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were taken away with Jesus from the cross, and that consequently those, who were crucified with him, were dead before the evening. According to Luke, this is certain, for Jesus says, (ch. xxiii. v. 43.) to one of them, "To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." As now a crucified person does not die in the course of nature upon the first, but at the earliest, upon the third day, (and this not from loss of blood, but from gangrene,) and many even live to the seventh day, it is evident from the evangelists themselves, that something like that which John relates must have taken place; and that the mortal blow must have been actually given them; this, perhaps, they omit, because this anticipated death was then tolerably common with them in the same way as in our history of a man broken alive upon the wheel, we seldom mention the finishing stroke, which releases him from his miseries. But we shall go further into this subject, as our inquiry extends itself. That the bones of Jesus were not broken with a club, every one who has read the history of the resurrection in the three first evangelists, will readily conceive, for if they had assumed the fact, that the bones were broken, they must either as historical inventors, or as positive

liars, have provided for his capability of walking after his resurrection. The singular circumstance of his early death is noted by Mark, ch. xv. v. 39. all the others say, he died on the same day, which in the case of a crucified person, whether they observe upon it or not, is something unusual.

31. The Jews had no literal law from Moses, prohibiting the body of a crucified person, such person being still living, from being left upon the cross upon the sabbath, or the whole night; for, according to the Mosaic law, the punishment of crucifixion, or even of hanging a man upon a tree or post, was not common amongst them; they only hung malefactors, who were dead, stoned to death for instance upon a post. I have explained this in my 235th section upon the Mosaic law. It may be that in this case the hanging would not be done by cords, but by nailing to a piece of wood, and consequently a species of crucifixion, for the Hebrew word, which conveys this meaning, (Numbers xxv. 4. 2 Samuel xxi. 6, 9, 13.) signifies in no eastern language, hanging as hanging up;" in Arabic it imports "beating with a hammer;" it may be well, therefore, translated where it occurs, "attaching the malefactors to a post."

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Crucifixion was by no means unusual amongst the Persians, and in Genesis xl. 19., a man whose head had been taken off, is afterwards suspended to a tree. It is at least not our method of hanging a man, with a rope round his neck. But if the Hebrews did nail to a post, or in fact, crucify, it was always punishment or disgrace after death, in the same way as we nail the head of a malefactor to the post of a wheel, but living persons were not crucified. The passage in Deuteronomy xxi. 22, 23.-" If a man have committed a sin, worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree," (gallows or cross ?) "but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day," relates solely to those who were already dead. For the laws of Moses did not enjoin that the living should be crucified, but required that the malefactor, who was crucified or hung, should not remain suspended after he was dead, and thus corrupt the air of the living. Therefore, according to the letter of the law, malefactors might have remained all night, hanging upon the cross, and have continued even to the third or seventh day. But it would seem that the Jews, who did not explain this so dogma

tically, were shocked if any one, even supposing him to be alive, remained all night upon the cross, and I am not surprised at it. The legislator, who did not wish men to be crucified alive, and that not even the dead should remain all night upon the cross, would have been little inclined to sanction such a severe punishment, as that of leaving a person to expire slowly, and for his body to corrupt upon the spot. It may be said with truth, that their explanation was not the letter, but was the spirit of the Mosaic law. The Roman governors adapted themselves, in many things, to the manners and opinions of the Jews. Pilate does something of the kind in this instance, but we may see from the narration of John himself, that this was only in consequence of the extraordinary sabbath, and that otherwise the Romans allowed those, who were crucified, to hang all night, and even until they died, upon the cross. According to his statement, I represent to myself the case thus; in general the crucified person hung until he died of gangrene, the Jews looked upon this as contrary to the law, and still more so, if it occurred upon a sabbath, of which it was considered a violation. They were, however, obliged to submit. But this

sabbath, falling upon the Easter feast, when so many hundred thousand Jews were collected at Jerusalem, not merely from the Roman, but from the Parthian dominions, and from the extreme East, seemed to form an exception in their favour, and to justify their application for the removal of a sight, so publicly offensive to the adherents of the Mosaic law. They, therefore, acted upon it, and Pilate acceded to their prayer. This may, indeed, have been the case at other Easter festivals, for upon great occasions, executions of any celebrity were ordinarily postponed, in order to make the greater impression, and the governor was in general then at Jerusalem, although he usually resided at Cæsarea. I have no means of knowing who the Jews were, who made this request to Pilate; whether the Sanhedrim, who are sometimes designated by John, "the Jews," or whether they were foreign Jews, who were shocked at the spectacle. If the first, the application must have been early, when Pilate condemned Jesus, and in this case we must translate it "they had besought," (npornoar,)—if the last, the application must have been, in all probability, late before sun-set, and subsequent to Joseph of Arimathea requesting the body of Jesus, after

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