Primary source · Greek (with Latin recensions)
The Acts of Pilate (Gospel of Nicodemus)
Anonymous (attributed to Nicodemus) · c. 4th century (drawing on earlier material)
What this text is
The apocryphal acta of the trial, crucifixion, and descent into hell — the text that supplies the traditional names Dysmas, Gestas, Procla, and Longinus. No original manuscript survives; the tradition is late, layered, and immensely influential on medieval piety.
Public-domain translations
Working translation (from the Greek, ed. Tischendorf)
And they crucified with him also the two malefactors, Dysmas on the right hand and Gestas on the left... And Pilate, calling to him his wife, who was named Procla, knew that she was God-fearing and favored rather the customs of the Jews.
Manuscript witnesses
Vienna palimpsest (ÖNB, cod. lat. 563)
5th c.Fragmentary Latin under-writing — the oldest surviving carrier of the Pilate cycle, within a century or two of the Greek text's formation.
Codex Einsidlensis 326
9th–10th c.Carolingian Latin copy of the Gospel of Nicodemus, typical of the hundreds of medieval manuscripts that carried the text across the West.
Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha
1853 / 1876The standard pre-critical collation of the Greek and Latin recensions; still the numbering cited today.
Provenance
Greek East; transmitted in Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian recensions
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and TranslationsBart D. Ehrman & Zlatko Pleše, 2011Facing-page Greek/Latin texts with translations of the Pilate cycle; the standard scholarly point of entry.
- The Apocryphal New TestamentJ. K. Elliott, 1993Standard English collection with full introductions to the recensions and their dating.