“Christ Himself Committed Robberies”

It is strange that historians of early Christianity and have not made more of this, but in the years before his death Rome’s last pagan emperor, Maximin Daia (or Daza), tried to halt Constantine’s Christian revolution by promulgating a text entitled Memoirs of Pilate. One of the last tactical moves of Rome’s last pagan emperor, therefore, centered on the figure of Pilate. What is more, Daia’s Memoirs of Pilate seem to have dramatized the Roman’s innocence. In a broad sense, we could say that the last political doctrine promulgated by Rome’s last pagan emperor was—the innocence of Pontius Pilate. It is Pilate’s name which seems to preside, in Daia’s eastern territories, during Rome’s final concerted persecution of the church. This chapter shows what we know about Daia’s Memoirs of Pilate, and why they are of world-historical significance.