Although the real motive for the death of Jesus was entirely religious, his enemies had succeeded, in the judgment-hall, in representing him as guilty of treason against the state; they could not have obtained from the sceptical Pilate a condemnation simply on the ground of heterodoxy. Consistently with this idea, the priests demanded, through the people, the crucifixion of Jesus. This punishment was not Jewish in its origin; if the condemnation of Jesus had been purely Mosaic, he would have been stoned.[1] Crucifixion was a Roman punishment, reserved for slaves, and for cases in which it was wished to add to death the aggravation of ignominy. In applying it to Jesus, they treated him as they treated highway robbers, brigands, bandits, or those enemies of inferior rank to whom the Romans did not grant the honor of death by the sword.[2] It was the chimerical "King of the Jews," not the heterodox dogmatist, who was punished. Following out the same idea, the execution was left to the Romans. We know that amongst the Romans, the soldiers, their profession being to kill, performed the office of executioners. Jesus was therefore delivered to a cohort of auxiliary troops, and all the most hateful features of executions introduced by the cruel habits of the new conquerors, were exhibited toward him. It was about noon.[3] They re-clothed him with the garments which they had removed for the farce enacted at the tribunal, and as the cohort had already in reserve two thieves who were to be executed, the three prisoners were taken together, and the procession set out for the place of execution. [Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1. The Talmud, which represents the condemnation of Jesus as entirely religious, declares, in fact, that he was stoned; or, at least, that after having been hanged, he was stoned, as often happened (Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 4.) Talmud of Jerusalem, _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16. Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.] [Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. x. 10, XX. vi. 2; _B.J._, V. xi. 1; Apuleius, _Metam._, iii. 9; Suetonius, _Galba_, 9; Lampridius, _Alex. Sev._, 23.] [Footnote 3: John xix. 14. According to Mark xv. 25, it could scarcely have been eight o'clock in the morning, since that evangelist relates that Jesus was crucified at nine o'clock.]