| 134. The Wound By a Spear in the Side of Jesus. | ||||
WHILE the Synoptics represent Jesus as hanging on the cross from the wpa ivvdrr), i.e. three in the afternoon, when he expired, until the otpia, i.e. probably about six in the evening, without anything further happening to him: the fourth evangelist interposes a remarkable episode. According to him, the Jews, in order to prevent the desecration of the coming sabbath, which was a peculiarly hallowed one, by the continued exposure of the bodies on the cross, besought the procurator that their legs might be broken and that they might forthwith be carried away. The soldiers, to whom this task was committed, executed it on the two criminals crucified with Jesus; but when they perceived in the latter the signs o"F life having already become extinct, they held such a measure superfluous in his case, and contended themselves with thrusting a spear into his side, whereupon there came forth blood and water (xix. 31-37.). | ||||
This event is ordinarily regarded as the chief voucher for the reality of the death of Jesus, and in relation to it the proof to be drawn from the Synoptics is held inadequate. According to the reckoning which gives the longest space of time, that of Mark, Jesus hung on the cross from the third to the ninth hour, that is, six hours, before he died; if, as to many it has appeared probable, in the two other Synoptics the beginning of the darkness at the sixth hour marks also the beginning of the crucifixion, Jesus, according to them, hung only three hours living on the cross; and if we presuppose in John the ordinary Jewish mode of reckoning the hours, and attribute to him the same opinion as to the period of the death of Jesus, it follows, since he makes Pilate pronounce judgment on him only about the sixth hour, that Jesus must have died after {P.795} hanging on the cross not much more than two hours. But crucifixion does not in other cases kill thus speedily. This may be inferred from the nature of the punishment, which does not consist in the infliction of severe wounds so as to cause a rapid loss of blood, but rather in the stretching of the limbs, so as to produce a gradual rigidity; moreover it is evident from the statements of the evangelists themselves, for according to them Jesus, immediately before the moment which they regard as the last, had yet strength to utter a loud cry, and the two thieves crucified with him were still alive after that time; lastly, this opinion is supported by examples of individuals whose life has lasted for several days on the cross, and who have only at length expired from hunger and similar causes. Hence Fathers of the Church and older theologians advanced the opinion, that the , which would not have ensued so quickly in a natural way, was accelerated supernaturally, either by himself or by God; hysicians and more modern theologians have appealed to the accumulated corporeal and spiritual sufferings of Jesus on the evening of the night prior to his crucifixion but they also for the most part leave open the possibility that what appeared to the evangelists the supervention of death itself, was only a swoon produced by the stoppage of the circulation, and that the wound with the spear in the side first consummated the death. | ||||
But concerning this wound itself, the place, the instrument, and the manner of its infliction-concerning its. object and effects, there has always been a great diversity of opinion. The instrument is called by the evangelist a oy%ri, which may equally signify either the light javelin or the heavy lance; so that we are left in uncertainty as to the extent of the wound. The manner in which the wound was inflicted he describes by the verb vvaoetv, which sometimes denotes a mortal wound, sometimes a slight scratch, indeed, even a thrust which does not so much as draw blood; hence we are ignorant of the depth of the wound: though since Jesus, after the resurrection, makes Thomas lay only his ringers in the print of the nails, but, in or even merely on the wound in the side, his hand (John xx. 27), the stroke of the spear seems to have made a considerable wound. But the question turns mainly on the place in which the wound was made. This John describes as the nkevpa side, and certainly if the spear entered the leftside between the ribs and penetrated into the heart, death must inevitably have ensued: but the above expression may just as properly imply the right side as the left, and in either side any spot from the shoulder to the hip. Most of these points indeed would be at once decided, if the object of the soldier had been to kill Jesus, supposing he should not be already dead; in this case he would doubtless have pierced Jesus in the {P.796} most fatal place, and as deeply as possible, or rather, have broken his legs, as was done to the two thieves: but since he treated Jesus otherwise than his fellow sufferers, it is evident that in relation to him he had a different object, namely, in the first place to ascertain by this stroke of the spear, whether death had really taken place-a conclusion which he believed might securely be drawn from the flowing of blood and water out of the wound. | ||||
But this result of the wound is in fact the subject on which there is the least unanimity. The Fathers of the Church, on the ground that blood no longer flows from corpses, regarded the blood and water, aifia KOL vdup, which flowed from the corpse of Jesus as a miracle, a sign of his superhuman nature. More modern theologians, founding on the same experience, have interpreted the expression as a hendiadys, implying that the blood still flowed, and that this was a sign that death had not yet, or not until now taken place. As however blood is itself a fluid, the water vdup added to the Hood alpa cannot signify merely the fluid state of the latter, but must denote a peculiar admixture which the blood flowing from the side of Jesus contained. To explain this to themselves, and at the same time obtain the most infallible proof of death, others have fallen on the idea that the water mixed with the blood came out of the pericardium, which had been pierced by the spear, and in which, especially in such as die undersevere anguish, a quantity of fluid is said to be accumulated. But- besides that the piercing of the pericardium is a mere supposition- on the one hand, the quantity of such fluid, where no dropsy exists, is so trifling, that its emission would not be perceptible; and on the other hand, it is only a single small spot in front of the breast where the pericardium can be so struck that an emission outward is possible: in all other cases, whatever was emitted would be poured into the cavity of the thorax. Without doubt the idea which was present in the evangelist's mind was rather the fact, which may be observed in every instance of blood-letting, that the blood so soon as it has ceased to take part in the vital process, begins to divide itself into placenta and serum,' and he intended by representing this separation as having already taken place in the blood of Jesus, to adduce a proof of his real death. But whether this outflow of blood and water in perceptible separation be a possible proof of death, wheher Hase and Winer be right when they maintain that on deep incisions in corpses the blood sometimes flows in this decomposed state, or the fathers, when they deem this so unprecedented that it must be regarded as a miracle in Jesus, this is another question. A distinguished anatomist has explained the state of the fact to me in the {P.797} following manner. Ordinarily, within an hour after death the blood begins to coagulate in the vessels, and consequently no longer to flow on incisions; only by way of exception in certain species of death, as nervous fevers, or suffocation, does the blood retain its fluidity in the corpse. Now if it be chosen to place the death on the cross under the category of suffocation-which however, from the length of time that crucified persons have often remained alive, and in relation to Jesus especially, from his being said to have spoken to the last, appears impracticable; or if it be supposed that the wound in the side followed so quickly on the instant of death that it found the blood still fluid, a supposition which is discordant with the narratives, for they state Jesus to have been already dead at three in the afternoon, while the bodies must have been taken away only at six in the evening: then, if the spear struck one of the larger blood vessels, blood would have flowed, but without water; if however Jesu had already been dead about an hour, and his corpse was in the ordinary state: nothing at all would have flowed. Thus either blood or nothing: in no case blood and water, because the serum smb. placenta are not separated in the vessels of the corpse as in the basin after blood-letting. Hardly then had the author of this trait in the fourth gospel himself seen the alpa Kal vdup flowing out of the side of Jesus, as a sign that his death had taken place: rather, because after blood-letting he had seen the above separation take place in the blood as it lost its vitality, and because he was desirous to show a certain proof of the , he represented those separate ingredients as flowing out of his wounded corpse. | ||||
The evangelist assures us, with the most solicitous earnestness, that this really happened to Jesus, and that his account is trustworthy, as being founded on personal observation (v. 35). According to some, he gives this testimony in opposition to docetic Gnostics, who denied the true corporeality of Jesus: but wherefore then the mention of the water? According to others, on account of the noteworthy fulfilment of two prophecies by that procedure with respect to the body of Jesus: but, as L cke himself says, though John does certainly elsewhere, even in subordinate points, seek a fulfilment of prophecy, he nowhere attaches to it so extraordinary a weight as he would here have done according to this supposition. Hence it appears the most natural supposition that the evangelist intended by those assurances to confirm the truth of the , and that he merely appended the reference to the fulfilment of Scripture as a secondary illustrative addition. The absence of an historical indication, that as early as the period of the composi- {P.798} tion of the fourth gospel, there existed a suspicion that the was only apparent, does not suffice, in the paucity of information at our command concerning that period, to prove that a suspicion so easy of suggestion had not actually to be combated in the circle in which the above gospel arose, and that it may not have given occasion to the adduction of proofs not only of the resurrection of Jesus, but also of his death. Even in the Gospel of Mark a similar effort is visible. When this evangelist, in narrating Joseph's entreaty for the body of Jesus, says: And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead (v. 44): this suggests the idea that he lent to Pilate an astonishment which he must have heard expressed by many of his contemporaries concerning the rapidity with which the had ensued; and when he proceeds to state that the procurator obtained from the centurion certain information that Jesus had been some time dead, ndXat. d-xiOave; it appears as if he wished, in silencing th doubt of Pilate, to silence that of his contemporaries also; but in that case he can have known nothing of a wound with a spear, and its consequences, otherwise he would not have left unnoticed this securest warrant of death having really taken place: so that the representation in John has the appearance of being a fuller development of a tendency of the legend already visible in Mark. | ||||
This view of John's narrative is further confirmed by his citation of Old Testament passages, as fulfilled in this event. In the stroke of the spear he sees the fulfilment of Zech. xii. 10. (better translated by John than by the LXX), where the Lord says to the Israelites IT?? T;JX nx iix laarii they shall look on him whom they Rave pierced, in the sense, that they will one day return to him whom they had so grievously offended. The word 137, to pierce, understood literally, expresses an act which appears more capable of being directed against a man than against the Lord: this interpretation is supported by the variation in the reading TN; and it must have been confirmed by the succeeding context, which proceeds in the third person thus: and they shall mourn for him, as one mournethfor Ais only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. Hence the Rabbis interpreted this passage of the Messiah ben Joseph, who would be pierced by the sword in battle, and the Christians might refer it, as they did so many passages in Psalms of lamentation, to their Messiah, at first understanding the piercing either figuratively or as implying the nailing of the hands (and feet) in crucifixion (comp. Rev. i. 7.); until at last some one, who desired a more decisive proof of death than crucifixion in itself afforded, interpreted it as a special piercing with the spear. | ||||
If then this trait of the piercing with the spear proceeded from the combined interests of obtaining a proof of death, and a literal {P.799} fulfilment of a prophecy: the rest must be regarded as merely its preparatory groundwork. The piercing was only needful as a test of death, if Jesus had to be early taken down from the cross, which according to Jewish law (Deut. xxi. 22; Josh. viii. 29, x. 26 f.- an exception occurs in 2 Sam. xxi.6ff.) must in any case be before night; but in particular in the present instance (a special circumstance which John alone notes), before the beginning of the Passover. If Jesus died unusually soon, and if the two who were crucified with him were yet to be taken down at the same time, the death of the latter must be hastened by violent means. This might be done likewise by means of a strike of the spear: but then the piercing, which in Zech. xii. 10. was predicted specially of the Messiah, would equally happen to others. Thus in their case it would be better to choose the breaking of the legs, which would not indeed instantaneously superinduce death, but which yet made it ultimately certain as a consequence of he mortification produced by the fracture. It is true that the crurifragium appears nowhere else in connection with crucifixion among the Romans, but only as a separate punishment, for slaves, prisoners of war, and the like. But it was not the less suitable in a prophetic point of view; for was it not said of the Paschal lamb with which Jesus was elsewhere also compared (1 Cor. v. 7.); not a bone of him shall be broken (Exod. xii. 46.)? so that both the prophecies were fulfilled, the one determining what should happen exclusively to Jesus, the other what should happen to his fellow-sufferers, but not to him. | ||||