Note 43 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

If then this trait of the piercing with the spear proceeded from the combined interests of obtaining a proof of death, and a literal fulfilment of a prophecy: the rest must be regarded as merely its preparatory groundwork. The piercing was only needful as a test of death, if Jesus had to be early taken down from the cross, which according to Jewish law (Deut. xxi. 22; Josh. viii. 29, x. 26, f.—an exception occurs in 2 Sam. xxi. 6 ff.43) must in any case be before night; but in particular in the present instance (a special circumstance which John alone notes), before the commencement of the passover. If Jesus died unusually soon, and if the two who were crucified with him were yet to be taken down at the same time, the death of the latter must be hastened by violent means. This might be done likewise by means of a stroke of the spear: but then the piercing, which in Zech. xii. 10 was predicted specially of the Messiah, would equally happen to others. Thus in their case it would be better to choose the breaking of the legs, which would not, indeed, instantaneously superinduce death, but which yet made it ultimately certain as a consequence of the mortification produced by the fracture. It is true that the crurifragium appears nowhere else in connexion with crucifixion among the Romans, but only as a separate punishment for slaves, prisoners of war, and the like.44 But it was not the less suitable in a prophetic point of view; for was it not said of the Paschal lamb with which Jesus was elsewhere also compared (1 Cor. v. 7): not a bone of him shall be broken (Exod. xii. 46)? so that both the prophecies were fulfilled, the one determining what should happen exclusively to Jesus, the other what should happen to his fellow-sufferers, but not to him.