WATER AND BLOOD

Christ was dead, as the leaders of His people had wished, but not even His last cry had awakened them. Some of them, says Luke, went away smiting their breasts; but were there within those breasts hearts which truly felt for the great heart which had stopped beating? They did not speak, they hurried home to their supper,—perhaps it was more terror than love which they were feeling.

But a foreigner, the Centurion, Petronius, who had been the silent witness of the execution, was moved, and from his pagan mouth came the words of Claudia Procula, “Certainly this was a righteous man.”

He did not even know the true name of the man who was dead, but he was sure at least that He was no evildoer. He was the third Roman witness in favor of the innocence of Christ, who was to become, through the Apostles, eternally Roman.

The Jews had no thought of recantations. What was in their minds was the thought that the Passover would be spoiled if the bloody corpses were not carried away at once. Evening was close at hand and with the setting of the sun the great Sabbath began. Therefore they sent word to Pilate to have the condemned men’s legs broken at once and to have them buried. The breaking of the legs was one of the cruel discoveries of cruelty to shorten the sufferings of crucified men,—a sort of grace useful in cases of haste. The soldiers, when they had received the order, came up to the bad thief, who, more robust than his companions, was still alive, and they broke his legs with a club.

They had seen Jesus die, and they could save themselves the trouble of using the club, but John says that one of them, to make quite sure, pierced His side with a spear, and saw with astonishment that water and blood came out from the wound. The name of this soldier according to an old tradition was Longinus, and it is said that some drops of that blood fell upon his eyes which had been infected, and immediately cured them. The history of martyrs tells of him that Longinus believed in Christ from that day on, and was a monk for twenty-eight years at Cæsarea until he was murdered because of his faith. Claudia Procula, the pious legionary, who for the last time wet the lips of the dying man, the Centurion, Petronius, and Longinus were the first Gentiles who accepted Jesus on the very day when Jerusalem had cast Him out.

But not all the Jews had forgotten Him. Now that He was dead, really dead, now that He was cold like all dead men, and motionless like any other corpse, now that He was a silent, harmless, quiet corpse, a body with no soul, a silent mouth, a heart which beat no more, see how they come out from the houses where they had shut themselves in, the friends of the twenty-fifth hour, the tepid followers, the secret disciples, the anonymous admirers, who at night hide their light under a bushel, and when the sun shines, disappear. We have all known friends like these, cautious souls, trembling at the idea of what people will say, who follow you but from afar; receive you—but when no one can see you together; esteem you—but do not so much as admit this esteem to others; love you—but not so much as to lose a single hour of sleep or a single miserable penny to help you! But when death comes, even when it comes through the fault or the avarice, or the cowardice of such despicable men, then their celebration begins. They are the ones who weep more tears and more glittering tears than any one else. They are the ones who weave together with busy hands the flowers of the wreaths and the flowers of funereal rhetoric; and with enthusiasm and ardor become necrologists, epitaph writers, and memorialists. To see them you would think that the deceased had had no more faithful, no more loving companions than they, and good-hearted people are moved to compassion for those unfortunate survivors who seem to have lost a half, or at the very least, a quarter of their souls.

To His sorrow in life and in death Christ had many friends of this sort, and two of them stepped forward in that Good Friday twilight. They were two serious and worthy citizens, two notables of Jerusalem and of the Council, two rich lords, in short two members of the Sanhedrin; Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

In order not to stain their hands with the blood of Jesus, they had kept away from the meeting of the Sanhedrin and had hidden themselves in their houses, heaving regretful sighs, perhaps, and thinking that they could thus save their reputation and their conscience. But they did not reflect that even passive complicity was active help to the assassins, and that to abstain from opposition, not even to voice their opposition, was equivalent to consenting. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had therefore taken part in the murder of Christ, although they had been absent and invisible, and their posthumous grief can diminish but by no means cancel their responsibility.

But in the evening when they ran no risk of offending their colleagues, when the Elders had received full satisfaction and had left Golgotha, when there was no danger of compromising themselves in the eyes of high clerical and middle-class society, since the dead man was dead and could harm no one, the two nocturnal disciples, hidden, “for fear of the Jews,” thought that they would diminish their remorse by providing for the burial of the executed man.

The bolder of the two, Joseph, “... went in boldly unto Pilate” (Mark noted the fact as remarkable for that toga-clad rabbit) and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate was astonished that He should already be dead, since crucified men often lived for two days—and called in Petronius, who had been charged with the execution. After Pilate had heard his report, he “gave” the body to the Sanhedrist. The Procurator was generous on that day because as a rule the Roman officers forced the families of condemned men to pay for the corpses. He could not say no to a person so respectable, and rich into the bargain. Possibly, too, this free gift came as much from weariness as from generosity. They had annoyed him all the morning with that troublesome King, and now he had no peace even when He was dead!

When Joseph had received permission he took a fine white winding-sheet and linen bands, and went towards the Hill of the Skull. There, or on the way there, he met Nicodemus, who, having the same character, may have been his friend, and who had come with the same thought. Nicodemus also had not spared expense, and had brought with him on the shoulders of a servant a hundred pounds of a mixture of myrrh and aloes.

And when they came to the cross, while the soldiers were taking down the two thieves to throw them into the common grave of condemned men, they prepared themselves to take down the body of Jesus.