The Physical and Medical Aspects of our Lord's Passion and Death - Part 3: The Scourging at the Pillar and Crowning of Thorns

The next scenes of our LORD’s Passion I will discuss are the Scourging at the Pillar and Crowning of Thorns. First, I will discuss the horrendous torture that the Shroud of Turin reveals Jesus suffering during His Scourging at the Pillar. I will also note that the time-frame between Jesus first being brought to the Praetorium and Him officially being condemned to crucifixion lasted from ca. 6:00/7:00 a.m. to between 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on Good Friday. To set the scene, the Sanhedrin bound Jesus, led Him away, and handed Him over to Pontius Pilate (who appears to have served as Praefectus of Judaea from ca. A.D. 26/27 to ca. A.D. 36/37.) After an initial conversation with the Sanhedrin regarding the charges they have against our LORD, Pilate interrogates Jesus in private and concludes that Jesus is not guilty of deserving Roman crucifixion. This conclusion does not please the Sanhedrin members, and Pilate, likely viewing this as a waste of his time and effort, orders Jesus to be sent to Herod Antipas (who reigned as Tetrarch of Galilee from ca. A.D. 1 to ca. A.D. 39), who was in Jerusalem at this time, for judgment. Herod Antipas is of course excited to meet Jesus in person due to the widespread fame Jesus had throughout Galilee and Judaea (and the fact that St. Joanna, the wife of Chuzza, the latter of whom was Herod’s household steward, being a disciple of Jesus and one of His financial providers after Jesus is recorded as curing St. Joanna of “evil spirits and infirmities” likely contributed to the news Herod would have heard about Jesus throughout our LORD’s Public Ministry) and specifically hopes to see Jesus perform a miracle in front of him. This reveals that Herod Antipas was expecting entertainment and had no interest in actually judging Jesus when our LORD was brought before him. Nevertheless, Herod does question Jesus at length, but our LORD does not respond to him. As a result, Herod and his soldiers treat Jesus with contempt and mock Him before sending Jesus back to Pilate. Pilate, who I imagine to be annoyed at this point, is not pleased to see Jesus being brought back to him, and he states to the Sanhedrin that neither he nor Herod Antipas judged guilt in Jesus. Pilate even tries to get Jesus released from custody by giving Jerusalem a choice between our LORD and Barabbas, who is specifically identified in the Gospels as being charged with political insurrection and murder. As a stroke of dramatic irony, the Sanhedrin stirs up the crowd to have Pilate release the exact type of criminal they falsely accused Jesus of being from Roman custody. When Pilate asks what is to be done with Jesus, he is once more told to crucify our LORD. Pilate refuses to give in to the demand for crucifixion, but an idea then crosses his mind: perhaps if he gives Jesus a severe, torturous ordeal as chastisement, then maybe the Sanhedrin will be satisfied and agree to let Jesus be released. This seems to be the principal motivation for why Pilate orders Jesus to be severely scourged at the pillar.

Most, including myself at one point, usually think that Jesus was only scourged thirty-nine times and only on the back. The mistake in this thinking is that the limit of thirty-nine lashes was a Jewish practice, not a Roman practice. And while being scourged on the back is undoubtedly painful and qualifies as severe torture, only limiting it to the victim’s back would not seem to be enough if the purpose of said scourging was to convince the victim’s opponents that an equal punishment to death has been suitably delivered and that state execution is surely no longer necessary. This is where it is helpful to turn to the witness of our LORD’s Passion and Death given by the Shroud of Turin. What the Shroud reveals is something you would expect to find in a horror film: Jesus was scourged a lot more than thirty-nine times and on more areas of His Body than just His back. It should also be noted that the measure of Jesus’ Divine Love allowed Him to willingly submit to what He suffered in His Scourging at the Pillar, let alone permit it to happen to Him in the first place. Jesus made it clear to both St. Peter and the armed mob in the Garden of Gethsemane that He could have at any one moment during His Passion and Death metaphorically snap His fingers and put an end to it. It is Jesus, not His human opponents, who is in control of His Passion and Death, and only He is in charge of when His life is taken away from Him. 

What the Shroud of Turin reveals about the Scourging at the Pillar is that Jesus was severely scourged at least 120 times across His Body. The division of scourging between the front and back of our LORD’s Body shows that Jesus was scourged at least eighty times on His back and at least forty times on His front. The areas of the Body showing scourge marks according to the Shroud of Turin are on the back, belly, buttocks, backs of the calves, chest, front of the thighs, and shoulders. Forensic analysis reveals that there were two Roman lictors (these would have been some of Pilate’s attendants and bodyguards) who performed the scourging, one on each side of Jesus, and that one of the lictors was taller than the other. While He was being scourged, Jesus appears to have been tied to a low pillar; He also was naked (as an additional psychological embarrassment) and standing upright with His arms above His head. Forensic analysis also notes that the taller lictor took particular interest in scourging Jesus’ legs. The instruments used by the lictors were a torture device known as the flagrum. This device was a rod with three leather straps attached to it, and at the end of each strap were three dumbbell shaped lead balls. This means that a single lash from a flagrum would leave three dumbbell shaped wounds on the human body, and the Shroud of Turin counts at least 360 such wounds on the Body of Jesus due to the estimation of Him being scourged at least 120 times. While there is, at present, debate on whether or not the wounds caused by a flagrum would cause the skin to tear and bleed openly, it is acknowledged they would at the very least cause severe bruising via contusions, and this would still be registered as a loss of blood to the human body. According to Fr. Andrew Dalton, each contusion caused by the flagrum also likely would have registered on Jesus’ Body as the equivalent of suffering a third-degree burn. Suffice it to say, the result of His Scourging at the Pillar caused Jesus to undergo trauma-induced hypovolemic shock in addition to feeling severe pain all across His Body. But, as we know from the testimony of the Gospels, Jesus’ torture is not done before He is brought back to Pilate, and His hypovolemic shock would have worsened with his next recorded suffering. 

The Gospels seem to be unclear whether this next recorded suffering was under Pilate’s order or whether the Roman soldiers who performed the deed were acting on their own accord, but it is said that immediately after Jesus suffered severe scourging at the hands of the two lictors, He was led away by the Roman soldiers inside the Praetorium to be placed before the assembly of the whole cohort (and in Jesus’ day, a Roman cohort typically consisted of 480 men.) The Roman soldiers decide to amuse themselves by giving Jesus a specific mockery that is unique in recorded human history ca. A.D. 33: “The Sanhedrin says this random Galilean itinerant preacher claims to be the King of the Jews, so let us mock His Kingship by giving Him a ‘worthy’ crown.” Thus, Jesus is crowned with thorns that were crudely weaved before being pressed on His Head (likely with the force of a Roman sword and spear), a reed is placed in His right hand to resemble a sceptre, and a red-purple military cloak is placed upon His scourged Body to act as royal clothing. The assembled cohort then proceeds to salute Jesus and give Him mock worship (in the style one would give a human monarch) while kneeling in false homage. But this does not seem to satisfy their mocking and desire to inflict physical pain on Jesus, so they also spit upon His Face and repeatedly strike His bruised and battered head (now crowned with thorns) with the reed they originally placed in His right hand. This brings an important question to the Christian imagination: what exactly did the Crown of Thorns look like? Most would picture the standard European crown that is an update on the Greek and Roman circular laurel wreath which only covers the sides of the head but not the top of the head. Most Christian artwork certainly depicts the Crown of Thorns as such. However, not only is this not historically accurate, but it is also not what is suggested with forensic analysis on the estimated fifty to seventy puncture wounds caused by the Crown of Thorns on the Image of the Man in the Shroud of Turin. An accurate depiction of the Crown of Thorns would be, for lack of a better term, a “Cap of Thorns” (one recreation of the Crown of Thorns that has gained probable traction has it in the shape of a Roman pileus, which interestingly enough was seen as a sign of liberty in Roman society.) The Crown of Thorns would have covered the entirety of the top of Jesus’ head in addition to the front, back, and sides. Each thorn on the plant used to create the Crown was extremely sharp and was measured to be three-quarters of one inch in length, which means that they would have pierced through the skin and onto the bone plate of our LORD’s skull. The thorn branches appear to have been crudely secured by a circular band of some kind, and the fifty to seventy puncture wounds are seen on Jesus’ forehead, top of His head, and nape of His neck. The Crown of Thorns also caused blood to flow out on our LORD’s forehead, back of His head, nape of the neck, scalp, and temples. These losses of blood would have increased the hypovolemic shock suffered by Jesus during His Passion. The nerves present in the human head, specifically the Trigeminal Nerve and the Greater Occipital Nerve, are extremely sensitive, and their role is to conduct the body’s perception of pain from the front half of the head to the back half of the head. Thus, the Crown of Thorns would have registered as intense physical pain in our LORD’s Body as if He were experiencing an electric shock or a jab from a red-hot poker, and it would have gotten worse as the Crown was no doubt affected by the Roman soldiers striking Jesus with the reed and the subsequent falls to the face Jesus is said to have suffered during the Via Crucis according to pious tradition. The Trigeminal Nerve is also responsible for motor functions such as biting and chewing, which would have made it difficult for Jesus to speak, and the Gospels show our LORD still speaking after the Crowning of Thorns. The marred appearance of our LORD’s Face at this point during His Passion no doubt brings to mind the prophetic utterings from The Book of Isaiah during the recorded songs of God’s Suffering Servant.

And with that we have reached the end of the third part of this series. For the next blog post, I will be discussing what our LORD would have suffered during the Via Crucis.