Note 28 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

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.28 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;29 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;30 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.