one to be burnt as a public deceiver. The Talmud, Babyl. San. fol. 43. 1. prescribes the formula used by the herald among the Jews. "The crier went before the candidate for death, and said, 'such a man, the son of such a man, because he has been proved guilty of such a crime, at such a place, on such a day, is now to be slain. The witnesses of his crime are such and such an one. If any person can clear him of the charge, let him speak.' If one said, I have something to say in his favor, the prisoner was brought back to the Sanhedrim, and if found innocent, dismissed; but if not, was carried back to execution."

When the procession had arrived at the destined spot, and while the prisoner was waiting the erection of the cross, he was presented with a stupifying and intoxicating draught. "The tradition is," see the extract from the Talmud in Lightfoot, tom. 2, p. 386, "that the honorable women of Jerusalem provided this draught at their own expense." Sometimes it was the richest wine mingled with spices, the most delicious species of the "mixed wine." Sometimes it was the ordinary strong drink, or "sikera," a very powerful liquid, made of dates and various seeds and roots. Ordinarily, however, it was the poor, dead, sour wine, or vinegar, saturated with myrrh, gall, wormwood, and other inebriating articles; an inferior species of the "mixed wine," which is proscribed in several Scriptures. This vinegar, when mingled with water, was denominated "posca," was a common beverage among the poorer classes, and the prescribed one of the Roman soldiers. The effect of either beverage was to produce rapid intoxication, and thereby benumb the sensibilities.* * "When a man is led forth to be executed," says Tr. Sanhedrim, c. 6," there is given to him a grain of frankincense in a cup of wine, that his understanding may be disturbed; as it is said, Prov. xxxi. 6, "Give strong drink to one that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy heart."

The "posca," when made intoxicating, was offered to Jesus, probably by his executioners, though some suppose by his female friends. Matthew says, (xxvii. 34.) that they offered him "vinegar," cheap wine," mingled with gall," the term gall not being literal here, but meaning any thing bitter.

* See Jahn's Archæology, p. 141, p. 162; also Poole's Synopsis, vol. iv. p. 674.

Mark calls the liquid (xv. 23.) “wine," the same as the vinegar of Matthew, "mingled with myrrh," the species being again put for the genus, the part for the whole, and the myrrh of Mark, like the gall of Matthew, denoting simply a bitter impregnation. Jesus barely applied the liquid to his palate, but discovering the nature of it, and choosing to die with his faculties unimpaired, refused to drink. He dreaded, above all things, to deliver himself in such a way from his cup of sorrow.

*

We must be careful to distinguish the first offer of a beverage to Jesus, from the two succeeding offers. The first was a customary act of kindness, and performed by the rough executioner, because aware that the severities of the cross demanded some alleviation. The second, which is recorded in Luke xxiii. 36, was an offer of nothing but the soldier's posca, and was designed by the Romans for an insult and mockery. The third, which is recorded in Matt. xxvii. 48, Mark xv. 36, John xix. 29, was an offer of the same liquid, lying by in a vessel for the use of the executioners, but was made by a Jew, in consequence of the sufferer's exclamation, "I thirst," and not, as the second, by the Roman military, from motives of wanton sport.

The preparatory step immediately preceding crucifixion, was to divest the prisoner of his clothing. "Naked came he into the world," was the Jewish motto, " and naked must he go out." "To be crucified is good for the poor man," says Artemidorus," because he is then lifted up; but evil for the rich, because he is then made naked." All the property which Christ had, was the clothes upon his back; these, however, must be taken away, and given to his four murderers. His "over-coat," or cloak, being a square sheet, of

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Perhaps both the myrrh and gall were actual ingredients in the bowl offered to the Saviour. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Jerome, Augustine, and others, read in Matt. xxvii. 34, oiror, instead of ozos, and suppose that Jesus received the rich, pleasant wine, mingled with aromatic substances, and used principally by the luxurious. Michaelis supposes that, as this beverage, though relieving pain for a short time, would on the whole augment it, and especially increase the sufferer's thirst, which was his severest torment, it was refused by the Saviour, in great measure, from his foresight of its ultimate effects. The "posca" was cooling and refreshing; Jesus applied his lips to the proffered liquid, with a hope that he should find it the posca," but when his taste had disappointed him, he would not drink.See Mich. Anmer. zu Matt. xxvii. 34.

It is nowhere stated, that the crown of thorns was taken from the Saviour's head, and the most ancient paintings represent him as crucified with the severe braid upon him. Whether the representation is correct, we do not know, the paintings being without authority.

five or six cubits in length, and five or six feet in breadth, and composed of four distinct parts, was easily divided among the four soldiers who crucified him; but the undercoat, or tunic, was determined by lot to one of the quaternion. It could not be divided, for it was made in resemblance of the high priest's garment, which is thus described by Josephus, Ant. 1. 3, c. 8: "This vesture was not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders and the sides; but it was one long vestment, so woven as to have an aperture for the neck. It was also parted where the hands were to come out." The practice of distributing the prisoner's garments, and other effects, among his executioners, was prescribed by law, and in consequence of the peculiar reluctance of a Jew to part with his cloak, and of every oriental to be left entirely unclothed, was deemed a signal disgrace. Indeed, in every stage of this complicated punishment, the ingenuity of avengers has been racked, to invent the most mortifying, as well as harrowing expedients.

The manner of nailing to the cross has been long involved in dispute. Was the instrument erect, when it received its victim, or taken down to the ground? It would doubtless be easier to fasten the bodies on the horizontal wood, than to lift them, heavy as they were, and sometimes resisting, to the perpendicular. The easier method was therefore often used. It put a speedier termination to life than the other. The hole was excavated in the earth for the beam to enter, the instrument was raised with the tortured victim nailed to it, and then was suddenly and violently precipitated into the . prepared cavity. The precipitation was violent, so as, first, to fix the cross firmly in the earth; secondly, to give a convulsive shock to the suspended criminal, and thus sooner wear out his system. Pionius, the martyr, was crucified in this way, for we read that, "having stripped himself of his own accord, he gazed upwards, and rendered thanks to heaven, then stretched himself out upon the cross, that he might be nailed to it, and after he was nailed, the cross was erected."*

Still this cannot have been the general custom. The current phraseology pertaining to the punishment implies,

* On the mode of crucifixion, see Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. pp. 149159; Jahn's Archæology, p. 261; Lipsius, vol. i. pp. 1188-1208; Bartho lin's Essays; and Paulus. Com. u. d. drey. Evang. Ss. 755–770.

that the wood was erected before the victim was fixed to it. If it were not so, what mean such expressions as "to raise to the cross,"" to ascend," "mount," "leap upon the cross?" What was done when, as often, the perpendicular beam remained stationary, and only the transverse was moveable?* What was done when the cross was a tree? Cicero, in his orations for Rabirius and against Verres, frequently speaks of elevating the instrument before the affixion, and Josephus, in his Wars of the Jews, book vii. 6, 4, says, the Roman general ordered his soldiers "to set up a cross as if he were going to hang Eleazer upon it immediately." Many other incidental proofs of the same general custom, are scattered throughout the ancient histories. "Painters," Calmet remarks, "commonly represent the cross as lowered when our Saviour was fastened to it," but they decidedly oppose in this, as in numerous other particulars, the great majority of historians. Nonnus the poet writes, "when the wood was lifted up from the earth, and high, he (Christ) was stretched out erect upon it," and Gregory Nazianzen merely utters the most approved opinion, when he says, "the cross was placed erect, and then the Saviour adjusted to it.

Four men were generally employed to conduct the crucifixion; "four military men," Josephus says, "because used to slaughter and to blood." Each operator nailed one limb, and the two who nailed the hands, stood on ladders raised to the cross-piece, or, more frequently, on a small elevation of turf or stones, from which, if it were only a foot high, they could easily reach the loftiest part of the instrument. In the earlier ages of the republic, the business of crucifixion was assigned to the lictors, and in all ages the men who performed it, were regarded with awe and dread.

Jahn states (Arch. p. 261.) that no ancient writer whatever describes crucifixion as performed without the use of nails; but Lipsius de Cruce, p. 1183, quotes authorities from Pliny, Livy, and Artemidorus, to show, that the crucified wretch was affixed by ropes together with nails, often ;† and

* See Dobson's Encyclopedia, Art. Cross.

"Whenever the hands were feared to be unable to sustain the body, one rope was employed, binding each arm to the horizontal beam; one also was cast about the victim's breast, under the shoulders, and then tied behind the perpendicular beam;" Lipsius. Polycarp requested of his executioners, when preparing to nail him, that he might be bound merely; for" without the use of nails, the same Being who had permitted his death by fire," his cross being also a stake, "would endow him with strength to bear it." He was thereforé merely bound.

occasionally by ropes alone. It may be questioned, whether among the more ancient Hebrews, the use of ligaments was not more common than that of irons. It was certainly more appalling. It protracted the horrors of death, and added to the intensity as well as the duration of the pains, particularly of hunger and thirst. There is no doubt, however, but that irons were the more common instruments in all the Roman empire. "The cross," says Artemidorus, "consists of wood and spikes."

Dathe, Paulus, Kuinoel, and several English commentators, have said, that only the hands were nailed in crucifixion, and that the feet were left to swing loosely, or else tied to the tree. When Christ, therefore, just risen from the dead, attempts to convince the disciples of his personal identity, he shows them nothing but his hands and side, see John xx. 20, 25, 27. Why did he not show them his feet also, if they contained the scars of the nails; for the feet were bare, and on another occasion (Luke xxiv. 40.) were shown as readily as the hands? The arguments of Paulus (Com. vol. iii. 764-770.) are plausible, and sometimes, for aught we know, the method which he defends may have been adopted. The testimony against it, however, as the common method, is so decisive, that Psalm xxii. 16, must be regarded literally correct even in a general application.

Nonnus, Gregory Nazianzen, and multitudes of painters and sculptors have represented, that three nails, and only three, were used in crucifixion, that the victim's feet were placed one over the other, and were both perforated by a single iron. It is doubtless true, that occasionally, for the purpose of increasing pain, the limbs of the prisoner were thus crossed, not usually, however, nor often. Augustine, Theodoret, and Cyprian, which last was a frequent witness of crucifixions and therefore better authority, than most writers, state that one nail was employed on each foot as well as one on each hand, and that the feet, though not sustaining much of the body's weight, were separate from each other.*

It has been believed for centuries, that the four nails employed upon our Saviour, were subsequently found by Helen; that one of them was thrown into the Adriatic sea to calm its raging; another was inserted into the helmet of her son Constantine, and after securing for him through life an impregnable defence, was sent to Jerusalem; a third and fourth were inserted in the bridle of his war-horse, thus fulfilling Zech. xiv. 20, and were afterwards sent, for sacred exhibition, to two cities of his empire. See a very sober account of this superstition in the Essay of F. Cornelius Curtius, pp. 86-91, connected with Bartholini Hypomnemata de cruce Christi.