In the days following the crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, during the reign of Pontius Pilate, governor of Palestine and Phoenicia, these memoirs were composed in Jerusalem, which relate what the Jews had done against the Lord. Pilate, therefore, together with his personal correspondence, sent these memoirs to Caesar, residing in Rome, after writing thus:
"To the most excellent, most pious, most divine, and most terrible Caesar Augustus, the governor of the eastern province, Pilate.
Your Excellency: The story I am about to tell you causes me to feel inhibited by fear and trembling. For you must know that in this province which I govern, unique among cities in the name of Jerusalem, the Jewish people en masse delivered to me a man named Jesus, accusing him of many crimes which they could not prove with the affluence of arguments. There was a faction among them that was hostile to him because Jesus told them that the Sabbath was not a day of rest or a holy day of observance. He, in fact, performed many cures on that day: he restored sight to the blind and the lame the ability to walk; he raised the dead; he cleansed lepers; he cured the paralyzed, who were completely incapable of bodily impulse or nervous erection, but only of voice and joints, giving them strength to walk and run. And he eradicated disease with his word alone. Another new, more portentous action, unknown among our gods: he raised a man who had been dead for four days simply by speaking to him. and it is noteworthy that the dead man’s blood was already corrupted and putrid because of the worms that had come out of his body, and he gave off a dog-like stench. Seeing him lying as he was in the tomb, she commanded him to run; and he, as if he were not in the least corpse-like, but rather like a bridegroom coming out of the bridal chamber, came out of the tomb, overflowing with perfume.
And some strangers, evidently possessed by demons, who lived in the deserts and ate their own flesh, behaving like beasts and reptiles, he made them also honorable citizens, made them wise with his word and prepared them to be wise, powerful and glorious, diners of all who hated the unclean and pernicious spirits that formerly dwelt in them, whom he cast into the depths of the sea.
There was also another whose hand was withered. Not only his hand, but half his entire body was petrified, so that he had no human form and no enlarged muscles. He healed him with a word and made him whole.
And there was another woman suffering from hemorrhages, whose joints and veins were exhausted by the flow of blood, who no longer carried even a human body with her, who resembled a corpse, and who, finally, had lost her voice. Her condition was so serious that no doctor in the area could cure her, and she had no hope of even living. But once, as Jesus passed by secretly, she drew strength from his shadow and touched the hem of his garment from behind. Immediately she felt a strength filling her hollows, and, as if she had never been ill, she began to run swiftly toward her own city, Capernaum, almost matching the six days’ march.
And what I have just recounted with all due caution, Jesus did on a Sabbath day. He also performed other miracles greater than these, so much so that I have come to believe that his miracles are greater than those performed by the gods we venerate.
This is he whom Herod, Archelaus, Philip, Annas, and Caiaphas, with the help of all the people, handed over to me, and they urged me to bring him to trial. And so, though I had found no charge against him for any crime or wrongdoing, I ordered him to be crucified after having him scourged.
And while they were crucifying him, darkness fell over the whole earth, the sun being obscured at noon, and the stars appearing, in which there was no light; the moon ceased to shine, as if dipped in blood, and the world of hell was swallowed up; even what was called the sanctuary disappeared, with the fall of these, from the sight of the Jews themselves; finally, by the echo of repeated thunder, a fissure was made in the earth.
And while this panic was still raging, some dead people appeared who had been resurrected, as the Jews themselves bore witness. They said they were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses, and Job (the firstfruits of the dead, as they call them), who had died 3,500 years ago. And many of them, whom I also saw appearing in person, were in turn lamenting over the Jews: for the transgression they were committing, for their own destruction, and for the destruction of their law.
The fear of the earthquake lasted from the sixth hour of Friday until the ninth hour. And when the evening of the first day of the week came, an echo was heard from the sky, while it acquired a splendor seven times brighter than usual. And at the third hour of the night, even the sun appeared, shining more than ever and beautifying the entire firmament. And just as lightning flashes suddenly in winter, so suddenly there appeared some men, exalted in their clothing and glory, who uttered cries like the crash of thunder, saying: “Jesus, who was crucified, has just risen. Arise from the abyss, you who are imprisoned in the pit of hell.” And the cleft of the earth was such that it seemed there was no bottom, but rather the very foundations of the earth were visible, amid the cries of those who were in heaven and who were walking bodily among the dead who had just been resurrected. And he who gave life to the dead and chained them to hell said, Give this charge to my disciples: He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.
Throughout that night the light did not cease to shine. And many of the Jews perished, swallowed up by the cleft of the earth, so that the next day a large part of those who had been against Jesus did not appear. Others saw apparitions of resurrected people, whom none of us had seen. And in Jerusalem itself, not a single Jewish synagogue remained, for they all disappeared in that collapse.
Thus, beside myself with panic and overcome by an extremely horrible trembling, I have given Your Excellency a written account of what my eyes saw at that moment. And, having also listed what the Jews did to Jesus, I have sent it to Your Divinity, O Lord!