Still frowning, Pilate turned once again to question the prisoner standing calmly before the tribunal, his face streaked with drying sweat and blood, his robe turned deep crimson from the whip’s fearful wounds, his matted hair still crowned with the circlet of thorns. “They say you claim to be the son of their god,” he said. “What do they mean? Tell me, where do you come from?”
Jesus appeared lost in introspection. If he heard the Procurator’s question, he ignored it. An infinite sadness seemed to possess him.
But Pilate, still scowling, perhaps upset further because of his wife’s message and the manner in which it had been brought to him, revealed his impatience. “Will you answer me?” he asked testily. “Don’t you know that I have the power either to release you or to condemn you?”
Calmly, looking the Procurator in the eyes and with no tone of rancor, Jesus replied. “You would have no power over me were it not granted you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me to you”—he pointed toward the esplanade where the High Priest and his cohorts awaited—“has a greater guilt than you.”
Once again the Procurator stepped down from the tribunal and strode out to the pavement in front of the Praetorium. “Bring forth the prisoner,” he commanded. “And have Bar Abbas brought to me, too.”
“I shall release to you a Passover prisoner,” he announced to the multitude when the two scourged prisoners stood before him. “Here stand a robber and assassin”—he pointed toward Bar Abbas—“and”—he smiled grimly as he waved his hand toward the Galilean—“your King of the Jews. Which shall I release?”
“Bar Abbas! Bar Abbas!” the people howled, and Pilate could see the priests exhorting them to shout their demands. “Release Bar Abbas! Bar Abbas!”
“But what shall I do with the King of the Jews?”
“Crucify him! Crucify him!” they stormed. “Release unto us Bar Abbas!”
“He is not our king!” shouted Caiaphas. “We have no king but Caesar!”