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
Pontius Pilate's wife Pontius Pilate's wife Pontius Pilate's wife, otherwise unnamed in the Bible, appears in a single verse of the Gospel of Matthew, where she tries to persuade her husband not to condemn Jesus to death. She is named as Procla or Procula in early Christian tradition (later also "Percula", "Claudia Procula" or "Claudia Procles"). She is considered a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. She is first named as Claudia in 1619, in the chronicle of "Pseudo-Dexter". In the New Testament, the only reference to Pontius Pilate's wife exists in a single sentence by Matthew: The