The Final Trial and the Condemnation

S. Mark xv. 6–15

To the bitter disappointment of Pilate, who hoped that he had escaped from the responsibility of giving judgment, the Prisoner was again brought before him. The Tetrarch of Galilee saw, as clearly as he had done, that the charge of menacing the Roman authority by treasonable claims was wholly without foundation; but unlike himself, having nothing to fear from the Jews, he gave his decision at once against an unjust execution. It is true that he subjected Jesus to the cruelty and ridicule of his soldiery and court, but this was only to hide his mortification at not witnessing the performance of a miracle. Declining to be any party to a judicial murder, he ordered Jesus to be taken back to Pilate’s jurisdiction.

During the interval, in his moments of calmer reflection, Pilate could have only become more and more convinced of the Prisoner’s innocence; and now the conduct of the Tetrarch corroborated his convictions. “I have found no fault in this Man: no, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto Him.”

But the chief priests and rulers were more clamorous than ever for judgment to be given. Again the Governor thought that he saw a way of escape. He determined to appeal from the Sanhedrim to the people, to the crowds that by this time had gathered before the judgment-hall. He knew that the chief priests had delivered Him “for envy,” because they feared the effect of His growing popularity. The reports, too, of Christ’s enthusiastic reception a few days before must have reached him, if he had not actually witnessed it himself. He had everything, therefore, to hope from the course he proposed.

It was an old Paschal 1 custom — a touching memorial of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage — to grant an amnesty to any prisoner the people asked for; and Pilate took this opportunity of reminding them of their privilege. There happened at this time to be a prisoner of note in confinement at Jerusalem. He was in all probability a man of birth, alike if his patronymic indicates that he was the son of Abba, or, as is more likely, the son of a Rabbi; but whether he was a robber-outlaw, who lived by plunder, and did not scruple to sacrifice the lives of his victims; or whether he was a Jewish patriot, who had risen in rebellion against the hated Roman, and in the heat of conflict had shed blood, we have no means of judging. If the former, Pilate might have selected him as one whom the people would fear to let loose; if the latter, it accounts at once for his popularity with the mob, “Not this Man, but Barabbas.”

It is quite possible that his release had been suggested as an alternative to that of Jesus, from the similarity of their names. There is an old tradition, dating back from the close of the second century, that Barabbas was called Jesus, and that the exact form of the question which Pilate put to the people was this: “Whom will ye that I release unto you, Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus Which is called Christ?”

It matters little, however, what it was that prompted Pilate to propose him to the people, the result is the same: the robber, the revolutionist, the murderer was chosen — the Holy One, the Harmless, the Saviour was rejected.

It was another disappointment to Pilate, and wholly unexpected. He had every reason for believing that the populace would be on his side, and if he could only be satisfied that they would support him, he would have been prepared to brave all the threats of the hierarchy. But the priests were more than a match for him. Directly they recognised the danger, they ran in among the crowd, and moved the people — “Ask for Barabbas,” “Cry for Barabbas;” and their eagerness made itself felt. A mob is easily swayed by a few powerful enthusiasts; and it was so at this critical moment, for when Pilate asked what he should do with Him Whom they called “the King of the Jews,” urged on again no doubt by the priests, who stirred the worst passions of their nature, they cried, “Crucify Him,” “Crucify Him.” It was a death wholly repellent to Jewish feelings, and one that would never have suggested itself to the people, who had no bitter animosity against Him; but crucifixion alone would satisfy the revengeful rulers, whom He had denounced with such withering scorn; and it was their cry really, not the people’s, which Pilate heard: “Let Him be crucified.”

Again the judge’s conviction of His innocence becomes manifest. “Why should I crucify Him?” he asks, “What evil hath He done?”

We know not exactly at what stage in these tumultuous proceedings it was, but after “he was set down on the judgment-seat,” he received a message, which must have made him more reluctant than ever to assent to the execution. The dream of Procla was the last effort of a Merciful God to save him from violating his conscience to the end. That God “Who would not answer Saul by prophets or by dreams, Who for centuries had ceased to speak by Urim and Thummim,” broke the silence of eternity to deliver a weak and wavering judge from eternal ruin. We cannot tell what visions stirred the spirit of the heathen’s wife; we know not, save by tradition, who she was; but she came forth from her obscurity to utter a last warning to the conscience of her husband, to save him from incurring everlasting shame. If we may hazard a conjecture as to the time when the message reached him, we would suggest that it was after he had delivered Jesus to be scourged. Was it this which prompted his last appeal to save the Prisoner? Seeing the awful plight in which the frightful lash had left Him, clothed with the mock symbols of royalty, all smeared with blood and shameful spitting, he determined to make a final effort to move the sympathies of the people. Repeating his reiterated attestation to Christ’s innocence, Pilate led Him out to the multitude, and with no irony or bitterness such as when he said, “Behold your King!” he pointed simply to a human Being in abject misery; and the words he used have echoed on through all the ages; painters have striven in a thousand ways to express their meaning, and preachers have caught them up at every Passion-tide — Ecu Homo! “Behold the Man!”

It was a sight to draw tears even from the flinty rock, but it roused no sense of shame, and stirred no chord of compassion. It made the obdurate Jews even more clamorous for the execution of their wicked will, and awoke a still fiercer outbreak than before: “Crucify Him,” “Crucify Him.” But Pilate would not relent; we are even told that he took steps to release Him, and then their last device was tried — the desperate effort 1 reserved till all else had failed: “If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend.” And he yielded at once. That name of Caesar acted like a potent spell, and made a slave of one “to whom political success was as the breath of life.” The craven fear of imperial displeasure compelled him to bow to the will he had so long resisted. “Already in imagination the wretched man saw himself in the presence of his gloomy and suspicious master, informed against, condemned, degraded, banished.” 2 His sense of justice and his strongest convictions all were swept away in an instant as by a whirlwind; and for the pride of worldly station and the favour of an earthly king he has gained the execration of Christendom, and eternal shame before God and man.

Note: kolt ioprrjv, at feast-time, seems to leave it more general, but S. John xviii. 39 confines it to the Passover.

Note: Had he been merely an insurrectionary leader it is difficult to understand how Pilate would risk proposing a name which was sure to be popular. S. Luke, however, distinctly mentions that he was imprisoned for “sedition.”

Note: Origen spoke of it as a common reading, but approved of the omission on dogmatic grounds. He says, “Several MSS. also had not the name Tt/ctoOs.” This implies that the majority had it. Its omission is certainly easier to account for than its interpolation. Olshausen, Meyer, De Wette, Ewald, Klein, and Wordsworth, and others, accept it. It is rejected by Alford, Tischendorf, Westcott, and Hort. It is found now only in five cursive MSS., and in the Armenian and Jerusalem Syriac Versions.

Note: Her name is given in Ecclesiastical tradition both as Procla and Claudia Procla. She is said to have become a Christian afterwards, and has been canonised by the Greek Church.

Note: It was regarded as a Divine interposition by many of the Fathers, — Origen, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine, etc. For the influence such a dream was likely to have upon a Roman at this time, cf. Suetonius, August. 91, and Julius Caesar, 81.

Note: The probable site of the scourging has been discovered by Captain Warren among the ruins of the Praetorium. It is “a truncated column, no part of the construction, for the chamber is vaulted above the pillar, but just such a pillar as criminals would be tied to to be scourged.” Fergusson fixes the date at not later than the Herodian period. Cf.Westcott on S. John xix. 1.

Note: It is the first time they say anything calculated to irritate him and set him against them. It was a threat he might or might not resent — they knew not which.

Note: Traditions vary as to the scene of his banishment. Either Vienne on the Rhone, or the neighbourhood of Mons Pilatus, near Lucerne. Cf, Scott, in Anne of Geierstein.