Psa. Ixix, 21, but not strictly accurate. This merci- fully intended draught must not he confounded with the spongeful of vinegar (or poeca, the common drink of Boman soldiers, Spart ffadr. ; Plant. MiL Gl. iii, 2, 28), which was put on a hyssop-stalk and offered to our Lord in mocking and contemptuous pity (Matt, xxvii, 48; Luke xxiii, 86) ; this he tasted to allay the agonies of thirst (John xix, 29).
The body was affixed to the cross by nails (see Com. Curtius, De davit Domini^ Antw. 1760) driven into the hands, and more rarely into the feet ; sometimes the feet were fastened by one nail driven through both (Tertull. adv. Jud. x ; Senec. De Vita Beat. 19 ; Lac- tant. iv, 18). The feet were occasionally bound to the cross by cords ; and Xenophon asserts that it was usual among the Egyptians to bind in this manner not only the feet, but the hands. An inscription (tiiuhu) was written upon a small tablet (oavtQy Socrat Hist. EccL i, 17) declaring the crime (see Alberti, De Inscript. crucis Chr, Lips. 1725), and placed on the top of the cross (Sueton. Cal. 88; Dom. 10; Euseb. ffitt. Ecclet, V, 1). The body of the crucified person rested on a sort of seat (x^y/ia) (Iren. adv. Hcer. ii, 42). The criminal died under the most frightful sufferings — so great that even amid the raging passions of war pity was sometimes excited. Josephus {War^ v, 11, 1) narrates of captives taken at the siege of Jerusalem that " they were first whipped, and tormented with all sorts of tortures, and then crucified before the walls of the city. The soldiers, out of the wrath and the hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught one after one way and another after another to crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great that room was wanting for the crosses and crosses wanting for the bodies. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly pity them." Sometimes the suffering was shortened and abated by breaking the legs of the criminal — crti- rafracta (Cicero, Phil, xiii, 12). The execution took place at the hands of the cam\fexy or hangman, attend- ed by a band of soldiers, and in Bome under the su- pervision of the Triumviri Capitales (Tacit. Ann. xv, 60; Lactant. iv, 26). The accounts given in the Gos- pels of the execution of Jesus Christ are in entire agreement with the customs and practices of the Bo- mans in this particular (Tholuck, GlaubtoHrdiffkeit der eoangd. Getdt, p. 861).
Our Lord was crucified between two "thieves" (Xy- <rrai, robbert) or " maleibctors" (then so common in Palestine, Josephus, WoTy ii, 6, etc.), according to prophecy (Isa. liii, 12) ; and was watched according to custom by a party of four soldiers (John xix, 28), with their centurion (jcovcrroi^ia, Matt, xxvii, 66-; fiMet qid crucet atturabaty Petr. Sea. iii, 6 ; Plutarch, VU, Cleom, 88), whose express office was to prevent the surreption of the body (Seneca, Ep. 101). This was necessary tram the lingering character of ibe death, which some- times did not supervene even for three days, and was at last the result of gradual benumbing and starvation (Euseb. viii, 8 ; Seneca, Prov. 8). But for this guard, the persons night have l)een taken down and recov- ered, as was actually done in the case of a friend of Josephns, though only one survived out of three to whom the same careftil nursing (Btpaviia Itrt/ifXtO" rani) was applied (Zi/e, 75). Among the Convulsion- naires in the reign of Louis XY , women would be re- peatedly crucified, and even remain on the cross three hours ; we are told of one who underwent it twenty- three times {Encyd, Metr.y %. v. Cross) ; the pain con- sisted almost entirely in the nailingy and not more than a basinful of blood was lost. Still we cannot be- lieve fixnn the Mart3rrologies that Y ictorinns (crucified head downward) lived three days, or Timotheus and Maura nine days (compare Bretsdineider, in the 8tur dim If. Krit.y 1882, ii, 626 ; Paulns, in the Darmst, Kir- chenedt. 1888, No. 8, 9). Fracture of the legs (Plaut. Pan. iv, 2, 64) was especially adopted by the Jews (Dent, xxi, 22) to hasten death (John xix, 81), and it
CRUCIFIXIOX
690
CRUCIFIXION'
tras a mitigation of the panishment (Ca$aab. Exerc. Antib. p. 537), as observed bj Origen. Bat the luia- soal rapidity of our Lord's death was due to the depth of his previous agonies (which appears from bis inabil- ity to bear his own cross far), and to his mental an- guish (Schdttgen, Hor, Heb. vi^S; De pcM. Mesnce)^ or it may be sufficiently accounted for simply from peculiarities of constitution. There is no need to ex- plain the "giving up of the ghost" as a miracle (Heb. ▼, 7 ?), or say with Cyprian, Prevenio carfdfieU officio, $piritum sporUe dimisii {Adv, Detnetr), Still less can the common cavil of infidelity be thought noteworthy, since, had our Lord l)een in a swoon, the piercing of his pericardium (proved by the appearance of lymph and blood) would have ensured death. (See Eschenbach, Opusc. Med. de Servatore non apparerUer sed vert mor- ttiOj and Qruner, De tnorte Chritd turn tynopdcd, quoted by Jahn in his BHU. Arch,) (See below.) Pilate ex- pressly satiafied himself of the actual death by question- ing the centurion (Mark xv, 44) ; and the omission of the brealdng of the legs in this case was the fulfil- ment of a type (Exod. xii, 46). Other modes of hast- ening death were by lij^hting fires under the cross (hence the nicknames Sarmentitii and Semaxiiy Tert Apohg. 60), or letting loose wild beasts on the crucified (Snet.iVer.49).