Note 14 — VI THE SELF-OFFERING OF THE MESSIAH. THE SUPPER

In the whole of Christendom it passes as a settled matter that Jesus “died upon the cross”; but this has the shape, as it is usually represented among painters, of the so-called Latin cross, in which the horizontal crosspiece is shorter than the vertical beam. On what then does the opinion rest that the cross is the gibbet? The Evangelists themselves give us no information on this point. The Jews described the instrument which they made use of in executions by the expression “wood” or “tree.” Under this description it often occurs in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in which the gibbet is rendered by xúlon, the same expression being also found in the Gospels. Usually, however, the gibbet is described as staurós (i.e., stake), so much so that staurós and xúlon pass for synonyms. The Latin translation of both these words is crux. By this the Romans understood any apparatus for the execution of men generally, without thinking, however, as a rule of anything else than a stake or gallows (patibulum, stipes) upon which, as Livy tells us, the delinquent was bound with chains or ropes and so delivered over to death.14 That the method of execution in Palestine differed in any way from this is not in any way shown. Among the Jews also the condemned used to be hanged upon a simple stake or beam, and exposed to a lingering death from heat, hunger, and thirst, as well as from the natural tension of his muscles. “To fasten to the cross” (stauroun, afigere cruci) accordingly does not mean either in East or West to crucify in our sense, but at first simply “to torture” or “martyr,” and later “to hang upon a stake or gallows.” And in this connection it appears that the piercing of hands and feet with nails, at least at the time at which the execution of Jesus is supposed to have occurred, was something quite unusual, if it was ever employed at all. The expressions prospassaleuein and proséloun, moreover, usually signify only to “fasten,” “to hang upon a nail,” but not at all “to nail to” in the special sense required.15