The Lord kept a continuous silence at this, "so that the governor was greatly amazed" (Matt. 27:14). Then they mentioned that He was stirring up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning with Galilee (Luke 23:5), and Pilate, then asking: "Is He a Galilean?", sent Him to King Herod, who was also living in Jerusalem on the occasion of the feasts. The Lord's judgment before Herod is reported only by the Evangelist Luke in 23:7-12. Pilate probably hoped to obtain from Herod more definite information about the person and case of the accused, which was not entirely clear to him. From the further remark of St. Luke that Pilate and Herod became friends from that time, we can conclude that Pilate deliberately sent the Lord to Herod, wishing in this way to put an end to the enmity that existed between them. Perhaps he hoped to get a favorable opinion of Jesus from Herod in order to deliver the Lord from the hands of His persistent accusers. It is not without reason that he later points out that Herod did not find in Him anything worthy of death (Luke 23:15).

Herod was very happy to see Jesus. This was the same Herod Antipas who killed John the Baptist, and when he heard about the works of Christ, he thought that this was John who had risen from the dead. Herod hoped to see a miracle from the Lord: not in order to believe in Him, but to satiate his eyesight, just as we look at the spectacles as sorcerers imagine that they swallow a serpent, swords, etc., and are amazed (Bl. Theophylact). Herod, apparently, considered the Lord to be something like a magician. He also asked Him many questions, hoping to hear something interesting, but the Lord kept complete silence to all his questions. The chief priests and scribes incessantly accused the Lord, probably proving that His preaching was as dangerous for Herod as it was for Caesar. Having mocked the Lord, Herod clothed Him in a white robe and sent Him back to Pilate. The Romans wore white (light) clothes for candidates for any managerial or honorable position (the word "candidate" itself comes from the Latin "candidus", which means white, light). By dressing the Lord in such a garment, Herod wanted to express that he looked upon Jesus only as an amusing pretender to the Jewish throne and did not consider Him a serious and dangerous criminal. That is how Pilate understood it.

Referring to the fact that Herod did not find in Jesus anything worthy of death, Pilate proposes to the chief priests, scribes and people, having punished Him, to release Him. Pilate thought to satisfy them with a light punishment. He remembered that it was the custom of the Jews to appear before the Passover before the Passover with a request to release one of the criminals condemned to death, and he himself suggested to them: "Whom do you want me to release to you: Baraeva, or Jesus, who is called Christ?" (Matt. 27:17). To this the first two Evangelists add: "For he knew that they had betrayed Him out of envy" (Matt. 27:18). Pilate apparently hoped that he would find other feelings for Jesus among the common people, and the people would ask for Jesus' release. It was to this numerous crowd of people, who had gathered in front of the procurator's house, that Pilate turned with the question: "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" As he sat in his judgment seat, open and lofty, called in Greek "lithostrone" and in Hebrew "gabbatha," a messenger from his wife appeared to him, who relayed to him her words: "Do nothing to that Righteous One, for I have suffered much this day in a dream for His sake." Some ancient Christian writers call her name: Claudia Procula. It is assumed that she professed the Jewish faith, or at least was disposed to it, and tradition says that she later became a Christian. Probably, she had heard a lot about the Lord Jesus Christ and was afraid that her husband would bring God's punishment upon himself for condemning Him. It is not known what kind of dream she had, but it can be assumed that Jesus of Galilee appeared to her in a dream as an innocently tormented Righteous One, and she was tormented in her sleep by the thought, tormented by her conscience that it was her own husband who was His executioner. But while the messenger was relaying to Pilate the words of his wife, the Jewish leaders began to exhort the people to ask Pilate to release Barabbas, and the people yielded to their impious suggestions. When Pilate asked a second question, "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" they answered, "Barabbas." "What shall I do to Jesus, who is called Christ?" asked Pilate. And they answered, "Let him be crucified"; according to St. Luke, they cried out: "Death to Him!" (Slavs, "take this one").

Then Pilate, wishing to let Christ go, lifted up his voice, saying: "What evil has He done?" They cried out even more loudly: let him be crucified!" Euthymius Zigaben emphasizes: "They do not say: Let him be killed, but let him be crucified, so that the very generation of death would show in Him a villain." Thus the prophecies about the very nature of Christ's death for us were to be fulfilled. The people, corrupted by their spiritual leaders, preferred Barabbas to the Lord Jesus Christ, about whom the Evangelists report that he was a well-known robber, who, with a gang of accomplices, stirred up a disturbance in the city for the purpose of robbery and committed murders (Matt. 27:16; John 18:40; Luke 23:19 and Mark 15:7).

Hearing this frantic cry of the people, which he apparently did not expect, Pilate was completely confused. He feared that his continued insistence on the defence of the Righteous One might cause a great agitation among the people, which would have to be quelled by armed force, and that the embittered chief priests might denounce him to Caesar, accusing him of having caused the tumult by defending the state criminal whom they were trying to make the Lord Jesus out to be. Under the pressure of such feelings, Pilate decided to try to satisfy the thirst for blood among the people by giving the Innocent One to be scourged. Probably, he hoped to make a concession to the people's fury and achieve the release of Jesus from death on the cross. "Then Pilate took Jesus and commanded Him to be beaten" (John 19:1). The story of scourging is found in all the Evangelists. According to the first two Evangelists, for scourging, the soldiers took Jesus to the praetorium (in Slavonic: "to the judgment"), that is, inside the courtyard, probably in order to have more space there, since there was no room in front of the court because of the crowd of people, and gathered against Him the entire regiment, or spira, or cohort. The soldiers undressed Jesus and began to scourge Him. Such scourging was prescribed among the Romans for serious crimes, and moreover, for the most part, for slaves. Whips were made of ropes and belts, and sharp bone and metal sticks were inserted into their ends. This torture was so painful that many died under the whips. The scourged was usually tied to a stake in an inclined position, and then the soldiers beat him with whips on the bare back, and the body was torn apart from the very first blows, and blood flowed profusely from the wounds. Pilate subjected Him to such a terrible punishment, in Whom he did not find any guilt, but it must be assumed that in the hope of satisfying the bloodthirstiness of the crowd and saving Him from death on the cross. Having finished the scourging, the hard-hearted soldiers began to mock the Sufferer: they put on Him a "scarlet chlamys" or scarlet robe, that is, a red military cloak, similar to those cloaks worn by kings and high military commanders. Such cloaks were sleeveless and were thrown over the shoulder so that the right hand remained free. This chlamys was supposed to represent the royal purple for the King of the Jews. A crown woven of thorns was placed on the head of the Lord, and a reed was given in His hands, which was supposed to represent the royal scepter. Having done all this in mockery of the Divine Sufferer, the soldiers began to kneel before Him and, cursing at Him, as if greeting Him, began to say: "Rejoice, King of the Jews," and they struck Him on the cheeks, spat on Him, took the reed from His hands and struck Him on the head with it, so that the needles of the crown of thorns would penetrate deeper and wound more severely.

All these actions are presented in the first two Evangelists as having taken place after the final condemnation of Jesus to death, but St. John, who set himself the goal of supplementing and clarifying the narrative of the first three Evangelists, points out that the scourging and these mockery of Christ took place earlier and, as can be assumed, were undertaken by Pilate precisely with the aim of achieving the deliverance of Jesus from the death penalty, at least in this way. Pilate ordered the Lord, who was thus tormented and tormented, to be taken out in order to arouse the pity of the Jews for Him. He hoped that their hearts would tremble at such a horrible sight, and they would no longer insist on putting the Lord to death. Such was the reasoning of the pagan, who did not know the true God and His commandment about love for one's neighbor, but, alas, this was not the reasoning of the spiritual leaders and rulers of the chosen people of God, who raged in their unquenchable malice. When the Lord was brought to the lithostroton, Pilate said: "Behold, I bring Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him," and at the same time, pointing to Him, he added: "Behold the Man?"

With this exclamation Pilate addressed the court of their consciences: "See how he would say to them,

For Christians, Pilate's words mean: this is the model of the Man to whom Christians should strive.

But the chief priests and their servants did not care. As soon as they saw Christ tormented and tormented, they cried out again: "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Such persistence of the accusers vexed Pilate and made him say with sharpness and prickliness: "Take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him": If you are so persistent, then crucify Him on your own responsibility, and I cannot take part in such an unworthy position of mine, as a representative of justice, as a deed, as a condemnation to death of an innocent Man. These words of Pilate expressed nothing but extreme indignation and impatience, and therefore the enemies of Christ continued to seek Pilate's consent to the death sentence, bringing forward a new accusation: "We have the law, and according to our law He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God."

When Pilate heard this, he was "the more afraid." Of course, Pilate could understand the expression "Son of God" only in the pagan sense, in the sense of demigods, heroes with whom pagan mythology is full, but even this was enough to confuse him, taking into account the warning of his wife, who had some mysterious dream about this mysterious Man. And so Pilate took Jesus with him to the praetorium and asked Him privately: "Where are you from?", that is: what is your origin, whether you are from heaven or from earth? Are You Really the Son of God?" But Jesus did not give him an answer." — It was useless to answer this question. The Lord tried to explain to Pilate who He was, but His words caused him only a frivolous and joking remark (John 19:9). Could a crude pagan skeptic understand the doctrine of the true Son of God?

Overcoming fear in himself, Pilate decided to show his power, and at the same time to dispose Jesus to answer: "Do you not answer me..." The Lord answers these proud words with Divine wisdom: "You would have no power over Me if it had not been given to you from above" – the fact that I am in your hands is only God's permission. Having given His people into slavery to the pagan Roman power, God thereby transferred power over Me to you. Thou shalt be guilty, however, of this condemnation of Me, for Thou condemnest against Thy conscience, but greater sin shall be upon him who hath not been given power over Me from above, who has done it arbitrarily, out of malice, that is, the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas, as his instrument, Judas Iscariot. The wise words of the Lord apparently pleased Pilate, and "From that time Pilate sought to let Him go." Then the accusers decided to resort to the last resort – to the threat of accusing the procurator himself of betraying the authority of the Roman Caesar: "If you let Him go, you are no friend of Caesar..." This frightened Pilate, for the emperor at that time was the suspicious and extremely cruel despot Tiberius, who willingly accepted denunciations.

With this threat, the matter was settled. Pilate, having sat down in his judgment seat with a lithostroton, formally and solemnly ends the trial. The Evangelist therefore marks the day and hour of the Lord's condemnation: "Then was the Friday before Pascha, and the sixth hour," that is, there was the Friday before the feast of Pascha and the sixth hour, that is, according to our reckoning, about 12 o'clock in the afternoon. In the indication of this hour, St. John seems to disagree with the other Evangelists, especially with St. Mark, who says: "There was a third hour, and they crucified Him" (Mark 15:25), and from the sixth to the ninth hour there was darkness over all the earth (Matt. 27:45; Mark 15:33 and Luke 23:44), but the fact is that the day, like the night, was generally divided into four parts of three hours each. and therefore in the New Testament only the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours are mentioned. St. John does not say "the sixth hour," but "as the sixth," that is, "as it were the sixth": according to us, this could have been during the entire period of time between 9 o'clock in the morning and noon. Finally, there is an opinion (Gladkov) that St. John gives the time according to the Roman reckoning, which corresponds to ours, that is, it was about six o'clock in the morning, as we now believe, from midnight.

"And Pilate said to the Jews, Behold, your King!" – it is difficult to say what Pilate wanted to express with these words, but it is impossible not to see in them the last attempt to free the Lord from death. Perhaps in his irritation at being forced to pass judgment against his conscience, he once again hurls a cruel rebuke to the entire Sanhedrin: "You dream of regaining your independence, of some kind of high calling of yours among all the peoples of the world: no one would be so capable of fulfilling this lofty task as this Man, who calls himself the spiritual King of Israel." How is it that you, instead of bowing down before Him, demand His death? Do you want me, the Roman governor you hate, to take away from you your King, who can fulfill all your cherished dreams?

Apparently, this is how the accusers understood these words, because with particular fury they cried out: "Take, take, crucify Him!" Michael, "a cry from a wound inflicted on the most sensitive place," but "Pilate, before finally yielding, once more turns the knife in this wound with the words: 'Shall I crucify your king?' — if Jesus calls Himself your King, he thereby promises you liberation from the power of the Romans: how can you demand that I, a representative of the Roman power, put Him to death? To this admonition the chief priests, in their mad blindness with malice against Jesus, pronounced the terrible, fatal words, which were the verdict over the entire subsequent history of the Jewish people: "We have no king but Caesar!" declaring that they do not have and do not want to have any other king than the Roman Caesar.