The Crown of Thorns

Extract

The Rev. H. St. J. Hart has recently put forward the interesting suggestion that the crown of thorns in John 19, 2–5, was made from the long thorns (modified leaflets) that grow on the base of the rachis, or axis, of the date-palm frond. Such a crown, with its tall spines projecting upward from a headband, was intended as a caricature of the radiate crown worn, in numismatic and other representations, by kings and emperors of Hellenistic and Roman times. In the narrative of John it was not an instrument of torture, but merely a “property” used in mockery of Jesus' pretension to be King of the Jews. Mr. Hart provides two excellent plates, which show the radiate crown as it appears on coin types, and also two improvised radiate crowns, one made from the leaflets, the other from the thorns of the date-palm.