A Wife's Vision

Sedente autem eo pro tribunali, misit ad eum uxor ejus dicens: Nihil sit tibi, et justo illi. Multa enim passa sum hodie per visum propter eum.  Et Jesus quidem per invidiam traditus erat, et ita per invidiam manifestam, ut etiam Pilatus eam non ignoraret. Volunt autem evangelistae non praeterire rem divinae providentiae laudem Dei continentem, qui voluit per visum convertere Pilati uxorem, ut, quantum ad se, vetaret virum suum ut ne audeat contra Jesum proferre sententiam. Et visum quidem non exposuit Mattheus, tantum autem dixit quia multa passa erat per visum propter Jesum. Et ideo per visum passa est ne amplius pateretur: ut beatam fuisse dicamus Pilati uxorem, quae per visum passa est multa propter Jesum, et recepit per visum quod erat passura. Ex quo audebit quis dicere quoniam melius est recipere aliquem mala in visu quam recipere in vita. Quis enim non eligat per visum mala sua recipere in vita sua, nisi forte talia mereatur ut expediat ei acriora recipere in vita sua potius quam recipere leviora in visu? Consolatur enim et requiescit in sinibus Abrahae qui recepit mala in vita sua, et non haec mala quae recepit in visu suo; secundum quod et consolationem habebit. Utrum autem et initium habet conversionis ad Deum ex eo quod multa propter Jesum tuerat passa per visum, Deus scit: tamen continentur etiam hoc in Scripturis quibusdam non publicis. Et vide quia justum appelavit Jesum uxor Pilati, ne forte mysterium sit haec uxor Pilati Ecclesiae ex gentibus, quae aliquando quidem regebatur a Pilato, nunc autem jam non est sub eo propter fidem suam in Christo. Origenes, In Matthaeum, Tomus XVII,

Sitting on the tribunal his wife sent to him, saying, 'Do nothing to this righteous man. For much I have suffered today through a vision of him.' 1 And certainly Jesus was handed over on account of envy and through such manifest envy that even Pilate was not ignorant of it. The Gospel writers did not wish to pass over anything of the providence of God, who wished to convert the wife of Pilate through a vision, that through her, insofar as she was able, the husband be influenced not to dare give sentence against Jesus. Matthew does not expound the vision, only saying that she suffered much through her vision of Jesus. And therefore having suffered through a vision, and not anything more, as one blessed we shall call the wife of Pilate, she who through a vision suffered much on account of Christ, and received through a vision what she suffered. For one may say that it is better to receive something evil in a vision than in life. For who would not choose to receive evils in life through a dream, unless perhaps such things were merited and it benefit to receive them more bitterly in life rather than to receive them lightly in a vision? For he was consoled and rested in the lap of Abraham who received evils in his life and did not receive evil in a vision, according to which there shall be consolation. 2 Whether she had an immediate conversation to God on account of the many things of Jesus she suffered through her vision, God only knows; contained in the Scriptures are things which are not made public. And yet see that the wife of Pilate named Jesus righteous, lest perhaps it be a mystery why this wife of Pilate is of the church of the Gentiles, which for a time was ruled by Pilate, but already it is not beneath him on account of her faith in Christ. Origen, Commentary On Matthew, Book 17 1 Mt 27.19 2 Lk 16.22-23