BOOK V a St. Luke Garden,' we dare not positively assert, though every probability attaches to it.' Thither, then, did that melancholy procession wind, between eight and nine o'clock on that Friday in Passover week. From the ancient Palace of Herod it descended, and probably passed through the gate in the first wall, and so into the busy quarter of Acra. As it proceeded, the numbers who followed from the Temple, from the dense business-quarter through which it moved, increased. Shops, bazaars, and markets were, indeed, closed on the holy feast-day. But quite a crowd of people would come out to line the streets and to follow; and, especially, women, leaving their festive preparations, raised loud laments, not in spiritual recognition of Christ's claims, but in pity and sympathy.a2 And who could have looked unmoved on such a spectacle, unless fanatical hatred had burnt out of his bosom all that was human? Since the Paschal Supper Jesus had not tasted either food or drink. After the deep emotion of that Feast, with all of holiest institution which it included; after the anticipated betrayal of Judas, and after the farewell to His disciples, He had passed into Gethsemane. There for hours, alone-since His nearest disciples could not watch with Him even one hour-the deep waters had rolled up to His soul. He had drunk of them, immersed, almost perished in them. There had He agonised in mortal conflict, till the great drops of blood forced themselves on His Brow. There had He been delivered up, while they all had fled. To Annas, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, and again to Pilate; from indignity to indignity, from torture to torture, had He been hurried all that livelong night, all that morning. All throughout He had borne Himself with a Divine Majesty, which had awakened alike the deeper feelings of Pilate and the infuriated hatred of the Jews. But if His Divinity gave its true meaning to His Humanity, that Humanity gave its true meaning to His voluntary Sacrifice. So far, then, from seeking to hide its manifestations, the Evangelists, not indeed needlessly but unhesitatingly, put them forward.3 Unrefreshed by food or This view was first propounded by Thenius, and afterwards advocated by Furrer (Wander. d. Paläst, pp. 70, &c.), but afterwards given up by him. As to the locality, comp. Quart. Statement of Pal. Explor. Fund,' Oct. 1881, pp. 317-319; Conder's Handbook to the Bible,' pp. 355, 356, and for the description of Jeremiah's Grotto, Baedeker-Socin, u. s. p. 126. Of course, proof is in the nature of things impossible yet to me this seems the most sacred and precious locality in Jerusalem. 2 I cannot conceive any sufficient ground, why Keim should deny the historical character of this trait. Surely, on Keim's own principles, the circumstance, that only St. Luke records it, would not warrant this inference. On the other hand, it may be characterised as perhaps one of the most natural incidents in the narrative. * I can only account for it by the prejudices of party fee ing, that one of such THE CROSS LAID ON SIMON THE CYRENIAN. sleep, after the terrible events of that night and morning, while His is not pity, it is worship at the sight. For, underlying His Human 2 587 СНАР. XV Up to that last Gate which led from the 'Suburb' towards the place of execution did Jesus bear His Cross. Then, as we infer, His strength gave way under it. A man was coming from the opposite direction, one from that large colony of Jews which, as we know, had settled in Cyrene.' He would be specially noticed; for, few would at that hour, on the festive day, come out of the country,' although such was not contrary to the Law. So much has been made of this, that it ought to be distinctly known that travelling, which was forbidden on Sabbaths, was not prohibited on feast-days.3 Besides, the place whence he came-perhaps his home-might have been within the ecclesiastical boundary of Jerusalem. At any rate, he seems to have been well known, at least afterwards, in the Church-and his sons Alexander and Rufus even better than he. Thus much only can we say with certainty; to identify them with persons of the same name mentioned in other parts of the New Testament can only be matter of speculation. But we can scarcely repress the thought that Simon the Cyrenian had not before that day been a disciple; had only learned to follow Christ, when, on that day, as he came in by the Gate, the soldiery laid hold on him, and against his will forced him to bear the Cross after Christ. Yet another indication of the need of such help comes to us from St. Mark," who uses an xv. 22 expression which conveys, though not necessarily that the Saviour had to be borne, yet that He had to be supported to Golgotha from the place where they met Simon. Here, where, if the Saviour did not actually sink under His fine and sympathetic tact as Keim should so strangely have missed this, and impated, especially to St. John, a desire of obscuring the element of weakness and forsakenness (u. s. p. 401). See vol. i. pp. 62, 63, 119. 2 Certainly not from the field.' The original, it is now generally admitted, does not mean this, and, as Wieseler aptly remarks (Beitr. p. 267), a person would scarcely return from labour in the This is shown in Tosaph. to Chag. Acts xiii. 1; Rom. xvi. 13. 5 φέρουσιν. a St. Mar XV. 21 BOOK V a St. Luke xxiii. 27-31 also records burden, it yet required to be transferred to the Cyrenian, while Himself henceforth needed bodily support, we place the next incident in this history. While the Cross was laid on the unwilling Simon, the women who had followed with the populace closed around the as St. Luke Sufferer, raising their lamentations. At His Entrance into Jerusalem," Jesus had wept over the daughters of Jerusalem; as He left it for the last time, they wept over Him. But far different were the reasons for His tears from theirs of mere pity. And, if proof were required of His Divine strength, even in the utmost depth of His Human weakness-how, conquered, He was Conqueror-it would surely be found in the words in which He bade them turn their thoughts of pity where pity would be called for, even to themselves and their children in the near judgment upon Jerusalem. The time Hos. ix. 14 would come, when the Old Testament curse of barrenness would be coveted as a blessing. To show the fulfilment of this prophetic lament of Jesus, it is not necessary to recall the harrowing details recorded by Josephus, when a frenzied mother roasted her own child, and ir the mockery of desperateness reserved the half of the horrible mea! for those murderers who daily broke in upon her to rob her of what scanty food had been left her; nor yet other of those incidents, too revolting for needless repetition, which the historian of the last siege of Jerusalem chronicles. But how often, these many centuries must Israel's women have felt that terrible longing for childlessness and how often must the prayer of despair for the quick death of fall ing mountains and burying hills rather than prolonged torture have risen to the lips of Israel's sufferers! And yet, even so, these words were also prophetic of a still more terrible future! For, if Israel had put such flame to its 'green tree,' how terribly would the Divine judgment burn among the dry wood of an apostate and rebellious people, that had so delivered up its Divine King, and pronounced sentence upon itself by pronouncing it upon Him! a War vi. 3. 4 • Hos. x. 8 Rev. vi. 10 And yet natural, and, in some respects, genuine, as were the tears of 'the daughters of Jerusalem,' mere sympathy with Christ almost involves guilt, since it implies a view of Him which is essentially the opposite of that which His claims demand. These tears were the emblem of that modern sentiment about the Christ which, in its effusiveness, offers insult rather than homage, and implies rejection rather than acknowledgment of Him. We shrink with horror from 1 ἐκόπτοντο καὶ ἐθρήνουν αὐτόν. Gerhard remarks: ut κόπτεσθαι sive plangere est manuum (Bengel: pertinet ad gestus), ita Opnvey est oris et oculorum (Bengel ad fletum et vocem flebilem). 589 THE CRUCIFIXION. the assumption of a higher standpoint, implied in so much of the modern so-called criticism about the Christ. But even beyond this, all mere sentimentalism is here the outcome of unconsciousness of our real condition. When a sense of sin has been awakened in us, we shall mourn, not for what Christ has suffered, but for what He suffered for us. The effusiveness of mere sentiment is impertinence or folly: impertinence, if He was the Son of God; folly, if He was merely Man. And, even from quite another point of view, there is here a lesson to learn. It is the peculiarity of Romanism ever to present the Christ in His Human weakness. It is that of an extreme section on the opposite side, to view Him only in His Divinity. Be it ours ever to keep before us, and to worship as we remember it, that the Christ is the Saviour God-Man. It was nine of the clock when the melancholy procession reached Golgotha, and the yet more melancholy preparations for the Crucifixion commenced. Avowedly, the punishment was invented to make death as painful and as lingering as the power of human endurance. First, the upright wood was planted in the ground. It was not high, and probably the Feet of the Sufferer were not above one or two feet from the ground. Thus could the communication described in the Gospels take place between Him and others; thus, also, might His Sacred Lips be moistened with the sponge attached to a short stalk of hyssop. Next, the transverse wood (antenna) was placed on the ground, and the Sufferer laid on it, when His Arms were extended, drawn up, and bound to it. Then (this not in Egypt, but in Carthage and in Rome) a strong, sharp nail was driven, first into the Right, then into the Left Hand (the clari trabales). Next, the Sufferer was drawn up by means of ropes, perhaps ladders; the transverse either bound or nailed to the upright, and a rest or support for the Body (the cornu or sedile) fastened on it. Lastly, the Feet were extended, and either one nail hammered into each, or a larger piece of iron through the two. have already expressed our belief that the indignity of exposure was not offered at such a Jewish execution. And so might the crucified hang for hours, even days, in the unutterable anguish of suffering, till consciousness at last failed. 1 We It was a merciful Jewish practice to give to those led to execution a draught of strong wine mixed with myrrh, so as to deaden con But Nebe denies the use of ladders, and, in general, tries to prove by numerous quotations that the whole Cross was first erected, and then the Sufferer lifted up to it, and, only after that, the nails СНАР. XV BOOK a Mass. Sem. ii. 9; Bemid. R. 10 * Sanh. 43 a a sciousness. This charitable office was performed at the cost of, if not by, an association of women in Jerusalem. That draught was offered to Jesus when He reached Golgotha.' But having tasted it, and ascertained its character and object, He would not drink it. It was like His former refusal of the pity of the 'daughters of Jerusalem.' No man could take His Life from Him; He had power to lay it down, and to take it up again. Nor would He here yield to the ordinary weakness of our human nature; nor suffer and die as if it had been a necessity, not a voluntary self-surrender. He would meet Death, even in his sternest and fiercest mood, and conquer by submitting to the full. A lesson this also, though one difficult, to the Christian sufferer. And so was He nailed to His Cross, which was placed between, probably somewhat higher than, those of the two malefactors crucified with Him. One thing only still remained: to affix to His Cross the so-called 'title' (titulus), on which was inscribed the charge on which He had been condemned. As already stated, it was customary to carry this board before the prisoner, and there is no reason for supposing any exception in this respect. Indeed, it seems implied in the circumstance, that the 'title' had evidently been drawn up under the direction of Pilate. It was--as might have been expected, and yet most significantly 3-trilingual: in Latin, Greek, and Aramæan. We imagine, that it was written in that order, and that the words were those recorded by the Evangelists (excepting St. Luke,5 who seems to give a modification of the original, or Aramæan, text). The inscription given by St. Matthew exactly corresponds with that • H.E. v. 1 which Eusebius records as the Latin titulus on the cross of one of the early martyrs. We therefore conclude, that it represents the Latin words. Again, it seems only natural, that the fullest, and to the Jews most offensive, description should have been in Aramæan, с The two alleged discrepancies, between St. Matthew and St. Mark, though, even if they did exist, scarcely worth mention, may be thus explained: 1. If St. Matthew' wrote vinegar' (although the best MSS. read 'wine'), he, no doubt, so translated literally the word Chomets (pin), which, though literally vinegar,' refers to an inferior kind of wine which was often mixed (comp. Pes. 42 b). 2. If our Greek text of St. Matthew speaks of 'wormwood' (as in the LAX.)—not 'gall' --and St. Mark of myrrh, we must remember, that both may have been regarded as stupefying, perhaps both used, and that possibly the mistake may have arisen from the similarity of the words and their writing Lebhonah,myrrh,' Laanah, wormwood--when may have passed into the into y. 2 Sepp, vol. vi. p. 336, recalls the execution of Savonarola between Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico, and the taunt of his enemies: Now, brother!' 3 Professor Westcott beautifully remarks: These three languages gathered up the result of the religious, the social, the intellectual preparation for Christ, and in each witness was given to His office. 4 See next page, note 1. 5 The better reading there is, ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων οὗτος. |