The Cross and Crucifixion in the First-Century Greco-Roman and Jewish World

The historical background of crucifixion as an extreme and horrifying form of capital punishment provides an essential context for understanding the meaning of the cross in the New Testament. Before the cross took on the powerful symbolic meaning it has for Christian faith, it was already a historical reality known and dreaded by the ancient Mediterranean world.

The origin of crucifixion as a form of capital punishment for criminals or extreme retribution toward an enemy may be traced back to the Persians. The fifth-century BCE historian Herodotus reported that Darius, the emperor of Persia, crucified three thousand inhabitants of Babylon. But references to various forms of crucifixion are found early on in various sectors of the ancient world, and its precise origin is impossible to determine. The Romans may have become aware of crucifixion from their long interaction with Carthage, where this form of punishment was also used. As we will note, it became a more formal mode of capital punishment under Roman law. Crucifixion took a variety of forms, from a crude impaling of a victim on a wooden plank or platform to the more ritualized public act of crucifixion described in the Gospels. In some instances the victims were already dead and their bodies were publicly displayed as a further humiliation or degradation. At other times, crucifixion was the means of death itself, an exceptionally cruel, often slow, and always agonizingly painful process.

Under Roman practice, crucifixion was reserved almost exclusively for noncitizens, particularly slaves and members of the lower classes. In a famous quotation, Cicero in 63 BCE defended his client Rabirius, a Roman senator accused of a grievous crime and threatened with crucifixion, by stating that a Roman citizen, however guilty, should never be subject to such a punishment:

How grievous a thing it is to be disgraced by a public court; how grievous to suffer a fine, how grievous to suffer banishment; and yet in the midst of any such disaster we retain some degree of liberty. Even if we are threatened with death, we may die free men. But the executioner, the veiling of the head and the very word "cross" should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but his thoughts, his eyes and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things, but the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man.

As suggested in Cicero's rhetoric, while crucifixion was not infrequent in the Roman world, there are relatively few references to it in ancient texts and even less detailed descriptions of it because it was an odious subject not to be dwelt on. Even the restrained descriptions of Jesus' crucifixion in the gospel accounts are more detailed than most ancient references to this practice. Crucifixion was known according to Cicero as the summum supplicium (the "ultimate punishment") or in the Roman historian Tacitus's famous phrase, the mors turpissima crucis ("the most terrible death of the cross"), and by the first century Jewish historian Josephus as "the most pitiable of human deaths," ranked first above burning and beheading in the hierarchy of terrible forms of punishment.

While the process of crucifixion took various forms, the general features are consistent. In many cases the victim, whether a condemned criminal or a captive, was first tortured, often in the form of flogging, as in the case of Jesus in the gospel accounts. Seneca, for example, makes the case that it is better to commit suicide than to submit to death by crucifixion and, in describing the agony of such a death, refers to "ugly welts" on the shoulders and chest of the victims—wounds most likely inflicted by flogging. In some instances, the severity of such torture had the effect of hastening death—as may be the case with the crucifixion of Jesus. Crosses themselves had different shapes, either a single stake to which the victim was fastened or equipped with a cross beam as in the classical depiction of the cross. Depending on circumstances, the condemned person was made to carry the crossbeam to the site of the execution.

The place of execution was normally in public view. Roman rhetorician Quintilian (35–95 CE) emphasized the deterrent effect of having crucifixions in public places: "Whenever we crucify the guilty, the most crowded roads are chosen, where the most people can see and be moved by this fear. For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their exemplary effect." One of the major rationales for crucifixion was to discredit the cause and example of the one crucified. This is why it was applied especially to crimes of treason, sedition, robbery, and other actions that disturbed the public order—particularly on the part of slaves. On the way to execution, condemned criminals might also carry a sign or titulus that indicated the nature of their crime; in some instances—as in the case of Jesus—the titulus would be fastened to the cross to inform the public about the nature of the condemned person's crime.

Once at the execution site, the victims were fastened to the cross, either by tying them with ropes or, as was often the case, by nailing their hands and feet to the beam. To keep the body from sagging too much, the victim was often supported by a wooden peg or small seat. A rare find of the remains of a crucified man buried near Jerusalem at Giv'at ha-Mivtar demonstrated that at least the feet of this victim were nailed to the cross. Death could come slowly, with the victim eventually expiring through a combination of asphyxiation, dehydration, or brutal trauma caused by attacks of animals or birds while the victim was pinned helpless to the cross. Exposed in a public setting, the victims would also be the object of taunts and derision from passing crowds, as also reflected in the gospel accounts. Josephus reports that during the siege of Jerusalem, the Romans, in public view of the city, crucified large numbers of Jews who were trying to escape the siege, pinning their bodies to crosses in grotesque postures to add to their ridicule and also to put fear into the Jews who were defending the walls.

As part of the intended humiliation and dishonoring of the victims, corpses could be left on the cross for days after the death of the crucified, with their bodies exposed to visible decomposition and the attacks of animals and birds. Roman records indicate that the remains of those crucified would ultimately be thrown into public common graves set aside for this purpose. But there is also evidence, as in the case of the gospel accounts of Joseph of Arimathea, who sought permission from Pilate to have the body of Jesus buried, that relatives or friends could request permission to bury victims of crucifixion, even if they were notorious criminals...