In the statement that Jesus Christ “was dead,” the Creed affirms the reality of Christ’s death in opposition to certain early heretics, the Docetae, who said that His death was not real but only apparent.  A similar view has been adopted by some modern writers, who assert that what the witnesses of the crucifixion saw was not death but a swoon, from which, through the ministry of His disciples, Jesus was restored after He had been taken down from the cross.  It is urged in support of this view that a crucified criminal did not usually die as Jesus is said to have died, six hours after He was crucified, but lingered on for days, before being relieved from his sufferings by death.  Jesus’ legs were not broken by the soldiers, because they believed Him to be dead, but—­say those who deny the reality of the death—­the soldiers were mistaken, the seeming lifelessness was not real, and recovery soon followed, so complete that He was able to appear in public on the third day.

In considering this statement, we must take into account the physical condition of Jesus when He was crucified.  On the night of His betrayal, and after His apprehension, He had been subjected to intense suffering in body and to sorrow of soul such as human thought cannot conceive.  In Gethsemane He had passed through an experience of agony from which He must have risen weakened, to endure new forms of suffering.  He had been scourged by Roman soldiers, whose cruel loaded weapons inflicted wounds that left deep scars upon His flesh and caused intense pain and exhaustion.  His hands and feet had been fixed to the cross with nails.  He had been crowned with thorns and mocked and hooted by a reckless mob.  He had been hurried from the Sanhedrim to the Judgment-hall, and had carried the cross until He sank beneath its weight.  He had for six hours endured intense suffering from pain and thirst, and when, after a strong Roman soldier had thrust a spear into His side, He was taken down from the cross, and declared by the centurion and his company to be dead, He was laid without food, and remained for two nights and a day, in a cold rock-sepulchre, whose door was barred by a great stone, sealed, and guarded by soldiers.  Suppose for a moment that Jesus had survived this terrible ordeal of suffering, and that, having eluded His Roman guard and His Jewish persecutors, He had again entered into Jerusalem, it must have been as a weak, disabled invalid, not as a man possessing normal strength and vigour.  Yet on the third day He showed Himself alive, bearing no traces of the suffering He had endured except the marks of His wounds.  The feet that had been pierced bore Him from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a journey of threescore furlongs; and He passed from place to place with a swiftness of movement and a superiority to obstacles that filled the disciples with amazement.