John 19:1

Then Pilate therefore Because the attempt to release Him in honour of the Feast had failed, Pilate now tries whether the severe and degrading punishment of scourging will not satisfy the Jews. In Pilate's hands the boasted justice of Roman Law ends in the policy "What evil did He do? I found no cause of death in Him: I will thereforechastise Him and let Him go" (Luke 23:22). Scourging was part of Roman capital punishment, and had we only the first two Gospels we might suppose that the scourging was inflicted immediately before the crucifixion: but this is not stated, and S. John, combined with S. Luke, makes it clear that scourging was inflicted as a separate punishment in the hope that it would suffice. The supposition of a second scourging as part of the execution is unnecessary and improbable. Pilate, sick of the bloody work and angry at being forced to commit a judicial murder, would not have allowed it; and it may be doubted whether any human frame could have survived a Roman scourging twice in one day. One infliction was sometimes fatal; ille flagellis ad mortem caesus, Hor. S. 1. ii. 41. Comp. - horribile flagellum" S. 1. iii. 119.