Church Fathers Commentary John 19

St. Augustine of Hippo: When the Jews cried out that they did not want Jesus released for the Passover, but Barabbas instead, Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. Pilate seems to have done this for no other reason than to satisfy the malice of the Jews with a punishment short of death. For this reason, he allowed his soldiers to do what followed, or perhaps even commanded them. However, the Evangelist only says that the soldiers did this, not that Pilate commanded them: And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote Him with their hands.

St. John Chrysostom: Since Pilate had called Him the King of the Jews, they put the royal dress on Him in mockery.

The Venerable Bede: For instead of a diadem, they put a crown of thorns on Him, and a purple robe to represent the royal purple that kings wear. Matthew says it was a scarlet robe, but scarlet and purple are different names for the same color. And though the soldiers did this in mockery, their acts have a meaning for us. For the crown of thorns signifies His taking of our sins upon Himself—the thorns which the earth of our body brings forth. And the purple robe signifies the flesh crucified. For our Lord is robed in purple wherever He is glorified by the triumphs of holy martyrs.

St. John Chrysostom: They did not do this at the governor's command, but to gratify the Jews. For they were not commanded by him to go to the garden at night either; rather, the Jews gave them money to go. However, He bore all these insults silently. Yet when you hear of them, keep steadfastly in your mind the King of the whole earth and Lord of Angels bearing all these insults in silence, and imitate His example.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Thus was fulfilled what Christ had prophesied about Himself; thus were martyrs taught to suffer all that the malice of persecutors could inflict; thus that kingdom which was not of this world conquers the proud world, not by fierce fighting, but by patient suffering.

St. John Chrysostom: So that the Jews might cease from their fury on seeing Him thus insulted, Pilate brought Jesus out before them crowned. Pilate therefore went forth again and says to them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Thus it is clear that these things were not done without Pilate’s knowledge—whether he commanded or only permitted them—for the reason we have mentioned: namely, that His enemies, seeing the insults heaped upon Him, might no longer thirst for His blood. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe—not the insignia of empire, but the marks of ridicule. And Pilate says to them, Behold the man!—as if to say, "If you envy the King, then spare the outcast. The humiliation is overflowing; let your envy subside."

St. Augustine of Hippo: The envy of the Jews did not subside at Christ’s disgrace; instead, it grew. When the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him.

St. John Chrysostom: Pilate then saw that it was all in vain and said to them, Take Him yourselves and crucify Him. This is the speech of a man who abhors the deed, urging others to do something that he himself abhors.

They had indeed brought our Lord to him so that He might be put to death by his sentence, but the very opposite was the result; the governor acquitted Him, saying, For I find no fault in Him. He immediately cleared Him of all charges, which shows that he had only permitted the previous outrages to humor the madness of the Jews.

But nothing could shame the Jewish hounds. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Behold, another, greater outbreak of envy. The previous charge was less severe, meant only to punish Him for aspiring to usurp royal power.

Yet Jesus did not make either claim falsely; both were true. He was both the Only-begotten Son of God and the King appointed by God on the holy hill of Zion. And He would have demonstrated His right to both now, had He not been as patient as He was powerful.

St. John Chrysostom: While they disputed with each other, He was silent, fulfilling the prophecy: He does not open His mouth; He was taken from prison and from judgment.

St. Augustine of Hippo: This agrees with Luke’s account—We found this fellow perverting the nation—but with the addition of the charge that He made Himself the Son of God.

St. John Chrysostom: Then Pilate began to fear that what had been said might be true and that he might appear to be administering justice improperly. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid.

The Venerable Bede: It was not the law he was afraid of, since he was a foreigner, but he was more afraid that he might slay the Son of God.

St. John Chrysostom: They were not afraid to say this—that He made Himself the Son of God—but they killed Him for the very reasons for which they ought to have worshiped Him.

St. John Chrysostom: Pilate, agitated with fear, began to examine Him again. He went back into the judgment hall and said to Jesus, “Where are you?” He no longer asked, “What have you done?” But Jesus gave him no answer.

For the one who had heard, To this end was I born, and for this cause I came into the world, and, My kingdom is not from here, should have resisted and rescued Him. Instead, he had yielded to the fury of the Jews. Therefore, seeing that Pilate was asking questions without any real purpose, Jesus answered him no more. Indeed, at other times He was unwilling to give reasons or defend Himself with arguments when His works already testified so strongly for Him, thus showing that He came to His passion voluntarily.

St. Augustine of Hippo: In comparing the accounts of the different Evangelists, we find that this silence was maintained more than once: namely, before the High Priest, before Herod, and before Pilate. Thus, the prophecy concerning Him, As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth, was amply fulfilled. Indeed, He did reply to many of the questions put to Him, but where He did not reply, this comparison to the sheep shows us that His silence was not one of guilt, but of innocence; not of self-condemnation, but of compassion and a willingness to suffer for the sins of others.

St. John Chrysostom: As Jesus remained silent, Pilate then said to Him, Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and have power to release you? See how he condemns himself. If all depends on you, why, when you find no fault in Him, do you not acquit Him?

St. Augustine of Hippo: So Jesus answered. When He was silent, He was silent not as one who is guilty or crafty, but as a sheep. When He answered, He taught as a shepherd.

Let us hear what He taught. He teaches, as He also does through His Apostle, that there is no power but of God. He also teaches that the one who, through envy, delivers an innocent person to a higher power—who then puts that person to death out of fear of an even greater power—still sins more than that higher power itself.

God had given such power to Pilate that he was still under Caesar’s authority. Therefore, our Lord says, You could have no power at all against Me unless it were given you from above. Since that power was not so great as to give Pilate complete freedom of action, our Lord adds, Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.

The one who delivered Jesus did so from envy, while Pilate would exercise that power from fear. And though a person ought not to kill another from fear, especially an innocent person, to do so from envy is much worse. Therefore, our Lord does not say that the one who delivered Him has the sin, as if Pilate had none. Instead, He says he has the greater sin, implying that Pilate also had some.

Theophylact of Ohrid: The one who delivered Me to you refers to Judas or the multitude. When Jesus had boldly replied that Pilate could have no power over Him unless He gave Himself up and the Father consented, Pilate became even more anxious to release Him: And from then on Pilate sought to release Him.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Pilate had sought to release Jesus from the beginning, so we must understand the phrase from then on to mean “for this reason”—that is, so that he would not incur guilt by putting an innocent person to death.

John 19:12-16a

St. Augustine of Hippo: The Jews thought they could alarm Pilate more by mentioning Caesar than by telling him of their law, as they had done before when they said, “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” So it follows. But the Jews cried out, saying, “If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar’s friend; whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.”

St. John Chrysostom: But how can you prove this? By His purple, His diadem, His chariot, or His guards? Did He not go about with only His twelve disciples, with everything about Him being humble—His food, dress, and lodging?

St. Augustine of Hippo: Pilate was afraid before, not of violating their law by sparing Him, but of killing the Son of God by executing Him. But he could not treat his master Caesar with the same contempt with which he treated the law of a foreign nation. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha.

St. John Chrysostom: He went out to examine the matter, and his sitting down on the judgment seat shows this.

Glossa Ordinaria: The tribunal is the seat of the judge, as the throne is the seat of the king, and the chair is the seat of the teacher.

The Venerable Bede: Lithostrotos, that is, “laid with stone”; the word signifies pavement. It was an elevated place.

Alcuin of York: Parasceve means “preparation.” This was a name for the sixth day, the day before the Sabbath, on which they prepared what was necessary for the Sabbath, as we read, “On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread.” Just as man was made on the sixth day and God rested on the seventh, so Christ suffered on the sixth day and rested in the grave on the seventh.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Why then does Mark say, “And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him”? It is because our Lord was crucified at the third hour by the tongues of the Jews, and at the sixth hour by the hands of the soldiers. We must understand, then, that the fifth hour had passed and the sixth had begun when Pilate sat down on the judgment seat (as John says, “about the sixth hour”). The crucifixion and all that took place with it filled the remainder of that hour. From that time until the ninth hour there was darkness, according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Since the Jews tried to transfer the guilt of putting Christ to death from themselves to the Romans—that is, to Pilate and his soldiers—Mark omitted the hour when He was crucified by the soldiers and instead expressly recorded the third hour. He did this to make it evident that the crucifiers were not only the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross at the sixth hour, but also the Jews who cried out for His death at the third hour.

There is another way of resolving this difficulty: the “sixth hour” here may not mean the sixth hour of the day. John does not say, “It was about the sixth hour of the day,” but, “It was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour.” “Parasceve” means “preparation” in Latin. For as the Apostle says, “Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us.” The preparation for this Passover can be counted from the ninth hour of the night, which seems to be when the chief priests pronounced judgment on our Lord’s sacrifice, saying, “He is guilty of death.” The interval between that moment and the third hour of the day, when He was crucified according to Mark, is six hours—three of the night and three of the day.

Theophylact of Ohrid: Some suppose it to be a transcriber's error, where the scribe wrote the letter for “six” instead of the letter for “three.”

St. John Chrysostom: Pilate, despairing of persuading them, did not examine Him as he had intended, but delivered Him up. And he says to the Jews, “Behold your King!”

Theophylact of Ohrid: It was as if to say, “See the kind of man you suspect of aspiring to the throne—a humble person who could not have any such design.”

St. John Chrysostom: This was a speech that should have softened their rage, but they were afraid of letting Him go, fearing He might draw the multitude away again. For the love of power is a serious crime and sufficient to condemn a man. They cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him!” And they resolved upon the most disgraceful kind of death, crying, “Crucify Him,” in order to prevent any memory of Him from remaining afterward.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Pilate still tried to overcome their fears about Caesar. He said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” He tried to shame them into doing what he had not been able to persuade them to do by shaming Christ.

St. John Chrysostom: They voluntarily brought themselves under punishment, and God gave them up to it. With one accord they denied the kingdom of God, and God allowed them to fall into their own condemnation, for they rejected the kingdom of Christ and called down upon their own heads the kingdom of Caesar.

St. Augustine of Hippo: But Pilate was at last overcome by fear: “Then he delivered Him therefore to them to be crucified.” It would be taking part openly against Caesar if, after the Jews declared they had no king but Caesar, he tried to put another king over them. This is what he would appear to be doing if he let a man go unpunished whom they had delivered to him for this very reason. The text does not say, however, that he “delivered Him to them to crucify Him,” but “to be crucified”—that is, by the sentence and authority of the governor. The Evangelist says he “delivered Him to them” to show that they were implicated in the guilt from which they tried to escape, for Pilate would not have done this except to please them.

John 19:16b-18

Glossa Ordinaria: By the governor's command, the soldiers took Christ to be crucified: “And they took Jesus, and led Him away.”

St. Augustine of Hippo: “They” refers to the soldiers, the governor's guards, as appears more clearly later: “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus...” The Evangelist, however, could have justly attributed the entire act to the Jews, who were truly the authors of what they arranged to have done.

St. John Chrysostom: They compelled Jesus to bear the cross, regarding it as unholy and therefore avoiding its touch themselves. “And He, bearing His cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified Him.” The same was done symbolically by Isaac, who carried the wood. But in that case, the matter only proceeded as far as his father’s good pleasure required; now, however, it was fully accomplished, for the reality had appeared.

Theophylact of Ohrid: But just as Isaac was let go and a ram was offered, so here too the divine nature remains impassible. The human nature, however—of which the ram was the type, the offspring of that straying ram—was slain. But why does another Evangelist say that they compelled Simon to bear the cross?

St. Augustine of Hippo: Both bore it: first Jesus, as John says, and then Simon, as the other three Evangelists say. On first going out, He bore His own cross.

It was a great spectacle: to the profane, a laughingstock; to the pious, a mystery. Profanity sees a King bearing a cross instead of a scepter; piety sees a King bearing a cross, on which to nail Himself, and afterward to nail it on the foreheads of kings. What was contemptible to profane eyes was something the hearts of the saints would later glory in. Christ displayed His own cross on His shoulders, bearing the candlestick for that candle which was not to be put under a bushel, but was now about to burn.

St. John Chrysostom: He carried the badge of victory on His shoulders, as conquerors do. Some say that the place of Calvary was where Adam died and was buried, so that in the very place where death reigned, Jesus erected His trophy.

St. Jerome: This is a fitting connection, and smooth to the ear, but it is not true. The place where they cut off the heads of men condemned to death, called Calvary as a consequence, was outside the city gates. In contrast, we read in the book of Joshua, son of Nun, that Adam was buried near Hebron and Arba.

St. John Chrysostom: They crucified Him with the thieves: “and two others with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst,” thus fulfilling the prophecy, “And He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). What they did in wickedness became a gain for the truth. The devil wished to obscure what was done, but he could not. Though three were nailed to the cross, it was evident that Jesus alone performed the miracles, and the devil's schemes were frustrated. Indeed, their actions even added to His glory, for to convert a thief on the cross and bring him into paradise was no less a miracle than the rending of the rocks.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Yes, even the cross, if you consider it, was a judgment seat. With the Judge in the middle, one thief who believed was pardoned, while the other who mocked was condemned. This was a sign of what He would one day do to the living and the dead: place some on His right hand and others on His left.

St. John Chrysostom: As letters are inscribed on a trophy declaring a victory, so Pilate wrote a title on Christ’s cross. He wrote a title and put it on the cross, at once distinguishing Christ from the thieves with Him and exposing the malice of the Jews for rising up against their King. The writing was: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

The Venerable Bede: In this, it was shown that His kingdom was not destroyed, as they thought, but was instead strengthened.

St. Augustine of Hippo: But was Christ the King of the Jews only, or of the Gentiles also? He was King of the Gentiles also, as we read in the Psalms, Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion. After this, it follows, Ask of Me, and I shall give you the nations for your inheritance. So this title expresses a great mystery: namely, that the wild olive tree was made a partaker of the richness of the olive tree, not the olive tree made a partaker of the bitterness of the wild olive tree. Christ, then, is King of the Jews according to the circumcision not of the flesh but of the heart; not in the letter but in the spirit. Therefore, many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

St. John Chrysostom: It is probable that many Gentiles, as well as Jews, had come for the feast. So the title was written in three languages so that all might read it: And it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.

St. Augustine of Hippo: These three were the most well-known languages there: Hebrew, on account of its use in the worship of the Jews; Greek, as a result of the spread of Greek philosophy; and Latin, because the Roman Empire was established everywhere.

Theophylact of Ohrid: The title written in three languages signifies that our Lord was King of the whole world—the practical, the natural, and the spiritual. The Latin denotes the practical, because the Roman Empire was the most powerful and best-managed one; the Greek denotes the natural, as the Greeks were the foremost natural philosophers; and finally, the Hebrew denotes the theological, because the Jews had been made the depositories of religious knowledge.

St. John Chrysostom: But the Jews resented this title for our Lord. The chief priests of the Jews then said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am King of the Jews. For as Pilate wrote it, it was a plain and simple declaration that He was King. However, adding the words "that He said" would have turned it into a charge against Him of arrogance and vainglory. But Pilate was firm. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.

St. Augustine of Hippo: O, the ineffable working of divine power, even in the hearts of ignorant men! Did not some hidden voice sound from within—and, if we may say so, with a clamorous silence—saying to Pilate in the prophetic words of the Psalm, Do not alter the inscription of the title? But what do you say, you mad priests? Will the title be any less true because Jesus said, "I am the King of the Jews"? If what Pilate wrote cannot be altered, can what the Truth spoke be altered? Pilate wrote what he wrote because our Lord said what He said.