Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-10-07 | Page 50 | How was Christ Crucified?

How Was Christ Crucified? IT IS generally believed that the nails with which Our Lord was crucified pierced the centers of His hands and feet. A correspondent calls attention to the fact that in the Holy Shroud at Turin the marks of the nails appear in the wrist and the instep. M. Paul Vignon, in his remarkable book, "Le Linceul du Christ," published,in an English translation trans-lation in 1902 under the title "The Shroud of Christ" (London, A. Constable & Co.) says; "The nail wound on the left hand is in the wrist, not bri the center of the palm, as demanded by tradition. In a forged relic such a parade of independence independ-ence would scarcely have been tolerated. tol-erated. As it was, to have shown the public only one hand and consequently only one wound was remarkable enough. Such licenses would be pardoned par-doned only in the most authentic relic. Yet anatomy proves that the nails must have been driven into the wrists, not into the hands. Here, again, tradition is contradicted. "What would have become of the body on the cross, had the nails been driven through the palms of the hands? The weight of the body would quickly have enlarged the wounds, and the ligaments lig-aments at the base of the fingers would soon have given way. If, however, the nails were driven in at the wrists, there would be no chance of the wound's enlargement; indeed, the very weight of the body would throw pressure pres-sure on the extremities of the metacarpal metacar-pal bones, which are firmly united. It is easy to verify this experimentally. Let us take the right hand between the four fingers of the left and thumb, pressing the thumb firmly on the back of the right hand. If we thrust our thumb-nail between the bases of the third and fourth fingers there is no appreciable resistance. Hence the sup- pleness of the human hand. The metacarpal meta-carpal bones turn easily, the one upon the other, when latorally compressed. Let us repeat the experiment thrusting' the thumb-nail this time into the wrist. We could not separate the ligaments of the metacarpal bone here if we tried. Therefore on the shroud, had the wound .been visible in the center of the hand, we should think somo painter had been at work who was more mindful of tradition tra-dition than of anatomy. As for the wounds in the feet, we have already dealt with the appearance of the blood-marks blood-marks at and near the heels. If nails were really driven in herer.c would then correspond to those in the hands. All pictures give the feet pierced in the center of the metacarpus, metacar-pus, but certainly the feet would have been more solidly fastened had the naii been driven in at the instep." We gladly print this extract, if only for the purpose of drawing attention to M. Vignon's strange and fascinu-.m j book. The Fortnightiy Keview.