Crucifixion

“ They may be necessary, but they are not glorious. The symbol of the crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched figure of Christ, the sorrowful cry to his Father, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” these things jar with our spirit. We little men may well fail and repent, but it is our faith that our God does not fail us nor himself. We cannot accept the Christian’s crucifix, or pray to a pitiful God. We cannot accept the Resurrection as though it were an after-thought to a bitterly felt death. ”

“ But once think upon it, and you at least, of all men, must at once perceive how utterly impossible it would be for a victim nailed upon a cross by hands and feet to preserve the position invariably displayed in figures of the Crucifixion. Those who so portray it fail in what should be their most awful and agonizing effect. ”

“ We are not to carry about with us the mould of the sepulchre, but the glory of the resurrection. It is not the Ecce Homo, but the Living Christ. And so our crucifixion is to be so complete that it shall be lost in our resurrection and we shall even forget our sorrow and carry with us the light and glory of the eternal morning. So let us live the death-born life, ever new and full of a life that can never die, because it is “dead and alive forevermore.” ”

“ The latter event, though of thrilling interest, is the most natural thing in the world; the crucifixion of the Son of God for sinful men may be safely pronounced the most wonderful event in the annals of eternity. The crucifixion day is therefore beyond all comparison the more memorable day. And that redemption itself is asserted of the crucifixion rather than of the resurrection is an undoubted fact. Thus it is written:—
“In whom we have redemption through his blood;” ”

“ I am not aware that any one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics) has propounded doubts as to the reality of the crucifixion; and certainly I have no inclination to argue about the precise accuracy of every detail of that pathetic story of suffering and wrong. But, if Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, that that which, according to the orthodox view, happened after the crucifixion, and which is, in a dogmatic sense, the most important part of the story, is founded on solid historical proofs, I must beg leave to express a diametrically opposite conviction. ”

“ His crucifixion is a possible event. It may be thus far a true narrative, but the adjunct of the atonement, with its efficacy to obliterate the effects of sin, connected with the idea that an infinite, omnipotent and self-existent God was put to death, when a human form was slain upon the cross—never, no, never. It is a thought too monstrous to find lodgment in an enlightened human mind. ”

“ The crucifixion of the incarnate God was the crowning guilt of a nation whom God himself had selected as his own peculiar people, and whom he had condescended to guide by constant direct revelations of his will, but who, from the first, had displayed the most persistent and remarkable proclivity to sin against him, and, in spite of the wonderful miracles wrought on their behalf, to forsake his service for the worship of other gods. ”

“ Crucifixion, as a means of inflicting death in the most cruel, lingering, and shameful way, was used by many nations of antiquity. The Jews never executed their criminals in this way, but the Greeks and Romans made the cross the instrument of death to malefactors. The cross was in the shape either of the letter T or the letter X, or was in the form familiar in such paintings of the Crucifixion as the well-known representation of Rubens. It was the usual custom to compel the criminal to carry his own cross to the place of execution. ”

“ So in the Crucifixion it is not so much the aspect of the groups, the pathos of the faces or gestures, that tells, but it is the mystery and [Pg 257] gloom in which the whole scene is muffled, the atmosphere into which we are absorbed, the sense of livid terror conveyed by the brooding light and shadow, that makes us feel how different the rendering is from any other. ”

“ The source of all these reports of an ever-living witness of the crucifixion is probably Matthew xvi. 28: “There be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” As the kingdom had not come, it was assumed that there must be persons living who had been present at the crucifixion; the same reasoning is at the root of the Anglo-Israel belief. These words are indeed quoted in the pamphlet of 1602. Again, a legend was based on John xxi. 20 that the beloved disciple would not die before the second coming ”

“ Jesus suffered a painful, shameful, and ignominious death, to deliver his people from the bitter pains of eternal death. His crucifixion is the procuring cause of their salvation; for he died that they might live. Ought we not to admire and adore the wisdom of our God, who could cause such invaluable good to spring out of what, distinctly considered, was an act of such injustice and cruelty. We see the persecutors of Jesus full of fury and indignation, executing their cruelties on the innocent object of their abhorrence. ”

“ In His own crucifixion, in that which came before His crucifixion, He knew the suffering of this earthly life. There is no human being who ever has known the misery of man as Jesus knows it, and so He comes to all sorrows with tender consolation. ”

“ In Christ, the burning bush, the fire of the Divine Holiness did its double work: in Him sin was condemned in the flesh; in Him we are free. In giving up His will to the death, and doing God’s will, Christ sanctified Himself; and in that will we are sanctified too. His crucifixion, with its judgment of the flesh, His death, with its entire putting off of what is of nature, is not only for us, but is really ours; a life and a power working within us by His Spirit. ”

“ The earliest crucifix in the catacombs is of the seventh or eight century, and Pope John VII., in 706, dedicated the first mosaic example in St. Peter’s at Rome. Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Jarrow (died 690) , brought from Rome the first picture of the crucifixion of which we hear in the [Pg 21] north of England. S. Augustine advancing with his monks to his first conference with King Ethelbert of Kent, was preceded by a silver cross and a crucifixion painted on a panel. ”

“ ORIGIN OF THE BELIEF OF THE CRUCIFIXION OF GODS.
It has always been presumed that death, and especially death by crucifixion, involved the highest state of suffering possible to be endured by mortals. Hence, the Gods must suffer in this way as an example of courage and fortitude, and to show themselves willing to undergo all the affliction and misery incident to the lot, and unavoidable to the lives, of their devoted worshipers. ”

“ For I have already proved that He was the only-begotten of the Father of all things, being begotten in a peculiar manner Word and Power by Him, and having afterwards become man through the Virgin, as we have learned from the memoirs. Moreover, it is similarly foretold that He would die by crucifixion. For the passage, ‘Deliver my soul from the sword, and my [405] only-begotten from the hand of the dog; save me from the lion’s mouth, and my humility from the horns of the unicorns,’ is indicative of the suffering by which He should die, i.e., by crucifixion. ”

“ As our era was six or seven centuries old before the crucifix was introduced, and the earliest pictorial representation of the execution of Jesus still existing or referred to in any work as having existed was of even later date, much stress has been laid by us upon what we allege to be a caricature of the crucifixion of Jesus and of much earlier date. ”

“ The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother Crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin, under our altar. Think, Father Fauvent, if she were to work miracles here! What a glory of God for the community! ”

“ Crucifixion was not a Jewish mode of punishment. Both the Greeks and the Romans learned this method of execution from the Phoenicians. Even Herod, with all his cruelty, did not resort to crucifixion. The Romans never crucified a Roman citizen; only slaves and subject peoples were subjected to this dishonorable mode of death. During the siege of Jerusalem, just forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus, all of Golgotha was covered by thousands upon thousands of crosses upon which, from day to day, there perished the flower of the Jewish race. ”

“ The crucifixion itself was marked by miracles: darkness overspread the land; the veil, or curtain, which hung before the sanctuary in the temple, was rent in two; an earthquake tore asunder rocks and opened graves; but all these were signs and wonders 373 sent by God: they hardly can be classed among the miracles performed by Christ Himself.
Our Saviour’s last miracle, then, which I am going to tell you of to-day, took place at the time of His seizure by the soldiers and people the night before the crucifixion. ”

“ What can be the explanation of this extraordinary attitude to such an event?—The basis of it is the solemn declaration, which Paul makes in the Epistle, and which he says he made to his converts first of all, that ON THE CROSS CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS. [261] The crucifixion, as a bare event in history, is but an act of wicked folly on the part of the rulers of Judæa; but, viewed from the standpoint of morality and religion, it is a divine act of world-wide significance. In the blood of Christ a new covenant had been made between God and man. ”

“ The torture of crucifixion was sufficient to expel the hallucinations of the maddest brain, but the Evangelists show that while faith in His Messiahship was, during His crucifixion, fading even from His disciples, in Himself it was stronger than ever, and at the very last it was communicated to a dying robber, who trusted that He had power to absolve him, and to open to him the gates of a better life. ”

“ Moreover, even if we could prove that this very common mode of capital punishment was in no case that referred to by the historians who lived in bygone ages, and that death was in each instance caused by affixion to, instead of transfixion by, a stauros, we should still have to prove that each stauros had a cross-bar before we could correctly describe the death caused by it as death by crucifixion. ”

“ To erect crosses in their houses, or to wear them on their persons, was impossible in the times of heathen ascendancy, without risking insult to the holy sign, and danger to themselves. Moreover, in days when crucifixion was still in use as the most degrading of all forms of punishment, and the cross to the world at large a more infamous figure than the gallows is now to us, it must have been difficult even for the followers of the Crucified to rise entirely above the common sentiment of their age. ”

“ In all dying there is struggle and weakness; in our dying to sin there is great struggle and weakness. But only in his crucifixion can we see, in Jesus Christ, a place for struggle and weakness. [70] That self-sacrificing obedience of Jesus Christ's whole life, which was summed up in this great, final act of his crucifixion, and which is palpable as sacrifice, obedience, dolorous effort, only there, is, therefore, constantly regarded by Paul under the figure of this final act, as is also the believer's conformity to Christ's obedience. ”

“ The stigmata which are the best proof of his hyperæsthesia are likewise the best evidence of his spiritual plagiarism and his comparative failure. For to be crucified is not to be Christ. Jesus did not set out to be crucified, but to do his and his Father’s work. Crucifixion came in the day’s work, but was its interruption, not its fulfilment. The true imitation of Christ is to do one’s work though men crucify one. But deliberately to seek crucifixion—even crucifixion of one’s natural desires—is to imitate the accident, not the essence. ”

“ The gentle contempt of those who had entered into the mystery, for those unknowing ones who would fain limit the crucifixion to one brief historic event, is brought out strongly, and savours, though mildly, of the bitterness of the struggle between the two great forces of the inner and spiritualizing and the outer and materializing traditions. ”

“ Verse 7 All they that see me
Psalm 22. is a graphic picture of death by crucifixion. The bones (of the hands, arms, shoulders, and pelvis) out of joint (Psalms 22:14) the profuse perspiration caused by intense suffering (v. 14) ; the action of the heart affected (v.14) ; strength exhausted, and extreme thirst (Psalms 22:15) ; the hands and feet pierced (Psalms 22:16) partial nudity with hurt to modesty (Psalms 22:17) , are all incidental to that mode of death. The accompanying circumstances are precisely those fulfilled in the crucifixion of Christ. Psalms 22:14-17. ”

“ The crucifixion, for example, would remain a tragic incident without further significance, if we regard it merely as a historical fact; to make it a religious mystery, an idea capable of converting the world, the moral imagination must transform it into something that happens for the sake of the soul, so that each believer may say to himself that Christ so suffered for the love of him. ”

“ Still another mark of crucifixion is restfulness. Yes. Christ was crucified, and went down into the grave, and we are crucified and buried with Him. There is no place of rest like the grave; a man can do nothing there, "My flesh shall rest in hope," said David, and said the Messiah. Yes, and when a man goes down into the grave of Jesus, it means this: that he just cries out, "I have nothing but God, I trust God ”