To this punishment Jesus was condemned. He who came to ransom humanity from penalty, suffered himself the most horrible penalty which humanity, not yet educated in later refinements of cruelty, had then invented.

The place of his execution is not known. Humanity will never forget the scene which makes Calvary the most sacred of all the mountains which heroism has consecrated; but it has already forgotten the exact locality. Golgotha now exists only in the devout imagination of loving hearts. Among all battle-fields about which men delight to gather, upon which they delight to rear the monumental expression of their reverential love, there is none like this; but no monument can ever mark it—no man can ever be sure that his feet press its sacred turf. Of the founder of the new theocracy, as of the founder of the old, it is to be said that the place of his death no man knoweth to this day. It is true that ecclesiastical tradition designates with perfect confidence not only the mount of crucifixion, but the street through which Jesus passed from his trial, and the identical spot at which every minor incident occurred; but these traditionary sites have little to support them but the needs of monkish guides, who trade in the too credulous reverence of Oriental travelers. It is a singular and significant fact that history is unable to fix with precision any of the places which the life of Christ has made forever sacred. The manger where he was cradled, the house where his boyhood was spent, the synagogue where he⚫ preached his first discourse, the city consecrated by his earlier ministry, the mount where he preached the great sermon, that whereon he was transfigured in glory, the two halls where his two trials were held, the hill where he was crucified, and the sepulchre where he was buried, are hid by an impenetrable veil from the loving hearts that would hallow every spot Christ has made sacred by his presence. It is better so. Christianity has no holy place. Rather every spot on the

Cause of Christ's Death, chap. iii., and historical cases there cited; Burder's Oriental Literature on Matt. xxvii., 31, and post.

round globe since Jesus baptized it with his blood is holy ground.*

A mournful march was that to the hill of death. Jesus, and the two robbers with whom he was to suffer, preceded the informal procession. They were guarded by a quarternion of soldiers from the German legion,† under the command of a centurion. A multitude of Judeans followed, headed by a volunteer delegation of the priestly party. These followed Jesus to the cross less to assure themselves of the execution of the sentence than to enjoy the horrible · pleasure of witnessing its infliction.

This was the preparation of these pious prelates for the Sabbath.

It was customary to bear before the prisoner an inscription which designated the crime for which he was condemned. This was subsequently attached to the cross, that his death might be a warning against similar offenses. Pilate had in the case of Jesus written this inscription with his own hand. He wrote it in the three languages of the time—that of the court, Latin; that of the Gentile population, Greek; and that

* The crucifixion was without the city walls (Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. ii., p. 248; John xix., 17; Matt. xxviii., 11; Hebr. xiii., 12), probably near a public highway (Mark xv., 29), near the city (John xix., 20), in the immediate vicinity of one of the gardens which surrounded Jerusalem (John xix., 41), where Joseph of Arimathea had his tomb, was probably the customary place of execution and a well-known spot, as is indicated by the use of the definite article, τὸν τόπον τὸν καλούμενον Κρανίον (Luke xxiii., 33; John xix., 17; see Andrews's Life of our Lord, p. 559; Smith's Bible Dict., art. Golgotha); probably on a round-shaped hill; this indicated by the title, the place of a skull (Ellicott's Life of Christ, p. 317, note); supposed by Ferguson to be the place now occupied by the Dome of the Rock (Smith's Bible Dict., p. 1030); by Alford and Ellicott the traditional site now occupied by the Holy Sepulchre (Ellicott's Life of Christ, p. 317, note; Alford, Matt. xxvii., 33), a conclusion which I find it impossible to reconcile with the probable boundaries of the ancient city, and which is strongly impugned by Murray (Hand-book for Syria and Palestine, pt. i., p. 149, § 50), Robinson (Researches, vol. ii., p. 69, 80), Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, p. 451 and post), Andrews (Life of our Lord, p. 567), all of whom agree with the conclusion stated in the text, that it is impossible to fix on the location with any accuracy or confidence. † John xix., 23, and Olshausen thereon.

of the Jews, Hebrew, or rather Aramaic. In this respect it resembled all the official notices of the day-those, for example, posted in the Temple courts. The inscription read, "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews." This covert raillery against the imperial pretensions of the Jewish nation formed doubtless the subject of many a rude jest among the soldiery. The priesthood felt keenly the humiliation, as the adroit politician meant they should, and begged him to change it; but Pilate, with the obstinacy of a weak nature that yields great principles and is pertinacious of details, refused. With seeming egotism he replied, "What I have written I have written.".

As the procession passed out of the city gates they met a Jewish pilgrim from Africa coming in. The soldiers impressed him into their service, and compelled him to bear the cross. The reason for their doing so is not stated; but Jesus had neither slept nor eaten for twenty-four hours, and the surmise is reasonable which asserts that, faint from want of food and loss of blood, his trembling limbs refused longer to support their heavy burden. This simple incident has given an enviable name to this Simon of Cyrene, of whom history records nothing more than that in this hour of horrors he was permitted to afford some relief to Jesus.

Some Judean women mingled in the train which followed Christ, and lamented his sad fate with the usual forms of Jewish mourning. Beating upon their breasts, they filled

* John xix., 19, 20, and Alford thereon. The inscription is differently reported by the different evangelists. This difference, difficult, if not impossible to reconcile with any theory of verbal inspiration, strengthens rather than detracts from the reliability of the account, if the evangelists are supposed to have been left, in minor details, to their own recollection. Townsend (N. T., part vii., n. 24), and apparently Andrews (Life of Our Lord, p. 539), suppose these to be verbatim translations of the different inscriptions. Contra Alford (N. T., Matt. xxvii., 37), Robinson (Harmony, § 15, note), Greenleaf (Testimony of the Four Evangelists, § 153, note).

† John xix., 20-23.

Matt. xxvii., 31, 32; Mark xv., 20, 21; Luke xxiii., 26. Compare Romans xvi., 13.

the air with loud and ostentatious outcries.* Possibly his unshaken fortitude appealed to their sympathies. More probably, ignorant of the secret cause of his condemnation, and seeing only the inscription which was carried before him, they mourned this new shame put by Gentile hands upon their nation. It is certain that these daughters of Jerusalem were not disciples of Christ, since among the Judeans he had few if any disciples-none, certainly, who dared openly lament him. Roman law forbade such lamentations for a criminal. Judea alone possessed even the poor privilege of affording him a decent burial. Usually the body was left to decay upon the cross, as at a later period in England the corpse of the highwayman was suffered to hang upon the cross, 'a ghastly but ineffectual warning to evil-doers. But it is not in the power of law to restrain the sympathies of women. The tears of these unexpected mourners touched the heart of Jesus. He forgot his own sufferings in the reflection that they would live to see the day when from a thousand crosses erected by the legions of the Roman general around the walls of the doomed city a thousand Jewish corpses would hang in ghastly array, and when from the thundering hosts marching over these same hills for its destruction these mothers and their now infant babes would vainly seek refuge in cellars and subterranean vaults, and beneath falling ruins. "Weep," said he, with touching pathos, "not for me-weep for yourselves and your children."

This sentence he still repeats. Christ is not an object of commiseration. It is a shallow heart which simply weeps tears of sentiment over the agony of the cross. Calvary demands not tears of pity for the sorrows of Jesus, but tears of gratitude for the love of Christ, and of penitence for the sins that slew him.

Arrived at the place of execution, for the first time this

* Εκόπτοντο καὶ ἐφρήνουν αὐτόν, Luke xxiii., 27.

+ Luke xxiii., 28.

Luke xxiii., 28-31. For an account of the fulfillment of this prophecy, see Josephus, Wars, v., 11; vi., 8, 9.

scene of accumulated horrors was alleviated by an act of honest but mistaken mercy. An association of women was organized in Jerusalem to alleviate the sufferings of condemned criminals, the germ of the innumerable associations which in later days have relieved the necessary and inexorable punishments of society from the aspects of revenge. They accompanied the accused to the place of crucifixion, and prepared and proffered to him a drink of acid wine mingled with myrrh. This beverage acted as a sort of anodyne, and, blunting the senses, rendered the anguish of death more endurable. For this act they thought they found a command in the precept of Solomon: "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts."* • This draught was proffered to Jesus before he was nailed to the cross, perhaps by the very women who had bewailed his death. He declined to receive it. He would not meet death with a stupefied soul.

He demanded that all his powers should be alert in these last moments.

With no gentle hands the stolid soldiers proceeded to the execution of the sentence. Christ was once more disrobed of his garments; a linen cloth was put about his loins; he was extended upon the cross; the nails were then driven through the hands and feet, and the cross itself was elevated with the sacred sufferer upon it. At this moment of anguish was wrung from his lips a cry for mercy-not for himself, but for his exécutioners. The blows that sent the quivering anguish thrilling through his nerves only awakened a new utterance of his unabated love: "Father," he cried, "forgive them, for they know not what they do."

There was not probably on that hill one who realized the full significance of the sublime yet terrible act in which they * Proverbs xxxi., 6.

There seems on the whole no adequate reason for supposing that it was offered more than once, or in a spirit of cruel scoffing. The wine and myrrh (Mark xv., 23), and vinegar and gall (Matt. xxvii., 34), probably are the See Andrews's Life of Christ, p. 536. Contra, Alford in loco. Luke xxiii., 34.

same.