Crucifixion and Roman punishment

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Crucifixation was a common form of punishment for Roman miscreants.

Crucifixion was a common form of punishment for a special type of offence, viz. political subversion, whether armed or otherwise. The idea that the Romans would have taken the trouble to crucify a solitary prophet extolling love and turning the other cheek is simply absurd, and neither is there any documentary evidence that "common thieves" would have undergone the same type of punishment.

[caldrail]

Crucifixation was a common form of punishment for Roman miscreants. What is exceptional about Christ's punishment is not the crucifixtion, but the idea that he rose from the dead on the 3rd day. This made Christ unique. This typical Roman solution was subverted. Spartacus did not rise from the dead, therefore his case is not unique.

 

That's a modern viewpoint. The idea that Christ rose from the dead was to suggest he was divine in origin. Since Spartacus was a slave a ressurection in Roman eyes would have been offensive to them - why should a slave - a person considered less than human - be granted such a gift? Notice though the ressurection has little practical use. Jesus disappears afterward which to my mind renders the whole exercise suspicious. Why raise someone from the dead and then have them ascend to the afterlife immediately afterward?

 

This is another example of storytelling to create the myth. As Jesus was sentenced by an earthly court to be crucified (there's no hard evidence that actually happened and some circumstantial evidence that Jesus wasn't crucified at all) and was a mortal, his death was very real. In order to provide some meaning to it, some mystery, some religious awe in worshippers, the ressurection was added to justify the description of Jesus as the son of god.

 

Please don't think I'm describing Jesusl by this - I'm not - but there's a parallel with the belief that Hitler didn't die in Berlin in 1945. His 'worshippers' want to believe he was more than the man whose world had collapsed, more than a failed dictator hiding in a bunker whilst his enemies closed around him. So they invent stories of escape and survival in South America even though the evidence from autopsies and eye-witness accounts prove fairly conclusively he shot himself.

[sylla]

Crucifixion was for the filth of the filth; and not just in Rome.

Romans reserved it for non-Romans; barbarians, peregrini and especially slaves (servile supplicium).

When Cicero accused Varro of crucifying Roman citizens, the latter did it in the pretension that they were fugitive slaves.

The rationale was clearly dissuasive; a public, disgraceful, painful dead.

The Romans were very well aware they lived permanently on the verge of potentially dangerous slave rebellions, long before and long after the Servile Wars.

Its application in the context of Judea 33 AD is certainly compatible with the punishment of political rebels; however, almost any crime (especially the violent ones) could have been punished in the same way.

The only thing that all crucified victims had in common was the ostensible lack of respect from their executioners.

My impression is that its use by the Roman authorities over such kind of social scoria (even regular brigands) was entirely discretional.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

however, almost any crime (especially the violent ones) could have been punished in the same way

 

Unless there is documentary evidence to indicate that crucifixion was used to punish any crime it would be wise not to speculate needlessly.

Elaborating further on this theme, it isn't hard to understand why Christians as a group were so reviled and persecuted. The monstrous exaggerations of Imperial Roman propaganda notwithstanding, people back then understood something that today's moderns don't seem to realise, viz. that worshiping a crucified person was tantamount to deifying a person who must have been executed for sedition or armed rebellion against Rome. How, for example, would modern day Americans react to the presence of a sect that worshiped images of Timothy McVeigh strapped to his execution bed?

Edited May 5, 2009 by Gladius Hispaniensis

[caldrail]

It's not about understanding - in fact christian teaching doesn't require or want you to understand, but accept their word. The crucifixion (notice it's called the Crucifixion[/i]) is painted as a martyrdom, a noble death, a self sacrifice. If you you look at the circumstances it clearly wasn't. Jesus upset the Romans and they punished him the same way they'd punish anyone else accused of those infractions.

 

The odd thing though is that the Romans liked to chop undesirable movements down wholesale. Yet only Jesus was crucified - not his disciples - which means only his death was thought sufficient to deal with the problem.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

The odd thing though is that the Romans liked to chop undesirable movements down wholesale. Yet only Jesus was crucified - not his disciples - which means only his death was thought sufficient to deal with the problem.

 

That is an oddity. It might be an index of just how seriously the Romans took Jesus' movement. When the disciples were told to sell their clothes to purchase weapons it turns out there were only two swords between them. The unit and it's commander that were sent to the Garden of Gethsemane to make the arrest are known respectively as Chilliarchos and Speiran, or Tribune and Cohort. If this cohort included auxiliary troops I cannot imagine a body of men exceeding a thousand. So if the story is true then the movement was really considered small potatoes with the authorities.

[caldrail]

But then it wasn't the movement they were after was it? There must have been other religious cults in Judaea at the time. It seems Jesus was a victim of his own behaviour. Now the Bible (naturally) glosses over that, but there are some clues that he wasn't the saintly character he's usually decribed as. That is the problem with the Bible - it's not a history book at all, nor is the NT an objective account of Jesus

[sylla]

Unless there is documentary evidence to indicate that crucifixion was used to punish any crime it would be wise not to speculate needlessly.

Indeed, if you can show me the documentary evidence that indicates and defines exactly which infactions of the peregrini, the slaves and the barbarians were susceptible of being punished by crucifixion, we may not need to speculate.

 

It's not about understanding - in fact christian teaching doesn't require or want you to understand, but accept their word. The crucifixion (notice it's called the Crucifixion[/i]) is painted as a martyrdom, a noble death, a self sacrifice. If you you look at the circumstances it clearly wasn't. Jesus upset the Romans and they punished him the same way they'd punish anyone else accused of those infractions.

 

The odd thing though is that the Romans liked to chop undesirable movements down wholesale. Yet only Jesus was crucified - not his disciples - which means only his death was thought sufficient to deal with the problem.

You mean in that moment; no less than four apostles (Peter, Andrew, Bartholomew and Philip) were eventually crucified.

Edited May 10, 2009 by Nephele

[Northern Neil]

It's not about understanding - in fact christian teaching doesn't require or want you to understand, but accept their word. The crucifixion (notice it's called the Crucifixion[/i]) is painted as a martyrdom, a noble death, a self sacrifice. If you you look at the circumstances it clearly wasn't. Jesus upset the Romans and they punished him the same way they'd punish anyone else accused of those infractions.

 

The odd thing though is that the Romans liked to chop undesirable movements down wholesale. Yet only Jesus was crucified - not his disciples - which means only his death was thought sufficient to deal with the problem.

You mean in that moment; no less than four apostles (Peter, Andrew, Bartholomew and Philip) were eventually crucified.

..not forgetting, of course, that some of the apocryphal gospels said he wasn't crucified at all, and that the Canonical gospels themselves were chosen as the authentic ones 300 years after the events they relate.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Unless there is documentary evidence to indicate that crucifixion was used to punish any crime it would be wise not to speculate needlessly.

Indeed, if you can show me the documentary evidence that indicates and defines exactly which infactions of the peregrini, the slaves and the barbarians were susceptible of being punished by crucifixion, we may not need to speculate.

All the known cases of crucifixion in Roman history were for sedition and armed rebellion. In the absence of evidence that the Romans crucified people for anything other than that then we have no right to assume that they did.

 

You mean in that moment; no less than four apostles (Peter, Andrew, Bartholomew and Philip) were eventually crucified.

 

Just out of curiosity, where does it say that they were were crucified?

 

But then it wasn't the movement they were after was it? There must have been other religious cults in Judaea at the time. It seems Jesus was a victim of his own behaviour. Now the Bible (naturally) glosses over that, but there are some clues that he wasn't the saintly character he's usually decribed as. That is the problem with the Bible - it's not a history book at all, nor is the NT an objective account of Jesus

That would depend on what is meant by "saintly" Of course in the Palestine of Jesus' time it wouldn't be hard for a religious teacher that preached armed rebellion against the pagan Romans to be considered saintly.

[sylla]

You mean in that moment; no less than four apostles (Peter, Andrew, Bartholomew and Philip) were eventually crucified.

 

Just out of curiosity, where does it say that they were were crucified?

Just out of curiosity, should I infer you didn't find any documentary evidence on the Roman indications for crucifixion?

[caldrail]

I wasn't aware of that. However, it doesn't change anything. If the Romans had seen these early christians as a political threat they would have been flushed out and dealt with with en masse. What the Romans actually did then is treat these individuals as undesirable radicals, and given the zealousy we often find in judaic cults, may well have shown no sign of repentance. I do also feel that Pilate was concerned not to ruin his reputation by having a revolt in his province. Instead, if a leader was identified as a threat, arrest him and deal with him quietly. As with all movements, the early christians relied on charismatic individuals for the vitality of their cause; the Romans understood that.

 

I wonder then if the spread of the remaining leaders was more to do with personal danger than religious zeal. The spread of christianity in the early days can't be ignored though. I see that the first ecumenical council was held in Jerusalem in ad50, on the subject of how to treat gentile converts.

Edited May 6, 2009 by caldrail

[sylla]

I wasn't aware of that. However, it doesn't change anything. If the Romans had seen these early christians as a political threat they would have been flushed out and dealt with with en masse. What the Romans actually did then is treat these individuals as undesirable radicals, and given the zealousy we often find in judaic cults, may well have shown no sign of repentance. I do also feel that Pilate was concerned not to ruin his reputation by having a revolt in his province. Instead, if a leader was identified as a threat, arrest him and deal with him quietly. As with all movements, the early christians relied on charismatic individuals for the vitality of their cause; the Romans understood that.

 

I wonder then if the spread of the remaining leaders was more to do with personal danger than religious zeal. The spread of christianity in the early days can't be ignored though. I see that the first ecumenical council was held in Jerusalem in ad50, on the subject of how to treat gentile converts.

I agree. The Jews as a whole were seen as a pretty unreliable and troublesome group thorough the first century AD, and minor factions would undoubtedly have been considered particularly problematic if the native authorities were unable to deal with them.

The Christians were identifed as Jews by the Romans for a long time, and for a good reason; they were so, at least up to the council of Jerusalem (still not considered Ecumenical); even so, the schism was not completed at least up to the Bar Kochba rebellion, when Christians and orthodox Jews openly clashed. It seems that even after Pliny Minor (at least up to Cassius Dio), Christians and Jews were frequently considered together by our sources; so when the Romans complained about Jewish proselitism, it's quite likely that at least some of them would have actually been Christians.

[caldrail]

It is important to realise that Christianity is an offshoot of judaism. It's also a personality cult, one that supports the idea that Jesus was the son of God. Since the Romans were deeply enmeshed in personality cults of their own, the importance of dealing with them is clear, especially in a population you rightly describe as troublesome.

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

I wonder then if the spread of the remaining leaders was more to do with personal danger than religious zeal. The spread of christianity in the early days can't be ignored though. I see that the first ecumenical council was held in Jerusalem in ad50, on the subject of how to treat gentile converts.

 

It depends on what is meant by "Christianity". I seriously doubt the movement crystallized into a separate religion until the advent of Paul of Tarsus. Whatever writings we have available, both biblical and extra biblical, indicate that the early following of Jesus were pious Jews who followed the Mosaic Law, worshiped and sacrificed in the Temple, and were seen as fellow Jews by their own countrymen. That is, until the cataclysmic events of the 60s and the final fall of Masada. The school of thought adhered to by Paul, with its apolitical world view and its disregard for the Law and the Prophets, was the natural survivor of these happenings and finally metamorphosed into a bona fide religion.