Last of all, the item of Barabbas, one of the elaborate irrelevancies which leap to the eye in a narrative so destitute of essentials, turns out to carry a curious corroboration to the myth-theory. This is not the place to develop the probable kinship of the Barabbas of the Gospels with the (misspelt) Karabbas [172] of Philo; but we may note the probable reason for the introduction of the name into the myth. As the story stands, it serves merely to heighten the guilt of the Jews, making them in mass save the life of a murderer rather than that of the divine Saviour. The whole story is plainly unhistorical: "neither these details nor those which follow," remarks M. Loisy (after noting the "extremely vague indications under an appearance of precision" in regard to the antecedents of Barabbas), "seem discussible from the point of view of history." [173] In point of fact, Pilate is made to release an ostensible ringleader of "men who in the insurrection [unspecified] had committed murder," thus making his action doubly inconceivable. Why was such an item introduced at all?
It is not a case for very confident explanation; but when we note that Barabbas means "Son of the Father"; that the Karabbas of Philo is treated as a mock-king; and that the reading "Jesus Barabbas" in Matt, xxvii, 16, 17, was long the accepted one in the ancient church, [174] we are strongly led to infer (1) that the formula "Jesus the Son of the Father" was well known among the first Christians as being connected with a popular rite--else how could such a strange perplexity be introduced into the text?--and (2) that the real reason for introducing it was that those anti-Christians who knew of the name and rite in question used their knowledge against the faith. The way to rebut them was to present Jesus Barabbas not only as a murderer but as the man actually released to the Jewish people instead of Jesus the Christ, proposed to be released by Pilate.
Again, then, on the mythical theory, we find a meaning and a sane solution where the historical theory can offer none. Sir James Frazer's hypothesis that the story of the triumphal entry may preserve a tradition of a mock-royal procession for a destined victim is only a partial solution; and his further hypothesis of a strangely ignored coincidence between a Barabbas rite and the actual crucifixion of the Christian "Son of the Father" is but a sacrifice of mythological principle to the assumption of historicity. The conception of Jesus as sacrificed lies at the core of early Christian cult-propaganda.