Then it was, probably, that as St. Luke tells us: “They were more earnest, saying: He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place” (Luke xxiii. 5). “Amid their confused and passionate exclamation, the practised ear of Pilate caught the name of ‘Galilee,’ and he understood that Galilee had been the chief scene of the ministry of Jesus. Eager for a chance of dismissing a business of which he was best pleased to be free, he proposed, by a master-stroke of astute policy, to get rid of an embarrassing prisoner, to save himself from a disagreeable decision, and to do an unexpected complaisancy to the unfriendly Galilean tetrarch, who, as usual, had come to Jerusalem—nominally to keep the Passover, really to please his subjects, and to enjoy the sensations and festivities offered at that season by the densely-crowded capital” (Farrar).
| 39. Est autem consuetudo vobis, ut unum dimittam vobis in pascha: vultis ergo dimittam vobis regem Iudaeorum? | 39. But you have a custom that I should release one unto you at the pasch: will you therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? |
| 40. Clamaverunt ergo rursum omnes dicentes: Non hunc, sed Barabbam. Erat autem Barabbas latro. | 40. Then cried they all again, saying: Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. |
39. Then, after Herod had examined and mocked Christ, he sent Him back to Pilate (Luke xxiii. 8-12); and now it was, after the return from Herod, that Pilate thought of releasing Jesus, in accordance with his custom of releasing a prisoner every year at the festival of the Pasch.
Will you, therefore, that I release unto you the king of the Jews? or as St. Matt. has: “Whom will you that I release to you; Barabbas, or Jesus, that is called Christ?” (Matt. xxvii. 17). Barabbas, as we learn from the Synoptic Evangelists, was a “notorious prisoner,” “who was put in prison with some seditious men, who, in the sedition, had committed murder.” Pilate hoped, therefore, that the release of Jesus rather than of a notorious criminal like Barabbas would be called for. But the people, instigated by the chief-priests [pg 327] and elders (Matt. xxvii. 20), blindly called for the release of Barabbas.
A robber. (λῃιστής), one who appropriates the goods of another by open violence, as opposed to the thief (κλέπτης), who takes what is not his own, secretly and by fraud.
We have followed the view held by Patrizzi and the majority of commentators, that Pilate on only one occasion, and after the return from Herod, proposed our Lord to the Jews as the prisoner to be released. Others, as Father Coleridge and Dr. Walsh, hold that on two different occasions, once before the journey to Herod, as recorded by St. John, and once after, as recorded by the Synoptic Evangelists, Christ was proposed by Pilate as the prisoner to be released. But we are not convinced by the reasons urged in favour of this view. It is argued—(a) from the fact that in St. John the question of releasing a prisoner is first mentioned by Pilate, while in the Synoptic Evangelists the question of having a prisoner released to them is first moved by the people. But we say, in reply, that there is nothing in the Synoptic accounts which forbids us to suppose that Pilate first mentioned the matter, as in St. John: “You have a custom that I should release one unto you at the Pasch;” that then they called upon him to observe the custom on that occasion, and that he forthwith put before them the choice between Jesus and Barabbas. Certainly St. Matt. (xxvii. 17) as well as St. John represents Pilate as the first to refer to the matter.
(b) Father Coleridge argues also from the fact that Pilate, in St. Matt., says to the Jews: “Whom will you that I release to you; Barabbas, or Jesus, that is called Christ?” “That he mentions Barabbas along with our Lord,” says Father Coleridge, “can only be explained by the fact that, as St. John mentions, Barabbas had been already called for by the priests and crowd, when Pilate had, for the first time, spoken of the custom.” But it seems to us that the mention of Barabbas by Pilate is sufficiently explained by the fact which St. Matthew himself had just mentioned in the preceding verse, that Barabbas was a “notorious prisoner;” and hence his name was more familiar to Pilate than the names of the other prisoners. Moreover his well-known guilt encouraged Pilate to hope that if the choice lay between him and Jesus, the Jews would surely call for the release of our Lord.
Before quitting this chapter, it may be well to point out the different tribunals, before which, as we have seen, Jesus was led on this last night and morning of His mortal life.
(1) First, then, He was led from Gethsemane before Annas.
(2) He was led before Caiphas.