"Crucify him!" was the answer.
Pilate endeavored to give the fury of the mob another victim: the criminal Barabbas was brought forth and confronted with Christ. The basest of human beings and the noblest! But the spectacle did not move them, for the patience and serenity of the Martyr expressed a grandeur which shamed them all, and this was the intolerable offense! The sight of the scourged, bleeding body did not cool their vengeance because they saw that the spirit was unbroken! It must be quelled, that it might not rise in judgment against them, for they had gone too far, the ill-treated victim was a reproach to them--he could not be suffered to live longer.
"Release Barabbas! To death with the Nazarene, crucify him!"
Vainly the governor strove to persuade the people. The cool, circumspect man was too weak to defy these powers of hatred--he would fain save Christ, yet was unwilling to drive the fanatics to extremes. So he yielded, but the grief with which he did so, "to avert a greater misfortune," absolved him from the terrible guilt whose curse he cast upon the leaders' head.
The expression with which he pronounced the sentence, uttered the words: "Then take ye Him and crucify Him!" voices the grief of the man of culture for eternal beauty.
The bloodthirsty mob burst into a yell of exultation when their victim was delivered to them--now they could cool their vengeance on Him! "To Golgotha--hence with him to the place of skulls!"
Christ--and Thy sacrifice is for these. Alas, the day will come, though perchance not for thousands of years, when Thou wilt perceive that they were not worthy of it. But that will be the day of judgment!
A crowd surged though the streets of Jerusalem--in their midst the condemned man, burdened with the instrument of his own martyrdom.
In one corner amid the populace stood Mary, surrounded by a group of friends, and the mother beheld her son urged forward, like a beast which, when it falls, is forced up with lashes and pressed on till it sinks lifeless.
High above in the vaulted heavens, veiled by the gathering dude of evening, the gods whispered to one another with secret horror as they watched the unprecedented sight. Often as they might behold it, they could never believe it.