crucifixion

• individuals crucified › Andrew in Patrae

139:1.12When the later per­se­cu­tions fi­nally scat­tered the apos­tles from Je­ru­sa­lem, An­drew jour­neyed through Ar­me­nia, Asia Mi­nor, and Mace­do­nia and, af­ter bring­ing many thou­sands into the king­dom, was fi­nally ap­pre­hended and cru­ci­fied in Pa­trae in Achaia. It was two full days be­fore this ro­bust man ex­pired on the cross, and through­out these tragic hours he con­tin­ued ef­fec­tively to pro­claim the glad tid­ings of the sal­va­tion of the king­dom of heaven.

• individuals crucified › Peter in Rome

139:2.15And so this man Pe­ter, an in­ti­mate of Je­sus, one of the in­ner cir­cle, went forth from Je­ru­sa­lem pro­claim­ing the glad tid­ings of the king­dom with power and glory un­til the full­ness of his min­istry had been ac­com­plished; and he re­garded him­self as the re­cip­i­ent of high hon­ors when his cap­tors in­formed him that he must die as his Mas­ter had died—on the cross. And thus was Si­mon Pe­ter cru­ci­fied in Rome.

• individuals crucified › Philip at Hierapolis

139:5.11Philip’s wife, who was an ef­fi­cient mem­ber of the women’s corps, be­came ac­tively as­so­ci­ated with her hus­band in his evan­ge­lis­tic work af­ter their flight from the Je­ru­sa­lem per­se­cu­tions. His wife was a fear­less woman. She stood at the foot of Philip’s cross en­cour­ag­ing him to pro­claim the glad tid­ings even to his mur­der­ers, and when his strength failed, she be­gan the recital of the story of sal­va­tion by faith in Je­sus and was si­lenced only when the irate Jews rushed upon her and stoned her to death. Their el­dest daugh­ter, Leah, con­tin­ued their work, later on be­com­ing the renowned prophet­ess of Hi­er­apo­lis.

139:5.12Philip, the one­time stew­ard of the twelve, was a mighty man in the king­dom, win­ning souls wher­ever he went; and he was fi­nally cru­ci­fied for his faith and buried at Hi­er­apo­lis.

• individuals crucified › thousands at destruction of Jerusalem
• not Jewish mode of punishment

187:1.5Cru­ci­fix­ion was not a Jew­ish mode of pun­ish­ment. Both the Greeks and the Ro­mans learned this method of ex­e­cu­tion from the Phoeni­cians. Even Herod, with all his cru­elty, did not re­sort to cru­ci­fix­ion. The Ro­mans never cru­ci­fied a Ro­man cit­i­zen; only slaves and sub­ject peo­ples were sub­jected to this dis­hon­or­able mode of death. Dur­ing the siege of Je­ru­sa­lem, just forty years af­ter the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus, all of Gol­go­tha was cov­ered by thou­sands upon thou­sands of crosses upon which, from day to day, there per­ished the flower of the Jew­ish race. A ter­ri­ble har­vest, in­deed, of the seed-sow­ing of this day.

• illegal to show friendly feelings for victims

187:1.7These women of Je­ru­sa­lem were in­deed coura­geous to man­i­fest sym­pa­thy for Je­sus, for it was strictly against the law to show friendly feel­ings for one who was be­ing led forth to cru­ci­fix­ion. It was per­mit­ted the rab­ble to jeer, mock, and ridicule the con­demned, but it was not al­lowed that any sym­pa­thy should be ex­pressed. Though Je­sus ap­pre­ci­ated the man­i­fes­ta­tion of sym­pa­thy in this dark hour when his friends were in hid­ing, he did not want these kind­hearted women to in­cur the dis­plea­sure of the au­thor­i­ties by dar­ing to show com­pas­sion in his be­half. Even at such a time as this Je­sus thought lit­tle about him­self, only of the ter­ri­ble days of tragedy ahead for Je­ru­sa­lem and the whole Jew­ish na­tion.

• cruel and lingering punishment

187:2.3Cru­ci­fix­ion was re­sorted to in or­der to pro­vide a cruel and lin­ger­ing pun­ish­ment, the vic­tim some­times not dy­ing for sev­eral days. There was con­sid­er­able sen­ti­ment against cru­ci­fix­ion in Je­ru­sa­lem, and there ex­isted a so­ci­ety of Jew­ish women who al­ways sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to cru­ci­fix­ions for the pur­pose of of­fer­ing drugged wine to the vic­tim in or­der to lessen his suf­fer­ing. But when Je­sus tasted this nar­co­tized wine, as thirsty as he was, he re­fused to drink it. The Mas­ter chose to re­tain his hu­man con­scious­ness un­til the very end. He de­sired to meet death, even in this cruel and in­hu­man form, and con­quer it by vol­un­tary sub­mis­sion to the full hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.

• cruel and lingering punishment

187:5.8When these sol­diers ar­rived at Gol­go­tha, they did ac­cord­ingly to the two thieves, but they found Je­sus al­ready dead, much to their sur­prise. How­ever, in or­der to make sure of his death, one of the sol­diers pierced his left side with his spear. Though it was com­mon for the vic­tims of cru­ci­fix­ion to linger alive upon the cross for even two or three days, the over­whelm­ing emo­tional agony and the acute spir­i­tual an­guish of Je­sus brought an end to his mor­tal life in the flesh in a lit­tle less than five and one-half hours.

• no burial in Jewish cemetery for victim of

188:1.2A cru­ci­fied per­son could not be buried in a Jew­ish ceme­tery; there was a strict law against such a pro­ce­dure. Joseph and Nicode­mus knew this law, and on the way out to Gol­go­tha they had de­cided to bury Je­sus in Joseph’s new fam­ily tomb, hewn out of solid rock, lo­cated a short dis­tance north of Gol­go­tha and across the road lead­ing to Samaria. No one had ever lain in this tomb, and they thought it ap­pro­pri­ate that the Mas­ter should rest there. Joseph re­ally be­lieved that Je­sus would rise from the dead, but Nicode­mus was very doubt­ful. These for­mer mem­bers of the San­hedrin had kept their faith in Je­sus more or less of a se­cret, al­though their fel­low San­hedrists had long sus­pected them, even be­fore they with­drew from the coun­cil. From now on they were the most out­spo­ken dis­ci­ples of Je­sus in all Je­ru­sa­lem.