The cognomen Procula (in Latin) or Prokla (in Greek) for Pilate's wife first appears in the Gospel of Nicodemus (5th c.) and the chronicle of John Malalas (6th c.). This name is relatively stable for her both in eastern and western Christianity. Ernst von Dobschütz suggested that the name might have come from the "Fasti consulares" for 37 CE, which records the death in that year of Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus, co-consul of Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus, thus providing the names "Proculus" and "Pontius" together. Heinrich Paulus, among others, has proposed that the name arose from a transcription error in the Latin text that took the Latin word ("far off") to be the name "Procula". Others believe that it may accurately reflect the cognomen of Pilate's wife.