Deliverance from the Cross — Page 76
of which must coincide with the other and fit into the whole pattern. 1. Jesus suffered no fatal injury in the course of his Passion. 2. There is an evident major contrast between the condition of Jesus, who according to the Gospel, was fully conscious to the end and the usual condition of a gravely injured, dying man. 3. The end came suddenly, virtually without any previous warning After a careful consideration and comparison of these three points and all possible causes of death, there remains only heart failure. Heart failure is a collective description for several causes of death in which heart activity ceases instantly. Yet, heart failure must be eliminated for two reasons. First, a young and healthy man of thirty-three does not usually die of heart failure. Secondly, an unmistakable indication has come down to us making heart failure seem impossible. A man suffering from heart failure would have been unable to speak or to call out loudly: It is finished. Such an exclamation presupposed a full realisation that the end had come, the realisation and the exclamation together requiring only a few seconds. But heart failure does not allow the victim even a second. Therefore, it must have been a process which - from the moment of terror to the bowing of the head took anything 76 -