A Doctor at Calvary: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ as Described by a Surgeon by Dr. Pierre Barbet

(New York: Pickle Partners Publishing, 1953), 245

PREFACE

For has this world any more important subject for meditation than those sufferings, in which two mysterious truths have become materialised for mankind, the Incarnation and the Redemption? It is clearly both necessary and sufficient that mankind should adhere to these with the whole of their souls, and that they should loyally derive from them their rule of life. But, in this unique event, which is the culminating point of human history, the smallest detail seems to me to have an infinite value. One does not weary of examining the smallest particulars, even when the reticence of the Evangelists makes it necessary for us to build our structure on scientific bases, which, even though they may be neither scriptural nor inspired, are nevertheless reasonably solid hypotheses.
He had died, suffering from cramp in all His muscles and from asphyxia.
I have never ceased to reflect on this form of torment and on the pictures of the Holy Shroud, the authenticity of which is to my mind assured by a closely-knit web of anatomical proofs.
these scientific conclusions are fully in accordance with the Gospels.
my anatomical experiments were undertaken after the exposition of the shroud at Turin in 1931.
I have retained from the solid classical education which I received (according to the usual formula) the capacity to go over the Greek and Latin, but alas, not the Hebrew texts.

CHAPTER ONE—THE HOLY SHROUD

The reader who wishes to form a general idea of the problem, should read a little book which is as precise as it is concise, La Passion selon le Saint Suaire, by my friend Antoine Legrand (Librairie du Carmel, 27 Rue Madame, Paris).
Let us, then, also study the shroud, since I started my experiments in order to discover whether its markings corresponded with the realities of anatomy and physiology. I undertook this study with a completely open mind, being equally ready to affirm that the shroud was an absurd fraud, or to recognise its authenticity, but I was gradually forced to agree, on every single point, that its markings were exact. Furthermore, those which seemed the strangest were those which fitted in best with my experiments.
It was this homogeneous group of verifications without one single weak link among them, which decided me, relying on the balance of probabilities, to declare that the authenticity of the shroud, from the point of view of anatomy and physiology, is a scientific fact.

A.—THE HISTORY

What happened to the shroud? Nicephorus Callistus wrote in his ecclesiastical history that in the year 436 the Empress Pulcheria had built in Constantinople the basilica of St. Mary of the Blachernae and that she deposited there the burial linen of Jesus, which had just been rediscovered.

B.—THE HOLY SHROUD AND THE POPES

And as usual he did so with his pen in his hand, taking notes in the course of his reading.

C.—GENERAL DESCRIPTION

“The blood itself had coloured the stuff by direct contact, and that is why the images of the wounds are positive while all the rest is negative.
“I have a long experience of Italians, and I find their lively reactions very attractive;

D.—THE PHOTOGRAPHS

The marks made by the body on the shroud are thus like a negative; they have all the characteristics of an ordinary photographic plate; everything is inverted, black is white, and white is black.
On the other hand, and this is of the greatest importance, the burns (as is obvious), but also the marks of blood, are clearly positive on the shroud: on the photographic plate they come out white. These then are positive, normal images on the shroud.
This leads us to a most important conclusion: the marks of the body have been produced by a process, which, if, as we believe, it was a natural one, bears a certain likeness to the phenomenon of photography. The marks of blood, on the other hand, can only have been made by direct contact; they are the marks of congealed blood;
In that face, which is definitely Semitic, one finds, in spite of the tortures and the wounds, such an effect of serene majesty that an unspeakable impression is left. If one would understand it a little, one must remember that if the Sacred Humanity had just died in that body the Divinity is always present with the certainty of the coming Resurrection.
As Virgil said to Dante in his Inferno: “Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa —Do not let us speak of them, but look and pass on!”

E.—THE FORMATION OF THE IMPRESSIONS

Now our Faith tells us that Jesus never knew corruption; and every part of the shroud confirms us in this certainty.
Actually, those pictures which are meant to be the most realistic are the ones which contain the most blatant physiological errors. We shall find that this is specially the case in regard to marks of blood. When a crucifix is designed to stir our emotions by displaying to us the atrocious nature of the torture, so much the further is it from the truth. I know I shall be attacked for this, but still, it has to be said; if from the artistic standpoint I am able to appreciate the pictorial values of a Grünewald, the contorted way in which he paints the Crucified seems to me purely grotesque. I can assure you that the Passion was both more simple and infinitely more tragic than that.
Science at this point can do no more than keep silence, for it is outside its domain. But the man of learning at least has a glimpse that here is a palpable proof of the Resurrection.
When I had published the first edition of les Cinq Plaies , I went to the École pratique to read it to my old friend, Professor Hovelacque. He was devoted to the subject of anatomy, which he taught to the faculty in Paris, but he was far from being a believer. He approved of my experiments and conclusions with growing enthusiasm. When he had finished reading he put down my booklet, and he remained silent for a short while in a state of meditation. Then he suddenly burst out with that fine frankness on which our friendship had been built up, and exclaimed: “But then, my friend…Jesus Christ did rise again!” Rarely in my life have I known such deep and happy emotion as at this reaction of an unbeliever when faced with a purely scientific work, from which he was drawing incalculable consequences. He died a few months later, and I dare to hope that God has rewarded him.
The Bodily Impressions .—May we say at once, that if we know full well what these impressions are not, we have no precise idea of how they came to appear.
for all roads lead to Rome:

CHAPTER TWO—CRUCIFIXION AND ARCHÆOLOGY

A.—THE PRACTICE OF CRUCIFIXION

B.—THE INSTRUMENTS OF CRUCIFIXION

May I be so bold as to add that the patibulum which is shown at Santa Croce, on the stairs leading to the chapel of the relics, as being that of the good thief, has just such a mortice.
tetany and asphyxia. It is more than probable
In fact the two methods of fixing (nails and ropes) were in use among the Romans from the beginning. But they were used separately. One must insist there is no text which suggests or leads one to believe that two methods were ever used at the same time, on the same crucified being. The experts knew well that three nails, or four at the most, were quite enough to achieve a rapid and firm crucifixion.
crucifixion was not through the palms of the hands but through the wrists.

D.—THE GOSPELS EXPLAINED BY ARCHÆOLOGY

Both these methods are to be found in the work of several painters, especially Roger van der Weyden.
Fra Angelico, in San Marco in Florence.
In the Walloon country the great Roger van der Weyden never paints anything else. Albrecht Dürer also prefers the T.
As we have seen, information about the cross of Jesus is scarce and indefinite. But I can see no reason for believing that a special cross was made for Him. The cross which was waiting for Him was just one of those on Golgotha. It would then have been not only a cross of medium height, but also a cross in the form of a T, which, according to the opinion of archæologists, was the normal form of Roman crosses.
St. Ephrem the Syrian (Sermon VI on Holy Week, Latin translation by Father Joseph Leclerc) in which, like Alexander of Alexandria, he says that the sun hid itself before the nakedness of Jesus.

CHAPTER THREE—THE CAUSES OF THE RAPID DEATH

It is true that He experienced one of the most terrible forms of suffering which can be imagined,
All the crucified died asphyxiated.
the raised position of the arms, which were thus in the position for inspiration, would entail a relative immobility of the sides, and would thus greatly hinder breathing out; the crucified would have the sensation of progressive suffocation.
The whole agony was thus spent in an alternation of sagging and then of straightening the body, of asphyxia and of respiration. We shall see how this has become materialised on the shroud, in the double flow of blood issuing from the wound in the hand, where there is an angular gap of several degrees between the two flows. The one corresponds to the sagging, the other to the straightening position.
And thus it seems to me that the causes of the death of Jesus emerge quite clearly from the human and scientific point of view
Many predisposing causes brought it about that He was worn out and physically shattered, when He faced the most terrible torture that the malice of men has conceived. One cause was, the determining, immediate and final one, asphyxia.
When one rereads the Gospels with a medical eye, one is more and more struck by the way in which He dominates the whole proceeding. He has fully and freely accepted all the consequences of the human nature which He has assumed by His submission to the will of the Father, and has fully understood what havoc these traumatisms can cause in our poor battered flesh. But it is evident with what serene self-control, with what supreme dignity He dominated this Passion which was foreseen and willed by Himself. He died because He willed it, when He was able to say to Himself in a state of full consciousness:—“It is consummated.”—My task is accomplished (Jn. XIX, 30). {16} He died in the way that He willed. In that human body, suffering and dying, the Divinity dwelt. It remained in this corpse. And that is why, unlike anything else in this world, the Face on the Holy Shroud shows us such serene and astounding and adorable majesty.

CHAPTER FOUR—THE PRELIMINARY SUFFERINGS

At the end of the study, when one has established the fact that all the images, even and indeed especially when at first sight they seem to be weird and contrary to traditional iconography, are in conformity with experimental truth, this collection of partial proofs will end by being equivalent to an absolute proof. If we calculate what the probabilities are, an infinitesimal possibility of error will be seen to be as good as a certitude. That is why, speaking from the anatomical standpoint, I ended by accepting the Holy Shroud as genuine. A forger would somewhere or other have made some blunder which would have betrayed him. He would not have contradicted all artistic traditions with such supreme unconcern.
what St. Matthew and St. John clearly insinuate: that the crown was a sort of cap made of thorny branches, and not just a headband.

CHAPTER FIVE—THE WOUNDS OF THE HANDS

where was the nail driven in? I am prepared to state my conclusion immediately: in the middle of the wrist.
It is certain, then, that the nails could not have been driven into the palms without rapidly causing a tear;
There is no text which suggests that nailing and binding with ropes were combined; and, as it was unnecessary, I think one may confidently assume that it was not done.
We may then presume, when we take into account that the agony of Jesus was relatively short, that His cross was without this support. Had He been bound with ropes as well, were this not foreign to the history of crucifixion, the agony would have been prolonged.
The sagging has taken place; there must, then, have been no ropes or sedile; the body was supported only by the nails in the hands, while the nail in the foot, in the sagging position, would be supporting nothing whatever. We, therefore, need to find a place in the hand where the nails would be able to hold firmly and to uphold this weight of nearly 209 pounds per nail. An executioner who knew his trade would know that the palm of a hand which was fixed by a nail would become torn away.
The nail has entered into Destot’s space; it has moved aside the four bones which surround it, without breaking one of them, merely widening the space.
There must, then, be an anatomical passage already formed, a natural road along which the nail passes along easily and where it is held solidly in position by the bones of the wrist, the latter being held firmly by their distended ligaments and by the transverse carpal ligament, on the upper edge of which it rests.
Now, I observed on the first occasion, and regularly from then onwards, that at the moment when the nail went through the soft anterior parts, the palm being upwards, the thumb would bend sharply and would be exactly facing the palm by the contraction of the thenar muscles, while the four fingers bent very slightly;
dissections have revealed to me that the trunk of the median nerve is always seriously injured by the nail;
But, alas, the median nerves are not merely the motor nerves, they are also the great sensory nerves. When they were injured and stretched out on the nails, in those extended arms, like the strings of a violin on their bridge, they must have caused the most horrible pain.
Let us, then, conclude with this thought, by which every Christian who is able to feel compassion must needs be overcome (but which is, nevertheless, no more than the result of strictly objective observation): the nails in the hands were driven into a natural space, generally known as Destot’s space, which is situated between the two rows of the bones of the wrist. Now, anatomists of every age and land regard the wrist as an integral part of the hand, which consists of the wrist, the metacarpus, and the fingers. We may then, in accordance with our experimental knowledge, with the shroud and with the Holy Scriptures, repeat after Our Lord, in the strictly anatomical sense, the words: “Vide manus ” and after David: “Foderunt manus meas.

CHAPTER SIX—THE WOUNDS IN THE FEET

That is the position which my good friend Dr. Villandre has, acting on my suggestions, given Him in his fine crucifix, and it would seem that this can still be seen on the shroud.
Rubens, had seen the shroud. (We have seen how he, among several others, placed the nails in the wrists.)
There was one hole , piercing the two feet crossed one over the other, through the second intermetatarsal spaces, with the right foot against the cross and the left in front.

CHAPTER SEVEN—THE WOUND IN THE HEART

that Catholics would do well to rely on a well-established revelation, instead of letting themselves be carried away by the latest pseudo-scientific idea, for fear of appearing to be behind the times, as one sees happen all too frequently; the Church, with her responsible and inspired High Authority, on the other hand, gives them the example of prudence.
The shroud bears clear marks of this wound on the left side, and as the images are reversed, this means that it was on the right.
the stigmata have a purely mystical significance and in no sense can they be regarded as a more or less exact reproduction of the five wounds of the Passion.
St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom he appeals (IIIa, Q. XIV), says quite rightly that Jesus assumed (voluntarily and not owing to birth, since He was exempt from original sin) a human nature, with its defectus corporis, its bodily failings. But he enumerates these: hunger, thirst, death and other similar things. Illness is not mentioned. It would seem that He could have accepted illness if He had consented to it. But the majority of Catholic theologians hold that He did not do so as it was not fitting.

CHAPTER EIGHT—THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, THE JOURNEY TO THE TOMB AND THE ENTOMBMENT

Fra Angelico, the most mystical and Catholic of painters,
It is certain that the body of Christ was borne horizontally, but as it was on the cross, from this to the neighbourhood of the tomb; it was not till then that it was placed on the shroud.
Under these conditions the rigidity of the corpse would be extreme, as in the case of those who have died of tetanus: the body was rigid, fixed in the position of crucifixion.
(1) The feet are unnailed from the stipes.
(2) The patibulum is lowered with the body without unnailing the hands. The whole is then carried, without using any contrivance, by five bearers, of whom one alone touches the body, at the level of the heels; two others support the back with the sheet twisted to form a band, which becomes impregnated with blood. The two last carry the ends of the patibulum.
(3) This body is only placed on half the shroud at the end of the journey,
(4) The body is placed on the shroud
(5) The hands are unnailed; the patibulum is removed and they bend the arms forward, crossing the hands.
(6) They then fold back the other half of the shroud over the head (epi tèn kephalén ) and the front part of the body.
G.—The laying in the tomb.

CHAPTER NINE—THE BURIAL

each one describes the events in a different way, in conformity with his own plan and his particular genius; different words are frequently used, and the same details are not always stressed. They are complementary to, but do not contradict each other. We know that they are all inspired by the Holy Spirit, and possess the gift of inerrancy. Should we seem to see any opposition between them, it is because we have failed to understand them.
the disciples have only performed the first act of the Israelite customs, that which preceded the burial proper, and this was because they have neither the time nor the materials. They have wrapped Jesus in a shroud, surrounding this with linen cloths which have been impregnated with the mixture of myrrh and aloes,
Because time was so short the body of Jesus was laid in the sepulchre on the Friday evening, after a simple preparation for burial which was merely intended to postpone putrefaction. The disciples, without washing or anointing the body, wrapped it in a shroud surrounded with linen cloths impregnated with a large quantity of myrrh and aloes. The final burial, which would consist of washing and anointing with sweet spices of a quite different kind, was to be performed by the holy women on Sunday morning. In the empty tomb, Peter and John found the linen cloths and the shroud rolled up separately.

CHAPTER TEN—VILLANDRE’S CRUCIFIX

I have the greatest respect for all departments of knowledge, while at the same time submitting absolutely to the authority of my Mother the Church. But I should no more expect anatomical precision from a theologian or a paleographer than I should ask a doctor for a dogmatic definition or for an explanation of some exegetical or historical point. To speak the truth, it seems to me essential that we should collaborate, and that each one should tell what he knows.
Among the anatomists who have encouraged me, and whose opinion I have specially valued, is my dear friend, Charles Villandre, who was surgeon in the Hôpital Saint-Joseph. As he was a past-master in sculpture as well as in surgery, I asked him to make a crucifix,
His Crucified in Death well represents the synthesis of the researches which I have described in the course of this work,

CHAPTER ELEVEN—LAST THOUGHTS

I am not afraid of those who study it carefully; I am only worried about those people who are always in a hurry, who jump out of trains and buses at breakneck speed, and who gallop through a book with seven-league boots. To these I would say: read it over again at your leisure, or else leave the question alone! A thorough grasp of such a problem can only be obtained by a minute examination of the details.
my thought was dominated from the beginning with the idea of reconstructing the Passion of Our Saviour in its smallest details; of exploring all the physical circumstances of the central drama of our Redemption,
Jesus died for me; how then did He die?
I certainly hold that to describe these imprints as the work of a forger is an attitude which is now absurd, and which it is impossible to uphold. It is my firm personal opinion that this shroud has contained the dead body of Jesus and also His Divinity. I believe in this, just as I believe in the law of gravitation and in the fact of weight. I believe in it in the same way that one accepts a scientific truth, because this belief is in agreement with everything that we know. I am, therefore, quite ready, as one should be in scientific matters, to give up or to modify the details of this belief, if new and incontestable facts should be produced which can be reasonably said to contradict it. God alone knows the absolute truths, that is to say, the Truth; He and those to whom He has been pleased to reveal small parts of them.
INDEED THIS MAN WAS THE SON OF GOD
Here, then, is the result of my anatomical and other researches on the subject of the Wounds of Christ. I hope I have given the impression that I have conducted them with full independence of mind and with all possible scientific objectivity. I started out with a certain scepticism, more or less with a Cartesian doubt, to examine the images on the shroud; I was quite ready to deny their authenticity, if they disagreed with anatomical truth. But, on the contrary, the facts gradually grouped themselves into a bundle of proofs, which carried increasing conviction. Not only was the explanation of the images so natural and simple that it proclaimed them to be genuine; but, when at first they seemed to be abnormal, experiment demonstrated that they were as they should be, that they could not be different and as a forger would have portrayed them, following the current iconographic traditions. Anatomy thus bore witness to their authenticity, in full agreement with the Gospel texts. We possess, then, the shroud of Christ, bearing the image of His body and the marks of His blood. It is the most noble relic in the world, a corporal relic of Our Lord. For him who can read and can reflect, it is the most beautiful, the most moving of the meditations on the Passion.
Before this image of Our Saviour, still adorned with all the flowers of the Redemption, still impregnated with the Divine Blood which was shed for our sins, we can truly repeat as after Holy Communion: “Tua vulnera considero, illud præ oculis habens quod jam in ore ponebat tuo David propheta de te, O bone Jesu: Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos, dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea— I contemplate Thy five wounds, having before my eyes what David the prophet said long ago concerning Thee, O good Jesus, they have pierced my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones.”

CHAPTER TWELVE—THE CORPORAL PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST A MEDITATION

Meditate upon this on Good Friday
Besides, when a surgeon has meditated on the sufferings of the Passion, when he has worked out its timing and its physiological circumstances, when he has methodically set himself to reconstruct all the stages of that martyrdom of a night and a day, he can, more than the most eloquent preacher, more than the most saintly ascetics (apart from those to whom was granted a direct vision, and who were overwhelmed by it), as it were share in the sufferings of Christ. I can assure you of a dreadful thing, I have reached a point when I no longer dare to think of them. No doubt this is cowardice, but I hold that one must either have heroic virtue or else fail to understand; that one must either be a saint or else irresponsible, in order to do the Way of the Cross. I no longer can.

CONCLUSION

Jesus is in agony till the end of time. It is right, it is good to suffer with Him and to thank Him, when He sends us pain, to associate ourselves with His. We have, as St. Paul writes, to complete what is lacking in the passion of Christ, and with Mary, His Mother and our Mother, to accept our fellow-suffering fraternally and with joy.
in the Pietà in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges painted by Memling, the wound in the chest is accurately placed on the right side, the thumbs are mesially adducted across the palms and the nail wounds in both feet are in correct position. Giotto, as is to be seen in the Arena Chapel, Padua, painted a Tau cross. So did the great Roger van der Weyden after 1400 as is seen in his Descent from the Cross in the Escorial. The early German painters, Dürer, Grünewald, and Cranach, also painted Christ crucified on a Tau cross with the titulus on the cross-beam over His head.

Topic: Crucifixion

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Created: 2023-04-13-Thu
Updated: 2025-12-31-Wed