Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/530

 526 CRUCIGER CRUGER before the occupation of the country by the Romans. In early times the idea of degrada- tion appears not to have been connected with punishment by crucifixion. Among the Car- thaginians it was a common military punish- ment. When Alexander* the Great captured Tyre, he crucified 2,000 of its defenders. Darius crucified 3,000 persons after the siege of Babylon. According to Josephus, Alex- ander Jannseus put to death on the cross 800 Jews, and Quintilius Varus 2,000. At the sack of Jerusalem under Titus, the Romans seized the fugitives and crucified them until there were no more crosses for the bodies. Among the Romans crucifixion was considered an infamous punishment. It was applied espe- cially to slaves, and if ever to freemen, only to those convicted of the most heinous crimes. The cross was generally erected in some fre- quented place outside of the city. The criminal was sometimes fastened to it on the ground and raised with it ; sometimes he was lifted to it by means of a ladder after it had been plant- ed ; and sometimes he was bound or nailed to the cross bar alone, which, separate from the upright, was then elevated by ropes to its place. Ingenuity contrived many different forms of crucifixion and additional torment. In ordinary crucifixions the death was lingering, sometimes not happening in less than three days. In gen- eral the body was left to rot on the cross, sep- ulture being forbidden. The details of the Saviour's crucifixion have been the occasion of much learned dispute. It is agreed that he was nailed to the cross, but whether with three or with four nails is undecided. Nonnus and Gregory Nazianzen contend that only three were used, but the generally received belief is in favor of four. In the 17th century Cornelius Curtius, an Augustinian friar, wrote a large treatise in support of the latter theory. The painters are probably wrong in representing Christ as bearing the whole of his cross. Gen- erally only the transverse bar was carried, and fastened to the upright after the arrival at the place of execution. (See CROSS.) CRUCIGER, or Crenziger, Kaspar, a German Protestant theologian, born at Leipsic in 1504, died at Wittenberg in 1548. He studied at Wittenberg, where he became connected with Luther, by whose favor he was appointed rec- tor of Magdeburg in 1524. In 1528 he became professor of theology and court preacher at Wittenberg, in which offices he remained till his death. His services to the reformation consisted chiefly in aiding Luther to translate the Bible, and in taking part in the most im- portant religious conferences of the time. His grandson, GEORG (1 575-1637), was the instruc- tor of Maurice of Hesse, and persuaded that prince to embrace the reformed doctrines. He was afterward professor of philosophy at Mar- burg, and attended the synod of Dort. CRUDEN, Alexander, author of the " Concor- dance " to the Bible, born in Aberdeen, Scot- land, May 31, 1701, died in London, Nov. 1, 1770. He was educated at Mareschal college, and intended for the church, but his conduct was marked by eccentricities which were the premonitory symptoms of that insanity with which he was afterward afflicted; and, aban- doning his intention of becoming a minister, he went to London in 1724, where he supported himself by giving lessons in Latin and Greek. Afterward he obtained a position as tutor, and resided for some time in the Isle of Man. In 1732 he returned to London, where he was engaged as corrector of the press by a publish- ing house, with which occupation he combined that of bookseller, opening a small shop under the royal exchange. He had already com- menced his "Concordance to the Holy Scrip- tures," which was completed and published in 1737, and dedicated to the queen, from whom he hoped for some substantial proof of royal munificence, a hope never realized ; the queen died 16 days after the presentation of the work. Cruden was three times in his life confined in a lunatic asylum : once soon after his departure from college, again immediately after the pub- lication of his " Concordance," and a third time in 1753. CRUGER. I. John, colonial mayor of New York, born in New York in 1710, died in 1792. In his youth he was engaged in the slave trade on the African coast, and afterward he settled in New York as a merchant. In 1759 he was elected mayor, and served five years. In 1769 he was elected to the assembly as an Episco- palian and conservative. He was a member of the first New York provincial congress, and wrote the declaration of rights issued by that body in 1765. In 1774 he was one of a com- mittee ai with and with the other colonial assemblies, about the stamp act. This committee rejected the Boston plan of non-importation, and proposed a congress of deputies from the colonies. In 1775 he was speaker of the assembly, and du- ring the recess he with 13 other members of the ministerial party addressed a letter to Gen. Gage on the alarming state of public affairs. II. John Harris, nephew of the preceding, born in New York in 1738, died in London, June 3, 1807. He succeeded his father as a member of the council of New York, and at the begin- ning of the revolution was also chamberlain of the city. He married a daughter of the British colonel Delancey, and entering the army commanded the first battalion of his corps, becoming lieutenant colonel. He was captured while with a party of loyalists cele- brating the king's birthday, June 4, 1780, at Belfast, a plantation on the Midway in Georgia, but was afterward exchanged. He conducted with great ability the defence of Fort Ninety- Six in South Carolina in May, 1781, when be- sieged by Gen. Greene. His corps formed the British centre at the battle of Eutaw Springs, Sept. 8, 1781. His property was confiscated, and on the close of the war he went to England. e appointed by the assembly to correspond Edmund Burke, their agent in England,