"Dum crucis inimicos

Vocabis, et amicos,

O Jesu, Fili Dei,

Sis, oro, memor mei."

THOMAS OF CELANO, De Cruce Domini.

“I, MILES, EXPEDI CRUCEM" ("Go, soldier, get ready the cross"). In some such formula of terrible import Pilate must have given his final order. It was now probably about nine o'clock, and the execution followed immediately upon the judgment. The time required for the necessary preparation would not be many minutes, and during this brief pause the soldiers, whose duty it was to see that the sentence was carried out, stripped Jesus of the scarlet war-cloak, now dyed with the yet deeper stains of blood, and clad Him again in His own garments.

1 That Pilate sent some official account of the trial and crucifixion to Tiberius would be à priori probable, and seems to be all but certain (Just. Mart. Apol. i. 76; Tert. Apol. 21; Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ii. 2; Lardner, vi. 606); but it is equally certain that the existing Acta, Paradosis, Mors and Epistolae Pilati are spurious. Tischendorf (De Evang. Apocr., Orig., p. 67) thinks that, though interpolated, they may contain old materials, but I can find nothing of any interest or value in them.

2 Some have supposed that a second scourging took place, the first being the question by torture, the second the pоaikioμds. It seems clear, however, that Pilate had meant the scourging to be this preliminary to crucifixion, though, at the last moment, it suited him to let it pass as inquisitorial. Further, it is inconceivable that Jesus could have been capable of physically enduring two such fearful inflictions, either of which

"BEARING HIS CROSS."

393

When the cross had been prepared they laid it-or possibly only one of the beams of it-upon His shoulders, and led Him to the place of punishment. The nearness of the great feast, the myriads who were present in Jerusalem, made it desirable to seize the opportunity for striking terror into all Jewish malefactors. Two were therefore selected for execution at the same time with Jesus-two brigands and rebels of the lowest stamp. Their crosses were laid upon them, a maniple of soldiers in full armour were marshalled under the command of their centurion, and, amid thousands of spectators, coldly inquisitive or furiously hostile, the procession started on

its way.

The cross was not, and could not have been, the massive and lofty structure with which such myriads of pictures have made us familiar. Crucifixion was among the Romans a very common punishment, and it is clear that they would not waste any trouble in constructing the instrument of shame and torture. It would undoubtedly be made of the very commonest wood that was often sufficient to cause convulsions and death. It is better to regard the ppayeλλwσas of Matt. xxvii. 26 as retrospective.

Of the various kinds of cross-the crux decussata (X), the crux ansata, &c., it is certain that the cross on which Jesus was crucified was either the crux commissa (T, St. Anthony's cross), or the crux immissa, the ordinary Roman cross (†). The fact that the former was in the shape of the Greek capital tau has given ample room for the allegorising propensities of the Fathers. (Cf. Lucian, Jud. Vocal. 12; Gesenius s. v. 1, Ezek. ix. 4.) See abundant O. T. instances of this in Just. Mart. Dial. 89; Tert. Adv. Jud. 10, 11; Barnab. Ep. ix.; Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. See too Theophyl. on Matt. v. 18; Sepp, Leben Christi, vi. 115; Mysterium des Kreuzes.-I have not alluded to the so-called invention of the cross," for the story is intrinsically absurd, and the Jews generally burnt their crosses (Otho, Lex. Rabb. s. v. "Supplicia"). What seems decisive in favour of the shape preserved by the traditions of art for nearly 1,500 years is the expression of Matt. xxvii. 37, that the title was put érávw tĤs kepaλñs AUTOû. I have collected all that seemed archæologically interesting on this subject in the articles "Cross" and "Crucifixion" in Smith's Dict. of the Bible.

66

came to hand, perhaps olive or sycamore, and knocked together in the very rudest fashion. Still, to support the body of a man, a cross would require to be of a certain size and weight; and to one enfeebled by the horrible severity of the previous scourging, the carrying of such a burden would be an additional misery.1 But Jesus was enfeebled not only by this cruelty, but by previous days of violent struggle and agitation, by an evening of deep and overwhelming emotion, by a night of sleepless anxiety and suffering, by the mental agony of the garden, by three trials and three sentences of death before the Jews, by the long and exhausting scenes in the Prætorium, by the examination before Herod, and by the brutal and painful derisions which He had undergone, first at the hands of the Sanhedrin and their servants, then from Herod's body-guard, and lastly from the Roman cohort. All these, superadded to the sickening lacerations of the scourging, had utterly broken down His physical strength. His tottering footsteps, if not His actual falls under that fearful load, made it evident that He lacked the physical strength to carry it from the Prætorium to Golgotha. Even if they did not pity His feebleness, the Roman soldiers would naturally object to the consequent hindrance and delay. But they found an easy method to solve the difficulty. They had not proceeded farther than the city gate, when they

1 Cf. Gen. xxii. 6 (Isa. ix. 6). It is not certain whether the condemned carried their entire cross or only a part of it-the patibulum, or transom, as distinguished from the crux (cf. Plaut. fr. ap. Non. 3, 183, “Patibulum ferat per urbem deinde affigatur cruci"). If the entire cross was carried, it is probable that the two beams were not (as in pictures) nailed to each other, but simply fastened together by a rope, and carried like a V (furca). If, as tradition says (Acts of Pilate, B. 10), the hands were tied, the difficulties of supporting the burden would be further enhanced.

* Act. Pilat. x. ἦλθε μεχρὶ τῆς πύλης.

PROCESSION TO GOLGOTHA.

395

met a man coming from the country, who was known to the early Christians as "Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus ;" and perhaps, on some hint from the accompanying Jews that Simon sympathised with the teaching of the Sufferer, they impressed him without the least scruple into their odious service.1

The miserable procession resumed its course, and though the apocryphal traditions of the Romish Church narrate many incidents of the Via Dolorosa, only one such incident is recorded in the Gospel history. St. Luke tells us that among the vast multitude of people who followed Jesus were many women. From the men in that moving crowd He does not appear to have received one word of pity or of sympathy. Some there must surely have been who had seen His miracles, who had heard His words; some of those who had been almost, if not utterly, convinced of His Messiahship, as they

1 ήγγάρευσαν. It seems to have been a common thing for Roman soldiers to impress people to carry burdens for them (Epict. Dissert. iv. 1). The Cyrenians had a synagogue at Jerusalem (Acts ii. 10; vi. 9). The names Alexander and Rufus are too common to enable us to feel any certainty as to their identification with those of the same name mentioned in Acts xix. 33; 1 Tim. i. 20; Rom. xvi. 13. The belief of the Cerinthians, Basilidians, Carpocratians, and other Gnostics, that Simon was crucified for Jesus by mistake (!), is not worth notice here (Iren. Adv. Haeres. i. 23). One of these wild distortions was that Judas was crucified for Him; and another that it was a certain Titian, or a phantom created by God in the semblance of Jesus. It is a curious trace of the dissemination of Gnostic and Apocryphal legends in Arabia that Mahomet treats the actual crucifixion of Jesus as an unworthy calumny. (Koran, Surat. 3, 4; Sale's Koran, i. 64, 124, "They slew Him not, neither crucified Him, but He was represented by one in His likeness.")

2 These form the subjects of the stations which are to be seen in all Romish churches, and are mainly derived from apocryphal sources. They originated among the Franciscans. The so-called Via Dolorosa does not seem to be mentioned earlier than the fourteenth century. That Jesus, before being eased of His burden, was scourged and goaded onward is but too sadly probable (Plaut. Most. I. i. 53, "Ita te forabunt patibulatum per viam stimulis "). (Cf. Jer. Taylor, Life of Christ, III. xv. 2). ̧

hung upon His lips while He had uttered His great discourses in the Temple; some of the eager crowd who had accompanied Him from Bethlehem five days before with shouted hosannas and waving palms. Yet if so, a faithless timidity or a deep misgiving-perhaps even a boundless sorrow-kept them dumb. But these women, more quick to pity, less susceptible to controlling influences, could not and would not conceal the grief and amazement with which this spectacle filled them. They beat upon their breasts and rent the air with their lamentations, till Jesus Himself hushed their shrill cries with words of solemn warning. Turning to them-which He could not have done had He still been staggering under the burden of His cross-He said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me; but for yourselves weep, and for your children. For lo! days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs which bare not, and the breasts which gave not suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us; for if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Theirs was but an emotional outburst of womanly tenderness, which they could not repress as they saw the great Prophet of mankind in His hour of shame and weakness, with the herald proclaiming before Him the crimes with which He was charged, and the Roman soldiers carrying the title of derision,1 and Simon bending under the weight of the wood to which He was to be nailed. But He warned them that, if this were all which they saw in the passing spectacle, far bitterer causes of woe awaited them, and their children, and

1Suet. Calig. 32, "Praecedente titulo qui caussam poenae indicaret." This was sometimes hung round the neck.