Ecce homo (/ˈɛksi ˈhoʊmoʊ/, Ecclesiastical Latin: [ˈettʃe ˈomo], Classical Latin: [ˈɛkkɛ ˈhɔmoː]; "behold the man") are the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of the Gospel of John, when he presents a scourged Jesus, bound and crowned with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his crucifixion (John 19:5). The original New Testament Greek: "ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος", romanized: "idoù ho ánthropos", is rendered by most English Bible translations, e.g. the Douay-Rheims Bible and the King James Version, as "behold the man". The scene has been widely depicted in Christian art.

A scene of the ecce homo is a standard component of cycles illustrating the Passion and life of Christ in art. It follows the stories of the Flagellation of Christ, the crowning with thorns and the mocking of Jesus, the last two often being combined: The usual depiction shows Pilate and Jesus, a mocking crowd which may be rather large, and parts of the city of Jerusalem.

But, from the 15th century in the West, and much earlier in the art of the Eastern church, devotional pictures began to portray Jesus alone, in half or full figure with a purple robe, loincloth, crown of thorns and torture wounds, especially on his head, and later became referred to as images of the Ecce homo. Similar subjects but with the wounds of the crucifixion visible (nail wounds on the limbs, spear wounds on the sides), are termed a Man of Sorrows (also Misericordia). If the instruments of the Passion are present, it may be called an Arma Christi. If Christ is sitting down (usually supporting himself with his hand on his thigh), it may be referred to it as Christ at rest or Pensive Christ. It is not always possible to distinguish these subjects.

Narrative scenes of the biblical moment are almost never shown in Eastern art, but icons of the single figure of the tortured Christ go back over a millennium, and have sometimes been called Ecce homo images by later sources. The first depictions of the ecce homo scene in the arts appear in the 9th and 10th centuries in the Syrian-Byzantine culture of the Antiochian Greek Christians.

Eastern Orthodox tradition generally refers to this type of icon by a different title: ″Jesus Christ the Bridegroom″ (Byzantine Greek: Ιηϲοῦϲ Χριστόϲ ὁ Νυμφίος, romanized: Iesoũs Christós ho Nymphíos). It derives from the words in New Testament Greek: "ἰδοὺ ὁ νυμφίος", romanized: "idoù ho nymphíos", by which Jesus Christ reveals himself, in his Parable of the Ten Virgins according to the Gospel of Matthew, as the bearer of the most high joy.

The icon presents the bridegroom as a suffering Christ, mocked and humiliated by Pontius Pilate's soldiers before his crucifixion.

The daily Midnight Office summons the faithful to be ready at all times for the day of the Dread Judgement, which will come unexpectedly like "a bridegroom in the night". On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the first three days of Passion Week, the last week before Pascha, consecrated to the commemoration of the last days of the earthly life of the Saviour, the troparion is chanted: "Behold the Bridegroom Cometh at Midnight" (Byzantine Greek: Ἰδού ὁ Νυμφίος ἔρχεται ἐν τῷ μέσῳ τῆς νυκτός, romanized: idoú ho nymphíos érchetai en tõ méso tẽs nuktós).

A Passion Play, presented in Moscow (27 March 2007) and in Rome (29 March 2007), recalls the words, with which "in Holy Scriptures Christ describes Himself as a bridegroom":