by Paul Johnson
He also taught—and this is the fourth commandment—the need for love in human relationships, at all times and in every situation. “Love” was a word often on his lips, whether it be the love of God or the love of other human beings. This love had nothing to do with lust, which was a form of self-love, but neither was it entirely disembodied or spiritual. It was emotional, binding body and spirit, and expressing itself in countless ways. What Jesus tried to do, in his life and ministry, was to show love in action: in noticing, in listening, in questioning, in comforting and helping, in curing and making whole, in uniting and reconciling, in all the activities of a busy teacher’s life but also in private conversations and even secret encounters. The four Gospels form an exemplary manual of love, culminating in what Jesus himself classified as the greatest act of love, the giving of one’s own life for others. You cannot lay down laws of love. What you can do is to show it. That is what Jesus did. Happily, his words and actions were recorded in the multifocus vision for four very different evangelists. So we have a pattern to follow. And in the study and imitation of Jesus we have the best means to carry out his fourth commandment.
The fifth commandment of Jesus’s life concerns mercy. We are to show mercy just as God shows it to us. It is an emotional word, like “love”—with which it is intimately connected. It is hard to define, though instantly recognizable when exercised. It is something which cannot be done to excess and is significant even in its minutest expression. Mercy is grace. It is undeserved. It is something we pray for and give thanks for. Jesus says that if you get the glorious chance to show mercy, do so, without forethought or afterthought, without reason or logic, not expecting thanks or even repentance, not to accomplish something in the way of social or personal reform, simply for its own sake. Jesus was not a man to compose perfect codes of law or a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The idea of the Rights of Man was alien to him. He did not believe in Rights, or even in rights. He was more inclined to believe in duties, though not in Duties. Mercy transcended all these categories. No one had a right to it. And by its nature it was exercised freely, not as a duty. It was a marvelous thing: a form of moral poetry. When we show mercy spontaneously, gladly, freely, instantly, not thoughtlessly but unthinkingly and happily, we behave not just in kingly fashion but like God himself—it is the best way to show we are made in his image. Jesus was familiar with two texts from the book of Ecclesiasticus: “For the Lord is full of compassion and mercy, longsuffering, and very pitiful, and forgiveth sins” (2:11) and “We will fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men: for as his majesty is, so is his mercy” (2:18). However, Jesus in his New Testament was aiming to complete and replace the old: to make his new commandments immediate and relevant and exciting. So he sought to make human beings exercise mercy after the manner of a king, and of God himself. And in doing so he had an impact, over the following two millennia, greater than that of any code, or treatise, or jurisprudence, on the way those who err are treated by their fellow men and women. In the crown of modernity, mercy is one of the brightest jewels among societies which have earned the right to wear it.
Jesus pushed virtues like mercy as far as they could go, but he was not an extremist. On the contrary, all the evidence of the Gospels shows the balance of his life, the faultless way in which he steered sensibly between egregious positions. He was a private man but not a hermit. He could be solitary but only for brief periods. He liked company in moderation. He talked—he had much to say—but he said it succinctly, and he knew when to ask questions and when to be silent. He was equable but could express indignation when required. He could weep, but he never despaired. He could laugh—though we are never explicitly told so—but he laughed with, not at. He was mocked, but he never mocked. He was struck, and he turned the other cheek. In an age of fury and loathing, when religious extremism held sway, he was a difficult man to dislike, let alone hate. And if, in the end, the unbalanced men hated him enough to kill him, it was precisely for his equanimity. A careful reading of the Gospels shows us the man who always kept his head (if not his life) when others were losing theirs. They teach us patience, forbearance, self-control, calmness, serenity, the pursuit and maintenance of quiet amid the storms of life. For more than two thousand years this has proved a valuable lesson to those individuals and societies intelligent enough to learn it.
Balance, then, is the sixth new commandment. And it is linked to the seventh: the cultivation of an open mind. Jesus’s life and death were a struggle against those whose minds were closed. He disliked bigotry in any form and spoke out against it constantly. It was to be found among the religious establishment of his day: the Temple men especially, and the leaders of the sects, such as the Pharisees and Sadducees. Bigotry sprang from legalism, adherence to the letter of the law and its narrow-minded interpretation. It is significant that Jesus’s listeners said he spoke in exactly the opposite way to the scribes. They meant he was constantly using his eyes and his wits, his imagination and his intelligence, to take in fresh knowledge. Luke quotes him exclaiming, “Woe unto you, lawyers, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge” (11:52). Jesus kept his eyes open to take in what he saw in daily life, and his ears open to listen to what men and women said. That was essentially linked to a mind open to new experiences and ideas. The word “open,” like “light,” was blessed in his vocabulary. He commended it to humanity. In the two millennia since he was crucified, the world has improved itself insofar as it has kept its mind open. All the ameliorative aspects of the early church, in its overthrow of paganism; Christianity, in all its attempts to create a truly religious society; the Renaissance, in its recovery of what was best in antiquity; the Reformation, in its redemption of apostolic virtue; the scientific revolution, in its adoption of experiment and verification; the Enlightenment, in its quest for exact knowledge; and modern reformist societies, in their seeking to improve the lot of humble men, women, and children, have succeeded when their leaders kept open minds and failed when they succumbed to dogma and “correctness.”
Jesus constantly emphasized that dogmatic beliefs, bigotry, and the insistence that there is only one “correct” way of doing, thinking, and talking—as prevalent in his society as in ours—are the exact opposite of truth. The pursuit of truth, whole and unabridged, simple and pure, unadorned by sectarian usage, unstained by passion, is the most valuable of human activities. It is the eighth new commandment. “Truth” is another key word in Jesus’s vocabulary: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). The saying cannot be too often quoted and pondered. The truth is both God’s truth and truth in nature. Truth is found by going God’s way, and with the grain of the natural world, not against it. Jesus loved the natural world. That is one reason why, when he wanted to think intensely and pray most earnestly, he went into the desert or up into the mountains, where nature is at its most severe and in its raw state. A huge range of his images were taken directly from nature. It formed the parameters of his poetry. Nature, in whole and in part, was the metaphor of his discourse. It was created, and therefore in a sense sacred. All was minutely and affectionately cataloged in God’s providence: “Are not five sparrows sold for two far-things, and not one of them is forgotten before God?” (Lk 12 :6). Jesus loved nature because he loved truth, and to go against nature was to defy the truth. It followed that all human enterprises should go with the grain of nature, not against it. He saw nature as providential, orderly, satisfying, and beautiful, and his constant references to the growth of organic things (Mk 4 : 18, 26-28, 31ff., 13 : 28; Lk 13 : 8, 21; Jn 15 : 2-4) and the habits of animals (Mt 6:26, 7:15, 10:16; Lk 13:34; Jn 10:3-5, 10:12) testify to his love of watching the creative regularity of God expressing itself in the natural world. For humans to recklessly and senselessly damage nature, whether organic or inorganic, was to trespass. It was for humanity to inhabit, use, preserve, and protect the world as God intended in his providential plan. That was the meaning of truth to nature, and being true to nature is the
eighth new commandment.
The ninth new commandment concerns power, its exercise, and the respect due to the powerless. Jesus had at his disposal limitless power and, as his conduct during the temptations and thereafter throughout his ministry showed, he was careful always to exercise it with restraint and moderation, with mercy, pity, and love. His life is a model of the judicious use of power and, by contrast, his death is a cruel and catastrophic example of its abuse. Everything to do with power is rehearsed in the life and death of Jesus, and he himself, first in his miracles and then in his sufferings, is the archetype of the all-powerful and the powerless. In the thousands of years since he lived and died, the rulers of the earth and those who suffer from their distortions of power have been able to turn to the Gospels for a message of guidance, on the one hand, and hope, on the other. The Crucifixion is the nemesis of worldly power, and the Resurrection is the upsurge of the powerless from the depths. No handbook of political theory, no blueprint for the distribution and use of power, no analysis of its abuses or plan for their avoidance or correction, can add anything substantial to the story of Jesus and power, as told by the evangelists. What we need to know, and avoid, is all to be found therein, and any set of political and constitutional arrangements which does not place respect for the powerless at its center is bound to offend against truth and love.
The tenth and last of the new commandments, which we find in Jesus’s words, actions, and sufferings, is: show courage. The particular form of courage which Jesus displayed, and exhorted his followers to show, is courage not merely in resisting but in enduring wrong. He called his disciples to a life of meekness—that is, restrained strength, the high courage of endurance of pain and persecution, a sustained heroism in the face of iniquity, and a dogged persistence in proclaiming the truth at all costs. Jesus told his followers: “In your patience possess ye your souls” (Lk 21 : 19) and “[Y]e shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Mt 10 : 22). Jesus expected his followers to show courage, and he showed it himself: the special courage of one who knows exactly the suffering ahead and is afraid of it, but accepts it nonetheless. He told his disciples to take up their crosses and showed how it ought to and could be done. Jesus was God and man, and the Crucifixion is the story of the exercise of divine courage in a frail human body. That is what we are commanded to aspire to, and this courage in imitation of Jesus is as much needed today as ever, and in as short supply as it was in his time. All the more reason, then, why this final commandment should be understood plainly, and followed faithfully.
The new commandments which Jesus left behind him were the moral and social framework of the Christianity he founded and his followers brought into existence—in all its better aspects, that is. Gradually, over the centuries, the salient virtues of the message Jesus conveyed to the people of his land percolated through society, leaving precious traces of love and neighborliness, mercy and forgiveness, courage in suffering and faith in goodness. In our own age, the early decades of the twenty-first century, we feel that our own society, ideally at least, is free and open, democratic and representative, living under a rule of law which is progressive and enlightened.
In fact, human progress has proved an illusion as often as not. In many ways our society is no better organized and led than in those weary days two millennia ago when men like Herod and Pilate ruled. Insofar as we have improved—in the way we look after the poor, the sick, the infirm, the powerless; in our treatment of children; in moral education and training; in penology and the redressing of grievances; in the effort to spread material welfare and to encourage people to show kindness to one another and help their neighbors in difficult times—these improvements have come about because we have had the sense, the sensibility, the intelligence, and the pertinacity to follow where Jesus led. If goodness has a place in our twenty-first-century world, it is because Jesus, by his words and actions, showed us how to put it there. No other man in history has had this effect over so long a time, over the whole of the earth’s surface, and over such a range of issues.
But, of course, Jesus was God as well as man. We now turn to the tragic but ultimately glorious events which displayed his superhuman qualities and vindicated his divinity.
VIII
Jesus’s Trial and Crucifixion
THE EVENTS LEADING UP to the Crucifixion of Jesus, as described in the four Gospels, were complicated, and it is not surprising there are minor discrepancies. One was written by an eyewitness, and the other three were based on eyewitnesses’ observations. There is unanimity on all the essential points. This is remarkable, for there is more agreement in the sources about the death of Jesus than there is about the assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman senate less than a century before, despite the fact that Caesar was a world-famous figure, and the senate house the governing center of the known universe. The death of Jesus the man is a tragic story. It is well authenticated in nearly all the details, and in describing it, I am conflating all four accounts to produce as complete and truthful a version as possible.
Jesus was, by his nature, the most successful religious teacher in antiquity. His appearance, his voice, his words, his unique combination of authority and gentleness, made him attractive to people of all ages, classes, and races. And he cured the sick, though usually privately and at their entreaty. He never used a cure for demonstrative ends. Still, his powers were there, and were known to be there. So almost from the first day of his ministry, he attracted the attention of the authorities, especially the religious ones. They feared him. They saw him as a threat to their positions and even their lives. The high priest Caiaphas, a devious and artful operator who hugely valued and enjoyed his power as spiritual leader of the orthodox Jewish community, got on very well with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea, and Herod Antipas, the leading secular Jewish petty king of the area, and he wanted to keep relations as they were. A Jewish popular preacher whom he did not control was a threat to his authority, and if his teaching turned out to be revolutionary, there could be a tumult, for which he would be blamed. As Jesus’s fame spread, and the number of people he could attract increased, so the threat appeared to grow. News that he had persuaded more than five thousand people to ascend a mountain and hear him preach there, and then by a “miracle” fed them heartily with fishes and loaves, filled the ruling priests with terror. What if he did this in a city? Could he not then take it over by force? What if he did it in Jerusalem itself? Then he could occupy it, proclaim himself another King David, and become priest-king. The Romans would then pull out, except from the Antonia fortress, return with reinforcements from Syria in massive strength, take the city, massacre all its Jewish inhabitants, including and especially the priests, and raze it to the ground. They were quite capable of doing so; indeed, they had done so to other rebellious cities in their empire. The priests trembled for their lives as well as their jobs and property. And in a sense they were right to fear, for such a catastrophe actually occurred a generation later, about AD 70, and Jerusalem was taken; indeed, about 132, after a further tumult, it was literally destroyed, leaving not a stone standing erect. Yet they never made a serious effort to discover exactly what Jesus was teaching and quite how he saw his ministry reaching its climax. They periodically sent spies or agents provocateurs to get him to provide damaging verbal evidence to be used later to put him to death. But they never accepted his assurances that the Kingdom he spoke of was a spiritual one, not of this world. It was alien to their nature to recognize a holy man without worldly ambitions. They were corrupt and materialistic, unable to recognize spiritual goodness when they saw it. They did not exactly deny Jesus’s power, but they claimed it was the work of the devil, just as the spiritual potentates of contemporary Iran call their opponents Satan.
Jesus certainly had no wish to challenge the high priesthood. For three years he made every effort to avoid a direct confrontation. He went to the populous centers of Judaea, and especially Jerus
alem, only rarely, and then without display. He concealed or used only under pressing entreaty his powers. He begged those he healed not to boast about what had happened. He often taught in private houses or in the open countryside or by the shore of the Sea of Galilee, so as to provoke authority as little as possible. He never spoke against Roman rule—quite the contrary—and if he criticized Jewish leadership it was on spiritual grounds alone. Externally there was nothing revolutionary about him, a friendly, kindly figure telling people to be meek, praising humility, loving the poor, and asking all to turn the other cheek. What harm could he possibly do?
But in one sense he was a revolutionary. He asked for a revolution in the hearts of men and women—a turning from worldliness to spiritual life. And that was enough to cause a popular effervescence which in turn detonated the crisis. Moreover, though Jesus was always careful to avoid antagonizing the priests deliberately, he knew that his destiny was to be a sacrifice, and that his life would be lost by speaking the truth. He always did speak the truth—“I am the way, the truth, and the life” was his rule, his slogan, his motto, his manifesto—and he tended to speak it more clearly and vehemently as his ministry progressed. The religious leaders constantly planned to seize him and have him put to death. They would have done so on half a dozen occasions, but either Jesus slipped away before they could seize him or the crowds surrounding him were too enthusiastic and large to make it possible without a pitched battle, which they might have lost. The priests had an armed force of Temple guards, but it was a matter of argument whether they had the power, either secular or spiritual, to pronounce let alone carry out a death sentence. In John the Baptist’s case they had been spared the trouble by the machinations of Herodias and the sinuous skills of her daughter Salome. Against Jesus they hoped to stir up an angry Jewish mob to stone him to death. But there was never much chance of that. He was too popular. It is true that the priests could, given sufficient warning, assemble a crowd of household servants, up to a thousand, who could carry out a public demonstration. In the end that is exactly what they did do. As they controlled the limited access to the forecourt of the governor’s palace, the demonstration appeared effective. Modern experience teaches us how easily these official protests can be staged by the authorities.
