five or six cubits in length, and five or six feet in breadth, and composed of four distinct parts, was easily divided among the four soldiers who crucified him; but the undercoat, or tunic, was determined by lot to one of the quaternion. It could not be divided, for it was made in resemblance of the high priest's garment, which is thus described by Josephus, Ant. l. 3, c. 8: "This vesture was not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders and the sides; but it was one long vestment, so woven as to have an aperture for the neck. It was also parted where the hands were to come out." The practice of distributing the prisoner's garments, and other effects, among his executioners, was prescribed by law, and in consequence of the peculiar reluctance of a Jew to part with his cloak, and of every oriental to be left entirely unclothed, was deemed a signal disgrace. Indeed, in every stage of this complicated punishment, the ingenuity of avengers has been racked, to invent the most mortifying, as well as harrowing expedients.

The manner of nailing to the cross has been long involved in dispute. Was the instrument erect, when it received its victim, or taken down to the ground? It would doubtless be easier to fasten the bodies on the horizontal wood, than to lift them, heavy as they were, and sometimes resisting, to the perpendicular. The easier method was therefore often used. It put a speedier termination to life than the other. The hole was excavated in the earth for the beam to enter, the instrument was raised with the tortured victim nailed to it, and then was suddenly and violently precipitated into the prepared cavity. The precipitation was violent, so as, first, to fix the cross firmly in the earth; secondly, to give a convulsive shock to the suspended criminal, and thus sooner wear out his system. Pionius, the martyr, was crucified in this way, for we read that, "having stripped himself of his own accord, he gazed upwards, and rendered thanks to heaven, then stretched himself out upon the cross, that he might be nailed to it, and after he was nailed, the cross was erected."*

Still this cannot have been the general custom. The current phraseology pertaining to the punishment implies,

*On the mode of crucifixion, see Horne's Introduction, vol. iii. pp. 149159; Jahn's Archæology, p. 261; Lipsius, vol. i. pp. 1188-1208; Bartholin's Essays; and Paulus. Com. u. d. drey. Evang. Ss. 755–770.

that the wood was erected before the victim was fixed to it. If it were not so, what mean such expressions as "to raise to the cross, ," "to ascend," "mount," "leap upon the cross?" What was done when, as often, the perpendicular beam remained stationary, and only the transverse was moveable?* What was done when the cross was a tree? Cicero, in his orations for Rabirius and against Verres, frequently speaks of elevating the instrument before the affixion, and Josephus, in his Wars of the Jews, book vii. 6, 4, says, the Roman general ordered his soldiers "to set up a cross as if he were going to hang Eleazer upon it immediately." Many other incidental proofs of the same general custom, are scattered throughout the ancient histories. "Painters," Calmet remarks, "commonly represent the cross as lowered when our Saviour was fastened to it," but they decidedly oppose in this, as in numerous other particulars, the great majority of historians. Nonnus the poet writes, "when the wood was lifted up from the earth, and high, he (Christ) was stretched out erect upon it," and Gregory Nazianzen merely utters the most approved opinion, when he says, "the cross was placed erect, and then the Saviour adjusted to it.

Four men were generally employed to conduct the crucifixion; "four military men," Josephus says, "because used to slaughter and to blood." Each operator nailed one limb, and the two who nailed the hands, stood on ladders raised to the cross-piece, or, more frequently, on a small elevation of turf or stones, from which, if it were only a foot high, they could easily reach the loftiest part of the instrument. In the earlier ages of the republic, the business of crucifixion. was assigned to the lictors, and in all ages the men who performed it, were regarded with awe and dread.

Jahn states (Arch. p. 261.) that no ancient writer whatever describes crucifixion as performed without the use of nails; but Lipsius de Cruce, p. 1183, quotes authorities from Pliny, Livy, and Artemidorus, to show, that the crucified wretch was affixed by ropes together with nails, often ;† and

* See Dobson's Encyclopedia, Art. Cross.

"Whenever the hands were feared to be unable to sustain the body, one rope was employed, binding each arm to the horizontal beam; one also was cast about the victim's breast, under the shoulders, and then tied behind the perpendicular beam;" Lipsius. Polycarp requested of his executioners, when preparing to nail him, that he might be bound merely; for " without the use of nails, the same Being who had permitted his death by fire," his cross being also a stake, "would endow him with strength to bear it." He was therefore merely bound.

occasionally by ropes alone. It may be questioned, whether among the more ancient Hebrews, the use of ligaments was not more common than that of irons. It was certainly more appalling. It protracted the horrors of death, and added to the intensity as well as the duration of the pains, particularly of hunger and thirst. There is no doubt, however, but that irons were the more common instruments in all the Roman empire. "The cross," says Artemidorus, "consists of

wood and spikes."

Dathe, Paulus, Kuinoel, and several English commentators, have said, that only the hands were nailed in crucifixion, and that the feet were left to swing loosely, or else tied to the tree. When Christ, therefore, just risen from the dead, attempts to convince the disciples of his personal identity, he shows them nothing but his hands and side, see John xx. 20, 25, 27. Why did he not show them his feet also, if they contained the scars of the nails; for the feet were bare, and on another occasion (Luke xxiv. 40.) were shown as readily as the hands? The arguments of Paulus (Com. vol. iii. 764-770.) are plausible, and sometimes, for aught we know, the method which he defends may have been adopted. The testimony against it, however, as the common method, is so decisive, that Psalm xxii. 16, must be regarded literally correct even in a general application.

Nonnus, Gregory Nazianzen, and multitudes of painters and sculptors have represented, that three nails, and only three, were used in crucifixion, that the victim's feet were placed one over the other, and were both perforated by a single iron. It is doubtless true, that occasionally, for the purpose of increasing pain, the limbs of the prisoner were thus crossed, not usually, however, nor often. Augustine, Theodoret, and Cyprian, which last was a frequent witness of crucifixions and therefore better authority, than most writers, state that one nail was employed on each foot as well as one on each hand, and that the feet, though not sustaining much of the body's weight, were separate from each other.*

It has been believed for centuries, that the four nails employed upon our Saviour, were subsequently found by Helen; that one of them was thrown into the Adriatic sea to calm its raging; another was inserted into the helmet of her son Constantine, and after securing for him through life an impregnable defence, was sent to Jerusalem; a third and fourth were inserted in the bridle of his war-horse, thus fulfilling Zech. xiv. 20, and were afterwards sent, for sacred exhibition, to two cities of his empire. See a very sober account of this superstition in the Essay of F. Cornelius Cur. tius, pp. 86-91, connected with Bartholini Hypomnemata de cruce Christi,

Plautus and Gregory also state, "two nails were inserted in the palms and two in the soles." It was not, however, a uniform practice to perforate the palm of the hand; sometimes the wrist, because thought stronger, was perforated in its stead. Nor was the number of nails in the upper members limited by rule to two; occasionally for the purpose of giving the body a more tenacious hold on the wood, or of increasing pain, several irons were driven through the arms, and, in cases like that of Philomenus, through the head. The right hand was usually perforated first. Lucian, in one of his dialogues, describes Vulcan as saying to Mercury, "Let Prometheus be crucified. Well, says Mercury to Prometheus, extend your right arm; you, Vulcan, bind it, make it fast, keep it still, and bravely apply the hammer. Give also the other arm, Prometheus, and let that be rightly bound." This quotation suggests the practice of binding the limbs before nailing them; a precautionary movement which could not be dispensed with, unless the prisoner would sit still on the middle seat, or unless a ladder was erected for him against the tree, or, as was sometimes done, he was held in the arms of two or three attending soldiers.

No one, acquainted with the physiology of the human system, can fail to perceive that the cross, thus formed and applied, was adapted to produce intense pain. The sufferer's back, lacerated by the scourge, and therefore not bearing to be touched, was made to graze upon the tree. The arms were unnaturally distended and stretched behind, and so the least movement caused the sharpest pain. The hands, being provided with an unusual number of nerves, and the nerves being the organs of sensation, being also more sensitive in the hands than in other parts, it must have been indescribably distressing to have these excitable members transfixed by the large, rough, and ragged spike; to have the bulk of the body rest upon them, while they are grated by the iron, and grated still more poignantly by every struggle for relief. The restorative principle in the system could not operate in their favor; for the nervous restlessness of the agonized man would be constantly renewing the sore, and the exposure of the raw wounds to the air would be constantly increasing the inflammation, and causing the maimed parts to swell with more and more exquisite distress. The veins, by the pressure upon them, could not allow passage for the blood which had flown through the arteries; the vessels of the head,

therefore, were swollen with an unusual and undue amount of the fluid; the face was deeply flushed; the organs of it were strained; all the cerebral system disordered and laboring. The stomach became overcharged with blood, and thereby imminently exposed to mortification. As the crowded arteries could find no sure outlet, they could no longer serve as a channel for the vital fluid which the heart endeavored to propel, and so the heart itself was obstructed in its movements. It had been wont to send a regular supply of blood into the lungs, for purification; it now sent but a meagre supply, and that at irregular intervals. Thus the respiratory functions, as well as the circulating and cerebral, were confused, and not an organ of the system could play with its usual freedom. This pressing and crowding of the fluid in the arteries and in all the large vessels about the heart, this irksome, inconstant palpitation of the central organ, this heaving and gasping of the lungs, created an excitement, an uneasiness, an anxiety, which are said to be "far more intolerable than even death itself." Sometimes the rain poured down in torrents upon the naked body; at night, the dew, as cold, and well nigh copious as rain, covered and chilled it; sometimes the heat of a powerful sun dried and scorched it; sometimes the keen winds of winter were piercing the fresh wounds, and filling the unfed system. And there was no hiding from the inclemencies of the sky; there was no turning of the body for ease; every attempt to move was rebuked by a keener pain from the spikes. Hunger set in, and gnawed upon the vitals; thirst was parching up the mouth and throat; the Saviour's only cry from pain was, "I thirst," and it was the customary cry, for no pain was so intense, or would sue so quickly for relief; the external, the internal parts were alike in distress, and the distress was of that kind which increases by continuance. The hope that the severest had been endured, would of itself have mitigated severity. But now there was no hope, save in death, and this was "long in coming." The thought, not less than the thing itself, of being fixed to all these growing agonies, added intensity to them all. The thought of the divine curse against "every one who hangeth on a tree," added still more. It was generally a condemning conscience which, like the soldier's spear upon Jesus, pierced the side of the malefactor. No hope for this world, less for the world to come. Might some priest of religion but breathe