by Will Durant
V. DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION
The Feast of the Passover was at hand, and great numbers of Jews were gathering in Jerusalem to offer sacrifice in the Temple. The outer court of the shrine was noisy with vendors selling doves and other sacrificial animals, and with money-changers offering locally acceptable currency for the idolatrous coins of the Roman realm. Visiting the Temple on the day after his entry into the city, Jesus was shocked by the clamor and commercialism of the booths. In a burst of indignation he and his followers overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the dove merchants, scattered their coins on the ground, and with “a scourge of rods” drove the traders from the court. For several days thereafter he taught in the Temple, unhindered; 122 but at night he left Jerusalem and stayed on the Mount of Olives, fearing arrest or assassination.
The agents of the government—civil and ecclesiastical, Roman and Jewish—had kept watch on him probably from the time when he had taken up the mission of John the Baptist. His failure to secure a large following had inclined them to ignore him; but his enthusiastic reception in Jerusalem seems to have set the Jewish leaders wondering whether this excitement, working upon the emotional and patriotic Passover throngs, might flare up into an untimely and futile revolt against the Roman power, and issue in the suppression of all self-government and religious freedom in Judea. The high priest called a meeting of the Sanhedrin, and expressed the opinion “that one man should die for the people, instead of the whole nation being destroyed.”123 The majority agreed with him, and the Council ordered the arrest of Christ.
Some news of this decision seems to have reached Jesus, perhaps through members of the Sanhedrin minority. On the fourteenth day of the Jewish month of Nisan (our April third), probably in the year 30,IX Jesus and his apostles ate the Seder, or Passover supper, in the home of a friend in Jerusalem. They looked to the Master to free himself by his miraculous powers; he, on the contrary, accepted his fate, and perhaps hoped that his death would be received by God as a sacrificial atonement for the sins of his people.124 He had been informed that one of the Twelve was conspiring to betray him; and at this last supper he openly accused Judas Iscariot.X In accord with Jewish ritual Jesus blessed (in Greek, eucharistisae) the wine that he gave the apostles to drink; and then they sang together the Jewish ritual song Hallel.127 He told them, says John, that he would be with them “only a little longer. ... I give you a new command: Love one another. . . . Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God and believe in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place for you.”128 It seems quite credible that in so solemn a moment he should ask them to repeat this supper periodically (as Jewish custom required), in commemoration of him; and not improbable that, with Oriental intensity of feeling and imagery, he asked them to think of the bread they ate as his body, and of the wine they drank as his blood.
That night, we are told, the little band hid in the Garden of Gethsemane, outside Jerusalem. There a detachment of Temple129 police found them, and arrested Jesus. He was taken first to the house of Annas, a former high priest, then to that of Caiaphas; according to Mark the “Council”—probably a committee of the Sanhedrin—had already gathered there. Various witnesses testified against him, especially recalling his threat to destroy the Temple. When Caiaphas asked him whether he was “the Messiah, the Son of God,” Jesus is reported to have answered “I am he.”130 In the morning the Sanhedrin met, found him guilty of blasphemy (then a capital crime), and decided to bring him before the Roman procurator, who had come to Jerusalem to keep an eye on the Passover crowds.
Pontius Pilate was a hard man, who would later be summoned to Rome, accused of extortion and cruelty,131 and removed from office. Nevertheless, it did not seem to him that this mild-mannered preacher was a real danger to the state. “Are you the King of the Jews?” he asked. Jesus, says Matthew,132 answered ambiguously, “You have said it (sǔ eipas).” Such details, reported presumably from hearsay and long after the event, must be held suspect; if we accept the text we must conclude that Jesus had resolved to die, and that Paul’s theory of atonement had some support in Christ. John quotes Jesus as adding: “For this I was born ... to give testimony for the truth.” “What is truth?” asked the procurator133—a question perhaps due to the metaphysical propensities of the Fourth Gospel, but well revealing the chasm between the sophisticated and cynical culture of the Roman and the warm and trustful idealism of the Jew. In any case, after Christ’s confession, the law required conviction, and Pilate reluctantly issued the sentence of death.
Crucifixion was a Roman, not a Jewish, form of punishment. It was usually preceded by scourging, which, carried out thoroughly, left the body a mass of swollen and bloody flesh. The Roman soldiers crowned Christ with a wreath of thorns, mocking his royalty as “King of the Jews,” and placed upon his cross an inscription in Aramaic, Greek, and Latin: lesus Nazarathaeus Rex loudaeorum. Whether or not Christ was a revolutionist he was obviously condemned as one by Rome; Tacitus, too, understood the matter so.134 A small crowd, such as could gather in Pilate’s courtyard, had called for Christ’s execution; now, however, as he climbed the hill of Golgotha, “he was followed by a great crowd of the people,” says Luke,135 and of women who beat their breasts and mourned for him. Quite clearly the condemnation did not have the approval of the Jewish people.
All who cared to witness the horrible spectacle were free to do so; the Romans, who thought it necessary to rule by terror, chose, for capital offenses by other than Roman citizens, what Cicero called “the most cruel and hideous of tortures.”136 The offender’s hands and feet were bound (seldom nailed) to the wood; a projecting block supported the backbone or the feet; unless mercifully killed, the victim would linger there for two or three days, suffering the agony of immobility, unable to brush away the insects that fed upon his naked flesh, and slowly losing strength until the heart failed and brought an end. Even the Romans sometimes pitied the victim, and offered him a stupefying drink. The cross, we are told, was raised “at the third hour”—i.e., at nine in the morning. Mark reports that two robbers were crucified with Jesus, and “reviled him”;137 Luke assures us that one of them prayed to him.138 Of all the apostles only John was present; with him were three Marys—Christ’s mother, her sister Mary, and Mary Magdalene; “there were also some women watching from a distance.”139 Following the Roman custom,140 the soldiers divided the garments of the dying men; and as Christ had but one, they cast lots for it. Possibly we have here an interpolated remembrance of Psalm XXII, 18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” The same Psalm begins with the words: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—and this is the desperately human utterance that Mark and Matthew attribute to the dying Christ. Can it be that in those bitter moments the great faith that had sustained him before Pilate faded into black doubt? Luke, perhaps finding such words repugnant to the theology of Paul, substitutes for them: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”—which in turn echoes Psalm XXXI, 5 with suspicious accuracy.
A soldier, pitying Christ’s thirst, held up to his mouth a sponge soaked in sour wine. Jesus drank, and said, “It is consummated.” At the ninth hour—at three in the afternoon—he “cried out with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.” Luke adds—again revealing the sympathy of the Jewish populace—that “all the people that came together to that sight . . . smote their breasts and returned” to the town.141 Two kindly and influential Jews, having secured Pilate’s permission, took the body down from the cross, embalmed it with aloes and myrrh, and placed it in a tomb.
Was he really dead? The two robbers beside him were still alive; their legs were broken by the soldiers so that the weight of the body would hang upon the hands, constricting the circulation and soon stopping the heart. This was not done in Jesus’ case, though we are told that a soldier pierced his breast with a lance, drawing forth first blood and then lymph. Pilate expressed surprise that a man should die after six hours of crucifixion;
he gave his consent to Christ’s removal from the cross only when the centurion in charge assured him of Christ’s death.
Two days later Mary Magdalene, whose love of Jesus partook of that nervous intensity which characterized all her feelings, visited the tomb with “Mary the mother of James, and Salome.” They found it empty. “Frightened and yet overjoyed,” they ran to tell the news to the disciples. On the way they met one whom they thought to be Jesus; they bowed down before him and clasped his feet. We can imagine the hopeful incredulity with which their report was greeted; the thought that Jesus had triumphed over death, and had thereby proved himself Messiah and Son of God, filled the “Galileans” with such excitement that they were ready for any miracle and any revelation. That same day, we are told, Christ appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, talked with them, and ate with them; for a long time “they were prevented from recognizing him”; but when “he took the bread and blessed it . . . their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished from them.”142 The disciples went back to Galilee, and soon thereafter “saw him and bowed down before him, though some were in doubt.”143 While they were fishing they saw Christ join them; they cast their nets, and drew in a great haul.144
Forty days after his appearance to Mary Magdalene, says the beginning of the Book of Acts, Christ ascended physically into heaven. The idea of a saint being so “translated” into the sky in body and life was familiar to the Jews; they told it of Moses, Enoch, Elijah, and Isaiah. The Master went as mystically as he had come; but most of the disciples seem to have been sincerely convinced that he had, after his crucifixion, been with them in the flesh. “They went back with great joy to Jerusalem,” says Luke,145 “and were constantly in the Temple, blessing God.”
* * *
I Quoted on p. 281.
II In 1897 and 1903 Grenfell and Hunt discovered in the ruins of Oxyrhynchus, in Egypt, twelve fragments of logia loosely corresponding to passages in the Gospels. These papyri are not older than the third century, but they may be copies of older manuscripts.
III Says a great Jewish scholar, perhaps too strongly: “If we had ancient sources like those in the Gospels for the history of Alexander or Caesar, we should not cast any doubt upon them whatsoever.”—Klausner, J., From Jesus to Paul, 260.
IV Critics suspect Matthew and Luke of choosing Bethlehem to strengthen the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, and descended, as Jewish prophecy required, from David—whose family had dwelt in Bethlehem; but the suspicion falls far short of proof.
V Ashoka had sent his Buddhist missionaries as far west as Egypt and Cyrene; 35 very likely, therefore, to the Near East.
VI John, VII, 52 f. The episode is found also in some old manuscripts of Mark and Luke; it was expunged from later texts, perhaps through fear of encouraging immorality.56
VII A vowel point placed over a Hebrew consonant.
VIII These passages may have been interpolated by Judaic Christians anxious to discredit Paul; 104 but we may not arbitrarily assume so.
IX There is much dispute about the duration of Christ’s mission, and the year of his death. We have seen Luke dating Christ’s baptism in the year 28-29. The chronology of Paul, as based upon his own statements in Galatians 1-11, the chronology of the procurators who tried him, and the tradition of his death in 64, apparently require the dating of Paul’s conversion in 31. Cf. Chapter XXVII.
X Many arguments have been raised against the story of Judas,125 but they are unconvincing.126
CHAPTER XXVII
The Apostles
A.D. 30-95
I. PETER
CHRISTIANITY arose out of Jewish apocalyptic—esoteric revelations of the coming Kingdom; it derived its impetus from the personality and vision of Christ; it gained strength from the belief in his resurrection, and the promise of eternal life; it received doctrinal form in the theology of Paul; it grew by the absorption of pagan faith and ritual; it became a triumphant Church by inheriting the organizing patterns and genius of Rome.
The apostles were apparently unanimous in believing that Christ would soon return to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.I “The end of all things is near,” says the first epistle of Peter; “be serious and collected, therefore, and pray.”3 “Children,” says the first epistle of John, “it is the last hour. You have heard that Antichrist was coming, and many Antichrists” (Nero, Vespasian, Domitian?) “have indeed appeared. So we may be sure that it is the last hour.”4 The belief in the Messianic mission, bodily resurrection, and earthly return of Christ formed the basic faith of early Christianity. This creed did not prevent the apostles from continuing to accept Judaism. “Day after day,” says Acts, “they all went regularly to the Temple”; 5 they obeyed the dietetic and ceremonial laws; 6 they proclaimed their faith at first only to Jews, and often preached it in the Temple courts.7
They believed that they had received from Christ or the Holy Spirit miraculous powers of inspiration, healing, and speech. Many sick and infirm persons came to them; some were cured, says Mark,8 by anointing with oil—always a popular treatment in the East. The author of Acts draws a touching picture of the trustful communism in which these early Christians lived:
There was but one heart and soul in the multitude who had become believers, and not one of them claimed anything that belonged to him as his own, but they shared everything they had with one another. . . . No one among them was in any want, for any who owned lands or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds and put them at the disposal of the Apostles; then they were shared with everyone in proportion to his need.9
As the number of proselytes increased, the apostles, by a laying on of hands, ordained seven deacons to administer the affairs of the community. For some time the Jewish authorities tolerated the sect as small and harmless; but as the “Nazarenes” multiplied in a few years from 120 to 8000,10 the priests became alarmed. Peter and others were arrested and questioned by the Sanhedrin; the Sadducees wished to condemn them to death, but a Pharisee named Gamaliel—probably the teacher of Paul—advised a suspended judgment; as a compromise the prisoners were flogged and released. A little later (A.D. 30?) Stephen, one of the ordained deacons, was summoned before the Sanhedrin on the charge that he had “used abusive language about Moses and about God.”11 He defended himself with reckless vehemence:
You stubborn people, with heathen hearts and ears, you are always opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your forefathers did! Which of the prophets did not your forefathers persecute? They killed the men who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and killed—you who had the Law given you by angels, and did not obey it! 12 II
The Sanhedrin, in a rage, had him dragged outside the city and stoned to death. A young Pharisee named Saul aided the attack; thereafter he went from house to house in Jerusalem, seized adherents of “the Way,” and put them in jail.13
The Jewish converts of Greek name and culture, who had had Stephen as their leader, fled to Samaria and Antioch, where they established strong Christian communities. Most of the apostles, apparently spared in this persecution because they still observed the Law, remained in Jerusalem with the Judaic Christians. While Peter carried the Gospel to the towns of Judea, James “the Just,” “the brother of the Lord,” became the head of the now reduced and impoverished church in Jerusalem. James practiced the Law in all its severity, and rivaled the Essenes in asceticism; he ate no meat, drank no wine, had only one garment, and never cut his hair or beard. For eleven years, under his guidance, the Christians were left undisturbed. About 41 another James, the son of Zebedee, was beheaded; Peter was arrested, but escaped. In 62 James the Just was himself put to death. Four years later the Jews revolted against Rome. The Jerusalem Christians, too convinced of the coming “end of the world” to care about politics, left the city and established themselves in pagan and pro-Roman Pella, on the farther bank of the Jordan. From that hour Judaism and Christianity parted. The Jews accused the Christians of treason and cowardice, and t
he Christians hailed the destruction of the Temple by Titus as a fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy. Mutual hatred enflamed the two faiths, and wrote some of their most pious literature.
Thereafter Judaic Christianity waned in number and power, and yielded the new religion to be transformed by the Greek mind. Galilee, where Christ had lived nearly all his life, and where the Magdalene and the other women who had been among the first to follow him were now lost in obscurity, turned a deaf ear to the preachers who proclaimed the Nazarene as the Son of God. The Jews, who thirsted for liberty, and reminded themselves daily that “the Lord is One,” were repelled by a Messiah who ignored their struggle for independence, and were scandalized by the announcement that a god had been born in a cave or stable in one of their villages. Judaic Christianity survived for five centuries in a little group of Syriac Christians called Ebionim (“the poor”), who practiced Christian poverty and the full Jewish Law. At the end of the second century the Church condemned them as heretics.
