The Gospels tell of Simon of Cyrene/Jesus carrying a σταυρός on the way to crucifixion. In the recent years influential scholars such as Gunnar Samuelsson and John Granger Cook entered a discussion about what we can know about crucifixion and what it was that Jesus carried. Often, scholars assume that carrying a σταυρός was a common crucifixion practice, and refer to a few Greek sources as parallels. Yet, do these sources speak of cross-bearing? In this article it is argued that possibly three of the sources could be counted as parallels to cross-bearing practices represented in the Gospels.

This article will suggest that scholars have overlooked a model plausibly lurking in the background of Col 2:15 which parallels the triumphal death of Christ: namely, the crucifixion of Regulus. Regulus was a general who achieved a near-mythic status during the First Punic War by his sacrificial death, in which his perseverance on the gibbet was seen as even greater than riding in the victor’s car. Tertullian credited Regulus as having set the precedent for enduring the torments of the cross, while others declared him as having overcome through death not only his human foes but also Lady Fortune. Regulus’ story enjoyed so much widespread popularity it was admitted in the curriculum of Roman schools by the middle of the first century CE. Because Regulus’ epic contains low-hanging fruit, ripe for comparison with Christ’s crucifixion, Christians drew upon the story of Regulus from at least as early as Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and Augustine. Nevertheless, scholars have overlooked the possible parallels with Regulus’ story and Christ’s triumphal death in Col 2:15. I will first provide a composite depiction of Regulus’ military life and sacrificial death along with its reported ramifications in order to tease out similarities and differences with Col 2:15 and finally conclude with comments concerning the significance of including the legend as additional background for the verse. In short, I will propose that reading Regulus’ story in comparison with Col 2:15 supports an anti-imperial and/or a supra-imperial reading of the letter.

The V&A is home to a painted crucifix that has been attributed to the Sicilian master, Antonio de Saliba (c 1466/7–c 1535), who was active in Venice and eastern Sicily during the Renaissance. This paper takes a fresh look at the documentary sources that were published before the devastating earthquake that struck Messina, in the north west of Sicily, in 1908. In re-examining these sources, this paper reveals new insights into Antonio de Saliba’s oeuvre and enables a possible identification of the V&A’s painted crucifix with a specific contractual agreement that links this crucifix’s commission to the artist – specifically with a commission de Saliba received in 1508 from Limina, a small town in the province of Messina. The roots of this provincial commission would explain the persistence of a retardataire production visible in this early sixteenth-century painted crucifix. This paper also challenges the preconceived idea that such painted crucifixes were destined to be displayed high up in a church, on a tramezzo or beam.

That Jesus carried the horizontal bar of the cross, also named patibulum, is often assumed, and argued by John Granger Cook. Gunnar Samuelsson disagrees, however, and argued that we grope in the dark about the exact nature of the σταυρός that Jesus carried. Both major crucifixion scholars refer in their argumentation to Latin sources in which a patibulum is carried. But these sources have not been thoroughly assessed on their own. In this article the eight Latin sources mentioned in support of the ancient practice are analysed. It is argued that only four of these sources should be counted as referring to ‘traditional’ cross-bearing practices.

The present article argues that rather than look for a traditional Jewish model behind Mark's passion narrative (such as an account of the Suffering Righteous One), we would do better to understand the composition of the whole gospel – both the central body of teaching in 8.22–10.45 and the passion narrative – as influenced by the genre of ancient philosophical lives. After considering ways in which biographies tended to present the deaths of philosophers, the article examines the death of the Markan Jesus as an example of a shameful, humiliating end. What redeems it for Mark is the fact that Jesus dies in perfect conformity with his teaching. The carefully composed central section of teaching material (8.22–10.52), it is argued, was put together by the evangelist with the specific intention of showing that Jesus died in accordance with his teaching. Thus the crucifixion could become the perfect embodiment of Jesus’ counter-cultural message of self-denial and servanthood, and therefore a powerful symbol of its truth.

The Gospel of Peter (GP), often claimed to be theologically unsophisticated, offers a theological reflection upon the saving work of the Lord in his resurrection. GP receives the synoptic tradition, which itself has no narration of the resurrection (but only narrations of ‘appearances’), and fills in this lacuna. The narration of the resurrection is patterned upon GP's narration of the crucifixion, thereby suggesting that the resurrection and the crucifixion are two coordinated salvific events. GP's reception of the synoptic tradition is thus not only apologetic or polemical, but also theological.

Gnostic studies mainly depended on the Church Fathers' approach to heresies until the discovery of the Coptic Nag Hammadi codices in 1945. As we are slowly moving away from this patristic approach to Gnosticism, docetism is still defined as a tendency to regard Jesus' body as an appearance, and not as a real incarnate body. Irenaeus' refutation of all heresies presents the Valentinian and Basilidian Christologies as clearly docetist. A comparison of direct Valentinian sources such as the Extracts of Theodotus with Valentinian tractates from Nag Hammadi shows on the contrary that Valentinians had a clear notion of the incarnation. As for the Basilidians, the Elenchos of Ps.-Hippolytus, the Second Logos of the Great Seth and the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter can be used to demonstrate that docetism is not the proper category to interpret Basilidian Christology and Soteriology because the purification of the real body of the Saviour lies at the heart of that system.

The recently discovered Gospel of Judas has created much controversy among scholars. While it is clear that Judas is liable for Jesus' crucifixion in this text, it is much debated whether his actions should be understood positively or negatively. This article suggests that focusing on how the Gospel of Judas evaluates the salvific meaning of Jesus' crucifixion alongside the New Testament gospels and other early Christian writings may provide a key for solving this problem. In this way, the Gospel of Judas can be seen as a rare attempt to unravel what Irenaeus aptly termed ‘the mystery of the betrayal’.

After discussing the scholarly preference for dating Jesus' crucifixion to 7 April 30 CE, this article argues that the precise date can no longer be recovered. All we can claim with any degree of historical certainty is that Jesus died some time around Passover (perhaps a week or so before the feast) between 29 and 34 CE. The emergence of the Johannine tradition (in which Jesus died on the day of Preparation) and the Markan tradition (in which Jesus died on the Passover itself) are explored through the lens of social/collective memory.

This article identifies a structural and conceptual chiasm within the description of Jesus' death and resurrection in Acts 2.23b-24, which helps to account for the distinctive elements of the passage.

This essay explores the heuristic force of Alain Badiou's theory of ‘truth-processes’ for an understanding of the psycho-social effect of Paul's gospel upon first-century inhabitants of the Roman Empire, both elite and lower class. Badiou's analysis of the ‘situated void’ around which existence is constructed directs attention to figures of the subject as ‘living death’ in the literature of the first century, illuminating the process by which a new, liberated self came forth, in response to Paul's message of the resurrection. An immanent critique of Badiou's singular emphasis upon the resurrection as the Pauline ‘truth-event’ gives rise to an hypothesis regarding Paul's description of his gospel as ‘Christ crucified’ in his later epistles: Paul dared to name the ‘situated void’ around which the existence of slaves was constructed in order to redeem the oppressed, whose identities were submerged in shame, from the annihilating power of the cross.