Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (860 page)

The synoptists conclude their description of the events at the death of Jesus, with an account of the impression which they made more immediately on the Roman centurion whose office it was to watch the crucifixion. According to Luke (v. 47) this impression was produced by
t
o
g
e
n
o
m
e
n
o
n
(what was done),
i.e., since he had beforehand mentioned the darkness, by the departure of Jesus with an audible prayer, that being the particular which he had last noticed; indeed Mark, as if expounding Luke, represents the exclamation:
truly this man was the Son of God
as being called forth from the centurion by the circumstance that Jesus
so cried out, and gave up the ghost,
o
u
t
w
k
r
a
x
a
V
e
x
e
p
n
e
u
s
e
n
(v. 39). Now in Luke, who gives a prayer as the last utterance of Jesus, it is possible to conceive that this edifying end might impress the centurion with a favourable opinion of Jesus: but how the fact of his expiring with a loud cry could lead to the inference that he was the Son of God, will in no way appear. Matthew however gives the most suitable relation to the words of the centurion, when he represents them as being called forth by the earthquake and the other prodigies which accompanied the death of Jesus:

were it not that the historical reality of this speech of the centurion must stand or fall with its

* See the passages collected by Wetstein.

† See this idea further developed in the Evang. Nicod. c xviii. ff.alleged causes. In Matthew and Mark this officer expresses the conviction that Jesus is in truth the
Son of God,
in Luke, that he is a
righteous man.
The Evangelists in citing the former expression evidently intend to convey the idea that a Gentile bore witness to the Messiahship of Jesus; but in this specifically Jewish sense the words cannot well have been understood by the Roman soldier: we might rather suppose that he regarded Jesus as a son of God in the heathen sense, or as an innocent man unjustly put to death, were it not that the credibility of the whole synoptical account of the events which signalized the death of Jesus being shaken, this, which forms the top stone as it were, must also be of doubtful security; especially when we look at the narrative of Luke, who besides the impression on the centurion adds that on the rest of the spectators, and makes them return to the city with repentance and mourning — a trait which appears to, represent, not so probably what the Jews actually felt and did, as what in the opinion of the Christians they
ought
to have felt and done.

§ 134. THE WOUND BY A SPEAR IN THE SIDE OF JESUS.

While the synoptists represent Jesus as hanging on the cross from the
w
r
a
e
n
n
a
t
h
,
i.e. three in the afternoon, when he expired, until the
o
y
i
a
,
i.e. probably about six in the evening, without anything further happening to him: the fourth Evangelist interposes a remarkable episode. According to him, the Jews, in order to prevent the desecration of the coming sabbath, which was a peculiarly hallowed one, by the continued exposure of the bodies on the cross, besought the Procurator that their legs might be broken and that they might forthwith be carried away. The soldiers, to whom this task was committed, executed it on the two criminals crucified with Jesus; but when they perceived in the latter the signs of life having already become extinct, they held such a measure superfluous in his case, and contented themselves with thrusting a spear into his side, whereupon there came forth blood and water (xix. 31 — 37).

This event is ordinarily regarded as the chief voucher for the reality of the death of Jesus, and in relation to it the proof to be drawn from the synoptists is held inadequate. According to the reckoning which gives the longest space of time, that of Mark, Jesus hung on the cross from the third to the ninth hour, that is, six hours, before he died; if, as to many it has appeared probable, in the two other synoptists the commencement of the darkness at the sixth hour marks also the commencement of the crucifixion, Jesus, according to them, hung only three hours living on the cross; and if we presuppose in John the ordinary Jewish mode of reckoning the hours, and attribute to him the same opinion as to the period of the death of Jesus, it follows, since he makes Pilate pronounce judgment on him only about the sixth hour, that Jesus must have died after hanging on the cross not much more than two hours. But crucifixion does not in other cases kill thus speedily. This may be inferred from the nature of the punishment, which does not consist in the infliction of severe wounds so as to cause a rapid loss of blood, but rather in the stretching of the limbs, so as to produce a gradual rigidity; moreover it is evident from the statements of the Evangelists themselves, for according to them Jesus, immediately before the moment which they regard as the last, had yet strength to utter a loud cry, and the two thieves crucified with him were still alive after that time; lastly, this opinion is supported by examples of individuals whose life has lasted for several days on the cross, and who have only at length expired from hunger and similar causes.
^*
Hence fathers of the church and older theologians advanced the opinion, that the death of Jesus, which would not have ensued so quickly in a natural way, was accelerated supernaturally, either by himself or by God;
^†
physicians and more modern theologians have appealed to the accumulated corporeal and spiritual sufferings of Jesus on the evening of the night prior to his crucifixion ;
^‡
but they also for the most part leave open the possibility that what appeared to the Evangelists the supervention of death itself, was only a swoon produced by the stoppage of the circulation, and that the wound with the spear in the side first consummated the death of Jesus.

But concerning this wound itself, the place, the instrument, and the manner of its infliction — concerning its object and effects, there has always been a great diversity of opinion. The instrument is called by the Evangelist a
l
o
g
c
h
,
which may equally signify either the light javelin or the heavy lance; so that we are left in uncertainty as to the extent of the wound. The manner in which the wound was inflicted he describes by the verb
n
u
s
s
e
i
n
,
which sometimes denotes a mortal wound, sometimes a slight scratch, nay, even a thrust which does not so much as draw blood; hence we are ignorant of the depth of the wound : though since Jesus, after the restirrection, makes Thomas lay only his fingers in the print of the nails, but, in or even merely on the wound in the side, his hand (John xx. 27),
the stroke of the spear seems to have made a considerable wound. But the question turns mainly on the place in which the wound was made. This John describes as the
p
l
e
u
r
a
side,
and certainly if the spear entered the left side between the ribs and penetrated into the heart, death must inevitably have ensued: but the above expression may just as properly imply the right side as the left, and in either side any spot from the shoulder to the hip. Most of these points indeed would be at once decided, if the object of the soldier had been to kill Jesus, supposing he should not be already dead; in this case he would doubtless have pierced Jesus in the

* The instances are collected in Paulus, exeg. Handb., 3, b. s. 781 ff.
;
Winer, bibl. Realwörterb. 1, s. 672 ff.; and Hase, § 144.

† According to Tertullian by the former, according to Grotius by the latter; see Paulus, s. 784, Anm.

‡ Thus Gruner amid others ap. Paulus, s. 782 ff.; Hase, ut sup. ; Neander, L. J. Chr. s. 647.most fatal place, and as deeply as possible, or rather, have broken his legs, as was done to the two thieves: but since he treated Jesus otherwise than his fellow sufferers, it is evident that in relation to him he had a different object, namely, in the first place to ascertain by this stroke of the spear, whether death had really taken place — a conclusion which he believed might securely be drawn from the flowing of blood and water out of the wound.

But this result of the wound is in fact the subject on which there is the least unanimity. The fathers of the Church, on the ground that blood no longer flows from corpses, regarded the
blood and water,
a
i
m
a
k
a
i
u
d
w
r
,
which flowed from the corpse of Jesus as a miracle, a sign of his superhuman nature.
^*
More modern theologians, founding on the same experience, have interpreted the expression as a hendiadys, implying that the blood still flowed, and that this was a sign that death had not yet, or not until now taken place.
^†
As, however, blood is itself a fluid, the
water
u
d
w
r
added to the
blood
a
i
m
a
cannot signify merely the fluid state of the latter, but must denote a peculiar admixture which the blood flowing from the side of Jesus contained. To explain this to themselves, and at the same time obtain the most infallible proof of death, others have fallen on the idea that the water mixed with the blood came out of the pericardium, which had been pierced by the spear, and in which, especially in such as die under severe anguish, a quantity of fluid is said to be accumulated.
^‡
But — besides that the piercing of the pericardium is a mere supposition — on the one hand, the quantity of such fluid, where no dropsy exists, is so trifling, that its emission would not be perceptible ; and on the other hand, it is only a single small spot in front of the breast where the pericardium can be so struck that an emission outward is possible: in all other cases, whatever was emitted would be poured into the cavity of the thorax.
^§

Without doubt the idea which was present in the Evangelist’s mind was rather the fact, which may be observed in every instance of blood-letting, that the blood, so soon as it has ceased to take part in the vital process, begins to divide itself into
placenta
and
serum;
and he intended by representing this separation as having already taken place in the blood of Jesus, to adduce a proof of his real death.
^||
But whether this outflow of blood and water in perceptible separation be a possible proof of death, — whether Hase and Winer be right when they maintain that on deep incisions in corpses the blood sometimes flows in this decomposed state; or the fathers, when they deem this so unprecedented that it must be regarded as a miracle in Jesus, — this is another question. A distinguished anatomist has explained the state of the fact to me in the

* Orig. c. Cels. ii. 36: Comp. Euthymius in loc.

† Schuster, in Eichhorn’s Bibi. 9, s. 1036 ff.

‡ Gruner, Comm. de morte J. Chr. vera, p. 47; Tholuck, Comm. z. Joh. s. 318.

§ Comp. Hase, ut sup
.

|| Winer, ut sup.following manner :
^*
Ordinarily, within an hour after death the blood begins to coagulate in the vessels, and consequently no longer to flow on incisions; only by way of exception in certain species of death, as nervous fevers, or suffocation, does the blood retain its fluidity in the corpse. Now if it be chosen to place the death on the cross under the category of suffocation — which, however, from the length of time that crucified persons have often remained alive, and in relation to Jesus especially, from his being said to have spoken to the last, appears impracticable; or if it be supposed that the wound in the side followed so quickly on the instant of death that it found the blood still fluid, — a supposition which is discordant with the narratives, for they state Jesus to have been already dead at three in the afternoon, while the bodies must have been taken away only at six in the evening: then, if the spear struck one of the larger blood vessels, blood would have flowed, but without water; if, however, Jesus had already been dead about an hour, and his corpse was in the ordinary state: nothing at all would have flowed. Thus either blood or nothing: in no case blood and water, because the
serum
and
placenta
are not separated in the vessels of the corpse as in the basin after blood-letting. Hardly then had the author of this trait in the fourth gospel himself seen the
a
i
m
a
k
a
i
u
d
w
r
flowing out of the side of Jesus, as a sign that his death had taken place; rather, because after blood-letting he had seen the above separation take place in the blood as it lost its vitality, and because he was desirous to show a certain proof of the death of Jesus, he represented those separate ingredients as flowing out of his wounded corpse.