The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

scourge

Scourge. The Roman scourge was made of two or three leather thongs fixed to a handle and terminating in a number of small pieces of zinc or iron, brass or sharp pointed bone attached to them at various places to gouge the flesh. According to Jewish law the number of stripes was forty minus one (Deut. 25: 3), either in order to avoid exceeding the number forty or because the punishment consisted of thirteen stripes with three thongs (hence 13 X 3). The Romans used this method of torture to exact a confession and criminals condemned to crucifixion were generally scourged before being executed (Livy XXXIII, 36) . The victim was stripped to the waist, and bound in a stooping position, with the hands behind the back to a post or pillar. The suffering under the lash was intense. The body was frightfully lacerated. The Christian martyrs at Smyrna about 155 AD were so torn with the scourges that their veins were laid bare, and the inner muscles and sinews, and even the bowels, were exposed (Eusebius, Hist. iv. 15).