The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint Volume II Part 3

"(1) The unnatural position and violent tension of the body, which cause a painful sensation from the least motion.

"(2) The nails, being driven through parts of the hands and feet which are full of nerves and tendons (and yet at a distance from the heart) create the most exquisite anguish.

"(3) The exposure of so many wounds and lacerations brings on inflammation, which tends to become gangrene, and every movement increases the poignancy of suffering.

"(4) In the distended parts of the body, more blood flows through the arteries than can be carried back into the veins: hence too much blood finds its way from the aorta into the head and stomach, and the blood vessels of the head become pressed and swollen. The general obstruction of circulation which ensues causes an intense excitement, exertion, and anxiety more intolerable than death itself.

"(5) The inexpressible misery of _gradually increasing_ and lingering anguish.

"(6) Burning and raging thirst.

"Death by crucifixion (physically considered) is, therefore, to be attributed to the sympathetic fever which is excited by the wounds, and aggravated by exposure to the weather, privation of water, and the painfully constrained position of the body. Traumatic fever corresponds, in intensity and in character, to the local inflammation of the wound, is characterized by heat, swelling, and great pain, the fever is highly inflammatory, and the sufferer complains of heat, throbbing headache, intense thirst, restlessness, and anxiety. As soon as suppuration sets in, the fever somewhat abates, and partially ceases as suppuration diminishes and the stage of cicatrization approaches. But if the wound be prevented from healing and suppuration continues, the fever a.s.sumes a hectic character, and will sooner or later exhaust the powers of life.

When, however, the inflammation of the wound is so intense as to produce mortification, nervous depression is the immediate consequence; and, if the cause of this excessive inflammation of the wound still continues, as is the case in crucifixion, the sufferer rapidly sinks. He is no longer sensible of pain, but his anxiety and sense of prostration are excessive; hiccough supervenes, his skin is moistened with a cold clammy sweat, and death ensues. It is in this manner that death on the cross must have taken place in an ordinarily healthy const.i.tution."

The intense sufferings and prolonged agony of crucifixion can be best ill.u.s.trated by an account of several cases of this form of punishment taken from history.

From the "Chrestomathia Arabica" of Kosegarten, published in 1828, is taken the following story of the execution of a Mameluke. The author of this work gleaned the story from an Arabic ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled "The Meadow of Flowers and the Fragrant Odour":

"It is said that he had killed his master for some cause or other, and he was crucified on the banks of the river Barada under the castle of Damascus, with his face turned toward the East. His hands, arms, and feet were nailed, and he remained so from midday on Friday to the same hour on Sunday, when he died. He was remarkable for his strength and prowess; he had been engaged with his master in sacred war at Askelon, where he slew great numbers of the Franks; and when very young he had killed a lion. Several extraordinary things occurred at his being nailed, as that he gave himself up without resistance to the cross, and without complaint stretched out his hands, which were nailed and after them his feet: he in the meantime looked on, and did not utter a groan, or change his countenance or move his limbs. I have heard this from one who witnessed it, and he thus remained till he died, patient and silent, without wailing, but looking around him to the right and the left upon the people. But he begged for water, and none was given him, and he gazed upon it and longed for one drop of it, and he complained of thirst all the first day, after which he was silent, for G.o.d gave him strength."

Describing the punishments used in Madagascar, Rev. Mr. Ellis says: "In a few cases of great enormity, a sort of crucifixion has been resorted to; and, in addition to this, burning or roasting at a slow fire, kept at some distance from the sufferer, has completed the horrors of this miserable death.... In the year 1825, a man was condemned to crucifixion, who had murdered a female for the sake of stealing her child. He carried the child for sale to the public market, where the infant was recognized, and the murderer detected. He bore his punishment in the most hardened manner, avenging himself by all the violence he was capable of exercising upon those who dragged him to the place of execution. Not a single groan escaped him during the period he was nailed to the wood, nor while the cross was fixed upright in the earth."[28]

More horrible still than punishment by crucifixion was that of impalement and suspension on a hook. The following description of the execution, in 1830, at Salonica, of Chaban, a captain of banditti, is given by Slade: "He was described by those who saw him as a very fine-looking man, about thirty-five. As a preparatory exercise, he was suspended by his arms for twelve hours. The following day a hook was thrust into his side, by which he was suspended to a tree, and there hung enduring the agony of thirst till the third evening, when death closed the scene; but before that about an hour the birds, already considering him their own, had alighted upon his brow to pick his eyes.

During this frightful period he uttered no unmanly complaints, only repeated several times, 'Had I known that I was to suffer this infernal death, I would never have done what I have. From the moment I led the klephte's life I had death before my eyes, and was prepared to meet it, but I expected to die as my predecessors, by decapitation.'"[29]

_The Cross._--The instrument of crucifixion, called the Cross, was variously formed. Lipsius and Gretser have employed a twofold cla.s.sification: the _crux simplex_, and the _crux composita_ or _compacta_. A single upright stake was distinguished as a _crux simplex_. The _crux composita_, the compound or actual cross, was subject to the following modifications of form: _Crux immissa_, formed as in the Figure [symbol: Cross]; _crux commissa_ thus formed [symbol: T-cross]; and the _crux decussata_, the cruciform figure, set diagonally after the manner of the Roman letter X. It is generally thought that Jesus was crucified upon the _crux immissa_, the "Latin cross."

According to the well-known legend of the "Invention of the Cross," the actual cross on which Jesus was crucified was discovered in the year 326 A.D. by the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. As the story goes, while visiting Jerusalem and the scenes of the pa.s.sion, she was guided to the summit of Calvary by an aged Jew. Here an excavation was made, and, at a considerable depth, three crosses were found; and, with them, but lying aside by itself, was the inscription, in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, placed above the head of Christ at the time of the crucifixion. To determine which of the three crosses was the one upon which Jesus suffered, it was decided, at the suggestion of Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to employ a miracle. The sick were brought and required to touch the three. According to the legend, the one upon which the Savior died immediately imparted miraculous healing. A church was at once built above the excavation and in it was deposited the greater part of the supposed real cross, and the remainder was sent to Byzantium, and from there to Rome, where it was placed in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, built especially to receive the precious relic. The genuineness of this relic was afterwards attested by a Bull of Pope Alexander III.

In connection with the legend of the discovery of the actual cross upon which Christ was crucified, goes a secondary story that the nails used at the crucifixion were also found at the same time and place. Later tradition declared that one of these was thrown by Helena into the Adriatic when swept by a terrific storm, and that this was followed by an instantaneous calm.

The popular impression among Christians that the cross is exclusively a Christian religious symbol, seems to be without historical foundation.

It is quite certain, indeed, that it was a religious emblem among several ancient races before the beginning of the Christian era.

The ancient Egyptians adored the cross with the most holy veneration; and this sacred emblem was carved upon many of their monuments. Several of these monuments may be seen to-day in the British Museum.[30] A cross upon a Calvary may also be seen upon the breast of one of the Egyptian mummies in the Museum of the London University.[31] The ancient Egyptians were accustomed to putting a cross on their sacred cakes, just as the Christians of to-day do, on Good Friday.[32]

The cross was also adored by the ancient Greeks and Romans, long before the crucifixion of Christ. Greek crosses of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas, the ancient Phrygian king.[33] One of the early Christian Fathers, Minucius Felix, in a heated controversy with the pagan Romans, charged them with adoration of the cross. "As for adoration of the cross," said he to the Romans, "which you object against us, I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them. You it is, ye Pagans, who worship wooden G.o.ds, who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses, as being part of the same substance with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards, but crosses, gilt and beautiful? Your victorious trophies _not only represent a cross, but a cross with a man upon it_."[34]

It also seems that, at a time antedating the early Romans, Etruscans and Sabines, a primitive race inhabited the plains of Northern Italy, "to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name; but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the arts of civilization, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted to the cross to guard, and maybe to revive, their loved ones whom they committed to the dust."

The cross was also a sacred symbol among the ancient Scandinavians. "It occurs," says Mr. R. P. Knight, "on many Runic monuments found in Sweden and Denmark, which are of an age long anterior to the approach of Christianity to those countries, and, probably, to its appearance in the world."[35]

When the Spanish missionaries first set foot on the soil of Mexico, they were amazed to find that the Aztecs worshiped the cross as an object of supreme veneration. They found it suspended as a sacred symbol and an august emblem from the walls of all the Aztec temples.[36] When they penetrated farther south and entered Peru, they found that the Incas adored a cross made out of a single piece of jasper.[37] "It appears,"

says "Chambers's Encyclopedia," "that the sign of the cross was in use as an emblem having certain religious and mystic meanings attached to it, long before the Christian era; and the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find it an object of religious veneration among the nations of Central and South America."[38]

That the ancient Mexicans should have worshiped the cross and also a crucified Savior, called Quetzalcoatle,[39] is one of the strangest phenomena of sacred history. It is a puzzle which the most eminent theologians have found it impossible to solve. They have generally contented themselves with declaring the whole thing a myth built upon primitive superst.i.tion and ignorance. This worship of the cross and Quetzalcoatle was going on before Columbus discovered America, and it seems impossible to establish any historical or geographical connection between it and the Christian worship of the cross and the crucified Jesus.

Several writers of eminence have contended that the widespread adoration of the cross, as a sacred symbol, among so many races of mankind, ancient and modern, proves a universal spiritual impulse, culminating in the crucifixion of Jesus as the common Savior of the world. "It is more than a coincidence," says the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, "that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the spirits of the just; that with the cross Thor should smite the head of the great Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain; that beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their babes, trusting to that sign to secure them from the power of evil spirits; that with that symbol to protect them, the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down in the dust."[40]

But it is not with the mythical crucifixions of mythical G.o.ds that we have to deal. The real, historical death of Jesus upon the cross with its accompanying incidents of outrageous illegality is the purpose of this treatise; and to the accomplishment of that design we now return.

CHAPTER VI

ROMAN LAW APPLICABLE TO THE TRIAL OF JESUS

_What was the law of Rome in relation to the trial of Jesus?_ The answer to this question is referable to the main charge brought against the Master before Pilate. A single verse in St. Luke contains the indictment: "And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King." Three distinct elements are wrapped up in this general accusation; but they are all interwoven with and culminate in the great charge that Jesus claimed to be "Christ a King."

Of this accusation alone, Pilate took cognizance. And there is no mistake as to its nature and meaning. It was High Treason against Caesar--the most awful crime known to Roman law. This was the charge brought by the priests of the Sanhedrin against the Nazarene. What then was the law of Rome in relation to the crime of high treason? The older Roman law, _crimen perduellionis_, applied chiefly to offenses committed in the military service. Deserters from the army were regarded as traitors and punished as public enemies either by death or interdiction of fire and water. Later Roman law broadened the definition of treason until it comprehended any offense against the Roman Commonwealth that affected the dignity and security of the Roman people.

Ulpian, defining treason, says: "_Majestatis crimen illud est quod adversus populum Romanum vel adversus securitatem ejus committ.i.tur._"[41]

Cicero very admirably describes the same crime as: "_Majestatem minuere est de dignitate aut amplitudine aut potestate populi aut eorum quibus populus potestatem dedit aliquid derogare._"[42] The substance of both these definitions is this: Treason is an insult to the dignity or an attack upon the sovereignty and security of the Roman State. From time to time, various laws were pa.s.sed to define this crime and to provide penalties for its commission. Chief among these were the _lex Julia Majestatis_, 48 B.C. Other laws of an earlier date were the _lex Cornelia_, 81 B.C.; _lex Varia_, 92 B.C.; and the _lex Appuleia_, 100 B.C. The _lex Julia_ was in existence at the time of Christ, and was the basis of the Roman law of treason until the closing years of the empire.

One of its provisions was that every accusation of treason against a Roman citizen should be made by a written libel. But it is not probable that provincials were ent.i.tled to the benefit of this provision; and it was not therefore an infraction of the law that the priests and Pilate failed to present a written charge against Jesus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TIBERIUS CaeSAR (ANTIQUE SCULPTURE)]

In studying the trial of Jesus and the charge brought against Him, the reader should constantly remind himself that the crucifixion took place during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, a morbid and capricious tyrant, whose fretful and suspicious temper would kindle into fire at the slightest suggestion of treason in any quarter. Tacitus records fifty-two cases of prosecution for treason during his reign. The enormous development of the law of _majestas_ at this time gave rise to a cla.s.s of professional informers, _delatores_, whose infamous activity against private citizens helped to blacken the name of Tiberius. The most harmless acts were at times construed into an affront to the majesty or into an a.s.sault upon the safety of this miserable despot.

Cotta Messalinus was prosecuted for treason because it was alleged "that he had given Caligula the nickname of Caia, as contaminated by incest"; and again on another charge that he had styled a banquet among the priests on the birthday of Augusta, a "funeral supper"; and again on another charge that, while complaining of the influence of Manius Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius, with whom he had had trouble in court, he had said that "they indeed will be supported by the senate, but I by my little Tiberius."[43]

Manercus Scaurus was prosecuted for treason because he wrote a tragedy in which were certain lines that might be made to apply in an uncomplimentary manner to Tiberius. We are told by Dio that this tragedy was founded on the story of Atreus; and that Tiberius, believing himself referred to, said, "Since he makes me another Atreus, I will make him an Ajax," meaning that he would compel him to destroy himself.[44]

"Nor," says Tacitus, "were even women exempt from danger. With designs to usurp the government they could not be charged; their tears are therefore made treason; and Vitia, mother to Fusius Geminus, once consul, was executed in her old age for bewailing the death of her son."[45]

An anecdote taken from Seneca but related in Tacitus, ill.u.s.trates the pernicious activity of the political informers of this age. At a banquet in Rome, one of the guests wore the image of Tiberius on his ring. His slave, seeing his master intoxicated, took the ring off his finger. An informer noticed the act, and, later in the evening, insisted that the owner, to show his contempt of Tiberius, was sitting upon the figure of the emperor. Whereupon he began to draw up an accusation for high treason and was getting ready to have it attested by subscribing witnesses, when the slave took the ring from his own pocket, and thus demonstrated to the whole company that he had had it in his possession all the time. These instances fully serve to ill.u.s.trate the political tone and temper of the age that witnessed the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. They also suggest the exceedingly delicate and painful position of Pilate when sitting in judgment upon the life of a subject of Tiberius who claimed to be a king.

It is deemed entirely appropriate, in this place, to discuss a peculiar phase of the law of treason in its relationship to the trial of Jesus.

It is easily demonstrable that the teachings of Christ were treasonable under Roman public law. An essential and dominating principle of that law was that the imperial State had the right to regulate and control the private consciences of men in religious matters. It was held to be an attribute of the sovereignty of Rome that she had the right to create or destroy religions. And the theory of the Roman const.i.tution was that the exercise of this right was not a religious but a governmental function. The modern doctrine of the separation of Church and State had no place in Roman politics at the time of Christ. Tiberius Caesar, at the beginning of his reign, definitely adopted the principle of a state religion, and as Pontifex Maximus, was bound to protect the ancient Roman worship as a matter of official duty.

Roman treatment of foreign religions, from first to last, is a most interesting and fascinating study. Polytheistic above all other nations, the general policy of the Roman empire was one of toleration. Indeed she not only tolerated but adopted and absorbed foreign worships into her own. The Roman religion was a composite of nearly all the religions of the earth. It was thus natural that the imperial State should be indulgent in religious matters, since warfare upon foreign faiths would have been an a.s.sault upon integral parts of her own sacred system. It is historically true that attempts were made from time to time by patriotic Romans to preserve the old Latin faith in its original purity from foreign invasion. The introduction of Greek G.o.ds was at first vigorously opposed, but the exquisite beauty of Greek sculpture, the irresistible influence of Greek literature, and the overwhelming fascination of Greek myths, finally destroyed this opposition, and placed Apollo and aesculapius in the Roman pantheon beside Jupiter and Minerva.

At another time the senate declared war on the Egyptian worship which was gradually making its way into Rome. It had the images of Isis and Serapis thrown down; but the people set them up again. It decreed that the temples to these deities should be destroyed, but not a single workman would lay hands upon them. aemilius Paulus, the consul, was himself forced to seize an ax and break in the doors of the temple. In spite of this, the worship of Isis and Serapis was soon again practiced unrestrained at Rome.[46]

It is further true that Rome showed not only intolerance but mortal antagonism to Druidism, which was completely annihilated during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.

A decree of the Roman senate, during the reign of Tiberius, ordered four thousand freemen charged with Egyptian and Jewish superst.i.tions out to Sardinia to fight against and be destroyed by the banditti there, unless they saw fit to renounce these superst.i.tions within a given time.[47]

But it must be remembered that these are exceptional cases of intolerance revealed by Roman history. The general policy of the empire, on the other hand, was of extreme tolerance and liberality. The keynote of this policy was that all religions would be tolerated that consented to live side by side and in peace with all other religions. There was but one restriction upon and limitation of this principle, that foreign religions would be tolerated only in their local seats, or, at most, among the races in which such religions were native. The fact that the worship of Serapis was left undisturbed on the banks of the Nile, did not mean that the same worship would be tolerated on the banks of the Tiber. An express authorization by Rome was necessary for this purpose.

Said authorization made said worship a _religio licita_. And the peregrini, or foreigners in Rome, were thus permitted to erect their own altars, and to a.s.semble for the purpose of worshiping their own G.o.ds which they had brought with them. The reverse side of this general principle of religious tolerance shows that Roman citizens were not only permitted but required to carry the Roman faith with them throughout the world. Upon them, the Roman state religion was absolutely binding; and for all the balance of the world it was the dominant cult. "The provinces," says Renan, "were entirely free to adhere to their own rights, on the sole condition of not interfering with those of others."

"Such toleration or indifference, however," says Dollinger, "found its own limits at once whenever the doctrine taught had a practical bearing on society, interfered with the worship of the state G.o.ds, or confronted their worship with one of its own; as well as when a strange G.o.d and _cultus_ a.s.sumed a hostile att.i.tude toward Roman G.o.ds, could be brought into no affinity or corporate relation with them, and would not bend to the supremacy of Jupiter Capitolinus."

Now, the principles declared by Renan and Dollinger are fundamental and pointed in the matter of the relationship between the teachings of Jesus and the theory of treason under Roman law. These principles were essential elements of Roman public law, and an attempt to destroy them was an act of treason under the definitions of both Ulpian and Cicero.

The Roman const.i.tution required that a foreign religion, as a condition of its very existence, should live in peace with its neighbors; that it should not make war upon or seek to destroy other religions; and that it should acknowledge the dominance and superior character of the imperial religion. All these things Jesus refused to do, as did his followers after Him. The Jews, it is true, had done the same thing, but their nationality and lack of aggressiveness saved them until the destruction of Jerusalem. But Christianity was essentially aggressive and proselytizing. It sought to supplant and destroy all other religions. No compromises were proposed, no treaties concluded. The followers of the Nazarene raised a black flag against paganism and every heathen G.o.d.

Their strange faith not only defied all other religions, but mocked all earthly government not built upon it. Their propaganda was nothing less than a challenge to the Roman empire in the affairs of both law and religion. Here was a faith which claimed to be the only true religion; that proclaimed a monotheistic message which was death to polytheism; and that refused to be confined within local limits. Here was a religion that scorned an authorization from Rome to worship its G.o.d and prophet; a religion that demanded acceptance and obedience from all the world--from Roman and Greek, as well as Jew and Egyptian. This scorn and this demand were an affront to the dignity and a challenge to the laws of the Roman Commonwealth. Such conduct was treason against the const.i.tution of the empire.

"The substance of what the Romans did," says Sir James Fitz-James Stephen, "was to treat Christianity by fits and starts as a crime."[48]

But why a crime? Because the Roman religion, built upon polytheism, was an integral and inseparable part of the Roman State, and whatever menaced the life of the one, threatened the existence of the other. The Romans regarded their religion as "an engine of state which could not be shaken without the utmost danger to their civil government." Cicero further says: "The inst.i.tutions of the fathers must be defended; it is the part of wisdom to hold fast the sacred rites and ceremonies."[49]

Roman statesmen were fully aware of the truthfulness of the statement of a modern writer that, "wherever the religion of any state falls into disregard and contempt it is impossible for that state to subsist long."

Now, Christianity was monotheistic, and threatened destruction to polytheism everywhere. And the Romans treated it as a crime because it was regarded as a form of seditious atheism whose teachings and principles were destructive of the established order of things. The Roman conception of the nature of the crime committed by an attack upon the national religion is well ill.u.s.trated by the following sentence from Dollinger: "If an opinion unfavorable to the apotheosis of any member of the imperial dynasty happened to be dropped, it was dangerous in itself as falling within the purview of the law of high treason; and so it fell out in the case of Thrasea Paetus, who refused to believe in the deification of Poppaea." If it was high treason to refuse to believe in the deification of an emperor or an empress, what other crime could be imputed to him whose design was to destroy an entire religious system, and to pile all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses--Juno and Poppaea, Jupiter and Augustus--in common ruin?