You’ve seen crucifixes all your life. Every Sunday, one looks down at you from above the altar. One may be hanging around your neck right now. Usually, the corpus on the cross does not appear brutalized or overly bloody, and the loins are modestly covered. But in a way, modern portrayals of the crucifixion do us a disservice, failing to display the humiliation, degradation, and torture Jesus actually endured for our sins.
Yes, it is highly likely, even unavoidable, that Our Lord was crucified naked.
Often, we modify reality to fit our sensibilities. We avoid the overly dramatic, the goriness of what really happened. We cover the private parts of the corpus because we are respectful, and it would be imprudent and shocking to do otherwise. It may seem insensitive to discuss nudity with persons of modest impulses or pious presumptions, but historical reality and truth do not bend to sentimentality. The historical reality of a crucifixion is quite different from what we see today.
As we discuss this topic, I assure you that I believe it is quite proper to have the corpus of Jesus modestly covered on the crucifixes in our churches. We understand that nakedness is to be covered. The Catechism informs us, “Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden” (2521). It is proper for modesty, decorum, and decency to cover the loins of Jesus on the cross, especially in places of worship.
But the Romans did not possess our modern scruples or reserve. They were ruthless and cruel, especially to non-Romans. Life was cheap. Crucifixions were meant to be billboards at city gates and along Roman roads to instill dread in the people’s hearts. The billboard said loud and clear, “This is what will happen to you if you defy the power of Rome!” Remember the gruesome display of Spartacus’s 6,000 fellow slaves who were crucified along the Via Appia in 71 B.C. Imagine walking the Via Appia from Puteoli into Rome with screaming men on crosses lining the road for miles.
Our objective as Catholics is not to force political obedience to the will of the Roman Empire. Our goals are quite the opposite. Whereas the Romans strove to humiliate and degrade men on the cross, we, on the other hand, seek to inspire respect and proper adoration for our Lord and Savior. We desire to feel empathy with him on the cross. We never forget what he suffered for our sins, but we do so in a manner that is proper, decent, and respectful.
But then, what would you think to learn that Jesus was crucified naked, without coverings of any kind?
We were not there to see it for ourselves, nor were crowds uploading videos with their smartphones. But we do know from ancient documents and studying history how the Romans executed criminals.
The Persians had devised crucifixion around 600 B.C. as one of the most gruesome and demeaning ways to die—agonizing, and highly visible in the most degrading and humiliating way. It was meant to torture the victim with a symphony of pain that seared through every fiber. Nakedness only contributed to the total dehumanization as men even lost control of their bodily functions. This was all on shameful display, to the embarrassment of families and the mortification of travelers.
This is a point of contention for some Catholics, who find it impermissible to consider Jesus naked on the cross. It has been argued that the Jews were a modest nation. Authors and biblical commentators often claim that a cloth was applied to avoid offending the Jews. However, these defenders provide no evidence for their claims, and we know that the Roman soldiers had no respect for Jewish sensibilities in general (see, e.g., Acts 18:12-17). There is no reason to believe that the Romans covered Jesus’ private parts with a loincloth. In fact, it would be unreasonable to think they did.
Falling back on Jewish delicacy is of no help, either. In fact, even the Jews themselves did not seem to have a problem with “immodest” executions. According to their own rabbis, nakedness seems to have been customary during executions of men, though not of women. The Mishnah (a compilation of Jewish tradition and practice compiled around A.D. 200) records several opinions held among the earlier Jewish rabbis. They taught in Sanhedrin 6:3 and Sotah 6:3,
A. [When] he was four cubits from the place of stoning, they remove his clothes.”
B. “In the case of a man, they cover him up in front, and in the case of a woman, they cover her up in front and behind,” the words of R. Judah.
C. And sages say, “A man is stoned naked, but a woman is not stoned naked.”
A man [who incurs the death penalty] is stoned naked, but a woman is not stoned naked.
Here, we have the recording of Jewish traditions and practices from the time of Christ. Men were executed naked, even among their own Jewish countrymen. If even the Jews completely stripped their own criminals, why would we think the Romans would impose more modesty and scruples than the Jews required of themselves?
The Jews were scandalized by the sign that Pilate placed over Jesus’ head—“Jesus, King of the Jews.” This was surely more offensive to them than nudity. Yet when the Jews specifically demanded that Pilate reword the sign, he refused to change it or take it down. So much for the concern for Jewish feelings.
Jews limited the number of lashes applied to a criminal to forty (Deut. 25:3), but the Romans paid no heed to that Jewish concern, either. “While the Jews only allowed forty lashes, the Romans had no such limit; many people who received such a beating died as a result.” The soldiers were there to uphold Roman customs, not TO cater to Jewish religious sentiments.
It is apparent that Jesus was robed along the via dolorosa. “And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him” (Mark 15:20). But when they arrived at Calvary, they stripped him and “took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic” (John 19:23). Aquinas says, “He was despoiled of his garments” (Summa Theologiae III, Q. 46, A. 5). Soldiers were given a “bonus” by allowing them to profit from the clothing of the executed.
Some have suggested that Mary would never have permitted her son to die in such shame. However, even though she was present at Calvary, she was a bystander and certainly not in charge of the proceedings. Women did not tell Roman soldiers under orders how to conduct their business.
Catholic mystics commonly insist that Jesus’ loins were covered. One might wonder if their writings aren’t often influenced by swells of piety more than historical reality. I often enjoy the writings of mystics and benefit from them, but I don’t hesitate to question them, especially if they contradict historical realities and Scripture. Catholics are not bound by the visions of mystics, nor to any form of private revelation, since “they do not belong to the deposit of faith” (CCC 67).
Catholic monk and prolific writer Thomas à Kempis wrote of the crucifixion using the word naked twenty-one times. Here are two examples:
[Mary] indeed has seen her most dearly-loved Son hang there above her, with His Body naked and covered with blood.” And again, “Alas for the spite of those extortioners, who had not even so much pity for Jesus hanging on the Cross, poor and naked, as to give Him back some little thing, or to leave even a shred of one of His garments for His sorrowing Mother to keep as a remembrance of Him Whom she had lost! (121-122, 168).
St. Melito, bishop of Sardis, who died around A.D. 180, wrote a sermon on the passion of Christ. Because people of his day had witnessed crucifixions, Melito knew that the victims were executed without clothing. He wrote, “The Sovereign has been made unrecognizable by his naked body, and is not even allowed a garment to keep him from view.”
Typology provides some interesting parallels to ponder. From the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem before 387, bishop St. Cyril spoke to the newly baptized: “Having stripped, you were naked, in this also imitating Christ, who was naked on the cross” (“Second Lecture on the Mysteries”: Baptism, 2).
Going back (much) farther, the first Adam in the garden was naked in his innocence at a “tree of life” (Gen. 2:25). Due to his sin, Adam’s nakedness was covered, and he was exiled from the garden. The last Adam, Jesus (1 Cor. 15:45), entered another garden (John 19:41) and was stripped naked at a “tree of death” to restore mankind’s innocence. One was naked in his innocence and then clothed; the second was clothed and then stripped naked to restore innocence.
Thomas à Kempis saw these parallels as well:
As, in the Garden of Eden, before Paradise was lost, the first Adam went naked; so now thou too dost, in like manner, ascend the cross naked, to regain for us that lost Paradise, from which Adam was cast out, and driven forth” (106).
In conclusion, whether we believe that Jesus was covered on the cross or not will have no effect on the power of the cross or our salvation, but understanding the depth of his suffering and the extent of the degradation he endured for our sins is significant. Understanding the historical realities of the Passion only increases our love for Jesus and inspires our profound commitment and devotion to him and his sacrifice.