A figure that looms large in the Christian story, Pontius Pilate is cited by name in both the Apostles Creed—which has roots in the second century—and the more explicit and detailed Nicene Creed, adopted in 325 AD.

The verifiable facts of Pilate’s life, however, are few. His rank indicates he hailed from a high social class and was formally educated. He served as procurator, akin to governor, of Judea, a backwater of the Roman empire, where he acted in the interests and according to the fiats of its all-pervasive bureaucracy. His tenure covered the decade from 26-36 AD, overlapping the ministries of both John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. These recorded historical facts, as St. Augustine pointed out, situate the Lord in a specific time and place.

The defining moment of Pilate’s career—and the reason he is known to us at all— is the trial and condemnation of Jesus Christ, over which he presided. We would be hard pressed to find an adult, at least in the West, who is not familiar with the story, either from the canonical accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, or from thousands of so-called passion plays, reaching into our own time, for example, with the 1970s musical Jesus Christ, Superstar. The “greatest story ever told” has been retold in films by directors as wildly different as Cecil B. DeMille, Pier Paulo Pasolini, and Mel Gibson.

The four gospel accounts are more or less in accordance on the main points: We find the Lord agonizing through solitary prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, his apostles asleep after Jesus asked them to keep watch; the betrayal by Judas Iscariot; Jesus’s arrest and arraignment before the Sanhedrin—the hierarchical power of the Temple, who, if we’ve been paying attention during the unfolding of the story before Christ’s apprehension, have been long plotting his demise.

Descriptions of the same event always vary to some degree; had the four retellings tracked one another letter for letter, we would have a right to be skeptical. But the stories diverge in enough detail to grant them credibility. Matthew and Mark, for instance, concur on one of the Lord’s more well-known quotes, “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.” Luke and John leave this out. Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Only Luke has Jesus reattaching the ear. John alone names him: Malthus.

In younger years I squirmed on Palm Sunday, with its long gospel recounting Our Lord’s passion and the participation of the faithful—“Crucify him!”—troubled by what I thought was my heretical interpretation of Pilate’s character; no heinous malefactor but a sympathetic figure. As I grew in strength if not in wisdom, it dawned on me that that was the way the procurator was being portrayed. Gospel commentary by the early Church Fathers bears this out.

Jesus is brought before Pilate with the intention that he should be put to death. Sensing the envy of Caiaphas the high priest and the rest, Pilate is instantly suspicious. Allegations are made. Pilate dismisses them. You want him dead, kill him yourselves.

John, the cosmologist of the Bible, hints toward the ineffability of the divine, while drawing the most detailed portrait of Pilate, who emerges conflicted, contradicted, afraid—his full human self. He may have good intentions, may be inclined toward doing right, just so long as it doesn’t set him back too far along his career path, or get him in Dutch with his bosses.

And isn’t that every single one of us?

The initial interrogation doesn’t go well. Pilate asks, Are you a king? Answering a question with a question, Jesus replies, Did you come up with this on your own, or did you get it from somebody else? Their elliptical dialogue shows them talking past one another, the government official falling back on the edicts of men, the Lord referring to the consummation of his earthly mission. Sparring, Pilate poses what might be the central question—“What is truth?”—but there comes no reply. The silence seems to satisfy him, and he goes back outside to render his verdict.

“I find no guilt in him.”

The mob is not persuaded. Pilate, shifting tactics, attempts to pardon Jesus according to a holiday custom, giving them a choice between freeing the Lord or a notorious criminal named Barabbas, thinking certainly, as St. Jerome has observed, they would choose Jesus. Wrong. Pilate then orders him to be carried off and scourged, and when that grim business is finished, he and Jesus appear once more before the rabble.

“Ecce homo,” Pilate announces. Behold the man. We’ve beaten him and abused him and mocked him with a crown of thorns and arrayed him in purple, the color of royalty. That’s enough. That’s plenty.

The throng’s bloodlust reaches a frenzy, but Pilate again says, “I find no guilt in him.” For a second time, he interrogates Jesus, who points out that Pilate, in his position and in his place, would have no power over him at all, had it not been granted in an invisible realm of which the procurator hasn’t a glimmer.

Pilate senses that he is in the presence of a truly holy man, a mystical power he cannot reconcile with the limited influence he has been granted by Rome. How could he not be humbled in this presence, weakened? How could he not be frightened? But outdone by the will of the mob and his mounting terror, he can do nothing but devolve to his temporal obligations. His encounter with our Lord is complete. Or is it?

The procurator is last seen allowing Joseph of Arimathea to receive the body of Christ for burial. Canonical sources mention Pilate no further, but legend and tradition have been, as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, “busy with his name.”

The original accounts are nowhere to be found, and when authentic history has been swallowed by the sands of time, the impulses of apocrypha are sure to fill the void. So it is with Pontius Pilate. One story has Pilate bearing witness to the Lord’s resurrection and turning to Christian discipleship. A conflicting tradition has him falling under the severe admonishment of Rome and committing suicide in disgrace. Maybe the most credible legend has Pilate filing a full report on Jesus’ trial and crucifixion; it is likely that there could have been at least some account, but no document exists attesting to the fact.

The Abyssinian church recognizes Pilate and his wife Claudia, whose conversion story dates to the 2nd century, as saints. Its argument may be strengthened somewhat by the many so-called Gnostic gospels. A few of these non-canonical books possess a bit of credibility; others are outright forgeries. In any event, the Abyssinians concelebrate their feasts on June 25th.

When considering the winning of hearts and minds, Jesus Christ is the change agent for all time. Recall the man born blind in John, Ch.9, the Samaritan woman at the well. Remember Simon the Cyrenian, forced to carry the cross for fear that Jesus would die before they had the chance to crucify him. One tradition holds that Simon did not go back to work; he remained on Calvary until the Lord breathed his last. And what of Saul of Tarsus, thrown from his mount on the road to Damascus, known now and forevermore as St. Paul? If there had been no Paul, the Church, capital C, would not exist. No one emerges from an interaction with Jesus without being altered or rearranged. Why would Pontius Pilate, without whom there is no cross—and without the cross, no faith and ultimately no salvation—be any exception?