By Andrea Nicolotti

 

The Gospels say that Jesus suffered flagellation before his crucifixion but the texts do not describe the scourge. Modern commentators have speculated about the scourge on the basis of the Greco-Roman literary evidence and later relics. But do these bring us closer to the scourging of Jesus, or not?

Romans carried out many corporal punishments including flagellation, which were a part of criminal law and used in domestic, military, and public domains. Sources attest to different types of beating instruments, including the lorum (whip), habena (strap), scutica (lash), stimulus (goad), fustis (staff) virga (rod), catenae (chains) and, finally, the flagrum and flagellum (scourge). Milder punishments also existed such as the ferula (stick) that schoolteachers used. At home, the master could choose between the stick, lash, and scourge to beat his slaves.

Some punishments were inflicted on the naked body and were more painful and humiliating than others. In one of his Satires, Horace called for “a rule to assign fair penalties to offences, lest you flay with the terrible scourge (horribili flagello) those who are only deserving of the lash (scutica),” precisely because the scourge caused deeper wounds and could even lacerate the flesh. As early as the fifth century BCE sources show that traitors, magicians and people who committed unique crimes, such as patricide, treason, and the violation of Vestal virgins, were flogged to death.

By Jesus’ time, there was a longstanding rule that free Roman citizens were exempt from scourges and rods, which were only to be used on foreigners, slaves and gladiators. Even in the military the rod could be used only when the soldiers did not hold citizenship. In 70 BCE, Cicero accused the former governor of Sicily of having beaten Roman citizens with rods illegally. This rule also applied to Judea. When Paul was order bound with straps by the tribune in Jerusalem for the apostle to be interrogated under the scourge, Paul objected on the grounds of his Roman citizenship and was freed. There were exceptions: in 68 CE the Roman Senate proposed that Nero be beaten to death with rods.

Because of its brutality flagellation was feared: it produced deep wounds and could even lead to death. Unlike Jewish law, which had a maximum of forty lashes, Roman law did not provide for limits. Flavius Josephus offers accounts of flagellations carried out in Palestine where the strokes were delivered with such strength that they exposed the victim’s innards. He also confirms that scourging was a prelude to crucifixion.

But intensity of the scourging of Jesus is unknown. The gospels dedicate almost nothing to this event and some claim it was not even significant enough to be described. And yet despite the scarcity of information, modern commentaries on the Passion and Biblical dictionaries provide a detailed description of the scourge, and even drawings.

Scourges from Herbert Haag and Adrian van dem Born, Bibel-Lexikon (Einsiedeln, Benziger, 1956), p. 527.

 

Or so it seems.

In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, the Greek verb φραγελλόω is used to describe Jesus’ scourging, a loan translation of the Latin flagellum, while in John’s Gospel μαστιγόω is used. So did Pilate’s soldiers use a scourge of cords, leather, chains, wood, or something else?

Unfortunately there is no information about the scourge, only a passage where John states that when Jesus “had made a scourge of cords, he drove them all out of the temple.” There is much more information about the flagellation that Jews carried out in synagogues, using a strap of calf leather divided into thongs. But interest in the scourge itself has not abated.

Sixteenth century Jesuit Juan de Maldonado believed that, since the Gospels were silent, identifying Jesus’ scourge was an “inane curiosity.” Others, however, developed conjectures. In 1416 Vincent Ferrer suggested Jesus was scourged with switches of thorns and brambles, then by whips with spiked tips, and finally by chains with hooks at the ends. The belief that these three types of scourges were used became widespread but there is no evidence that these really existed in ancient Rome at the time of Jesus.

The Shroud of Turin was critical. It bears the image of a tortured man whose lacerations clearly resemble those the crucified Jesus would have had. From the sixteenth century onward various authors sharing the belief that the Shroud belonged to Jesus of Nazareth have tried to identify the shape of the scourge from the shape of those marks. This gave rise to a search for an artifact that could have caused wounds.

The first printed book dedicated to the marks on the Shroud of Turin dates to 1598 and was written by Alfonso Paleotti, archbishop of Bologna. Daniele Mallonio later translated Paleotti into Latin and provided a description of the scourge, deduced from the marks on the Shroud. He was also familiar with the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden (1303–1373 CE), who described a corded scourge with spikes. Mallonio’s book included a picture of a flagellum aculeatum and he concluded “the countless wounds that the Shroud received from the body of Christ show that scourges of that type were used for the flagellation of Christ.”

Shroud of Turin (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Full_length_negatives_of_the_shroud_of_Turin.jpg).

 

Alfonso Paleotti and Daniele Mallonio, Iesu Christi crucifixi stigmata Sacrae Sindoni impressa (Venetiis: apud Baretium, 1606), p. 68.

 

Mallonio consulted the famous 1593 treatise De Cruce by Justus Lipsius for historical information. Drawing on Athenaeus of Naucratis (second century CE) and Eustathius of Thessalonica (twelfth century CE), he described, among others, a scourge used in the East “made of astragalus bones.” Due to their near-cube shape, the astragalus bones of sheep have various uses, most famously as dice. But if strung on the cords of a scourge, these small bones rendered terrible blows on a victim. Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (second century CE) provides the best description of this astragalus-scourge, which the author calls tesseratum (strung with tesserae, or small cubes).

But when Lipsius translated into Latin the Greek passages containing the descriptions of that kind of scourge, he used the recent word taxillatum (from taxillus, i.e. small die, little cube). Unfortunately, many later authors thus circulated the false idea that the Romans actually had something called flagrum taxillatum, a scourge of little cubes.

So what was then the exact shape of the flagrum of Jesus? Mallonio reported the existence of a fragment preserved in Rome in the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata. I went looking for this fragment: it is only a tiny piece of thin chain with a twisted nail attached, encased in a cross-reliquary together with other strange relics.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Shroud scholar Paul Vignon reinvestigated the scourge. He also felt the need to confirm the circular shape of the whip marks on the Shroud and searched for a very specific scourge with blunt spherical objects at the ends of its lashes.

Unlike Mallonio, Vignon was able to consult designs for Roman scourges in books such as the Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines by Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by Anthony Rich. The most striking was a flagrum talis tesseratum depicted on a marble bas-relief from the second century, with three strings dangling from a handle and twenty-four astragalus bones.

Rome, Musei Capitolini, Inventario Sculture, s 1207. Photo: Valeria Pezzi.

 

But this is the ceremonial flagrum of Cybele’s priests, not a scourge used to carry out corporal punishment. Furthermore, it does not match the Shroud marks.

What about the archaeological evidence? Vignon had to trust the drawings he found in the books, unaware that these could be misleading. Rich and Daremberg-Saglio’s illustrators had incorrectly reproduced what is only a whip, with nothing visible attached to its ends.

Anthony Rich, Dictionnaire des antiquités romaines et grecques (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1859), p. 273.

 

Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, n. 69500. Photo: Valeria Pezzi.

 

In fact, all the designs that Vignon consulted were unreliable.

Where can we find a parallel that matches the Shroud? Some scholars suggest the so-called plumbatae, a fourth century CE instrument of torture. But this was not in use in first-century Palestine. Another example is the pendant with a spiral engraving and three chains with charms drawn in Rich’s dictionary, allegedly “copied from an original found at Herculaneum.”

Anthony Rich, Dictionnaire des antiquités romaines et grecques (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1859), p. 273.

 

However, nothing similar has ever been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum or at the Naples Archaeological Museum.

Rich’s object was actually copied from an eighteenth-century drawing belonging to a collector, the Count of Caylus (1692–1765). Caylus reports having bought the scourge along with other items from a seller in Rome, but erroneously identifies them as scourges dating to the Roman period. Fortunately, the Caylus collection has survived and I was able to track down all of the objects. The supposed scourge of Herculaneum is a “piece of tack” dating to the Iron Age, while the alleged “chain scourge” dates to the ninth-eighth century BCE.

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des mon- naies, médailles et antiques, inv. bronze 1836. Photo: René-Ginouvès.

 

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Dépar- tement des monnaies, médailles et antiques, inv. bronze 1837. Photo: René-Ginouvès.

 

Modern archeology is far more cautious. It is extremely difficult to find and identify actual scourges because of the perishable materials. Archaeologists must also take great care in accepting older classifications, especially when the artifact was subject to arbitrary additions and restoration attempts by diggers and private collectors.

The only object I have been able to identify that might be a scourge, from Rome but undated, has a handle and 29 bronze balls strung onto two cords.

British Museum, Greek and Roman Antiquities, Bronze 2694.

 

But the numerous spheres are much larger than those on the Shroud.

None of the numerous ancient images proposed depict a shape similar to the hypothetical scourge of the Shroud. Vignon was not able to locate a single one, either in real life, drawn or carved, that would leave marks matching those visible on the Shroud.

But medieval artistic representations often show soldiers striking Jesus with two different scourges, one of cords with knots or spherical weights, sometimes spiked, the other a cluster of switches. These can already be found from the first half of the ninth century; both types can be seen in the thirteenth century.

Stuttgarter Psalter, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod.bibl.fol.23, f. 43v.

 

Biblia de San Luis, Catedral de Toledo, vol. iii, f. 61v.

 

These two different scourges are documented in medieval art, not in Roman practices. Moreover, precisely in the middle of the fourteenth century the Flagellants movement began to spread widely. The marks on the man wrapped in the Shroud therefore coincide with wounds familiar to artists of the Middle Ages. Everything is compatible with when the Shroud was created, the first half of the fourteenth century.

Bible dictionaries and studies on the passion of Christ should remove references to a Roman scourge with pendants or circular weights. This is the product of medieval beliefs, erroneous archaeological identifications, and twentieth century Shroud-related conjectures.

 

Andrea Nicolotti is a faculty member in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Turin.