- ers, male or female, as being present at this period, though
they do mention many women as looking on from a distance during the crucifixion. These, however, were not daughters of Jerusalem (like the women in Luke), but Galilean admirers who had followed him to the capital. His mother was certainly not among them, or she could not fail to have been mentioned in the synoptical Gospels; whereas the only names we meet with are those of Mary Magdalene; Mary, mother of James and Joses; and Salome, apparently the same person as the mother of Zebedee's children (Mk. xv. 40, 41; Mt. xxvii. 55, 56).
These were among the spectators of the melancholy end of him who had been their teacher and their friend. He was crucified between two criminals, with an inscription on his cross which is differently reported in every Gospel, but of which the substance was that he was the king of the Jews. A stupifying drink which Matthew (in accordance with a supposed prophecy) (Ps. lxix. 21) calls vinegar and gall, was offered him by the executioners; not as Luke supposes, in mockery, but with the humane intention of allaying the pain. His clothes were divided among the party of soldiers; a circumstance in which the Evangelists as usual endeavor to see the fulfillment of prophecy. In Psalm xxii. 18, we read: "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." The Synoptics content themselves here with stating that the soldiers drew lots for his clothing, but John anxious to fulfill this prophecy in the most literal manner possible, pretends that they divided the articles of his apparel into four parts, but finding the coat without seam, agreed not to tear it, but to apportion it by lot. Luke is the sole reporter of a saying of Jesus uttered in his last moments: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Mk. xv. 23-28; Mt. xxvii. 34-38; Lu. xxiii. 32-34, 36; Jo. xix. 17-24).
The pangs of death must have been greatly embittered to Jesus if it be true that not only the priests and passers by, but the very criminals who were crucified with him, ridiculed his claim to be king of Israel, and suggested that he should prove it to demonstration by saving himself from the cross. All the synoptical Gospels agree in this account, with the single exception that Luke includes only one of the malefactors among the
