Jewish law forbade administering more than forty lashes, and the Pharisees had reduced the number to thirty-nine. St. Paul speaks of his scourging as being "forty less one." (2 Cor. 11:24) Among the Romans there was no such restraint and we can be certain that many did die as a result of the scourging, if not immediately, then later, from either infection or internal hemorrhaging. The evidence on the Shroud is that Jesus was struck excessively.