Further Exoneration of the Jews from the Pope's New Book: Jesus of Nazareth Part 2

An excerpt from the Pope's new book on Jesus of Nazareth Part 2 deals with the way the gospels depict Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. This may not be new but it bears repeating. Helpful is the identification of different groups in each gospel in each trial scene.

Now we must ask: who exactly were Jesus’ accusers?  Who insisted that he be condemned to death?  We must take note of the different answers that the Gospels give to this question.  According to John it was simply “the Jews”.  But John’s use of this expression does not in any way indicate – as the modern reader might suppose – the people of Israel in general, even less is it “racist” in character.  After all, John himself was ethnically a Jew, as were Jesus and all his followers.  The entire early Christian community was made up of Jews.  In John’s Gospel this word has a precise and clearly defined meaning: he is referring to the Temple aristocracy.  So the circle of accusers who instigate Jesus’ death is precisely indicated in the Fourth Gospel and clearly limited: it is the Temple aristocracy – and not without certain exceptions, as the reference to Nicodemus (7:50ff.) shows.

In Mark’s Gospel, the circle of accusers is broadened in the context of the Passover amnesty (Barabbas or Jesus): the “ochlos” enters the scene and opts for the release of Barabbas.  “Ochlos” in the first instance simply means a crowd of people, the “masses”.  The word frequently has a pejorative connotation, meaning “mob”.  In any event it does not refer to the Jewish people as such.  In the case of the Passover amnesty (which admittedly is not attested in other sources, but even so need not be doubted), the people, as so often with such amnesties, have a right to put forward a proposal, expressed by way of “acclamation”.  Popular acclamation in this case has juridical character (cf. Pesch, Markusevangelium, ii, p. 466).  Effectively this “crowd” is made up of the followers of Barabbas who have been mobilized to secure the amnesty for him: as a rebel against Roman power he could naturally count on a good number of supporters.  So the Barabbas party, the “crowd”, was conspicuous while the followers of Jesus remained hidden out of fear;  this meant that the vox populi, on which Roman law was built, was represented one-sidedly.  In Mark’s account, then, as well as “the Jews”, that is to say the dominant priestly circle, the ochlos comes into play, the circle of Barabbas’ supporters, but not the Jewish people as such.

An extension of Mark’s ochlos, with fateful consequences, is found in Matthew’s account (27:25) which speaks of the “whole people” and attributes to them the demand for Jesus’ crucifixion.  Matthew is certainly not recounting historical fact here: how could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamour for Jesus’ death?  It seems obvious that the historical reality is correctly described in John’s account and in Mark’s.  The real group of accusers are the current Temple authorities, joined in the context of the Passover amnesty by the “crowd” of Barabbas’ supporters.

Here we may agree with Joachim Gnilka, who argues that Matthew, going beyond historical considerations, is attempting a theological etiology with which to account for the terrible fate of the people of Israel in the Jewish War, when land, city and Temple were taken from them (cf.Matthäusevangelium, ii, p. 459).  Matthew is thinking here of Jesus’ prophecy concerning the end of the Temple: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!  Behold, your house is forsaken …” (Mt 23:37f.: cf. Gnilka, the whole of the section entitled “Gerichtsworte”, pp. 295-308).

These words – as argued earlier, in the chapter on Jesus’ eschatological discourse – remind us of the inner similarity between the Prophet Jeremiah’s message and that of Jesus.  Jeremiah – against the blindness of the then dominant circles – prophesied the destruction of the Temple and Israel’s exile.  But he also spoke of a “new Covenant”: punishment is not the last word, it leads to healing.  In the same way Jesus prophesies the “deserted house” and proceeds to offer the new Covenant “in his blood”: ultimately it is a question of healing, not of destruction and rejection.

When in Matthew’s account the “whole people” say: “his blood be on us and on our children” (27:25), the Christian will remember that Jesus’ blood speaks a different language from the blood of Abel (Heb 12:24): it does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation.  It is not poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God … God put [Jesus] forward as an expiation by his blood” (Rom 3:23, 25).  Just as Caiaphas’ words about the need for Jesus’ death have to be read in an entirely new light from the perspective of faith, the same applies to Matthew’s reference to blood: read in the light of faith, it means that we all stand in need of the purifying power of love which is his blood.  These words are not a curse, but rather redemption, salvation.  Only when understood in terms of the theology of the Last Supper and the Cross, drawn from the whole of the New Testament, does this verse from Matthew’s Gospel take on its correct meaning.

Let us move now from the accusers to the judge: the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate.  While Flavius Josephus and especially Philo of Alexandria paint a rather negative picture of him, other sources portray him as decisive, pragmatic and realistic.  It is often said that the Gospels presented him in an increasingly positive light out of a politically motivated pro-Roman tendency, and that they shifted the blame for Jesus’ death more and more onto the Jews.  Yet there were no grounds for any such tendency in the historical circumstances of the evangelists: by the time the Gospels were written, Nero’s persecution had already revealed the cruel side of the Roman State and the great arbitrariness of imperial power.  If we may date the Book of Revelation to approximately the same period as John’s Gospel, then it is clear that the Fourth Gospel did not come to be written in a context which could have given rise to a pro-Roman stance.

The image of Pilate in the Gospels presents the Roman Prefect quite realistically as a man who could be brutal when he judged this to be in the interests of public order.  Yet he also knew that Rome owed its world dominance not least to its tolerance of foreign divinities and to the capacity of Roman law to build peace.  This is how he comes across to us during Jesus’ trial.

The charge that Jesus claimed to be king of the Jews was a serious one.  Rome had no difficulty in recognizing regional kings like Herod, but they had to be legitimated by Rome and they had to receive from Rome the definition and limitation of their sovereignty.  A king without such legitimation was a rebel who threatened the Pax Romana and therefore had to be put to death.

Pilate knew, however, that no rebel uprising had been instigated by Jesus.  Everything he had heard must have made Jesus seem to him like a religious fanatic, who may have offended against some Jewish legal and religious rulings, but that was of no concern to him.  The Jews themselves would have to judge that.  From the point of view of the Roman juridical and political order, which fell under his competence, there was nothing serious to hold against Jesus.