Then he delivered him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.
All Commentaries on John 19:16 Go To John 19
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
They, i.e. the soldiers, the guards of the governor, as appears more clearly afterwards; Then the soldiers when they had crucified Jesus; though the Evangelist might justly have attributed the whole to the Jews, who were really the authors of what they procured to be done.
Both bore it; first Jesus, as John says, then Simon, as the other three Evangelists say. On first going forth, He bore His own cross.
Great spectacle, to the profane a laughing-stock, to the pious a mystery. Profaneness sees a King bearing a cross instead of a scepter; piety sees a King bearing across, thereon to nail Himself, and afterwards to nail it on the foreheads of kings. That to profane eyes was contemptible, which the hearts of Saints would afterwards glory in; Christ displaying His own cross on His shoulders, and bearing that which was not to be put under abushel, the candlestick of that candle which was now about to burn.
Yea,even the cross, if you consider it, was a judgment seat: for the Judge being the middle, one thief, who believed, was pardoned, the other, who mocked, was damned: a sign of what He would once do to the quick and dead, place the one on His right hand, the other on His left.
