John 18:34Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Why does Christ ask this? In order to expose the Jews' evil intent.

Pilate had already heard about this from many. But because the Jews could say nothing, he decides, to avoid a lengthy investigation, to bring forward the very charge they had always made against Him.

Besides, when he said to them, "Judge Him according to your law," they wished to show that His crime was not a Jewish matter.

They answered, "It is not lawful for us," meaning that He is not guilty against our law, but that His guilt is political.

Pilate understood this. Therefore, as if danger threatened him personally, he says, "Are You the King of the Jews?"

Consequently Christ asks him not out of ignorance, but says, "Did others tell you?" so that Pilate too might accuse the Jews.

But Christ asks him whether he says this of himself or from others. He does this not because He does not know, but because He wishes to reveal the Jews' evil intent, so that Pilate too may accuse them.

Again, the Lord asks Pilate whether he asks this of himself or at the prompting of others. By this He exposes him for lack of understanding and for unjust judgment.

He says to Pilate, as it were: "If you say this of yourself, then point out the signs of My rebellion. But if others reported it to you, then conduct an exact inquiry."

Since, He says, no one openly accuses Me of this, whence then does this question arise in you?

There can be no doubt that this cruel slander is the work of the treachery and evil-mindedness of the Jews. For you cannot, He says, be both judge and accuser.

Christ says this to make Pilate understand that nothing hidden from Him can be concealed, whether secretly arranged or spoken.

Thus, perceiving His nature above man, Pilate might proceed more slowly toward carrying out the cruel design of those who brought Christ to trial.

At the same time He teaches that it is most unjust to submit to the voice of others and to punish under compulsion One who has not been convicted of anything of the sort.

In the course of this sermon we must consider and explain what Pilate said to Christ and what He answered Pilate.

For after it had been said to the Jews, "Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law," and they had answered, "It is not lawful for us to kill anyone," Pilate again entered the praetorium.

He called Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered him, "Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell you about Me?" (Jn 18:33-34).

Certainly the Lord knew both what He was asking and what Pilate would answer Him. Yet He wished this to be spoken, not in order to learn Pilate's answer Himself.

He wished it to be written down, so that what He wanted made known to us would be recorded.

See the explanation of the words: "And the governor asked Him, saying, 'Are You the King of the Jews?'" (Mt 27:11). These verses are also explained there.

Before answering this question, it had to be clarified whether Pilate asked this of himself, understanding by the word "king" an ordinary king with supreme state authority.

Or did he ask because the chief priests had told him this? They ought to have understood that the Messiah is the spiritual King of the whole world.

This had to be clarified, so that the answer might be given according to the meaning of the question.

Therefore Christ asked Pilate, "Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell you about Me?"

But could the Lord of heaven and earth, the Judge of the living and the dead, make use of the personal indulgence of a Roman judge?

The issue was not to escape death by any means, for example, as now, by intentional silence. It was to compel the judge to judge rightly and impartially concerning the force of the accusation contained in the word "king."

The political, so to speak Roman, aspect, in which alone this word had before Pilate the force of a criminal offense, was absent from it as applied to Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, in the moral, prophetic, and theocratic sense, it contained no guilt before the procurator and belonged to Jesus Christ in its full force.

Jesus answered, "Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell you about Me?" This answer does not express a desire to learn what the Jews had said in His absence.

It has a deeper meaning. His words are equivalent to this statement: "In what sense do you use this expression?

"If you say this of yourself, in the sense in which a Roman would naturally use the word, then I am not the King of the Jews.

"But if others have told you this about Me, and if you have in mind the words of the Hebrew prophets about the King in the sense of the expectation of the whole world (Gen 49:10), then they require further explanation."

Praetors in Rome and propraetors in the provinces usually had quaestors with them, whose duty was the preliminary investigation of a case.

Before the Roman tribunal appeared the accuser who lodged the complaint, the accused, and the witnesses whose testimony had to decide the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

The praetor or propraetor himself received the complaint. At the end of the process, having decided the case one way or another, he himself announced the judicial decision.

But interrogations of the accuser, the witnesses, and the accused were the work of the quaestor. Friedlieb, Archäolog. d. Leidensgesch., p. 105.

Pilate had no quaestor of his own, and therefore he conducts the whole judicial process himself.

Jesus answered, and so forth. The first three Evangelists, giving the interrogation on this point briefly, mention only the Lord's brief affirmative answer to this question (Mt 27:11; Mk 15:2; Lk 23:3).

John sets forth the matter in greater detail, in order to clarify the concept of the character of Christ's Kingdom.

To Pilate's question the Lord also answered with a question, whose purpose was to clarify this point of the accusation.

Pilate probably expected a direct negative answer to his question. But the matter was not as simple as it seemed to him. The concept of king had to be clarified as applied to the Accused One.

The Lord speaks of Himself as King not in the Roman political sense, but in the Jewish theocratic sense.

For Himself, the Lord had no need to ask why Pilate called Him King. But there was need for Pilate to consider whether he had grounds to put such a question to Jesus.

The Lord asks whether the Roman prefect has found in Jesus, through his own inquiry, anything that would make him ask whether He is King.

Or is he proposing this question only on the slander of the Jews?

Pilate could not affirm the first, because he had not seen even a pretext for it in Jesus' life.

By confessing the latter, he would have had to confess that he was proposing a question of slander.

For who then accuses Jesus of offending Caesar's authority? The Sanhedrin, that Sanhedrin which, as Pilate knows, hates Roman authority.