SECTION VIII

Jesus led away to Golgotha

(Mat 27:31-33. Mar 15:20-22. Luk 23:26-33. Joh 19:16-17)

In Jerusalem, the so-named street of suffering (via dolorosa, via crucis) runs from the northern foot of the temple-mountain in a westerly direction, somewhat inclining to the south, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Tradition undertakes, in this street, to indicate the way by which Christ must have been led from the judgment-hall to the place of execution (Golgotha); nay, it points out several places in which special events of the history of the passion (of which the four Evangelists make mention, or which tradition records) must have occurred.

As for these stations, they belong, for the most part, to tradition. Even the road itself has been left to the decision of tradition; and, indeed, the genuineness of the point of departure indicated by tradition, and still more that of the point of destination, has been absolutely and decidedly questioned.

In respect of the place of departure, the genuineness of this may be not unreasonably denied; for it is much more likely that Pilate resided in the palace on the temple-mountain than in the palace at the foot of the city of David. If thus the destination—namely, the determining of the situation of Golgotha—be rightly specified by tradition, then the general direction of the via dolorosa must be rightly indicated; if, after the desolations that Jerusalem has undergone, anything can be said of the correctness of the direction of this street in general.

The authenticity of that locality, however, has been of late more established again than ever. For a long time it has been asserted that the place of Christ’s crucifixion, as well as His grave, was outside the city of Jerusalem, while the place of the holy sepulchre that tradition has consecrated is enclosed by the walls of the city. But now lately it has been shown that the district of the crucifixion of Jesus, the new city (Bezetha) before the building of the walls of Agrippa, or up to the time of the death of Jesus, had been situated entirely in the open ground.¹ This observation is more and more confirmed by the latest inquiries.² The testimony of the tradition, moreover, in this case, obtains an entirely special importance, because to the time of Constantine it searched after the place of the crucifixion of Christ exactly on a spot which must have had for the Christian mind much that would cause its rejection, since the Emperor Hadrian had built there a temple of Venus.³ The Christians would not have been likely to have decided thus easily, without objective reasons, on consecrating this profaned spot to their holiest recollections.⁴

It must, besides, be mentioned in this behalf, that even the difficulty of identifying the traditional situation of the holy sepulchre with the statements of the evangelical accounts, testifies eventually for the truth of the tradition. For tradition could have contrived a much more easily comprehended account, as it appears, if in this case it had been willing to invent. Certainly there were not many ways open out of the city in which to seek a locality such as the evangelic history has designated as the place of the crucifixion.

If, indeed, the theatre of the crucifixion is to be sought for again on a mountain-top or a high hill, as Christian traditional poetry has suggested, the difficulty continues. But the Evangelists not only afford no pretext for such a proceeding, but they absolutely preclude such a notion, by speaking merely of the place of Golgotha, the place of skulls.⁵ It is not likely that, by this name, a hill formed like a skull is intended to be pointed out; rather it is suggested that the place received its name from the executions which occurred there. Moreover, that field was no even ground, but an elevated hilly place, which, according to its purpose of showing to the people those who were exposed to public ignominy, was appropriately prominent above the surrounding gardens, estates, and dwellings. If we seek for it in the place indicated by the tradition, it was a rocky tract which, according to the latest conjectures, ran out near the city into a projection which very probably fell away steeply towards the north and east.⁶

The heaps of rubbish under which a great part of the streets and squares of old Jerusalem lies buried, have obliterated the definite form of this elevation, by filling up the hollows that surrounded it.⁷

It was in accordance with the Israelitish as well as with the Roman custom, to execute malefactors in the front of the city.⁸ And yet it was intended by the executions that they should occur in a crowded place, as also was the Roman custom. The new city was a district which at once answered both purposes.

Thus Jesus was actually led forth from the city by the street running from the temple-mountain westward, in order to be put to death before their gates,—among gardens, and country houses, and new buildings, and cultivated lands, in the centre of the glow and life of a growing new city,—and made a spectacle to the world!⁹

Immediately the judgment of death was pronounced against the accused, it was probably urged by the Jews that He should be led forth to Golgotha as quickly as possible. For, according to their festival custom, they must wish that if possible the crucifixion should be completed before mid-day, and even that the crucified should be removed and placed in a grave before sunset. We may therefore suppose that the procession hastened towards the result in a rapid tumult.

Although Jesus now once more wore His own clothes, yet probably the traces of the ill treatment He had suffered were still plainly visible on his head and face. Instead of lictors, soldiers led Him forth, commanded by a chief (centurion) on horseback.¹⁰ Together with Him were led forth to execution two malefactors. On a white tablet¹¹ the cause of His execution was recorded. We know not whether He bore it on His neck or whether it was carried before Him, for both modes were practised.¹² According to the usual procedure, Jesus was also required, on this rapid journey, Himself to bear His cross. Even although the frame of the cross had not that gigantic form and size in which it is commonly represented, it still must have been a grievous burden.¹³ Added to this, the Lord, by the previous sufferings, had been already greatly shaken. The great labour of spirit and heart of the previous Passover-eve, the sharp struggle in Gethsemane, the night-watch, the separations, the rendings of His heart, finally, the frightful scourging,—all these precursors had exhausted His strength; and now the hasty leading away under the burden of the cross aggravated all His fatigues.¹⁴ In what concerns the previous spiritual exhaustion of His life, His struggle in Gethsemane had already agitated Him, even to death. But in what belongs to the bodily exhaustion, we know of the Roman scourging that it could in other cases sometimes inflict death upon the victim; and we may gather from the circumstances, how in this case all the rage of diabolical excitement had stimulated the stripes of the soldiers. Thus was the Holy One exhausted when He was urged along under the burden of His cross. And He came, notwithstanding, with His burden before the gate. Whether He at length sank down here under the burden, as the tradition says, or whether He faltered, or whether the Roman soldiery, without that, were moved by a feeling of pity for Him, we cannot tell. In any case, they provided for Him a substitute to carry His cross forward, as soon as they had gone forth with Him out of the city. Possibly the centurion, who subsequently beneath the cross showed himself so deeply moved by the innocence and lofty dignity of Christ, felt already a peculiar attraction to Him, which induced him to interest himself in the exalted sufferer. This interest, indeed, displayed itself in a soldierly manner. Before the gate there met the procession a man, by name Simon of Cyrene (in the African Lybia, where many Jews resided¹⁵), who was coming from the country. The Evangelist Mark, at the time of the composition of his Gospel, knew him as the father of Alexander and of Rufus, two men who must have probably been known to the Christian Church of his time doubtless as partners in the faith.¹⁶ Simon as yet perhaps stood in no very near relation to Jesus, at least he had during His sufferings before the Roman tribunal remained away in the country.¹⁷ And perhaps the attention of the procession was actually arrested by his coming up nearly to the gate thus alone in an opposite direction, while all the people were pouring forth from the gate in the company with Jesus. The soldiers thus laid hold on this man, and compelled him, in the form of a military requisition (ἠγγάρευσαν),¹⁸ to carry the cross of Jesus after him. The distance from here to the place of execution, indeed, could not now be far.

Thus has many a man been suddenly involved in this world-historical crucifixion journey of Christ, coming as it were from the country, and has been compelled to bear the cross after Him. But many have quickly reconciled themselves to this blessed call, and have received the blessing of Christ for themselves and for their children, and in many ways have their names thereby been for ever rescued from oblivion.

Among the large crowd which followed Jesus were many who adhered to Him. For a long time it had appeared as if His dependants were unknown, and had vanished. They were struck dumb by all the terrors of hell, which were let loose upon Jesus. But now the first faint breezes of another disposition were beginning to breathe, the precursors of the courage of the cross would manifest themselves. And, indeed, these are first distinctly manifested in the weaker sex. A group of women began first of all to utter aloud their grief about the Lord; they lament Him, they lift up a loud wail over Him. The usual ceremony of the lament for the dead is not to be thought of here, for it was even forbidden among the Jews to lament in the customary manner a man who had been executed.¹⁹ Here, then, the lament over Jesus proceeded from a mere deep sense of sorrow, so powerful that it even broke through the limits of customary observance without fear.

When the Lord heard the lament of these women, it seemed to Him as if He saw Himself transplanted already into the tempest of destruction which was to come upon Jerusalem; and with the great sympathy of His faithful heart He turned and cried to the mourners, ‘Ye daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin (it will come to that with them that they begin) to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’

These sorrowing women lamented for the Lord in faithful kindness, but they did not understand the depth of what was occurring. They did not feel that they with their people were the unfortunate ones, a thousand-fold more so than He, and, indeed, on account of this very deed of His crucifixion; and this they were to know. The compassion with which they looked down upon Him as the poor Jesus, must give place to a terror with which they looked up for help in presentiment of their need to Him as the deliverer.²⁰

Even in this glance upon the divine judgment which was to come upon Jerusalem, He grieved before all for the mothers-the poor mothers. He felt beforehand the nameless sorrows which were impending over most of them.²¹

Yea, even that frightful depth of wretchedness in which afflicted Jews sought to hide themselves in the foulest corners, channels, and holes of the city before the whirlwind of shame and of death which foamed²² through the streets and houses, when to many it would have seemed a great boon if mountains had covered them, or clefts of the rocks had hidden them,—all appeared in distinct view before the soul of the Lord.²³

But He would clearly indicate the fundamental law of that divine doom. If they did this in the fresh green tree, who can say what would be done in the dry tree? If they put to death the Holy One on the cross, who can fathom the judgments which then must be meted to this wholly withered, hardened world of sinners, which slew Him on the cross, according to eternal justice?²⁴

Thus is the Lord, even on His journey to the death of the cross, so earnestly engrossed by the glimpse of the nameless sorrow which threatens His people, and especially the weak, the mothers, the loving among His people, that His own grief is forgotten by Him therein.

Pilate had immediately again taken courage, after the storm of Jewish excitement which had broken down his judicial dignity was appeased. But he had taken courage after his own manner. It was customary, as already mentioned, that the crime of the malefactors who were crucified should be specified on a tablet which was fastened over the cross. Pilate availed himself of this circumstance to avenge himself on the Jews for the humiliation that they had caused him. He put upon the tablet the inscription, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews; and to make the inscription intelligible to all, he had it written in the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman languages. He intended, without doubt, thereby to put a decided insult upon the Jewish nation; nevertheless, the greatness of the occasion made him in his turn an involuntary prophet, without his being aware of it. He was constrained to give to the Lord His rightful title—the dignity on account of which, in the most peculiar sense, He was crucified; and, indeed, to give it Him in the three great leading languages of the civilized world.²⁵ In the hurry and excitement of the procession, the Jews for a long time did not notice this inscription. But probably also by anticipation the arrangement was part of the revenge of Pilate, by which now the malefactors were led away with Jesus to be crucified with Him, at His right hand and at His left. Certainly the Jews might have had an interest in representing Jesus, by means of His execution between the thieves, as being the most notorious misdoer of all, and so in utterly degrading Him. But it turned the scale the other way when they reflected that these multiplied executions were mightily disturbing the repose of the feast-day, especially when they occurred at the hour of noon. And, moreover, in any case, the Jews could only have proposed to Pilate the execution of the two thieves with Jesus, but they could not themselves have determined upon it. But in the mood in which Pilate then was, this would probably have been a reason for not completing those executions, that he might not gratify the Jews. Pilate, on the other hand, in his vindictiveness, might feel actually induced to order the leading away from him with Jesus of the two thieves, who probably were already condemned to death, and were to be executed during the festival. His intention probably was to disgust his Jewish opponents with the procession to the execution of Jesus by these additions as much as possible, but especially to mortify them by crucifying the King of the Jews in the midst of criminals.²⁶ It was plainly to be understood that he would figuratively destroy the Jewish nation on the cross, with its fanatical notions of freedom, represented by the thieves and by Jesus, who must appear as their King; that he thus regarded the Jews one with another as a contemptible mob of robbers. He did not consider any further what the personality of Jesus was to suffer therein, since he prosecuted the thought of his vengeance, in requiting the public humiliation which he had experienced from the whole people by a great public degradation of the person of Jesus.

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Notes

1. The reasoning by which Robinson (i. 408) seeks to invalidate the proofs adduced by Chateaubriand for the authenticity of the locality assigned to the holy sepulchre, is not satisfactory. The first supposition of Chateaubriand, that the Christian would have known the places of the crucifixion and of the holy sepulchre to the time of Hadrian, is not shaken, even although the tradition referred to were not supported by the regular succession of Christian bishops from the time of St James to the reign of Hadrian, for that tradition might exist without this succession. The second supposition, that the Cæsar Hadrian erected heathen temples about the year 135 upon Golgotha, and on the sepulchre, is not weakened by the fact of the intimations of this first occurring in Eusebius and Jerome, and that these writers are not strictly agreed with one another. As Jerome must have been very well acquainted with the topography of the later Jerusalem, and as his account stands to that of Eusebius in the relation of a more exact and complete narrative, it is not to be understood wherefore he should not deserve credit in the testimonies referred to. If Eusebius relates that godless men had built a temple of Venus over the sepulchre of Jesus, it is only more closely determined by Jerome by the first notice, that Hadrian had that temple built, and first corrected by the second, according to which the marble equestrian statue of Venus stood upon the ‘rock of the cross,’ but over the place of the sepulchre the figure of Jupiter. Moreover, when subsequently Sozomen relates that the heathen had erected these images in these places with the view of scaring away from them the Christians who made pilgrimages thereto, he maintains this assertion by distinct allusions to the fact, that the heathens had been at pains to make the holy places inaccessible to the Christians. Certainly the authenticity of the locality of the holy sepulchre is not in the abstract proved still. But if the above-mentioned circumstance be taken into consideration—and how hard it must have been for the Christians again to attach their reverence for the holy death-places of Jesus to places thus desecrated!-the supposition that they were constrained thereto by the historical truth of the tradition, assumes a high degree of probability (comp. V. Schubert, Reise, ii. 504). The history of the holy sepulchre, see in Robinson, i. 373. [The arguments for and against the genuineness of the sites now shown as those of the crucifixion and of the holy sepulchre are very lucidly stated by Andrews, Life of our Lord, pp. 479-488. Ewald (485, note) observes, that it is not at all probable that the early Christians made pilgrimages to the tomb of their Lord, like Buddhists or Mussulmen, or even accurately marked it. But may we not justly ascribe to the early Christians at least as much interest in these sites and objects as exists among ourselves, and as has been sufficient to induce so many travellers to engage in the most arduous investigations?—Ed.]

2. The cross was represented in three forms. ‘The first was called “crux decussata,” and had something the shape of the letter X. The second form, the so-called “crux commissa,” was made by fastening a shorter beam in the middle, at right angles on the end of the upright one, whereby the cross resembled the letter T. The third form of the cross is the familiar Roman cross, where a shorter beam is so fastened at its middle, at right angles to another, that one portion of the actual trunk of the cross as it were projects above it. This cross is called “crux immissa.” ’ The ecclesiastical tradition has decided that Christ’s cross had the third form; and the ‘more general opinion’ of the testimony of the Church fathers, upwards to the earliest, speaks in favour of this assumption.—Friedlieb, 130. According to Lipsius, the cross must have been of oak. According to Cornelius a Lapide, it must have been put together of the several kinds of wood—palm, cedar, cypress, and olive. Certainly that wood was generally taken which came most conveniently to hand; as in Palestine, the sycamore, the palm, or the olive-wood (Id. 135). [All needful information regarding the cross is collected by Lipsius in his treatise, De Cruce (published separately at Antwerp 1595, and Amstel. 1670, and in the second volume of his collected works, Lugduni, 1613, pp. 765-802). Both Lipsius and Bynæus give well-executed plates of the various forms of the cross. The original definitions from which the above of Friedlieb are taken, are as follow:—‘Est decussata, est commissa, est immissa. Illa prima mihi dicitur, in qua duo ligna directa et æquabilia, inter se obliquantur (the St Andrew’s cross). . . . Jam commissam crucem appello, cum ligno erecto brevius alterum superne, et in ipso capite committitur, sic ut nihil exstet (the T cross). . . . Denique Immissa crux est, cum ligno erecto, transversum alterum injungitur atque immittitur, sed sic ut ipsum secet’ (the Roman cross, as commonly represented in pictures of the crucifixion of our Lord). Attention should also be given to that essential part of the cross which is often overlooked-the short horizontal bar projecting from the middle of the cross, and on which the crucified was seated astride, as on a saddle, so that the weight of the body might not rest on the nails. This is very fully described by Salmasius in his treatise, De Cruce, extracts from which are given by Stroud, Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, p. 368, &c. The most ancient definition of this part of the cross is given by Justin Martyr (Dial. Tryph. sec. 91), τὸ ἐν τῷ μέσῳ πηγνύμενον ὡς κέρας, καὶ αὐτὸ ἐξέχον, ἐστίν, ἐφʼ ᾧ ἐποχοῦνται οἱ σταυρούμενοι. With Bynæus it is called the sedile of the cross.—Ed.]

3. ‘Notwithstanding what Strauss says, the narrative of John, that Jesus, Himself bearing the cross, was led away, in no way contradicts what we must add to it from other sources,—that He was afterwards relieved of the burden on account of His exhaustion.’—Neander, 463. The expression, ‘Notwithstanding what Strauss says,’ is very well chosen here. In respect of the relation of John to the other Evangelists, the interlacing of the expressions is to be well considered, βαστάζων ἐξῆλθεν in John, and ἐξερχόμενοι δὲ εὗρον in Matthew; comp. Ebrard, 436.

4. The tradition of the holy Berenice or Veronica has linked itself to the narrative of the women who lamented for the Lord.—Sepp, 537.

1) See K. V. Kaumer, Palästina, 355 ; Scholz, De Golgotha situ. Comp. Friedlieb, 137.

2) Schulz, Jerusalem, 96.

3) See Note 1.

4) Schulz, 99.

5) גֻּלְגָּלְתָא (the Chaldaic form for גֻּלְגָֹּלֶתְ), properly the skull. According to old explanations, the hill must have either taken its name from its form, which resembled a human skull, or from the head of Adam, whose grave was placed there by tradition. Orig. in Matt. iii. 44. Friedlieb, 136. [Ewald thinks the name denotes a low, bare knoll, rising like a skull out of the ground. He identifies it with the hill Gareb of Jer. xxxi. 39, which also etymologically denotes a scraped, unfruitful, or scabby piece of ground. See his Gcschichte Christus, 485, note. The manner in which Luke names it 'the place called κρανίον' (skull, calvaria, Calvary), is against its derivation from the skulls of executed criminals lying about on the spot; for on this supposition some addition would almost inevitably have been made to the word (skull-heap or skull-hill), or, at least, it would have been given in the plural number.—ED.]

6) Schulz, 30.

7) Schulz, in loc.

8) Heb. xiii. 1 3. Compare Grotius in the Gospel of Matthew. [Examples of execution without the gate of the city or the vallum of the camp may be seen in Bynæus (iii. 220) or Pearson on the Creed (Art. iv.) Taubmann, in his edition of Plautus (Miles Glor. ii. 4), quotes Lipsius as saying, Supplicia pleraque apud Romanos sumi solita extra portas ; credo, ne frequenti sanguine et csede contaminari oculi civium, aut delibari videretur libertas. Itaque et carnifex domum habuit extra urbem. And
so at Athens, and in other cities, the gate through which criminals were led to execution was called χαρώνεια θύρα. Ewald remarks (481), that the Jewish dread of contamination from dead bodies was sufficient reason for their executions being without the gate.—ED.]

9) Compare Friedlieb, 113.

10) By Tacitus called Exactor mortis ; by Seneca, 'Centurio supplicio proepositus.'—Friedlieb, 128. Comp. Sepp, 533.

11) It was called titulus, σανις, or also λεύκωμα, αἰτία. [According to the definition of Suidas, quoted by Pearson, the λεύκωμα was a tablet or table, whitened with a coating of gypsum, and commonly used for writing any public notices on. But whether this was carried before the Saviour or hung round His neck, seems uncertain, but the former much more probable ; and so it is commonly represented in pictures of the Via Dolorosa.—ED.]

12) Friedlieb, 128.

13) [Lipsius observes, that the whole cross was not always laid on the criminal, but sometimes only a part. In some cases this cross-bearing could not be observed,
as when a man was nailed to a tree. Since Tertullian, it has been common to find a type of Christ s bearing His cross ('lignum passionis suee bajulantis,' Adr. Jndœos, c. 10) in Isaac s bearing the wood on which he was himself to be laid as the victim.—ED.]

14) It has been well observed that our Lord must not be conceived of as having been a man of exaggerated bodily powers, or as having had any faculties in disproportionate prominence; even in the susceptibility—the delicacy—the sensibility to injury of His perfect heroic manliness, and of the holy freshness and fulness of His life, He must needs have been the King of humanity.

15) 'Ptolemy Lagos, when he received Palestine into his supreme authority, had 100,000 Hebrews settled in the Pentapolis of that place. They maintained a special synagogue at Jerusalem.'—Sepp, iii. 535. It is worthy of notice, in fact, that we find quoted in the Acts xiii. 1, a Simeon Niger associated with Lucius of Gyrene, whereto Sepp calls attention. The tradition, on the other hand, that this man was Simon the leper, deserves no consideration.

16) The similar names in Acts xix. 33, Rom. xvi. 13, have been referred to this place.

17) Olshausen, in loc. [Bynæus suggests that he may have been coming in because it was a feast-day. The supposition that he had been labouring, is certainly insufficiently supported. Meyer thinks he must have been a slave, and was therefore chosen for the degrading office, though so many Jews were around. But would a slave be at once known by his dress or bearing? And if the soldiers were heading the procession, is it not natural to suppose, that as Simon was meeting them, he would be most readily laid hold on?—ED.]

18) On such requisitions compare Tholuck, die Glaubwürdigkeit, &c., 365. Upon the expression see above, vol. ii. p. 108.

19) Compare Sepp, iii. 537.

20) Olshausen remarks : We are not to think, as among this company of women, of those faithful women who, according to Luke xxiii. 48, looked on from a distance at the death of the Lord; for there, in fact, the words of the Lord were not appropriate. For, for the great visitation of doom of which Jesus spake, these would already have no need to fear. Here, indeed, nothing is said of needing to be afraid, but of the sorrows of love which even Christ Himself already experiences by anticipation with the mothers in Jerusalem ; which thus even the godly faithful women must bear a part in, although they need not to be afraid in the common sense. But that the special female friends and disciples of Jesus from Galilee are not meant here, is certainly plain from the connection.

21) Here is to be recalled that frightful event in the last siege of Jerusalem, that a mother killed her own child, roasted, and ate of it. Joseph. De Bell. Jud. vi. 3, 4 ; comp. v. 10, 3. Mothers snatched—how horrible!—the food out of the mouths of their own children; from the sucklings wasting away in their arms they did not shrink from taking away the last drop of milk, according to Gfrörer and W. Hoffmann.

22) Joseph. De Bell. Jud. vi. 8, 5 ; ch. ix. 4.

23) 'Jerusalem was situate upon several hills, into whose subterranean depths fled the inhabitants in the later times of the siege. The hills were tumbled upon them, and the mountains covered them; for the city was made like to the earth, and the ruins filled up its valleys.'—Sepp, iii. 8, 38.

24) Ezek. xx. 47; comp. xxi. 3.

25) Hase, 252.

26) The account of John speaks for the supposition that the union of the execution of the thieves with that of Jesus was a thought of Pilate, and had the intention suggested above, especially the connection of the account of that offensive drawing up of that inscription with the ordering of the execution of the thieves in the words (ver. 19), Ἔγραψε δὲ καὶ τίτλον ὀ Πιλάτος.