When you think about it, Christianity is surely the only world religion with a torture device as its symbol. Of course, that’s misrepresenting the symbolism of the Cross as much as the Romans mistaking the doctrines of transubstantiation and Jesus’ birth to mean that early Christians literally ate the flesh and drank the blood of babies. The Cross, of course, symbolises the sacrifice made by Jesus’ suffering and death.
Which still, in its way, underscores just what a horrible method of torture and death crucifixion really was.
In fact, that was its point. Crucifixion was specifically intended as a grotesque public spectacle to act as a deterrent. It was not just an execution, it was a public humiliation.
Which is precisely what the Gospels describe Jesus enduring.
On the day of Jesus’ crucifixion – largely believed to take place in 30 CE or 33 CE – he was dressed in a purple robe, the color of royalty, and forced to wear a crown of thorns as his executioners taunted him as the “King of the Jews.” Roman soldiers made him carry his cross to a hill called Calvary, where he would be crucified alongside two criminals.
There, he was stripped and nailed to the cross. Though scripture claims that nails were pounded into his hands and feet, some modern-day scholars believe that nails were driven through Jesus’ wrists, not his hands. According to HISTORY UK, this would have better affixed him to the cross […]
The Romans also nailed a sarcastic sign above Jesus’ head reading, “This is the King of the Jews” (INRI), divided his clothing among themselves, and cast lots for his garments.
Then, they waited for him to die.
The crucified often took days to die. According to the Gospels, the Romans broke the legs of the other two condemned with Jesus, to hasten their deaths, so they wouldn’t die on the Jewish Sabbath (Roman governor Pilate, had already provoked riots in his province by disregarding Jewish religious rules). Jesus, though, was already dead.
Some modern-day medical experts have suggested that pulmonary embolism killed him, while others say that cardiac rupture, asphyxiation, and shock are more likely explanations. And yet another theory proposes that he actually died from carrying the cross, as he may have suffered from a dislocated shoulder that led to fatal internal bleeding.
A Roman soldier speared him in the side to make sure he was dead, and then Jesus was taken down from the cross and buried in a rock-hewn tomb.
According to the Gospels, at the moment of Jesus’ death, the Earth shook.
“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit,” explains the Gospel of Matthew. “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open.”
In fact, HISTORY UK reports that there really was seismic activity in the area around the time of Jesus’ crucifixion (though it’s impossible to confirm whether a quake happened at the exact same time that Jesus died).
Whether or not a quake happened, the crucifixion of Jesus finally ended with his death.
The Gospel stories, of course, don’t end there. Three days later, the Gospels relate, the women found the tomb empty – and the rest is history.
Crucifixion itself has a very long history.
Crucifixion was initially created by the Assyrians. It then spread to Persia – where Alexander the Great discovered it and then brought it back across the Mediterranean — and it was picked up by the Romans in the third century BCE […]
Though records […] suggest that Jesus truly existed and was executed by Pilate, the crucifixion of Jesus did not become an important part of Christianity until later. TIME reports that images of Jesus dying on the cross were considered too gruesome for years after his death, and thus Jesus’ crucifixion did not play an important role in Christian iconology at first.
It wasn’t until about 400 CE, after the rise of the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine – and his abolishment of crucifixion – that the cross became such a significant image in Christianity.
All That’s Interesting
Indeed, the adoption of the crucifix is a classic tale of an oppressed group taking up and defiantly re-imagining a symbol of their oppression. Christians took the symbol representing what was intended to be the most shameful, excruciating (literally) and humiliating method of disposing of a criminal, and made it a symbol of redemption and salvation.
