Note 105 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

If in this manner the narrative of Luke enables us to understand how Pilate could at once put to Jesus the question whether he were the king of the Jews; it leaves us in all the greater darkness as to how Pilate, immediately on the affirmative answer of Jesus, could without any further inquiries declare to the accusers that he found no fault in the accused. He must first have ascertained the grounds or the want of grounds for the charge of exciting the populace, and also have informed himself as to the sense in which Jesus claimed the title of king of the Jews, before he could pronounce the words: I find no fault in this man. In Matthew and Mark, it is true, to the affirmation of Jesus that he is the king of the Jews is added his silence, in opposition to the manifold accusations of the Sanhedrists—a silence which surprises Pilate: and this is not followed by a precise declaration that no fault is to be found in Jesus, but merely by the procurator’s attempt to set Jesus at liberty by coupling him with Barabbas; still what should move him even to this attempt does not appear from the above gospels. On the other hand, this point is sufficiently clear in the fourth gospel. It is certainly surprising that when Pilate asks whether he be really the King of the Jews, Jesus should reply by the counter-question, whether he say this of himself or at the suggestion of another. In an accused person, however conscious of innocence, such a question cannot be held warrantable, and hence it has been sought in every possible way to give the words of Jesus a sense more consonant with propriety: but the question of Jesus is too definite to be a mere repulse of the accusation as absurd,105 and too indefinite to be regarded as an inquiry, whether the Procurator intended the title βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων in the Roman sense (ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ) or in the Jewish (ἄλλοι σοι εἶπον).106 And Pilate does not so understand it, but as an unwarrantable question to which it is a mark of his indulgence that he replies;—in the first instance, it is true, with some impatience, by the second counter-question, whether he be a Jew, and thus able of himself to have information concerning a crime so specifically Jewish; but hereupon he good-naturedly adds that it is the Jews and their rulers by whom Jesus has been delivered to him, and that he is therefore at liberty to speak more particularly of the crime which these lay to his charge. Now on this Jesus gives Pilate an answer which, added to the impression of his whole appearance, might certainly induce in the Procurator a conviction of his innocence. He replies, namely, that his kingdom βασιλεία is not of this world ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, and adduces as a proof of this, the peaceful, passive conduct of his adherents on his arrest (v. 36). On the further question of Pilate, whether, since Jesus has thus ascribed to himself a kingdom, although no earthly one, he then claims to be a king? he replies that certainly he is so, but only in so far as he is born to be a witness to the truth: whereupon follows the famous question of Pilate: What is truth? τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; Although in this latter reply of Jesus we cannot but be struck by its presenting the peculiar hue of thought which characterizes the author of the fourth gospel, in the use of the idea of truth ἀλήθεια, as we were before surprised at the unwarrantable nature of the counter-question of Jesus; still this account in John renders it conceivable how Pilate could immediately step forth and declare to the Jews that he found no fault in Jesus. But another point might easily create suspicion against this narrative of John. According to him the trial of Jesus went forward in the interior of the Prætorium, which no Jew would venture to enter; who then are we to suppose heard the conversation of the Procurator with Jesus, and was the informant who communicated it to the author of the fourth gospel? The opinion of the older commentators that Jesus himself narrated these conversations to his disciples after the resurrection is renounced as extravagant; the more modern idea that perhaps Pilate himself was the source of the information concerning the trial, is scarcely less improbable, and rather than take refuge, with Lücke, in the supposition that Jesus remained at the entrance of the Prætorium, so that those standing immediately without might with some attention and stillness (?) have heard the conversation, I should prefer appealing to the attendants of the Procurator, who would scarcely be alone with Jesus. Meanwhile it is easily conceivable that we have here a conversation, which owes its origin solely to the Evangelist’s own combination, and in this case we need not bestow so much labour in ascertaining the precise sense of Pilate’s question: what is truth? since this would only be an example of the fourth Evangelist’s favourite form of dialogue, the contrast of profound communications on the part of Jesus, with questions either of misapprehension or of total unintelligence on the part of the hearers, as xii. 34, the Jews ask who is this Son of man? τίς ἐστιν οὗτος ὁ υἱὸς τ. α.? so here Pilate: what is truth? τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια?107