Chapter III (3)

After thus witnessing the total failure of the attempts at reconciliation in relation to the first difference; we have now to inquire whether the other, relative to the acquisition of the piece of ground, can be more easily adjusted. It consists in this: according to Matthew, it is the members of the Sanhedrim who, after the suicide of Judas, purchase a field with the money which he had left behind (from a potter moreover—a particular which is wanting in the Acts); whereas, according to the Acts, Judas himself purchases the piece of ground, and on this very spot is overtaken by sudden death; and from this difference there results another, namely, that according to the latter account, it was the blood of the betrayer shed on the piece of ground, according to the former, the blood of Jesus cleaving to the purchase money, which caused the ground to be named the field of blood, ἀγρὸς or χωρίον αἳματος. Now here Matthew’s manner of expressing himself is so precise, that it cannot well be twisted so as to favour the other narrative; but the word ἐκτήσατο (he purchased or acquired) in the Acts presents inviting facilities for its adaptation to Matthew. By the reward of treachery, Judas acquired a field—such, it is said, is the meaning in the Acts—not immediately, but mediately; since by returning the money he gave occasion for the purchase of a piece of ground; not for himself, but for the Sanhedrim or the public good. [1910] But however numerous the passages adduced in which κτᾶσθαι has the signification: to acquire for another, still in such instances it is necessary that the other party for whom one acquires should be specified or intimated, and when this is not the case, as in the passage in the Acts, it retains the original meaning: to acquire for one’s self. [1911] This Paulus felt, and hence gave the facts the following turn: the terrible fall of Judas into a lime pit was the cause of this piece of ground being purchased by the Sanhedrim, and thus Peter might very well say of Judas ironically, that in death by the fall of his corpse he had appropriated to himself a fine property. [1912] But in the first place this interpretation is in itself strained; and in the second, the passage cited by Peter from the Psalms: let his habitation be desolate, γενηθήτω ἡ ἔπαυλις αὐτοῦ ἔρημος, shows that he thought of the piece of ground as the real property of Judas, and as being judicially doomed to desolation as the scene of his death.

According to this, neither the one difference nor the other admits of a favourable reconciliation; indeed the existence of a real divergency was admitted even by Salmasius, and Hase thinks that he can explain this discrepancy, without endangering the apostolic origin of the two statements, from the violent excitement of those days, in consequence of which only the general fact that Judas committed suicide was positively known, and concerning the more particular circumstances of the event, various reports were believed. But in the Acts nothing is said of suicide, and that two apostles, Matthew and Peter (if the first gospel be supposed to proceed from the former, the discourse in the Acts from the latter), should have remained so entirely in the dark concerning the death of their late colleague, a death which took place in their immediate vicinity, that one of them represented him as dying by accident, the other voluntarily, is difficult to believe. That therefore only one of the two accounts can be maintained as apostolic, has been correctly perceived by the author of the above-mentioned treatise in Schmidt’s Bibliothek. And in choosing between the two he has proceeded on the principle that the narrative the least tending to glorification is the more authentic; whence he gives the preference to the account in the Acts before that in the first gospel, because the former has not the glorifying circumstances of the remorse of Judas, and his confession of the innocence of Jesus. But, it is ever the case with two contradictory narratives, not only that if one stands it excludes the other, but also that if one falls it shakes the other: hence, if the representation of the facts which is attested by the authority of the Apostle Matthew be renounced, there is no longer any warrant for the other, which professedly rests on the testimony of the Apostle Peter.

If then we are to treat the two narratives on the same footing, namely as legends, with respect to which it is first to be discovered how far their historical nucleus extends, and how far they consist of traditional deposits; we must, in order to be clear on the subject, consider the data which form the roots of the two narratives. Here we find one which is common to both, with two others of which each has one peculiarly to itself. The datum common to both narratives is, that there was in Jerusalem a piece of ground which was called the field of blood, ἀγρὸς or χωρίον αἵματος, or in the original tongue, according to the statement of the Acts, ἀκελδαμὰ. As this information is concurrently given by two narratives in other respects totally divergent, and as, besides, the author of the first gospel appeals to the actual practice of his day in proof that the field was called by this name: we cannot well doubt the existence of a piece of ground so named. That it really had a relation to the betrayer of Jesus is less certain, since our two narratives give different accounts of this relation: the one stating that Judas himself bought the property, the other that it was not purchased until after his death, with the thirty pieces of silver. We can therefore draw no further conclusion than that the primitive Christian legend must have early attributed to that field of blood a relation to the betrayer. But the reason wherefore this relation took various forms is to be sought in the other datum from which our narratives proceed, namely, in the Old Testament passages, which the authors cite (from different sources, however), as being fulfilled by the fate of Judas.

In the passage of the Acts, Ps. lxix. 25, and Ps. cix. 8, are quoted in this manner. The latter is a psalm which the first Christians from among the Jews could not avoid referring to the relation of Judas to Jesus. For not only does the author, alleged to be David, but doubtless a much later individual, [1913] dilate from the opening of the psalm on such as speak falsely and insidiously against him, and return him hatred for his love, but from v. 6, where the curses commence, he directs himself against a particular person, so that the Jewish expositors thought of Doeg, David’s calumniator with Saul, and the Christians just as naturally of Judas. From this psalm is gathered the verse which, treating of the transfer of one office to another, appeared perfectly to suit the case of Judas. The other psalm, it is true, speaks more vaguely of such as hate and persecute the author without cause, yet this also is ascribed to David, and is so similar to the other in purport and style, that it might be regarded as its parallel, and if curses might be applied to the betrayer out of the former, they might be so out of the latter. [1914] Now if Judas had actually bought with the wages of his treachery a piece of land, which from being the scene of his horrible end, subsequently remained waste: it was a matter of course to refer to him precisely those passages in this psalm which denounce on the enemies the desolation of their habitation ἔπαυλις. As, however, from the divergency of Matthew, the fact that Judas himself bought that piece of ground and came to his end upon it, is doubtful: while it can scarcely be supposed that the piece of land on which the betrayer of Jesus met his end would be so abhorrent to the Jews that they would let it lie waste as a land of blood; it is more probable that this name had another origin no longer to be discovered, and was interpreted by the Christians in accordance with their own ideas; so that we must not derive the application of the passage in the Psalms, and the naming of that waste piece of land, from an actual possession of it by Judas, but on the contrary, we must refer to those two causes the existence of the legend, which ascribes such a possession to Judas. For if the two psalms in question were once applied to the betrayer, and if in one of them the desolation of his ἔπαυλις (LXX.) was denounced, he must have previously been in possession of such an ἔπαυλις, and this it was thought, he would probably have purchased with the reward of his treason. Or rather, that out of the above psalms the desolation of the ἔπαυλις was a particular specially chosen, appears to have been founded on the natural presupposition, that the curse would be chiefly manifested in relation to something which he had acquired by the wages of his iniquity; added to the circumstance that among the objects anathematized in the psalm, the one most capable of being bought was the ἔπαυλις. This conception of the facts was met in the most felicitous manner by the ἀκελδαμὰ lying near Jerusalem, which, the less was known of the origin of its name and of the horror attached to it, might the more easily be applied by the primitive Christian legend to its own purposes, and regarded as the desolate habitation, ἔπαυλις ἠρημωμένη, of the betrayer.

Instead of these passages from the Psalms, the first gospel cites as being fulfilled by the last acts of Judas, a passage which it attributes to Jeremiah, but to which nothing corresponding is to be found except in Zech. xi. 12 f., whence it is now pretty generally admitted that the Evangelist substituted one name for the other by mistake. [1915] How Matthew might be led by the fundamental idea of this passage—an unreasonably small price for the speaker in the prophecy—to an application of it to the treachery of Judas, who for a paltry sum had as it were sold his master, has been already shown. [1916] Now the prophetic passage contains a command from Jehovah to the author of the prophecy, to cast the miserable sum with which he had been paid, into the house of the Lord, and also אֶל־הַיוֹצֵר, which, it is added, was done. The person who casts down the money is in the prophecy the same with the speaker, and consequently with him who is rated at the low price, because the sum here is not purchase money but hire, and hence is received by the person so meanly estimated, who alone can cast it away again: in the application of the Evangelist, on the contrary, the sum being considered as purchase money, another than the one so meanly estimated was to be thought of as receiving and casting away the sum. If the one sold for so paltry a price was Jesus: he who received the money and finally rejected it could be no other than his betrayer. Hence it is said of the latter, that he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple ἐν τῷ ναῷ corresponding to the phrase וַאַשְׁלִיךְ אֹתוֹ בֵּית יְהוָֹה in the prophetic passage, although these very words happen to be absent from the extremely mutilated citation of Matthew. But in apposition to the בֵּית יְהוָֹה, wherein the money was cast, there stood besides אֶל־הַיוֹצֵר. The LXX. translates: εἰς τὸ χωνευτήριον, into the melting furnace; now, it is with reason conjectured that the pointing should be altered thus: אֶל־הַיוֹצָר, and the word rendered: into the treasury; [1917] the author of our gospel adhered to the literal translation by κεραμεύς potter. But what the potter had to do here,—why the money should be given to him, must at first have been as incomprehensible to him as it is to us when we adhere to the common reading. Here however there occurred to his recollection the field of blood, to which, as we gather from the Acts, the Christian legend gave a relation to Judas, and hence resulted the welcome combination, that it was probably that field for which the thirty pieces of silver were to be given to the potter. As, however, it was impossible to conceive the potter as being in the temple when receiving the money, and yet according to the prophetic passage the pieces of silver were cast into the temple: a separation was made between the casting into the temple and the payment to the potter. If the former must be ascribed to Judas, if he had thus once cast away the money, he himself could no longer purchase the piece of ground from the potter, but this must be done by another party, with the money which Judas had cast away. Who this party must be followed of course: if Judas gave up the money, he would give it up to those from whom he had received it; if he cast it into the temple, it would fall into the hands of the rulers of the temple: thus in both ways it would revert to the Sanhedrim. The object of the latter in purchasing the ground was perhaps drawn from the use to which that waste place was actually appropriated. Lastly, if Judas cast away again the reward of his treachery, this, it must be inferred, could only be out of remorse. To make Judas manifest remorse, and thus win from the traitor himself a testimony to the innocence of Jesus, was as natural to the conception of the primitive Christian community, as to convert Pilate, and to make Tiberius himself propose in the Roman senate the deification of Christ. [1918] But how would the remorse of Judas further manifest itself? A return to the right on his part, was not only unattested by any facts, but was besides far too good a lot for the traitor: hence repentance must have become in him despair, and he must have chosen the end of the well-known traitor in the history of David, Ahithophel, of whom it is said, 2 Sam. xvii. 23: ἀνέστη καὶ ἀπῆλθεν—καὶ ἀπήνξατο, he arose, and went—and hanged himself, as of Judas here: ἀνεχώρησε καὶ ἀπηλθὼν ἀπήνξατο, he departed, and went and hanged himself.

A tradition referred to Papias appears to be allied to the narrative in the Acts rather than to that of Matthew. Œcumenius, quoting the above collector of traditions, says, that Judas, as an awful example of impiety, had his body distended to such a degree, that a space where a chariot could pass was no longer sufficiently wide for him, and that at last being crushed by a chariot, he burst asunder and all his bowels were pressed out. [1919] The latter statement doubtless arose from a misconstruction of the ancient legend; for the chariot was not originally brought into immediate contact with the body of Judas, but was merely used as a measure of his size, and this was afterwards erroneously understood as if a chariot in passing had crushed the swollen body of Judas. Hence, not only in Theophylact and in an ancient Scholium, [1920] without any distinct reference to Papias, but also in a Catena with an express citation of his εξηγήσεις, we actually find the fact narrated without that addition. [1921] The monstrous swelling of Judas, spoken of in this passage, might, it is supposed, originally be only an explanation of the displacing and protrusion of the viscera, and in like manner the dropsy into which Theophylact represents him as falling might be regarded as an explanation of this swelling: when, however, in Ps. cix., applied in the Acts to Judas, amongst other maledictions, we read: וַתָּבֹא (קְלָלָה) כַּמַּיִם בְּקִרְבּוֹ LXX: εἰσῆλθεν (ἡ κατάρα) ὡσεὶ ὕδωρ εἰς τὰ ἔνκατα αὐτοῦ, so let it (cursing) come into his bowels like water (v. 18): it appears possible that the dropsical disease, νόσος ὑδερικὴ, may have been also taken from this passage; as also one of the features in the monstrous description which Papias gives of the condition of Judas, namely, that from the enormous swelling of his eyelids he could no longer see the light of day, might remind us of v. 23 in the other psalm applied to Judas, where, among the curses this is enumerated: Let their eyes be darkened that they see not, σκοτισθήτωσαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν τοῦ μὴ βλέπειν, a hindrance to sight, which when once the swollen body of Judas was presupposed, must necessarily assume the form of a swelling up of the eyelids. If then the tradition which is allied to the account in Acts i. developed its idea of the end of Judas chiefly in correspondence with the ideas presented in these two psalms; and if in that passage of the Acts itself the account of the connexion of Judas with the piece of ground is derived from the same source: it is no farfetched conjecture that what is said in the Acts concerning the end of the betrayer may have had a similar origin. That he died an early death may be historical; but even if not so, in Psalm cix. in the very same verse (v. 8), which contains the transfer of the office, ἐπισκοπὴ, to another, an early death is predicted for the betrayer in the words: Let his days be few, γενηθήτωσαν αἱ ἡμέραι αὐτοῦ ὀλίγαι, and it might also be believed that the death by falling headlong also was gathered from Ps. lxix. 22, where it is said: Let their table become a snare before them, γενηθήτω ἡ τράπεζα αὐτῶν—εἰς σκάνδαλον (לִמוֹקֵשׁ).

Thus we scarcely know with certainty concerning Judas even so much as that he came to a violent and untimely death, for if, as was natural, after his departure from the community of Jesus, he retired, so far as the knowledge of its members was concerned, into an obscurity in which all historical information as to his further fate was extinguished: the primitive Christian legend might without hindrance represent as being fulfilled in him all that the prophecies and types of the Old Testament threatened to the false friend of the Son of David, and might even associate the memory of his crime with a well-known desecrated place in the vicinity of Jerusalem. [1922]

§ 131.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE AND HEROD.

According to all the Evangelists it was in the morning when the Jewish magistrates, after having declared Jesus worthy of death, [1923] caused him to be led away to the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate (Matt. xxvii. 1 ff. parall.; John xviii. 28). According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus was bound preparatory to his being conducted before Pilate, according to John xviii. 12, immediately on his arrest in the garden; Luke says nothing of his being bound. To this measure of sending him to Pilate they were compelled, according to John xviii. 31, by the circumstance that the Sanhedrim was deprived of the authority to execute the punishment of death (without the concurrence of the Roman government): [1924] but at all events the Jewish rulers must in this instance have been anxious to call in the agency of the Romans, since only their power could afford security against an uproar among the people θόρυβος ἐν τῷ λαῷ, which the former feared as a result of the execution of Jesus during the feast time (Matt. xxvi. 5 parall.).

Arrived at the Prætorium, the Jews, according to the representation of the fourth gospel, remained without, from fear of Levitical defilement, but Jesus was led into the interior of the building: so that Pilate must alternately have come out when he would speak to the Jews, and have gone in again when he proceeded to question Jesus (xviii. 28 ff.). The synoptists in the sequel represent Jesus as in the same locality with Pilate and the Jews, for in them Jesus immediately hears the accusations of the Jews, and answers them in the presence of Pilate. Since they, as well as John, make the condemnation take place in the open air (after the condemnation they represent Jesus as being led into the Prætorium, Matt. xxvii. 27, and Matthew, like John, xix. 13, describes Pilate ascending the judgment seat βῆμα, which according to Josephus [1925] stood in the open air), without mentioning any change of place in connexion with the trial: they apparently conceived the whole transaction to have passed on the outer place, and supposed, in divergency from John, that Jesus himself was there.

The first question of Pilate to Jesus is according to all the gospels: Art thou the king of the Jews? σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεύς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, i.e. the Messiah? In the two first Evangelists this question is not introduced by any accusation on the part of the Jews (Matt. v. 11; Mark v. 2); in John, Pilate, stepping out of the Prætorium, asks the Jews what accusation they have to bring against Jesus (xviii. 29), on which they insolently reply: If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee: an answer by which they could not expect to facilitate their obtaining from the Roman a ratification of their sentence, [1926] but only to embitter him. After Pilate, with surprising mildness, has rejoined that they may take him and judge him according to their law—apparently not supposing a crime involving death—and the Jews have opposed to this permission their inability to administer the punishment of death: the procurator re-enters and addresses to Jesus the definite question: Art thou the king of the Jews? which thus here likewise has no suitable introduction. This is the case only in Luke, who first adduces the accusations of the Sanhedrists against Jesus, that he stirred up the people and encouraged them to refuse tribute to Cæsar, giving himself out to be Christ a king, Χριστὸν βασιλέα (xxiii. 2).

If in this manner the narrative of Luke enables us to understand how Pilate could at once put to Jesus the question whether he were the king of the Jews; it leaves us in all the greater darkness as to how Pilate, immediately on the affirmative answer of Jesus, could without any further inquiries declare to the accusers that he found no fault in the accused. He must first have ascertained the grounds or the want of grounds for the charge of exciting the populace, and also have informed himself as to the sense in which Jesus claimed the title of king of the Jews, before he could pronounce the words: I find no fault in this man. In Matthew and Mark, it is true, to the affirmation of Jesus that he is the king of the Jews is added his silence, in opposition to the manifold accusations of the Sanhedrists—a silence which surprises Pilate: and this is not followed by a precise declaration that no fault is to be found in Jesus, but merely by the procurator’s attempt to set Jesus at liberty by coupling him with Barabbas; still what should move him even to this attempt does not appear from the above gospels. On the other hand, this point is sufficiently clear in the fourth gospel. It is certainly surprising that when Pilate asks whether he be really the King of the Jews, Jesus should reply by the counter-question, whether he say this of himself or at the suggestion of another. In an accused person, however conscious of innocence, such a question cannot be held warrantable, and hence it has been sought in every possible way to give the words of Jesus a sense more consonant with propriety: but the question of Jesus is too definite to be a mere repulse of the accusation as absurd, [1927] and too indefinite to be regarded as an inquiry, whether the Procurator intended the title βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων in the Roman sense (ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ) or in the Jewish (ἄλλοι σοι εἶπον). [1928] And Pilate does not so understand it, but as an unwarrantable question to which it is a mark of his indulgence that he replies;—in the first instance, it is true, with some impatience, by the second counter-question, whether he be a Jew, and thus able of himself to have information concerning a crime so specifically Jewish; but hereupon he good-naturedly adds that it is the Jews and their rulers by whom Jesus has been delivered to him, and that he is therefore at liberty to speak more particularly of the crime which these lay to his charge. Now on this Jesus gives Pilate an answer which, added to the impression of his whole appearance, might certainly induce in the Procurator a conviction of his innocence. He replies, namely, that his kingdom βασιλεία is not of this world ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, and adduces as a proof of this, the peaceful, passive conduct of his adherents on his arrest (v. 36). On the further question of Pilate, whether, since Jesus has thus ascribed to himself a kingdom, although no earthly one, he then claims to be a king? he replies that certainly he is so, but only in so far as he is born to be a witness to the truth: whereupon follows the famous question of Pilate: What is truth? τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; Although in this latter reply of Jesus we cannot but be struck by its presenting the peculiar hue of thought which characterizes the author of the fourth gospel, in the use of the idea of truth ἀλήθεια, as we were before surprised at the unwarrantable nature of the counter-question of Jesus; still this account in John renders it conceivable how Pilate could immediately step forth and declare to the Jews that he found no fault in Jesus. But another point might easily create suspicion against this narrative of John. According to him the trial of Jesus went forward in the interior of the Prætorium, which no Jew would venture to enter; who then are we to suppose heard the conversation of the Procurator with Jesus, and was the informant who communicated it to the author of the fourth gospel? The opinion of the older commentators that Jesus himself narrated these conversations to his disciples after the resurrection is renounced as extravagant; the more modern idea that perhaps Pilate himself was the source of the information concerning the trial, is scarcely less improbable, and rather than take refuge, with Lücke, in the supposition that Jesus remained at the entrance of the Prætorium, so that those standing immediately without might with some attention and stillness (?) have heard the conversation, I should prefer appealing to the attendants of the Procurator, who would scarcely be alone with Jesus. Meanwhile it is easily conceivable that we have here a conversation, which owes its origin solely to the Evangelist’s own combination, and in this case we need not bestow so much labour in ascertaining the precise sense of Pilate’s question: what is truth? since this would only be an example of the fourth Evangelist’s favourite form of dialogue, the contrast of profound communications on the part of Jesus, with questions either of misapprehension or of total unintelligence on the part of the hearers, as xii. 34, the Jews ask who is this Son of man? τίς ἐστιν οὗτος ὁ υἱὸς τ. α.? so here Pilate: what is truth? τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια? [1929]

Before the introduction of Barabbas, which in all the other Evangelists comes next in order, Luke has an episode peculiar to himself. On the declaration of Pilate that he finds no guilt in the accused, the chief priests and their adherents among the multitude persist in asserting that Jesus stirred up the people by his agency as a teacher from Galilee to Jerusalem: Pilate notices the word Galilee, asks whether the accused be a Galilean, and when this is confirmed, he seizes it as a welcome pretext for ridding himself of the ungrateful business, and sends Jesus to the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas, at that time in Jerusalem in observance of the feast; perhaps also designing as a secondary object, what at least was the result, to conciliate the petty prince by this show of respect for his jurisdiction. This measure, it is said, gave great satisfaction to Herod, because having heard much of Jesus, he had long been desirous to see him, in the hope that he would perhaps perform a miracle. The Tetrarch addressed various questions to him, the Sanhedrists urged vehement accusations against him, but Jesus gave no answer; whereupon Herod with his soldiers betook themselves to mockery, and at length, after arraying him in a gorgeous robe, sent him back to Pilate (xxiii. 4 ff.). This narrative of Luke’s, whether we consider it in itself or in its relation to the other gospels, has much to astonish us. If Jesus as a Galilean really belonged to the jurisdiction of Herod, as Pilate, by delivering the accused to him, appears to acknowledge: how came Jesus (and the question is equally difficult whether we regard him as the sinless Jesus of the orthodox system, or as the one who in the history of the tribute-penny manifested his subjection to the existing authorities) to withhold from him the answer which was his due? and how was it that Herod, without any further procedures, sent him away again from his tribunal? To say, with Olshausen, that the interrogation before Herod had elicited the fact that Jesus was not born in Nazareth and Galilee, but in Bethlehem, and consequently in Judæa, is on the one hand an inadmissible appeal to the history of the birth of Jesus, of the statements in which there is no further trace in the whole subsequent course of Luke’s gospel; and on the other hand, a totally accidental birth in Judæa, such as that represented by Luke, the parents of Jesus, and even Jesus himself, being both before and after resident in Galilee, would not have constituted Jesus a Judæan; but above all we must ask, through whom was the Judæan origin of Jesus brought to light, since it is said of Jesus that he gave no answer, while according to all the information we possess, that origin was totally unknown to the Jews? It would be preferable to explain the silence of Jesus by the unbecoming manner of Herod’s interrogation, which manifested, not the seriousness of the judge, but mere curiosity; and to account for his being sent back to Pilate by the fact, that not only the arrest, but also a part of the ministry of Jesus had occurred within the jurisdiction of Pilate. But why do the rest of the Evangelists say nothing of the entire episode? Especially when the author of the fourth gospel is regarded as the Apostle John, it is not easy to see how this omission can be explained. The common plea, that he supposed the fact sufficiently known from the synoptists, will not serve here, since Luke is the sole Evangelist who narrates the incident, and thus it does not appear to have been very widely spread; the conjecture, that it may probably have appeared to him too unimportant, [1930] loses all foundation when it is considered that John does not scorn to mention the leading away to Annas, which nevertheless was equally indecisive; and in general, the narrative of these events in John is, as Schleiermacher himself confesses, so consecutive that it nowhere presents a break in which such an episode could be inserted. Hence even Schleiermacher at last takes refuge in the conjecture that possibly the sending to Herod may have escaped the notice of John, because it happened on an opposite side to that on which the disciple stood, through a back door; and that it came to the knowledge of Luke because his informant had an acquaintance in the household of Herod, as John had in that of Annas: the former conjecture, however, is figuratively as well as literally nothing more than a back door; the latter, a fiction which is but the effort of despair. Certainly if we renounce the presupposition that the author of the fourth gospel was an apostle, we lose the ground of attack against the narrative of Luke, which in any case, since Justin knows of the consignment to Herod, [1931] is of very early origin. Nevertheless, first, the silence of the other Evangelists in a portion of their common history, in which, with this exception, there prevails an agreement as to the principal stages in the development of the fate of Jesus; and secondly, the internal difficulties of the narrative, remain so suspicious, that it must still be open to us to conjecture, that the anecdote arose out of the effort to place Jesus before all the tribunals that could possibly be gathered together in Jerusalem; to make every authority not hierarchical, though treating him with ignominy, still either explicitly or tacitly acknowledge his innocence; and to represent him as maintaining his equable demeanour and dignity before all. If this be probable with respect to the present narrative, in which the third Evangelist stands alone, a similar conjecture concerning the leading away to Annas, in which we have seen that the fourth Evangelist stands alone, would only be warded off by the circumstance that this scene is not described in detail, and hence presents no internal difficulties.

After Jesus, being sent back by Herod, was returned upon his hands, Pilate, according to Luke, once more called together the Sanhedrists and the people, and declared, alleging in his support the judgment of Herod as accordant with his own, his wish to dismiss Jesus with chastisement; for which purpose he might avail himself of the custom of releasing a prisoner at the feast of the passover. [1932] This circumstance, which is somewhat abridged in Luke, is more fully exhibited in the other Evangelists, especially in Matthew. As the privilege to entreat the release of a prisoner belonged to the people, Pilate, well knowing that Jesus was persecuted by the rulers out of jealousy, sought to turn to his advantage the better disposition of the people towards him; and in order virtually to oblige them to free Jesus, whom, partly out of mockery of the Jews, partly to deter them from his execution as degrading to themselves, he named the Messiah or King of the Jews, he reminded them that their choice lay between him and a notable prisoner, δέσμιος ἐπίσημος, Barabbas, [1933] whom John designates as a robber, λῃστής, but Mark and Luke as one who was imprisoned for insurrection and murder. This plan however failed, for the people, suborned, as the two first Evangelists observe, by their rulers, with one voice desired the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus.

As a circumstance which had especial weight with Pilate in favour of Jesus, and moved him to make the proposal relative to Barabbas as urgently as possible, it is stated by Matthew that while the procurator sat on his tribunal, his wife, [1934] in consequence of a disturbing dream, sent to him a warning to incur no responsibility in relation to that just man (xxvii. 19). Not only Paulus, but even Olshausen, explains this dream as a natural result of what Pilate’s wife might have heard of Jesus and of his capture on the preceding evening; to which may be added as an explanatory conjecture, the notice of the Evangelium Nicodemi, that she was pious, θεοσεβὴς, and judaizing, ἰουδαΐζουσα. [1935] Nevertheless, as constantly in the New Testament, and particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, dreams are regarded as a special dispensation from heaven, so this assuredly in the opinion of the narrator happened non sine numine; and hence it should be possible to conceive a motive and an object for the dispensation. If the dream were really intended to prevent the death of Jesus, taking the orthodox point of view, in which this death was necessary for the salvation of man, we must be led to the opinion of some of the ancients, that it may have been the devil who suggested that dream to the wife of the procurator, in order to hinder the propitiatory death; [1936] if on the contrary, the dream were not intended to prevent the death of Jesus, its object must have been limited to Pilate or his wife. But as far as Pilate was concerned, so late a warning could only aggravate his guilt, without sufficing to deter him from the step already half taken; while that his wife was converted by means of this dream, as many have supposed, [1937] is totally unattested by history or tradition, and such an object is not intimated in the narrative. But, as the part which Pilate himself plays in the evangelical narrative is such as to exhibit the blind hatred of the fellow-countrymen of Jesus in contrast with the impartial judgment of a Gentile; so his wife is made to render a testimony to Jesus, in order that, not only out of the mouth of babes and sucklings (Matt. xxi. 16), but also out of the mouth of a weak woman, praise might be prepared for him; and to increase its importance it is traced to a significant dream. To give this an appearance of probability, similar instances are adduced from profane history of dreams which have acted as presentiments and warnings before a sanguinary catastrophe: [1938] but the more numerous are these analogous cases, the more is the suspicion excited that as the majority of these, so also the dream in our evangelical passage, may have been fabricated after the event, for the sake of heightening its tragical effect.

When the Jews, in reply to the repeated questions of Pilate, vehemently and obstinately demand the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus, the two intermediate Evangelists represent him as at once yielding to their desire; but Matthew first interposes a ceremony and a colloquy (xxvii. 24 ff.). According to him Pilate calls for water, washes his hands before the people, and declares himself innocent of the blood of this just man. The washing of the hands, as a protestation of purity from the guilt of shedding blood, was a custom specifically Jewish, according to Deut. xxi. 6 f. [1939] It has been thought improbable that the Roman should have here intentionally imitated this Jewish custom, and hence it has been contended, that to any one who wished so solemnly to declare his innocence nothing would more readily suggest itself than the act of washing the hands. [1940] But that an individual, apart from any allusion to a known usage, should invent extemporaneously a symbolical act, or even that he should merely fall in with the custom of a foreign nation, would require him to be deeply interested in the fact which he intends to symbolize. That Pilate, however, should be deeply interested in attesting his innocence of the execution of Jesus, is not so probable as that the Christians should have been deeply interested in thus gaining a testimony to the innocence of their Messiah: whence there arises a suspicion that perhaps Pilate’s act of washing his hands owes its origin to them alone. This conjecture is confirmed, when we consider the declaration with which Pilate accompanies his symbolical act: I am innocent of the blood of this just man, ἀθῶός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ δικαίου τούτου. For that the judge should publicly and emphatically designate as a just man, δίκαιος, one whom he was nevertheless delivering over to the severest infliction of the law,—this even Paulus finds so contradictory that he here, contrary to his usual mode of exposition, supposes that the narrator himself expresses in these words his own interpretation of Pilate’s symbolical act. It is surprising that he is not also struck by the equal improbability of the answer which is attributed to the Jews on this occasion. After Pilate has declared himself guiltless of the blood of Jesus, and by the addition: see ye to it, has laid the responsibility on the Jews, it is said in Matthew that all the people πᾶς ὁ λαὸς, cried: His blood be on us and on our children, τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς καὶ τὰ τέκνα ἡμῶν. But this is obviously spoken from the point of view of the Christians, who in the miseries which shortly after the death of Jesus fell with continually increasing weight on the Jewish nation, saw nothing else than the payment of the debt of blood which they had incurred by the crucifixion of Jesus: so that this whole episode, which is peculiar to the first gospel, is in the highest degree suspicious.

According to Matthew and Mark, Pilate now caused Jesus to be scourged, preparatory to his being led away to crucifixion. Here the scourging appears to correspond to the virgis cædere, which according to Roman usage preceded the securi percutere, and to the scourging of slaves prior to crucifixion. [1941] In Luke it has a totally different character. While in the two former Evangelists it is said: When he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified, τὸν δὲ Ἰ. φραγελλώσας παρέδωκεν ἵνα σταυρωθῇ: in Luke, Pilate repeatedly (v. 16 and 22) makes the proposal: having chastised him I will let him go, παιδεύσας αὐτὸν ἀπολύσω: i.e. while there the scourging has the appearance of a mere accessory of the crucifixion, here it appears to be intended as a substitute for the crucifixion: Pilate wishes by this chastisement to appease the hatred of the enemies of Jesus, and induce them to desist from demanding his execution. Again, while in Luke the scourging does not actually take place,—because the Jews will in nowise accede to the repeated proposal of Pilate: in John the latter causes Jesus to be scourged, exhibits him to the people with the purple robe and the crown of thorns and tries whether his pitiable aspect, together with the repeated declaration of his innocence, will not mollify their embittered minds: this, however, proving also in vain (xix. 1 ff.). Thus there exists a contradiction between the Evangelists in relation to the scourging of Jesus, which is not to be conciliated after the method of Paulus, namely by paraphrasing the words τὸν Ἰ. φραγελλώσας παρέδοκεν ἵνα σταυρωθῇ in Matthew and Mark thus: Jesus, whom he had already before scourged in order to save him, suffered this in vain, since he was still delivered over to crucifixion. But, acknowledging the difference in the accounts, we must only ask, which of the two has the advantage as regards historical probability? Although it is certainly not to be proved that scourging before crucifixion was a Roman custom admitting no exception: still, on the other hand, it is a purely harmonistic effort to allege, that scourging was only made to precede crucifixion in cases where the punishment was intended to be particularly severe, [1942] and that consequently Pilate, who had no wish to be cruel to Jesus, can only have caused him to be scourged with the special design which Luke and John mention, and which is also to be understood in the narratives of their predecessors. It is far more probable that in reality the scourging only took place as it is described by the two first Evangelists, namely, as an introduction to the crucifixion, and that the Christian legend (to which that side of Pilate’s character, in virtue of which he endeavoured in various ways to save Jesus, was particularly welcome as a testimony against the Jews) gave such a turn even to the fact of the scourging as to obtain from it a new attempt at release on the part of Pilate. This use of the fact is only incipient in the third gospel, for here the scourging is a mere proposal of Pilate: whereas in the fourth, the scourging actually takes place, and becomes an additional act in the drama.

With the scourging is connected in the two first gospels and the fourth, the maltreatment and mockery of Jesus by the soldiers, who attired him in a purple robe, placed a crown of thorns on his head, [1943] put, according to Matthew, a reed in his hand, and in this disguise first greeted him as King of the Jews, and then smote and maltreated him. [1944] Luke does not mention any derision on the part of the soldiers here, but he has something similar in his narrative of the interrogation of Jesus before Herod, for he represents this prince with his men of war, σύν τοῖς στρατεύμασιν αὐτοῦ, as mocking Jesus, and sending him back to Pilate in a gorgeous robe, ἐσθὴς λαμπρά. Many suppose that this was the same purple robe which was afterwards put on Jesus by the soldiers of Pilate; but it must rather have been thrice that Jesus had to wear this disguise, if we take the narrative of John into the account and at the same time refuse to attribute error to any of the synoptists: first in the presence of Herod (Luke); secondly, before Pilate brought Jesus forth to the Jews, that he might excite their compassion with the words: Behold the man, ἴδε ὁ ἄνθρωπος (John); thirdly, after he was delivered to the soldiers for crucifixion (Matthew and Mark). This repetition is as improbable as it is probable that the one disguising of Jesus, which had come to the knowledge of the Evangelists, was assigned by them to different places and times, and ascribed to different persons.

While in the two first gospels the process of trial is already concluded before the scourging, and in the third, on the rejection of his proposal to scourge and release Jesus by the Jews, Pilate forthwith delivers him to be crucified: in the fourth Evangelist the scene of the trial is further developed in the following manner. When even the exhibition of Jesus scourged and disguised avails nothing, but his crucifixion is obstinately demanded, the procurator is incensed, and cries to the Jews, that they may take him and crucify him themselves, for he finds no fault in him. The Jews reply that according to their law he must die, since he had made himself the Son of God υἱὸς θεοῦ; a remark which affects Pilate with a superstitious fear, whence he once more leads Jesus into the Prætorium, and inquires concerning his origin (whether it be really heavenly), on which Jesus gives him no answer, and when the procurator seeks to alarm him by reminding him of the power which he possesses over his life, refers to the higher source from whence he had this power. Pilate, after this reply, seeks (yet more earnestly than before) to release Jesus; but at last the Jews hit upon the right means of making him accede to their will, by throwing out the intimation that, if he release Jesus who has opposed himself to Cæsar as an usurper, he cannot be Cæsar’s friend. Thus, intimidated by the possibility of his being calumniated to Tiberius, he mounts the tribunal, and, since he cannot prosecute his will, betakes himself to derision of the Jews in the question, whether they then wish that he should crucify their king? Whereupon they, keeping to the position which they had last taken with such evident effect, protest that they will have no king but Cæsar. The procurator now consents to deliver Jesus to be crucified, for which purpose, as the two first Evangelists remark, the purple mantle was removed, and he was again attired in his own clothes.

§ 132.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

Even concerning the progress of Jesus to the place of crucifixion there is a divergency between the synoptists and John, for according to the latter Jesus himself carried his cross thither (xix. 17), while the former state that one Simon a Cyrenian bore it in his stead (Matt. xxvii. 32 parall.). The commentators indeed, as if a real agreement were assumed as a matter of course, reconcile these statements thus: at first Jesus himself endeavoured to bear the cross, but as the attempt made it obvious that he was too much exhausted, it was laid on Simon. [1945] But when John says: And he bearing his cross went forth into—Golgotha, where they crucified him, καὶ βαστάζων τὸν σταυρὸν αὑτοῦ ἐξῆλθεν εἰς—Γολγοθᾶ· ὅπου αὐτὸν ἐσταύρωσαν: he plainly presupposes that the cross was borne by Jesus on the way thither. [1946] But the statement so unanimously given by the synoptists respecting the substitution of Simon appears the less capable of being rejected, the more difficult it is to discover a motive which might lead to its fabrication. On the contrary, this individual trait might very probably have remained unknown in the circle in which the fourth gospel had its origin, and the author might have thought that, according to the general custom, Jesus must have carried his cross. All the synoptists designate this Simon as a Cyrenian, i.e. probably one who had come to Jerusalem to the feast, from the Libyan city of Cyrene, where many Jews resided. [1947] According to all, the carrying of the cross was forced upon him, a circumstance which can as little be urged for as against the opinion that he was favourable to Jesus. [1948] According to Luke and Mark, the man came directly out of the country, ἀπ’ ἀγροῦ, and as he attempted to pass by the crowd advancing to the place of crucifixion, he was made use of to relieve Jesus. Mark designates him yet more particularly as the father of Alexander and Rufus, who appear to have been noted persons in the primitive church (comp. Rom. xvi. 13; Acts xix. 33 (?); 1 Tim. i. 20 (?); 2 Tim. iv. 14 (?)). [1949]

On the way to the place of execution, according to Luke, there followed Jesus, lamenting him, a great company, consisting especially of women, whom he however admonished to weep rather for themselves and their children, in prospect of the terrible time, which would soon come upon them (xxiii. 27 ff.). The details are taken partly from the discourse on the second advent, Luke xxi. 23; for as there it is said, Οὐαὶ δὲ ταῖς ἐν γαστρὶ ἐχούσαις, καὶ ταῖς θηλαζούσαις, ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις, so here Jesus says, that the days are coming in which αἱ στεῖραι, καὶ κοιλίαι αἳ οὐκ ἐγέννησαν, καὶ μαστοὶ οἳ οὐκ ἐθήλασαν, will be pronounced blessed; partly from Hosea x. 8, for the words τότε ἄρξονται λέγειν τοῖς ὄρεσι κ.τ.λ. (then shall they begin to say to the mountains, etc.) are almost exactly the Alexandrian translation of that passage.

The place of execution is named by all the Evangelists Golgotha, the Chaldaic גֻּלְגָּלְתָּא, and they all interpret this designation by κρανίου τόπος the place of a skull, or κρανίον a skull (Matt. v. 33 parall.). From the latter name it might appear that the place was so called because it resembled a skull in form; whereas the former interpretation, and indeed the nature of the case, renders it probable that it owed its name to its destination as a place of execution, and to the bones and skulls of the executed which were heaped up there. Where this place was situated is not known, but doubtless it was out of the city; even that it was a hill, is a mere conjecture. [1950]

The course of events after the arrival at the place of execution is narrated by Matthew (v. 34 ff.) in a somewhat singular order. First, he mentions the beverage offered to Jesus; next, he says that after they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers shared his clothes among them; then, that they sat down and watched him; after this he notices the superscription on the cross, and at length, and not as if supplying a previous omission, but with a particle expressive of succession in time (τότε), the fact that two thieves were crucified with him. Mark follows Matthew, except that instead of the statement about the watching of the cross, he has a determination of the time at which Jesus was crucified: while Luke more correctly relates first the crucifixion of the two malefactors with Jesus, and then the casting of lots for the clothes; and the same order is observed by John. But it is inadmissible on this account to transpose the verses in Matthew (34, 37, 38, 35, 36), as has been proposed; [1951] and we must rather abandon the author of the first gospel to the charge, that in his anxiety not to omit any of the chief events at the crucifixion of Jesus, he has neglected the natural order of time. [1952]