#has no one made the 'ecce homo' pun?

[ukdamo]

What is Truth?

Roman anagrams...

Word play - it’s been with us for a long time, and the Engish langauge gives itself fully to puns, anagrams. acrostics, palindromes and rebuses.

I’ve just finished reading “The Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson. It’s about English and how it got to be the way it is. Funny and fun, and with lots of interesting “Well, I didn’t know that” moments, Bryson also made a quiet observation that rocked me back on my heels (even though I was sitting down at the time). I am not sure he even recognised what an earth-trembler the innocent remark was - no indication of it in the text.

Simply put, Bryson pointed out that word play had delighted the Greeks and Romans long before it set crossword setters alight, or prompted the invention of Scrabble.

I have long been familar with the Roman SATOR square and its Christian derivative the Paternoster alpha / omega cross. A very early example of that Christian square is in Manchester. 

Bryson notes one example of a Roman palindrome that was very popular. The Latin phrase “What is Truth?” can be deftly rearranged, using its constituent letters to give the answer, “This man here”. Which might appear clever but inconsequential until you remember that Pilate is recorded as posing that very question at Jesus’ trial (John 18:38).

My best guess, given the puzzlement that the phrase has caused scripture scholars and theologians for centuries (Did he actually say it? What did he intend by it? What has it got to do with the unfolding action?) is that St Jerome - who composed the Vulgate Bible, and his readers (few, educated and aware) would have been very much alert to the implied anagram. Pilate poses the question rhetorically and gives an, unexpressed, theological reply - thus delivering a triple underlining to John’s message about ‘Truth’ which runs like a thread through his gospel. For the hard of thinking, Pilate even gives a verbal clue in his line “Ecce homo”.

So, Pilate probably says (and Bryson falis to remark upon it), “What is Truth? It is this man here”.