The executioners began to tire of flogging; they had broken on the back of Jesus, nearly all their rods; they questioned, by a look, Doctor Baruch, as if to ask him if it were not time to put an end to the torture; but the doctor of law exclaimed: 'No, no; use up, even to the very last of your rods.'
The order of the pharisee was obeyed; the last rods were broken on the shoulders of the young Nazarene, and splashed with blood the faces of the executioners; it was no longer the skin they flagellated, but a bloody wound. The martyrdom now became so atrocious that Jesus, despite his courage, gave way, and dropped his head on his left shoulder; his knees trembled, and he would have fallen to the ground, but for the cords that bound him to the pillar by the middle of his body. Pontius Pilate, after having ordered this punishment, had re-entered his own house; he now again came out, and signed to the executioners to release the condemned.
They unbound and supported him; one of them threw over his shoulders his woollen tunic. The contact of this rough cloth on the quivering flesh caused a new and so cruel an agony, that Jesus trembled in every limb. The very excess of pain brought him to himself; he raised his head, endeavored to stand so firm on his legs as to do without the assistance of his executioners, opened his eyes, and threw on the multitude a look of tenderness.
Pontius Pilate, thinking he had satisfied the hatred of the pharisees, said to the Crowd, after having had Jesus unbound:
'There is the man;' and he signed to his officers to enter his house; he was preparing to follow them, when Caiphus, the high priest, after consulting in a low voice with Doctor Baruch, and Jonas the banker, exclaimed, stopping the governor by taking hold of his robe:
'Seigneur Pilate, if you deliver up Jesus you are not a friend of the Emperor; for the Nazarene calls himself king, declares himself against the Emperor.'
'Pontius Pilate will fear passing for a traitor with his master, the Emperor Tiberius,' said to his companions one of the emissaries placed behind Genevieve.
'He will be compelled to give up the Nazarene.'
Then the wicked man cried out, in a very loud voice:
'Death to the Nazarene! the enemy of the Emperor Tiberius, the protector of Judea!'