cally superstitious. Pilate
feared to think what dread portent his wife's dream might presage. But,
finding that he could not prevail, and foreseeing a tumult among the
people if he persisted in the defense of Christ, he called for water and
washed his hands before the multitude--a symbolic act of disclaiming
responsibility, which they all understood--proclaiming the while: "I am
innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it." Then rose that
awful self-condemnatory cry of the covenant people: "His blood be on us
and on our children." History bears an appalling testimony to the
literal fulfilment of that dread invocation.[1292] Pilate released
Barabbas, and gave Jesus into the custody of the soldiers to be
scourged.

Scourging was a frightful preliminary to death on the cross. The
instrument of punishment was a whip of many thongs, loaded with metal
and edged with jagged pieces of bone. Instances are of record in which
the condemned died under the lash and so escaped the horrors of living
crucifixion. In accordance with the brutal customs of the time, Jesus,
weak and bleeding from the fearful scourging He had undergone, was given
over to the half-savage soldiers for their amusement. He was no ordinary
victim, so the whole band came together in the Pretorium, or great hall
of the palace, to take part in the diabolical sport. They stripped Jesus
of His outer raiment, and placed upon Him a purple robe.[1293] Then with
a sense of fiendish realism they platted a crown of thorns, and placed
it about the Sufferer's brows; a reed was put into His right hand as a
royal scepter; and, as they bowed in a mockery of homage, they saluted
Him with: "Hail, King of the Jews!" Snatching away the reed or rod, they
brutally smote Him with it upon the head, driving the cruel thorns into
His quivering flesh; they slapped Him with their hands, and spat upon
Him in vile and vicious abandonment.[1294]

Pilate had probably been a silent observer of this barbarous scene. He
stopped it, and determined to make another attempt to touch the springs
of Jewish pity, if such existed. He went outside, and to the multitude
said: "Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no
fault in him." This was the governor's third definite proclamation of
the Prisoner's innocence. "Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of
thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the
man!"[1295] Pilate seems to have counted on th