CLAUDIA PROCULA

CLAUDIA PROCULA

Just as Pilate was preparing to go out and give his answer to the Jews, who were muttering restlessly and impatiently be­fore the door, a servant sent by his wife came up to him, giving him this message: "Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." (Matt. 27:19)

No one in the four Gospels tells us what impression was made on the Procurator by this unexpected intercession from his wife. We know nothing of her except her name. Accord­ing to the Gospel of Nicodemus her name was Claudia Procula, and if this name was really hers she may have belonged to the people Claudia, who were distinguished and powerful at Rome. We may thus suppose that she was by birth and connections of a higher social rank than her husband, and that Pilate, a mere freed­man, may have owed to her and her influence in Rome his post in Judea.

If all this was true, certainly the request of Claudia Procula must have made some impression on Pilate, especially if he loved her; and that he loved her, at least as a man of his nature could love, seems proved by the fact that he had asked to take her with him into Asia. The Lex Oppia, a law to control spending, although mitigated by a decree of the Senate in the consulship of Cethegus and Varro, forbade the pro-consuls to take their wives with them, and Pontius Pilate had a special permit from Tiberius allowing Claudia Procula to accompany him to Palestine.

The motives for this intercession, so briefly stated, are mys­terious. The words of Matthew refer to a dream in which she had suffered because of Jesus: it is probable that she had heard people talking for some time of the new Prophet; perhaps she had seen Him, and found Him very different from the other Jews. The fact that He was neither a vulgar agitator nor a hypocritical Pharisee must have been pleasing to the imagination of a fanciful Roman woman. She did not under­stand the language spoken in Jerusalem, but some interpreter of the law courts might have repeated to her some of Jesus' words, words which would have convinced her that He was not, as they said, a dangerous criminal.

In those days the Romans, especially Roman women, were beginning to feel the attraction of Oriental myths and cults, which gave more satisfaction to the longing for personal immortality than the old Latin religion, a cold, legal, business­like exchange of sacrifices to obtain utilitarian and political ends. Many patrician women, even in Rome, had been ini­tiated into the mysteries of Mithra, Osiris and of Isis, the Great Mother, and some showed a certain leaning towards Judaism. In that very reign of Tiberius many Jews living in Rome were exiled from the Capital because, according to Josephus, some of them had deceived a matron Fulvia—converted to Judaism—and Fulvia, as we see from a reference of Suetonius, was not the only one.

It is not impossible that Claudia Procula, living in Judea, had been curious to know more in detail about the religion of the people governed by her husband, and that, curious like all women about new things, she had tried to find out what new doctrines were being preached by the Galilean prophet of whom everyone in Jerusalem was talking. It is certain that she had become convinced that Jesus was a "just man" and hence in­nocent. The dream of that night, the terrible dream—for she had "suffered many things" in it—had confirmed her in this conviction, and it is not surprising that relying on the influence which women have with their husbands, even if their husbands love them no longer, she sent this imploring message to Pilate.

It is enough for us that she called Him "That just man"—the man whom the Jews wished to assassinate. Together with the Centurion of Capernaum and with the Canaanite woman, Claudia Procula is the first pagan who believed in Christ, and the Greek Church has good reason to revere her as a Saint. This message from his wife strengthened Pilate's reluctance, inclined as he already was to neutrality, if not to clemency, through his animosity to Caiaphas, and perhaps through the words of the Accused. Claudia Procula had not said, "Save Him"—but: "Have thou nothing to do with that just man."

This was Pilate's idea, also; as if he had a confused divination of the importance of this mysterious beggar who called Him­self King. At the very first he had ordered the Jews to judge Him, themselves, but they had not been willing to do this. Then another way to evade the responsibility occurred to him. He went back to Jesus and asked whether He were a Galilean. (Luke 23:7)

This evasion seemed to promise success. Jesus did not be­long to his jurisdiction, but to that of Herod Antipas. By good luck Herod was there at Jerusalem at that very time, come as was his usual habit for the Passover. The Procurator had found a legitimate ploy to satisfy his wife—and to free him­self from this troublesome perplexity. With one stroke he would favor himself with the Jews, leaving to one of their own race the decisive judgment, and at the same time he would do a bad turn to the patriarch whom he hated with all his heart because he suspected him with good reason of spying on him and tale-bearing to Tiberius. So, losing no time, he or­dered the soldiers to take Jesus before Herod.