Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

But there could be another reason why Pilate did not assent at once. He was, as we know from a variety of ancient witnesses, more hostile than friendly toward the Jews. The Jewish philosopher Philo wrote in his Legatio ad Gaium that “[he did not wish] to do anything which could be acceptable to his [Jewish] subjects” (XXXVIII, 303). We may suspect that as soon as Pilate determined that the Jewish authorities were trying to use him to get rid of their hated Galilean he immediately opposed their wishes.

Thus there are certainly reasons for Pilate’s striking efforts to set Jesus free. But he could not permit himself simply to send the accusers home and release Jesus on the spot. The charge of political uprising was too serious for that. According to the evangelists Matthew, Mark, and John, the Roman prefect was accustomed to release a prisoner for the Jews at Passover (Matt 27:15; Mark 15:6; John 18:39). Perhaps the Jewish committee appointed to present the petition for pardon had already arrived at the praetorium early in the morning. It may be, however, that they only appeared at a later time (so Mark 15:8). In any case, the candidate had long since been chosen; he was a certain Barabbas, who was in prison with a number of other men who had started an “uprising” and in the process had committed murder. This uprising, which had probably occurred quite recently, could have been an assassination or an attack directed against the Romans. Mark’s striking formulation (cf. 15:7) suggests that Barabbas was not the head of the group but an accomplice or—to speak cautiously—one of those accused of complicity. The delegation would have been made up primarily of relatives and friends of Barabbas.

Pilate must have known already that this year he would be asked to issue the usual Passover pardon to Barabbas, imprisoned for sedition. It would be nave to suppose that on that Friday morning Pilate did not already know the concrete expectations of the delegation. Apparently, however, he wanted to avoid pardoning Barabbas. He probably saw a major risk in releasing a man who had been arrested while committing a terrorist act, a risk that ran absolutely contrary to his own interests and those of Rome. On the other hand, a prisoner had to be released at the Passover festival—the custom is much too firmly attested by the gospels to be in doubt. In this situation it must have impressed itself on Pilate as an utterly ideal solution to suggest that Jesus be released. At first glance such a solution would have seemed to him suited to his purposes in every respect: in this way Pilate would get rid of the altogether unpleasant “Jesus case” and at the same time avoid pardoning Barabbas.

The details of the prefect’s calculated game can no longer be reconstructed, but we have good grounds for assuming that his efforts to release Jesus resulted, among other reasons, from the tactical calculation that he could thus avoid letting the rebellious Barabbas go, something that was much more dangerous to himself.

But then this very calculation proved to be a wrong estimate with serious consequences. Pilate apparently reckoned far too little with the fact that his opposite numbers in the deal could harden their support for Barabbas, and he had also probably underestimated by far the energy with which the Jewish officials were pursuing Jesus’ execution. But above all, when he suggested that Jesus be pardoned rather than Barabbas, he had, in fact, confirmed Jesus’ guilt to the public. His tactics had now really brought him into a situation in which pressure could be put on him.

Evidently this new situation was immediately perceived and seized upon by Jesus’ opponents. The prefect was very quickly faced with a massed outcry that settled into chants against Jesus: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” (Mark 15:13-14). Suddenly the situation was different. Pilate, through his apparently clever strategy, had allowed the judicial decision to be taken out of his hands. He had not decided the guilt or innocence of the accused simply as an impartial judge. By trying to make the innocent man into a subject for pardon he had combined the judicial and political levels.

So it is no surprise that in the end, under the increasing pressure, he made his decision purely on the political level—and now against Jesus. He abandoned his original goal of securing Barabbas’s execution by pardoning Jesus, and he condemned Jesus to death on a cross as a political rebel and traitor. Probably he uttered the usual formula: Ibis in crucem (You will go to the cross).

Execution