CHAPTER V.

THE FOURTH ARTICLE.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.

I. He suffered. Having confessed that for us men and for our salvation, the Eternal Son of God came down from heaven and was made Man, the Creed passes on to the equally marvellous truth, that "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried."

2. His Sufferings predicted.

For as the first

Adam brought sin into the world and death by sin (Rom. v. 12, 14), so from the beginning it was predicted, with more or less clearness, that the Second Adam, who knew no sin but came to put away sin, should suffer and die (Mk. ix. 12; 1 Pet. i. 11). Thus the earliest prophecy had declared that the Seed of the woman should bruise the Serpent's head, but at the same time had whispered that the Serpent should bruise His heel1 (Gen. iii. 15). The Prophets, moreover, who were raised up one after the other to foreshadow the Person, Office, and Work of the Messiah, intimated that His triumph would not be that of an earthly conqueror. Isaiah spoke of the coming of a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; of His being wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; of His being oppressed and afflicted, of His being brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, and of His being stricken for the transgression of His people (Isai. liii. 1-10); Zechariah, again, had predicted that the Messiah should be

1 That is, His human nature.

2 See Micah v. 2; Isai. vii. 14; Zech. vi. 13; Isai. lxi. 1, and read Pearson On the Creed, Art. IV.

smitten (Zech. xiii. 7); and Daniel had declared that He should be cut off, but not for Himself1 (Dan. ix. 26).

3. And fulfilled. And even so was it fulfilled. For our blessed Lord having grown up to man's estate in the despised town of Nazareth (Jn. i. 46), at length came forth on His errand of wondrous Love. Having been baptized in the Jordan by his forerunner John the Baptist (Mtt. iii. 15, 16; Lk. iii. 21, 22), for three years He went about the towns and villages of Palestine, declaring in discourses and parables such as never man spake the will of His Father, and proving Himself victorious over nature and the spirit-world, over disease and death. But though He came to His own, His own received Him not (Jn. i. 11). Though he went about doing good, His lowly birth caused Him to be despised and rejected (Mtt. xiii. 55-57); the rulers of the nation hated Him, and sought to kill Him; one of His own disciples betrayed Him; and at length He was brought as a prisoner before Pontius Pilate2, the Roman 3 governor of Judæa, as One who deserved to die, because He made Himself the Son of God (Jn. xix. 7).

1 Moreover, while "the Prophets said in express terms that the Messiah, whom they foretold, should suffer, Moses said so in those ceremonies which were instituted by his ministry," (1) in the sacrifice of the Pascal lamb, (2) in the uplifting of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, (3) in the Sacrificial ritual generally, which all pointed to a greater and a perfect Sacrifice. And what the prophets predicted, and the Law of Moses foreshadowed, our Lord Himself declared to His Apostles would be fulfilled (Lk. xviii. 31).

2 By the mention of the name of this governor the Creed determines the time when the Saviour suffered. For from the monuments of history (Tacitus, Annals, XV. 44), we know that Pontius Pilate was sent forth by Tiberius Cæsar to be procurator of Judæa in A.D. 26, and that he held this office till the year A. D. 36. See Class-Book of New Testament History, pp. 150-152.

3 For "the power of life and death was not in any court

4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. When the Holy One was brought before his tribunal, Pilate examined Him and the charges brought against Him, and three times declared that he found no fault in Him (Jn. xviii. 38). But though he pronounced Him to be innocent, though he washed his hands in token of it, and knew well that it was for envy that the chief priests and rulers had delivered Him up (Mtt. xxvii. 18), he did not release Him. Carried away by the furious clamour of His accusers he first gave orders that He should be scourged. This painful and horrible1 punishment the Holy One suffered. The soldiers of Pilate executed his command with their wonted severity, and not content with inflicting upon Him cruel stripes, they placed a reed in His right hand, they saluted Him in mockery Hail, King of the Jews, they struck Him with the reed, they spat in His face, and heaped upon Him indignities unspeakable?.

5. Was Crucified. But this spectacle of terrible suffering borne without a single murmur drew forth no pity from the Jews. Crucify3 Him, Crucify Him, was their cry (Jn. xix. 6). For awhile Pilate hesitated, but at length, willing to content the people (Mk. xv. 15), he delivered the Holy One to a band of soldiers, who led

of the Jews, but in the Roman governor alone as supreme." See Pearson On the Creed, Art. 1v., and Lightfoot on Mtt. xxvi. 3.

1 See Class-Book of New Testament History, p. 305, n.

2 Compare Mtt. xxvii. 28-30; Mk. xv. 18, 19; John

xix. 2.

3 Crucifixion was not a Jewish but a Roman punishment, and only inflicted by them on slaves and the lowest criminals. Had the Jews been at liberty to inflict the punishment due by their law for the crime of blasphemy, that punishment would have been by stoning (Levit. xxiv. 16). See Pearson On the Creed, Art. IV; Class-Book of New Testament History, p. 309 and notes.

Him forth without the city to a place called Golgotha, the place of a skull1 (Mtt. xxvii. 33). There the soldiers stripped Him of His garments, nailed His hands and feet to a Cross, placed a title over His head, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews, and thus crucified Him between two malefactors, one on His right hand, the other on His left (Mtt. xxvii. 37, 38).

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6. Dead. In the Nicene, as also in some of the earlier Creeds, we say that our Lord was crucified under Pontius Pilate and suffered." But the Apostles' Creed adds that He "died," that is, that His crucifixion ended in a real death2. And this is added in opposition to the opinions of those who taught that His death was not real, but only apparent. The truth however of His death is clearly set forth in the Gospels. For they tell us that after He had hung upon the Cross about six hours, i.e. from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon, He cried with a loud voice, Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit (Lk. xxiii. 46), and gave up the ghost, which means that His spirit was separated from His body, and, as death consists in this separation, so far as He was Man, He died. Moreover, when the soldiers deputed for this purpose by Pilate, at the request of the Jewish rulers, came to Golgotha, they broke the

1 In Greek called Kranion, probably from the shape of its rounded summit. The Vulgate has rendered it in locum Calvaria, whence comes the English Calvary (Lk. xxiii. 33).

2 Compare the third Article of the Church of England, "who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried."

3 The error of the Docetæ. See Bp. Browne On the Articles, Art. II.

4 Death by crucifixion did not generally supervene till after three days, and was at last the result of gradual numbing and starvation. During this time the Romans permitted the sufferers to linger on, instead of shortening their agonies. The Mosaic law did not permit such barbarities, see Deut. xxi. 22, 23.

legs of the two malefactors, but when they came to the body of Jesus, they found that He was dead already (Jn. xix. 33). They broke, therefore, not a bone of His body', but one of the soldiers thrust his spear into His side, thus inflicting a wound of itself sufficient to cause death2, and immediately there flowed forth blood and water (Jn. xix. 34), showing by this separation of the blood from the water, that he was truly dead.

7. And buried. And as He truly died, so also was He truly "buried3." For the Gospel narratives relate, that before the tidings of the Saviour's death could reach the ears of Pilate, Joseph of Arimathæa, a man of wealth, a member of the Sanhedrin, and a secret disciple of Jesus, boldly went to the procurator and requested that the Body of the Redeemer might be given up to him (Mk. xv. 43). Assured by the centurion who had been present at the crucifixion, that death had really taken place, Pilate assented, and Joseph having purchased fine linen proceeded to Golgotha with Nicodemus, who had bought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight (Jn. xix. 39). Arrived there, they took down the Holy Body, wrapped it in the linen clothes with the myrrh and aloes, and conveyed it to a new tomb that Joseph

1 Thus unconsciously fulfilling the type of the Paschal lamb (Ex. xii. 46; Ps. xxxiv. 20), just as the piercing of the side fulfilled the words of Zechariah, that men should look upon Him whom they had pierced (Zech. xii. 10).

2 The spear used is called Xóyxn (Jn. xix. 34), i.e. the Roman hasta, the iron head of which was the width of a handbreadth, and pointed at the end.

3 The burial of our Lord formed a distinct subject of St Paul's preaching, as appears from 1 Cor. xv. 4. And since in Baptism the Christian is said to be buried with Christ (Col. ii. 12) into death (Rom. vi. 4), the afternoon of Easter Eve was in the Early Church one of the most favourite times for baptizing. See Guericke's Antiq. of the Christian Church, p. 149, and compare the Collect for Easter Even.

M. C.

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