This Latin name enters the New Testament exclusively in reference to Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect who presided over Jesus' trial and crucifixion. Luke's Gospel introduces him with careful historical precision as the governor of Judea during the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1). The name appears in the early Christian creedal formula preserved in 1 Timothy 6:13, where Jesus' "good confession before Pontius Pilate" becomes a fixed point of historical reference. Acts 4:27 includes him in the catalog of those who gathered against God's anointed. The classical Greek lexicon associates πόντιος with "of the sea," but in these New Testament contexts it functions purely as a Roman proper name, with the multilingual tradition (French Ponce/Pontius, German Pontius) preserving the Latin form.