YESHUA RAISED ON WOOD
1:01 p.m. — YERUSHALAYIM, FRIDAY, APRIL 7, A.D. 30
YESHUA HAS BEEN RAISED WITHOUT DELAY.
The purple cloak that he still kept on his shoulders, tied around his neck, was taken from him, and then his robe took his turn. Unrolling it, the upper part of the tunic was exposed. It was a shapeless stain, bloody and glued to the body above the scourging wounds. What would happen when you undress him? However, the harrowing trance was delayed by a problem that no one had counted on: the crown of thorns.
As one of the soldiers prepared to remove his tunic, another noticed the intertwining of the spikes, noting that either they tore the tunic or they had to remove the crown first. The soldiers became embroiled in an argument, which would have continued indefinitely if the optio had not intervened. With a practical sense much more pronounced than that of his soldiers, he limited himself to touching the cloth and, when he saw that it was a seamless tunic, that is, without sewing, he ordered the executioners to strip him of the crown.
At first it seemed absurd that the legionaries should argue over something that could have had a quick and easy solution, tearing clothes, but it was an unofficial custom for executioners to distribute the clothes of the condemned among themselves. Thus, one of the Romans placed himself in front of Yeshua, slowly inserting his fingers through two of the openings of the crown, when his hands grabbed the bundle of reeds at the height of the ears he gave a violent pull upwards making Yeshua shudder in pain, but the spiked helmet did not come off completely.
Some of the long, sharp spikes were buried solidly in the flesh, and that first attempt only managed to tear the tissue further, drawing new threads of blood.
Marcellus shook his head impatiently, reminding the soldier that he would first have to widen horizontally and then pull over. The Nazarene pressed his lips together and waited for the second pull. When widening to the sides, many of the spines in the parietal and frontal areas came loose. The executioner repeated the maneuver. The vertical pull was so violent that the helmet jumped, but the spikes situated above the cheeks and the nape of the neck scratched the skin, and two of the spines embedded in the right cheekbone and the left levator muscle broke and became lodged in both regions. the face. A groan accompanied that brutal start and the Sadducees, attentive, welcomed the maneuver with applause and acclamation.
Before he had time to recover from the new, sharp pains, two of the soldiers raised his arms, while a third undressed him, lifting his tunic at the lower hem. Upon discovering her, her legs were crossed and traversed in every direction by ruts of blood, clots, bluish bruises, bursts and an infinity of small circles, most of them opened by the toes of her Roman sandals. As for the knees, the left one had considerable swelling. The right one, although less deformed, was open on the anterior surface of the patella, showing multiple tears and loss of subcutaneous cellular tissue, and even part of the penosteum of the bone could be seen. It was incomprehensible how that human being had managed to walk and drag himself on his knees to the wall.
But the martyrdom had not even begun...
The creak of the robe as it detached itself from Yeshua's torso made him pale with pain. The legionary, seeing that the fabric was glued to the wounds, did not hesitate, turned his head and, smiling maliciously at his companions, slowly lifted his tunic, savoring every moment of pain of the man in front of him. The linen peeled away from the wounds, pulling out great scabs of blood.
Finally, when the robe was rolled up to the Nazarene's face, the soldiers lowered his arms and head, stripping him of all his clothing, leaving him entirely naked, slightly bent over, and bathed in new hemorrhages.
Seeing that back scorched with bruises and rips, Longinus was perplexed. The cruel detachment of the tunic opened many of the wounds, causing another profuse bleeding. Despite the protection of the robes and tunic, the wood had injured the upper part of the shoulder blades, ulcerating the areas of the right shoulder blade and the skin over the left muscular bundle of the trapezius. In this last region there was a abrasion of about nine by six centimeters, with irregular edges and wrinkling of the skin, possibly produced in one of the violent falls. The elbows were also practically destroyed by the blows and falls. As for the left forearm, friction with the cord of the patibulum had defibrated the muscular plane, with loss of substance and large purplish areas. But the most terrifying sight was from the back. The kicks had torn apart some of the bruises and butchered many of the muscle fibers vital to respiratory function. Blood flowed again through that human wreckage that, when stripped of clothing, had begun to shiver, accusing the harsh blows of wind and dust.
The helplessness, abandonment and bitterness of that man reached at that moment one of its highest points. The onlookers and bystanders who had come to swell the initial group of witnesses broke through those dramatic moments, mocking and welcoming with great laughter the nakedness of Galileo. The priests, in particular, were the most corrosive. Some even jumped to the lower cliffs of Golgotha, gesticulating and imitating Yeshua who, humiliated and with his head bowed, hid the pudenta region with both hands.
Freed from the grip of the spiked helmet, her hair began to float in the wind, revealing the marks of the executioner Lucilius' lashes on her ears. Despite the desert heat at that moment in Yerushaláyim, Yeshua continued to shiver with cold. When without the protection of clothes, wide areas of the arms, chest, belly and legs offered the well-known appearance of chicken skin. The fever, instead of giving way, continued to weaken him.
Although his disciples and friends were not present, with the exception of Yousef of Armathajim, very few would have recognized him at that moment. The pains, the exhaustion and the thirst were unbearable, however, outraged and without the most fleeting breath or proof of friendship or encouragement, his true and deepest torture was not the physical ailments, but the feeling of moral annihilation that always invaded a man unjustly condemned.
His end was very near. As the soldiers placed the patibulum near the central stipe, Longinus addressed the group of women and invited them to also give the Rabbi the drink of gall and wine. And the same Hebrew women, with a hasty step, made their way towards the Rabbi of Galilee.
As they parted from their companions, right behind those in charge of the brewing, young Yohanan Marcos appeared. The Jews filled the wooden bowl for the second time, offering the fetid liquid to Yeshua. The Nazarene raised his head and looked at the women. The latter, finding the condemned man's silence strange, made a slight movement with the bowl, encouraging him to drink, but he couldn't make up his mind. His hands didn't move from his genitals. Respecting his modesty, the one holding the drink placed it to her lips, tilting the container so that he could drink it without using his hands.
Yeshua opened his mouth and tasted the liquid, but as soon as he realized what it was, he turned his face away, shaking his head. The prisoner's attitude astonished the Hebrews and the centurion. They looked at Longinus and he shrugged his shoulders again, concluding the matter.
Yeshua's attitude, refusing the bilious brandy, disconcerted Longinus. When he opened his mouth, his tongue, with its dry mucous membranes like burlap, revealed the agonizing ordeal of dehydration. Lips cracked like the hull of an old stranded boat must be enduring a smothering thirst. He can't understand why he turned his face to the wineglass.
Seeing Yousef de Armathajim, Yohanan Marcos' face lit up, he ran across the few meters that separated him and hugged him. His cheeks were dirty, an unmistakable sign of his tears. Whimpering and between sobs, the young man begged him to save the Rabbi.
Before the boy attracted the attention of the legionaries, Yousef managed to persuade him to move away, Yohanan Marcos did not understand, but obeyed. The optio, alerted by one of the soldiers who was on guard around the scaffold, approached the two disciples, advising them politely, but with a firmness that left no room for doubt, to get the young man out of there. It was not necessary to repeat it. Yohanan Marcos disappeared into the midst of the women descending from Golgotha. After a while, Yousef saw him with Yehudhah Ish Qeryoth, just as he had asked.
— The time has come — the centurion warned.
Submissive, hands hiding his testicles, the Nazarene began to crawl, rather than walk toward the crosses. Longinus and another legionnaire escorted him, supporting him by the arms.
The guerrilla who had been nailed in the first place was still alive, having convulsions from time to time. But the soldiers paid him no attention. Kneeling before the patibulum, the executioner responsible for the jam waited with one of the terrifying blacksmith's nails in his right hand. It was practically similar to the ones used before, eight inches long and with a sharp point, though not quite as much as its Brothers. There was another detail that also distinguished it from the previous ones, although the section was quadrangular, the edges were notably deteriorated, with burrs and dents.
The soldiers placed Yeshua with his back to the wood and, pulling his arms away, pulled him to the ground, at the same time as a third legionary repeated the sweep. At this point the condemned's extreme weakness was more than enough to hasten the fall. Once his shoulder blades were on the wood, the executioners supported his arms on the patibulum, while holding the ends of the rough cylinder with their knees. The palms were up, the fingertips slightly flexed, quivering and splattered with dried blood.
The left leg, inflamed at the knee, had been bent, but the chain-keeper tried to extend it, lowering it with a dry slap on the kneecap. The Galilean acknowledged the pain, opening his mouth, but he did not groan.
Longinus, at his usual post at the head of the accused, who was touching the rock with his hair, prepared himself, pointing the shaft of the pilum at Yeshua's forehead. The chief executioner's assistants extended their arms and the one at the left end of the torso, unsheathing the sword, and placing the blade over Yeshua's four largest fingers. This facilitated the work of fixing the upper end to the patibulum. If the prisoner tried to react, when he grabbed the edge he would fatally cut himself. The degree of cruelty and skill of those legionaries knew no bounds.
To a certain extent, the numerous gullies of blood that bathed the Nazarene's broad forearms made it difficult to explore the vessels. Finally, the executioner seemed to distinguish the bluish lines of the arteries and veins, marking the point chosen for the perforation. Before looking up at the centurion, the soldier who was about to hammer the nail, extremely surprised at Yeshua's docility, looked at his companions, accentuating his surprise with a significant movement of his eyebrows. The others, equally astonished, responded with the same sign.
Longinus, tired of holding the spear, had lowered his weapon, authorizing the first blow with another slight nod. And the executioner, holding the nail completely perpendicular to the center of the wrist, in the set of small carpal bones, threw the mallet against the head of the nail. The tip, somewhat blunt, was immediately lost through the fabric. The skin surrounding the metal burst open with extreme ease, soon sprouting a thick crown of blood. When opening, the tip of the nail passed between the tendons, bones and vessels, rubbed by the median nerve, one of the most sensitive in the body, causing a painful discharge difficult to understand.
Instantly, the arms contracted, Yeshua's head shot upward, remaining tense and swaying, parallel to the ground. The teeth clenched for a few seconds opened and the condemned man, when everyone was expecting a natural and high-pitched scream, just drew in a short, gasping breath. The soldiers, who were expecting a violent reaction, could not help but be astonished.
Finally, defeated by grief, Yeshua dropped his head back, striking himself on the rock. Everyone believed he had passed out, but seconds later, he opened his right eye, accelerating his breathing rate. Yeshua only breathed through the mouth, because the nasal septum had presented complications, as a result of the blows, making it impossible to breathe through the nose.
The executioner shifted position, leaning this time to his right arm, but the second puncture had complications. The blood had started to come out extremely slowly, forming a bracelet around the Nazarene's left wrist, evidently, the nail was serving as a plug, giving rise to hemostasis or stagnation of blood flow. The slight hemorrhage was a double-edged weapon, in these situations, the pain increased.
Marcellus and the officer looked at each other, not understanding the absence of screams and the classic kick of every man who knows himself on the verge of death. On the contrary, that convict, far from causing trouble, had begun to arouse deep admiration in Longinus and in his place—lieutenant. The contrast with the zealot who, suspended from the cross, ripped the air with his shouts and curses was so extraordinary that the officer, seeing that he still had the spear in his hands, threw it violently against the base of the crosses, suddenly indignant with himself.
The second hammer blow was as accurate as the first. The nail bent evenly, turning its head towards his fingers, but instead of penetrating the wood of the patibulum, following the direction of the elbow, the piece barely scratched the trunk. In this second jam, Yeshua did not even raise his head, large drops of sweat had begun to run down his temples, bumping here and there in the clots, he limited himself to opening his mouth to the maximum, releasing a guttural, choking and indecipherable sound.
— What's up? the centurion asked, seeing the head of the carnation more than four inches above his right wrist. The executioner released his arm and examined the concave surface of the wood. As he ran the pads of his fingers over the bark, he shook his head in annoyance, and turning to Longinus, he explained that he had tied a knot.
Without losing his temper, the legionary placed his tortured wrist again against the patibulum and, holding the edge of the nail between his index and thumb, prepared to overcome the resistance of the inopportune obstacle with a new hammer. The blow was so violent that the pyramidal section of the nail broke a few inches from the condemned man's bloodied skin.
The new setback was accompanied by a loud imprecation from the legionary. He tossed the pack to one side and ordered his companions to hold his forearm. Then, gripping the end of the metal as best he could, he strained, trying to pull out what was left of the nail. It was in vain. The tip had managed to pierce the knot and the metal held. Amid further curses, the furious soldier stood up, stepped on Yeshua's ulna-radial zone with his sandal, and began to pull out the nail, causing it to swing back and forth. Even Longinus paled at the sight of this new slaughter. The executioner's brusque tugs, seeking release from the metal, widened the opening of the wrist, ripping tissue and flooding the executioner's fingers, patibulum, and rock with blood.
The pain was relieved, in part, by the profuse bleeding.
With every pendulum movement of the soldier, in his effort to extract the piece, Yeshua of Natsrat responded with a lament. Five, six... eight shakes and as many moans, accompanied by a few gasps and various head movements, but he didn't protest at all...
After almost an eternity, the executioner separated the end of the trunk and, after pulling the metallic bar from the carpus, reddened and dripping, went to the leather bag, rummaging inside. Returning to the Nazarene, Yousef saw that he was carrying a kind of short gimlet with a wooden handle. He pushed the Galilean's arm away and, after spitting on the stain of blood that covered the wood, cleaned the area where the knot was with his hand. He took the tool and inserted the spiral thread into the hole made by the nail. Leaning all his body weight on the handle, he turned the iron auger, opening the roughness with slow but steady movements. The operation was laborious. However, his blood continued to flow, making an extensive pool on the white surface of Golgotha.
Yeshua paled for a moment and Longinus feared he would enter a new state of shock. When the soldier considered that he had drilled the patibulum as much as he needed, he reached into his belt and took out another nail. First he examined the tip and the head. Once satisfied, he raised the convict's forearm to the starting position. However, this time he passed his wrist through the wide opening with extreme ease. When the point came out of the back of his hand, the executioner inserted it into the hole he had just made and only then repeated the hammer. Once the knot was over, the clove entered the wood without any problems. With the second blow, Yeshua's right arm was definitely nailed.
The base of the harpsichord, like the left wrist, did not touch the flesh. As with the guerrillas, when his wrists were locked, his thumbs bent, bouncing and turning into the palms of his hands, in the opposite direction from the four fingers, slightly flexed.
While the wound on the left wrist was only fifteen by nineteen millimeters, the one on the right was much more ostentatious, nearly eight inches long, along the axis of the forearm. That opening made Longinus fear for his stability when he was hoisted onto the stipe.
Wouldn't there be a tear in the fabrics? - Thought the centurion, astonished by everything he had seen.
The soldiers obeyed the officer. This was taking too long. So, with the help of the optio, they hoisted the patibulum and the one crucified with it, acting lightly when it came to threading the prisoner into the rope that was supposed to be used to lift him to the top of the tree.
As he passed the rope through the groove at the end of the etype and began to stretch it, the log, controlled by the legionaries so that it did not lose its horizontal position, began a slow and exasperating rise. The strong gusts of wind, covering the Nazarene's body with successive loads of dust and earth, began to make the lifting difficult.
Shouting, the centurion demanded the presence of the two men who were sentry on Golgotha, placing them next to the ladder, as support for the soldier who was pulling on top. As long as the Galilean kept his feet on the rock, the position of his arms could remain more or less on the axis of the patibulum. Little by little, the head regained its verticality, sometimes falling forward, touching the upper end of the sternum.
In one of the pulls, after having slowly sucked in the air, Yeshua fleetingly lifted his head and directing his gaze to the sky, exclaimed:
— Father!... Forgive them!... They don't know what they are doing!
The soldiers, hearing the broken voice, stopped. Yeshua had spoken in Aramaic, with the exception of one or two legionaries, the others did not understand but, regrettably, wanted to know the meaning. The two who had understood looked at each other uncertainly, and before translating the condemned man's words, one of the soldiers slapped Christ in the face.
— Damned Hebrew! — muttered the one who had slapped him — neither the dead nor the living are worthy of pity!
— We don't know then what we do... — he shouted after the one who had done the punctures. — Hope you see!
And going to the center of Calvary, he picked up the helmet of thorns from the ground and then returned to Galileo. The centurion, who also did not understand the meaning of the expression, hesitated at the irritated attitude of his men, who did not dare to intervene. Deep down, he was also offended by what appeared to be mockery of his professionalism.
The executioner pulled the Rabbi's head away from the patibulum and swung his spiked helmet into it with a smack. The placement, perhaps for fear of injuring himself on the thorns, was not excessively violent, and the thorny mass was a little loose on the prisoner's temples.
The crowd, at that point, ranged between three and four hundred people who cried out in delight at the sight of the Roman's gesture.
Yeshua remained with his head down and his torturers continued to hoist the log. Yeshua's tall stature and weight, possibly around eighty kilos, were another disadvantage for the sweaty executioners, who were quick to encourage each other, accompanying each tug with a hey.
Inch by inch, the rope hoisted the crucified man up an endless and painful elevation.
On top of that, the crowd, increasingly excited, joined the interjections of the legionaries, cheering them on with their eys, but the strong arms of the three soldiers who were pulling from the ground and from the top of the stairs were not enough. Fearing that the condemned man and the tree would fall to the ground, Longinus and Marcellus had no choice but to join forces with the soldiers in the uprising.
— Hey Hey! — They shouted.
The Galilean's body was finally released from the ground, and there began the shattering countdown to his hideous agony.
As he lost the support of his feet, the Nazarene's arms became tense and the clicking of his bones joined for a few seconds the creak of the rope in the fork of the vertical pole. In that instant, his collarbones, sternum and ribs were etched beneath the skin and threads of blood coursed through his skin, while the pectoral muscles of his shoulders, neck and arms were sculpted, taut, a step away from strain. But the strength of those muscular bundles was still great and prevented the dislocation of the shoulders and elbows. The fibers of the forearms, especially the extensor muscles of the hands and fingers, became sharp as if they had almost jumped in one of those pulls.
— Hey!
Yeshua was suspended half a meter from the ground. The force of gravity made, from the first moment of absolute suspension, the arms rotate and, dragged by the weight of the body, they descended until they were at an angle of about seventy-five degrees with the stipe.
The formidable weight that the Nazarene endured in each of the blows to the wrists, together with the tearing of the wounds and the extreme tension of the ligaments in his shoulders and elbows, multiplied his pain, considering that he had the ability to do so, to the point of madness if he were a mere normal human.
At various times, beset by suffering, he threw his head back, looking for air and, above all, a point of support. But these points could only be found in one place. Or rather, in two, in the nails that pierced his carpals.
With each recoil of the skull, the spines more and more stuck in the occipital region, forcing him to give up. Successive defeats to gain some oxygen turned his breathing into an uneven, agitated panting of the chest, less and less efficient. The specter of suffocation began to hover over Yeshua.
— Hey Hey!
When the soldiers stopped the heavy rope advance, Yeshua's body swung about three feet off the ground. His feet, oozing blood, felt the bark of the vertical trunk and clung to it desperately, but the hemorrhages made him slip again and again, and in a matter of minutes, the entire front part of the trunk was dyed red in the area that it went from the shoulder blades to the heels.
The legionnaire on the upper end of the stipe clenched his teeth and began to pull on the central loop. But the patibulum didn't move an inch. The weight of the logger and the condemned man, just over two hundred pounds together, was too much for the exhausted soldier to handle alone. Almost in unison, the centurion and Marcellus shouted at him to make the final push, but it was completely useless.
The Roman, panting, made a sign of impotence with his right hand, letting himself fall onto the fork of the stipe.
His fingertips had begun to take on a bluish tinge. The deficient oxygenation of the blood gave a sign of his presence.
If Longinus and his men did not act quickly, the poor circulation and the consequent lack of oxygen in the brain could lead, first, to the loss of knowledge of Yeshua, and his fulminating death, but the officer, without letting himself be dominated by the nerves, ordered those who remained at the foot of the stipe to collaborate with the legionary who had to fit the patibulum.
Two of those nimble and trained Roman soldiers clung to the upright stake with both hands while the other two climbed onto his shoulders, thus reaching the ends of the crossbar. At a sign that the central knot had re-attached, they pushed the log until the sharp tip of the tree entered the central hole of the patibulum.
— Now! shouted the soldier at the top of the stairs.
The soldiers leapt onto the rock as the centurion and the other executioners suddenly released the rope. The horizontal wood swooped down to earth, but about a foot from the crotch, it was wedged into the thick perimeter of the stipe.
The maneuver was received by the crowd with much cheering and applause, while Yeshua accused the shock with a louder lament, the breath was suspended for seconds and the grazes on the wrists became bigger, the fingers, almost immobilized, could barely react to the barbarian traction.
Longinus handed the tablet to the soldier and he nailed it over the patibulum. As he finished adjusting the cross pole, another Roman forcefully stretched Yeshua's right leg, forcing the shoulder and that entire half of the Nazarene's body down.
Feeling the tug, Yeshua bent his head even further, separating his torso and buttocks from the wood. The right knee buckled involuntarily, but the executioner who was about to nail the foot crushed it with a sudden hammer. The companion who had stretched out his leg forced the sole of his foot to rest on the stipe. A third nail crushed the Nazarene's foot, entering the chest at a point near the flexion crease.
The entrance and exit of the nail that the legionnaire had punctured the anterior annular ligament of the tarsus. In this way, the metal slipped between the tendons of the extensor digitorum propria muscle and those of the common extensor digitorum, forcibly penetrating between the calcaneus and cuboid bones and the astragalus and scaphoid bones from the inside. The four bones were deftly separated and the nail drove back and down, coming closer to the heel than the toes. At this point, despite the executioner's skill, the tip or edges of the nail dislocated or crushed some branches of the arteries of the external saphenous vein, causing hemorrhage.
Blood gushed out, bathing the scant meter between Yeshua's feet and the ground of Golgotha. Such destruction also affected the anterior tibial nerve, tearing the leg and thigh and causing an unbearable reflex pain in the ramifications and in the nerves called sacral and lumbar plexus, in the middle of the womb.
Despite the horrible pains, the Galilean remained conscious. The jamming of the right foot, incredibly, eased the Nazarene's breathing rhythm, at least during the first few minutes of the crucifixion.
By supporting the weight of the body on the nail, thus distributing the points of support, the lungs were able to capture a greater volume of air, ventilating the alveoli a little more. That deeper breath lasted a few tenths of a second. Almost instantly, the Galilean's body dropped again, sinking his diaphragm and entering a new and agonizing phase of progressive asphyxia.
The inspirations, always through the mouth, became vertiginous, short, and in all respects insufficient to fill and ventilate the lungs. A little more calmly, the executioner placed the fourth nail in the forefoot of his left foot. The blow to the posterior ligaments of the knee had swollen and blackened the entire region where the femur, tibia and fibula were inserted, and despite the stiffness of that leg, the legionary bent it violently, causing the bone masses to crack. The nail entered without difficulty, protruding, as in the case of the right foot, between two and six centimeters above the instep.
The blood flowed in less quantity, either because the metal did not reach important vessels or simply because the Nazarene's blood volume had dropped considerably. The left leg had been flexed, making an angle of about one hundred and twenty degrees with the vertical stake and open to the left of the cross. Although the tree had a sedile, crossed about four feet from the lower end of the stipe and parallel to the patibulum, at this point it was not effective. The considerable stature of the condemned man caused his feet to be lower than the support which, if they had arrived there, might have only served to prolong his agony.
Upon seeing the Rabbi's crucifixion completed, the crowd began to gesticulate, underlining the macabre work of the legionaries with a great round of applause. The priests, in particular, showed signs of special satisfaction. All his previous anger had turned to joy. His revenge was almost sated.
Yousef's attention alternated between Yeshua and Yehudhah Ish Qeryoth.
As soon as the Rabbi's second foot was nailed, the traitor walked away from the crowd and lost himself in the dusty path, towards Yerushaláyim. Yohanan Marcos disappeared too, from what Yousef assumed he would have followed in Yehudhah's footsteps. The sad spectacle had entered the last act. The onlookers began to parade, retreating to the Holy City.
Yeshua of Natsrat and the two zealots, preached towards the south, were just the wreckage of what they once were.
***
THE INSULTS OF THOSE WHO REALLY HAD TO BE NAILED TO THAT CROSS
1:30 pm — YERUSHALAYIM, FRIDAY, APRIL 7, A.D. 30
IF THE TEXT that appeared on the table of Yeshua of Natsrat had been different, to the taste of the Jewish priests, the mockery of the crucified one might have been less. I tell this because, from the moment they raised the patibulum on the stipe, the laughter and sarcasm of those who watched were more frequent for some time, as a vengeful compensation for the well-known accusation.
In failing Pilatus, the judges took special care to intoxicate the crowd, ridicule Yeshua, and in this subtle way, taking the three inscriptions seriously, prevent the witnesses from taking seriously the title of King of the Jews. Thus, turning to the less and less numerous human mass, some of the Sadducees began to point to the Galilean's cross, exclaiming with shouts:
— He saved the others, but he cannot save himself!
And the crowd approved this new form of derision with great and repeated applause. Soon, another voice stood out among the crowd, asking the Nazarene:
— If you are the Son of God, blessed be his name, why don't you come down from your cross?
Just as the patrol and Yousef Yeshua could hear these exclamations, impregnated with the most cruel and biting irony. Being only a few meters from the ground and a little more than ten meters from the front row of Jews, it was not very difficult to hear these shouts and even the conversations that the legionaries had among themselves in the tight stone circle of Golgotha. When the laborious crucifixion was over, they took a break.
The optio lifted the initial security cordon around the headland, formed by six soldiers, reducing surveillance to a first shift of four soldiers. Each of them stood martially ready for any clash, surrounding the three condemned men and the other legionaries in the platoon, except for two, did not take long to sit down about ten feet from the crosses. And they watched with annoyance as their two companions removed the ladder, carefully winding the rope and picking up the various tools used in the jamming. Preparations seemed to indicate a long wait. That, at least, was what Longinus and his men believed.
Surrender would not arrive before sunset, as the first fronts of the sandstorm were beginning to form from your position. Yousef, not wanting to leave the Rabbi, shielded his eyes with his left hand, shielding him, and indeed, in the distance, behind the Mount of Olives, he discovered gray and swaying masses advancing in an extensive front. The officer also noticed the ominous clouds of dust and, as he was well acquainted with this type of meteorological phenomenon, he alerted the legionaries.
The first precautionary measure was to check the stability of the crosses, the stipes, in principle, seemed to be solidly embedded in the cracks in the rock. However, Marcellus ordered the wooden wedges to be wedged to the fullest. Then the soldiers ripped the remnants of the Zealots' robes into thin strips. And without wasting time, the officer distributed them evenly among the twelve soldiers. Only when Yousef saw each of them covering their bare legs with those strips of cloth did he understand the meaning of the operation. Prudently, the Romans sought to defend their skin from the lash of that earthy wind.
Finally, the six shields of the men off duty from Calvary's watch were laid on the ground, concave face up, one next to the other, forming a line. Someone reminded the platoon of the Nazarene's robes, which were still draped over the southern edge of the cliff, but when the soldiers picked them up, ready to rip them off, the four legionaries responsible for guarding and interlocking Yeshua protested, alluding that those clothes belonged to them and who, given their good condition, wanted them for themselves. The rest of the troop gave way, and hastily, before the sandstorm could descend on Yerushaláyim, the officer took inventory, distributing the clothes to the quartet. To one fell the purple cloak Antipas had given, to another the belt. At the third, the pair of sandals and the last one was rewarded with the splendid cloak. But the tunic remained.
— What to do with her? — Some insisted on the primitive idea of tearing it, but the underling objected. Despite its deplorable appearance, full of dried blood, wet from the water thrown on it and Lucilius' urine, dirty from the dust from the road and with a few tears at the knees - that garment, woven by hand, deserved a more honorable end. than to bandage the legs of the Romans.
The solution was data.
The soldier responsible for the leather bag did not take long to return to the group, rattling a third of the dice in his hands. They formed a tight circle and, one after the other, hurled the small two-inch wooden cubes across the floor of the gallows. With use, the pieces had lost their primitive white color, as well as the edge of the edges. The dirt had finally given them a characteristic shine. The values of each face, pierced by means of a red-hot tool, were distributed in such a way that the sum of the opposite sides always equaled seven. The dice were rolled: 1—5—3 (with the first player); 6—3—4 (for the second player); 1—3—5 (with the third) and 1—5—3 on the last move.
The one who had won carefully folded his tunic while the crowd heard scathing words against Yeshua:
— You, who wanted to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days... save yourself!
— If you are the King of the Jews — asked others — come down from the cross and we will believe in you...
— He entrusted himself to God, blessed be He, to set him free, and he even pretended to be his son... Look at him now! Crucified between two bandits.
The author of that last sentence was another of Kaiafa's priests, but it did not achieve the desired effect. The crowd, naturally enough, did not regard Gesta and Dimas as thieves and did not join in the ill-intentioned Sadducees.
***
THE SALVATION OF DIMAS
1:35 pm — YERUSHALAYIM, FRIDAY, APRIL 7, A.D. 30
THE ROMAN LEGIONARIES would soon return to their base camp in the city of Caesarea, and as the months progressed, many would change destinations or be licensed.
With the distribution of clothes completed, Longinus asked his place—lieutenant:
— Examine the incarceration of the condemned.
The optio approached the cross on the right first and touched the head of the nail on the guerrilla's left foot. He looked solidly nailed. The zealot, his body slumped and violently bent forward, had not for a moment stopped screaming and twisting, trying to survive! But with increasing difficulty in breathing, he had only added to new pains and greater bleeding.
Seeing Marcellus at the foot of the cross, Gesta made a supreme effort and, tensing the muscles in his shoulders, managed to raise his arms. He took a breath and then, as he expelled what little air he had, he shot a spit mixed with blood at the noncommissioned officer.
Indignantly, the centurion's aide grabbed a spear, slamming the wooden shaft squarely into the pit of the zealot's stomach. The diaphragm resented even more, plunging the condemned man into a more accelerated process of suffocation. Without ceasing to look up suspiciously, the optio repeated the check on Yeshua's feet and, finally, with the nails of the third crucified, Dimas. He was recovering his senses, although his gaze, as a result of the brandy, became opaque and unfocused. The pain had ripped him out of his unconsciousness and the groans would not stop.
Suddenly, between a scream and another scream, Gesta, with his face bathed in cold sweat, turned his head to the left, shouting to the Rabbi:
— If you are a child of God... why don't you guarantee your salvation and ours?
But soon, suffocated by the effort, he collapsed on his lower support points, panting and struggling with new and rapid intermittent inspirations, Yeshua did not respond. On the other hand, the other guerrilla did so. Supported as he was on the tip of his left foot in the middle of the sedile, his breathing was not as tiring as that of his companions on the cross, and in a stammering voice he chided his friend.
— Do you not even fear God? — Can't you see that our sufferings... are for our deeds?
Dimas paused, struggling to breathe again, and finally continued:
— But... This man suffers unjustly... Wouldn't it be preferable for us to seek the forgiveness of our sins... and the salvation... of our... souls?
The muscles in his arms relaxed and his belly swelled up like a globe. Yeshua of Natsrat, who had heard the words of the two zealots, parted his lips, with an evident desire to answer, But the body, released from the stipe and very slumped towards the lower extremities, did not obey him, however Yeshua did not surrender. He quickened the number of mouthfuls and tried to tense the powerful muscles in his thighs in an effort to lift himself a few inches and let air into his lungs. However, those first five or ten minutes on the cross burned away the scarce potential of all the muscular bundles of the thighs and legs used by the Galilean to support himself on the nails of his feet to suck in oxygen, and the triceps, seamstresses, internal rectus, vast and twins refused to work.
The stiffness of all these muscle fibers, tetanization, started ahead of schedule. Yeshua, realizing that the legs had begun to fail, caught by the first convulsions and muscular spasms, typical of the initial but irreversible tetanization, forced the joints of the elbows, at the same time that, looking for support in the nails of the wrists, he asked the muscles of the forearms to serve as a bridge to lift your shoulders.
Between gasps, inspirations and ragged cries, caused by the rubbing or crushing of the middle nerves of his wrists on the metal that crossed his carpus, that man finally overcame the force of gravity, lifting himself up, relaxing his diaphragm. Rock-hard delts turned shoulders into hands, and the Nazarene's mouth opened, trembling, half-battle for the breath of dusty air that lashed at us. Watching Yeshua's titanic effort, the zealot who had defended Him spoke again—To Him:
— Sir — I told him, in a pleading voice. — Remember me... when you enter Your kingdom!
While partially expelling the little air obtained in the last inspiration, and with the arteries of the neck tense as boards, the Galilean was still able to answer:
— Truly, I say to you today, that even today you will be with me in Paradise.
The muscles of the shoulders, arms and forearms went down and, with them, the entire body mass of the Nazarene, who was again bent in a saw and without any immediate hope of repeating such work.
***
SAND STORM
1:45 pm — YERUSHALAYIM, FRIDAY, APRIL 7, A.D. 30
THE FIRST FRONT of the storm had just fallen like a dark, black mist over the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. At the sight of the gray clouds of the storm, advancing from the east like a tidal wave, the crowd began to stir, fleeing precipitously towards the wall. Many went through the Gate of Ephraim, and others well acquainted with that kind of sirocco, sought refuge at the foot of the high wall that surrounded Yerushaláyim at that point. The sun continued to shine overhead, in the middle of a clear blue sky.
The Jews were used to dust and sand storms. In principle, it wasn't logical to panic them. However, the terror was real. But the origin of this fear was not in the sirocco.
A few minutes later, of those hundreds of people who were seeing the crucified, only a small group of approximately fifty priests and onlookers remained. Most, as if it were a customary protective measure, began to sit on the ground, covering their heads with their heavy, colorful cloaks. They knew that a dry storm was coming, and yet they approached the matter philosophically. Naturally, they chose and preferred the macabre spectacle of the condemned, struggling between life and death.
It was not necessary for the centurion to give many indications, each man knew how to behave in that contingency. Seeing the mass retreat of the Jews, Longinus allowed the sentries to cluster at the southeastern end of the summit of Golgotha, facing the storm. They brought the four shields together, forming a parapet, and lowered their knees to the rock, maintaining that makeshift defense with the bracers on the inside of each shield. The other elements of the patrol raised the row of shields that had been placed on the surface of the scaffold, forming a second, defensive wall. The entire platoon, including the officer and Marcellus, crouched, facing the ever-closer storm.
Seeing the indecisive Yousef of Armathajim standing, Longinus motioned with his hand for him to take refuge with the group of his men. He did so, wasting no time, but instead of crouching like the legionaries towards the sirocco, he sat down with his back to the patrol, never losing sight of the crucified.
The wind quickly became hotter and hissing. The first whirlwind rushed upon Yerushaláyim, and upon the cliff where they stood, with considerable violence. In a matter of seconds, a whitish mass, tons of sand and dust in suspension, razed the place, the sand pounding against the shields. In spite of the cloak that covered Yousef's head, a myriad of fine grains of sand began to harass him, penetrating through all the openings in his clothing and cutting into his skin, especially on his legs, as if they were pins.
The roar of the tornado increased with speed, before long, both the soldiers and Yousef were forced, almost in desperation, to close their eyes and protect their mouths, ears and nostrils from the anguished dust. As the sirocco grew louder, the screams of the zealots facing the wind and almost naked became louder and louder. The gusts had begun to batter their defenseless bodies, massacring them with millions of particles of earth, thus adding a new and unbearable ordeal.
As you can, Yousef raised his head and, through the columns of dust, he heard, rather than saw, one of the guerrillas, crying out for them to finish him off. As for Yeshua, he could barely make out his figure, but he imagined the suffocating torment he was enduring. No one on or around Golgotha, or even in the city, could look up during that nightmare. The successive fronts of the storm, whose roof was almost impossible to fix in such conditions, rose to an altitude sufficient to hide the sun's disk, but not to a thick darkness.
The centurion, noticing that the main whirlwind seemed to subside, rose partially, inspecting the four soldiers who were taking cover a few meters from the stockade. He didn't notice many anomalies as he immediately crouched back, waiting for the last gusts of the storm.
Toward fourteen o'clock, the tornado's strength diminished like the dust. Fortunately, the main body of the sirocco had been fragmenting since its birth in the Arabian deserts, reaching the lands of Palestine. However, the gusts would only stop much later.