Pilate about it. If I may venture a conjecture, I stould guess that Mark gives the Latin inscription, Luke the Greek, and Matthew and John the Hebrew one. But wliy it seemed good to the Holy Ghost that Matthew should omit the expression "of Nazareth," which John mentions, I do not pretend to say. It is precisely one of those things in which it is wisest to confess our ignorance, and to be willing to wait for more light.
St. John alone records that Pilate " wrote " and " put " on the cross this title. We are not obliged to suppose that he did both with his own hands. The writing was almost certainly his own act. The putting the title on the cross he probably left to the soldiers.
The common pictures of the crucifixion, showing a kind of scroll, or parchment over our Lord's head on the cross, are most probably in this, as in other details, most incorrect representa- tions of the real facts. Moreover most painters seem to forget that it was written three times over, being in three languages I
20. — [TJiis title then read many, etc.'] This seems to be one of John's parenthetical comments. It also reads like the report of an eye-witness ; and this we know John was. He stood by and saw all that happened. It is as though he said, " I can testify that many of the Jews saw and read this title, — some as they passed along the road which ran by, — some from the walls of the city, for the place was near the walls. It was an inscrip- tion moreover so contrived, that hardly any one in Jerusalem could fail to understand it ; for it was written in the three lan- guages most likely to be known, — in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin."
It is almost needless to say that the title was in Hebrew, be- cause every Jew would know it, the oldest language in the world, and the language of the Old Testament, — in Greek, be cause this was the language most known in all eastern countries, and the language of all literary and educated people, — in Latin, because this was the language of the Romans, the ruling nation in the world. The Roman soldiers would all understand the Latin ; the Greek proselytes and Hellenistic Jews would all un- derstand the Greek ; and the pure Jews from Galilee and Judaea, and every part of the earth, assembled for the passover, would all understand the Hebrew. All would go away to spread the tidings that one Jesus, the King of the Jews, had been put to death by crucifixion at the passover feast.
Henry remarks, " In the Hebrew, the oracles of God were re- corded ; in Greek, the learning of the philosophers ; and in Latin, the laws of the empire. In each of these languages Christ is proclaimed King, in whom are hid all the treasures of revela- tion, wisdom and power."
To this very day it is certain that no three languages can be more useful for a Christian minister to know, if he would be familiar with his Bible, than Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.