February 29, 2004

Gallio was the Roman Proconsul of Achaia who tried to judge St. Paul as fairly as he could (Acts 18:5-12). His stepbrother was the Stoic philosopher Seneca who writes of crucifixion in his Epistle 101 to Lucilius: “Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly weals on shoulders and chest, and drawing the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony? He would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross.” Ironically, the emperor Nero would force Gallio and Seneca to commit suicide.

The ancient Persians crucified prisoners and Darius (512-485 BC) crucified three thousand near what we now call Baghdad. Germans and Britons crucified enemies and the Celts often crucified animals in sacrifice. The Romans may have learned the technique from the Carthaginians. After Alexander’s siege of Tyre, the shoreline was shadowed with more than two thousand crosses. Antiochus IV used the cross to punish Jews who would not abandon their religion. The Jewish high priest Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BC) crucified eight hundred Pharisees in Jerusalem, forcing them to watch the massacre of their wives and children as they were dying. After the death of the leader of the slave revolt in 71 BC, Crassus lined the Appian Way from Capua to Rome with the crucifixes of six thousand followers of Spartacus. No one had a copyright on this hideous practice, but all agreed with Cicero that it was summum supplicium, the cruelest form of execution.

The forty days of Lent focus the eyes on the Cross. Christ did not have to go to the cross: “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). As David stole the spear of Saul and waved it in a victory greater than any he could have won by slaying Saul, so Christ refuses to kill his enemies but rather dies and rises again, holding the cross above the world as a victory more powerful than any human conquest. This literally is the crucial moment of history: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:55).

These things should be remembered when the ignorant speak foolishly of the Passion of Christ. The Council of Trent reminded the Church that Christians are more accountable than anyone for the sufferings of Christ, for we know more about it. St. John Vianney said that by going to confession a man takes the nails out of Jesus. That is the purpose of Lent. I was told of a saleswoman in a jewelry shop who described “a cross with a little man on it.” These Lenten days should make clearer who He is.

Fr. George W. Rutler