Immediate Cause of Christ's Death.
By Geikie
THAT any one should die so soon on the cross, especially one, like Jesus, in the prime of life, and unweakened by previous ill-health, and in such vigor to the last as to utter such a shriek as that with which he expired, appeared even to Christian antiquity to imply some supernatural cause. But the mingled flow of blood and water seems to point unmistakably to another explanation. The immediate cause of death appears, beyond question, to have been the rupture of his heart, brought about by mental agony. Excess of joy or grief is known to induce the bursting of some division of the heart, and the consequent flow of blood into the pericardium, or bag, filled with colorless serum, like water, in which the heart is suspended. In ordinary cases, only examination after death discovers the fact, but in that of our Lord, the same end was answered by the thrust of the soldier's spear. In a death from heart-rupture “the hand is suddenly carried to the front of the chest, and a piercing shriek uttered.” The hands of Jesus were nailed to the cross, but the appalling shriek is recorded. Jesus died, literally, of a broken heart.—Geikie.