And straightway [after the condemnation by the priests] in the morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound Jesus and carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answering saith unto him, Thou sayest.... And Pilate again asked him, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they accuse thee of. But Jesus no more answered anything; insomuch that Pilate marvelled. To this meagre record, in which a capital case is carried before the governor without the slightest documentary preliminaries, and in which he begins to interrogate before a word has been said about the indictment, Matthew adds nothing save the story of Pilate's wife's dream, which the reconstructors are fain to dismiss; while Luke, who sees fit to premise specific charges of anti-Roman sedition, follows them up simply by Pilate's question and Jesus's assenting answer; and then, quite unintelligibly, makes Pilate declare "unto the chief priests and the multitudes, I find no fault in this man." What can it mean? All the exegetes now agree that the "Thou sayest" of Jesus has the force of "I am." [170] By avowing that he called himself King of the Jews he committed a very grave offence towards Rome, unless he explained the title in a mystic sense; and the records exclude any such explanation. In Mark and Matthew the effect is the same: Pilate finds no guilt, and proposes release; but yields to the multitude and the priests. Could any serious student bring himself to regard this as history unless he presupposed the historicity of the crucifixion and was ready to let pass any semblance of motivation for it?