Thanks Knowsnothing, see you knew lots! The bible says that Jesus didnt die till the 3rd hour. Many thanks
The "patibulum" : a fragile theory !
by TheFrench 112 Replies latest watchtower bible
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TheFrench
Somewhat off the topic but I have heard that Hitler had experiments done on prisoners on crucifixion and it showed that a man would last less than hour on a stake and much longer on a cross. Any verification?
This is true but men who were tortured in concentration camps were only suspended by the hands. So all the weight of their bodies weighed on the hands.
In ancient times, one who was crucified could have tied or nailed feet. Which had the effect of distributing the weight on two points of support, hands and feet. Under these conditions, the agony lasts longer. This is true whatever the device (or cross post).
Therefore, any comparison must be made keeping in mind the difference.
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mP
Why does it matter what JC was crucified on ? The Romans were in charge and they did what they wanted. Does the message of the NT change that dramatically if he was crucified on a cross or a stake ?
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TheFrench
Indeed this issue stake/cross is not the most important.
But many here are defenders of the truth... Well the truth is told on this issue !
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TheFrench
When we look at references to the punitive patibulum, it was frequently mentioned with references to a stretching out of the hands or arms. In your reply to my post, you say in reference to Seneca that it is not explicit whether this extension of the arms is horizontal or rather vertically on a pole. But the vocabulary used shows quite clearly that the extension is lateral, not vertical. (1) First we have the above-mentioned passage from Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, 359. The slave Sceledrus stands in the doorway trying to block access to the old man's room. Naturally, his arms would have been extended laterally to the two door posts. Palaestrio says to him: "I believe you'll have to walk out of the city gate in that pose very soon, hands spread out as you carry the patibulum (dispessis manibus patibulum quom habebis)". The situation itself makes clear that it is a side-to-side extension of arms, and the verb used here is dispandere "to spread out, extend, expand". (2) Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae 15.15.4) quotes this passage from Plautus and comments: "We say passis manibus of hands and velis passis of sails when they are stretched out and spread (diductis atque distentis)". This comment explains the expression used by Plautus with the verbs distendere "stretch in different directions, stretch apart" and diducere "draw apart, part, split, separate"; the image is one of hands being stretched apart in different directions. This again supports the understanding of patibulum as a crossbeam with the arms stretched in opposite directions, than a vertical raising of the arms together on a pole. (3) Next we have the two references in Seneca. First we read in Consolatio ad Marciam 20.3 that some who fashion "crosses" (cruces) "stretch out the arms on a patibulum" (alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt). This uses explicare "to spread out, unroll", which suggests that the arms (brachia) were spread out and not brought up together along a beam, while (4) Seneca elsewhere (in Fragmenta 124.6) makes reference to someone made "to stretch out his hands with a patibulum" (extendendae per patibulum manus), here using extendere "to stretch out, widen". (5) Lactantius (Epitome Divinarum Institutionum, 51) in reference to the Crucifixion mentions Jesus' "hands stretched out on a patibulum (extendit in patibulo manus), which reached out their wings west to east (in orientem occidentum que porrexit)". The first clause uses extendere with respect to the stretching of the hands on a patibulum, just as Seneca did, and the second clause makes clear that this is a lateral extension from side to side, both in the metaphor of birds' wings (which stretch out to the side when a bird is in flight) and the directionals of west and east (the verb in this clause is porrigere "reach out"). (6) Arnobius (Commentarii in Psalmos 137.33) also connects the patibulum to a stretching out of hands: "He stretched forth his hands upon the patibulum of the cross (extendit manus suas crucis patibulum)", here using the same verb extendere that Lactantius described as a lateral extension in the same situation, and here the patibulum is not the cross as a whole but a part thereof. (7) As a final example, Augustine of Hippo (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 87.9) wrote: "If in fact that he says [by the prophet], 'I stretched out my hands (extendi manus meas),' we understand the patibulum of the cross (crucis patibulum)". This again presents the patibulum as the part of the cross where the hands are outstretched, with the same verb used by Seneca, Lactantius, and Arnobius. These passages show that the word patibulum was closely associated with a stance of outstretched hands, which was rather clearly depicted as lateral in Plautus and Lactantius, and the use of distendere and diducere by Aulus shows it was a stance that had the hands stretched apart in different directions, as it would be if stretched laterally from side to side. Extendere also suggests the expansion of distance between the hands, and patibulum crucis in the references by Arnobius and Augustine indicate that the patibulum is not synonymous with the cross but the portion on which the hands are stretched out. To these examples may be added many others using the word crux instead of patibulum, which is what would be expected if the patibulum was a part of the crux or something added to it. These references also suggest a lateral extension of the arms: (8) Seneca (De Ira 1.2.2) elsewhere refers to "another to have his limbs stretched upon the crux (alium in cruce membra distendere)"; here he uses the same word distendere that Aulis Gellius used to illustrate the use of dispandere manibus in Plautus. The limbs are not brought together or near each other but are stretched apart in different directions. Since this passage describes a similar situation as that in the other two Seneca passages in (3) and (4), it further suggests the use of extendere there should be understood as referring to extension along a lateral beam than up together along a vertical beam.
1), 2)
Yes, Palaestrio wants to spread the arms of Sceledrus on this piece of wood called patibulum. But this piece is also called furca in the works of Plautus. It was used to punish slaves without necessarily causing death. Thus, it was indeed a piece autonomous, independent of the crux, at least in the plays of Plautus. Therefore consider that the patibulum is a crossbar and conclude that the crux of which Plautus speaks, is a cross, because the arms are extended on the patibulum, it's make a shortcut in reasoning. Before reaching this conclusion, you must prove that Plautus refers to a crossbar when he uses the word patibulum in his texts.3)
Yes, "explicuerunt" may refer to the extension of the limbs. But this word does not say how the members are extended. The word "explicare" is used, for instance, to describe the horse which spread its legs at the trot (crurum explicatu). - Pliny the Elder, VIII, 166. Moreover, Seneca could think to a simple pole when using the word because : 1) Seneca already employed patibulum within the meaning of "stake", for instance in his letter 101 to Lucilius 2) Seneca describes a man who has his arms and legs extended on a crux, crux which is obviously a stake: " Noxius infami districtus stipite membra" translates as "The criminal, the limbs extended on the infamous stake" (Latin Anthology, 415, 23 s.) 3) In Consolation to Marcia, the philosopher describes several types of crux. Considering that patibulum means a cross, it involve that the list of Seneca does not include the stake on which it was not unusual to execute a condemned man.4) is indeed a quote attributed to Seneca and transmitted by Lactantius quoted in 5). But the expression used, "extendendae manus", is not unequivocal. That is can be a horizontal extension but also a vertical extension. The verb "extendere" is used in the sense of "extended" or "lie" and does not indicate the direction in which this action is performed. When it is associated to "manus", he gives no details as to the position of the hands or arms. That just indicates the state of arms: in extension. Cicero, for example, uses it to describe the fingers that stretch (extensis digitis) in opposition to the fingers that flex (digitos contraxerat). Latin authors such as Lactantius and others (see 6 and 7) could use "extendere" to describe the extended arms of Jesus on the cross. But when, four centuries earlier, Seneca uses this word, there is no evidence that describe the torture victim lying on a cross, even when it is stated that 'arms are extended'.
8) You quote a special version of the passage of De Ira: "Allium in cruce membra distendere" (1.2.2). But the version generally used, based on the main manuscript of this work, is: "Allium in cruce membra diffindere". - Ambrosianus codex (No. 90). Two other manuscripts which refer translators to establish the Latin text, the codex laurentianus 76, 32, and the codex Parisinus 15086, contain the word "diffundere" instead of "diffindere". I do not know what manuscript contains "distendere". If any, they are marginal. "diffindere" has the meaning "divide", "split", as indicated by Lewis and Short. Diffindere found in Apuleius (second century.): "But the gardener realizes that, far from smooth, the ferocity of the soldier is still irritates her prayers, and even that he wants his life, for he had returned the vine, and, striking the butt, would break his skull (cerebrum diffindere suum). Then he uses an extreme party. "- Metamorphoses, IX, 40, 1. Seneca did he use "diffindere" in the sens of split members of a man attached to a crux? It is very likely because, otherwise, Seneca described the ordeal as Patron will suffer while suspended in a crux: "When you mutilerais all my members (perire membratim), provided that a broken body and impotent I rest away. "For this reason, A. Bourgery translated this passage from De Ira : "a third, dislocate (diffendere) members on the arms of a cross."
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TheFrench
(9) Tertullian (Ad Nationes 1.12) stated: "If you position a man with his arms outstretched (manibus expansis), you have created an image of the cross (imaginem crucis). This text uses the verbexpandere "to spread across, widen" and the context shows clearly that this pose is one with the arms outstretched laterally since this image of the cross includes a crossbeam or antemna. (10) Minucius Felix (Octavius 29.6) made a very similar comparison: "A crossbeam (iugum) set up forms the sign of the cross (crucis signum), and so too does a man with outstretched hands (homo porrectis manibus)". This passage uses porrigere "to reach out", the same verb used byLactantius, and although it can be used more easily with upward extension than many of these other words discussed here (since it involves an act of reaching), it clearly refers to a reaching to the side since the pose is directly compared with the crossbeam of the cross. (11) Rufinus (Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum, 14): "These words, height and breadth and depth are a description of the cross (descriptio crucis).... by breadth the right hand and the left that extend outwards (latitudinem quoque illam quae distenta in dextram laevamque manus)". This image here is one of the two hands extended laterally, one on the right side and one on the left. The verb distendere, again, is the same one used by Senecaand Aulis Gellius, and it emphasizes that the hands are stretched apart in different directions. (12) Finally, we may quoteAugustine of Hippo (De Doctrina Christiana 2.41.62): "Of the cross of the Lord (crucem domini), its breadth (latitudo) is signified by the transverse beam on which the hands are stretched out (in transverso ligno quo extenduntur manus)". This is another clear reference to the hands being stretched out laterally from one side to another, for it explicitly mentions the hands being stretched out upon a transverse beam (in transverso ligno). Taken together, the verbs extendere, distendere, dispandere, diducere, explicare, expandere, and porrigere collectively fit an expansion along a crossbeam much better than an upward extension on the upright. Porrigere, for example, may be used of upward extension, but the two instances here are clearly described as lateral extension.
When a man was tied to a stipes (see here ), he had his arms above his head, stretched along the post. Whether to describe the attitude that the body takes, you could say that the arms are "extended" because that is the upper limbs of body that are abnormally expanded in this torture. Moreover, Seneca, who observed executions in his time, mentions this feature of the body when it tells of a man at the stake: "districtus (...) membra."
A further passage in Seneca (De Vita Beata 19.3) is noteworthy, tho it doesn't mention the hands or arms unambiguously: "They are stretched upon as many crosses as their own desires (quot cupiditatibus tot crucibus distrahuntur)"; the verb here is distrahere "draw in different directions, separate forcibly, divide apart", a meaning very similar to that of distendere. Since "stretching" in crucifixion was otherwise almost unanimously in reference to hands/arms/limbs, distrahere could possibly be added to the list as another word that more felicitously pertains to the stretching of the arms on a crossbeam than on the upright post. What is conspiciously missing in this group are words that more clearly suggest upward extension of the hands, such as erigere "reach up, make erect" (likeporrigere a form of rigere "to reach"), surrigere "to raise, lift up", or elevare, allevare, levare "to lift up, raise". This may be illustrated in the use of such words in passages that do discuss the upright. So Rufinus (Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum, 14) wrote: "By height he meant the part which stretches above the earth and towers upwards (altitudunum vero illam quae super terram porrecta sublimis erigitur)". In addition to porrigere, Rufinus uses erigere to refer to the extension upwards of the upright pole. So in short, the word patibulum pertained both to a horizontal beam used with doors and a beam used in the lateral extension of the hands from side to side in the punishment of slaves and criminals, especially in the case of crucifixion.
Now, to return to the passage of Seneca which you refer, On the happy life - XIX-, patibulum is used interchangeably with stipes for the following reason:
In the context, the writer made a presentation on the virtue and the way the great philosophers like Epicurus, have sought and advocated by their teachings. Seneca speaks in particular of all those who despised them because these philosophers were not living in accordance with what they taught. Seneca takes so their defense by explaining that the important thing was primarily to seek virtue, that these philosophers were trying to do despite their imperfections and their inability to achieve their ideals. Seneca criticized so openly to all those who denigrated these philosophers to be slaves to their greed and their selfish passions. Far from being virtuous, the life of these men was only meanness, tightness and mental distress in contrast to the serenity enjoyed by those philosophers who tended to their high ideals. To illustrate the degree of suffering that must have felt these critics, who were harming themselves by rejecting virtue, Seneca compares each one to a man who "crucify" himself. They wrote:
"You say that not one of [these philosophers] do not realize what he says and lives according to his maxims. No wonder, when their words are so heroic, so sublime, so high dominate all storms human life when they are not meant to tear at least of these crosses [Lat. crucibus] where all, as you are, hold your hands the nails that tear you? "
Seneca compares the mental suffering that these men suffered, they were wrong in themselves, to 'crucibus' on which is nailed themselves. They were, somehow, their tormentor, unlike philosophers who tried to break away from these "cross" by seeking virtue which preserved them from "all the storms of life", as the fact being torn by greed. To show how this suffering was unbearable, and the condition of these greedy men was very poor, Seneca will compare each of them to a torture victim who suffers several simultaneous or successive punishment. Of course, this situation could not happen in reality because we could not attach the same sentenced to several posts at once, or subject it to more of a "crucifixion", the latter leading to death systematically. Seneca writes thus:
"The tortured [in reality] is suspended at least only one pole [Lat. Stipitibus]; those who are abusers themselves [figuratively speaking] suffer many crosses [Lat. Crucibus] that passions of the tug. "
The antithesis of Seneca is meaningful only if "crucibus" is the punishment that the word "stipitibus" evokes, ie the execution of a "stake". The contrast is illustrated by the difference in the number of executions and not in the way that the convict is executed. In reality, the victim suffered "a single [Lat. Singulis] post", so figured, critics philosophers suffer "as much as passions that cross the tug." This antithesis arises a similar meaning to the words and stipes crux, ie "post." Seneca then ends his comparison about the attitude of these "crucified" in the figurative sense: "slanderers however, is to insult others they have graciously. I could not see a hobby, was that some men spew their gallows (lat. patibulo) on those who watch them. ". Denigration, by which these men were critical of the philosophers, he was a "hobby" harmless? No, these men were contemptuous, driven by a relentless hatred which prompted them to boo those seeking virtue. They behaved like those "crucified" spitting their gallows, or patibulum on those who observed them. Again, the term patibulo be understood in the sense of stipitibus or crucibus, since it also falls within the framework of the antithesis.
Thus, Seneca has indeed used the terms crux and patibulum within the meaning of a single vertical post (stipes).
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EdLouisiana
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EdLouisiana
mP wrote:
Why does it matter what JC was crucified on ? The Romans were in charge and they did what they wanted. Does the message of the NT change that dramatically if he was crucified on a cross or a stake?
TheFrench wrote:
Indeed this issue stake/cross is not the most important.
But many here are defenders of the truth... well the truth is told on this issue!
Then he goes on to claim that Seneca, by using stipes, patibulum, and crux to refer to the same torture-execution gallows, clearly meant that they all referred to a vertical stake! Would he, Seneca, not be referring to three discrete parts of the typical crucifixion gallows and by extension, the whole gallows itself?
I do not believe that what TheFrench said is the truth. The truth would be from the epigraphy of the time. Graffiti like the Pozzuoli and the Vivat Crux. The Pozzuoli clearly shows the condemned criminal suspended by a stipes (post), with his arms stretched out on a patibulum (crossarm) while "riding" an acuta crux (small impaling stake, spike, tree-nail). While I'm convinced it was no fun for him, the tagger thought otherwise.
Pozzuoli:
Vivat Crux:
Both images are from The Turin Shroud, past, present and future; International Scientific Symposium, Torino 2-5 March 2000. It was published by Effata.it ( http://www.effata.it/Libri/Sindone/theturin.html ) but it's now out of print.