And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.
And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him.
And the superscription of His accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Which is, being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And some of them that stood by, when they heard it said, Behold, He calleth Elias.
And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take Him down.
And Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost.
And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
And when the centurion, which stood over against Him, saw that He so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said Truly this man was the Son of God.”
The traditions of Ireland say that the centurion who spoke thus at our Lord’s Crucifixion was named Altus, and that this same Altus was an Ulster Warrior in the service of Rome. It would appear from the Gospels that few of the disciples were at hand when Jesus died, for fearing that they might be betrayed by their accents, since, like Jesus, they spoke Aramaic, most of the Galileans had fled from the city. But tradition says that Altus was so impressed with what he had seen that he became a follower of the man he had just crucified and returned to Ireland to preach the Gospel. Since crucifixion was so dishonourable a death that it was reserved, according to Roman custom at that time, for those who were not citizens of Rome, this change in Altus was profound.
For Altus (“the tall one”) had risen from the ranks of the barbarian. He had become a man under the authority of the Roman State, and his dedication to his calling could only have been absolute. His conversion, in the face of the desertion of the Galileans, was even more poignant, since Jesus’s indictment by the Sanhedrin was considered by Pontius Pilate not serious enough for the death penalty, and since his actual death was of so little significance to the Roman State that the great Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his Annals that during the reign of Tiberius there was little to disrupt the harmony of Roman rule. Strangely enough, Jesus had already found in “a certain centurion” faith such as had not found previously, “no, not in Israel.” (Luke 7:9)
The rending from top to bottom of the veil of the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem was of great significance for the world, not least for the Jews themselves. Altus could see that. For the Temple was for them the symbol of God’s presence on earth. At the time of Jesus the Temple appears to have excited the admiration of His disciples for they had exclaimed, “Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here” (Mark 13:1). But, amid all its splendour and magnificence, the Messiah sealed the doom of the Temple. For in reply to the excited exclamations of His disciples, Jesus had declared that the generations of those existing at that time would not pass away before the great building would be reduced to a mass of smouldering ruins.
Like all wandering soldiers, Altus must have asked of its history. The Children of Israel recognise two successive Temples at Jerusalem. The first, which is usually known as Solomon’s Temple, was built on Mount Moriah in 967 BC, being selected by Jesus’s ancestor, David, as the most suitable and commanding site on which to build a city of peace, set on a hill, and a Temple of the Lord as a home for the Holy Ark of the Covenant. It would appear to have been a most magnificent structure, built on the model of the Tabernacle which Moses erected in the desert, according to the commandment of God. King David projected this in the formation of a fixed place for the worship of God and made preparations with the Phoenicians for the provision of materials and workmen for its construction.
To be continued
© Pretani Associates 2014