The Sixth Station: Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns

Roman soldiers were trained as professional killers, and that training was thorough. They knew exactly what to do to a human body to maximise pain; so the way they treat Jesus tells us a lot.

     The scourging was known as ‘the forty lashes minus one’. That ‘minus one’ is important because it was thought the last, fortieth, lash would kill the victim. Killing him before you could go further with a full-scale crucifixion prevents the spectacle, so you flog the man to within an inch of his life but no more. Incidentally, that’s why Jesus was too weak to carry his cross.

     Crowning Jesus with plaited thorns differs insofar as it was an ad hoc torture. We don’t know of other instances when this torture was used, so when Jesus calls himself a king they seem to have devised a new form of cruelty just for him. The soldiers are so good at casually administered sadism that they show innovation and improvise.

     The Palestinian thorns are not like ours. The spikes can be three or four inches in length and are like steel: they are strong enough to penetrate bone, so the crown of thorns could also have killed. Again, the soldiers knew when to stop; again, going further would have spoiled the sport.

Curiously, it’s possible that Pilate’s sentencing him to be scourged is his way of being merciful. Pilate was clearly fallible so, in his fallible mind, scourging Jesus was a way by which Jesus could avoid the full horror of crucifixion. In a mind brutalised by killing and death, in which killing and death were normal, killing someone quickly is better than killing someone slowly. Maybe.

     The Romans beat up Jesus. They secure his hands in front of him to a post. His back is exposed, and he can’t move. The whip is made up of multiple strips of leather, into which are threaded small pieces of lead, which act like a meat tenderiser. Soon, after two or three strikes, here and there the bones of Jesus shoulder blades are clearly visible. By half way through the sentence, the soldiers will be reviving him periodically because the pain will have made him faint. Where’s the example of a man screaming for the beating to stop if he’s unconscious and silent?

     It was said that the pain from just one lash was sufficient to cause a grown man to go mad. A man could not be asked to stand trial immediately after scourging because his blood would contaminate everyone present, but also the scourging could have driven them insane.

     There is a prophecy of this scourging in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 50:6, a man says, ‘I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting’. This passage goes on to say the punishment is various: this man takes a terrible punishment that was actually intended for us. Like Pilate having mercy on Jesus, Jesus here is having mercy on us.