Tractate CXV.
John XVIII. 33-40.
1. What Pilate said to Christ, or what He replied to Pilate, has to
be considered and handled in the present discourse. For after the words
had been addressed to the Jews, "Take ye him, and judge him according to
your law," and the Jews had replied, "It is not lawful for us to put any
man to death, Pilate entered again into the judgment hall, and called Jesus,
and said unto Him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus answered, Sayest
thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?" The Lord
indeed knew both what He Himself asked, and what reply the other was to
give; but yet He wished it to be spoken, not for the sake of information
to Himself, but that what He wished us to know might be recorded in Scripture.
"Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation, and the chief priests,
have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom
is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants
fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom
not from hence." This is what the good Master wished us to know; but first
there had to be shown us the vain notion that men had regarding His kingdom,
whether Gentiles or Jews, from whom Pilate had heard it; as if He ought
to have been punished with death on the ground of aspiring to an unlawful
kingdom; or as those in the possession of royal power usually manifest
their ill-will to such as are yet to attain it, as if, for example, precautions
were to be used lest His kingdom should prove adverse either to the Romans
or to the Jews. But the Lord was able to reply to the first question of
the governor, when he asked Him, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" with
the words, "My kingdom is not of this world," etc.; but by questioning
him in turn, whether he said this thing of himself, or heard it from others,
He wished by his answer to show that He had been charged with this as a
crime before him by the Jews: laying open to us the thoughts of men, which
were all known to Himself, that they are but vain; and now, after Pilate's
answer, giving them, both Jews and Gentiles, all the more reasonable and
fitting a reply, "My kingdom is not of this world." But had He made an
immediate answer to Pilate's question, His reply would have appeared to
refer to the Gentiles only, without including the Jews, as entertaining
such an opinion regarding Him. But now when Pilate replied, "Am I a Jew?
Thine own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee to me;" he
removed from himself the suspicion of being possibly supposed to have spoken
of his own accord, in saying that Jesus was the king of the Jews, by showing
that such a statement had been communicated to him by the Jews. And then
by saying, "What hast thou done?" he made it sufficiently clear that this
was charged against Him as a crime: as if he had said, If thou deniest
such kingly claims, what hast thou done to cause thy being delivered unto
me? As if there would be no ground for wonder that one should be delivered
up to a judge for punishment, who proclaimed himself a king; but if no
such assertion were made, it became needful to inquire of Him, what else,
if anything, He had done, that He should thus deserve to be delivered unto
the judge.
2. Hear then, ye Jews and Gentiles; hear, O circumcision; hear, O uncircumcision;
hear, all ye kingdoms of the earth: I interfere not with your government
in this world, "My kingdom is not of this world." Cherish ye not the utterly
vain terror that threw Herod the elder into consternation when the birth
of Christ was announced, and led him to the murder of so many infants in
the hope of including Christ in the fatal number, made more cruel by his
fear than by his anger: "My kingdom," He said, "is not of this world."
What would you more? Come to the kingdom that is not of this world; come,
believing, and fall not into the madness of anger through fear. He says,
indeed, prophetically of God the Father, "Yet have I been appointed king
by Him upon His holy hill of Zion;" but that hill of Zion is not of this
world. For what is His kingdom, save those who believe in Him, to whom
He says, "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world"? And
yet He wished them to be in the world: on that very account saying of them
to the Father, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world,
but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." Hence also He says not
here, "My kingdom is not" in this world; but, "is not of this world." And
when He proved this by saying, "If my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews," He
saith not, "But now is my kingdom not" here, but, "is not from hence."
For His kingdom is here until the end of the world, having tares intermingled
therewith until the harvest; for the harvest is the end of the world, when
the reapers, that is to say, the angels, shall come and gather out of His
kingdom everything that offendeth; which certainly would not be done, were
it not that His kingdom is here. But still it is not from hence; for it
only sojourns as a stranger in the world: because He says to His kingdom,
"Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." They
were therefore of the world, so long as they were not His kingdom, but
belonged to the prince of this world. Of the world therefore are all mankind,
created indeed by the true God, but generated from Adam as a vitiated and
condemned stock; and there are made into a kingdom no longer of the world,
all from thence that have been regenerated in Christ. For so did God rescue
us from the power of darkness, and translate us into the kingdom of the
Son of His love: and of this kingdom it is that He saith, "My kingdom is
not of this world;" or, "My kingdom is not from hence."
3. "Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered,
Thou sayest that I am a king." Not that He was afraid to confess Himself
a king, but "Thou sayest" has been so balanced that He neither denies Himself
to be a king (for He is a king whose kingdom is not of this world), nor
does He confess that He is such a king as to warrant the supposition that
His kingdom is of this world. For as this was the very idea in Pilate's
mind when he said, '"Art thou a king then?" so the answer he got was, "Thou
sayest that I am a king." For it was said, "Thou sayest," as if it had
been said, Carnal thyself, thou sayest it carnally.
4. Thereafter He adds, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came
I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." * * Whence
it is evident that He here referred to His own temporal nativity, when
by becoming incarnate He came into the world, and not to that which had
no beginning, whereby He was God through whom the Father created the world.
For this, then, that is, on this account, He declared that He was born,
and to this end He came into the world, to wit, by being born of the Virgin,
that He might bear witness unto the truth. But because all men have not
faith, He still further said, "Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice." He heareth, that is to say, with the ears of the inward man, or,
in other words, He obeyeth my voice, which is equivalent to saying, He
believeth me. When Christ, therefore, beareth witness unto the truth, He
beareth witness, of course, unto Himself; for from His own lips are the
words, "I am the truth;" as He said also in another place, "I bear witness
of myself." But when He said, "Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice," He commendeth the grace whereby He calleth according to His own
purpose. Of which purpose the apostle says, "We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according
to the purpose of God," to wit, the purpose of Him that calleth, not of
those who are called; which is put still. more clearly in another place
in this way, "Labor together in the gospel according to the power of God,
who saveth us and calleth us with His holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to His own purpose and grace." For if our thoughts
turn to the nature wherein we have been created, inasmuch as we were all
created by the Truth, who is there that is not of the truth? But it is
not all to whom it is given of the truth to hear, that is, to obey the
truth, and to believe in the truth; while in no case certainly is there
any preceding of merit, lest grace should cease to be grace. For had He
said, Every one that heareth my voice is of the truth, then it would be
supposed that he was declared to be of the truth because he conforms to
the truth; it is not this, however, that He says, but, "Every one that
is of the truth heareth my voice." And in this way he is not of the truth
simply because he heareth His voice; but only on this account he heareth,
because he is of the truth, that is, because this is a gift bestowed on
him of the truth. And what else is this, but that by Christ's gracious
bestowal he believeth on Christ?
5. "Pilate said unto Him, What is truth?" Nor did he wait to hear the
answer; but "when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and
said unto them, I find in him no fault. But ye have a custom that I should
release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release
unto you the King of the Jews?" I believe when Pilate said, "What is truth?"
there immediately occurred to his mind the custom of the Jews, according
to which he was wont to release unto them one at the passover; and therefore
he did not wait to hear Jesus' answer to his question, What is truth? to
avoid delay on recollecting the custom whereby He might be released unto
them during the passover-a thing which it is clear he greatly desired.
It could not, however, be torn from his heart that Jesus was the King of
the Jews, but was fixed there, as in the superscription, by the truth itself,
whereof he had just inquired what it was. "But on hearing this, they all
cried again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber."
We blame you not, O jews, for liberating the guilty during the passover,
but for slaying the innocent; and yet unless that were done, the true passover
would not take place. But a shadowy of the truth was retained by the erring
Jews, and by a marvellous dispensation of divine wisdom the truth of that
same shadow was fulfilled by deluded men; because in order that the true
passover might be kept, Christ was led as a sheep to the sacrificial slaughter.
Hence there follows the account of the injurious treatment received by
Christ at the hands of Pilate and his cohort; but this must be taken up
in another discourse.
