Forged

by Bart D. Ehrman

  When these words were first written centuries earlier, in Matthew’s Gospel, they already expressed anti-Jewish sentiment. By speaking them, the Jewish crowds showed that they were willing not only to incur the guilt for Jesus’s death, but also to pass along that guilt to future generations of Jews. Over the centuries the words were used by Christian opponents of Jews to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus and to inflict horrible acts of violence against them in retribution. That heightened form of anti-Judaism is already in evidence here, in the Gospel of Nicodemus. The Jewish authorities are shown to be willfully blind to Jesus’s true character. Even the emperor worships him (in the standards). And a number of witnesses are called who recount all the miracles he performed as the Son of God.

  But to no avail. Jesus is crucified at the instigation of the Jews and their leaders. The rest of the account shows the truth of Jesus’s divine character. He is raised from the dead, and the Jewish leaders themselves are given incontrovertible proof of the resurrection through the testimony of reliable witnesses.

  Here, then, is a forged account, written some three hundred years after the events it narrates, to show that Jesus’s death was undeserved, that the Romans (who were on the side of Christians by the mid-fourth century) had nothing to do with the crucifixion, that it was completely the Jews’ fault, and that by rejecting Jesus the Jews have actually rejected their own God. No wonder an account such as this became so popular throughout western Europe in the Middle Ages, when hatred of the Jews was a constant and disturbing aspect of what it meant to be Christian.

  THE “PILATE GOSPELS”

  A number of writings from about the time of the Gospel of Nicodemus are in one way or another connected with Pontius Pilate and his role in the death of Jesus. Most of these are designed to show that Pilate was not at fault for the death of Jesus and that he felt considerable remorse after the deed was done. In several of these writings we learn that Pilate not only repented of the evil deed, but actually became a believer in Christ. In later Christianity the conversion of Pilate became part of the accepted lore from the early church. In the Coptic church Pilate was eventually canonized as a Christian saint.

  Historically, of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Pilate continued on as a brutal governor of Judea after the death of Jesus. There is nothing in the historical record to suggest that he even remembered having ordered Jesus’s execution, let alone felt regret over it. Still, the reason for his later exoneration and even exaltation in parts of the Christian church is reasonably clear. If Pilate was not responsible for Jesus’s death, then who was? The Jews. The legends of Pilate came to be written in a series of documents that may go back to the fourth Christian century or even earlier. A number of them are allegedly written by Pilate himself. All of them, however, are forged.

  The Letter of Herod to Pilate

  The first document we consider was not said to have been written by Pilate, but to him, by his colleague Herod Antipas, the Letter of Herod to Pilate. Historically Pilate is known to have been the Roman governor of Judea, in the southern part of Israel, when Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great (the ruler of the land when Jesus was born), was the Jewish ruler of Galilee, in the northern part of the land. Herod Antipas is best known from biblical tradition for having beheaded John the Baptist. In later legends he is said to have regretted what he did very much, as it came back to haunt him.

  That is the case in this letter forged in his name, allegedly sent to Pilate.3 Here Herod indicates that he is sorry to learn that Pilate had Jesus killed, because he, Herod, wanted to see him and to repent for the evil things he had done. God’s judgment on sinners, he states, fits their crime. In a bizarre incident that he relates, his own daughter has literally lost her head in a flood that arose while she was playing on the banks of a river. The flood began to sweep her away, when her mother reached out to save her by grabbing her head. But her head was severed, so that the mother was left with just the child’s head in her hands. This came, Herod states, as retribution for his having taken the head of John the Baptist.

  He himself is suffering, rotting away even before he has died, so that he says, “Already worms are coming from my mouth.” Here the pseudonymous author appears to confuse this Herod with the later Herod Agrippa, who according to the New Testament book of Acts was eaten by worms and died (Acts 12). So too the Roman soldier Longinus—the one who allegedly stuck a spear in Jesus’s side when he was on the cross—has met a grisly fate. He is condemned to a cave where every night a lion comes and mauls his body until dawn. The next day his body grows back to normal, and the lion then comes again. This will go on until the end of time.

  Pilate, however, the recipient of the letter, is portrayed in a positive light, as a representative of the Gentiles. Not they, but the Jews, will face judgment for what they did to Jesus: “Death will soon overtake the priests and the ruling council of the children of Israel, because they unjustly laid hands on the righteous Jesus.” It is the Gentiles, then, who will inherit God’s kingdom, whereas Herod and the other Jews “will be cast out,” because they “did not keep the commandments of the Lord or those of his Son.”

  The Letter of Pilate to Herod

  A second forged letter goes in the opposite direction, from Pilate to Herod.4 One might expect this letter to be a response to the first, but despite its title, the Letter of Pilate to Herod, and the fact that it names some of the same characters (Herod, Pilate, and Longinus, the spear-wielding soldier), they have almost nothing else in common. In fact, this second letter does not refer to the first and stands at odds with it at a key point. Here Longinus, rather than being subject to never ending torment for what he did, is portrayed as a convert who came to believe in Jesus after the resurrection. That, in fact, is the point of this second letter, that when Jesus was raised, not only Longinus, but also Pilate’s wife, Procla, and then Pilate himself, all became believers.

  According to the narrative of the letter, after Pilate did “a terrible thing” in having Jesus crucified, he hears that he was raised from the dead. Procla and Longinus go to find Jesus in Galilee. There he speaks with them, and they become convinced of his resurrection. When Pilate learns that Jesus has returned to life, he falls to the ground in deep grief. But then Jesus himself appears to him, raises him from the ground, and declares to him, “All generations and nations will bless you.” Here Pilate is not only repentant; he is a Christian convert who will be considered fortunate by later adherents of the faith.

  The Letter of Pilate to Claudius

  We have another letter allegedly from Pilate to a Roman official, but this time it is supposedly directed to the Roman emperor Claudius, written to explain Pilate’s role in the death of Jesus, the Letter of Pilate to Claudius.5 It may seem strange for Pilate to be writing to Claudius, in particular, given the fact that it was Tiberius, not Claudius, who was emperor when Pilate condemned Jesus to death (Claudius became emperor a decade later). Possibly this letter was forged so long after the fact that the forger did not have the facts of imperial history from two hundred years earlier straight (do you know who was president of the United States in 1811?).

  One of the places the letter is preserved for us is in a fabricated account of the missionary activities of the apostles called the Acts of Peter and Paul. In this account we are told that years after Jesus’s death, the apostle Peter and the archheretic Simon the Magician, whom we met earlier, appear before the emperor Nero, evidently in the early 60s CE. When the emperor hears about Christ, he asks Peter how he can learn more about him. Peter suggests that he retrieve the letter that Pilate had sent to his predecessor, the emperor Claudius, and to have it read aloud. He does so, and the letter then is quoted in full.

  The idea that Pilate may have written a letter to the emperor to explain the death of Jesus was widespread in early Christianity. We have references to some such letter as early as the third century in the writings of the church father Tertullian and in the fourth century in the Church Histor
y of Eusebius.6 The letter I am discussing here is probably not the one referred to by these two authors. Possibly this one was composed by a forger who thought that some such letter must once have existed. The themes of the short letter are very similar to ones we have already explored. It is the wicked Jews who are responsible for Jesus’s death, and they will be punished by God for it. As “Pilate” states in the letter:

  The Jews, out of envy, have brought vengeance both on themselves and on those who come after them by their terrible acts of judgment. They have been oblivious to the promises given to their ancestors, that God would send them his holy one from heaven…through a virgin.

  According to the letter Jesus proved that he was the son of God by his many miracles, but the Jewish leaders told lies in order to have him executed. Then they (not the Roman soldiers!) crucified him. When he arose from the dead “the wickedness of the Jews was set aflame,” so that they bribed the soldiers to say that Jesus’s disciples had stolen the body from the tomb. Pilate has written this letter so that the emperor will know the truth and not be “led to believe the false reports told by the Jews.”

  The Report of Pontius Pilate

  A longer document called the Report of Pontius Pilate gives yet another letter of the Roman governor to the emperor, but this time to Tiberius, soon after the death of Jesus.7 This letter appears to be much closer to what the early third-century Tertullian described when he claimed: “Pilate, who was himself already a Christian with respect to his most innermost conviction, made a report of everything that happened to Christ for Tiberius, the emperor at the time.”8 Again, it is doubtful if the surviving Report is the document Tertullian refers to. Scholars tend to date it to a later period, possibly the fourth century or so. Its chief claims, in any event, are similar to those of the other forgeries we have looked at in this chapter: Jesus was the miracle-working son of God who was wrongly condemned by the Jews to death. Pilate was innocent of the entire proceeding.

  The Report starts by stressing that Pilate was administering the province of Judea according to “the most gentle directives” of the emperor. Nothing hard-hearted or malicious about this Pilate! But the “entire multitude of the Jews” (not just the Jewish leaders) handed Jesus over to him, “bringing endless charges against him” even though they “were not able to convict him of a single crime.”

  Pilate goes on to indicate, however, that Jesus had done many miracles, making the blind see, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, healing paralytics, and so on. These were amazing deeds, as Pilate himself confesses: “For my part, I know that the gods we worship have never performed such astounding feats as his.” But the Jews are unmoved and threaten a riot, and so Pilate orders him crucified.

  At Jesus’s death a miraculous darkness covers the earth, and at his resurrection a miraculous brightness appears. At three in the morning the sun begins to shine in full strength, angels are seen in the heavens, there are earthquakes and the splitting of rocks, and great chasms form in the earth. All this spells disaster for the recalcitrant Jews:

  The light did not cease that entire night, O King, my master. And many of the Jews died, being engulfed and swallowed up in the chasms in that night, so that their bodies could no longer be found. I mean to say that those Jews who spoke against Jesus suffered. But one synagogue was left in Jerusalem, since all the synagogues that opposed Jesus were engulfed.

  The Handing Over of Pilate

  A final example of a “Pilate Gospel” is called the Handing Over of Pilate.9 This is not a letter, but a narrative that reports what happened to Pilate once the emperor Tiberius received his report of what had occurred at Jesus’s death and resurrection. The Handing Over seems to presuppose the existence of the Report of Pilate, but it is stylistically different and has points of disagreement with the earlier text. Scholars tend to think, then, that they were written by different authors.

  The Handing Over begins by stating that Pilate’s letter arrived in Rome and was read to Tiberius Caesar in front of a large crowd, who marveled to learn that the daytime darkness and worldwide earthquake they had experienced came as a result of the crucifixion of the Son of God. Caesar is “filled with anger,” and he sends soldiers to arrest Pilate to bring him to Rome. When Pilate arrives, Caesar puts him on trial and upbraids him for executing Jesus: “By daring to do this wicked deed you have destroyed the entire world.”

  Pilate protests his innocence, however, and insists that “it is the multitude of the Jews who are reckless and guilty.” Caesar replies that, even so, Pilate should have known better, since it was obvious from Jesus’s miracles that “he was the Christ.” As soon as Caesar mentions the name Christ, all of the pagan idols in the senate house, where the trial is being held, fall to the ground and turn to dust. Here, as in the Gospel of Nicodemus, the gods of the pagans do humble obeisance before the divinity of Christ and come to naught. In this episode it happens just at the mention of Christ’s divine name.

  Pilate repeats that Jesus’s works showed that he was “greater than all the gods” that they worshiped. But he executed him “because of the anarchy and rebelliousness of the lawless and godless Jews.” Caesar and the senate take a vote and decide to destroy the nation of the Jews. They then send in the armies, who destroy the nation and take all the Jewish survivors to sell off as slaves. Pilate himself is condemned to death for his part in the affair.

  Before he dies, however, Pilate prays to God and pleads his innocence, once again saying that Jesus’s death was because of the “nation of godless Jews.” When he finishes his prayer, a voice comes from heaven—the voice of Christ himself—assuring Pilate of his salvation: “All the races and families of the Gentiles will bless you, because under your rule everything spoken about me by the prophets was fulfilled. You yourself will appear as my witness at my second coming.” When the executioner chops off Pilate’s head, an angel swoops down and takes it, presumably to carry it up to heaven.

  The Purpose of the “Pilate Gospels”

  The overarching points of these later Pilate Gospels should by now be clear. By exonerating Pilate in the death of Jesus, the accounts make the Jews, not just their leaders, bear all the guilt. The more innocent Pilate is, the more culpable are the Jews. According to some of the legends, Pilate is so innocent that he becomes a devoted believer and follower of Christ. God is therefore angry with the Jews and punishes them for their crime against the Son of God.

  These writings were forged in a period that saw heightened animosities between Christians and Jews. Christians realized there would be no rapprochement with the Jews and there was little chance that most Jews would ever come to see the “truth” about Jesus, that he was the messiah of God, not just a lowly crucified criminal. This “truth,” then, is what prompted these Christian “false writings.” That is to say, a number of Christian authors chose to tell the truth about the divine Christ and about his wicked enemies, the Jews, by forging documents, claiming to be people they weren’t. Christian readers of these documents accepted them at face value as real reports from the time, instead of what they were, forgeries from later periods. The authors intended to deceive their readers, and their readers were all too easily deceived.

  WRITINGS OF JESUS

  We have very few writings from early Christianity that claim to be by Jesus himself, and very few indications that Jesus could in fact write. But there are a few reports of his writing—even though this is not widely known, even among scholars—and a couple of surviving writings that he is (falsely) said to have produced.

  Even within the pages of the New Testament there is a record of Jesus writing. This is not a story originally found in the New Testament, however, but a later account that scribes added to the Gospel of John. In fact, it is in one of the best-known stories about Jesus, Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (8:1–11).

  In the story the Jewish authorities drag a woman before Jesus and indicate that she has been caught in the act of adultery. According to the law of Moses, they say, she is
to be stoned to death. But what does Jesus say? This is an obvious trap. If Jesus says, “Yes, by all means, stone her,” he is violating his own teachings on forgiveness and mercy. But if he says, “No, let her go,” he is violating the law of Moses. So what is he to do? Jesus, of course, always finds a way out of these traps, and he does so in this case by stooping down and writing on the ground. He then looks up and says, “Let the one without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” He then stoops back down and resumes writing. Gradually, ashamed of their own sins, all the Jewish authorities leave, one by one, until there is no one left to condemn the woman.

  It is a fascinating account, even if it was not originally part of the New Testament.10 But what is especially interesting for our discussion here is what Jesus does when he stoops down. He is not said to be drawing or doodling on the ground. He is literally said to be “writing.” The Greek term clearly indicates that he is writing words. This is the earliest indication that we have that Jesus was even able to write.11 One recent study of this passage in fact argues that it was composed years after Jesus’s death precisely in order to show that he could write.12

  Several alleged writings of Jesus are mentioned by church fathers. Unfortunately, none of these forgeries survive. The fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, for example, mentions books forged in Jesus’s name by the heretics Simon and Cleobius. It is hard to know if such books actually existed or if they were simply said to have existed in order to attack these false teachers for forging them.

  The fifth-century theologian Augustine, on the other hand, mentions a letter allegedly written by Jesus that probably did exist.13 The letter was addressed to the apostles Peter and Paul and endorsed magical practices. Augustine had no difficulty showing that the letter was forged, since Paul was not actually a disciple during Jesus’s lifetime, but only after his death. Augustine plausibly argues that the forger had seen paintings of Jesus with Peter and Paul (such as one can still see, for example, in the catacombs of Rome) and made the false inference that Paul was one of Jesus’s earthly disciples. On that errant basis the forger made up a letter that Jesus allegedly sent to Paul along with Peter. Regrettably, we no longer have the letter.14