CHAPTER IX

OF THE TIMES OF PILATE

THE same historian also agrees with the statements respecting the government of Archelaus after Herod’s death; and relates in what manner he succeeded to the kingdom of the Jews, by the will of Herod, his father, and the confirmation of it by Cæsar Augustus; as also, that he having lost his kingdom after ten years, his brothers Philip and Herod the younger, together with Lysanias, received their respective tetrarchies. The same author, in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, says, “that about the twelfth year of the reign of Tiberius (for he succeeded to the empire after Augustus, who had reigned fifty-seven years), Pontius Pilate was appointed over Judea, and remained there ten years, almost to the death of Tiberius. Hence the fraud of those persons is plainly proved, who lately, and at other times, have given currency to certain spurious acts against our Saviour. In which the very time of the date proves the falsehood of the inventors. For in the fourth consulship of Tiberius, which was in the seventh year of his reign, those things are said to have occurred which they have dared to say respecting his salutary suffering. At which time, indeed, it is plain, that Pilate was not yet appointed over Judea, if Josephus is to be credited, who plainly says, in the work already cited, that Pilate was appointed procurator of Judea, by Tiberius, in the twelfth year of his reign.