. “Kirill, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has seemingly justified the invasion by describing it as part of a struggle against sin and pressure from liberal foreigners to hold “gay parades.”
The Catholic Church has titled Pontius Pilate a Saint, and he takes part on Passion Plays. I have long wondered why. I was asked to play Judas at the McKenzie River Christian Church. I refused.
On MSNBC Lou McDonnell reminded me that Mitch McConnel REFUSED to allow the Senate to hear and question President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court. This allowed Donald Trump to fill that vacancy. Can sane Americans put The Mitch Act as the beginning of the Republican Insurrection, for that is what it is. That three dozen elected Republicans are saying President Biden stole the election, causes many Loyal Americans to wonder if the Republican take the Senate and White House – will they cancel further elections, and declare a Christian Rule by Council, who demonstrate loyalty to King Jesus, whose history and teaching – is very questionable!
With the my discovery of the Samaritan Moses four days ago, many of my questions have been answered. The input of Saul-Paul has long been questioned, and, the reason why Emperor Constantine chose Paul’s teaching and account over others. Paul is an apologist for Pilate and Rome, who authors a cover-up for THE SLAGHTER OF DOSITHEOS’ FOLLOWEERS, and very possibly the crucifixion of the Samaritan Moses – when he was caught. Did Roman forces arrest him in Damascus, where Saul-Paul led armed men – TO SLAUGHTER THE FOLLOWERS OF THE WAY? I am convince Dositheos, known as Nathaniel “gift of God” is the person the fake Jesus replaced. This historical person knew John the Baptist, a real person/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dositheos_(Samaritan)
I watched the news this morning. American officials met with Russian officials in order to find a Path to Peace. The Invasion of Ukraine was instigated by Patriarch Kirill, who had it out for LGBTQ people, just like Trump and DeSantis…..AND MEMBERS OF THE SUPREME COURT.
President Zelensky is upset he was not invited to the Peace Talks. Why wasn’t he invited? This Jew wants Russian Leaders arrested and tried for WAR CRIMES! He want Justice an Restitution. He wants wealthy Russian to pay for the damage they have done. There is a threat to a nuclear plant. Putin is the embodiment of Pontius Pilate and began a Holy Crusade against Gay People, who are unarmed. Pope Franise needs to thorough condemns Putin and Kirilll, along with the Supreme Court of U.S.A.
Was Mitch and his Red State Anarchist upset that Black People are talking about RESTITUTION? If I m elected President I will seek restitution from the Italian Government for Jewish Citizens of America, who consider themselves member of Reformed Judaism. As Presdient I will beseach NATO to seize all works of art owned by the Vatican and other Churches! This unholy art will be sold at auction, the proceeds going for the homeless, the hungry, the widows, and the disnefrahcised.
So be it!
John Presco ‘Nazarite Judge’ and Democratic Candidate.
Dositheos (occasionally also known as Nathanael,[1] both meaning “gift of God”) was a Samaritan religious leader of Arab origins.[2][3] He was the founder of a Samaritan sect often assumed to be Gnostic in nature, and is reputed to have known John the Baptist, and been either a teacher or a rival of Simon Magus.[4]
According to Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews (18.4.1–2), Pilate’s removal as governor occurred after Pilate slaughtered a group of armed Samaritans at a village called Tirathana near Mount Gerizim, where they hoped to find artifacts that had been buried there by Moses. Alexander Demandt suggests that the leader of this movement may have been Dositheos, a messiah-like figure among the Samaritans who was known to have been active around this time.[93] The Samaritans, claiming not to have been armed, complained to Lucius Vitellius the Elder, the governor of Syria (term 35–39), who had Pilate recalled to Rome to be judged by Tiberius. Tiberius, however, had died before his arrival.[94] This dates the end of Pilate’s governorship to 36/37. Tiberius died in Misenum on the 16th of March in 37, in his seventy-eighth year (Tacitus, AnnalsVI.50, VI.51).[95]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_Pilate
The fourth-century church historian Eusebius says that though Tiberius remained a pagan, he was sufficiently impressed by Pilate’s testimony that he urged the Roman Senate to add Jesus to the official pantheon. Tiberius made any attack on Christians punishable by death. However, his successor, Caligula, was not similarly swayed and ordered Pilate to commit suicide. Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons relates that the sect of Carpocratians possessed an image of Jesus painted by Pilate himself. There was even in circulation a document called the Acts of Pilate which implied that Pilate was an instrument of God for allowing Jesus to die. This fifth-century fabrication also unmistakably shows Pilate expressing genuine sympathy for the grief-stricken Jews who did not want Jesus crucified. St. Augustine numbers Pilate among the prophets in one of his sermons. Early Christian artists likened him to Old Testament heroes Daniel and Abraham. Pilate’s refusal to condemn Jesus was paralleled with Daniel’s refusal to condemn Susannah; Abraham leading Isaac as a sacrificial offering was mirrored in Pilate leading Christ to his atoning death.
Historians theorize that the Gospels downplayed Pilate’s role in the trial of Jesus in order to conciliate the Romans to the new religion. With the conversion of numerous Romans culminating in Constantine’s acceptance of Christianity, Pilate became the model of a Roman who refused to persecute Christians. He was proof that the Romans were instrumental to the plan of salvation.
Kristian Killer Kirill
Posted on April 5, 2022 by Royal Rosamond Press
Christian leaders have much explaining to do.
John
“Kirill, for his part, insisted that Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who also spoke by video call with the patriarch this week, understood the Russian position and were “sympathetic” to it. He repeated that the goal of the Russian Orthodox Church “despite the very negative political context” was to preserve the “spiritual unity of our people – the Russian and Ukrainian peoples – as a single people who emerged from the Kiev Baptismal font.”
It came just days after Francis told the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, that the concept of a “just war” was obsolete since wars are never justifiable and that pastors must preach peace, not politics.
Those comments, during a video call Wednesday with Kirill, seemed to be an indirect jab at the patriarch’s apparent defense of the war. Kirill, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has seemingly justified the invasion by describing it as part of a struggle against sin and pressure from liberal foreigners to hold “gay parades.” He has blamed the West and a fellow Orthodox patriarch for fomenting enmity between Ukraine and Russia and echoed Putin in insisting they are “one people.”
In a sign of the Russian church’s growing isolation, theologians from the Czech Republic to Greece have called for its expulsion from the World Council of Churches for “violating the fundamental values of Christianity,” while Switzerland’s University of Fribourg confirmed on March 8 it had suspended Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign relations director, from his theology faculty professorship.
Starfish Takes A Wife
Posted on December 18, 2019 by Royal Rosamond Press
After supporting Ukraine invasion, Russia’s Patriarch Kirill criticized worldwide
Role as governor of Judea[edit]
Map of the province of Judaea during Pilate’s governorship in the first century.
Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius. The post of governor of Judaea was of relatively low prestige and nothing is known of how Pilate obtained the office.[31] Josephus states that Pilate governed for ten years (Antiquities of the Jews 18.4.2), and these are traditionally dated from 26 to 36/37, making him one of the two longest-serving governors of the province.[32] As Tiberius had retired to the island of Capri in 26, scholars such as E. Stauffer have argued that Pilate may have actually been appointed by the powerful Praetorian Prefect Sejanus, who was executed for treason in 31.[33] Other scholars have cast doubt on any link between Pilate and Sejanus.[34] Daniel R. Schwartz and Kenneth Lönnqvist both argue that the traditional dating of the beginning of Pilate’s governorship is based on an error in Josephus; Schwartz argues that he was appointed instead in 19, while Lönnqvist argues for 17/18.[35][36] These proposed dates have not been widely accepted by other scholars.[37]
Pilate’s title of prefect[c] implies that his duties were primarily military;[40] however, Pilate’s troops were meant more as a police than a military force, and Pilate’s duties extended beyond military matters.[41] As Roman governor, he was head of the judicial system. He had the power to inflict capital punishment, and was responsible for collecting tributes and taxes, and for disbursing funds, including the minting of coins.[41] Because the Romans allowed a certain degree of local control, Pilate shared a limited amount of civil and religious power with the Jewish Sanhedrin.[42]
Pilate was subordinate to the legate of Syria; however, for the first six years in which he held office, Syria’s legate Lucius Aelius Lamia was absent from the region, something which Helen Bond believes may have presented difficulties to Pilate.[43] He seems to have been free to govern the province as he wished, with intervention by the legate of Syria only coming at the end of his tenure, after the appointment of Lucius Vitellius to the post in 35.[31] Like other Roman governors of Judaea, Pilate made his primary residence in Caesarea, going to Jerusalem mainly for major feasts in order to maintain order.[44] He also would have toured around the province in order to hear cases and administer justice.[45]
As governor, Pilate had the right to appoint the Jewish High Priest and also officially controlled the vestments of the High Priest in the Antonia Fortress.[46] Unlike his predecessor, Valerius Gratus, Pilate retained the same high priest, Joseph ben Caiaphas, for his entire tenure. Caiaphas would be removed following Pilate’s own removal from the governorship.[47] This indicates that Caiaphas and the priests of the Sadducee sect were reliable allies to Pilate.[48] Moreover, Maier argues that Pilate could not have used the temple treasury to construct an aqueduct, as recorded by Josephus, without the cooperation of the priests.[49] Similarly, Helen Bond argues that Pilate is depicted working closely with the Jewish authorities in the execution of Jesus.[50] Jean-Pierre Lémonon argues that official cooperation with Pilate was limited to the Sadducees, noting that the Pharisees are absent from the gospel accounts of Jesus’s arrest and trial.[51]
Daniel Schwartz takes the note in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 23:12) that Pilate had a difficult relationship with the Galilean Jewish king Herod Antipas as potentially historical. He also finds historical the information that their relationship mended following the execution of Jesus.[52] Based on John 19:12, it is possible that Pilate held the title “friend of Caesar” (Latin: amicus Caesaris, Ancient Greek: φίλος τοῦ Kαίσαρος), a title also held by the Jewish kings Herod Agrippa I and Herod Agrippa II and by close advisors to the emperor. Both Daniel Schwartz and Alexander Demandt do not think this especially likely.[31][53]
Incidents with the Jews[edit]
Various disturbances during Pilate’s governorship are recorded in the sources. In some cases, it is unclear if they may be referring to the same event,[54] and it is difficult to establish a chronology of events for Pilate’s rule.[55] Joan Taylor argues that Pilate had a policy of promoting the imperial cult, which may have caused some of the friction with his Jewish subjects.[56] Schwartz suggests that Pilate’s entire tenure was characterized by “continued underlying tension between governor and governed, now and again breaking out in brief incidents.”[54]
According to Josephus in his The Jewish War (2.9.2) and Antiquities of the Jews (18.3.1), Pilate offended the Jews by moving imperial standards with the image of Caesar into Jerusalem. This resulted in a crowd of Jews surrounding Pilate’s house in Caesarea for five days. Pilate then summoned them to an arena, where the Roman soldiers drew their swords. But the Jews showed so little fear of death, that Pilate relented and removed the standards.[57] Bond argues that the fact that Josephus says that Pilate brought in the standards by night, shows that he knew that the images of the emperor would be offensive.[58] She dates this incident to early in Pilate’s tenure as governor.[59] Daniel Schwartz and Alexander Demandt both suggest that this incident is in fact identical with “the incident with the shields” reported in Philo’s Embassy to Gaius, an identification first made by the early church historian Eusebius.[60][54] Lémonon, however, argues against this identification.[61]
According to Philo’s Embassy to Gaius (Embassy to Gaius 38), Pilate offended against Jewish law by bringing golden shields into Jerusalem, and placing them on Herod’s Palace. The sons of Herod the Great petitioned him to remove the shields, but Pilate refused. Herod’s sons then threatened to petition the emperor, an action which Pilate feared that would expose the crimes he had committed in office. He did not prevent their petition. Tiberius received the petition and angrily reprimanded Pilate, ordering him to remove the shields.[62] Helen Bond, Daniel Schwartz, and Warren Carter argue that Philo’s portrayal is largely stereotyped and rhetorical, portraying Pilate with the same words as other opponents of Jewish law, while portraying Tiberius as just and supportive of Jewish law.[63] It is unclear why the shields offended against Jewish law: it is likely that they contained an inscription referring to Tiberius as divi Augusti filius (son of divine Augustus).[64][65] Bond dates the incident to 31, sometime after Sejanus’s death in 17 October.[66]
In another incident recorded in both the Jewish Wars (2.9.4) and the Antiquities of the Jews (18.3.2), Josephus relates that Pilate offended the Jews by using up the temple treasury (korbanos) to pay for a new aqueduct to Jerusalem. When a mob formed while Pilate was visiting Jerusalem, Pilate ordered his troops to beat them with clubs; many perished from the blows or from being trampled by horses, and the mob was dispersed.[67] The dating of the incident is unknown, but Bond argues that it must have occurred between 26 and 30 or 33, based on Josephus’s chronology.[50]
The Gospel of Luke mentions in passing Galileans “whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices” (Luke 13:1). This reference has been variously interpreted as referring to one of the incidents recorded by Josephus, or to an entirely unknown incident.[68] Bond argues that the number of Galileans killed does not seem to have been particularly high. In Bond’s view, the reference to “sacrifices” likely means that this incident occurred at Passover at some unknown date.[69] She argues that “[i]t is not only possible but quite likely that Pilate’s governorship contained many such brief outbreaks of trouble about which we know nothing. The insurrection in which Barabbas was caught up, if historical, may well be another example.”[70]
Trial and execution of Jesus[edit]
See also: Pilate’s court and Crucifixion of Jesus
Print of Christus with Pontius Pilate. Made in the 16th century.[71]
At the Passover of most likely 30 or 33, Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus of Nazareth to death by crucifixion in Jerusalem.[72] The main sources on the crucifixion are the four canonical Christian Gospels, the accounts of which vary.[73] Helen Bond argues that
the evangelists’ portrayals of Pilate have been shaped to a great extent by their own particular theological and apologetic concerns. […] Legendary or theological additions have also been made to the narrative […] Despite extensive differences, however, there is a certain agreement amongst the evangelists regarding the basic facts, an agreement which may well go beyond literary dependency and reflect actual historical events.[74]
Pilate’s role in condemning Jesus to death is also attested by the Roman historian Tacitus, who, when explaining Nero‘s persecution of the Christians, explains: “Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment…” (Tacitus, Annals 15.44).[11][75] Josephus also mentioned Jesus‘s execution by Pilate at the request of prominent Jews (Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3); the text may have been altered by Christian interpolation, but the reference to the execution is generally considered authentic.[76] Discussing the paucity of extra-biblical mentions of the crucifixion, Alexander Demandt argues that the execution of Jesus was probably not seen as a particularly important event by the Romans, as many other people were crucified at the time and forgotten.[77] In Ignatius‘s epistles to the Trallians (9.1) and to the Smyrnaeans (1.2), the author attributes Jesus’s persecution under Pilate’s governorship. Ignatius further dates Jesus’s birth, passion, and resurrection during Pilate’s governorship in his epistle to the Magnesians (11.1). Ignatius stresses all these events in his epistles as historical facts.[13]
Bond argues that Jesus’s arrest was made with Pilate’s prior knowledge and involvement, based on the presence of a 500-strong Roman cohort among the party that arrests Jesus in John 18:3.[78] Demandt dismisses the notion that Pilate was involved.[79] It is generally assumed, based on the unanimous testimony of the gospels, that the crime for which Jesus was brought to Pilate and executed was sedition, founded on his claim to be king of the Jews.[80] Pilate may have judged Jesus according to the cognitio extra ordinem, a form of trial for capital punishment used in the Roman provinces and applied to non-Roman citizens that provided the prefect with greater flexibility in handling the case.[81][82] All four gospels also mention that Pilate had the custom of releasing one captive in honor of the Passover festival; this custom is not attested in any other source. Historians disagree on whether or not such a custom is a fictional element of the gospels, reflects historical reality, or perhaps represents a single amnesty in the year of Jesus’s crucifixion.[83]
Christ before Pilate, Mihály Munkácsy, 1881
The Gospels’ portrayal of Pilate is “widely assumed” to diverge greatly from that found in Josephus and Philo,[84] as Pilate is portrayed as reluctant to execute Jesus and pressured to do so by the crowd and Jewish authorities. John P. Meier notes that in Josephus, by contrast, “Pilate alone […] is said to condemn Jesus to the cross.”[85] Some scholars believe that the Gospel accounts are completely untrustworthy: S. G. F. Brandon argued that in reality, rather than vacillating on condemning Jesus, Pilate unhesitatingly executed him as a rebel.[86] Paul Winter explained the discrepancy between Pilate in other sources and Pilate in the gospels by arguing that Christians became more and more eager to portray Pontius Pilate as a witness to Jesus’ innocence, as persecution of Christians by the Roman authorities increased.[87] Bart Ehrman argues that the Gospel of Mark, the earliest one, shows the Jews and Pilate to be in agreement about executing Jesus (Mark 15:15), while the later gospels progressively reduce Pilate’s culpability, culminating in Pilate allowing the Jews to crucify Jesus in John (John 19:16). He connects this change to increased “anti-Judaism.”[88] Raymond E. Brown argued that the Gospels’ portrayal of Pilate cannot be considered historical, since Pilate is always described in other sources (The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews of Josephus and Embassy to Gaius of Philo) as a cruel and obstinate man. Brown also rejects the historicity of Pilate washing his hands and of the blood curse, arguing that these narratives, which only appear in the Gospel of Matthew, reflect later contrasts between the Jews and Jewish Christians.[89]
Others have tried to explain Pilate’s behavior in the Gospels as motivated by a change of circumstances from that shown in Josephus and Philo, usually presupposing a connection between Pilate’s caution and the death of Sejanus.[84] Yet other scholars, such as Brian McGing and Bond, have argued that there is no real discrepancy between Pilate’s behavior in Josephus and Philo and that in the Gospels.[72][90] Warren Carter argues that Pilate is portrayed as skillful, competent, and manipulative of the crowd in Mark, Matthew, and John, only finding Jesus innocent and executing him under pressure in Luke.[91] N. T. Wright and Craig A. Evans argue that Pilate’s hesitation was due to the fear of causing a revolt during Passover, when large numbers of pilgrims were in Jerusalem.[92]
Removal and later life[edit]
According to Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews (18.4.1–2), Pilate’s removal as governor occurred after Pilate slaughtered a group of armed Samaritans at a village called Tirathana near Mount Gerizim, where they hoped to find artifacts that had been buried there by Moses. Alexander Demandt suggests that the leader of this movement may have been Dositheos, a messiah-like figure among the Samaritans who was known to have been active around this time.[93] The Samaritans, claiming not to have been armed, complained to Lucius Vitellius the Elder, the governor of Syria (term 35–39), who had Pilate recalled to Rome to be judged by Tiberius. Tiberius, however, had died before his arrival.[94] This dates the end of Pilate’s governorship to 36/37. Tiberius died in Misenum on the 16th of March in 37, in his seventy-eighth year (Tacitus, Annals VI.50, VI.51).[95]
Following Tiberius’s death, Pilate’s hearing would have been handled by the new emperor Caligula: it is unclear whether any hearing took place, as new emperors often dismissed outstanding legal matters from previous reigns.[96] The only sure outcome of Pilate’s return to Rome is that he was not reinstated as governor of Judaea, either because the hearing went badly, or because Pilate did not wish to return.[97] J. P. Lémonon argues that the fact that Pilate was not reinstated by Caligula does not mean that his trial went badly, but may simply have been because after ten years in the position it was time for him to take a new posting.[98] Joan Taylor, on the other hand, argues that Pilate seems to have ended his career in disgrace, using his unflattering portrayal in Philo, written only a few years after his dismissal, as proof.[99]
A remorseful Pilate prepares to kill himself. Engraving by G. Mochetti after B. Pinelli, early 19th century.
The church historian Eusebius (Church History 2.7.1), writing in the early fourth century, claims that “tradition relates that” Pilate committed suicide after he was recalled to Rome due to the disgrace he was in.[100] Eusebius dates this to 39.[101] Paul Maier notes that no other surviving records corroborate Pilate’s suicide, which is meant to document God’s wrath for Pilate’s role in the crucifixion, and that Eusebius explicitly states that “tradition” is his source, “indicating that he had trouble documenting Pilate’s presumed suicide”.[100] Daniel Schwartz, however, argues that Eusebius’s claims “should not lightly be dismissed.”[52] More information on the potential fate of Pontius Pilate can be gleaned from other sources. The second-century pagan philosopher Celsus polemically asked why, if Jesus was God, God had not punished Pilate, indicating that he did not believe that Pilate shamefully committed suicide. Responding to Celsus, the Christian apologist Origen, writing c. 248 AD, argued that nothing bad happened to Pilate, because the Jews and not Pilate were responsible for Jesus’ death; he therefore also assumed that Pilate did not die a shameful death.[102][103] Pilate’s supposed suicide is also left unmentioned in Josephus, Philo, and Tacitus.[102] Maier argues that “[i]n all probability, then, the fate of Pontius Pilate lay clearly in the direction of a retired government official, a pensioned Roman ex-magistrate, than in anything more disastrous.”[104] Taylor notes that Philo discusses Pilate as though he were already dead in the Embassy to Gaius, although he is writing only a few years after Pilate’s tenure as governor.[105]
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