fying. Jesus
describes His kingdom, so different from any institution bearing the
name that Pilate has ever heard of. It is not of the order of things
in this world. If it were, of course Christ's servants would fight, as
do the servants of the claimants of earthly thrones. But they do not
resort to violence. The kingdom and its methods of government are both
unearthly. Pilate is interested, perhaps amused, with what now seem to
him the fancies of a fanatical dreamer. He pursues the inquiry, we may
suppose, with a smile on his lips, "_Art thou a king, then_?" he asked.
There is no ambiguity in his Prisoner's reply. He is a king. This
strange kingdom, not resting on any basis of earthly power, dispensing
with fighting, with all that an army suggests, with force, is the very
opposite to Pilate's idea of a state. Rome was materialistic to the
core. Her rule rested on brute force. The Empire, the _Imperium_, was
the dominion of the _Imperator_, that is to say, of the
commander-in-chief of the army. It was a military despotism.
Nominally the government was still republican, and the older and more
peaceable provinces were administered by proconsuls, whose appointment
rested with the senate, or was supposed by a legal fiction to rest with
that body. But the newer and more troublesome provinces were governed
as conquered territory directly by the emperor as the head of the army.
Now Judaea came in this latter division. Pontius Pilate and his
superior, the Legate of Syria, were both directly responsible to
Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was Caesar's officer under military direction.
Military methods characterised the procurator's rule. To a man placed
as Pilate, the notion of a ruler independent of fighting supporters,
and that in territory held down by force of arms, was simply absurd.

Our Lord's further explanation seems to Pilate still more out of
keeping with the notion of royalty. Jesus says He was born to be a
king in order that He might bear witness to the truth. A
king--truth--what have these two words in common, the one referring to
the most real region, the other to the most ideal? To Pilate, the
conjunction is absolutely incongruous. "_What is truth_?" he asks, as
he turns away, too contemptuous to wait for an answer. This famous
utterance has been quoted as a text for the anxious inquirer, and
preachers have gravely set themselves to answer it. Jesus did nothing
of the kind. Evidently it was not a s