John 19:2

And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns,— See the note on Matthew 27:29. To what has been said there concerning the crown of thorns, the following observations may be added. The form of the sentence for execution passed upon criminals, as recited by Cicero, was this: I, lictor, colliga manus, caput obnubito, arbori infelici suspendito: "Go, lictor, bind his hands, cover or veil his head, suspend him on the unhappy tree:" where the words colliga manus may signify no more than tie his hands together, though it was the custom to fasten them afterwards to the cross either with cords or nails, as in the case of our Saviour. That they covered the faces of the criminals, appears also from this passage of Cicero: the reason hereof might perhaps be the same as with us, to prevent the shocking sight of the horror and distortion of the countenance during their agonies. It seems highly probable, therefore, that the two malefactors who were crucified with our Saviour, were so treated, according to the usual custom; but the crown of thorns which was put upon his head prevented any such covering, so that his countenance was open and visible to the spectators: and this appears from what our evangelist mentions of his seeing and speaking both to his mother and beloved disciple, John 19:26. Now this might be so ordered by a particular direction of Providence; that the divine composure and serenity of his countenance, together with his whole deportment, might be rendered the more conspicuous to so vast a crowd of spectators as was then present during the last scene of his sufferings; and therefore Mr. Wright, in his Travels, has very justly censured the Italian painters, as generally guilty of an impropriety in representing our Saviour on the cross with his face distorted, as if under great uneasiness and discomposure: in which wrong notion they have also been usually followed by others. It can occasion no difficulty here to suppose, that the faces of the two malefactors were covered, because they are both said to have spoken to our Saviour while they hung upon the cross; for we are often told of things said by criminals amongst us in the like circumstances. But it has been remarked, that "nothing was set down by the evangelists touching the complexion, stature, or features of Christ, that no man might presume to set his hand to the framing of that astonishingwork wrought once for all by the Holy Ghost."