PLT ⟶ SUB PONTIO PILATO

[Giuseppe]

In the Gospels, during the trial, the verb “to release” (or “to deliver”) is associated with Pilate in a remarkable way:

• 4 times in Mark:
  
  Mark 15:6
  
  
  Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired.
  
  Mark 15:9
  
  But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?
  
  Mark 15:11
  
  But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.
  
  Mark 15:15
  
  And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.
  
  

• ...and 4 times in Matthew:
  
  Matthew 27:15
  
  Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would.
  
  Matthew 27:17
  
  Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?
  
  
  Matthew 27:21
  
  The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
  
  Matthew 27:26
  
  Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
  
  

• ...5 times in Luke:
  
  Luke 23:17
  
  (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)
  
  Luke 23:18
  
  And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas:
  
  Luke 23:20
  
  Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.
  
  Luke 23:22
  
  And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.
  
  Luke 23:25
  
  And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.
  
  

• ...and 5 times in John:
  
  John 18:39
  
  But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews?
  
  
  
  John 19:10
  
  Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?
  
  John 19:12
  
  And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
  
  

• ...same association in Acts 3:13 :
  
  
  The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.
  
  

This insistence is understandable when we know that the name Pilate has the same root (PLT) as the Hebrew verb PâLaT which means “to save”, “to deliver”.

[Giuseppe]

This fact implies that Pilate is strictly connected with the Barabbas episode (all the occurrences of ἀπολύω and Πιλάτος are found in connection with Barabbas). Even in Acts 3:13, the idea is that Pilate wanted to release Jesus but the Jews prevented him. Without Barabbas, you have not Pilate at all.

Hence I give up definitely to the idea that the Earliest Gospel was without the Barabbas episode but only Pilate who killed Jesus.


The simplest conclusion is that the idea/tradition that "a Roman governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner" is at the origin of the introduction of "Pilate" in the holy fable called Gospel.

Without that particular idea/tradition, the Gospel writer would have never imagined at all a Jesus placed SUB PONTIO PILATO.

[Giuseppe]

Even an idiot historicist was only a step distant from the truth above:

It has been shown that no record exists which tends to prove that the system of releasing prisoners was employed by any governor of Judea before Pilate, and the use, in John's narrative, of the first person of the verb, ἀπολύω shows that it was, in the opinion of the author of John, a device conceived by Pilate

(The Pardoning of Prisoners by Pilate, RW Husband, 1917, my bold)

That idiot historicist would have never imagined that the 'device' ἀπολύω was inside the name itself of PiLaTe.

[Giuseppe]

Now, the more famous act of releasement of a prisonner named Jesus by a Roman Governor, is the following episode reported by Josephus:

But a further portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace and prosperity, there came to the feast at which it is the custom of all Jews to erect tabernacles to God, one Jesus, son of Ananias, a rude peasant, who suddenly began to cry out, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people." Day and night he went about all the alleys with this cry on his lips. Some of the leading citizens, incensed at these ill-omened words, arrested the fellow and severely chastised him. But he, without a word on his own behalf or for the private ear of those who smote him, only continued his cries as before. Thereupon, the magistrates, supposing, as was indeed the case, that the man was under some supernatural impulse, brought him before the Roman governor; there, although flayed to the bone with scourges, he neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear, but, merely introducing the most mournful of variations into his utterances, responded to each lashing with "Woe to Jerusalem!" When Albinus, the governor, asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these cries, he answered him never a word, but unceasingly reiterated his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go. During the whole period up to the outbreak of war he neither approached nor was seen talking to any of the citizens, but daily, like a prayer that he had conned, repeated his lament, "Woe to Jerusalem!" He neither cursed any of those who beat him from day to day, nor blessed those who offered him food: to all men that melancholy presage was his one reply. His cries were loudest at the festivals. So for seven years and five months he continued his wail, his voice never flagging nor his strength exhausted, until in the siege, having seen his presage verified, he found his rest. For, while going his round and shouting in piercing tones from the wall, "Woe once more to the city and to the people and to the temple," as he added a last word, "and woe to me also," a stone hurled from the ballista struck and killed him on the spot. So with those ominous words still upon his lips he passed away. –

(War 6, 5, 3)

[Giuseppe]

πλατεῖα means "wide road, broad way".


The idea of a "broad road" is found in Matthew 7:13-14:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Εἰσέλθατε διὰ τῆς στενῆς πύλης· ὅτι πλατεῖα ἡ πύλη καὶ εὐρύχωρος ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ἀπώλειαν, καὶ πολλοί εἰσιν οἱ εἰσερχόμενοι δι’ αὐτῆς·

Note that the Latin Pilatus resembles the Greek Πυλατις, gate-keeper.


The "narrow gate" is surely not the "broad road", πλατεῖα, i.e. Pilate. Barabbas went through the "broad road", the wilderness before him (as cursed scapegoat of Leviticus 13). But πλατεῖα "leads to destruction": Pilate kills Barabbas by "releasing" him.

The point of this post is that even the Greek readers of the Greek proto-Gospel could realize that Pilate, as πλατεῖα, is a liberator/releaser, allegory of the wide road leading to destruction.

This function of Pilate is typical of a gate-keeper (Πυλατις): he makes people enter (through the narrow gate) or exit (in direction of the broad road).

To introduce Pilate in the holy fable, you "Mark" have to know only two things:

• the historical Pilate, from Josephus

• The parable of the narrow gate versus the wide road.

[Giuseppe]

Naturally, it is not necessary to assume that the Matthean parable of the narrow gate preceded Mark. The idea of demonic archontes as gate-keepers is found in Psalm 24:

Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors! That the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors! That the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory!

The Septuaginta gives:

Lift up your gates, ye princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of Glory? the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your gates, ye princes; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is this king of glory.

In Greek the idea is stronger that the "gates" are under the power of the "archontes": hence, the archontes are Gate-Keepers.

They were euhemerized in the person of Pilate (Πυλατις == "Gate-Keeper").

[Giuseppe]

• the ancient author ("Mark") had a story derived from Psalm 24 Septuaginta about demonic Archontes as Gate-Keepers being defeated in outer space by the Lord of Glory: Lift up your gates, ye princes.

• He wanted to set it fictitiously in the term of a Roman governor (any Roman governor of the right era will do),

• He read down a list of governors and noticed “Pilate” as a pun on Πυλατις, "Gate-Keeper", saying “aha!” and that was the controlling factor in the choice of Pilate.

[Giuseppe]

Now this is interesting. Prof Dennis McDonald says that Mark is a midrash from Homer + Jewish Scriptures.

There is a further confirmation that his thesis is probable.

Goddess Athena is the divine patron of Odysseus. It is Athena who helps Odysseus to be masked as an old beggar, to deceive the Suitors.

In the Gospel, who wants the salvation of Jesus, against the Jews?

Without doubt, he is Pilate:

“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

12 “What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

13 “Crucify him!” they shouted.

14 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

So Matthew:

For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.

19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”

Now, is it only a coincidence, that precisely in Homer, Πυλατις is an epitet of the goddess Athena?

https://books.google.it/books?id=plKjdk ... is&f=false

Not only that: it seems, quoting the Italian text above, that Πυλατις refers to a particular virtue of Athena: his political prudence, since she protected only the gates, hence limiting the conflict around a precise point (before the gates), differently from god of war Ares (Marte) who extended the war along all the front and the wall.

Pilate shows a lot of political prudence, too. He is too much diplomatic with the Jews. He is more similar to Athena than to Ares.

Hence this supports again and again my point: that "Mark" (author) read Πυλατις in Homer connected with Athena and he desired to have a similar patron for Jesus: the best candidate, in his list of Roman Governors, was: Pilate.

Π	υ	λ	α	τ	ι	ς
Π	ι	λ	ᾶ	τ	ο	ς