“Pick it up, Matthias.”

Even the sight of it repelled me. Joseph didn’t need to identify the thing as a flagra, the Roman instrument used for scourging. I stared down at the ugly, long-handled object to which were attached a dozen or more small chains with curved rusty nails fixed to their outermost links. We have always been most ingenious in devising means for inflicting punishment on one another.

“Pick it up, Matthias,” Joseph repeated.

I reached down hesitantly and took the rough wooden handle in my hand. After hefting it once or twice I stepped back and swung it through the air, watching the chains fan out with a swishing sound as each nail circled wildly within its own vicious trajectory. Punishment? This was an instrument of death! Joseph, once more, read my mind.

“Those trained in the use of that vile weapon,” he explained, “can remove nearly all the skin from your body and yet still keep you alive for execution on the cross. Try to imagine being tied to a post, Matthias, before a jeering crowd, your naked body extended to the rear with your feet wide apart. Then imagine the chains and the nails smashing against your back and your ribs, each one tearing into your flesh to the bones, with every stroke delivered by men of great strength. Think of those nails tearing away at your private parts, at your eyes, your face, your chest. Try to conceive of a pain so terrible that you pray for death or unconsciousness, but just before you are overcome, cold water is thrown against your body and you are revived enough to feel the next blow and the next. There have been many, Matthias, who have bitten their tongues in two under the expert flogging of a Roman lictor! Imagine, if you can, anyone receiving so many horrible blows from that thing that his body was covered by his own blood while he stood in a pool of it and yet not cry out for mercy, as I have been told that Jesus did not.”

I shuddered and dropped the flagra onto the table.

“Two of those were used on Jesus. The other, with leather thongs and weights, I was not able to secure.”

He pulled the green cloth farther down the table, unveiling a crown of thorns. After I finally caught my breath, I asked nervously, “May I hold it, Joseph?”

“Of course, but be careful of your hands. It, too, is a terrible instrument. Jesus was crucified wearing that abomination, made by the soldiers from their kindling pieces. I removed it from his head myself, with great difficulty. Many of the plant’s sharp spikes had become embedded in his forehead and above his ears.”