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What indignities were heaped upon Jesus during his trial before Pilate?
John: “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!” ([xix, 1–5].)
These indignities Jesus is said to have suffered, not at the hands of a Jewish mob, but at the hands of a Roman court, from which the Jews had absented themselves and whose proceedings they could not witness nor directly influence. Every lawyer knows that for more than two thousand years the Roman court has been the world’s model for dignity and fairness. That an innocent and defenseless prisoner was subjected to these insults and brutalities in a Roman court, presided over by a Roman governor, none but a slave of superstition can believe.
331
When was he scourged?
Matthew and Mark: Before he was executed. “And when he [Pilate] had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified” ([Matt. xxvii, 26]; [Mark xv, 15]).
John: Before the termination of his trial ([xix, 1–16]).
Scourging was frequently inflicted by the Romans before execution, but never before the prisoner was convicted and sentenced. The “Bible Dictionary” concedes the illegal and unusual character of the scourging mentioned by John. “In our Lord’s case, however, this infliction seems neither to have been the legal scourging after sentence nor yet the examination by torture” ([Acts xxii, 24]).