The Tomb of Jesus — Page 22
22 the criminals, but they had been so accustomed to this procedure for many years that we cannot believe that after having performed their duty with the other two, they would forget the practice, momentarily, in the case of the third body upon the cross. The ancient records to which I have been referring, state that when the soldiers were notified that the body must be taken down immediately because a release had come and that everything must be done to permit Jesus to regain. His consciousness and strength if He had not passed through transition, they realized that they were not to injure, torture, or in any way affect the ease and comfort of Jesus, but to relieve Him as quickly as possible from the agony in which they found Him. "It may be interesting to call attention to the fact that nowhere in the Gospels of Matthew,. Mark, Luke and John, is the positive statement as an observation of one of these disciples that Jesus died on the cross or that He was dead when they removed Him from the cross and placed Him in the tomb. ,,24. VII. The Gospel account, as well as all the standard works on the life of Jesus, are fully 24 H. Spencer Lewis, The Mystical Life of Jesus, fifth edition, pp 270, 271.