But Jesus did not answer. How could He ever make this Roman understand! This Roman who knew nothing of God’s promises, misinformed by His assassins, a Pyrrhonic atheist, whose only religion was the artificial and diabolical cult of a living man—and of what a man—Tiberius!—how could He ever explain to this freedman, a pupil of the lawyers and rhetoricians of Rome in the most decadent of all the degenerate foulness of that time; how could He explain that He was the King of a Kingdom not yet founded, of a spiritual Kingdom which would abolish all human kingdoms?
Jesus read the depths of Pilate’s soul and made no answer, as He had kept silent at first before Annas and before Caiaphas. The Procurator could not understand this silence on the part of a man over whom hung the threat of death. “Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?”
But Jesus answered him never a word. Pilate, who at all costs wished to triumph over those who hated him as much as they hated this man, insisted, hoping to extract a denial which would permit him to set Him at liberty: “Art thou the King of the Jews?”
If Jesus denied this He would betray Himself. He had said to His disciples and to the Jews that He was Christ. He had no wish to lie and save Himself. The better to sound the Roman’s mind He answered Him, as was his wont, with another question: “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?”
Pilate answered, as if offended, “Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. Art thou the King of the Jews?”
With the exception of this contemptuous beginning, this answer of Pilate was conciliatory. “For whom do you take me? Do you not know that I am a Roman, that I do not believe what your enemies believe? Your accusers are priests, not I; but they are obliged to give you into my hands: your safety rests with me: tell me that what they say is not true and you shall be free.”
Jesus had no wish to escape death, but still He determined to try to shed more light on this pagan. Everything is possible to the Father: was it not possible that Pilate might be the last convert of the dying man?
“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.”
The servant of Tiberius did not understand. The difference between “of this world” and “my kingdom is not from hence” was obscure to him. Pilate thought that what is the phrase “not of this world” meant the gods above if there were really any, gods favorable or malignant to men, and below in Hades the shadows of the dead if really there was anything remaining of us when the body had been consumed by fire or worms: the only reality for such a man as Pilate was “this world,” the great world with all its kingdoms. And once more he asked: “Art thou a king then?”
There was no longer any reason to deny. He would say to this blinded man what He had proclaimed to the others: “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”