Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (853 page)

The place of execution is named by all the Evangelists
Golgotha,
the Chaldaic [
Heb. letters
]
gulgalta’
and they all interpret this designation by
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the place of a skull,
or
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a skull
(Matt. v
.
33 parall.). From the latter name it might appear that the place was so called because it resembled a skull in form; whereas the former interpretation, and indeed the nature of the case, renders it probable that it owed its name to its destination as a place of execution, and to the bones and skulls of the executed which were heaped up there. Where this place was situated is not known, but doubtless it was out of the city; even that it was a hill, is a mere conjecture.
^§

The course of events after the arrival at the place of execution is narrated by Matthew (v. 34 ff.) in a somewhat singular order. First, he mentions the beverage offered to Jesus; next, he says that after they had nailed him to the tross, the soldiers shared his clothes among them; then, that they sat down and watched him; after this he notices the superscription on the cross, and at length, and not as if supplying a previous omission, but with a particle expressive of succession in time (
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,
the fact that two thieves were crucified with him. Mark follows Matthew, except that instead of the statement

^*
Joseph., Antiq. xiv. vii. 2
.

^†
It is used in the former way by Grotius; in the latter, by Olshausen,
^‡
. s, 481

^§
Comp. Paulus, Fritzsche, and De Wette, in loc.

^||
Vid. Paulus and Fritzsche, in loc. Winer, bibl. Realw. art. Golgotha.

 about the watching of the cross, he has a determination of the time at which Jesus was crucified: while Luke more correctly relates first the crucifixion of the two malefactors with Jesus, and then the casting of lots for the clothes; and the same order is observed by John. But it is inadmissible on this account to transpose the verses in Matthew (34, 37, 38,
35,
36), as has been proposed ;
^*
and we must rather abandon the author of the first gospel to the charge, that in his anxiety not to omit any of the chief events at the crucifixion of Jesus, he has neglected the natural order of time.
^†

As regards the mode of the crucifixion there is now scarcely any debated point, if we except the question, whether the feet as well as the hands were nailed to the cross. As it lay in the interest of the orthodox view to prove the affirmative: so it was equally important to the rationalistic system to maintain the negative. From Justin Martyr
^‡
down to Hengstenberg
^§
and Olshausen, the orthodox find in the nailing of the feet of Jesus to the cross a fulfilment of the prophecy Ps. xxii. 17
,
which the LXX. translates:
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, but it is doubtful whether the original text really speaks of piercing, and in no case does it allude to crucifixion: moreover the passage is nowhere applied to Christ in the New Testament. To the rationalists, on the contrary, it is at once more easy to explain the death of Jesus as a merely apparent death, and only possible to conceive how he could walk immediately after the resurrection, when it is supposed that his feet were left unwounded; but the case should rather be stated thus: if the historical evidence go to prove that the feet also of Jesus were nailed, it must be concluded that the resuscitation and the power of walking shortly after, either happened supernaturally or not at all. Of late there have stood opposed to each other two learned and profound investigations of this point, the one by Paulus against, the other by Bähr, in favour of the nailing of the feet.
^||
From the evangelical narrative, the former opinion can principally allege in its support, that neither is the above passage in the Psalms anywhere used by the Evangelists, though on the presupposition of a nailing of the feet it was so entirely suited to their mode of accounting for facts, nor in the history of the resurrection is there any mention of wounds in the feet, together with the wounds in the hands and side (John xx. 20, 25, 27).
The other opinion appeals not without reason to Luke xxiv. 39, where Jesus invites the disciples to behold his hands and his feet (
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:
it is certainly not here said that the feet were pierced, but it is difficult to understand

^*
Wassenbergh, Diss. de trajectionibus N. T. in Balcknaer’s scholæ in 11 quosdam N.
T. 2, p.
31.

^†
Comp. Schleiermacher, über den Lukas, s.
295; Winer, N. T. Gramm., s. 226, and Fritzsche, in Matt., p. 814.

^‡
Apol. i. 35. Dial. c. Tryph. xcvii.

^§
Christologie des A. T. 1,
a, s. 182 ft.

^||
Paulus, exeg. Handbuch 3, b, s. 669 — 754; Bähr, in Tholuck’s liter. Anzeiger für christl. Theol. 1835,
No. 1-6. Comp. also Neander, L. J. Chr., s. 636, Anm.how Jesus should have pointed out his feet merely to produce a conviction of the reality of his body. The fact that among the fathers of the church, those who, living before Constantine, might be acquainted with the mode of crucifixion from personal observation, as Justin and Tertullian, suppose the feet of Jesus to have been nailed, is of weight. it might indeed be concluded from the remark of the latter:
Qui (Christus) solus a populo tam insigniter crucifixus est,
^*
that for the sake of the passage in the Psalms these fathers supposed that in the crucifixion of Christ his feet also were pierced by way of exception; but, as Tertuilian had before called the piercing of the hands and feet the
propria atrocia crucis,
it is plain that the above words imply, not a special manner of crucifixion, but the special manner of death by crucifixion, which does not occur in the Old Testament, and by which therefore Jesus was distinguished from all the characters therein celebrated. Among the passages in profane writers, the most important is that of Plautus, in which, to mark a crucifixion as extraordinarily severe, it is said:
offigantur bis pedes, bis brachia.
^†
Here the question is: does the extraordinary feature lie in the
bis,
so that the nailing of the feet as well as of the hands only once is presupposed as the ordinary usage; or was the
bis offigere
of the hands, i.e. the nailing of both the hands, the usual practice, and the nailing of the feet an extraordinary aggravation of the punishment? Every one will pronounce the former alternative to be the most accordant with the words. Hence it appears to me at present, that the balance of historical evidence is on the side of those who maintain that the feet as well as the hands of Jesus were nailed to the cross.

It was before the crucifixion, according to the two first Evangelists, that there was offered to Jesus a beverage, which Matthew (v. 34) describes as
vinegar mingled with gall,
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Mark (v. 23) as
wine mingled with myrrh,
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, but which, according to both, Jesus (Matthew says, after having tasted it) refused to accept. As it is not understood with what object gall could be mixed with the vinegar, the
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of Matthew is usually explained, by the aid of the
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of Mark, as implying bitter vegetable ingredients, especially myrrh; and then either
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wine
is actually substituted for
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vinegar,
or the latter is understood as sour wine ;
^‡
in order that the beverage offered to Jesus may thus appear to have been the stupefying draught consisting of wine and strong spices, which, according to Jewish usage, was presented to those about to be executed, for the purpose of blunting their susceptibility to pain.
^§
But even if the text admitted of this reading, and the words of this interpretation, Matthew would assuredly protest strongly against the real gall and the vinegar being thus

^*
Adv. Marcion, iii. 19.

^†
Mostellaria, ii. 1.

^‡
Vid. Kuinöl, Paulus, in loc.

^§
Sanhedrim, f. xliii. 1, ap. Wetstein, p. 635:
Dixit R. Chaja, f. R. Asther, dixisse R. Chasdam: exeunti, ut capite plectatur, dant bibendum granum turis in poculo vini, ut alienetur nuns ejus, sec. d. Prov. xxxi.
6 : date siceram pereunti et vinum amaris anima.
explained away from his narrative, because by this means he would lose the fulfilment of the passage in the psalm of lamentation elsewhere used messianically: (LXX.)
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,
they gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink
(Ps. lxix. 21). Matthew incontestably means, in accordance with this prophecy, real gall with vinegar, and the comparison with Mark is only calculated to suggest the question, whether it be more probable that Mark presents the incident in its original form, which Matthew has remodelled into a closer accordance with the prophecy; or that Matthew originally drew the particular from the passage in the Psalm, and that Mark so modified it as to give it an appearance of greater historical probability?