Pontius Pilate Pilate was "astonished". Pilate appears to have been reluctant to allow the crucifixion of Jesus, finding no fault with him. According to Matthew 27:19, even Pilate's wife spoke to him on Jesus' behalf. According to the gospels, it was the custom of the Roman governor to release one prisoner at Passover, and Pilate brought out Barabbas, identified by Matthew as a "notorious prisoner" and by Mark as a murderer, and told the crowd to choose between releasing Barabbas or Jesus as per the custom, in the hopes of getting them to request the release of Jesus. However, the crowd demanded
Pilate and Others the Moscow of the 1930s to deal in a hilarious manner with the corrupt lucky ones--the bureaucrats, toadies, poets, and profiteers--in the Stalinist era, a second one describing the internal struggles of Pontius Pilate before, during and after the conviction and crucifixion of Yeshua Ha Nozri (Jesus from Nazareth), and a third telling the story of the love between the "Master," an unnamed writer in Moscow during the 1930s and his beloved Margarita, who goes to extreme lengths to save her beloved. The Master has written a novel about Pontius Pilate, and is persecuted by the authorities and the Soviet