It was by an English medical man that this theory was first propounded fifty years ago,[7] and it has been adopted by other medical men, equally famous for their scientific eminence and Christian character, such as the late Professor Begbie and Sir James Simpson. The latter well brings out the point and the pathos of this view of the Saviour's death in these words:[8] "It has always appeared--to my medical mind at least--that this view of the mode by which death was produced in the human body of Christ intensifies all our thoughts and ideas regarding the immensity of the sacrifice which He made for our sinful race upon the cross. Nothing can be more striking and startling than the passiveness with which, for our sakes, God as man submitted His incarnate body to the horrors and tortures of the crucifixion. But our wonderment at the stupendous sacrifice increases when we reflect that, whilst thus enduring for our sins the most cruel and agonising form of corporeal death, He was ultimately slain, not by the effects of the anguish of His corporeal frame, but by the effects of the mightier anguish of His mind; the fleshly walls of His heart--like the veil, as it were, in the temple of His body--becoming rent and riven, as for us He poured out His soul unto death--the travail of His soul in that awful hour thus standing out as unspeakably more bitter and dreadful than even the travail of His body." In this chapter we have been moving somewhat in the region of speculation and conjecture, and we have not rigidly ascertained what is logically tenable and what is not. This is a place of mystery, where dim yet imposing meanings peep out on us in whatever direction we turn. We have called the scene the Dead Christ. But who does not see that the dead Christ is so interesting and wonderful because He is also the living Christ? He lives; He is here; He is with us now. Yet the converse is also true--that the living Christ is to us so wonderful and adorable because He was dead. The fact that He is alive inspires us with strength and hope; but it is by the memory of His death that He is commended to the trust of our burdened consciences and the love of our sympathetic hearts. [1] Deut. xxi. 22, 23. [2] "_Crurifragium_, as it was called, consisted in striking the legs of the sufferer with a heavy mallet"--FARRAR, _Life of Christ_, ii., 423. [3] The words that follow in this paragraph are a reminiscence of a singularly eloquent and powerful passage in a speech of Dr. Maclaren, of Manchester, delivered last year in Edinburgh. [4] Weiss, however, supposes Psalm xxxiv. 20 to be the reference. [5] On the symbolism of this phenomenon see the excursus in Westcott's _Gospel of St. John_, pp. 284-86. [6] _E.g._, Lange, characteristically. [7] Stroud in his treatise _On the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ_. [8] Given in Hanna's _The Last Day of our Lord's Passion_. CHAPTER XXIII. THE BURIAL