777 discourse iii: the scourging of the sinner through charity, who will wrench me from You? If you will join me to You through mercy, who will sever me from You? Let my spirit cleave to You, let Your most merciful right hand support me. May the unworthiest member cling to the Head, and may this small atom suffer along with the entire sacred, afflicted body. 2. Let us examine, then, the cruel instruments of such unheard of torture and the hateful means of slaughter. The holy Vincent Ferrer, the extraordinary torch of the Dominican family, reveals this: “First, they scourged Christ with briars and thorns, then with sharp whips, and finally they used chains, to the ends of which they attached barbed iron. So He was harshly whipped with thorns, then more harshly with whips, and finally in the harshest manner with chains” (Serm. de paras.).21 However, Lanspergius,22 the pious author, weighing this most dreadful scourging, says: “After they bound the Lord to the pillar, six robust men came forward to scourge Christ with whips, with rods, and with small scorpions (in which were hooked pieces of iron).”23 These tools were employed to cut the divine, most Sacred Body; this mode of horrible scourging was revealed to the holy Fathers during their loving contemplation. He who is the delight of Heaven and earth, the most beloved, only begotten Son of the Heavenly Father and Immaculate Mother, was beaten with rods by two lictors. And if we accept St. Vincent’s testimony, He was thereupon beaten with the same number of barbed scourges, and at last, either with sharpened chains or with hooked scorpions. In the past, the foolish Rehoboam, the offspring of the wisest king (Solomon), is said to have answered the people who were asking him to lighten their burden: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:14). 21 From his sermon for Good Friday: Cf. Vincentius Ferrerius, Sermones hyemales, Lugduni 1558, p. 735 (In die Parasceves Sermo unicus). 22 Cf. Testore, Celestino, Lansperger (Lanspergio), Johann (Iustus von Landsberg) († 1531), ECat VII, 896-897. 23 This text was not able to be found in the works of Lanspergius.
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