One of the odd things you’ll notice about the traditional 14
- Gets condemned, is given his cross, falls down.
- Encounters his mom, Simon of Cyrene, and St. Veronica; falls down.
- Encounters the daughters of Jerusalem, falls down.
Then he’s stripped and nailed to the cross, so he’s not gonna fall down anymore—unless we count when he’s taken down from the cross, and likely they didn’t drop him in so doing. Still: Three of the stations of the cross involve Jesus falling down. And in St. Francis of Assisi’s original list of seven stations, Jesus falls in the second and fifth stations, so when Christians expanded it to 14, they added a fall.
Yet in the gospels, he doesn’t fall down. They never say he did any such thing.
We can certainly imagine he did, what with being weak from sleep deprivation and blood loss, and the fact he clearly wasn’t up to carrying his own cross. But the gospels never say he fell down. He might’ve, but the authors never say so.
So what’s with all the falling down?
Simple: A popular medieval tradition borrowed this verse from Proverbs, and claimed it was a prophecy about Jesus:
Proverbs 24.15-16 CSB 15 Don’t set an ambush, you wicked one,- at the camp of the righteous man;
- don’t destroy his dwelling.
16 Though a righteous person falls seven times,- he will get up,
- but the wicked will stumble into ruin.
The medievals claimed Jesus was this righteous person who fell seven times, and he did it in the course of his passion. So only falling three times in the stations of the cross was actually underdoing it. He should’ve been keeling over more often than a Pentecostal during a revival. Every other station should’ve been another fall.
Of course you know actors in the passion plays will fall down every chance they’re given. It’s an easy way to show weakness and suffering. So it stands to reason Francis and the Christians thereafter would make sure it got into the stations of the cross. But nope, doesn’t happen in the gospels.
I know; it regularly surprises
Filling in “blanks” with Old Testament “prophecies.”
This is hardly the only time the traditional sufferings of Jesus don’t actually come from the gospels. I wrote about a few, like when Jesus’s tormenters supposedly
None of these ideas came from the gospels, but from statements in Isaiah—which Christians claimed were really about Jesus.
Isaiah 50.6 CSB - I gave my back to those who beat me,
- and my cheeks to those who tore out my beard.
- I did not hide my face from scorn and spitting.
Isaiah 52.14 CSB - Just as many were appalled at you—
- his appearance was so disfigured
- that he did not look like a man,
- and his form did not resemble a human being—
Isaiah 53.7 CSB - He was oppressed and afflicted,
- yet he did not open his mouth.
- Like a lamb led to the slaughter
- and like a sheep silent before her shearers,
- he did not open his mouth.
Okay, he didn’t open his mouth to defend himself in trial,
The gospels and history provide us a whole lot of details about what Jesus went through. But this simply wasn’t enough for us Christians, who had to pull stuff out of the Old Testament, whether it was suitable or not, and tack it into the passion stories. All the more reason, when we talk about Jesus’s suffering, we need to crack open that bible and see for ourselves whether stuff went down that way. Because, as you can see, there are a few things we’re misremembering.
