Pilatus drömmande hustru - Procula

Vem var Procula?

Claudia Procula var hustru till Pontius Pilatus, den romerska guvernören i Jerusalem vid tiden för Jesu korsfästelse. Innan rättegången mot Jesus hade hon fått en dröm som fyllde henne med oro. Denna dröm tolkade hon som ett gudomligt varsel, och hon sände ett meddelande till sin man med en vädjan att inte döma den oskyldige mannen (Matt 27). Hennes ingripande visar att hon hade en känslighet för rättfärdighet och en andlig medvetenhet som stod i kontrast till Pilatus politiska beräkningar. Trots hennes varning valde Pilatus att ge efter för folkets krav, vilket ledde till Jesu korsfästelse. Procula räknas som ett helgon i ortodoxa kyrkan. Sankt Proculas minnesdag är den 27:e oktober.

Händelserna kring Jesu död och uppståndelse har ett omfattande historiskt stöd. Naturligtvis är de nytestamentliga källorna utan jämförelse viktigast. Dessa saknar motsvarighet till alla andra antika händelser vad gäller tidsmässig närhet till händelserna, antalet oberoende samstämmiga vittnesuppgifter ur olika perspektiv, antal kopior av såväl originaltext som översättningar med ytterst små variationer sinsemellan. Men förutom dessa texter, som senare samlades i nya testamentet, finns mängder av andra historiska källor. Nedan listas ett antal av dessa.

Utanför Nya Testamentet

Pontius Pilatus, den romerska guvernören känd för sin närvaro vid Jesu rättegång, dokumenteras av:

- Philo från Alexandria (ca 20 f.Kr. - 50 e.Kr.) i verket Embassy to Gaius (299-303).

- Pilatus stenen (Caesarea inskriptionen)

- Ignatius från Antiokia (e.Kr. 30–107) i verket Letter to the Smyrnaeans.

- Josephus (e.Kr. 37–99) i verket The Jewish War (2.9) och Antiquities of the Jews (18.2-3).

- Tacitus (ca e.Kr. 56-120) i verket Annals (15.44).

- Justinus Martyren (ca e.Kr. 100–165) inuti verken First Apology och Dialogue with Trypho.

- Celsus (e.Kr. 120–190) i verket The True Word, citerad av Origenes i Against Celsus (2.34).

- Tertullianus (e.Kr. 160–245) i verket The Apology och On the Resurrection of the Flesh.

- Origenes från Alexandria (e.Kr. 185–253) i verket Against Celsus (2.34).

- Eusebius (ca e.Kr. 260-339) i verket Ecclesiastical History (1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, 5.7).


Korsfästelsen av Jesus dokumenteras av:

- Ignatius från Antiokia (e.Kr. 30–107) i verket Letters to the Smyrneans.

- Josephus (e.Kr. 37–99) i verket Antiquities of the Jews (18.3).

- Tacitus (ca e.Kr. 56-120) i verket Annals (15.44).

- Polykarpus (e.Kr. 69-155) i verket Letter to the Philippians.

- Aristides från Aten (ca e.Kr. 74–134) i verket The Apology.

- Justinus Martyren (ca e.Kr. 100–165) i verket First Apology och Dialogue with Trypho.

- Celsus (ca e.Kr. 120–190) i verket The True Word, citerad av Origenes i Against Celsus.

- Lucian från Samosata (ca e.Kr. 125-180) i verket The Death of the Peregrine.

- Irenaeus från Lyon (e.Kr. 127–203) i verket Against Heresies (1).

- Tertullianus (e.Kr. 160–245) i verket The Apology och On the Flesh of Christ.

- Alexamenos Graffito

Notera: Tacitus hänvisar till korsfästelsen som ”the extreme penalty”. Att korsfästelser var den mest brutala bestraffningen för personer utan romerskt medborgarskap kan ses i Ciceros verk Secondary Orations Against Verres.

Notera: Tacitus var noga med att endast inkludera information från källor som han ansåg var pålitliga och tog kraftigt avstånd från rykten, vilket indikeras i Annals (4.11). Utifrån den sociala miljön av Tacitus verkar det som att Tacitus förlitade sig på romerska källor. Om Tacitus endast hänvisade till något som ett rykte då använde han uttryck som "said" eller "popular report" i Annals (1.76, 2.40, 12.7, 14.29, 11.26, 15.20).

Mörkret vid Jesu korsfästelse dokumenteras av:

- Thallus (1 århundrandet e.Kr.) i Histories, hänvisad till av Sextus Julius Africanus i Chronographiae citerad av George Syncellus i Ekloge chronographias.

- Sextus Julius Africanus (ca e.Kr. 160–240) i Chronographiae, citerad av George Syncellus i Ekloge chronographias.

- Tertullianus (e.Kr. 160–245) i verket The Apology

Notera: Tertullianus dokumenterade att information om mörkret fanns i de romerska arkiven, som var intakta på den tiden. De romerska arkiven förstördes år 410 e.Kr. av visigoterna.


Att romarna tillät begravningar för bestraffade personer dokumenteras av:

- Philo från Alexandria (ca 20 f.Kr. - 50 e.Kr.) i In Flaccum.

- Josephus (37–99 e.Kr.) i The Jewish Wars (4.5.2).

- Begravningslådan av Yohanen ben Hagalgol.

- Ulpianus (ca 170-228 e.Kr.) i On the Duties of Proconsul, citerad i The Digest of Justinian.

- Julius Paulus (200-300 talet e.Kr.) i Sentences, citerad i The Digest of Justinian.

Antika citat

Josephus (AD 37–99) in The Jewish War (2.9):
“2. Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberius, sent by night those images of Caesar that are called ensigns into Jerusalem. This excited a very among great tumult among the Jews when it was day; for those that were near them were astonished at the sight of them, as indications that their laws were trodden under foot; for those laws do not permit any sort of image to be brought into the city. Nay, besides the indignation which the citizens had themselves at this procedure, a vast number of people came running out of the country. These came zealously to Pilate to Cesarea, and besought him to carry those ensigns out of Jerusalem, and to preserve them their ancient laws inviolable; but upon Pilate's denial of their request, they fell (9) down prostrate upon the ground, and continued immovable in that posture for five days and as many nights.

3. On the next day Pilate sat upon his tribunal, in the open market-place, and called to him the multitude, as desirous to give them an answer; and then gave a signal to the soldiers, that they should all by agreement at once encompass the Jews with their weapons; so the band of soldiers stood round about the Jews in three ranks. The Jews were under the utmost consternation at that unexpected sight. Pilate also said to them that they should be cut in pieces, unless they would admit of Caesar's images, and gave intimation to the soldiers to draw their naked swords. Hereupon the Jews, as it were at one signal, fell down in vast numbers together, and exposed their necks bare, and cried out that they were sooner ready to be slain, than that their law should be transgressed. Hereupon Pilate was greatly surprised at their prodigious superstition, and gave order that the ensigns should be presently carried out of Jerusalem.

4. After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that sacred treasure which is called Corban (10) upon aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs. At this the multitude had indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribunal, and made a clamor at it. Now when he was apprized aforehand of this disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers in their armor with the multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men, and not indeed to use their swords, but with their staves to beat those that made the clamor. He then gave the signal from his tribunal [to do as he had bidden them]. Now the Jews were so sadly beaten, that many of them perished by the stripes they received, and many of them perished as trodden to death by themselves; by which means the multitude was astonished at the calamity of those that were slain, and held "their peace.” Källa

Josephus (AD 37–99) in Antiquities of the Jews (18.2, 18.3):
“When Gratus had done those things, he went back to Rome, after he had tarried in Judea eleven years, when Pontius Pilate came as his successor.”

“1. BUT now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar's effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

2. But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews (8) were not pleased with what had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got together, and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off that design. Some of them also used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their habit, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they boldly casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition.

3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.“ Källa


Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC - 50 AD) in Embassy to Gaius:
XXXVII. (294) "But why need I invoke the assistance of foreign witnesses when I have plenty with whom I can furnish you from among your own countrymen and friends? Marcus Agrippa, your own grandfather on the mother's side, the moment that he arrived in Judaea, when Herod [Herod the Great], my grandfather, was king of the country, thought fit to go up from the sea-coast to the metropolis, which was inland. (295) And when he had beheld the temple, and the decorations of the priests, and the piety and holiness of the people of the country, he marvelled, looking upon the whole matter as one of great solemnity and entitled to great respect, and thinking that he had beheld what was too magnificent to be described. And he could talk of nothing else to his companions but the magnificence of the temple and every thing connected with it. (296) "Therefore, every day that he remained in the city, by reason of his friendship for Herod [Herod the Great], he went to that sacred place, being delighted with the spectacle of the building, and of the sacrifices, and all the ceremonies connected with the worship of God, and the regularity which was observed, and the dignity and honour paid to the high priest, and his grandeur when arrayed in his sacred vestments and when about to begin the sacrifices. (297) And after he had adorned the temple with all the offerings in his power to contribute, and had conferred many benefits on the inhabitants, doi:ng them many important services, and having said to Herod [Herod the Great] many friendly things, and having been replied to in corresponding terms, he was conducted back again to the sea coast, and to the harbour, and that not by one city only but by the whole country, having branches strewed in his road, and being greatly admired and respected for his piety. (298) "What again did your other grandfather, Tiberius Caesar, do? does not he appear to have adopted an exactly similar line of conduct? At all events, during the three and twenty years that he was emperor, he preserved the form of worship in the temple as it had been handed down from the earliest times, without abrogating or altering the slightest particular of it.

XXXVIII. (299) "Moreover, I have it in my power to relate one act of ambition on his part, though I suffered an infinite number of evils when he was alive; but nevertheless the truth is considered dear, and much to be honoured by you. Pilate was one of the emperor's lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. He, not more with the object of doi:ng honour to Tiberius than with that of vexing the multitude, dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, in the holy city; which had no form nor any other forbidden thing represented on them except some necessary inscription, which mentioned these two facts, the name of the person who had placed them there, and the person in whose honour they were so placed there. (300) But when the multitude heard what had been done, and when the circumstance became notorious, then the people, putting forward the four sons of the king, who were in no respect inferior to the kings themselves, in fortune or in rank, and his other descendants, and those magistrates who were among them at the time, entreated him to alter and to rectify the innovation which he had committed in respect of the shields; and not to make any alteration in their national customs, which had hitherto been preserved without any interruption, without being in the least degree changed by any king of emperor. (301) "But when he steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation. Tiberius is not desirous that any of our laws or customs shall be destroyed. And if you yourself say that he is, show us either some command from him, or some letter, or something of the kind, that we, who have been sent to you as ambassadors, may cease to trouble you, and may address our supplications to your master.' (302) "But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (303) Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points. And those who were in power in our nation, seeing this, and perceiving that he was inclined to change his mind as to what he had done, but that he was not willing to be thought to do so, wrote a most supplicatory letter to Tiberius. (304) And he, when he had read it, what did he say of Pilate, and what threats did he utter against him! But it is beside our purpose at present to relate to you how very angry he was, although he was not very liable to sudden anger; since the facts speak for themselves; (305) Källa

Celsus (c. AD 120–190) in The True Word, cited by Origen in Against Celsus (2.34).
"But," he [Celsus] continues, "no calamity happened even to him [Pilate] who condemned him [Jesus], as there did to Pentheus, viz., madness or discerption." And yet he does not know that it was not so much Pilate that condemned Him (who knew that "for envy the Jews had delivered Him"), as the Jewish nation, which has been condemned by God, and rent in pieces, and dispersed over the whole earth, in a degree far beyond what happened to Pentheus. Moreover, why did he intentionally omit what is related of Pilate's wife, who beheld a vision, and who was so moved by it as to send a message to her husband, saying: "Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him?"

Pilate stone (c. AD 26-36):
“Tiberium … [Ponti]us Pilate … [Pref]ect of Judea…”

Source: John McRay, Archaeology and the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1991), 204.

Justin Martyr (c. AD 100–165) in First Apology:
“… Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judæa, in the times of Tiberius Cæsar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed.”

“And we have thought it right and relevant to mention some other prophetic utterances of David besides these; from which you may learn how the Spirit of prophecy exhorts men to live, and how He foretold the conspiracy which was formed against Christ by Herod the king of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, and Pilate, who was your governor among them, with his soldiers; and how He should be believed on by men of every race; and how God calls Him His Son, and has declared that He will subdue all His enemies under Him; and how the devils, as much as they can, strive to escape the power of God the Father and Lord of all, and the power of Christ Himself; and how God calls all to repentance before the day of judgment comes.”

“But lest some should, without reason, and for the perversion of what we teach, maintain that we say that Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago under Cyrenius [Quirinius], and subsequently, in the time of Pontius Pilate, taught what we say He taught; and should cry out against us as though all men who were born before Him were irresponsible — let us anticipate and solve the difficulty.”

“And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.”

“And when Ptolemy king of Egypt [Ptolemy XIV] formed a library, and endeavoured to collect the writings of all men, he heard also of these prophets, and sent to Herod [Herod the First], who was at that time king of the Jews, requesting that the books of the prophets be sent to him. And Herod the king [Herod the First] did indeed send them, written, as they were, in the foresaid Hebrew language.” Källa



Ignatius of Antioch (AD 30–107) in Epistle to the Smyrnaeans.

"... and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch [Herod Antipas], nailed [to the cross] for us in His flesh. Of this fruit we are by His divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard Isaiah 5:26, Isaiah 49:22 for all ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and faithful [followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His Church." Källa


Tertullian (AD 160–245) in The Apology:
“… at last they brought Him before Pontius Pilate, at that time Roman governor of Syria; and, by the violence of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to be crucified.”

“All these things Pilate did to Christ” Källa



Tertullian (AD 160–245) in On the Resurrection of the Flesh:
“For in the person of Pilate…” Källa


Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC - 50 AD) in In Flaccum:
“and thus completely made away with the till not a part of them was left which could receive the burial which is the right of all”

Source: Philo. Flaccus. Transl. F. H. Colson, Philo. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941).

Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC - 50 AD) in In Flaccum:
”I have known cases when on the eve of a holiday of this kind, people who have been crucified have been taken down and their bodies delivered to their kinsfolk, because it was thought well to give them burial and allow them ordinary rites.”
Source: Philo. Flaccus. Transl. F. H. Colson, Philo. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941).

Ulpian (c. 170 - 228 AD) in On the Duties of Proconsul, cited by The Digest of Justinian:
“The bodies of those who are condemned to death should not be refused their relatives” Källa

Julius Paulus (2-3 century AD) in Sentences, cited by The Digest of Justinian:
“The bodies of persons who have been punished should be given to whoever requests them for the purpose of burial.” Källa