To the people St John addresses, the question ‘What is truth?’ (xviii, 38) was not simply a matter of intellectual curiosity or scepticism. The gospel offers an answer to the deepest needs of a sophisticated society, in search of ‘life', ‘light’ and ‘truth'. Although we are pressed by questions of a similar kind, yet John's answers are not immediately understandable to us. The problem what the meaning is of the concept ‘truth’ in the fourth gospel is best approached along three separate ways: in what contexts does it appear in the gospel, what were the connotations attached to it in the contemporary world, and how far is all this relevant to us?

As for the first point, it is most helpful to return to the context of Pilate's question; because the account of our Lord's trial before the Roman procurator has a far greater importance in the evangelist's mind than just that of a chronicle of certain juridical facts.

‘Of truthfulness it is much less than courage of heart and holiness'—this adaptation of Belloc might be prompted by some hack moralists of the day before yesterday, who instead of riding the downs with God's first gift to man, subtle, eloquent, sure, sweet, more beautiful than the sun, whose company is without tediousness but with gladness, land us in a bog of mental restrictions and verbal circumlocutions. True, they carry some sort of apparatus for extricating us, but their effect is one of casuistry rather than candour, and they irked Newman who was formed by another tradition: it was ironical that he, who in all conscience had a delicate sense of honour, should have been exposed to Kingsley's bluff. Not that Anglo-Saxons anyhow have cause for complaint against the slippery Latins, for they themselves, though they may not go in for suggestio falsi—the half-lie—are adept at suppressio veri—the half-truth—and of all nations the frankness on which they pride themselves seems most baffling to others.

The Concept of Tolerance. There is about tolerance something paradoxical, for it consists, in fact, in permitting something which we know with certainty to be either an evil or an error: permissio negativa mali, as the theologian carefully defines it. Negative, because the permission does not imply either encouragement or approval.

From this definition it follows that tolerance is not, in the strict sense of the word, a virtue. We ought rather to say that the exercise of tolerance is authorized and required by a virtue, on account of some greater good which must be promoted or defended. The ultimate justification for tolerance has to be sought in the reflection of the divine laws governing the world, which human rulers are required to achieve. ‘Human government', says St Thomas, ‘is derived from the divine government, and must imitate it.

Each year I am dazzled anew by what Paul Claudel calls ‘the atmosphere of glory’ that is the Ascension. Perhaps I am prejudiced, as the Ascension once marked the end of a long trial of ill-health when I was allowed to make my solemn vows and final monastic profession.

It was the odder as in the past I had so often been ill on that day. So much so that I wondered if lying on one's back were not, after all, the best way of looking up at the sky and, paradoxically enough, of following our ascending Lord to glory.

A very ancient ascensiontide hymn remarks that it was

‘after being spat upon, after being scourged,
after the cross, that he rose to the Father's throne'.

The beginning of the Ascension is the way of the cross. “We climb Calvary and mount the cross before we ascend to the Father. But the best way of ascending is to be in him, who is the way, who said, 'No man cometh unto the Father, but by me'. The way must also be in us.

Historic examples of steadfast faith are collected and put in writing, because they bear witness to the power of God's grace, and help to inspire men; when read they come before us again, as it were, so that God shall be honoured and men given strength. Surely similar accounts from our own times ought to be circulated, as being just as useful for both these purposes? At some future date these contemporary examples will themselves be respectably historic, and thus of use to coming generations; even though at present they carry less weight, because what is past is considered more hallowed than what is new.