NINTH MEDITATION OF OUR SAVIOR'S PASSION ~ LUCY HERBERT

CISERI, Antonio 

Ecce Homo 

1891

IX, Meditation. 

CONSIDER how Pilate, to content our Lord's accusers, commanded he should be scourged, thinking by this means to appease the rage of his enemies. With what horror was not our dear Lord struck, when he heard the sentence of his flagellation? May we not think he sweat Blood again with the terror of it? Yet he submitted to it. No sooner was this cruel order given, but the executioners laid hold of him. What spectacle of horror could exceed this i His hands tied behind his back, he is violently hurried away by two or three hangmen, the rods and whips are prepared, they strip him naked and tie him to a pillar, and then begin, with a hellish rage, to discharge their lashes and stripes upon his delicate body, and tear bis his most pare flesh, adding scourges to scourges and wounds to wounds, so that he received more than five thousand strokes; which flagellation was beyond example bloody and cruel. We could not have the heart to beat a dog after that manner, how then can we be so hard-hearted as to consider our Saviour so barbarously treated, and not shed one tear?

LUCY HERBERT