When they've recovered, put them to work in the fields.
I can taste the salt in the air.
Every breath of wind is full of the sea.
I thought I could never love it better than I did. But, oh, glory!
After the darkness of the mines...
...I could go and drown in it like a man besotted.
Now, are you glad to live?
What? Like a damned ox?
Salt me down and I'd praise God even for this.
How many times were you swindled in those foreign ports?
You must've been the easiest game they ever got their hands on.
- Why is that? - You'd fall for any trick.
One smile...
...and you trust the world that half kills you.
Yes, I trust it.
It has to be hard going...
...or else how will the strength come that God has wanted?
God should make himself plain or leave me alone.
Am I the one who lets himself be swindled, or you?
Every time he came near, you refused to believe it.
But it's never been out of your mind.
What other man's death could have troubled you so long?
Stop there. Pull over to the side.
Rock to be carried.
Here.
It's a poor scratching, but the true sign.
Now will you leave me in peace?
All right, we go on.
Wait.
Julia, there are the two men I was telling you about.
Send for them, Rufio. I want to see them.
- Bring those men over here to us. - Very good, sir.
Stop! These two. Take them off the plough.
Two men so strangely come up from the underworld.
Twenty years in the mines, the old one. Indestructible.
I heard so.
You've earned the air you breathe, you two, by sheer good fortune.
- What are your names? - Sahak, sir.
- And yours? - Barabbas.
What's your age?
What does it matter?
Indeed, what should it matter? We understand you mean to live forever.
I must touch them for the luck that's in them.
My wife thinks your merit is contagious.
All right, we don't want to hold up the work.
Back now.
It's from the Emperor.
It seems the gods approve your superstition.
We're to call to Rome.
- To Rome? What does it mean? - I'm to enter the Senate.
- We're to rise in the world. - Rufio. Rome!
It's true. They are charmed.
We must always take them with us. A good thing I touched them.
I see, their success, not mine.
Nothing but amiable days from now on, and knowing everybody instead of nobody.
- When shall we go? - Ride with us. I'll give you the answer.
How wretched to arrive when all have gone to the mountains...
Look over there.
Well, here we have to leave your luck to learn its business.
What do you mean? Why do we come here?
They cannot fight yet. They must first learn the skill.
And so they will.
But here we have to deliver them over. Let's hope they won't disgrace us.
When a charmed life turns professional, we can expect great things.
Flacus, the Commander. You honor Rome and us.
Our happiness is all here, Commander.
Unsurpassable. The Emperor has given him his freedom three times.
There's the third staff of liberty in his hand. Always he prefers to come back.
He knows his empire and has the sense to keep it.
Keep it he does. He's taken a fair toll of them.
Torvald, the Senator Rufio and his lady.
I'll take this life.
Can't a man be made mad by the smell of blood?
A man can understand this.
To throw the net, hold it to your right, like this.
Then throw from the tips of your fingers, like this.
Your places now.
One here, you here and you over there.
Now, start your practice. Throw your nets.
What's this?
Have they mistaken this place for an old men's hospital?
The gray-haired one?
They say there's something remarkable about him. Nothing can kill him.
Show me what you can do, grandfather.
What do we do with aging fish, grandfather?
It's time he was thrown to the gulls.
Let me be.
Hit! One!
Hit! Two!
You move on.
Bring out the first group of gladiators.
You remember me?
You drew the sign of the Master beside my plate.
How did you know I carried the sign?
Several days I've watched you breaking the bread.
Can we speak freely?
He was there in Jerusalem. He knew the Master.
God be praised and keep you safe.
The days have been getting darker for us. Persecution increasing.
The Emperor wants to destroy every trace of us.
But tomorrow, when the games are over and the sun is down...
...discipline will be lax...
...and there may be a chance for me to lead you to where we meet.
The Master's disciple, Peter, is here in Rome.
Seldom enough I find my way there, some way off to the catacombs.
The catacombs? Surely it's the dead who meet there.
It may seem to you that the faith is buried.
But so is the seed before there can be a harvest.
First group, assemble.
You shall see tomorrow the life we keep there.
First group, assemble.
- Did you hear him, Barabbas? - I heard.
One, two, one, two...
To your fighting places.
Go.
When you've taken up these positions tomorrow...
...the trumpets will sound.
And from above you, there...
...the white cloth will be thrown into the arena.
When it touches the ground, the contest will begin.
To make sure you understand, this is the way it will happen.
Kill him! Kill him!
- That's an angry crowd. - They want blood.
They were driven to a frenzy by Sahak, who wouldn't kill his man.
If the Emperor were here, he wouldn't have had a choice.
Wait till tomorrow.
He'll get his quota of killing, if you're lucky to win.
- Not one life will he get from me. - Won't he?
Say that to the Emperor. He will teach you the ways.
- When he says death, death it is. - The true God says life.
- I only answer to him. - Hark at this man.
By God, if he contradicts the Emperor...
- Who do you call your God? - The only one.
The rest are inventions of fear, tales taken from the past...
...they can no more help you than this breast can bleed.
Put 'em down.
- Insulting the gods before we go fight. - What revenge will Mars take?
None at all. He doesn't exist.
Mars doesn't exist? What do you mean, he doesn't exist?
Will you keep your mouth shut?
The real God is greater than any man's thoughts can imagine.
He made life as deep and strong as the sea.
Your gods are as shallow as a reeking pond.
He's above us and around us, in us. Like the breath in our bodies.
And he has one law that will break our pattern.
The law is love.
Whatever we do that breaks that law condemns us.
And so that we should see what his love is...
...he sent his son to live the life of a man.
To show that God understands the life he has made.
- Who spun you this? - What do you want us to do?
What good will he do us in the arena?
We'll lose the goodwill of the gods we know.
Tomorrow in the arena, show the Emperor that we know what life's worth.
Throw away your weapons.
Do you think all the things of the Earth and the heavens...
...have been made for no other reason except we should eat and make money...
...and spawn children and kill and die?
What a purpose for creation!
If anything's beyond belief, that is.
God said, "Burn away the old world...
"...and let a new one rise from the ashes."
As the Son of God rose from the dead, he died for us.
Ask Barabbas here the truth of what I tell you.
He saw with his own eyes the Son of God when he lived among us.
Saw him die.
Was there, in the garden, on the third morning.
You saw him, Barabbas?
- Tell us what you saw. - What happened?
A long time ago I saw a man.
Some people say he was...
...the Son of God. - Enough!
You've condemned yourselves.
I charge you with sedition and stirring up mutiny.
You're both under arrest.
Take them out and put them in chains. Move now!
Let me be sure you understand the seriousness of the charge against you.
Not only with holding views proscribed by the State...
...for which the punishment is death, but of recommending those views...
...to men sworn to the State's service.
What is more, you've betrayed your faith to me...
...who brought you to this city...
...and laid me under possible suspicion of connivance in the eyes of the Emperor.
The prospect is black for you.
You know what this is?
- The stamp of the Roman State. - Which means that you're Rome's property.
What's this cut here?
The sign of my master.
- Who do you call your master? - The one who is my lord.
- The Son of the Father. - In other words, the Christian sign?
A religion which sets itself up to menace government and order.
Which denies the divine authority of the Emperor.
Which preaches that the slave is equal to the free man...
...and would reduce society to anarchy. A rebellious, insufferable doctrine.
Give me a direct answer. Do you belong to the State?
I belong to the Lord, my god.
So, you also believe in this god?
Tell me, do you?
You don't?
Then why do you bear his name on your disc?
Isn't he your god?
Isn't that what the inscription means?
I have no god.
I don't understand.
Why then do you bear this sign of Jesus Christ, scratched on your disc?
Because I...
...tried to believe.
I'll give you the opportunity to recover your senses.
If you'll admit publicly to the men you spoke to...
...that all these things were lies, you may save your life.
Will you do this?
That would be to lose my life, not save it.
What I am is his.
But isn't life dear to you?
Yes, it is.
And you understand the cruel death that punishes mutiny and sedition?
What do you choose?
I choose my god.
Then there is no more I can do for you.
Guilty of the charge.
Execution at sunrise.
You're as mad as your god.
You, come here.
Unwise to carry around with you what you don't believe in.
It may be the Master means you to live.
He may have some greater need of you.
Some other purpose, Barabbas.
- Something else. - Take him away.
Guards.
Now you'll have to be worth two men to take his place.
You may go.
You are to witness the punishment of this man...
...so that there can be no doubt in your mind...
...that the words he spoke to you were a gross breach of the law.
An iniquitous crime against the State.
Not only lies, but treasonable lies...
...which were not only aimed at spreading rebellion among you...
...but also to pervert your minds...
...from those acceptable religions on which the State is built.
Any man who thinks that those words are harmless...
...or thinks that he can repeat or conform to such words as this man spoke...
...let him take warning from the punishment you are about to witness.
Long live the Emperor!
Proceed, Torvald.
Positions.
Ready.
Throw.
Traitors and fools!
You'll wish this was better done.
Kill him! Kill him!
Gladiator Barabbas, you're becoming quite a legend among us, I hear.
For your remarkable persistence in life...
...we have a traditional answer to this public acclaim.
We make you a free man. We give you your liberty.
Here is the symbol of your freedom.
I brought him to you.
This is where he would have wanted to be buried.
Our brother Sahak.
So you had to carry your dead conscience here.
Did he have to die before you cared about him?
Are you more concerned with his body than his life?
You were willing to let him go to his death alone.
Why should you help him now he doesn't need you?
How could I have helped him by being killed?
He made his own death. What good has it done?
I had to go on living, he said.
- There was something I still had to do. - Barabbas, why should you believe it?
When the light shone, you wouldn't accept it.
When the dark came, you denied it.
When the spirit of God beckoned, you refused it.
When Sahak says your life is kept for some purpose...
...why should you believe it?
To make a gag for your conscience, is that it?
You believe it because it suits you.
Or maybe if Sahak stood before you now then you would say you believed.
You would repent and love God.
It would be easy.
But what strength would your belief have then?
What would it matter?
Jesus of Nazareth was killed instead of me.
There must have been a reason. Why me?
Why did he choose me?
Where have you gone?
You!
Where are you?
Wait for me.
Wait!
You wait!
For God's sake, where are you?
Show me the way! I'm lost!
Which way shall I go?
- What's happening? - Rome is burning.
Can't you see? Rome is burning.
- What happened to make the fire? - The Christians tried to burn down Rome.
- Move! Move that case. Come on. - Christians?
- The Christians are burning Rome! - It's the Christians!
Fire!
They're burning away the old world.
The new kingdom is coming.
God.
You won't find me failing this time.
What are you doing, madman?
Fire of God destroying the old world. The hour has come when all is to perish.
- Are you a Christian? - Yes, I am.
And I'm ready for Him!
The whole world will soon be ablaze. Do you hear that?
We're burning the way.
We're ready for his coming.
- Take him away. - The Master!
- The Master's coming to build a new world. - Away!
Let me go! I must make ready for his coming!
Let me go!
Here! Get yourself out of this one.
Here's one of your kind who was caught in the act, setting light to a storehouse.
He admits he's a Christian, burning the city to start a new kingdom.
The only honest man among you.
Who are you? We've never seen you before.
Is it true? Were you setting fire to a storehouse?
Yes.
- We've never seen you before. - Who are you?
My name is Barabbas.
- Barabbas, the robber. - Barabbas, the acquitted.
This burning city is no work of ours.
This isn't how the new kingdom is going to be made.
You were wrong.
Who are you to tell me I'm wrong?
Many years ago we spoke together.
You remember?
No.
You asked me why I was making a net so far from the sea.
Jerusalem.
The street of the potters.
You were mistaken of us then as you are again now.
We didn't set fire to the city.
You've done the work of the wild beast, the Emperor.
- Are you a lunatic? - It was his fire, you fool, not God's.
Why can't God make himself plain?
What's become of all the fine hopes?
The trumpets, the angels?
All the promises?
Every time I've seen it end up the same way, with torments and dead bodies...
...with no good come of it.
All for nothing.
Do you think they persecute us to destroy nothing?
Or do you think that what has battered on your soul...
...for twenty years has been nothing?
It wasn't for nothing that Christ died. Mankind isn't nothing.
In his eyes, each individual man is the whole world.
He loves each man as though there were no other.
I was the opposite of everything he taught, wasn't I?
Why did he let himself be killed instead of me?
Because being farthest from him, you were the nearest.
- I'm no nearer than I was before. - Nor any farther away.
The truth of the matter is, he's never moved from your side.
I can tell you this.
There has been a wrestling in your spirit, back and forth in your life...
...which in itself is knowledge of God. By the conflict you have known him.
I can tell you as well, that so it will be with the coming of the kingdom.
That wrestling back and forth and the laboring of the world spirit...
...like a woman in childbirth.
We are only the beginning.
We won't see the time when the Earth is full of the kingdom.
And yet, even now, even here...
...we are at the end ourselves.
The kingdom is within us.
There is nothing more to fear.
Upon us, the years will be built. Many years, many martyrdoms.
The ground of men is very stubborn to mature.
But men will look back to us in our day and will wonder and remember our hope.
It is the end of the day.
We shall trust ourselves to a little pain...
... and sleep.
Saying to the world:
"God's speed."
What hour is it?
Night or day?
The sixth hour goes...
...when darkness...
Darkness...
I give myself up...
...into your keeping.
It is...
...Barabbas.