Church Fathers Commentary John 19:12-18

"Upon this Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar`s friend: every one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment-seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the Preparation of the passover: it was about the sixth hour. And he saith unto the Jews, Behold, your King! They therefore cried out, Away with [him], away with [him], crucify him! Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then therefore he delivered him unto them to be crucified. They took Jesus therefore: and he went out, bearing the cross for himself, unto the place called The place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha: where they crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst." — John 19:12-18 (ASV)

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.