The Dream and Counsel of Pilate's Wife

I have heard theologians draw parallels between the passion and death of Jesus with the Garden of Eden story. One parallel is that Jesus died on a tree (the cross) because the fruit from the Garden of Eden was from a tree.

Another parallel is that when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, she first mistook Him for a gardener, hearkening back to Adam’s job in the Garden of Eden. But, in the New Testament, Jesus is the new Adam.

We get lots of “undoings” in the New Testament of Old Testament symbols. And a lot of the New Testament seems to deal with restoring the dignity of women, undoing approaches documented in the Old Testament. One New Testament "undoing" in particular, the single verse of Matthew 27:19, holds this same emphasis in a short, easy-to-miss line, that still manages to pack a punch.

So, Pilate’s wife has a dream and sends a message to her husband, while he is on the bench, that he should have nothing to do with the death of the righteous Jesus. Pilate, who knows that Jesus is being accused out of envy, tries to save Him but eventually gives up and washes his hands of Jesus' execution. And it goes down in history that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam, who is charged with effectively “governing” the garden – as Pilate governs the people - follows his wife Eve and her bad counsel, and eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so sin enters the world.

But with Pilate, through failure to follow through with his wife’s good counsel, the power of sin to murder an innocent human being is raised and then defeated on the cross. God wastes nothing!

The dream of Pilate’s wife makes for an effective and dramatic story, but perhaps God had it happen to make a point about women as co-heirs in the salvation of Christ. Since Adam listened to his wife regarding sin, God would have to use a New Testament husband's not listening to his wife in virtue.

Since her Immaculate Conception, and certainly since her exhortation to her Son at the Wedding of Cana, Mary is the true New Eve. Mary is a model for us all, including Pontius Pilate's wife. Perhaps we can think of Pilate’s wife as echoing the wisdom, the Sofia, of Mary, in whom is redeemed the counsel of women, the co-heirs in Christ.