ACC ~ John 19 v22

TRUTH CANNOT BE ALTERED

AUGUSTINE: What Pilate has written, he has written. But the high priests, who wanted it to be corrupted, what did they say? “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews.’ But that he said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” What is it you are saying, madmen? Why do you oppose the doing of what you are utterly unable to alter? Will it become any less true that Jesus said, “I am King of the Jews”? If that cannot be tampered with which Pilate has written, can that be tampered with which the truth has uttered? TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 117.5. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:429**.

THE MAGI AND PILATE ACKNOWLEDGE THE KING

AUGUSTINE: The magi were from the Gentiles. Pilate too was a Gentile. They saw a star in the sky; he wrote a title on the tree. Both, however, were looking for or acknowledging the king, not of the Gentiles but of the Jews. Thus already there was a prefiguring of what the Lord himself spoke about later, “Many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom will go into outer darkness.” [1] The magi, you see, had come from the east, Pilate from the west. So they bore witness to the king of the Jews rising, that is, to his being born. Pilate bore witness to the king of the Jews setting, that is, to his dying. In this way, they could take their seats in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, from whom the Jews derived their descent. They were not descended from them, of course, in the flesh but grafted into them by faith. Thus the wild olive the apostle talks about, that was to be grafted into the olive, was already being prefigured. SERMON 201.2. [2]

[1] Mt 8:11-12.

[2] WSA 3 6:88.