pilum = “javelin” | pilatus = “armed with a javelin”
Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of Judea (26–36 C.E.) who presided at the trial of Jesus. In his native Latin, the name was spelled Pontius Pilatus. The Greek form, attested in the New Testament (Luke 3:1; Acts 4:27), reads Pontios Pilatos (ΠόντɩοςΠɩλᾶτος). English translations preserve the Latin form in Pontius but transform Pilatus into Pilate. In the Roman system of names, Pontius was a tribal name (nomen gentilicium) that identified a person with a specific tribe or extended family (Latin: gens) and was thus hereditary. It derives from the Greek word for sea (pontos) and means “belonging to the sea” or “of the (high) sea.”
Pilatus is an adjective derived from the Latin word for javelin, pilum. It means either “skilled with the javelin” or “armed with a javelin.” According to Roman naming conventions, this was his third name (cognomen), used to distinguish individual families of the tribe or to highlight a person’s achievement—especially a military one, as might be the case. Together with the first name (praenomen), which is not attested for Pontius Pilate, a cognomen was the most common mode of identifying someone’s name in normal, everyday communication. Accordingly, the gospel narratives call him simply Pilate, as does the Roman historian Josephus.
Pontos = “sea” | pontios = “of the sea” |
pilum = “javelin” | pilatus = “armed with a javelin”
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