We went to see The Passion of the Christ this week. I leave discussions of the theology of the movie to others. This is about the brutality shown. And about man’s inhumanity to man, then and now. There are lessons for Iraq policy today in the ancient images from that movie. First we cover the history of flogging and crucifixion in the Roman Empire. Flogging consisted normally of forty lashes. It was a severe but limited penalty, mostly in the Roman Army. It was used in the same way under the British Admiralty Rules in the 18th Century. The purpose...
