Procurator

Procurator. The Greek, agemon, rendered "governor", in the Authorized Version, is applied, in the New Testament, to the officer who presided over the imperial province of Judea. It is used of Pontius Pilate, Mat 27:1, of Felix, Acts 23-24, and of Festus. Act 26:30. It is explained under Proconsul that, after the battle of Actium, B.C. 27, the provinces of the Roman empire were divided by Augustus into two portions, giving some to the senate, and reserving to himself the rest.

The imperial provinces were administered by legali. No quaestor came into the emperor’s provinces, but the property and revenues of the imperial treasury were administered by procuratores. Sometimes a province was governed by a procurator with the functions of a legatus. This was especially the case, with the smaller provinces, and the outlying districts of a larger province; and such is the relation in which Judea stood to Syria.

The headquarters of the procurator were at Caesarea, Act 23:23, where he had a judgment seat, Act 25:6, in the audience chamber, Act 25:23, and was assisted by a council, Act 25:12, whom he consulted in cases of difficulty. He was attended by a cohort as body-guard, Mat 27:27, and, apparently, went up to Jerusalem, at the time of the high festivals, and there resided at the palace of Herod, in which was the praetorium, or "judgment hall". Mat 27:27; Mar 15:16. Compare Act 23:35.

"governor"; Greek heegemoon in New Testament, more strictly epitropos. Used of Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus (Matthew 27; Acts 23; 24; Act 26:30). (See PONTIUS PILATE.) Legates governed the imperial provinces, with term of office subject to the emperor’s will. They had six lictors, the military dress and sword (Dion Cass. 53:13). Procurators administered for the emperor’s treasury (fiscus) the revenues. In smaller provinces as Judaea, attached to larger as Syria, the procurator had the judicial junctions as "president," subordinate to the chief president over Syria.

Caesarea was the head quarters of the procurator of Judaea (Act 23:23), where he had his judgment seat (Act 25:6) in the audience chamber (Act 25:23), assisted by a council (Act 25:12) whom he cousulted in difficult cases. He had a bodyguard of soldiers (Mat 27:27). He visited Jerusalem at the great feasts, when riots were frequent, and resided in Herod’s palace, where was the proetorium ("judgment hall," Joh 19:9; "common hall," Mat 27:27; Act 23:35).

The Roman title given to the chief ruler of a district. Judaea was governed by a procurator, ἡγεμών, who held his authority directly from the emperor, and was invested with powers of life and death. Roman citizens, however, were privileged to appeal from his authority to the emperor. The procurators were to some extent responsible to the Presidents of Syria. Those mentioned in the N.T. are Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus. In the A.V. they are called ’governors.’

PROCURATOR.—A ‘procurator’ (the exact Gr. equivalent is ἐπίτροπος) was properly a slave or freedman who looked after (procurabat) a man’s property (cf. Mat 20:8, Luk 8:2). The nearest English equivalent is ‘steward’ (wh. see). This upper servant acted for his master, in the absence of the latter, in all matters connected with money, and it may safely be said that only a small estate amongst the Romans would be without one. The position was one of responsibility, but it is obvious that the importance of the person in the world was directly in proportion to the importance of his master. An agent of the Emperor, who always possessed vast landed and house property, as well as the whole or part of the taxes of every province of the Roman Empire, held a higher position in society than the procurator of any other person. The Emperor’s financial interests were so varied, that he required a large number of such servants to look after them, and his high position enabled him to draw them from a higher class than that of freedmen and slaves. The majority of them were of equestrian rank, and some of these procurator-ships were deemed of higher importance than others. The diverse character of their duties will be seen from the fact that Cagnat (Cours d’Épigraphie Latine^{3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , p. 121 ff.) enumerates thirty-nine different kinds or procurators, whose titles have reference to every possible aspect of the Emperor’s revenue and expenditure.

Certain of the smaller Imperial provinces (see under Governor) were put under procurators as governors, to whom the Emperor delegated administrative and military functions. Such a procuratorship was, of course, one of the highest of the Imperial procuratorships, and carried with it a large salary; but it must be clearly understood that a procurator, however high, remained a servant of the Emperor, and owed his life and fortune solely to the favour of the prince, who advanced those quickest who served his interests best. The word ‘procurator’ is not used in the NT, but the participle of the verb (ἐπιτροπεύοντος) occurs as a variant in Luk 3:1 to ἡγεμονεύοντος, a more general term applicable to all governors of provinces, and even to the Emperor himself. Pontius Pilate was procurator prouinciœ Iudaeae. See also. art. Governor.

Literature.—Greenidge, Roman Public Life, pp. 414 ff., 435; Schürer, GJV [Note: JV Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes.] ^{3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , i. 454 ff. [HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] i. ii. 166 ff.]; art. ‘Procurator’ in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible and the Encyc. Bibl.; Hirschfeld, Untersuchungen aus dem Gebiete der röm. Verwaltungsgesch.^{2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} (Berlin, 1905); Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, i. 554 ff.

Alex. [Note: Alexandrian.] Souter.

PROCURATOR.—Originally a procurator was a steward of private property, who had charge of the slaves and his master’s financial affairs. His importance depended on that of his master. Thus the Emperor’s stewards were persons of consequence, and were sometimes trusted with the government of some less important Imperial provinces as well as with the Emperor’s financial affairs in all provinces. They were of equestrian rank, like Theophilus, to whom the Third Gospel and Acts are addressed. The following were at different times procurators of Judæa: Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus, called in NT by the comprehensive term ‘governors.’

A. Souter.

An agent who manages the affairs of another by virtue of his authority. According to Church law a procurator may be employed in juridical matters, attending councils, marriage, and the like. What the procurator does legally within the limits of his mandate must be regarded as done by the principal.

A person who manages the affairs of another by virtue of a charge received from him. There are different kinds of procurators: general, or particular, according as he is authorized to manage all the affairs of another, or only some of them; again a procurator may represent another in judicial matters (ad lites), or in matters not requiring court proceedings (ad negotia); special procurators are the syndicus, a general agent of a university or corporation and the fiscal procurator, appointed by public authority as guardian of the law in civil, and especially in criminal proceedings.Everybody, unless expressly forbidden by the law, has the right to appoint a procurator in affairs of which he has the free management. In selecting a procurator, a person is free, provided the choice does not fall on someone debarred by law, as excommunicated persons, notorious criminals, regulars without the consent of their superiors, clerics in cases for which they cannot act as lawyers, and finally, for judicial cases, persons under twenty-five, for non-judicial cases, persons under seventeen years of age.A procurator has the right and duty to act according to the terms of the charge committed, but a general mandate does not include cases for which the law requires a special commission. He is also allowed to elect a substitute, except in cases of marriages, and in general whenever, owing to the serious character of the affair, the procurator is supposed to have been chosen with the understanding that he should transact the business in person.The power to act as procurator ceases: (a) as soon as he has fulfilled his office; (b) if with a sufficient reason he resigns; (c) if the principal or appointer revokes his mandate; but he must do this in due time, that is, while the affair still remains untouched (re integra); this revocation must be brought to the notice of the procurator before the latter completes the transaction; one of the chief exceptions to these rules is when there is question of a procuration to contract a marriage, in which case the revocation holds good, as long as it was made before the procurator contracted in the principal’s name.Unless the procurator acted beyond his powers, the principal must accept whatever the latter did in his name.-----------------------------------FERRARIS-BUCCERONI, Bibliotheca Canonica, VI (Rome, 1885-1902), 454; HERGENRÖTHER-HOLLWECK, Lehrbuch des kanonischen Kirchenrechts (Freiburg im Br., 1905), n. 643; DROSTEMESSMER, Canonical Procedure in Disciplinary and Criminal Cases of Clerics (New York), n. 41; SMITH, Elements of Ecclesiastical Law (New York), n. 756.HECTOR PAPI Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

prok´ū́-rā-tẽr (ἐπίτροπος, epı́tropos): This word signified in a general sense a steward or bailiff of a private estate, or a financial agent with power of attorney, and the development of the special usage of the word to denote an imperial functionary or official is characteristic of the origin of many departments of administration under the Roman Empire which sprang from the emperor’s household. At the time of Augustus, when the domestic quality of these offices had not been entirely lost, the procurators were mostly imperial freedmen. But after the systematic organization of the administration in the 2nd century, the title of procurator was reserved for functionaries of the equestrian class. In fact, the term is so intimately connected with the sphere of official activity of the Roman knights that the expressions “procuratorial career” and “equestrian career” are used synonymously (compare Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bib auf Diocletian, 410-65).

During the last century of the Republic, the class of knights (equites) embraced in general all citizens of wealth who were not magistrates or members of the senate. The Roscian Law (67 BC) established 400,000 sesterces (about $18,000 (in 1915), or 3,600 British pounds (in 1915)) as the minimum census rating for membership in this class. The gold ring, tunic with narrow purple border, and privilege of sitting in the first 14 rows at theater were the tokens of knighthood. Augustus added to these the public horse which was conferred henceforth by the emperor and recalled the original military significance of the order. From the time of Augustus the first three decuriae of jurors (judices), each containing 1,000 persons, were filled with knights.

Under the Republic the influence of the equestrian class was chiefly exerted in the financial transactions of the companies which farmed the variable revenues. The importance of the publicani was greatly reduced under the Empire, but the emperors recompensed the knights for this loss of opportunity by entrusting them with a great variety of administrative functions. Military service as prefect or tribune was the preliminary step in the official equestrian career. The highest positions held by members of the equestrian class were called prefectures, and included the prefecture of the guard, of Egypt, of the grain-supply, of the watchmen in Rome, and of the fleet. But between these extremes the title procurator was applied generally to the functionaries whose positions were of imperial origin.

The administration of the fiscus or imperial treasury at Rome and of the finances in the imperial provinces, as well as the collection of fiscal revenues in the senatorial provinces, was in the hands of procurators. They occupied many positions which, on account of their intimate relationship with the person of the monarch, could be safely entrusted only to those whose limited prestige precluded inordinate ambition (Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms 7th edition, Part I, 132-43). Finally, several provinces, where the conditions were unfavorable to the introduction of the ordinary administrative system and Roman public law, were governed as imperial domains by officials of the equestrian class as the emperor’s representatives. In Egypt the title prefect (praefectus) was employed permanently as the appellation of the viceroy, and while the same term may have been used originally to denote the governors of this class generally, when their military outweighed their civil functions, yet the designation procurator became at an early date the term of common usage to designate them (Hirschfeld, 382).

Mauretania, Rhaetia, Noricum, Thrace, Cappadocia, Judea and some smaller districts were all, for a time at least, governed by procurators (Tacitus, History i. 11; Dio Cassius lvii. 17).

The question concerning the original title of the Roman governors of Judea has arisen because the New Testament employs the word hēgemṓn (Mat 27:2, Mat 27:11, Mat 27:14, Mat 27:15, Mat 27:21, Mat 27:27; Mat 28:14; Luk 3:1; Luk 20:20; Act 23:24; Act 24:1; Act 26:30), which corresponds with the Latin term, praeses, which might be considered synonymous with either procurator or praefectus (Hirschfeld, 384). There is no inscriptional evidence to establish the nomenclature of the rulers of Palestine before the time of Vespasian, and Hirschfeld is of the opinion that a certain passage in Tacitus (Ann. xv. 44) where Pilate is called procurator is not sufficient proof in view of this writer’s carelessness in details of this sort. Josephus (Ant., XX, i, 2), however, employs epitropos (procurator) for the time of Claudius, and it is convenient to follow common usage and assume that this title was current from the first.

It was evidently the intention of Augustus that membership in the equestrian class should be a necessary qualification for the procurators who were appointed to govern provinces. But Claudius appointed a freedman, Antonius Felix, brother of the famous minister of finance, Pallas, as procurator of Judea (Suetonius, Claudius xxviii; Tacitus, History v. 9). This remained, however, an isolated instance in the annals of Palestine (Hirschfeld, 380), and it is probable, moreover, that Felix was raised to equestrian rank before the governorship was conferred upon him.

The following list of the procurators of Judea is based on Marquardt (Romische Staatsverwaltung, I, 409, 412) and Schurer (Geschichte des judischen Volkes⁴, I, 485-585):

Coponius (6 AD to circa 10 AD)

M. Ambibulus (circa 10-13)

Annius Rufus (circa 13-15)

Valerius Gratus (circa 15-26)

Pontius Pilatus (26-35)

Marcellus (probably 35-38)

Maryllus (38-44)

C. Cuspins Fadus (44-46)

Tiberius Alexander (46-48)

Ventidius Cumanus (48-52)

M. Antonius Felix (52-60 or 61)

Note

Marquardt gives his name as Claudius Felix, supposing that he was a freedman of Claudius and therefore took his nomen (Suetonius, Claudius xxviii; Victor, epitome iv, 8); but there is stronger evidence in support of the belief that Felix was a freedman of Antonia, Claudius’ mother, like his brother Pallas (Tacitus, Annals xii. 54; Josephus, Ant., XVIII, vi, 4; XX, vii, 1, 2; XX, viii, 9; BJ, II, xii, 8), and accordingly had received the praenomen and nomen of Antonia’s father (Josephus, Ant., XVIII, vi, 6).

Portius Festus (61)

Albinus (62-64)

Gessius Florus (65-66)

See, further, GOVERNOR.

The position of procurator, in the sense in which we are familiar with the word, cannot be understood without a knowledge of the word’s history. Before the Roman Empire was ever thought of, and regularly also after it had come into existence, a procurator (Greek, ἐðßôñïðïò) was one qui procurat, ‘who attends to’ or ‘manages,’ particularly the affairs of a house-hold or an estate-an agent, steward, or bailiff, in fact. Such a person was a superior servant, acting for his master, but still a servant. The Emperor required servants to manage his property in various parts of the Empire, and these were regularly known by the name procuratores. They derived what importance they had solely from the high position of their master. If this had been clearly understood, probably we should have been spared much cheap criticism of a man like Pilate, procurator of Judaea , whose career could be made or marred by a master’s whim. Such a man was in an entirely different position from an ordinary governor of a province, who would be a member of the Senate, still a privileged body, and might be of as good as, or of better blood than, the Emperor himself. It is true that an Emperor could also get rid of such, but not so easily.

Procuratores were of many kinds, but were never of higher rank than the equestrian. Once or twice they were Imperial freedmen. The Emperor had procuratores in all provinces, senatorial and Imperial alike, who attended to his financial interests there. The Emperors had private property in the provinces, often consisting of estates that had belonged to the domains of various gods and goddesses. These demanded a large staff of workers of many kinds, and over them were set procuratores. Sometimes these would take over the command of a province on the occasion of the death or absence of the real governor. They are to be distinguished from the procuratores who were actually set over provinces as governors. Only Imperial provinces were thus governed, and only the less important of these (see Governor, Province). They took the place of the earlier military prefects. The following provinces among others were governed at one time or another by them-the two Mauretaniae, Raetia, Noricum, Alpes Maritimae, Alpes Cottiae, Judaea , Cappadocia, Epirus, the Hellespont, Corsica, Sardinia, Bithynia, Pamphylia. To the student of Christian origins Judaea is the most interesting. Of Pontius Pilate we know almost nothing, but Felix was the first man born a slave who governed a Roman province and commanded the troops in it. Antonius Felix was brother of Claudius’ great minister of finance (a rationibus), Pallas, and, probably on account of his marriage into a higher class, was raised to the equestrian order before his appointment to Judaea . Such governors had a lower status than the finance procurators in other provinces. The troops under their command were auxiliaries, which were for the most part drawn from the country itself, and militia formed from the able-bodied men of the province. Such troops did not belong to the Imperial army in the strict sense. In Judaea , e.g., there was an ala formed of Caesariani and Sebasteni, the ala prima gemina Sebastenorum (apparently drafted in Vespasian’s time to Mauretania), and five cohorts (cf. Act_10:1 for the name of one of them), which also appear to have been raised entirely in the country, and were probably in part also commanded by officers of Eastern birth (e.g., probably, Claudius Lysias, Act_23:26). Only one of these cohorts had its quarters in Jerusalem. The 200 äåîéïëÜâïé (probably ‘slingers’) who were sent as an escort with St. Paul (Act_23:23) probably did not form a separate troop. In their quality of commanders of troops the procurators had beneficiarii under them. Sometimes also a sub-procurator (ἀíôåðßôñïðïò) of equestrian rank is mentioned as an assistant to the procurator. Lower posts, filled by Imperial freedmen and slaves, were those of the tabularii, commentarienses, librarii, arcarii (cf. Rom_16:23, where dispensator would be a more exact translation; also CIL_ iii. 556, v. 8818), and dispensatores with their vicarii, to which titles the name of the province is always added. These officials, to avoid the appearance of partiality, were never natives of the provinces in which they served.

The functions of the procurators were judicial, financial, and military. The last tended to become less important in the later Empire. They had supervision of the taxes. They had to pay the soldiers, not only in procuratorial but also in the other Imperial provinces. Each had charge of the carrying out of road-building and other buildings in his province. In the more important Imperial provinces the financial procurators acted ordinarily with the governors in the supervision of building and also in the settlement of boundary disputes, but also sometimes independently. In the ordinary Civil Court (Recorder’s Court, Court of Common Pleas) they had a jurisdiction like that of other governors, and in later times at least they could appoint a guardian to a ward (tutoris datio). Criminal jurisdiction over non-citizens was extended to them in Judaea already in Augustus’ time in full compass (Joh_19:10), but over Roman citizens they had no power of life and death (ius gladii), unless this had been communicated to them in a special mandate from the Emperor. The right of pardon belonged only to the Emperor, and the liberation of such a criminal as Barabbas can have been made possible only by a clause in the special lex prouinciCE, according to which Judaea was governed (Joh_18:39). The procurator of Judaea appears to have stood in a special position of dependence under the governor of the Imperial province of Syria. Pilate was deposed, or at least suspended, by L. Vitellius, the governor of Syria (Josephus, Ant. XVIII. iv. 2), with the command that he should appear before the Emperor in Rome, and a provisional governor appointed for Judaea . A similar experience fell to the lot of later procurators of Judaea , Felix and Cumanus, at the hands of Ummidius Quadratus, governor of Syria. But it has been pointed out that both these governors had a wider command than Syria, extending in fact over the neighbouring provinces as well. There was, however, a close connexion between Judaea and Syria, the result of Syria’s importance as a frontier province with four legions stationed in it.

Literature.-O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian2, Berlin, 1905, pp. 410-465. On Imperial estates, formerly the property of gods or goddesses, see W. M. Ramsay, ‘The Tekmoreian Guest-Friends; an Anti-Christian Society on the Imperial Estates at Pisidian Antioch,’ in Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire, 1906, pp. 305-377, Athenaeum, 12 Aug. 1911, p. 193, ‘Iconium and Antioch,’ in Exp_, 8th ser., ii. [1911] 257 ff., JHS_ xxxii. [1912] 151 ff.; J. G. C. Anderson, in JRS_ iii. [1913] 267 ff.; M. Rostowzew, Studien zur Gesch. des röm. Kolonates, Leipzig, 1910.

A. Souter.