After Jesus, being sent back by Herod, was returned upon his hands, Pilate, according to Luke, once more called together the Sanhedrists and the people, and declared, alleging in his support the judgment of Herod as accordant with his own, his wish to dismiss Jesus with chastisement; for which purpose he might avail himself of the custom of releasing a prisoner at the feast of the passover.[110] This circumstance, which is somewhat abridged in Luke, is more fully exhibited in the other Evangelists, especially in Matthew. As the privilege to entreat the release of a prisoner belonged to the people, Pilate, well knowing that Jesus was persecuted by the rulers out of jealousy, sought to turn to his advantage the better disposition of the people towards him; and in order virtually to oblige them to free Jesus, whom, partly out of mockery of the Jews, partly to deter them from his execution as degrading to themselves, he named the Messiah or King of the Jews, he reminded them that their choice lay between him and a notable prisoner, δέσμιος ἐπίσημος, Barabbas,[111] whom John designates as a robber, λῃστής, but Mark and Luke as one who was imprisoned for insurrection and murder. This plan however failed, for the people, suborned, as the two first Evangelists observe, by their rulers, with one voice desired the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus.
As a circumstance which had especial weight with Pilate in favour of Jesus, and moved him to make the proposal relative to Barabbas as urgently as possible, it is stated by Matthew that while the procurator sat on his tribunal, his wife,[112] in consequence of a disturbing dream, sent to him a warning to incur no responsibility in relation to that just man ([xxvii. 19]). Not only Paulus, but even Olshausen, explains this dream as a natural result of what Pilate’s wife might have heard of Jesus and of his capture on the preceding evening; to which may be added as an explanatory conjecture, the notice of the Evangelium Nicodemi, that she was pious, θεοσεβὴς, and judaizing, ἰουδαΐζουσα.[113] Nevertheless, as constantly in the New Testament, and particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, dreams are regarded as a special dispensation from heaven, so this assuredly in the opinion of the narrator happened non sine numine; and hence it should be possible to conceive a motive and an object for the dispensation. If the dream were really intended to prevent the death of Jesus, taking the orthodox point of view, in which this death was necessary for the salvation of man, we must be led to the opinion of some of the ancients, that it may have been the devil who suggested that dream to the wife of the procurator, in order to hinder the propitiatory death;[114] if on the [[674]]contrary, the dream were not intended to prevent the death of Jesus, its object must have been limited to Pilate or his wife. But as far as Pilate was concerned, so late a warning could only aggravate his guilt, without sufficing to deter him from the step already half taken; while that his wife was converted by means of this dream, as many have supposed,[115] is totally unattested by history or tradition, and such an object is not intimated in the narrative. But, as the part which Pilate himself plays in the evangelical narrative is such as to exhibit the blind hatred of the fellow-countrymen of Jesus in contrast with the impartial judgment of a Gentile; so his wife is made to render a testimony to Jesus, in order that, not only out of the mouth of babes and sucklings ([Matt. xxi. 16]), but also out of the mouth of a weak woman, praise might be prepared for him; and to increase its importance it is traced to a significant dream. To give this an appearance of probability, similar instances are adduced from profane history of dreams which have acted as presentiments and warnings before a sanguinary catastrophe:[116] but the more numerous are these analogous cases, the more is the suspicion excited that as the majority of these, so also the dream in our evangelical passage, may have been fabricated after the event, for the sake of heightening its tragical effect.
When the Jews, in reply to the repeated questions of Pilate, vehemently and obstinately demand the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus, the two intermediate Evangelists represent him as at once yielding to their desire; but Matthew first interposes a ceremony and a colloquy ([xxvii. 24 ff.]). According to him Pilate calls for water, washes his hands before the people, and declares himself innocent of the blood of this just man. The washing of the hands, as a protestation of purity from the guilt of shedding blood, was a custom specifically Jewish, according to [Deut. xxi. 6 f.][117] It has been thought improbable that the Roman should have here intentionally imitated this Jewish custom, and hence it has been contended, that to any one who wished so solemnly to declare his innocence nothing would more readily suggest itself than the act of washing the hands.[118] But that an individual, apart from any allusion to a known usage, should invent extemporaneously a symbolical act, or even that he should merely fall in with the custom of a foreign nation, would require him to be deeply interested in the fact which he intends to symbolize. That Pilate, however, should be deeply interested in attesting his innocence of the execution of Jesus, is not so probable as that the Christians should have been deeply interested in thus gaining a testimony to the innocence of their Messiah: whence there arises a suspicion that perhaps Pilate’s act of washing his hands owes its origin to them alone. This conjecture is confirmed, when we consider the declaration with which Pilate accompanies his symbolical act: I am innocent of the blood of this just man, ἀθῶός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ δικαίου τούτου. For that the judge should publicly and emphatically designate as a just man, δίκαιος, one whom he was nevertheless delivering over to the severest infliction of the law,—this even Paulus finds so contradictory that he here, contrary to his usual mode of exposition, supposes that the narrator himself expresses in these words his own interpretation of Pilate’s symbolical act. It is surprising that he is not also struck by the equal improbability of the answer which is attributed to the Jews on this occasion. After Pilate has declared himself guiltless [[675]]of the blood of Jesus, and by the addition: see ye to it, has laid the responsibility on the Jews, it is said in Matthew that all the people πᾶς ὁ λαὸς, cried: His blood be on us and on our children, τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς καὶ τὰ τέκνα ἡμῶν. But this is obviously spoken from the point of view of the Christians, who in the miseries which shortly after the death of Jesus fell with continually increasing weight on the Jewish nation, saw nothing else than the payment of the debt of blood which they had incurred by the crucifixion of Jesus: so that this whole episode, which is peculiar to the first gospel, is in the highest degree suspicious.
According to Matthew and Mark, Pilate now caused Jesus to be scourged, preparatory to his being led away to crucifixion. Here the scourging appears to correspond to the virgis cædere, which according to Roman usage preceded the securi percutere, and to the scourging of slaves prior to crucifixion.[119] In Luke it has a totally different character. While in the two former Evangelists it is said: When he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified, τὸν δὲ Ἰ. φραγελλώσας παρέδωκεν ἵνα σταυρωθῇ: in Luke, Pilate repeatedly ([v. 16] and [22]) makes the proposal: having chastised him I will let him go, παιδεύσας αὐτὸν ἀπολύσω: i.e. while there the scourging has the appearance of a mere accessory of the crucifixion, here it appears to be intended as a substitute for the crucifixion: Pilate wishes by this chastisement to appease the hatred of the enemies of Jesus, and induce them to desist from demanding his execution. Again, while in Luke the scourging does not actually take place,—because the Jews will in nowise accede to the repeated proposal of Pilate: in John the latter causes Jesus to be scourged, exhibits him to the people with the purple robe and the crown of thorns and tries whether his pitiable aspect, together with the repeated declaration of his innocence, will not mollify their embittered minds: this, however, proving also in vain ([xix. 1 ff.]). Thus there exists a contradiction between the Evangelists in relation to the scourging of Jesus, which is not to be conciliated after the method of Paulus, namely by paraphrasing the words τὸν Ἰ. φραγελλώσας παρέδοκεν ἵνα σταυρωθῇ in Matthew and Mark thus: Jesus, whom he had already before scourged in order to save him, suffered this in vain, since he was still delivered over to crucifixion. But, acknowledging the difference in the accounts, we must only ask, which of the two has the advantage as regards historical probability? Although it is certainly not to be proved that scourging before crucifixion was a Roman custom admitting no exception: still, on the other hand, it is a purely harmonistic effort to allege, that scourging was only made to precede crucifixion in cases where the punishment was intended to be particularly severe,[120] and that consequently Pilate, who had no wish to be cruel to Jesus, can only have caused him to be scourged with the special design which Luke and John mention, and which is also to be understood in the narratives of their predecessors. It is far more probable that in reality the scourging only took place as it is described by the two first Evangelists, namely, as an introduction to the crucifixion, and that the Christian legend (to which that side of Pilate’s character, in virtue of which he endeavoured in various ways to save Jesus, was particularly welcome as a testimony against the Jews) gave such a turn even to the fact of the scourging as to obtain from it a new attempt at release on the part of Pilate. This use of the fact is only incipient in the third gospel, for here the scourging is a mere proposal of Pilate: whereas in the fourth, the scourging actually takes place, and becomes an additional act in the drama. [[676]]
With the scourging is connected in the two first gospels and the fourth, the maltreatment and mockery of Jesus by the soldiers, who attired him in a purple robe, placed a crown of thorns on his head,[121] put, according to Matthew, a reed in his hand, and in this disguise first greeted him as King of the Jews, and then smote and maltreated him.[122] Luke does not mention any derision on the part of the soldiers here, but he has something similar in his narrative of the interrogation of Jesus before Herod, for he represents this prince with his men of war, σύν τοῖς στρατεύμασιν αὐτοῦ, as mocking Jesus, and sending him back to Pilate in a gorgeous robe, ἐσθὴς λαμπρά. Many suppose that this was the same purple robe which was afterwards put on Jesus by the soldiers of Pilate; but it must rather have been thrice that Jesus had to wear this disguise, if we take the narrative of John into the account and at the same time refuse to attribute error to any of the synoptists: first in the presence of Herod (Luke); secondly, before Pilate brought Jesus forth to the Jews, that he might excite their compassion with the words: Behold the man, ἴδε ὁ ἄνθρωπος (John); thirdly, after he was delivered to the soldiers for crucifixion (Matthew and Mark). This repetition is as improbable as it is probable that the one disguising of Jesus, which had come to the knowledge of the Evangelists, was assigned by them to different places and times, and ascribed to different persons.
While in the two first gospels the process of trial is already concluded before the scourging, and in the third, on the rejection of his proposal to scourge and release Jesus by the Jews, Pilate forthwith delivers him to be crucified: in the fourth Evangelist the scene of the trial is further developed in the following manner. When even the exhibition of Jesus scourged and disguised avails nothing, but his crucifixion is obstinately demanded, the procurator is incensed, and cries to the Jews, that they may take him and crucify him themselves, for he finds no fault in him. The Jews reply that according to their law he must die, since he had made himself the Son of God υἱὸς θεοῦ; a remark which affects Pilate with a superstitious fear, whence he once more leads Jesus into the Prætorium, and inquires concerning his origin (whether it be really heavenly), on which Jesus gives him no answer, and when the procurator seeks to alarm him by reminding him of the power which he possesses over his life, refers to the higher source from whence he had this power. Pilate, after this reply, seeks (yet more earnestly than before) to release Jesus; but at last the Jews hit upon the right means of making him accede to their will, by throwing out the intimation that, if he release Jesus who has opposed himself to Cæsar as an usurper, he cannot be Cæsar’s friend. Thus, intimidated by the possibility of his being calumniated to Tiberius, he mounts the tribunal, and, since he cannot prosecute his will, betakes himself to derision of the Jews in the question, whether they then wish that he should crucify their king? Whereupon they, keeping to the position which they had last taken with such evident effect, protest that they will have no king but Cæsar. The procurator now consents to deliver Jesus to be crucified, for which purpose, as the two first Evangelists remark, the purple mantle was removed, and he was again attired in his own clothes. [[677]]
§ 132.
THE CRUCIFIXION.
Even concerning the progress of Jesus to the place of crucifixion there is a divergency between the synoptists and John, for according to the latter Jesus himself carried his cross thither ([xix. 17]), while the former state that one Simon a Cyrenian bore it in his stead ([Matt. xxvii. 32] parall.). The commentators indeed, as if a real agreement were assumed as a matter of course, reconcile these statements thus: at first Jesus himself endeavoured to bear the cross, but as the attempt made it obvious that he was too much exhausted, it was laid on Simon.[123] But when John says: And he bearing his cross went forth into—Golgotha, where they crucified him, καὶ βαστάζων τὸν σταυρὸν αὑτοῦ ἐξῆλθεν εἰς—Γολγοθᾶ· ὅπου αὐτὸν ἐσταύρωσαν: he plainly presupposes that the cross was borne by Jesus on the way thither.[124] But the statement so unanimously given by the synoptists respecting the substitution of Simon appears the less capable of being rejected, the more difficult it is to discover a motive which might lead to its fabrication. On the contrary, this individual trait might very probably have remained unknown in the circle in which the fourth gospel had its origin, and the author might have thought that, according to the general custom, Jesus must have carried his cross. All the synoptists designate this Simon as a Cyrenian, i.e. probably one who had come to Jerusalem to the feast, from the Libyan city of Cyrene, where many Jews resided.[125] According to all, the carrying of the cross was forced upon him, a circumstance which can as little be urged for as against the opinion that he was favourable to Jesus.[126] According to Luke and Mark, the man came directly out of the country, ἀπ’ ἀγροῦ, and as he attempted to pass by the crowd advancing to the place of crucifixion, he was made use of to relieve Jesus. Mark designates him yet more particularly as the father of Alexander and Rufus, who appear to have been noted persons in the primitive church (comp. [Rom. xvi. 13]; [Acts xix. 33] (?); [1 Tim. i. 20] (?); [2 Tim. iv. 14] (?)).[127]