They crucified him. — The cross employed in capital punishment varied in its form, being sometimes simply a stake on which the sufferer was impaled, sometimes consisting of two pieces of timber put together in the form of a T or an X (as in what we know as the St. Andrew’s cross); sometimes in that familiar to us in Christian art as the Latin cross. In this instance, the fact that the title or superscription was placed over our Lord’s head, implies that the last was the kind of cross employed. In carrying the sentence of crucifixion into effect, the cross was laid on the ground, the condemned man stripped and laid upon it. Sometimes he was simply tied; sometimes, as here, nails driven through the hands and feet; sometimes a projecting ledge was put for the feet to rest on; sometimes the whole weight of the body hung upon the limbs that were thus secured. The clothes of the criminal were the usual perquisites of the executioners, and in this case included (as we find from John 19:23) the tunic worn next the body as well as the outer garment. It was as the soldiers were thus nailing Him to the cross that He prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).
They parted my garments among them. — St. John (John 19:24) emphatically records a yet more literal fulfilment of the words than that noted by St. Matthew. The thoughts of both disciples, we may believe, were turned to Psalms 22:18 by our Lord’s utterance of its opening words (Matthew 27:46), and thus led to dwell on the manifold coincidences of its language with the facts of the Passion.