_Jesus_.--"Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it
thee of me?"

_Pilate_--"Art thou a King?"

_Jesus_.--"Thou sayest that I am a King."

Is it possible that a real man, not to say the Savior of the world,
would give such unmeaning and evasive replies to straightforward
questions? Does it not read like a page from fiction?

In the presence of the priests of his own race Jesus is as indefinite
and sophistical as he is before the Roman Pilate.

_The Priests_--"Art thou the Christ--tell us?"

_Jesus._--"If I tell you ye will not believe me."

_The Priests_.--"Art thou the Son of God?"

_Jesus_.--"Ye say that I am."

In the first answer he refuses to reveal himself because he does not
think he can command belief in himself; in his second answer he either
blames them for saying he was the Son of God, or quotes their own
testimony to prove that he is the Son of God. But if they believed he
was God, would they try to kill him? Is it not unthinkable? He
intimates that the priests believe he is the Son of God--"Ye say that
I am." Surely, it is more probable that these dialogues were invented
by his anonymous biographers than that they really represent an actual