De Poncio a Pilato

I imagine him of medium height, wiry and a sharp point when putting on his toga. With an aquiline nose and a permanently furrowed brow. Baggy and pale. His expression is tormented, typical of someone who suffers from migraines or who lives suffocated by responsibilities. He is powerful, but he is not aristocratic and, although he does not seem self-conscious, he does not radiate the overwhelming security that is expected of the elite of a world power. Roman and Jewish historians dispatched his biography in a couple of pages and no artist of his time immortalized him. But Pilate became a legend. From the Middle Ages, impressive pictorial, sculptural and literary works included him as a secondary actor in the Passion of Jesus of Nazareth. The cinema, with greater or lesser success, gave him a face and penetrated his mind. And, every day, in every corner of the world, his name is pronounced by millions of believers in the Catholic Creed. But how did the transition from Pontius, the Roman knight, to Pilate, the myth, come about?