Of the soldiers, according to John four in number, who crucified Jesus, the Evangelists unanimously relate that they parted the clothes of Jesus among themselves by lot. According to the Roman law de bonis damnatorum[152] the vestments of the executed fell as spolia to the executioners, and in so far that [[684]]statement of the Evangelists has a point of contact with history. But, like most of the features in this last scene of the life of Jesus, it has also a point of contact with prophecy. It is true that in Matthew the quotation of the passage [Ps. xxii. 18] is doubtless an interpolation; but on the other hand the same quotation is undoubtedly genuine in John ([xix. 24]): ἵνα ἡ γραφὴ πληρωθῇ ἡ λέγουσα· (verbally after the LXX.) διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτιά μου ἐαυτοῖς, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἱματισμόν μου ἔβαλον κλῆρον, that the scripture might be fulfilled which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. Here also, according to the assertion of orthodox expositors, David the author of the psalm, under divine guidance, in the moments of inspiration chose such figurative expressions as had a literal fulfilment in Christ.[153] Rather we must say, David, or whoever else may have been the author of the psalm, as a man of poetical imagination used those expressions as mere metaphors to denote a total defeat; but the petty, prosaic spirit of Jewish interpretation, which the Evangelists shared without any fault of theirs, and from which orthodox theologians, by their own fault however, have not perfectly liberated themselves after the lapse of eighteen centuries, led to the belief that those words must be understood literally, and in this sense must be shown to be fulfilled in the Messiah. Whether the Evangelists drew the circumstance of the casting of lots for the clothes more from historical information which stood at their command, or from the prophetic passage which they variously interpreted, must be decided by a comparison of their narratives. These present the divergency, that while according to the synoptists all the clothes were parted by lot, as is evident from the words: διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ, βάλλοντες κλῆρον, they parted his garments, casting lots, in Matthew ([v. 35]), and the similar turn of expression in Luke ([v. 34]), but still more decidedly from the addition of Mark: τίς τί ἄρη, what every man should take ([v. 24]): in John it is the coat or tunic, χιτὼν, alone for which lots are cast, the other garments being parted equally ([v. 23 f.]). This divergency is commonly thought of much too lightly, and is tacitly treated as if the synoptical representation were related to that of John as the indefinite to the definite. Kuinöl in consideration of John translates the words διεμερίζαντο βάλλοντες of Matthew thus: partim dividebant, partim in sortem conjiciebant: but the meaning is not to be thus distributed, for the διεμερίζαντο, they parted, states what they did, the βάλλοντες κλῆρον, casting lots, how they did it: besides Kuinöl passes in total silence over the words τίς τί ἄρη, because they undeniably imply that lots were cast for several articles: while according to John the lots had reference only to one garment. If it be now asked, which of the two contradictory narratives is the correct one, the answer given from the point of view to which the comparative criticism of the gospels has at present attained is, that the eye-witness John gives the correct particulars, but the synoptists had merely received the indefinite information, that in parting the clothes of Jesus the soldiers made use of the lot, and this, from unacquaintance with the more minute particulars, they understood as if lots had been cast for all the garments of Jesus.[154] But not only does the circumstance that it is John alone who expressly cites the passage in the Psalms prove that he had an especial view to that passage: but, in general, this divergency of the Evangelists is precisely what might be expected from a difference in the interpretation of that supposed prophecy. When the psalm speaks of the parting of the garments and a casting of lots for the vesture: the second particular is, according to the genius of the Hebrew language which abounds in parallelism, [[685]]only a more precise definition of the first, and the synoptists, correctly understanding this, make one of the two verbs a participle. One however who did not bear in mind this peculiarity of the Hebrew style, or had an interest in exhibiting the second feature of the prophecy as specially fulfilled, might understand the and, which in reality was indicative only of more precise definition, as denoting addition, and thus regard the casting of lots and the distribution as separate acts. Then the ἱματισμὸς (לְבוּשׁ) which was originally a synonyme of ἱμάτια (בְּגָדִים) must become a distinct garment, the closer particularization of which, since it was not in any way conveyed in the word itself, was left to choice. The fourth Evangelist determined it to be the χιτὼν, tunic, and because he believed it due to his readers to show some cause for a mode of procedure with respect to this garment, so different from the equal distribution of the others, he intimated that the reason why it was chosen to cast lots for the tunic rather than to divide it, probably was that it had no seam (ἄῤῥαφος) which might render separation easy, but was woven in one piece (ὑφαντὸς δι’ ὅλου).[155] Thus we should have in the fourth Evangelist exactly the same procedure as we have found on the side of the first, in the history of the entrance into Jerusalem: in both cases the doubling of a trait originally single, owing to a false interpretation of the ו in the Hebrew parallelism; the only difference being that the first Evangelist in the passage referred to is less arbitrary than the fourth is here, for he at least spares us the tracing out of the reason why two asses must then have been required for one rider. The more evident it thus becomes that the representation of the point in question in the different Evangelists is dependent on the manner in which each interpreted that supposed prophecy in the Psalms: the less does a sure historical knowledge appear to have had any share in their representation, and hence we remain ignorant whether lots were cast on the distribution of the clothes of Jesus, nay whether in general a distribution of clothes took place under the cross of Jesus; confidently as Justin appeals in support of this very particular to the Acts of Pilate, which he had never seen.[156]
Of the conduct of the Jews who were present at the crucifixion of Jesus, John tells us nothing; Luke represents the people as standing to look on, and only the rulers ἄρχοντες and the soldiers as deriding Jesus by the summons to save himself if he were the Messiah, to which the latter adds the offer of the vinegar ([v. 35 ff.]); Matthew and Mark have nothing here of mockery on the part of the soldiers, but in compensation they make not only the chief priests, scribes, and elders, but also the passers by, παραπορευόμενοι, vent insults against Jesus ([v. 39 ff.], [29 ff.]). The expressions of these people partly refer to former discourses and actions of Jesus; thus, the sarcasm: Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it again in three days, save thyself (Matt. and Mark), is an allusion to the words of that tenor ascribed to Jesus; while the reproach: he saved others, himself he cannot save, or save thyself (in all three), refers to his cures. Partly however the conduct of the Jews towards Jesus on the cross, is depicted after the same psalm of which Tertullian justly says that it contains totam Christi passionem.[157] When it is said in Matthew and Mark: And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads and saying: οἱ δὲ παραπορευόμενοι ἐβλασφήμουν αὐτὸν, κινοῦντες τὰς κεφαλὰς αὑτῶν καὶ λέγοντες· (Luke says of the rulers ἄρχοντες they derided him ἐξεμυκτήριζον), this is certainly nothing else than a mere reproduction of what [[686]]stands in [Ps. xxii. 8] (LXX.): All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip and shake the head: πάντες οἱ θεωροῦντές με ἐξεμυκτήρισάν με, ἐλάλησαν ἐν χείλεσιν, ἐκίνησαν κεφαλὴν; and the words which are hereupon lent to the Sanhedrists in Matthew: He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will have him, πέποιθεν ἐπὶ τὸν θεὸν, ῥυσάσθω νῦν αὐτὸν, εἰ θέλει αὐτὸν, are the same with those of the following verse in that Psalm: He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him, ἤλπισεν ἐπὶ Κύριον, ῥυσάσθω αὐτόν· σωσάτω αὐτὸν, ὅτι θέλει αὐτόν. Now though the taunts and shaking of the head on the part of the enemies of Jesus may, notwithstanding that the description of them is drawn according to the above Old Testament passage, still very probably have really happened: it is quite otherwise with the words which are attributed to these mockers. Words which, like those above quoted, are in the Old Testament put into the mouth of the enemies of the godly, could not be adopted by the Sanhedrists without their voluntarily assuming the character of the ungodly: which they would surely have taken care to avoid. Only the Christian legend, if it once applied the Psalm to the sufferings of Jesus, and especially to his last hours, could attribute these words to the Jewish rulers, and find therein the fulfilment of a prophecy.
The two first Evangelists do not tell us that any one of the twelve was present at the crucifixion of Jesus: they mention merely several Galilean women, three of whom they particularize: namely, Mary Magdalene; Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses; and, as the third, according to Matthew, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, according to Mark, Salome, both which designations are commonly understood to relate to the same person ([Matt. v. 55 f.]; [Mark v. 40 f.]): according to these Evangelists the twelve appear not yet to have reassembled after their flight on the arrest of Jesus.[158] In Luke, on the contrary, among all his acquaintance, πάντες οἱ γνωστοὶ αὐτοῦ, whom he represents as beholding the crucifixion ([v. 49]) the twelve would seem to be included: but the fourth gospel expressly singles out from among the disciples the one whom Jesus loved, i.e. John, as present, and among the women, together with Mary Magdalene and the wife of Cleopas, names instead of the mother of James and John, the mother of Jesus himself. Moreover, while according to all the other accounts the acquaintances of Jesus stood afar off, μακρόθεν, according to the fourth gospel John and the mother of Jesus must have been in the closest proximity to the cross, since it represents Jesus as addressing them from the cross, and appointing John to be his substitute in the filial relation to his mother ([v. 25 ff.]). Olshausen believes that he can remove the contradiction which exists between the synoptical statement and the presupposition of the fourth gospel as to the position of the friends of Jesus, by the conjecture that at first they did indeed stand at a distance, but that subsequently some approached near to the cross: it is to be observed, however, in opposition to this, that the synoptists mention that position of the adherents of Jesus just at the close of the scene of crucifixion and death, immediately before the taking down from the cross, and thus presuppose that they had retained this position until the end of the scene; a state of the case which cannot but be held entirely consistent with the alarm which filled the minds of the disciples during those days, and still more with feminine timidity. If the heroism of a nearer approach might perhaps be expected from maternal tenderness: still, the total silence of the synoptists, as the interpreters of the common evangelical tradition, renders the [[687]]historical reality of that particular doubtful. The synoptists cannot have known anything of the presence of the mother of Jesus at the cross, otherwise they would have mentioned her as the chief person, before all the other women; nor does anything appear to have been known of a more intimate relation between her and John: at least in the Acts ([i. 12 f.]) the mother of Jesus is supposed to be with the twelve in general, his brothers, and the women of the society. It is at least not so easy to understand how the memory of that affecting presence and remarkable relation could be lost, as to conceive how the idea of them might originate in the circle from which the fourth gospel proceeded. If this circle be imagined as one in which the Apostle John enjoyed peculiar veneration, on which account our gospel drew him out of the trio of the more confidential associates of Jesus, and isolated him as the beloved disciple: it will appear that nothing could be more strikingly adapted to confirm this relation than the statement that Jesus bequeathed, as it were, the dearest legacy, his mother (in reference to whom, as well as to the alleged beloved disciple, it must have been a natural question, whether she had left the side of Jesus in this last trial), to John, and thus placed this disciple in his stead,—made him vicarius Christi.
As the address of Jesus to his mother and the favourite disciple is peculiar to the fourth gospel: so, on the other hand, the exclamation, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ἠλὶ, ἠλὶ, λαμὰ σαβαχθανί; is only found in the two first gospels ([Matt. v. 46]; [Mark v. 34]). This exclamation, with the mental state from which it proceeded, like the agony in Gethsemane, constitutes in the opinion of the church a part of the vicarious suffering of Christ. As however in this instance also it was impossible to be blind to the difficulties of the supposition, that the mere corporeal suffering, united with the external depression of his cause, overwhelmed Jesus to such a degree that he felt himself forsaken by God, while there have been both before and after him persons who, under sufferings equally severe, have yet preserved composure and fortitude: the opinion of the church has here also, in addition to the natural corporeal and spiritual affliction, supposed as the true cause of that state of mind in Jesus, a withdrawal of God from his soul, a consciousness of the divine wrath, which it was decreed that he should bear in the stead of mankind, by whom it was deserved as a punishment.[159] How, presupposing the dogma of the church concerning the person of Christ, a withdrawal of God from his soul is conceivable, it is the part of the defenders of this opinion themselves, to decide. Was it the human nature in him which felt so forsaken? Then would its unity with the divine have been interrupted, and thus the very basis of the personality of Christ, according to the above system, removed. Or the divine? In that case the second person in the Godhead would have been separated from the first. As little can it have been the God-man, consisting of both natures, that felt forsaken by God, since the very essence of this is the unity and inseparableness of the divine and the human. Thus urged by the self-contradiction of this supranaturalistic explanation, to fall back on the natural mode of accounting for the above exclamation by the sense of external suffering, and yet repelled from the idea that Jesus should have been so completely subdued by this, commentators have attempted to mollify the sense of the exclamation. It consists of the opening words of [Ps. xxii.], a passage which is classical for this last scene in the life of Jesus. Now this psalm begins with a complaining description of the deepest suffering, but in the course of its progress soars into joyful hope of deliverance; hence it has been supposed that the words which Jesus immediately utters do not give his entire [[688]]experience, and that in thus reciting the first verse he at the same time quotes the whole psalm and especially its exulting close, just as if he meant to say: It is true that I, like the author of this psalm, appear now forsaken of God, but in me, as in him, the divine succour will only be so much the more glorified.[160] But if Jesus uttered this exclamation with a view to the bystanders, and in order to assure them that his affliction would soon be merged in triumph, he would have chosen the means the least adapted to his purpose, if he had uttered precisely those words of the Psalm which express the deepest misery; and instead of the first verse he would rather have chosen one from the 10th to the 12th, or from the 20th to the end. If however in that exclamation he meant merely to give vent to his own feeling, he would not have chosen this verse if his actual experience in these moments had been, not what is there expressed, but what is described in the succeeding verses. Now if this experience was his own, and if, all supernatural grounds of explanation being dismissed, it proceeded from his external calamities; we must observe that one who, as the gospels narrate of Jesus, had long included suffering and death in his idea of the Messiah, and hence had regarded them as a part of the divine arrangements, could scarcely complain of them when they actually arrived as an abandonment by God; rather, on the above supposition, we should be led to think that Jesus had found himself deceived in the expectations which he had previously cherished, and thus believed himself forsaken by God in the prosecution of his plan.[161] But we could only resort to such conjectures if the above exclamation of Jesus were shown to have an historical foundation. In this respect the silence of Luke and John would not, it is true, be so serious a difficulty in our eyes, that we should take refuge in explanations like the following: John suppressed the exclamation, lest it should serve to countenance the Gnostic opinion, by admitting the inference that the Æon which was insusceptible of suffering, departed from Jesus in that moment.[162] But the relation of the words of Jesus to the [22nd Psalm] does certainly render this particular suspicious. If the Messiah was once conceived of as suffering, and if that psalm was used as a sort of programme of his suffering—for which it was by no means necessary as an inducement that Jesus should have really quoted one of its verses on the cross:—the opening words of the psalm which are expressive of the deepest suffering must appear singularly adapted to be put into the mouth of the crucified Messiah. In this case the derisive speech[163] of the bystanders, he calleth for Elias, etc., can have had no other origin than this—that the wish for a variety of taunts to complete this scene after the model of the psalm, was met by the similarity of sound between the ἠλὶ in the exclamation lent to Jesus, and the name of Elias which was associated with the Messiah.
Concerning the last words which the expiring Jesus was heard to utter, the Evangelists differ. According to Matthew and Mark, it was merely a loud [[689]]voice, φωνὴ μεγάλη, with which he departed ([v. 50], [37]); according to Luke it was the petition: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, πάτερ, εἰς χεῖράς σου παραθήσομαι τὸ πνεῦμᾴ μου ([v. 46]); while according to John it was on the brief expression: it is finished, τετέλεσται, that he bowed his head and expired ([v. 30]). Here it is possible to reconcile the two first Evangelists with one or other of the succeeding ones by the supposition, that what the former describe indefinitely as a loud cry, and what according to their representation might be taken for an inarticulate expression of anguish, the others, with more particularity, give in its precise verbal form. It is more difficult to reconcile the two last gospels. For whether we suppose that Jesus first commended his soul to God, and hereupon cried: it is finished; or vice versâ; both collocations are alike opposed to the intention of the Evangelists, for the expression of Luke καὶ ταῦτα εἰπὼν ἐξέπνευσεν cannot be rendered, as Paulus would have it, by: soon after he had said this, he expired; and the very words of the exclamation in John define it as the last utterance of Jesus; the two writers forming different conceptions of the closing words. In the account of Luke, the common form of expression for the death of Jesus: παρέδωκε τὸ πνεῦμα (he delivered up his spirit) appears to have been interpreted as an actual commending of his soul to God on the part of Jesus, and to have been further developed with reference to the passage [Ps. xxxi. 5]: (Lord) into thy hands I commend my spirit, (κύριε) εἰς χεῖράς σου παραθήσομαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου (LXX.),—a passage which from the strong resemblance of this Psalm to the [22nd] would be apt to suggest itself.[164] Whereas the author of the fourth gospel appears to have lent to Jesus an expression more immediately proceeding from his position in relation to his messianic office, making him express in the word τετέλεσται it is finished the completion of his work, or the fulfilment of all the prophecies (with the exception, of course, of what could only be completed and fulfilled in the resurrection).
Not only these last words, however, but also the earlier expressions of Jesus on the cross, will not admit of being ranged in the succession in which they are generally supposed. The speeches of Jesus on the cross are commonly reckoned to be seven; but so many are not mentioned by any single Evangelist, for the two first have only one: the exclamation my God, my God, etc. ἠλὶ, ἠλὶ, κ.τ.λ. Luke has three; the prayer of Jesus for his enemies, the promise to the thief, and the commending of his spirit into the hands of the Father; John has likewise three, but all different: the address to his mother and the disciple, with the exclamations, I thirst διψῶ and It is finished τετέλεσται. Now the intercessory prayer, the promise and the recommendation of Mary to the care of the disciple, might certainly be conceived as following each other: but the διψῶ and the ἠλὶ come into collision, since both exclamations are followed by the same incident, the offering of vinegar by means of a sponge on a reed. When to this we add the entanglement of the τετέλεσται with the πάτερ κ.τ.λ., it should surely be seen and admitted, that no one of the Evangelists, in attributing words to Jesus when on the cross, knew or took into consideration those lent to him by the others; that on the contrary each depicted this scene in his own manner, according as he, or the legend which stood at his command, had developed the conception of it to suit this or that prophecy or design.
A special difficulty is here caused by the computation of the hours. According to all the synoptists the darkness prevailed from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, ἀπὸ ἕκτης ὥρας ἕως ὥρας ἐννάτης (in our reckoning, from twelve at midday to three in the afternoon); according to Matthew and Mark, it was [[690]]about the ninth hour that Jesus complained of being forsaken by God, and shortly after yielded up the ghost; according to Mark it was the third hour ὥρα τρίτη (nine in the morning) when Jesus was crucified ([v. 25]). On the other hand, John says ([xix. 14]) that it was about the sixth hour (when according to Mark Jesus had already hung three hours on the cross) that Pilate first sat in judgment over him. Unless we are to suppose that the sun-dial went backward, as in the time of Hezekiah, this is a contradiction which is not to be removed by a violent alteration of the reading, nor by appealing to the ὡσεὶ (about) in John, or to the inability of the disciples to take note of the hours under such afflictive circumstances; at the utmost it might perhaps be cancelled if it were possible to prove that the fourth gospel throughout proceeds upon another mode of reckoning time than that used by the synoptists.[165] [[691]]
[1] Orig. c. Cels. ii. 24: λέγει (ὁ Κέλσος)· τί οὖν ποτνιᾶται, καὶ ὀδύρεται, καὶ τὸν τοῦ ὀλέθρου φόβον εὔχεται παραδραμεῖν, λέγων κ.τ.λ.: He says (i.e. Celsus): Why then does he supplicate help, and bewail himself, and pray for escape from the fear of death, saying, etc. Julian, in a Fragment of Theodore of Mopsuestia, ap. Münter, Fragm. Patr. græc. Fasc. 1, p. 121: ἀλλὰ καὶ τοιαῦτα προσεύχεται, φήσιν, ὁ Ἰ., οἶα ἄθλιος ἄνθρωπος, συμφορὰν φέρειν εὐκόλως οὐ δυνάμενος, καὶ ὑπ’ ἀγγέλου, θεὸς ὢν, ἐνισχύεται. Jesus, says he, also presents such petitions as a wretched mortal would offer, when unable to bear a calamity with serenity; and although divine, he is strengthened by an angel. [↑]
[2] Gramond. hist. Gall. ab. exc. Henr. IV. L. iii. p. 211: Lucilius Vanini—dum in patibulum trahitur—Christo illudit in hæc eadem verba: illi in extremis præ timore imbellis sudor: ego imperterritus morior. [↑]