ESThe Horrific Flogging of Christ
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The Gospel says no more. The early Christians needed no further details, for they knew very well that the torment of the scourge was horribly painful and shameful.
Painful, due to the arms that administered the lashes and the instruments used. These were the flagrum and the flagellum. The flagrum consisted of two leather lashes with double iron balls at both ends. The effect it produced on the condemned's back is described by Roman authors with words meaning to crush, pound, bruise, and shatter. The flagellum, —a diminutive of flagrum—, was made of intertwined ox sinews armed along its length with small bones or metal wheels. Its effect on the flesh was to cut, open, and tear.
Shameful, because it was imposed only on the defeated and slaves (not on Roman citizens), after having stripped them completely or at least from the waist up. A torment of such shame and pain that Cicero called it “the halfway death”, and indeed, they sometimes died under the horrific lash.
Those who escaped with their life were left broken, reddened, bruised, emitting horrifying howls, and convulsing in the throes of agony.
Not only the back, but also the arms, chest, legs, and all the members of the flogged person felt the dreadful claws of the whip, wielded by merciless lictors. There were cases where eyes and teeth jumped out, exposing veins and entrails.
A torment of such shame and pain that even Jesus himself, patient and enduring to the end, couldn't keep silent about it when he foretold his Passion to his friends: “They will scourge me, they will scourge me...”
And to this torment, Pilate condemns Jesus, after having proclaimed his innocence, only to get out of the way. He thinks that when they see him crushed by the blows, they will be satisfied and let him go home.
That's why he orders them to torment him until he elicits compassion. The executioners needed no more. They take the lashes, test them, swing them in the air, roll up their sleeves, prepare ropes, and stand by the column. It's a circular basement, descended from the Praetorium courtyard by a stone staircase. Jesus begins to descend, led by two legionaries from the Roman army. He looks down; he sees the floor with patches of dried and trampled blood, remnants of other victims who passed through there; he sees the low stone column with an iron ring; he sees the two tormentors, looking at him impassively, showing their flagellum in their right hands.
How Jesus of Nazareth feels in his Heart that word from the ancient Psalm: “For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.”
With each step he takes down, he says, “—My Father, I am ready...”
He arrives. They remove the ropes from his wrists, order him to undress, and Jesus obeys. They tie his hands together again, pass the cords through the ring, give a pull, and the Son of God is left bent forward like a beast under the knife.
The whips describe swift circles in the air with threatening hisses. At the signal of the chief lictor, they launch themselves with dreadful violence onto the naked back, and the first blow sounds.
Jesus has felt intense pain. His entire blessed body trembles, but he perseveres firm, and raises his eyes to heaven, now filled with tears.
Immediately, the air is torn again, and the iron-armed straps fall once more, cruelly on the wounded back. The skin reddens, breaks. Moved by a fierce rivalry, each of the executioners strives to traverse the back, chest, and legs with the terrible instrument.
It seems as if the ground trembles, and the space reverberates with the snap of the lashes, while Jesus' body presents a pitiful spectacle, and his blood reddens the whips, the column, the ground, and even the hands of the tormentors... Blood of Christ!
Under the fierce hailstorm, the body has bent more over the column, although it still stands; the arms tremble, the Heart beats hastily, the eyes look upwards... My Father, let your will be done...!
How much it costs Jesus to reconcile men with His Father! A Jewish law mandated that those who committed a certain kind of sins against purity be punished with this horrifying torture. The Son of the Virgin, purest, holiest, has taken our place. How many and how horrendous are the sins of the flesh: how much more does Jesus have to suffer!
After the flogging is finished, they release the ropes, and Jesus falls to the ground on his blood. He reaches out his hands to take his tunic, and they do not give it to him.
When he has dressed, they force him to ascend, drag him to a bench in the courtyard, call the other soldiers, and there they prepare to amuse themselves with the scourged one, while waiting for Pilate's orders...
The terrible scourge
Maria Teresa Rute writes in her book “The Face of Christ: Lies and a Truth about the Shroud of Turin”:
Just like in the case of crucifixion, the Romans employed this punishment for the most ferocious criminals and slaves they wanted to be publicly punished. Seneca, Horace, and Cicero all mention this terrible punishment, horrified by its extreme cruelty.
It could even lead to the death of the condemned through this torture. The [lash's] objects tore off pieces of skin, or even flesh, exposing bones and sometimes even internal organs. The straps of the scourge cut the skin as if they were knives. In addition to the skin, muscles, tendons, nerves, and occasionally even internal organs were affected, on occasions, the viscera fell to the ground. The resulting hemorrhage was immense, and the executioners themselves would stop hitting, as they felt disgust when splattered with blood, skin, or other organs.
The executioners were called “lictors”, and were, among the soldiers, the fiercest thugs, they could even be mercenaries. Normally there were two of them, but sometimes they themselves got tired and were replaced, so there could be up to six different lictors involved.
The tortured could be crippled for life, or even lose it. Hence, the use of scourge with those condemned to the cross was not frequent, since it was on the cross, and not elsewhere, where they had to give up life with a horrendous and very long agony. Once the condemned was stripped, he was tied to a low column.
The inclined position meant that, to maintain his precarious balance, the tortured person had to spread his legs. In this way, the entire anatomy of the person was exposed and at the mercy of the executioner, including those areas that are particularly sensitive in males, which were subjected to particularly brutal treatment. No part of the body was left untortured.
This torture can be considered akin to flaying, as the lashes from the whip could leave large areas of the body devoid of skin. There was no set number of lashes; it was at the discretion and cruelty of the executioners. From head to toe, it was normal for no part of the body to remain unharmed. The entire body became one raw wound, and blood flowed abundantly.
Typically, the condemned individuals could not maintain their balance and fell to the ground in puddles of their own blood. On the ground, the executioners continued to strike them until they grew tired. Having already lost the protective skin in many areas, the lictors struck the exposed flesh, making it difficult to imagine a greater torture.
In the case of the man of the Shroud, between 90 and 120 lashes are counted distributed throughout the body, excluding the head, part of the arms, and the heart area. The executioners knew very well that by striking the chest in the aforementioned area, they could cause death. However, this severe beating played a significant role in the death of Christ, as the internal injuries were already irreversible.