Did the Roman Catholics crucify Jesus?

Answer 1

Yes. We have a specific instance reported by Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, where he gives us an account of how the Emperor Tiberius ordered a freedwoman named Ide to be crucified along with all of the priests of Isis in Rome, and had the temple of Isis destroyed. Under Roman law, if any slave murdered his master, then all of the slaves in the household were crucified. Tacitus, (Annals 14.42-45) tells us of the case in 61 AD of Pedanius Secundus, a Roman prefect who was murdered by one of his slaves. After some controversy, all 400 of the slaves in his household were crucified. "...so the dissonant voices of those who were for mercy brought up the number, the age, the gender and the undoubted innocence of the majority: but the side that favored execution won out." As gender is specifically mentioned as an issue in this case, we can say with certainty that some of those crucified were women or girls. Similarly, Appian (The Civil Wars, Book V) records where Sextus Pompeius, youngest son of Pompey the Great, had Statius Murcus killed, framed Murcus' slaves for the crime, and summarily crucified them all at Syracuse. No mention is made in this case of gender, although Roman households typically had female slaves as well as male. Although the majority of those crucified by the Romans were likely male, this "death of slaves" did not seem to be at all restricted to men alone.

Answer 2

The answer is yes.

Class dictated who endured crucifixion in ancient Rome, not gender. The historian Flavian Josephus specifically relates the tale of a freed slave, Ide, who was crucified for debauching the temple of Isis out of love for her Roman knight. The knight was exiled. Ide was crucified. (See 'Antiquities of the Jews 18:3'.)

Another more general example concerns a Roman law that mandated all the slaves of a household would be crucified if a slave murdered a master. The slaves of neighboring estates were then to be paraded in front of the crosses to learn the lesson. During the reign of Nero, a slave assassinated Lucius Pedanius Secundus. The Roman Senate furiously debated the injustice of condemning the innocent along with the guilty, but the law was upheld and 400 slaves were crucified. Undoubtedly, women were included in this mass execution.

The earliest known image of Roman crucifixion, the Pozzuoli graffito, created around the year 100CE possibly shows a woman. Scholars are split on whether the graffiti shows a man or a woman. However, the victim clearly has long hair plus the name ascribed by the contemporary artist is a distinctly feminine 'Alcimilla'.

Although women are rarely mentioned in Jewish texts, according to the Mishna, women faced the cross whereas men were crucified with their back to the cross (M. Sanh. 6.4). This instruction may have been superseded by Roman law.

Other general examples from antiquity additionally support this answer but these citations have the weight of contemporary documentation or surviving evidence.

Answer 3

The subject of crucifixion as a punishment has been very closed over recent years.

Probably due to the fact that religeous propoganda has hijacked the subject.

There is no specific historical incident that relates to the crucfixion of boys.

However in the case of slaves, crucifixion of boys and children has a very high probability.

Based on the fact that a slave of any age was the property of a Roman master and subject to slave law.

I cite the case of Pedanius Secundus who was a Roman slave master murdered by one of his slave household.

It was the time of Nero and ancient Roman law demanded that all slaves of the the household be put to death in the required manner.

Over 400 hundred slaves were crucified. The implication is that women and children including boys would have been among them.

Crassus crucified the remanents of Spartacus slave army. Over 6000 were nailed to crosses along the Appian way.

Once again it indicates that no concession was given to age or sex when this punisment was administered, as all slaves including non combatants would have bee required to have been made an example of.

Ancient historians descrobibe the siege of Jerusalem where any defenders of the city caught scavenging were promptly crucified along the city walls. Its highly probable boys would have numbered among them as they would have had the agility and dexterity to participate in such scaveging expeditions.

Alexander is also known to have crucified the defenders at the Siege of Tyre and its highly probable that boys would have been among them...

Answer 4

The Roman Catholic Church did not exist in the time of Jesus, so of course not. The Imperial Roman Army carried out many thousands of crucifictions, including that of Jesus, but the Roman Army was the military arm of a pagan empire, not a church.