Passion of the Christ

After Pilate’s soldiers beat Jesus, they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. They made a crown of thorns, which they placed on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. They mocked him, spit on him, and kneeled before him saying:

After that humiliation, the Roman soldiers led Jesus away to crucify him.

During the time of this trial, the Romans routinely executed criminals by crucifixion. Because Jewish law allowed neither the killing nor the burying of people within a city, executions in Jerusalem took place outside the city gates.

Assigned the job of carrying the cross beam on which he would die, Jesus began the journey from Pilate’s house to the "place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha)," where He and two others would be crucified.

The narrow street he may have traveled, today called the "Via Dolorosa" (the way of sorrow), still exists. As Jesus moved along, the cross became so heavy He fell. The Roman soldiers ordered Simon of Cyrene, an African from current-day Libya, to carry the cross the rest of the way.