A medical explanation of what Jesus endured on the
day He died by Dr. C. Truman Davis
Dr. C.
Truman Davis, MD.,M.S. is a graduate of the University of
Tennessee College of Medicine. He is a practicing
ophthalmologist, a pastor, and author of a book about medicine
and the Bible.
This article is published in The Arizona
Medicine Vol 22,no.3.March 1965
Several years ago I
became interested in the physical aspects of the passion, or
suffering, of Jesus Christ when I read an account of the
crucifixion in Jim Bishop's book, The Day Christ Died. I
suddenly realized that I had taken the crucifixion more or less
for granted all these years -- that I had grown callous to its
horror by a too-easy familiarity with the grim details. It
finally occurred to me that, as a physician, I did not even know
the actual immediate cause of Christ's death. The gospel writers
do not help much on this point. Since crucifixion and scourging
were so common during their lifetimes, they undoubtedly
considered a detailed description superfluous. For that reason
we have only the concise words of the evangelists: "Pilate,
having scourged Jesus,delivered Him to them to be crucified ...
and they crucified Him."
Despite the gospel accounts'
silence on the details of Christ's crucifixion, many have looked
into this subject in the past. In my personal study of the event
from a medical viewpoint, I am indebted especially to Dr. Pierre
Barbet, a French surgeon who did exhaustive historical and
experimental research and wrote extensively on the topic.
An attempt to examine the infinite psychic and spiritual
suffering of the Incarnate God in atonement for the sins of
fallen man is beyond the scope of this article. However, the
physiological and anatomical aspects of our Lord's passion we
can examine in some detail. What did the body of Jesus of
Nazareth actually endure during those hours of torture?
Gethsemane
The
physical passion of Christ began in Gethsemane. Of the many
aspects of His initial suffering, the one which is of particular
physiological interest is the bloody sweat. Interestingly
enough, the physician, St. Luke, is the only evangelist to
mention this occurrence. He says, "And being in an agony, he
prayed the longer. And his sweat became as drops of blood,
trickling down upon the ground" (Luke 22:44 KJV).
Every
attempt imaginable has been used by modern scholars to explain
away the phenomenon of bloody sweat, apparently under the
mistaken impression that it simply does not occur. A great deal
of effort could be saved by consulting the medical literature.
Though very rare, the phenomenon of hematidrosis, or bloody
sweat, is well documented. Under great emotional stress, tiny
capillaries in the sweat glands can break, thus mixing blood
with sweat. This process alone could have produced marked
weakness and possible shock.
Although Jesus' betrayal
and arrest are important portions of the passion story, the next
event in the account which is significant from a medical
perspective is His trial before the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the
High Priest. Here the first physical trauma was inflicted. A
soldier struck Jesus across the face for remaining silent when
questioned by Caiaphas. The palace guards then blindfolded Him,
mockingly taunted Him to identify them as each passed by, spat
on Him, and struck Him in the face.
Before Pilate
In
the early morning, battered and bruised, dehydrated, and worn
out from a sleepless night, Jesus was taken across Jerusalem to
the Praetorium of the Fortress Antonia, the seat of government
of the Procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. We are familiar with
Pilate's action in attempting to shift responsibility to Herod
Antipas, the Tetrarch of Judea. Jesus apparently suffered no
physical mistreatment at the hands of Herod and was returned to
Pilate. It was then, in response to the outcry of the mob, that
Pilate ordered Barabbas released and condemned Jesus to
scourging and crucifixion.
Preparations for Jesus'
scourging were carried out at Caesar's orders. The prisoner was
stripped of His clothing and His hands tied to a post above His
head. The Roman legionnaire stepped forward with the flagrum, or
flagellum, in his hand. This was a short whip consisting of
several heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of lead
attached near the ends of each. The heavy whip was brought down
with full force again and again across Jesus' shoulders, back,
and legs. At first the weighted thongs cut through the skin
only. Then, as the blows continued, they cut deeper into the
subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from
the capillaries and veins of the skin and finally spurting
arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles.
The small balls of lead first produced large deep
bruises that were broken open by subsequent blows. Finally, the
skin of the back was hanging in long ribbons, and the entire
area was an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When
it was determined by the centurion in charge that the prisoner
was near death, the beating was finally stopped.
Mockery
The
half-fainting Jesus was then untied and allowed to slump to the
stone pavement, wet with his own blood. The Roman soldiers saw a
great joke in this provincial Jew claiming to be a king. They
threw a robe across His shoulders and placed a stick in His hand
for a scepter. They still needed a crown to make their travesty
complete. Small flexible branches covered with long thorns,
commonly used for kindling fires in the charcoal braziers in the
courtyard, were plaited into the shape of a crude crown. The
crown was pressed into his scalp and again there was copious
bleeding as the thorns pierced the very vascular tissue. After
mocking Him and striking Him across the face, the soldiers took
the stick from His hand and struck Him across the head, driving
the thorns deeper into His scalp. Finally, they tired of their
sadistic sport and tore the robe from His back. The robe had
already become adherent to the clots of blood and serum in the
wounds, and its removal, just as in the careless removal of a
surgical bandage, caused excruciating pain. The wounds again
began to bleed.
Golgotha
In
deference to Jewish custom, the Romans apparently returned His
garments. The heavy patibulum of the cross was tied across His
shoulders. The procession of the condemned Christ, two thieves,
and the execution detail of Roman soldiers headed by a centurion
began its slow journey along the route which we know today as
the Via Dolorosa.
In spite of Jesus' efforts to walk
erect, the weight of the heavy wooden beam, together with the
shock produced by copious loss of blood, was too much. He
stumbled and fell. The rough wood of the beam gouged into the
lacerated skin and muscles of the shoulders. He tried to rise,
but human muscles had been pushed beyond their endurance. The
centurion, anxious to proceed with the crucifixion, selected a
stalwart North African onlooker, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the
cross. Jesus followed, still bleeding and sweating the cold,
clammy sweat of shock. The 650-yard journey from the Fortress
Antonia to Golgotha was finally completed. The prisoner was
again stripped of His clothing except for a loin cloth which was
allowed the Jews.
The crucifixion began. Jesus was
offered wine mixed with myrrh, a mild analgesic, pain-reliving
mixture. He refused the drink. Simon was ordered to place the
patibulum on the ground, and Jesus was quickly thrown backward,
with His shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire felt for
the depression at the front of the wrist. He drove a heavy,
square wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the
wood. Quickly, he moved to the other side and repeated the
action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to
allow some flexion and movement. The patibulum was then lifted
into place at the top of the stipes, and the titulus reading
"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" was nailed into place.
The left foot was pressed backward against the right
foot. With both feet extended, toes down, a nail was driven
through the arch of each, leaving the knees moderately flexed.
The victim was now crucified.
On the Cross
As
Jesus slowly sagged down with more weight on the nails in the
wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shot along the fingers and up
the arms to explode in the brain. The nails in the wrists were
putting pressure on the median nerve, large nerve trunks which
traverse the mid-wrist and hand. As He pushed himself upward to
avoid this stretching torment, He placed His full weight on the
nail through His feet. Again there was searing agony as the nail
tore through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of this
feet.
At this point, another phenomenon occurred. As the
arms fatigued, great waves of cramps swept over the muscles,
knotting them in deep relentless, throbbing pain. With these
cramps came the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by the
arm, the pectoral muscles, the large muscles of the chest, were
paralyzed and the intercostal muscles, the small muscles between
the ribs, were unable to act. Air could be drawn into the lungs,
but could not be exhaled. Jesus fought to raise Himself in order
to get even one short breath. Finally, the carbon dioxide level
increased in the lungs and in the blood stream, and the cramps
partially subsided.
The Last
Words
Spasmodically, He was able to push
Himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen. It was
undoubtedly during these periods that He uttered the seven short
sentences that are recorded.
The first - looking down at
the Roman soldiers throwing dice for His seamless garment:
"Father, forgive them for they do not know what they
do."
The second - to the penitent thief: "Today, thou
shalt be with me in Paradise."
The third - looking down
at Mary His mother, He said: "Woman, behold your son." Then
turning to the terrified, grief-stricken adolescent John, the
beloved apostle, He said: "Behold your mother."
The
fourth cry is from the beginning of Psalm 22: "My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me?"
He suffered hours of
limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps,
intermittent partial asphyxiation, and searing pain as tissue
was torn from His lacerated back from His movement up and down
against the rough timbers of the cross. Then another agony
began: a deep crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium, the
sac surrounding the heart, slowly filled with serum and began to
compress the heart.
The prophecy in Psalm 22:14 was
being fulfilled: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint, my heart is like wax; it is melted in the
midst of my bowels."
The end was rapidly approaching.
The loss of tissue fluids had reached a critical level; the
compressed heart was struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish
blood to the tissues, and the tortured lungs were making a
frantic effort to inhale small gulps of air. The markedly
dehydrated tissues sent their flood of stimuli to the brain.
Jesus gasped His fifth cry: "I thirst." Again we read in the
prophetic psalm: "My strength is dried up like a potsherd; my
tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou has brought me into the
dust of death" (Psalm 22:15 KJV).
A sponge soaked in
posca, the cheap, sour wine that was the staple drink of the
Roman legionnaires, was lifted to Jesus' lips. His body was now
in extremis, and He could feel the chill of death creeping
through His tissues. This realization brought forth His sixth
word, possibly little more than a tortured whisper: "It is
finished." His mission of atonement had been completed. Finally,
He could allow His body to die. With one last surge of strength,
He once again pressed His torn feet against the nail,
straightened His legs, took a deeper breath, and uttered His
seventh and last cry: "Father, into Your hands I commit My
spirit."
Death
The common
method of ending a crucifixion was by crurifracture, the
breaking of the bones of the leg. This prevented the victim from
pushing himself upward; the tension could not be relieved from
the muscles of the chest, and rapid suffocation occurred. The
legs of the two thieves were broken, but when the soldiers
approached Jesus, they saw that this was
unnecessary.
Apparently, to make doubly sure of death,
the legionnaire drove his lance between the ribs, upward through
the pericardium and into the heart. John 19:34 states, "And
immediately there came out blood and water." Thus there was an
escape of watery fluid from the sac surrounding the heart and
the blood of the interior of the heart. This is rather
conclusive post-mortem evidence that Jesus died, not the usual
crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure due to
shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium.
Resurrection
In
these events, we have seen a glimpse of the epitome of evil that
man can exhibit toward his fellowman and toward God. This is an
ugly sight and is likely to leave us despondent and depressed.
But the crucifixion was not the end of the story. How
grateful we can be that we have a sequel: a glimpse of the
infinite mercy of God toward man -- the gift of atonement, the
miracle of the resurrection, and the expectation of Easter
morning.
