John 18:33-35

“ Pilate entered again therefore into the Praetorium, and he called Jesus and said to him, Art thou the king of the Jews? 34. Jesus answered him:Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? 35. Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee to me; what hast thou done? ”

John's narrative evidently presents a gap here. There is nothing in what precedes to give a reason for the question of Pilate to Jesus: Art thou the king of the Jews? Such an inquiry implies, therefore, an expression on the part of the accusers which gives occasion for it. This supposition is changed into certainty when we compare the narrative of the Synoptics, particularly that of Luke. “ We found him,” say the Jews on approaching Pilate, “ troubling the nation, forbidding to pay tribute to Caesar, saying that he is the Christ, the King ” (Luke 23:2). Luke, as well as Mark and Matthew, has omitted the whole first phase of the accusation, which has just been related by John. The Synoptics begin their narrative at the moment when the Jews come down again to their more humble part as accusers, and concede to Pilate his position as judge. Hence it follows that John, after having supplied in what precedes that which the Synoptics had omitted, now implies as known to his readers the political accusation mentioned by them. We see how intimate and constant is the relation between his narrative and theirs. Keil concludes from the words he called Jesus, that up to this moment Jesus had remained outside. But see above. He called Him aside in the Praetorium itself, to a place where he could speak with Him alone.

To his question, Pilate certainly expected a frank negative answer. But the position was not as simple as he imagined. There was a distinction to be made here, not to the thought of Pilate, but to that of Jesus. In the political sense of the term king of the Jews, the only one known to Pilate, Jesus might reject this title; but in the religious sense which every believing Jew gave to it and in which it was equivalent to Messiah, Jesus must accept it, whatever the consequences of this avowal might be. Jesus must know, then, whether this title, with regard to which Pilate was interrogating Him, was put forward by Pilate himself, or whether it had been put forward by the Jews in the conversation which he had just had with them. The objections of Meyer and Weiss (in his Commentary) against this explanation do not seem to me sufficient to shake it. According to Meyer, Jesus asks of Pilate simply an explanation which He had the right to ask. But He nevertheless did it with some purpose. According to Weiss, Jesus wished to know whether He must now give an explanation respecting the Messianic idea! Finally, according to Tholuck, Luthardt, Keil, etc., He thereby called Pilate's attention to the suspicious source of this accusation (others, the Jews). It would, in that case, have been more simple to answer by a No only; but, after this, the really affirmative answer of Jesus in John 18:36-37 would become an absurdity. These two verses are compatible with the question of Jesus only on our explanation, which is that of Olshausen, Neander, Ewald, and at present, it seems to me, of Weiss himself (Life of Jesus, II. p. 563). We must conclude from these words that Jesus had not Himself heard the accusation of the rulers, and consequently that He was already, as we have stated, John 18:28, in the Praetorium at the time when it was brought forward by them.

Pilate, not understanding clearly what is the aim of this distinction, answers abruptly: “What have I to do with your Jewish subtleties?” There is profound contempt in the antithesis: ἐγώ... ᾿Ιουδαῖος (I...a Jew?). Then, abandoning the Jewish jargon which he had allowed his accusers to impose on him for the moment, he interrogates Him as a frank and simple Roman: “Now then, to the point! By what fault hast thou brought upon thyself all that which is taking place at this moment?”