The following text recounts one of the various traditions regarding the fates of Pilate and the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas after the unjust killing of Christ. It originates from a manuscript of the Holy Monastery of Iviron, a copy of which is kept in the cell of Saint Gobdela the Persian of that same monastery, which was transcribed and published by the Mount Athos monk (+) Hieromonk Averkios in 1895 and 1896 in Varna.
After the Ascension of the Lord, Pontius Pilate, the
governor of Judea, wrote a report as required to the Roman Emperor Tiberius
regarding the events that occurred concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.
Tiberius, having been informed of the Lord’s many
miracles, His Resurrection from the dead, and that many believed Him to be God,
reported these matters to the Roman Senate and threatened the accusers of the
Christians with death.
Tiberius’s response to Pilate came in a letter
criticizing his unjust decision to condemn Christ, but also dispatching his
Commissioner Rahab along with 2,000 men to arrest him and bring him to Rome,
along with the High Priests Caiaphas and Annas.
The delegation from Rome arrested Pilate and the High
Priests, whom they bound in chains. In chains, they sailed for Rome.
Caiaphas died in Crete. The ship stopped, and they
buried the high priest’s putrid body, which was expelled from the grave, since
even the earth would not accept him. They buried him seven times, but “the
earth cast him out, unburied and black as Cain, for the great evil we
committed, which condemned Christ.” A great crowd then gathered and, cursing
him, buried him under a huge pile of stones.
This was the end of Caiaphas. His tomb in a village
near Heraklion survived until the end of the 19th century.
This tradition is very old and is mentioned by several
travelers (though it is not historically confirmed).
The ship continued its journey and arrived in Rome.
Tiberius did not wish to examine them. He gave an order, and the High Priest
Annas was wrapped naked in oxhide and left in the summer sun. From the heat,
the skin dried out and tightened around his body, causing it to burst and his
internal organs to spill out, thus bringing about a gruesome death.
As for Pilate, he ordered that he be locked up in a
tower in chains, with the intention of killing him himself. One day, Tiberius
had gone out hunting near the tower where Pilate was being held captive.
Pilate was informed of this by the guard and rushed to
a hole in the wall to see Caesar. Then a roe deer approached the tower wall,
roughly at the height of the hole from which Pilate was watching.
Caesar Tiberius, fearing he would lose his prey,
quickly took aim with his bow, and the arrow entered through the hole in the
tower wall, piercing Pilate’s eyes and killing him.
According to Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History,
vol. II, VII), Pilate was exiled to Vienne in France, where he committed
suicide. According to another tradition, he was thrown into the Tiber River,
and his corpse caused floods and destruction.
Yet another tradition holds that he fell from a
mountain that still bears his name today on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. While
another states that he was beheaded during the reign of Tiberius.
Metropolitan Meletios of Athens, in his Ecclesiastical
History, states the following: After the Ascension of the Lord, Pontius Pilate,
the governor of Judea, wrote a report as required to the Roman Emperor Tiberius
regarding the events that occurred concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.
Tiberius, having been informed of the Lord’s many
miracles, His Resurrection from the dead, and that many believed Him to be God,
reported these matters to the Roman Senate and threatened the accusers of the
Christians with death. After the election of the seven deacons, persecution
broke out against the Church in Jerusalem. Then, Mary Magdalene, along with
Martha, Lazarus, and Joseph of Arimathea, visited Tiberius in Rome (according
to Baronius, in Marseille, France), to whom she recounted the events and the
injustices committed by the Jews against Christ and protested his unjust execution.
Tiberius was enraged and ordered the high priests (Caiaphas and Annas) and
Pilate to be put to death.
As soon as Vitellius assumed control of the province
of Syria, he replaced Pilate with Marcellus and sent him to Rome to answer to
Tiberius. It took him two years to reach Rome, and in the meantime Tiberius had
died; the new emperor, Gaius Caligula, exiled him to Vienna, where he suffered
great misfortunes and, in despair, committed suicide.
Vittellius maintains that Caiaphas met the same fate,
having committed suicide. Clement of Rome agrees with this. Caiaphas’s
father-in-law, Annas, also met a terrible death—a divine judgment. (See
Meletios, Metropolitan of Athens, Ecclesiastical History, Volume 1, Vienna,
Austria, 1794, pp. 119–126). It is worth mentioning, in closing this note, that
Pilate’s wife, Procula, after his terrible death, repented, was baptized a
Christian, lived a life of faith and piety, and passed away peacefully. Our
Church honors her memory on October 27.
Source: Averkius, a monk of Mount Athos, A Precise
History of the Events Occurring at the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, Originally written by a certain Jew named Aeneas, a
contemporary of the Savior, and translated into Latin by Nicodemus, a Roman, it
is preserved in a manuscript on Mount Athos, Varna 1896, pp. 60–63.
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