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Crucifixion Most Hideous Way to Die
The Calgary Sun ^ | February 29, 2004 | Ted Byfield

Posted on 02/29/2004 12:31:56 PM PST by quidnunc

Now that Canada's liberally-minded movie critics have actually seen Mel Gibson's The Passion, they have come up with a new criticism.

No longer do they consider it merely offensive to Jews. They've now decided it's offensive to everybody. It's too gory, too vicious, unnecessarily brutal, they say, not something you'd put in a child's Easter basket.

That's no doubt true, and exactly what Gibson promised. But the pertinent question remains: Is it historically accurate? Was Roman crucifixion really this awful?

The answer is no — it was much worse. The Roman senator Cicero called it the most hideous form of death ever devised

Its use went back long before Christ to the early Persians and Egyptians. The Phoenicians tried other forms of execution — spearing, boiling in oil, strangulation, stoning, drowning, burning — but all these were too quick. Men on the cross could take days to die.

The Romans had three forms of execution. Decapitation by the sword was the least severe, then burning, finally crucifixion, worst of all.

They used it widely. In the Spartacus rebellion of 73 B.C., 6,000 slaves were crucified on a single day

With the Romans, a beating always came first, just as it does in the Gibson film and the Bible.

The Romans called this "half death" because the victim was expected to be reduced by it to such a state. But he must be constantly checked. Death from a Roman flogging was altogether possible, and the lictor who administered it could be executed himself if that happened.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at canoe.ca ...


TOPICS: Current Events
KEYWORDS: thepassion

1 posted on 02/29/2004 12:31:56 PM PST by quidnunc
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: PAC67
This article is trash and hasn't a clue about Roman SOP.
3 posted on 02/29/2004 12:43:34 PM PST by tiamat ("Just a Bronze-Age Gal, Trapped in a Techno World!")
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To: quidnunc
It got worse later...


4 posted on 02/29/2004 12:44:16 PM PST by socal_parrot
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To: PAC67
The Romans were sick mvthaf*(&ers.

There brutality was one of the main reasons they came to power. Once the Empire was converted, it became increasingly hard to maintain. One historian I once read stated that the Empire fell because it became civilized (i.e. Christianized).

5 posted on 02/29/2004 12:49:26 PM PST by PeterdeVerona
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To: tiamat
Try to be a little more specific with your criticisms. :)
6 posted on 02/29/2004 12:50:49 PM PST by Restorer
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To: PAC67; Religion Mod
The Romans were sick mvthaf*(&ers.

does this make you feel better or does it come naturally to you?

Are you a Troll?
7 posted on 02/29/2004 1:03:42 PM PST by restornu ( "Faith...is daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes refuse to see."J.R.R. Tolkien)
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Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: socal_parrot
It got worse later...

And your evidence of this is a picture of a python parody. Nice.

I'd recommend looking into the current research about the Spanish Inquisition. The BBC did a nice documentary a few years back that trashes the 'black legend' of the Inquisition as little more than Protestant propaganda. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the fairest and most benevolent courts of its day, relative to the typical practices in other courts of Europe at the same time.

9 posted on 02/29/2004 1:07:02 PM PST by pseudo-ignatius
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To: PAC67; Admin Moderator
You do show troll tendency!
10 posted on 02/29/2004 1:07:58 PM PST by restornu ( "Faith...is daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes refuse to see."J.R.R. Tolkien)
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To: socal_parrot
Actually torturer was fairly rare, even in the Spanish Inquisition. It usually amounted to just the rack. Painful though that was it didn't draw blood, inquisitors were prohibited from disfiguring the human body. Interestingly the historian Henry Kamen in his book on the Spanish Inquisition noted that the reason for the long duration of a torture session in Inquisitorial cases, as opposed to secular courts (who were much less strict in the implementation of torture) was probably because the victim could withstand it longer (according to the Inquisitions own laws they could only turn the rack so far). In any case the percentage of tortured prisoners was light, and of those tortured, more then once, about 2%. In research of the Inquisitions archives modern historians have never found a case were the prisoner was tortured more then three times.

A lot of the myths about the Spanish Inquisition were made up in Holland during that countries rebellion from Hapsburg Spain.

11 posted on 02/29/2004 1:08:22 PM PST by PeterdeVerona
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To: Restorer
Well, first, I was considering the source: a Canadian rag, so I DID sort of blow it off.

The whole : "there were three methods of execution under the Romans" is just not so.

Without resorting to dragging our my Durants, people seem to be under the impression that the Romans crucified people at the drop of a hat. They did not. Not only were there many different types and severities of crucifixion , in general, crucifixtion was saved for "special" cases and was often a last resort. ( the Spartacan rebellion being the spectacular exception to that) Usually it was just cheaper and easier to hang the sucker.
Also, while the Legions were not a bunch of sweet,sensitive, modern guys, most of them HATED execution detail if it involved crucifixion. No one wanted the duty and I can't blame them, either.

Strangulation or hanging were also popular forms of execution and were more expediant than crucifixion.

There were also differeces in how citizens were handled, as opposed to slaves and NON citizens. Often it was safer to be a slave than to be a citizen under the Romans. A slave is property and therefore some value. Also, citizens were expected to know the law and were held more responsible.

The Roman penalty for denying your citizenship in order to escape persecution ( it happened) was to be tied into a bag with a dog, a rooster and a poisonous snake and then thrown into a river.

And of course many of these rules CHANGE depending on whther we are talking Roman Republic or Imperial Rome....

And rather than continue to flaggilate the deceased equine....





12 posted on 02/29/2004 1:08:53 PM PST by tiamat ("Just a Bronze-Age Gal, Trapped in a Techno World!")
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: tiamat
And of course many of these rules CHANGE depending on whther we are talking Roman Republic or Imperial Rome....

I do remember reading about one of the Roman Legal codices in which those three forms of punishment were outlined (Beheading, Burning, Crucifixion), and under what conditions. But I can't remember when it was written. I don't think it was the Codex Justinianus, because Crucifixion ought to have been outlawed by then (I think Constantine outlawed it).

14 posted on 02/29/2004 1:20:11 PM PST by PeterdeVerona
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To: tiamat
Jerusalem was not the best duty for a Roman soldier. In fact it was a place where most of the rejects were sent. The movie is probably closer to the Roman's mentality and attitude than most of us realize.
15 posted on 02/29/2004 4:59:52 PM PST by franky (Pray for the souls of the faithful departed. Pray for our own souls to receive the grace of a happy)
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To: quidnunc
Crucifixion Most Hideous Way To Die - Ted Byfield

Now that Canada's liberally-minded movie critics have actually seen Mel Gibson's The Passion, they have come up with a new criticism.

No longer do they consider it merely offensive to Jews. They've now decided it's offensive to everybody. It's too gory, too vicious, unnecessarily brutal, they say, not something you'd put in a child's Easter basket.

That's no doubt true, and exactly what Gibson promised. But the pertinent question remains: Is it historically accurate? Was Roman crucifixion really this awful?

The answer is no -- it was much worse. The Roman senator Cicero called it the most hideous form of death ever devised.

Its use went back long before Christ to the early Persians and Egyptians. The Phoenicians tried other forms of execution -- spearing, boiling in oil, strangulation, stoning, drowning, burning -- but all these were too quick. Men on the cross could take days to die.

The Romans had three forms of execution. Decapitation by the sword was the least severe, then burning, finally crucifixion, worst of all.

They used it widely. In the Spartacus rebellion of 73 B.C., 6,000 slaves were crucified on a single day.

With the Romans, a beating always came first, just as it does in the Gibson film and the Bible.

The Romans called this "half death" because the victim was expected to be reduced by it to such a state. But he must be constantly checked. Death from a Roman flogging was altogether possible, and the lictor who administered it could be executed himself if that happened.

Sometimes the crosses were shaped like a "T," sometimes like an "X." If the victim were distinguished in any way, the upright of the "T" extended a foot above the cross arms to make room for a superscription of the charge against him.

Crucifixions were always conducted near busy roads to achieve the maximum terror in the populace. The victim was first laid on the cross and a five-inch spike driven through the tender gap in the bones in the middle of the wrist, then his feet placed one above the other and a single spike driven through both.

Once the cross was raised, one eye-witness recounts, the worst aspect was the screaming. The victim stayed alive by alternatively taking the weight off his pierced feet by hoisting himself upward.

But this interfered with his breathing, so that to catch his breath he would have to lower his weight back onto his agonized feet.

Sometimes, out of sympathy, for the victim, the soldiers would break his legs, so that he could not take the weight on his feet and would suffocate.

Such are the facts, and they are not pretty. It is no accident that while Christians adopted the symbol of the Cross from the beginning, the "naturalistic" crucifix, with the figure of Christ nailed to it, appears nowhere in Christian history until at least 200 years after the emperor Constantine abolished crucifixion.

Christians who knew what it was didn't want to be reminded of it.

The great Christian novelist and essayist Dorothy L. Sayers, whose radio plays on the life of Christ aimed at the same brutal realism would, I think, have heartily approved of Gibson's movie.

The real horror of the event, she once wrote, is concealed from us "by the stately and ancient language of the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible."

In the Bible those directly involved in the Crucifixion become "sacred personages, living in a far-off land and time, using dignified rhythms of speech, making from time to time restrained gestures symbolic of brutality. They mocked and railed on him and smote him, scourged and crucified him. Well, no doubt it was all done in the noblest and most beautiful manner."

It was no such thing, says Sayers. "In a nation famous for its religious genius, and under a government renowned for its efficiency, he was executed by a corrupt church, a timid politician and a fickle proletariat led by professional agitators. His executioners made vulgar jokes about him, taunted him, smacked him in the face, flogged him with the lash, and hanged him on the common gallows -- a bloody, dusty, sweaty and sordid business."

That is the discernible record of what occurred. And that is what Gibson shows us.

________________________

quidnunc,

GOOD ARTICLE -- posted in full for all posterity....

"Thou Shalt Not Unnecessarily Excerpt" - 11th FReeper Commandment.

FReegards,

- ConservativeStLouisGuy
16 posted on 03/01/2004 10:46:58 AM PST by ConservativeStLouisGuy (transplanted St Louisan living in Canada, eh!)
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To: quidnunc
Bumpus ad summum
17 posted on 03/01/2004 11:38:04 PM PST by Dajjal
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