The Tomb of Jesus — Page 16
16 and sufferer died rather from the continuance and increase of the unutterable anguish exhaustion of his torturing position, and then subjoins the account, already cited from Josephus, of a person known to that historian, who had been crucified apparently for several hours, but having been taken down from the cross, and committed to medical care, survived and recovered. In their laborious attempts to prove that for some time before his death Christ was reduced to a state of extreme debility the Gruners strongly insist on the accessory or subordinate sufferings of crucifixion, as materially concurring with the principal ones in producing this effect; but, on an impartial examination of the matter, their insufficiency is obvious. The scourging, mockery, and labor of carrying the cross, were not in themselves more distressing to Jesus than to the malefactors who accompanied him; his fasting and watching had not, at farthest, continued longer than from the preceding evening; his removal from place to place was not likely to be attended with much fatigue, since all the places lay within a narrow compass; and heat of climate could not have been very oppressive in Jerusalem at the vernal equinox, to a native of the country; more especially when it is considered that, during the