BY THE REV. H. NOLDIN, S.J.
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN.
REVISED BY THE REV. W. H. KENT, O.S.C
In fact the ignominy heaped upon Him was something terrible. Think of Our Lord in that hour of His Passion when He was led from Pilate's house to Herod's palace, and arraigned as a criminal before that monarch who was attended by all the dignitaries of his court! Think of Herod judging Jesus! Herod, who had taken his own brother's wife, who had caused John the Baptist to be beheaded, who was himself so cunning and deceitful that Our Lord spoke of him as that fox; Herod the voluptuary and libertine, noted for his effeminacy, inquisitiveness, and insolence—such is the man by whom Jesus, the personification of purity and innocence, the incarnate Truth, allows Himself to be judged! "he questioned Him in many words," Holy Scripture tells us; and when Our Lord preserved a persistent silence, answering nothing to the king's inquisitive questions, "Herod with all his army set Him at naught and mocked Him. (Luke xxiii. 6-11.) " He caused a white robe, the garment of scorn, to be put on Him, and ordered Him to be led, arrayed in this fool's fashion, through the streets of the city back to Pilate's house. By this act he intended to say: "This man, who has attracted so much attention and been the talk of the whole town, is 'after all only a half-witted, weak-minded fool, without sense or education; there is nothing to be feared from Him. Nothing cuts more deeply, nothing wounds a man's heart more acutely than having such a verdict passed on him. Such was the contumely which Our Lord, the eternal Wisdom of the Father, was obliged to endure at the monarch's court; and God alone knows how often in the course of centuries similar affronts have been offered to Him in the palaces of princes. The king of France and his court were called upon to repair that ignominy, those insults, by a public act of homage. Had he but known the grace Our Lord held out to him!
