“Was he a gentile or a Jew?”
“Probably a gentile. But what’s important is that he was a deeply committed Christian.”
“Are you suggesting that Pilate became a Christian as well?”
“Pilate? Heavens no. That’s apocryphal nonsense. I have no doubt he remained a pagan until his dying breath. The Gospel of Pilate is a work of history rather than faith. Unlike the authors of the canonical Gospels, Pilate had seen Jesus with his own eyes. He knew what he looked like, how he spoke. More important, he knew exactly why Jesus was put to death. After all, he was the one who sent him to the cross.”
“Why did he write about it?” asked Gabriel.
“A good question, Mr. Allon. Why does any public servant or political figure write about his role in an important event?”
“To make money,” quipped Gabriel.
“Not in the first century.” Father Jordan smiled. “Besides, Pilate had no need of money. He had used his position as prefect to enrich himself.”
“In that case,” said Gabriel, “I suppose he would have wanted to tell his side of the story.”
“Correct,” said Father Jordan. “Remember, Pilate was only a few years older than Jesus. If he had lived for fifteen years after the Crucifixion, he would have known that the followers of the man he executed in Jerusalem were in the early stages of forming a new religion. Had he lived to the age of seventy, not unheard of in the first century, he would have been hard pressed not to notice the flourishing early Church in Rome itself.”
“When do you think Pilate wrote his account?” asked Donati.
“That’s impossible to know. But I believe the book that became known as the Gospel of Pilate was written at approximately the same time as Mark.”
“Would the author of Mark have known of its existence?”
“Possibly. It’s also possible that the author of the Gospel of Pilate knew of Mark’s existence. But the more relevant question is, why was Mark canonized and the Gospel of Pilate ruthlessly suppressed?”
“And the answer?”
“Because the Gospel of Pilate offers a completely different account of Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, one that contradicts Church doctrine and dogma.” Father Jordan paused. “Now ask the next obvious question, Luigi.”
“If the Gospel of Pilate was suppressed and hunted out of existence by the Church, how do you know about it?”
“Ah, yes,” said Father Jordan. “That’s the truly interesting part of the story.”
29
Abbey of St. Peter, Assisi
To tell the storyof how he had learned of the existence of the Gospel of Pilate, Father Jordan first had to explain how the book was disseminated, and how it was suppressed. It was written for the first time, he said, in the same fashion as the canonical Gospels, on papyrus, though in Latin rather than Greek. He reckoned it was copied and recopied perhaps a hundred times in this fragile, unstable form and that it circulated among the Latin-literate portion of the early Church. Around the dawn of the second millennium it was produced in book form for the first time, almost certainly at a monastery on the Italian peninsula. Like theActa Pilati, the Gospel of Pilate was read widely during the Renaissance.
“TheActawas translated into several languages and circulated throughout the Christian world. But the Gospel of Pilate was never translated out of its original Latin. Therefore, its readership was far more elite.”
“For example?” asked Donati.
“Artists, intellectuals, noblemen, and the daring priest or monk who was willing to risk Rome’s wrath.”
Before Donati could pose his next question, his phone pinged with an incoming text message.
Father Jordan glared at him with reproach. “Those things aren’t allowed in here.”
“Forgive me, Robert, but I’m afraid I live in the real world.” Donati read the message, expressionless. Then he switched off the phone and asked Father Jordan when the Gospel of Pilate was suppressed.
“Not until the thirteenth century, when Pope Gregory IX launched the Inquisition. He was more concerned about the threat to orthodoxy posed by the Cathars and Waldensians, but the Gospel of Pilate was high on his list of heresies. I found three references to the book in the files of the Inquisition. No one seems to have noticed them but me.”
“I suppose His Holiness gave the job to the Dominicans.”
“Who else?”
