What is truth?

Self-serving violence, or self-giving love?

The Romans overthrew their last king, at least according to traditional Roman reckoning, in 509 BC. Since then, they were not well-disposed towards monarchs, as the cognomen they bestowed on him suggests: Lucius Tarquinius Superbus translates to Tarquin the Proud, or Arrogant. Republican Rome associated kingship with despotism.

Pilate’s questions to Jesus in John 18:33-37 are therefore pointed:

33 So, Pilate went back to the Praetorian palace and spoke to Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the king of the Judaeans?”

The translation is mine, and more literal than most you will read. The location is significant, because the Praetorium, the gubernatorial palace, represents the authority of the Emperor, Senate and People of Rome out in the provinces. It is not a place to challenge that authority with claims of a rival power, especially not kingly power.

The word Ἰουδαῖός (Ioudaios) causes notorious difficulties in John, antisemitic connotations among them, when it is given the typical and traditional translation of “Jew.” In Roman eyes, there was no distinction then between a people or nation and their religion. Hence I favour the more literal translation of “Judaean,” which simply means the people of Judaea, of which Jerusalem was the capital. Pilate is not asking Jesus whether He is leader of a religious sect, but king of a conquered and restive nation. His question concerns political power and the potential threat to the Empire he serves. But Jesus suspects that Pilate is lacking in conviction:

34 Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own behalf, or have other people talked to you about me?”

Pilate responds with an ironic question. The irony is indicated by the Greek μήτι (mēti), which might best be translated as a raised eyebrow, but this is my effort:

35 Pilate replied, “[You think] I’m a Judaean? Your own nation and the High Priests have handed you over to me. What did you do?”

Curiously, Jesus does not answer this direct question. You would think the change of subject might be welcome. He is being given the chance to explain Himself, defend Himself. But He does not. He goes back to the core charge about kingship. But the answer He gives is ambiguous. The ambiguity hinges on the meaning of the words βασιλεία (basileia) and “my.”

Βασιλεία can mean “kingdom,” in the sense of a place ruled by a king, as it is typically translated; but Jesus uses it far more frequently in its other and non-geographical sense, that of “kingship” or “reign.” Then, the word “my” in Greek has the same ambiguity as it does in English: to employ C.S. Lewis’ example, it means two quite different things in the phrases “my country” and “my teddy bear.” “My” can indicate that which belongs to me, or that to which I belong. So, “my kingdom” could either mean, “my reign/kingship,” or “the kingdom to which I belong.” These are quite different things. One is a claim to be a king oneself, the other to be subject to a king:

36 Jesus answered, “(My kingship/the kingdom I belong to) does not come from this world. If my kingship (/the kingdom I belong to) came from this world, my subordinates would have fought so that I would not be handed over to the Judaea’s. But now, my kingship (/the kingdom I belong to) does not come from here.”

If we leave that ambiguity in the translation, we can see why Pilate is still confused, and has to ask for confirmation of what Jesus means:

37 So, Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

But Jesus does not give in so easily. He has given Pilate wriggle room, room for interpretation and personal judgment. He has not given him the straight answer he wanted. He is the governor of Judaea. It is his responsibility to make up his mind:

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.”

The “you” there is stressed: σὺ λέγεις (su legeis) means “you say,”  but Greek as an inflected language does not need the personal pronoun σὺ, using it only when emphasis is needed. The implication is that it is no longer just “other people” who have told Pilate this, as Jesus implied before. “You” are saying it yourself now, he says. And with that, he issues his final challenge. Which kingship is going to win on the battleground of Pilate’s heart?

So far, Jesus has spoken of His kingship, or the kingdom to which He belongs. This He contrasts with the kingship or kingdom typically translated as “of this world.” The Greek, though, speaks of a kingship not “of” but “from” or “out of” this world, ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, ek tou kosmou toutou. “To be of” this world has the nuance here of “coming from” or “deriving from” this world. And now, in contrast, He speaks of those who are “from” the truth, ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας, ek tēs alētheias:

“I have been born for this and come into the world (cosmos) for this: so that I would bear witness (/be a martyr) to the truth. Everyone who is from the truth hears my voice.”

Which kingship reigns in Pilate’s heart? The kingship which derives its authority from this world, from the games of power and nations, the might of the sword, or the kingship which derives from the eternal and unchanging truth above? Jesus is revealing to Pilate that the judgment he makes now is not just whether to execute some provincial criminal for sedition. It is the judgment of ultimate concern. Who do you serve? What really governs you?

We know Pilate’s answer:

38 “What is truth?”

This is the answer that those in charge of the world still give today. Darwin is widely supposed to have demonstrated conclusively the principle that might is right, bridging the Baconian equation of power with knowledge, all the way over to Foucault’s observation that truth itself is power. What separates truth from falsehood is nothing but who has the biggest army, or perhaps the largest number of social media followers. If the Dear Leader interrupts your TV programme to say that it is raining, then it is raining, regardless of what you see outside the window. “You have your truth and I have mine” sounds splendidly liberal until I send the police knocking on your front door because your truth is the wrong one.

If everybody has their own truth then, of course, there ultimately is no truth. And if there is no truth, then there is only violence: blood, wood and nails. If truth is power, then the Romans were right, and kingship is a lie exposed by a crown of thorns, just another worldly power game, and one that Jesus lost.

Christians of a more revolutionary hue try to get around this and have it both ways, by saying that worldly kingship is indeed nothing more than a matter of brute power struggles, but Jesus was a radically different kind of king. If that is so, then it is hard to see why He and the whole of Holy Scripture would keep deploying such an inadequate analogy. Had the Divine Word wished to speak of the Republic of Heaven, and revealed Himself as its celestial President or General Secretary, He could have done so. There was secular precedent. But as it is, He speaks consistently of king and kingdom.

While the kind of kingship He shows from the wooden throne of the Cross is indeed different from that of the kings of this world, there is also conceptual continuity. Like the kings of this world, Jesus’ kingship was hereditary, passing through the line of David, from the kingship God bequeathed on Adam at the beginning of human history. Unlike a president, Jesus did not earn His rule through His own efforts or by popular election, which is to say, through the machinations of political power. He is anointed from above, not elected from below. Like a king, and unlike a politician, His term of office has no time limit placed on it. He is unchanging and guarantees stability. But most importantly, like a king and unlike a political party, He is a person, who takes personal responsibility for His subjects until the end. He is not merely the face of an inscrutable and barely accountable political machine.

Jesus’ ambiguous answers to Pilate are more like Socratic elenchus than slippery sophistry. They are not designed to trip Pilate up, but to make him question and think. And the challenges He made to Pilate, He makes to us, too:

To what kingdom do we subject ourselves? That of political expediencies here below, or of the unchanging truth from above?

Whom do we trust? The faceless power machine of State and Empire, or the King who would give His life for any one of us?

What is truth? The victory of death, or the victory over death? Is it the Cross that has the last word, or the Empty Tomb? Self-serving violence, or self-giving love?

These are the challenges that face us today and have faced us always. Unlike Pilate, we have to choose. We either hear the King of truth, or we do not. Washing our hands is not the answer.