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The Crucifixion Of Jesus
A medical explanation of what Jesus endured
on the day He died
By Dr. C. Truman Davis*
A Physician Analyzes the Crucifixion.
From New Wine Magazine, April 1982.
Originally published in Arizona Medicine,
March 1965, Arizona Medical Association.
Several years
ago I became interested in the physical aspects of the passion, or
suffering, of Jesus Christ when I read an account of the crucifixion in
Jim Bishop's book, The Day Christ Died. I suddenly realized that I
had taken the crucifixion more or less for granted all these years
- that I had grown callous to its horror by a too-easy familiarity
with the grim details. It finally occurred to me that, as a physician,
I did not even know the actual immediate cause of Christ's death.
The gospel writers do not help much on this point. Since crucifixion
and scourging were so common during their lifetimes, they undoubtedly
considered a detailed description superfluous. For that reason we
have only the concise words of the evangelists: "Pilate, having scourged
Jesus, delivered Him to them to be crucified ... and they crucified
Him."
Despite the gospel accounts silence
on the details of Christ's crucifixion, many have looked into this
subject in the past. In my personal study of the event from a medical
viewpoint, I am indebted especially to Dr. Pierre Barbet, a French
surgeon who did exhaustive historical and experimental research and
wrote extensively on the topic.
An attempt to examine the infinite
psychic and spiritual suffering of the Incarnate1 God in atonement
for the sins of fallen man is beyond the scope of this article. However,
the physiological and anatomical aspects of our Lord's passion we
can examine in some detail. What did the body of Jesus of Nazareth
actually endure during those hours of torture?
Gethsemane
The physical passion of Christ began
in Gethsemane. Of the many aspects of His initial suffering, the one
which is of particular physiological interest is the bloody sweat.
Interestingly enough, the physician, St. Luke, is the only evangelist
to mention this occurrence. He says, "And being in an agony, he prayed
the longer. And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down
upon the ground" (Luke 22:44 KJV).
Every attempt imaginable has been
used by modern scholars to explain away the phenomenon of bloody sweat,
apparently under the mistaken impression that it simply does not occur.
A great deal of effort could be saved by consulting the medical literature.
Though very rare, the phenomenon of hematidrosis, or bloody sweat,
is well documented. Under great emotional stress, tiny capillaries
in the sweat glands can break, thus mixing blood with sweat. This
process alone could have produced marked weakness and possible shock.
Although Jesus' betrayal and arrest
are important portions of the passion story, the next event in the
account which is significant from a medical perspective is His trial
before the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the High Priest. Here the first
physical trauma was inflicted. A soldier struck Jesus across the face
for remaining silent when questioned by Caiaphas. The palace guards
then blindfolded Him, mockingly taunted Him to identify them as each
passed by, spat on Him, and struck Him in the face.
Before Pilate
In the early morning, battered and
bruised, dehydrated, and worn out from a sleepless night, Jesus was
taken across Jerusalem to the Praetorium of the Fortress Antonia,
the seat of government of the Procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
We are familiar with Pilate's action in attempting to shift responsibility
to Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Judea. Jesus apparently suffered
no physical mistreatment at the hands of Herod and was returned to
Pilate. It was then, in response to the outcry of the mob, that Pilate
ordered Barabbas released and condemned Jesus to scourging and crucifixion.
Preparations for Jesus' scourging
were carried out at Caesar's orders. The prisoner was stripped of
His clothing and His hands tied to a post above His head. The Roman
legionnaire stepped forward with the flagrum, or flagellum, in his
hand. This was a short whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs
with two small balls of lead attached near the ends of each. The heavy
whip was brought down with full force again and again across Jesus'
shoulders, back, and legs. At first the weighted thongs cut through
the skin only. Then, as the blows continued, they cut deeper into
the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from
the capillaries and veins of the skin and finally spurting arterial
bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles.
The small balls of lead first produced
large deep bruises that were broken open by subsequent blows. Finally,
the skin of the back was hanging in long ribbons, and the entire area
was an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When it was determined
by the centurion in charge that the prisoner was near death, the beating
was finally stopped.
Mockery
The half-fainting Jesus was then
untied and allowed to slump to the stone pavement, wet with his own
blood. The Roman soldiers saw a great joke in this provincial Jew
claiming to be a king. They threw a robe across His shoulders and
placed a stick in His hand for a scepter. They still needed a crown
to make their travesty complete. Small flexible branches covered with
long thorns, commonly used for kindling fires in the charcoal braziers
in the courtyard, were plaited into the shape of a crude crown. The
crown was pressed into his scalp and again there was copious bleeding
as the thorns pierced the very vascular tissue. After mocking Him
and striking Him across the face, the soldiers took the stick from
His hand and struck Him across the head, driving the thorns deeper
into His scalp. Finally, they tired of their sadistic sport and tore
the robe from His back. The robe had already become adherent to the
clots of blood and serum in the wounds, and its removal, just as in
the careless removal of a surgical bandage, caused excruciating pain. The
wounds again began to bleed.
Golgotha
In deference to Jewish custom, the
Romans apparently returned His garments. The heavy patibulum of the
cross was tied across His shoulders. The procession of the condemned
Christ, two thieves, and the execution detail of Roman soldiers headed
by a centurion began its slow journey along the route which we know
today as the Via Dolorosa.
In spite of Jesus' efforts to walk
erect, the weight of the heavy wooden beam, together with the shock
produced by copious loss of blood, was too much. He stumbled and fell.
The rough wood of the beam gouged into the lacerated skin and muscles
of the shoulders. He tried to rise, but human muscles had been pushed
beyond their endurance. The centurion, anxious to proceed with the
crucifixion, selected a stalwart North African onlooker, Simon of
Cyrene, to carry the cross. Jesus followed, still bleeding and sweating
the cold, clammy sweat of shock. The 650-yard journey from the Fortress
Antonia to Golgotha was finally completed. The prisoner was again
stripped of His clothing except for a loin cloth which was allowed
the Jews.
The crucifixion began. Jesus was
offered wine mixed with myrrh, a mild analgesic, pain-reliving mixture.
He refused the drink. Simon was ordered to place the patibulum on
the ground, and Jesus was quickly thrown backward, with His shoulders
against the wood. The legionnaire felt for the depression at the front
of the wrist. He drove a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through the
wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly, he moved to the other side
and repeated the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly,
but to allow some flexion and movement. The patibulum was then lifted
into place at the top of the stipes, and the titulus reading "Jesus
of Nazareth, King of the Jews" was nailed into place.
The left foot was pressed backward
against the right foot. With both feet extended, toes down, a nail
was driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees moderately
flexed. The victim was now crucified.
On the Cross
As Jesus slowly sagged down with
more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shot
along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain. The nails
in the wrists were putting pressure on the median nerve, large nerve
trunks which traverse the mid-wrist and hand. As He pushed himself
upward to avoid this stretching torment, He placed His full weight
on the nail through His feet. Again there was searing agony as the
nail tore through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of this
feet.
At this point, another phenomenon
occurred. As the arms fatigued, great waves of cramps swept over the
muscles, knotting them in deep relentless, throbbing pain. With these
cramps came the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by the arm,
the pectoral muscles, the large muscles of the chest, were paralyzed
and the intercostal muscles, the small muscles between the ribs, were
unable to act. Air could be drawn into the lungs, but could not be
exhaled. Jesus fought to raise Himself in order to get even one short
breath. Finally, the carbon dioxide level increased in the lungs and
in the blood stream, and the cramps partially subsided.
The Last Words
Spasmodically, He was able to push
Himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen. It was undoubtedly
during these periods that He uttered the seven short sentences that
are recorded.
The first - looking down at the Roman
soldiers throwing dice6 for His seamless garment: "Father, forgive
them for they do not know what they do."
The second - to the penitent thief:
"Today, thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
The third - looking down at Mary
His mother, He said: "Woman, behold your son." Then turning to the
terrified, grief-stricken adolescent John , the beloved apostle, He
said: "Behold your mother."
The fourth cry is from the beginning
of Psalm 22: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
He suffered hours of limitless pain,
cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation,
and searing pain as tissue was torn from His lacerated back from His
movement up and down against the rough timbers of the cross. Then
another agony began: a deep crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium,
the sac surrounding the heart, slowly filled with serum and began
to compress the heart.
The prophecy in Psalm 22:14 was being
fulfilled: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of
joint, my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels."
The end was rapidly approaching.
The loss of tissue fluids had reached a critical level; the compressed
heart was struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood to the tissues,
and the tortured lungs were making a frantic effort to inhale small
gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues sent their flood of
stimuli to the brain. Jesus gasped His fifth cry: "I thirst." Again
we read in the prophetic psalm: "My strength is dried up like a potsherd;
my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou has brought me into the dust
of death" (Psalm 22:15 KJV).
A sponge soaked in posca, the cheap,
sour wine that was the staple drink of the Roman legionnaires, was
lifted to Jesus' lips. His body was now in extremis, and He could
feel the chill of death creeping through His tissues. This realization
brought forth His sixth word, possibly little more than a tortured
whisper: "It is finished." His mission of atonement had been completed.
Finally, He could allow His body to die. With one last surge of strength,
He once again pressed His torn feet against the nail, straightened
His legs, took a deeper breath, and uttered His seventh and last cry:
"Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit."
Death
The common method of
ending a crucifixion was by crurifracture, the breaking of the bones
of the leg. This prevented the victim from pushing himself upward;
the tension could not be relieved from the muscles of the chest, and
rapid suffocation occurred. The legs of the two thieves were broken,
but when the soldiers approached Jesus, they saw that this was unnecessary.
Apparently, to make doubly sure of
death, the legionnaire drove his lance between the ribs, upward through
the pericardium and into the heart. John 19:34 states, "And immediately
there came out blood and water." Thus there was an escape of watery
fluid from the sac surrounding the heart and the blood of the interior
of the heart. This is rather conclusive post-mortem evidence that
Jesus died, not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of
heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid
in the pericardium.
Resurrection
In these events, we have seen a glimpse
of the epitome of evil that man can exhibit toward his fellow man
and toward God. This is an ugly sight and is likely to leave us despondent
and depressed.
But the crucifixion was not the end
of the story. How grateful we can be that we have a sequel: a glimpse
of the infinite mercy of God toward man--the gift of atonement, the
miracle of the resurrection, and the expectation of Easter morning.
*Dr. C. Truman Davis is a graduate of the University
of Tennessee College of Medicine. He is a practicing ophthalmologist,
a pastor, and author of a book about medicine and the Bible.
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