He speaks of Himself as a sTieplierd, He says, " My sheep hear my voice ; " so wlien He speaks of Himself as God's great wit- ness to trutL, He says, " All friends of truth hear my voice."
The wise condescension with which our Lord adapts His lan- guage to Pilate's habits of thought as a Roman, is very note- worthy. If He had used Jewish figures of speech, drawn from Old Testament language, Pilate might well have failed to un- derstand Him. But every Roman in high position must have heard the arguments of philosophers about " the truth." There- fore our Lord says, " I am a witness to truth." In speaking to unconverted people, it is wise to use terms which they can understand.
Theophylact suggests that here is an appeal to Pilate's con- science : " If you are a real seeker after truth you will listen to Me."
38. — [Pilate saith... Wliat is truth f] This famous question, in my judgment, can only admit of one interpretation. It is the cold, sneering, sceptical interjection of a mere man of the world, who has persuaded himself that there is no such thing as truth, that all religions are equally false, that this life is all we have to care for, and that creeds and modes of faith are only words and names and superstitious, which no sensible person need attend to. It is precisely the state of mind in which thousands of great and rich men in every age live and die. Expanded and paraphrased, Pilate's question comes to this : — " Truth indeed 1 What is truth ? I have heard all my life of various philosophi- cal systems, each asserting that it has found the truth, and each differing widely from the others. Who is to decide what is truth and what is not ? " — The best proof that this is the right view of the sentence is Pilate's behavior when he has asked the question. He does not, as Lord Bacon remarked two centuries ago, wait for an answer, but breaks off" the conversa- tion and goes away. — The supposition that he asked a question, as an honest inquirer, with a real desire to get an answer, is too improbable and unreasonable to require any comment. The right way to understand Pilate's meaning is to put ourselves in his place, and to consider how many sects and schools of philos- ophers there were in the world at the time when our Lord ap- peared,— some Roman, some Grecian, and some Egyptian, — all al- leging that they had got the truth, and all equally unsatisfactory. In short Gallio, who thought Christianity a mere " question of words and names," — Festus, who thought the dislike of the Jews to Paul arose from " questions of their own superstition," — and Pontius Pilate, • were all much alike. The worldly- minded Roman noble speaks like a man sick and weary of phi- losophical speculations ; — " What is truth indeed ? Who can tell ? " — Nevertheless truth was very near him. If he had waited he might have learned !
Lightfoot alone thinks that Pilate only meant, " What is the