Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–X

Chapter IX.—The Times of Pilate.

1. The historian already mentioned agrees with the evangelist in regard to the fact that Archelaus ^[1] succeeded to the government after Herod. He records the manner in which he received the kingdom of the Jews by the will of his father Herod and by the decree of Cæsar Augustus, and how, after he had reigned ten years, he lost his kingdom, and his brothers Philip ^[2] and Herod the younger, ^[3] with Lysanias, ^[4] still ruled their own tetrarchies. The same writer, in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities, ^[5] says that about the twelfth year of the reign of Tiberius, ^[6] who had succeeded to the empire after Augustus had ruled fifty-seven years, ^[7] Pontius Pilate was entrusted with the government of Judea, and that he remained there ten full years, almost until the death of Tiberius.

2. Accordingly the forgery of those who have recently given currency to acts against our Saviour ^[8] is clearly proved. For the very date given in them ^[9] shows the falsehood of their fabricators.

3. For the things which they have dared to say concerning the passion of the Saviour are put into the fourth consulship of Tiberius, which occurred in the seventh year of his reign; at which time it is plain that Pilate was not yet ruling in Judea, if the testimony of Josephus is to be believed, who clearly shows in the above-mentioned work ^[10] that Pilate was made procurator of Judea by Tiberius in the twelfth year of his reign.