Did Jesus carry the whole cross or the cross beam?

[Theo2]

I believe it was the cross beam but only because it makes more sense. The polls were stationary and the whole cross would have been too heavy.

 

[Sbee0]

https://shroudofturin.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/why-jesus-carried-the-whole-cross.pdf

 

[mVitus]

I know I’ve read that it was common practice overall for crucifixion victims to *only* carry the crossbeam so it would seem reasonable to me too. In addition, it’s also thought that He would’ve been nailed around the wrists as opposed to the palms. (The original Greek word used is ambiguous as to the exact spot, just the general region.)

But neither of those are really big things to me so I have no problem with other views. And when I visualize things, I envision it with full cross and through the palms because that’s what I see in Christian artwork.

 

[patrick457]

I believe it was the cross beam but only because it makes more sense. The polls were stationary and the whole cross would have been too heavy.

Some stuff I wrote a long time ago.

'Carrying a cross' Sacred Scripture

Something for Holy Week. Ever wondered about the term, ‘carrying a cross’? [image] Anyone who has read their Bible at some point would have pretty much encountered the expression ‘carrying the cross’ and have some idea where it comes from: the gospels, which talk about Jesus inviting people to “take up (their) cross” and later, have Jesus “carry His cross” to Golgotha. But did you know? In classical (non-Christian) Latin literature, nowhere does the term “t…

'Carrying a cross' Sacred Scripture

So where do we get the expression, ‘carry the cross’ from? It essentially all boils down to the Latin translations of the New Testament. One common characteristic of many early Christian translations of scriptural books and other works into Latin is their excessive literalism: these translations render their source texts so literally, without any regard for how clunky, unnatural and ungrammatical the resulting translation would be. (Think of something like Young’s Literal Translation.) One par…

'Carrying a cross' Sacred Scripture

Notice that in the lex Puteolana, aka the leges libitinariae or De publico libitinae (by the way, this was a set of regulations for executioners and undertakers found in an inscription in Puteoli - modern Pozzuoli), you have the expression “to lead the patibulum (or patibulatus - the ‘patibulated’ individual) to the crux.” (A) Whoever will want to exact punishment on a male slave or female slave at private expense, as he [the owner] who wants the [punishment] to be inflicted, he [the contracto…

This is the abridged version of those posts:

• In classical, non-Christian Latin texts that talk about crucifixion, you encounter two intimately related terms: crux and patibulum.
• Crux , in its original sense, refers to an upright stake or post, but in its extended sense, can mean a T/t-shaped gibbet formed by an upright post with a horizontal beam attached to it.
• Nowhere do these texts speak of people condemned to crucifixion as carrying a crux , whether in the sense of ‘upright post (only)’ or ‘upright post + transverse beam’. Victims are said to be ‘led to cruces ’ (that’s the plural of crux BTW), ‘lifted up on cruces ’, or ‘fastened to cruces ’, but cruces were not something they are said to carry.
• Instead, you have references to some victims being made to carry what is called a patibulum before they were fastened to their cruces.
• Patibulum (‘spreader’, from pateo ‘to stretch out / spread open’), as its name implies, apparently refers to a kind of horizontal beam (the people who are made to carry it are said to do so with their arms outstretched and fastened to it), but it also has an extended sense similar to crux : ‘transverse beam + upright post’.
• From this we can infer that in some crucifixions, the victim was first made to carry a horizontal beam called a patibulum with his stretched-out arms fastened to it. This transverse patibulum might have then been combined with an upright stake, a crux , to form a … crux . The victim did not bear a crux in that they did not carry the upright stake, nor apparently did they bear the beam already attached to the stake.
• Christian Latin texts, by contrast, speak of Jesus carrying His crux; the word patibulum rarely appears in the vocabulary of Latin Christian authors. This curious usage of crux could be explained by Latin-speaking Christians using crux as a literal equivalent of the Greek word stauros (σταυρός), which apparently encompasses all possible nuances of both crux and patibulum: upright stake, transverse beam, upright stake + transverse beam.
• The gospels (which are written in Greek) speak of Jesus carrying a stauros and then being fastened to a stauros. Given what we know about crucifixion from the classical Latin sources, it is probable that the stauros Jesus/Simon of Cyrene carried = patibulum. Jesus would have then been affixed to this horizontal patibulum (stauros) and then hung onto the vertical crux (stauros).

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And here’s a graphic:

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[Dan_Defender]

To me, It is quite possible for it to be the whole cross, because his arrest, judgement and sentence were done in such haste that the whole cross had to be put together very quickly and carried right then and there, unlike the thieves whose execution had been planned long in advance. The whole cross would indeed be quite heavy and cause a dreadful shoulder wound from carrying it.

 

[patrick457]

The thing to remember here is that crucifixion is actually more of a capital punishment that involves the victim being hanged on a stake (the crux proper) while his arms and hands are restrained on a horizontal beam (the patibulum).

You can consider it a kind of combination of impaling / hanging and a rudimentary kind of pillory or yoke (where you yoke someone’s arms to a wooden beam and then parade them around to humiliate them), the idea being that you hang the person while they’re still attached to this yoke.

To me, It is quite possible for it to be the whole cross, because his arrest, judgement and sentence were done in such haste that the whole cross had to be put together very quickly and carried right then and there, unlike the thieves whose execution had been planned long in advance. The whole cross would indeed be quite heavy and cause a dreadful shoulder wound from carrying it.

Jesus’ trial wasn’t really hasty - in fact, quite the opposite you could say it’s very protracted, because Pilate even tried to sneak in Barabbas there.

That being said, if we’re going to factor in haste I think just giving Jesus a wooden log is more convenient than giving Him a custom-made whole cross. You can just tie or nail His hands on that thing and then hoist Him up still restrained to that beam on whatever could qualify as a ‘post’ (let’s say a tree trunk).

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[KyPerson]

I have been under the impression that the pole was stationary and the condemned carried the cross beam. Our solid wood (small) cross that we use on Good Friday is heavy as can be. I can’t imagine carrying a full sized cross.

 

[Dan_Defender]

A type of tree-shaped cross would be consistent with: ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.’ - 1 Peter 2:24 and with depictions of a forked cross in the Middle Ages.