th in opposition to certain early heretics, the
Docetae, who said that His death was not real but only apparent. A
similar view has been adopted by some modern writers, who assert that
what the witnesses of the crucifixion saw was not death but a swoon,
from which, through the ministry of His disciples, Jesus was restored
after He had been taken down from the cross. It is urged in support of
this view that a crucified criminal did not usually die as Jesus is said
to have died, six hours after He was crucified, but lingered on for
days, before being relieved from his sufferings by death. Jesus' legs
were not broken by the soldiers, because they believed Him to be dead,
but--say those who deny the reality of the death--the soldiers were
mistaken, the seeming lifelessness was not real, and recovery soon
followed, so complete that He was able to appear in public on the third
day.

In considering this statement, we must take into account the physical
condition of Jesus when He was crucified. On the night of His betrayal,
and after His apprehension, He had been subjected to intense suffering
in body and to sorrow of soul such as human thought cannot conceive. In
Gethsemane He had passed through an experience of agony from which He
must have risen weakened, to endure new forms of suffering. He had been
scourged by Roman soldiers, whose cruel loaded weapons inflicted wounds
that left deep scars upon His flesh and caused intense pain and
exhaustion. His hands and feet had been fixed to the cross with nails.
He had been crowned with thorns and mocked and hooted by a reckless mob.
He had been hurried from the Sanhedrim to the Judgment-hall, and had
carried the cross until He sank beneath its weight. He had for six hours
endured intense suffering from pain and thirst, and when, after a strong
Roman soldier had thrust a spear into His side, He was taken down from
the cross, and declared by the centurion and his company to be dead, He
was laid without food, and remained for two nights and a day, in a cold
rock-sepulchre, whose door was barred by a great stone, sealed, and
guarded by soldiers. Suppose for a moment that Jesus had survived this
terrible ordeal of suffering, and that, having eluded His Roman guard
and His Jewish persecutors, He had again entered into Jerusalem, it must
have been as a weak, disabled invalid, not as a man possessing normal
strength and vigour. Yet on the third day He showed Himself alive,
bearing no traces