Pilate's Wife

Biblical Account

Pilate's wife appears only once, in Matthew 27, and is not mentioned in the other Gospels. During the trial of Jesus, while Pontius Pilate sat on the judgment seat and asked the crowd whether he should release Jesus or Barabbas, his wife sent him a message:

"Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him" (Matthew 27:19, KJV).

Scripture records neither her name nor her origins, nor does it describe anything she did after sending this message. Pilate ultimately yielded to the crowd's demands and handed Jesus over to be crucified, washing his hands and saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person" (Matthew 27:24).

Tacitus's Annals records a debate in the Roman Senate over provincial governors taking their wives with them to their posts. This account is frequently cited as evidence of the practice of the time, in which governors' wives resided with their husbands in the provinces.

Significance within Scripture

In the Gospel of Matthew, dreams repeatedly serve as a means of revealing God's will. Examples include Joseph and the Magi, who received instructions through dreams. The dream of Pilate's wife is read in light of this pattern.

Also noteworthy is that she calls Jesus a "just man," that is, a righteous man. Matthew repeatedly underscores Jesus' innocence through Judas's confession (27:4), Pilate's washing of his hands (27:24), and the confession of the centurion at the cross (27:54). Within this sequence, she stands as a Gentile who, unlike the Jewish leaders, bore witness to Jesus' innocence.

Interpretations and Issues

• Source of the dream: Most interpreters regard the dream as a warning from God. Some medieval Western interpretations and dramas reportedly held instead that Satan sent the dream in an attempt to prevent the saving work of the cross.
• Name and later stories: The Acts of Pilate (part of the Gospel of Nicodemus), an apocryphal work dating from around the fourth century, portrays her as God-fearing and sympathetic to the Jews. Later tradition calls her "Procula" or "Claudia Procula." These names, along with stories that she became a Christian, are later traditions not found in the biblical text.
• Church traditions: Parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian church tradition are known to venerate her as a saint. Protestants do not practice the veneration of saints and treat her only within the limits of what the biblical text records.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, she is mentioned chiefly in Holy Week sermons or in sermons on the trial of Jesus. She is usually presented in contrast to Pilate, who knew the truth yet yielded to the pressure of the crowd, as an example of the lesson not to ignore the warnings of conscience. Because so little is recorded about her, she is more often mentioned in discussions of Pontius Pilate than treated on her own.