flagellation

[Lat. flagellatio, from flagel lat us, pa. par. of flagello.] 1. Ord. Lang.: The act of beating, whipping, or scourging; a scourging or flogging; the use of the whip or scourge. 2. Religious : Flagellation is said to have been practiced from religious motives among the old Egyptians. It entered the Christian Church about A. D. 400. About A. D. 1056 Cardinal Peter Damian de Honest is greatly commended it. At a later period it met with the approval of Cardinal Bar on i us toward the close of the sixteenth century. In the thirteenth it had become the distinctive pecul iarity of the sect called in consequence Flagel lants (q. v.).