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Пилат и Иисус
Pontius Pilate is one of the most enigmatic figures in Christian theology. The only non-Christian to be named in the Nicene Creed, he is presented as a cruel colonial overseer in secular accounts, as a conflicted judge convinced of Jesus's innocence in the Gospels, and as either a pious Christian or a virtual demon in later Christian writings. This book takes Pilate's role in the trial of Jesus as a starting point for investigating the function of legal judgment in Western society and the ways that such judgment requires us to adjudicate the competing claims of the eternal and the historical. Coming just as Agamben is bringing his decades-long Homo Sacer project to an end, Pilate and Jesus sheds considerable light on what is at stake in that series as a whole. At the same time, it stands on its own, perhaps more than any of the author's recent works. It thus serves as a perfect starting place for readers who are curious about Agamben's approach but do not know where to begin.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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About the author
Giorgio Agamben
235 books982 followersGiorgio Agamben is one of the leading figures in Italian and contemporary continental philosophy. He is the author of Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life; Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive; Profanations; The Signature of All Things: On Method, and other books. Through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s he treated a wide range of topics, including aesthetics, literature, language, ontology, nihilism, and radical political thought.
In recent years, his work has had a deep impact on contemporary scholarship in a number of disciplines in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Born in Rome in 1942, Agamben completed studies in Law and Philosophy with a doctoral thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil, and participated in Martin Heidegger’s seminars on Hegel and Heraclitus as a postdoctoral scholar.
He rose to international prominence after the publication of Homo Sacer in 1995. Translated into English in 1998, the book’s analyses of law, life, and state power appeared uncannily prescient after the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in September 2001, and the resultant shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Provoking a wave of scholarly interest in the philosopher’s work, the book also marked the beginning of a 20-year research project, which represents Agamben’s most important contribution to political philosophy.
In recent years, his work has had a deep impact on contemporary scholarship in a number of disciplines in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Born in Rome in 1942, Agamben completed studies in Law and Philosophy with a doctoral thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil, and participated in Martin Heidegger’s seminars on Hegel and Heraclitus as a postdoctoral scholar.
He rose to international prominence after the publication of Homo Sacer in 1995. Translated into English in 1998, the book’s analyses of law, life, and state power appeared uncannily prescient after the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in September 2001, and the resultant shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Provoking a wave of scholarly interest in the philosopher’s work, the book also marked the beginning of a 20-year research project, which represents Agamben’s most important contribution to political philosophy.
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September 13, 2021
Throwing Religious Shade
The trial of Jesus in the Christian gospels is a central part of the drama of his life. It is the place and time at which the kingdom of God is most clearly confronted by the kingdom of Man. The point of collision between the two, Jesus standing before Pilate, is important enough for Pilate to be included in the Christian creed by name. It is clear that it is not just Jesus’s death but also the process, the krisis or judicial manner of his death, that is a crucial matter of Christian doctrine. To die for our sins, Jesus must be legitimately condemned by a universal earthly power according to the contemporary theory. The earthly power of the day was Rome, represented bodily by Pontius Pilate.
But therein lies a problem: None of the evangelists could possibly have been present during the key moments of Jesus trial - not during the time when his accusers from the Sanhedrin approached Pilate about their concerns; and most definitely not during the crucial moments when Jesus and Pilate are alone together (with no doubt a Roman guard or two in attendance). At best, whatever the evangelists have to say about the matter is hearsay. More likely, the stories of the trial are theological fantasy rather than historical description. The most detailed account of the proceedings is, after all, given by the latest Gospel, that of John, which was written between 50 and 70 years after the events in question. As Agamben notes, “The evangelists, who certainly could not have been present at the trial, do not concern themselves with indicating the sources of their narrative and precisely this lack of philological scruples confers on the account its incomparable epic tone.”
Moreover, from a legal perspective, there is no coherent explanation for either the trial itself or its outcome. What seems important is in fact the ambiguity of both the charges and the relative responsibilities of the Roman and Jewish authorities. “A first-rate expert in the two juridical traditions, both Jewish and Roman, has observed that the difficulty of delineating a coherent picture of the unfolding of the trial derives from the fact that the scholars seek to fit together the evangelists’ accounts procedurally, while each of them most likely followed a different presentation of the passion for theological ends.” In other words, even the legal situation was being interpreted and manipulated to fit theological intent, with no regard for juridical accuracy.*
The throwing of theological shade did not end with the four gospels. Various apocryphal documents elaborate on the gospel stories. In some Pilate is condemned by the Roman emperor for his lack of spiritual insight. In others, both Pilate and his wife are considered as saints (the feast day of Pilate’s wife in the Ethiopian Church is October 26). In more recent times, the leading theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth, pointed out that the ‘handing over’ of Jesus by Pilate is a continuation of a similar ‘handing over’ by Judas, and the same ‘handing over’ by God himself of Jesus to the world. This handing over (tradere in Latin) is the same term as for betrayal. Jesus was therefore just that - the ultimate victim of betrayal. Not by Pilate, but by God. And this is also the literal meaning of Christian tradition (handing over) about Jesus. For Barth, the tradition of the gospel is itself a betrayal; only Jesus, not the defective writings about him, is the Word of God.
It strikes me that Agamben’s brief analysis demonstrates two important things about Christian scriptures. First, they are essentially metaphysical poetry which cannot claim factual accuracy. Yet within this poetry it is claimed that all facts - that is truth itself, and not just religious truth - are divine revelations which are only available to the followers of Jesus (“Truth is from heaven,” Jesus says to Pilate). Second, that this poetry was intended and used for a specific political purpose, namely the promotion of an ‘anti-identity’ to both its Jewish matrix and its Roman context. The followers of this man Jesus were neither Jews nor pagans. They as yet did not have a name when the gospels were written but they did have the beginnings of this negative identity. And no where was this negative identity more forcefully put forward than in the fantasy of Jesus and Pilate.
* Agamben makes clear that this is far from a new idea: “... a pagan observer, Porphyry [the 3rd century philosopher born in Roman Palestine], had observed that ‘the evangelists are inventors (epheurotas) and not historians (historas, ‘witnesses’) of the events concerning Jesus. Each of them in fact writes in disagreement and not in agreement with each other.’”
The trial of Jesus in the Christian gospels is a central part of the drama of his life. It is the place and time at which the kingdom of God is most clearly confronted by the kingdom of Man. The point of collision between the two, Jesus standing before Pilate, is important enough for Pilate to be included in the Christian creed by name. It is clear that it is not just Jesus’s death but also the process, the krisis or judicial manner of his death, that is a crucial matter of Christian doctrine. To die for our sins, Jesus must be legitimately condemned by a universal earthly power according to the contemporary theory. The earthly power of the day was Rome, represented bodily by Pontius Pilate.
But therein lies a problem: None of the evangelists could possibly have been present during the key moments of Jesus trial - not during the time when his accusers from the Sanhedrin approached Pilate about their concerns; and most definitely not during the crucial moments when Jesus and Pilate are alone together (with no doubt a Roman guard or two in attendance). At best, whatever the evangelists have to say about the matter is hearsay. More likely, the stories of the trial are theological fantasy rather than historical description. The most detailed account of the proceedings is, after all, given by the latest Gospel, that of John, which was written between 50 and 70 years after the events in question. As Agamben notes, “The evangelists, who certainly could not have been present at the trial, do not concern themselves with indicating the sources of their narrative and precisely this lack of philological scruples confers on the account its incomparable epic tone.”
Moreover, from a legal perspective, there is no coherent explanation for either the trial itself or its outcome. What seems important is in fact the ambiguity of both the charges and the relative responsibilities of the Roman and Jewish authorities. “A first-rate expert in the two juridical traditions, both Jewish and Roman, has observed that the difficulty of delineating a coherent picture of the unfolding of the trial derives from the fact that the scholars seek to fit together the evangelists’ accounts procedurally, while each of them most likely followed a different presentation of the passion for theological ends.” In other words, even the legal situation was being interpreted and manipulated to fit theological intent, with no regard for juridical accuracy.*
The throwing of theological shade did not end with the four gospels. Various apocryphal documents elaborate on the gospel stories. In some Pilate is condemned by the Roman emperor for his lack of spiritual insight. In others, both Pilate and his wife are considered as saints (the feast day of Pilate’s wife in the Ethiopian Church is October 26). In more recent times, the leading theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth, pointed out that the ‘handing over’ of Jesus by Pilate is a continuation of a similar ‘handing over’ by Judas, and the same ‘handing over’ by God himself of Jesus to the world. This handing over (tradere in Latin) is the same term as for betrayal. Jesus was therefore just that - the ultimate victim of betrayal. Not by Pilate, but by God. And this is also the literal meaning of Christian tradition (handing over) about Jesus. For Barth, the tradition of the gospel is itself a betrayal; only Jesus, not the defective writings about him, is the Word of God.
It strikes me that Agamben’s brief analysis demonstrates two important things about Christian scriptures. First, they are essentially metaphysical poetry which cannot claim factual accuracy. Yet within this poetry it is claimed that all facts - that is truth itself, and not just religious truth - are divine revelations which are only available to the followers of Jesus (“Truth is from heaven,” Jesus says to Pilate). Second, that this poetry was intended and used for a specific political purpose, namely the promotion of an ‘anti-identity’ to both its Jewish matrix and its Roman context. The followers of this man Jesus were neither Jews nor pagans. They as yet did not have a name when the gospels were written but they did have the beginnings of this negative identity. And no where was this negative identity more forcefully put forward than in the fantasy of Jesus and Pilate.
* Agamben makes clear that this is far from a new idea: “... a pagan observer, Porphyry [the 3rd century philosopher born in Roman Palestine], had observed that ‘the evangelists are inventors (epheurotas) and not historians (historas, ‘witnesses’) of the events concerning Jesus. Each of them in fact writes in disagreement and not in agreement with each other.’”
May 19, 2016
ترجمه فارسی کیوان طهماسبیان از این کتاب اگامبن بسیار دلچسب و خوبه، شاید از بهترین نمونههای نثر ترجمه متن فلسفی در عین نگهداشتن لحنهای مختلف در متن و حتی رندی مخصوص آگامبن در متن ایتالیایی. کتاب سه متن هم در موخره دارد، ایدهی چیز، روز داوری، و در باب آنچه نمیتوانیم کرد
July 24, 2018
کتاب محشری است. ترجمهاش هم خوب است. امروز برای بار دوم کتاب را دست گرفتم و یک نفس تا آخرش رفتم. یکی از غصههایم این است که با این همه حوزهی عریض و طویل چرا بعد این همه سال هنوز یک متن الهیاتی به این خوبی نداریم. بگذریم.
December 19, 2018
کتابِ برگردانده شده به پارسی، مجادله ی مترجم با نارسایی زبان هنگام ترجمه و پس از آن، در مواجهه با یک متن با ساختار فلسفی است. کنکاش و پیچیدگی و سردرگمی در میانه ی این میدان
به گمان من هم آنچه که یک فرهنگ نیازش دارد و آن را در جان مایه ی خود پرورانده است سبب می شود تا زبان رساتر و پخته تر بشود در هنگام شکل گیری و سپس مواجهه و شرحِ آنچه که آن فرهنگ نیازمندش است. پس در هر زبانی نیز امکاناتِ آن نیازمندی ها پدید می آید. بخشی از این مجادله ی ترجمه به این ماجرا نیز برمی گردد. اینکه مترجم و زبان نخستِ او با موضوعی رو در رو شده است که نقشی در شکل گیری آن نداشته است. مثال ساده تر آن هم بازگردانِ متن های فنی به زبانِ ارجمندِ پارسی ست. یا مثلن بازگردانِ همین "باشیوا دولانیم" از آذری به پارسی رایجِ تهران
پس در این متنِ کوتاه خیلی درگیر فلسفه نباید شد به تعبیری که اینجا آوردی ست در ناتوانی های بازگردان از زبانی که موضوعی فلسفی را در خود پرورانده است
#
پرسش من اما این است که نمی دانم چرا طهماسبیان اینقدر گرته برداری های اشتباه را در متن به کار برده است. نمونه از صفحه ی 36: پس پیلاتس عیسا را گرفته[بگرفت و] تازیانه زد
از صفحه ی 37 باز می آورم: پیلاتس بیرون آمده[آمد و] به ایشان گفت... آیا کسی را که پدر تقدیس کرده[کرد و] به جهان فرستاده[فرستاد] بدو می گویید
#
یکی دو جمله برای یادگاری و یادآوری: آن کس که از نتوانستن خود جدا شود اما اول از همه توان مقاومت از دست می دهد. و چنانکه فقط آگاهی ی سوزنده از آنچه نمی توانیم باشیم ضامن حقیقت چیزی ست که هستیم، پس فقط واضح دیدن آنچه نمی توانیم یا می توانیم نکنیم است که عملمان را قوام می بخشد
1397/09/28
به گمان من هم آنچه که یک فرهنگ نیازش دارد و آن را در جان مایه ی خود پرورانده است سبب می شود تا زبان رساتر و پخته تر بشود در هنگام شکل گیری و سپس مواجهه و شرحِ آنچه که آن فرهنگ نیازمندش است. پس در هر زبانی نیز امکاناتِ آن نیازمندی ها پدید می آید. بخشی از این مجادله ی ترجمه به این ماجرا نیز برمی گردد. اینکه مترجم و زبان نخستِ او با موضوعی رو در رو شده است که نقشی در شکل گیری آن نداشته است. مثال ساده تر آن هم بازگردانِ متن های فنی به زبانِ ارجمندِ پارسی ست. یا مثلن بازگردانِ همین "باشیوا دولانیم" از آذری به پارسی رایجِ تهران
پس در این متنِ کوتاه خیلی درگیر فلسفه نباید شد به تعبیری که اینجا آوردی ست در ناتوانی های بازگردان از زبانی که موضوعی فلسفی را در خود پرورانده است
#
پرسش من اما این است که نمی دانم چرا طهماسبیان اینقدر گرته برداری های اشتباه را در متن به کار برده است. نمونه از صفحه ی 36: پس پیلاتس عیسا را گرفته[بگرفت و] تازیانه زد
از صفحه ی 37 باز می آورم: پیلاتس بیرون آمده[آمد و] به ایشان گفت... آیا کسی را که پدر تقدیس کرده[کرد و] به جهان فرستاده[فرستاد] بدو می گویید
#
یکی دو جمله برای یادگاری و یادآوری: آن کس که از نتوانستن خود جدا شود اما اول از همه توان مقاومت از دست می دهد. و چنانکه فقط آگاهی ی سوزنده از آنچه نمی توانیم باشیم ضامن حقیقت چیزی ست که هستیم، پس فقط واضح دیدن آنچه نمی توانیم یا می توانیم نکنیم است که عملمان را قوام می بخشد
1397/09/28
October 1, 2022
Some of Agamben's signature concerns on display here, regarding law and theology, post-skepticist implosion of antimonies, and the exigencies of homo sacer--always interesting to watch his mind work through centuries of conceptual archaeology.
Otherwise, a strong showing here for the agon examined by this text on the Top Ten Mythical Trials of Ancient Literature list:
1) the trial of Socrates on the charge of being too awesome in Plato's Apologia
2) the trial of Orestes for matricide in the Eumenides
3) the trial of Adam and Eve pursuant to indictment for capital fruitarianism in Genesis
4) the trial of Christ in the Greek scripture
5) the trial of Helen for being abducted as part of a divine genocide in the Troades
6) the trial of the refugee claim of the children of Heracles in the Heracleidae
7) the trial of the asylum claim of the Danaids in The Suppliant Maidens
8) the trial of the protagonist for violation of the stasis in Oedipus at Colonus
9) the trial of the divorce claim in the Medea
10) the trial of Job for allegedly being too pious in the Hebrew scripture
Otherwise, a strong showing here for the agon examined by this text on the Top Ten Mythical Trials of Ancient Literature list:
1) the trial of Socrates on the charge of being too awesome in Plato's Apologia
2) the trial of Orestes for matricide in the Eumenides
3) the trial of Adam and Eve pursuant to indictment for capital fruitarianism in Genesis
4) the trial of Christ in the Greek scripture
5) the trial of Helen for being abducted as part of a divine genocide in the Troades
6) the trial of the refugee claim of the children of Heracles in the Heracleidae
7) the trial of the asylum claim of the Danaids in The Suppliant Maidens
8) the trial of the protagonist for violation of the stasis in Oedipus at Colonus
9) the trial of the divorce claim in the Medea
10) the trial of Job for allegedly being too pious in the Hebrew scripture
April 1, 2020
تصمیم باید آنچنان گرفته شود که گویی یگانه تصمیم است؛ تصمیم دیگری جز آنچه گرفته میشود نه ممکن و نه موجود است.
August 26, 2025
Probably only understood 60% of it.
Verrukkelijke schrijver.
Verrukkelijke schrijver.
January 18, 2015
This publication is really an essay in book form. By analyzing nuances of Roman legal procedure, Agamben clarifies the political and theological issues at stake in the confrontation between Pilate and Jesus. Rather than presuming to start from theological arguments alone (as a Christian apologist of salvation-through-crucifixion would do), or from political arguments alone (which would require focusing on a tragicomic, deluded messianic figure enabling the very legal/bureaucratic misunderstandings that ultimately culminated in his own crucifixion), Agamben is willing to at least leave open the possibility of the “truth” of a Jesus “not from this world” long enough to recognize and appreciate the many paradoxes surrounding Jesus’ trial (the scriptural-historical unknowns, most obviously, but also the procedural/legal conundrums referenced within the attributed dialogue itself, Pilate’s several dry witticisms, etc.).
Without professing any faith or non-faith as such of his own, Agamben manages to address the essential aspects of the confrontation between Pilate and Jesus, and the mysteries involving trials generally, more elegantly and truthfully (in all their paradoxical aspects, at least) than many “believers” often seem willing to entertain. So by holding open a space that recognizes that legal judgement is never synonymous with justice (in this world) anyway, yet that “another world” could — at least in theory — be more concerned with salvation than justice within this world, the overlapping levels of meaning and order between Jesus and Pilate become more discernible, but not simply to justify some version of a “ransom” theory of religious salvation: “. . . the world, in its fallenness, does not want salvation but justice. And it wants it precisely because it is not asking to be saved. As unsavable, creatures judge the eternal: this is the paradox that in the end, before Pilate, cuts Jesus short.”
Agamben also further wonders: what if the trial itself was illegitimate — not for divine reasons, but for all-too-mundane procedural, this-worldly reasons? (“If Pilate, however, has not handed down a legitimate judgment, the encounter between the vicar of Caesar and Jesus, between the human law and the divine, between the earthly and celestial cities, loses its raison d’être and becomes an enigma. At the same time, every possibility of a Christian political theology or of a theological justification of profane power turns out to fail.”) By taking the irreparable distinction between divine and worldly claims to authority seriously, it could be argued that Agamben is in fact surprisingly “orthodox,” in this text — more so, even, than what usually passes for the public face of Christianity these days.
Without professing any faith or non-faith as such of his own, Agamben manages to address the essential aspects of the confrontation between Pilate and Jesus, and the mysteries involving trials generally, more elegantly and truthfully (in all their paradoxical aspects, at least) than many “believers” often seem willing to entertain. So by holding open a space that recognizes that legal judgement is never synonymous with justice (in this world) anyway, yet that “another world” could — at least in theory — be more concerned with salvation than justice within this world, the overlapping levels of meaning and order between Jesus and Pilate become more discernible, but not simply to justify some version of a “ransom” theory of religious salvation: “. . . the world, in its fallenness, does not want salvation but justice. And it wants it precisely because it is not asking to be saved. As unsavable, creatures judge the eternal: this is the paradox that in the end, before Pilate, cuts Jesus short.”
Agamben also further wonders: what if the trial itself was illegitimate — not for divine reasons, but for all-too-mundane procedural, this-worldly reasons? (“If Pilate, however, has not handed down a legitimate judgment, the encounter between the vicar of Caesar and Jesus, between the human law and the divine, between the earthly and celestial cities, loses its raison d’être and becomes an enigma. At the same time, every possibility of a Christian political theology or of a theological justification of profane power turns out to fail.”) By taking the irreparable distinction between divine and worldly claims to authority seriously, it could be argued that Agamben is in fact surprisingly “orthodox,” in this text — more so, even, than what usually passes for the public face of Christianity these days.
September 9, 2022
In this little book (essay really) Giorgio Agamben turns his considerable philological prowess to the parable of Jesus’s trial and its strange significance with respect to the question of judgement. For Agamben, the singular significance of the trial resides in the confrontation between two orders of judgement: the first celestial and eternal, the other, terrestrial and historical. And what happens at this crossroads, at which the kingdom of divinity touches upon the kingdom of humanity, and at which the one is called upon to judge the other? Agamben’s surprising answer is… not much. Certainly, the consequences are lethal and the ramifications far reaching, but as far as judgement goes, the curious and surprising fact of the trial consists in the seeming lack of judgement handed down at any point during the proceedings. Indeed this abstention from judgement – exemplified by the indecision and evasiveness of Pontius Pilate, who presides over the trail – leads Agamben to pronounce that “the trail of Jesus is thus not properly a trial, but something that remains for us to define and for which it is likely we will not manage to find a name.”
Thus, over and against those who affirm the properly juridical nature of the trial (Dante being one of Agamben’s main targets here), Agamben instead insists on the grey zone into which this nameless event places the efficacy of the law. The encounter between Pilate and Jesus then, results in a sort of suspension of the law, one in which no decision is made and in which a state of 'krisis' (which means 'judgement' in Greek) prolongs itself indefinitely (writes Agamben: "the indecisive one - Pilate - keeps on deciding; the decisive one - Jesus - has no decision to make"). The upshot here for Agamben is that the trial of Jesus is thus nothing less than an ominous "allegory of our time", one according to which we live in a state of unending crisis. As usual with Agamben, it's not so much the specifics of theology that is at stake here, so much as the limit and threshold of the law, which Agamben's work has never ceased to critique. Read in conjunction with his other, recent work on the Christian tradition (The Kingdom and the Glory, The Highest Poverty), Pilate and Jesus offers a fitting accompaniment.
Thus, over and against those who affirm the properly juridical nature of the trial (Dante being one of Agamben’s main targets here), Agamben instead insists on the grey zone into which this nameless event places the efficacy of the law. The encounter between Pilate and Jesus then, results in a sort of suspension of the law, one in which no decision is made and in which a state of 'krisis' (which means 'judgement' in Greek) prolongs itself indefinitely (writes Agamben: "the indecisive one - Pilate - keeps on deciding; the decisive one - Jesus - has no decision to make"). The upshot here for Agamben is that the trial of Jesus is thus nothing less than an ominous "allegory of our time", one according to which we live in a state of unending crisis. As usual with Agamben, it's not so much the specifics of theology that is at stake here, so much as the limit and threshold of the law, which Agamben's work has never ceased to critique. Read in conjunction with his other, recent work on the Christian tradition (The Kingdom and the Glory, The Highest Poverty), Pilate and Jesus offers a fitting accompaniment.
February 8, 2019
This extended essay from the Italian Philosopher draws the parallel association and the paradoxical relations with various stand points written with various erudite references spanning several centuries as in between the drowned and the saved; the crucifier and the lucifer; the reassurer and the hard-truth seeker.
Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of the consul at the kingdom of Judea under the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was one among the council people to judge the person/ being (from another kingdom which was not from here), and flog him, crucify him out of which a religion based of reassuring judgement was made ironically.
Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of the consul at the kingdom of Judea under the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was one among the council people to judge the person/ being (from another kingdom which was not from here), and flog him, crucify him out of which a religion based of reassuring judgement was made ironically.
December 19, 2018
وقتی با متونی شبهالهیاتی مثل این روبرو میشوم، که صرفن طرح مسئله میکنند و تا آخر هم در طرح مسئلهی خود گرفتار میمانند بدون آنکه جهان با قبل از طرح مسئلهشان تفاوتی کرده باشد، بیشتر و بیشتر به عظمت آن تغزّلِ دیالکتیکیِ ایمان، آن تشویشِ طلبِ پیروزی در زمان بر زمان، آن زیست سَبْکیِ کلمه که منریسم در آن جایی ندارد، آن بنبستِ بیسکون، پی میبرم.
آگامبن در تفسیرِ بارتلبیِ محرر هم همین گرفتاری را داشت. آنجا، در موضع مواجهه با آن متنِ وجودی هم، میشد دید که دلوز کلمهها را پرواز میدهد و دیگری با آویختن به کلمات مانع از صعودشان میشود.
آگامبن در تفسیرِ بارتلبیِ محرر هم همین گرفتاری را داشت. آنجا، در موضع مواجهه با آن متنِ وجودی هم، میشد دید که دلوز کلمهها را پرواز میدهد و دیگری با آویختن به کلمات مانع از صعودشان میشود.
September 27, 2025
از بهچنگآوردنش خیلی خوشحال شدم. ولی به اندازهای که انتظار داشتم دلچسب نبود ـــبیشتر ترجمهش. ولی همچنان از آگامبنهای مترجمهای دیگه بهتر بود.
May 26, 2015
While reading, I was a little skeptical of the blurb on the back indicating that this book "sheds considerable light on what is at stake in [the Homo Sacer series] as a whole," but in just one paragraph near the end it all comes together excellently. The scene of Jesus and Pilate is the moment of krisis, where time ceases to function, history splits open, and the law becomes inoperable.
Despite being an amazing read, I do still take issue with Agamben's (seemingly) epitomical event being that of Jesus' (non-)judgement and the precedent for the creation of Christianity. I understand why he does it from the point of view of Western metaphysics being grounded in Christian thought/ethics, but I'm not convinced this genealogy begins at that point (and as a slightly different issue, there's what I could possibly call a "genealogy of civilization" that would go even deeper). This is the same sort of "Christianizing of Benjamin" that has been critiqued in The Church and the Kingdom. I'm really skeptical of this messianic arresting/inoperabilitizing (unfortunately there's no word for "rendering inoperable" in English) taking place a) at this phase of Jewish history (if we can any longer speak of history) and b) taking place at a single decisive moment at all. ("For every second of time was the straight gate through which the Messiah might enter.")
Immediately after finishing this book, I looked up at the Homo Sacer series on my shelf and marveled at how the whole series, from the beginning, was crafted to be–whether subtly or overtly–theological in nature.
Despite being an amazing read, I do still take issue with Agamben's (seemingly) epitomical event being that of Jesus' (non-)judgement and the precedent for the creation of Christianity. I understand why he does it from the point of view of Western metaphysics being grounded in Christian thought/ethics, but I'm not convinced this genealogy begins at that point (and as a slightly different issue, there's what I could possibly call a "genealogy of civilization" that would go even deeper). This is the same sort of "Christianizing of Benjamin" that has been critiqued in The Church and the Kingdom. I'm really skeptical of this messianic arresting/inoperabilitizing (unfortunately there's no word for "rendering inoperable" in English) taking place a) at this phase of Jewish history (if we can any longer speak of history) and b) taking place at a single decisive moment at all. ("For every second of time was the straight gate through which the Messiah might enter.")
Immediately after finishing this book, I looked up at the Homo Sacer series on my shelf and marveled at how the whole series, from the beginning, was crafted to be–whether subtly or overtly–theological in nature.
May 24, 2021
Agamben's reflection on Pontius Pilate's (henceforth, pp) encounter with Jesus is notable for three reasons: his account of the trial as a drama, his keen awareness of the relationship between traditional representations of this judgment and anti-Judaic sentiment and his reflection on the notion of tradition.
Agamben reminds us that "Mystery originally does not mean 'secret and ineffable doctrine' but 'sacred drama.'" PP's trial is a drama, on this account, insofar as it stages the intersection of two laws, earthly and heavenly. PP is an interesting character insofar as he "has only human nature. He is merely human. He does not have, like Christ, two wills." In a parallel that he doesn't explore, Agamben's interpretation of PP could be compared to Hegel's account of Creon's judgment of Antigone, as in both cases what is at stake is the confrontation between human and divine law. Agamben quotes Dante's attempt to rationalize the trial in De Monarchia, where the poet wants to portray PP's actions as legitimizing the Roman Empire: "It would perhaps be more reverent to believe that the divine will caused the edict to go forth through Caesar, in order that God might number himself among the society of mortals who had for so many ages awaited his coming." For Agamben, however, the mystery of PP's trial is at best precarious, since "the divine and the human, the temporal and the eternal, which here encounter one another, are not superimposed on one another as at Eleusis, but remain tenaciously separate." Indeed, the text ends on the aporetic contrast between "The indecisive one—Pilate—[that] keeps on deciding; the decisive one—Jesus—[that] has no decision to make."
In the midst of the heavy duty contemplation, Agamben makes a point that serves as a reminder to whoever wishes to treat this trial too mystically: most portrayals sympathetic to PP demonize the "wicked" Jewish crowd that deceives PP. The Christianizing narratives that portray the "absolution of Pilate" ultimately coincide "with the intention to attribute the responsibility for the crucifixion exclusively to the Jews."
Finally, Agamben cites Jesus' contrast between two forms of handing down in Mark 7:8: "You abandon the commandment (tēn entolēn) of God and hold to human tradition (tēn paradosin)." Agamben is careful to note that Paul's advice to the Corinthinians also takes the form of maintaining "the traditions (paradoseis) just as I handed them on (paredōka) to you” (1 Corinthians 11:2), but this reassurance only cushions the blow. Following this etymological difference to its radical conclusion, Agamben suggests that "there is only one authentic Christian tradition: that of the “handing over”—first on the part of the Father, then of Judas and the Jews—of Jesus to the cross, which has abolished and realized all traditions."
Agamben reminds us that "Mystery originally does not mean 'secret and ineffable doctrine' but 'sacred drama.'" PP's trial is a drama, on this account, insofar as it stages the intersection of two laws, earthly and heavenly. PP is an interesting character insofar as he "has only human nature. He is merely human. He does not have, like Christ, two wills." In a parallel that he doesn't explore, Agamben's interpretation of PP could be compared to Hegel's account of Creon's judgment of Antigone, as in both cases what is at stake is the confrontation between human and divine law. Agamben quotes Dante's attempt to rationalize the trial in De Monarchia, where the poet wants to portray PP's actions as legitimizing the Roman Empire: "It would perhaps be more reverent to believe that the divine will caused the edict to go forth through Caesar, in order that God might number himself among the society of mortals who had for so many ages awaited his coming." For Agamben, however, the mystery of PP's trial is at best precarious, since "the divine and the human, the temporal and the eternal, which here encounter one another, are not superimposed on one another as at Eleusis, but remain tenaciously separate." Indeed, the text ends on the aporetic contrast between "The indecisive one—Pilate—[that] keeps on deciding; the decisive one—Jesus—[that] has no decision to make."
In the midst of the heavy duty contemplation, Agamben makes a point that serves as a reminder to whoever wishes to treat this trial too mystically: most portrayals sympathetic to PP demonize the "wicked" Jewish crowd that deceives PP. The Christianizing narratives that portray the "absolution of Pilate" ultimately coincide "with the intention to attribute the responsibility for the crucifixion exclusively to the Jews."
Finally, Agamben cites Jesus' contrast between two forms of handing down in Mark 7:8: "You abandon the commandment (tēn entolēn) of God and hold to human tradition (tēn paradosin)." Agamben is careful to note that Paul's advice to the Corinthinians also takes the form of maintaining "the traditions (paradoseis) just as I handed them on (paredōka) to you” (1 Corinthians 11:2), but this reassurance only cushions the blow. Following this etymological difference to its radical conclusion, Agamben suggests that "there is only one authentic Christian tradition: that of the “handing over”—first on the part of the Father, then of Judas and the Jews—of Jesus to the cross, which has abolished and realized all traditions."
June 22, 2025
Agamben represents the best of continental philosophy: erudite, poetic, willing to sit with the paradoxes and think through them. This short work shows Christ and Pilate as “vicars” of the heavenly and earthly kingdoms, respectfully. The strangeness of Christ’s trial (no judgement is pronounced, yet punishment ensues nonetheless) represents the incommensurability of the eternal and temporal, of salvation and (earthly) judgement. Indeed, behind every earthly trial is not an expression of divine truth and justice (for this comes from above) but the arbitrary pronouncement of judgment. Further, this inability to decide (the original meaning of the Greek word “krisis,” meaning “to judge”) in the modern world has led to a continual crisis. The world runs amock because the finality of judgment has been cast aside.
This is my first foray into Agamben, and I’m hooked!
This is my first foray into Agamben, and I’m hooked!
May 30, 2023
Pilatos é deveras um gajo
April 11, 2020
“The “creed” that the Fathers had formulated at Nicea in 325 did not include this name. It was added in 381 by the Council of Constantinople, by all evidence in order to also fix the historical character of Jesus’s passion chronologically.”
“The Christian Credo,” it has been observed, “speaks of historical events. Pontius Pilate belongs there essentially. He is not just a pitiful creature who oddly ended up there”
“That Christianity is a historical religion, that the “mysteries” of which it speaks are also and above all historical facts, is taken for granted”
“All the more urgent, then, is the task of understanding how and why this crossing between the temporal and the eternal and between the divine and the human assumed precisely the form of a krisis, that is, of a juridical trial.”
“In the punctilious attention with which John above all, but also Mark, Luke, and Matthew describe his hesitations, his evasions and changing opinion, literally relating his words, which are at times decidedly enigmatic, the evangelists reveal perhaps for the first time something like the intention to construct a character, with his own psychology and idiosyncrasies”
“But early on there is testimony, in the texts that we persist in calling New Testament “apocrypha” (the term, which has come to mean ���false, nonauthentic,” in truth simply means “hidden”), to the presence of a true and proper Pilate cycle.”
“This begins first of all in the Gospel of Nicodemus, in which the trial of Jesus is staged in a much more detailed way than in the synoptic gospels”
“In general the whole trial is dramatically rendered here as a debate between the Jewish accusers”
“and Pilate, who often appears to be beside himself and is almost openly on Jesus’s side”
“The dialogue with Jesus on truth, which in the canonical gospels ends abruptly with Pilate’s question, here, as we will see, continues and acquires a completely different significance”
“The legend of Pilate (the so-called Acta or Gesta Pilati) is constituted according to two divergent lines”
“First there is a “white” legend, attested by the pseudepigraphal letters to Tiberius and by the Paradosis, according to which Pilate, together with his wife Procla, had comprehended Jesus’s divinity and had only yielded to the insistence of the Jews through weakness”
“The white legend of Pilate thus presents him, paradoxically, in some way as a secret champion of Christianity against the Jews and the pagans”
“Lord, do not destroy me with the wicked Hebrews, for had it not been because of the nation of the lawless Jews, I would not have raised my hand against you, because they plotted a revolt against me. You know that I acted in ignorance”
“All generations and families of the Gentiles shall call you blessed, because in your governorship everything was fulfilled which the prophets foretold about me. And you yourself shall appear as my witness at my second coming, when I shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel and those who have not confessed my name. (Elliott, 211)”
“At this point Pilate is decapitated, but an angel picks up his chopped-off head”
“The Christianization of Pilate reaches its peak in the Gospel of Gamaliel, preserved in an Ethiopian recension”
“The Jews had in fact deceived him, making him believe that, if he had him punished in that way, they would let him go. For this reason, after the crucifixion”
“What is certain, in any case, is that the absolution of Pilate in the legend coincides with the intention to attribute the responsibility for the crucifixion exclusively to the Jews.”
“The white legend of Pilate contrasts with much of what the extrabiblical sources hand down to us about him”
“It is a character of this type who is made into the protagonist in the dark legend of Pilate, which curiously intersects with that of the Veronica.”
“The scene is repeated many times, to general amazement: the man who, while he is absent, appears as a savage criminal, seems to him when present to be pious and meek. Finally, through divine inspiration or, perhaps, thanks to the counsel of some Christian, Tiberius orders that Pilate be stripped of the tunic. Immediately the incantation disappears and the emperor, regaining control of himself, has Pilate imprisoned and condemns him to a shameful death”
“Having heard the sentence, Pilate kills himself by stabbing himself with a knife”
“The legend of Pilate becomes jumbled at this point with that of the migration of his demon-possessed body from grave to grave”
“The evangelists, who certainly could not have been present at the trial, do not concern themselves with indicating the sources of their narrative and precisely this lack of philological scruples confers on the account its incomparable epic tone”
“The letters and the legends, with their dark or glorious outcome, were presumably invented to furnish a documentation for the trial and, at the same time, to account for Pilate’s behavior.”
“In any case Pilate’s behavior during the judgment needed to appear enigmatic; moreover, the fact that a judgment before the prefect had taken place was, for some reason, essential.”
“The technical term for the function of the judge here is bēma, the seat or platform on which the one who is to pass judgment sits (the sella curulis of the Roman magistrate).”
“God’s judgment is, however, explicitly counterposed to that of humans, who must not pass judgment among themselves: “Why do you pass judgment (ti krineis) on your brother or sister? . . . For we will all stand before the bēma of God” (Romans 14:10).”
“In the trial that unfolds before Pilate, two bēmata, two judgments and two kingdoms seem to confront each other: the human and the divine, the temporal and the eternal.”
“And it is the world of facts that must judge that of truths, the temporal kingdom that must pronounce a judgment on the eternal kingdom”
“The narrative in John is, relative to the synoptics, so much fuller and more detailed as to appear completely independent of them”
“John dramatically articulates the account into seven scenes, each of them corresponding to a change of location, now outside the praetorium, now inside, each time (except for the fifth scene) introduced by stereotypical formulas: “Pilate went outside (exēlthen),” “he entered again (eisēlthen palin),” “he exited again (exēlthen palin).”
“since the accusation had not been formalized, Roman law could not be applied.”
“Entirely unexpectedly, Pilate decides to interrogate Jesus.”
“The syntagma “king of the Jews” (basileus tōn Ioudaiōn), which will have such a decisive function in what follows, appears here in the trial for the first time. To judge from his response, Jesus was not expecting the question: indeed, what does the Roman prefect have to do with a question internal to Judaism such as the expectation of the messiah?”
“Pilate is thus right to ask: “So are you a king (ouk-oun basileus ei su)?” Jesus’s unexpected reply displaces the discourse from the kingdom to truth”
“And here Pilate pronounces what Nietzsche called the “most subtle witticism of all time (die grösste Urbanität aller Zeiten)” (Nachlass, Frühjahr 1884, 25 [338]): “What is truth (ti estin alētheia)?” (18:38)”
“In reality Pilate’s question, traditionally interpreted as an ironic expression of skepticism (in this sense Spengler opposed the facts—Tatsachen—whose champion is Pilate, to the truth, represented by Jesus) and even scorn (the “noble scorn” with which, according to Nietzsche, a “Roman” had annihilated the New Testament; The Antichrist, §46), is not necessarily such. Neither is it necessarily a “foreign body” (Demandt, 86) in its context, which—we must not forget—is that of a trial.”
“his question does not refer to truth in general (non quarens quid sit definitio veritatis) but to the specific truth that Jesus seems to intend and that he does not manage to grasp”
“Earthly judgment does not coincide with the testimony of truth”
“Not having found the accused culpable, Pilate would have had to deliver a verdict of innocence (the expected formula in the Roman trial was absolvo or videtur non fecisse) or else suspend the trial and call for a supplementary investigation (the expected formula was non liquet or amplius est cognoscendum).”
“Through the whole course of the trial—it is a fact on which we must reflect—Pilate seeks tenaciously to avoid the pronunciation of a verdict.”
“Flogging was an accessory punishment expected as preliminary to crucifixion: Pilate instead intends to make use of it, somewhat incongruously—but this in all probability forms part of his discretionary power (cf. Digest 48.2.6)—as punishment for an unspecified minor misdemeanor.”
“From this moment on, Pilate’s conduct becomes—at least apparently—ever more incoherent:”
“According to the invariable rules of Roman procedure, capital crimes, such as Jesus’s was, could not be judged other than pro tribunali. . . . Pilate here acts as intermediary or arbiter and not as judge” (Bickerman, 223).”
“That is because the accusation that the Sanhedrin brings against Jesus is precisely the messianic pretense to kingship, which the Jews reject, but that Pilate, with his question, seems to put back in play.”
“The question of kingship returns forcefully in the inscription (titulus) that Pilate has put on the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (John 19:19).”
“The ambiguity of the insignia does not escape the Sanhedrin, so they tell Pilate to change it: “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews’” (19:21). Here Pilate pronounces his second historical witticism, which seems to give the lie to the equally celebrated one on truth and, along with it, his previous evasions and any supposed skepticism: “What I have written I have written” (19:22).”
“One could say that the event that is in question in the passion of Jesus is nothing other than a “handing over,” a “tradition” in the proper sense of the term.”
“In the Gospels, Judas is, par excellence, “the one who hands over,” the “betrayer [tra-ditore]” (ho paradidous, Vulgate: qui tradebat eum [John 18:5]); so also in Mark 3:19, “Judas Iscariot, who handed him over (hos kai paredōken auton),” and in Matthew 10:14, “Judas Iscariot, the one who handed him over (ho kai paradous auton).”
“Karl Barth was the one who noted that the “handing over” in truth had a theological significance.”
“From this theological perspective the earthly “handing over”—the “betrayal [tradimento]”—of Judas and then that of the Jews and of Pilate appear as an execution of the divine “handing over.”
“The drama of the passion, which John narrates with such a wealth of details, thus becomes a script inscribed from all eternity on that providential level that theologians call the “economy of salvation” and within which the actors do nothing but execute an already foreseen part”
“The word paradosis, “handing over,” is used in the New Testament in the metaphorical sense of teaching or doctrine that has been handed down. In this sense Jesus uses it in criticizing the oral traditions of the Jews”
“The same opposition of entolē and paradosis, divine command and human tradition, is found in Matthew 15:3.”
“Apart from the instructions for everyday life that Paul refers to while reminding the Corinthians to “maintain the traditions (paradoseis) just as I handed them on (paredōka) to you” (1 Corinthians 11:2), there is only one authentic Christian tradition: that of the “handing over”—first on the part of the Father, then of Judas and the Jews—of Jesus to the cross, which has abolished and realized all traditions.”
“It is in the perspective of this “handing over”—so Barth seems to suggest—that the episode of Pilate must also be inscribed.”
“And what does his wife’s dream, which Luther was forced to explain as a demon’s intervention seeking to impede the crucifixion, have to do with the divine economy?”
“The role of the prefect of Judea and of the judgment, the krisis that he must pronounce is not inscribed into the economy of salvation as a passive instrument but as a real character in a historical drama, with his passions and doubts, his caprices and scruples.”
“This means that the Christian conception of history as the execution of the divine economy of salvation—or, in its secularized version, a realization of the unbreakable laws immanent to it—must be, at least in our case, revised”
“Certainly he is in a position to understand that there could be—at least for this young Jew whom he has before his eyes—a level that transcends history (otherwise he would not have replied “then you are a king” when Jesus told him that his kingdom is not from this world); and yet he knows that, as prefect of Judea, he must also judge this level, because it could provoke—and has already provoked—factual consequences (the uprising among the Jews to which the mob that stands before him testifies).”
“Historians of law have attempted to examine the trial of Jesus from the point of view of Roman law. It is not surprising that the conclusions are not unanimous”
“Opinions diverge, however, as to the regularity of the trial.”
“From the point of view of law, “Jesus of Nazareth was not condemned, but murdered: his sacrifice was not an injustice, but a homicide” (Rosaldi, 407–8).”
“A first-rate expert in the two juridical traditions, both Jewish and Roman, has observed that the difficulty of delineating a coherent picture of the unfolding of the trial derives from the fact that the scholars seek to fit together the evangelists’ accounts procedurally, while each of them most likely followed a different presentation of the passion for theological ends (Bickerman, 228–29).”
“Pilate, through lack of courage, had thus “disregarded the norms of law that it was his duty to apply; he had abdicated his own authority by not repressing the subversive mob; and he had turned his back on justice by abandoning a man, whom he maintained to be innocent, to the preordained vengeance of his declared enemies” (De Francisci, 25).”
“The ambiguity inherent in every interpretation of sacred texts here appears with full clarity. Should the Gospels be considered historical documents, or is what is in question in them above all a genuinely theological problem?”
“Already a pagan observer, Porphyry, had observed that “the evangelists are inventors (epheurotas) and not historians (historas, ‘witnesses’) of the events concerning Jesus. Each of them in fact writes in disagreement and not in agreement with the others, above all as regards the account of the passion” (Bickerman, 231).”
“The hermeneutical canon that we will maintain is, rather, that only as historical character does Pilate carry out his theological function and, vice versa, that he is a historical character only insofar as he carries out his theological function”
“Historical character [personaggio] and theological persona, juridical trial and eschatological crisis coincide without remainder and only in this coincidence, only in their “falling together” do they find their truth.”
“And that Pilate does not sit on the bench is completely coherent with the fact that he does not give a verdict but limits himself to “handing over” Jesus.”
“Here two judgments and two kingdoms truly stand before one another without managing to come to a conclusion. It is not at all clear who judges whom, whether it is the judge legally invested with earthly power or the one who is made a judge through scorn, who represents the kingdom that is not from this world. It is possible, in fact, that neither of the two truly pronounces a judgment.”
“The radical critique of every judgment is an essential part of Jesus’s teaching”
The warning “Do not judge!” (repeated in John 3:18, “those who believe in him do not judge”) finds its rationale here: the eternal does not want to judge the world but to save it; at least until the end of time judgment and salvation mutually exclude one another.”
“Dante here indissolubly links the realization of the economy of salvation to the legitimacy of Pilate’s judgment, insofar as he is a representative of the Roman Empire. Christ’s crucifixion is not a simple “penalty,” but a “legitimate punishment (punitio),” inflicted by an ordinary judge who, as representative of Caesar, had jurisdiction over the entire human race, which could be ransomed from sin only in this way.”
“History takes part in the economy of salvation but takes part in it as a reality in all respects and not as a puppet show. For this reason Pilate is not only an executor Novi Testamenti but a historical actor with all his ineliminable contradictions.”
“These contradictions are not, however, only of a psychological order. In them a more profound contrast comes to light, which concerns the antithesis of economy and history, of temporal and eternal, of justice and salvation, that Dante’s doctrine seeks in vain to reconcile. Pilate is this contradiction.”
“And Christ, insofar as the word in him has been made flesh, is this contradiction par excellence.”
“The doctrine of the two wills, if transferred onto the level of ethics, includes an element of hypocrisy.”
“For this reason his testimony is paradoxical: he must testify in this world that his kingdom is not from this world—not that he is here a simple human being but elsewhere is a God.”
“He must attest in history and in time to the presence of an extrahistorical and eternal reality.”
“In his polemic against Martensen, who in his eulogy had defined Bishop Mynster as a “witness to the truth,” Kierkegaard explains what he means by “testifying to the truth.”
“a witness to the truth, one of the authentic witnesses to the truth, is a man who is flogged, mistreated, dragged from one prison to another . . . then finally he is crucified or beheaded or burned or broiled on a grill, his lifeless body thrown in some out-of-the-way place by the executioner’s assistant, unburied”
“But it is in the short speech “On the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle” that Kierkegaard truly tries to think what constitutes the authority of a testimony”
“This has nothing profound or ingenious about it, nor can it furnish proof from itself, because it would be nonsense “to demand physical certainty that God exists” (Kierkegaard, 98).”
“The authority of a word does not depend on its semantic content, which everyone can repeat exactly, but on the place of its enunciation, which must be elsewhere”
“Pilate and Jesus, the vicar of the worldly kingdom and the celestial king, stand before one another in the same, unique place, the praetorium in Jerusalem, the same one of which archaeologists have believed they could identify the improbable site.”
“Justice and salvation cannot be reconciled; every time, they return to mutually excluding and calling for each other.”
“Judgment is implacable and at the same time impossible, because in it things appear as lost and unsavable; salvation is merciful and nevertheless ineffective, because in it things appear as unjudgable.”
“To testify, here and now, to the truth of the kingdom that is not here means accepting that what we want to save will judge us. This is because the world, in its fallenness, does not want salvation but justice”
“As unsavable, creatures judge the eternal: this is the paradox that in the end, before Pilate, cuts Jesus short. Here is the cross; here is history”
“The Christian Credo,” it has been observed, “speaks of historical events. Pontius Pilate belongs there essentially. He is not just a pitiful creature who oddly ended up there”
“That Christianity is a historical religion, that the “mysteries” of which it speaks are also and above all historical facts, is taken for granted”
“All the more urgent, then, is the task of understanding how and why this crossing between the temporal and the eternal and between the divine and the human assumed precisely the form of a krisis, that is, of a juridical trial.”
“In the punctilious attention with which John above all, but also Mark, Luke, and Matthew describe his hesitations, his evasions and changing opinion, literally relating his words, which are at times decidedly enigmatic, the evangelists reveal perhaps for the first time something like the intention to construct a character, with his own psychology and idiosyncrasies”
“But early on there is testimony, in the texts that we persist in calling New Testament “apocrypha” (the term, which has come to mean ���false, nonauthentic,” in truth simply means “hidden”), to the presence of a true and proper Pilate cycle.”
“This begins first of all in the Gospel of Nicodemus, in which the trial of Jesus is staged in a much more detailed way than in the synoptic gospels”
“In general the whole trial is dramatically rendered here as a debate between the Jewish accusers”
“and Pilate, who often appears to be beside himself and is almost openly on Jesus’s side”
“The dialogue with Jesus on truth, which in the canonical gospels ends abruptly with Pilate’s question, here, as we will see, continues and acquires a completely different significance”
“The legend of Pilate (the so-called Acta or Gesta Pilati) is constituted according to two divergent lines”
“First there is a “white” legend, attested by the pseudepigraphal letters to Tiberius and by the Paradosis, according to which Pilate, together with his wife Procla, had comprehended Jesus’s divinity and had only yielded to the insistence of the Jews through weakness”
“The white legend of Pilate thus presents him, paradoxically, in some way as a secret champion of Christianity against the Jews and the pagans”
“Lord, do not destroy me with the wicked Hebrews, for had it not been because of the nation of the lawless Jews, I would not have raised my hand against you, because they plotted a revolt against me. You know that I acted in ignorance”
“All generations and families of the Gentiles shall call you blessed, because in your governorship everything was fulfilled which the prophets foretold about me. And you yourself shall appear as my witness at my second coming, when I shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel and those who have not confessed my name. (Elliott, 211)”
“At this point Pilate is decapitated, but an angel picks up his chopped-off head”
“The Christianization of Pilate reaches its peak in the Gospel of Gamaliel, preserved in an Ethiopian recension”
“The Jews had in fact deceived him, making him believe that, if he had him punished in that way, they would let him go. For this reason, after the crucifixion”
“What is certain, in any case, is that the absolution of Pilate in the legend coincides with the intention to attribute the responsibility for the crucifixion exclusively to the Jews.”
“The white legend of Pilate contrasts with much of what the extrabiblical sources hand down to us about him”
“It is a character of this type who is made into the protagonist in the dark legend of Pilate, which curiously intersects with that of the Veronica.”
“The scene is repeated many times, to general amazement: the man who, while he is absent, appears as a savage criminal, seems to him when present to be pious and meek. Finally, through divine inspiration or, perhaps, thanks to the counsel of some Christian, Tiberius orders that Pilate be stripped of the tunic. Immediately the incantation disappears and the emperor, regaining control of himself, has Pilate imprisoned and condemns him to a shameful death”
“Having heard the sentence, Pilate kills himself by stabbing himself with a knife”
“The legend of Pilate becomes jumbled at this point with that of the migration of his demon-possessed body from grave to grave”
“The evangelists, who certainly could not have been present at the trial, do not concern themselves with indicating the sources of their narrative and precisely this lack of philological scruples confers on the account its incomparable epic tone”
“The letters and the legends, with their dark or glorious outcome, were presumably invented to furnish a documentation for the trial and, at the same time, to account for Pilate’s behavior.”
“In any case Pilate’s behavior during the judgment needed to appear enigmatic; moreover, the fact that a judgment before the prefect had taken place was, for some reason, essential.”
“The technical term for the function of the judge here is bēma, the seat or platform on which the one who is to pass judgment sits (the sella curulis of the Roman magistrate).”
“God’s judgment is, however, explicitly counterposed to that of humans, who must not pass judgment among themselves: “Why do you pass judgment (ti krineis) on your brother or sister? . . . For we will all stand before the bēma of God” (Romans 14:10).”
“In the trial that unfolds before Pilate, two bēmata, two judgments and two kingdoms seem to confront each other: the human and the divine, the temporal and the eternal.”
“And it is the world of facts that must judge that of truths, the temporal kingdom that must pronounce a judgment on the eternal kingdom”
“The narrative in John is, relative to the synoptics, so much fuller and more detailed as to appear completely independent of them”
“John dramatically articulates the account into seven scenes, each of them corresponding to a change of location, now outside the praetorium, now inside, each time (except for the fifth scene) introduced by stereotypical formulas: “Pilate went outside (exēlthen),” “he entered again (eisēlthen palin),” “he exited again (exēlthen palin).”
“since the accusation had not been formalized, Roman law could not be applied.”
“Entirely unexpectedly, Pilate decides to interrogate Jesus.”
“The syntagma “king of the Jews” (basileus tōn Ioudaiōn), which will have such a decisive function in what follows, appears here in the trial for the first time. To judge from his response, Jesus was not expecting the question: indeed, what does the Roman prefect have to do with a question internal to Judaism such as the expectation of the messiah?”
“Pilate is thus right to ask: “So are you a king (ouk-oun basileus ei su)?” Jesus’s unexpected reply displaces the discourse from the kingdom to truth”
“And here Pilate pronounces what Nietzsche called the “most subtle witticism of all time (die grösste Urbanität aller Zeiten)” (Nachlass, Frühjahr 1884, 25 [338]): “What is truth (ti estin alētheia)?” (18:38)”
“In reality Pilate’s question, traditionally interpreted as an ironic expression of skepticism (in this sense Spengler opposed the facts—Tatsachen—whose champion is Pilate, to the truth, represented by Jesus) and even scorn (the “noble scorn” with which, according to Nietzsche, a “Roman” had annihilated the New Testament; The Antichrist, §46), is not necessarily such. Neither is it necessarily a “foreign body” (Demandt, 86) in its context, which—we must not forget—is that of a trial.”
“his question does not refer to truth in general (non quarens quid sit definitio veritatis) but to the specific truth that Jesus seems to intend and that he does not manage to grasp”
“Earthly judgment does not coincide with the testimony of truth”
“Not having found the accused culpable, Pilate would have had to deliver a verdict of innocence (the expected formula in the Roman trial was absolvo or videtur non fecisse) or else suspend the trial and call for a supplementary investigation (the expected formula was non liquet or amplius est cognoscendum).”
“Through the whole course of the trial—it is a fact on which we must reflect—Pilate seeks tenaciously to avoid the pronunciation of a verdict.”
“Flogging was an accessory punishment expected as preliminary to crucifixion: Pilate instead intends to make use of it, somewhat incongruously—but this in all probability forms part of his discretionary power (cf. Digest 48.2.6)—as punishment for an unspecified minor misdemeanor.”
“From this moment on, Pilate’s conduct becomes—at least apparently—ever more incoherent:”
“According to the invariable rules of Roman procedure, capital crimes, such as Jesus’s was, could not be judged other than pro tribunali. . . . Pilate here acts as intermediary or arbiter and not as judge” (Bickerman, 223).”
“That is because the accusation that the Sanhedrin brings against Jesus is precisely the messianic pretense to kingship, which the Jews reject, but that Pilate, with his question, seems to put back in play.”
“The question of kingship returns forcefully in the inscription (titulus) that Pilate has put on the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (John 19:19).”
“The ambiguity of the insignia does not escape the Sanhedrin, so they tell Pilate to change it: “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews’” (19:21). Here Pilate pronounces his second historical witticism, which seems to give the lie to the equally celebrated one on truth and, along with it, his previous evasions and any supposed skepticism: “What I have written I have written” (19:22).”
“One could say that the event that is in question in the passion of Jesus is nothing other than a “handing over,” a “tradition” in the proper sense of the term.”
“In the Gospels, Judas is, par excellence, “the one who hands over,” the “betrayer [tra-ditore]” (ho paradidous, Vulgate: qui tradebat eum [John 18:5]); so also in Mark 3:19, “Judas Iscariot, who handed him over (hos kai paredōken auton),” and in Matthew 10:14, “Judas Iscariot, the one who handed him over (ho kai paradous auton).”
“Karl Barth was the one who noted that the “handing over” in truth had a theological significance.”
“From this theological perspective the earthly “handing over”—the “betrayal [tradimento]”—of Judas and then that of the Jews and of Pilate appear as an execution of the divine “handing over.”
“The drama of the passion, which John narrates with such a wealth of details, thus becomes a script inscribed from all eternity on that providential level that theologians call the “economy of salvation” and within which the actors do nothing but execute an already foreseen part”
“The word paradosis, “handing over,” is used in the New Testament in the metaphorical sense of teaching or doctrine that has been handed down. In this sense Jesus uses it in criticizing the oral traditions of the Jews”
“The same opposition of entolē and paradosis, divine command and human tradition, is found in Matthew 15:3.”
“Apart from the instructions for everyday life that Paul refers to while reminding the Corinthians to “maintain the traditions (paradoseis) just as I handed them on (paredōka) to you” (1 Corinthians 11:2), there is only one authentic Christian tradition: that of the “handing over”—first on the part of the Father, then of Judas and the Jews—of Jesus to the cross, which has abolished and realized all traditions.”
“It is in the perspective of this “handing over”—so Barth seems to suggest—that the episode of Pilate must also be inscribed.”
“And what does his wife’s dream, which Luther was forced to explain as a demon’s intervention seeking to impede the crucifixion, have to do with the divine economy?”
“The role of the prefect of Judea and of the judgment, the krisis that he must pronounce is not inscribed into the economy of salvation as a passive instrument but as a real character in a historical drama, with his passions and doubts, his caprices and scruples.”
“This means that the Christian conception of history as the execution of the divine economy of salvation—or, in its secularized version, a realization of the unbreakable laws immanent to it—must be, at least in our case, revised”
“Certainly he is in a position to understand that there could be—at least for this young Jew whom he has before his eyes—a level that transcends history (otherwise he would not have replied “then you are a king” when Jesus told him that his kingdom is not from this world); and yet he knows that, as prefect of Judea, he must also judge this level, because it could provoke—and has already provoked—factual consequences (the uprising among the Jews to which the mob that stands before him testifies).”
“Historians of law have attempted to examine the trial of Jesus from the point of view of Roman law. It is not surprising that the conclusions are not unanimous”
“Opinions diverge, however, as to the regularity of the trial.”
“From the point of view of law, “Jesus of Nazareth was not condemned, but murdered: his sacrifice was not an injustice, but a homicide” (Rosaldi, 407–8).”
“A first-rate expert in the two juridical traditions, both Jewish and Roman, has observed that the difficulty of delineating a coherent picture of the unfolding of the trial derives from the fact that the scholars seek to fit together the evangelists’ accounts procedurally, while each of them most likely followed a different presentation of the passion for theological ends (Bickerman, 228–29).”
“Pilate, through lack of courage, had thus “disregarded the norms of law that it was his duty to apply; he had abdicated his own authority by not repressing the subversive mob; and he had turned his back on justice by abandoning a man, whom he maintained to be innocent, to the preordained vengeance of his declared enemies” (De Francisci, 25).”
“The ambiguity inherent in every interpretation of sacred texts here appears with full clarity. Should the Gospels be considered historical documents, or is what is in question in them above all a genuinely theological problem?”
“Already a pagan observer, Porphyry, had observed that “the evangelists are inventors (epheurotas) and not historians (historas, ‘witnesses’) of the events concerning Jesus. Each of them in fact writes in disagreement and not in agreement with the others, above all as regards the account of the passion” (Bickerman, 231).”
“The hermeneutical canon that we will maintain is, rather, that only as historical character does Pilate carry out his theological function and, vice versa, that he is a historical character only insofar as he carries out his theological function”
“Historical character [personaggio] and theological persona, juridical trial and eschatological crisis coincide without remainder and only in this coincidence, only in their “falling together” do they find their truth.”
“And that Pilate does not sit on the bench is completely coherent with the fact that he does not give a verdict but limits himself to “handing over” Jesus.”
“Here two judgments and two kingdoms truly stand before one another without managing to come to a conclusion. It is not at all clear who judges whom, whether it is the judge legally invested with earthly power or the one who is made a judge through scorn, who represents the kingdom that is not from this world. It is possible, in fact, that neither of the two truly pronounces a judgment.”
“The radical critique of every judgment is an essential part of Jesus’s teaching”
The warning “Do not judge!” (repeated in John 3:18, “those who believe in him do not judge”) finds its rationale here: the eternal does not want to judge the world but to save it; at least until the end of time judgment and salvation mutually exclude one another.”
“Dante here indissolubly links the realization of the economy of salvation to the legitimacy of Pilate’s judgment, insofar as he is a representative of the Roman Empire. Christ’s crucifixion is not a simple “penalty,” but a “legitimate punishment (punitio),” inflicted by an ordinary judge who, as representative of Caesar, had jurisdiction over the entire human race, which could be ransomed from sin only in this way.”
“History takes part in the economy of salvation but takes part in it as a reality in all respects and not as a puppet show. For this reason Pilate is not only an executor Novi Testamenti but a historical actor with all his ineliminable contradictions.”
“These contradictions are not, however, only of a psychological order. In them a more profound contrast comes to light, which concerns the antithesis of economy and history, of temporal and eternal, of justice and salvation, that Dante’s doctrine seeks in vain to reconcile. Pilate is this contradiction.”
“And Christ, insofar as the word in him has been made flesh, is this contradiction par excellence.”
“The doctrine of the two wills, if transferred onto the level of ethics, includes an element of hypocrisy.”
“For this reason his testimony is paradoxical: he must testify in this world that his kingdom is not from this world—not that he is here a simple human being but elsewhere is a God.”
“He must attest in history and in time to the presence of an extrahistorical and eternal reality.”
“In his polemic against Martensen, who in his eulogy had defined Bishop Mynster as a “witness to the truth,” Kierkegaard explains what he means by “testifying to the truth.”
“a witness to the truth, one of the authentic witnesses to the truth, is a man who is flogged, mistreated, dragged from one prison to another . . . then finally he is crucified or beheaded or burned or broiled on a grill, his lifeless body thrown in some out-of-the-way place by the executioner’s assistant, unburied”
“But it is in the short speech “On the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle” that Kierkegaard truly tries to think what constitutes the authority of a testimony”
“This has nothing profound or ingenious about it, nor can it furnish proof from itself, because it would be nonsense “to demand physical certainty that God exists” (Kierkegaard, 98).”
“The authority of a word does not depend on its semantic content, which everyone can repeat exactly, but on the place of its enunciation, which must be elsewhere”
“Pilate and Jesus, the vicar of the worldly kingdom and the celestial king, stand before one another in the same, unique place, the praetorium in Jerusalem, the same one of which archaeologists have believed they could identify the improbable site.”
“Justice and salvation cannot be reconciled; every time, they return to mutually excluding and calling for each other.”
“Judgment is implacable and at the same time impossible, because in it things appear as lost and unsavable; salvation is merciful and nevertheless ineffective, because in it things appear as unjudgable.”
“To testify, here and now, to the truth of the kingdom that is not here means accepting that what we want to save will judge us. This is because the world, in its fallenness, does not want salvation but justice”
“As unsavable, creatures judge the eternal: this is the paradox that in the end, before Pilate, cuts Jesus short. Here is the cross; here is history”
April 28, 2019
Ot krótka analiza najważniejszego procesu w dziejach ludzkości.
December 17, 2016
In questo piccolo libricino (talmente piccolo che forse anche definirlo libricino è eccessivo), Agamben prova ad imbastire una riflessione sul processo di Pilato a Gesù in cui “è il mondo dei fatti che deve giudicare quello della verità, il regno temporale che deve pronunciare un giudizio sul Regno eterno”. Dico prova, perché in realtà, probabilmente per limiti personali, non ho ben capito quale fosse la tesi che l’Autore voleva dimostrare il che, ovviamente, ha reso lo sviluppo del ragionamento poco chiaro e ancor meno convincente. So solo che dopo essere partito dal “«credo» in cui i cristiani compendiano la loro fede”, ed essere passato per Nietzsche e Bulgakov, per gli evangelisti canonici e quelli apocrifi, Agamben arriva a concludere che il processo dimostra che “giustizia e salvezza non possono essere conciliate, tornano ogni volta a escludersi e a chiamarsi a vicenda”, che “il mondo, nella sua caducità, non vuole salvezza, ma giustizia. E la vuole precisamente perché non chiede di essere salvato. In quanto insalvabili, le creature giudicano l’eterno: questo è il paradosso che alla fine, di fronte a Pilato, toglie la parola a Gesù. Qui è la croce, qui è la storia”.
Fate voi.
Fate voi.
December 13, 2018
read it on an airplane and was kind of hoping he had more to say. I guess no one has commented on the role of the Mob in this saga, as the name is Pilate and Jesus. There is the Mob as a third character that almost plays like the chorus in a tragedy. By Roman Law, Pilate is put in a spot where he can't make a determinative outcome of the case and the only but he is powerless to protect Jesus as well. Maybe we see the limits of government authority here as the mob wins again.
March 29, 2024
Agamben es buenísimo. Escribe: "Por qué el acontecimiento decisivo de la historia universal-la pasión de Cristo y la redención de la humanidad- debe tomar la forma de un proceso?", hace no más que pensar en Kafka y su Novela. Sí, K. se parece a Jesús por cómo culminó su destino, pero Pilato entonces es un personaje de Kafka parecido a su padre. Es su silencio o mejor, si no cumplir con su rol de Juez quien ha causado un misterio en la Historia.
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January 20, 2019No puedo emitir un jucio de valor sobre la obra dado que el tema no era de mi particular interés, y solo leí el libro debido a sus escasas 55 páginas, pero debo admitir que me hizo interesar en la lectura de la biblia y el análisis de la figura de Jesús en tanto personaje revolucionario... de ficción.
December 8, 2016
Only as history is Pontius Pilate theological and only as theology is he historical, Agamben writes in this essay on this encounter between the temporal and the eternal, taking the form of a trial without judgement, that stands at the very centre of human history.
March 12, 2015
Very nearly 5 stars; I simply wanted it to go on for 20 more pages. Agamben was really cooking and then it was over. Fascinating read, especially after you stop thinking it's Pilates and Jesus.
April 26, 2016
I don't know that this was my best introduction to Agamben, so I'll come back and reread after I read Homo Sacer.
January 5, 2021
Nothing bears more pressingly on this reader than the final judgment, or Final Judgment, on Pontius Pilate. I am anxious to know what the verdict will be. It is my hope that after my own death, having moved beyond the pettiness of this life, I/we will discover the Final Judgment of Pontius Pilate. At this moment I am tempted to lean toward acquittal, but that could change, and as I have said more than once, my life is not yet over. Now we are called on the question of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Are they the worst team in recent NFL history?
What's new here? Let me make a few suggestions. First, Pilate and Jesus are on a collision course. But the Son of Man was completing his divine mission and Pilate was doing the Emperor's work. That makes "history a trial," because the conflict in every age has been "Are we doing God's will or the Emperor's will?" Today, we experience history as a process or trial. It must conclude with judgment. "...the doctor must judge whether the sick person will survive, and the last day that coincides with the end of time or what must be judged." Adding a remark from Aquinas,
"Judgment belongs to the term wherein all things are resolved. We cannot now
render judgment on changeable things because changeable things have not
culminated. For this reason, we wait for the last days, when everything with
respect to each and every person shall be perfectly and publicly judged."
You understand the rampant pathologies of our time. Having avoided the entire discussion because of the dominance of the liberal "diktat"-no one should judge another, all is permitted, unless it isn't-the terror of judgment has given way to pathology. Pathology is our permanent condition. More books about Pilate and Jesus, more movies, more reviews...but to what end? We need judgment, but do we believe in Him who has the power to judge?
What's new here? Let me make a few suggestions. First, Pilate and Jesus are on a collision course. But the Son of Man was completing his divine mission and Pilate was doing the Emperor's work. That makes "history a trial," because the conflict in every age has been "Are we doing God's will or the Emperor's will?" Today, we experience history as a process or trial. It must conclude with judgment. "...the doctor must judge whether the sick person will survive, and the last day that coincides with the end of time or what must be judged." Adding a remark from Aquinas,
"Judgment belongs to the term wherein all things are resolved. We cannot now
render judgment on changeable things because changeable things have not
culminated. For this reason, we wait for the last days, when everything with
respect to each and every person shall be perfectly and publicly judged."
You understand the rampant pathologies of our time. Having avoided the entire discussion because of the dominance of the liberal "diktat"-no one should judge another, all is permitted, unless it isn't-the terror of judgment has given way to pathology. Pathology is our permanent condition. More books about Pilate and Jesus, more movies, more reviews...but to what end? We need judgment, but do we believe in Him who has the power to judge?
March 30, 2024
“Why stage a trial (or a simulacrum of a trial) and why these evasions, these subterfuges, these declarations of the defendant's innocence? And what does his wife's dream, which Luther was forced to explain as a demon's intervention seeking to impede the crucifixion, have to do with the divine economy?
That Pilate's behavior follows different reasons from those of Judas is attested beyond any doubt by the fact that while Jesus says to Judas, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do’ (John 13:27), he instead pauses to discuss with Pilate and seems up to the end to want to convince him of his own innocence. The role of the prefect of Judea and of the judgment, the krisis that he must pronounce is not inscribed into the economy of salvation as a passive instrument but as a real character in a historical drama, with his passions and doubts, his caprices and scruples. With the judgment of Pilate history bursts into the economy and suspends its ‘handing over.’ The historical krisis is also and above all a crisis of ‘tradition.’”
—
“The hermeneutical canon that we will maintain is, rather, that only as historical character does Pilate carry out his theological function and, vice versa, that he is a historical character only insofar as he carries out his theological function. Historical character [personaggio] and theological persona, juridical trial and eschatological crisis coincide without remainder and only in this coincidence, only in their ‘falling together’ do they find their truth.”
That Pilate's behavior follows different reasons from those of Judas is attested beyond any doubt by the fact that while Jesus says to Judas, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do’ (John 13:27), he instead pauses to discuss with Pilate and seems up to the end to want to convince him of his own innocence. The role of the prefect of Judea and of the judgment, the krisis that he must pronounce is not inscribed into the economy of salvation as a passive instrument but as a real character in a historical drama, with his passions and doubts, his caprices and scruples. With the judgment of Pilate history bursts into the economy and suspends its ‘handing over.’ The historical krisis is also and above all a crisis of ‘tradition.’”
—
“The hermeneutical canon that we will maintain is, rather, that only as historical character does Pilate carry out his theological function and, vice versa, that he is a historical character only insofar as he carries out his theological function. Historical character [personaggio] and theological persona, juridical trial and eschatological crisis coincide without remainder and only in this coincidence, only in their ‘falling together’ do they find their truth.”
May 28, 2023
classic Agamben. so much to be said but what's really marvelous is how his training as a legal scholar and philosopher and philologist jacks up this exegesis into something not quite theological or literary or juridical but the certified Agamben dark roast blend of all three. stuff like this makes him a viable candidate as the greatest hermeneut of suspicion active today. there's a vibrancy to the pathbreaking and its aftershock that is of the caliber of nietzsche, marx, freud. you kind of feel it in your bones and it makes you want to pick up the pen and look around. a great synthetic text -- imagine being able to write something like this and have it be a decidedly "minor" work lol
April 14, 2025
I'd highly recommend this book for anyone who is seeking a deeper understanding of Pilate's role in the New Testament. The book dives into various legends from the apocryphal books and folklore to some extent. Also provides some brief distinction of the description of the Passion across the gospels, with that of John's being the most comprehensive and almost play-like. The book references Greek scholars and scholars on Roman Law to provide details into the trial or "simulacrum trial" as it were. Top book of the year for me.
March 14, 2023
审判耶稣是永恒与世俗时间、神与人的交汇点；彼拉多自身表现为一个反犹太、反异教徒的隐秘的基督教勇士，可他同时却因犹太人的暴乱而懦弱地妥协。Krisis具有审判和生死的双重义。神与人的两个审判台bēmata、事实世界与真理世界在彼拉多面前相互对峙；彼对“犹太人的王”的保留恰恰是对弥赛亚的承认。犹大作为traditore首先就是“移交”者，移交十字架是“救赎的安济”economy从而构成救赎历史的开端；彼以历史人物的姿态履行神学功能，这也对应司法审判和末世危机。彼与耶稣皆悬置裁决，永恒之人并非审判而是拯救世界，二者的共存仅仅在时间的终点。但丁肯定罗马的合法性，只有这样受难才使所有人摆脱原罪，正是罗马的自主权使其具有救赎维度。安济与历史、永恒与世俗、救赎与审判的矛盾集于彼一身；那位王在历史与世俗时间中证明着不属这的王国的存在。世界渴望审判与正义而非拯救，造物也颇为讽刺地“审判”了永恒之人，尽管真正的审判从未发生。判决与救赎终究无法弥合，现代历史处在永恒的审判之中，留下的只是时间之外的永恒决断。
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