A Physician Analyzes the Crucifixion
From New
Wine Magazine, April 1982.
Originally published in Arizona Medicine, March 1965,
Arizona Medical Association.
A
medical explanation of what Jesus endured on the day He died
by Dr. C. Truman Davis Dr. C. Truman
Davis is a graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. He is a
practicing ophthalmologist, a pastor, and author of a book about medicine and
the Bible.
Several years ago I became interested in the
physical aspects of the passion, or suffering, of Jesus Christ when I read an
account of the crucifixion in Jim Bishop's book, The Day Christ Died. I
suddenly realized that I had taken the crucifixion more or less for granted all
these years - that I had grown callous to its horror by a too-easy familiarity
with the grim details. It finally occurred to me that, as a physician, I did
not even know the actual immediate cause of Christ's death. The gospel writers
do not help much on this point. Since crucifixion and scourging were so common
during their lifetimes, they undoubtedly considered a detailed description
superfluous. For that reason we have only the concise words of the evangelists:
"Pilate, having scourged Jesus, delivered Him to them to be crucified ...
and they crucified Him."
Despite the gospel accounts' silence on the
details of Christ's crucifixion, many have looked into this subject in the
past. In my personal study of the event from a medical viewpoint, I am indebted
especially to Dr. Pierre Barbet, a French surgeon who did exhaustive historical
and experimental research and wrote extensively on the topic.
An attempt to examine the infinite psychic and
spiritual suffering of the Incarnate1 God in atonement2 for the sins of fallen
man is beyond the scope of this article. However, the physiological and
anatomical aspects of our Lord's passion we can examine in some detail. What
did the body of Jesus of Nazareth actually endure during those hours of
torture?
Gethsemane
The physical passion of Christ began in
Gethsemane. Of the many aspects of His initial suffering, the one which is of
particular physiological interest is the bloody sweat. Interestingly enough,
the physician, St. Luke, is the only evangelist to mention this occurrence. He
says, "And being in an agony, he prayed the longer. And his sweat became
as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground" (Luke 22:44 KJV).
Every attempt imaginable has been used by modern
scholars to explain away the phenomenon of bloody sweat, apparently under the
mistaken impression that it simply does not occur. A great deal of effort could
be saved by consulting the medical literature. Though very rare, the phenomenon
of hematidrosis, or bloody sweat, is well documented. Under great emotional
stress, tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can break, thus mixing blood with
sweat. This process alone could have produced marked weakness and possible
shock.
Although Jesus' betrayal and arrest are important
portions of the passion story, the next event in the account which is
significant from a medical perspective is His trial before the Sanhedrin and
Caiaphas, the High Priest. Here the first physical trauma was inflicted. A
soldier struck Jesus across the face for remaining silent when questioned by
Caiaphas. The palace guards then blindfolded Him, mockingly taunted Him to
identify them as each passed by, spat on Him, and struck Him in the face.
Before Pilate
In the early morning, battered and bruised,
dehydrated, and worn out from a sleepless night, Jesus was taken across
Jerusalem to the Praetorium of the Fortress Antonia, the seat of government of
the Procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. We are familiar with Pilate's action
in attempting to shift responsibility to Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Judea.
Jesus apparently suffered no physical mistreatment at the hands of Herod and
was returned to Pilate. It was then, in response to the outcry of the mob, that
Pilate ordered Barabbas released and condemned Jesus to scourging and
crucifixion.
Preparations for Jesus' scourging were carried out
at Caesar's orders. The prisoner was stripped of His clothing and His hands
tied to a post above His head. The Roman legionnaire stepped forward with the
flagrum, or flagellum, in his hand. This was a short whip consisting of several
heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of lead attached near the ends of
each. The heavy whip was brought down with full force again and again across
Jesus' shoulders, back, and legs. At first the weighted thongs cut through the
skin only. Then, as the blows continued, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous
tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of
the skin and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying
muscles.
The small balls of lead first produced large deep
bruises that were broken open by subsequent blows. Finally, the skin of the
back was hanging in long ribbons, and the entire area was an unrecognizable
mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When it was determined by the centurion in
charge that the prisoner was near death, the beating was finally stopped.
Mockery
The half-fainting Jesus was then untied and
allowed to slump to the stone pavement, wet with his own blood. The Roman
soldiers saw a great joke in this provincial Jew claiming to be a king. They
threw a robe across His shoulders and placed a stick in His hand for a scepter.
They still needed a crown to make their travesty complete. Small flexible
branches covered with long thorns, commonly used for kindling fires in the
charcoal braziers in the courtyard, were plaited into the shape of a crude
crown. The crown was pressed into his scalp and again there was copious
bleeding as the thorns pierced the very vascular tissue. After mocking Him and
striking Him across the face, the soldiers took the stick from His hand and
struck Him across the head, driving the thorns deeper into His scalp. Finally,
they tired of their sadistic sport and tore the robe from His back. The robe
had already become adherent to the clots of blood and serum in the wounds, and
its removal, just as in the careless removal of a surgical bandage, caused
excruciating pain. The wounds again began to bleed.
Golgotha
In deference to Jewish custom, the Romans
apparently returned His garments. The heavy patibulum3 of the cross was tied
across His shoulders. The procession of the condemned Christ, two thieves, and
the execution detail of Roman soldiers headed by a centurion began its slow
journey along the route which we know today as the Via Dolorosa.
In spite of Jesus' efforts to walk erect, the weight
of the heavy wooden beam, together with the shock produced by copious loss of
blood, was too much. He stumbled and fell. The rough wood of the beam gouged
into the lacerated skin and muscles of the shoulders. He tried to rise, but
human muscles had been pushed beyond their endurance. The centurion, anxious to
proceed with the crucifixion, selected a stalwart North African onlooker, Simon
of Cyrene, to carry the cross. Jesus followed, still bleeding and sweating the
cold, clammy sweat of shock. The 650-yard journey from the Fortress Antonia to
Golgotha was finally completed. The prisoner was again stripped of His clothing
except for a loin cloth which was allowed the Jews.
The crucifixion began. Jesus was offered wine
mixed with myrrh, a mild analgesic, pain-reliving mixture. He refused the
drink. Simon was ordered to place the patibulum on the ground, and Jesus was
quickly thrown backward, with His shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire
felt for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drove a heavy, square
wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly, he moved
to the other side and repeated the action, being careful not to pull the arms
too tightly, but to allow some flexion and movement. The patibulum was then
lifted into place at the top of the stipes4, and the titulus5 reading
"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" was nailed into place.
The left foot was pressed backward against the
right foot. With both feet extended, toes down, a nail was driven through the
arch of each, leaving the knees moderately flexed. The victim was now
crucified.
On the Cross
As Jesus slowly sagged down with more weight on
the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shot along the fingers and up
the arms to explode in the brain. The nails in the wrists were putting pressure
on the median nerve, large nerve trunks which traverse the mid-wrist and hand.
As He pushed himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, He placed His
full weight on the nail through His feet. Again there was searing agony as the
nail tore through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of this feet.
At this point, another phenomenon occurred. As the
arms fatigued, great waves of cramps swept over the muscles, knotting them in
deep relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps came the inability to push
Himself upward. Hanging by the arm, the pectoral muscles, the large muscles of
the chest, were paralyzed and the intercostal muscles, the small muscles
between the ribs, were unable to act. Air could be drawn into the lungs, but
could not be exhaled. Jesus fought to raise Himself in order to get even one
short breath. Finally, the carbon dioxide level increased in the lungs and in
the blood stream, and the cramps partially subsided.
The Last Words
Spasmodically, He was able to push Himself upward
to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen. It was undoubtedly during these
periods that He uttered the seven short sentences that are recorded.
The first - looking down at the Roman soldiers
throwing dice6 for His seamless garment: "Father, forgive them for they do
not know what they do."
The second - to the penitent thief7: "Today,
thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
The third - looking down at Mary His mother, He
said: "Woman, behold your son." Then turning to the terrified,
grief-stricken adolescent John , the beloved apostle, He said: "Behold
your mother."8
The fourth cry is from the beginning of Psalm 22:
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
He suffered hours of limitless pain, cycles of
twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, and searing
pain as tissue was torn from His lacerated back from His movement up and down
against the rough timbers of the cross. Then another agony began: a deep
crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium, the sac surrounding the heart,
slowly filled with serum and began to compress the heart.
The prophecy in Psalm 22:14 was being fulfilled:
"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint, my heart
is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels."
The end was rapidly approaching. The loss of
tissue fluids had reached a critical level; the compressed heart was struggling
to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood to the tissues, and the tortured lungs
were making a frantic effort to inhale small gulps of air. The markedly
dehydrated tissues sent their flood of stimuli to the brain. Jesus gasped His
fifth cry: "I thirst." Again we read in the prophetic psalm: "My
strength is dried up like a potsherd; my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou
has brought me into the dust of death" (Psalm 22:15 KJV).
A sponge soaked in posca, the cheap, sour wine
that was the staple drink of the Roman legionnaires, was lifted to Jesus' lips.
His body was now in extremis, and He could feel the chill of death creeping
through His tissues. This realization brought forth His sixth word, possibly
little more than a tortured whisper: "It is finished." His mission of
atonement9 had been completed. Finally, He could allow His body to die. With
one last surge of strength, He once again pressed His torn feet against the
nail, straightened His legs, took a deeper breath, and uttered His seventh and
last cry: "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit."
Death
The common method of ending a crucifixion was by
crurifracture, the breaking of the bones of the leg. This prevented the victim
from pushing himself upward; the tension could not be relieved from the muscles
of the chest, and rapid suffocation occurred. The legs of the two thieves were
broken, but when the soldiers approached Jesus, they saw that this was
unnecessary.
Apparently, to make doubly sure of death, the
legionnaire drove his lance between the ribs, upward through the pericardium
and into the heart. John 19:34 states, "And immediately there came out
blood and water." Thus there was an escape of watery fluid from the sac
surrounding the heart and the blood of the interior of the heart. This is
rather conclusive post-mortem evidence that Jesus died, not the usual
crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure due to shock and
constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium.
Resurrection
In these events, we have seen a glimpse of the
epitome of evil that man can exhibit toward his fellowman and toward God. This
is an ugly sight and is likely to leave us despondent and depressed.
But the crucifixion was not the end of the story.
How grateful we can be that we have a sequel: a glimpse of the infinite mercy
of God toward man--the gift of atonement, the miracle of the resurrection, and
the expectation of Easter morning.
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