Was Claudia Pontius Pilate’s Wife?

“Ecce Homo” (Behold the Man) by Antonio Ciseri
(Notice Pilate’s wife and her maid standing in the right hand corner)

Claudia is mentioned in Paul’s second epistle to Timothy when he sent him greetings from several of the saints who were with him in Rome. Paul wrote, “… Eubulus greeth thee and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren” (2 Timothy 4:21).

Beside her name and the fact that she remained faithful even amid the intense persecution Christians  were experiencing in Rome at this time, we don’t know anything about Claudia. Yet there are several speculations and traditions about her which may have some truth to them.

She May have Been a Rich Roman Woman

The name  “Claudia” is not only a Roman name but is a high born Roman name. The gens Claudia,  or the family name of Claudia, was an ancient aristocratic Roman family line and it was common for every member of the family to be given some form of the name. For example, boys might be called Claudius and girls Claudia, or be given those names as middle names. Gens, family names, were important in Roman society as they helped establish class lines and standing within society. It would have been very unlikely for a woman to have been named Claudia if she had not belonged to this aristocratic family line. Perhaps her high social standing made it easier for her to stand by Paul while he was in prison and offer him support.

She May have Been the Wife of Pontius Pilate

Some Christian traditions claim that Claudia was the wife of Pontius Pilate, who in Matt. 27:19 had a dream in which she leaned that Jesus was a “just man” and warned her husband to let him go. Obviously, Pilate did not listen to her. The New Testament does not give her name and we have no reliable historical sources that tell us anything about who Pilate’s wife was. Yet Christian traditions claims that her name was Claudia, and that she was eventually baptized as a Christian. In Homilies on Matthew third-century Christian writer Origen wrote that the dream God sent her was given to her in order to make her a Christian, though we have no real proof that she ever was. 

Pontius Pilate’s wife is also called Claudia Procula in Christian tradition and is even recognized as a saint in the Greek Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The name “Procula” is derived from the translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus, also called the Acts of Pilate,  which scholars think was written in the  4th century. The name Procula is taken from the word “procurator” which was her Pilate’s title in Judea, perhaps signifying her name as the “the procurator’s wife”.

Other traditions claim that Claudia Procula was the granddaughter of the Roman Emperor Augustus and the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Tiberius, however there is are no reliable historical documents to confirm if this true. Some of the other traditions about Pilate’s wife come from a letter written in Latin, which is claimed to written by her, found in a monastery in Belgium. The English translation of this letter was done in the 1920’s by Catherine Van Dyke and was first published as “A Letter from Pontius Pilate’s Wife” in Pictorial Review Magazine in April 1929. In this letter it tells that Pilate and his wife had a son named Pilo who was disabled but was healed by the apostles, thus converting Pilate and his wife to the church. Other stories about Pilate’s wife come from  Anna Catherine Emmerich, a German nun in the early 1800’s, who was purported to have had visions about Christ’s life, including a very detail account of the doings of Pilate’s wife. The English translations of her visions was published in 1904 under the title of The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

She May have Been Claudia Rufina, wife of Pudens

Claudia Rufina was a Roman woman, of British descent, and who was know to be married to Aulus Pudens, a Roman centurion. The Roman poet Martial refered to her in his poems, calling her “Caludia the Foreigner” and describing her as being “sprung from the blue Britons” and being as tall as the Palatine colossus (Epigrams XI:53 and Epigrams VIII:60). Some scholars have associated this couple with the people Paul listed in 2 Timothy 4:21 “… Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren” claiming that Linus was the son of Pudens and Claudia. This Linus mentioned by Paul in 2 Timothy is widely believed to be Linus, the second Bishop of Rome.  and one of the ancient catholic documents, Apostolic Constitutions, names his mother as “Claudia”. Still, the names Pudens and Claudia were extremely common in the ancient world and could have belonged to any number of people.

All We Know for Sure is her Name

There are lots of speculations and explanations about who Claudia and Pontius Pilate’s wife were and what they did. We know that both of them must have been very high born, aristocratic women who both appear to have gained testimonies of Jesus Christ, and perhaps even gave up a life of privilege and wealth  for the gospel. Their stories present lots of questions about and it is easy to see how religious imagination could– and has– run wild about them  for centuries.