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Describe the mocking of Jesus.
Matthew: “Then released he Barrabas unto them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they bowed the knee before him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!” ([xxvii, 26–29].)
The original of this account of the mocking of Jesus is to be found in Philo’s “Adversus Flaccum,” written more than one hundred years before the Gospels made their appearance. Herod Agrippa was on his way from Rome to Palestine to assume the government of that country. When he stopped at Alexandria his enemies, to annoy him, instituted a mock coronation, which Philo relates as follows:
“There was a certain poor wretch named Carrabas, who spent all his days and nights in the roads, the sport of idle children and wanton youths; and the multitude, having driven him as far as the public gymnasium, and having set him up there on high, that he might be seen of everybody, flattening out a papyrus leaf, put it on his head instead of a crown, and clothed the rest of his body with a common mat in place of a robe, and in lieu of a sceptre thrust into his hand a reed, which they found lying by the wayside. And when he had received all the insignia of royalty, and had been dressed and adorned like a king, young men bearing sticks on their shoulders stood on each side of him in imitation of guards, while others came up, some as if to salute him, and others pretending to plead their causes before him” (Philo’s Works, vol. iv, pp. 68, 69).