Let him be crucified (Notes)

Saint Matthew - Chapter 27

Let him be crucified! J-J Tissot

[21] Respondens autem praeses, ait illis : Quem vultis vobis de duobus dimitti? At illi dixerunt : Barabbam.
And the governor answering, said to them: Whether will you of the two to be released unto you? But they said, Barabbas.

[22] Dicit illis Pilatus : Quid igitur faciam de Jesu, qui dicitur Christus?
Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? They say all: Let him be crucified.

[23] Dicunt omnes : Crucifigatur. Ait illis praeses : Quid enim mali fecit? At illi magis clamabant dicentes : Crucifigatur.
The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let him be crucified.

From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

The crowd now occupies the place where Jesus had been scourged, with the column by which He had suffered rising up in the midst.  On the left is the bodyguard opposite the Judgment Hall of Pilate with its adjoining loggia; on the right the Gabbatha, called in Greek Lithostrotos, an open Tribunal paved with yellow and red stones forming the kind of rostrum where judgment was given; the name of which, as stated by saint John in chapter 19 verse xiii means pavement.  The crowd, which was often considerable, could go up to the forum, which was reached by a few steps, and from thence could look on at the ceremony of giving judgment and hear announced the decisions of the presiding judge.  On the right and left were the arches upholding the Palace of the Governor, one of which still exists, walled into the Chapel of the Convent of the nuns of Sion.

Barabbas. J-J Tissot

As we have seen, Pilate had hoped that the dramatic effect of his Ecce Homo, with the sight of Jesus in His suffering condition, would have aroused the compassion of the mob and saved him from the odium of pronouncing a judgment for which his own conscience reproached him.  Who, he had thought, could resist the affect of the sudden apparition of that bleeding spectre?  That head crowned with thorns, that face wounded by repeated blows, that lacerated body drooping with fatigue, covered with sweat and displaying terrible, bleeding wounds, those bound hands in which quivered the reed sceptre, was not all this enough to rouse the pity of the most hardened and most barbarous hearts?  He was mistaken.  He had reckoned without making due allowance for the thirst for blood natural to an excited mob and without remembering the intrigues of the Sanhedrim, who were circulating amongst the crowds, like the perjured counsellors that they were, suggesting the cry raised all too soon for the death of Jesus.  In spite of his benevolent intentions, which became more decided after the message from his wife Claudia, Pilate, thanks to his weakness and successive concessions to the clamour of the people, only succeeded in adding to the sufferings of Jesus.  Anxious to make yet one more effort, he proposed that he should release the accused in honour of the Passover.  It was, in fact, the custom for the Roman governor to release a prisoner at that Festival.  But Pilate at the same time felt bound to give them a choice, and he therefore said: "Whom will ye that I release unto you?  Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" This Barabbas had been arrested in a recent tumult, and his name meant the son of the father, so that there was a kind of derisive analogy between it and the title of the true Son of the divine Father.  Origen goes even further and asserts that, according to certain versions of the Evangelical text, Barabbas also bore the name of Jesus.  In fact, the Armenian text reads thus: "Which will ye that I release unto you?  Jesus Barabbas or Jesus which is called Christ?" The choice of the people would seem strange if we left out of consideration the way in which they had been plied with suggestions by the Chief Priests.  Moreover this Barabbas, who was probably a Zealot and a Galilean, would appear to have been popular.  Then, again, the solemn teaching of Jesus must have been very unpalatable to many, whilst the coarse jokes and swaggering boasting of the agitator appealed to the sympathies of the mob.  The crowds parted to admit him when he was set free, with every manifestation of joy, and it was Jesus, their benefactor and Saviour, Whose death they wished to secure.  More than one of the Lord's friends must, however, have been amongst the ever-increasing masses of people, but fear closed their lips, and when, later, a few expressions of pity escaped them as the Victim passed by, they had absolutely no effect upon the relentless populace.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam