With clenched teeth the spectators beheld the chaste form, bound to the stake and stained with blood, quiver beneath the lashes of the executioner, without a murmur of complaint from the silent lips. And when He had "had enough," as they phrased it, they placed him on a chair, threw a royal mantle about Him, and placed a sceptre of reeds in the hand of the mock-king. But He remained mute. The tormentors grew more and more enraged--they wanted to have satisfaction, to gloat over the moans of the victim--they dealt Him a blow in the face, then a second one. Christ did not move. They thrust Him from the chair so that He fell on the ground--no one ever forgot the beautiful, pathetic figure--but He was still silent! Then one of the executioners brought a crown made of huge thorns; He was raised again and the martyr's diadem was placed upon His brow. The sharp thorns resisted, they would not fit the noble head, so His tormentors took two sticks laid cross-ways, and with them forced the spiked coronals so low on His forehead that drops of blood flowed! Christ quivered under the keen agony--but--He was silent! Then He was dragged out of His blood, a spectacle to the populace.
Again Helios above gave the rein to his radiant coursers--he thought of all the horrors in the history of his divine House, of the Danaides, of the chained Prometheus, and of others also, but he could recall nothing comparable to this, and loathed the human race! Averting his face, he guided his weary steeds slowly downward from the zenith.
The evening breeze blew chill upon the scene of agony.
A furious tumult filled the streets of Jerusalem. The priests were leading the raging mob to the governor's house--fanning their wrath to flame with word and gesture. Caiaphas, Nathanael, the fanatics of Judaism--Annas and Ezekiel, each at the head of a mob, rushed from three streets in an overwhelming concourse. The populace surged like the angry sea, and unchaining yet dominating the elements with word and glance the lofty figure of Caiaphas, the high priest, towered in their midst.
"Shake it off! Cast from you the yoke of the tempter!"
"He has scorned Moses and the prophets--He has blasphemed God--to the cross with the false Messiah!"
"May a curse rest on every one who does not vote for his death--let him be cut off from the hereditary rights of our fathers!"
Thus the four leaders cast their watchword like firebrands among the throngs, and the blaze spread tumultuously.
"The Nazarene must die--we demand judgment," roared the people. New bands constantly flocked in. "Oh, fairest day of Israel! Children, be resolute! Threaten a general insurrection. The governor wished to hear the voice of the people--let him hear it!" shrieked Caiaphas, and his passion stirred the mob to fiercer fury. All pressed forward to the house of Pilate. The doors opened and the governor came out. The handsome, classic countenance of the Roman expressed deep contempt, as he surveyed the frantic mob. Behind him appeared the embodiment of sorrow--the picture of all pictures--the Ecce Homo--which all the artists of the world have striven to represent, yet never exhausted the subject. Here it stood personified--before the eyes of men, and even the governor's voice trembled as he pointed to it.
"Behold, what a man!"