The interesting point is that we have to go to the Christian documents for the more calm and just estimate of the man who crucified Christ. This fact should deepen our sense of the fairness of the evangelists. They evince nothing of that bitterness of resentment which the Jews, quite naturally, as the world judges, cherished towards their oppressors. They were the followers of One who had taught them to love their enemies, and who, when in mortal agony, prayed to God to forgive the men who had inflicted it. But further, the early Christians discriminated between the Jewish authorities, who planned and purposed the death of Christ and really compassed it, and Pilate, who was but a weak instrument in the hands of these men. The fact that the evangelists so clearly mark this distinction is a sign that they are in close touch with the events, and that they faithfully record what they know to have taken place. In a word, it is clear that we have a more just and accurate portrait of Pilate in our Gospels than the representations of him by Josephus and Philo, who are thus seen to be less trustworthy historians than the New Testament writers. The word "Pilate" as a proper name has been variously explained. Some have derived it from the Latin _pileatus_, meaning one who wore the _pileus_, the cap of a freed slave, and so have regarded the Roman governor by whom Jesus was tried as a man who had been raised from the ranks of slavery. The worst condemnation of slavery is, that it degrades the characters of its victims, developing the servile vices of cowardice, meanness, and cruelty--all of which vices are manifest in Pilate's character. But such a promotion as this theory implies would be most improbable. A more likely explanation connects the name with _pilum_, a javelin. The earlier name Pontius suggests the family of the Pontii, of Samnite origin, well-known in Roman history. It was customary to confine such an office as that which Pilate held to knights, men of the equestrian order. Nevertheless, it was not a very dignified office. It is described indefinitely in the Gospels as that of a "governor." But Pilate is designated more distinctly by Tacitus and Josephus as _procurator_ of Judaea. This official served under the Legate of Syria. His proper duty was simply to collect the taxes of the district over which he was appointed. Thus he would be likely to come into contact with the chief local collectors, such as Zaccheus; and in this way he may have heard, and that not unfavourably, of One who was known as the "Friend of publicans and sinners." But in the turbulent districts--such as Judaea and Egypt--the procurators were entrusted with almost unlimited powers, subject to an appeal to Caesar on the part of Roman citizens. Soldiers were sometimes needed for the forcible collection of taxes, and the disturbed condition of these parts demanded an official in residence who could act at once and on the spot.