensualist Interpretation of Time in Augustine.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
List of Figures
Note on Citations
Prologue: The Drama of Pilate and Jesus
PART ONE
A WORLD-HISTORICAL TRIAL
1. "In the Name of Our Lord": The Most Sublime Irony in the History of Empire
2. "You Say I am a King": The Moment When Jesus Confesses to Pilate
3. "These Things Were Reported to Tiberius": The Mystery of What Pilate Wrote
PART TWO
THE HIGH POLITICS OF PILATE AND JESUS
4. "Christ Himself Committed Robberies": The Memoirs of Pilate and the Last Pagan Emperor
5. "Domitian Did Not Condemn Them": Echoes of Jesus in the Trial of His Cousins
6. "Pilate Did Not Utter a Sentence": The Forgeries of 'Pilate' and the Court of Constantine
PART THREE
TWENTY CENTURIES OF INNOCENCE
7. "The Man Who Was Crucified in Palestine": Pilate's Innocence in Pagan Tradition
8. "Jesus Is Going to Be Stoned": Pilate's Innocence in Judaic Tradition
9. "Christ Was Not the One Crucified": Pilate's Innocence in Islamic Tradition
10. "O Roman, Spare This God!": Pilate's Innocence in Christian Tradition
PART FOUR
THE UNLIKELY ORIGINS OF SECULARITY
11. "Beds Inlaid With Silver": The Saeculum in Jesus, Paul, and Julius Paulus
12. "You Acted in Ignorance": Why There Are No Christ-Killers
13. "I Obstruct Not Your Dominion": An African Sermon That Shaped History
14. "There Are Two": An African Letter That Shaped History
PART FIVE
THE GREAT REFUSAL
15. "I Beheld the Shade": A Real Trial and a Fake Donation
16. "Christ Willed Himself to Lack Authority": A Succès De Scandale and a Chain of Gold
17. "A Power Which He Refused": The Momentary Orthodoxy of Thomas Hobbes
18. "Truth Is Not Subject to Human Empire": Samuel Pufendorf and the Logic of Tolerance
19. "Pilate Defended": The Nature of Jesus' Trial and the Rise of Secularization
Epilogue: The Unfinished History of Pilate and Jesus
List of Premodern Titles
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
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