Running Head: THE CRUCFIXION OF JESUS CHRIST

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Jesus is Crucified

Crucifixion was a very common form of punishment. The Egyptians, Romans, and Persians, to name a few used it, and of course the Jews. In all probability the Jews borrowed it from the Romans, although there may have been a few isolated instances of it before. It was unanimously considered the most horrible form of death, worse even then burning, since the “cross” precedes “burning” in the law-books.
The scarlet robe, crown of thorns, and other insults to which Jesus was subjected, were not only illegal, they arose from the spontaneous petulance of the brutal soldiery. The punishment properly commenced with scourging, after the criminal had been stripped. It was inflicted, not with the comparatively mild virgae, but the more terrible Roman flagellum. Into these scourges the soldiers often stuck nails, pieces of bone, etc., to heighten the pain. In our Lord’s case, however, this infliction seems neither to have been the legal scourging after the sentence nor yet do the examination by torture but rather a scourging before the sentence, to excite pity and procure immunity from further punishment.
The criminal carried his own cross, or, at any rate, a part of it hence the term crucifer, cross-bearer (Isaiah 9:6), “the government shall be upon his shoulder”. They were sometimes scourged and goaded on the way.
The place of execution was outside the city often in some public road or other conspicuous place or some spot set apart for the purpose. This might sometimes be a hill it is, however, rather an inference to call Golgotha a hill; in the Evangelists it is called “a place”. Arrived at the place of execution, the sufferer was stripped naked, the dress being the perquisite of the soldiers, possibly not even a cloth round the loins was allowed him; at least