Loading…
VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
Translation
Loading…
What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
On this point then declaring himself, Pilate replied, "Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me; what hast thou done?" Here desiring to clear himself of the matter. Then because he had said, "Art thou the King?" Jesus reproving him answereth, "This thou hast heard from the Jews. Why dost thou not make accurate enquiry? They have said that I am a malefactor; ask them what evil I have done. …
Cyril of Alexandria
He now exposes the villainy of the Jews, and almost publishes the multitude of His accusers. It is as though he said: "It does not concern me to know about Thee, for I am not a Jew; but rather befits Thine own nation and kindred, who. it may be, have this knowledge, and so bring Thee to suffer death." He then accuses himself. For to say, What hast Thou done, implies nothing else but this. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Therefore Pilate also rightly answers that His betrayers are the Jews, and deflects the blame from himself. Pilate does not say that he heard it from others, but simply refers to the opinion of the people and says: "They delivered You to me; what have You done?" This seems to be the words of one who is, as it were, grieved and embittered. "For," he says, "what have You done?"
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
He rejects the imputation that He could have said it of Himself; Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered Thee unto me: adding, what hast Thou done? Whereby he shows that this charge had been brought against Him, for it is as much as to say, If Thou deniest that Thou art a King, what hast Thou done to be delivered up to me? As if it were no wonder that He should be delivered up, if He called Himself a King.
Thomas Aquinas
2348 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Why did he answer this way? Because our Lord had asked him whether he said this on his own. Pilate showed by this that it was not his concern to inquire if Christ was the King of the Jews; it was rather the affair of the Jews, whose King he said he was. By giving this answer Pilate showed that it was others who had told him that Christ was the King of the Jews. Accordingly he says, Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me, by bringing this charge against you. …
Bonaventure
"Pilate answered: Am I a Jew?" As if to say: I do not lay this charge upon you; "your nation and your chief priests have delivered you to me"; as if to say: I received this from them. "What then have you done," that they accuse you so?
Translation