The Life Of Jesus Christ In Its Historical Connexion

By Augustus Neander

Section 290. Details of the Crucifixion.

WHEN Jesus reached the place of execution, he was offered, as was usual, a spiced wine, [782] intended to stupify the mind and deaden the pains of death. Oppressed with burning thirst, he tasted of the wine; but when he perceived the stupifying drug, he refused to drink, that he might die in full consciousness. Stripped of nearly all his clothing, [783] he was lifted up to the cross, bound, and then nailed to it by his hands and feet. [784] (The chief pain of this cruel death, according to a writer who lived while it was yet known and used, consisted in the hanging of the body while the hands and feet were nailed.)