A scene of tumult and clamor ensued, the rulers crying out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Then Pilate said, “Ye have brought this man unto me as one that perverteth the people; and behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod; for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him.I will therefore chastise him and release him.”[70]
Still the clamor rose, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate was seriously troubled. While these scenes had been transpiring, his wife had sent a messenger to him, saying,—
“Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”
But Pilate had force of character only in wickedness. In violation of every dictate of his judgment, he surrendered Jesus to his foes. “When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water,and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to it.”
The Jews replied, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Pilate then, having released Barabbas, again ordered Jesus to be scourged, and delivered him to the Jews to be crucified. The soldiers led Jesus into the common hall of the palace, and summoned all their comrades to take part in the awful tragedy in which they were engaged.
First they stripped Jesus, then put on him a scarlet robe, placed a crown of thorns upon his head, put a reed in his hand, and bowed the knee before him, and derisively exclaimed, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
At length, weary of the mockery, they took off his imperial robes, clothed him again in his own garments, spat upon him, smote him on the head with the reed, and led him away to crucify him. A heavy wooden cross was placed upon the shoulders of Jesus, which he was to bear outside of the walls of the city, where it was to be planted, and he was to be nailed to it. Exhausted by the sufferings which he had already endured, he soon sank fainting beneath the load. The soldiers met a stranger from Cyrene, and compelled him to bear the cross. Thus they proceeded, followed by an immense crowd of people, men and women, many of the women weeping bitterly. Jesus turned to them, and said,—
“Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.For, if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry.”[71]
They came to a small eminence, a short distance from the city, and beyond its walls, which was called Mount Calvary, sometimes Golgotha. The place of the execution of Jesus is not now known. He was nailed by his hands and his feet tothe cross, and the cross was planted in the ground. By his side two thieves suffered the same punishment. Jesus, as in this hour of terrible agony he looked down from the cross upon his foes, was heard to breathe the prayer, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Pilate wrote the inscription, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” This, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, was nailed over the cross. The Jews wished to have it changed to “He said I am the King of the Jews;” but Pilate refused to make the alteration. Of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus, one was obdurate. Even in that hour of suffering and death he could revile Jesus, saying, “If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us.” The other, in the spirit of true penitence, rebuked the companion of his crimes, saying,—