The governor answered and said unto them, Which of the two will you that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But the Governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. That Isaiah , after he had given them time for consideration, he again asked them, and demanded an answer.
Bede (on Mark 15:9) strikingly remarks, "The demand they made still cleaves to them. For as they preferred a robber to Jesus, a murderer to the Saviour, the destroyer to the Giver of Life, they deservedly lost both their property and their life. They were reduced, indeed, so low by violence and sedition as to forfeit the independence of their country, which they had preferred to Christ, and cared not to recover the liberty of body and soul which they had bartered away."
A1legorically: "Their choice of Barabbas foreshadowed," says S. Jerome, "that robber Antichrist, whom they would hereafter choose in the end of the world." And S. Ambrose (in Luke 22), "Barabbas means the son of a father. They, therefore, to whom it was said, "Ye are of your father the devil,"...
Which . of the two, said Pilate to them, will you have released? St. Mark tells us, that at the instigation of the priests, the people petitioned for Barabbas. It was no small disappointment to Pilate. What then, said he, shall I do with Jesus? They all answer, let him be crucified. In St. Luke, crucify him, crucify him. What evil hath he done? replied Pilate; and this he repeated thrice, according to St. Luke, xxiii. 22.
Here in order followed the cruel scourging of our blessed Saviour, which Pilate consented to, in hopes to move the people to compassion. This was executed with the utmost cruelty. For they assembled the whole band of soldiers, commonly about 600. And they made him one wound from head to foot. Then a scarlet or purple coat was thrown over his shoulders: and platting or wreathing a crown of thorns, i.e. twisting sharp thorns, with some resemblance of a crown, they violently pressed it down on his head; and struck him at their pleasure with a reed, or cane, which they h...
