Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
All Commentaries on Matthew 27:26 Go To Matthew 27
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Why did Pilate have Jesus whipped? Either as one presumably condemned, or to please the crowd, or as if he were willing to give their judgment some sort of standard legal expression. And yet he ought to have resisted them. For indeed even before this he had said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” There were many reasons that Pilate and the others might have held back: the signs and the miracles, the great patience of the one who was suffering these things, and above all his benign silence. For since both by his defense of himself and by his prayers, he had shown his humanity, again he now shows his glory and the greatness of his nature, both by his silence and by his indifference to what they said. This might have led them to marvel. But neither Pilate nor the crowd takes sufficient note of these evidences. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily
