Crucifixion: A Short History - KR News Services - 2004

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The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel

"Jesus' crucifixion was one of many carried out for state reasons"

BY HELEN T. GRAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - (KRT) - Crucifixion: The act of putting to death by nailing or binding the hands and feet to a cross.

This brutal method of execution that has become synonymous with torture is the centerpiece of ``The Passion of the Christ," Mel Gibson's movie about the last 12 hours of Jesus' life.

One Jewish anthropologist called crucifixion "one of the cruelest and most humiliating forms of punishment in the ancient world."

While Jesus of Nazareth is the most famous person to be crucified, he is far from the only one. Historians say that from about the sixth century B.C.E., crucifixion was a method of execution among the Medes, Persians and Seleucids of the eastern Mediterranean; Carthaginians, who settled in northern Africa; and Romans.

"Crucifixion was an extreme punishment used by peoples around the Mediterranean basin for about 1,000 years," said David Cook, assistant professor of religious studies at Rice University. "It was a public and ... degrading punishment designed to deter."

He said it was first mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi about 1700 B.C.E. but brought into popular use about 500 B.C.E. by the Persians and then the Carthaginians. In the fourth century B.C.E., Alexander the Great is believed to have spread the use of crucifixion to Egypt. The Romans are believed to have picked it up from the Carthaginians.

"There is very little description of crucifixion in ancient literature, partly because it was such a horrible, distasteful process," said James Mahon, a specialist in the sociology of religion at William Paterson University in New Jersey. "In the ancient world, people didn't talk about crucifixion because it was such a debasing act and limited to the lowest classes.

"The Greek historian Herodotus reports crucifixion as being used by the Medes and the Persians. He seems to suggest that the Persians were the first ones to use it on a large scale. There was an interaction between the Greeks and the Persians, and it appears that with Alexander the Great's spread in the fourth century that crucifixion became a common Hellenistic practice."

Alexander the Great is said to have had 2,000 survivors from the siege of Tyre crucified on the shores of the Mediterranean, wrote Joe Zias, formerly of the Israel Antiquities Authority. In addition, he said, from 37 to 41 C.E. Jews were tortured and crucified in an amphitheater to entertain the inhabitants of Alexandria.

As a method of execution, he said, crucifixion was rare among Jews, and, except for a few instances, those to be killed were stoned to death first and then hung on a tree. One notable exception was when 800 Pharisees were crucified in Jerusalem in 267 B.C.E.

In the Roman Empire, historians say, crucifixion was applied to the lower classes, mainly slaves and foreigners. It also was used in response to any actions that were seen as threatening to the empire, such as political agitation, piracy and slave revolts. These would be considered capital offenses.

In the case of Jesus, Mahon said, the sign above him on the cross that he was "King of the Jews" was a claim the Romans would consider treason and punishable by crucifixion.

"The way the legal system was organized in Syria in the early first century was that the Jews themselves administered their civil affairs, but with issues that may involve a death penalty, those matters were relegated to the Roman governor of Syria," he said. "During this time, Pontius Pilate was the procurator, or administrative representative of the empire, in Judea."

The Romans crucified large numbers of Jews, who were seen as a troublesome and rebellious group, so one such as Jesus probably was no different, Cook said.

The instruments of crucifixion were varied, not always resembling the familiar cross in many depictions of Jesus' crucifixion.

"It could be a stake in the ground, and the arms (of victims) were extended above them," Mahon said. "Another variation is that sometimes people could be crucified upside down. Another type of cross is one that looks like an `X,' with the (person's) arms and legs spread out.

"Another variation was the crossbeam would be set on top of the upright beam, and the arms would be raised and attached to this crossbeam. And the one we are most familiar with is the elongated plus sign, the typical representation of the one used for Jesus."

The usual method of crucifixion was to either nail or tie a person's arms lengthwise to a crossbeam, which was hoisted upon a stake driven into the ground to a height of about nine to 12 feet, Cook said. Other variations included lowering the level of the crossbeam, which would leave the person exposed to attacks by wild animals or sometimes providing a small support at the buttocks, which would cause the person to die more slowly.

Scourging, or whipping, was not necessarily a part of crucifixion, but it seems that it often was. The severity of the scourging played a part in determining how long it would take someone to die after being crucified, Mahon said. After the scourging, the victim would carry the crossbeam, not the entire cross, to the place of crucifixion.

The intent was obvious, said Paul B. Harvey Jr. of the Classics, Ancient Mediterranean Studies, History and Religious Studies Program at Pennsylvania State University. It was to be a "spectacular, theatrical, public capital punishment."

"It was meant not only to be a deterrent," Harvey said, "but to demonstrate the power of the state and for public entertainment."

Deterrence was a factor when the Romans crucified 6,000 slaves who had participated in the slave revolt of 73 B.C.E. led by Spartacus, Mahon said. The stakes were strung for miles along a Roman highway for all to see.

As a further deterrent in the ancient world, many victims were crucified where the criminal act took place, Zias said. For instance, thieves would be crucified along the cities' busiest thoroughfares. Also, as a deterrent, he said, Roman authorities devised various means whereby the victim could remain on the cross for days in public before eventually expiring.

"The Gospel narrative of the flogging, hauling the crossbeam and crucifixion is plausible and relatively accurate," Harvey said. " ... Beyond any theological issue, the Gospels give a good description. By the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion for troublemakers was well established in Judea. ... So people knew what to expect."

In some senses, the crucifixion of Jesus helped bring an end to that execution method among Romans. Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, discontinued its use in the Roman Empire in the fourth century in reverence for Jesus Christ.

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