Putting Jesus on Trial (Part 3)
Over the past two weeks (Week 1, Week 2), we have walked with Jesus through his Jewish/religious trial and his Roman/political trial. His sentence of death was pronounced at the first and confirmed at the second.
With the sentence pronounced, we move from the trial to the transition…moving Jesus from his examination before Pilate to the place of his execution. This passage took Jesus through a series of legal and physical engagements. It was a Roman designed, created to maximize the victim’s physical exhaustion and public humiliation. It was a carefully scripted journey crafted to emphasize Rome’s Imperial might and control.
The Scourging
Like many Roman prisoners, prior to their arduous journey from wherever they were to the place of their crucifixion, Jesus was put through a brutal scourging, a (flagellatio). Similar to the Latin name for the procedure, the tool used in this scourging was called a flagrum. It was a type of whip, similar to what we might know as the “cat o’ nine tails.” Each thong on the whip was weighted with jagged pieces of bone or with zinc or lead weights. This construction resulted in significant soft-tissue damage and blood loss. It was not uncommon for the prisoner to experience hypovolemic shock, which is likely what happened to Jesus when he collapsed on his way to the execution site.1
Under the Jewish law, commonly referenced as “Forty Minus One,”2 a scourging was limited to forty lashes so the person being punished would not be excessively shamed.3 It was the practice, instituted by the Sanhedrin, to stop at thirty-nine lashes as a safeguard against exceeding this count in error. The goal was to mete out a punishment in accord with the crime committed, but the end-game was never the death or maiming of the one being punished.
The scourging of Jesus, however, was not a Jewish scourging. It was Roman.
In flagellatio there was no statutory limit on the number of lashes. In the absence of such a cap, the severity of the beating was left to the discretion of the presiding lictor or centurion. The practice frequently brought the prisoner to the point of ad necem, near death, without actually killing them.
It is also worth noting that under the Roman law of Lex Porcia Roman citizens enjoyed exemption from this particular form of punishment. You will recall that, though being beaten five times by the Jews, the apostle Paul invoked the right of his Roman citizenship to escape such a beating by the Romans.4
The Burden
When the beating was complete, the prisoner was forced to carry the patibulum to the place of crucifixion. While traditional, Western art regularly depicts Jesus dragging the entire cross to the site, this is almost certainly not the case. The Roman practice was to carry the crossbeam which could weigh anywhere from 75 to 125 pounds. This task would be challenging under any conditions, but particularly so having just endured flagellatio. The upright crucifixion stake was typically left in a fixed location where it was reused in multiple execution events.
The Route
Rather than chart a quiet, secluded route to the execution point, the Roman practice was to let the procession follow well-traveled, crowded streets. In stark contrast to the prescription of the Law of Moses, protecting the shame of the one punished, the Roman practice was to maximize the spectacle. Consider the infamous Colosseum games including gladiator battles, Christians in the arena being mauled by wild beasts, or the spectacle of Nero’s “Roman Candles.”
As part of the spectacle, victims were stripped of all clothing prior to the scourging, and remained nude throughout the crucifixion event. A shameful, chaotic, public walk to one’s death contributed significantly to Rome’s goal of rendering prisoners fully humiliated, vulnerable, and devoid of any status, rank or protection.
We do not know the exact route of Jesus from his trial to his execution, because we have no solid record of the starting point. Two primary Praetorium candidates in ancient Jerusalem are:
The Antonia Fortress
The location of the Antonia Fortress was the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. If that is where Jesus was tried before Pilate, his route to the execution would have taken him westerly, through the congested, residential and commercial markets of the Lower City. This is the starting point and route that tradition has Jesus taking. This is the route that would take Jesus up the well-known Via Dolorosa.
Herod’s Palace – The Citadel
Originally located on the western edge of the city, near the modern-day Jaffa Gate, this is the site most modern scholars and archaeologists favor as starting point for Jesus’ journey to Golgotha. Roman governors commonly resided in the luxurious, palatial complexes, rather than military structures, during their stays in Jerusalem. Both Josephus and Philo place the Bema (judgment seat) in front of this palace.6, 7 This is the seat from which Pilate would have made his trial judgments.
This more plausible route would have been shorter, and taken Jesus through the wealthy Upper City, beginning at the Gabbatha just outside the northern gate of Herod’s Palace. The soldiers would have led Jesus down these broader, limestone-slab streets, lined with the villas of priests and aristocracy, playing well into the degradation and humiliation Rome was aiming for.
If this route is accepted, the soldiers would lead Jesus through the Gennath Gate to a quarry outside the city walls containing a garden and rocky outcrop to a site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands today.
The Bystander
Severely weakened by the flagellatio, the burden of the patibulum was too much for Jesus. Scripture records that Jesus collapsed under its weight. The Roman soldiers, acting under the law of angaria demonstrated that, regardless of who you are, the state can force you to do whatever the state wants to force you to do, something Jesus referenced during his Sermon on the Mount.8
It was vital that the prisoner arrive at Golgotha alive, as we will see in a moment, so Rome pulled a bystander from the crowd, Simon of Cyrene, and forced him to carry Jesus’ burden. The Messiah’s physical frailty was fully on display.
The Place of the Skull
Regardless of the starting point, the procession took Jesus to Golgotha, literally “The Place of the Skull.” Though Rome was in control, to keep the peace as far as possible, when convenient, Rome acquiesced to certain Jewish traditions, laws, and environmental constraints, and those laws and traditions came into play here.
The procession had to pass through a gate in the Second Wall of Jerusalem to ensure the execution occurred outside the city limits. Executions were forbidden within the city, pursuant to avoiding any risk of ritual defilement. Further, the Jews did not want the bodies to be left on the crosses during the Sabbath, so death had to be hastened by breaking the legs of the prisoners, causing them to die more rapidly.9
Modern archaeological evidence puts Golgotha in a decommissioned limestone quarry, outside Jerusalem, to the northwest of the city’s residential and commercial center, approximately 150 to 200 meters from the Gennath Gate. While outside the city at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, this site is now well inside the modern city of Jerusalem.
At this time, however, Golgotha provided a stark barren backdrop, sharply contrasting the splendor of the city that had just be exited against the cold, limestone lifelessness of the idle quarry. Even the name “Golgotha,” the place of the skull, emphasized the dark atmosphere of transition from the living city to the mound of punishment and death.
Visibility
Returning to the theme of Rome’s desire for humiliation and control, it is important to note that crucifixions were carried out adjacent to routes of travel, rather than “on a hill far away.” You may recall the famous and harrowing scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 epic, Spartacus depicting hundreds of crucified slaves hanging on crosses that lined the Appian Way. This sideshow display was denigrating for the criminals, and effective control of the populace through a terrifying display of Roman control and Roman justice.
Travelers headed northwest out of Jerusalem would walk or ride by the abandoned limestone quarry, part of which featured a jagged outcropping of low-quality limestone left by the quarrymen. Slightly elevated and highly visible, Golgotha provided a perfect stage for putting executed criminals on display.
Exhibition of the criminals served as a Roman deterrent, especially when the crimes of each prisoner were hung above their heads, or sometimes around their necks. A would-be criminal, seeing the prisoner suffering in agony, would know from the Titulus that Prisoner A was guilty of treason, and Prisoner B of murder, and may conclude, Well, I don’t want to do that or, next week, I’ll be up there where he is.
The Exactor Mortis
If you have read Lloyd C. Douglass’ novel The Robe,10 you will likely recall Roman tribune, Marcellus Gallio, who served in the role of lead executioner for Jesus’ crucifixion. Marcellus Gallio was the Exactor Mortis, the “exactor of death.”
The Exactor Mortis (EM) led a team of soldiers whose responsibilities included ensuring the prisoner made it to the execution site alive, that the crowds along the way and at the execution site are well managed, and the act of fastening the prisoner to the wood. So, the EM is not actually doing the work but is overseeing the team that does so. It is almost certainly the EM who conscripted Simon to carry Jesus’ patibulum to Golgotha.
Serving under the EM was the quaternion, a squad of four legionaries. These were the soldiers who divided Jesus’ (and other victims’) garments, and ended up gambling for “the robe.” The EM was further responsible for seeing to it that the Titulus we have been talking about in prior blog postings was attached to the cross, or hung about the neck of the convict. He was also there at the scourging, making sure it was sufficiently damaging, but short of fatal.
Probably the most important task of the EM was to verify the death or the convict. Under Roman law, a soldier could be held liable for a prisoner who escaped, or who was removed from a cross while still alive. You may recall that this Centurion confirmed Jesus’ death to Pilate.11
Recap & Takeaways
Thinking back on this procession, and considering it through Middle Eastern, Jewish eyes and a Roman cultural lens, we see the collision of disparate worlds, and the shrewd, calculating manipulation of one world view by the other.
- This was an announcement. Roman “justice” was a broadcast. It was performative. It was a statement to as many onlookers as could hear it and see it. This man no longer has agency. He is owned by the state! It wasn’t enough to kill the insurrectionist. They had to de-publish his message.
- Jesus, in his glory, submitted to the culture of shame. The procession from the trial to the execution was the height of societal degradation. For a Jewish man, a holy man, particularly a rabbi, being led through the streets stripped nude, beaten beyond recognition, carrying the instrument of his execution, was a social death that preceded his physical death.
- There are no true observers in life. Like Simon of Cyrene, we are all “in the game,” and may be called to action at any moment. No one will be able to say, “No, I’d rather not play.” We are playing, so the only decision we can make is whether we play to win or play to lose.
- Rejection by the world is not a bad thing. Jesus’ journey from the palace, a place of power, wealth, and splendor, to the quarry, a place of refuse and discarded stone, is the picture of expulsion. It is “the stone which the builders rejected” becoming the cornerstone.12 Jesus, the stone rejected, was taken to the very place where the builders discarded their rejected stones.
Jesus made the physical journey from the palace to the quarry so that you and I could make the spiritual journey from the quarry to the palace.
1. Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, Luke 23:26 8:44
2. 2 Corinthians 11:24
3. Deuteronomy 25:3
4. Acts 22:22-29
5. Tacitus, The Annals, Book 15, Chapter 44.
6. Josephus, The Jewish War, 2.14.8.
7. Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 38.299.
8. Matthew 5:41
9. John 19:31-34
10. The Robe is a 1942 historical novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, published by Houghton Mifflin (556 pages) depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus. The work quickly achieved #1 Bestseller status on the NY Times Bestseller list, and stayed in that position for almost a year. I advise readers to resist the urge to watch the 1953 film by the same title as it does not even come close to doing the novel justice.
11. Mark 15:43-45
12. Psalm 118:22, Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11, Romans 9:33, Ephesians 2:20, 1 Peter 2:4-6
