CHAPTER XXV.

DEATH OF JESUS.

Although the real motive for the death of Jesus was entirely religious, his enemies had succeeded, in the judgment-hall, in representing him as guilty of treason against the state; they could not have obtained from the sceptical Pilate a condemnation simply on the ground of heterodoxy. Following up this idea, the priests demanded, through the people, the crucifixion of Jesus. This mode of punishment was not of Jewish origin. If the condemnation of Jesus had been purely Mosaic, he would have been stoned. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. reserved for slaves, and for cases in 240which it was wished to add to death the aggravation of ignominy. In applying it to Jesus, they treated him as they treated highway robbers, brigands, bandits, or those enemies of inferior rank to whom the Romans did not grant the honour of death by the sword. It was the chimerical “King of the Jews,” not the heterodox dogmatist, who was punished. Following out the same idea, the execution was left to the Romans. At this epoch we know that, amongst the Romans, the soldiers performed, at least in cases of political condemnations, the office of executioners. Jesus was therefore delivered to a cohort of auxiliary troops commanded by a centurion, and all the odious accessories connected with executions, introduced by the cruel customs of the new conquerors, were practised upon him. It was about noon. They re-clothed him with the garments which they had removed on arraigning him before the tribunal, and, as the cohort had already in reserve two thieves who were to be executed, the three convicts were placed together, and the procession set out for the place of execution.

This was a locality called Golgotha, situated outside Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city. The name Golgotha signifies a skull; it seems to correspond to our word Chaumont, and probably designated a bare hill, having the form of a bald skulL Where this hill was situated is not exactly known. Certainly it was on the north or north-west of the city, on the high irregular plain which extends between the walls and the two valleys of Kedron and Hinnom—a rather unattractive region, and rendered still more repulsive by the objectionable circumstances that always characterise the neighbourhood of a great city. It is difficult to identify Golgotha with the spot that, since Constantine, has been venerated by all Christendom. This 241spot is too near the interior of the city, and we are led to believe that, in the time of Jesus, it was comprised within the circuit of the walls.

Any one condemned to the cross was forced himself to carry the instrument of his execution. But Jesus, physically weaker than his two companions, was not able to carry his. The troop met a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was returning from the country, and the soldiers, with the offhand procedure of foreign garrisons, compelled him to carry the fatal tree. In so doing they perhaps exercised a recognised right to enforce labour, the Romans not being allowed to carry the infamous wood. It seems that Simon was afterwards of the Christian community. His two sons, Alexander and Rufus, were well known in it. He related perhaps more than one circumstance of which he had been witness. No disciple was at this moment near Jesus.

The place of execution was at length reached. According to Jewish usage, the victims were offered a strong aromatic wine, an intoxicating drink, which, from a feeling of pity, was given to the condemned to stupefy him. It appears that the women of Jerusalem often brought this kind of stupefying wine to the unfortunates who were being led to execution; when there was none presented by the latter, it was purchased at the expense of the public treasury. Jesus, after having touched the rim of the cup with his lips, refused to drink. This sad consolation of common sufferers did not accord with his exalted nature. He preferred to quit life with perfect clearness of mind, and to await in full consciousness the death he had willed and brought upon himself. He was then divested of his garments, and fastened to the cross. The cross was composed of two beams, tied in the form of the letter T. It was so little raised that the feet 242of the condemned almost touched the earth. They commenced by securing it; they next fastened the sufferer to it by driving nails into his hands; the feet were often nailed, occasionally only bound with cords. A piece of wood was fastened to the shaft of the cross, near the centre, and passed between the legs of the condemned, who rested on it. Failing this, the hands would have been torn, and the body would have sunk down. At other times a small horizontal rest was fixed at the elevation of the feet, and supported them.

Jesus experienced these horrors in all their atrocity. A burning thirst, one of the tortures of crucifixion, consumed him. He asked to drink. Near him there was a cup full of the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers, a mixture of vinegar and water, called posca. The soldiers had to carry with them their posca on all their expeditions, amongst which executions were reckoned. A soldier dipped a sponge in this mixture, put it on the end of a reed, and raised it to the lips of Jesus, who sucked it. Two thieves were crucified, one on each side. The executioners, to whom were usually left the small effects of the victims, drew lots for his garments, and, sitting at the foot of the cross, guarded him. According to one tradition, Jesus uttered this sentence, which was in his heart, if not upon his lips: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

According to the Roman custom, a writing was affixed to the head of the cross, bearing in three languages — Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — the words: “THE KING OF THE JEWS.” There was in this inscription something painful and insulting to the nation. Those who passed by and read it were offended. The priests complained to Pilate that he ought to have made use of an inscription which implied simply that Jesus had called himself 243King of the Jews. But Pilate, already tired of the whole affair, refused to change what had been written.

The disciples of Jesus had fled. John, nevertheless, declares himself to have been present, and to have remained standing at the foot of the cross during the whole time. It may be affirmed, with more certainty, that the devoted women of Galilee, who had followed Jesus to Jerusalem and continued to tend him, did not abandon him. Mary Cleophas, Mary Magdalen, Joanna, wife of Khouza, Salome, and others, stood off at a certain distance, never losing sight of him. If we must believe John, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was also at the foot of the cross, and Jesus, seeing his mother and his beloved disciple together, said to the one, “Behold my mother!” and to the other, “Behold thy son!” But we do not understand how the synoptics, who name the other women, should have omitted her whose presence was so striking a feature. Perhaps even the extreme elevation of the character of Jesus does not render such personal emotion probable, at the moment when, solely preoccupied by his work, he no longer existed except for humanity.

Apart from this small group of women, whose presence consoled him, Jesus had before him only the spectacle of the baseness or stupidity of humanity. The passers-by insulted him. He heard around him foolish scoffs, and his greatest cries of pain turned into odious jests: “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.” “He saved others,” they said again; “himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him! Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself.” Some, vaguely acquainted 244with his apocalyptic ideas, thought they heard him call Elias, and said, “Let us see whether Elias will come to save him.” It appears that the two crucified thieves at his side also insulted him. The sky was dark; and the earth, as in all the environs of Jerusalem, dry and gloomy. For a moment, according to certain narratives, his heart failed him; a cloud hid from him the face of his Father; he experienced an agony of despair a thousand times more acute than all his tortures. He saw only the ingratitude of men. Repenting perhaps in suffering for a vile race, he exclaimed: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But his divine instinct still sustained him. In proportion as the life of the body eked out, his soul became clear, returning by degrees to its celestial origin. The object of his mission returned: he saw in his death the salvation of the world; he lost sight of the hideous spectacle spread at his feet, and, irrevocably united to his Father, he began upon the gibbet the divine life which was to enter into the heart of humanity for all eternity.

The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that one could live three or four days in this horrible state upon the instrument of torture. The bleeding from the hands soon stopped, and was not fatal. The real cause of death was the unnatural position of the body, which brought on a frightful disturbance of the circulation, terrible pains in the head and heart, and, finally, rigidity of the limbs. Victims with strong constitutions died simply of hunger. The original idea of this cruel punishment was not directly to kill the culprit by positive injuries, but to expose the slave, nailed by the hand of which he had neglected to make good use, and to let him rot on the wood. The delicate organisation of Jesus preserved him from this slow agony. Everything tends to show that the instantaneous 245rupture of a vessel in the heart killed him, at the end of three hours. A few moments before giving up the ghost his voice was still strong. Suddenly he uttered a terrible cry, which some heard as, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!” but which others, more intent on the accomplishment of prophecies, render, “It is finished!” His head fell upon his breast, and he expired.

Rest now in thy glory, noble founder. Thy work is completed; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy efforts crumble through a flaw. Henceforth, stripped of all frailty, thou shalt aid, by the exaltation of thy divine peace, the infinite fruits of thy acts. At the cost of a few hours of suffering, which have not even tinged thy great soul, thou hast purchased the most complete immortality. During thousands of years, the world will extol thee. Ensign of our contradictions, thou wilt be the standard around which will be fought the fiercest battles. A thousand times more living, a thousand times more loved, since thy death than during the days of thy pilgrimage here below, thou wilt become so completely the corner-stone of humanity that to tear thy name from this world would be to shake it to its foundations. Between thee and God, men will no longer distinguish. Complete vanquisher of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road thou hast traced, ages of adorers.