Killing Jesus: A History

before reaching the place of execution, it is the exactor mortis who will be held responsible. So a pilgrim bystander, an African Jew named Simon of Cyrene, 1 is enlisted to carry the crossbeam for Jesus.
    The procession continues. Despite the assistance, the Nazarene is constantly on the verge of fainting. Each stumble drives the thorns on his head deeper into his skull. Jesus is so thirsty he can barely speak.
    Meanwhile, just a few hundred yards away, in the Temple courts, the celebration of Passover is well under way, diverting the attention of many who revere Jesus and who might otherwise have rioted to intervene and save his life.
    The execution site, Golgotha, is not a large hill. It is a low rise within a very short distance from Jerusalem’s city wall. In fact, anyone standing atop those walls will be able to view Jesus’s crucifixion at eye level and will be so close that they can hear every word he says if he speaks loudly enough.
    But Jesus hasn’t spoken in hours. As the procession arrives atop Golgotha, the soldiers send Simon away and hurl the crossbeam onto the dirt and rough limestone—“Jerusalem rock,” some call it. The death squad takes control here. They force Jesus to the ground, laying his torso atop the upper crossbeam, the patibulum . His hands are then stretched out and two soldiers put all their weight on his extended arms, as another approaches with a thick mallet and a six-inch iron nail with a square shaft that tapers to a point.
    The soldier hammers the sharpened point into Jesus’s flesh, at precisely the spot where the radius and ulna bones meet the carpals of the wrist. He jabs the nail hard into the skin to stabilize it before impact.
    Jesus cries out in pain as the iron pierces its mark. The Romans use the wrist location because the nail never hits bone, instead passing all the way through to the wood with just a few sharp swings of the hammer. The wrist bones, meanwhile, surround the soft tissue, forming a barrier. So when the cross is hoisted upward and the victim’s body weight suspends from that spike, the bones keep the thin layer of muscle from ripping, preventing the person from falling to the ground.
    The first wrist secure, the executioner moves on to the second. A crowd watches from the base of the hill. Among them are Jesus’s devoted friend Mary Magdalene and his mother, Mary. She came to Jerusalem for Passover, not having any idea what would befall her son. Now she can do nothing but look upon him in anguish.
    After Jesus is nailed to the crossbeam, the executioners hoist him to his feet. A careful balancing act ensues, because the weight of the wood is now on Jesus’s back—not his shoulders. In his weakened state, he could easily fall over. Soldiers hold up both ends of the crossbeam, while a third steadies Jesus as they back him toward the vertical beam that will complete the cross.
    The staticulum , as this in-ground pole is known, is close to eight feet tall. In cases where the Romans want a victim to suffer for days before dying, a small seat juts out halfway up its length. But tomorrow is the Sabbath, and Jewish law says that a man must be taken off the cross before it begins. The Romans want Jesus to die quickly. Thus, there is no seat ( sedile ) on Jesus’s cross.
    Nor is there a footrest. Instead, when the moment comes that his feet are nailed into the wood, they must first be flexed at an extreme angle.
    One soldier grabs Jesus around the waist and lifts him up as the other two hoist their ends of the crossbeam. The fourth executioner stands atop a ladder that leans against the staticulum , guiding the crossbeam into the small joint that has been carved into the top of the vertical piece. The weight of Jesus’s body holds the beam inside the groove.
    And so it is that Jesus of Nazareth now hangs on the cross. Another moment of agony comes when Jesus’s knees are bent slightly and his feet are lapped one over the other and nailed into place. The spike passes through the fine metatarsal bones on its way into the wood but, amazingly, none of the bones break, which is extremely unusual in a crucifixion.
    Finally, in the spot directly over Jesus’s head, the sign carried by the exactor mortis is nailed into the cross. Their physical work done, the death squad begins mocking Jesus, throwing dice for his once-fine tunic and calling up to him, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”
    The Roman killers will remain on Golgotha until Jesus