Jesus of Nazareth
Page 37
We can best understand the whole situation if we assume, with many interpreters and on the basis of John 18:31, that at that time the Roman occupying power denied the Jews the power to impose capital punishment.14 That is, they no longer had the right to carry out a death sentence; according to some exegetes they even lacked the right to pass a formal sentence of death. If the Jews had possessed the right at that time to execute Jesus according to their own legal system he would not have been crucified; he would have been stoned, for the method of execution by crucifixion, widespread in antiquity and especially characteristic of the Romans, was practiced by Jews only in a very few exceptional situations.
That the Jewish officials handed Jesus over to Pilate shows quite clearly that they considered him convicted of a capital crime, one that in their view could only be punished by death. In this case they had to let the matter pass from their own hands and allow the Roman prefect to investigate the guilt of the accused by his own judicial process and then pass sentence according to Roman law. The formal decision made by the Council toward the end of the night must have been one that formulated Jesus’ guilt and ordered that he be handed over. It is obvious that Pilate could not avoid a process that was developed in this way; it most definitely put pressure on him to act.
But the Sanhedrin’s decision probably had another meaning as well: by this means the members of the Council could justify to themselves the manner in which they presented their accusation of Jesus before the Roman prefect. After having carried out their own process of determining guilt they could say that Jesus was quite definitely a criminal deserving death, even if his condemnation by Pilate could only be achieved by highly questionable and by no means immaculate methods. We must now discuss these questionable methods used in presenting the accusation to Pilate.
The Council had condemned Jesus for blasphemy or, more precisely, had determined the fact of his having blasphemed. It is highly probable that the accusation of leading the people astray had also played a significant role in the trial. Within the Jewish legal system both were capital crimes. But if an accusation was to be brought against a Jew in a Roman court, both blasphemy and leading the people astray would count as crimes against Jewish religion, and no Roman judge could condemn a Jew to death merely for violating the internal laws of the Jewish religion. The Council saw this point very clearly; therefore, in a quite consistent strategy, it brought the “Jesus case” before the Romans under a different aspect. No more is said about “blasphemy,” but fomenting unrest is still there. The Sanhedrin makes the religious seducer of the people into a political-messianic revolutionary. That is the only way to understand Pilate’s ironic question to Jesus, namely, whether he was the “king of the Jews” (Mark 15:2), and that is the only way we can comprehend how Jesus was ultimately executed under a placard that read “the king of the Jews” (Mark 15:26).
The accusation that Jesus pretended to be the messianic king was so effective because during the Roman occupation every messianic movement almost inevitably fell under suspicion of being a national uprising against the Romans. “Messianic king” was pretty much the equivalent of “freedom fighter” and “rabble rouser”—and the Romans were inclined to react very quickly and effectively against anything bearing the scent of “sedition” (seditio). It is true that when Jesus was accused before Pilate of being a political messiah it was possible—in a superficial way—to appeal to his temple action and his confession of himself as Messiah, but in reality this was a distortion and perversion of Jesus’ claim. After all, he had expressed himself clearly enough against any kind of revolt (cf. Mark 12:13-17), and he did not understand his temple action as a signal for a political uprising.
So with this accusation a second process, a political trial, began. The issue was now nothing less than “treason” (perduellio). How did Pilate react to the charge brought against Jesus? He apparently hesitated to accept it on its face. All four evangelists agree on that. Reasons for his hesitation can certainly be found.
First, as a Roman official Pilate could not be content to accept vague accusations. He was authorized to apply the death sentence only if Jesus could be proved to have committed a capital crime. He needed genuine proof that Jesus had called for political upheaval or participated actively in an uprising. Apparently such proof could not be produced, and Pilate probably saw that very quickly. It is likely that after a brief confrontation with Jesus he no longer took seriously the statement that the accused was a political revolutionary.
But there could be another reason why Pilate did not assent at once. He was, as we know from a variety of ancient witnesses, more hostile than friendly toward the Jews. The Jewish philosopher Philo wrote in his Legatio ad Gaium that “[he did not wish] to do anything which could be acceptable to his [Jewish] subjects” (XXXVIII, 303). We may suspect that as soon as Pilate determined that the Jewish authorities were trying to use him to get rid of their hated Galilean he immediately opposed their wishes.
Thus there are certainly reasons for Pilate’s striking efforts to set Jesus free. But he could not permit himself simply to send the accusers home and release Jesus on the spot. The charge of political uprising was too serious for that. According to the evangelists Matthew, Mark, and John, the Roman prefect was accustomed to release a prisoner for the Jews at Passover (Matt 27:15; Mark 15:6; John 18:39). Perhaps the Jewish committee appointed to present the petition for pardon had already arrived at the praetorium early in the morning. It may be, however, that they only appeared at a later time (so Mark 15:8). In any case, the candidate had long since been chosen; he was a certain Barabbas, who was in prison with a number of other men who had started an “uprising” and in the process had committed murder. This uprising, which had probably occurred quite recently, could have been an assassination or an attack directed against the Romans. Mark’s striking formulation (cf. 15:7) suggests that Barabbas was not the head of the group but an accomplice or—to speak cautiously—one of those accused of complicity. The delegation would have been made up primarily of relatives and friends of Barabbas.
Pilate must have known already that this year he would be asked to issue the usual Passover pardon to Barabbas, imprisoned for sedition. It would be nave to suppose that on that Friday morning Pilate did not already know the concrete expectations of the delegation. Apparently, however, he wanted to avoid pardoning Barabbas. He probably saw a major risk in releasing a man who had been arrested while committing a terrorist act, a risk that ran absolutely contrary to his own interests and those of Rome. On the other hand, a prisoner had to be released at the Passover festival—the custom is much too firmly attested by the gospels to be in doubt. In this situation it must have impressed itself on Pilate as an utterly ideal solution to suggest that Jesus be released. At first glance such a solution would have seemed to him suited to his purposes in every respect: in this way Pilate would get rid of the altogether unpleasant “Jesus case” and at the same time avoid pardoning Barabbas.
The details of the prefect’s calculated game can no longer be reconstructed, but we have good grounds for assuming that his efforts to release Jesus resulted, among other reasons, from the tactical calculation that he could thus avoid letting the rebellious Barabbas go, something that was much more dangerous to himself.
But then this very calculation proved to be a wrong estimate with serious consequences. Pilate apparently reckoned far too little with the fact that his opposite numbers in the deal could harden their support for Barabbas, and he had also probably underestimated by far the energy with which the Jewish officials were pursuing Jesus’ execution. But above all, when he suggested that Jesus be pardoned rather than Barabbas, he had, in fact, confirmed Jesus’ guilt to the public. His tactics had now really brought him into a situation in which pressure could be put on him.
Evidently this new situation was immediately perceived and seized upon by Jesus’ opponents. The prefect was very quickly faced with a massed outcry that settled into chants against Jesus: “Crucify h
im! Crucify him!” (Mark 15:13-14). Suddenly the situation was different. Pilate, through his apparently clever strategy, had allowed the judicial decision to be taken out of his hands. He had not decided the guilt or innocence of the accused simply as an impartial judge. By trying to make the innocent man into a subject for pardon he had combined the judicial and political levels.
So it is no surprise that in the end, under the increasing pressure, he made his decision purely on the political level—and now against Jesus. He abandoned his original goal of securing Barabbas’s execution by pardoning Jesus, and he condemned Jesus to death on a cross as a political rebel and traitor. Probably he uttered the usual formula: Ibis in crucem (You will go to the cross).
Execution
For Jesus, Pontius Pilate’s failed stratagem meant death, and death by one of the most gruesome methods of execution ever devised by human beings to torture others. For Romans, death on the cross was regarded as so dreadful and dishonorable that it could be imposed only on slaves and non-Romans. Cicero wrote, “The executioner, and the veiling of the head, and the mere name of the gibbet, should be far removed, not only from the persons of Roman citizens—from their thoughts, and eyes, and ears” (Pro Rabirio 16). But even in the case of slaves and provincials crucifixion was generally reserved for serious crimes such as murder, temple robbery, treason, and rebellion.
It was the Roman custom to precede every crucifixion with an additional feature: scourging. Mark and Matthew report it in this sense (Mark 15:15; Matt 27:26). For them the scourging of Jesus clearly functions as an added punishment prior to crucifixion and part of the whole process.15 Thus even before his actual execution Jesus received a punishment so horrible that it often resulted in death. Roman scourging was so dangerous because the number of strokes was not limited and the thongs of the whip often incorporated bits of bone or metal. That gives us a hint of what the brief statement “Pilate had Jesus scourged” means.
In addition, the Roman soldiers, after Jesus was handed over to them for execution, first played games with him. They dressed him as a king, imitated the solemn royal acclamation, and fell on their faces before him. They spat on him and cried, “Hail, king of the Jews!” while striking him brutally in the face (Mark 15:16-20). As a result of the scourging and the subsequent mistreatment, Jesus was no longer able to carry his own cross to the place of execution. Therefore the soldiers forced a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was just coming from the fields and accidentally crossed the path of the execution squad, to carry Jesus’ cross for him (Mark 15:21).
We should not, however, imagine this carrying of the cross as Christian art has portrayed it. For regular executions the condemned did not carry the whole cross, but only the crossbeam. The upright beams were posts that were firmly rammed into the earth, usually as semi-permanent fixtures. When the delinquent arrived at the place of execution he was laid on the ground and his outstretched arms were nailed to the crossbeam; then the beam bearing the condemned man was hoisted onto the fixed upright pole. The crossbeam was fastened to the top; only then were the feet nailed fast. So Jesus and Simon of Cyrene did not carry the whole cross but only the crossbeam. That Jesus could not carry even this single beam shows that he was already at the limits of his physical strength after the scourging.
On the way to the place of execution someone carried a placard (titulus) in front of the condemned person giving the reason for the execution. For Jesus the titulus read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19; cf. Mark 15:26). That Pilate had the titulus read “the King of the Jews” and not “he pretended to be the King of the Jews” can only be understood as a malicious mockery directed at the Jewish people. Apparently, after having drawn the short straw in his confrontation with the Sanhedrin, Pilate wanted to revenge himself at least in this way. But at the same time the wording of the titulus represented a spiteful irony against Jesus: the Roman soldiers had played their rough games with him, and now the mockery continues.
It should be noted that the information that Jesus was crucified between two rebels is part of the consistently maintained symbolism of mockery. A king cannot appear on solemn public occasions without his council. The “council” carefully placed to Jesus’ “right” and “left” (Mark 15:27) is made up of two felons, with Jesus enthroned exactly in the middle. The two “thieves” were probably some of the terrorists or freedom fighters who had been imprisoned along with Barabbas. Although the gospels do not say so, we have to assume that Pilate had also condemned these two terrorists on that same Friday morning. Thus the prefect had not wasted much time on Jesus’ condemnation; he made the trial a short one.
The hill on which Jesus was executed bore the name “Golgotha,” simply translated “skull [hill]” (Mark 15:22), not because the skulls of people previously executed were lying around—something that would have been unthinkable in a place subject to Jewish laws of purity—but because the hill had the form of a skull. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands today on the place where Jesus died. As soundings in the area in 1961 have shown, there was in the time of Jesus an abandoned quarry from the royal period on the site, and to the west of this former quarry some private graves had been cut into the layers of stone. Eastward, in the direction of the city, a remaining part of the cliff arose; this was the “skull.” Between the two were gardens (cf. John 19:41; 20:15). This makes it clear that we have to imagine the cliffs of Golgotha and their surroundings as lying outside the city walls as they were at that time. Excavations beneath the Church of the Redeemer have clarified the course of the walls. There was only a small valley between the western wall of Jerusalem and the height of Golgotha. Jesus’ walk with the cross from the praetorium to the city wall, and from there to the place of execution, was not very long, assuming, of course, that the shortest way was chosen.
According to Mark the execution squad arrived at Golgotha in the forenoon; at about the third hour—that is, around nine o’clock—they nailed Jesus to the cross there. The gospels do not describe the crucifixion, with its misery and fearful suffering. The tact and stylistic feelings of the early church forbade it. Mark writes soberly and with extreme brevity: “and they crucified him” (15:24). Immediately before this Jesus was offered wine mixed with myrrh (Mark 15:23). This was an anesthetizing drink that, by Jewish custom, was given to condemned people before their execution.16 The wine, with strong herbs mixed in, was supposed to make the pain of execution somewhat more bearable. But Jesus refused the wine.
This must be distinguished from a later event, when Jesus was already hanging on the cross and in his death struggle. At that point one of the bystanders tried to give Jesus something to drink by impaling a sponge on the end of a rod, soaking the sponge with sour wine, and holding it to Jesus’ mouth (Mark 15:36). We can no longer be certain whether that person acted out of pity for Jesus or only wanted to refresh him in order to extend his death agony. But the incident clearly shows that Jesus was nailed to a high cross; the upright must have been tall and strong and was probably anchored firmly in the ground for long-term use.
After Jesus was nailed to the cross, the soldiers divided his clothing among themselves (Mark 15:24). One of the unwritten rules for execution squads was that they were permitted to take for themselves the property a condemned person wore to execution. In Jesus’ case that would have been his outer and inner garments, his belt, sandals, and perhaps a headcloth.
While hanging on the cross Jesus was derided by passersby—the city wall was not far away—and by spectators who had gathered at the place of execution. As in the court of the praetorium, the scoffing was primarily about his messianic assertion, incorporated in the titulus, “the King of the Jews.” Thus, for example, some said, “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe!” (Mark 15:32). The background of this mockery was the idea that Jesus’ crucifixion was the tangible refutation of his claim. The true messiah would never hang on a cross and suffer; he would destroy his opponents.
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br /> According to Mark, Jesus prayed the beginning of Psalm 22 at the ninth hour (that is, about three in the afternoon) in a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders misunderstood this prayer as a call for Elijah. It was probably already the case at that time that Elijah was seen as an aid at the hour of death. Because Jesus cried out the beginning of Psalm 22 in Aramaic (“Eloi, eloi”) there must have been some kind of twisting of his cry; the mockery of Jesus continues.
In all probability Jesus did not merely pray the beginning of Psalm 22. He must have spoken parts of the whole psalm as his dying prayer, as far as his fading strength allowed, or stuttered it out in bits. At any rate, the opinion of some authors that the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” represents ultimate and final despair is contradictory to the practice of Old Testament prayer.17 It is not only that Psalm 22 is shot through with cries of trust (“since my mother bore me you have been my God,” v. 10), not merely that the end of the psalm speaks of the banquet of the nations in the reign of God (vv. 27-29); the beginning of the psalm is itself not a cry of despair, but a lament, and in the Psalms that is something completely different from despair. Psalm 22 contains both: that God is silent and yet replies, the horrible hiddenness of God and the showing of God’s face (v. 24), the ultimate loneliness of the one praying and the new gift of community.
According to Mark, Jesus died at the ninth hour, that is, around three in the afternoon, with a loud cry (15:34, 37). It is in itself surprising that he died only six hours after being crucified, because usually the death struggle of a crucified person lasted much longer. The inhuman horror of execution on a cross consisted precisely in that crucifixion was meant to cause a very long, drawn-out death that was repeatedly delayed. If it was desired to make the crucified person die sooner, his legs would be broken; then the weight of the body hung completely from the arms and suffocation quickly resulted. The only remains of a crucified person from antiquity thus far discovered, in a surprising find in Jerusalem in 1968, included a single rusted nail that had been driven through both feet at once, but it also showed that both shins had been broken at the same height by heavy blows. This gave archaeological confirmation to the custom of crucifragium, the breaking of legs, attested by the evangelist John (John 19:32). According to John the death of the two terrorists crucified with Jesus was brought about by this breaking of their leg bones, but Jesus’ legs were not broken because he was already dead. His quick death, after only a few hours, must have resulted from the severe flogging he had received and the loss of blood that resulted.