Pontius Pilate Trivia
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49 free Pontius Pilate trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Pontius Pilate trivia quiz covers the Roman governor who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus, from what the historians actually know to what the legends later invented. The easy questions are the ones any Bible reader should get: which emperor he served, which province he governed, what he famously washed, and which two creeds name him. From there it moves into the historical record: what Josephus and Philo say about the standards, the shields and the aqueduct; the Samaritan massacre that got him recalled; the Pilate Stone found at Caesarea in 1961; the coins he minted; the churches that venerate him as a saint; the mountain in Switzerland and the towns in France that claim him; and the actors who played him, from Frank Thring in Ben-Hur to David Bowie and Michael Palin. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Pilate, his wife, the Pilate Stone and the Acts of Pilate before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Bible, Ancient Rome and Holy Week quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Pontius Pilate governed Judaea under which Roman emperor?
Tiberius
Tiberius. Recalled to Rome to answer to him for a massacre, Pilate was still on the road when the emperor died, and with that the governor vanishes from reliable history.
Q 02Which prisoner did the Jerusalem crowd ask Pilate to release instead of Jesus?
Barabbas
Barabbas. The gospels describe him as a rebel jailed for murder during an uprising, so the crowd's choice set a man of violence free and sent Jesus to the cross.
Q 03Pilate is named in which two major statements of Christian faith?
The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds
The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. Both say Jesus suffered or was crucified "under Pontius Pilate", so the governor is the only person besides Jesus and Mary whom worshippers name when they recite them.
Q 04Which church venerates Pilate as a saint, believing that he became a Christian?
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo. It honours Pilate together with his wife; the Greek Church, by contrast, made a saint only of her, with a feast on 27 October.
Q 05Per Josephus, Pilate was dismissed after violently putting down which people's uprising at Mount Gerizim?
The Samaritans
The Samaritans. A man had promised to show them sacred vessels that Moses had buried on the mountain; Pilate's troops cut the armed crowd down, and the survivors' complaint cost him his post.
Q 06Pilate condemning Jesus to death is the opening scene of which Catholic devotion?
Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross. The devotion grew up as a miniature pilgrimage for people who could never reach Jerusalem, with Franciscans building copies of its holy places across Europe.
Q 07Which contemporary Jewish writer's Embassy to Gaius is one of the most important sources on Pilate?
Philo of Alexandria
Philo of Alexandria. His is the blackest portrait of all, charging Pilate with bribery, cruelty and executions without trial, though scholars suspect the stock abuse of a polemic.
Q 08Which Roman historian's Annals states simply that Pilate put Jesus to death?
Tacitus
Tacitus. He names Pilate only in passing, while explaining why Nero blamed Rome's Christians for the great fire: their founder, he notes, had been executed on Pilate's orders.
Q 09Pilate's cognomen Pilatus may mean "armed with" which Roman weapon?
The javelin
The javelin. Latin pilatus means armed with the pilum, the legionary's throwing spear, though some have linked the name instead to the pileus, the felt cap worn by freed slaves.
Q 10The name Pontius suggests Pilate's ancestors came from which region of central-southern Italy?
Samnium
Samnium. The most famous Pontius before him was a Samnite general who trapped a Roman army at the Caudine Forks in 321 BC and made every soldier walk under a yoke of spears.
Q 11Like almost all governors of Judaea, Pilate belonged to which rank of the Roman nobility?
The equestrian order
The equestrian order. Judaea was a minor posting in the shadow of Syria, so it went to a knight of this second tier rather than to an ex-consul of senatorial rank.
Q 12Barry Dennen sang Pilate on the 1970 album, on Broadway and in the 1973 film of which rock opera?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar. Its Pilate is a reluctant judge who has Jesus given 39 lashes in the hope that the crowd will settle for a flogging, and only then gives way.
Q 13Later writers call Pilate a procurator, but which title does the stone inscription naming him use?
Prefect
Q 21The Sanhedrin accused Jesus of blasphemy, but on what charge is he generally thought to have been tried and executed by Pilate?
Sedition
Sedition. To Rome a self-styled King of the Jews was a rebel against Caesar, and crucifixion was the punishment it kept for slaves, pirates and enemies of the state.
Q 22Which is the only gospel to record the crowd's cry "His blood be on us and on our children"?
Matthew
Matthew. The verse appears nowhere else, and for centuries it was quoted to blame all Jews for the crucifixion, a reading the Catholic Church formally repudiated in 1965.
Q 23Which everyday English phrase originates in Pilate's gesture at the trial of Jesus?
To wash one's hands of it
Prefect. The stone calls him praefectus of Judaea; its governors were only restyled procurators under Claudius, which is why writers of the next generations gave him the later title.
Q 14In which coastal city did Pilate, like other governors of Judaea, make his primary residence?
Caesarea
Caesarea. Pilate went up to Jerusalem mainly when a great feast packed it with pilgrims and trouble was likely, which is the reason he was in the city at the time of the crucifixion.
Q 15Which high priest did Pilate retain for his entire tenure, suggesting a reliable alliance?
Caiaphas
Caiaphas. Pilate's predecessor had deposed four high priests one after another, yet Pilate, who held the same power, kept this one in office for all of his ten years.
Q 16Josephus says Pilate offended the Jews by moving what into Jerusalem by night?
Imperial standards with Caesar's image
Imperial standards with Caesar's image. Protesters lay outside his residence for five days, then bared their necks to his soldiers' swords rather than give way, and it was Pilate who backed down.
Q 17Josephus records that Pilate paid for a new aqueduct to Jerusalem using what?
The temple treasury
The temple treasury. When a crowd protested, Pilate planted soldiers in civilian dress among them; at his signal they set upon the protesters, and many died from the blows or in the crush.
Q 18A Jewish writer of the time says Pilate offended Jewish law by placing what in Herod's palace in Jerusalem?
Golden shields
Golden shields. They carried no image at all, only an inscription, yet the outcry reached the emperor himself, who ordered Pilate to take them down.
Q 19The Gospel of Luke mentions Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with what?
Their sacrifices
Their sacrifices. Told of the killings, Jesus answers that the victims were no worse sinners than anyone else, and warns his hearers to repent or perish in the same way.
Q 20At which festival did Pilate condemn Jesus to death, most likely in AD 30 or 33?
Passover
Passover. The gospels add that Pilate used to free one prisoner at the festival, a custom that no Roman record mentions and that historians still argue over.
To wash one's hands of it. In the gospel story Pilate calls for water and rinses his hands in front of the crowd, declaring himself innocent of the prisoner's blood.
Q 24Which famous three-word Latin question does Pilate ask Jesus in John 18:38?
Quid est veritas?
Quid est veritas? Having asked "What is truth?", Pilate walks straight back out to the crowd, which is why Francis Bacon wrote that jesting Pilate "would not stay for an answer".
Q 25What do the Latin words 'Ecce homo', spoken by Pilate as he presents the scourged Jesus, mean?
Behold the man
Behold the man. Painters turned the moment, with Jesus in a crown of thorns before the crowd, into a subject of its own: Bosch, Titian and Caravaggio each painted an Ecce Homo.
Q 26Pilate's reply 'Quod scripsi, scripsi' in John 19:22 refers to what he had written where?
The titulus on Jesus's cross
The titulus on Jesus's cross. The chief priests wanted the notice changed to say he had only claimed to be King of the Jews, and Pilate refused: what I have written, I have written.
Q 27Pilate's wife, unnamed in the Bible, later became known in tradition by what name?
Procula
Procula. The name first turns up in apocryphal writings centuries after the gospels, by which time the theologian Origen had long since suggested that she became a Christian.
Q 28In the gospel story, why does Pilate's wife urge him to have nothing to do with Jesus?
She had a disturbing dream
She had a disturbing dream. Her message reaches Pilate as he sits in judgment: have nothing to do with that righteous man, she begs, for she has suffered much that day in a dream because of him.
Q 29Which fourth-century church historian records a 'tradition' that Pilate committed suicide?
Eusebius
Eusebius. He presents the suicide as heaven's punishment, yet admits he has it only from unnamed earlier tradition, and no writer of Pilate's own century says a word about it.
Q 30The Pilate Stone, an inscription naming him, was found in 1961 reused as a step in which kind of building?
A theatre
A theatre. Fourth-century builders had trimmed the dedication and laid it in a staircase when they remodelled the Roman theatre at Pilate's old capital, where Italian archaeologists uncovered it.