CRUCIFIXION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 229, 28 September 1938, Page 7

CRUCIFIXION.

A CRUEL ANCIENT PENALTY. A cross, formed hy two pieces of wood placed transversely, was anciently used in a mode of punishment which probably arose from the custom of fastening prisoners to trees and leaving them to die by hunger or by wild beasts. The Persians. Syrians, Phoenicians. Egyptians and Carthaginians used this mode of capital punishment, which was at Rome, under the government of the kings, inflicted on persons of all conditions in life, but later only on slaves and the w»rst malefactors. According to Roman law. the sufferer was first scourged, and then compelled to carry his cross to the place of execution, outside the town in which the sentence had been passed. Here he was stripped naked and fastened to the cross by tving or nailing. The punishment was abolished in the time of Constantine. Instances are on record of persons being taken down and surviving after remaining some time on the cross. During the reign of Louis XV. of France, several women (religious enthusiasts called "convulsionaires") voluntarily underwent crucifixion as a part of their religious services. The cross was in form either simple or composite. The simple cross was a mere stake on which the condemned was impaled, or on which he was fastened by the hands crossed above his head. A tree —hence Seneca's phrase, "infelix lignum," the "accursed tree"— was convenient for the purpose. There were several forms of the composite cross. The most common, resembling the letter X, is also called St. Andrew's Cross, implying that that saint was crucified on an instrument of this shape. Another form, the Tau-cross, was shaped like the Greek letter T. It is called St. Anthony's Cross because it was said 1 to have been embroidered 011 that saint's cope.