In 1 Corinthians 1:18, Paul says that in the eyes of ‘those who are
perishing’ the ‘word of the cross’ is ‘folly’. This denotes, not merely
a lack of wisdom. The early Christian writer, Justin, explains
that the upset, caused by the Christian message in the ancient
world, is really madness.
“They say that our madness consists in the fact that we put a
crucified man in second place after the unchangeable and
eternal God, the Creator of the world”. (Apology I, 13.4).
It was particularly offensive to the imperial magistrate, Pliny the
younger, that the one who was honoured in Christian worship ‘as
a god’ had been nailed to a cross by the Roman authorities as a
state criminal. His friend Tacitus speaks no less harshly of a
‘pernicious superstition’ and knows of the shameful fate of
Jesus, who ‘suffered the extreme penalty’. The Jewish historian,
Josephus, describes crucifixion as ‘the most wretched’ of
deaths. From the 3rd century BC onwards, there is evidence of
the word crux as a vulgar taunt among the lower classes,
including slaves and prostitutes. It was an obscene word; we
might well print: c****f*****.
Crucifixion was a barbaric form of execution of the utmost
cruelty. It was a punishment in which the brutality of the
executioners was freely allowed. Because of its harshness
crucifixion was almost always inflicted only on the lower
classes. The upper classes could reckon with more ‘humane’
punishment. The Roman world was all agreed that crucifixion
was a horrific, disgusting business. Crucifixion was
widespread and frequent, but the cultured literary world
wanted to have nothing to do with it and as a rule kept quiet
about it. Nevertheless, in most Roman writers,
crucifixion appears as the typical punishment for
slaves.
When Paul spoke about the ‘crucified Christ’ (1
Corinthians 1.23, 2:2; Galatians 3:1) every hearer in
the Greek-speaking East knew that this ‘Christ’
had suffered a particularly cruel and shameful
death, which as a rule was reserved for hardened
criminals, rebellious slaves and rebels against the
Roman state. That this crucified man, Jesus Christ,
could truly be a divine being sent to earth, God’s
Son, the Lord of all and the coming judge of the
world, must inevitably have been thought by any
educated man to be utter ‘madness’. Prior to his
conversion on the road to Damascus, this was
precisely the view of ‘Saul of Tarsus’ as he was
known then (later Paul the apostle). As he says in 2
Corinthians 5:16: “From now on we regard no one
from a human point of view. Though we once
regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer”.
Paul had a complete turnaround in his thinking
and attitudes – what today might be called a total
paradigm shift.
In Philippians 2: 5-11, Paul composed – or quoted –
an early Christian hymn, which says the Son of
God:
“… made himself nothing, taking the very nature
of a slave, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he
humbled himself
And became obedient to death – even death on
a cross.”
As the final section (vv 9-11) of that hymn says, the
shameful cross of humiliation was followed by the
glorious exaltation of Jesus; the basis of our Easter
hope, so that one day:
“At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow…
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father”.