14. The Via Dolorosa

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might have expected that they would have been unwiUing to have their most sacred festival associated with a thing so abhorrent and so defiling as a public crucifixion. But they were as eager for their prey as the mob could be, and it was so ordered that the day on which the Passover should be slain should witness the shedding of the blood of the great Paschal Lamb. Probably in less than an hour after receiving His final sentence at the Praetorium, Jesus was to be seen in the agony of His cross on Calvary.

Pilate’s last act as he left his chair of judgment on the Pavement was to order two thieves to join Jesus on his via dolorosa. It seemed a needless and wanton humiliation that He should have to travel to Calvary and to die there in such compan}^ Probably they were Barabbas’

companions in crime.^ They were doubtless men who had been lying in prison under sentence of death. And Pilate seemed in the mood to give the mob the entertainment of more executions than they had asked for. He would forthwith on this day empty the dungeons of Jerusalem of its greatest criminals, cover Calvary

^ So Andrews {Life^ p. 460), who adds that an early tradition gives them the names of Titns and Dumachus, and says that Jesus met them in Eg^qit, and predicted to them that they should both be cruciliod with llim.

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with crosses, and provide such a carnival of blood and horror as should satisfy the most bloodthirsty.^

We are tempted here to anticipate what Jesus afterwards made of His degrading company. What was intended as an insult and humiliation was turned into an honour. Jesus gained in one of those two thieves the first glorious triumph of His cross. The Friend of sinners found in one who seemed among the chief of sinners the companion He loved to have for Himself on His way that day to Paradise.

The cross they brought Jesus was, we may be sure, of the roughest description. Very likely it consisted simply of a strong upright post, not much over the height of a man, with two cross pieces nailed to it so as to form the shape of the letter V, and with a rough wooden pin about the middle of the beam offering a cruel seat for the body of the sufferer. The condemned man was expected to carry the cross on which he was to die, this being one of the refinements of cruelty and insult to which he w^as subjected. It was laid upon his shoulders,

1 Weiss {Life, 3:362) thinks that Pilate, by joining the two thieves to His company, meant to insult not Jesus, hut the Jews. Their kingshould die between two malefactors.

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and to its outstretched arms it often happened that his own were bound. ^

Thus we can imagine to ourselves Jesus going forth bearing His cross.- We can see Him moving on, wearing His own simple Galilean dress (for they had taken off the purple robe, and put His own raiment on again^), the crown of thorns still on His brows (there is no word of that being removed), and His arms bound to the arms of the cross He is carrying. He is stooping heavily under His burden. It seems as if He would faint and die under it before He reaches the place of execution. His two wretched partners in suffering and in this open shame are bearing Him company. Each carries a cross like His own, and with a whitened board hung from his neck, telling in large black letters what his name and his crimes are.”* Each is attended by his executioners — four Roman soldiers to each acting as a o’uard; while before and behind are the rest

1 Edersheim, Zi/ of Christ, 706.

- Not merely the patibtclufn or cross beam, as has been supposed, but the whole of the great and heavy instrument of death. Zoeckler’s Cross of Christ, p. 93.

■^ Matt, 27:31. Mark 15:20.

^ This whitened board with the name and crime of the condemned man written in large letters on it was sometimes borne before him on his way to execution by an inferior officer. Suetonius, Caliyula 32.

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of the detachment under the command of the centurion whose duty it is to see the crucifixion carried out.^ The great multitude who have been clamouring for this feast of slaughter, and whose numbers are increased as street after street is traversed, follow in the rear, or hasten on in front to secure for themselves the best places from which to view the dreadful spectacle.^

What the actual route was which was taken by the mournful procession can only be conjectured.

Jerusalem has been so often destroyed and built upon again that it is very difficult to identif}^

localities. Over its site city has been piled upon city in the course of the centuries. They tell us that London, as the Romans knew it, is some sixteen or seventeen feet below the surface of the London of to-day. To reach the Jerusalem and the way of sorrows which Jesus trod, or even the skull-like eminence on which He died, much deeper excavations have to be made. This explains why most of the holy places there, Calvary not excepted, are matters of uncertainty and controversy.

What is certain in the present case is that the distance from the Praetorium to the place of

^ Tacitus, Annals, 3:14.

2 Edersheim remarks that processions usually took the longest road to the place of execution {Life of Christ, II, oSo).

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crucitixion must have been about a mile, that the procession had to traverse a considerable part of the city, and that the place called Calvary or Golgotha where the cross was erected was without the gate. Along that way the thorn-crowned Monarch of all lands and ages moved on to His death and to Pi is triumph in meekness and in majesty, if also in pain and sorrow^, marking the way as He w^ent with His blood.

Over this via dolorosa of our Lord the Christian imagination has often been fondly at work. Incident after incident has been invented to fill in the lines of the infinitely pathetic picture.

Thus we have the legend of Veronica,^ the maiden who weeps as she sees the Man of Sorrows on His way, carrying His heavy load. His raiment so stained, Himself so weary and worn, and who, in the kindness of her heart, approaches and wipes the bloody sweat from His brow, receiving upon the napkin she uses the impression which it ever afterwards retains of the blessed Saviour’s face.

Then, as if to supply and illustrate a lesson of a totally different kind, we have the remarkable legend which appears in so many forms of the

^ In the apocryphal writings, the Mors Filati and the Vindkla Salvaloris.

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Wandering Jew.^ Ahasuerus — for such is his name, according to perhaps the best known form of the story — is a shoemaker who, as Jesus is passing by, comes forth from his dwelHng. Jesus asks to be allowed to rest for a little on his doorstep.

The shoemaker scornfully refuses, strikes Him, causes Him to totter under His cross, and bids Him hasten with quicker steps upon His way. Jesus replies, “ Because thou grudgest me a moment of rest, I shall enter into my rest, but thou shalt wander restless till I come again.”

From that moment Ahasuerus must needs follow the Christ and see Him die. Thereafter he must wander over the world, visiting many lands, passing through many a fearful experience and peril, and unable to find rest or death anywhere. A parable we have here, specially suited, no doubt, to mediaeval minds, but not without instruction for our own as to the restlessness and misery of those who turn away the suffering Saviour from their doors, or who have no place for Him in their hearts and their lives.

These two legends, so contrasted, illustrate well the varied impression Jesus bearing His cross still

^ In Baring Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, different forms of this legend as existing in different countries are given, pp.

1-31.

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makes upon men. As Jeremy Taylor when writing on this very event in the history of the Passion says, “ Sin laughed to see the King of heaven and the great Lover of souls, instead of the sceptre of His kingdom, to bear a tree of cursing and of shame. But piety wept tears, and knew they would melt into joy when she should behold that cross, which loaded the shoulders of her Lord, afterwards sit upon the sceptres, and be engraved and signed upon the foreheads of kings.” ^

But art has done even more than legend here.

One of Dore’s most striking pictures is that of Christ leaving the Praetorium. It is one of the largest that ever left a painter’s hands.

In It there are several hundreds of figures, some of them lifesize. Christ is seen descending for the last time the steps of the Praetorium. He is wearing His seamless white robe, and the crown of thorns is still upon His head. He stands alone, sublimely apart, while a vast assemblage is looking on. He appears like the Man of Sorrows He is, sorrowful unto death, yet divinely majestic; meek and lowly, yet a dignity not of this world in His whole aspect and bearing. A halo is round His head; and it is so treated by the artist that it throws an unearthly radiance about

^ Jeremy Taylor’s Life of Christ, 3:15, 293

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the crown of thorns, imparting to it a kind of transfiguration. Near Jesus are the chief priests who have had so large and guilty a hand in this divine tragedy. In the foreground are the excited mob, many of them pressing eagerly forward to feast their eyes upon their victim, while others seem as if now they would ^\’illingly be away from the scene. The Roman guard is seen sternly urging the crowd back with their glittering spears, and clearing a way for their Prisoner. In the distant background, amidst an ominous darkness that appears to be gathering about them, Pilate and Herod are to be observed making friends with each other — the governor in his toga of dusk}’ red, with an air about him as if he were still uneasy, and not without a tinge of remorse, but the more eager on that account to disclaim all responsibility. Nor must we omit to mention that close by the great central figure are the mother of our Lord, in tranquil grief and in an attitude of resignation, some sympathetic friends and disciples, and Mary Magdalene, with her tearful face turned aside, and apparently sinking to the ground, in danger of being trodden upon by the rude soldiery. Through a crowd, that seems as if the cry ” Crucify him “ were upon their lips, the divine Sufferer is seen passing on with

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the majesty of God, and at the same time with the sensitiveness of man. And over the whole vast picture a m3′Sterious darkening air is thrown, as if of gathering clouds presaging the tempest of divine wrath which was to break forth upon the infatuated people who rejected and crucified the Son of God.

That picture sets forth the pathetic scene with wonderful fidelity, though there are some things that must be set down purely to the artist’s imagination. Certainly Pharisees were there with the look of malignant satisfaction on their faces, now that the object of their relentless hatred had been brought so low. Sadducees were there who used to listen with cynical disdain to His loft}spiritual teaching, bestowing upon Him now their contemptuous pity. Roman soldiers were there, fraternising with the Jewish people, and delighted that for this time at least they were playing a popular part and pleasing the multitude by the insults and tortures they had been and still were inflicting upon thair Prisoner. And we are willing to believe that the licence is justified which the painter has used by throwing upon the canvas figures of an opposite character — the sympathising Nicodemus, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Magdalene who could die for Him, and

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the mother whose heart was pierced by His sufferings as by a sword.

Of these sympathising friends, however, the sacred record says nothing. We cannot doubt that some of them were present; but, perplexed and paralysed by the turn things had taken, they had not the courage to declare themselves. Alone, trusting only in the Father, and upheld by His own great love which the greatest suffering and self-sacrifice could not exhaust, Jesus entered upon His way of sorrow, took up the cross men gave Him, and went to die upon it on Calvary. No human friend appeared to defend Him or His cause. No angel visibly came to His aid. No fire descended from heaven to consume those w^ho had mocked and scourged Him, and who were now to put Him to the cruellest death. There was not even that ominous cloud-threatening sky which the artist has given to his work. The sun shone as usual. The hour had not yet arrived when nature should throw her thick veil of darkness over the last agonies of her Lord. She gave no sign, even when to her divine Maker the rude and cruel cross was brought, and when the crowd broke out into a j^ell of fiendish satisfaction as they saw it laid upon Him.

Yet to complete the picture we should like 296

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to have of the whole pathetic scene, we would wiUingly put into it the great sympathetic grateful throng, who in their own grief and sorest need have turned to the divine Man of Sorrows bearing the cross of sin and shame for them, and have blessed Him for the help and the hope He has thus brought. We like the conception so far of that other French artist, Beraud, who in his picture of the scene has represented the Saviour travelling on and bending under His heavy load, with His foes and executioners behind Him, but with a great band of devout sympathisers and worshippers in front. In that representative band there are the old man whose face is made radiant as he directs his dying look upon his suffering Saviour, the orphan children praising His name and thanking Him for the loving care and the home His bearing the cross has provided for them, the wounded soldier who finds healing and soothing as he looks upon the Sufferer, the young bride entreating His benediction upon her new life, and the slave too holding up his chains and gazing wistfully and gratefully upon Him who suffered Himself to be bound that all might be free.^ A countless throng indeed have

^ The painter, as a good Roman Catholic, has not scrupled to be guilty of the anachronism of putting a priest and a couple of

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FROM THE GARDEN TO THE CROSS

gazed, and are still gazing upon this thorn-crowned Jesus bearing His cross; they are blessing Him through their tears for their comfort and salvation, while Jesus is moving onward through their midst, in triumph and in joy, leaving His foes behind or fallen.

With Jesus thus going forth the shame of His cross has begun. The cross was indeed the accursed tree. To touch it was pollution, to carry it was deepest disgrace. Reputable men shrank back from it, as indicating contact with the greatest criminality. Religious men remembered it had been said, “ Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”^ Self-righteous Pharisees saw in it the foulest contamination. And Gentiles shared in these feelings of abhorrence. Cicero wrote that death by the cross was a punishment the very name of which should never come near the thoughts, the eyes or ears of a Roman citizen, far less his person.^ It was a punishment for slaves, for alien and rebellious subjects whom Rome despised, for the vilest malefactors; and it was that given to Jesus.

But what was all that men, with their poor

nuns in the forefront of this devout band. But we can overlook that for the vahxe of his conception otherwise.

1 Gal 3:13.

* Cicero, Fro Rabirio, V.

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THE VIA DOLOROSA

perverted notions of honour or purity, saw in the cross, as a thing of horror and a thing telHng of the curse, compared to what Jesus must have seen? To Him it spoke of sin, of its awful penalty and curse. It symbolised the atoning death He was to die. As He took it up He in very deed made Himself of no reputation. He beggared Himself of His wealth of righteousness, He consented to be numbered with the transgressors, He humbled Himself to the guiltiest sinner’s place. The shame and punishment of our sins He made His own. This was what was worst of all to endure. To pass with His humiliating burden through a scowling and hostile crowd, to be exposed to every one’s gibe and sneer, to insult and injury at every step — this was trying, especially for one with a keenly sensitive moral nature. But to take up and carry in the face of the universe the burden of a world’s guilt, and that which should be its expiation, and to do this, knowing and feeling all as only the God Man could — this was humiliation and suffering altogether beyond our powers to conceive and realise. To take up the cross as Jesus did, purely under the compulsion of His own love, and in the fullest consciousness that those who laid it upon His shoulders had 299

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no power at all against Him except what was given them from above, affords us another glimpse of His sublime resignation to His Father’s will, and His boundless devotion to His redeeming work. The martyrs in His cause, who have resignedly carried the wood for their own burning, have but followed Him at an infinite distance.

We do not forget, however, that the cross Jesus took up at the Praetorium had its two sides for Him. While there was the shame and the suffering manifest enough at that moment, there was also the glory that was to follow; and for the joy that was set before Him He went forth to endure the cross, despising its shame. ^ Unfriendly faces all around, voices that reviled Him, passionate insulting outcries such as only a frenzied mob could utter, eyes gleaming with malignant delight at the sight of Him bending and tottering under His humiliating load, what were they all to Him with His soul fixed on God and the eternities?

Pilate, Caiaphas, Pharisee, Sadducee, what were they with their seeming triumph for an hour in comparison with the things that must stand for ever? What were men, who would soon all be off the stage of time and reduced to so many handfuls of dust, compared with the everlasting

1 Heb. 12:2.

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God He had been sent to glorify, and the souls He yearned to save?

Would that we had more of the virtue that still goes out of Jesus to enable us worthily to follow Him. What is wanted is the strength to stand alone while all the world may be against us, together with the self-denial and the courage to make light of loss, pain, and shame for His sake. These come only to those who have the vision, as He had, of the eternal and divine, the unseen and heavenly. With that vision given to them, with their souls’ look and bent fixed towards God and the things that abide, they are the less moved or appalled by the sights and sounds of this world. They can look above man and beyond time. The cloud o witnesses belonging to the higher world inspires them and concerns them more than the crowd of their struggling and sinning fellow-mortals around them on earth.

They dare to do the right, and they follow the great Cross-bearer, rejoicing in the assurance that, beyond all crosses for His sake, there is the crown of life that fadeth not away.

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SIMON OF CYRENE.

Art and legend have done not a little, as we have seen, to fill up the pathetic picture for us of our Lord’s carrying His cross to Calvary. But the evangelists have not been altogether silent on the subject. Doubtless much occurred on the way, which the Christian world would gladly have known, and which they could so well have told us. Two of them at least, Matthew and John, were in all probability eye and ear witnesses; and Mark and Luke must have often heard apostles and others, for whom the day of Jesus’ death would have an imperishable memory, telling of all they had that day seen and heard.

Yet how sparing of incidents they have been except when their Master was specially concerned.

John, at any rate, who was a witness of the trial in Caiaphas’ house, was not likely to have been absent from the crowd that saw his Master going with His burden of shame to the place 302

SIMON OF CYRENE

where He was to die. He must have been a keen and deeply interested observer of all that took place on the way. He must have had incidents and impressions of the scene, stored up in His mind and memory, which He would retain to His dying day, and which the Church would willingly have possessed. But from him we have not even one. He has nothing to add to what the other three evangelists have given.

Each of those three has preserved for us the story of Simon of Cyrene, and of his touching service to Jesus; the third, the evangelist Luke, has added that of the weeping of the women. These two incidents are all that are recorded of a scene on which the Christian imagination has ever fondly dwelt.

Now had the men from whom we have the Gospel history been the writers they are sometimes represented to be — men who wrote for selfish and party ends, and who did not hesitate to invent, and to put forth myths when such were likely to be helpful — they could not have resisted the temptation to pile up the miraculous and the legendary at this tragical stage of their story.

But they have written as if they did not even know of temptation of that kind at all. They have told their story as honest simple-minded men 303

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o whom the truth was dearer than their Hves.

From their ample stores of knowledge and experience they have selected just what was needed to fulfil their great purpose in writing, which was to lift up Christ crucified worthily, and as Fie really was, to the view of the world through all ages.

To the first of these two incidents, then, we now turn our attention. A brief verse from each of the Synoptists is all we have regarding it.

Yet each is not just the echo of the others.

Each puts the incident in his own way; and so we find, as might be expected, a touch supplied b}^ one which is not given by the others. Thus we are helped to a complete picture in our own minds.

We see the melancholy procession on its way from the Praetorium to Calvary. Jesus is in its midst bearing His heavy cross. Accompanying Him are the two thieves bearing each a similar burden, and bound for the same tragic end. The soldiers are there in strong force, with their centurion at their head, charged with the safe guarding of the prisoners and the carrying out of the sentence of crucifixion. And the mixed multitude are there, priests, rulers, people of all classes and conditions, enlivening the way with 304

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