He was not an ordinary delinquent, the man whom the Procurator offered as blood-ransom to those men with such a morbid relish for crucifixions. The common tradition has preserved his memory as a street ruffian, a criminal by profession. But his surname—Bar Rabban, which means Son of Rab, or rather disciple of the Master, since the scholars of the Rabbis were called their sons—shows us that through birth or through study he belonged to the caste of Doctors of Law. Mark and Luke say expressly that he was accused of having committed murder during a sedition, hence a political assassin. Jesus Barabbas, a student in the school of the Scribes, lamenting over the loss of the Jewish Kingdom, and hating Judea’s pagan masters, was probably a Zealot and had been captured in one of the unsuccessful revolts, so common at that time. Was it likely that such an absurd bargain would satisfy the Sadducee and Pharisee assembly which shared the sentiments of the Zealots, even if for reasons of state they hid them, or out of weakness of soul forgot them? Barabbas, although an assassin, and indeed precisely because he was an assassin—was a patriot, a martyr, persecuted by the foreigners. Jesus, on the other hand, although He had never killed any one, had wished to overturn the law of Moses, and to ruin the Temple. The first, in short, was a sort of national hero, the other an enemy of the nation: there could be no doubt about their choice. “Free Barabbas! Let this man die!” Once more Pontius Pilate had failed to save Christ or himself. He ought to have realized before this, that the leaders of the Jews would not loose their hold on the flesh into which they had already set their teeth, the only flesh which could stay their hunger. Their need for it that day was like their need for bread and air. They would not have left that spot, not even to eat, until they had seen that Bastard Messiah fastened with four nails upon two beams. Pontius Pilate was cowardly. He was afraid that he was committing an injustice; he was afraid of displeasing his wife; he was afraid of giving satisfaction to his enemies; but at the same time he was afraid to put Jesus in a place of safety; he was afraid to have his soldiers disperse that sullen, arrogant crowd; he was afraid to decide with a clear-cut act of authority that Jesus, the innocent man, should be released, and not Barabbas, the assassin. A real Roman, a Roman of antiquity, of the true Roman stock, would either at once have satisfied the demands of that turbulent crowd and would not have wasted a moment in defending an obscure visionary; or would at once have decreed, from the beginning, that this man was innocent and was under the august protection of the Empire.