John 18: 28-19:22 and the Paradox of Judgement (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe) 9783161599286, 9783161599293, 3161599284

Citation preview

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament · 2. Reihe Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich)

Mitherausgeber/Associate Editors Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) ∙ James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) ∙ Janet Spittler (Charlottesville, VA) J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)

543

Blake Wassell

John 18:28 – 19:22 and the Paradox of Judgement

Mohr Siebeck

Blake Wassell, born 1991; 2019 PhD in Theology, University of Otago; currently sessional lecturer in the School of Theology, Australian Catholic University. orcid.org/0000-0002-8193-5304

ISBN 978-3-16-159928-6 / eISBN 978-3-16-159929-3 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-159929-3 ISSN 0340-9570 / eISSN 2568-7484 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021  Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed on non-aging paper by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen, and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. Printed in Germany.

Preface This monograph revises the doctoral thesis I submitted to the University of Otago in 2019. Paul Trebilco was a tireless primary supervisor who guided and trained me at every turn. James Harding was the secondary supervisor who exposed problems and possibilities in my writing when I could not see them. Stephen Llewelyn was my advisor who shared everything from consoling conversations to cuttings of his plants. Francis Moloney, John Painter, and Derek Tovey engaged with the examination process in the most thorough and generous ways. Michael Tilly welcomed me to try out some of the research at his Universität Tübingen colloquium, as did Emmanuel Nathan at the joint Australian Catholic University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven seminar. Catrin Williams and an anonymous Journal for the Study of the New Testament reader sharpened some of the research. And I am grateful to Jörg Frey for accepting my study into this series, and to the editorial staff at Mohr Siebeck for finalising the manuscript with me. I benefitted from various funding awarded by the University of Otago. The library services there and at the Australian Catholic University never failed. Dermot Nestor offered me my own desk in Strathfield. Gareth Wearne is the reason I had an opportunity to teach university students in the first place. Cathy Kleemann likewise invited me into the Sydney College of Divinity network. Bruce Albiston always reminded me that biblical studies is indispensable, and with Alison enriched New Zealand visits. Alyson and Andrew Tong supplemented my income when I was looking after Isaac and Ellie. Andrew Wassell, as well as Joan and David Tong, helped me pay for an initial year in Dunedin. Timothy Engelbrecht opened his office to me countless times. Gai and Kevin McCaffrey opened their home – and family – to me. Tayla, Jenna, Michelle, and Ken Wassell humoured me in every rant, and encouraged me in every milestone. And Jay met, married, and lived with me during the writing of this book. Her contribution to what follows is in innumerable, untraceable ways entangled with mine. Sydney, October 2020

Blake Wassell

Table of Contents Preface .......................................................................................................... V List of Abbreviations ................................................................................. XII

Introduction ............................................................................... 1 1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement ......................................................... 3 2. Delimiting John 18:28–19:22 .................................................................. 10 3. The problem and the paradox .................................................................. 13 4. Approach ................................................................................................. 17

Part I Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority, false accusation, and misrule .............................................................................. 21 1. Introducing three crimes .......................................................................... 22 2. Only Caesar makes kings ......................................................................... 24 3. Acts 17:7 .................................................................................................. 26 4. Literature review and orientation ............................................................ 28 5. From the republic to the empire .............................................................. 34 6. Suetonius ................................................................................................. 39 7. Dio ........................................................................................................... 44

VIII

Table of Contents

8. Misrule .................................................................................................... 51 9. Summary .................................................................................................. 60

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets ................................ 61 1. Introducing three prophetic features of John ........................................... 62 2. The transition from John 6:14 to 15 ........................................................ 65 3. John 7:40–52 through a Davidic lens ...................................................... 71 4. Cyrus the Persian and Yahweh ................................................................ 74 5. Roman rulers and Sophia ........................................................................ 79 6. Summary .................................................................................................. 87

Part II Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22 ..................................... 88 1. Destroying and restoring the temple ........................................................ 89 2. The titulus ................................................................................................ 95 3. The trilingual tradition .......................................................................... 101 4. Writing in the Hebrew prophets: destruction and restoration ............... 106 5. Summary ................................................................................................ 111

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28 ............................................ 113 1. The Passover and the praetorium .......................................................... 114 2. What μιαίνω means ................................................................................ 117

Table of Contents

IX

3. Gentiles and their dwellings as (not) ritually defiling ........................... 121 4. Ἰουδαῖοι who defile themselves .............................................................. 127 5. Summary ................................................................................................ 131

Part III Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32 ........................................ 132 1. Pilate ..................................................................................................... 133 2. The accusation that Jesus had done evil to Caesar ............................... 139 3. The accusation that Jesus had misled the nation as false prophet ......... 144 4. Summary ................................................................................................ 149

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a ....................................... 151 1. The ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula and whose glory Pilate seeks ........................... 152 2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία ......... 155 3. ἀγωνίζομαι in its judicial setting ........................................................... 162 4. Pilate and the truth ................................................................................ 165 5. Summary ................................................................................................ 167

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40 ...................................... 168 1. Barabbas, the atoning dyad, and receptions .......................................... 169 2. Johannine atonement ............................................................................. 175 3. The λῃστής ............................................................................................. 178

X

Table of Contents

4. Summary ................................................................................................ 186

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3 ............................................ 188 1. How John suppresses torture and redirects mockery ............................ 189 2. Triumphs and the Flavians .................................................................... 194 3. Summary ................................................................................................ 207

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8 ............................................ 209 1. ἴδε, the accusation, and Jesus’ innocence .............................................. 210 2. ecce homo in reverse ............................................................................. 212 3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear ....................................... 217 4. Summary ................................................................................................ 226

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12 ........................................ 228 1. The ἐξουσία Jesus and Pilate display in the cross ................................. 229 2. The sin of misrule, and the greater sin of false accusation .................... 232 3. Vertical friendship between rulers ......................................................... 237 4. Summary ................................................................................................ 243

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a ..................................... 245 1. καθίζω and transitivity: when Pilate and Jesus both sit in judgement ... 246 2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί ................................................. 253 3. Expropriating the Passover from Johannine unbelievers ...................... 262

Table of Contents

XI

4. Summary ................................................................................................ 266

Conclusion .............................................................................. 267 Bibliography .............................................................................................. 271 Index of References ................................................................................... 299 Index of Subjects and Names ..................................................................... 324

List of Abbreviations AB ABR ABRL ABS AC ACS Acta Ant. Hung. AE AGJU AIIL AJEC AJP AJS Review ANEM Arion ASP AYBRL BBC BCAW BDAG BETL BHL BHR Bib BibInt Bijdr BIS BJS BN BNTC BP BRLJ BRS BTB BTS BZ BZAW BZNW

Anchor Bible Australian Biblical Review Anchor Bible Reference Library Approaches to Biblical Studies L’Antiquité Classique American Classical Studies Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae L’Année Épigraphique Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Ancient Israel and Its Literature Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity American Journal of Philology Association for Jewish Studies Review Ancient Near East Monographs Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics American Studies in Papyrology Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library Blackwell Bible Commentaries Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Brill’s Handbooks in Linguistics Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana Biblica Biblical Interpretation Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie Biblical Interpretation Series Brown Judaic Studies Biblische Notizen Black’s New Testament Commentary The Bible and Postcolonialism Brill Reference Library of Judaism The Biblical Resource Series Biblical Theology Bulletin Biblical Tools and Studies Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

List of Abbreviations CAHS CBET CBQ CBR CCS CCT CGLC CH CIL CJ CQ CQS CRINT DCLS DSD ECIL EJIL EKS EBib ExpT FAS FAT GRTC HBT Historia HONME HSM HTCNT HTR HUT I. Knidos ICC IEJ INR Int ISACR JBibleRecept JBL JCP JCTS JGRChJ JJMJS JRS JSJ JSJSup JSNT JSNTSS JSOT JSP

Clarendon Ancient History Series Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Currents in Biblical Research California Classical Studies Classics and Contemporary Thought Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics Church History Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum The Classical Journal The Classical Quarterly Companion to the Qumran Scrolls Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies Dead Sea Discoveries Early Christianity and Its Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature Essential Knowledge Series Études Bibliques The Expository Times Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei Forschungen zum Alten Testament Greece and Rome: Texts and Contexts Horizons in Biblical Theology Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte Handbuch der Orientalistik: The Near and Middle East Harvard Semitic Monographs Herder’s Theological Commentary on the New Testament Harvard Theological Review Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie Die Inschriften von Knidos, ed. W. Blümel. International Critical Commentary Israel Exploration Journal Israel Numismatic Research Interpretation Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion Journal of the Bible and its Reception Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish and Christian Perspectives Jewish and Christian Texts Series Journal of Greco-Roman Judaism and Christianity Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting Journal of Roman Studies Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

XIII

XIV JTS KKNT KTAH KWJS LBS LCL LHB/OTS LNTS LSJ LXX MBPR MM MT NA28 NC NCB NEA Neot NETS NICNT NICOT NovT NovTSup NRSV NTA NTL NTM NTS NTT OCG OCM OECT OGIS ORCS OSACR OSLA OTL OTT OWC PACS PBA PBNS PCNT PRR PSup

List of Abbreviations Journal of Theological Studies Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament Key Themes in Ancient History Key Words in Jewish Studies Linguistic Biblical Studies Loeb Classical Library Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies Library of New Testament Studies A Greek-English Lexicon, ed. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones. 9th ed. Septuagint Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament: Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources, ed. J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan. Masoretic Text Nestle-Aland: Novum Testamentum Graece, ed. B. Aland, K. Aland, J. Karavidopoulos, C. M. Martini, and B. M. Metzger. 28th rev. ed. The Numismatic Chronicle New Century Bible Commentary Near Eastern Archaeology Neotestamentica A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title. New International Commentary on the New Testament New International Commentary on the Old Testament Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum Supplements New Revised Standard Version Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen New Testament Library New Testament Monographs New Testament Studies New Testament Theology Oratory of Classical Greece Oxford Classical Monographs Oxford Early Christian Texts Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, ed. W. Dittenberger. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture & Representation Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity Old Testament Library Old Testament Theology Oxford World’s Classics Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series Proceedings of the British Academy Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Paideia Commentary of the New Testament Princeton Readings in Religion Phoenix Supplementary Volume

List of Abbreviations RB RBS RDGE RevExp RFCC RGDA RIC RIDA RPC RTR SB SBL SBLSCS SBLSS Scr SHJ SJS SNTSMS SNTU SP SPNT SR STAC STDJ TAPA TBN TENTS ThLZ TKNT VCSup VetT VetTSup WGRW WLAW WUNT ZAW ZNW ZPE Zutot

XV

Revue Biblique Resources for Biblical Study Roman Documents of the Greek East. Senatus Consulta and Epistulae to the Age of Augustus, ed. R. K. Sherk. Review & Expositor Religion in the First Christian Centuries Res Gestae Divi Augusti The Roman Imperial Coinage, ed. H. Mattingly, E. A. Sydenham, et al. Revue Internationale des droits de l’Antiquité Roman Provincial Coinage, ed. A. Burnett, M. Amandry, and P. P. Ripollès. Reformed Theological Review Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Scripture: The Quarterly of the Catholic Biblical Association Studying the Historical Jesus Studia Judaeoslavica Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studien zum Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt Sacra Pagina Studies on Personalities of the New Testament Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Transactions of the American Philological Association Themes in Biblical Narrative Texts and Editions for New Testament Study Theologische Literaturzeitung Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament Vigiliae Christianae Supplements Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplements Writings from the Greco-Roman World Wisdom Literature from the Ancient World Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture

Introduction To those critics who questioned the understanding of ambiguity in the first edition of his work on the topic, William Empson wrote the following response: We call it ambiguous, I think, when we recognise that there could be a puzzle as to what the author meant, in that alternative views might be taken without sheer misreading. If a pun is quite obvious it would not ordinarily be called ambiguous, because there is no room for puzzling… Thus the criterion for the ordinary use of the word is that somebody might be puzzled, even if not yourself.1

Empson uses the idea of ambiguity to describe something that puzzles someone. By itself, a pun, for instance, which can be obvious, would not do. However, an obscure pun might. Michael Wood concedes “one consistent, fairly precise meaning of ambiguity in Empson’s work: it marks the presence of a puzzle or a difficulty, an uncertainty on a reader’s or a listener’s part.”2 So Empsonian ambiguities are puzzles, difficulties, and uncertainties. These ambiguities may occur to the reader, or they may not. And if they do, they may or may not be one type of ambiguity. The “comedy,” as Wood calls it, is that the seven types of ambiguity Empson delineated bleed into each other. The types are themselves ambiguous. By delineating them in such a way, Empson demonstrated that ambiguity itself is ambiguous. In his “Seventeen Types of Ambiguity in Euripides’ Helen” Matthew Wright attempts an “Empsonian reading” of his own.3 Helen “constitutes an alternative to the version of ‘truth’ represented by Homeric epic, as well as a provocative response to the mythical tradition more generally.”4 The tragedy is thus ambiguous. Because he considers the seven types of ambiguity to be “oddly constructed,” Wright takes Empson as “a suggestive starting-point

William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (2nd ed.; repr.; London: Chatto and Windus, 1949), x. 2 Michael Wood, On Empson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 32. 3 Matthew Wright, “Seventeen Types of Ambiguity in Euripides’ Helen,” in Truth and History in the Ancient World: Pluralising the Past, ed. Lisa Hau and Ian Ruffell (London: Routledge, 2017), 55–80. 4 Wright, “Ambiguity,” 55. 1

2

Introduction

rather than a model to be imitated in so many words.”5 He amasses seventeen types of ambiguity, among which are repeated words and Leitwörter, paradox, euphemism, and plurality and openness. 6 Wright defines these ambiguities in the following ways. Leitwörter can take on different senses throughout a work, adding nuance and complexity. Paradoxes treat distinct or opposite meanings as synonymous, combining them together and enabling them to coexist. Euphemisms are straightforward expressions that can imply something coarse or unpleasant. Openness makes different meanings appear to be equally true and therefore challenges the reader to reconsider what makes something real. Because it is crucial to the reading of John I will propose, and because it is itself ambiguous, the notion of paradox needs to be discussed here. 7 A paradox, though it seems true, goes against intuition, in “anything from a tough problem or a counterintuitive opinion or conclusion to a visual sleight of hand.”8 According to Margaret Cuonzo, “paradoxes involve some type of contradiction among claims that, at least on the surface, have nothing wrong with them… An inconsistency among seemingly innocuous elements is thus central to the idea of paradox.” 9 Paradoxes start with contradiction and inconsistency, and they are moreover everyday phenomena: One common misconception that I hope will be shown to be mistaken is that paradoxes are puzzles that – although they are interesting – remain removed from everyday life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paradoxes emerge in everyday sources, in the newspapers, in religious texts, in conversations, and in practical dilemmas that must be faced in one’s life.10

Paradoxes are puzzles – or, ambiguities – that emerge and take on significance in everyday life, as texts do in religious traditions and communities. Furthermore, paradoxes reorientate reality, in the sense that they problematise everyday intuition and common sense. Paradoxes force us to rethink the way things seem to us, because they expose two or more common-sense beliefs that contradict each other and suggest that seemingly perfectly good reasoning can lead us to contradiction or obvious falsity. In other words, paradoxes force us to question whether our intuitive understanding of the world is really accurate… Our intuitions about the world, then, are central to what it means to be a paradox.11

Wright, “Ambiguity,” 56. Wright, “Ambiguity,” 59–61 (no. 2), 61–63 (no. 3), 65–66 (no. 6), 74–75 (no. 17). 7 I will use “John” for the gospel, not the author. 8 Margaret Cuonzo, Paradox (EKS; Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014), 2. 9 Cuonzo, Paradox, 6. 10 Cuonzo, Paradox, 12. 11 Cuonzo, Paradox, 17–18. 5 6

1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement

3

Just as paradoxes are contingent on the way we tend to see the world, they also mean to transform it. A paradox may problematise judgement according to our senses. 12 A paradox may juxtapose superficial judgement with right judgement.13 A paradox may lead to questions such as, “What is truth?”14

1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement 1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement

Johannine ambiguity crystallises in the verb ὑψόω (“exalt”). 15 The euphemism for crucifixion, John repeats it in three contexts: when Jesus is exalted (ὑψόω), he will function as the serpent sign did in the wilderness (John 3:14), reveal to the Ἰουδαῖοι his divinity (8:28), and draw everyone to himself (12:32).16 The first instance of ὑψόω recalls the wilderness tradition. Because the people complain (Num 21:5), Yahweh sends serpents to bite them (v. 6).17 The people confess their sin (v. 7), and Yahweh tells Moses how to respond (v. 8). Moses makes a serpent and displays it on a pole (or “sign,” LXX σημεῖον), so that those who were bitten may look at it and live (v. 9). The serpent is judgement, and the image of it is salvation. By the serpent, Yahweh brings both death and life. And by this paradox, John foreshadows the death of Jesus: “just as Moses exalted (ὕψωσεν) the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be exalted (ὑψωθῆναι)” (John 3:14). Second, Jesus tells the Ἰουδαῖοι, “you will exalt (ὑψώσητε) the Son of Man” (8:28). E. Richard recognises that the ambiguity of ὑψόω is amplified there. 18 The use of the verb assigns the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι agency in the John 7:24. John 8:15. 14 John 18:38a. 15 The verb ὑψόω has royal connotations. Whereas the law of kingship commands that the king does not exalt himself above others in Israel (LXX Deut 17:20), the Lord exalts Joshua before Israel to establish him as the successor of Moses (LXX Josh 3:7). David exalts God (LXX 2 Sam 22:47), and God exalts David (v. 49). Much later, the Romans, so Judas Maccabaeus learns, are exalted (1 Macc 8:13). 16 I will not translate Ἰουδαῖοι. In a similar way, Robert L. Brawley, “The Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel of John,” in Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies of Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend, ed. Isaac Kalimi (BRLJ 51; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 105–27 (105–06) uses Ἰουδαῖοι to sidestep the debate about translation (to “Jews” or “Judeans”), as well as to avoid the hasty identification of Jews from other eras with the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι. For my explanation, see further below. 17 Wright, “Ambiguity,” 73 includes intertextual echoes among his types of ambiguity: “in effect, one is reading two separate works, the old and the new, simultaneously, and a certain sense of dissonance or doubleness results.” 18 E. Richard, “Expressions of Double Meaning and their Function in the Gospel of John,” NTS 31 (1985): 96–112 (102). 12 13

4

Introduction

earthly crucifixion and the heavenly exaltation of Jesus. The third use of ὑψόω (12:32) locates the hope of humanity in the cross. Yet the preceding v. 31 highlights judgement: “now is the judgement of the world.” Thus ὑψόω integrates destruction and restoration in the one event. Then, finally, the crowd asks in v. 34, “How can you say that the Son of Man must be exalted (ὑψωθῆναι)? Who is this Son of Man?” The Johannine characters themselves struggle with the ambiguity of ὑψόω. Taken together, the Johannine uses of ὑψόω merge two poles: judgement and hope, destruction and restoration, death and life. “Each occurrence is enhanced with a double meaning… the paradoxical union of these two events.”19 John concludes the ὑψόω thread by conveying that the solution to the paradox resists unbelievers: according to v. 37, the crowd speaking in v. 34 did not believe Jesus. The paradox of ὑψόω bears on the role Rome has in John. The third (John 12:32) and fourth (v. 34) occurrences of ὑψόω surround an aside: “now he said this to signal which kind of death he was about to die” (v. 33). When the setting has changed to the praetorium of Pilate, John 18:32 repeats the note, “to signal which kind of death he was about to die.” Of course, “the kind of death he was about to die” refers both times to the crucifixion of Jesus. Because 12:33 anticipates 18:32, the Johannine ὑψόω thread enters the episode featuring the Roman prefect.20 Is this episode when Jesus is crucifiedexalted for death and life (3:14)? Is this when the Ἰουδαῖοι crucify-exalt the Son of Man (8:28)? Is this when the world’s judgement and hope coincide (12:32)? When Pilate delivers Jesus to them, and when they take Jesus, 19:16 presupposes those interacting with Pilate in v. 15, the chief priests of the Ἰουδαῖοι. So v. 16, where the chief priests crucify Jesus, agrees with 8:28, where the Ἰουδαῖοι exalt the Son of Man. John assigns agency to the Ἰουδαῖοι and the chief priests in the death of Jesus, the Son of Man. And yet, according to 19:23, the soldiers crucified Jesus. 21 The openness of v. 16 is thus problematic. It leads the reader into paradox. Nearby ambiguities suggest that this manner of openness in John 19:16 is neither odd nor isolated, but part of an intricate pattern.22 Two other instances 19 H. Hollis, “The Root of the Johannine Pun – ὙΨΩΘΗΝΑΙ,” NTS 35 (1989): 475–78 (475). 20 For delimitation, see below. 21 Before John 19:23, the soldiers appeared in vv. 2–3. And before that, 18:36 anticipated the possibility that Jesus may be “delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι.” See later Chapter 3. 22 Richard, “Expressions of Double Meaning,” 102 suggests that John uses some words to “insist upon both meanings rather than choose one over the other.” John neither selects nor removes one of the two meanings, therefore making it “possible to conclude that John intended both” (p. 103). Robert G. Hall, “The Reader as Apocalypticist,” in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 254–73 (267) exploits the ambiguity of what Jesus says to

1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement

5

occur in the same episode of the narrative. A well-known case is the form ἐκάθισεν (“sit”) in v. 13, which may function intransitively or transitively, so that Pilate either sits on a judgement bench or seats Jesus on it.23 A more esoteric instance is the unspecified subject of λέγει in v. 5, which allows the reader to imagine either Pilate or Jesus as the one saying “behold the human.”24 The reader is also responsible for specifying who, according to v. 16, crucifies Jesus. John offers two options, with no clear criteria by which to choose between the Ἰουδαῖοι and the soldiers.25 But although the gospel is incomplete, John does not abandon readers to complete it in any way imaginable. The gospel rather seems to challenge its reader to solve how two strangely inconsistent possibilities may be able to work together.26 But John’s reader is unsurprised, having been primed to deal with such puzzles from the very beginning. John 1:14 says that the λόγος became human flesh and therefore revealed divine glory.27 According to the paradox, Nicodemus, in particular the words ἄνωθεν (John 3:3) and πνεῦμα (v. 5): “Understanding ἄνωθεν as ‘from the beginning’ and πνεῦμα as ‘wind’, yields an image of re-creation: ‘unless one is born from the beginning, born from water and wind [think Gen 1.2], one cannot enter the Kingdom of God’. Understanding ἄνωθεν as ‘from above’ and πνεῦμα as ‘spirit’ yields an image of new life in the Spirit: ‘unless one is born from above, born from water [water of life flowing from Jesus who comes from above, John 4.10–15] and Spirit [water from Jesus is the Spirit, John 7.38-39], one cannot enter the Kingdom of God’. ‘Water’ as death (Lam 3.53; Ps 69.14–15), ἄνωθεν as ‘again’ and πνεῦμα as ‘breath’ would yield an image of resurrection: ‘unless one is born again, born from water [death] and breath [Ezek 37.9] one cannot enter the kingdom of God’.” 23 See later Chapter 11. In his comments on John 19:13 Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John (BNTC; London: Continuum, 2005), 469 notes, “although the narrative is characterized by various double meanings, nowhere else do these depend on a grammatical ambiguity.” However, I will take another position. 24 See later Chapter 9. 25 See later Chapter 3. 26 On this type of literary openness, see, for instance, Umberto Eco, The Open Work (trans. Anna Cancogni; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 4; originally Opera aperta (Milan: Bompiani, 1962). Eco (p. 9) sees in modernist literature the current that recognises “symbol as a communicative channel for the indefinite, open to constantly shifting responses and interpretative stances.” The example of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, is both finite and unlimited (p. 10). Yet its openness leads less to “indefinite suggestion” than to “solution,” which “is seen as desirable and is actually anticipated” (p. 11). 27 C. K. Barrett, “The Dialectical Theology of St John,” in New Testament Essays (London: SPCK, 1972), 49–69 (65) describes the incarnation as the basis of dialectical theology in John. Ambiguity is one important literary strategy that enables dialectical theology. Gail R. O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 8 sees Johannine irony in a similar way. She emphasises that dualities interact in the gospel. In this, she goes beyond Paul Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 146–47 and R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth

6

Introduction

the revelation of glory appears nowhere apart from the flesh, and the flesh reveals nothing apart from the glory. As C. K. Barrett explains, Johannine dualism is dynamic, not static, which means that it creates paradox, not contradiction. 28 Rudolf Bultmann famously described the incarnation as paradox: But this is the paradox which runs through the whole gospel: the δόξα is not to be seen alongside the σάρξ, nor through the σάρξ as through a window; it is to be seen in the σάρξ and nowhere else… The revelation is present in a peculiar hiddenness.29

Elsewhere in his commentary, Bultmann recognises not only that the incarnation determines the cross, but also that the cross displays the incarnation.30 So in this way, the incarnation is, in Hans-Ulrich Weidemann’s Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 167, who do not allow Johannine dualities to interact. Jan van der Watt, An Introduction to the Johannine Gospel and Letters (ABS; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 108–09 overviews Johannine irony and paradox together: “There is constantly a story behind the story, a playfulness with irony and paradox, imageries and metaphors opening the transcendent world in a simple, but nevertheless complex way, enticing the reader with wordplay to intellectually partake in the narrative, correcting misunderstandings, recognizing double entendre, or the different meanings of the same word.” The paradigm in John is not dualism but paradox, according to Douglas Estes, “Dualism or Paradox? Rethinking the Worldview of John’s Gospel in ‘Light’ of a Rhetorical Approach” (paper presented in the Johannine Literature group at the annual meeting of the SBL, Boston, November 20, 2017). 28 C. K. Barrett, “Paradox and Dualism,” in Essays on John (London: SPCK, 1982), 98– 115 (106–07). 29 Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 63, italics original. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 165 endorses Bultmann: “The whole of Bultmann’s profound exposition should be read.” D. Moody Smith, “Theology and Ministry in John,” in Johannine Christianity: Essays on its Setting, Sources, and Theology (London: T&T Clark, 1987), 190–222 (211) remarks that “Bultmann comprehends and expresses the nature of this paradox perhaps better than John does. But it is not a sheer imposition on the text. The same Jesus who tells the Samaritan woman all she has done also grew weary from a journey and sat down at the well to rest.” In his discussion of Bultmann on the incarnation, Tim Labron, Bultmann Unlocked (Theology; London: T&T Clark, 2011), 13 writes, “the paradox is muted and the offensive nature of 1:14a is dulled if the glory (incarnation) is denied or if the flesh is denied.” 30 Bultmann, John, 468, 631, 632. In the same vein, C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 165, 402 proposes that the cross consummates the incarnation. Craig R. Koester “Progress and paradox: C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann on history, the Jesus tradition, and the Fourth Gospel,” in Engaging with C. H. Dodd on the Gospel of John: Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation, ed. Tom Thatcher and Catrin Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 49–65 (55) distinguishes Bultmann from Dodd: “Where Dodd stressed the revelatory aspect of history,

1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement

7

terms, the “metatext” of the narrative.31 As metatext, the paradox is not part of the narrative, because it contains the narrative. The incarnation reveals glory as of the μονογενής from the Father (1:14), and the cross is where the Father glorifies his Son (17:1).32 The glory of the incarnation contains a gift that is truth (1:14), and Jesus came into the world to witness to the truth (18:37). 33 The incarnation therefore anticipates the glorification of Jesus, when he is crucified.34 If incarnation means revelation, it also means judgement.35 In the λόγος was the life, the light of everyone (John 1:4) that the darkness did not overcome (v. 5). This λόγος came into the world (v. 9), but it was Bultmann stressed its enigmatic quality.” However, Bultmann and Dodd may not be so different on the incarnation. On either emphasis, as Koester puts them, some people are blind to the revelation of Jesus, and some are not. It is hidden to some, and not to others. The revelation is veiled, and it is not. As James L. Resseguie, The Strange Gospel: Narrative Design and Point of View in John (BIS 56; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 30 notes, “Nowhere is the tension between hiddenness and revelation more apparent than in John 1:14.” 31 Hans-Ulrich Weidemann, Der Tod Jesu im Johannesevangelium: Die erste Abschiedsrede als Schlüsseltext für den Passions- und Osterbericht (BZNW 122; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004), 29. He also calls the incarnation the “christological reading instruction” (“christologische Leseanweisung”). 32 As Isa 52:13 pairs δοξάζω with ὑψόω, it may be the precedent for John using both verbs in relation to the cross; see further Chapter 5. On the shared royal connotations of the Johannine exaltation and glorification threads, see Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John (SP; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), 497: the “crucifixion that must now follow will be a moment of royal glory, a lifting up (3:14; 8:28; 12:32), a glorification (12:23).” On the glorification theme in particular, see Martinus de Boer, “Johannine History and Johannine Theology: The Death of Jesus as the Exaltation and the Glorification of the Son of Man,” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007), 293–326; Nicole Chibici-Revneanu, “Variations on Glorification: John 13,31f. and Johannine δόξα-language,” in Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, ed. G. Van Belle, M. Labahn, and P. Maritz (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 511–22. 33 On reading truth as the content of the gift in John 1:14, see Bultmann, John, 73–74; Moloney, John, 39, 45; idem, “The Use of χάρις in John 1:14, 16–17: A Key to the Johannine Narrative,” in Johannine Studies 1975–2017 (WUNT 372; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 283–305. If the καί is epexegetical, the ἀλήθεια explains the χάρις. 34 Also Jörg Frey, “Joh 1,14, die Fleischwerdung des Logos und die Einwohnung Gottes in Jesus Christus: Zur Bedeutung der Schechina-Theologie für die johanneische Christologie,” in Das Geheimnis der Gegenwart Gottes zur Schechina-Vorstellung in Judentum und Christentum, ed. Bernd Janowski and Enno Edzard Popkes (WUNT 318; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 231–56 (256). 35 On the incarnation as judgement, see George W. MacRae, “Theology and Irony in the Fourth Gospel,” in The Word in the World, Essays in Honor of F. L. Moriarty, ed. R. J. Clifford and G. W. MacRae (Cambridge: Weston College, 1973), 83–96 (88); D. Moody Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 97.

8

Introduction

unrecognised (v. 10) and rejected (v. 11). Later John 3:17–19 develops the implications of these images with respect to judgement: For God did not send the Son into the world so that he may condemn the world, but so that the world may be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are already condemned, because they have not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

What is ambiguous in the passage is the identity of who exercises judgement. Those who reject the λόγος and do not believe Jesus are condemned – so do they condemn themselves? Jesus says that he does not judge the world, because he came to save it (12:47) – so who judges instead?36 John also says that Jesus judges no one (8:15), that he has true judgement with the Father (v. 16), that the Father gives the Son all judgement (5:22), and that the Father gives the Son of Man authority to execute judgement (v. 27). Taken with Johannine incarnation, Johannine judgement is paradoxical. At the praetorium, too, Jesus both judges and does not judge, and those who accuse and judge Jesus bring judgement on themselves. 37 As the accusing Ἰουδαῖοι are judged, so the accused Son of Man judges.38 On the Johannine cross, the Son of Man is both “the place where human beings can see the revelation of God” and “the place where humankind faces selfjudgement.” 39 The cross integrates divine self-revelation with human selfjudgement. The incarnation of λόγος is light and judge when at his trial – a connection C. H. Dodd makes in his comments on what Jesus says to Pilate about witnessing to the truth: It is however significant that the pronouncement we are considering (xviii. 37) is placed in the context of a trial scene. Where ἀλήθεια is, there men are judged, as we may learn from iii. 18–21: ἀλήθεια and φῶς are closely akin… So once again we have, as in ix. 13–41, the theme of judgment treated with Johannine irony. As there the ‘Pharisees’ sat in judgment upon the claims of Jesus, and in the end found the tables turned and sentence pronounced against them, so here Pilate believes himself to be sitting in judgment on Jesus, while he is actually being judged by the Truth.40

In some places the λόγος that Jesus speaks judges. The λόγος Jesus speaks will judge those who reject him (John 12:48), but those who hear it and believe the one who sent Jesus escape judgement (5:24). 37 Bultmann, John, 651; Dodd, Interpretation, 352; Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 179. 38 Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2000), 137. 39 Francis J. Moloney, “The Johannine Son of Man,” in Johannine Studies, 223–32 (230, 231); originally in BTB 6 (1976): 71–86. 40 Dodd, Interpretation, 436. 36

1. Johannine ambiguity and judgement

9

I agree with Dodd, except for his inference that Pilate ends up on the wrong side of the judgement paradox. What if, rather, the Ἰουδαῖοι push Pilate into the light, much as the Pharisees did to the blind man earlier?41 The respective episodes featuring the blind man and Pilate illuminate each other. According to Dorothy Lee, “form and meaning belong together” in John – and she means that in both literary and theological terms. 42 This paradox of form and meaning maintains “literary form as both the conveyor and the expression of meaning.” 43 Lee claims that narrative meaning and incarnation theology “belong to the same order of reality.” 44 In John 9:39 Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgement, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” As Lee observes, the man and the Pharisees move in opposite directions: from blindness to sight, and from sight to blindness.45 And similarly to Dodd, Lee relates the episode to John’s opening: The Pharisees’ rejection of the light exemplifies the world in its willful blindness and destructiveness (1.10–11), which, in an ironical way, can open the eyes of τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ to the world’s darkness and the saving power of the light.46

The agency lies with the Pharisees, though they are blind. They show the healed man the judgement that Jesus, the light, symbolises.47 As they attempt to judge Jesus, the Pharisees not only bring judgement on themselves, but also show the man born blind the way to salvation.48

I intend some ambiguity here, and throughout this entire study, in the spirit of recent studies in ambiguous Johannine characterisations – so Colleen M. Conway, “Speaking through Ambiguity: Minor Characters in the Fourth Gospel,” BibInt 10:3 (2002): 324–41; Susan Hylen, Imperfect Believers: Ambiguous Characters in the Gospel of John (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009). 42 Dorothy A. Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and Meaning (JSNTSS 95; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994), 23. 43 Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel, 33–34. 44 Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel, 24: “The incarnational nature of John’s theology is paralleled by the way in which theological meaning is formed and carried by the literary structures of the Fourth Gospel… Just as σάρξ cannot be discounted in John’s theology, neither can narrative or symbolic form be discarded in favour of a detachable view of meaning. In this sense, form and content, in literary terms, parallel the theology of incarnation in the Fourth Gospel. Indeed they belong to the same order of reality.” 45 Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel, 162. 46 Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel, 184. 47 Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel, 183. 48 John 9:18 refers to the Ἰουδαῖοι, not the Pharisees, as elsewhere in the episode. 41

10

Introduction

2. Delimiting John 18:28–19:22 2. Delimiting John 18:28–19:22

John 9:1–41 and 18:28–19:22 share the same structure.49 Both episodes use seven scenes, each of which represents dialogue between two character groups.50 The difference in 18:28–19:22 is the emphasis on the praetorium. The episode introduces the praetorium before Pilate, who swaps dialogue partners (accused, accusers) and stages (inside, outside) throughout. Pilate, the accusers, and the accused share one stage in the synoptics. But as he goes between the accusers outside and the accused inside, the Johannine Pilate initiates scene changes. If Johannine form and meaning do operate together, the constant crossings between the two stages recall the Johannine dualism between what is below and what is above. What occurs outside would be from this world, then, and what occurs inside would not be from this world. Thomas Brodie likewise connects the inside versus outside structure of the episode to the idea of revelation.51 For Brodie, the notion of revelation makes sense of the contrast between inside and outside: Jesus reveals to Pilate inside, but the Ἰουδαῖοι remain “outside the praetorium and outside the 49 J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (3rd ed.; NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 38 compares the blind man episode to the praetorium episode in passing. Martyn (p. 37) demarcates seven scenes in John 9:1–41: vv. 1–7 (Jesus, his disciples, blind man), 8–12 (blind man, his neighbours), 13–17 (blind man, Pharisees), 18–23 (Pharisees, blind man’s parents), 24–34 (Pharisees, blind man), 35–38 (Jesus, blind man), 39– 41 (Jesus, Pharisees). Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel, 165 splits scene one into two (vv. 1–5, 6–7), with the result that the episode has eight, not seven, scenes. John 9:6, however, does not make any change in setting or characters. 50 For the delimitation of seven scenes, see Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah. From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (2 vols.; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1994), 758; Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (SNTSMS 100; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 169. 51 Thomas L. Brodie, The Gospel according to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 521, italics original: “It is possible to regard these exits and entrances as superficial details, but the systematic way in which they are emphasized suggests that they are important, and this suspicion is heightened when something of the same pattern is found in the drama of the arrest and interrogation: Jesus goes out with his disciples and goes in to the garden; then he goes out to meet the arresting force (18:1, 4); another disciple goes in with Jesus to the court of the high priest and then goes out and leads in Peter (18:15–16).” Also on John’s use of superficial details, Charles Homer Giblin, “Confrontations in John 18,1–27,” Bib 65:2 (1984): 210–32 (218), italics original: “The slight inconsistency in the two opening scenes of the passion narrative, namely, that Jesus confronts his adversaries outside the garden (18,4) whereas Peter is addressed as having been seen in the garden, supports this interpretation. For it seems odd that a writer who makes so much of ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ in his concise narrative, as John does, would have been unaware of this discrepancy.”

2. Delimiting John 18:28–19:22

11

revelation.”52 The praetorium episode is part of a “process of revelation,” in which some “choose to be left outside.” 53 As in 9:1–41, the process of revelation that unfolds through the separate scenes of 18:28–19:22 coordinates judgement with salvation. The verbs ἐξέρχομαι (“exit”) and εἰσέρχομαι (“enter”) mark out the scenes. Pilate exits the praetorium in John 18:29, he enters in v. 33, and he exits in v. 38b. He exits the praetorium in 19:4, and he enters it in v. 9. The other parts of the episode are divided differently. Pilate takes (λαμβάνω) Jesus in 19:1, just as some unspecified subjects take (λαμβάνω) Jesus in v. 16b. They may be the Ἰουδαῖοι, because Pilate uses the verb λαμβάνω when he commands the Ἰουδαῖοι to “take” Jesus themselves (18:31; 19:6). In addition, Pilate leads Jesus in 19:13, just as some unspecified subjects lead Jesus in 18:28. These subjects are probably the soldiers, their officer, and the assistants of the Ἰουδαῖοι who arrest and bind Jesus in v. 12. So the middle (19:1) and concluding (v. 13) scenes begin differently. Yet in so doing, they parallel other parts: what I will call the prologue of the episode in 18:28 and its epilogue in 19:16b–22.54 In the former Jesus arrives at the praetorium, and in the latter he leaves. They bookend the episode, with one set of three scenes on each side of its middle scene in 19:1–3. These two sets entail chiastic pairs of scenes that interact with one other. Some simple words reinforce the chiasm: “again” (πάλιν) in scenes 3 (18:38b–40) and 5 (19:4–8); “into” (εἰς) and “again” in scenes 2 (18:33–38a) and 6 (19:9–12); “outside” (ἔξω) in scenes 1 (18:29–32) and 7 (19:13–16a). In terms of themes, the episode emphasises the Ἰουδαῖοι leading Jesus (18:28; 19:16b–22), accusations (18:29–32; 19:13–16a), kingship and authority (18:33–38a; 19:9–12), innocence (18:38b–40; 19:4–8), and mockery (19:1–3). Johannine scholars do not normally include John 19:16b–22 in the praetorium episode. As Jean Zumstein acknowledges, “18:28–19:16a is a literary unit.”55 According to Zumstein, 19:16b introduces another unit: in the Brodie, John, 521. Brodie, John, 522. 54 I do not use “epilogue” in an exclusive sense. It is also possible to read 19:16b–22 as a bridge – as epilogue to what precedes and prologue to what follows. Francis J. Moloney, Glory not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 147 demarcates vv. 16b–37 – vv. 38–42 his fifth, concluding section of 18:1–19:42 – into five scenes: vv. 16b– 22, 23–24, 25–27, 28–30, 31–37. Jo-Ann A. Brant, John (PCNT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 234 demarcates vv. 16b–42 into seven scenes: vv. 16b–18, 19–22, 23–25a, 25b–27, 28–30, 31–37, 38–42. With these demarcations, vv. 16b–22 could both conclude a seven-scene episode (ending in v. 16a) and anticipate a five-scene episode (beginning in v. 23). On this, see later Chapter 3. 55 Jean Zumstein, Das Johannesevangelium (KKNT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 686. 52 53

12

Introduction

one Pilate reaches his verdict, and in the other he executes his verdict.56 But even if John makes that distinction, Pilate continues to feature through v. 22. Pilate fades into the background after v. 22, reappearing briefly in vv. 31 and 38, where he authorises others to remove the crucified bodies before the Sabbath. Yet the plot has moved past the themes of kingship and judgement. Both before and after John 19:16, Pilate is in focus. As such, he merges John 18:28–19:16a and 19:16b–22 into one episode. Although Josef Blank ends the episode at 19:16a, he inadvertently endorses incorporating vv. 16b–22 in it. He stresses that “das βασιλεύς-Motiv” is “der Angelpunkt, an dem die Juden selbst entscheidend in den Prozeß hineinverwickelt sind, so daß es sich nicht mehr nur um den Prozeß zwischen Pilatus und Jesus handelt.”57 If the Ἰουδαῖοι contribute that hinge, then the episode naturally proceeds through v. 22.58 The kingship motif, Pilate, and the Ἰουδαῖοι disappear after v. 16b–22, not before it. Without vv. 16b–22, Pilate does not adjudicate on the kingship accusation. In addition, Peter-Ben Smit recognises that vv. 23–42 do not follow from vv. 16b–22 nearly as well as 18:28–19:16a lead into 19:16b– 22.59 Also, v. 16b uses τότε οὖν, as elsewhere in John, to mark continuity, not a new episode. 60 I will therefore treat 18:28–19:22 as a literary unit, with 19:16b–22 concluding it.61

Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 687. According to Josef Blank, “Die Verhandlung vor Pilatus Joh 18,28–19,16 im Lichte johanneischer Theologie,” BZ 3 (1959): 60–81 (62), the “king-motif” is the “the hinge-point, where the Ἰουδαῖοι intentionally involve themselves in the trial, so that it no longer concerns only the trial between Pilate and Jesus.” 58 Wayne A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (NovTSup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967), 62 recognises that “Jesus’ kingship stands at the center of the whole progression” and examines 19:16b–22 as part of the unit. 59 Peter-Ben Smit, “The Final Verdict: A Note on the Structure of Jesus’ Trial in the Gospel of John,” RB 115:3 (2008): 383–95 (386, 392–93). Like me, Laura J. Hunt, Jesus Caesar: A Roman Reading of the Johannine Trial Narrative (WUNT 2/506; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 91 demarcates 18:28–19:22 based on where words with “Roman specificity” occur. Some go as far as including John 19:23–24 in the episode, such as Jacques Escande, “Jésus devant Pilate: Jean 18,28–19,24,” Foi & Vie 13 (1974): 66–82. 60 Smit, “The Final Verdict,” 386. 61 This differentiates the study from others, such as Sherri Brown, “What Is Truth? Jesus, Pilate, and the Staging of the Dialogue of the Cross in John 18:28–19:16a,” CBQ 77 (2015): 69–86; Sung Uk Lim, “Biopolitics in the Trial of Jesus (John 18:28–19:16a),” ExpT 127:5 (2016): 209–16. 56 57

3. The problem and the paradox

13

3. The problem and the paradox 3. The problem and the paradox

John 18:28–19:22 is open in different ways and to different degrees. As 19:16b–22 concludes the episode, the chief priests of the Ἰουδαῖοι tell Pilate not to write “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” on the inscription. They demand that Pilate add something: “he himself said, I am …” (ἐκεῖνος εἶπεν … εἰμι, v. 21). The addition would uphold the accusation they made. They had said, “everyone who makes himself king opposes (ἀντιλέγω) Caesar” (v. 12). Here the verb ἀντιλέγω (“speak against”) reinforces the sense of a speech act. 62 The alleged speech act of Jesus was performative, which means that rather than representing reality, it reorganised it.63 It is an illocutionary act, which means that its doing is in the saying. The utterance and the action are inseparable from each other. The illocutionary act in the accusation is a declaration. 64 Unlike other illocutionary acts, declarations bring into being something new. This is how the verdict of innocence Pilate pronounces works: “I do not find in him a cause for accusation” (18:38b; 19:4, 6b).65 The declaration makes Jesus innocent, because Pilate is prefect. Only he can declare Jesus innocent.66 In the same way, only Caesar can declare someone

For speech act theory in Johannine studies, see J. Eugene Botha, Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4:1–42 (NovTSup 65; Leiden: Brill, 1991) on the incident with the woman in Samaria; Derek Tovey, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSS 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) on the disciple whom Jesus loved as author. 63 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962) distinguishes performative utterances from constative utterances. Adrian Akmajian, Ann Farmer, Lee Bickmore, Richard Demers, and Robert M. Harnish, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication (7th ed.; Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017), 381 delineate four types of speech acts: illocutionary acts (for instance, “promise”), utterance acts (for instance, “shout”), perlocutionary acts (for instance, “intimidate”), and propositional acts (for instance, “refer”). 64 In his taxonomy of illocutionary acts, John R. Searle, Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 29 lists assertives (for instance, “describe”), directives (for instance, “order”), commissives (for instance, “promise”), expressives (for instance, “congratulate”), and declarations (for instance, “declare”). 65 John R. Searle, Expression and Meaning, 26 gives “I find you guilty as charged” as an example. He explains, “the speaker in authority brings about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content by saying in effect, I declare the state of affairs to exist.” 66 On performatives, see John R. Searle, “How Performatives Work,” in Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo (PBNS 77; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001), 85–107 (97–100). 62

14

Introduction

king. This is the accusation against Jesus: he has done something only Caesar can do.67 Jesus would appear to Rome as a usurper.68 But herein lies the problem: how can Pilate designate Jesus as “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” in his inscription (John 19:19) after announcing three times (18:38b; 19:4, 6b) that he finds in him no cause for the accusation and after attempting three times (18:31, 39; 19:6b) to transfer him to the Ἰουδαῖοι? Pilate introduces the designation “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (18:33) after hearing the accusation (v. 29) from the Ἰουδαῖοι that Jesus has done evil (v. 30) deserving death (v. 31). Pilate goes on to clarify that the title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” comes from the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 35).69 He also presumes this near the end of the episode, referring to Jesus as “your king” when addressing the Ἰουδαῖοι (19:14, 15). Crucified under the inscription, Jesus is “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” only inasmuch as the Ἰουδαῖοι accused him. And considering the verdict of innocence, the accusation has to be false.70

67 Jesus’ prophetic sign (John 6:14) had drawn the attempts of crowds to make him king (καὶ ἁρπάζειν αὐτὸν ἵνα ποιήσωσιν βασιλέα, v. 15), but the accusation made at Pilate’s praetorium ascribes agency to Jesus himself (πᾶς ὁ βασιλέα ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν ἀντιλέγει τῷ Καίσαρι, 19:12). The explicit problem there becomes taking kingship not already ratified by Caesar (see later Chapter 1), an action, as the accusers see it, that realises the danger of a false prophet (see later Chapter 5). 68 Adele Reinhartz, “The Gospel according to John,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 168–218 (213) recognises this, commenting on “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” in John 18:33: “Romans regarded anyone claiming kingship without their permission as an insurrectionist.” 69 So Dodd, Interpretation, 88. The soldiers use the title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (John 19:3), Pilate repeats it (18:39), abbreviates it with “king” (19:14, 15), and eventually writes it on the trilingual titulus (v. 19). As in Mark 15:2, 9, 12 // Matt 27:11 // Luke 23:3, the title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” is on the lips of the prefect in John 18:33 – not the accusers, nor the accused. 70 Jörg Frey, “Temple and Identity in Early Christianity and in the Johannine Community: Reflections on the ‘Parting of the Ways,’” in Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, ed. Daniel R. Schwartz and Zeev Weis, in collaboration with Ruth A. Clements (AJEC 78; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 447–507 (506) recognises that the verdict of innocence corrects the accusation against Jesus, “the idea that his royal claims could endanger Roman rule.” Brendan Byrne, Life Abounding: A Reading of John’s Gospel (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2014), 300 recognises that the title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” comprises the “false accusation” against Jesus. Severino Pancaro, The Law in the Fourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity according to John (NovTSup 42; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 318 refers to “being opposed to Caesar” (so 19:12) as the “false charge.”

3. The problem and the paradox

15

So why did Jesus die, though the prefect declared him innocent? Usually scholars say that Pilate succumbs to pressure from the Ἰουδαῖοι. 71 The inscription then is the revenge Pilate takes out on them.72 But this does not account for the precise complaint of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate does not retain the accusation of the speech act against Caesar, by adding “he himself said, I am …” to “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (John 19:21). The solution to this remaining ambiguity, I propose, lies here. The chief priests realise that the inscription may be misunderstood as a proclamation of the Ἰουδαῖοι, rather than the way Jesus saw himself.73 If they accept the inscription, they admit sedition.74 They therefore resist the declaration that Pilate attributes to them and command Pilate to rewrite it. But Pilate refuses and ends proceedings, “What I have written, I have written” (v. 22). Pilate maintains Jesus’ innocence by not adding “he himself said, I am …” (v. 21) to the inscription, and he lays the blame with the Ἰουδαῖοι.75 Just as, according to Josephus’ interpretation, God uses the Romans to judge the Ἰουδαῖοι and destroy the temple, so God uses Pilate to declare the judgement that Jesus is crucifed as king of his accusers, as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.76 Jesus is only King of the Ἰουδαῖοι according to the false accusation, but he is nonetheless kingly in another sense.77 He has otherworldly kingship (John 71 So Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 392. 72 So Bultmann, John, 669. 73 So also Klaus Wengst, Das Johannesevangelium, 2. Teilband: Kapitel 11–21 (TKNT; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2001), 253. 74 Barrett, John, 459. 75 Adele Reinhartz, Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John (Lanham: Fortress Academic, 2018), 85 recognises that the Ἰουδαῖοι reject the association Pilate makes between them and Jesus, and that in John 19:21 “they are mistaken: the Johannine Jesus never made this claim.” 76 In particular, see Josephus, War 5.366–68; 6.109–10, 409–13. On God’s alliance with the Romans, see also War 2.390; 7.319. I will suggest comparisons between John and Josephus throughout this study. These comparisons turn on the ways Judeans responded to the role of the destroyed Jerusalem temple in the triumphal Flavian propaganda. According to James S. McLaren, “Jews and the Imperial Cult: From Augustus to Domitian,” JSNT 27:3 (2005): 257–78, Judeans had relied on cult to display loyalty to Romans (p. 273), without which they would need to consider “what they could possibly bring to the table as a means of negotiating a new position” (p. 278) – some new cultic participation in the empire. 77 Stephen D. Moore, “‘The Romans Will Come and Destroy Our Holy Place and Our Nation’: Representing Empire in John,” in The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays (RBS 57; Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 327–51 (331–32) suggests that the episode focuses on Jesus’ kingship only to depoliticise it. Jörg Frey, “Jesus und Pilatus: Der wahre König und der Repräsentant des Kaisers im Johannesevangelium,” in Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence, ed. Gilbert Van Belle and Joseph Verheyden (BTS 20; Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 337–93 examines the true kingship of Jesus as distinct both from the anticipated

16

Introduction

18:36), in which he witnesses to the truth (v. 37). He also conquers the world (16:33) when he casts out (12:31) and judges its ruler (16:11), who has nothing over him (14:30). Jesus conquers, but on the cross, where he is also, paradoxically, conquered.78 Beyond the triumph paradox, Johannine theology goes further. Due to 8:28, the reader may already suspect the ambiguity of the role of the Ἰουδαῖοι in the paradox. In 3:14 and 12:32 the ὑψόω euphemism indicates the paradox that judgement and salvation somehow constitute a single event of exaltation. The agency of the Ἰουδαῖοι becomes clear in 18:28–19:22, where they make Jesus their judge. 79 John combines two paradoxes into one: because the Ἰουδαῖοι bring an accusation on themselves in the process of making the accusation against Jesus, Jesus becomes the conqueror in the process of being conquered.80 As they try to bring judgement on the accused, the accusers make him the judgement on themselves.81 Jesus suffers judgement as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (19:19), and he therefore judges as Son of Man (5:27). The temple of Jesus’ body (2:21) is destroyed by the messiahship reflected in John 1:49 and 12:12–15 (p. 360: “Doch wird im Prozess und dann in seiner Kreuzigung unübersehbar deutlich, dass Jesu Königtum sich von der traditionellen Messiahshoffnung ebenso unterscheidet wie von jeder irdischen Herrschaft”) and from the earthly power of Caesar invoked in 19:15 (p. 392: “Auch die Rede vom „Freund des Kaisers“ ist hier nicht in einen dualistischen Gegensatz ,Freund des Kaisers / Freund Gottes‘ eingebaut, sondern lediglich als politisches Argument im Rahmen der Erzählung verwendet”). 78 Paul similarly expresses this paradox in 1 Cor 1:18: the cross is foolishness to those who are destroyed and the power of God to those who are saved. Likewise, Col 2:15 claims that Jesus triumphs through the cross. 79 Some early Christian literature follows John 19:13, for instance, in which one possible reading is that Pilate installs Jesus as judge of the Ἰουδαῖοι. In Gos. Pet. 3.7 “they clothed him in purple and they sat him on the seat of judgement, saying, ‘judge justly, King of Israel’”; translation from Paul Foster, The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary (TENTS 4; Leiden: Brill, 2010). In Justin, 1 Apol. 35.6 “they seated him on the judgement seat in ridicule and said ‘give judgement for us’”; translation from Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (OECT; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). These traditions retell the passion as though the Ἰουδαῖοι made Jesus their own judge. See later Chapter 11. 80 In a similar way, Koester, The Word of Life, 114 writes, “Yet the paradox is that Jesus’ death is not only the result of human sin – it is God’s means of overcoming sin.” In addition, Koester (pp. 123, 146) calls the paradox that the death of Jesus brings life “the consummate paradox in John’s understanding of the crucifixion” and the “central paradox” in John. In John’s own words, Jesus needs to die, because, like a grain, he needs to bear fruit (John 12:24). 81 Benjamin Lange, Der Richter und seine Ankläger: Eine narratologische Untersuchung der Rechtsstreit- und Prozessmotivik im Johannesevangelium (WUNT 2/501; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019) also recognises the paradox of the accused judge, the focus being the first half of the gospel.

4. Approach

17

Ἰουδαῖοι, so that Jesus can then restore it (v. 19) as a sign (v. 18). When the Ἰουδαῖοι exalt Jesus, Jesus is the divine revealer and the divine revelation (8:28). This is the compound paradox that creates coherence in John 18:28– 19:22.

4. Approach 4. Approach

To read that paradox, I analyse one aspect of, and place to one side another aspect of, the Johannine use of the designation Ἰουδαῖοι, such is its significance and ambiguity.82 In awareness of this immense debate, I decide not to translate “Ἰουδαῖοι” with either “Judeans” or “Jews.” 83 I use

In light of recent efforts to “imagine no religion” nor “Judaism” in Carlin A. Barton and Daniel Boyarin, Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016) and Daniel Boyarin, Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion (KWJS 9; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press: 2018), I do not situate my analysis of John with or against projects on “John and Judaism” and “antiJudaism,” as in Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique VandecasteeleVanneuville (eds.), Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001) and R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson (eds.), John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context (RBS 87; Atlanta: SBL, 2017). 83 Because the contributions to the translation debate continue to proliferate, I note the recent snapshot of Timothy Michael Law and Charles Halton (eds.), Jew and Judean: A Marginalia Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts (Los Angeles: Marginalia Review of Books, 2014), in which Adele Reinhartz (“The Vanishing Jews of Antiquity,” 5–10) and Jonathan Klawans (“An Invented Revolution,” 38–41) translate “Jew,” Steve Mason (“Ancient Jews or Judeans? Different Questions, Different Answers,” 11–17) and Malcolm Lowe (“Concepts and Words,” 33–37) translate “Judean,” Daniel Schwartz (“The Different Tasks of Translators and Historians,” 18–20) and Joan Taylor (““Judean” and “Jew”, Jesus and Paul,” 27–32) prefer “Jew” sometimes and “Judean” other times, Annette Yoshiko Reed (“Ioudaios Before and After Religion,” 21–26) prefers neither single word in the face of other determining factors in translation (sentences, paragraphs, texts, corpora), Ruth Sheridan (“Hiding from the Fourth Gospel’s Tragic Reception History,” 42–46) highlights the dangerous potential realised in the reception of the Johannine usage, and James Crossley (“What a Difference a Translation Makes! An Ideological Analysis of the Ioudaios Debate,” 47–52) demonstrates how ingrained ideologies are in the debate, before Reinhartz (“A Response to the Jew and Judean Forum,” 53–55) concludes in approval of the – at least temporary – utility in transliteration, not translation. The preference to translate “Judean” in Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–512 has been at or near the centre of the debate. The thorough treatment by David M. Miller – “The Meaning of loudaios and its Relationship to Other Group Labels in Ancient ‘Judaism,’” CBR 9:1 (2010): 98–126; “Ethnicity Comes of Age: An Overview of Twentieth-Century Terms for Ioudaios,” 82

18

Introduction

“Ἰουδαῖοι” to make clear that I aim to contribute not as much to its translation as to its contextualisation in Johannine theology. Jesus’ accusers at Pilate’s praetorium are Ἰουδαῖοι (John 18:31, 36, 38; 19:7, 12, 14, 20), emblems of Jesus’ own ἔθνος and its ἀρχιερεῖς (18:35), ἀρχιερεῖς (19:6, 15), and ἀρχιερεῖς of the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 21).84 They are Johannine others, on my reading, in the same way as those Ἰουδαῖοι who, though believing in him (8:31), are vituperated by Jesus as lying and murdering offspring of the διάβολος (v. 44). 85 Thus, as throughout the gospel, “Ἰουδαῖοι” becomes an “outsider designation” of “those who reject Jesus.” 86 The transition is from group inclusion to exclusion, from insider to outsider status.87 The rhetoric of the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι in 18:28–19:22 is that the judgement they bring on themselves is expropriation of identity as Ἰουδαῖοι: John makes these characters abandon their covenant, their scriptures, and their temple.88 First, I will construct what seem to be the most significant aspects of the cultural life-world John 18:28–19:22 assumes (Part 1).89 The aim is to honour CBR 10:2 (2012): 293–311; “Ethnicity, Religion and the Meaning of Ioudaios in Ancient ‘Judaism,’” CBR 12:2 (2014): 216–65 – prefers “Jew” as the translation. 84 Elsewhere in John, Jesus himself is a Ἰουδαῖος (4:9), and salvation is from the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 22). Ἰουδαῖοι are members of an ethnic group with purification rites (2:6), festivals (v. 13; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 11:55), land (3:22), and leaders (v. 1). Ἰουδαῖοι persecute (5:16) and try to kill (v. 18; 7:1; 10:31) Jesus, and Ἰουδαῖοι believe Jesus (8:31; 11:45; 12:11). Ἰουδαῖοι cause fear (7:13; 9:22), and Ἰουδαῖοι are divided among themselves (10:19). Ἰουδαῖοι are from – not Samaria, Galilee, the dispersion of Greeks, nor Ephraim, but – Judea (4:9; 7:1, 35; 11:54), and Ἰουδαῖοι make up great crowds (12:9). Ἰουδαῖοι are Pharisees (9;18), and Ἰουδαῖοι are chief priests and Pharisees of the council advised by Caiaphas (11:47; 18:14). 85 I will not translate the term διάβολος, in order not to distract from the sense “slanderer.” 86 As concluded by Paul R. Trebilco, Outsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament: Christian Communities and the Formation of Group Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 196–205. 87 On John 8:44, Thompson, John, 194 notes contemporaneous literary analogies. Israelite sons abandon circumcision and become sons of Beliar (Jub. 15.33–34). Israelite sons of darkness ignore the law and follow Belial instead (1QM I, 1–16; 4Q266 frg. 3 II, 1–18). The descendants of Dan leave the Lord and behave like Gentiles under their prince Satan (T. Dan 5.6). Deserting antichrists are sinners and murderers from the διάβολος who deny the Son and the Father (1 John 2:18–23; 3:4–15). 88 In this respect I am analysing John’s rhetorical (appropriation and) expropriation of Jewishness from unbelievers discussed by Reinhartz, Cast Out of the Covenant, 51–66. She (pp. xxxii and 62) argues, “the Jewishness of the Gospel is not an antidote to its antiJewishness, but part and parcel thereof.” Judith Lieu, “Review of Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John, by Adele Reinhartz,” CBQ 82 (2020): 143–44 recognises Reinhartz’ study as persuasive and significant. 89 From a broadly new historicist vantage point, John “must draw upon a whole life-world and … this life-world has undoubtedly left other traces of itself,” in the words of Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: The University of

4. Approach

19

John “as part of the givenness of a world we did not make,” though without making conclusions about the real sources and audiences of the gospel.90 I will discuss accounts of three crimes – diminishing the superiority of Caesar, false accusation, and misrule – to contextualise the paradox that in the process of accusing Jesus the accusers make themselves the accused (Chapter 1). And I will discuss Jewish traditions about messiahs, kings, and prophets to contextualise the paradox that Jesus is conqueror-if-conquered, that inasmuch as he is prophetic revealer of judgement he is also kingly revelation of hope. Second, I will introduce the setting and the denouement of John 18:28– 19:22 (Part 2). I will propose that 19:16b–22 functions as the epilogue of the episode (Chapter 3). As such, 19:16b–22 displays the denouement that the Ἰουδαῖοι recognise the judgement they brought on themselves, that Pilate pronounces the guilt of the accusers through the innocence of the accused, and that Jesus triumphs over the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate captures this in his inscription. And I will propose that 18:28 functions as the prologue of the episode (Chapter 4). As such, 18:28 presents the parameters that the praetorium symbolically separates the impurity of the accusers, who are outside, from the purity of the accused, who is inside. The episode then goes on to juxtapose the process of defilement outside with the process of purification inside. Third, I will examine the scenes in John 18:28–19:22 (Part 3). In scene 1 the narrator indicates that the initial accusation that Jesus misleads the nation to the point of diminishing the superiority of Caesar validates Jesus as a prophet (Chapter 5). According to scene 2, Pilate learns that because the accusers bring the lie from the nation to the praetorium, the accused will

Chicago Press, 2000), 12. In addition, Gallagher and Greenblatt (p. 15) write, “we ask ourselves how we can identify, out of the vast array of textual traces in a culture, which are the significant ones, either for us or for them, the ones most worth pursuing. Again it proves impossible to provide a theoretical answer, an answer that would work reliably in advance of plunging ahead to see what resulted.” Colleen M. Conway, “New Historicism and the Historical Jesus in John: Friends or Foes,” in John, Jesus, and History, Vol. 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views, ed. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (SBLSS 44; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 199–215 (201) similarly writes about the “blurring of boundaries between text and history. New historicism as a critical practice strives to remove any clear distinction between these two categories, to give up the idea of historical ‘background’ for a literary text, as well as the notion of literature as a transhistorical bearer of timeless truths.” John does not reflect its “first-century circumstances” as much as it is itself a “cultural token” – with eadem, “The Production of the Johannine Community: A New Historicist Perspective,” JBL 121:3 (2002): 479–95 (492). 90 John Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 182.

20

Introduction

witness to the truth for the world on the cross (Chapter 6). Scene 3 anticipates that the exalted Jesus will not only purify but also remove the sin of the nation against Caesar and God, specifically when he becomes King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (Chapter 7). Scene 4, the centre of the episode, portrays Jesus as a twofold triumphal protagonist, as conquered King of the Ἰουδαῖοι and conqueror of the world the unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι represent (Chapter 8). In scene 5 the human judge, the prefect, and the divine judge, the Son of Man, endorse each other over against the Ἰουδαῖοι (Chapter 9). According to scene 6, the authority Pilate and Jesus share from above works toward the Johannine cross (Chapter 10). And scene 7 envisions earthly and heavenly judgement coming from Pilate and Jesus onto the Ἰουδαῖοι (Chapter 11). The inscription that reads “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (John 19:19) troubles the chief priests (v. 21) because they recognise the earthly and the heavenly judgements on themselves. They are judged by Pilate, sent from Caesar, and by the Son, sent from the Father. The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι bring both judgements on themselves in the same moment. And they do this, according to Johannine theology, as offspring of an archetypal διάβολος (8:44). That aspect of theology leads me to read John in a “skeptical, wary, demystifying, critical, and even adversarial” way.91 Because John’s paradox of judgement is implicated in the historic danger of Christian triumphalism over Jews, I will aim to “specify only to the degree that the text does” and to avoid “extraneous exposition.”92 The conclusion is that in John 18:28–19:22 unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι abandon Caesar and God. They are determined by spiritual origin to oppose life and truth, and in the end to abandon identity as Ἰουδαῖοι. The violence intrinsic to John’s theology confronts readers, as also does the danger it has posed – and continues to do so – in its reception.

91 Gallagher and Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism, 9: “new historicist readings are more often skeptical, wary, demystifying, critical, and even adversarial… Our project has never been about diminishing or belittling the power of artistic representations, even those with the most problematic entailments, but we never believe that our appreciation of this power necessitates either ignoring the cultural matrix out of which the representations emerge or uncritically endorsing the fantasies that the representations articulate.” 92 See further Brawley, “Ἰουδαῖοι,” 127; Ruth Sheridan, “Seed of Abraham, Slavery, and Sin: Reproducing Johannine Anti-Judaism in the Modern Commentaries on John 8:31–34,” in John and Judaism, 313–31 (326–27).

Chapter 1

Diminishing Caesar’s superiority, false accusation, and misrule A paradox seems to underpin John 18:28–19:22. The Johannine Pilate declares Jesus innocent three times (18:38b; 19:4, 6b).1 And he later writes an inscription about the accused (19:19) that displeases the accusers (v. 21). This is where the episode ends. The reader is unsure whether Pilate has changed the verdict of innocence and why the accusers tell him to rewrite the inscription. How do these points make sense in light of Jesus’ crucifixion? Does the verdict of innocence Pilate reached stand? Would not the Ἰουδαῖοι be satisfied? Scholars usually assume that Pilate succumbs to the Ἰουδαῖοι and goes against his own verdict.2 The inscription is then the revenge of the prefect against them.3 I will argue that the ambiguity has another solution, one that takes further the impression of some scholars that the inscription intimates

1 J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 939, for instance, refers to “Pilate’s thrice-repeated verdict.” Because Pilate requests a κατηγορία (John 18:29), the verdict of innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b) responds to the specific accusation the Ἰουδαῖοι will give. I would suggest that paraphrases such as “I find this man to be politically innocuous” or “politically unthreatening” in Moore, “‘The Romans Will Come and Destroy Our Holy Place and Our Nation,’” 331, 332 distract from the point. Whereas αἰτία can mean “cause” without any connection to criminal condemnation and penalty (Acts 10:21; Philo, Flaccus 140; Gaius 373), the judicial setting in John 18:28–19:22 makes specific the occurrences of αἰτία in 18:38b; 19:4, 6b. And whereas Luke 23:38 only designates the inscription over the crucified Jesus as ἐπιγραφή, Mark 15:26 refers to the ἐπιγραφή of the αἰτία, and Matt 27:37 simply uses αἰτία. For the sense “cause of condemnation or penalty,” see Luke 23:4, 14, 22; Acts 13:28; 23:28; 25:18; 28:18; Philo, Flaccus 9; Gaius 171. 2 So Moloney, John, 496: “In the end Pilate capitulates to ‘the Jews.’” 3 So Bultmann, John, 669: “this inscription is not only a means of Pilate’s revenge on the Jews who had forced him to condemn Jesus, and to whom he directs this insult, but through this inscription it is demonstrated that the condemnation of Jesus is at the same time the judgment of Judaism, which had surrendered the very hope that gave its existence meaning – and so the judgment of the world, that for the sake of its security in the present gives up its future.”

22

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

the disloyalty of the accusers toward the emperor.4 This solution is that Pilate maintains the innocence of the accused and declares the guilt of the accusers. Pilate declares the Ἰουδαῖοι as accusers who have become the accused, in particular by way of the accusation they made against Jesus. The key is the inclusion of “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” in the inscription. This element is a public indictment of the accusers – but of what crime? and how can Pilate turn the accusation on them? The paradox of accusers who are the accused needs context. The most illuminating context is in three crimes that tend to appear together in the ancient accounts of the early Roman empire. The crimes often hinge on one other, and sometimes the lines between them are blurred. These crimes are impiety, false accusation, and misrule. They seem to me crucial to the way John makes sense of the connection between Pilate and the inscription. So I will argue throughout my study that they embed John 18:28–19:22 in its initial, ancient setting.

1. Introducing three crimes 1. Introducing three crimes

Of the three crimes, the first goes by the name maiestas, which itself just means “superiority.” Caesar had unmatched maiestas, and the crime of diminishing his maiestas went by the same name.5 When he defines maiestas, Jed Atkins notes the speech act, or slander, against Caesar.6 Atkins points out that maiestas incited another type of slander, that is, what informers did for money and honour. Especially in relation to maiestas, informers did not shy away from calumnia, or the crime of “false accusation.” They knew what was to gain. But when found out, the informer would bear the penalty, sometimes the one that corresponded to what was (falsely) accused in the first place. The final crime relates to repetundae cases, which, as Jill Harries explains, comprised “retribution as well as (or instead of) restitution” for subjects under the empire.7 When governors extorted from provinces, and misruled in other ways, they diminished the imperial maiestas. Their job was to represent the maiestas of Caesar, and to oversee his imperium accordingly. I propose that these three crimes make sense of John 18:28–19:22. The Ἰουδαῖοι accuse 4 So Michaels, John, 944: “If Jesus is in any sense ‘King of the Jews’ (18:33, 39; 19:3), then it is they, not [Pilate], who are disloyal to Caesar.” 5 The crime may also be called “treason,” “sedition,” “impiety,” “disloyalty,” or something else. But I choose to use maiestas throughout. 6 Jed W. Atkins, Roman Political Thought (KTAH; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 130. 7 Jill Harries, Law and Crime in the Roman World (KTAH; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 66.

1. Introducing three crimes

23

Jesus of diminishing Caesar’s superiority (19:7, 12c), and they threaten Pilate with an accusation of misrule (v. 12b), but in doing both they are guilty of false accusation. Not only do they falsely accuse Jesus and Pilate, but they themselves commit maiestas. By the false accusation, the Ἰουδαῖοι themselves declare Jesus’ kingship. They perform a speech act that belongs exclusively to Caesar. They instigate the paradox of judgement as false accusers disloyal toward the emperor. Aside from the innocence verdict and the inscription complaint, John seems to assume maiestas, calumnia, and repetundae in other places. The episode of John 18:28–19:22 evokes the Roman world. The Ἰουδαῖοι come to the praetorium of the prefect and his soldiers (18:28), to bring the accusation that Jesus opposes the emperor (19:12). Earlier, the chief priests and the Pharisees had expressed concern for the danger the Romans pose to the nation and the temple (11:48). John 8:44 infamously relates unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι to an archetypal διάβολος who lies and murders. Thus, the Ἰουδαῖοι slander. So also does Judas, who is inspired by the διάβολος (13:2), a διάβολος himself (6:70), and possessed by the σατανᾶς (13:27). As such, he instigates Jesus’ arrest (also 6:71; 12:4; 18:2, 5). The notion of slander typifies opposition to the Johannine Jesus, and the transliteration of ‫“( שטן‬adversary”) suggests its judicial connotations. The connection between slander and capital cases is common in the ancient world. Wisdom 2:24 says that death enters the world by the envy of a διάβολος. 8 Aristophanes’ comic heroes repeatedly oppose and undermine false accusers.9 One of Lysias’ speeches satirises slanderers who contradict themselves and make themselves a laughing stock.10 The first of the Laws of Hammurapi says that in an unverifiable accusation of murder the accuser is put to death, and the third says that the one who bears false witness in a capital case is also put to death.11 Torah assumes this principle of

8 Jason M. Zurawski, “Separating the Devil from the Diabolos: A Fresh Reading of Wisdom of Solomon 2.24,” JSP 21:4 (2012): 366–99 translates Wis 2:24, “But through an adversary’s envy death enters the world, and those who belong to death’s party put humanity to the test.” Following Zurawski’s various arguments, I prefer his translation to “but through the envy of the devil death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it” (NETS). 9 Aristophanes, Acharnians 818–28, 908–58; Birds 1410–69; Wealth 850–958. On this, see Emiliano J. Buis, “Law and Greek Comedy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Tragedy, ed. Michael Fantaine and Adele C. Scafuro (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 321–39 (332). 10 See, for instance, Lysias 8.3, 5. Text and commentary in S. C. Todd, A Commentary on Lysias: Speeches 1–11 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 548–80. 11 For overview of the eighteenth-century BCE Laws of Hammurapi, see N. V. Kozyreva, “The Old Babylonian Period of Mesopotamian History,” in Early Antiquity, ed. I. M.

24

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

equivalence, lex talionis, for instance when Deut 19:19 legislates the punishment for false accusation. 12 Considering John’s references to Moses and torah, perhaps this is the sense in which Jesus says Moses accuses the Ἰουδαῖοι (John 5:45).13 By false accusation, the Ἰουδαῖοι bring judgement on themselves. What exactly they accuse Jesus of doing in John 18:28–19:22 is therefore important. The purpose of the following two sections is to relate the declaration of kingship to maiestas. Such is his maiestas that Caesar alone can declare kingships throughout his empire. To take this prerogative from him is to diminish his maiestas in a significant way. This, as I will argue, is the central issue the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι bring to Pilate’s praetorium (18:28) in the accusation against Jesus (v. 29).

2. Only Caesar makes kings 2. Only Caesar makes kings

The final time the Ἰουδαῖοι express an accusation against Jesus is this: πᾶς ὁ βασιλέα ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν ἀντιλέγει τῷ Καίσαρι (“everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar,” John 19:12c). 14 I suggest that the problem is not kingship itself. Rather, the problem concerns who makes kings. Neither the emperor nor his empire had any problem with kings per se. So Augustus considered client kings integral to his empire, and he promoted marriages and friendships between them (Suetonius, Augustus 48). And during the Jewish war, for instance, submitting to the son of Agrippa, who is king and friend to the Romans (Josephus, Life 408), means ipso facto not revolting from the Romans (Life 391). Thus, the accusation would similarly be that Jesus “made himself king” in the sense that Caesar did not. The prerogative to give kingships belonged to the emperor. According to his Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Augustus gives kingships. He acknowledges that he otherwise can make new provinces.

Diakonoff (trans. Alexander Kirjanov; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 98–123 (116). 12 On lex talionis in Lev 24:17–21; Deut 19:16–21; Exod 21:23b–25, see Pamela Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 154–77. On Deut 19:19, see Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 121. Philo, Laws 4.39 cites Lev 19:11, “you shall not steal, you shall not lie, you shall not falsely accuse your neighbour.” Philo then explains, the false accuser does not care for εὐσέβεια, but they rather defile what is undefiled, the name of God (4.40). 13 John 1:17, 45; 5:46; 7:19. 14 It seems that by this stage the Ἰουδαῖοι expect the accusation to be clear.

2. Only Caesar makes kings

25

I added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people. Although I could have made Greater Armenia a province, on the assassination of Artaxes its king, I preferred, in accordance with the example set by our ancestors, to hand this kingdom over to Tigranes, son of King Artavasdes, and also grandson of King Tigranes, through the agency of Tiberius Nero, who at the time was my stepson. And when the same people later revolted and rebelled, they were subdued through the agency of Gaius, my son, and I handed them over to King Ariobarzanes, son of Artabazus King of the Medes, for him to rule, and after his death to his son, Artavasdes; on his assassination, I sent into this kingdom Tigranes, who was descended from the Armenian royal family. (RGDA 27.1–215)

Beyond giving kingships to those under him, Augustus also provides peoples with kings. From me the Parthian and Median peoples received kings, whom they had requested through envoys drawn from their leaders: the Parthians received Vonones, son of King Phraates, grandson of King Orodes, the Medes Ariobarzanes, son of King Artavazdes, grandson of King Ariobarzanes. (RGDA 33)

The prerogative of the emperor to make kings is the reason why Antipater criticised Archelaus, who ruled as king prematurely (ethnarch of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria in 4 BCE–6 CE). He said that Archelaus’ bid for the kingship was like playing a game since he had in fact taken over the royal power before Caesar granted it. He also reproached him for his ruthlessness toward those who had perished during the festival, for even if they had done something wrong, their punishment should properly have been entrusted to those who had the authority for this, and it should not have been exercised by one who, if on the one hand he had acted as a king, had wronged Caesar, who was still deliberating about his claim, and, if on the other hand he had acted as a private citizen, had done something much worse, since it was not proper that any grant of power should be made to one who claimed the throne after he had already deprived Caesar of his authority over these men. He also assailed him with reproaches for the changes that he had made among the officers of the army, for publicly seating himself upon the royal throne, for deciding lawsuits as if he were king, for assenting to the requests of those who publicly petitioned him, and for his entire performance, which could not have been more ambitious in conception if he had really been appointed by Caesar to rule… Archelaus had shown what sort of king he would be, for he had deprived Caesar, who alone could lawfully grant the kingship, of his authority to bestow it, and he had not hesitated to slaughter his fellow-citizens in the Temple although he was still a mere commoner. (Josephus, Ant. 17.230–32, 23916)

15 Here and below, I will give the Latin, not the Greek. For Latin, Greek, and translations, see Alison E. Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Like James R. Harrison, “Augustan Rome and the Body of Christ: A Comparison of the Social Vision of the Res Gestae and Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” HTR 106:1 (2013): 1–36 (13 fn. 3, italics original), I am concerned not with the “historical truthfulness” of such imperial propaganda, but rather with “the public presentation of Augustus’s rule.” 16 Unless otherwise noted, I will use the Loeb Classical Library for classical sources.

26

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

Josephus refers to it as an “imperial act” when Claudius gives the gift of Herod’s kingship to his grandson Agrippa: In response to this Claudius put a stop to all military initiatives, admitted the senators to his camp with a friendly welcome, and directly thereafter went out with them to make sacrifice to God of thank-offerings for his accession to the principate. An immediate imperial act was the gift to Agrippa of the whole of his grandfather’s kingdom, to which he added the outlying districts of Trachonitis and Auranitis which Augustus had given to Herod, together with a further region known as the kingdom of Lysanias. He informed the people of this gift by an edict, and ordered the magistrates to have it engraved on bronze plaques for display in the Capitol. Furthermore, he bestowed the kingdom of Chalcis on Agrippa’s brother Herod (who was also his son-in-law, through his marriage to Bernice). (Josephus, War 2.214–1717)

The prominence of giving kingships in Augustan propaganda and the outworking of the imperial prerogative in Judea illuminate John 18:28–19:22. Kings throughout the empire were always and only established by Caesar. To make oneself king is to undermine Caesar in an especially important way. This is the setting in which Jesus’ crucifixion occurred under Tiberius.

3. Acts 17:7 3. Acts 17:7

I propose that Acts 17:7 also alludes to this imperial prerogative to make kings. After Paul and Silas proclaim Jesus as messiah in the synagogue of Thessalonica, some Ἰουδαῖοι accuse their host Jason, as well as some of the other brothers: “They are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that Jesus is another king,” καὶ οὗτοι πάντες ἀπέναντι τῶν δογμάτων Καίσαρος πράσσουσιν βασιλέα ἕτερον λέγοντες εἶναι Ἰησοῦν. The accusation perplexes interpreters. It is, according to A. N. Sherwin-White, “somewhat obscure, and possibly garbled,” as well as “the most confused of the various descriptions of charges in Acts.” 18 Three positions on the accusation predominate in current scholarship. The crux is the nature of these “decrees of Caesar.” Edwin Judge proposes that they prohibited predictions about the health and death of the emperor.19 Justin Hardin proposes that they prohibited voluntary associations. 20 And Kavin Rowe proposes that they prohibited

Translation from Martin Hammond, Josephus: The Jewish War (OWC; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 18 A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament: The Sarum Lectures, 1960–1961 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 96, 103. 19 Edwin A. Judge, “The Decrees of Caesar at Thessalonica,” RTR 30 (1971): 71–78. 20 Justin K. Hardin, “Decrees and Drachmas at Thessalonica: An Illegal Assembly in Jason’s House (Acts 17.1–10a),” NTS 52 (2006): 29–49. 17

3. Acts 17:7

27

saying that someone else can claim the imperial throne.21 Rowe determines that the accusation concerns kingship in the same way that John 19:12 does: Indeed, as in John 19:12 – “everyone who claims to be a King sets himself against the Emperor” – so here in Acts the connection is actually made explicit: the Christians are seditious precisely because of their treasonous acclamation. Jesus, not Caesar, is King.22

I will argue for another option, which will moreover clarify the meaning of John 19:12. The accusation in Acts 17:7 might hinge on Caesar’s exclusive prerogative to make kings. I suggest that “the decrees” in question were the means by which Caesar made kings. Those who are accused act opposite the decrees of Caesar if they themselves pronounce Jesus king, and the accusers assume that only Caesar makes kings. In καὶ οὗτοι πάντες ἀπέναντι τῶν δογμάτων Καίσαρος πράσσουσιν βασιλέα ἕτερον λέγοντες εἶναι Ἰησοῦν the form πράσσουσιν subordinates λέγοντες. This syntax indicates a speech act. When the accused say (λέγω) that Jesus is another king, they act (πράσσω) opposite the decrees of Caesar. The alleged crime is therefore the speech act. Rowe suggests that the “careful use of ἕτερος” makes unambiguous that the accused pronounce “a rival King.”23 Rowe is probably right that the ἕτερος pairs King Jesus with King Caesar. 24 But he introduces the notion of rivalry into the language. His inference moreover presupposes δόγματα Καίσαρος that pronounce the exclusive kingship of Caesar himself. Without such decrees – though Rowe decides not “to read δόγμα in an overly literalist manner” – another order of imperial decrees presents itself.25 In The Jewish War Josephus uses δόγμα in relation to giving someone kingship. The referent of δόγμα in War 1.285 and 346 is the decree from the senate, which Antony influenced, that Herod should be king. The referent of δόγμα later in War 1.392, 393 is the decree from Caesar himself that Herod should be king. In Acts 17:7, likewise, the δόγματα Καίσαρος may denote speech acts by which Caesar makes kings and gives kingships. I suppose that these decrees were so basic to the order of the empire that the author of Acts did not need to specify one particular set of decrees. This generic sense fits the first part of the accusation, that the accused are subverting the inhabited world (οἰκουμένη, v. 6). King Jesus does not pose the problem. The problem is rather that Caesar himself did not ratify King Jesus.

21 C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 97. 22 Rowe, World Upside Down, 99. 23 Rowe, World Upside Down, 97. 24 Rowe, World Upside Down, 91–102. 25 Rowe, World Upside Down, 99.

28

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

The accusation is that the accused made Jesus king, without Caesar. They did what only the emperor does. The preposition ἀπέναντι means “opposite,” not “against.” Elsewhere in the New Testament, the word entails space, that is, “before” or “in front of.”26 In Sir 33:14 ἀπέναντι connotes “opposite,” as it coordinates good with evil, life with death, and the sinner with the pious.27 The sense of ἀπέναντι in Acts 17:7 is in any case not “against.” According to the accusers, the accused neither plot against Caesar nor harm him. They rather imitate him. They attempt to do what only he can do: make kings, give kingships. In this way the accused turn upside down the imperial world (v. 6). They invert it. As a reflection in a mirror, they flip the emperor and his empire when they mimic the imperial speech act. “Of all forms of sedition and treason, Luke tells us, Christianity is innocent.”28 I agree with Rowe. The accusation in Acts 17:7 is, according to Luke, incorrect. But I disagree with what leads Rowe to that point: “They are false in that they attempt to place Jesus in competitive relation to Caesar.”29 What I have argued indicates that this is not what makes the accusation false. Instead, as Acts 2:36 makes clear, God made Jesus Lord and Christ. Unlike God, the believers do not make Jesus anything. This is the error of the accusers not only in Acts but also in John: Jesus did not make himself anything. The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι say that Jesus makes himself king (John 19:12), despite Pilate already declaring Jesus innocent (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). Having demonstrated the centrality of kingship declarations to the maiestas of Caesar, as well as the possibility that New Testament literature outside John connect this to accusations from outside the group of believers, I will discuss the crime of maiestas and its role, until now, in the interpretation of John.

4. Literature review and orientation 4. Literature review and orientation

Raymond Brown discusses maiestas and its applicability to Jesus. 30 Brown begins with perduellio, treason punishable by execution, and its legal penalty. He says that scholars disagree about the way these issues connect to maiestas, 26 Matt 27:24, 61; Acts 3:16; Rom 3:18. BDAG, s.v. ἀπέναντι first gives “in a position that faces against an object or other position, opposite.” The only primary references for “marker of hostility or strong opposition, against, contrary to” are Sir 37:4 and Acts 17:7. 27 Sir 33:14: “Good is opposite evil, and life is opposite death; so a sinner is opposite a pious person.” 28 Rowe, World Upside Down, 91. 29 Rowe, World Upside Down, 101. 30 Brown, Death, 717–19.

4. Literature review and orientation

29

but I cannot see much disagreement in the literature.31 C. W. Chilton argues that perduellio was obsolete by the principate. 32 Caesar replaced the death penalty with enforced exile (interdictio).33 Cicero, Phil. 1.9.23 attests the use of aquae et ignis interdictio (“interdiction of fire and water”) with maiestas. Augustus would go on to use the death penalty only in special cases, though Tiberius would afterward abuse the penalty. So, execution “was an aggravation” of the penalty that “was legally the same for all cases,” banishment and confiscation of property.34 Under Augustus, modifications to exile arose and continued step by step.35 Because the legal penalty remained exile, execution, when inflicted, was not legal in any strict sense.36 As will become clear, this was not the only development concerning the crime of maiestas without rigid legislation. In fact, scholars cannot ascertain crucial legal aspects of various cases concerning maiestas. 37 This is plausibly

Brown, Death, 718. C. W. Chilton, “The Roman Law of Treason under the Early Principate,” JRS 45 (1955): 73–81 observes that Tiberian writers neither use the term perduellio nor indicate that it was still legislated. Chilton’s article challenges R. S. Rogers, Criminal Trials and Criminal Legislation under Tiberius (Middletown: American Philological Association, 1935). For Rogers, perduellio was high treason punishable by death and maiestas was slander punishable by exile. He also argues that the lex Iulia maiestatis comprised both perduellio and maiestas. 33 Chilton, “Treason,” 75. Richard A. Bauman, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 1996), 28 notes that Caesar applied interdictio to maiestas and made it involuntary. 34 Chilton, “Treason,” 81. Chris Burnand, Tacitus and the Principate: From Augustus to Domitian (GRTC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 96 also has this definition. R. S. Rogers, “Treason in the Early Empire,” JRS 49 (1959): 90–94 responded to Chilton. Rogers maintained the disagreement with Chilton, but Chilton has been followed ever since. 35 Sarah T. Cohen, “Augustus, Julia and the Development of Exile and Ad Insulam,” CQ 58:1 (2008): 206–17 (217). 36 Markéta Melounová, “Crimen maiestatis and the poena legis during the Principate,” Acta Ant. Hung. 54 (2014): 407–30 (429). 37 On the absence of legal details in the sources, see Michael Peachin, “Augustus’ Emergent Judicial Powers, the ‘Crimen Maiestatis’, and the Second Cyrene Edict,” in Il princeps romano: autocrate o magistrato? Fattori giuridici e fattori sociali del potere imperiale da Augusto a Commodo, ed. J. Ferrary and J. Scheid (Pavia: IUSS Press, 2015), 497–553 (512): “However, starting with the exact nature of the misdeeds, which may have led to prosecutions for the crimen maiestatis, our sources fail us. Next, almost never do our ancient sources actually provide a neat legal label for the malefaction in question. In other words, one is repeatedly left wondering whether a given misdeed was in point of fact construed as a manifestation of the crimen maiestatis. And then, how, where, or by whom was the matter resolved? Here too our sources lead us in circles.” 31 32

30

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

because the scope and the sense of the crime were also undefined in the ancient world.38 Brown then lists the various leges de maiestate. The lex Appuleia of the tribune Saturninus (either 103 BCE or 100 BCE) applied to magistrates “who interfered with lawmaking procedures or disregarded the commands of the people.”39 The term maiestas abbreviates the phrase maiestas populi Romani minuta (“the diminution of the superiority of the Roman people”). 40 The penalty was death or voluntary exile. The lex Varia (90 BCE) – which Brown misses – treated assisting enemies along the lines of maiestas. The lex Cornelia of Sulla (81 BCE) combined the lex Appuleia with perduellio. The lex Iulia of either Julius Caesar or Augustus (either circa 46 BCE or circa 19– 18 BCE) enforced involuntary exile as punishment. Whether there were two leges between them remains unclear in the sources.41 The imperial crime of maiestas grew out of the lex Iulia maiestatis, which was never abolished. The lex Iulia was the “statute under which indictments for maiestas fell” during the principate: “the central idea of maiestas as a crime against the state persisted.”42 Brown writes, While the exact law has not been preserved, it covered slander of the emperor and his family. Under Augustus and especially under Tiberius (who was singularly sensitive about treason) banishment was made harsher, and summary execution became more common.43

The accusation against, and crucifixion of, Jesus demand attention in light of this conspicuous characteristic of Tiberius, which I will develop soon. Brown turns to Jesus. By this point, he has already warned that “[t]he situation is complicated” and that “most of our evidence pertains to Roman citizens in Italy.”44

This lack of definition made maiestas all the more sinister, according to Alexander Yakobson, “Maiestas, the Imperial Ideology and the Imperial Family: The Evidence of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre,” Eutopia 3:1–2 (2003): 75–107 (76): “In fact, any attempt to define the exact scope of the crime of maiestas and its precise legal meaning during the reign of Tiberius is probably misguided. The most sinister feature of maiestas was precisely the fact that it was impossible to know with certainty, beforehand, what it meant.” 39 Callie Williamson, “Crimes against the State,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, ed. Paul J. du Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 333–44 (335). 40 The crime of maiestas was “fundamentally an attack on the collective authority of the people,” according to Williamson, “Crimes,” 333. 41 On this insuperable difficulty, see Peachin, “Powers,” 515–16 fn. 54. 42 Williamson, “Crimes,” 339. 43 Brown, Death, 718. 44 Brown, Death, 717. 38

4. Literature review and orientation

31

Let us turn now to applicability to Jesus. There seems little doubt that if Jesus was setting himself up as a rival king in a Roman province, this could constitute lese majesty against the emperor and/or the Roman people. But in only one narrative (John 19:12) is that connection ever made. Is this Johannine passage preserving historical detail; or in retrospect is John working out the implications of the tradition (centered on “Are you the King of the Jews?”), even as he alone works out an explanation of why, having condemned Jesus, the chief priests brought him to Pilate?45

Barrett’s comments on John 19:12 are similar, as he alludes to the significance and frequency of the charge of maiestas in the time of Tiberius; it is perhaps more to the point to note that similar conditions prevailed under Domitian …, when this gospel was probably taking shape. Yet in allowing the theme of kingship (and maiestas) to govern the decisive stages of the narrative up to v. 16 John is probably true to history.46

Like Brown, Barrett notes Tiberius’ insecurity concerning maiestas. To Tiberius (14–37 CE), Barrett adds Domitian (81–96 CE), who was notorious in the same way, and with whom most scholars associate John. 47 Some Johannine reflections of Flavian concerns, not least maiestas, as I will discuss, seem to make this plausible. So ancient accounts of maiestas trials under not only Tiberius but also Domitian seem important to Johannine interpretation. I will consider the plausibility of this connection between Jesus and maiestas, not its historicity. Also, I will investigate it as the Johannine attempt to understand “the implications of the tradition.” If John’s context is Domitian’s reign, and if Jesus’ context is Tiberius’ reign, the crime of maiestas is an unavoidable and important lens. Why do the chief priests bring Jesus to the praetorium (John 18:28)? Why does Pilate recognise that they arrive with an accusation (v. 29)? Why does Pilate ask Jesus whether he is “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 33)?48 According to Jo-Ann Brant, “he is seeking grounds” for an accusation of maiestas. 49 Jo-Ann Brant proposes that John “implies” maiestas as the accusation from the first words between Pilate and

Brown, Death, 719. Barrett, John, 543. 47 Stanley Porter, “John’s Gospel, Competing Gospels, and Jesus,” in John, His Gospel, and Jesus: In Pursuit of the Johannine Voice (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 13–36 dates John to 70–90 CE. Ruth Edwards, Discovering John (London: SPCK, 2003), 37–49 dates the “publication” of John to 75–95 CE. 48 Christopher Bryan, Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 60 connects maiestas with the “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” references across the gospels: Mark 15:2; Matt 27:11; Luke 23:2–3; John 18:33, 19:3, 14, 15. 49 Brant, John, 243. 45 46

32

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

Jesus (18:33) to when Pilate writes the inscription on the cross (19:22).50 To follow Brown, Barrett, and Brant, I will relate maiestas to the accusation against Jesus and to the entire episode of 18:28–19:22. Whereas Johannine scholars are aware of the importance of maiestas, they have given no thorough introductions to it. This seems strange, considering this is one of the major preoccupations of ancient and modern literature on Tiberius – not to mention Domitian. 51 Richard Bauman, for instance, has assessed Tacitus, Ann. 3.38.1 and the sense in which maiestas, under Tiberius, was “the complement of every accusation” and “tacked on to every case.”52 According to Pliny, the maiestas charge was for accusers without any case: Both exchequer and treasury used to be enriched not so much by the Voconian and Julian laws as from the charges of high treason (maiestas), the unique and only way of incriminating men who had committed no crime. You completely removed our dread of this, content to show the nobility which none had lacked so much as those who used to pretend to majesty (maiestas). (Pliny, Pan. 42.153)

Pliny praises the emperor Trajan, before whom Rome had dreaded the constant wave of maiestas accusations. Earlier in his Panegyricus, Pliny compares the way Trajan honoured his deceased father, Nerva, with other emperors. He means to show that Trajan is superior. He received the proper honours from you, first the tears which every son should shed, then the temples you raised to him. Others have done the same, but with different intent; Tiberius deified Augustus, but his purpose was to introduce the charge of high treason (Dicavit caelo Tiberius Augustum sed ut maiestatis crimen induceret); Nero had done the same for Claudius in a spirit of mockery; Titus had similarly honoured Vespasian and Domitian Titus, but only for one to be thought the son and the other the brother of a god. You gave your father his place among the stars with no thought of terrorizing your subjects, of bringing the gods into disrepute, or of gaining reflected glory, but simply because you thought he was a god. This is an honour which means less when it is paid by men who believe themselves to be equally divine; unlike you, who set up his cult with altars, couches and a priest, yet created and proved his godhead still more by being the

Brant, John, 260. Hunt, Jesus Caesar, 254–57 dismisses maiestas as irrelevant to John without analysing the mass of relevant literature. 52 Richard A. Bauman, Impietas in Principem: A study of treason against the Roman emperor with special reference to the first century A.D. (MBPR 67; München: C. H. Beck, 1974), 53. 53 Translation from Betty Radice, Pliny the Younger: Letters, Vol. II, Books 8–10; Panegyricus (LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969). 50 51

4. Literature review and orientation

33

man you are. For there is no more certain proof of divinity in a ruler who has chosen his successor before he met his end than the worthiness of his choice. (Pliny, Pan. 11.1–3 54)

Tiberius does not measure up to Trajan, for Pliny. Tiberius deified Augustus, but only in order to introduce the crime of maiestas. The centrality of divinity to an emperor’s maiestas will become crucial in relation to the accusation that Jesus makes himself Son of God in John 19:7. John 19:12 not only implies an accusation of maiestas against Jesus, but also a similar, related threat against Pilate: “the Ἰουδαῖοι cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend.’” The crime of maiestas did not stand alone. Cicero, Pis. 50, for instance, groups the lex Cornelia maiestatis together with the lex Julia de pecuniis repetundis. Thus, Sulla’s maiestas law and Caesar’s extortion law covered a number of the same offences, such as a governor leaving his province or leading his army out of it. 55 In addition, accusers in maiestas trials sometimes, depending on the emperor, were susceptible to the crime of calumnia. Without sufficient proof of both the alleged action and that it counted as maiestas, the accuser may face punishment. Bauman explains this: Yet the accuser who elected to proceed under the lex maiestatis was by no means taking a guaranteed short-cut to success. He was accepting an onus with which he was not saddled by any other lex when he undertook to prove that the act in question had not only been committed but had diminished maiestas p. R.; this onus greatly increased the chances of his failing in his prosecution and having to face a charge of calumnia, and there must have been special compensations to warrant such a risk.56

But accusers confronted the risk of calumnia only in theory under certain emperors. Nero, for instance, took recourse to calumnia and theft, when he was desperate for money (Suetonius, Nero 32). As background to the ways in which the ancient literature portrays these connections between maiestas, calumnia, and repetundae, I will discuss first the transition from the maiestas of Rome’s people under the republic to the maiestas of Caesar himself under the principate.

See also the commentary in John Henderson, “Down the Pan: historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus,” in Pliny’s Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World, ed. Paul Roche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 142–74 (152): “And poisoned Penegyricus makes short work of the short set of precedents, supplying names to target derision. Augustus/Tiberius aimed ‘to smuggle in blasphemy trials’ (maiestas); Claudius/Nero ‘to mock him’; Vespasian/Titus and Titus/Domitian ‘to look like son and brother of god’. Whereas (here’s heresy) Trajan – Trajan is a believer, has faith, a ‘good successor’s faith.’” 55 See the discussion in Kit Morrell, Pompey, Cato, and the Governance of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 135–37. 56 Bauman, Impietas in Principem, 54. 54

34

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

5. From the republic to the empire 5. From the republic to the empire

Modern “majesty” derives from it, but the term maiestas means “greaterness,” or “superiority.”57 Davide Salvo explains: As maiestas is derived from maior/maius, the comparative degree of magnus … it expresses an unequal relationship, with one component (gods, Roman people, or emperor) occupying the position of the maior, and the other (men, foreign people, or citizens) that of the minor.58

The term maiestas indicates inequality, in which one party is greater than another. For Seneca, Ep. 95.50, the gods demonstrate maiestas in the way they rule the universe. In a similar vein, Cato supposes that Cicero has maiestas which enables him to rule. 59 According to Cicero, Inv. 2.53, “to diminish maiestas is to detract something from the dignitas or greatness either of the power of the people or of those to whom the people have given power.”60 As a legal term, maiestas denoted the superiority of Rome (state and people), which was to be respected.61 Allies of Rome were obliged to uphold the maiestas of Rome in friendship treaties.62 I will discuss three such instances before introducing the transference of maiestas to the emperor himself. In a 189 BCE treaty the Romans obliged the Aitolians to preserve “the superiority and power of the Roman people” (τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τὴν δυναστείαν

57 Clifford Ando, Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition (Empire and After; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 103; Williamson, “Crimes,” 333 fn. 1. 58 Davide Salvo, “Maiestas,” in Wiley’s The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. Roger S. Bagnall et al. (2012), (accessed April 24, 2018). 59 On Cato, fam. 15.5.3 SB 111, see Morrell, Pompey, 253. Morrell concludes, “Cicero’s vera gloria, Seneca’s claritas, and Cato’s maiestas might represent different attempts to convey in Latin the Stoic concept of ‘true glory’” (p. 259). 60 Maiestatem minuere est de dignitate aut amplitudine aut potestate populi aut eorum quibus populus potestatem dedit aliquid derogare; text and translation from Morrell, Pompey, 252 fn. 82. 61 Salvo, “Maiestas”: “The maiestas populi Romani (the ‘being greater’ or ‘superiority’ of the Roman people) was … an attribute of the Roman people as a whole in relation to other people, and must always be measured according to its position compared with the surrounding people (Cic. Phil. 6.19); in virtue of its maiestas, Rome affirmed its supremacy and claimed submission from other people.” Salvo discusses the treaties with the Aitolians in 189 BCE (below), the Gades in 78 BCE (see Cicero, Balb. 16.36), and the Lycians in 46 BCE (below). 62 The subordinate people remains free even though the other (Rome) is superior. On this, see Dig. 49.15.7.1, the evidence in which comes from the first-century CE jurist Proculus; Ando, Law, 72–74; Williamson, “Crimes,” 335.

5. From the republic to the empire

35

τοῦ δήμου τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Polybius 21.32.2; imperium maiestatemque populi Romani, Livy 38.11.2). Polybius pairs ἀρχή with δυναστεία, as Livy pairs imperium with maiestas. The sense is that the ἀρχή-imperium of Rome flows out of its δυναστεία-maiestas; Rome has power and so also superiority.63 Paul Burton argues that the maiestas clause “was a moral stricture, not a legal one”: “maiestas acts as a kind of exegesis on or conceptual parallel to the more concrete imperium, the term with which maiestas is coupled in the treaty’s opening clause.”64 Rome’s superiority is the moral and abstract basis of its power over other peoples. In a 46 BCE treaty the Romans obliged the Lycians to uphold “the authority (ἐξουσία) and superiority (ὑπεροχή) of the Romans, as is fitting, for all time in a manner worthy of themselves and of the Roman people” (AE 2005, 1487, ll. 9–11). The treaty uses the terms ἐξουσία (“authority”) and ὑπεροχή (“superiority”), unlike Polybius’ δυναστεία and ἀρχή. Greek therefore had no equivalent term for maiestas. Gregory Rowe groups the text among “other inscribed maiestas-clauses,” for instance in the treaties with Cnidos in 45 BCE (I. Knidos 33 A, ll. 12–13) and with Mytilene in 25 BCE (RDGE 26, col. d, ll. 1–2).65 In light of the earlier treaty between the Lycians and the Romans (AE 2007, 1504), Kolb and Speidel highlight that the Roman superiority clause develops the pre-existing friendship (φιλία) of the two peoples.66 63 According to Hugh J. Mason, Greek Terms for Roman Institutions: A Lexicon and Analysis (ASP 13; Toronto: Hakkert, 1974), 40, δυναστεία primarily corresponds to imperium; for ἀρχή, Mason (p. 26; see also pp. 110–11) lists imperium principis and imperium Romanum (as well as magistratus, praefectura, provincia). The term maiestas appears in neither entry. Perhaps the reason for this is that Mason focuses on offices, not ideas. 64 Paul J. Burton, Friendship and Rome: Roman Diplomacy and Imperialism in the Middle Republic (353–146 BC) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 275. 65 Gregory Rowe, “The Roman State: Laws, Lawmaking and Legal Documents,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy, ed. Christer Bruun and Jonathan Edmondson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 299–318 (305 fn. 16); Alison E. Cooley, Stephen Mitchell, and Benet Salway, “Roman Inscriptions 2001–2005,” JRS 97 (2007): 176–263 (180) write, “The inscription begins with standard formulae establishing the reciprocal obligations of the treaty partners to each other, and it includes a version of the maiestas clause, whereby the Lycians acknowledge the higher authority of Rome.” 66 Anne Kolb and Michael A. Speidel, “Perceptions from Beyond: Some Observations on Non-Roman Assessments of the Roman Empire from the Great Eastern Trade Routes,” in Rome and the Worlds Beyond Its Frontiers, ed. Daniëlle Slootjes and M. Peachin (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 151–80 (166–67). In the editio princeps of AE 2005 Stephen Mitchell, “The Treaty between Rome and Lycia of 46 BC (MS 2070),” in Papyri Graecae Schøyen (P. Schøyen I), ed. R. Pintaudi (Firenze: Gonnelli, 2005), 161–258 (241) refers to “the maiestas clause whereby the treaty partner specifically acknowledged Roman superiority, a feature

36

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

In a similar way, in 161 BCE, because “Judas [Maccabaeus] heard the reputation of the Romans, that they were powerful in strength” (1 Macc 8:1), he sent men to the Romans to establish “friendship and alliance” (8:17). 1 Maccabees 8:22 introduces “a copy of the letter which they copied onto brass tablets and sent to Jerusalem to be with them there as a memorial of peace and alliance.” The maiestas clause is absent in this case, which may or may not be a formal treaty. This clause “merely stated explicitly something that would have been obvious to both parties throughout the whole of the late republican period.”67 In addition, the maiestas of Rome appears to bind Judea in 40 BCE, when Antony procures a kingdom for Herod and brings him to celebrate in Rome with Caesar (Josephus, Ant. 14.384–89). Larisa Masri argues that Ant. 14.388 narrates the Jupiter-sacrifice ritual that “symbolically acknowledged the superiority of Rome’s power and its gods, and became an important symbol of empire.” 68 Herod’s inauguration was marked by and linked to Rome’s maiestas.69 The maiestas of Rome was caught in the transition from republic to empire. Clifford Ando describes the “revolution” underlying the principate: “the attribution of sovereignty to the person of the emperor required … the assignment to him of maiestas,” or in other words “the investiture of the monarch with maiestas.”70 When the emperor “became the state,” maiestas encompassed doing injury to the emperor. 71 Disrespecting Augustus or Tiberius was an insult to the people.72 The princeps incarnated the patria, and the city “protected” the emperor.73 Slandering the fatherland (maiestas populi

which occurred in some, but by no means all Roman treaties.” See also Michael A. Speidel, “Wars, Trades and Treaties: New, Revised and Neglected Sources for the Political, Diplomatic, and Military Aspects of Imperial Rome’s Relations with the Red Sea Basin and India, from Augustus to Diocletian,” in Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New Perspectives on Maritime Trade, ed. K. S. Mathew (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 83– 128 (115). 67 Mitchell, “MS 2070,” 188. 68 Larisa Masri, “Rome, Diplomacy, and the Rituals of Empire Foreign Sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus,” Historia 65:3 (2016): 325–47 (325, 337). 69 Rowe, “The Roman State,” 305 draws attention to the point that “no new treaties are known to have been agreed after the first years of Augustus’ reign.” 70 Ando, Law, 103, 84, 106. 71 Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (repr.; London: Routledge, 2001), 97. 72 Ando, Law, 105. 73 Walter Eder, “Augustus and the Power of Tradition,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, ed. Karl Galinsky (trans. Karl Galinsky; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 13–32 (32). To Augustus was attributed the title pater patriae in 2 BCE; see Raymond J. Starr, “Augustus as ‘Pater patriae’ and Patronage Decrees,” ZPE 172

5. From the republic to the empire

37

Romani) or the father (maiestas imperatoris) constituted maiestas. 74 The commands of the people of Rome were channelled through the chief lawmaker of Rome.75 The transference of maiestas to the emperor emerges in the ancient literature. Near the end of his letter, Horace writes to Augustus, “neither does your majesty admit of humble verse” (neque parvum carmen maiestas recipit tua, Ep. 2.1.258). 76 Horace attributes maiestas to Augustus himself. 77 He gives the first witness to this imperial usage of maiestas. 78 Elsewhere, he praises Caesar and his era for restoring the ancient customs of Rome: “The empire is extended from the west, where the sun sets, to the east from which it rises, and Rome’s prestige spreads with it, like none that has ever gone before” (per quas Latinum nomen et Italae | crevere vires famaque et imperi | porrecta maiestas ad ortus | solis ab Hesperio cubili, Odes 4.15). 79 The Augustan era was conceptualised as spreading the maiestas of Rome.

(2010): 296–98 on the politically symbolic locations of the inscribed decree – the senate house, the Forum of Augustus, and the house of Augustus. 74 Jason A. Whitlark, Resisting Empire: Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to ‘the Hebrews’ (LNTS 484; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 36. 75 Williamson, “Crimes,” 338. Crimes against Rome and Caesar became synonymous. Christian Gizewski, “Maiestas,” in Brill’s New Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, (Antiquity volumes, trans. Christine F. Salazar); Manfred Landfester (Classical Tradition volumes, trans. Francis G. Gentry) (2006), (accessed April 23, 2018) demarcates three maiestas crimes in the “political sphere,” as opposed to his “religious and family sphere.” These are against Rome, against the duties of an office, and against the emperor. First, crimen maiestatis “could be committed by Romans or subject provincials, by the planned killing of a magistrate, by armed revolt or preparation for the same, by the liberation of prisoners or hostages, by the occupation of public and sacred buildings or by co-operation with an enemy power (hostis) (Dig. 48,4,1,1).” Second, contemptus maiestatis (that is, circumventing or complicating the duties of an officeholder). Third, crimen laesae maiestatis combines aspects of “disobedience and resistance against the sovereignty of the state, offence against sovereign symbols and official traditions, endangering the state, high treason and simple treason.” 76 Translation from John Davie, Satires and Epistles (OWC; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 77 As noted by Elaine Fantham, “Ovid, Germanicus, and the Composition of the Fasti,” in Oxford Readings in Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox (ORCS; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 373–414 (406), discussing the Augustan ideology reflected throughout Ovid’s Fasti. 78 C. O. Brink, Horace on Poetry: Epistles Book II: The Letters to Augustus and Florus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 258. 79 Translation from David R. Slavitt, Horace: Odes (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014).

38

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

Velleius Paterculus summarises the careers of Augustus (2.89.3) and Tiberius (2.126.2–3) with “similar” if “not synonymous” language. 80 In particular, both Augustus and Tiberius restored the maiestas of the senate (senatui maiestas). These principes did so by their own exemplary maiestas, which the senate only imitated. 81 So the maiestas of an emperor not only spread the maiestas of Rome outside the city, but it restored the city from the inside. The senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre refers to the governor of Syria, Piso, “ignoring the majesty of the imperial house, and also ignoring the law of the land” (neclecta [l. 33] maiestate domus Aug[ustae] neclecto etiam iure publico). 82 Ando cites the s. c. de Pisone as “an exceedingly important attribution of maiestas to the imperial house in official discourse of the Tiberian age.” 83 The secondary question concerns whether offending the maiestas of the imperial house is equated with an offence against the state.84 Alexander Yakobson argues that it is not. 85 Rowe similarly observes the senate “draw[ing] a distinction between two standards it upholds, an extralegal one and a legal one”: the “superiority” (maiestas) of the “imperial house” (domus Augusta) is the extra-legal standard, and the “law of the land” (ius publicum) is the legal standard. 86 Though different standards, l. 33

80 Eleanor Cowan, “Tiberius and Augustus in Tiberian Sources,” Historia 58:4 (2009): 468–85 (478). 81 In a similar way, the senate learnt the virtues of clemency, justice, and magnanimity from Augustus and Tiberius, according to the senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre, ll. 90– 92. 82 Text and translation adapted from D. S. Potter and Cynthia Damon, “The ‘Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre,’” AJP 120:1 (Special Issue: The “Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre”: Text, Translation, Discussion; 1999): 13–42. 83 Ando, Law, 151. 84 Kaius Tuori, The Emperor of Law: The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 145. 85 Yakobson, “Maiestas,” 78–79: “I do not think that the phrase in question should be taken to mean that an injury to the majesty of the domus Augusta was automatically tantamount to the crime of maiestas. In fact, the very distinction between maiestas domus Augustae and public law seems to lead to the opposite conclusion… While it cannot be said that injury to the majesty of the imperial house is formally defined as treason, the two concepts are so close and are formulated in such similar language that the former can scarcely be imagined without the latter. The authors of the text may well have intended it to be ambiguous on this question.” Also: “It can be said that none of this is formally relevant to the question whether the law of maiestas applied to offences against the dignity of the imperial house. But the political atmosphere and the ideological mindset reflected in the document make any rigid distinction between crimes against the state and affronts to the imperial family very hard to maintain” (p. 84). 86 Rowe, “The Roman State,” 306.

6. Suetonius

39

nevertheless pairs them together. Therefore, as Callie Williamson recognises, the s. c. de Pisone illuminates “the understanding of the lex Iulia” under the principate.87 They were not identical with each other, but the implications of the imperial maiestas on the lex Iulia were tangible. According to Yakobson, the “exact relationship between the dignity of the imperial house and the law of maiestas” was one of the “ambiguities and equivocations” produced early in the principate. 88 There is no “clear statement anywhere in our source tradition” on wronging Augustus formally amounting to damaging the maiestas of the res publica. 89 However undeniable it quickly became, the association of slandering Caesar with slandering Rome was not immediately, or strictly, legal.90 And like the crime, its punishment evolved over time. The s. c. de Pisone, for instance, attests the penalty of “interdiction of fire and water” for the lex maiestatis.91 The crime of maiestas against the emperor grew out of the lex Iulia in more ways than one. To illuminate these ambiguities, as well as the connections between maiestas, calumnia, and repetundae, I will turn to Suetonius and Dio.

6. Suetonius 6. Suetonius

Suetonius reinforces the starting point that maiestas is an indispensable aspect of judicial matters revolving around the emperor. His Lives use the crime of maiestas to define the Caesars in relation to one other. As Catharine Edwards observes, Augustus is the antithesis of his predecessor Julius, in the sense that he is “the standard for his successors” and the positive “point of

Williamson, “Crimes,” 340. Yakobson, “Maiestas,” 77. 89 Peachin, “Powers,” 534. He also notes that Augustus became “actually coextensive with the Roman state,” which “cinched the matter of the desire to protect his majesty.” 90 Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (CCT 6; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 237 recognises this: “Tacitus found the trials under Augustus and Tiberius so galling precisely because their invocation of maiestas had no legal foundation as such – it was not justified by reference to the emperor’s tribunician sacrosanctity, nor by any consecration of his image – but rather was grounded in the presumed identity between the interests of the res publica and those of one man.” See also p. 393: “If the Roman people transferred their imperium et potestas to the emperor, if Ovid could look at Augustus and see Rome, if the emperor’s felicitas made him a mediator between the gods of the state and the state itself, then, just as surely, attacks on the emperor could constitute treason (maiestas) against the Roman people, and piety toward the gods who ensured the well-being of the state could and should be expressed in piety toward the emperor.” 91 Williamson, “Crimes,” 340. 87 88

40

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

reference.”92 Tristan Power frames “the Julius–Augustus pairing as revealing a combined model on which the later biographies draw, with the dialogue between them providing an ideal of different conduct to follow, both exemplary and cautionary.”93 Julius both was and was not a Caesar, in the sense that, according to John Henderson, he is the “first of two poles: not Iul. then Aug. … but Iul. vs Aug. … staking out the range spanned by Caesardom: either Iul. or Aug.”94 In his capacity as judge, Augustus is the “ideal ruler” not an “insane monster,” in Kaius Tuori’s words: “the good emperor demonstrates his virtues to the people through his wise rulings, while the mad emperor terrorizes people and especially the elite with arbitrary executions and trials for treason (maiestas).”95 Though Augustus is the good emperor, his successor Tiberius acts as an insane monster. David Wardle draws attention to the way that Suetonius negotiates “the use and abuse of maiestas” across the Lives, arguing that “maiestas was a touchstone” and that Augustus set the benchmark. 96 Augustus 19 mentions “quite a few disturbances, plans for rebellion and conspiracies, which [Augustus] took action against, having got wind of them on a number of different occasions before they came to fruition.” In addition, “among those who conspired against him and endangered his life were numbered even men of the lowest sort” (Augustus 19). The way in which the emperor responds to these cases is ambiguous until Augustus 51. 92 Catharine Edwards, Suetonius: The Lives of the Caesars (OWC; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), xix. 93 Tristan Power, “Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius,” in Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives, ed. Tristan Power and Roy K. Gibson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1–18 (16). 94 John Henderson, “Was Suetonius’ Julius a Caesar?” in Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives, ed. Tristan Power and Roy K. Gibson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 81–110 (108) lists many correspondences between these first two biographies; also, as the “tragic-comic prequel,” Julius sets the script for the “shoddy-farcical finale” of Domitian (p. 98). 95 Tuori, Emperor of Law, 127. For Tuori (p. 147), “arbitrary executions and trials for treason” are the defining features of “the mad emperor,” or the side of the emperor that is “an insane monster engaging in arbitrary acts of terror” – or in other words still, “the persecution of his real or perceived enemies by the liberal use of maiestas charges.” See also Vasily Rudich, “Navigating the Uncertain: Literature and Censorship in the Early Roman Empire,” Arion 3/14:1 (2006): 7–28 (17): “the notion of treason [becoming] so nebulous that it could embrace every aspect of an individual’s attitude and conduct vis-à-vis the authorities.” See similarly Andrew Pettinger, The Republic in Danger: Drusus Libo and the Succession of Tiberius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 93–101 on Tiberius and the sedition of his rival L. Aemilius Paullus. 96 David Wardle, Suetonius: Life of Augustus (CAHS; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 367.

6. Suetonius

41

According to Wardle, Augustus 51–56 is the third section in the account of the emperor’s public life.97 Suetonius structures the section according to two interrelated virtues, clementia (“mercy,” Augustus 51) and civilitas (“citizenlike behaviour,” Augustus 52–56). 98 In Augustus 51 Suetonius uses three incidents that under other emperors may have led to a charge of maiestas, expressly in order to display the clementia of this particular emperor.99 Junius Novatus was fined, because he “circulate[d] the most bitter letter concerning Augustus.”100 Cassius Patavinus was punished with “a mild form of exile,” because he “proclaimed at a large dinner party that he lacked neither the strong desire to run the emperor through nor the spirit to do it.” Aemilius Aelianus of Corduba was accused on the basis of mere hearsay that he was “in the habit of expressing his bad opinion of Caesar,” and Augustus dismissed the case. In this way Augustus 51 clarifies the ambiguity created by Augustus 19 regarding just how Augustus mitigated the various cases of maiestas. Also, these three cases are “arranged in order of declining severity with respect to the evidence that could be produced to support each charge … and thus of increasing significance in relation to the (potential) abuse of maeistas” – an abuse soon to be perpetrated by Tiberius. 101 Augustus says something to Tiberius that foreshadows this: My Tiberius, do not give way to your youthful impulses or get too angry at anyone who speaks ill of me. We should be satisfied if we have the means to prevent anyone from doing us ill. (Suetonius, Augustus 51)

This is the contrast of the two reigns, between Augustus’ “clementia towards verbal maiestas and Tiberius’ notorious cruelty.” 102 Suetonius castigates Tiberius: “every charge was tried as a capital offence, even when it consisted Wardle, Augustus, 36. See Power, “Introduction,” 1–18 on the originality of Suetonius as a scholarly biographer (rather than historiographer) in his consistently third-person narration and thematic divisions. 99 Suetonius then proceeds to the civilitas of Augustus, which falls into three groupings: refusing divine honours (Augustus 52), refusing human honours and demonstrating general courtesy (Augustus 53), and conserving both rights pertaining to free expression and the sovereignty of the law (Augustus 54–56). The first two of these groupings show the practice of refusing honours (recusatio) to count prominently under the umbrella civilitas. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King,” JRS 72 (1982): 32–48 (43) states that it is “the unusual [grouping] method of Suetonius’ biographies” that precipitates the emergence of civilitas as “an ethical term, applied to the personality of the ideal ruler, not merely to the nature of his conduct.” 100 All Suetonius translations from Edwards, Suetonius. 101 Wardle, Augustus, 367. 102 Wardle, Augustus, 367. 97 98

42

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

of a few ingenious words” (Tiberius 61). Augustus, however, would not do more than “[take] great care to refute” published slander (Augustus 55, similarly Tacitus, Ann. 1.72), nor would he “legislate against freedom of speech in wills” (Augustus 56). Augustus was the paradigm of clementia that his successor ignored. Although on one occasion Tiberius “acted as advocate” for some who were prosecuted before Augustus and on another entreated the senate on behalf of some who needed post-earthquake assistance, the early part of his civil career is also marked by securing the condemnation of Fannius Caepio on a charge of maiestas (Tiberius 8). In Tiberius 57 “his savage and tenacious nature” comes into focus. Tiberius 58 turns to cases of maiestas, the laws for which he applied “with the greatest cruelty.” The first instance involves someone who playfully swapped the head of a statue of Augustus for another. 103 Suetonius paints the broader picture: At around the same time, when he was asked by a praetor whether he should have the courts assemble to consider cases of treason (maiestas), he replied that the laws were to be applied, and he did apply them with the greatest cruelty. A certain man had removed the head from a statue of Augustus so that he might replace it with the head of someone else. This matter was brought before the senate and, because there was some uncertainty, the witnesses were examined under torture. The defendant was found guilty and in time malicious accusations (calumniae) of the following kind resulted in capital trials: beating a slave near a statue of Augustus, or changing one’s clothes there; carrying a coin or a ring bearing his image into a lavatory or a brothel; criticizing any of his words or deeds. Indeed, a man lost his life because he permitted honours to be offered him in his colony on the same day that they had once been offered to Augustus. (Suetonius, Tiberius 58)

Suetonius there refers to one instance in which Tiberius abuses the laws that pertain to maiestas as the precedent for multiple absurd calumniae in capital cases. And later, Tiberius hastened to execute someone guilty of maiestas, only because he was publicly challenged to do so by a dwarf (Tiberius 61). He was a tempest waiting to be aroused, especially on account of maiestas.104

103 The underlying issue is that the image of the emperor, in particular his head, was sacred. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 221 writes, “The belief that a coin was legitimated, indeed, rendered sacrosanct, by the portrait of the emperor that it carried had its origins in the Julio-Claudian era. Already in that period Romans had begun to apply the law of maiestas to acts that infringed on the dignity of the imperial portrait. Suetonius associated this development with the reign of Tiberius.” Ando then quotes from Suetonius, Tiberius 58. 104 David Wardle, “Suetonius on Vespasian’s Rise to Power Under the Julio-Claudians,” Acta Classica 53 (2010): 101–15 (107).

6. Suetonius

43

He abused the imperial powers and created havoc.105 His own maiestas was a means of oppression. It was not so under Augustus, who set the benchmark in another respect. Not only did he disable false accusations, but he also introduced the penalty for those willing to perpetrate them: he had burned the records of old debts to the treasury, which were the most frequent excuse for false accusations (uel praecipuam calumniandi materiam). Property in the city to which the state had a disputed claim he judged to belong to the current holders. The names of those who had been under accusation for a long time or those against whom the accusation served no other purpose than to give pleasure to their enemies he removed from the lists, stipulating that if anyone wished to renew the case, he would risk incurring himself the penalty prescribed for the crime. (Suetonius, Augustus 32)

Edwards adds the note, “the penalty would be applied to the accuser if the accused were acquitted.”106 Augustus was eager not only to disable calumnia, but to criminalise it. Later, Titus followed suit.107 Among the evils of the time were informers and their prompters who had long been given free rein. On his orders these men were thoroughly beaten in the Forum with whips and cudgels and finally exhibited in the arena of the amphitheatre. Then some of them were put up and sold as slaves, while others were deported to the most inhospitable of the islands. To ensure that no one would undertake anything similar at any time in the future, amongst other measures he laid down that no one should be tried for the same offence under different laws and that after a certain number of years no inquiry could be made into the legal status of a deceased person. (Suetonius, Titus 8)

By parading and exiling the informers (delatores), Titus was able to “increase his political credibility.”108 His younger brother Domitian did the same:

Tuori, Emperor of Law, 148. The indictment is possibly as much against the nature of the imperium itself as it is against the personality of Tiberius. Suetonius indicates the problem with Caligula, too – “the danger of unlimited coercive power in the hands of a person who clearly cannot handle the sense of power” (p. 149; see, for instance, Caligula 33–35). 106 Edwards, Suetonius, 310 fn. 60. 107 On Titus refusing maiestas cases – in part because he did not care about false reports, so Suetonius, Titus 9 – and banishing informers, see Suetonius, Titus 8. Regarding his father, see Suetonius, Vespasian 12 on Vespasian’s disregard for both the maiestas of his family and his triumphal procession. And on his taking no issue with arrogant philosophers and those who insulted and opposed him, see Suetonius, Vespasian 13–14. 108 Similarly Martial, Spectacles 4–5. See Kathleen M. Coleman, “Public Entertainments,” in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, ed. Michael Peachin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 335–57 (351), and eadem, “‘Informers’ on Parade,” in The Art of Ancient Spectacle, ed. B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1999), 231–45. Pliny, Pan. 34.1; 35.4 records that Trajan did the same, to 105

44

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

he dismissed the cases against those debtors whose names had been posted at the treasury for more than five years, and would only allow a case to be renewed within one year and on condition that an accuser whose suit was unsuccessful should himself be punished with exile… Small plots of land, which were left over here and there after the assignment of farms to veterans, he ceded to their original owners by right of possession. False accusations which aimed at the confiscation of property he punished, imposing severe penalties on the accusers, and he is said to have remarked: ‘The emperor who does not punish informers goads them on’ (fiscales calumnias magna calumniantium poena repressit ferebaturque uox eius princeps qui delatores non castigat irritat). (Suetonius, Domitian 9)

Though Domitian’s stance on calumniae and delatores was initially harsh, “his disposition towards mercy and integrity did not continue” (Domitian 10): a householder, who had said that though the Thracian was a match for the murmillo he would not measure up to the giver of the games, he had dragged from the audience and thrown to dogs in the arena, wearing the tag: A buckler-wearer with a big mouth. (Suetonius, Domitian 10)

The reference, which I will revisit, is to a maiestas crime.109 For now, the comment on this trait of his reign which soon follows will suffice: everywhere the goods of the living and of the dead were seized, whatever the charge or the accuser. It was enough to allege some kind of deed or word attacking the superiority of the emperor (satis erat obici qualecumque factum dictumque aduersus maiestatem principis). The estates of complete strangers were seized if one person could be found who claimed to have heard the deceased, when living, say that the emperor was his heir. (Suetonius, Domitian 12)

Any accusation about someone undermining the superiority of the princeps reaped rewards, no matter who the accuser was. Suetonius clearly contrasts that trend with an earlier instance of clementia, namely the aversion of Domitian to calumnia. Domitian himself had said: “the emperor who does not punish informers goads them on” – yet that is what Domitian would go on to do.

7. Dio 7. Dio

Cassius Dio’s Roman History becomes important in relation to the accusation that Jesus “made himself Son of God” in John 19:7. As I will argue, this accusation refers to maiestas in tandem with “everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar” in v. 12. The crime in question was to diminish the contrast the downward turn during the reign of Domitian. See Coleman, “Public Entertainments,” 352. 109 See later Chapter 3.

7. Dio

45

maiestas of Caesar, “often in its divine aspect.” 110 But even in the Latin sources, the crime was not always called maiestas. Tacitus has “harming religion and violating majesty” (laesarum religionum ac uiolatae maiestatis, Ann. 3.24) and “impiety against the emperor” (impietatis in principem, Ann. 6.47), for instance. So in Greek the term θειότης (“divinity”) was applied to the maiestas of Caesar, and the term ἀσέβεια (“impiety”) entailed the crime against it. 111 Dio in particular prefers ἀσέβεια for maiestas. 112 And he “explains his use of ἀσέβεια” when he narrates the accession of Macrinus (217 CE).113 Those who had been sentenced to some life punishment or other for an act of “impiety” (ἐπ᾽ ἀσεβείᾳ τινί) (I mean the “impiety,” as it is called, that has reference to the person of the emperor [ἡ ἐς τοὺς αὐτοκράτορας λέγεται]) had their sentences remitted. (Dio 79(78).12.1114)

Dio’s use of ἀσέβεια illuminates the way historiographical Greek narratives, such as John, might frame the maiestas crime done against Roman emperors. Tiberius initially allowed neither temple precincts (τεμένισμα) nor images (εἰκών) devoted to himself (Dio 57.9.1), so as to avoid cases of maiestas. For he would not by any means have it appear that he had been insulted (ὑβρίζω) or impiously treated (ἀσεβέω) by anybody (they were already calling such conduct maiestas and were bringing many suits on that ground [ἀσέβειάν τε γὰρ ἤδη καὶ τὸ τοιοῦτον ὠνόμαζον καὶ δίκας ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ πολλὰς ἐσῆγον]), and he would not hear of any such indictment being brought on his own account, though he paid tribute to the majesty of Augustus in this matter also (καίπερ τὸν Αὔγουστον καὶ ἐν τούτῷ σεμνύνων). (Dio 57.9.2)

Here, Dio uses the verbs ὑβρίζω (“insult”) and ἀσεβέω (“act impiously”) together. Such actions constituted ἀσέβεια (“impiety”) toward Tiberius, on which many lawsuits were already appearing in his first year (14 CE). Yet he did not exalt himself; he would only exalt Augustus (57.10.1). But as Dio narrates, things change in the reign of Tiberius. 110 Pramit Chaudhuri, The War with God: Theomachy in Roman Imperial Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 303, who refers to Tacitus, Ann. 3.24; 6.47. 111 Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 395: “As early as the reign of Augustus, Greek-speaking subjects of the Roman Empire indicated their understanding of his relationship with the gods when they rendered maiestas as θειότης and described treason as impiety.” 112 Bauman, Impietas in Principem, 4–7; idem, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 1992), 164. 113 Andrew G. Scott, Emperors and Usurpers: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History (ACS 58; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 52; he also notes, “the Latin equivalent is maiestas (or maiestas laesa) (cf. 57.9).” 114 Translation from Earnest Cary, Dio’s Roman History, vol. 6 (LCL; London: William Heinemann, 1955).

46

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

Among other ways in which his rule became cruel, he pushed to the bitter end the trials for maiestas (ἡ τῆς ἀσεβείας δίκη), in cases where complaint was made against anyone for committing any improper act, or uttering any improper speech, not only against Augustus but also against Tiberius himself and against his mother. And towards those who were suspected of plotting against him he was inexorable. (Dio 57.19.1)

After some years (20 CE), Tiberius was indulging maiestas cases not just against Augustus, his deceased predecessor, but even against himself and his mother. The crime may comprise words or actions, and he was implacable in cases concerning himself. The following is the most important mention of maiestas in relation to the emperor under whom the Ἰουδαῖοι accused Jesus before Pilate. Dio eventually (23 CE) comes to the understanding that by forcefully and falsely pursuing maiestas cases, Tiberius himself becomes guilty. Consequently it came to pass that he heaped upon himself all the abuse for which he was wont to punish others on the charge of maiestas (ὡς ἀσεβοῦντας ἐκόλαζεν), and incurred ridicule (χλευασμός) besides. For, when persons denied having uttered certain remarks, he, by insisting and swearing that they had been uttered, was more truly wronging himself (ἀληθέστερον ἑαυτὸν ἠδίκει). (Dio 57.23.3)

If he was creating crimes punishable as maiestas (ὡς ἀσεβοῦντας ἐκόλαζεν), Tiberius was really doing injustice (ἀδικέω) to himself. As Dio claims, allegations of maiestas were themselves the true instances of maiestas during the reign of Tiberius. Caesar abused Caesar, and in so doing made a mockery (χλευασμός) of himself. Philo, Attack 69 also uses χλευασμός (“ridicule) to describe the irony of someone wronging themself. Cain had presumed to kill Abel in secret. But the ridicule comes when God asks him, “What have you done?”115 Philo explains that by plotting against someone superior to himself, Cain has in reality plotted against himself. These Dio and Philo texts reflect some of what I will argue the Ἰουδαῖοι do in John. They lie that Jesus commits maiestas to the point that they themselves commit it. They abuse and attack themselves in bringing judgement on themselves. As the reign of Tiberius continued its decline (30 CE), Dio describes in some detail the problem of maiestas accusers.116 Under Tiberius all who accused (κατηγορέω) any persons received money, and large sums too, both from the victims’ estates and from the public treasury, and various honours besides. There were cases, too, where men who recklessly threw others into a panic or readily passed sentence of death upon them obtained either images or triumphal honours.

Here Philo quotes from Gen 4:10. A glossary item – “delator (pl. delatores; informer)” – in Andrew Zissos (ed.), A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 578 attests the association of informing with impiety against the emperor. 115 116

7. Dio

47

Hence several distinguished men who were held worthy of some such honour would not accept it, lest they might one day be thought to have been like these men. (Dio 58.4.8)

Those who accused (κατηγορέω) others of maiestas (ἀσέβεια) made a bad reputation for themselves. They were greedy. Up for grabs were rewards of money, as well as images and triumphal honours. Others apparently refused honours, simply to dissociate themselves from accusers. Caligula succeeded Tiberius (37 CE): Though he had been the first to insult him and the first to abuse him (πρῶτός τε ὑβρίσας αὐτὸν καὶ πρῶτος λοιδορήσας), so that others, thinking to please him in this way, indulged in rather reckless freedom of speech, he later lauded and magnified Tiberius, even going so far as to punish some for what they said. These, as enemies of the former emperor, he hated for their abusive remarks; and he hated equally those who in any way praised Tiberius, as being the other’s friends (καὶ ἐκείνους τε ἅμα ὡς ἐχθροὺς τοῦ Τιβερίου διὰ τὰς βλασφημίας καὶ τοὺς ἐπαινοῦντάς πῃ αὐτὸν ὡς καὶ φίλους ἐμίσει). Though he put an end to the charges of maiestas, he nevertheless made these the cause of a great many persons’ downfall (τά τε τῆς ἀσεβείας ἐγκλήματα παύσας πλείστους ὅσους ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἀπώλεσε). (Dio 59.4.2–3)

Caligula was foremost among those insulting (ὑβρίζω) and abusing (λοιδορέω) Tiberius, his predecessor. But later, he praised and exalted him. He hated the enemies of Tiberius on account of their blasphemies, and he hated his friends for commending him. Such is the situation in which Dio brings up the matter of maiestas (ἀσέβεια), a charge Caligula used to destroy many people.117 Claudius liberates from prison “those who had been put there for maiestas and similar charges” and investigates the cases in order that those who had committed crimes should not be released along with those who had been falsely accused (ὅπως μήθ᾿ οἱ κακουργήσαντές τι διὰ τοὺς συκοφαντουμένους ἀφεθῶσι), nor the latter, on the other hand, perish along with the former. (Dio 60.4.2–3)

Claudius bans similar accusations of impiety, when “information was being laid against many of the new citizens (ἐπὶ δὲ ἐκείνῳ ἐπῃνεῖτο ὅτι πολλῶν συκοφαντουμένων)” (60.17.7–8). Dio portrays the Flavian family as a nuanced whole: Domitian attains personal wealth by malicious maiestas prosecutions, whereas Vespasian and Titus reject those means as they contribute wealth to the people. The thread begins with Mucianus, who attains both private and public wealth, and who encourages Vespasian to raise funds from every source (Dio 65.2.5). Vespasian does so, though as he modifies and creates taxes, the Alexandrians 117 On maiestas under Caligula, see Dio 59.6.2; 11.6; 16.8. See also Arthur Keaveney and John A. Madden, “The Crimen Maiestatis under Caligula: The Evidence of Dio Cassius,” CQ 48:1 (1998): 316–20.

48

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

insult him (65.8.2–5). Titus begs Vespasian to forgive them, and they continue to abuse him even as he does so (65.8.6–7). He proceeds both to cancel maiestas convictions from under Nero and ban maiestas prosecutions altogether (65.9.1–2). The passage reads, Yet they would not let him alone, but in a crowded assembly all loudly shouted in chorus at Titus these words: “We forgive him; for he knows not how to play Caesar (οὐ γὰρ οἶδε καισαρεύειν).” So the Alexandrians at that time went on with these foolhardy demonstrations, took their fill without restraint of that impudent licence which is always working to their detriment, and abused the good nature of the emperor (τῇ τοῦ αὐτοκράτορας ἐπιεικεία ἀποχρώμενοι). But Vespasian soon ceased to notice them. He sent a despatch to Rome rescinding the disfranchisement of those who had been condemned by Nero and succeeding rulers for acts of maiestas, as they were called (τήν τε ἀτιμίαν τῶν καταψηφισθέντων ἐπὶ ταῖς λεγομέναις ἀσεβείαις ὑπὸ Νέρωνας καὶ τῶν μετὰ ταῦτα ἀρξάντων). (Dio 65.8.6–9.1)

Dio implies that the Alexandrians perpetrate maiestas by the insult against the emperor: οὐ γὰρ οἶδε καισαρεύειν (“for, he does not know how to play Caesar”). 118 Vespasian not only manages to leave them alone, but he also goes on to show clementia even concerning established cases of the crime in Rome. In addition, Vespasian gives gifts, repairs public buildings on behalf of the original builders, and takes the lead in the building of the Capitoline temple, demonstrating that he cultivates public, not personal (unlike Mucianus), welfare (65.10.1–3). Like his father, Titus quashes maiestas prosecutions and banishes informers. Cases based on the charge of maiestas he would never entertain (τάς τε δίκας τὰς τῆς ἀσεβείας οὔτ᾽ αὐτός ποτε ἐδέξατο) nor allow others to entertain; for he declared: “It is impossible for me to be insulted or abused in any way” (ἐγὼ μὲν οὐδὲν οὔθ᾽ ὑβρισθῆναι οὔτε προπηλακισθῆναι δῦναμαι)… He also banished the informers from the city (τούς τε μηνυτὰς ἐξήλασεν ἐκ τῆς πόλεως). (Dio 66.19.1, 3) 118 This is not the only indication that provincial groups were understood to commit maiestas. Philo describes the ἀσέβεια of Alexandrians again, by which they threw around the designation “god” and misled Caligula, conceited as he was (Gaius 163). Philo also mentions Alexandrian Ἰουδαῖοι being accused of maiestas (κατηγορέω + ἀσέβεια, Gaius 193), the penalty for which (ἐπίχειρον + ἀσέβεια, Gaius 206) is torture and execution by the emperor. “The bitter false accuser Isidorus” (ὁ πικρὸς συκοφάντης Ἰσίδωρος) accused Ἰουδαῖοι of an “evil mind” (κακόνοια) and “impiety” (ἀσέβεια) toward Caligula, because they did not offer thanksgiving sacrifices to him (Gaius 355). But the Ἰουδαῖοι respond that they are falsely accused (συκοφαντέω), because they had indeed sacrificed to Caligula (Gaius 356). Josephus mentions Apion, one of the ambassadors sent to Caligula who blasphemed the Ἰουδαῖοι, saying that they withheld honours belonging to Caesar (Ant. 18.257). Elsewhere, Josephus writes that those who initiate rebellion (ἀπόστασις, War 2.412) against Rome by rejecting the sacrifice of Caesar in the temple (2.409) endanger Jerusalem of condemnation on impiety (καὶ μετὰ τοῦ κινδύνου καταψηφίσασθαι τῆς πόλεως ἀσέβειαν, 2.414).

7. Dio

49

Following his father, Titus cannot be insulted (ὑβρίζω) or smeared (προπηλακίζω). And further, he rejects monies from citizens, cities, and kings, restoring damaged regions with existing funds at hand (66.24.4). After Vespasian and Titus, Lucius Maximus suppresses the revolt of Antonius, governor of Germany. Dio praises Maximus for burning the papers in the chest of Antonius, instead of using them in malicious prosecutions (συκοφαντέω). By contrast, Domitian needs no papers to commit innumerable murders (67.11.1–2). Soon Dio intimates that Domitian murders and fines wealthy people only because he wants money (67.12.1).119 Earlier he murdered many simply to pay event expenditures (67.4.5). 120 He would destroy those who “provided him with large sums of money or lodged false information (συκοφαντέω) against large numbers of people” (67.1.3). Domitian urges informers to commit offences and then uses the offences against them; he would proclaim something “to the effect that, when an emperor fails to punish informers, he himself makes them informers” (67.1.4). 121 The grouping of maiestas cases and money continues its interplay with divine pretensions when Nerva becomes emperor in the year 96: the arches of Domitian are torn down, and his images are melted, creating a great source of money (68.1.1). The very next note reads, Nerva also released all who were on trial for maiestas and restored the exiles (καὶ ὁ Νέρουας τούς τε κρινομένους ἐπ’ἀσεβείᾳ ἀφῆκε καὶ τοὺς φεύγοντας κατήγαγε); moreover, he put to death all the slaves and the freedmen who had conspired against their masters and allowed that class of persons to lodge no complaint whatever against their masters; and no persons were permitted to accuse anybody of maiestas or of adopting the Jewish mode of life (τοῖς δὲ δὴ ἄλλοις οὔτ’ἀσεβείας οὔτ’ Ἰουδαικοῦ βίου καταιτιᾶσθαί τινας συνεχώρησε). Many of those who had been informers were condemned to death (πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ τῶν συκοφαντησάντων θάνατον κατεδικάσθησαν) … (Dio 68.1.2)

119 Verena Schulz, Deconstructing Imperial Representation: Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius on Nero and Domitian (Mnemosyne Supplements: Monographs on Greek and Latin Language and Literature 427; Leiden: Brill, 2019), 217–18 categorises this, “The second disproportion is between a form of imperial representation and its costs, or more generally the lack of balance between money and what money achieve.” 120 Thus, for Schulz, Deconstructing Imperial Representation, 219, “The third type of disproportion concerns imperial acts that lead to social problems.” 121 On this, Schulz, Deconstructing Imperial Representation, 208 writes, “Dio narrates something potentially positive for the emperor: Domitian issues a proclamation that an emperor who fails to punish informers is himself creating informers (67.1.4). But the reason for Domitian’s proclamation, as previously stated, has already framed it in a negative way: by punishing informers Dio’s Domitian only wants to conceal his own share in their wrongdoings (67.1.4).”

50

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

The synonymity of maiestas and Judean lifestyle under Nerva here is confirmed by the earlier collocation of atheism and Judean customs (67.14.1– 2).122 The linkage of Judean identity and impiety toward the Flavian family intimates that generic tax evasion prosecutions would provide a veil behind which particular political prosecutions were executed. Dio creates the impression that under Domitian, those two accusations of maiestas (ἀσέβεια) and the Jewish way of life (Ἰουδαικὸς βίος) typified Rome. 123 This pairing makes sense amid the post-war Flavian propaganda. The notion of cultic incorporation underpins both the Iudaea capta discourse and the administration of the fiscus Iudaicus as part of it: “with the Temple destroyed and its cult symbolically held captive in Rome, Vespasian transferred this tax from the Jewish god to the chief Roman god.” 124 The payment of the fiscus Judaicus conceded the tragedy that the temple cult had been captured by Rome. 125 Judean lifestyle and customs were synonymous with impiety toward the emperor, and therefore Judeans – actual, or alleged – were afforded one concrete way to express piety. The fiscus came to Margaret H. Williams, “Domitian, the Jews and the ‘Judaizers’: A Simple Matter of Cupiditas and Maiestas?” Historia 39:2 (1990): 196–211 (208) relates the Judean lifestyle prosecutions to impiety, but L. A. Thompson, “Domitian and the Jewish Tax,” Historia 31:3 (1982): 329–42 (340–41) separates Romans who stumble into Judean customs being prosecuted on maiestas from those with Judean lifestyle being prosecuted on tax evasion by the fiscus Iudaicus. 123 One elite woman, for instance, was tried and executed for undressing in front of an image of Domitian, according to Dio 67.12.2 (similarly Suetonius, Tiberius 58). 124 Quotation from James Rives, “Flavian Religious Policy and the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 145–66 (153). G. Anthony Keddie, “Iudaea Capta vs. Mother Zion: The Flavian Discourse on Judaeans and Its Delegitimation in 4 Ezra,” JSJ 49 (2018): 498–550 (500 fn. 8) refers to and defines the Iudaea capta discourse. After the war, Vespasian built the new temple of Peace (Josephus, War 7.158) and housed in it items from the Jerusalem temple (7.161). The law and the purple curtains were to be guarded in the royal palace (7.162). Perhaps Jews were expected to believe that God had moved to Italy, as Josephus himself did (5.367). Etienne Nodet, “Josephus’ Attempt to Reorganize Judaism from Rome,” in Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Zuleika Rodgers (JSJSup 110; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 103–22 (103) notes, “This fits the Roman custom of evocatio: the gods of the conquered nations are invited to the Capitol.” John S. Kloppenborg, “Evocatio Deorum and the Date of Mark,” JBL 124:3 (2005): 419–50 analyses the meaning of Mark 13:2 in light of the custom (pp. 434–41), using Josephus to understand the evocatio as “literary topos” (pp. 444–47) or “motif” (p. 434). The comparison with Josephus has not yet been applied to John. 125 I examine the issues surrounding the fiscus Iudaicus – with emphasis on Josephus, War 7.218, Suetonius, Domitian 12, Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.7.2, and Nerva’s fisci Iudaici calumnia sublata legend – in “εἰ δή τις … συκοφαντοίη: Impiety and the Fiscus Iudaicus in Josephus, War 1.11,” JSJ 51 (2020): 525–70. 122

8. Misrule

51

epitomise economic-political submission to the conquering Flavians, whether for actual conquered Judeans, or for those whom greedy accusers tarred with the brush of the Judean impiety stereotype. So Dio joins together false accusations, maiestas, and the identity of Ἰουδαῖοι after the Jerusalem temple’s destruction in the period often associated with the production of the gospel of John.126

8. Misrule 8. Misrule

Earlier, I noted the importance of the overlap between maiestas and repetundae to the interpretation of John 19:12. There, as I will argue, Jesus is accused of diminishing Caesar’s superiority, and Pilate is threatened with an accusation of misrule. Often translated “extortion,” repetundae means recovery. 127 What needed recovering was whatever Roman officials took while abusing their power.128 Such cases concerned primarily provincials.129 It was their “most important means … of bringing an action against a provincial governor for maladministration.” 130 And its importance grew as did imperium, for the greater the power, the greater the chance for misusing it.131 In 70 BCE Cicero threatened Verres with maiestas for misrule of Sicily (Verr. 1.12; 5.79). 132 In 50 BCE Publius Cornelius Dolabella similarly prosecuted Appius Claudius Pulcher, formerly in Cilicia (Fam. 3.11.1–3; Caelius apud Cicero, Fam. 8.6).133 In 15 CE Tiberius convicted the former governor of Bithynia, Marcellus, of maiestas (Tacitus, Ann. 1.74). In 22 CE C. Silanus (formerly in Asia) was accused of maiestas and repetundae, though the maiestas charge was dropped (Tacitus, Ann. 3.67.2). As Steven Rutledge suggests, the “charge of maiestas conceivably lurked behind every

126 Marius Heemstra, The Fiscus Judaicus and the Parting of the Ways (WUNT 2/277; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 159–89 applies the issues surrounding the fiscus to the interpretation of John, but I cannot go into detail here. 127 Harries, Law and Crime in the Roman World, 59. 128 Michael C. Alexander, The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 55. 129 Alexander, Prosecution, 55. 130 J. S. Richardson, “The Purpose of the Lex Calpurnia de Repetundis,” JRS 77 (1987): 1–12 (1). This is the case from 149 BCE into the second century CE. 131 Richardson, “Lex Calpurnia de Repetundis,” 11. 132 Michael C. Alexander, Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149 BC to 50 BC (PJCACS 26; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 91. 133 Alexander, Trials, 166. The anonymous De Vir. Ill. 82.4 records the charge as repetundae.

52

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

charge de repetundis.”134 This applies, so I will argue, to the threat from the Ἰουδαῖοι to Pilate in John 19:12: “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend.” To prepare the argument, I will analyse incidents in which the crimes of repetundae and maiestas go hand in hand, and I will illustrate the responsibility of provincials not to diminish the maiestas of Caesar. The discussion will make clear that these two issues are connected to each other. The beginning of the principate saw uncertainty concerning the parameters of ruling as a prefect under Caesar. In 30 BCE Octavian sent his friend Gallus into Egypt as its first prefect. In 27 BCE, however, accusations of repetundae and maiestas against Gallus forced the new emperor to submit his renuntiatio amicitiae. One year later, Gallus killed himself. He was one of the few and the first to be prosecuted for misrule.135 According to Suetonius, Augustus was constant toward his friends, only two of whom fell away, namely Salvidienus Rufus and Cornelius Gallus. The former he had raised to the rank of consul and the latter to the prefecture of Egypt, in both cases from humble beginnings. Salvidienus he handed over to the senate for punishment when he plotted revolution, while Gallus he banned from his home and from his provinces because of his ungrateful and malicious temper. But when he, too, as a result of the condemnations and senatorial decrees of his accusers, was forced to die, Augustus praised the loyalty of those who were so indignant on his behalf, yet also shed tears and bemoaned his lot, that he alone had not the power to decide how far he wished to take his anger toward his friends. (Suetonius, Augustus 66)

The only indications of the crime done by Gallus are his being banned “from his home and from his provinces because of his ungrateful and malicious temper.” Suetonius pairs Gallus with someone who “plotted revolution.” The text implies the crime of maiestas, though it is not explicit.136 Other parts of the record strengthen the impression that Gallus was guilty of maiestas. Dio writes, On the other hand, Cornelius Gallus was encouraged to insolence by the honour shown him (ὁ δὲ δὴ Γάλλος Κορνήλιος καὶ ἐξύβρισεν ὑπὸ τῆς τιμῆς). Thus, he indulged in a great deal of disrespectful gossip about Augustus and was guilty of many reprehensible actions besides; for he not only set up images of himself practically everywhere in Egypt, but also inscribed upon the pyramids a list of his achievements. For this act he was accused by Valerius Largus, his comrade and intimate, and was disfranchised by Augustus, so that he was prevented from living in the emperor’s provinces. After this had happened, many others attacked him and brought numerous indictments against him. The senate 134 Steven H. Rutledge, Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and informants from Tiberius to Domitian (London: Routledge, 2001), 66. Rutledge (p. 68) notes the prosecution of C. Silanus (former governor of Asia, in 22) for repetundae and maiestas simultaneously. 135 Rutledge, Imperial Inquisitions, 66, 67. 136 For instance, Wardle, Augustus, 428 does not consider Suetonius to indicate that Gallus was guilty of maiestas.

8. Misrule

53

unanimously voted that he should be convicted in the courts, exiled, and deprived of his estate, that this estate should be given to Augustus, and that the senate itself should offer sacrifices. Overwhelmed by grief at this, Gallus committed suicide before the decrees took effect. (Dio 53.23.5–7)

Dio had introduced the Gallus case by way of contrast with Agrippa, whose imperial honours profited the people and the emperor himself (53.23.1–4). Unlike Agrippa, Gallus disrespected Augustus and honoured himself throughout Egypt. The honour (τιμή) of Gallus insulted (ἐξυβρίζω) Octavian. Ando infers from Dio that “Gallus was regarded as a hostis publicus and charged with maiestas.” 137 Ovid notes that Gallus violated his friendship with Augustus (Am. 3.9.63–64), and that his specific crime was slander (Tr. 2.445–46).138 Martina Minas-Nerpel and Stefan Pfeiffer argue that the ultimate accusation against Gallus drew on his multiple – minor and major – misdeeds against the maiestas of the new emperor, such as “his questionable conduct in regard to constitutional laws” and “his almost ruler like self-presentation.” 139 They focus on the trilingual stela set up by Gallus in 29 BCE, which they conclude harmonises with Dio and Ovid in particular: Gallus pursued his own glory (Dio) and dishonoured Augustus (Ovid).140 The stela attests two specific ways in which the prefect was guilty. First, it is presented “as a victory monument” for Gallus, who crushed an indigenous revolt. 141 This undermined the propaganda of Octavian himself, who was purportedly the one who liberated and restored Egypt.142 Also, Gallus made the ruler of Meroe his own personal Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 139 fn. 34. Jo-Marie Claasen, “The Exiled Ovid’s Reception of Gallus,” CJ 112:3 (2017): 318–41 (335–36) contextualises Tr. 2.445–46 in terms of punishable slander. 139 Martina Minas-Nerpel and Stefan Pfeiffer, “Establishing Roman Rule in Egypt: The Trilingual Stela of C. Cornelius Gallus from Philae,” in Tradition and Transformation: Egypt under Roman Rule; proceedings of the International Conference, Hildesheim, Roemer- and Plizaeus-Museum, 3–6 July 2008, ed. Katja Lembke, Martina Minas-Nerpel, and Stefan Pfeiffer (Leiden: Boston, 2010), 265–98 (292). 140 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 281; see later Chapter 3. 141 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 282, 284. 142 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 282–84. See also Erich S. Gruen, “The Expansion of the Empire under Augustus,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 10: The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.–A.D. 69, ed. Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 147–97 (148): “All this had been accomplished by the spring of 29 B.C. when Gallus erected a trilingual inscription in Latin, Greek and hieroglyphics to celebrate his exploits. The prefect’s penchant for self-display eventually proved fatal. He had images of himself set up all over Egypt and a record of his achievements inscribed even on the pyramids. Such hybris, combined with a host of other alleged misdeeds, brought about Gallus’ recall, renuntiatio amicitiae by Augustus, accusation, conviction and suicide perhaps in 26 B.C.; E. A. Judge, “Veni. Vidi. Vici, and the 137 138

54

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

amicus, or cliens.143 This entailed conducting external affairs without being authorised by either the Senate or Octavian.144 So the sources portray Gallus as diminishing the imperial maiestas and guilty of misrule. The problem of misrule becomes clearer in other cases. In Philo’s eyes, the prefect Flaccus was the puppet of Ἰσίδωροι στασιάρχαι (“Isidoruses, rebellion instigators,” Flaccus 20) and therefore guilty of misrule. If there is στάσις (“rebellion”), there is misrule. Flaccus invented an accusation against the Ἰουδαῖοι for storing arms as though for revolt (Flaccus 86–96).145 He made Caligula see them as enemies, because he did not relay to him their decree concerning imperial honours (Flaccus 97–103). But he was then arrested and taken to Rome as an exceptional case of repetundae (Flaccus 104–18). For it was at this juncture that Justice, the champion and defender of the wronged, the punisher of unholy deeds and men, began to prepare for the battle against him. To begin with, he underwent an unprecedented humiliation and a disaster such as had not befallen any of the former governors since the house of Augustus acquired the dominion over land and sea. To be true, also some of those who had held governorships during the reigns of Tiberius and his father Caesar, had perverted their office of administrator and protector into despotism and tyranny. They had done their territories irreparable damage by bribery, plunder, unjust condemnations, banishment and exile of completely innocent people, and execution of the powerful without trial. But when, after their term of office, these men returned to Rome, the emperors always demanded a rendering of their accounts and an examination of their conduct, especially when the cities that had been oppressed sent an embassy. On those occasions the emperors showed themselves impartial judges. They listened equally to the accusers and the defendants, and they made it a principle not to condemn anyone in advance without a fair trial. They decided what appeared to be just, not being influenced by hostility or favor but by the objective truth. But in Flaccus’ case it was not after his term of office but before the regular date that he was met by Justice, who hates

Inscription of Cornelius Gallus,” in The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, ed. James R. Harrison (WUNT 229; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 72–75 (73): “It is noteworthy that the Latin text avoids specifically attributing his appointment to Caesar, as the Greek correctly does, and omits the latter’s title imperator, thus allowing Gallus to monopolise the credit. This must have been a personal affront to Caesar, and hardly allows us to view the text as a monument to the glory of the empire by his faithful servant … But after promotion he clearly decided on a bid for independent fame, deliberately accentuating his novel status in Egypt as his first title to glory.” 143 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 286. See also László Török, “Between Egypt and Meroitic Nubia: The Southern Frontier Region,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, ed. Christina Riggs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 749–62 (752–53): the relevant part of the Greek text in particular “was meant to give the impression of an unusual legal arrangement, namely that the prefect obliged himself to protect the interests of Meroe’s king in Rome.” 144 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 290. 145 The term used is συκοφάντημα, once with διαβολή (Philo, Flaccus 89); also, συκοφαντέω occurs with ὕβρις (Flaccus 95).

8. Misrule

55

evil, because she was so indignant at the unimaginable excesses of his unjust and lawless activities. (Philo, Flaccus 104–07146)

Philo’s account of Flaccus attests not only that repetundae was recognised among some Jews in Egypt, but also that it was possible for Jews to see the governor at odds with his emperor. They knew that Caesar judges the one who undermines his empire. Having now analysed two important incidents of misrule, I will turn to the responsibility of provinces to uphold the superiority of Caesar. In 19 CE Germanicus (Tiberius’ son, Augustus’ grandson) issued two edicts while visiting Egypt (SB I, 3924). In the second edict ll. 42–45 read, τὰ δὲ ὑμέτερα ἐν ὑ̣π̣ο̣π̣α̣ρ̣ε̣τ̣ι̣α̣ | ἐστὶν τῆς ἐκείνων θειότητος ὡς | ἐάν μοι μὴ πεισθῆτε | ἀναγκᾶτέ με | μὴ πολλάκις ὑμῖν ἐνφανίζεσθαι (“your actions are a denial | of the divinity of those persons so that | if you are not persuaded by me | you force me | to show myself infrequently to you”).147 Germanicus laments that the Egyptians are diminishing the θειότης (or maiestas) of the imperial family (namely Tiberius and his mother), into which he has been adopted. The first of the two edicts may indicate the way in which they are so guilty, namely their ἔργον λῃστείας (“deed of banditry,” l. 30). This λῃστεία (in this instance, requisitioning transport; see the first edict) denies the θειότης of the imperial family, and so Germanicus threatens not to make public appearance. This interpretation presumes the connection between the edicts, which seems fair considering that they are recorded on the one papyrus and for the same occasion of Germanicus visiting Egypt. The major concern is that the imperial θειότης needs to be protected throughout the Roman empire. Sometime between 13 and 15 CE the governor of Galatia, Sextus Sotidius Strabo Libuscidianus, relayed a bilingual edict from Tiberius. Stephen Mitchell persuasively argues that the document “was not the result of a Translation from Pieter W. van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus: The First Pogrom (PACS 2; Leiden: Brill, 2003). 147 Text and translation from S. R. Llewelyn, with the collaboration of R. A. Kearsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 7: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published 1982–83 (Macquarie University: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1994), 64–65. J. M. Oliver, “On the Edict of Germanicus Declining Divine Acclamations,” Rivista storica dell’ antichita 1 (1971): 229–30 reads, ἐν λόγ πάρερ̣γα (not ἐν ὑ̣πο̣ π ̣ α ̣ ρ̣ ε̣ ̣τ̣ι̣α)̣ and translates, “the deeds reputed as mine are but an additional working of their divinity.” The problem here is what the Egyptians consider deeds of Germanicus, not the deeds of the Egyptians themselves. Andrew Harker, Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt: The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 207 suggests that Oliver’s reading is “now generally accepted.” However, three decades earlier than Harker, Stephen Mitchell, “Requisitioned Transport in the Roman Empire: A New Inscription from Pisidia,” JRS 76 (1976): 106–31 (117) simply states that he finds the reading unconvincing. 146

56

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

spontaneous initiative by the governor, but was provoked by abuses of the system which had already occurred.” 148 Part of it translates, “with the intention … of enforcing it [= “a register of those services which I judge ought to be provided”] not only with my own power but with the superiority (maiestas = θειότης) of the best of princes from whom I received instructions concerning these matters.” 149 For Mitchell, the text “offers the first direct evidence for translating the word maiestas with θειότης.”150 The edict attests the governor ruling by way of the maiestas-θειότης of the emperor. In roughly 68 CE the prefect of Alexandria, Tiberius Julius Alexander, published an edict (OGIS 669). 151 Alexander emphasises that he has the power (δύναμις) to ensure that Alexandria continues enjoying the good works it has from the Augustuses (II, ll. 3–4). 152 He pursues the Alexandrians’ concerns relentlessly with his power (δύναμις), but he relays to the emperor greater matters that demand his power (δύναμις) and superiority (μεγαλειότης, II, ll. 6–10). Alexander says that he responds to their needs, “insofar as it lies within my power to judge and to act (ὅσα ἔξεστί μοι κρεί|νειν καὶ ποιεῖν)” (II. ll. 8–9).153 He makes orders on the basis of the wish of the divine Augustus, and he reiterates what the divine Augustus and other prefects have ordered. 154 He laments one particularly pressing problem: συκοφαντία (“false accusation”). For there will be no end of the false accusations, if those dismissed are brought in until one of them is sentenced guilty. Since the city is already nearly deserted because of the multitude of false accusers, and every home is thrown into confusion, I forcefully order, if Mitchell, “Transport,” 114. Mitchell, “Transport,” 109. 150 Mitchell, “Transport,” 117. Also, Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 395: “As early as the reign of Augustus, Greek-speaking subjects of the Roman empire indicated their understanding of his relationship with the gods when they rendered maiestas as θειότης and described treason as impiety.” By contrast, Mason, Greek Terms, 53 does not have maiestas but only divinitas for θειότης. 151 Another translation also in E. M. Smallwood, ed., Documents illustrating the Principates of Gaius Claudius and Nero (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). The seminal study is G. Chalon, L’Edite de Tiberius Julius Alexander: Étude historique et exégétique (BHR 5; Olten: Graf, 1964). 152 Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 368 finds a parallel in North Africa, where some estate tenants ask the procurators “to act ‘with that providence which they exercise in the name of Caesar.’ In their response, the procurators claimed to actualize the express will of ‘our Caesar, [in keeping with] the tireless care through which he continuously takes thought for the utility of the human race.’” For text and translation of CIL 8, 25943 and 26416, see D. P. Kehoe, The Economics of Agriculture on Roman Imperial Estates in North Africa (Hypomnemata 89; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 56–59. 153 On this, see Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 192. 154 OGIS 669 ΙΙ, ll. 16, 25, 26–27, 28–29. 148 149

8. Misrule

57

one of the accusers in the administrative department brings a lawsuit acting for another, that this one be produced by him [= the accuser in the idios logos, the administrative department], so that he may not be free from danger. (OGIS 669 II, ll. 40–42155)

Without action, Alexander sees no end to the false accusations (II, l. 40). The city is already nearly deserted because of the false accusers (II, l. 40), and so Alexander orders (II, l. 41) that they are targeted (II, l. 42). The edict goes on to outline the scope of the crime and the nature of the penalties: if one brings three failed cases, one is banned from accusing and has half their land confiscated (II, ll. 42–43). In addition, Alexander will openly publicise how he has punished false accusers (II, ll. 44–45). Ultimately, the only power who can deal with some problems completely is Caesar Augustus – the source of salvation for all (II, ll. 63–65). The text attests not only the prominence of the crime of false accusation throughout the empire but also the significant penalty that could accompany it. When governor of Bithynia-Pontus, Pliny was inundated with accusations from informers against Christians.156 Around 111 CE he wrote to Trajan, I have never attended hearings concerning Christians, so I am unaware what is usually punished or investigated, and to what extent. I am more than a little in doubt whether there is to be a distinction between ages, and to what extent the young should be treated no differently from the more hardened; whether pardon should be granted to repentance; whether the person who has been a Christian in some sense should not benefit by having renounced it; whether it is the name Christian, itself untainted with crimes, or the crimes which cling to the name which should be punished. (Pliny, Ep. 10.96.1–2157)

On “the crimes which cling to the name,” Walsh adds a short note: “‘homicide or sacrilege or incest or treason’ (so Tertullian, Apology 2).”158

155 Such cases of repeated false accusations are not uncommon in the papyri. Some men write P. Mich. 5, 231 (47–48 CE, Arsinoites) to petition Apollonios, the strategos of Arsinoites, about Orses, a local informer. They allude to the many complaints from those suffering at his hands. But they focus on the suicide of a needy man named Kronion, which ensued from the penalties imposed by Orses. The family has already submitted a petition, but these new petitioners offer to be plaintiffs for the court session because the matter has become exposed. In a similar letter, the writers of P. Tebt. 1, 43 (117 BCE, Alexandria) implore Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II and Cleopatra to protect them from further συκοφαντία, which they continue to fear, despite the verdict of innocence. 156 G. J. Johnson, “De conspiratione delatorum: Pliny and the Christians re-visited,” Latomus 47 (1988): 417–22 (421) suggests the possibility that charges against Christians in Pliny’s province were borne out of “factional or personal (as opposed to religious) animosity.” 157 Translation from P. G. Walsh, Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters (OWC; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 158 Walsh, Pliny, 369.

58

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

Pliny implicitly indicates uncertainty as to whether or not Christianity entails maiestas. Later in the course of the hearings, as usually happens, the charge rippled outwards, and more examples appeared. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians and called upon the gods after me, and with incense and wine made obeisance to your statue, which I had ordered to be brought in together with images of the gods for this very purpose, and who moreover cursed Christ (those who are truly Christian cannot, it is said, be forced to do any of these things), I ordered to be acquitted. Others who were named by an informer stated that they were Christians and then denied it. They said that in fact they had been, but had abandoned their allegiance, some three years previously, some more years earlier, and one or two as many as twenty years before. All these as well worshipped your statue and images of the gods, and blasphemed Christ. (Pliny, Ep. 10.96.4–6)

Pliny records the test he is giving both to those claiming that they were never Christians and to those claiming that they were once but are no longer Christians. To defend themself, the accused honours the gods and Caesar and also slanders Christ. The issue is the piety of Bithynia-Pontus toward Caesar, who is to be honoured alongside the gods. It is at any rate certain that temples which were almost abandoned have begun to be crowded, and the solemn rites which for long had been suspended are being restored. (Pliny, Ep. 10.96.10)

James Corke-Webster argues that Ep. 10.96 has two aims: “as a targeted attempt at provincial problem solving, and as a stamp of approval, both figurative and literal.”159 Amid his confusion, Pliny knows at least one thing for certain: he needs his province to know that he acts according to the emperor’s wishes, that his approach is the emperor’s. In his response, Trajan confirms that one must deny being a Christian and demonstrate that one is not in specific ways: a person who denies that he is a Christian and demonstrates this by his action, that is, by worshipping our gods, may obtain pardon for repentance, even if his previous record is suspect. Documents published anonymously must play no role in any accusation, for they give the worst example, and are foreign to our age. (Pliny, Ep. 10.97.2)

Trajan banned anonymous accusations, perhaps in part so that, if false, the accuser was identifiable and therefore punishable on the charge of calumnia.160 159 James Corke-Webster, “Trouble in Pontus: The Pliny–Trajan Correspondence on the Christians Reconsidered,” TAPA 147:2 (2017): 371–411 (393). 160 Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 238: “Pliny, in fact, had acted on the basis of anonymous denunciations, but Trajan, in his reply, very firmly and explicitly ruled these

8. Misrule

59

Pilate’s tenure in Judea, which I will discuss later, fits among these cases. Josephus connects Pilate and the problem of extortions. According to Josephus, Ant. 18.171–78, Tiberius aimed to negate repetundae cases. He did this by a policy in which he left prefects in provinces as long as possible. The policy protected provinces, without which they were susceptible to regular extortions by prefects. Josephus explains that these extortions were inevitable, but that they became less severe once prefects were satiated by their spoils and settled into their tenures. Josephus cites Pilate as proof of the policy: he and Gratus were the only prefects of Judea during 14–37 CE.161 Judea was later endangered by repetundae, as was the case with Florus, who, sent as prefect in 64 CE, extorted Judea and abandoned it to rebellion (στάσις, Josephus, War 2.288). 162 By contrast, the purpose of the province was to uphold maiestas, out of which came the imperium. When Archelaus’ territory was marked off as a province, in 6 CE Coponius was sent by Caesar as “judge of the nation” (δικαιοδότης τοῦ ἔθνους, Josephus, Ant. 18.1). He would “lead Ἰουδαῖοι with the universal authority” (ἡγησόμενος Ἰουδαίων τῇ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἐξουσίᾳ, 18.2), which Bond interprets as the imperium the governor carried into the province (Tacitus, Ann. 12.60).163 Coponius took from Caesar “an authority that went as far as putting [people] to death” into Judea (War out as unacceptable, and it seems to have been the general rule that accusations could be made only in person. This was the normal Roman procedure in all types of cases (the legal system, which had no equivalent of the modern public prosecutor, depended on individuals bringing cases); and it should have prevented such accusations from getting out of hand – with the accuser, appearing in person, himself liable for a charge of malicious prosecution (calumnia) if the accusation failed.” 161 Josephus, Ant. 18.177. Pilate was in Judea between ten and twenty years (19/26– 35/36/37 CE). For the view that Pilate became prefect of Judea in 19 CE, see Daniel R. Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Background to Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 182–217; K. Lonnqvist, “Pontius Pilate – An Aqueduct Builder? – Recent Findings and New Suggestions,” Klio 82 (2000): 458–74; Steve Mason, with Honora Chapman, Judean War 2: Translation and Commentary (Flavius Josephus 1b; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 139 fn. 1054. Or, perhaps he became prefect in 26 CE, as Bond, Pilate, 1 fn. 1 maintains. Perhaps he left Judea in 35 CE, as Etienne Nodet, “Pilate and Discrepant Sources,” in Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and History, ed. Jack Pastor, Pnina Stern, and Menahem Mor (JSJSup 146; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 259–77 (274) argues. Or, perhaps he was ejected in either 36 or 37 CE. Tiberius died in 37, while Pilate was on his way from Judea to Rome (Josephus, Ant. 18.89). 162 The turn of phrase Josephus uses for extortion is “being only on the take.” According to Mason, Judean War 2, 234 fn. 1847, “That Roman governors should be ‘on the take’ would not have surprised Josephus’ Roman audience.” Elsewhere, Josephus writes that Florus abused his authority so badly that he maddened the nation to revolt against the Romans (τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τοῦ ὑβρίζειν ἀπονοήσαντος αὐτοὺς ἀποστῆναι Ῥωμαίων, Ant. 18.25). 163 Bond, Pilate, 13 fn. 66. As Mason, Greek Terms, 133 indicates, Dio 58.7.4 uses ἀνθύπατικὴ ἐξουσία for imperium proconsulare.

60

Chapter 1: Diminishing Caesar’s superiority

2.117). The same applies to when Fadus arrived, in 44 CE, to find rebelling (στασιάζω) Ἰουδαῖοι (Ant. 20.2).164 He was upset that they had taken up arms rather than leaving the judgement about the Perea-Philadelphia borders to him (20.3). So he seized three of the principal men, who caused the rebellion (στάσις, 20.4). Having done away with the chief usurper (ἀρχιλῃστής) Tholomy, Fadus cleans Judea of bands of usurpers (λῃστήρια, 20.5). In between Coponius and Fadus, Pilate was also the judge of the nation, liable to his emperor not to misrule part of the empire.

9. Summary 9. Summary

In this chapter I contextualised one half of the judgement paradox I will argue is crucial to John 18:28–19:22: Jesus is accused of undermining Caesar, Pilate is threatened with it, but the false accusers are in the end the real, punishable perpetrators of the crime. Those who accuse Jesus turn out to become the accused. The phenomenon is paradoxical, but the ancient sources concerning maiestas, repetundae, and calumnia make sense of it. The accusation in 18:28–19:22 and 19:12 in particular – as well as Acts 17:7 – is not that Jesus has kingship, but rather that he declared his own kingship. Because the capacity to make kings and give kingships typified the superiority of Caesar, no one else was allowed to do so. This would amount to the crime of impiety toward the emperor, which especially in Tiberius’ and Domitian’s reigns related to both the risks and the rewards of false accusation, as well as to the rights and responsibilities of prefects. These three interconnected crimes illuminate the way the Johannine narrative attempts to understand the tradition of the inscription displayed over the crucified Jesus.

164

See also Josephus, War 2.220.

Chapter 2

Messiahs, kings, and prophets In the preceding chapter I contextualised the first part of the paradox of judgement in John 18:28–19:22. Jesus is accused of diminishing Caesar’s superiority, and Pilate is threatened with the same crime and a dangerous case of misrule, but the Ἰουδαῖοι become guilty of the crime through calumnia. I used Roman traditions of maiestas, repetundae, and calumnia to understand the legal function of Pilate and the “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” element of his inscription. There remains now the second part of the judgement paradox, in particular the theological function of Pilate and the “Jesus the Nazarene” element of his inscription. The main questions are, what is the relationship between Pilate and Jesus, and how does John conceptualise it? Further, if Pilate proclaims judgement with “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” what does he proclaim with “Jesus the Nazarene”? If he sees no cause for accusation in the exalted accused, what does he see in him? To address those questions in the following chapters, I will analyse ambiguities in the interactions between Jesus and Pilate. So, for instance, in 18:33–38a Pilate hears what Jesus says about his kingship, and in response declares him innocent of the false accusation (v. 38b). 1 The implication is that, instead of the lie about Jesus’ imperial disloyalty, Pilate now sees that Jesus witnesses to the truth. And in 19:9–12 Jesus affirms that Pilate has an ἐξουσία (“authority”) to release and to crucify him from above, which is where both Jesus’ ἐξουσία to lay down his own life (10:18) and Jesus himself come from (3:31).2 As Jesus himself is, the ἐξουσία Pilate shares with him is ultimately from God. If Pilate recognises that, and I will demonstrate the plausibility of the interpretation throughout, then he may be aware that what he writes in the inscription is only in part judgement against the Ἰουδαῖοι. In fact, he also writes hope. As Jesus embodies (2:21) the destruction and the restoration of the temple (v. 19), so Pilate writes it. As “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” Jesus embodies the calumnia and maiestas of the Ἰουδαῖοι. The truth about him, however, is that he is “Jesus the Nazarene,” the messianic

1 2

See later Chapter 6. See later Chapter 10.

62

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

temple builder. 3 Pilate presents to the reader the sum of the Johannine paradox of judgement in his inscription: “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (19:19). To argue that Pilate and Jesus both emerge as messianic figures with kingly and prophetic functions, in this chapter I will contextualise the ways they reflect the Davidic tradition. 4 In respect of Jesus, I will discuss John 6:14–15 and 7:40–52. Jesus seems, in the first place, to resist being made king after his prophetic sign so as not to aggravate Antipas, who, though Tiberius’ friend, was not made king by the Romans, as his temple-building father Herod was (6:14–15). The linkage, in addition, between Jesus’ prophetic identity and the criterion of an origin in Bethlehem evokes the widespread ancient association of David himself with prophecy (7:40–52). After Jesus, I will then turn to Pilate and analyse the ways prominent strands of the Davidic tradition incorporate foreign, imperial rulers. Despite the legislation in Deuteronomy that Israelites may only appoint an Israelite king, Isaiah makes Cyrus, the Persian, anointed by Yahweh. And despite the destroyed temple of the original Son of David, the Wisdom of Solomon aims to persuade Romans to be restored as temples of Sophia and share eternal, divine rule. In John Jesus may be read as both prophetic revealer and kingly revelation, and Pilate may be read as both prophetic author and kingly judge. Pilate, furthermore, only functions as such because he participates in Jesus’ Davidic, democratised anointing. Before those major sections, I will begin by introducing three prophetic features of John, namely, the prophetic characterisation of Jesus, his prophetic signs as both revealing mechanism and revelation itself, as well as the prophetic progression from destruction to restoration.

1. Introducing three prophetic features of John 1. Introducing three prophetic features of John

Johannine characters recognise Jesus not only as “prophet” (John 4:19; 9:17), but as “the prophet” (6:14; 7:40), a traditional, expected figure (1:21, 25) from Deuteronomy.5 Yahweh had promised to raise up after Moses another prophet, in whose mouth Yahweh will put his own words, and who will say

See later Chapter 3. In a similar way, Meeks, Prophet-King, 35 concludes that the Johannine Jesus is both prophet and messiah. As Koester, The Word of Life, 82 writes, Jesus is in this way a “paradox,” someone readers cannot confine to any one of the familiar categories in John. 5 According to Meeks, Prophet-King, 34, Jesus is designated prophet in John 4:19 and 9:17, “in each case by one who is in some sense a paradigm of incipient faith.” 3 4

1. Introducing three prophetic features of John

63

everything that Yahweh commands (Deut 18:18).6 One recognises a word that Yahweh did not speak (v. 21) when the thing that the prophet claimed to say in the name of Yahweh does not happen (v. 22). 7 To validate him as the prophet Deuteronomy describes, John makes explicit when Jesus’ prophecies are fulfilled. So, Jesus tells the disciples about Judas’ betrayal “before it occurs, so that you may believe, when it occurs, that I Am” (John 13:19). Jesus also tells them about his ascent to the Father “before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe” (14:29). Further, John refers to the fulfilment of not only the scriptures but also Jesus’ prophecies. Both 18:32, concerning Jesus’ word, and 19:24, concerning the scripture, for instance, use the passive form πληρωθῇ. In sum, according to Johannine theology, because Jesus reveals by prophetic means, his revelation is valid.8 Jesus’ characterisation as revealer and revelation is critical to his Johannine crucifixion. In John 8:28 Jesus tells the Ἰουδαῖοι that they will see two things when they exalt (ὑψόω) the Son of Man: first, “You will recognise that I Am;” and second, “From myself I do nothing, but I speak these things just as the Father taught me.” Jesus is the revelation of the divine identity, but he is also the revealer of the divine words. He is revelation and revealer at the same time, moreover, when the Ἰουδαῖοι exalt him in crucifixion. This is the climactic moment in which Jesus is both revealer in human σάρξ and revelation of divine δόξα (1:14). Bultmann saw that the revelation concept underpins Johannine narrative and theology.9 His claim is that though Jesus is both revealer and revelation, the content of the revelation remains obscure.10 Considering 8:28 and the emphasis on divine identity, however, I suggest that John is not obscure in that way. Jesus acts as human revealer and divine revelation. The way he reveals and the content of his revelation become 6 Paul N. Anderson, “The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father-Son Relationship,” Semeia 85 (1999): 33–57 (38) connects John 8:28 with Deut 18:18, and Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 102–51 places Deut 18:15–22 in the debates he constructs between Johannine insiders and outsiders. 7 The false prophet is punishable by death (Deut 18:20). 8 Adele Reinhartz, “Jesus as Prophet: Predictive Prolepses in the Fourth Gospel,” JSNT 36 (1989): 3–16 (10) concludes, “The Johannine Jesus is not only the prophet, but the prophesied, not only the mouthpiece for the divine word but the content of the message itself. The fulfilment of his words is seen as a proof or demonstration of Jesus’ divine identity, and is intended to contribute to the disciples’ – and the readers’ – faith in Jesus as the divinely sent redeemer and revealer.” 9 Rudolf Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 (1925): 100– 46. 10 Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, vol. 2 (trans. Kendrick Grobel; London: SCM, 1952), 43, 66. See similarly John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 491–529 (529).

64

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

clearer in 3:14, another instance of the ὑψόω thread I introduced earlier, where Jesus is exalted as the serpent was in the wilderness. The typology elucidates the function of Jesus’ crucifixion as simultaneously judgement and hope. The exalted Jesus is both the revealer and the revelation of destruction and restoration – but the destruction and restoration of what exactly? The counterpart to the prophetic word in destruction and restoration is often the prophetic sign. Ezekiel writes “Jerusalem” on a brick (Ezek 4:1), sets up a mock siege around it (v. 2), and puts it in motion as the “sign” for Israel (v. 3), before lying on either side to take on himself the punishment of Israel and Judah (vv. 4–8). Isaiah prophesies that the Lord will raise a “sign” for the nations, to regather Israel and Judah (Isa 11:12). In the same vein, when he is exalted, the Johannine Jesus will draw all to himself (John 12:32). Jesus has prophesied that very sign (2:18) about the temple (v. 19) of his body (v. 21), concerning its destruction and restoration. His death regathers not only the nation but also the dispersed children of God (11:52), something the high priest Caiaphas had prophesied (v. 51). So Jesus reveals and is the revelation of the destroyed and restored temple, the eternal place where humans may witness the divine glory in flesh (1:14). And he is that paradox under the inscription that labels him “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (19:19). The way John connects the destruction-restoration cycle with the temple demands closer attention. In John 2:19 Jesus commands the Ἰουδαῖοι, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The saying recalls the cycle between destruction and restoration that recurs throughout the Hebrew prophets. To strengthen that impression, in the preceding v. 18 the Ἰουδαῖοι demand from Jesus the sign for what he did during the Passover. Jesus had found temple operations in full swing (v. 14), and he had proceeded to drive out the animals and money changers (v. 15). He also verbalised his demonstration: “Take these things out of here; stop making my Father’s house a marketplace” (v. 16). According to what Jesus says in v. 19, the sign for what he did requires the Ἰουδαῖοι to act. If they do not destroy the temple, he cannot rebuild it. That is only the first of two layers of meaning. Because they fixate on one sense, the Ἰουδαῖοι misunderstand Jesus. They suppose that he means to rebuild the physical temple where John sets the scene (v. 20). But the full meaning of Jesus’ words is lost not only on the Ἰουδαῖοι. The disciples themselves only remember (John 2:22) that Jesus talked about the temple of his body (v. 21) after he rose from the dead. Jesus needs the Ἰουδαῖοι to cause the restoration of his temple and body. If they do not destroy his body, it has no restoration. In the opening chapter of his volume Reading Prophetic Books Marvin Sweeney foregrounds the way in which the Hebrew prophets deal with “the questions of the destruction and the projected

2. The transition from John 6:14 to 15

65

restoration” of the temple, as well as “the significance of these events” both within Israel and Judah and beyond.11 The call of Jeremiah exemplifies the pattern. Recalling Deuteronomy’s new prophet (Deut 18:18), Jeremiah will say everything Yahweh commands (Jer 1:7), and Yahweh puts his words in the mouth of Jeremiah (v. 9). Yahweh appoints Jeremiah “over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (v. 10). The prophetic words are speech acts. They themselves are the act of judgement. As Walter Brueggemann observes, “Jeremiah’s vocation is not simply to talk about, describe, report, or anticipate destruction and restoration but to enact all that by his utterance.”12 Likewise, the Johannine Jesus’ temple-orientated words and acts effect judgement and hope. What Jesus tells the Ἰουδαῖοι to do in John 2:19 bears directly on the exaltation of the Son of Man and the paradox of his inscription. “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” encapsulates the temple of Jesus’ body’s destruction and restoration.

2. The transition from John 6:14 to 15 2. The transition from John 6:14 to 15

When John adds to the temple the theme of kingship, it recalls the Herodian dynasty. As I just discussed, Jesus connects Herod’s temple to the destruction and restoration (John 2:19) of his own body (v. 21), to his own death and resurrection. The way, moreover, the Ἰουδαῖοι bring Jesus to his crucifixion by the Romans is the accusation that he himself is “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (John 18:33, 39; 19:3, 7, 12, 19, 21), something Antony made Herod (Josephus, War 1.282). 13 In the case of Herod, the Davidic vocation of rebuilding the temple and his friendship with the Romans went hand in hand.14 As I discuss that particular connection, the possibility that it applies to the Johannine Jesus will emerge. That is, if he restores the temple by way of the cross, he may be enabled in some way by the prefect from Rome. Pilate may sense that Jesus has kingship, but he declares him innocent of taking kingship not ratified by Caesar. In a subtle way, John has already intimated Marvin A. Sweeney, “Reading Prophetic Books,” in Reading Prophetic Books: Form, Intertextuality, and Reception in Prophetic and Post-Biblical Literature (FAT 89; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 19–31 (19). 12 Walter Brueggemann, The Theology of the Book of Jeremiah (OTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 61. 13 Cassius and Marcus similarly made Herod “King of Judea” (Josephus, Ant. 14.280), the title belonging originally to David (7.101). 14 Beth M. Stovell, Mapping Metaphorical Discourse in the Fourth Gospel: John’s Eternal King (LBS 5; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 86–89 discusses the connection between temple building and the Davidic dynasty. 11

66

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

Jesus’ awareness of the dynamics of Roman friendship and Herodian kingship. The crowd confess Jesus as prophet (John 6:14) and try to make him king, but Jesus retreats (v. 15). So when the people saw the sign that he did, they said, “He is truly the prophet who is coming into the world.” When Jesus recognised that they were about to come and snatch him up to make him king, he retreated again to the mountain by himself. (John 6:14–15)

In this section I will trace the way in which Antipas, one of Herod’s sons, contextualises that enigmatic transition between John 6:14 and 15. If Jesus retreats from kingship not ratified by Caesar, he not only is innocent of the accusation made against him by the Ἰουδαῖοι, but he may also be a friend of Rome. Adam Marshak recognises that Herod became the “new Solomon” when he reconstructed and expanded the Jerusalem temple.15 In that building project “he attempted to link himself with the Jewish paradigms of royal leadership, David and Solomon.”16 Josephus, Ant. 15.380 records that Herod determines to rebuild the temple, to finish it as an eternal memorial to himself.17 Herod makes his speech to the multitude in Ant. 15.382–387, persuading them to endorse his project. He argues that the temple Cyrus and Darius built (15.386) is smaller than the one Solomon built (15.385). Andreas Kropp observes, “The traditional design of the temple building demonstrates that Herod’s principal aim was to restore the design of the Solomonic temple, but vastly outdo it in magnitude… Solomon was Herod’s model for designing the new temple.”18 Herod set out to imitate and overshadow Solomon. And his speech makes clear that the main reason he can rebuild the temple is his friendships with the Romans (15.387). The new temple would thus reflect not only Davidic aspiration but also Roman orientation. In John 2:19, likewise, Jesus signals his own associations with David and Rome. What happens after Herod is of particular importance to John 6:14 and 15. Archelaus replaced Antipas as successor (Josephus, War 1.664) and king (1.668), because Herod amended (1.644, 646) his will, of which the emperor himself was in charge. 19 When Herod died in 4 BCE, Antipas was made

15 Adam Kolman Marshak, The Many Faces of Herod the Great (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), xiv, 338. 16 Marshak, Herod, 279. 17 Here, Josephus uses the verb ἐκτελέω (“finish”), which is cognate with the last word Jesus says on the cross: τελέω (“finish,” John 19:28, 30). 18 Andreas J. M. Kropp, Images and Monuments of Near Eastern Dynasts, 100 BC–AD 100 (OSACR; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 272. 19 Archelaus was given one half of the kingdom, was named ethnarch, and was (conditionally) promised kingship (Josephus, War 2.93; Ant. 17.317). He was removed,

2. The transition from John 6:14 to 15

67

tetrarch, as also was Philip.20 The first will left the kingship to Antipas, but the revised will did not, which led Antipas – not Philip – to contend (ἀμφισβητέω, War 2.20, 94) for the kingship. 21 However, Antipas never attained the kingship, and Agrippa later accused him of maiestas against Caligula, who then exiled him (Ant. 18.247–252).22 Caligula would give the kingships to Agrippa and his brother Herod (War 2.215, 217). The fate of Antipas spiralled downward from the initial promise of his father’s kingship over the Ἰουδαῖοι. Yet Antipas was once painfully close to the kingship, as his friendship with Tiberius suggests. 23 First, Josephus, Ant. 18.36 (also War 2.168) connects their friendship with the building of Tiberias (19/20 CE): “the tetrarch Herod, inasmuch as he had advanced before Tiberius in regard to friendship (φιλία), had a city built, named after him Tiberias, which is established in the best region of Galilee on Lake Gennesaritis.” 24 Second, however, in 6 CE, at which point his territory (Idumea, Judea, Samaria) became the province of Judea, governed by Coponius (War 2.117; Ant. 17.355). 20 Josephus, War 2.93–100; Ant. 17.318–21. 21 Josephus War 2.20–32; Ant. 17.224–27; Nicolaos FGrH 90, frag. 136 §§ 8–11. Mason, Judean War 2, 62 fn. 564 notices an inclusio between War 2.20 and 2.94, created by the verb ἀμφισβητέω (“contend”): “meanwhile Antipas, who in turn was contending (ἀμφισβητέω) over the kingship, went off into the fray: he reckoned the will in which he himself had been inscribed as king to be more authoritative than its codicil” (War 2.20); “the remaining half he divided into two tetrarchies and gave to the other two sons of Herod, the one to Philip and the other to Antipas (the one contending [ἀμφισβητέω] against Archelaus for the kingship)” (War 2.94). 22 Mason, Judean War 2, 156 fn. 1164. 23 On the texts in this paragraph, see Morten Hørning Jensen, Herod Antipas in Galilee (WUNT 2/215; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 224–26; idem, “Josephus and Antipas: A Case Study of Josephus’ Narratives on Herod Antipas,” in Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Zuleika Rodgers (JSJSup 110; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 289–312 (302– 03). 24 Josephus, Antiquities 18.35 notes Caiaphas becoming high priest and Pilate replacing Gratus, before 18.36 then mentions Antipas in connection with Tiberius and Tiberias. In addition, in Josephus, War 2.168 Tiberius becomes Caesar and Antipas builds Tiberias, before 2.169 then introduces Pilate. Besides 20 CE, 18 CE is another possible date for the building of Tiberias; see Michael Avi-Yonah, “The Foundation of Tiberias,” IEJ 1 (1950– 1951): 160–69. Beforehand, Antipas was educated in Rome (Ant. 17.20). Jensen, “Josephus and Antipas,” 307 writes, “Antipas is described as having close connections with the Roman emperor Tiberius and, as with Herod the Great, this Roman preference is coupled with an insensitive attitude towards the Jewish religion.” The main problems are reflected in Ant. 18.36–38 (establishing Tiberias on graves and with mostly the poor and freed slaves), 109–15 (divorcing his wife, the daughter of Aretas, for his half-brother’s wife, Herodias), 116–19 (executing John the baptiser). According to Jensen, “Josephus and Antipas,” 308, Josephus portrays Antipas “as another example of bad Herodian rule.”

68

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

according to War 2.178 (also Ant. 18.149–50), Tiberius rejects the accusation (κατηγορία) of Agrippa, the accuser (κατήγορος) of Antipas. Third, in Ant. 18.101–05 Antipas plays the crucial part (over against Vitellius, the governor of Syria) in the plan for Tiberius to establish friendship with Artabanus (Parthia). Fourth, the defeat of Antipas by Aretas, which Ant. 18.115 narrates, spurs the desire of Tiberius for revenge. In addition, the coins which Antipas minted in 20, 29, 30, and 33 CE incorporate the name Tiberias. 25 The friendship between Antipas and Tiberius, though it was strong, did not lead Antipas into his father’s kingship. When Jesus was crucified, Judea was under the prefect Pilate, and Galilee was under the tetrarch Antipas.26 The ways the gospels of Luke and Matthew portray Antipas in relation to Jesus are noteworthy. In Luke 13:31, first, the Pharisees tell Jesus to get out and go away, because Antipas wants to kill him. In response, Jesus calls Antipas “fox” (v. 32). But Jesus then exclaims that prophets are endangered by Jerusalem (v. 33), which always kills prophets (v. 34). 27 Like Pilate (23:4, 14, 22), Antipas will also find Jesus innocent (v. 15). So they become friends (23:12, 15), and Jerusalem goes on to kill Jesus. Unlike Luke, Matthew omits Antipas from the passion. Yet Matthew, like Luke, does portray tensions between Antipas and Jesus, which hinge on an association between John the baptiser and Jesus. Antipas hears reports of Jesus (Matt 14:1), which lead him to suppose that Jesus is the resurrected John (v. 2). When Antipas wanted to kill John, he feared the crowd who supposed him their prophet (v. 5). After Antipas kills John, the disciples of John bury the body and tell Jesus the news (v. 12). When Jesus hears, he retreats (ἀναχωρέω) from there (v. 13).28 So Luke and Matthew use Antipas as an indirect signal of Jesus’ fate.

25 After Tiberius’ death, however, Antipas minted coins in 39 CE which honoured Caligula. See Y. Meshorer, A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to Bar Kokhba (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2001), 83–84. This section follows Mark A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (SNTSMS 134; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), who (p. 177 fn. 57) cites Fred Strickert, “The Coins of Philip,” in Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, vol. 1, ed. Rami Arav and Richard A. Freund (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1995), 165–89 (170–71) concerning the possibility that Antipas and Philip issued coins after Pilate also did, in order to differentiate themselves from the prefect of Judea. 26 Matt 14:1; Luke 3:19; 9:7 refer to the τετραάρχης. 27 John T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 294: “not Herod but the recalcitrant and powerful elite in Jerusalem are the ones who will orchestrate Jesus’ death. That is a prophet’s destiny. So Jesus as (Messiah and) prophet prophesies his coming demise at Jerusalem.” 28 Matthew has already used the verb ἀναχωρέω in a parallel situation: the arrest of John. When Jesus hears about the arrest, he retreats (ἀναχωρέω) into Galilee (4:12). For ἀναχωρέω

2. The transition from John 6:14 to 15

69

I suggest that John, like Matthew and Luke, uses Antipas to indicate the fate of Jesus. As I mentioned already, Antipas established the city Tiberias for Tiberius. John does not mention Antipas himself, but it does mention his city: “Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee, of Tiberias” (John 6:1). 29 The syntax of τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς Γαλιλαίας τῆς Τιβεριάδος is ambiguous, though it may mean to combine the names “Sea of Galilee” and “Sea of Tiberias.”30 But they seem to be separable from each other, as John 21:1 has Sea of Tiberias by itself. Furthermore, the diverse transmission demonstrates the ambiguity of 6:1: P66 attests just της Γαλιλαιας, and Codex Bezae elaborates της Γαλιλαιας εις τα μερη της Τιβεριαδος. 31 By its syntactical ambiguity, John 6:1 draws attention to the city Antipas dedicated to the emperor Tiberius. The ambiguity of John 6:1, furthermore, makes the city Tiberias germane to the transition from v. 14 to 15. As τῆς Τιβεριάδος draws attention to Tiberias at the start of the literary unit (v. 1), so Tiberias recurs near the conclusion of the following unit (v. 23).32 The city of Tiberias frames the pair of scenes between vv. 1 and 23, namely vv. 1–15 and 16–24. And together, vv. 14–15 may function as the hinge for the two scenes. Initially, the people see the sign that Jesus did and confess him as the prophet (v. 14). But when the people attempt to snatch Jesus away (ἁρπάζω) and make him king (ἵνα ποιήσωσιν βασιλέα), he retreats (ἀναχωρέω) to the mountain (v. 15).33 John makes two connections. First, Jesus’ prophetic status excites the people’s messianic expectation. And second, because the people want to snatch away Jesus and make him king, Jesus retreats. Before turning to the first connection, I will investigate the second one in light of the instrumental mentions of Tiberias.

see also Matt 12:14; 15:21. In addition, Mark 3:7 uses ἀναχωρέω to describe Jesus’ response to the planning and conspiring Pharisees and Herodians. 29 Yet John 4:46 introduces a βασιλικός, a royal official who may belong to Antipas. On this, see Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture, 52–53. 30 The NRSV glosses τῆς Τιβεριάδος, “also called the Sea of Tiberias” (John 6:15). John contrasts with the other gospels, which use Sea of Galilee or Lake of Gennesaret. Sea of Galilee: Mark 1:16 // Matt 4:18; Mark 7:31; Matt 15:29. Lake of Gennesaret: Luke 5:1. Lake of Tiberias: Josephus, War 3.57; 4.456. 31 Barrett, John, 273 applies the rule lectio difficilior potior: “The clumsy text is no doubt the original.” 32 John 6:1–15 and 16–24. 33 Some suppose that ἀνεχώρησεν is not original in John 6:15. Barrett, John, 278, for instance, prefers φεύγει, which appears in Codex Sinaiticus. He reasons that John probably avoids “the notion of flight … as inconsistent with the dignity of Jesus.” However, φεύγω, like ἀναχωρέω, would indicate some manner of escape anyway.

70

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

John 6:15 may use the verb ἀναχωρέω in relation to the threat of Antipas, as Matt 14:13 also does. Antipas kills the prophet John in Matthew, and Josephus, Ant. 18.118 rationalises that Antipas feared the way John may influence the people to revolt. In the same way, what the crowd try to do in John 6:15 would antagonise Antipas and endanger Jesus.34 If Tiberius will not make Antipas king, even considering the friendship they had, then the people certainly ought not make Jesus king across from Tiberias. Peter Richardson sees “a poignant ring” in John 6:15.35 It would be foolish to flaunt kingship under the nose of Antipas, in front of the city he had gifted Tiberius. The use of the verb ἁρπάζω (“snatch away”) in John 6:15 moreover confirms that something sinister is going on. John 10:12, 28, 29 use ἁρπάζω in the good shepherd discourse to contrast the kingship of Jesus with those who unsuccessfully act against it. He is the shepherd who protects his sheep whom others try to snatch away.36 John 6:15 shows that Jesus is a shepherd who cannot be snatched away, and that his otherworldly kingship cannot be opposed by those who impose worldly kingship on him. Marianne Thompson contrasts John 6:15 with 18:33–36 and 19:11 in those terms of where Jesus’ kingship originates.37 His true, otherworldly kingship originates with God, not any crowd, nor any accusers. By the purpose clause ἵνα ποιήσωσιν βασιλέα (“to make him king”), 6:15 recalls other incidents in the narrative. The Ἰουδαῖοι try to kill Jesus, because he breaks the Sabbath and makes himself equal with God (ἀλλὰ καὶ πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεγεν τὸν θεὸν ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ, 5:18). The Ἰουδαῖοι ask Jesus whom he makes himself (τίνα σεαυτὸν ποιεῖς, 8:53). The Ἰουδαῖοι attempt to stone Jesus, because, though a human, he makes himself God (ὅτι σὺ ἄνθρωπος ὢν ποιεῖς σεαυτὸν θεόν, 10:33). Later, Jesus will be accused of making himself Son of God (ὅτι υἱὸν θεοῦ ἑαυτὸν ἐποίησεν, 19:7) and King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (πᾶς ὁ βασιλέα ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν ἀντιλέγει τῷ Καίσαρι, v. 12; also 18:33). But Pilate determines that Jesus has not taken kingship for himself (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). In

Tucker S. Ferda, “Crowds, Bread and Fame: John 6.1–15 and History Revisited,” JSNT 42:2 (2019): 139–61 (154) discusses the danger to Jesus that Antipas posed in historical terms, in specific respect of his response to the following John the baptiser had attracted. 35 Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (SPNT; Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 305 also interprets John 6:1 and 15 in terms of the competition between Antipas and his siblings over the kingship of their father Herod. 36 Matthew 11:12 also uses ἁρπάζω in relation to violent people mistreating the kingdom. Luke 16:16 parallels Matt 11:12, without ἁρπάζω. 37 On the contrast with John 6:15, Thompson, John, 142 writes, “Jesus withdraws from the crowd because his authority and kingly office come not ‘from himself’ or from the eager and restive crowd, but from God (18:33–36; 19:11).” 34

3. John 7:40–52 through a Davidic lens

71

fact, the Johannine Jesus retreats from kingship (6:15). Any worldly kingship thrust upon him opposes his true kingship, though it does so unsuccessfully.

3. John 7:40–52 through a Davidic lens 3. John 7:40–52 through a Davidic lens

Having examined the second connection between John 6:14 and 15, where Jesus retreats from the threat of kingship, I will analyse here the first connection between vv. 14 and 15: how John is able to view Jesus as both prophetic and kingly messiah. I am following Wayne Meeks’ thesis that in John “kingship is being radically redefined… in terms of the mission of the prophet.”38 David Rensberger has likewise designated the Johannine Jesus as “messianic king and prophet.”39 In this section I will contextualise the way John 7:41 and 52 equate an awaited messiah with an awaited prophet on the basis of Bethlehem origin – in John Ashton’s words, the “controversy over the twin titles.”40 So when they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “He is really the prophet.” Others said, “He is the Messiah.” But some said, “Surely the Christ does not come out of Galilee! Did not the scripture say that the Christ is out of the seed of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” … Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, says, “Our law does not judge the man without first hearing him and recognising what he is doing.” They answered and said to him, “Surely you are not out of Galilee! Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.” (John 7:40–42, 50–52)

The ambiguity of Jesus’ messianic identity there will inform my reading of Jesus as both prophetic and kingly Christ in John 18:28–19:22. There, the accusation (18:29) of doing evil (v. 30) deserving death (v. 31) fulfils the prophetic word he had already said about his death (v. 32), and where he explains to Pilate that the true kingship he has is from above (v. 37). Jesus’ messiahship in John depends on divine sonship in the same way that Davidic kings were also divine sons in the Jewish scriptures. According to 20:30–31, the purpose statement of the gospel, Jesus’ signs attest that he is

38 Meeks, Prophet-King, 67; see also Peder Borgen, “God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel,” in The Interpretation of John, ed. John Ashton (2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 83–95 and Sukmin Cho, Jesus as Prophet in the Fourth Gospel (NTM 15; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006). 39 David Rensberger, “The Messiah Who Has Come into the World: The Message of the Gospel of John,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 15–24 (18). 40 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 202.

72

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

both Christ and Son of God.41 Ashton notes that the prophecy from Nathan is the reason underlying that collocation of titles.42 In 2 Samuel 7 that prophecy commissions Solomon to build the temple for Yahweh (v. 13), and they will be son and father (v. 14). Likewise, in Psalm 2 Yahweh calls the king his son (v. 7), and Yahweh can make the nations and the ends of the earth belong to his son (v. 8). And in Psalm 89 the king, having been made the firstborn and the highest of the kings of the earth (v. 27), addresses “my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation” (v. 26). So because the title belonged to David’s dynasty, references to the Messiah throughout the New Testament denote the Davidic Messiah. This applies to John, not least considering texts such as the gospel’s concluding purpose statement (20:30–31). Margaret Daly-Denton proposes that the figure of David was a “paradigm” and “resource” for the Johannine “reinterpretation” of kingship, as “closely connected with his role as revealer of God.”43 In Ezekiel Yahweh promises to make one nation under one king (Ezek 37:22), the shepherd David (v. 24), which is when the “encamping” (κατασκήνωσις) of Yahweh will be among his one people (v. 27).44 In John, by comparison, the λόγος became flesh and encamped among people (σκηνόω), to reveal its glory (John 1:14), in particular by laying down his life for his sheep (10:15), to make one flock for the one shepherd (v. 16). Daly-Denton stipulates that the importance of the Davidic type in John does not negate the Mosaic type. 45 As Joel Willitts argues, the Johannine Jesus “subsumes” Mosaic authority, and that John manages this by way of a Davidic “system or structure.” 46 The precedent John uses the designation “Jesus Christ” on only two occasions (1:17; 17:3), and John also notes the translation of μεσσίας with χριστός only twice (1:41; 4:25). 42 John Ashton, The Gospel of John and Christian Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 133–44 (136). 43 Margaret Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel: The Johannine Reception of the Psalms (AGJU 47; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 315. 44 On these Ezekiel-John parallels, see Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel, 309–14. 45 Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel, 319–20. By comparison, Florentino García Martínez, “Two Messianic Figures in the Qumran Texts,” in Qumranica Minora II: Thematic Studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (STDJ 64; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 13–32 (24–29) shows that in the Qumran corpus both the Davidic king and the Mosaic prophet are eschatological messiahs. For one, 1QS 9.11 anticipates the coming of the prophet alongside the messiahs of Aaron and Israel. In addition, 4Q175 collates proof texts on the messianic prophet (Deut 18:18–19), the messianic king (Num 24:15–27), and the messianic priest (Deut 33:8–11). Only John Hyrcanus, according to Josephus, Ant. 13.299 // War 1.68, ever held all of the leadership of the nation, the high priesthood, and prophecy. 46 Joel Willitts, “David’s Sublation of Moses: A Davidic Explanation for the Mosaic Christology of the Fourth Gospel,” in Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini (AJEC 106; Leiden: Brill, 2018), 203–25 (208). 41

3. John 7:40–52 through a Davidic lens

73

Willitts finds is in Chronicles, which “sublates, rather than supersedes, the Mosaic with the Davidic.”47 David gives new laws, and the spirit inspires him in preparations for the temple. 48 God will inhabit the temple, as in the tabernacle. 49 David is a “man of God” (2 Chr 8:14), which effectively connotes “prophet” in Samuel–Kings. 50 James Kugel goes as far as suggesting that Chronicles emphasises the prophetic characterisation of David more than other biblical narratives. 51 So the interplay between the Mosaic prophet and the Davidic king would not be exclusive to John. David resembles a prophet in many other places. The lyre David plays in 1 Sam 16:23 to exorcise the evil spirit from Saul characterises him as a musical prophet (see 1 Sam 10:5).52 The last words of David in 2 Sam 23:1–7 are an oracle of the anointed one (v. 1), on whose tongue is the word of Yahweh (v. 2).53 Psalm 110 is both a “psalm of David” and an “oracle of Yahweh” (also Jer 6:12; Amos 4:12).54 Foreseeing the future temple, David wrote songs to be sung before the altar (Sir 47:9) and over sacrifices and offerings (11QPsa 2–11).55 Whereas most Qumran pesharim are on prophetic books, three are on Davidic psalms.56 Three times Josephus mentions David’s prophetic character where the scriptures do not.57 Philo says that David has prophetic gifts.58 And Willitts, “David’s Sublation of Moses,” 213. On law giving, see 1 Chr 15:12–24; 16:16–17; 28:11a, 13, 19; 2 Chr 23:18; 29:25; 35:4, 15. On temple building, see 1 Chr 28:12. 49 Willitts, “David’s Sublation of Moses,” 216. On God and temple, see 2 Chr 5:4–10; 7:12, 16; also 1 Chr 28:6, 10; 29. On God and tabernacle, see Exod 40:34–38. 50 On David, see Neh 12:24, 36. On “man of God,” see 1 Sam 9:7, 8, 10; 1 Kgs 13:14, 21, 23, 26, 29; 2 Kgs 1:13. On this, see J. Samuel Subramanian, The Synoptic Gospels and the Psalms as Prophecy (LNTS 351; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 19–30 (20). 51 James L. Kugel, “David the prophet,” in Poetry and Prophecy: The Beginnings of a Literary Tradition, ed. James L. Kugel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 45–55 (47). 52 Kugel, “David the prophet,” 48 pairs together the roles of “divine musician” and “prophet.” 53 Kugel, “David the prophet,” 48. 54 Subramanian, The Synoptic Gospels and the Psalms as Prophecy, 21. 55 George J. Brooke and Hindy Najman, “Dethroning David and Enthroning Messiah: Jewish and Christian Perspectives,” in On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets through the Eyes of Their Interpreters, ed. George J. Brooke and Ariel Feldman (BZAW 470; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016), 111–27 (113, 115, 117). 56 On 1QpPs (1Q16), 4QpPsa (4Q171), and 4QpPsb (4Q173), see Peter W. Flint, “The Prophet David at Qumran,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Mathias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 158–67 (167). 57 On 1 Sam 16:13 (Ant. 6.166); 2 Sam 24:24 // 1 Chr 22:1 (Ant. 7.334); 1 Kgs 8:15 (Ant. 8.109–10), see Subramanian, The Synoptic Gospels and the Psalms as Prophecy, 27. In addition, whereas David, “the king of the Ἰουδαῖοι, who never allowed himself to do anything without prophecy” (Ant. 7.72), seeks the high priest about God’s will and the impending battle’s outcome, with the result that he succeeds (7.73), Saul, “the king of the Ἰουδαῖοι” 47 48

74

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

the early Christian literature, both canonical and not, often assumes that David prophesies.59 So if John receives the Davidic tradition, the prophetic strand is almost certainly part of that reception. How exactly the Davidic tradition affects Johannine christology itself is ambiguous and implicit. George Brooke and Hindy Najman are right to note the ambiguity, but they infer that David is of limited importance to John.60 Brooke and Najman refer to the Bethlehem criterion in John 7:42, but they do not observe that in the context of the controversy the criterion relates the interplay of kingship and prophecy to the dynasty of David. They also refer to the effort to snatch away and make Jesus king in 6:15, though without observing the confession of Jesus as prophet in the preceding v. 14. The interplay of prophecy and kingship is also explicit in the collocation of Jesus’ prophetic word (18:32) and otherworldly kingship (v. 37) in 18:28–19:22. As “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” Jesus is prophetic revealer of the temple’s destruction, and as “Jesus the Nazarene,” he is kingly revelation of the temple’s restoration. In that twofold messianic capacity the crucified Johannine Jesus enters the Davidic dynasty as prophet and king.

4. Cyrus the Persian and Yahweh 4. Cyrus the Persian and Yahweh

In this and the following sections I will focus on the way John portrays Pilate. In particular, I will contextualise Pilate’s relationship with Jesus. The overarching question is, if the inscription characterises Jesus as revealer and revelation, what is Pilate’s function as author and judge in writing it? I established in the preceding chapter that, as prefect, Pilate is judge of the Ἰουδαῖοι. He is responsible to uphold Caesar’s maiestas in Judea. He also (6.98, also before battle with the Philistines), disobeys the prophet (6.101) and brings disfavour on himself (6.102, 104). 58 Philo, Heir 290. 59 Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; 2:30, 31; 4:25; Barn. 12.10. On David and prophecy, see also Margaret Daly-Denton, “David The Psalmist, Inspired Prophet: Jewish Antecedents of the New Testament Datum,” ABR 52 (2004): 32–47. 60 Brooke and Najman, “Dethroning David and Enthroning Messiah,” 125 suggests the limited importance of David to John: “For the Gospel of John there is explicit allusion to Jesus’s Davidic descent in 7:42 as members of the crowd question Jesus’s role and status and are divided amongst themselves. More importantly, in John 6:15 Jesus is described as thinking that those who had witnessed the feeding of the five thousand were about to come and take him by force to make him king; John does not put specific thoughts about Davidic kingship into Jesus’s mind. Or again, more elaborately, when Pilate and Jesus enter into a dialogue about kingship (John 18:33–38), nothing Davidic is put into the conversation, even though Jesus admits to exercising sovereignty.”

4. Cyrus the Persian and Yahweh

75

enacts Caesar’s imperium as far as putting to death those Ἰουδαῖοι who are disloyal to the emperor. Building on that picture, I will turn here to how Johannine theology incorporates that legal function. For this, Josephus is an important point of comparison. I noted in my introduction that Josephus interprets the Jerusalem temple’s destruction as God using the Romans to judge the Ἰουδαῖοι. I will go on to argue that John likewise interprets the inscription over Jesus as God using Pilate to judge the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate furthermore may become aware that the judgement he writes relies on divine revelation. As the Pharisees did in relation to the blind man in John 9:1–41, the Ἰουδαῖοι guide Pilate into the light in 18:28–19:22. Inside his praetorium, Pilate faces Jesus, the light of the world (8:12). And it is there, in the second and sixth scenes, that Jesus reveals God as the source of not only his own kingship but also the authority of Pilate. I argued in the preceding section that John situates Jesus in the Davidic dynasty, which is typified by prophecy, kingship, and temple building. To understand the ways in which the Johannine Pilate also functions in both prophetic and kingly capacities, I will analyse two ways in which the Davidic tradition incorporates foreign, imperial rulers: the Persian Cyrus, who is anointed to restore the temple; and the Romans in the implied audience of the Wisdom of Solomon, who are implored to become living temples. Inasmuch as Pilate’s relationship with Jesus in John is similar to the one Cyrus has with Yahweh and the one rulers have with Sophia, Pilate’s rule takes on prophetic and kingly characteristics. Throughout my reading of John 18:28–19:22, I will argue that Pilate appropriates the offices of prophet and king, and that on his inscription he writes the destruction of unbelievers in the old temple – “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” – and the restoration of believers in the new temple – “Jesus the Nazarene” (19:19). The law of kingship in Deut 17:14–20 is the “opening statement” in ancient Judean kingship discourse. 61 As the climax of the series in 16:18– 18:22, the law of the prophet in 18:15–22 subordinates the law of the king in 17:14–20.62 Whereas kingship is “permitted,” prophecy is “promised.”63 The law anticipates Israel electing a king, as the other nations do (v. 14). Whereas the institution of the king is not prescribed by Yahweh, its paralysing parameters certainly are. Israel shall not put a foreigner over them (v. 15). The king shall be bound to Yahweh’s torah (v. 18). He shall be under 61 Ian D. Wilson, Kingship and Memory in Ancient Judah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 43. 62 Deut 16:18–18:22 delineates four categories of authority in Israel: judges and state officers, the king, levitical priests, and the prophet. 63 A. Graeme Auld, Life in Kings: Reshaping the Royal Story in the Hebrew Bible (AIIL 30; Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 115.

76

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

Yahweh (v. 19). And he shall be equal with other Israelites (v. 20). He shall not hand down his own law, be divine, nor be superior to his people. And he shall not have horses, women, and riches (vv. 16–17). “Deuteronomy’s king is decidedly unkingly.”64 He is king in name only. Deuteronomy 16:18–18:22 subordinates every human authority to cultic centralisation and torah. 65 In this programme, the prophet, not the king, mediates Yahweh and writes laws. 66 Moses (Deut 31:24–26), Joshua (Josh 24:26), and Samuel (1 Sam 10:25) write laws. 67 Jeremiah emerges in the prophetic mould, with the words of Yahweh in his mouth (Jer 1:9 // Deut 18:18), assuming final place in “an ongoing chain of prophets.”68 Yahweh’s judgement, what is written down, and Jeremiah’s prophecies work together (Jer 25:13). In one particular case, Yahweh tells Jeremiah to take a scroll and write on it the judgement of Israel, Judah, and the nations (36:2). The king burns the scroll (v. 27), Yahweh tells him to rewrite it (v. 28), adding a new word not only against Jehoiakim (v. 29) and his royal line (v. 30), but against Jerusalem (v. 31), too. So Jeremiah takes another scroll and Baruch rewrites it (v. 32).69 Yahweh’s prophet has the power to write into being judgement against kings and peoples. The office of kingship evolved in a different but equally significant direction. The rise of foreign empires challenged the law that only an Israelite can be made king (Deut 17:15). Cyrus was ethnically Persian, not Israelite, so

Wilson, Kingship and Memory, 44. Bernard M. Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic History’s Transformation of Torah,” VetT 51:4 (2001): 511–34 (511, 512, 532). 66 Moses becomes a prophet in Deut 18:15, 18; 34:10. On this, see Thomas C. Römer, “Moses, Israel’s First Prophet, and the Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Prophetic Libraries,” in Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, ed. Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person, Jr. (AIIL 14; Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 129–45 (129). On some other prophets like Moses, see Risa Levitt Kohn, “A Prophet Like Moses? Rethinking Ezekiel’s Relationship to the Torah,” ZAW 114 (2002): 236–54; Gregory T. K. Wong, “Gideon: A New Moses?” in Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. Robert Rezetko, Timothy H. Lim, and W. Brian Aucker (VetTSup 113; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 529–46. 67 On the Joshua-Moses comparison, see Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 180; Wilson, Kingship and Memory, 44. And on the Samuel-Moses comparison, see Auld, Life in Kings, 117; Mark Leuchter, “Samuel: A Prophet Like Moses or a Priest Like Moses,” in Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History, 147–68. 68 On this, see Jer 7:25; 25:4; 26:5; 29:19; 35:15; 44:4; see also Römer, “Moses,” 136–39. 69 In some cases Yahweh writes his law, on tablets (Deut 5:22, 31) and on hearts (Jer 31:33). 64 65

4. Cyrus the Persian and Yahweh

77

he had to be made ideologically Israelite, in order to rule. 70 In Isa 45:1 Yahweh addresses his messiah (‫ )משיח‬Cyrus, whose right hand he has grasped. Yahweh will help him rule nations and kings (v. 1). Yahweh prepares the way for his messiah (v. 2), and he prospers him (v. 3a), so that Cyrus recognises who has called him (v. 3b), for the sake of his servant Jacob and his elect Israel (v. 4a). Though Cyrus did not recognise Yahweh, Yahweh named him (v. 4b). And through Cyrus, Yahweh makes himself known as the only god (v. 6, similarly v. 5), who creates and determines all things (v. 7). Here, he creates salvation and righteousness (v. 8). He stirs Cyrus up in righteousness and makes his paths straight (v. 13a). Cyrus builds the city of Yahweh and releases his exiles (v. 13b). The God of Israel is saviour (v. 15). The salvation is eternal (v. 17) and for those surviving the nations (v. 20), from the ends of the earth (v. 22), all the seed of Israel (v. 25). Cyrus reveals Yahweh’s identity and effects his eternal, universal salvation. The fourth-century CE Babylonian amora R. Nahman b. R. Hisda questions whether Isa 45:1 calls Cyrus the messiah (b. Meg. 12a). 71 He proposes that the messiah of Yahweh and Cyrus are separate figures. That interpretation translates, “thus says Yahweh, to his messiah (‫)למשיחו‬, against Cyrus (‫)לכורש‬.” It seems that Isaiah already senses the problem in the view that the Persian can become Yahweh’s messiah. Second Isaiah stresses its prophetic authority, with respect to the test of true or false prophecy in Deut 18:21–22. 72 Isaiah 45:9–13 rebukes anyone in the audience who disagreed with Yahweh restoring them through Cyrus.73 And though Cyrus is clearly Persian, the text makes him Israelite, too. Isaiah 45:1 refers to anointing only figuratively, and yet Cyrus somehow becomes messiah. 74 An anointing ceremony of sorts may be evoked in vv. 1–7.75 In addition, 42:1–4 resembles

Wilson, Kingship and Memory, 57. On this, see Matthew V. Novenson, The Grammar of Messianism: An Ancient Jewish Political Idiom and Its Users (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 34–35. 72 Isa 41:22–23, 25–29; 44:7–8, 26–28; 48:3–5, 16b; see Joseph Blenkinsopp, David Remembered: Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 66 fn. 22 and idem, “The Theological Politics of Deutero-Isaiah,” in Essays on Judaism in the Pre-Hellenistic Period (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017), 1–14 (10); originally in Divination, Politics and Near Eastern Empires, ed. Alan Lenzi and Jonathan Stökl (ANEM 7; Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 129–43. There is “an implicit acknowledgment of the likelihood of rejection” by the prophet; see 42:18–25; 43:22–28; 45:9–13; 46:8–13; 48:1–11. Hereafter I refer only to Blenkinsopp’s 2017 text. 73 Lisbeth S. Fried, “Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1,” HTR 95:4 (2002): 373–93 (392). 74 Novenson, The Grammar of Messianism, 52. 75 Blenkinsopp, “Politics,” 12. 70 71

78

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

an installation ceremony for the king. 76 Cyrus is made a Davidide, which legitimises him as a Davidic messiah.77 Yahweh calls him his servant (42:1) and his shepherd (44:28).78 The prophet argues that Cyrus “will take over the succession to the now defunct Davidic dynasty.”79 Second Isaiah “couples its restoration with the Persian king.”80 In the same vein, Chronicles concludes by focusing “on Cyrus as the divinely inspired agent of Yahweh.”81 Cyrus, King of the Persians, after the fulfilment of the word of Yahweh through Jeremiah, made an announcement to his kingdom in writing (2 Chr 36:22). Yahweh gives him all the kingdoms of the earth and commands him to build the temple (v. 23). His empire and his commission to rebuild the home of Yahweh are divinely determined. He overtakes and exceeds David’s own son, Solomon. Cyrus is the first fruits of Yahweh restoring his own people through foreigners. Joseph Blenkinsopp reflects on the way the Isaianic vision prioritises imperial interests over national ones: Deutero-Isaiah’s theological politics were radical in contemplating, for the first time, the possibility of a future without the apparatus of a nation state including a native dynasty, and in pointing the way to living in an almost inconceivably larger world, the world created by the vast Persian empire, under the providence of a God whose concerns exceeded the limits of nation and ethnic group.82

Isaiah ventures to say that God can use – instead of native, national rulers – gentile, imperial rulers as messiahs. Although he is not an Israelite, Cyrus becomes a Davidide who issues written proclamations and restores the temple. The foregoing contextualises the way I will analyse the prophetic and kingly characteristics of Pilate in John 18:28–19:22. As prophet, Pilate writes divine judgement against people – “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” And in spite of the legislation in Deuteronomy against Israelites being ruled by foreign kings, Cyrus becomes the precedent that allows Pilate also to become a Davidide. Psalm 2; 72; 110; see Blenkinsopp, “Politics,” 9 fn. 10, 11. Fried, “Cyrus,” 374, 392 argues that Isaiah legitimises Cyrus “as the Davidic monarch, heir to the Davidic throne” and “in actuality the genuine Judean king.” 78 David, too, is servant and shepherd in 2 Sam 7:8; Ezek 34:23; 37:24; see Blenkinsopp, “Politics,” 11. 79 Blenkinsopp, “Politics,” 10. 80 Jacob Stromberg, “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration Reconfigured,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40–66, ed. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer and Hans M. Barstad (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 195–218 (196). On the role of Cyrus in restoration across Ezra–Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Daniel, see Stromberg, “Restoration,” 197–99. 81 Blenkinsopp, “Politics,” 8. 82 Blenkinsopp, “Politics,” 14. 76 77

5. Roman rulers and Sophia

79

So as Cyrus did, Pilate writes public proclamations and enables the restoration of the temple – “Jesus the Nazarene.” In particular in Isaiah, Cyrus reveals the divine identity and instigates eternal, universal salvation. Pilate does the same with respect to “the saviour of the world” (4:42). Johannine restoration depends on the Davidic appropriation of an imperial, foreign ruler, just as Isaianic restoration does. The comparison between Isaiah’s Cyrus and John’s Pilate is especially significant considering the instrumental role of Isaiah in other aspects of the praetorium episode.83

5. Roman rulers and Sophia 5. Roman rulers and Sophia

After Cyrus, other foreign imperial rulers were able to enter the Davidic dynasty. As son of David, Solomon became “the centre of messianic expectation.”84 Nathan had prophesied Solomon as heir to an eternal throne and the builder of the temple (2 Sam 7:4–17). However, the first temple was long destroyed by the first century, and the Roman empire was in no way Davidic. So by direct contrast, the Wisdom of Solomon (hereafter Wisdom) characterises Sophia, whom an anonymised Solomon loves and seeks, as the eternal source of kingship and builder of living temples. In Wis 7:27 Sophia “can do all things though she is one, and she renews all things though she remains in herself; and in each generation she creates (κατασκευάζω) friends of God and prophets, by passing into holy souls.” When he describes his forming of Cyrus, the foreign messiah who restored the temple, the Lord uses that same verb of creating, κατασκευάζω, in LXX Isa 45:9.85 Regardless of whether or not the similarity was deliberate or conscious, Wisdom may be See later Chapters 5 and 8. Moyna McGlynn, “Solomon, Wisdom and the Philosopher-Kings,” in Studies in the Book of Wisdom, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér (JSJSup 142; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 61–82 (77). 85 Wisdom uses the verb κατασκευάζω in relation to God’s creation of humans (Wis 13:4), which he did with Sophia (9:2), and more generally everything that God has created (11:24), as well as both figurative building (13:11), and non-figurative building (14:2). Wisdom connects Sophia’s part in both God’s (9:2) and any artisan’s building work (14:2) with her role in establishing divine friendship (7:27). She creates and structures “friends of God” out of those whose holy souls she enters. LXX Isaiah influenced Wisdom more generally (Winston, Wisdom, 21), and it may do so in terms of its use of κατασκευάζω. LXX Isaiah uses κατασκευάζω in relation to an artisan’s making of an image (40:19), God’s creation of all reaches of nature (40:28), God’s constitution of his people Israel (43:7), God’s creation of light (45:7), and God’s forming of Cyrus (45:9). Isaiah uses the verb κατασκευάζω in contexts of creation (the earth, light), election (Israel), and redemption (Cyrus), and alongside verbs such as ποιέω (“make”), πλάσσω (“form”), and κτίζω (“create”). 83 84

80

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

comfortably placed on that Cyrus trajectory. I will argue that Wisdom offers imperial rulers participation in divine, otherworldly kingship. The argument will contextualise my reading of the Johannine Pilate, who – though Roman and from the emperor – has a rule that is both Davidic and heavenly. The comparison of Wisdom and John is strengthened further, moreover, in light of two interrelated correspondences I will analyse later: an episode about the unjust execution of an innocent divine son, and the theology that judgement corresponds to the sin.86 In many places the New Testament resembles not only the sapiential tradition but also Wisdom more specifically. 87 Most importantly, as those who love Sophia become friends of God (Wis 7:27), so those who believe in the λόγος become children of God (John 1:12).88 The model in Wisdom is an anonymous king, the traditional Solomon, who teaches the way he became an ideal ruler, a friend of God and prophet whom Sophia created (Wis 7:27). The king has kinship (8:17) and friendship (v. 18) with her. He desires συμβίωσις (“shared, joined life”) with her (vv. 9, 16), just as she also has συμβίωσις with God (v. 3). Sophia is neither eternal light nor temporal light, but she both reflects the one and antecedes the other (7:26, 29). So she is with respect to kingship. Sophia manages (διοικέω) worldly affairs out of her intimacy with God (8:1). Those who rule on the earth are assistants to the kingdom of See later Chapter 9. Joseph R. Dodson, The ‘Powers’ of Personification: Rhetorical Purpose in the Book of Wisdom and the Letter to the Romans (BZNW 161; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008) finds continuities between Romans and Wisdom in terms of the use of personification, for instance of Death, Sin, and Creation. Jonathan A. Linebaugh, “Announcing the Human: Rethinking the Relationship between Wisdom of Solomon 13–15 and Romans 1.18–2.11,” NTS 57:2 (2011): 214–37; idem, God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation (NovTSup 152; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 93–120 situates Wisdom and Romans in debate with each other on anthropology in Rom 1:18–2:11 and Wisdom 13–15. Harold W. Attridge, “New Covenant Christology in an Early Christian Homily,” in Essays on John and Hebrews (WUNT 264; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 281–93 (283) sees Wis 7:25–26 as the source of the images “reflection of God’s glory” and “imprint of God’s very being” in Heb 1:3. On the encomia in Wis 7:22–8:1 and Col 1:15–20, see Matthew E. Gordley, The Colossian Hymn in Context: An Exegesis in Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Hymnic and Epistolary Conventions (WUNT 2/228; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 82–83. On Wis 7:21 (the fashioner of all things is Sophia) and 1 Cor 8:6 (all things and people exist through Christ), see Ronald Cox, By the Same Word: Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (BZNW 145; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 150. 88 When scholars compare Wisdom with John, they tend to note the parallel between Wis 7:27 and John 1:12: Dodd, Interpretation, 275; Sharon H. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 5. 86 87

5. Roman rulers and Sophia

81

God (v. 4), and if they honour Sophia, they may rule forever (v. 21).89 Just ones who live forever (5:15) receive from the Lord a royal authority of dignity and a diadem of beauty (v. 16). Divine truth and love, not ethnicity, shape the kingship of those elect ones who trust and believe the Lord (3:9). In the first place, Wis 1:1 addresses “the ones who judge the earth.”90 And later, 6:1 has, “Hear therefore, you kings, and understand; learn, you judges of the ends of the earth.” These addresses seem to imply “the spreading power of Rome.” 91 The rulers are therefore “powerful governors ruling an immense empire.”92 The divine gives power (κράτησις, v. 3) and sovereignty to human kings and judges. The term κράτησις possibly recalls Augustus’ capture of Alexandria during the reign of Cleopatra, according to David Winston.93 Yet as M. Gilbert suggests, “the κράτησις is attributed not to a people, but to the kings,” the governors of the empire. 94 Wisdom aims, Gilbert continues, to inspire “some hope for a more just political situation under the Augustan κράτησις” (v. 9), after Antony and Cleopatra, in particular (v. 4).95 Details aside, Daniel Timmer suggests that Wisdom offers Sophia “even to Rome’s highest authorities, if we take the addressees of 1:1 and 6:1–4 seriously at least at the level of rhetoric.”96 Not only are Roman rulers Wisdom’s implied audience, but Wisdom also says nothing against Rome, the emperor, or the empire. On the surface, however, Wis 14:17 may seem to problematise that view: “When people could not honor them in their presence because they lived far off, they imagined their appearance from afar, and made a visible image of the king whom they honored, that through diligence they might flatter the absent one 89 Moyna McGlynn, Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom (WUNT 2/139; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 108: “Thrones and sceptres (6.23) are symbols of earthly power and responsibility, yet combined with wisdom they signify an eternal reign (6.21). Wisdom, who will give immortality, will be openly discussed and shown to mortal kings (6.22).” 90 According to David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 43; New York: Doubleday, 1979), 100, judging is synonymous with ruling in Wis 6:1. David Volgger, “Die Adressaten des Weisheitbuches,” Bib 82 (2001): 153–77 proposes that Wisdom may be written to real rulers. 91 Winston, Wisdom, 152. 92 M. Gilbert, “‘Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord.’ Wis 6,4,” in La Sagesse de Salomon – The Wisdom of Solomon, Recueil d’études – Collected Essays (Rome: GBP, 2011), 121–40 (125). 93 Winston, Wisdom, 152 notes the similarity with John 19:11. Winston (p. 153) cites the list of pagan festivals in m. AZ 6.3, as well as Dio 51.99.6. 94 Gilbert, “‘Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord,’” 129. 95 Gilbert, “‘Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord,’” 135. 96 Daniel C. Timmer, “Empire Here or Hereafter? A Postcolonial Reading of the Wisdom of Solomon,” SR 44:1 (2015): 77–90 (84).

82

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

as though present.” There, Manolis Papoutsakis identifies the imperial ruler cult as a source of idolatry, and Drew Strait sees “an unmistakable reference to the Roman era.” 97 Strait refers to Wis 14:16–21 as “a polemic against rulers’ cultic media,” purposed to resist divine honours.98 However, although Strait relies in large part on σέβασμα being an Augustan neologism, the term does not refer to cultic practice to Augustus (Σεβαστός) alone.99 So for two examples, Paul, according to Acts, sees the σεβάσματα to various gods around the city of Athens (Acts 17:23), and Josephus refers to σεβάσματα as household idols of native gods (Ant. 18.344). Therefore, even in Wis 14:17, Rome, the emperor, and the empire are not direct targets of any specific charge or threat. But if not Rome, what does Wisdom oppose? Not only does Wis 14:12 state the specific danger to be that statues cause erotic desire, but the aetiology in v. 15 has no clear Augustan parallel.100 According to v. 18, the ambition of craftspeople is, in part, at fault for these images. He cites Jason von Ehrenkrook, but Strait does not note any disagreement he has with him. 101 Von Ehrenkrook, however, has pointed to two important texts that undermine Strait’s empire-critical reading. Isaiah 44:9–20 denigrates the building and worship of such lifeless idols, and Horace, Sat. 1.8.1–3 mocks lifeless idols that people proclaim as gods.102 So even if Wis 14:1–31 prompts some indirect Augustan parallels, it has no polemic against the maiestas and imperium of Augustus himself.103 Wisdom clearly condemns idolatry, without rejecting ruler veneration.104 As Timmer concludes,

97 Manolis Papoutsakis, Vicarious Kingship: A Theme in Syriac Political Theology in Late Antiquity (STAC 100; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 148; Drew J. Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul’s Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech,” JBL 136:3 (2017): 609–32 (618). 98 Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” 617, 619. 99 Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” 619–23. 100 “For a father, tormented by untimely grief, having made an image of the child who had been quickly taken away, now honored as a god what was once a dead human being and handed on to his dependants mysteries and sacred rites”; see the textual notes in Winston, Wisdom, 273–77. 101 Strait, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” 618 fn. 39; Jason von Ehrenkrook, Sculpting Idolatry in Flavian Rome: (An)Iconic Rhetoric in the Writings of Flavius Josephus (EJIL 33; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 49–58; idem, “Image and Desire in the Wisdom of Solomon,” Zutot 7:1 (2011): 41–50 (50). 102 Horace, Sat. 1.8.1–3: “Once I was a fig-wood stem, a worthless log, when the carpenter, doubtful whether to make a stool or a Priapus, chose that I be a god.” Elsewhere, Horace recognises the superiority of Augustus (Ep. 2.1.258; Odes 4.15). 103 Gilbert, “‘Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord,’” 137 sees criticism of the Pax Augusta in v. 22: “but though living in great strife through ignorance, they call such great

5. Roman rulers and Sophia

83

both hybridity and resistance seem conspicuously absent in Wisdom’s posture toward the Roman ruler cult and toward Roman imperial power in general – it is content to advocate the reform of imperial power under Wisdom’s tutelage while awaiting its ultimate dismantling by God.105

So not only does Wisdom not resist the Roman empire, but it moreover incorporates imperial rulers in its invitation to participate in eternal, divine kingship. To universalise Davidic kingship among multiple Roman rulers, Wisdom also has to democratise it. Wisdom does so by the ambiguity in Solomon’s prayer.106 The prayer begins by observing that God created humans to rule (Wis 9:2). But it goes on to recall that God chose Solomon as king and judge (v. 7), to build a sanctuary and altar as a copy of the holy tent that God prepared (v. 8). With the guidance of Sophia (v. 11), Solomon can judge justly and be worthy of the throne of his father (v. 12). The ambiguous father may be both earthly and heavenly, referring to both “David’s dynastic kingship and the divine kingship itself.”107 The command to build the temple suggests the covenant God made with David.108 But Wisdom elsewhere calls God “Father” and Israel his “sons.” 109 Solomon’s prayer, Judith Newman argues, “reinforces the book’s main points,” one of which is that “all human beings are worthy of the exalted status of monarchs with its attendant honors and responsibilities by virtue of their creaturehood.”110 Because everyone can have Sophia, everyone can have spiritual, eternal kingship. 111 So, for Newman, Wisdom prefers a “diffusion of power” over against the “restoration of the Davidic monarchy.”112 Luca Mazzinghi agrees in broad terms:

evils peace.” The reference is possible, but I am unpersuaded that it would need to criticise every aspect of the empire, such as, for instance, the emperor himself. 104 Timmer, “Empire Here or Hereafter?” 81. 105 Timmer, “Empire Here or Hereafter?” 82. 106 On this, see Judith H. Newman, “The Democratization of Kingship in Wisdom of Solomon,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman (JSJSup 83; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 309–28, followed by Gilbert, “‘Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord,’” 138–40. 107 Newman, “Kingship,” 324. 108 See especially 2 Samuel 7 for the prophecy that Nathan delivered to David about his son Solomon. 109 In 9:7, for instance, Solomon equates the people of God with the sons and daughters of God. For God, see Wis 14:3; also 2:16; 11:10. And for Israel, see Wis 12:19, 21; 16:10, 26; 18:4 (υἱός), as well as 16:21 (τέκνον) and 19:6 (παῖς). 110 Newman, “Kingship,” 311. 111 Newman, “Kingship,” 327. 112 Newman, “Kingship,” 310.

84

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

But in the accounts of 1 Kgs 3 and 2 Chr 1, the wisdom of Solomon is something exceptional, solely within the grasp of a king who is above every other wise man (cf. 1 Kgs 5:9–12); in the Book of Wisdom, by contrast, Solomon becomes the model of a ‘democratic’ king, equal, that is, to all other men (cf. 7:1–6), an example of what every human being can become from the moment when he/she receives and welcomes Wisdom.113

However, other traditions strengthen the possibility that the diffusion of power Wisdom anticipates is itself somehow Davidic. Texts such as Isa 55:1– 5 and 4Q418 81 + 81a also democratise royal prerogatives.114 First, Isa 55:3 renews the Davidic dynasty among the people of Israel forever. The sense in which David was king, according to v. 4, is as universal witness. The community Isaiah envisions will extend the Davidic promise from Israel to the world. So Isaiah incorporates the original promise to David, though universalised and democratised.115 4Q418 81 ll. 3–4 says that humans have divine inheritance and therefore need to sanctify themselves. Thus the text spiritualises and democratises the priestly and royal offices. 116 In l. 4, moreover, God establishes the new community that encapsulates such offices

Luca Mazzinghi, “‘I Loved [Wisdom] and Sought Her from My Youth; I Desired to Take Her for My Counsellor’ (Wis 8:2a). Solomon and Wisdom: An Example of the Closest Intimacy,” in Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Angelo Passaro (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013), 229–51 (230). 114 Psalm 89 may also be relevant, although Marcel Krusche, "A Collective Anointed? David and the People in Psalm 89,” JBL 139:1 (2020): 87–105 concludes that the collectivisation of David is an issue of the reception of the psalm, not of the psalm itself. Krusche (p. 103) discusses Isa 55:3–5, and he (p. 104) concludes, “Overall, the LXX, the Targum of Psalms, Isa 55:3c–5, and the Qumran fragment 4QPsx demonstrate a tendency in the Second Temple period and afterwards to collectivize the divine promises to David, or at least to further emphasize the people as the participating beneficiary of the promise.” 115 Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 436 finds the same balance between this “universalism or democratic participation” and the “original purpose” of Davidic kingship; Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (trans. Margaret Kohl; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 470 also sees here the “democratisation” of the David tradition. 116 For this, see Torleif Elgvin, “Priestly Sages? The Milieus of Origin of 4QMysteries and 1Q/4QInstruction,” in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 20–22 May 2001, ed. John J. Collins, Gregory E. Sterling, and Ruth A. Clements (STDJ 51; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 67–87; Joseph L. Angel, Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 86; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 61–77. 113

5. Roman rulers and Sophia

85

as, literally, “holy of holies.” 117 The community that shares the anointing houses the divine presence. The paradigm of universalised, democratised Davidic kingship Solomon advocates is the prophet Moses. Wisdom thus subordinates the archetypal temple builder under the archetypal prophet. Throughout the history of Israel Wisdom narrates, Sophia has acted on and beside the generic righteous man.118 But when Sophia rescues a holy people and a blameless race from Egypt (Wis 10:15), she enters the soul of the servant of the Lord and resists terrible kings with wonders and signs herself (v. 16).119 Mazzinghi observes the uniqueness of Wisdom in making Sophia “the true protagonist.”120 Sophia repaid the people and guided them, as she became a covering and a blaze of stars for them (v. 17). She led the people (v. 18) and drowned their enemies (v. 19). She opened mouths and made clear the tongues of children (v. 21). And she prospered the people by the hand of a holy prophet (11:1). Concerning the dealings of Sophia with Solomon, “Moses incarnates for the people the same role.” 121 Though extrinsic to the anonymous patriarchs,

117 Matthew J. Goff, 4QInstruction (WLAW 2; Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 250 senses this temple allusion. He (p. 248) also notes that ‫ קדוש קודשים‬probably misspells ‫קודש קודשים‬ and possibly references the holy of holies. 118 The retelling of Israel’s history neither reaches the period of the monarchy nor names any of the patriarchs; just as Solomon and David remain anonymous, so too do the Israelite patriarchs and the prophet Moses. Instead of naming each figure, Wisdom refers over and again to the righteous man (δίκαιος). I will name each figure for convenience. Sophia guarded, delivered, and gave strength to Adam (Wis 10:1, 2). She saved the flooded world and piloted Noah (v. 4). She kept Abraham blameless and strong (v. 5). She rescued Lot (v. 6). She rescued those who served her (v. 9). She guided Jacob, showed him a divine kingdom, gave him knowledge of divine things, prospered him, and multiplied his labours (v. 10). She stood by and enriched him (v. 11). She guarded him, kept him safe, arbitrated for him (v. 12). She rescued him from sin (v. 13). She went down into the dungeon with him, she brought him a kingdom’s sceptre, and she gave him eternal glory (v. 14). 119 Although Exodus sometimes specifies the signs as of God (Exod 7:3; 10:2; 11:9), Moses is the one who performs them (4:17, 30; with Aaron, 11:10). 120 Luca Mazzinghi, “The Figure of Moses in the Book of Wisdom,” in Canoncity, Setting, Wisdom in the Deuterocanonicals: Papers of the Jubilee Meeting of the International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, ed. Géza G. Xeravits, József Zsengellér, and Xavér Szabó (DCLS 22; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 183–205 (185) suggests that the phenomenon in the text draws from Num 11:17–25 and Isa 63:11–14. 121 Mazzinghi, “Moses,” 188. This incarnational image recalls John 1:14, but I cannot probe the parallel here. Deborah Forger, “Divine Embodiment in Philo of Alexandria,” JSJ 49 (2018): 223–62 discusses John’s incarnation and the figure of Moses in relation to the ways Philo conceptualises God taking on human materiality.

86

Chapter 2: Messiahs, kings, and prophets

Sophia became intrinsic to the anonymous prophet.122 As Andrew Glicksman recognises, “in some sense” Sophia “possesses” Moses.123 And according to Mazzinghi, Moses is not “a special case, someone unique,” but “an ideal example” and “model.” 124 He is the paradigmatic living temple created by Sophia (7:27). His is universal, divine kingship, not national, human kingship.125 I established above that the Johannine Jesus functions in both prophetic and kingly capacities as the Davidic messiah. If Pilate takes on prophetic and kingly capacities, he does so in relation to Jesus’ own messianism. If Wisdom incorporates imperial rulers in its invitation to participate in eternal, divine kingship, then so can John. Like Wisdom, John not only universalises but also democratises the Davidic dynasty. As such, the divine presence dwells among those who either love Sophia or believe in the λόγος. Outside the gospel itself, the Johannine corpus attests group messianism.126 The implied audience of 1 John has an anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20). The anointing teaches them, and it is true, not a lie (v. 27). The believers know the truth and that no lie comes from the truth (v. 21). By way of Jesus, the universalised and democratised Davidic dynasty may incorporate Pilate, who seeks Jesus’ witness to the truth (18:37) over against the Ἰουδαῖοι’s false accusation (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). When he witnesses to the truth, Jesus, like Sophia, brings otherworldly kingship to and restores the temple among those who believe and love him, those who then become friends of God and prophets. So the Johannine Pilate may take on prophecy and kingship in Peter Enns, Exodus Retold: Ancient Exegesis of the Departure from Egypt in Wis 15– 21 and 19:1–9 (HSM 57; Atlanta: Scholars, 1997), 45 points to Exod 4:16 and 7:1, in which Yahweh exalts Moses to divine status in his dealings with Aaron and Pharaoh, respectively. 123 Andrew T. Glicksman, Wisdom of Solomon 10: A Jewish Hellenistic Reinterpretation of Early Israelite History through Sapiential Lenses (DCLS 9; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 137. 124 Mazzinghi, “Moses,” 186, 187. He “is no longer an extraordinary case,” which, for Mazzinghi (p. 202), also entails the divine law that God gave through him and that distinguished Israel 125 Timmer, “Empire Here or Hereafter?” 86: “Rather than fixing its eschatological hope on a messianic figure or the restored Davidic monarchy, as did some Second Temple literature, Wisdom focuses on the divine kingdom ruled by God himself, and the feminine aspect of wisdom in contradistinction from a male royal or messianic figure should be noted.” 126 Brooke and Najman, “Dethroning David and Enthroning Messiah,” 126 use 1 John 2:20–27 as evidence of the tendency toward collective messiahship that “undermines the role of David in the construction of messianism.” Serge Ruzer, Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis (JCP 13; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 219, italics original, recognises “the plural language of anointment in an explicitly eschatological context.” Ruzer (p. 235) later refers to the sense of “collective eschatological anointment” there. 122

6. Summary

87

friendship with Jesus, and he may resemble the Persian builder of the temple, whose writing has power. 127 As Caesar’s judge of Judea, Pilate’s imperial ἐξουσία over Jesus’ release or crucifixion not only derives from God (John 19:11) but also coincides with Jesus’ own ἐξουσία from God to lay down his own life (10:18).

6. Summary 6. Summary

In this chapter I contextualised the second half of the judgement paradox I will argue is crucial to John 18:28–19:22: Jesus is conquered as the prophetic revealer of the temple’s destruction, and he conquers as the kingly revelation of the temple’s restoration. The one who has been conquered turns out to be the conqueror. The phenomenon is paradoxical, but the ancient sources concerning messiahs, kings, and prophets make sense of it. I found in John 6:14–15 the contrast of Jesus’ prophetic function with the way Herodian kingship continued the Davidic dynasty. And with John 7:40–52 I clarified that Jesus yet remained the kingly and prophetic Davidic messiah. Like Isaiah and Wisdom, John nullifies the (Bethlehem) origin criterion usually prescribed in the Davidic tradition. As Yahweh forms Cyrus to build the temple, and as Sophia democratises and universalises kingship in forming temples with friends of God and prophets, so the temple of Jesus’ body passes on its anointing to believers – even a foreign, imperial ruler such as Pilate. These three interconnected categories – messiahs, kings, prophets – are critical to the way Johannine theology incorporates the tradition of the inscription placed above the crucified Jesus, to which I will turn now.

127 By contrast, David Rensberger, “The Politics of John: The Trial of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 103:3 (1984): 395–411 (409, 410) argues that Jesus’ kingship is otherworldly and opposes the world and Caesar. And further, Fernando F. Segovia, “The Gospel of John,” in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, ed. Fernando F. Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah (BP 13; London: T&T Clark, 2009), 156–93 (166) goes as far as locating Rome, Caesar, and Pilate in the world below.

Chapter 3

Epilogue, John 19:16b–22 Like the famous Rosetta Stone, as well as the wider trilingual tradition, the inscription in John 19:20 is written in three languages. Pilate writes “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 19) in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, and many Ἰουδαῖοι read it (v. 20). But the chief priests command Pilate to rewrite it, in order to make clear that Jesus calls himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 21). Pilate refuses to concede that accusation – “What I have written I have written (v. 22). And he does not overturn the verdict of innocence he has repeated (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). In this chapter I will argue that Pilate writes his trilingual inscription to indict the Ἰουδαῖοι of maiestas, of declaring kingship not already ratified by Caesar. They are the only ones who claimed Jesus to be King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. As well as the earthly defeat of those accusers, Pilate also publicises the heavenly victory of the accused. “Jesus the Nazarene” is the otherworldly king in divine glory, with royal retinue, and building the new temple.1 To argue that twofold reading of what Pilate has written, I will discuss the designation “the Nazarene,” the titulus in execution accounts, the trilingual tradition of inscriptions, and prophetic writing. Παρέλαβον οὖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν, 17 καὶ βαστάζων ἑαυτῷ τὸν σταυρὸν ἐξῆλθεν εἰς τὸν λεγόμενον Κρανίου Τόπον, ὃ λέγεται Ἑβραϊστὶ Γολγοθα, 18 ὅπου αὐτὸν ἐσταύρωσαν, καὶ μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἄλλους δύο ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐντεῦθεν, μέσον δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν. 19 ἔγραψεν δὲ καὶ τίτλον ὁ Πιλᾶτος καὶ ἔθηκεν ἐπὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ· ἦν δὲ γεγραμμένον· Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων. 20 τοῦτον οὖν τὸν τίτλον πολλοὶ ἀνέγνωσαν τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ὅτι ἐγγὺς ἦν ὁ τόπος τῆς πόλεως ὅπου ἐσταυρώθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς· καὶ ἦν γεγραμμένον Ἑβραϊστί, Ῥωμαϊστί, Ἑλληνιστί. 21 ἔλεγον οὖν τῷ Πιλάτῳ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς τῶν Ἰουδαίων· μὴ γράφε· ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι ἐκεῖνος εἶπεν· βασιλεύς εἰμι τῶν Ἰουδαίων. 22 ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Πιλᾶτος· ὃ γέγραφα, γέγραφα.2 So they took Jesus, 17 and carrying his own cross, he exited to what is called Place of Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha, 18 where they crucified him – two others with him, one on either side, and Jesus between them. 19 Pilate wrote a titulus and put it on the cross. Now it was written, “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” 20 So many Ἰουδαῖοι read this titulus, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. It

1 Moloney, John, 502 notes that those crucified with Jesus are not identified by either the term λῃστής (Mark 15:27 // Matt 27:38) or the term κακοῦργος (Luke 23:39). 2 I will use NA28 throughout this study.

1. Destroying and restoring the temple

89

was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. 21 So the chief priests were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,’ but ‘he himself said, I am King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” (John 19:16b–223)

1. Destroying and restoring the temple 1. Destroying and restoring the temple

When I introduced my approach to John, I connected two levels of Johannine ambiguity. I suggested that instances of openness lead readers into a paradox of judgement. After discussing the ambiguous ὑψόω thread, I related its centre, the Ἰουδαῖοι exalting the Son of Man (8:28), to the interpretation of John 19:16.4 The αὐτοῖς (“to them”) in τότε οὖν παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς ἵνα σταυρωθῇ (“so then he delivered him to them, to be crucified,” v. 16a) is ambiguous, as is the παρέλαβον (“they took”) in παρέλαβον οὖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν (“so they took Jesus,” v. 16b).5 To whom does Pilate hand Jesus over to be crucified, and who then take Jesus? Pilate’s soldiers? The chief priests of the Ἰουδαῖοι? The soldiers only appear in vv. 2–3 and 23. Yet, as παρέδωκεν (“he delivered”) needs the singular ὁ Πιλᾶτος (“Pilate”) from v. 15, so αὐτοῖς (“to them”) needs the plural οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς (“the chief priests”) from v. 15.6 Also, Jesus has anticipated his transfer to the Ἰουδαῖοι: “my assistants would be contending, so that I may not be delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι” (18:36).7 The verb λαμβάνω – 19:16b similarly has παραλαμβάνω – is already connected with the Ἰουδαῖοι taking Jesus (18:31; 19:6), and the Ἰουδαῖοι are already the unspecified subjects who bring Jesus to the praetorium in the first place (ἄγουσιν, 18:28). This reading is, moreover, what Gos. Pet. 4.11 also implies, as the Ἰουδαῖοι, not the Romans, seem to be the unspecified ones erecting New Testament translations are mine unless otherwise noted. On the problem of John 19:16, see also Luc Devillers, “La croix de Jésus et les Ἰουδαῖοι (Jn 19,16): Crux interpretum ou clé sotériologique?” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, 385–407. 5 Slightly differently, Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 572 suggests that αὐτοῖς is a dative of advantage (“for the chief priests’ advantage”), and he connects it to Jesus being the one who dies on behalf of the nation (11:50). 6 Moloney, John, 497 (similarly p. 506) writes, “In the context, in which mention was made only of the chief priests, it [the personal pronoun] would have to refer to the Jewish accusers.” 7 See later Chapter 6. In discussion of John 18:36, Reimund Bieringer, “‘My Kingship is not of This World’ (John 18,36): The Kingship of Jesus and Politics,” in The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology, ed. Terrence Merrigan and Jacques Haers (BETL 152; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 159–75 (172) agrees that in 19:16a Jesus is delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι. For παραδίδωμι, see John 6:64, 71; 12:4; 13:2, 11, 21; 18:2, 5; 19:11. 3 4

90

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

(ὤρθωσαν) and writing (ἐπέγραψαν) on the cross.8 So arguments from syntax, verbal threads, chiastic pairs, and reception prompt the reading that the Ἰουδαῖοι take and crucify Jesus in John. The same chief priests would then be the unspecified subjects of ἐσταύρωσαν in v. 18, too. But even before the praetorium episode, Jesus has told the Ἰουδαῖοι, both times with ambiguity, that they will exalt the Son of Man (John 8:28) and destroy the temple (2:19) of his body (v. 21). The ambiguity in 19:16 regarding who crucifies Jesus is part and parcel of the entire gospel, not just John 18:28–19:22. The openness leads into the paradox that both the chief priests and the soldiers crucified Jesus. 9 In similar vein, Josephus explains that though the Romans destroyed the temple, the Jews were culpable. It [= Josephus’ country] was destroyed by internal strife, and the responsibility for causing the reluctant intervention of Roman force and the firing of the temple lies with the Jewish warlords. Witness Titus Caesar himself: he ultimately sacked the city, but throughout the war he showed concern for the ordinary people who were kept subject to the partisans, and several times deliberately delayed the capture of the city to allow time for the guilty parties to change their mind. (Josephus, War 1.10)

So Josephus’ reflections on the destruction of the temple may contextualise the openness of John 19:16, where the Ἰουδαῖοι exalt the temple of the Son of Man’s body, and where the Romans crucify Jesus. Josephus may also illuminate the inscription John’s Pilate writes. Barrett turns to Josephus, War 6.125 and Ant. 14.191 to understand why the inscription is written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek (Ἑβραϊστί Ῥωμαϊστί Ἑλληνιστί).10 The context of War 6.125, first, is the Jerusalem siege. Titus, Josephus, and the refugees from the insurgents are desperately trying to save the temple (War 6.120), if not the entire city (6.119). Such were the actions of the rebels “that the whole temple enclosure, littered with dead bodies, looked like a cemetery and the temple itself like a fortress” (6.121). The Romans become outraged for the temple’s sake (6.122), and every Roman soldier looked on the temple with awe and prayed that the usurpers (λῃσταί) would

8 On the Gospel of Peter as interpreting John, see later Chapter 11. The text of Gos. Pet. 4.11 reads, καὶ ὅτε ὤρθωσαν τὸν σταῦρον ἐπέγραψαν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ Ἰ σραήλ. The next verbal subject is in 6.23: ἐχάρησαν δὲ οἱ ̓Ιουδαῖοι (“and the Ἰ ουδαῖοι rejoiced”). The implication is that, to give Jesus’ body to Joseph (6.23), the Ἰ ουδαῖοι had taken it from the cross (6.21) and had been the agents to that point. Text from Foster, The Gospel of Peter. 9 So Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St John, vol. 3 (trans. David Smith and G. A. Kon; HTCNT; Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1982), 266 notes not only that the Ἰουδαῖοι are in view in v. 16, but also, “it is possible that John intentionally allowed the uncertainty to remain” (p. 267). 10 Barrett, John, 549.

1. Destroying and restoring the temple

91

repent before an irreversible disaster eventuated (6.123). 11 Titus questions why they, who constructed Greek-Latin warnings against entering the temple (6.125; see 5.194), now trample native and foreign blood alike in it (6.126). Titus himself did not make anyone defile (μιαίνω) the sanctuary (6.127).12 As for Ant. 14.191, the context is 47 BCE. Caesar wills that his decrees about his friend Hyrcanus becoming ethnarch and high priest of the Ἰουδαῖοι be written in Greek and in Latin. So, Barrett’s two references to Josephus demonstrate the associations of multilingual inscriptions with temple security and political propaganda.13 Both cases highlight Judea’s need of Rome’s favour. Whereas Barrett dismisses the possibility that John indicates “any theological significance in the trilingual inscription,” those references to Josephus suggest otherwise. 14 I propose that the theological significance of the trilingual inscription hinges on the connections of Jewish kingship and temple building with Roman friendship. But as well as with multilingual inscriptions, the title “King of Ἰουδαῖοι” has associations with temple building and Roman alliance. Herod was recognised as “King of Ἰουδαῖοι” by the Romans, and his friendship with them enabled the restoration of the temple.15 “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” is the only fixed element of the inscription across the canonical gospels.16 In addition, Mark (14:58; 15:29) and Matthew (26:61; 27:40) mention the insults hurled at the crucified Jesus, who proves unable to destroy and rebuild the temple. John, however, makes clear early on that Jesus will indeed rebuild the temple destroyed by the Ἰουδαῖοι (2:19) – or, raise the body (v. 21) they exalt (8:28). The Johannine Jesus takes on what are only insults in Mark and Matthew. In multiple different ways, John’s inclusion of “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” refers to the contingency of Jewish kingship and temple building on close relations with Rome.

On λῃσταί, see later Chapter 7. On μιαίνω, see later Chapter 4. 13 Stephen Llewelyn and Dionysia van Beek, “Reading the Temple Warning as a Greek Visitor,” JSJ 42 (2011): 1–22 argue that temple visitors were most likely to assume that the warning inscription was issued on the authority of the king not the priest. So the temple warning was connected to Herod. 14 Barrett, John, 549. 15 On this, see earlier Chapter 2. 16 Mark 15:26 has ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (“King of the Ἰουδαῖοι”), Matt 27:37 has οὗτός ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (“this is Jesus King of the Ἰουδαῖοι”), Luke 23:38 has ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων οὗτος (“this is King of the Ἰουδαῖοι”), and John 19:19 has Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (“Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι”). By contrast, Gos. Pet. 4.11 has “King of Israel,” which, by using insider terminology, indicates that the Ἰουδαῖοι crucify Jesus and write the inscription. On such insider terminology, see later Chapter 6, and on the Gospel of Peter, see later Chapter 11. 11 12

92

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

Whereas John shares “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” with the other gospels, the second element of the inscription, “Jesus the Nazarene,” is in John only. What is the significance of the title “the Nazarene”? Mary Coloe argues that “the Nazarene” refers to the crucified Jesus as the awaited temple builder.17 Coloe relates Ναζωραῖος, through ‫( נצר‬the spelling of the Hebrew root underlying “Nazareth”), to ‫צמח‬, as follows.18 In Isa 11:1 the ‫“( נצר‬shoot”) comes from Jesse to judge (v. 4), to reassemble Israel and regather Judah (v. 12). And in Zech 6:12 the man named “Sprout” (‫ )צמח‬shall “sprout out (‫)צמח‬ from under him and build the temple of Yahweh,” in so doing bearing royal honour and ruling from his throne (v. 13).19 Some Qumran texts read Isa 11:1 and Zech 6:12 together, integrating these messianic figures, the “shoot” and “Sprout.” 2 Samuel 7:11 mentions neither, but 4QFlor 11 comments on it, “this refers to the sprout of David” (‫)הואה צמח דויד‬.20 The closest imagery is in the preceding v. 10, where God says that he will “plant” (καταφυτεύω, ‫ )נטע‬Israel. The oracle Nathan delivers to David envisions the building of the temple by Solomon (v. 13). Childs moreover cites the oracle passage early in his comments on Isa 11:1, which uses ‫נצר‬, not ‫צמח‬.21 The phrase ‫צמח דויד‬ blends the Davidic tradition with Zechariah again in 4QpGen 5.3–4. 22 The commentary on Isa 11:1 4QpIsaa 18 even renders the term ‫( נצר‬which the 17 Mary L. Coloe, God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2001); eadem, “The Nazarene King: Pilate’s Title as the Key to John’s Crucifixion,” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, 839–48; eadem, Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2007), 45–47; eadem, “Temple Imagery in John,” Int 63 (2009): 368–81; eadem, “The Missing Feast of Pentecost: John 1,19–2,12,” SNTU 34 (2009): 97–113. 18 As Coloe, “The Nazarene King,” 844 fn. 18 notes, the term Ναζωραῖος reflects the Hebrew root ‫נצר‬, the spelling attested by the 1962 Caesarea inscription; on this, see Rainer Riesner, “The Nazareth of Jesus,” in The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context: Essays in Honour of John Nolland on His 70th Birthday ed. Aaron W. White, David Wenham, and Craig A. Evans (LNTS 566; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018), 1–19 (9–10). 19 In Jer 4:2 Yahweh plants the ‫צמח‬, before the vine parable (5:1–10) and judgement oracle (vv. 11–30). In a corresponding way, for John 15:2 and 6, judgement occurs in the vine, Jesus. 20 The textual traditions of 2 Sam 7:11 are not straightforward. The vision concerns a future house for God in ὅτι οἶκον οἰκοδομήσεις αὐτῷ, but a future house for David in ‫כי בית‬ ‫יעשה לך יהוה‬. Both houses are in view throughout the oracle. See the discussion and literature in Philippe Hugo, “The Jerusalem Temple Seen in 2 Samuel according to the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint,” in XII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Ljubljana, 2007, ed. Melvin K. H. Peters (SBLSCS 55; Atlanta: SBL, 2008), 183–96 (184–86). 21 Childs, Isaiah, 102. 22 Adam Kubiś, The Book of Zechariah in the Gospel of John (EBib 64; Paris: Gabalda, 2012), 430 cites, in addition, “4Q285 frg. 7 lines 2–3, where the quote from Is 10:34–11:1 is followed by the expression ‫צמח דויד‬.”

1. Destroying and restoring the temple

93

pesher includes in its citation of the Isaiah text) with ‫צמח דויד‬. The terms ‫נצר‬ and ‫צמח‬, by their respective uses in Isa 11:1 and Zech 6:12, “become fused” in Qumran speculation about the role of the Davidic house in restoring the people of God and building the temple.23 So for Coloe, the designating of the crucified Johannine Jesus as “the Nazarene” refers to his messianic temple building function.24 John may yet offer sufficient hints in the occurrences of Ναζαρά and Ναζωραῖος during the early Nathanael episode. For Coloe, “The link between Jesus and Nazareth I believe is reserved until it can be utilized in a rich, symbolic manner within the Passion narrative.” 25 That may be, but an analysis from Steven Hunt indicates that Nathanael might flag the symbolism. 26 Hunt analyses two functions of Nathanael’s question about whether anything good can come out of Nazareth (1:46). First, the question “begins to construct a framework for the later debates about Jesus’ origin.”27 Not that Hunt says so, but this debate concludes with Pilate, who asks Jesus where he is from (19:9).28 Second, the question repeats the connection Philip makes between Jesus and Nazareth (1:45).29 In so doing Nathanael anticipates the repetition later in the garden, when the arresting party refer to “Jesus the

Coloe, “The Nazarene King,” 845. As “Nazarene,” Jesus also recalls the Samson tradition. The same occurs in Matt 2:23, which links Jesus’ home town Nazareth with his prophetic identity. Maarten J. J. Menken, “Composite Citations in the Gospel of Matthew,” in Composite Citations in Antiquity, Vol. 2: New Testament Uses, ed. Sean A. Adams and Seth M. Ehorn (LNTS 593; London: T&T Clark, 2018), 34–61 (54): “the quotation in 2.23 implicitly makes Jesus and Samson into parallel figures.” See Judg 13:5, 7; 16:17; Isa 7:14. By going down as the old temple and building the new one, Jesus reverses the saving role of Samson, who was a judge of Israel (Judg 15:20). Susan Niditch, “Judges, Kingship, and Political Ethics: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom,” in Thus Says the Lord: Essays on the Former and Latter Prophets in Honor of Robert R. Wilson, ed. John J. Ahn and Stephen L. Cook (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 59–70 (67); eadem, Judges: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 171 recognises that Samson fulfilled the divine plan and saved his people. 25 Coloe, “The Missing Feast of Pentecost,” 103. 26 Steven A. Hunt, “Nathanael: Under the Fig Tree on the Fourth Day,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. D. Francois Tolmie, Steven A. Hunt, and Ruben Zimmermann (WUNT 314; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 189–201 (199–201). 27 Hunt, “Nathanael,” 199. 28 Hunt, “Nathanael,” 201 observes that an oracle in Zechariah also brings together the ‫( צמח‬Zech 3:8) and the phrase “under a fig tree” (v. 10). Zechariah goes on to identify the ‫ צמח‬as the future temple builder (6:12). This crowned figure is named Ἰησοῦς (v. 11). This all adds to the proposal from Coloe. See later Chapter 10. 29 Hunt, “Nathanael,” 199. 23 24

94

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

Nazarene” twice (18:5, 7).30 Nearby doubles include the royal “Son of God” and “King of Israel” (1:49) designations, as well as the two “under the fig tree” notes (vv. 48, 50).31 Likewise, Pilate inscribes Jesus’ Nazarene identity in conjunction with the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι accusation (19:19). So the mentions of Nazareth in the Nathanael episode strengthen the royal associations of “Jesus the Nazarene” in the epilogue to the Pilate episode. The interpretation of “Jesus the Nazarene” in terms of temple building seems plausible on some broader counts. In the first place, Isaiah is, alongside Moses and Abraham, one of the most significant figures from the Jewish scriptures in John.32 So for the gospel to pick up on some aspect of the ‫ נצר‬imagery does not strain the imagination. The ‫ צמח‬language from Zechariah should also be visible from the Johannine standpoint. The quotations from Zech 9:9 in John 12:15 (the final instance of the “it is written” citation formula) and from Zech 12:10 in John 19:37 (the final instance of the “so that the scripture may be fulfilled” citation formula) create an inclusio that indicates “John’s dialogue with Zechariah.” 33 The Ναζωραῖος-‫נצר‬-‫ צמח‬allusion may well be a related inclusio.34 And in general, the associations of ‫ נצר‬with purity (Lev 15:31; 22:2) and kingship (2 Sam 1:10; 2 Chr 23:11) in the Hebrew Bible, moreover, complement Johannine theology, in which the Father sanctifies the Son (John 10:36) and the disciples (17:17), and in which the Son is dressed as royalty (19:2).35 Earlier I noted that John 19:16b–22 can function as a bridge, both concluding a seven-scene episode (ending in v. 16a) and anticipating a fivescene episode (beginning in v. 23). At this point I would add another possibility. Coloe demarcates vv. 16b–37 as follows: vv. 16b–18 (temple destroying: crucifixion), 19–22 (temple building: Pilate’s words), 23–24 (temple destroying: crucifixion), 25–30 (temple building: Jesus’ words), 31– Hunt, “Nathanael,” 200; Kubiś, Zechariah, 452 fn. 187 notes another indication of this foreshadowing: “The inclusio created by the terms Ναζαρέτ (1:45.46) and Ναζωραῖος (18:5.7; 19:19) might be juxtaposed with another inclusio created by τί ζητεῖτε; (1:38) and τί ζητεῖτε; (18:4.7).” 31 See later Chapter 6. 32 Catrin H. Williams, “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered: Framing Israel’s Past in the Gospel of John,” in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard (RBS 81; Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 187–212. 33 In light of Zech 3:8–10 and 6:12–13, the remarks of William Randolph Bynum, “Quotations of Zechariah in the Fourth Gospel,” in Abiding Words, 47–74 (73) about Zechariah 9–14 may better apply to the entirety of Zechariah, the only of the minor prophets John quotes. 34 So Kubiś, Zechariah, 488 concludes that John 1:45–51; 2:19–21; 18:5, 7; 19:19; 20:9 create an inclusio that alludes to Zech 3:8–10; 6:12–13. 35 On purity, see later Chapter 4; and on Jesus’ crown, see later Chapter 8. 30

2. The titulus

95

37 (testimony of death). 36 This demarcation highlights the paradoxical interplay between temple destroying and temple building. In so doing it grounds vv. 16b–22 in vv. 16b–30. But in light of the split between vv. 16b– 18 and 19–22, is not the household topic of vv. 25–27 distinct from the wine topic of vv. 28–30? Furthermore, where exactly vv. 31–37 fits seems to me moot, to say nothing of vv. 38–42. Of course some sense of literary movement draws the reader to the burial of Jesus in v. 42. But the details are arbitrary. The symbolic and thematic nuances of the narrative are what matter. So for me, vv. 16b–22 should be read with what comes before and what comes after. All that said, the interpretation of “Jesus the temple builder” is new, and I am trying to add to it more than rely on it. As well as the restored temple, the Johannine Jesus may also be the restorer of the temple. This paradox fits well with the revealer-revelation christology (so 8:28) I have already discussed.37

2. The titulus 2. The titulus

Where Mark and Luke have ἐπιγραφή, and where Matthew has only αἰτία, John has τίτλος, which is less a loanword and more a code-switch. 38 The Latin term is titulus, which the Greek τίτλος transliterates. The term itself has the sense of label (or, placard, notice). Considering no other New Testament text uses it, and neither do Philo or Josephus, its appearance in John is peculiar. For Paul Maier, the Johannine use of the term titulus “suggests

36 Coloe, “The Nazarene King,” 848, followed by Kubiś, Zechariah, 453. R. Alan Culpepper, “Symbolism and History in John’s Account of Jesus’ Death,” in Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature, ed. Tom Thatcher and Stephen D. Moore (RBS 55; Atlanta: SBL, 2008), 39–54 (51) writes that Coloe’s proposal “enriches our understanding” of John 19:25–27, and he seems to accept the picture of Jesus the Nazarene as builder of the temple, of the household of God. 37 See earlier my introduction. 38 For loanword, see Niclas Förster, “Der titulus crucis: Demütigung der Judäer und Proklamation des Messias,” NovT 56 (2014): 113–33 (115). But on code-switching, see later Chapter 11. Mark 15:26 is the only gospel text to use the verb ἐπιγράφω: καὶ ἦν ἡ ἐπιγραφὴ τῆς αἰτίας αὐτοῦ ἐπιγεγραμμένη ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (“and the superscription of his charge was superscribed, ‘King of the Ἰουδαῖοι’”). Luke 23:38 reads, ἦν δὲ καὶ ἐπιγραφὴ ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων οὗτος (“and there was also a superscription over him, ‘this is the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι’”). Matt 27:37 does not use the noun ἐπιγραφή at all: καὶ ἐπέθηκαν ἐπάνω τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ τὴν αἰτίαν αὐτοῦ γεγραμμένην οὗτός ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (“and they placed above his head his crime, written, ‘this is Jesus, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι’”).

96

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

greater precision in reporting the actual wording of the inscription.”39 Others agree that the Johannine titulus is somehow grounded in the past, though they stress that “Johannine tradition” and “John’s creative hand” cannot be ignored. 40 Ernst Bammel takes the titulus “as a piece of evidence, the importance of which can only be assessed in conjunction with the rest of the material on the trial.” 41 “The Johannine narrative,” Bammel stresses, “demands special treatment.” 42 However, Johannine idiosyncrasies, in particular the use of the term titulus and the collocation of three different languages demand further attention. Beginning with the titulus, besides two texts from Suetonius, one from Dio, and one from Eusebius, not much in the literary record resembles John 19:19.43 However, scholars sometimes refer to the “various accounts” of the “common Roman practice.” 44 Michael Bird, for instance, adds texts from Juvenal and Pliny and concludes, “It was customary in Roman executions to display the charge of the victim during the execution process.” 45 The first 39 Paul L. Maier, “The Inscription on the Cross of Jesus of Nazareth,” Hermes 124:1 (1996): 58–75 (67). 40 Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1961), 108 (“Johannine tradition”); Lindars, John, 573 (“John’s creative hand”). 41 E. Bammel, “The titulus,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. Ernst Bammel and C. F. D. Moule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 353–64 (364). 42 Bammel, “The titulus,” 358. 43 Maier, “Inscription,” 59 uses Suetonius, Dio, and Eusebius “[i]n support of the historicity of the titulus at Golgotha.” On the historical titulus, see Ingo Broer, Hermeneutik in Geschichte: Fallstudien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 93–109. 44 Warren Carter, “Jesus and Pilate: Memories in John’s Gospel?” in John, Jesus, and History 3: Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens, ed. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (ECIL 18; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 59–76 (73): “Various accounts refer to parading a condemned person and displaying a placard that names their crime”; Förster, “Der titulus crucis,” 118, italics original: “Dieses Verfahren – die Veröffentlichung vor der Hinrichtung – entsprach gängiger römischer Praxis.” Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 235 adds Tertullian, Apol. 2.20 and infers that “the Romans did sometimes write criminal charges on placards.” However, Tertullian, Apol. 2.20 does not mention a titulus, only that Christianity was a crime read from a small board (tabella). Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 324 adds b. Sanh. 43a and suggests, “on some other known occasions a member of the execution squad apparently would carry in front of or beside the condemned a small tablet (tabula) declaring the charge (titulus), the cause of execution (causa poenae), which he might later post on the cross.” However, b. Sanh. 43a does not mention a titulus, only that a crier went about before Jesus for forty days announcing his crimes and searching for witness to the contrary. 45 Michael F. Bird, “Jesus and the ‘Partings of the Ways,’” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 3, part 2, ed. Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1183–215 (1197 fn. 53).

2. The titulus

97

problem is that Juvenal and Pliny do not refer to labels used in executions.46 But I will discuss the passages and indicate the use of the titulus to memorialise both dishonourable and honourable characteristics of deceased persons. The second problem is that no “customary” usage of a titulus exists. I will show that in Suetonius, Dio, and Eusebius the titulus fits the particular occasion in view. Furthermore, the sources associate the titulus not only with maiestas but also with Christianity. That said, the specific tradition of a titulus on the cross of a crucifixion victim is entirely unique to John.47 Suetonius (early second century) mentions a titulus in two execution episodes. Caligula 32 records the following amid other anecdotes that exhibit the cruelty of Caligula even in casual situations: In Rome, at a public banquet, finding a slave had stripped off some silver from the couches, he at once handed him over to an executioner to have his hands cut off and hung in front of him around his neck, and he was led around among the banqueters, preceded by a placard indicating the nature of his offence (praecedente titulo qui causam poena indicaret per coetus epulantium circumduceretur).

Domitian 10 includes a similar list of stories on the cruelty of Domitian. Domitian 9 highlights how Domitian came down strictly and vengefully on false accusers. But, according to Domitian 10, his decline from mercy and integrity was most vivid in innocuous maiestas cases: A householder, who had said that though the Thracian was a match for the murmillo he would not measure up to the giver of the games, he had dragged from the audience and thrown to dogs in the arena, wearing the tag: A buckler-wearer with a big mouth

46 T. E. Schmidt, “Mark 15.16–32: The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession,” NTS 41 (1995): 1–18 (13 fn. 40) adds these Pliny and Juvenal texts as well as Dio 73.16.5. Dio 73.16.5 is supposed to mention that someone publicly cried the crime of Commodus before the emperor was murdered: Martin Hengel, Studies in Early Christology (rev. ed.; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 49 fn. 97 (“An alternative consisted of having the crime publicly cried out before the execution, as in the case of Commodus’s murder,” footnoting “Dio Cassius, Rom. Hist. 73.16.5: οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Κόμμοδον ἁποπνίξας”); Craig A. Evans, “Jesus and James: Martyrs of the Temple,” in James the Just & Christian Origins, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (NovTSup 98; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 233–50 (233 fn. 1: “posting of an inscription that refers to … the name of the victim [cf. Suetonius, Caligula 32.2 and Domitian 10.1; Dio Cassius 73.16.5]”). I see four problems. First, there is no Dio 73.16.5, because 73.16 ends with 73.16.3. Second, the text which Hengel quotes does not appear elsewhere in Dio 73. Third, I cannot find anyone crying out the crime of Commodus before his death. Fourth, Laetus and Ecletus sent the athlete Narcissus to strangle Commodus while bathing (Dio 73.22.5) – an assassination in secret, which 74.1.1 confirms. 47 So Keener, Historical Jesus, 575 fn. 297 (also idem, John, 1137 fn. 608): “The posting of the accusation on the cross is not well-attested, either because those describing crucifixion had already mentioned it being carried … or because the practice was not in fact standard, although, given the variations among executions, it is in no way improbable.”.

98

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

(detractum spectaculis in harenam canibus obiecit cum hoc titulo impie locutus parmularius).

The titulus is in Suetonius’ accounts an occasional innovation by an emperor that marks the cruelty borne out of their irrational and oppressive obsession with their own maiestas. 48 Suetonius mentions the titulus to satirise these Caesars. Dio 54.3.4, 7 (early third century) records an instance of conspiracy against Augustus: At all events, not a few voted for the acquittal of Primus, and others formed a plot against Augustus. Fannius Caepio was the instigator of it, but others also joined with him. Even Murena was reported to be in the conspiracy, whether truly or by way of calumny (καί σφισι καὶ ὁ Μουρήνας συνομωμοκέναι εἴτ᾽ οὖν ἀληθῶς εἴτε καὶ ἐκ διαβολῆς ἐλέχθη), since he was immoderate and unrestrained in his outspokenness toward all alike. These men did not stand trial, and so were convicted by default, on the supposition that they intended to flee; and a little later they were slain… at any rate, when Caepio’s father freed one of the two slaves who had accompanied his son in his flight because this slave had wished to defend his young master when he met his death, but in the case of the second slave, who had deserted his son, led him through the midst of the Forum with an inscription making known the reason why he was to be put to death, and afterwards crucified him (τὸν δὲ ἕτερον τὸν προδόντα αὐτὸν διά τε τῆς ἀγορᾶς μέσης μετὰ γραμμάτων τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς θανατώσεως αὐτοῦ δηλούντων διαγαγόντος καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἀνασταυρώσαντος), the emperor was not vexed.

According to Dio, though some actually plotted against Augustus, some were only slandered as doing so. But it did not matter either way if the accused did not stand trial. Absence entailed intent to flee, punishable by execution. The father of the instigator of the plot treated the two slaves who fled with his son 48 Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian (London: Routledge, 1992), 123 discusses the onset of maiestas cases under Domitian, especially in Suetonius, Domitian 8.3 and 12.2. Jones (p. 124) argues: “Precise details exist of Domitian’s harshness when faced with personal attacks. Suetonius reports (10.1) that Hermogenes of Tarsus was executed because of certain figurae (i.e. ‘indirect attacks’) in his history and that the slaves who copied it out were crucified. Again, at the gladiatorial games (munera), the father of a family made the mistake of supporting the Thracians (whom Domitian despised: hence Martial 9.68.7 and 14.213) and then he compounded his error by claiming that the munerarius was biased (10.1). Now the munera at this period were usually the responsibility of the quaestor, but, on this occasion, the munerarius may have been the emperor himself; for, according to Suetonius (4.1), Domitian could be ‘persuaded’ to provide gladiators, at his own expense, for the last event of the day. The unwise spectator was thrown to the dogs, with the following sign attached to his back – ‘A Thracian supporter who spoke impiously’ (10.1). Much the same version appears in Pliny (‘no one [under Trajan] risked the old charge of impietas if he disliked a gladiator’: Pan. 33.3), though, with one variant, the garrulous spectator was burned alive. Then, at 33.4, Pliny accuses Domitian of ‘using the arena to collect charges of maiestas’.”

2. The titulus

99

differently. He freed the one who stayed with his son, but not the one who deserted him. He led the deserter through the Forum “with letters exhibiting the cause for execution” before crucifying him. The precise words and medium are unclear. But what is clear is that the maiestas crime was publicised before the penalty itself was paid. Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl. 5.1.44 (early fourth century) reproduces the story of Attalus (177 CE, Lyons) from an account of the witnesses (or martyrs) sent to the churches in Asia and Phrygia (5.1.2): But Attalus was himself loudly called for by the crowd, for he was well known… He was led round the amphitheatre and a placard was carried before him on which was written in Latin, ‘This is Attalus, the Christian.’ (καὶ περιαχθεὶς κύκλῳ τοῦ ἀμφιθεάτρου πίνακος αὐτὸν προάγοντος ἐν ᾧ ἐγέγραπτο Ῥωμαϊστί οὗτος ἐστιν Ἄτταλος ὁ Χριστιανός) The people were very bitter against him, but when the governor learnt that he was a Roman, he commanded him to be put back with the rest, who were in jail, about whom he had written to the emperor and was waiting for his reply.

His Christian identity and his name are written “in Latin” (Ῥωμαϊστί) on the “board.” In the same vein, when he was tortured, Sanctus never gave his name, origin, ethnicity, or status, but always responded in Latin (τῇ Ῥωμαϊκῇ φωνῇ), “I am a Christian” (Hist. Eccl. 5.1.20), aggravating the governor and the torturers further (5.1.21).49 No cause (αἰτία) except Christian identity was needed for those who confessed (5.1.33). And Attalus was led with Maturus, Sanctus, and Blandina into the amphitheatre for public exhibition, “for the day of fighting with beasts was specially appointed for the Christians” (5.1.37). Identifying as “a Christian” also had Alexander condemned to the beasts (5.1.50). When he and Attalus are executed the next day, Attalus, in Latin (τῇ Ῥωμαϊκῇ φωνῇ), turns the accusation of eating humans on the crowd themselves (5.1.52).50 By speaking in Latin (5.1.44), Attalus displays his citizenship and positions himself over against the governor, who is blatantly disobeying the order of the emperor to decapitate citizens (5.1.50). Pliny writes about Verginius Rufus and his unfinished titulus in Ep. 2.1; 6.10; and 9.19. In Ep 2.1 Pliny writes to his friend Romanus after the funeral of Verginius, who was three times the consul, as well as the guardian of Pliny himself. Pliny sums up the focus of his letter, “Verginius who is on my mind, Verginius who is before my eyes, Verginius whom I see and address and embrace” (2.1.12). With these words, the letter becomes “a virtual funeral 49 Later in the amphitheatre, Sanctus continued to give the prosecutors nothing except his initial Christian confession (5.1.39). 50 Their slaves had earlier falsely accused them, because of Satan, of Thyestean feasts (infant eating) (5.1.14), enraging everyone as wild beasts against them (5.1.15). Eusebius continues by interpreting that it fulfils the prophecy of Jesus in John 16:2, that “everyone who kills you will suppose that they are offering worship to God.”

100

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

speech of its own.”51 In Ep 6.10 Pliny writes to his friend Albinus, in large part to lament that the tomb of Verginius remains unfinished: “I feel anger as well as pity that nearly ten years after his death his remains and ashes lie neglected without an inscription (titulus), and without the name of one whose memory and fame are widespread throughout the whole world” (6.10.3). Verginius had even left instructions as to what was to be inscribed there: “Rufus lies here; of old by routing Vindex, / He freed the imperial power for Rome, not for himself” (6.10.4).52 Pliny quotes the same verses in Ep. 9.19.1 and praises Verginius for commissioning an epitaph: “I regard all who have achieved something important and memorable as most deserving not merely of pardon but even of praise, if they pursue the immortality which they have deserved, and if by their epitaphs too they strive to prolong the glory of a name which will live on” (9.19.3). Verginius “strove for fame” simply “by requesting the epitaph (titulus) due to him” (9.19.8). Juvenal, Sat. 6.200–30 is a unit distinct from the preceding 6.184–99 and what follows in 6.231–41.53 Its last twelve lines, 6.219–30, form a sub-unit, the theme of which is “wifely dominatio.”54 In that sub-unit the wife aims to coerce her husband to crucify a slave – without crime, accusation, witnesses, or trial (6.219–23). This is the way she rules her husband (imperat ergo uiro), and she relinquishes her dominion only so she can cycle through other husbands (6.224–28).55 “And so the tally grows: that makes eight husbands exactly / in five Octobers, a feat which should be carved on her tombstone” (6.229–30). “[A]n achievement well worth recording in the inscription on your tombstone” (titulo res digna sepulcri, 6.230) is “a sardonic inversion of the ideal of marriage to one man of which uniuirae routinely boast in

51 Christopher Whitton (ed.), Pliny the Younger: Epistles, Book II (CGLC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 65. 52 In 68 CE Verginius suppressed the revolt of Vindex against Nero but refused being made emperor himself. See Plutarch, Galba 6 and Dio 63.25, as well as Pliny, Ep. 2.1.2, on the dignity of Verginius. But see also Tacitus, Hist. 1.8.2, 1.52.4 on Verginius’ hesitation at supporting Galba and 2.68.4 on his covert refusal of imperial rule. On Verginius, see Christopher Whitton, “‘Let us tread our path together’: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny,” in A Companion to Tacitus, ed. Victoria Emma Pagán (BCAW; Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 345–68 (351–52). 53 Edward Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (CCS 2; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 219: “This paragraph has no link with 184–99, but is linked with what precedes that by the idea of not loving (139, 143, 181–3; note deditus 181 and 206).” 54 Lindsay Watson and Patricia Watson (eds.), Juvenal: Satire 6 (CGLC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 137–38 paraphrases and outlines 6.200–30 as two sections. 55 Watson and Watson, Juvenal, 143.

3. The trilingual tradition

101

funerary inscriptions.”56 So the ruling wife demands the slave to be crucified, and the titulus memorialises her rule over numerous husbands. By relating the unjust crucifixion to the sardonic titulus, Juvenal heightens the satire on the (dis)honour of the woman. Whereas Suetonius has associated spontaneous executions with the titulus, Juvenal has transferred the dishonour from the crucified slave to the entombed woman. The accounts from Pliny and Juvenal share with the others the function of a titulus to memorialise the honour or dishonour of a deceased person. Otherwise, the role of the titulus in relation to execution varies in the sources. What is generalisable across the sources is that the titulus was always occasional. No more execution accounts mention the titulus because it was not common practice in executions. And the titulus never hangs on either a cross or a crucifixion victim, as it does in John. Yet the association of the titulus with maiestas in Suetonius and Dio is important, and the added association with Christianity in Eusebius even more so. So, in connection with the preceding section, I conclude that in John Pilate writes a titulus to memorialise both the honour, “Nazarene,” and dishonour, “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” of Jesus. As “Nazarene,” Jesus takes on the role of messianic temple builder, but as “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” he takes on the false accusation of maiestas.57

3. The trilingual tradition 3. The trilingual tradition

If the Johannine titulus reflects both the temple building role of Jesus and the maiestas accusation against him, why does John include not just any titulus, but a trilingual one? And why specify that the titulus was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek (καὶ ἦν γεγραμμένον Ἑβραϊστί Ῥωμαϊστί Ἑλληνιστί, John 19:20)? 58 Commentators often remark on Jesus’ universal rule. 59 The more convincing readings along these lines incorporate “the theme of Jesus’

56 Watson and Watson, Juvenal, 144–45. Courtney, Juvenal, 248: “The distinction of these women is very different from that idealised by conventional tombstones, to have had only one husband. Such women are praised as univirae, unicubae, uniiugae.” 57 Bammel, “The titulus,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, 357 mentions but argues against the possibility that the titulus re fers to the crime of maiestas. 58 Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971), 253 notes, “the sequence Hebrew, Latin, Greek … is strongly supported” by the manuscript tradition, notwithstanding Alexandrinus and Bezae (supplement), which swap Latin and Greek. 59 According to Schnackenburg, John, 3:272, John mentions three languages “to announce Jesus’ kingship officially to the world.”

102

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

drawing everyone to himself.”60 Beyond the narrative, Barrett cites the two multilingual inscriptions in Josephus I discussed earlier, but John shares the trilingual in particular with texts as significant as the Rosetta Stone. Jennifer Finn has gone as far as tracing “the tradition of the trilingual” back through the Rosetta Stone (Ptolemy V) to the Xanthus stele (Artaxerxes IV, discovered in 1973), which was inscribed in Lycian, Aramaic, and Greek.61 Darius I (522–486 BCE), the Achaemenid ruler of the Persian empire, in particular, used trilingual inscriptions on both large monuments and small seals to meet the needs of his new royal ideology. His trilinguals embody the notion of “text as imagery,” which can be “‘read’ from both a ‘terrestrial’ and a ‘cosmic’ point of view.”62 That is, the royal Persian iconography had both divine and human audiences. In what follows I will demonstrate that as part of the trilingual tradition the paradox of Jesus as both building the new temple and falsely accused of maiestas makes sense. Finn explains that the monument at Bisitun (also Behistun; 520 or 519 BCE, built not long after Darius’ accession to the throne in 522–21 BCE) is the first and most well-known instance of “the deployment of trilingually inscribed royal texts as a strategic and systematically orchestrated manifestation of imperial ideology.” 63 Crucial to this ideology was the “message … of a symbiotic relationship between god, king, and man.”64 The relief depicts Darius as having conquered ten kings of different ethnicities. Carvings in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian surround it. Finn makes the point that most people who saw it “were well versed in only one of these languages (if that),” which entails that the combination of the languages is symbolic.65 So as “numinous text,” the divine is its “one true ‘reader.’”66 As such, the specific trilingual form acted “as the central element in defining the regime of a new royal and cosmic order.”67 The trilinguals located divinehuman dialogue in Darius himself. In a similar way, John’s titulus would portray the paradox that Jesus enfleshes the λόγος, that divine glory is revealed in the crucified human. Moloney, Glory not Dishonor, 143, on John 10:16; 11:49–52; 12:32. Jennifer Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men: Trilingual Inscriptions and Symbolic Visualizations in the Achaemenid Empire,” Ars Orientalis 41 (2011): 219–75 (248). Finn writes that the trilinguals “may have been a direct source of inspiration for the Rosetta stone” (p. 221). The Rosetta Stone was commissioned in 196 BCE to address the issues of taxes and the building of statues (p. 249). 62 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 219. 63 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 220. 64 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 220. 65 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 224. 66 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 227. 67 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 227. 60 61

3. The trilingual tradition

103

The “implicit ranking system” of the three languages, when inscriptions were arranged vertically (which is not straightforwardly the case with the Bisitun monument), reflects that mediating function of Darius.68 Old Persian (royal, ancient) tended to appear at the top, Elamite (written, administrative) in the middle, and Babylonian (common, predominant) at the bottom.69 So Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian is the “usual pattern of Darius’s trilingual texts.”70 The “vertical arrangement of the trilingual” corresponds to “an inherent tripartite ideology.” 71 Finn argues, “the king was the link between heaven and earth, and through these three symbols the world functioned in perfect order.”72 The trilingual became a sort of index for the power of the king, his dominion over the people in his empire, and his relationship to the god Ahuramazda. This index was used throughout the empire to express the geographical, administrative, and cosmic boundaries, and the symbolism was recognizable to all people through the trilingual and its associated iconography.73

By comparison, from top to bottom, the Rosetta Stone was inscribed in hieroglyphs (divine writing), demotic characters (administrative writing), and Greek (common writing). 74 In a symbolic sense, the middle language mediates between the sacred and profane languages.75 In the same vein, John 19:20 has the sequence Ἑβραϊστί Ῥωμαϊστί Ἑλληνιστί, Hebrew being more divine, Latin more administrative, and Greek more widespread. 76 So Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 234. Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 234–35. 70 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 241. 71 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 236. 72 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 239. 73 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 242. 74 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 249. 75 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 249 follows W. Huss, “Die in Ptoelmaiischer Zeit verfassten Synodal-Dekrete der ägyptischen Priester,” ZPE 88 (1991): 189–208, to show that Egyptian priestly decrees unsurprisingly “exhibit the same linguistic arrangement.” 76 First, on the elevated view of Hebrew in Jewish and Christian literature, see Edmon L. Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text (VCSup 114; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 63–104 argues that the Hebrew criterion (texts believed to be composed in Hebrew) for the canonicity of Jewish scriptures was widespread in early Christianity. He (pp. 105–42) also explores the special status of Hebrew among Jews and Christians, as the original language of humanity and then the language exclusive to Israel and their scriptures. Contrary to Förster, “Der titulus crucis,” 114 fn. 4, who suggests that by Ἑβραϊστί John 19:20, just as in v. 17, means Aramaic, in Chapter 11 I will observe that Ἑβραϊστί means “in Hebrew.” To identify Aramaic there is to miss the possibility of an intentional hierarchy of languages, as Schnackenburg John, 3:271 demonstrates: “the vernacular (Aramaic), the language of government (Latin), the language of trade and commerce (Greek).” Second, on the administrative usage Latin in Palestine, see Stanley E. 68 69

104

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

Ἑβραϊστί Ῥωμαϊστί Ἑλληνιστί in John 19:20 means in the sacred divine language, in the language of the governing ruler, in the profane human language.77 The trilingual tradition’s “inherent ideology of language ranking, royal power, and religious association,” as Finn calls it, may contextualise the Johannine trilingual, in particular because of one high-profile Roman case – which I introduced in Chapter 1.78 On April 16, 29 BCE, the prefect of Egypt under Augustus, Gallus, set up in the Philae temple complex a trilingual “victory stela” (ILS 8995) in – from top to bottom – hieroglyphs, Latin, and Greek.79 The stela reports Gallus’ installation, his military campaigns, and his relationship with the king of Meroe. The hieroglyphic inscription is historical, and the Latin one and its Greek translation are dedicatory (to “Nile, the helper” and the paternal gods).80 The relief depicts Gallus as the conquering horseman, who is according to the hieroglyphic inscription installed by Octavian.81 The hieroglyphs characterise Gallus almost as an Egyptian king, developing Egyptian imports, its borders, its shrines and temples, and dedication to its deities (especially Isis and Osiris, the deities of Philae itself). The Latin-Greek text reports Gallus becoming prefect and friend of the king of Meroe (Ethiopia), as well as his military campaigns. Whether Gallus, or the Egyptian priests, or both in cooperation, cast the trilingual inscription, it was probably part – or, symptomatic – of the impetus for Augustus ejecting the prefect and revoking friendship (renuntatio amicitiae) with him.

Porter, “The Language(s) Jesus Spoke,” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3:2455–71 (2469): “The use of Latin has usually been attributed to the Roman officials who were placed in Palestine and elsewhere and who were functioning in an official capacity. This would account for much of the official evidence for Latin use at the time, which consists of inscriptions such as for public declarations (including the trilingual titulus on the cross; see John 19:20, where this Latin term is used), and on buildings, aqueducts, tombstones, milestones, and legionary tiles.” And third, on Greek in Galilee, see Chancey, Galilee, 122– 65. 77 Scholars do not analyse the sequence of languages in John 19:20 as though it is significant. Maier, “Inscription,” 70, for instance, writes, “The sequence itself, however, would seem of minor importance, and the actual order may have reflected only the inclination of the scribe who wrote the sign.” 78 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 252. 79 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 249. 80 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 269. 81 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 273, 277. The damage done to the monument has generated much confusion about the identity of the horsemen in the relief and the identity of the subject in the hieroglyphic texts – in both cases the question concerns whether Octavian or Gallus is in focus (p. 270).

3. The trilingual tradition

105

Augustus ejected Gallus from Egypt two years after the inscription was constructed, which entails that the two were not immediately related. 82 Perhaps Augustus recognised or was informed of “the association with the Achaemenid trilinguals and their symbolic powers” and recognised “an implicit threat to his own imperial power.”83 Finn concludes from the Gallus monument that the symbolism of the Achaemenid trilingual tradition endured even into the Roman period. 84 Martina Minas-Nerpel and Stefan Pfeiffer consider it the “most important and crucial Egyptian document” for the demise of the prefect.85 They argue that the trilingual harmonises with what Dio and Ovid say about the renuntiatio amicitiae of Augustus.86 Gallus both pursued his own glory (Dio 53.23.5–7) and dishonoured Octavian (Ovid, Am. 3.9.63–64; Tr. 2.445–46). Whether or not Octavian knew about the stela, it refers to the types of “minor and major misconducts against his maiestas” that Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer consider to be the fuel for the accusations against Gallus.87 The royal epithets in the hieroglyphic text, in addition, may either reflect confusion or conspiracy on the part of the Egyptian priests about the new prefect and his status. 88 So by comparison, for a “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” to be publicised on a trilingual would fly in the face of the unmatched maiestas of Caesar. Just as the titulus sometimes is associated with the maiestas crime, so also is the trilingual form. Some scholars suggest that the titulus is written in three languages to increase its status, its deterrent value, or even its reach as a publicising device.89 Alice Mandell and Jeremy Smoak focus on “the nonlinguistic modes of texts,” such as “placement, … the space in and around the text, their value as signs, and the diverse social contexts in which these inscriptions

82 But see D. B. Thompson and L. Koenen, “Gallus as triptolemos on the Tazza Farnese,” BASP 21 (1984): 111–56 (141). 83 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 250. 84 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 251. 85 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 265. 86 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 281. 87 Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 292. 88 For confusion, Minas-Nerpel and Pfeiffer, “Trilingual,” 292; and for conspiracy, Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 250: “the Egyptian priests might have been conspiring against Gallus while seeming to do him honor.” 89 Beth A. Berkowitz, Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 246 fn. 101: “The ‘titulus’ is another publicizing device”; Maier, “Inscription,” 60 notes that crucifixions took place at busy intersections outside cities for deterrent value; Bammel, “The titulus,” 359 fn. 43: “John, who emphasised the three languages, is likely to have intended to produce something that appeared already to the neutral eye as at least as dignified as the warning inscription of the Temple, which, Josephus maintains, was executed in Greek and Latin.”

106

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

operated.” 90 They are interested in “materiality, spatial setting, and social functions of writing.”91 Reading, for instance, a superscription on a cross (or several-metres-high relief) requires situation-specific “strategies” and “literacies” of the audience.92 So even if John 19:20 notes that many Ἰουδαῖοι read the titulus, it is less plausible that first-century Jews were intended to parse the three different languages, and it is more plausible that the fact of being written in three languages made the titulus convey a more symbolic message.93 The message is just as much, if not more, about its visibility and situatedness.94 The crucified Jesus is the relief of the superscription, the main subject in front of those viewing the cross, like the hard-to-identify horseman and his victims on the Gallus stela. By that visual ambiguity, Jesus becomes a paradox, as conqueror and conquered. So the three languages in 19:20 characterise Jesus in two ways: in triumph, and in defeat.

4. Writing in the Hebrew prophets: destruction and restoration 4. Writing in the Hebrew prophets: destruction and restoration

Crucial to the paradox of the victorious-if-defeated Johannine Jesus is that John 19:19, without any canonical parallels, indicates who writes the superscription and places it on the cross: Pilate. 95 As author, Pilate climactically demonstrates his authority (v. 11): ὃ γέγραφα γέγραφα (v. 22).96 90 Alice Mandell and Jeremy Smoak, “Reading and Writing in the Dark at Khirbet elQom: The Literacies of Ancient Subterranean Judah,” NEA 80:3 (2017): 188–95 (189); “The movement from the light outside of the tomb to the subterranean darkness may have formed the most significant factor in how visitors experienced the inscriptions” (p. 192). 91 Mandell and Smoak, “Literacies,” 190. 92 Mandell and Smoak, “Literacies,” 190: “Reading inscriptions located in subterranean contexts such as tombs and tunnels would have required a different set of strategies and literacies than scholars often imagine.” 93 Finn, “Gods, Kings, Men,” 224. 94 Mandell and Smoak, “Literacies,” 190. 95 Schnackenburg, John, 3:269 translates 19:19, “Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross.” But Barrett, John, 549 says that the aorist ἔγραψεν “clearly means ‘cause to be written.’” Similarly, the NRSV translates “Pilate also had an inscription written.” 96 The priests command, μὴ γράφε (John 19:21), and Pilate indicates, ὃ γέγραφα γέγραφα (v. 22). Pilate uses the perfect tense of γράφω whereas the priests use its present tense. Following Trevor V. Evans, Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch: Natural Greek Usage and Hebrew Interference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 32, the perfect tense is an imperfective that expresses stativity, more so than activity. Evans distinguishes the perfect tense from the present tense with the following texts. First, on τὸν ἀγρὸν καὶ τὸ σπήλαιον τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ σοι δίδωμι ἐναντίον πάντων τῶν πολιτῶν μου δέδωκά σοι, “the field and the cave which is in it I am giving you; before all my fellow citizens I give [it] to you” (Gen 23:11), Evans (p. 148) explains, “the change from present δίδωμι to perfect δέδωκα involves a shift

4. Writing in the Hebrew prophets: destruction and restoration

107

Whereas the superscription incorporates the αἰτία of Jesus in Mark and Matthew, which Luke ignores, the Johannine Pilate announces that he finds no αἰτία in Jesus three times (John 18:38b; 19:4, 6b). Thus, what Pilate writes cannot be any verdict against Jesus. Paul Winter suggests that Pilate’s titulus has “prophetic significance” – but in what sense exactly? And Craig Keener suggests that the reference to writing evokes references to what is written in the unbreakable scriptures (10:35) – but is Pilate only “God’s unwitting agent”?97 As Ναζωραῖος in 19:19 invokes Ναζαρά in 1:45, so also the form ἔγραψεν (“he wrote”) occurs in both places. As Pilate writes his verdict (19:19), so also Moses writes his torah (1:45). The absence of other Johannine characters who write strengthens both the connection between Moses and Pilate, as well as the chance that Pilate writes in not only a legal but also a prophetic capacity. I will argue that, as the prophets do, Pilate uses writing to mediate in divine-human judicial affairs, in particular to signal destruction and restoration. Hindy Najman analyses “the symbol of writing in biblical prophecy,” especially in relation to notions of “the authority of writtenness” and “authoritative writing.”98 Such notions became prominent among the Jewish scriptures, according to Najman, not only due to the durability of writing, but also for its “special symbolic significance and efficacy, promise, or consolation; it was to set events in motion, to realize what was written in a preliminary or anticipatory fashion.” 99 The evidence leads Najman to ask in focus from the act to the state of the subject.” Second, on παύσομαι κατηγοῶν ἀκηκόατε ἑωράκατε πεπόνθατε ἔχετε δικάζετε, “I shall conclude my accusation. You have heard, you have seen, you have suffered, you have the facts; decide” (Lys. 12.100), Evans (p. 28) proposes, “the perfects of the sequence ἀκηκόατε, ἑωράκατε, πεπόνθατε, ἔχετε … may be taken to focus on the current state of the dicasts addressed, contrasted with the activity of ἔχετε.” Taking the perfect as stative, therefore, Pilate shifts the emphasis from what he did (aorist ἔγραψεν, John 19:19), from his act of writing (present γράφε, v. 21), to his state as writer (perfect γέγραφα, v. 22). He stresses to the priests that he himself, as author, has authority, they they do not share. 97 Keener, John, 1138. See especially ἦν γεγραμμένον (“it is written”) in John 2:17; 6:31, 45; 10:34; 12:14. See also Klaus Scholtissek, “‘Geschrieben in diesem Buch’ (Joh 20:30): Beobachtungen zum kanonischen Anspruch des Johannesevangelium,” in Israel und seine Heilstraditionen im Johannesevangelium, ed. Klaus Scholtissek and Angelika Strotmann (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004), 207–26 (220); Christina Petterson, From Tomb to Text: The Body of Jesus in the Book of John (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 42. 98 Hindy Najman, “The Symbolic Significance of Writing in Ancient Judaism,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation, ed. H. Najman and J. H. Newman (JSJSup 83; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 139–75 (140), repr. eadem, Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity (JSJSup 53; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 3–38. 99 Najman, “Writing,” 141.

108

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

questions such as, “How was the work of writing imagined? What was the symbolic significance of sacred writing? How was the authority of writing conceived at different times?”100 In the texts of the Hebrew prophets Najman sees writing embodying witness to all of the Yahweh-Israel covenant, warnings of destruction, and promises of restoration. 101 I will follow Najman’s trail and observe the authority of writtenness in Isa 8:1–4, 16–20; 30:8–11; 10:1–4; Exodus 32–34; 2 Kings 22–23. I will also consider the textualisation of prophecy in Jeremiah 17; 36; Ezek 2:8–3:3; 4; 37:15–22; Zech 5:1–4. In Isa 8:1–4 first writing the text and then naming the child by way of it embody the divine promise. 102 Rather than signalling or performing the promise, the act of writing realises it in an anticipatory way – as pregnancy does birth. 103 In 8:16–20 the text itself becomes the witness, according to whose warning the people will either return from exile or not. 104 Text becomes witness to divine revelation in 30:8–11, where it will act as such forever; unlike human witness, written witness can endure eternally – initially concerning punishment and eventually as warning. 105 In both 8:16–18 and 30:8 the text needs to be written expressly because Isaiah himself is ignored by the royal advisors.106 The prophet in 10:1–4 laments those who write evil and oppression, and warns that they will be helpless when their judgement arrives. 107 The first tablets of the covenant were inscribed by Yahweh and then reinscribed by Moses on the second set, according to Exodus 32–34, which attributed authority not only to the texts but also to the prophet. 108 Moses actually re-enacted the covenant, which had been “symbolically abrogat[ed]” in the breaking of the first set, in rewriting the tablets. 109 Najman lastly mentions 2 Kings 22–23, where the catalyst for the reforms of Josiah is a prophet validating a discovered scroll as authentic.110 Such is the authority of writing and writtenness in significant human-divine affairs. Najman argues that prophets did not write mere “predictions of exile or redemption”; their texts, rather, were “agents setting in motion the events of Najman, “Writing,” 142. Najman, “Writing,” 146. 102 Najman, “Writing,” 147. 103 Najman, “Writing,” 148. 104 Najman, “Writing,” 150. 105 Najman, “Writing,” 150–51. 106 Najman, “Writing,” 152. Job also wants his words to be written, because he is ignored (Job 19:23–29). 107 Najman, “Writing,” 153. 108 Najman, “Writing,” 154–57. 109 Najman, “Writing,” 156. 110 Najman, “Writing,” 157–58. 100 101

4. Writing in the Hebrew prophets: destruction and restoration

109

either exile or redemption, depending upon the responses of their audience.”111 Though Jehoiakim, according to Jeremiah 36, does not repent but destroys the prophetic text, the warning is then rewritten and even expanded. 112 Because he does not simply ignore the text, Jehoiakim must presume the efficacy of the prophecy to be contingent on its materiality.113 This action means rejecting God and the prophets. 114 In Jeremiah 17 the writtenness of “the sin of Judah … with an iron stylus” and “with a diamond point … on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars” (v. 1) assures their judgement beyond any doubt, that they will surely give up their special inheritance of their own land (v. 4). 115 Writing is an appropriate metaphor here for the immovability and inevitability of judgement: because the sin of Judah is guaranteed, it guarantees destruction. The connotations go further in Ezek 4:1–3, where the prophet himself effects and experiences the siege of Jerusalem by writing the name Jerusalem on a brick.116 The prophet embodies the sign of destruction and endures it, too. However, the writing prophet also enacts restoration.117 Ezekiel 37:15–22, for instance, records the direction to inscribe two sticks as the two kingdoms of Israel. As the prophet brings the sticks together, he participates in the process of ingathering and unifying already under way. In Ezek 2:8–3:3 the revelation is written and eaten.118 In other words, the revelation from Yahweh is literary not oral, and the prophet ingests rather than hears it. The flying scroll of Zech 5:1–4 is, unlike any other text, not touching anything, between heaven and earth. 119 For Najman, its writtenness and accessibility appear “more important than the text’s actual content, which remains obscure.” 120 Further, the text does not witness a “potent event,” because the text itself is “the potent agent.”121 Najman concludes, the prophecy itself is revealed as sacred writing and the power, inalterability, and efficacious warning are all part of such a written revelation. The fate of Israel was already determined through the heavenly inscription of these texts. The warning was

Najman, “Writing,” 159. Najman, “Writing,” 162. 113 Najman, “Writing,” 162. 114 Najman, “Writing,” 164. 115 Najman, “Writing,” 165. 116 Najman, “Writing,” 165–66. 117 Najman, “Writing,” 167. 118 Najman, “Writing,” 169–71. 119 Najman, “Writing,” 172. 120 Najman, “Writing,” 172. 121 Najman, “Writing,” 172. 111 112

110

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

communicated to the prophet, and it becomes the responsibility of the prophet to insure the circulation of this written prophecy.122

So divine revelation occurs to humans when the prophet writes. Texts were able to participate in the efficacy of the divine revelation, whether destroying or restoring the people of God. To seal and realise promises, naming was sometimes part of the writing event. The outcome bears witness to divine-human relations with authority and endurability, so that it can correct and warn after the fact. Prophets write and validate such revelations, though others may bring judgement on themselves by writing evil and oppression. Judgement can be inscribed on hearts and idols, which ensures and enacts removal from the covenant. But as destruction can be written, so also can restoration, in particular in the form of the ingathering and unifying of the whole people of God. Separate sticks that are inscribed can become one, and what is inscribed can be ingested. What is written has agency and efficacy not always for its readability, but sometimes for its visibility between heaven and earth. Following Najman’s observation that “exilic and postexilic traditions continue to celebrate the written as heavenly, divine, efficacious, inspired, and cosmic,” I will consider where John fits.123 I suggest that the Johannine Pilate inscribes the trilingual titulus over the crucified Jesus as an anticipatory realisation of the destruction the priests were bringing on the Jerusalem temple. As witness, the titulus warns future generations against maiestas – and proves wrong the priests who tried to amend it (John 19:21). On the titulus Pilate writes, the element “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 19) has two functions. The title witnesses against the maiestas of the priests who established their own king. And the title also destroys the nation and temple. The sin of falsely accusing a usurper is inscribed on their hearts, and in turn that sin endures as the guarantee that usurpers will later decide the judgement of the Jerusalem temple. But as well as the false accusation, Pilate also writes the truth about the one on the cross: Jesus the Nazarene, the messianic temple builder. Though the priests destroy the temple on the cross, the prefect also realises in an anticipatory way that Jesus restores the temple in this same event. The titulus witnesses the crucified Jesus is both destruction and restoration, both judgement and hope, both dystopia and utopia – but only inasmuch as he is written. With Petterson, the irreversible, efficacious witness to divine revelation is the textualised corpse

122 Najman, “Writing,” 173. The seer of the apocalypse writes it in the book for the seven churches (Rev 1:11), and he sees the enthroned figure holding a scroll with seven seals (5:1). Later, he is told not to write what the seven thunders had sounded, but to seal it up (10:4). 123 Hindy Najman, Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 15.

5. Summary

111

named “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” 124 Jesus becomes the titulus when Pilate writes it. As prophet, the Johannine Pilate intentionally inscribes destruction and restoration. If Pilate finds Jesus innocent of making himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), and yet the priests want him crucified as such (18:33; 19:7, 12), then they alone claim Jesus’ kingship. John redirects mockery away from Jesus toward the priests. 125 The titulus is the final humilitation and intimidation.126 They realise that accepting the titulus makes them guilty of maiestas. Barrett sees the dilemma: The Jews’ objection to the titulus was natural. In the first place, they had just declared that they had no king but Caesar, and the titulus, if they accepted it, was tantamount to an admission of sedition; and in the second place, to suggest that a powerless, condemned, and dying outcast was the king of their nation was a studied insult.127

The tables have turned. They charge Jesus with and threaten Pilate with maiestas, but the Ἰουδαῖοι make themselves guilty of that very same crime. And it is by the charge and the threat that they perpetrate maiestas. They have backed themselves into the corner of making Jesus King of the Ἰουδαῖοι without Caesar’s permission.

5. Summary 5. Summary

The identity of those who crucify Jesus in John is ambiguous. The openness of John 19:16 leads the Johannine reader into the paradoxical interplay of two senses. Though the Ἰουδαῖοι crucify Jesus, they also exalt the Son of Man, as 8:28 has anticipated. In the act of making the accusation, the accusers become 124 Petterson, From Tomb to Text, 42–43, capitals original: “What the inscription then does is create a direct signifying link between the crucified person … and the title … there is no mediator between the crucified person, the name and the title – they are at the same level of reality, or truth… That which is written IS Jesus… he is the very content of that which is written, that which fills the text (πληρόω).” 125 Bammel, “The titulus,” 359–60: “While Luke, who calls the onlookers ὄχλος, tends to attribute the mocking action to specific groups, to the ἄρχοντες, the στρατιῶται and the one malefactor, John bypasses any reference to the mocking of the crucified one. The evangelist, who makes the soldiers fall to the ground when they realise whom they are about to arrest (18:6), who deprives the Ecce homo scene of any crude feature of mockery and turns it into an occasion for something approaching a confession, must have acted here equally deliberately: while the mocking is not found worth mentioning, those whose mocking action is presupposed are mocked themselves.” 126 Bond, Pilate, 102 fn. 41 notes that the Johannine priests “sense the mockery directed towards their own nation and ask Pilate to alter the title.” 127 Barrett, John, 549.

112

Chapter 3: Epilogue, John 19:16b–22

the accused. And in the process of being conquered, Jesus becomes the conqueror. Because the accusers bring judgement on themselves, they position Jesus to bring restoration to the world. I have concluded that the trilingual titulus Pilate writes in 19:16b–22 is prophetic. With “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” Pilate signals the judgement on those who bring the false accusation of maiestas against Jesus. And with “Jesus the Nazarene,” Pilate signals the hope in the one who witnesses to the truth and builds the new temple. The denouement of the episode in 18:28–19:22 is that Pilate writes against the Ἰουδαῖοι and for the Nazarene. The accusers demand that Pilate rewrites his inscription (19:21), but its prophetic authority endures (v. 22). And that authority is validated by the events of 70 CE, when the Ἰουδαῖοι force the Romans to destroy the Jerusalem temple. Caiaphas’ plot (11:50) to protect the nation and the temple (v. 48) defeats itself. But it does enable the shepherd to bring his other sheep into the fold (10:16), to ingather the dispersed children of God (11:52), to draw all to himself (12:32), and to restore the destroyed temple (2:19) in his own body (v. 21).

Chapter 4

Prologue, John 18:28 During visits to Jerusalem, Pilate used the palace of Herod as his own praetorium.1 Because he was friend of the Romans, Herod was both King of the Ἰουδαῖοι and restorer of the Jerusalem temple. In his old palace, as John 18:33–38a and 19:9–12 narrate, Jesus, another Davidic temple builder, and Pilate, the prefect from Rome, discuss kingship and authority. 2 Jesus is accused of declaring himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, as Herod – not to mention David – also was. Unlike the other gospels, John 18:28 foregrounds the praetorium: they lead Jesus into the praetorium, but the Ἰουδαῖοι do not enter into it. 3 They stay outside, supposing that the praetorium will defile and inhibit them from eating the Passover. In this chapter I will analyse that logic as misguided, as at odds with trends in the wider purity discoure and themes in the Johannine narrative. Though neither the praetorium nor Pilate will defile them, these blind disciples of Moses are in the process of defiling themselves. To argue my reading, I will discuss Passover and the praetorium, the verb μιαίνω (“defile”), gentile dwellings, and Johannine notions of holiness and purity. Ἄγουσιν οὖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ Καϊάφα εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον· ἦν δὲ πρωΐ· καὶ αὐτοὶ οὐκ εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον, ἵνα μὴ μιανθῶσιν ἀλλὰ φάγωσιν τὸ πάσχα.

1 On Pilate’s praetorium in John 18:28 being the old palace of Herod, see Brown, Death, 705–10; Bond, Pilate, 7–8; Urban C. von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,” in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 523–86 (572–73). See, for instance, the uses of αὐλή (“palace”) in Josephus, Ant. 15.292; 16.241. More specific to Romans, see Philo, Gaius 299 (Pilate’s dedication of shields in Herod’s palace); Josephus, War 2.301 (Florus staying at Herod’s palace and setting up his judgement bench in front of it). 2 Bond, Pilate, 171 notes that the episode focuses on kingship and the way in which Jesus was king. As Brown, Death, 705 observes, in John Pilate and Jesus talk in private – not in public, as in the synoptics. 3 Mark 15:16 and Matt 27:27 mention the πραιτώριον only when the soldiers lead Jesus into it and summon together the entire cohort. John, however, mentions it three times (18:28, 33; 19:9). Mark 15:1 // Matt 27:2 // Luke 23:1 foreground Pilate instead.

114

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

So they lead Jesus from Caiaphas into the praetorium – now it was morning. They themselves did not enter into the praetorium, so that they may not be defiled but eat the Passover. (John 18:28)

1. The Passover and the praetorium 1. The Passover and the praetorium

After I introduced the interplay of form and meaning in John, I observed that John 9:1–41, like 18:28–19:22, includes seven scenes. The man born blind moves away from blindness, whereas the Pharisees move into blindness. Attempting to judge Jesus, the Pharisees bring judgement on themselves, and as a result they also show the man born blind the way to salvation. Leading to both judgement and salvation, the progression of scenes reflects an emerging revelation. The systematic crossings in and out of the praetorium in 18:28– 19:22 recall the Johannine dualism between what is below and what is above. What occurs outside is from this world, and what occurs inside is not from this world. Though judgement is revealed outside, salvation is revealed inside. Those theological possibilities are intimated by 18:28, where John, unlike the other gospels, separates the two stages. The way in which John separates the outside from the inside of the praetorium is therefore significant. The separation is due to an enigmatic connection between the Passover and purity: the Ἰουδαῖοι stay outside the praetorium, so that they retain sufficient purity to eat the Passover. Both Numbers and John indicate that the danger would be corpse impurity. In the first place, Yahweh has instructed Moses that the Israelites are to eat the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight (Num 9:3, 5). The men who are corpse-impure are unable to participate (v. 6), to offer the gift of Yahweh (v. 7), except after a one-month delay (v. 11). 4 Corpse impurity eventuates variously: the person who touches a corpse is impure for seven days (19:11); both the person who enters a house and everything in the house in which someone died are impure for seven days (v. 14); the person who touches someone who was killed, someone who died, or some grave is impure for seven days (v. 16), the person who touches someone who has touched a corpse is impure for one day (v. 22).5 With that in mind, second, some features of the Johannine narrative come together. After the raising of Brant, John, 234 cites the mandatory one-month delay of Passover for the corpseimpure. And with Num 9:6, Keener, John, 1099 suggests that, on entering the praetorium, “scrupulous Jews could contract Gentile impurity.” 5 According to m. Kel. 1.1, the corpse-impure person is the third of “the fathers of impurity,” after the creeping thing and semen. And according to m. Ohal. 1.1, corresponding with Num 19:22, “A man who touches the corpse is unclean with the uncleanness of seven [days], and a man who touches him is unclean with the uncleanness [that passes at] evening.” 4

1. The Passover and the praetorium

115

Lazarus (John 11:44), “the Passover of the Ἰουδαῖοι was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves” (v. 55). Jesus then goes to Bethany “six days before the Passover” (12:1), which indicates that Lazarus was raised at least one week before the Passover.6 Taken together, those texts in Numbers and John suggest that the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι are characterised as wary of contracting corpse impurity in the praetorium of Pilate.7 According to Richard Bauckham, John 18:28 is simply “historical explanation.”8 Bauckham adds this footnote: It is probably not the case that Gentiles or their houses were regarded as ipso facto ritually impure, but the chief priests may have feared contamination from the idolatry practised in the praetorium or simply have been exercising extreme caution, as priests who must officiate at the Passover, to avoid any possible source of impurity, such as human corpses or those of unclean animals.9

As Bauckham recognises, the praetorium itself would not defile – a significant point I will discuss in detail below.10 However, he suggests that something in the praetorium may have done. Whether or not that is possible is beside the point: not only does John indicate nothing by way of corpses present in the administrative headquarters of the palace, but the episode situates impurity with the Ἰουδαῖοι outside. They are the sinners, the ones who lie and murder to effect the unjust crucifixion of Jesus on a false accusation. So it seems to me more plausible that the Ἰουδαῖοι do suppose that the praetorium defiles. And as Bauckham knows, moreover, they would Also connecting the Passover with purity, the episode occurring explicitly “before the feast of the Passover” (John 13:1) narrates Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, so that they may have a share with him (v. 18). 7 On the way Johannine water imagery, in addition, draws on and perpetuates traditional purity discourse, see Hannah K. Harrington, “Purification in the Fourth Gospel in Light of Qumran,” in John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate, ed. Mary L. Coloe and Tom Thatcher (EJL 32; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 117–38. 8 Richard Bauckham, “The Holiness of Jesus and His Disciples in the Gospel of John,” in Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament, ed. Kent Brower and Andy Johnson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 95–113 (97). He (p. 97 fn. 11) notes: “I disagree with the common view that the reference to purification in 2:6 has something to do with the meaning of the miracle at Cana.” However, in other cases, Bauckham interprets details not in terms of verisimilitude but Johannine theology instead. See Richard Bauckham, “The 153 Fish and the Unity of the Fourth Gospel,” Neot 36:1–2 (2002): 77–88. He argues that the 153 fish the disciples catch (John 21:11) symbolise, in Hebrew gematria, “children of God.” He relates the symbolism to the Johannine notions of becoming children of God (1:12) and gathering into one the dispersed children of God (11:52). 9 Bauckham, “Holiness,” 97 fn. 9. 10 That is not to say that the purification of the priests was not crucial to the keeping of the Passover, as 2 Chr 30:3 indicates. 6

116

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

probably be misguided. The narrative issue here is the same ironic characterisation that emerges throughout John: unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι suppose that retaining Moses means rejecting Jesus (9:28), but they do not really follow Moses’ law (7:18), and they do not realise that he wrote about (1:45) and inspires belief in Jesus (5:46).11 In this chapter I will apply that irony to the interpretation of 18:28. Barrett also sees irony and structure as the key effects of John 18:28: “What seems at first sight to be a straightforward historical note may be due rather to John’s sense of irony, perhaps also to his desire to use the dramatic device of two stages.” 12 To start with the first part of Barrett’s insight, commentators tend to repeat the same observation, which I will argue is both problematic and inaccurate, about irony in John 18:28. Though the Ἰουδαῖοι lead Jesus to death, “they meticulously hold fast to their ceremonial prescriptions.” 13 These Ἰουδαῖοι “who plot the murder of the Son of God mind to the last detail their formal religious punctilio.” 14 They “are more concerned with ceremonial purity than with moral integrity.”15 They display a “blatant contrast between scrupulous observance of ritual purity and ignoring the law’s ethical demands.” 16 They “are so scrupulous about the laws of purity that they will not even enter the praetorium, yet their scruples do not extend to murder.”17 What is problematic in the comments is the juxtaposition of purity speculation and ritual practice with morality and ethical behaviour. The pervading cynicism implies that at its core Jewishness is immoral and unethical. 18 What is inaccurate, moreover, in the comments is that John, rather than disregarding purity, reconceptualises it around Jesus – something the Ἰουδαῖοι do not understand. As I will argue later in this chapter, that is where the real irony lies. The second part of Barrett’s insight is John’s use of two stages. On this, Jerome Neyrey writes the following: 11 In light of Quintillian, Inst. 9.2.46, the Ἰουδαῖοι appear as ironic figures, like Socrates, for instance, who though wise, talked and acted as though foolish. On irony in Aristophanes and Plato, Aristotle and his successors, as well as Cicero and Quintilian, see O’Day, Revelation, 12–19. 12 Barrett, John, 533. 13 Bultmann, John, 652. 14 Barrett, John, 532. 15 Lindars, John, 555. 16 Keener, John, 1100. 17 Michaels, John, 915. 18 By recent contrast, Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020) analyses the way the evangelists conceptualise ancient Jewish purity laws without assuming that Jesus opposed the whole system.

2. What μιαίνω means

117

This passage contains both a classification of Pilate’s official space by elite Judeans according to their elaborate purity system and an ironic twist to that by the author. The praetorium is unclean, and the mere entering of it contaminates. By remaining outside, the elite Judeans communicate this and claim respect for observing the purity code… The author, however, sees irony in the fact that while they observe purity, they nevertheless instigate the murder of Jesus, which is vastly more defiling than entering Pilate’s chambers. Thus both the author and his characters label space clean/unclean, but from different classification systems.19

Whereas I will go further and argue that the praetorium would not defile the Ἰουδαῖοι, I agree with Neyrey’s observation that John contrasts two purity systems with each other. For John, only one classification system is correct. If the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι are wrong, the praetorium is pure and does not defile. Misguided as they are, they moreover defile themselves with the sin of murder – and of not just any body (2:21), but a holy one, a temple (2:19).20 Wil Rogan has recently analysed the “growing critical awareness that purity presents a kind of politics in the way it mirrors the social ordering of the cosmos and demarcates the distinct identity of Israel among the Gentiles and of Israel among the Israelites.”21 In the same vein, I will demonstrate the way in which John aims to demarcate the distinct identity of Jesus’ believers among his opponents, the Ἰουδαῖοι.

2. What μιαίνω means 2. What μιαίνω means

Johannine scholarship has no detailed discussion of the verb μιαίνω (“defile”). The lacuna is strange considering that the idea of Ἰουδαῖοι being defiled is crucial to the irony scholars usually see in John 18:28. Apart from John 18:28, the New Testament uses μιαίνω three times. Titus 1:15 reads, “to the pure (καθαρός) all things are pure (καθαρός), but to the defiled (μιαίνω) and unbelieving (ἄπιστος) nothing is pure (καθαρός): their very minds and consciences are defiled (μιαίνω).” The defiled and the pure are opposites, but the defiled and the unbelieving are the same. Those who are pure are therefore those who believe. The type of purity in view seems to be more spiritual and moral than ritual. Those who do not believe Jesus are impure in mind and conscience, not, apparently, in ritual practice. Unbelievers confess to know God and yet deny him by their actions (v. 16). Impurity before God 19 Jerome H. Neyrey, “Spaces and Places, Whence and Whither, Homes and Rooms: ‘Territoriality’ in the Fourth Gospel,” BTB 32 (2002): 60–74 (62). 20 Neyrey, “Spaces and Places, Whence and Whither, Homes and Rooms,” 66: “Thus from the beginning, the author classifies a place (his body) as ‘holy,’ even as the new ‘temple.’” 21 Wil Rogan, “Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions,” CBR 16:3 (2018): 309–39 (335).

118

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

and faithfulness toward God are mutually exclusive. In Titus μιαίνω is not associated with ritual, and it entails apostasy from the people of God. Hebrews 12:15 reads, “see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God – that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and through it many become defiled (μιαίνω).” If one becomes defiled, one does not obtain the grace of God. The preceding verse says that one needs holiness to see the Lord (v. 14). This holiness demands moral purity. The antitype is the immoral (πόρνος) and godless Esau (v. 16).22 He was rejected because he did not find repentance (v. 17). In Hebrews μιαίνω pertains to moral impurity which inhibits participation in the promises. So again, μιαίνω connotes spiritual apostasy without implying ritual impurity. Jude 8 reads, “yet in the same way these dreamers also defile (μιαίνω) the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.” The contrast is the archangel Michael, who did not bring a judgement of blasphemy against the διάβολος, but left the matter to the Lord (v. 9). Verse 10 attacks those who blaspheme, who destroy themselves in so doing as if by instinct. They go the way of Cain (v. 11). In Jude an instance of moral impurity is blasphemy, which the διάβολος commits, and which destroys those who commit it. In the Johannine corpus, as well, Cain and the διάβολος appear together. According to 1 John 3:12, Cain murdered his brother because his deeds were evil, and because he was from the evil one – elsewhere, the διάβολος (vv. 8, 10). And in John 8:44, amid dispute over those who are true children of Abraham (vv. 37, 39–40, 53), Jesus identifies Ἰουδαῖοι who murder as offspring of the διάβολος. So as elsewhere in the New Testament, namely Titus, Hebrews, and Jude, in John μιαίνω plausibly pertains to moral defilement and therefore spiritual origins. Those strong associations of the verb μιαίνω with moral impurity and spiritual apostasy also occur throughout the Septuagint. Whereas Leviticus uses μιαίνω in relation to the pronouncement of defilement and isolation over a leprous person (Lev 13:11), it also uses μιαίνω in relation to the people of God defiling themselves as did the nations whom God sent away (18:24). Those connected senses of moral defilement and covenant unfaithfulness recur also in the prophetic literature. Being defiled is going after whores (Hos 5:3; similarly 6:10). Playing the whore with shepherds other than God (Jer 3:1), such as Baal (2:23), is being defiled. Playing the whore with abominations is being defiled by lawless acts (Ezek 20:30). Playing the whore with nations is being defiled with their sin (23:30). The people defile themselves by the practices of Egypt (20:7, 18). Acting wickedly defiles (Jer 2:33). The people can be one with God if they do not defile themselves in their sins (Ezek 14:11). The people defile themselves with idols, but the Lord 22

Eph 5:5, for instance, pairs πόρνος with ἀκάθαρτος.

2. What μιαίνω means

119

will purify them so that they may be reconciled (37:23). So the connotations of μιαίνω in its few New Testament uses are present also in the Septuagint. As well as the defilement of the people of God, another regular association with μιαίνω in the Septuagint is the defilement of not only the land but also where God lives. Leviticus connects the two: if the people defile themselves (Lev 18:24), they will also defile the land, which will become angry with the people, as it did with the other nations (v. 28). And as playing the prostitute defiles the people (see the preceding paragraph), so it also defiles the land by idolatry. Israel defiles the land of the Lord (Jer 2:7). The land is defiled with impure acts and idols (Ezek 36:17). The people defile the Lord’s holy places with their abominations and are judged (Ezek 5:11). Rulers defile God’s holy things (Isa 43:28). But nothing defiled ought to enter into the house of the Lord (Hos 9:4), and nothing defiled can enter into Sophia (Wis 7:25). The associations of μιαίνω with both land and temple are germane to the concern of the council in John that “the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation” (John 11:48). In a similar vein, Josephus also uses μιαίνω in relation to the defilement of the land and the temple. Many Ἰουδαῖοι entreat Petronius not install the image of Caligula and so defile (μιαίνω) the city of Jerusalem (Ant. 18.271). Later, during the war, “every part of the temple was defiled (μιαίνω) with killing” (War 5.10). Whereas the Romans honour it, the Ἰουδαῖοι defile (μιαίνω) the temple: But as for you, what of anything recommended by our lawgiver have you ever done, and what of all that he denounced have you left undone? The impiety of those who lost the city in previous defeats was as nothing compared to yours. You have graduated from the closet sins – the likes of petty theft, double-dealing, adultery – and compete with each other in wholesale plunder and murder, exploring unprecedented new byways of iniquity. The temple has become a cesspit, and native hands have polluted (μιαίνω) the divine place which even the Romans would venerate from the proper distance, suppressing many of their own customs in deference to your law. (Josephus, War 5.401–02)

Those words from Josephus are later echoed by Titus by himself, who addresses the Ἰουδαῖοι as “most defiled ones” (ὦ μιαρώτατοι), and who claims no part in the defiling of the temple: Greatly saddened, Titus called out in one more attempt to make John and his supporters feel some shame: ‘Was it not your people, you unspeakable men (ὦ μιαρώτατοι), who put up this balustrade round your holy places? Was it not your people who placed along it those slabs with inscriptions in Greek and our language giving notice that no foreigner should pass beyond the barrier? And was it not we who gave you leave to put to death any transgressor, even if he was a Roman? So why, you criminals, are there so many dead inside it that you are walking on corpses? Why are you defiling your temple with the blood of foreigners and natives alike? I call to witness the gods of my country and any god who ever watched over this place – I cannot think there is any now – and I call on my army, the Ἰουδαῖοι who are with me, and you yourselves as witnesses that this pollution (μιαίνω) of the temple is not something forced on you by me. If you will only change the battleground

120

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

to somewhere else, no Roman will go near your holy places or do them any disrespect, and I shall preserve the sanctuary for you, whether or not that is what you want.’ (Josephus, War 6.124–28)

The defiling of the temple devastates Titus, and it necessitates his victory (for example, 6.110), as well as God abandoning both the sanctuary and the people (for example, 6.300).23 My reading of John 18:28 will resemble sentiments in those speeches from Josephus and Titus. The acts that defile the temple are performed by Jews who transgress Moses, from a Jewish perspective, and would not be performed by Romans, who neither force it nor can bear witnessing it. In John 7:19 Jesus shares the more inner-Jewish perspective of Josephus’ speech, but in John 11:48 the Ἰουδαῖοι do not share Titus’ perspective. John 11:48, in the episode of vv. 45–57, which describes what happened after Jesus raised Lazarus, is crucial to the topic of the temple and the Ἰουδαῖοι. Whereas some Ἰουδαῖοι believe in Jesus (v. 45), some Ἰουδαῖοι report to the Pharisees (v. 46). The council fears that spreading belief in Jesus may cause the Romans to come and destroy the temple and the nation (v. 48). Caiaphas asserts, “you do not reckon that it is beneficial for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (v. 50). The plot to kill Jesus is now official (v. 53), forcing Jesus into hiding (v. 54), in particular from the Passover celebrations (v. 55) that are littered with potential informers (v. 57). Harold Attridge has discussed ancient views on reasoning from expediency, that the end justifies the means. 24 Attridge demonstrates that many Greeks and Jews disagreed with such reasoning. Rabbinic literature shows debates on the dilemma of one for many. But the solution is clear, for instance, with m. Ter. 8:12: if Gentiles threaten to defile every woman when one woman is not handed over, every woman being defiled is preferred to handing over one Israelite.25 What is right on principle trumps what is beneficial in practice. Jesus’ crucifixion, committed from political expediency, is unethical according to John. So Caiaphas is wrong. He is also wrong that expediency keeps the Romans away. From its post-war vantage point, John argues that Rome came and destroyed the temple expressly because the Jews did not believe Jesus.26

See, for example, the overview in Jonathan Klawans, Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 187–91. 24 Harold W. Attridge, “John, the Jews, and Philosophy,” in John and Judaism, 101–10. 25 Attridge, “John, the Jews, and Philosophy,” 106 on this and the preceding m. Ter. 8.11. 26 Attridge, “John, the Jews, and Philosophy,” 104, italics original: “As it turns out, the authorities will see that Jesus is put to death, people will believe, the Romans will come, and the ‘place’ of the Ἰουδαῖοι will be obliterated. The formula has a deeply ironic twist: From the 23

3. Gentiles and their dwellings as (not) ritually defiling

121

So in light of John 11:50, and taking the lead from patterns in the usage of μιαίνω across the New Testament, the Septuagint, and Josephus, some implications may be drawn with respect to the characterisations of the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι, Pilate, and Jesus. At the beginning of the episode in John 18:28–19:22, the Ἰουδαῖοι are wary of becoming ritually defiled. Yet if the sense of μιαίνω is more moral and spiritual, other possible meanings emerge. The narrator indicates that the Ἰουδαῖοι do not consider that they may be defiling themselves, the land, and the temple. In spite of the Roman prefect Pilate, who pronounces Jesus’ innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), the unbelieving, sinful Ἰουδαῖοι insist on the unjust crucifixion and defilement of the temple of Jesus’ body (2:19, 21). But moreover, in the process the Ἰουδαῖοι defile themselves with wickedness and faithlessness, in effect abandoning identity as Ἰουδαῖοι. To justify that reading of John 18:28 as a hint at the moral impurity of the Ἰουδαῖοι, I will now turn to demonstrating that John 18:28 also hints at the misguidedness of the Ἰουδαῖοι who fear contracting corpse impurity inside the praetorium of Pilate.

3. Gentiles and their dwellings as (not) ritually defiling 3. Gentiles and their dwellings as (not) ritually defiling

Purity discourse in John, though distinctive, derives from and corresponds in large part to other Jewish literature. As Moshe Blidstein writes, “The Christian purity practices and concepts which emerged in this period had much in common with those of Greco-Roman religions and Judaism, but were nevertheless innovative on many fronts.”27 So the question is, why do the Ἰουδαῖοι in John 18:28 presume that the praetorium will defile them? Did first-century Jews consider gentile dwellings defiling, or not? Does the praetorium of Pilate fit in the category? I have already determined that the primary candidate in view in John 18:28 is corpse impurity. In respect of corpse impurity, John can be situated in relation not only to Numbers – see earlier – but also to the Mishnah. In m. Ohalot gentile dwelling places are impure due to associations with inconspicuous abortions, and in m. Avodah Zarah gentile building projects are prohibited due to associations with public executions.28 Before analysing the germane mishnaic traditions, I will turn to Jonathan Klawans’ distinction between ritual and moral impurity – a point of view of the evangelist, all of this happened not because people believed in Jesus but because they did not do so.” 27 Moshe Blidstein, Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3. 28 I am unpersuaded that any influence-dependence relationship between John and the traditions underlying the mishnaic texts can be established.

122

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

distinction, Klawans suggests, not grasped among New Testament scholars.29 He emphasises in the ancient Jewish literature “the defiling force of sin” and in ancient Jewish sectarianism the significant role of “issues of moral impurity” – two topics that aid the interpretation of John.30 With the leprous person in Lev 13:11 and the people in 18:24, I alluded to the difference between ritual impurity and moral impurity earlier. According to Klawans, in the system of ritual impurity a person can be defiled by “natural and largely unavoidable bodily functions,” whereas in the system of moral impurity a person can be defiled by “certain sins.”31 One can become defiled in natural ways, and one can be defiled in unnatural ways. One tends to be passive in becoming ritually defiled, but one tends to be active in becoming morally defiled. Klawans argues, “it is not sinful to be ritually impure, and ritual impurity does not result from sin.” 32 The following, on burying the dead and corpse impurity, is an illuminating instance of the spectrum spanning obligatory to avoidable ritually defiling acts: The LORD said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his relatives, except for his nearest kin: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother; likewise, for a virgin sister, close to him because she has had no husband, he may defile himself for her. But he shall not defile himself as a husband among his people and so profane himself. (Lev 21:1–4, NRSV)

Ritual impurity is obligatory in select cases, but to be avoided in others. Sin, moreover, does not ritually defile, but it does morally defile. Characteristic morally defiling sins are illicit sexual relations, idolatry, and murder. The practice of idolatry is morally defiling, not the idols nor the idolaters themselves.33 The problem is primarily behaviour, not objects nor identity. Klawans has also focused on the connections between impurity and Gentiles, and he proposes, ritual impurity did not generally apply to Gentiles at all until the tannaitic period, and even during that period, the notion did not take hold on a widespread basis. Though Gentiles were considered to be morally impure from a much earlier date, this conception did not cause Jews to consider contacts with Gentiles to be ritually defiling. Thus, it is an error to assume that Jews in ancient times generally considered Gentiles to be ritually defiling, and

29 Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), viii. 30 Klawans, Impurity, viii. 31 Klawans, Impurity, viii. 32 Klawans, Impurity, 41. 33 Klawans, Impurity, 113.

3. Gentiles and their dwellings as (not) ritually defiling

123

it is even more of an error to assume that such a conception would have been an impediment to Jewish-Gentile interaction.34

The significant error – which fuels much New Testament scholarship on why the Ἰουδαῖοι remain outside the praetorium of Pilate in John 18:28 – Klawans uncovers is that Gentiles did not ritually defile Jews by everyday interactions. Though Jews tended to consider Gentiles sinful, moreover, the sins of Gentiles did not ritually defile Jews either. Klawans argues, “Only two latefirst-century sources can be said to testify to a notion of Gentile impurity. But Acts may well be exaggerated, and Josephus’ report on the Essenes tells us nothing about their non-Essene contemporaries.” 35 I will go further and analyse the way in which Acts nuances the notion of the impurity of Gentiles. Despite John 18:28, Acts 10:28 is as close as the New Testament gets to calling gentile dwellings ritually defiling: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” The concern Peter is aiming to alleviate is the morally defiling power of Cornelius. Klawans suggests that Acts 10:28 pertains to “close contact, such as visiting homes.”36 But more than that, if God has shown Peter not to call anyone profane or unclean, Acts 10:28 does presume that Jews call Gentiles themselves impure. Elsewhere, Acts explains why it is unlawful to associate closely with or visit Gentiles clear: the dietary habits of Gentiles make them profane (κοινός) and impure (ἀκάθαρτος). Outside Acts 10:28, κοινός (“profane”) occurs with ἀκάθαρτος (“impure”) twice: in the dream about eating animals represented first in 10:14 and then recounted by Peter in 11:8. By framing 10:28 in that way, the dream is the rationale underpinning why Peter associates closely with and comes to Cornelius the Gentile. Acts may assume that morally impure behaviour, such as eating certain animals, became so synonymous with Gentiles that some Jews collapsed the distinction altogether.37 From the perspective of Acts, Jews would be wrong to do so, because moral impurity is

Jonathan Klawans, “Notions of Gentile Impurity in Ancient Judaism,” AJS Review 20:2 (1995): 285–312 (288). 35 Klawans, “Gentile Impurity,” 312; see Josephus, War 2.150. 36 Klawans, “Gentile Impurity,” 301. On Klawans and Acts 10:28, see further Richard Bauckham, “James, Peter, and the Gentiles,” in The Missions of James, Peter, and Paul: Tensions in Early Christianity, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans (NovTSup 115; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 91–142. 37 So for instance: Jub. 22.16: “separate yourself from the Gentiles, and do not eat with them, and do not perform deeds like theirs; and do not become associates of theirs, because their deeds are defiled (μιαίνω), and all of their ways are contaminated, and despicable, and abominable”; 1 En. 9.8: “and they have gone to the people of the earth’s daughters and slept with them and defiled (μιαίνω) themselves, and revealed to them all sins.” 34

124

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

separable from ethnicity.38 So the underlying problem in Acts is not viewing the homes of Gentiles or even Gentiles themselves as ritually defiling. 39 Rather, the problem Acts seeks to correct is the false identification of moral impurity with ethnicity – namely, non-Jewish ethnicity. Unlike Acts 10:28, m. Ohal. 18.7 connects gentile dwellings with corpse impurity.40 Keener infers from m. Ohal. 18.7, as well as Acts 10:28 and 11:3, “Houses of non-Jews were ritually impure.” 41 Also commenting on John 18:28, Thompson generalises from m. Ohal. 18.7 in a similar way. 42 But Klawans’ scholarship undercuts presuppositions of not only the impurity of Gentiles but also its ritually defiling force. Klawans himself intimates, in a footnote, that, like m. Ohal. 18.7, John 18:28 presumes the danger of defilement by corpses, because “any number of bloody activities took place” in the praetorium. 43 So, his headquarters, not Pilate himself, may pose the danger of ritual defilement to the Ἰουδαῖοι, in particular by the presence of corpses. That would be why the Ἰουδαῖοι are comfortable talking with Pilate only if they remain outside the praetorium. The specific concern underlying m. Ohal. 18.7, however, is that the presence of aborted infants defiles the dwelling places of Gentiles.44 So as in

38 In a similar way, on Aristeas, Blidstein, Purity, 48 concludes,“in fact the letter itself positively describes Jews eating with gentiles; it is idolatry and other vices, and not contact with gentiles, that Aristeas opposes.” 39 Similarly, Christine E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 50, italics original: “Thus, when Peter adds that he will not call any man common or unclean, he alludes to the profane and – in all likelihood – morally impure status of Gentiles. The author of Acts knows that there is no intrinsic ritual impurity that impedes interactions between Gentiles and Jews: In Acts 14:1 and 17:1–4, Paul addresses companies of Jews and Greeks in synagogues at Iconium and Thessalonica, respectively.” 40 See also t. Ohal. 18. 41 Keener, John, 1099. Keener also uses Josephus, War 1.229, the context of which concerns festival observance in Jerusalem: “His approach alarmed Malichus, who instigated Hyrcanus to send Herod an order forbidding any introduction of foreigners while the local people were undergoing purification.” To me, this, vague as it is, does not need to mean, as Keener implies, that the mere presence of Gentiles ritually defiles Jews. 42 Thompson, John, 376, with fn. 38, also connects the putative ritually defiling force of the praetorium with m. Ohal. 18.7. 43 Klawans, “Gentile Impurity,” 301 fn. 81. 44 Some Johannine scholars have recognised this, such as John Christopher Thomas, “The Fourth Gospel and Rabbinic Judaism,” ZNW 82 (1991): 159–82 (181): “The declaration that gentile dwellings are unclean is made upon the assumption that gentiles dispose of abortions there. Mention of a concern about the contracting of ritual uncleanness in John 18,28 demonstrates that the Fourth Gospel exhibits an intimate acquaintance with this purity idea which was important to Pharisaic Judaism.” Thomas has not, however, considered why the

3. Gentiles and their dwellings as (not) ritually defiling

125

Acts 10:28, the problem is not Gentiles themselves but a stereotype about gentile practice and hidden corpses. Dwelling places of gentiles [in the Land of Israel] are unclean. How long must [the gentiles] remain in them for them to require examination [to determine their status]? What do they examine? The deep drains and foul water. The House of Shammai say, “Also the rubbish heaps and loose dirt.” And the House of Hillel say, “Any place which the pig or the weasel can reach does not require examination.” Colonnades are not subject to the law applying to the dwellings of gentiles. Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel says, “A city of gentiles which was laid waste is not subject to the law applying to the dwellings of gentiles.” East of Qisrin and west of Qisarion [Caesarea Phillippi] are graveyards. [The area] east of Akko was in doubt, and sages declared it clean. Rabbi and his court voted concerning Qeni and declared it clean. Ten places are not subject to the law applying to the dwelling of gentiles: tents of Arabs, field huts, tents, fruit shelters, summer houses, a gatehouse, the open space of a courtyard, the bath, an armory, and the place of the legions. (m. Ohal. 18.745)

The traditions in m. Ohal. 18.7 qualify the defiling force of the dwellings of Gentiles: not every gentile dwelling, and not under every circumstance. 46 Because they presume the practice of aborting babies at home, the purpose of the conditions is to keep Jews from unknowingly contracting corpse impurity.

Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι would avoid the praetorium. His implication, which seems to me implausible, is that they suspect the presence of aborted infants there. 45 Translation from Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991). See also Hannah Harrington, The Purity Texts (CQS 5; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 73: “The contamination power of a corpse can be discussed in three categories: the contamination power of corpse impurity on: (1) graves; (2) persons; and (3) objects. It is important to note that contamination is conveyed by direct contact or by simply sharing an overhang with a corpse. For example, if individuals are simply in the same room as a corpse, they become impure even though they do not touch the corpse directly. (Num. 19; cf. m. Oh 3.1; 6.1; 11.4–6; t. Oh. 5.5).” 46 The problem of generalising that every gentile dwelling always defiles appears in Hannah K. Harrington, Holiness: Rabbinic Judaism in the Graeco-Roman World (RFCC; London: Routledge, 2001), 99: “According to rabbinic law, gentile dwellings, within or outside the land, defile.” Harrington (fn. 30) cites Richard S. Sarason, “The Significance of the Land of Israel in the Mishnah,” in The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, ed. Lawrence A. Hoffman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 109–36 (115 fns. 20 and 21). The primary references there include m. Ohal. 2.3, 17.5, 18.6–7; m. Toh. 4.5, 5.1; m. Naz. 3.6, 7.3 (also t. Ohal. 17.7–18.11). Those mishnaic references, however, pertain to bones, tombs, abortions, graves, and ultimately corpses. They do not refer to the defiling power of gentile dwellings.

126

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

Like Klawans, Christine Hayes suggests that the association of the praetorium with corporal punishment, not the presence of “intrinsically impure Gentiles,” is what cautions the Ἰουδαῖοι against entering it in John 18:28.47 So John would refer to “a fear of contracting corpse impurity” in the praetorium.48 Hayes footnotes an earlier discussion, in which she analyses the prohibition against participation in certain gentile building operations associated with violent or unjust death in m. AZ 1.7.49 The text reads, “one may not build with them a basilica [and] a gallows, a stadium and a judge’s tribunal (‫)בימה‬.”50 The items listed by the mishnah fall into two chiastic pairs, each comprised of a judicial structure and a structure related to public execution. Since persons were sentenced to death in courts of law, all four of these structures are places associated with unjust or violent death. It is apparently for this reason that the mishnah prohibits Israelites from assisting in their construction.51

As with gentile abortions, the ritually defiling power of gentile executions, and structures and places associated with them, stems from the moral impurity of murder. Though not in John, elsewhere in the tradition, the scourging and beating occur where the entire cohort can be present (Mark 15:16; Matt 27:27), that is, somewhere outside. As summer houses, gatehouses, open courtyards, armories, and legionary places are exempt from the law about gentile dwellings (m. Ohal. 18.10), so also may be the type of place where Pilate and his soldiers are narrated as scourging and mocking Jesus (John 19:1–3). And if they do occur under cover, the whips (v. 1) and slaps (v. 3) themselves are not ritually defiling. If corpses are the concern of the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι, the Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities, 50. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities, 50. 49 Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities, 50 fn. 7; Christine Elizabeth Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 79–84. 50 Translation and text in Hayes. The Babylonian mishnah excludes the vav between basilica and gallows. The term ‫ בימה‬parallels βῆμα, used in John 19:13. Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, 81, 84 notes that both the absence of the vav before “gallows” in the Babylonian version and the appearance of the Hebrew transliteration (‫ )בסילקי‬of the Greek term (βασιλική) as a plural construct (genitive) “facilitate” the reinterpretation in b. AZ 16b: “a prohibition against constructing three types of basilica (not four structures, one of which is a basilica): those associated with gallows, stadia, and tribunals.” The later reinterpretation exhibits an “exegetical maneuver” that hardly “reflects any actual knowledge of or practical concern for basilicas and their association with various monumental or judicial structures” (p. 84). 51 Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, 79. 47 48

4. Ἰουδαῖοι who defile themselves

127

narrative only assumes as much, as none are mentioned. Thus, John 18:28 probably does not attest the ritually defiling power of Gentile impurity, not to mention of Gentiles or where they dwell.52 If anything, John locates the sins of false accusation and unjust crucifixion outside the praetorium. Most tellingly, the only clear associations with (morally impure) murder and (ritually defiling) corpses – false accusation, unjust crucifixion – are outside the praetorium. That is where, incidentally, the Ἰουδαῖοι remain throughout John 18:28–19:22.

4. Ἰουδαῖοι who defile themselves 4. Ἰουδαῖοι who defile themselves

Because of the associations the verb μιαίνω has with the people of God defiling themselves and the temple, and because the praetorium of Pilate does not seem to cause ritual impurity, I propose that in John 18:28 the Ἰουδαῖοι defile themselves and the temple (Jesus), rendering themselves unable to eat the Passover (again, Jesus). As lying and murdering children of an archetypal διάβολος (8:44), these Ἰουδαῖοι cannot be purified and live in holiness. Those who believe come into the state of purity (not impurity), after which they can live in holiness (not profaneness).53 So whereas Jesus’ disciples remain in his word (v. 31), some Ἰουδαῖοι cannot be penetrated by his word (v. 37).54 When Jesus washes his disciples’ feet with water (13:5), he pronounces them pure (v. 10), except the one who is about to deliver him for arrest (v. 11). And in the vine discourse, Jesus tells his disciples they are pure through the word he has spoken to them (15:3). The Son is consecrated (ἁγιάζω) by the Father (10:36), and the disciples may also be consecrated (ἁγιάζω) by the Father’s word, the truth (17:17) – the opposite of which, the lie, comes from another spiritual father, namely the διάβολος.55

52 Of those eating the Passover in Jerusalem, Josephus, War 6.426–27 adds an explanation: “and all these ritually pure: participation in the feast was forbidden for those with leprosy or venereal disease, for menstruating women, for those defiled (μιαίνω) in any other way, and of course for foreigners, many of whom flock from abroad to attend the worship.” Josephus implies the stereotype that all Gentiles are ritually impure. But that is beside the point, with respect to the Johannine Pilate, because he is already in Jerusalem and shows no intent to celebrate the Passover. 53 On holiness as the divine active force, and purity as the state of being, see Hannah K. Harrington, “Holiness and the Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 8:2 (2001): 124–35; see also Bauckham, “Holiness,” 95–113. 54 Similarly, according to Wis 7:25, nothing defiled can enter into Sophia. 55 On those two instances of Jesus cleansing the disciples from moral impurity, see Bauckham, “Holiness,” 97–98.

128

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

Blidstein categorises murder, idolatry, and sexual sins as the “big three” defiling behaviours, with duplicity not far behind, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls.56 The identification of unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι as murderers and liars in John 8:44 naturally pertains to purity speculation. In a similar way, Mark 7:21–22 includes both murder and duplicity, as well as slander and wickedness in its vice list.57 The context is a purity dispute with the Pharisees (v. 5), after which Jesus elevates moral impurity over against ritual impurity (v. 15). 58 In Matt 23:27 // Luke 11:44 Jesus says that the Pharisees are as unmarked graves, in order to identify his opponents as hidden causes of ritual impurity.59 As unmarked, the Pharisees evoke duplicity, and as graves, they evoke murder. The unmarked grave metaphor resembles an allusion to circumcision in m. Pes. 8.8: “he that separates himself from the foreskin is as one who separates himself from a grave.” That person, the text goes on, is to be purified as though from corpse impurity. As Hannah Harrington explains, the Pharisees, as other Jews did, attempted “to replicate the purity of the sanctuary, as much as possible, in their own homes,” and “they forbade any impure person to eat with them.”60 And yet in John, unbelieving Pharisees (John 9:40, for instance) who exclude believers from the synagogue (12:42) are among those who are not purified by Jesus’ word (8:37), are unable to eat (or believe) Jesus (below), and are excluded from the temple of his restored body (2:19, 21).61 Klawans sees in the Qumran literature the collapse of ritual impurity and moral impurity, so that “sin was considered to be ritually defiling, and ritual defilement was assumed to come about because of sin.”62 So also Haggai uses the (ritually) defiling power of a corpse (Hag 2:13) on “bread or stew or wine Blidstein, Purity, 135. Klawans, Impurity, 76–77 writes, “The idea of deceit, widely understood as a source of both moral and ritual impurity is one of the linchpins of 1QS” (The Community Rule). 1QS 4.20–22, for instance, reads, “he will cleanse him of all wicked deeds with the spirit of holiness; like purifying waters he will shed upon him the spirit of truth (to cleanse him) of all the abominations of falsehood.” 57 Mark 7:21–22 reads, “for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.” The vice list in Matt 15:19 reads, “for out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” 58 Mark 7:15 reads, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” 59 Thomas Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah: Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? (rev. ed.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 179. 60 Harrington, The Purity Texts, 72. 61 Similarly, according to Rev 2:9; 3:9, blaspheming and lying Ἰουδαῖοι who comprise the synagogue of the σατανᾶς say they are Ἰουδαῖοι, though they are not. 62 Klawans, Impurity, 75, 88. On 1QH 19.13–17, for instance, Klawans, Impurity, 80 writes, “moral sins were considered to bring about ritual impurity.” 56

4. Ἰουδαῖοι who defile themselves

129

or oil or any kind of food” (v. 12) to understand the (ritually) defiling power of the (morally) impure behaviour of the people, in particular on sacrifices (v. 14). In a similar way, the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι morally defile themselves by way of duplicity and murder, and the resulting corpse, the temple, ritually defiles them, too. Like the outsiders constructed by the Qumran literature, John constructs unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι “who by definition sin” and ritually defile.63 Those who are impure are excluded from the covenant (so 1QS 3.4– 6), and they can only become pure by abandoning wickedness (so 1QS 5.13– 14). Johannine unbelievers may as well be Gentiles, even if they are Ἰουδαῖοι.64 In the same vein, both Josephus in War 5.401 and Jesus in John 7:19 claim that Ἰουδαῖοι who oppose them do not follow Moses. As both morally and ritually defiled, the Ἰουδαῖοι in John cannot eat the Passover. The episode in John 18:28–19:22 connects the Passover to the crucifixion. It begins with “now it was early” (ἦν δὲ πρωΐ, John 18:28), which anticipates “now it was (ἦν δέ) the day of preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon” (19:14), which then anticipates “since it was the day of preparation” (v. 31). 65 Before 18:28, where it occurs in relation to the Passover, the verb ἐσθίω occurs in two places that concern immaterial, not material, food. First, the disciples want Jesus to eat something (4:31), but Jesus tells them he has food to eat that they do not understand (v. 32). The disciples wonder who gave Jesus something to eat (v. 33), before Jesus says that his food is to do the will of the one who sent him (v. 34). Second, Jesus asks Philip where they can buy something for the crowd to eat (6:5), and the crowd goes on to eat enough bread (v. 23). But Jesus then tells the crowd that they seek him because of the meal (v. 26), and he admonishes them rather to On Qumran, see Klawans, Impurity, 75, 79–82. Klawans, Impurity, 82. Similarly, according to 1QS 5.19–20 (similarly CD 6.14), outsider (Jewish and not) property is impure. 65 Mark begins it with “immediately, early” (εὐθὺς πρωΐ, Mark 15:1). And Matthew begins it with “when it became early morning” (πρωΐας δὲ γενομένης, Matt 27:1). Luke lacks the note. Joseph Verheyden, “De la Potterie on John 19:13,” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, 817–37 (829) refers to ἦν δέ at 18:28 as “a parenthesis of the type ‘ἦν δέ + time reference’” and notes, “A further instance of such a parenthesis is found in 19,14.” Though ἦν δέ seems minor on the surface, the consistency with which John uses it is significant. (On ἦν δὲ ὁ Βαραββᾶς λῃστής in John 18:40b, see Chapter 7.) By indicating a sidenote, ἦν δέ starts realising some later part of the narrative. “Now (ἦν δέ) someone was ill, Lazarus from Bethany” (11:1) anticipates “Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead” (12:1). “Now (ἦν δέ) Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair” (11:2) anticipates “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair” (12:3). In another case of one ἦν δέ clause anticipating another one, “Now Peter was (ἦν δέ) with them, standing and warming himself” (John 18:18) anticipates “now Peter was (ἦν δέ) standing and warming himself” (v. 25). 63 64

130

Chapter 4: Prologue, John 18:28

seek the eternal bread from the Son of Man (v. 27). Those who ate manna in the wilderness died (vv. 31, 49), but those eat the bread from heaven will not die (vv. 50, 58). Jesus tells them to eat him, the living bread (v. 51), whose flesh is true food (v. 55). John then does not use ἐσθίω until 18:28.66 I suggest that John 18:28 continue the theme of spiritual eating by using ἐσθίω. There, the Ἰουδαῖοι do not want to be made impure and unable to “eat” (ἐσθίω) the Passover. 67 But they do not realise that Jesus is simultaneously the Passover and the means of purification.68 Not only is he the ambiguous “lamb of God,” as John the baptiser recognises (John 1:29, 36), but he is also crucified on the same day as the Passover lamb, his bones not being broken (19:31).69 As the Johannine Passover, Jesus “accomplishes the restoration of the nation for which pilgrims at the annual festival longed.”70 The metaphor predates John, as Paul, in 1 Cor 5:7, calls Christ the “sacrificed Passover” and the believers the “new lump of dough.” So also in John, as well as being the Passover lamb, Jesus is also the bread of life (6:35, 48), the living bread that came down from heaven (vv. 41, 51). Whoever eats the Johannine Jesus lives because of him (v. 57). Eating Jesus and what he says is to inhabit the promise of liberation for Israel – in Jesus, with others who believe.

John also uses τρώγω (“munch,” 6:54, 56, 57, 58; 13:18). According to Num 9:6, corpse impurity makes one unable to “do” (ποιέω, ‫)עשה‬ Passover. The verb ποιέω is common in this context: LXX Exod 12:48; LXX Deut 16:1; 1 Esd 1:6; Matt 26:18; Heb 11:28. However, ἐσθίω occurs sometimes: Mark 14:12 // Matt 26:17. The three Johannine instances of the Passover shape the chronology of the narrative: the first Passover is in John 2:13, 22; the second is in 6:4; the third is in 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14. 68 Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 589; Keener, John, 1100 recognise the irony in the juxtaposition of the desire to eat the Passover with the true Passover Jesus. 69 According to Jesper Tang Nielsen, “The Lamb of God: The Cognitive Structure of a Johannine Metaphor,” in Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Forms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language, ed. Jörg Frey, Jan G. van der Watt, and Ruben Zimmermann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 217–56, the Passover informs the expression “the lamb of God,” probably alongside the tradition of the servant in Isaiah. On not breaking the bones of the Passover, see Num 9:12; Exod 12:46; Ridderbos, John, 622; Keener, John, 1156; Brant, John, 254. 70 Gerry Wheaton, The Role of the Jewish Feasts in John’s Gospel (SNTSMS 162; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 186. 66 67

5. Summary

131

5. Summary 5. Summary

The reason the Ἰουδαῖοι stay outside the praetorium in John 18:28 is ambiguous. Gentiles and where they lived did not ritually defile. Moral impurity and corpses, however, would keep the Ἰουδαῖοι from eating the Passover. I conclude that John portrays the Ἰουδαῖοι as wrong both to beware the ritually defiling force of the praetorium and not to beware the morally defiling force of the duplicity and murder they perpetrate against Jesus. They morally defile themselves, abandoning the opportunity to eat the Passover, namely Jesus. In terms of purity and impurity, they separate the stages of inside and outside the praetorium, the structure upon which the entire episode in 18:28–19:22 will go on to build paradox. And they do so by enacting an initial, governing paradox: they claim Moses as their own, but they are not his disciples. Because they do not understand that to remain Ἰουδαῖοι who read what Moses writes means to believe Jesus, they throw away status as Ἰουδαῖοι.

Chapter 5

Scene 1, John 18:29–32 Under Tiberius and Domitian, the crimes of maiestas (“imperial disloyalty”) and calumnia (“false accusation”) were notorious. Not only is John set during Tiberius’ reign, but it is also probably written from the vantage point of Domitian’s reign. So it is unsurprising that the plot against the Johannine Jesus is intended to protect the nation and the temple from the Romans (John 11:48), and that he is in the end accused of opposing Caesar (19:12). Taken with the historical reigns of Tiberius and Domitian, as well as the narrative framing of John 11:48 and 19:12, the first scene at the Johannine praetorium would imply that Jesus is not accused of “doing evil” (18:30) in any generic sense, but to the emperor himself. That is the accusation (v. 29) punishable by execution (v. 31) which the Ἰουδαῖοι bring to the praetorium. The accusers moreover view Jesus as a false prophet who blasphemes God and misleads the nation, even to the point of diminishing the maiestas of Caesar. The narrator’s own viewpoint, however, is no mystery, as the scene concludes with a note about the fulfilment of what Jesus had earlier said (v. 32). The resulting paradox is therefore that Pilate uses the earthly accusation from the Ἰουδαῖοι to validate the prophetic function of Jesus. To make that argument, I will analyse John’s portrayal of Pilate, the expression “doing evil,” and the connection between prophecy and judgement. Ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Πιλᾶτος ἔξω πρὸς αὐτοὺς καὶ φησίν· τίνα κατηγορίαν φέρετε [κατὰ] τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τούτου; 30 ἀπεκρίθησαν καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ· εἰ μὴ ἦν οὗτος κακὸν ποιῶν, οὐκ ἄν σοι παρεδώκαμεν αὐτόν. 31 εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Πιλᾶτος· λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς καὶ κατὰ τὸν νόμον ὑμῶν κρίνατε αὐτόν. εἶπον αὐτῷ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι· ἡμῖν οὐκ ἔξεστιν ἀποκτεῖναι οὐδένα· 32 ἵνα ὁ λόγος τοῦ Ἰησοῦ πληρωθῇ ὃν εἶπεν σημαίνων ποίῳ θανάτῳ ἤμελλεν ἀποθνῄσκειν. So Pilate exited outside toward them, and he says, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered and said to him, “If he had not done evil, we would not have delivered him to you.” 31 So Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.” The Ἰουδαῖοι said to him, “It is not authorised for us to kill anyone” 32 – in order that the word of Jesus may be fulfilled, which he said to signal which kind of death he was about to die. (John 18:29–32)

1. Pilate

133

1. Pilate 1. Pilate

The norm in Johannine scholarship is to criticise Pilate in one way or another, because he is malicious, or tactless, or powerless, or mindless. According to Christopher Tuckett, “John shows absolutely no sympathy at all for Pilate,” who becomes one of the Ἰουδαῖοι, because he opposes Jesus and everything from God. 1 But Pilate is also, for Tuckett, the “arch-opponent” of the Ἰουδαῖοι and “the real instigator of the ultimate blasphemy” – the chief priests confess in John 19:15, “We have no king except Caesar.”2 “What I have written I have written” in v. 22, Tuckett says, “is the action of a pigheaded and insolent man.” 3 So Pilate consciously opposes both Jesus – blaspheming him – and the Ἰουδαῖοι – inciting them to blasphemy. In a similar way, Cornelis Bennema argues that John’s Pilate, like Josephus’ and Philo’s Pilates, is “cruel, calculating, taunting, manipulative, provocative and afraid.”4 Martinus de Boer, however, calls Pilate an oblivious “mouthpiece of a truth,” who writes his titulus and unintentionally makes Jesus King of the Ἰουδαῖοι forever. 5 Negatively again, Ronald Piper reads that Pilate “demonstrates how little he is in control,” as he does not release Jesus after declaring his innocence three times (18:38b; 19:4, 6b).6 Thus, the impression scholars create is that Pilate hardly does good by anyone – not Jesus, the Ἰουδαῖοι, nor Caesar. And if he does something good, he does not intend to do so. What often seems to underpin those appraisals of the Johannine Pilate is another question that Piper raises, namely that the episode at the praetorium is not “specifically designed to counter the claims of the imperial cult,” and

1 Christopher M. Tuckett, “Pilate in John 18–19: A Narrative-Critical Approach,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, ed. George J. Brooke and Jean-Daniel Kaestli (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000), 131–40 (132, 135). 2 Tuckett, “Pilate,” 139. 3 Tuckett, “Pilate,” 139. 4 Cornelis Bennema, “The Character of Pilate in the Gospel of John,” in Characters and Characterization in the Gospel of John, ed. Christopher W. Skinner (LNTS 461; London: T&T Clark, 2013), 240–53 (247, 250). This umbrella interpretation of Pilate is not uncommon. So, for instance, on Josephus, War 2.169–77 and Ant. 18.55–62, Erich S. Gruen, “Polybius and Josephus on Rome,” in Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and History, ed. Jack Pastor, Pnina Stern, and Menahem Mor (JSJSup 146; Leiden: Brill, 2011) 149–62 (156) notes Pilate’s “notorious provocations of the Jews and the beating to death of Jewish protesters.” 5 Martinus C. de Boer, “The Narrative Function of Pilate in John,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, 141–58 (153–54). 6 Ronald A. Piper, “The Characterisation of Pilate and the Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, 121–62 (149, 159).

134

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

that Pilate is not – as the Ἰουδαῖοι are – John’s “major target.”7 Yet Piper also ventures that John may portray Pilate as “an implicit critique of imperial power.”8 But this is the problem with the way New Testament scholars often rationalise anything that relates to Rome, as Steve Mason observes: “Notwithstanding a powerful current in New Testament scholarship, which seems to find “anti-imperialist” rhetoric under every olive tree, early Christian texts portray Rome’s representative and institutions very favourably on the whole, or as mere scenery.”9 If anything, it seems to me less plausible, in the first place, that John would adopt a negative view of the Roman prefect Pilate. I have already discussed the positive view of foreign, imperial powers in two traditions, one prophetic and one sapiential.10 Isaiah makes the Persian Cyrus messiah, and the Wisdom of Solomon implores worldly rulers to participate in otherworldly rule. Read with these traditions, the stage is set for early Christianity to accept and not reject Pilate. Though scholars seldom discuss it, early Christianity attests a positive, accommodating view of the Roman prefect Pilate.11 Some early creeds, from inside and outside the New Testament canon, mention Pilate in passing, in a neutral way.12 And the Gospel of Peter – probably second century – absolves Pilate in a way that foreshadows his veneration as a saint.13 As is well known, both the Ethiopic and Coptic churches canonised Pilate.14 Yet from as early as the late second century, Pilate was remembered as an innocent believer in Jesus. Tertullian, Apol. 5.2 says that the emperor Tiberius received and believed an account of Jesus’ divinity from Syria Palestine, and Apol. 21.24 clarifies that it was Pilate who, already a Christian, had sent this account. Piper, “Pilate,” 159, 161, italics original. Piper, “Pilate,” 162; he (pp. 133, 135) notes that Pilate is the only feature of John, apart from 11:48, which engages with Rome. 9 Steve Mason, A History of the Jewish War: A.D. 66–74 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 279. 10 On this, see earlier Chapter 2. 11 On ancient portrayals of Pilate as a saint and a Christian convert, see Warren Carter, Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003), 6–11. 12 1 Tim 6:13; Ignatius, Magn. 11.1; Smyrn. 1.2; Trall. 9.1. Ridderbos, John, 589 suggests that John has no need to introduce Pilate, because the Christians in the audience are already familiar with him. 13 Paul Foster, “The Gospel of Peter,” in The Non-Canonical Gospels, ed. Paul Foster (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 30–42 (38). 14 See, for instance, this excerpt from an Ethiopian poem; translation from E. Cerulli, “Tiberius and Pontius Pilate in Ethiopian Tradition and Poetry,” PBA 59 (1973): 141–58 (150–54): “Salutation to thy fingers, which wrote on the table of the Cross / the kingship of Jesus, who died through the advice of Caiaphas. / O Pilate, do not stay at the eternal Judgement with the people of the Jews, / because by thy repentance thou wert equal to the repentance of Peter / and the hope of Peter: the Kingdom (of Heaven) became also thy hope.” 7 8

1. Pilate

135

Both the Acts of Pilate – probably written in the fourth century and derived from traditions in circulation by the end of the second century – and the shorter Paradosis Pilati – fourth or fifth century – perpetuate the same memory of Pilate’s repentance and acceptance. Thus, reading Pilate as an inevitably negative character goes against the grain of early Christianity to a significant degree. Why do scholars perpetuate negative readings of Pilate? The answer I propose is a characteristic of Johannine ambiguity I introduced earlier: by openness, the narrative creates gaps the reader inevitably fills. When he reviews Johannine scholarship from the 1980s through the 2000s, Francois Tolmie shows that interpreters depend on specific lenses to fill the gaps concerning Pilate: Is he primarily a weak and indecisive character forced by the ‘Jews’ to do something he does not want to do? Or is he actually a shrewd figure, thinking only of his own political self-interest, manipulating ‘the Jews’? Does he ridicule them, and, if so, why? Is he a poor judge, or rather, perhaps, a character primarily used by the implied author for the purpose of irony?15

Thomas Tops also recognises those binary opposite concepts, according to which Pilate is either reluctant or aggressive.16 And the choice between the two “does not seem to be an issue of true or false… The interpreter is more of an artist than a scientist.”17 So the important insight shared by Tolmie and Tops is that the responsibility to fill narrative gaps and characterise literary figures lies with the reader.18 However, aggression and reluctance are not the only available lenses, in particular if the narrative presumes the wider historical situation. Tolmie fills the gap between what the Ἰουδαῖοι say to Pilate in John 18:30 – “If he had not done evil, we would not have delivered him to you” – and what Pilate tells Jesus in v. 33 – “You are King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” – by assuming that Pilate, before the Ἰουδαῖοι arrived in v. 28, already knew the accusation.19 However, Judas takes the cohort and the assistants of the chief priests and the Pharisees (v. 3), and they are the ones who bring Jesus to the praetorium (v. 28). The episode juxtaposes the priests with the prefect: they are the accusers;

D. Francois Tolmie, “Pontius Pilate: Failing in More Ways Than One,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel, 578–97 (581). 16 Thomas Tops, “Whose Truth? A Reader-Oriented Study of the Johannine Pilate and John 18,38a,” Bib 97:3 (2016): 395–420 (397). 17 Tops, “Whose Truth?” 403. 18 Tolmie, “Pilate,” 582; Tops, “Whose Truth?” 395. 19 Tolmie, “Pilate,” 584, 585. 15

136

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

he is the judge.20 As Coponius did (Josephus, Ant. 18.2) before him, Pilate carries the universal ἐξουσία from Caesar into Judea, and so as judge Pilate requests an accusation (John 18:29). By comparison with Pliny, Ep. 10.96, the judicial responsibility of Pilate is to settle unfamiliar social tensions in his part of the empire on the behalf of and with the support of the emperor.21 The narrative itself, moreover, intimates the way the gap between vv. 30 and 33 needs to be filled. I will argue that the solution is in the notion of opposition to Caesar (19:12).22 The reading that John 18:30 intimates opposition to Caesar is strengthened by the two ways in which Josephus characterises Pilate. Josephus records two accounts about Pilate and Judea in the earlier The Jewish War and four in the later Jewish Antiquities. Josephus’ literary sensibilities suggest an important transition between War 2.169–77 and Ant. 18.55–89. Whereas in War 2.169– 77 Josephus does not associate Pilate with misrule, in Ant. 18.55–89 he does. Josephus pairs together the accounts about Pilate in War 2.169–74 and 175– 77, as both incorporate protests, secret plans and signals, encirclements and weapons, judgement benches, and danger.23 The first account displays what 20 Whereas John does not refer to Pilate as “procurator” (Josephus, War 2.169; Philo, Gaius 299), “prefect” (Caesarea inscription), or “governor” (Matt 27:2; Luke 3:1; Josephus, Ant. 18.55), I will refer to Pilate as prefect. On that, see Bennema, “Pilate,” 240. For the title “prefect,” see the Caesarea inscription published in A. Frova, “L’iscrizione di Ponzio Pilato a Cesarea,” Rendiconti 95 (1961): 419–34. The second and third lines read, “[PON]TIVS PILATVS / [PRAEF]ECTVS IVDA[EA]E.” Mason, Judean War 2, 80 fn. 720 cautions that “Josephus’ labels for the governors of Judea are notoriously imprecise.” The term ἐπίτροπος – and cognates – are preferred throughout War 2, whereas elsewhere Josephus varies the terminology. 21 See earlier Chapter 1. Bradley M. Peper and Mark DelCogliano, “The Pliny and Trajan Correspondence,” in The Historical Jesus in Context, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., and John Dominic Crossan (PRR; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 366–71 (368) suggest that Pliny, Ep. 10.96 illuminates “the legal and social issues with which a governor, such as Pontius Pilate, would have to grapple when handling accusations brought before him by local authorities.” 22 With material from this study, I also make the case in “‘Doing Evil’ as Maiestas in John 18.30,” JSNT 42:3 (2020): 325–49. 23 Mason, Judean War 2, 146 fn. 1098 proposes, “Josephus has assimilated the second story to the pattern of the first for literary reasons, including the demonstration of Pilate’s incompetence and of Judean courage”: there is a certain “disturbance” (ταραχή) in 2.170, 175; Pilate does something to the “indignation” (ἀγανάκτησις) of the Ἰουδαῖοι in 2.170, 175; there is a “rabble” (πλῆθος) in 2.172, 175; Pilate sits on a “judgement bench” (βῆμα) in 2.172, 175; the Ἰουδαῖοι are “around” (περί) Pilate in 2.171, and the soldiers “encircle” (κυκλόω) the Ἰουδαῖοι in 2.172, just as the Ἰουδαῖοι “stand around” (περιίστημι) Pilate in 2.175; the images in 2.169 and the soldiers in 2.176 are “concealed” (καλύπτω); the soldiers are armed with “swords” (ξίφος) they do not use in 2.173, 176; the Ἰουδαῖοι have an “agreed signal” (σύνθημα) among themselves in 2.174, and Pilate has an “agreed signal” (σύνθημα)

1. Pilate

137

Josephus deems appropriate resistance against the Romans, but the second one does not. 24 Pilate attempts to maintain law and order without undue violence, and Josephus finds no reason to charge him with misrule.25 In Ant. 18.55–89, however, Josephus seems to portray Pilate in terms of misrule. Warren Carter, for instance, sees the accusation of misrule in Ant. 18.88–89, an account Josephus had not included in War 2.169–77.26 In the following I will demonstrate that, in the same way that War 2.169–77 does, the thematic coherence Josephus creates in Ant. 18.55–89 hinges on the problem of whether or not Pilate committed misrule. An intriguing interruption in the narrative emphasises the coherence in the series of accounts across Josephus, Ant. 18.55–89. The series comprises 18.55–59 on the ensigns of Caesar, 18.60–62 on the aqueduct, 18.63–64 on Jesus, and 18.85–89 on the Samaritans places two accounts about Rome. Among those four accounts, Josephus places two others, namely 18.66–80 on the temple of Isis and 18.81–84 on the temple of Jerusalem. Antiquities 18.65 connects the ensuing Jerusalem temple account (18.81–84) with the preceding Jesus account (18.63–64): “and around the same time another terrible thing stirred up (θορυβέω) the Ἰουδαῖοι.”27 Josephus pairs two terrible things that stirred up the Ἰουδαῖοι under Tiberius, in 18.63–64 (Jesus) and 18.81–84 (Jerusalem temple). So why then does Josephus use 18.66–80 (Isis temple) to break them apart? Apart from their setting in Rome (18.80), what do 18.66– 80 and 18.81–84 have in common? According to Josephus, Ant. 18.79, Tiberius crucifies some priests from the temple of Isis and a freedwoman named Ida, because they trick Paulina into reciprocating the sexual desire of a man masquerading as the god Anubis. And according to Ant. 18.82, four men persuade a woman named Fulvia to send purple and gold to the temple of Jerusalem, money from which they then use for themselves. The most relevant link between Josephus, Ant. 18.66–80 and 18.81–84 is in the penalties: Tiberius crucifies the Isis priests and the freedwoman in Rome (18.79); and he banishes four thousand Ἰουδαῖοι from Rome to the island Sardinia (18.83). 28 These punishments,

with the soldiers in 2.176; and just as the laws of the Ἰουδαῖοι are “trampled” (πατέω) in 2.170, so some of the Ἰουδαῖοι are “trampled” (καταπατέω) in 2.177. 24 Bond, Pilate, 56. 25 Bond, Pilate, 59, 61. 26 Carter, Pontius Pilate, 54: “Pilate was the subject of such a complaint after attacking and killing a number of Samaritans.” 27 My translation. 28 There are at least two other links between Josephus, Ant. 18.66–80 and 18.81–84. First, on the expulsion of foreign cults from Rome, under Tiberius, see Suetonius, Tiberius 36. Second, on the trope of the susceptibility of women to foreign cults, see Judith Lieu, “The

138

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

execution and exile, were associated with the crime of maiestas.29 Therefore, Ant. 18.66–80 and 18.81–84 evoke other traditions in which Tiberius wreaks havoc with this charge. Whether or not the crime of maiestas is the only possible reading, Josephus has certainly left “the distinct odor of maiestas in the air.”30 Why would Josephus connect Ant. 18.66–80 (Isis temple) with 18.81–84 (Jerusalem temple) by way of the crime of maiestas? Why would Josephus interrupt the rhythm created by the three Pilate incidents (ensigns, aqueduct, Jesus)? Why would he not first describe why Pilate was removed from Judea (Samaritans)? The incidents of the temples do not involve Pilate. They focus rather on Tiberius and his own capacity as judge. Josephus evokes the imperial climate in which the charge of maiestas became so notorious. The repeated “tumult” (θορυβέω, θόρυβος, 18.62, 65, 85) terminology in the surrounding episodes portrays more chaos. The disorder language in “the nation of the Samaritans did not escape without tumults” (18.85) threads the Jesus, Jerusalem temple, and Samaritan controversy accounts together. The mentions of “revolt’ (στάσις, Ant. 18.62) and “violence against Caesar” (ὕβρις Καῖσαρ, Ant. 18.57) also reflect maiestas. Thus, in shape and content, the coherence of Ant. 18.55–89 is due to the crime of maiestas.31 According to Josephus, the crucifixion of Jesus (18.63–64) reflects the misrule of Judea by Pilate.32 This misrule materialised in the impiety toward Caesar displayed in such cases as the one that involved Jesus.

‘Attraction of Women’ in/to Early Judaism and Christianity: Gender and the Politics of Conversion,” JSNT 72 (1999): 5–22 (14). 29 See earlier Chapter 1. 30 Turn of phrase from Peachin, “Powers,” 535. 31 In a similar way, Philo indicates the misrule of Pilate. Pilate equated honouring Caesar with dishonouring the tradition and law of Ἰουδαῖοι (Philo, Gaius 301), and he then sensed an oncoming accusation of misrule in the embassy to Tiberius. 32 On the probable authenticity of neutral elements in the Testimonium Flavianum, such as Jesus being famous for his teachings and miracles, as well as his accusation and demise at the hands of the elite under Pilate, see Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (SHJ; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 81–104. Giorgio Jossa, “Jews, Romans and Christians: from the Bellum Judaicum to the Antiquitates,” in Josephus And Jewish History in Flavian Rome And Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (JSJSup 104; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 331–42 (340): “Josephus wants to underline the misrule of Pilate.” Jossa (p. 339) argues that Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities does the same with the John and James accounts: “They are all popular movements and people suppressed or condemned by the Jewish authorities.”

2. The accusation that Jesus had done evil to Caesar

139

2. The accusation that Jesus had done evil to Caesar 2. The accusation that Jesus had done evil to Caesar

If Josephus, Ant. 18.55–89 remembers Judea under Pilate and Tiberius in terms of misrule that diminishes the superiority of Caesar, John may as well. The translation of εἰ μὴ ἦν οὗτος κακὸν ποιῶν οὐκ ἄν σοι παρεδώκαμεν αὐτόν in John 18:30 is problematic.33 Some scholars translate “evildoer,” or “Übeltäter.” 34 However, John does not use the term κακοποιός or κακοῦργος.35 The emphasis in κακὸν ποιῶν is not who Jesus is but what he has done. The same goes for the question τί ἐποίησας (“what did you do?”) in v. 35. What evil did Jesus do? And to whom? Zumstein supposes that the absence of any actual accusation causes the ambiguity.36 Barrett suggests that Pilate’s response in v. 31a – “Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your own law” – confirms the vagueness.37 However, as Wengst observes, the retort of the accusers in v. 31b – “It is not authorised for us to kill anyone” – may cross-reference 11:48 and 18:33.38 In 11:48 the council fears that what Jesus is doing may make the Romans come and destroy the temple and the nation. And later, in 18:33 the accusation leads Pilate to identify Jesus as “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” Together, 11:48 and 18:33 intimate the crime of maiestas. So Wengst, however indirectly, implies that the accusation in 18:30 is specific. In this chapter I will argue that the accusation is not only “doing evil,” but “doing evil” to Caesar – or, maiestas. The language John uses to introduce the accusation against Jesus has notable similarities and differences with the wider Jesus tradition. Like the collocation of ποιέω (“do”) and κακός (“evil”) in John 18:30 and 35, τί γὰρ ἐποίησεν κακόν occurs in Mark 15:14, and τί γὰρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν occurs in Matt 27:23 and Luke 23:22 (“why, what evil did he do?”). But John differs 33 Thompson, John, 372 translates, “if he had not done evil.” John 9:33 and 19:11 also use the construction εἰ μὴ ἦν. C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 17–18 suggests that John 18:30 is possibly an instance of periphrasis, which is used “apparently to emphasize the durative nature of the action.” Later, Moule (p. 122) translates, “if he had not been a criminal.” T. Muraoka, A Syntax of Septuagint Greek (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 705 fn. 4 cites John 18:30 as an instance of the “protasis of an unreal conditional clause.” This is one of three “syntactic environments” in which “μή and its compounds are occasionally found also negativing an indicative form.” Muraoka translates “if this one was not an evildoer.” He compares John 18:30 with Judg 14:18; John 15:24; 19:11; Mark 13:20 // Matt 24:22. 34 Michaels, John, 916; Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 693. 35 At John 18:30, Alexandrinus, as well as later witnesses, reads κακοποιός. 1 Pet 2:12, 14; 4:15 use κακοποιός. Luke 23:32, 33, 39; 2 Tim 2:9 use κακοῦργος. 36 Here Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 693, probably following Bultmann, John, 652. 37 Barrett, John, 533. 38 Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 221.

140

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

from the other gospels by situating the notion of “doing evil” at the start of the praetorium episode. And unlike Mark 15:1, which also uses παραδίδωμι, John 18:30 pairs Jesus’ doing evil with his being handed over. 39 Whereas Luke 23:2 (“they began to accuse him”) and John 18:29 (“what accusation do you bring against this man?”) both open the praetorium episode with accusation language, only Luke explicitly relates Jesus’ crime to Rome.40 In Luke 23:2 the assembly accuses Jesus of perverting the nation, that is, forbidding the paying of taxes to the emperor and saying that he himself is a king. 41 I will argue that John also draws together those two accusations, impiety toward both Caesar and God. But before arguing that the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι accuse Jesus as a false prophet guilty of impiety toward God, I will argue that they accuse him as a usurper guilty of impiety toward Caesar both in John 18:30 and throughout the episode in 18:28–19:22. The accusation in John 18:30 becomes more salient when vv. 31 and 32 indicates the corresponding penalty, namely crucifixion. Pilate tells the Ἰουδαῖοι to take and judge Jesus, but they are not allowed to kill anyone (v. 31). The narrator then notes the fulfilment of what Jesus had said earlier about his manner of death (v. 32): an exaltation from the earth that draws everyone to himself (12:32; detailed discussion below). I propose that crucifixion was associated with the crime of maiestas during the reign of Tiberius, when execution was the normal if illegal penalty. With Suetonius, Julius 4, Keener generalises that dangerous criminals were regularly crucified.42 However, he neither analyses the details of this text nor compares it to Julius 74. When they are analysed, Julius 4 becomes irrelevant. According to Julius 4, the victims of crucifixion are pirates who had previously held Caesar captive, and Julius 74 emphasises that Caesar exacted revenge leniently. The point is that even in revenge, Caesar is honourable and gracious. More than any general rule about certain criminals being crucified according to custom, Suetonius is interested in the character of his subject. Keener continues, “crucifixions of free persons in Palestine usually involved the charge of rebellion against Rome.” 43 But as with Suetonius, Keener uses Josephus narrowly, focusing on rebels specifically. The texts Also for παραδίδωμι, see Matt 27:2, 18. Michaels, John, 916 emphasises this conspicuous contrast, and he notes that there are “no charges filed” in John. 41 On Luke 23:2, 5, 14, see Alexandru Neagoe, The Trial of the Gospel: An Apologetic Reading of Luke’s Trial Narratives (SNTSMS 116; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 70: the charge consists of three clauses, in which the first is “the governing charge, with the latter two as explicative of it.” 42 Keener, John, 1104. 43 Josephus, War 2.75, 241, 253, 306; 3.321; 5.449; Ant. 12.256; 13.380; 20.102; Keener, John, 1104 fn. 326. 39 40

2. The accusation that Jesus had done evil to Caesar

141

paint a broader picture. In Josephus, War 2.75 Varus crucifies the most troublesome (θορυβώδης) among the sources of a movement, numbering two thousand. 44 In War 2.241 Quadratus crucifies in Caesarea those who were captured by Cumanus. 45 In War 2.253 Felix crucifies a chief-usurper (ἀρχιλῃστής) and innumerable associated usurpers (λῃστής).46 In War 2.306 Florus whips and then crucifies many of the moderates. In War 3.321 Vespasian crucifies an unnamed person from Jotapata who does not reveal the affairs of the city. In War 5.289 Titus crucifies an anonymous Jew from the battle, in order to assess if that may scare and subdue the others. In War 5.449 Titus whips and then crucifies the poor who were leaving the city for food. In Ant. 12.256 Antiochus whips and crucifies those who do not comply with his commands. In Ant. 13.380 Alexander crucifies about eight hundred Ἰουδαῖοι who fought against him.47 In Ant. 20.102 Alexander crucifies James and Simon, the sons of Judas of Galilee. Crucifixions occurred amid rebellion against Rome, but they were limited neither to dangerous usurpers nor even to regular followers of usurpers. Both enemy commanders and subordinates were crucified, and both guilty and innocent of rebellion against Rome were crucified. The common denominator among crucifixions is the setting of military conflict, not the actual instigators or perpetrators. Josephus shows that Judeans were crucified in settings of military resistance that amounted to diminishing the maiestas of Caesar. If Caesar has θειότης-maiestas inside and outside Rome, his θειότης-maiestas can be diminished anywhere in his empire. Earlier, I demonstrated that point with the edicts of Germanicus to Egypt and of Libuscidianus to Galatia. 48 Gizewski observes that one way in which the crime of maiestas “could be committed by Romans or subjected provincials” was “by armed revolt or preparation for the same.”49 In addition, according to the second Cyrene edict (7/6 BCE), Romans and Cyrenaeans are attempting to implicate one another on maiestas.50 Also outside Rome, Philo, Flaccus 128 mentions that Lampo, an Alexandrian Greek, had “a lawsuit of impiety [read: maiestas] toward Tiberius Caesar” (Λάμπων μὲν ἀσεβείας τῆς εἰς Τιβέριον Καίσαρα δίκην

See also Ant. 17.295. See also Ant. 20.129. 46 On the translation of λῃστής, see later Chapter 7. 47 See also War 1.97, 113. 48 See earlier Chapter 1. 49 Gizewski, “Maiestas.” See also Salvo, “Maiestas”: maiestas “was an offense that could be committed by non-Romans as well as Romans and outside Roman territory as well as within it.” 50 Peachin, “Augustus’ Emergent Judicial Powers,” 541–49. 44 45

142

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

σχών). 51 Dio moreover reports cases of maiestas without using his usual designation ἀσέβεια (“impiety”). Margaret Williams infers, “Often the real grounds for such proceedings do not surface in the sources.”52 So even in Dio, who often categorises the maiestas crime in an explicit way, some cases remain ambiguous. John Cook adopts what seems an unrealistic standard: “I have not found any records of Roman trials in which a peregrinus was explicitly accused of maiestas by a magistrate.”53 Cook excludes maiestas from the discussion and categorises the crime of Jesus as seditio (rebellion) or se turbulente gessere (troublemaking). 54 But such distinctions seem arbitrary, as banditry and sedition “might easily come under” the umbrella of maiestas.55 According to Benjamin Kelly, those who incited rebellion against the authority of Rome in the provinces “could have been brought before the relevant provincial governor and … charged with maiestas.”56 The case of Jesus, in particular, 51 Allen Kerkeslager, “The Absence of Dionysios, Lampo, and Isidoros from the Violence in Alexandria in 38 C.E.,” in The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, Vol. 17, 1999, ed. David T. Runia and Gregory E. Sterling (BJS 344; Providence: Brown University, 2005), 49–94 (69) agrees that this lawsuit concerns maiestas. 52 Williams, “Domitian, the Jews and the ‘Judaizers,’” 208. 53 John Granger Cook, “Crucifixion and Burial,” NTS 57 (2011): 193–213 (200) derives his view of maiestas from the third-century CE jurist Ulpian (Dig. 48.4.1). Although Cook (p. 201 fn. 33) appeals to J.-J. Aubert, “A Double Standard in Roman Criminal Law? The Death Penalty and Social Structure in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome,” in Speculum Iuris: Roman Law as a Reflection of Social and Economic Life in Antiquity, ed. J.-J. Aubert and B. Sirks (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002), 94–133 (122 fn. 18) as an authority, he does not seem to mind that Aubert cautions against the anachronism of this maiestas definition for cases in the first century. 54 Cook, “Crucifixion,” 202 and idem, “Roman Crucifixions: From the Second Punic War to Constantine,” ZNW 104 (2013): 1–32 (13). For Cook, “Crucifixion,” 196, it is “highly unlikely” that Jesus was “tried” for maiestas. It “was a political execution, though not for maiestas since Jesus was a peregrinus” (p. 197). Cook (p. 196 fn. 14) claims, “Jesus’ status as a peregrinus and his lower-class social standing are against a conviction for maiestas.” He cites Aubert, “Double Standard,” 122 fn. 18. Here Cook cites Aubert, “Double Standard,” 122 fn. 18: “But it may be correct to say that Jesus’ accusers tried to have him charged with ‘crimen maiestatis,’ though to no avail.” Thus Cook seems to undermine himself by citing Aubert. 55 Janne Pölönen, “Plebeians and Repression of Crime in the Roman Empire: From Torture of Convicts to Torture of Suspects,” RIDA 51 (2004): 217–57 (245 fn. 70). See Dig. 48.18.4 on the lex Julia de maiestatis and Dig. 48.18.6 on the lex Julia de vi publica. 56 Benjamin Kelly, “Repression, Resistance and Rebellion,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, ed. Paul J. du Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 374–85 (382–83). “Reports of such judicial responses to provincial revolts are, however, exceedingly rare” (p. 382), but see Josephus, War 2.77; Ant. 17.298; Tacitus, Ann. 14.37.

2. The accusation that Jesus had done evil to Caesar

143

“raises interesting questions about criminal law and its application in a provincial setting,” and so J.-J. Aubert infers that the accusation against Jesus was possibly maiestas.57 Anyone who claimed kingship not already ratified by Caesar committed maiestas, regardless of citizenship status. 58 Some historians therefore consider maiestas as the crime on which Jesus was crucified.59 Not only is maiestas a plausible accusation against Jesus, but John alludes to it before the praetorium episode. The council worries that the public response to Jesus will make the Romans come and destroy the nation and the temple (11:48). The high priest Caiaphas reasons that it is better for the chief priests and the Pharisees to have one man die for the sake of the people than to have the whole nation destroyed (v. 51). They then plan to kill Jesus (v. 53) and call on those in the temple to act as informers (v. 57). Later, Judas brings both a cohort of soldiers and the assistants from the chief priests and Pharisees with lights and torches, to find Jesus with his disciples, whom he will later designate his own assistants (18:36), in a certain garden across the Kidron (v. 3).60 When the two groups are poised for confrontation, Peter cuts off the ear of the chief priest’s slave (v. 10). 61 Jesus’ public support resembles, in the eyes of the council, the beginnings of rebellion against Caesar. As Josephus situates crucifixions amid military conflict, so John situates Jesus’ arrest in the same way. The priests bring Jesus to the praetorium (John 18:28) with an accusation that concerns the prefect (v. 29), and they seem surprised that Pilate even asks for an accusation (v. 30). When the subjects of Pilate deliver the accused to the praetorium, the situation classifies the accusation, just as it prescribes the punishment of crucifixion (v. 31). 62 Because the title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 33) originates with the nation of Ἰουδαῖοι and its chief priests, Pilate asks Jesus instead what he did (v. 35). Jesus explains, by contrast, what Aubert, “Double Standard,” 111. Fernando Bermejo-Rubio, “(Why) Was Jesus the Galilean Crucified Alone? Solving a False Conundrum,” JSNT 36:2 (2013): 127–54 (140); John W. Welch, “Miracles, Maleficium, and Maiestas in the Trial of Jesus,” in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 349–83 (370 fn. 63). 59 Brown, Death, 719; Giorgio Jossa, Jews Or Christians? The Followers of Jesus in Search of Their Own Identity (trans. Molly Rogers; WUNT 202; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 57. 60 John 18:1 does not name the “place where there was a garden.” 61 For Aubert, “Double Standard,” 122, John’s “possibly invented” tradition of the Roman cohort and the Jewish police cooperating in Jesus’ arrest “suggests that significant resistance was expected on the part of Jesus’ followers.” 62 So Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 221. By contrast, Michaels, John, 916 writes that the Ἰουδαῖοι “refuse to say what Jesus has done wrong.” 57 58

144

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

he has done in his otherworldly kingship (v. 37). Pilate then declares Jesus’ innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). Considering also that his command that the accusers take and judge Jesus themselves (18:31a) foreshadows the command that they take and crucify him themselves (19:6a), Pilate may sense the false accusation in the first exchange. After all, the crime of calumnia in maiestas cases was notorious under Tiberius – not to mention Domitian, too.63 If the crime is implicit in the language in 18:30, it becomes explicit in 19:12, where the accusation is opposing (ἀντιλέγω) Caesar by making oneself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. So in 18:30 the Ἰουδαῖοι accuse Jesus of “doing evil” to Caesar – or, maiestas.

3. The accusation that Jesus had misled the nation as false prophet 3. The accusation that Jesus had misled the nation as false prophet

So far, I have argued from historical plausibility and narrative coherence that the Johannine Jesus is accused of maiestas. But as I will argue here, maiestas is not the only accusation of impiety the Ἰουδαῖοι make in this opening scene. As well as impiety toward Caesar, they accuse Jesus of impiety toward God. That second crime is false prophecy specifically. As Luke also does, John merges these accusation into one: the false prophet misleads the nation and as a result diminishes the imperial maiestas. 64 Throughout the Johannine narrative, the signs Jesus does are dangerous in that particular respect. 65 Because crowd sees Jesus’ signs and supposes he is the Messiah (John 7:31), the Pharisees and chief priests attempt his arrest (v. 32). And later, the Pharisees and chief priests again worry about Jesus’ signs (11:47), which will bring belief in Jesus and destruction from Rome (v. 48). Meeks suggests that the question the high priests asks Jesus about his disciples and his teaching (18:19) makes sense if the accusation is that Jesus is the false prophet.66 Yet whereas the perspective of Jesus’ opponents is that he misleads people, 18:32 is careful to stress the fulfilment of something Jesus had said earlier about his

See earlier Chapter 1. Whereas Meeks, Prophet-King, 61 notes that the false christ accusation falls to Pilate, I am suggesting that the false prophet and king accusations go together. 65 David W. Wead, “We Have a Law,” NovT 11 (1969): 185–89, who is also prompted by the function of the signs, concludes that in John Jesus is accused of both blasphemy and misleading the nation as a false prophet. 66 Meeks, Prophet-King, 60. 63 64

3. The accusation that Jesus had misled the nation as false prophet

145

death. The hint, moreover, is that Jesus’ prophecy has come to pass in the false accusation made against him in the preceding verses.67 Like maiestas, false prophecy is punishable by execution, the penalty desired by the Johannine accusers (John 18:31). If the prophet does signs (Deut 13:2) that promote idolatry (v. 3), then Israel is to ignore his words (v. 4). 68 The people should go after Yahweh, whose commandments they will follow and whose voice they will obey (v. 5). That prophet must die, because they misled (πλανάω) the people away from Yahweh (v. 6).69 Later, Moses commands the people to hear the true prophet whom Yahweh raises up (18:15). The prophet will receive the word of Yahweh, and the prophet will speak whatever Yahweh commands (v. 18). To those who do not hear the words of Yahweh, Yahweh will respond vengefully (v. 19). The prophet who speaks impiously (ἀσεβέω) by lying about what God has said will die, and the same goes for one who speaks in the name of another god (v. 20). The proof for the false prophet (v. 21) is simple, that whatever he says does not happen (v. 22). The concluding clauses of v. 22 read, “that prophet spoke in impiety (ἐν ἀσεβείᾳ); you shall not spare him.”70 When the Ἰουδαῖοι indicate in John 18:31 that they want Jesus executed, the accusation may be both maiestas and false prophecy.71 The wider Jesus tradition, including John, alludes to the false prophet by drawing on the usage of the verb πλανάω (“mislead”) in LXX Deut 13:6. In Mark 13:5 // Matt 24:4 he tells Peter, James, John, and Andrew to beware that someone does not mislead (πλανάω) them. “Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am!’ and they will mislead (πλανάω) many” (Mark 13:6 // Matt 24:5 // Luke 21:8; similarly Sib. Or. 3.68).72 The disciples had just asked about the

67 The ἵνα clause in John 18:32 describes the purpose of the scene (Barrett, John, 536; Lindars, John, 557), which entails that what the Ἰουδαῖοι say in the preceding verses validates Jesus as prophet. In a similar way, the ἵνα clause in John 12:38a connects to v. 37, which then reaches back to v. 34. 68 According to NA28, John 11:47 alludes to Deut 13:1 and 3. The importance of Deut 18:15–22, which John does not use in any direct way, in the New Testament is attested in Acts, where Peter integrates Deut 18:15 and 19 (Acts 3:22, 23), and Stephen reproduces Deut 18:15 (Acts 7:37). 69 ἐλάλησεν γὰρ πλανῆσαί σε ἀπὸ κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ σου (“for he spoke to mislead you from the Lord your God,” LXX Deut 13:6); ‫“( כי דבר סרה על יהוה אלהיכם‬for he spoke rebellion against Yahweh your God,” MT Deut 13:6). 70 The command to kill the false prophet is clear in m. Sanh. 11:5: ‫מיתתו בידי שמים שנ׳‬ ‫“( אנכי אדרוש מעמו‬is put to death by heaven; as it is said, I will require it of him”). 71 Before this point in the narrative, the Ἰουδαῖοι have already tried to stone Jesus (John 8:59; 10:31). 72 Earlier, in Mark 12:24 // Matt 22:29 Jesus tells some Sadducees that they are misled (πλανάω), because they know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. Sib. Or. 3.68 reads,

146

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

sign (σημεῖον) of the end things (Mark 13:4 // Matt 24:3 // Luke 21:17; similarly Sib. Or. 3.66). 73 According to Matt 24:11, figures who mislead (πλανάω) many are false prophets. And v. 24 goes on to refer to false prophets and false christs who mislead (πλανάω) even the elect through signs (σημεῖον; similarly Sib. Or. 3.69).74 1 John refers to “the ones who mislead (πλανάω) you” (1 John 2:26), namely the antichrists (v. 18) who left the group (v. 19) and who deny the Father and the Son (v. 22).75 John’s gospel narrates a dispute over whether Jesus is a prophet, and in the middle of it the Pharisees suggest that their assistants did not arrest Jesus because he misled (πλανάω) them (John 7:47). Earlier, some Ἰουδαῖοι had said that Jesus is good, whereas others had said that he misleads (πλανάω) the crowd (v. 12). So the false prophet tradition permeates the Jesus tradition and the Johannine corpus. The question of whether or not Jesus tells the truth about the future surfaces across the four canonical gospels. In Mark 14:55 the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin found no witness against Jesus to put him to death. Many were witnessing falsely, and their witnesses did not agree (v. 56). Some witnessed falsely (v. 57) that they heard Jesus saying he was going to destroy the temple and build one made without hands (Mark 14:58 // Matt 26:61), but the testimonies disagreed (Mark 14:59). To close the scene, Jesus was mocked and commanded to prophesy when he was blindfolded and slapped (Mark 14:65 // Matt 26:68 // Luke 22:64). Then on the cross, Jesus was blasphemed for not destroying and restoring the temple (Mark 15:29 // Matt 27:40). Later in the passion, Matt 27:63 adds that, according to the chief priests and the Pharisees, the πλάνος (“misleader,” “deceiver”) prophesied his own resurrection. In the same vein, according to Jesus in John 2:19, if the Ἰουδαῖοι destroy the temple of his body (v. 21), he will raise it again.76 The gospels integrate the truth of what Jesus says with his death and the temple. “but he misleads humans, and he will mislead many” (ἀλλὰ πλανᾷ καὶ δὴ μέροπας πολλούς τε πλανήσει). 73 Luke 21:8 adds, μὴ πορευθῆτε ὀπίσω αὐτῶν (“do not go after them”). 74 Sib. Or. 3.69: “faithful and elect Hebrews, as well as lawless ones” (πιστούς τ᾿ ἐκλεκτούς θ᾿ Ἑβραίους ἀνόμους τε). 75 In addition, 1 John 3:7 reads, “Little children, let no one deceive (πλανάω) you.” 76 John places the saying on Jesus’ lips near the beginning of his ministry, not on his accusers’ lips after the end of his ministry. John has Jesus tell the Ἰουδαῖοι to destroy the temple, not say that he will destroy it himself. John uses the verbs λύω and ἐγείρω, not καταλύω and οἰκοδομέω. Slightly differently to John 7:39 (ὅτι Ἰησοῦς οὐδέπω ἐδοξάσθη) and 12:16 (οὐκ … τὸ πρῶτον ἀλλ᾿ ὅτε ἐδοξάσθη Ἰησοῦς), where the defining transition occurs when Jesus is glorified (δοξάζω), 2:22 seems to place more emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection as the turning point. The context in 2:22 incorporates both the destruction and the restoration of Jesus’ body (vv. 19, 21).

3. The accusation that Jesus had misled the nation as false prophet

147

John moreover, like Deuteronomy, integrates the sign, too (John 2:18; Deut 34:11). John 18:32 is made up of two texts from an earlier passage in John. As 18:32a has ἵνα ὁ λόγος τοῦ Ἰησοῦ πληρωθῇ ὃν εἶπεν (“in order that the word of Jesus may be fulfiled, which he said”), so 12:38a has ἵνα ὁ λόγος Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου πληρωθῇ ὃν εἶπεν (“in order that the word of Isaiah the prophet may be fulfiled, which he said”). And as 18:32b has ὃν εἶπεν σημαίνων ποίῳ θανάτῳ ἤμελλεν ἀποθνῄσκειν (“which he said to signal which kind of death he was about to die”), so 12:33 has τοῦτο δὲ ἔλεγεν σημαίνων ποίῳ θανάτῳ ἤμελλεν ἀποθνῄσκειν (“and he said this to signal which kind of death he was about to die”). With 12:33 and 38a, 18:32 characterises Jesus in relation to prophecy and Isaiah. Whereas 12:38a identifies Isaiah as a prophet, 18:32a – like the fulfilment note just earlier in v. 9a, ἵνα πληρωθῇ ὁ λόγος ὃν εἶπεν – does not identify Jesus as one. But rather than implying that Jesus is no prophet, the association with Isaiah seems to imply that he is. As Deut 18:22 legislates, the fulfilment of what Jesus had said about his death validates his words as prophetic in John 18:32 But what, according to John 12:33 and 18:32b, did Jesus say “to signal which kind of death he was about to die?” The answer is in what precedes 12:33.77 Jesus does not pray for rescue from his hour (v. 27), because that is when the name of the Father will be glorified (δοξάζω, v. 28). This is the judgement of the world, where the ruler of this world will be cast out (v. 31). Jesus describes himself being exalted (ὑψόω) from the earth and therefore drawing everyone to himself (v. 32), ingathering children of God. If v. 33 refers both to the ὑψόω thread, with reference both to restoration (v. 32) and to destruction (v. 31), and to the δοξάζω thread (v. 28), then so also does 18:32. Whereas Jesus came to save (12:47), the word he speaks judges those who reject him (v. 48), because he speaks from what his Father commanded (v. 49) – just as the prophet after Moses would (Deut 18:18). So by reference to John 12:33 and its immediate context, 18:32 recalls that Jesus prophesied – in the Mosaic mould – the judgement and the hope in his exaltation on the cross.78

Bultmann, John, 653; Moloney, John, 494. John T. Carroll and Joel B. Green, with Robert E. Van Voorst, Joel Marcus, and Donald Senior, “‘When I Am Lifted Up from the Earth …’: The Death of Jesus in the Gospel according to John,” in The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 82–109 (102) see Jesus’ words “raised to the same level of prophetic authority” as the Jewish scriptures. 77 78

148

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

Considering that John 18:32 evokes 12:33 and 38a, the uses of Isa 6:10 in John 12:38 and Isa 53:10 in John 12:40 are suggestive.79 Beyond the contents of Isa 6:10 and 53:10, what is further significant is the point that Isaiah, more broadly, is critical to the conceptualisation of the Johannine cross. John makes clear that the crucifixion becomes both exaltation and glorification, and 18:32 means to remind the reader. John 18:32 refers back to 12:33, the context of which is suffused with the exaltation and glorification threads: vv. 32 and 34 use the verb ὑψόω (“exalt”), and vv. 16, 23, and 28 use the verb δοξάζω (“glorify”). Scholars tend to link the Johannine collocation of ὑψόω and δοξάζω to LXX Isa 52:13, where the servant will be “exalted and glorified” (καὶ ὑψωθήσεται καὶ δοξασθήσεται).80 But LXX Isaiah also pairs δοξάζω with ὑψόω in relation to Israel (4:2) and God (5:16; 33:10), not to mention Assyria (10:15).81 Although Johannine scholars usually dismiss – either implicitly or explicitly – the pairing of δοξάζω and ὑψόω in Isa 10:15, it may contextualise the same pairing in John. 82 Isaiah 10:15a reads, “shall an axe be glorified (δοξασθήσεται) without the one who cuts with it, or a saw be exalted (ὑψωθήσεται) without the one who pulls it?” In each half the passive subject of the verb – first δοξάζω, second ὑψόω – is the instrument of judgement:

79 On these specific connections, see Daniel J. Brendsel, “Isaiah Saw His Glory”: The Use of Isaiah 52–53 in John 12 (BZNW 208; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014). 80 Thompson, John, 85 writes, “John’s description of the crucifixion thus takes a page from Isaiah’s description of the Lord’s servant.” Jocelyn McWhirter, “Messianic Exegesis in the Fourth Gospel,” in Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism, 124– 48 (133) uses LXX Isa 52:13 to make sense of the exaltation and glorification threads across John. 81 By itself, δοξάζω relates not only to Israel (LXX Isa 44:23; 49:3, 5; 55:3) but also to the house of prayer (60:7) and holy place (v. 13). 82 Martin Hengel, with the collaboration of Daniel P. Bailey, “The Effective History of Isaiah 53 in the Pre-Christian Period,” in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher (trans. Daniel P. Bailey; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 75–146 (121) observes the repeated collocation of δοξάζω and ὑψόω in Isaiah, but he dismisses Isa 10:15 as “not strictly relevant,” presumably because his discussion is concerned with the exaltation and the glorification of Israel and Yahweh. Also, where it may be illuminating, Catrin H. Williams, “Johannine Christology and Prophetic Traditions: The Case of Isaiah,” in Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism, 92–123 (102) does not contrast Isa 33:10–11 with Isa 10:15, where Assyria’s, not God’s, exaltation and glorification is in the picture: “The theological importance ascribed to these two Greek verbs in LXX Isaiah is further heightened by their pairing together to form a verbal correlation (cf. 4:2; 5:16; 10:15) used to denote God’s future and visible exaltation and glorification: “‘Now I will arise,’ says the Lord, ‘now I will be glorified (δοξασθήσομαι); now I will be exalted (ὑψωθήσομαι). Now you will see (ὄψεσθε); now you will perceive’” (33:10–11; cf. 49:3–5).”

4. Summary

149

first the axe, then the saw. Isaiah 10:15b continues, “just so would it be if someone were to lift a rod or a log.” The “rod” metaphor relates most immediately to vv. 5 and 24, where the ῥάβδος of Yahweh is in the hands of the Assyrians to judge Israel. Yahweh equips Assyria to judge Israel, because Jerusalem and her idols need to be judged (v. 11). But afterward, Yahweh will judge the ruler of Assyria and his pride (v. 12): the formulation ἐπὶ τὸ ὕψος τῆς δόξης τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ incorporates the nominal cognates of δοξάζω (δόξα) and ὑψόω (ὕψος).83 The way v. 12 denotes the pride of the ruler anticipates the parallel usages of δοξάζω and ὑψόω in v. 15. So Yahweh uses Assyria to judge the idolatry of Israel, though he then also judges Assyria for its pride. The ἄρχων of Assyria (Isa 10:12) corresponds to the ἄρχων of the world (John 12:31), the διάβολος, whom the Ἰουδαῖοι (8:44) and Judas (6:70; 13:12, 27) embody.84 And the axe and the saw are passive subjects of δοξάζω and ὑψόω, just as Jesus also is. In John the Father gives the Son as the means of judgement (5:22), and the Ἰουδαῖοι exalt Jesus (8:28) for both judgement (12:31) and hope (v. 32). The ruler of the world, the διάβολος, judges by way of the Ἰουδαῖοι and Judas as does the ruler of Assyria, and Jesus is the means of judgement as are the axe and saw. The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι exalt Jesus as the judgement on themselves. They fulfil the word of Jesus (18:32) by falsely accusing him of misleading the nation as false prophet. By the false accusation, they moreover validate Jesus’ prophecy. So when they accuse Jesus as false prophet, they oppose the true prophet sent from God. In the “dramatic decision” Jesus presents the Ἰουδαῖοι, who both “are commanded to heed the true prophet upon pain of divine judgment” and also “are also commanded to put the false prophet to death,” they err.85

4. Summary 4. Summary

What exactly fulfils the word Jesus had earlier spoken about his death is ambiguous in John 18:32. The resulting paradox, I conclude, is that when the Ἰουδαῖοι accuse Jesus of misleading the nation to the point that it diminishes the maiestas of Caesar, they fulfil Jesus’ prophetic word and make him the instrument of judgement on themselves. An ancient stereotype of both Tiberius’ (Tacitus, Ann. 3.38.1; Pliny, Pan. 11.1–3) and Domitian’s (Pliny, 83 In theme and terminology, LXX Isa 10:12 resembles LXX Ps 36:20, which reads, “because the sinners will perish, and the enemies of the Lord, as soon as they are glorified (δοξασθῆναι) and exalted (ὑψωθῆναι), vanishing like smoke they vanished.” 84 On Judas, see later Chapter 10. 85 Meeks, Prophet-King, 56.

150

Chapter 5: Scene 1, John 18:29–32

Pan. 42.1) reigns was the inevitability of the maiestas accusation.86 But the maiestas accusation remained high risk in the sense that, if it was baseless, the accuser faced a charge of calumnia. 87 On top of that possible worldly judgement, an otherworldly judgement awaits those who reject the one who tells them the words of God.

86 87

On this, see earlier Chapter 1. Bauman, Impietas in Principem, 54.

Chapter 6

Scene 2, John 18:33–38a The fig tree symbolises Israel, whether destroyed or restored, throughout the Hebrew prophets. 1 But Mic 4:4 and Zech 3:10 are alone in using the restoration trope of being under a fig tree, at least until John 1:48 embeds it in Jesus’ vision of Nathanael. 2 Nathanael’s ensuing confession of Jesus’ national kingship and divine sonship (v. 49) resembles the accusation the Ἰουδαῖοι bring to the praetorium (19:7, 12). But unlike Micah and Zechariah, John seems to use the fig tree trope to portray foreign empire favourably. Pilate, the foreign ruler, identifies in the second scene at the praetorium that Jesus is “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (18:33) only according to the nation and its chief priests (v. 35). In dialogue with Jesus, Pilate distances himself and the truth from the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate realises that because the accusers bring the lie from the nation to the praetorium, the accused is enabled to witness to the truth for the world on the cross. As John 8:28 has anticipated, the lie from below paradoxically exalts the truth from above. To defend this reading, I will analyse the way the ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula characterises Pilate, the connection between the ἔθνος of Israel and the absence of δόλος in Nathanael, the judicial connotations of the verb ἀγωνίζομαι, and Pilate’s question about truth. Εἰσῆλθεν οὖν πάλιν εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον ὁ Πιλᾶτος καὶ ἐφώνησεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; 34 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· ἀπὸ σεαυτοῦ σὺ τοῦτο λέγεις ἢ ἄλλοι εἶπόν σοι περὶ ἐμοῦ; 35 ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Πιλᾶτος· μήτι ἐγὼ Ἰουδαῖός εἰμι; τὸ ἔθνος τὸ σὸν καὶ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς παρέδωκάν σε ἐμοί· τί ἐποίησας; 36 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου· εἰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ἦν ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμή, οἱ ὑπηρέται οἱ ἐμοὶ ἠγωνίζοντο [ἂν] ἵνα μὴ παραδοθῶ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις· νῦν δὲ ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐντεῦθεν. 37 εἶπεν οὖν αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος· οὐκοῦν βασιλεὺς εἶ σύ; ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Ἰησοῦς· σὺ λέγεις ὅτι βασιλεύς εἰμι. ἐγὼ εἰς τοῦτο γεγέννημαι καὶ εἰς τοῦτο ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα μαρτυρήσω τῇ ἀληθείᾳ· πᾶς ὁ ὢν ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας ἀκούει μου τῆς φωνῆς. 38 λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος· τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; 1 The fig tree might be eaten by enemies (Jer 5:17); the fig tree might not blossom (Hab 3:17); Yahweh may ruin the fig tree (Hos 2:14); even if the fig tree yields nothing, there remains hope (Hag 2:19); and though the fig tree droops (Joel 1:12), it will give its full yield (2:22). The Rabshakeh of the Assyrian king promises the Judahites that they can eat from their own fig trees, only if they reject Hezekiah (Isa 36:16). 2 Also 1 Macc 14:12; similarly 2 Kgs 18:31.

152

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

So Pilate entered the praetorium again, and he summoned Jesus, and he said to him, “You are King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.”3 34 Jesus replied, “Are you saying this from yourself or did others say this to you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Ἰουδαῖος, am I? Your nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What did you do?” 36 Jesus replied, “My kingship is not out of this world: if my kingship were out of this world, my assistants would be contending, so that I may not be delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι; yet at the moment, my kingship is not here.” Therefore, Pilate said to him, “So then, you are a king.” 37 Jesus replied, “You say that I am a king; me – for this I am born, and for this I am come into the world: so that I may witness to the truth; everyone who is out of the truth hears my voice.” 38 Pilate says to him, “What is truth?” (John 18:33–38a)

1. The ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula and whose glory Pilate seeks 1. The ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula and whose glory Pilate seeks

Barrett notes that “the Johannine ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, ἀπ ἐμαυτοῦ points to a fundamental element in John’s Christology.”4 What Jesus asks Pilate in John 18:34 is typically Johannine, in style and in theology. From this same point of departure, Meeks offers an interpretation similar to the one I will argue: Jesus’ counter question to Pilate, ‘Do you say this of yourself (ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ) or did others tell you about me?’ is striking because of the appearance of the formula ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ. Elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel this phrase points to the divine origin of revelation through one who, consciously or unconsciously, is a prophet. It is not impossible that a doubleentendre is present here comparable to that of 11.50f. As the High Priest unwittingly prophesied Jesus’ vicarious death, so in the irony of the Johannine Passion Pilate repeatedly proclaims Jesus’ kingship. If this is so, then Pilate’s retort is doubly ironic. His information is not ‘from himself,’ but also not – so far as he knows – from God: it is from ‘the Jews.’ The form of his retort is significant: ‘Am I a Jew?’ This is just the question posed by the trial situation, for ‘the Jews’ represent in John the disbelieving world, the world seeking to be rid of the Redeemer. Does Pilate belong to the world that rejects

3 σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων may be a question or a proposition – “Are you King of the Ἰουδαῖοι?” or “You are King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” Translations tend to prefer the question, which impacts how ἀποκρίνομαι and λέγω are then translated in the following v. 34. The NRSV has “Jesus answered (ἀπεκρίθη), ‘Do you ask (λέγεις) this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’” The alternative is, “Jesus replied, ‘Do you say this from yourself or did others tell you about me?’” Neither seems to be much smoother than the other. However, the parallels Mark 15:2, 4 // Matt 27:11 have ἐπερωτάω, and the parallel Luke 23:3 has ἐρωτάω. Other nearby instances of Pilate talking amplify the ambiguity here. The scene has him use the interrogatives μήτι (John 18:35) and τίς (v. 38). Yet, he also uses οὐκοῦν (v. 37), which does not need to mark a question. And further, when οὐκοῦν occurs, it precedes another clause which incorporates βασιλεὺς εἶ σύ. Pilate is probably interrogating only in John 18:35, 38. 4 Barrett, John, 8.

1. The ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula and whose glory Pilate seeks

153

Jesus? Grammatically his question expects a negative answer; the development of the trial, however, places him step by step at the disposal of ‘the Jews.’5

I agree with Meeks that the Johannine ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula indicates “the divine origin of revelation” from a “prophet.” But I disagree that what Pilate says is “doubly ironic,” in the sense that in this case of ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ the words are not from God. Rather, I suggest, the paradox is that what Pilate says is from the Ἰουδαῖοι and, at the same time, from the divine. The Father and the Son predetermined the accusation, as John 18:32 has only just highlighted. Whereas I also agree with Meeks that “I am not a Ἰουδαῖος, am I?” distances the prefect from the accusers and “the world that rejects Jesus,” I disagree that the episode makes Pilate serve the Ἰουδαῖοι. By contrast, when Pilate declares Jesus innocent (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), he has, by necessity, heard Jesus, who witnesses to the truth (18:37). The prefect remains in the world that accepts, not condemns, the accused. I will turn to three other instances of ἀπό + reflexive pronoun + verb: 7:17–18; 11:51; 16:13. The immediate sense of 18:34 is that the accusers told Pilate the accusation, yet that much is clear. Other instances of the syntactical pattern in John suggest that Pilate has the potential to speak from above. And it seems as though he realises that potential when he asks τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια (“What is truth?”) in v. 38a. This is my final difference with Meeks: the Johannine Pilate is no unwitting prophet. First, Jesus explains that the teaching is not his own but from the one who sent him (John 7:16). Those willing to do his will recognise “whether it is out of God or whether I speak from myself” (πότερον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν ἢ ἐγὼ ἀπ᾿ ἐμαυτοῦ λαλῶ, v. 17). For, “the one who speaks from himself seeks his own glory” (ὁ ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ λαλῶν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν ζητεῖ, v. 18a). However, “the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is no injustice in him” (v. 18b). The issue of origin corresponds to whose glory is desired. If one can speak from oneself, then one can speak from others, too. Ideally, one speaks from God, whom Jesus has claimed as his sender and whose glory he claims to desire. Jesus is true and without injustice (v. 18), and yet his audience desires to kill him (v. 19). Second, the narrator notes of Caiaphas, “he did not say this on his own” (τοῦτο δὲ ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ οὐκ εἶπεν, John 11:51). Again, the sequence is speaking verb (here λέγω) + ἀπό + reflexive pronoun. The adversative ἀλλά introduces an explanation, that the high priest Caiaphas is prophesying. If he does not speak from himself, he speaks from God. And if he speaks from God, he, in light of 7:18, desires the glory of God. This divine glory culminates in the death of Jesus (11:51), where he ingathers the dispersed children of God (v. 52). The Son and the Father glorify (δοξάζω) each other (17:1) on the cross. 5

Meeks, Prophet-King, 63.

154

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

Third, Jesus teaches, “when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth (John 16:13).” For, “he will not speak from himself” (οὐ γὰρ λαλήσει ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ). As in 11:51, ἀλλά introduces the alternative, that this Spirit will only speak whatever he hears (ἀλλ᾿ ὅσα ἀκούσει λαλήσει). Jesus continues that the Spirit will glorify (δοξάζω) him (16:14). The truth and glory language in 16:13 and 14 evokes the λόγος in flesh, the revelation of glory that is full of truth (1:14). In other places, John has ἀπό + reflexive pronoun without any speaking verb. In John 5:30 Jesus says that he can do nothing “from myself” (ἀπ᾿ ἐμαυτοῦ), for he judges as he hears (also 8:28; 14:10) and seeks the will of God (also 7:17). In 7:28 Jesus says that he has not come “from myself” (ἀπ᾿ ἐμαυτοῦ; also 8:42). In 15:4 Jesus teaches his disciples, “just as the branch cannot bear fruit from itself (ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ) unless it remains in the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.” In 10:18, however, Jesus affirms that he lays down his life “from myself (ἀπ᾿ ἐμαυτοῦ).” He has authority (ἐξουσία) to do so, and he has taken the command from his Father. He is the only one given authority (ἐξουσία) in John (to judge: 5:27), except believers (1:12) and Pilate (19:10, 11). As someone given authority, Pilate resembles Jesus and those who believe Jesus. This seems neither accidental nor incidental. In the Johannine scheme of things, Pilate has ἐξουσία both as judge and – perhaps, in some ambiguous sense – as believer. This interpretation both accounts for Johannine style and complements the early Christian reception of Pilate as a positive figure.6 What is the sense of John 18:34? From whom does Pilate speak, and whose glory does he seek? First, the Ἰουδαῖοι told Pilate about Jesus, as v. 35 will clarify. But second, the Johannine Pilate potentially speaks from the divine and seeks its glory. The divine determines the unfolding course of events, according not only to v. 32, but also to the identical text in 12:33, which it invokes. The δοξάζω uses around 12:33, in vv. 16, 23, 28, refer to the divine glory in the death of Jesus. Pilate is unlike Caiaphas, whom the narrator says prophesies. Pilate, rather, is explicitly, at the narrative level, prompted by Jesus to consider the origin of his words. If there is irony with Caiaphas, there is not with Pilate. Because Caiaphas has no contact with the narrator, he unconsciously prophesies. But because Pilate has contact with Jesus, he consciously considers the origin of his words. So Caiaphas’ characterisation in relation to the divine is ironic in a way that Pilate’s cannot be.

6

On the early Christian reception of Pilate, see earlier Chapter 5.

2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία

155

2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία 2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία

Joined together by the ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ formula, neither Caiaphas (John 11:51) nor Pilate (18:34) speaks from himself. And moreover, Pilate speaks not from himself but – at least in the first place – from Jesus’ nation (ἔθνος) and its chief priests (18:35), whose plot is what Caiaphas, who also does not speak from himself, has recommended (11:50). If Pilate relates what Caiaphas prophesied, then Pilate also prophesies, and so the prefect prophesies inasmuch as the high priest has done. When Pilate uses the term ἔθνος (18:35), in addition, he evokes the other place in which John uses it, the one that features Caiaphas. Though Jesus may make Rome come into the ἔθνος of Judea (11:48), Caiaphas recognises that the death of Jesus would keep the ἔθνος safe (v. 50). Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the ἔθνος (v. 51), and not for the ἔθνος only but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God (v. 52). Next to that group of ἔθνος occurrences, John 12:13 is the final use of Ἰσραήλ (“Israel”) in the narrative. 7 The crowd adds “King of Israel” from Zeph 3:15 to the Ps 118:25 quotation, and the context is national salvation. Lincoln compares John 12:14–15 with 6:14–15, each an “inappropriate interpretation of Jesus’ kingship.”8 Earlier, Jesus wonders at Nicodemus, a leader of Ἰουδαῖοι (John 3:1) and teacher of Israel (v. 10), because of his lack of understanding. Nicodemus, an otherwise unattested figure, eventually buries Jesus with about hundred pounds of perfumes and spices (19:39). 9 Thompson notes that Nicodemus does this “to see that Jesus is properly and honorifically buried as king.”10 He supposes Jesus to be a teacher from God (3:2) and in some sense royal, but he does not actually understand him. The hurdle is the βασιλεία (“kingship”) of God (3:3, 5), which is for those who

7 The units in which Ἰσραήλ (John 12:13) and ἔθνος (11:48, 50, 51, 52) occur are side by side. John 11:45 and 12:11 form an inclusio with the verb πιστεύω, referring to Ἰουδαῖοι believing Jesus. In 11:48 the chief priests and the Pharisees worry that “everyone will believe (πιστεύω) in him.” The concern of the council seems to be that too many Ἰουδαῖοι will go after Jesus, which is what happens in the following entry scene. Thus, the designation Ἰσραήλ (12:13) comes immediately in the wake of the unit introduced by the ἔθνος cluster (11:48, 50, 51, 52) and framed by the verb πιστεύω. Francis J. Moloney, “‘The Jews’ in the Fourth Gospel: Another Perspective,” Pacifica 15 (2002): 16–36 examines the usages of ἔθνος and Ἰσραήλ in John and concludes that the Johannine Jesus exercises his otherworldly kingship to draw every ethnicity, including Ἰουδαῖοι, to himself. 8 Lincoln, John, 343. 9 Nicodemus appears once more in John 7:50. 10 Thompson, John, 406.

156

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

both see and are born in spiritual not physical terms. When John mentions Israel, John implies a puzzle about kingship. The ambiguity about kingship also seems to be in view when John 1:31, 47, 49 use Ἰσραήλ and Ἰσραηλίτης. John the baptiser says, “I myself did not know him, but so that he may be revealed τῷ Ἰσραήλ” (v. 31a). 11 The uncertainty about the dative τῷ Ἰσραήλ is due to the absence of any preposition. If it is a dative of cause, it may be translated, “but so that he may be revealed because of Israel.”12 In the same way, Galatians 6:12 has ἵνα τῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ Χριστοῦ μὴ διώκωνται, “so that they may not be persecuted because of the cross of Christ.” So Israel would somehow causes the revelation of the Johannine Jesus, whom the baptiser recognises as “Son of God” (John 1:34). Soon, Jesus meets Nathanael and identifies him as an Ἰσραηλίτης without δόλος (“deceit,” 1:47). In his ensuing confession Nathanael adds to “Son of God” – already in v. 34 and emphasised by the narrator in 20:31 – the designation “King of Israel” (v. 49). Considering that Jesus goes on to correct him (v. 50), the confession, in particular the new “King of Israel” component, seems misguided, as Francis Moloney has recognised.13 Nathanael foreshadows the accusation in John 18:28–19:22, where the Ἰουδαῖοι accuse Jesus of making himself “Son of God” (19:7) and “King of Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 12, with 18:33, 39; 19:3, 19, 21). On Peter Tomson’s view, Pilate says “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” because he is an outsider, and Nathanael says “King of Israel” because he is an insider. “‘Jew’ and ‘Israel’ signal different social identities: an ‘outside’ identity as a Jew in regard to the ancient world of nations, or alternatively, an ‘inside’ identity as one belonging to the ‘people of Israel.’” 14 The difference is between “innerJewish” and “non-Jewish” perspectives. 15 Both Pilate and the narrator use I separate the subsequent διὰ τοῦτο ἦλθον ἐγὼ ἐν ὕδατι βαπτίζων (John 1:31b) and suppose that it points forward to the vision of John the baptiser (v. 32). 12 On the dative of cause, see Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek: Illustrated by Examples (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici 114; trans. Joseph Smith; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1963), no. 58; Moule, Idiom-Book, 45. 13 Francis J. Moloney, “Israel, the People, and the Jews in the Fourth Gospel,” in Johannine Studies, 93–115 (99) writes that the confession “falls short of genuine Johannine faith,” and that it is a case where “Jesus corrects false understanding” (p. 100). 14 Peter J. Tomson, “The Names of Israel and Jew in Ancient Judaism and in the New Testament,” Bijdr 47 (1986): 120–40 (120). 15 Tomson, “The Names of Israel and Jew,” 127, 130, 132. By contrast with “inner-Jewish literary works never using the name Jew” – Tomson (p. 135) refers to Sirach, Tobit, Judith, Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and 4 Ezra, in “works where the exclusive use of ‘Jews’ signals an outside identity” – Tomson refers to Esther and Aristeas – “the identifying frame of reference signalled by the ethnic self-designation is non-Jewish. In this 11

2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία

157

“Ἰουδαῖοι” in John, because they assume “non-Jewish” perspectives and audiences. Nathanael’s “inner-Jewish” addition of “King of Israel” to “Son of God” reflects an error in the mockery of Jesus in Matthew. The chief priests, scribes, and elders mock Jesus (Matt 27:41): “the King of Israel… let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, ‘I am God’s Son’” (vv. 42–43).16 So Nathanael’s confession reflects the false accusation against the Johannine Jesus and the misguided mockery of the Matthean Jesus.17 The designation Ἰσραηλίτης seems to prompt the term δόλος (“deceit”) in John 1:47, as though they are somehow related. Another hint comes in v. 51, which uses Gen 28:12. The angels of God ascend and descend upon both the ladder in Genesis and the Son of Man in John. So the connection John seems to presume between Ἰσραηλίτης and δόλος may also be in Genesis. The Jacob narrative has the only two uses of δόλος in Genesis: 27:35 and 34:13.18 In 27:35 Isaac tells Esau that his brother Jacob took his blessing μετὰ δόλου (“with deceit”). And in 34:13 the sons of Jacob speak μετὰ δόλου to Shechem after he defiles (μιαίνω) their sister Dinah. Israelites act and speak μετὰ δόλου, according to Genesis. Taken together, John 1:47 and 51 seem to satirise the connection between Gen 27:35 and 28:12. The δόλος of Jacob (27:35) earns him promises of land (28:13) and descendants (v. 14) in a vision from Yahweh (v. 12). If he has no δόλος, therefore, Nathanael will not see any national prosperity or posterity, as the fig tree trope symbolises (John 1:47). He will rather be shown greater things (v. 50), in particular the Son of Man bridging heaven and earth (v. 51), presumably when he is exalted on the cross (8:28).19 John reorientates the nation (John 10:16; 11:52; 12:32) and its temple (2:19, 21) around the crucified Jesus, not the promised land (Gen 28:15). The seeing concept in John contrasts Israel and the Ἰουδαῖοι with Jesus. Philip and Nathanael are key figures in this. Philip tells Nathanael to look at (ἴδε) Jesus (John 1:46). Jesus recognises Nathanael as Israelite (v. 47) and about to see (ὁράω) greater things (v. 50). People later ask Philip to see (ὁράω) Jesus (12:21), and Philip asks to be shown (δείκνυμι) the Father (14:8). Jesus case, apparently, the purpose of this literary device is to raise sympathy for the Jews and Judaism in the outside world.” Qumran texts use “Israel,” Philo uses “the outside name of his people” in treatises and in relation to the Alexandrian Jews but “an inside appellation” in relation to the scriptures and philosophy, and Josephus uses “the ‘outside’ appellation” unless referring to ancient Israelites (p. 137). 16 Jesus had earlier told the parable of a king throwing a banquet for his son (Matt 22:2). 17 John Painter, “The Church and Israel in the Gospel of John: A Response,” NTS 25 (1978–79): 103–12 emphasises that in John’s view both “King of Israel” and “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” are theologically insufficient for their nationalist and political connotations. 18 Barrett, John, 185. 19 The plurals ὑμῖν and ὄψεσθε in John 1:51 indicate an audience beyond Nathanael.

158

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

answers Philip, “the one who sees me sees the Father” (ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα, v. 9). John’s theology of seeing is illuminated by an etymology Philo (Dreams 1.114; Abraham 57; Gaius 41; Heir 36) repeats for Israel, namely “man who sees God.”20 By contrast, Jesus tells the Ἰουδαῖοι that they have never heard the Father’s voice nor seen his form (John 5:37).21 Johannine theology argues that seeing God means seeing Jesus, who enfleshes the λόγος – another term which Philo (Confusion 146) uses for Israel. 22 Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι are not Israelite, at least inasmuch as they are blind and do not see Jesus. They have neither Moses, who transmits divine revelation, nor Jesus, who embodies divine revelation (John 1:17). As well as revelation, Jesus is also revealer. The prophetic way in which Jesus reveals emerges in John 1:48: Nathanael asks Jesus, “from where do you recognise me?” (πόθεν με γινώσκεις). With the particle πόθεν (also 3:8; 8:14; 19:9), the problem may be read as where Jesus himself comes from, which is above. In that vein, Jesus recognises Nathanael from above, according to his prophetic vision. To strengthen the oracular sense, Jesus answers that he saw (ὁράω) Nathanael before he was called by Philip. 23 Likewise, Thompson suggests, “the point is that Jesus saw him” in a “demonstration of his prophetic gift.”24 As a prophetic vision, its content is significant. So the question is, why does Jesus explain that he saw Nathanael under the συκῆ (“fig tree,” 1:48)? To “inform the enigmatic interchange between Nathanael and Jesus,” Craig Koester starts with Zech 3:8–10.25 Like John 1:48, Zech 3:10 has the elements of one man “calling” another who is “under the fig tree.” Although the Hebrew prophets often use the fig tree to symbolise Israel, the trope of being under a fig tree only occurs in Mic 4:4 and Zech 3:10. 26 Koester suggests that John connects the fig tree trope with the messianic ‫צמח‬ By contrast, see the “Israel” etymology in Gen 32:28; 35:10. On John 1:51 and Jacob traditions, see Camilla Hélena von Heijne, The Messenger of the Lord in Early Jewish Interpretations of Genesis (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), 349–64. 21 In John 5:37 Jesus may allude to Exod 33:20, where Yahweh says that no one can see him and live. 22 C. T. R. Hayward, Interpretations of the Name Israel in Ancient Judaism and Some Early Christian Writings: From Victorious Athlete to Heavenly Champion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 312–20. 23 For this usage of ὁράω, see ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ (“if someone is not born from above they are unable to see the Kingdom of God,” John 3:3). 24 Thompson, John, 53. 25 Craig R. Koester, “Messianic Exegesis and the Call of Nathanael (John 1.45–51),” JSNT 39 (1990): 23–34 (24). 26 For references, see earlier. 20

2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία

159

(“branch,” Zech 3:8), because John elsewhere shows acute awareness of Zechariah. 27 Nathanael’s confession confirms the trope’s messianic significance.28 Koester supplies background, focusing on Qumran evidence which interprets the ‫ צמח‬in messianic terms.29 This ‫ צמח‬underpins the first part of the titulus, “Jesus the Nazarene,” the temple builder, as I argued earlier. 30 Beyond Koester, I will argue that John engages Zechariah and modifies Zephaniah, to undermine the vision they present of Israel overthrowing empire. The Johannine Jesus interprets Zeph 3:13 and 15 in light of its setting in Micah’s and Zechariah’s debate with Isaiah. And unlike Micah and Zechariah, John does not use the fig tree trope to dispute Isaiah’s positive view of foreign empire.31 Micah 4:1–3 invokes and responds to Isa 2:2–4, which is almost identical. 32 The vision anticipates the time when all peoples come to Zion, where Yahweh will judge and war will end. Micah 4:4 then diverges from the tradition it shares with Isaiah: “and they will sit, each under his vine and each under his fig tree.” I suggest that Micah uses the fig tree trope to satirise Isaiah, because Isaiah cannot see, as Micah does, that the only way to restoration is war. Micah sees Isaiah as one of the prophets who asks for money (Mic 3:11), as among the comfortable prophets who proclaim peace amid poverty (v. 5). Marvin Sweeney argues that Micah, who is against empire, debates Isaiah, who is for empire.33 Isaiah supposes that the nation does not already follow Yahweh, but Micah aims to turn the agenda toward the danger of the other nations. Isaiah is imperialist, and Micah is nationalist. 34 Yahweh makes Israel strong (Mic 4:7), and, though many

27 Koester, “Nathanael,” 25, 26: Zech 9:9 (with Isa 35:4 or 40:9) in John 12:15; Zech 12:10 in John 19:37; Zech 14:21 in John 2:16; and Zech 14:8 (also v. 6) in John 7:38. 28 Koester, “Nathanael,” 27. 29 For background, in particular messianic interpretations of ‫ צמח‬at Qumran, see Koester, “Nathanael,” 27–30 on 4QFlor 10–12a; 4QPBless; 4QpIsaa 8–10, 17–20. 30 See earlier Chapter 3. 31 Whereas in Mic 4:4 and Zech 3:10, as well as 2 Kgs 18:31 and 1 Macc 14:12, the trope incorporates both vine and fig tree, the Johannine Nathanael can only sit under one of either vine or fig tree, and the vine emerges later in John 15:1. 32 Along these lines, see James Luther Mays, Micah: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), 95; Charles S. Shaw, The Speeches of Micah: A RhetoricalHistorical Analysis (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 107, 118. 33 Marvin A. Sweeney, “Micah’s Debate with Isaiah,” JSOT 93 (2001): 111–24. 34 Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 24E; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 408 agree that Micah is nationalist, but Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Micah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 136 does not.

160

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

nations assemble against it (v. 11), the ruler from Bethlehem will arise (5:2).35 Zechariah 3:10 responds to Isaiah as Micah does: “each of you will call your friend under a vine and a fig tree.”36 Zechariah 8:12 evokes the promise of prosperity, which recalls 3:10 as well as 1:17. Sweeney argues that Zechariah, like Micah, envisions “combat between Israel and the nations that results ultimately in world peace.” 37 Zechariah’s shepherds meet disgrace (Zech 10:3), demise (11:3), disposal (v. 8), and mocking imitation by the prophet (v. 15) – probably to undermine Isaiah’s shepherd Cyrus (Isa 44:28).38 In Isaiah all peoples approach Zion (Isa 2:2–5), and Yahweh judges all who are arrogant (vv. 6–21). However, in Zechariah Jerusalem (Zech 12:3) and Judah (v. 6) are set apart to battle the nations (v. 9) and the shepherd (13:7), so that the house of David will rule like God (12:8), and so that Yahweh will be universal king (14:9). 39 Zechariah concludes that survivors from these nations who do not worship King Yahweh in Jerusalem at the festival of Booths will suffer and be punished (vv. 16–19). “King of Israel” is the addition of both Nathanael (John 1:49) to John the baptiser’s witness that Jesus is “Son of God” (v. 34) and the crowd (12:13) to the scripture “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD” (LXX Ps 117:26; MT Ps 118:26).40 After the crowd’s confession, in John 12:14 Jesus finds and sits on a donkey.41 John 12:15 then includes, “Do not be afraid, 35 See Sweeney, “Debate,” 119: Micah 4:6–5:14 “elaborates upon the meaning of the exaltation of Zion” in 4:1–5, which occurs through the destruction of the nations. 36 Sweeney, “Zechariah’s Debate,” 343 suggests that “Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo” (Zech 1:1) may signify “Zechariah son of Yeberechiah” (‫זכריהו בן יברכיהו‬, Isa 8:2), which gives Zechariah’s witness to Isaiah credibility. The tradition shared by Isa 2:2–4 and Mic 4:2–3 appears in Zech 8:20–22. Dominic Rudman, “Zechariah 8:20–22 and Isaiah 2:2– 4//Mic 4:2–3: A Study in Intertextuality,” BN 107/108 (2001): 50–54 (51) challenges the “consensus that any lexical or thematic correspondences between Zechariah and Isaiah-Micah are coincidental, or the reflection of a general tradition rather than of active borrowing or citation.” 37 Marvin A. Sweeney, “Zechariah’s Debate with Isaiah,” in The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 335–50 (345). 38 ‫“( ממנו‬out of them”) occurs four times in relation to Yahweh’s flock (Zech 10:4), to imply that the shepherds are not from it (v. 3). In 10:6, 8 the subtext is that Yahweh will redeem Judah from Persia, and that Persian rule was tantamount to Yahweh rejecting Judah. 39 Similarly Sweeney, “Zechariah’s Debate,” 347. 40 LXX Ps 117:26 has “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” From ‫ הושיעה נא‬in MT Ps 118:26, John 12:13 transliterates ὡσαννά. By contrast, LXX Ps 117:26 has σῶσον δή. 41 Lincoln, John, 344 recognises in John 12:14–15 “the paradox of triumph through humility.”

2. ἔθνος connotations, Israelite δόλος, the fig tree, and συκοφαντία

161

daughter of Zion. The quotation seems to be from Zech 9:9, which reads, “rejoice, daughter Zion, proclaim, daughter Jerusalem.” 42 Zephaniah 3:14 also reads, “rejoice, daughter Zion, proclaim, daughter Jerusalem.” There, it introduces Zephaniah’s concluding section, the main idea of which is that Yahweh, King of Israel, is among the people (v. 15; also John 1:14) as a victorious warrior (MT ‫גבור‬, LXX δυνατός, v. 17). He deals with the oppressors and restores the lame and outcast (v. 19). He gathers and brings the people home (v. 20; also John 11:52). Both Zeph 3:15 and John 1:49 include the title “King of Israel,” which is not in Zech 9:9. And as Zeph 3:13 links the absence of deceitful tongues (γλῶσσα δολία) to pasturing and lying down, John 1:48 links the absence of deceit (δόλος) to being under the fig tree. 43 Notwithstanding these similarities between Zephaniah and John, John’s Jesus overturns Nathanael’s and Zephaniah’s nationalistic and militaristic connotations. The fig tree trope typifies the problem concerning empire that Micah and Zechariah have with Isaiah. But as Isaiah also does, John incorporates empire without resisting it. Nathanael has no δόλος in him in John 1:48, and neither does the mouth of the servant in Isa 53:9. Those with δόλος trap others to become great and rich (Jer 5:27), and they do not want to know Yahweh (9:6). In that same vein, the priests and the scribes plot the arrest and execution of the synoptic Jesus by δόλος (Mark 14:1; Matt 26:4).44 With terms like δόλος (John 1:47), διάβολος (“slanderer,” 8:44), and κατηγορία (“accusation,” 18:29), as well as the verdict of innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), the issue at the Johannine praetorium may be considered along the lines of συκοφαντία (“false” or “malicious accusation”).45 Leviticus 19:11 gives an apodictic law against stealing, lying, John includes μὴ φοβοῦ, which in the LXX often occurs amid conflict or danger to affirm the saving presence of Yahweh with his people. 43 MT Zeph 3:13 has the rare noun ‫“( תרמית‬deceit”). The cognate ‫“( תרמה‬deception,” “cunning,”) is a hapax legomenon in Judg 9:31. The NRSV translates it as a proper noun there, with the ‫ב‬-preposition: “at Arumah.” Jeremiah 8:5 draws a direct link between the ‫ תרמית‬of the people and their stubbornness to return to Yahweh. The scribes ignore the word of Yahweh and therefore have no wisdom in them (v. 9). Their vines are grape-less vines and their trees are fig-less (v. 13). Besides LXX Zeph 3:13, the only other use of δόλιος in the prophets is in LXX Jer 9:7. 44 And the synoptic Pilate realises that Jesus is delivered to him out of φθόνος (Mark 15:10 // Matt 27:18). The short vice list in 1 Pet 2:1 joins these terms, δόλος and φθόνος, with κακία (“evil”), ὑπόκρισις (“hypocrisy”), καταλαλιά (“slander”). 45 Luke plays on the term with the sycamore tree (συκομορέα, 19:4) Zacchaeus climbs and the false accusing (or, defrauding, συκοφαντέω, v. 8) he promises to cease doing. On συκοφαντία in relation to the poor and needy, see Eccl 4:1; Prov 14:31; 22:16; 28:3. Amos 2:8 has the elite of Israel drinking wine ἐκ συκοφαντιῶν in the temple. Ps 71:4 says that God will save the sons of the needy but will humiliate the συκοφάντης. Philo, Laws 4.84 includes συκοφαντία in his lists of evils that stem from ἐπιθυμία. The terms δόλος and συκοφαντία 42

162

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

and συκοφαντία toward others, and v. 16 prohibits going around with δόλος and conspiring against others’ lives.46 And as Aeschines 2.145 calls διαβολή and συκοφαντία sisters: διαβολὴ δὲ ἀδελφόν ἐστι συκοφαντία, so Philo, Flaccus 89 classifies the συκοφάντημα of Ἰουδαῖοι hiding weapons for rebellion as a διαβολή. 47 The absence of δόλος in Nathanael and the identification of unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι as wanting to do the desires of an archetypal διάβολος (John 8:44) reinforce the impression of duplicity and false accusation in John 18:28–19:22.

3. ἀγωνίζομαι in its judicial setting 3. ἀγωνίζομαι in its judicial setting

Pilate distinguishes between what Jesus has done and what his nation and its chief priests accuse him of doing (John 18:35). Jesus further suggests that the accusation is false, a συκοφάντημα, when he responds by defining his kingship as otherworldly (v. 36a). He continutes, “yet (δέ) at the moment (νῦν), my kingship (βασιλεία) is not here (ἐντεῦθεν)” (v. 36b). I translate βασιλεία with “kingship” not “kingdom,” because the issue is how not what Jesus rules. The way in which Jesus rules is due to where it originates, not this world.48 I translate ἐντεῦθεν with “from this position” to highlight that John always uses the adverb with a specific, concrete referent.49 The referent is never unstated or abstract. And I have “at the moment” for the adverb νῦν often occur with another, and other similar terms appear with them, such as ἀπάτη (“deception,” Libanius, Prog. 11.10), ἐπιβουλή (“secret evil or harmful plot,” Julius Pollux, Onom. 4.38), κακουργία (“wickedness,” John Chrysostom, Acts 60.72), ψεῦδος (“lie,” Basil of Caesarea, Ep. 197.2. The Libanius reference reads, “but the wings of Pegasus have come to me just in time. I will pass over to the sky, high above the ground; for no one standing on the ground will be able to defeat so great an evil, but only someone who both takes the very air as his helper, uses a strange means of conveyance, and summons his hands and strength and courage to fight along with their sister, self-control, no less effectively than fraud and false accusation and treachery (ἀπάτη καὶ συκοφαντία καὶ δόλος) battled alongside the opposing desires.” Text and translation from Craig A. Gibson, Libanius’s Progymnasmata: Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric (WGRW 27; Atlanta: SBL, 2008). 46 MT ‫“( רכיל‬slander”), LXX δόλος. 47 Edward M. Harris, The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 306. 48 For ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, see John 8:23 (Jesus is, εἰμί); 13:1 (Jesus passes, μεταβαίνω); similarly the disciples in 17:11, 16. 49 Jesus tells the sellers to remove the doves “from here” (ἐντεῦθεν), namely the temple (John 2:16). The brothers of Jesus tell him to depart “from here” (ἐντεῦθεν), namely Galilee (7:3). Jesus tells his disciples to get up and go “from here” (ἐντεῦθεν), namely supper (14:31). The narrator describes two others crucified “from here” (ἐντεῦθεν) and “from here” (ἐντεῦθεν), with Jesus in the middle (19:18).

3. ἀγωνίζομαι in its judicial setting

163

because John always uses it in a temporal sense.50 The translation “now” can be ambiguous and without any temporal force. So Jesus is talking about a position and a moment of his (not) enacting kingship: not in the praetorium, and not before he is delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι and crucified. By using the term ὑπηρέτης, Jesus contrasts his own assistants with the assistants of the chief priests and Pharisees, who arrest Jesus and demand that he is crucified. 51 Apparently Jesus’ assistants are distinct because they do not perform some particular action, the action denoted with the verb ἀγωνίζομαι. The verb ἀγωνίζομαι is crucial one in my interpretation. Critics tend to understand it in light of the accusation against Jesus, that he makes himself a king. So ἀγωνίζομαι is usually understood to mean “fight” (NRSV, Thompson), with connotations of violence and even military warfare. Reimund Bieringer supposes the sense suitable. He references Judas Maccabees encouraging his soldiers to “fight” against the evil Gentiles (2 Macc 8:16) and in another instance for the laws, temple, city, fatherland, and constitution (13:14): This parallel hardly seems accidental in a context where Jesus is accused of pretending to be a political liberator from the Roman occupation forces. The biblically-trained ear can hear Jesus say implicitly, ‘Unlike Judas Maccabeus I do not have soldiers to fight for me, not even when my life is in danger.’52

So for Bieringer, because ἀγωνίζομαι can mean “fight” in military settings, it may also in John 18:36. However, ἀγωνίζομαι does not need to mean “fight,” and the setting is not war in the Johannine praetorium episode. Rather, the proceedings are of a different sort, namely judicial. If there is a corresponding legal usage for ἀγωνίζομαι, therefore, it would be preferable.53 As it is, numerous instances of ἀγωνίζομαι strengthen the sense “judicial contending,” which fits the situation of prosecution before the prefect in John. Greek oratory and theatre attest the usage: I have observed that even those with much experience in court do not speak as well as usual when they face danger. Jesus suggests that the liquid be drawn out “now” (νῦν), after he transformed the water to wine (John 2:8). The man with the woman “now” (νῦν) is not her husband, though she had five husbands before him (4:18). The Ἰουδαῖοι have sin “now” (νῦν) that they say “we see” (9:41). Jesus speaks plainly “now” (νῦν), not anymore in parables (16:29). Also 11:8; 12:31. 51 The chief priests and Pharisees sent assistants (ὑπηρέται) to arrest Jesus (John 7:32), though the way that Jesus speaks (v. 46) stops them (v. 45). They sent assistants (ὑπηρέται) again, with Judas and the cohort (18:3), who arrest Jesus (v. 12, also vv. 18, 22). With the chief priests, the assistants (ὑπηρέται) yell “crucify!” before Pilate tells them to do it (19:6). 52 Bieringer, “John 18,36,” 172; similarly Mark 10:41–45. 53 LSJ, s.v. ἀγωνίζομαι II, with the references I list. 50

164

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

ὁρῶ γὰρ ἔγωγε καὶ τοὺς πάνυ ἐμπείρους τοῦ ἀγωνίζεσθαι πολλῷ χεῖρον ἑαυτῶν λέγοντας ὅταν ἔν τινι κινδύνῳ ὦσιν. (Antiphon 5.754) Nichomachus has been persuaded by my enemies to prosecute this prosecution. Νικόμαχος ὑπὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν πεισθεὶς τῶν ἐμῶν τοῦτον τὸν ἀγῶνα ἀγωνίζεται. (Lysias 7.39) My father was persuaded to be prosecuted on such a prosecution. καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐπείσθη ἀγῶνα τοιοῦτον ἀγωνίσασθαι. (Andocides 1.2055) Recently I saw a man on trial for proposing (ἀγωνιζόμενον) an illegal decree. Although he was guilty in terms of the laws, he tried to argue that his proposal was in your interests and in this way to exert pressure on you. (Demosthenes 23.100) Those who are convicted on charges of falsely claiming citizenship do not complain about being put in that place until cases for false testimony are heard (ἕως ἂν τῶν ψευδομαρτυριῶν ἀγωνίσωνται). (Demosthenes 24.131) You will be prosecuted for this murder (καὶ σὺ τόνδ᾽ ἀγωνιῇ φόνον). (Euripides, Andromache 336)

Because ἀγωνίζομαι means “contend” or “prosecute” in judicial settings, it is the most immediate sense when used in John 18:36. In judicial contexts the verb ἀγωνίζομαι occurs alongside terms such as δόλος (“deceit,” Aristophanes, Knights 686), συκοφαντέω (“falsely accuse,” Lysias 7.38; 21.17), συκοφάντης (“false accuser,” Isocrates 18.3), κατηγορέω (“accuse,” Isocrates 15.22), and κατηγορία (“accusation,” Lysias 19.3). So ἀγωνίζομαι is not only especially amenable to the judicial situation of John 18:28–19:22, but also to Johannine themes and characterisations. Pilate asks for an accusation (18:29), but because the accusers – unlike Nathanael, who has no deceit (1:47) – are slanderers (8:44), Pilate declares the accusation against Jesus as false (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). John is not alone in remembering and imagining the courtroom as though it saw much contending, deceit, and false accusation. John’s Jesus shows no concern with violence or battle in 18:36. 56 The judicial frame of reference means that Jesus is contrasting himself and his own assistants with his accusers and their assistants in terms of prosecutions. νῦν δὲ ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐντεῦθεν means simply that if Jesus is going to perform some legal role, it is not going to be during the proceedings at the praetorium. Jesus’ kingship, rather, is not going to be displayed in the trial, but, I suggest, on the cross. If Jesus’ assistants were to contend in a judicial way, they would “so that he may not be delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι” (John 18:36). 54 Translation from Michael Gagarin and Douglas M. MacDowell, Antiphon & Andocides (OCG 1; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). 55 Lysias 3.20 also pairs ἀγωνίζομαι and ἀγών. 56 John 18:36 does not relate to the Malchus incident, in which Peter cuts off Malchus’ ear (v. 10) before Jesus tells Peter to put his sword in its sheath (v. 11).

4. Pilate and the truth

165

The purpose clause seems to anticipate 19:16, where Pilate will deliver Jesus to the chief priests, and where the chief priests will take Jesus. 57 Jesus’ assistants do not inhibit the transfer, because it is part of the divine plan. John 18:32 has already foregrounded that what the Ἰουδαῖοι are doing with Pilate has already been determined.58 The ἐξουσία Jesus (10:18) and Pilate (19:10, 11) share is to be exercised in the same event.59 One has ἐξουσία to lay down his life, the other to crucify and release. So the cross is where Jesus’ kingship is, where he witnesses to the truth (18:37).60 Though the exalted Jesus himself is the means of prosecution, Moses is the accuser of the Ἰουδαῖοι (5:45). As they present a false accusation to Pilate, the Ἰουδαῖοι witness to the lie (8:44).

4. Pilate and the truth 4. Pilate and the truth

Jesus has said that he has βασιλεία (“kingship”) in John 18:36. In v. 37 Pilate then naturally infers that Jesus therefore is βασιλεύς (“king”), asking, οὐκοῦν βασιλεὺς εἶ σύ (“surely, then, are you not a king?”).61 The conjunction οὖν – in εἶπεν οὖν αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος (“therefore, Pilate said to him”) – makes v. 37 the consequence of v. 36. Because Pilate prompts him, Jesus will explain his kingship, but only after clarifying that he is by no means performing the criminal speech act: σὺ λέγεις ὅτι βασιλεύς εἰμι ἐγώ (“you yourself say that I myself am a king”).62 That is what the Ἰουδαῖοι want the inscription to say, as 19:21 will make clear: “Do not write, ‘King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,’ but ‘he himself said, I am King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.’” Pilate may call Jesus a king in 18:37, but in

See earlier Chapter 3. Bieringer, “John 18,36,” 172 agrees that the ambiguous John 19:16a denotes Jesus being delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι; for παραδίδωμι see John 6:64, 71; 12:4; 13:2, 11, 21; 18:2, 5; 19:11. 58 See earlier Chapter 5. 59 See later Chapter 10. 60 For ἀγωνίζομαι (John 18:36) with ἀλήθεια (v. 37), see also ἕως θανάτου ἀγώνισαι περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ κύριος ὁ θεὸς πολεμήσει ὑπὲρ σοῦ (“until death contend concerning the truth, and the Lord God will battle on your behalf,” Sir 4:28). 61 The adverb οὐκοῦν comprises οὐκ and οὖν, and it makes sense here to read it with both inferential and interrogative force. See further LSJ, s.v. οὐκοῦν; BDAG, s.v. οὐκοῦν. 62 The synoptic Jesus responds to the title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” with σὺ λέγεις (“you say so”). He is then accused (κατηγορέω, Mark 15:3, 4; Matt 27:12; καταμαρτυρέω, v. 13) of many things by the chief priests and the elders; but he ignores them, so that Pilate is amazed (θαυμάζω, Mark 15:5; Matt 27:14). In Luke, however, Pilate then pronounces Jesus innocent (οὐδὲν εὑρίσκω αἴτιον ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ, Luke 23:4; also vv. 14, 22), after which (v. 5) the assembly continues the accusing which they began earlier (v. 2). In Luke Jesus is not silent before Pilate (against Mark 15:5 // Matt 27:14), but before Antipas (Luke 23:9), while the chief priests and the scribes accuse (κατηγορέω) him (v. 10). 57

166

Chapter 6: Scene 2, John 18:33–38a

v. 35 Pilate has explained that he is only repeating the accusation, which he introduced in v. 33: σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων. After “you yourself say that I myself am king” (John 18:37a), Jesus explains his purpose, that he has “come into being and come into the world to witness to the truth”: ἵνα μαρτυρήσω τῇ ἀληθείᾳ (v. 37b). 63 According to Jesus, in 5:33, John the baptiser also witnesses to the truth: καὶ μεμαρτύρηκεν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. For both John the baptiser and Jesus, the verb μαρτυρέω occurs with ἀλήθεια in the dative, which suggests that they do the same thing. But moreover, Jesus himself is the truth (14:6), in the sense that the truth from the glory of the λόγος (1:14) came into being through him (v. 17). The word of the Father, says the Son, is truth (17:17), and the Son can therefore tell the truth (8:45) the Father told him (v. 40). So 18:37c goes on that Jesus’ witness is connected to his voice, which only those from the truth can hear. Hearing Jesus’ voice seems to be something that operates in a spiritual way, or apart from the words written in John. Not just any character who talks with Jesus in the narrative can hear his voice. His voice needs to be heard in light of his death (2:22; 12:16). In spite of that, Keener’s approach prioritises history and historicity: “Does the scene in John 18:33–38 reflect historical information?” 64 His ensuing interpretation seems to exclude the bearing of Johannine theology on characterisation and plot. John cares about verisimilitude, and it by no means comes out of a historical vacuum, but any reflections of history are caught up in the Johannine agenda – which is not a lesson in the facts and figures of history. John is interested in not just any manner of truth, but rather in the way Jesus’ voice brings an otherworldly truth to humans. But Keener writes, Discussion of ‘truth’ and a non-violent ‘kingdom’ marked Jesus for Pilate as a harmless sage. Pilate was not concerned about philosophic discussions (18:38a); he was interested in pragmatic politics, from which vantage point Jesus was “not guilty” (18:38b) – at least until such a verdict became politically inexpedient (19:12–13).65

The problem is that Keener imports the sage category or philosophical discourse. Just as Josephus’ accounts about Pilate change according to the different agendas of The Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, so Pilate is Both times εἰς τοῦτο points forward. Craig S. Keener, “‘What is Truth?’: Pilate’s Perspective on Jesus in John 18:33–38a,” in John, Jesus, and History, Vol. 3, 77–94 (77). Much more similar to me in approach is Beate Kowalski, “‘Was ist Wahrheit?’ (Joh. 18,38a): Zur literarischen und theologischen Funktion der Pilatusfrage in der Johannespassion,” in Im Geist und in der Wahrheit: Studien zum Johannesevangelium und zur Offenbarung des Johannes sowie andere Beitrage; Festschrift für Martin Hasitschka SJ zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Konrad Huber and Boris Repschinski (NTA 52; Münster: Aschendorff, 2008), 201–27. 65 Keener, “‘What is Truth?’” 90. 63 64

5. Summary

167

subject to the Johannine agenda.66 John 18:38 needs to be considered in light of the Johannine themes of truth and hearing Jesus. Unlike Keener’s, Meeks’ viewpoint goes half the way mine does: It is no philosophical rejoinder nor the quip of a cynical pragmatist, but only serves the evangelist’s purpose to show that Pilate is not ‘of the truth.’ Therefore he does not ‘hear’ Jesus’ voice. Pilate does not belong to the ‘flock’ of the Good Shepherd, but to the sons of the Devil (or Cain) who seek to kill the messenger of God.67

I agree with the first stage, that the purpose of Pilate’s question about truth has to be considered in relation to Johannine themes and theology. But he asks about the truth precisely because he hears Jesus say that he witnesses to it, not because he is out of the διάβολος (8:44).68 In the same way, Pilate asks whether or not Jesus is king (18:37) because Jesus has alluded to his own kingship (v. 36). And Pilate asks about what Jesus did (v. 35b) because he mistrusts the ἔθνος (v. 35a). Just as Jesus is “called” (or, “summon,” φωνέω) by Pilate in v. 33, Pilate hears the “call” (or, “voice,” φωνή) of Jesus in v. 37. He is a sheep who hears (10:3, 14) and knows (vv. 4, 16) his gatekeeper’s voice. He is the first and only character to ask τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια, and he is the last to mention ἀλήθεια.

5. Summary 5. Summary

The title “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” is ambiguous in John 18:33. Jesus juxtaposes the title with his true kingship, and Pilate seems to follow him. Pilate understands, I conclude, that because the accusers bring the lie from the nation to the praetorium, the accused will witness to the truth for the world on the cross. Recognising that “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” is a false accusation, Pilate goes on to declare Jesus innocent in v. 38b. John separates Pilate from the Ἰουδαῖοι, who display duplicity in the way they contend in this judicial setting. They are preoccupied with national security and prosperity, but they undermine themselves. To display his kingship on the cross, Jesus has to be delivered to the Ἰουδαῖοι, as happens in 19:16. Unlike those false accusers, who are out of the διάβολος (8:44), Pilate is out of God and hears the words of God (v. 47).

On the Pilate tradition and literary characterisation, see earlier Chapter 5. Meeks, Prophet-King, 67. 68 Similarly 1 John 4:6. 66 67

Chapter 7

Scene 3, John 18:38b–40 The two goats from the Day of Atonement ritual appear in many ancient Jewish and Christian texts, including the canonical gospels. Andrei Orlov writes, “It is possible that the Yom Kippur settings are present in the New Testament materials, specifically in the story of Barabbas’s release by Pilate, which appears in all four canonical gospels.” 1 Whereas some recent scholarship focuses on the synoptics, John has not yet been examined.2 This lacuna is glaring, considering the emphases on the high priest and the feasts throughout the Johannine narrative. 3 The functions of the atoning goats, moreover, seem to surface in Johannine christology, in particular in the passion account. So in this chapter I will situate the scene of John 18:38b–40 – where Pilate announces Jesus’ innocence (v. 38b) and offers his release (v. 39), before the Ἰουδαῖοι demand the λῃστής Barabbas (v. 40) – as part of the Day of Atonement tradition. I will argue that this scene anticipates Jesus integrating both functions of the atoning goats on the cross: he removes the sin of the nation and purifies the world from that sin. He will die as λῃστής, as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (18:33, 39; 19:3), but only inasmuch as he is accused by the ἔθνος. Καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν πάλιν ἐξῆλθεν πρὸς τοὺς Ἰουδαίους καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἐγὼ οὐδεμίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν. 39 ἔστιν δὲ συνήθεια ὑμῖν ἵνα ἕνα ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν ἐν τῷ πάσχα· βούλεσθε οὖν ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; 40 ἐκραύγασαν οὖν πάλιν λέγοντες· μὴ τοῦτον ἀλλὰ τὸν Βαραββᾶν. ἦν δὲ ὁ Βαραββᾶς λῃστής. 1 Andrei A. Orlov, Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany: SUNY, 2015), 106, 252 fn. 8. 2 As well as the discussion below, see the survey of Hans Moscicke, “Jesus as Goat of the Day of Atonement in Recent Synoptic Gospels Research,” CBR 17:1 (2018): 59–85. 3 First, John often mentions the high priest Caiaphas. The Johannine Caiaphas says, “you do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50). Later, John recalls his advice “that it was better to have one person die for the people” (18:14). His slave, Malchus, is attacked by Peter (v. 10, also v. 26). The anonymous “other disciple” is known to him and accompanies Jesus into his courtyard (v. 15). Annas sends Jesus to Caiaphas (v. 24), and the assistants and the soldiers take Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium (v. 28). Second, John foregrounds the ἑορτή (“feast”) of Passover (2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14), as well as Booths (7:2, 8, 10, 11, 14, 37).

1. Barabbas, the atoning dyad, and receptions

169

Once he said this, he exited toward the Ἰουδαῖοι again, and he says to them, “I find no cause for accusation in him. 39 Yet there is an arrangement for you, in order that I may transfer one to you on the Passover. So do you want me to transfer to you the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι?” 40 So they shouted, saying again, “Not this one, but Barabbas” – now Barabbas was a usurper. (John 18:38b–40)

1. Barabbas, the atoning dyad, and receptions 1. Barabbas, the atoning dyad, and receptions

The canonical gospels offer not one historical Barabbas, but four remembered ones. 4 The major hurdle to understanding the role of Barabbas in early Christian memory is the esoteric amnesty tradition.5 According to John 18:39, Pilate has an agreement (συνήθεια) with his subjects, the Ἰουδαῖοι, by which he may release someone to them. 6 After considering the possible ancient parallels, Brown, as a prime instance, expresses scepticism about the custom.7 So instead of historicity, scholars tend to recognise an apologetic function in Barabbas, to transfer blame from the Romans to the Jews. 8 Stevan Davies suggests that “Barabbas” – “Son of the Father” – was an informal appellation of Jesus, one which any disciple may adopt (so Matt 23:9). 9 Horace Rigg argues that “Jesus Barabbas” was original to Matt 27:17, though the 4 Helen K. Bond, “Barabbas Remembered,” in Jesus and Paul: Global Perspectives in Honour of James D. G. Dunn for his 70th Birthday, ed. B. J. Oropeza, C. K. Robertson, and Douglas C. Mohrmann (LNTS 414; London: T&T Clark, 2009), 59–71 (71). 5 So Lindars, John, 560. Barrett, John, 538 points to m. Pes. 8.6, which refers to the release of a prisoner for Passover. Keener, John, 1116 suggests that Pilate may have initiated this particular amnesty himself. Thompson, John, 381 writes, “There is no other attestation of such a practice, but that need not mean that it was not a custom practiced by Pilate.” 6 Mark 15:6 only mentions that Pilate “used to release …” (ἀπέλυεν), but Matt 27:15 says that Pilate “had been accustomed to release” (εἴωθα … ἀπολύειν); Luke, however, does not refer to any custom. 7 Brown, Death, 815–17 is unconvinced by the “Greco-Roman parallels,” which he categorises under “festal amnesties,” “common practices by imperial officials,” and “a special Roman concession to Jews as a safety valve.” 8 H. Z. Maccoby, “Jesus and Barabbas,” NTS 16 (1970): 55–60 (55): “apologetic need to blame the Jews and exonerate the Romans”; Robert L. Merritt, “Jesus Barabbas and the Paschal Pardon,” JBL 104:1 (1985): 57–68: “apologetic need to exculpate the Romans and put responsibility for the crucifixion on the Jews” (p. 66), “to deflect blame from Rome” (p. 68). 9 “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one father – the one in heaven” (Matt 23:9). See Stevan L. Davies, “Who is Called Bar Abbas?” NTS 27 (1981): 260–62. Other New Testament instances of ὁ λεγόμενος, aside from Matt 27:17, include, “Simon, who is called Peter” (Matt 4:18 and 10:2), “the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover” (Luke 22:1), “Thomas, who is called Twin” (John 11:16 and 21:2), “Jesus, who is called Justus” (Col 4:11).

170

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

manuscript tradition after Origen suppressed it. 10 And Robert Moses, most recently, argues that “the author of Matthew is solely responsible for the name Jesus Barabbas.”11 Mark 15:7, moreover, allows Matt 27:17 to make that inference and add “Jesus” to “Barabbas.”12 Matthew’s addition, further, makes sense in light of Jesus’ warning about those coming in his name, saying “I am the Messiah” and deceiving many (Matt 24:5).13 As I will show below, the goats in the Day of Atonement tradition may contextualise the role of Barabbas in the passion. The Day of Atonement “was the central sacerdotal ordinance of Jewish tradition.”14 Before Passover (Lev 23:5–8), the Day of Atonement (16:2–28) is “the first great annually recurring holiday,” and it is significant to the structure of the torah more widely.15 The high priest Aaron performs three central sacrifices, taking from Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering (v. 5). The young bull atones for Aaron and his household (vv. 6, 11–14, 24–25). The immolated goat purifies the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar (vv. 15–19, 24–25). And the “send-away goat” – Mary Douglas’ designation – removes (‫ )נשא‬the sin of the people of Israel (vv. 20–22). 16 Aaron presents the goats before Yahweh (v. 7) and casts lots to decide which goat will go to Yahweh and which will be freed (v. 8).17 The one for Yahweh 10 Horace Abram Rigg, “Barabbas,” JBL 64:4 (1945): 417–56. Matthew 27:17 reads, “whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” (τίνα θέλετε ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν Ἰησοῦν τὸν Βαραββᾶν ἢ Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον χριστόν). B has τον βαραββαν; ℵ A D L W have βαραββαν without the article. 11 Robert E. Moses, “Jesus Barabbas, a Nominal Messiah? Text and History in Matthew 27.16–17,” NTS 58 (2011): 43–58 (44). 12 Mark 15:7 seems to imply that the name “Jesus” goes with “Barabbas”: ἦν δὲ ὁ λεγόμενος Βαραββᾶς, “[Jesus], the one called Barabbas.” On this, see Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 717. 13 Moses, “Jesus Barabbas,” 49–56. The choice of Barabbas over Jesus reflects the messianic confusion of the people (p. 55). 14 Andrei A. Orlov, The Atoning Dyad: The Two Goats of Yom Kippur in the Apocalypse of Abraham (SJS 8; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 81. “Perhaps the most significant event in ancient Judaism associated with both the transference and removal of the impurity caused by human transgressions was the scapegoat ritual” (p. 95). 15 More briefly: Lev 23:26–32 and Num 29:7–11, as well as Exod 30:10. Also, Rolf Rendtorff, “Leviticus 16 als Mitte der Tora,” BibInt 11 (2003): 252–58 argues that the description of the Day of Atonement ritual comes in the middle of the torah. 16 Mary Douglas, “The Go-Away Goat,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception, ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler, with the assistance of Sarah Smith Bartel (VetTSup 93; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 121–41. 17 ‫ לעזאזל‬is often interpreted “for Azazel,” where Azazel is some wilderness demon who somehow pertains to the origin or purgation of the sin of Israel: Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 234; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3; New York: Doubleday,

1. Barabbas, the atoning dyad, and receptions

171

is for sin (v. 9), and the other is for sending away (MT ‫לעזאזל‬, LXX ὁ ἀποπομπαῖος), after Yahweh atones “on it” (MT ‫עליו‬, LXX ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, v. 10). Leviticus 16:21 introduces the one dedicated to release the goat. The ‫איש‬ ‫( עתי‬NRSV “someone designated for the task”) or ἄνθρωπος ἕτοιμος (NETS “a ready person”) is ambiguous, not least because the Hebrew is a hapax.18 Raymond Westbrook and Theodore Lewis argue from other traditions and from Syriac, Aramaic, and Arabic that “criminal man” best translates ‫איש‬ ‫עתי‬.19 They suppose the identity of the figure significant for the ritual, and that ultimately his sins are removed along with the sins of every other Israelite.20 Meir Malul follows suit, and he elaborates on the liminal quality of criminals: “these were the persons chosen as suitable emissaries of society to the lawless places.” 21 Notwithstanding those associations of crime and lawlessness, the goat is neither guilty nor sinful. Douglas finds parallels to the two goats, such as the two birds – a dead bird and a living, send-away bird are used in purification from leprosy – in Leviticus (14:6–7, 53) and several sets of brothers in Genesis.22 So the goats ritual reflects that broader theme of the Pentateuch, namely election in contrast with non-election.23 The send-away goat is as innocent as Ishmael or Esau, who are excluded from covenantal promises.24 Though separate, the two goats atone in tandem. Together, the two goats are taken for the one sin offering (MT ‫לחטאת‬, LXX περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Lev 16:5). Douglas suggests, “It could be that the significant element is neither the sacrifice of the one goat, nor the sending away of the other, but something about the two goats initially seen as a pair and then separated.”25 Douglas reads from v. 20 that Aaron finishes atoning before getting to the send-away goat.26 The send-away goat itself may not merely carry sin, but it may also 1991), 1020–21. The term is problematic, and the LXX has ὁ ἀποπομπαῖος (“the one sending away,” v. 8) and ὁ χίμαρος ὁ διαστέλλωτὸν εἰς ἄφεσιν (“the goat determined for release,” v. 26). I follow the immediate sense of the LXX, notwithstanding receptions and arguments to the contrary. See below, as well as Douglas, “The Go-Away Goat,” 126. 18 The one who releases the goat (v. 26) and the one who burns the animals’ remains outside the camp return after washing (vv. 27–28). 19 Raymond Westbrook and Theodore J. Lewis, “Who Led the Scapegoat in Leviticus 16:21?” JBL 127:3 (2008): 417–22 (421). 20 Westbrook and Lewish, “Scapegoat,” 418, 422. 21 Meir Malul, “‫( איש עתי‬Leviticus 16:21): A Marginal Person,” JBL 128:3 (2009): 437– 42 (439, 441). 22 Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 250; eadem, “The Go-Away Goat,” 133–34, 134–39. 23 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 135. 24 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 135. 25 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 129. 26 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 128.

172

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

erase it (v. 21). The verb ‫ נשא‬has two conjoined senses in P: before purification “carry,” and after purification “erase.” 27 Having the sins transferred to it, the goat can only lift off, cancel, or eliminate them (so LXX λαμβάνω, v. 22).28 It cannot carry the sins, because they are already atoned for and then erased by the transaction. 29 As such, unlike the criminal or lawless one who leads it out, the goat is neither guilty nor shameful.30 With those features of the tradition, I will analyse the Johannine pairing of Barabbas and Jesus, the lawless Ἰουδαῖοι – whom Caiaphas has given impetus – who lead Jesus out to crucifixion, and the innocence of the exalted Jesus as he carries away Barabbas’ sin. Leviticus aside, the reception of the Day of Atonement tradition is vast, as the multiplying studies on the use of its typology in ancient Jewish and Christian literature demonstrate.31 Before the synoptic tradition, I will focus Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 130; on the semantics of ‫ נשא‬in P, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3–22. 28 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 130. By contrast, LXX Isa 53:4, on the Lord’s servant, has φέρω for ‫נשא‬. 29 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 131. 30 Douglas, “Go-Away Goat,” 132. Douglas (p. 140) goes on to conclude that the goat remains outside of Israel as “an envoy of peace,” in order both to retain (for itself) and to promote (for others) harmony with Israel. 31 Jubilees 34.18, for instance, connects Leviticus 16 with the Joseph tradition of Genesis 37: “they should make atonement for themselves with a young goat … on the tenth of the seventh month, once a year, for their sins; for they had grieved the affection of their father regarding Joseph his son.” Calum Carmichael, “The Origin of the Scapegoat Ritual,” VetT 50:2 (2000): 167–82 proposes that Leviticus 16 is written out of Genesis 37; also in idem, Illuminating Leviticus: A Study of Its Laws and Institutions in the Light of Biblical Narratives (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006), 37–52. His programme, more broadly, is to show that the laws derive from the narratives; see most recently idem, The Sacrificial Laws of Leviticus and the Joseph Story (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). More broadly, Lester L. Grabbe, “The Scapegoat Tradition: A Study in Early Jewish Interpretation,” JSJ 18 (1987): 152–67 (152) writes, “In later Judaism and even in early Christianity, the ceremony with the goats attracted a variety of interpretations and was connected with other complexes of traditions which served to expand its significance.” On that variety of interpretation, see Daniel R. Schwartz, “Two Pauline Allusions to the Redemptive Mechanism of the Crucifixion,” JBL 102:2 (1983): 259–68 (267–68); Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century (WUNT 163; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); idem, “Fasting with Jews, Thinking with Scapegoats: Some Remarks on Yom Kippur in Early Judaism and Christianity, in Particular 4Q541, Barnabas 7, Matthew 27 and Acts 27,” in The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. 27

1. Barabbas, the atoning dyad, and receptions

173

on the way Zechariah 3 may contextualise the Johannine passion.32 As the high priest Aaron does in Lev 16:4, 23, the high priest Joshua changes clothes in Zech 3:4.33 In addition, Zech 3:9 refers to what happens “in one day,” to indicate “a one-day occasion in which the sin of the entire nation was removed.” 34 With Max Rogland’s revised translation of v. 9, “and I will depart with the guilt of that land in a single day,” Yahweh “in some sense tak[es] on the role of the ‘scapegoat.’”35 So in Zechariah, and as I will read John, God (or, in John, the divine Son) is the goat who removes the sin connected to the high priest (or, Caiaphas). So as to remove that sin, as I will argue, the Johannine Jesus embodies the crime of which he has been falsely accused, which stems from the plot that the high priest implemented. The ambiguous potential for whether or not Jesus atones for the lawless Caiaphas remains undeveloped.36 As for the synoptics, Hans Moscicke observes, “seldom have commentators considered whether the authors” used the Day of Atonement tradition.37 He surveys and evaluates contrasting positions, but here I am most interested in one: the arguments from Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (on Matthew) and Jennifer Berenson Maclean (on Mark and Matthew) for Barabbas as scapegoat and Jesus as immolated goat. 38 Stökl Ben Ezra sees in Matthew five elements of the Day of Atonement ritual: the lottery of the goats, their similarity, their different destinations, the confession on the send-away goat,

Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas (TBN 15; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 165–87; Orlov, Atoning Dyad; Moscicke, “Goat.” 32 I used Zechariah 3 to contextualise both, in Chapter 3, “the Nazarene” or ‫( צמח‬Zech 3:8; John 19:19) and, in Chapter 6, the fig tree trope (Zech 3:10; John 1:48). 33 As one of only two places in the torah where the high priest change clothes (also Exodus 28–29), Leviticus 16 illuminates Zechariah 3. For discussion, see Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, Priestly Rites and Prophetic Rage: Post-exilic Prophetic Critique of the Priesthood (FAT 2; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 249; also eadem, Zechariah and His Visions: An Exegetical Study of Zechariah’s Vision Report (LHB/OTS 605; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 116–46. 34 Tiemeyer, Priestly Rites and Prophetic Rage, 249. In the same vein, Michael R. Stead, The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1–8 (LHB/OTS 506; London: T&T Clark, 2009), 170 observes, “a one-day removal of sin connects this verse with the sacrificial system in general, and the Day of Atonement in particular.” 35 Max Rogland, “Verb Transitivity and Ancient Hebrew ‫ מושׁ‬in Zechariah 3:9,” VetT 63 (2013): 497–98 (498). 36 But see my summarising reflection at the end of this chapter. 37 Moscicke, “Goat,” 59. 38 Also A. H. Wratislaw, “The Scapegoat – Barabbas,” ExpT 3 (1891–92): 400–03. Moscicke, “Goat,” 73 notes the “ingenuity” of Stökl Ben Ezra and Berenson Maclean, and that they only part ways on “whether Mark’s Barabbas account evinces the goat typology.”

174

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

and the handwashing.39 Berenson Maclean argues that the ritual was filtered through the Greek φαρμακός rite (exile and sometimes execution of a marginal community member, to purify the city), with the corresponding reading that in both Mark and Matthew Barabbas is the scapegoat in the curative exit rite.40 For Berenson Maclean, Barabbas is transferred to those in the crowd, who may then “enact violence against one of their own.”41 If the Day of Atonement typology explains why the figure of Barabbas was “too deeply imbedded in the tradition to be entirely lost,” then Barabbas also may be indispensable to the Johannine passion.42 Moscicke asks whether Luke and John show misunderstanding of or aversion to the atoning dyad, and I will argue that they do not.43 The way Monique Cuany characterises the Lukan Barabbas anticipates the way I will read the Johannine one. Cuany notes the trial is ended by Luke 23:16, with something not in the other synoptics: an innocence verdict. 44 In v. 18 the crowds respond to the verdict, demanding the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus.45 The innocence verdict for Jesus leads to the demand for Barabbas, which suggests rebellion.46 The sequence in John is identical: the Ἰουδαῖοι demand Barabbas (John 18:40) after the first time Pilate declares Jesus’ innocence (v. 38b). The accusers in Luke are, like Barabbas, rebels and murderers. 47 And so the Lukan Jesus is “the king of a rebellious and

Stökl Ben Ezra, “Scapegoats,” 165–87. Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean, “Barabbas, the Scapegoat Ritual, and the Development of the Passion Narrative,” HTR 100:3 (2007): 309–34 (316): “by the time the gospels were composed, the Jewish scapegoat ritual had been deeply influenced by the pattern of curative exit rites and, in particular, by the φαρμακός.” 41 Berenson Maclean, “Barabbas,” 324, 317–21; Moscicke, “Goat,” 71 calls this one of Berenson Maclean’s “major innovations.” 42 Berenson Maclean, “Barabbas,” 334. Also: “the Day of Atonement rituals were central to the earliest reflections on the significance of Jesus’ death and the development of the Passion Narrative” (p. 330). 43 Moscicke, “Goat,” 80: “Do echoes of the typology appear in the Gospel of Luke or the Gospel of John? Why do both of these evangelists appear to minimize the role of Barabbas and shorten the scene of Jesus’ Roman abuse (Lk. 23.11, 18–19, 25; Jn 18.39–19.5)? Could this evince a misunderstanding or aversion to the scapegoat typology?” 44 Monique Cuany, “Jesus, Barabbas and the People: The Climax of Luke’s Trial Narrative and Lukan Christology (Luke 23.13–25),” JSNT 39:4 (2017): 441–58 (444). 45 Cuany, “Barabbas,” 447. 46 Cuany, “Barabbas,” 448: “There is no sign that Barabbas could have been set free without the verdict upon Jesus.” Also: “The scene suggests that the people are in rebellion against Pilate’s judgment (and justice!), thereby threatening to move into sedition” (p. 452). 47 Cuany, “Barabbas,” 453: “They not only side with him and want to protect him, they are in fact a seditious and murderous crowd… He is the one with whom the people identify, the 39 40

2. Johannine atonement

175

murderous crowd, who dies as the representative of his people.” 48 This is what I will argue happens in John: Jesus has become King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, king of his guilty accusers, because Pilate transforms him into Barabbas, the λῃστής.

2. Johannine atonement 2. Johannine atonement

Discussions of Johannine theology, in particular as pertains to atonement, do not refer to the Day of Atonement ritual and its goats.49 Yet as the atoning dyad does, the Johannine Jesus both purifies from (John 15:3; 17:17) and removes sin (1:29). Joel Lohr follows Douglas, and he, unlike Johannine scholars, connects the Day of Atonement to John 1:29 and 1 John 2:2.50 In the process of doing so, Lohr implies two other parallels between John and 1 John: 1 John 2:2 and John 11:52, and 1 John 3:3, 5, 6 and John 1:29, 31. If those texts are read with the ritual of the goats, Johannine theology seems to reorientate the atoning dyad around Jesus, who is both the dwelling place for the divine δόξα among human σάρξ (John 1:14; 2:19; 14:10) and the way back for the dispersed children of God (1:12; 11:52; 14:6).

one whom they want to have released for them, and the one who reflects their character and actions: sedition and murder.” 48 Cuany, “Barabbas,” 454. 49 Johannine scholars do not focus on the Day of Atonement. Joel B. Green, “Theologies of the Atonement in the New Testament,” in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, ed. Adam J. Johnson (London: T&T Clark, 2017), 115–34 (124) lists Johannine allusions to the Isaac tradition of Genesis 22 (John 1:29; 3:16; 19:17), Passover (John 1:29, 36; 18:28; 19:14, 29, 35), and the snake in the wilderness (John 3:14–15; 8:28; 12:32–33). Jintae Kim, “The Concept of Atonement in the Gospel of John,” JGRChJ 6 (2009): 9–27 (14) supposes that the meaning of ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (John 1:29) decides whether or not “the concept of atoning sacrifice” is present in John. John Dennis, “Jesus’ Death in John’s Gospel: A Survey of Research from Bultmann to the Present with Special Reference to the Johannine HyperTexts,” CBR 4:3 (2006): 331–63 analyses the use of the preposition ὑπέρ in the gospel. But he seems to conflate sacrifice and atonement. And though he (p. 355) cites Rainer Metzner, Das Verständnis der Sünde im Johannesevangelium (WUNT 122; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 130, the primary texts Metzner adduces do not refer to atonement. Rather, Deuteronomy 16:2, 6 describe the Passover sacrifice; 2 Chronicles 30:6, 8 focus on Yahweh returning survivors to Israel, as well as removing anger from Israel; and Josephus, Ant. 2.312 says that the blood of the Passover sacrifice was used to purify houses. 50 Joel N. Lohr, “The Book of Leviticus,” in A Theological Introduction to the Pentateuch: Interpreting the Torah as Christian Scripture, ed. Richard S. Briggs and Joel N. Lohr (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 83–111 (106, 107).

176

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

1 John 2:2, which refers to Jesus as the ἱλασμός (“atonement”), shares with John 11:52 some near-identical syntax.51 1 John 2:2 has οὐ … μόνον ἀλλά (“not only … but”), and John 11:52 has οὐχ … μόνον ἀλλ᾿ (“not only … but”). Both refer to sin that needs atonement, in 1 John of the speakers, and in John of the nation: καὶ αὐτὸς ἱλασμός ἐστιν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν (“and he is the atonement concerning our sins,” 1 John 2:2), and ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἔθνους (“on behalf of the nation,” John 11:52). The language of 1 John 2:2 invokes the ritual of the atoning pair of goats, as it refers to Jesus as the ἱλασμός. Throughout the New Testament, the term ἱλασμός only occurs here and in 1 John 4:10, and the first of its six uses in the Septuagint refers to “the Day of Atonement” itself (Lev 25:9). 52 So 1 John and John share an atonement theology that makes Jesus resemble the goats. 1 John 3:3, 5, 6, which claim that Jesus purifies from and eliminates sin, share with John 1:29 the collocation of the verb αἴρω (“remove”) with the noun ἁμαρτία (“sin”).53 Another similarity is that 1 John 3:5 (similarly v. 8) and John 1:31 (following on from v. 29) both connect the atoning function to the revelation of Jesus. The context of 1 John 3:5 alludes to the other atoning function. Those who hope in Jesus purify themselves, just as he is pure (v. 3). And those who remain in him do not sin, just as he is sinless (v. 6).54 So beyond shared intimations of the Day of Atonement, 1 John and John also attribute the two distinct functions of the atoning dyad to Jesus. What John does with the Barabbas tradition accentuates the Day of Atonement typology used across the Johannine corpus. Like Luke, John emphasises the innocence of Jesus.55 After declaring that he finds no cause of

Whereas Judith Lieu, The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 63–64 sees no connection between 1 John 2 and the Day of Atonement, John Painter, 1, 2, and 3 John (SP; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2002), 147 does. 52 On ἱλασμός in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, see Toan Do, “Jesus’ Death as Hilasmos according to 1 John: Expiation or Propitiation? ἐξιλάσκομαι in the Septuagint,” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, 537–53; idem, “‘That you may not sin’: On the Reading of 1John 2,1b,” ZNW 102 (2011): 77–95; idem, “Does περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου Imply ‘the Sins of the Whole World’ in 1 John 2:2?” Bib 94 (2013): 415–35; idem, “Μόνον or μονῶν? Reading 1 John 2:2c from the Editio Critica Maior,” JBL 133:3 (2014): 603–25; idem, Re-thinking the Death of Jesus: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Hilasmos and Agapē in 1 John 2:1–2 and 4:7–10 (CBET 73; Leuven: Peeters, 2014). 53 In a similar way, LXX Lev 16:22 uses λαμβάνω (MT ‫)נשא‬. 54 The context in 1 John 3 problematises the influence of Isa 53:4 on John 1:29. 55 John 18:38b; 19:4, 6b use εὑρίσκω with αἰτία, and Luke 23:4b, 14b, 22b use εὑρίσκω with αἴτιος. Brown, Death, 793 notes that John 18:38b is “quite close to the Greek of Luke 23:14,” and that “a tradition of three similarly worded denials of guilt has been drawn on independently by Luke and John.” Lindars, John, 560 sees “strong evidence that John’s source differed to some extent from Mark, but was known to Luke.” In Mark 15:26 the 51

2. Johannine atonement

177

accusation in Jesus (John 18:38b), Pilate says to the accusers, “there is an arrangement for you” (συνήθεια ὑμῖν, v. 39a).56 Whatever the arrangement is, Pilate intends it as an act of friendship, from Rome to Judea.57 He must mean it to appease the Ἰουδαῖοι, and it must make sense in the episode, where the Ἰουδαῖοι want Jesus executed. According to the arrangement, Pilate says, he may release one to them (ἵνα ἕνα ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν, v. 39a). He goes on to ask whether they want him to release to them (βούλεσθε οὖν ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν) the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 39b).58 Pilate cannot be so oblivious as to presume that the accusers would be happy if he releases, in the sense of judicial pardon, the accused. If the interpretation is, however, judicial pardon, Bond is right that the offer cannot be taken seriously. 59 But if it can be taken seriously, the offer has to presuppose that the Ἰουδαῖοι may not only consider but even desire it. I propose that John 18:39 means to transfer custody of, not pardon, someone to the Ἰουδαῖοι.60 That usage of ἀπολύω plus dative is attested in Plutarch, Pyrrhus 21.4. The context is the conflict between the Greek king Pyrrhus and the Roman consuls Fabricius and Aemilius. The physician of Pyrrhus plotted against his life, and he told Fabricius. However, Fabricius revealed the plot to his enemy Pyrrhus. In gratitude, Pyrrhus offered the Romans some prisoners of war. But the Romans wanted neither gifts nor favours, and so they transferred (or released) to Pyrrhus (ἀπέλυσαν αὐτῷ) the same number of prisoners. John 18:39 may therefore refer to transference, because it uses ἀπολύω with the dative pronoun twice. By contrast, 19:10 and

superscription of his αἰτία reads, “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” In Matt 27:37 the soldiers place his αἰτία above his head, which reads “this is Jesus, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι.” 56 So Michaels, John, 927, italics original: “I find none, but perhaps you might.” 57 For the friendship connotations of the noun, see BDAG, s.v. συνήθεια. 58 When he refers to Jesus as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (John 18:39), Pilate reminds the Ἰουδαῖοι that the accusation they made concerns themselves (see vv. 33 and 35). By contrast, see Barrett, John, 539: “It is not clear however why Pilate describes him as the ‘King of the Jews’. (a) He has apparently himself decided that Jesus is not a king in the ordinary sense of the word. (b) Since the Jews were using the charge that Jesus was or desired to be king of the Jews as a means of getting rid of him it was hardly a title likely to commend him to them. John has probably taken the title straight out of the earlier tradition; though it also suits his purpose, which is to portray Jesus in his humility as in fact the true king of Israel.” 59 So also Bond, “Barabbas,” 70: “But Pilate’s question … can hardly be taken seriously; these are the same men who handed Jesus over for execution (18:28–32), and the reference to ‘king of the Jews’ on the Roman’s lips can only be contemptuous and mocking.” 60 On the usage of transferring custody, Maclean, “Barabbas,” 322 cites Plutarch, Pyrrhus 21.4, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 8.82.1, and Acts of Paul and Thecla 38.5. Unlike ἀπολύω plus dative, the verbs παραδίδωμι (“deliver”) and ἀποδίδωμι (“return”) do not express that exact nuance.

178

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

12 use ἀπολύω without the dative pronoun and so with the sense of pardon.61 In terms of the narrative, as well, Pilate has already told the Ἰουδαῖοι to take Jesus and judge him (18:31). And later, Pilate will tell the Ἰουδαῖοι to take Jesus and crucify him (19:6). By transference of custody, Pilate can both sidestep executing an innocent person and strengthen Rome-Judea relations. With εἷς, John 18:39 (ἵνα ἕνα ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν) recalls the εἷς ἄνθρωπος who, according to the high priest, should die on behalf of the people (11:50), or, the nation (vv. 51, 52). Otherwise, an anarthrous ἄνθρωπος would be sufficient. And in both cases, John mirrors the usage of εἷς in the atoning dyad ritual: “and Aaron shall place lots on the two goats, one (εἷς) lot for the Lord and one (εἷς) lot for the one to be sent off (LXX Lev 16:8). Another supporting intimation of the Day of Atonement is that John 1:29 may be read to appose two distinguishable roles of Jesus, “the lamb of God” and “the one who removes the sin of the world.”62 Jesus would therefore function as both the Passover lamb and Day of Atonement goat. If John 1:29 integrates those traditions, 18:39 may integrate them, too. As such, in 18:39 συνήθεια ὑμῖν ἵνα ἕνα ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν evokes the atoning dyad, and ἐν τῷ πάσχα evokes the slaughtered lambs. The prisoner transference reflects the Day of Atonement, and the setting is during the Passover. So in sum, the Day of Atonement ritual illuminates Johannine theology and the Johannine Barabbas tradition.

3. The λῃστής 3. The λῃστής

When Pilate offers Jesus (John 18:39), the Ἰουδαῖοι demand Barabbas (v. 40a). The narrator then adds, “now Barabbas was a λῃστής” (v. 40b). The conspicuous designation of Barabbas as a λῃστής points to a set of Johannine idiosyncrasies. Only John refers to an alliance (συνήθεια) for the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 61 In John 19:10 Pilate has the authority to release (ἀπολύω) Jesus, and in v. 12 Pilate tries to release (ἀπολύω) Jesus. 62 John 1:29 reads, ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. To clarify the separation of the two titles, v. 36 gives ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ without ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. And no lamb removed sins, which suggests that the second element of v. 29 derives from another tradition – that is, not the Passover one. Although Ernst Haenchen, John, 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1–6 (trans. Robert W. Funk; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 155 alludes to the atoning pair of goats in his comments on 1:29, he does not suppose it significant: “The various forms of the portrait of Jesus are kaleidoscopically reflected in verse 29, in which all the details subconsciously work together to form a new image in its own right.” Although Tang Nielsen, “The Lamb of God,” 217–56 argues that ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ integrates the paschal lamb and the suffering servant traditions, he also notes the possibility that the atoning goats inform the image. Also, Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 84 recognises the typology.

3. The λῃστής

179

39). 63 Barabbas is always released, except in John. 64 No other gospel has Jesus crucified between anonymous men (19:18). 65 Only John refers to Barabbas as a λῃστής (18:40).66 John is the only gospel in which Jesus does not ask why his accosters suppose him to be a λῃστής.67 And John is the only gospel not to have Jesus quote LXX Jer 7:11 – “surely my house, there where my name has been called on it, has not become a den of robbers (σπήλαιον λῃστῶν) before you?” – during the temple incident.68 Against the grain of the other gospels, John therefore distances Jesus from the designation λῃστής.69 In addition, considering that the ἦν δέ clause usually anticipates later texts, ἦν δὲ ὁ Βαραββᾶς λῃστής probably points forward, beyond John 18:40b. 70

63 Mark 15:6, 8; Matt 27:15; Luke 23:17. On the esoteric alliance, see Brown, Death, 795; Thompson, John, 381; BDAG, s.v. συνήθεια. 64 Mark 15:15; Matt 27:26; Luke 23:25. 65 He does not have a λῃστής (Mark 15:27; Matt 27:38, 44) or κακοῦργος (Lk 23:32, 33, 39) on each side. 66 Mark 15:7 (στασιαστής, “rebel”); Matt 27:16 (δέσμιος, “prisoner”); Acts 3:14 (φονεύς, “murderer”). 67 Mark 14:48; Matt 26:55; Luke 22:52. 68 NETS; otherwise NRSV translates, “has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?” For Jer 7:11, see Mark 11:17 // Matt 21:13 // Luke 19:46. In Mark 11:12–14, 20–24 // Matt 21:18–22 Jesus curses the fig tree, and therefore symbolically the temple. Luke has the parable of the fig tree, where the man who plants the fig tree finds no fruit (13:6) and tells the gardener to cut it down (v. 7). 69 Perhaps Barabbas being mentioned without introduction and with the designation λῃστής presupposes the greater detail in Mark; Barrett, John, 539. 70 J. P. Louw, “On Johannine style,” Neot 20 (1986): 5–12 (11) refers to ἦν δέ at John 3:1 as a “section marker,” which though “syntactically important in overtly marking the beginning of a new section” is actually “semantically almost empty.” Even so, as the following instances from the Johannine passion show, ἦν δέ signals clauses that offer information significant to the interpretation of texts later in the narrative. “Now the name of the slave was (ἦν δέ) Malchus” (18:10) clarifies the identity of “one of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the one whose ear Peter cut off” (v. 26). “Now Caiaphas was (ἦν δέ) …” (v. 14) explicitly identifies Annas (v. 13) in relation to the prophecy of his son-in-law, the high priest Caiaphas (11:50). “Now Peter was (ἦν δέ) with them, standing and warming himself” (18:18) anticipates the same situation on the other side of the short Annas scene, “now Peter was (ἦν δέ) standing and warming himself” (v. 25). “Now it was (ἦν δέ) very early (πρωΐ)” (v. 28) possibly foreshadows the only other use of πρωΐ in John, on the first day of the new week (20:1). “Now it read (ἦν δέ)” (19:19) anticipates the partial repetition of the inscription (v. 21). “Now the tunic was (ἦν δέ) seamless, woven in one piece from the top” (v. 23) gives the reason (οὖν) the soldiers gamble for rather than tear the clothing. “Now there was (ἦν δέ) a garden (κῆπος) in the place where he was crucified” (v. 41) introduces the setting of the tomb where the corpse of Jesus would be laid, where Mary supposes Jesus to be the κηπουρός (“gardener,” 20:15).

180

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

Βαραββᾶς points backward to v. 40a, and the significant term seems to be λῃστής.71 The meaning of λῃστής is critical to understanding the reason John distances Jesus from the term. Thomas Grünewald – or, rather, his translator John Drinkwater – translates λῃστής with “usurper.” 72 (In similar vein, Grünewald’s German original classifies the Jewish λῃσταί as Rivalen. 73 ) Grünewald introduces his argument with Jesus, who was a king for his supporters and a bandit for his opponents. The accusation against Jesus in John 19:12 shows the “equating” of λῃστής “and, in its widest sense, usurper.”74 By making himself king, Jesus opposes Caesar, the emperor who makes kings. Josephus uses the term λῃστής to group together troublemaking before and during the war “[i]n a type of schematic uniformity.” 75 Such figures “had one thing in common, that they were highly politicised and ready for revolutionary change.”76 These figures, “as politically motivated rebels, combated the pro-Roman Jewish aristocracy and the Romans as imperial rulers in Judaea.” 77 They are “politically motivated usurpers.” 78 The king “controls the reins of power,” but the usurper “disputes his position.”79 The λῃστής typically pursued kingship in power vacuums.80 He was a usurper. Josephus associates λῃστ– words with kingship. Herod killed Hezekiah the chief usurper (ἀρχιλῃστής), as well many of his usurpers (λῃσταί, War 1.204; Ant. 14.159).81 Herod also resorted to usurpation (λῃστεία) after the victory of

Similarly Caiaphas in 18:13, 14. Thomas Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire: Myth and Reality (trans. John Drinkwater; London: Routledge, 2004), 91. 73 Thomas Grünewald, Räuber, Rebellen, Rivalen, Rächer: Studien zu Latrones im Römischen Reich (FAS 31; Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999). 74 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 91. 75 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 94. 76 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 95. These λῃσταί were revolutionaries, not social bandits. For the latter, see Richard A. Horsley, “Josephus and the Bandits,” JSJ 10 (1979): 37–63; idem, “Ancient Jewish Banditry and the Revolt against Rome, AD 66–70,” CBQ 43 (1981): 409–32. 77 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 99. 78 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 99–100. 79 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 95. 80 Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 96. However, a certain shepherd named Anthronges is made king but not identified as a λῃστής (Josephus, War 2.60–63; Ant. 17.278– 84). And though λῃστ– and στασι– words occur in relation to Eleazar and Alexander, they do not seek kingship (Josephus, War 2.232–44; Ant. 20.118–24). 81 Mason, Judean War 2, 39 fn. 342: Josephus appears to be the first author to use the compound ἀρχιλῃστής, and he does so “with strong political connotations.” The one who resembles a chief usurper (ἀρχιλῃστής) is wicked (War 2.275). 71 72

3. The λῃστής

181

the Arabians (Ant. 15.120).82 In the wake of Herod’s death, Judas, the son of Hezekiah the ἀρχιλῃστής broke into the royal armouries and armed his followers (War 2.56; Ant. 17.271). Herod’s former slave Simon made himself king and engaged in arson with his usurpers (λῃσταί, War 2.57). The shepherd Athrongaeus made himself king and opposed the Romans, filling Judea with usurping warfare (λῃστρικός πόλεμος, War 2.60–65; Ant. 17.278– 84). Judea was filled with bands of usurpers (λῃστήρια), and those who rebelled (συστασιάζω) made kings (βασιλεῖς, Ant. 17.285). When Fadus killed the chief usurper (ἀρχιλῃστής) Tholomaius, he rid Judea of bands of usurpers (λῃστήρια, Ant. 20.5). Felix sent the chief usurper (ἀρχιλῃστής) Eleazar to Rome, and he had innumerable usurpers (λῃσταί) crucified (War 2.253). Manahem, Judas the Galilean’s son, broke open Herod’s armoury and armed usurpers (λῃσταί) and commoners, returning then to Jerusalem as king and becoming the leader (ἡγεμών) of the rebellion (στάσις, War 2.434). 83 Though chief usurpers (ἀρχιλῃσταί) rebelled (στασιάζω) against one another, they agreed on killing those at peace with or deserting to the Romans (War 5.30). In sum, Josephus uses the λῃστ– word family in relation to the usurping of power either from Rome or ratified by Rome. But John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora are the usurpers with whom Josephus is most concerned. Nadav Sharon argues that Josephus uses λῃστής to refer to rebel leaders such as John and Simon to denigrate opposition against Rome.84 [John] not only put to death all advocates of lawful policies that would serve the national interest, treating such people as if they were the ultimate public enemies, but on a larger scale he brought a deluge of horrors on his country – as was to be expected from a man who had already shown a brazen disregard for God’s law. Prohibited food was served at his table, and he had abandoned any adherence to the regular and traditional rites of purification, so there could be no surprise now if someone mad enough to reject piety toward God failed also to observe any kindness or fellow-feeling towards men. And then there was Simon son of Gioras. What crime did he not commit? What physical abuse of free men was not employed by those who gave him despotic power? What ties of friendship or family did anything to restrain their daily murders? In their view maltreatment of foreigners was the stuff of petty crime – the real badge of honour was brutality shown to one’s own closest friends and relatives. (Josephus, War 7.263–66)

So Josephus portrays John and Simon as foremost sinners against God and Judea. 82 Steve Mason, Life of Josephus: Translation and Commentary (Flavius Josephus 9; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 32 fn. 143: Josephus parallels the Latin (latro, latrocinium) to indicate that even Caesar and Octavian were likewise “usurpers” at one stage. 83 See also Josephus, War 2.441; Life 21, 46–47. 84 Nadav Sharon, Judea under Roman Domination: The First Generation of Statelessness and Its Legacy (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 368.

182

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

During the siege of the Upper City and the temple (5.356), Josephus had entreated the Idumaeans, Simon’s army, John’s men, and the rest of the Zealots (5.358) “to spare themselves and the people, to spare their country and their temple, and not to treat these concerns with a callous indifference beyond anything shown by foreigners (5.362).” Josephus views resistance against the Romans foolish and futile: “Lesser masters could well be treated with contempt – but not men who dominated the whole world… From every corner of the earth fortune had passed to the Romans, and God, who transferred dominion from one nation to another, was now presiding over Italy” (5.366–67). It is clear to Josephus, and it was to the forefathers of the usurpers, that God is “on the Roman side” (5.368). In the end Titus uses Simon and John in the triumph (7.118). John faces life imprisonment, whereas Simon is sacrificed at the end of the procession (6.434). When Josephus first introduces John, he belittles him as a λῃστής.85 … there appeared on the scene a treacherous character called John, the son of Levi, who came from Gischala. He was the most unscrupulous confidence-trickster of all who have ever gained notoriety for these black arts… in his mind deceit was something admirable, and he practised it on family and friends; he professed concern for his fellow men, but would murder anyone if there was the chance of making money… His robbery started out as a one-man business (λῃστὴς γὰρ ἦν μονότροπος), but in time he found partners to join him in the enterprise, only a few initially, but their numbers kept growing with his success… He used them to make raids throughout the whole of Galilee, terrorizing the general population who were already anxious enough at the imminent prospect of war. (Josephus, War 2.585–89)

Josephus identifies John as a λῃστής only after he highlights that he practises duplicity and murder on anyone from whom he might gain.86 And though he began as a lone λῃστής, John drew many to his terrible cause. Josephus’ dispute with John was personal: On the assumption that he would himself become governor of Galilee if he could get rid of Josephus, he instructed his gang of robbers (λῃσταί) to intensify the raids. His thought was that, with disturbances multiplying throughout the region, either the governor would set out to deal with them, in which case he could be ambushed somewhere and finished off; alternatively, if Josephus took no action against the banditry (λῃσταί), he could be maligned for failing to protect the people in his charge. And then John had long been spreading a rumour that Josephus was intending a betrayal to the Romans, another of his many schemes to see the man off. (Josephus, War 2.593–94)

John commanded usurpers (λῃσταί), and he wanted to destroy Josephus and rule Galilee. John had envy (φθόνος) of Josephus and plotted against him Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 100. For Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 101, Josephus aims to “defame” John through “invective.” 85 86

3. The λῃστής

183

(2.614). Josephus would go on to blame John for defiling the temple, and for forcing Titus to destroy it (6.93–111).87 Ordinary slaves and usurpers (λῃσταί), as well as many ordinary citizens, obeyed Simon as king (4.510). Simon appeared in purple out of the place where the temple had been, hoping to deceive the Romans (War 7.29). But he was found out and taken (7.31), which Josephus supposes to be God making justice through the worst enemies of the rebel (7.32). This was no capture by force, but a voluntary exposure to the risk of punishment – the very act for which he himself had put many to a cruel death on false charges of defection to the Romans. Wickedness cannot run from the wrath of God, and Justice is not weak: in time she overtakes transgressors, and punishes the wicked all the more severely when they imagine they have escaped if punishment does not immediately follow the crime. Simon too had to learn this lesson when the Romans got their furious hands on him. (Josephus, War 7.33–34)

Simon was brought to Caesar and kept for a triumph in Rome (7.36), in which he was killed as the enemy general (7.153), after being led among the other captives and tormented by those leading him (7.154).88 The episode in John 18:28–19:22 and in particular the accusation against Jesus in 19:12 allow the usurping sense of λῃστής in 18:40. Because Josephus uses the λῃστ– words only six times while rewriting the biblical traditions and only once before Rome conquered Judea, the λῃστής is a figure particularly suited to the war in which the temple was destroyed. 89 These λῃστ– words often go with στασι– words, such as in War 2.264, where the usurping-types (λῃστρικοί) lead many to rebellion (ἀπόστασις) and threaten with death those who obey the imperium Romanum. 90 Though John 18:40 calls him a λῃστής, Mark 15:7 calls Barabbas a στασιαστής (“rebel”). As Josephus’ λῃστής does, Barabbas seizes kingship and rivals Rome. He is “the sort of man who will incite the uprising that leads to the Roman destruction of the temple.”91 He typifies “overt resistance to Rome, possibly even violent resistance.”92 He embodies the false accusation of maiestas against Jesus. By contrast, if Jesus is innocent, Jesus is not a λῃστής who makes himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Jesus is by definition not against the established imperial order. I conclude that John distances Jesus from the λῃστής designation to

Grünewald, Bandits in The Roman Empire, 103. On the Flavian triumph, see later Chapter 8. 89 Sharon, Judea under Roman Domination, 361; for survey of scholarship on Josephus’ λῃσταί and support of Grünewald’s perspective, see pp. 361–77. 90 Josephus, War 2.235, 441, 511; 5.53, 448; 6.363, 417; Mason, Life, 31 fn. 143. 91 Brant, John, 245. 92 Thompson, John, 382. 87 88

184

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

draw attention to the accusation that Jesus is a usurper who has taken kingship without Caesar’s authorisation. Earlier, I analysed the use of μιαίνω in John 18:28 in light of the way Josephus uses it in relation to the temple and its destruction. 93 Josephus moreover connects the verb μιαίνω and the destruction of the temple with the term λῃστής.94 John of Gischala’s “usurpers” (War 6.129) are “most defiled ones” (6.124) who “defiled” the sanctuary (6.127).95 Other “usurpers” (4.138) had earlier “transferred their excesses to the realm of the divine, and took their polluted (μιαίνω) feet into the sanctuary (4.150). They are “usurpers” who “defile” the sacred ground and get drunk in the sanctuary (4.242). Because of such concern with temple purity, Steve Mason suggests the possibility that LXX Jer 7:11 influenced Josephus’ usage of the term λῃστής.96 Mason refers to War 5.402, which reads, “The temple has become a cesspit, and native hands have polluted (μιαίνω) the divine place which even Romans would venerate. The defiling actions in War 5.402 are ἐνέδρα (“ambush”), μοιχεία (“adultery”), κλοπή (“theft”), and φόνος (“murder”). LXX Jer 7:9 correspondingly uses the verbs φονεύω (“murder”), μοιχάομαι (“commit adultery”), and κλέπτω (“steal”). So both Josephus and LXX Jer 7:9 connect thieves and murderers with usurpers and defilers. Yet theft and usurpation remain distinct from each other.97 John does not use LXX Jer 7:9, but those associations and distinctions are significant. The term λῃστής, like the name Βαραββᾶς, does not occur again throughout John, but it has occurred earlier. In John 10:1 Jesus says that anyone who tries to enter the sheepfold apart from the gate is a “thief” (κλέπτης) and a “usurper” (λῃστής). And according to v. 8, the sheep do not listen to those who came before Jesus, each of whom was a “thief” (κλέπτης) and a “usurper” (λῃστής). John 10:1 and 8 may seem to use κλέπτης and λῃστής as equivalent with each other. Yet v. 10 says that the κλέπτης, not the λῃστής, comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And the next time John uses κλέπτης is in specific relation to Judas (12:6). As the κλέπτης figure becomes concrete in Judas after the shepherd discourse, so the λῃστής figure later becomes concrete in Barabbas. The κλέπτης Judas complements the λῃστής

See earlier Chapter 4. Chapter 3. 95 Titus earlier offers the opportunity for John to come out from the temple to fight, if he does not want to defile (μιαίνω) it (Josephus, War 6.95). 96 Mason, Life, 32 fn. 143. 97 Josephus records that the Essenes take separate oaths concerning theft (κλοπή, War 2.141) and usurpation (λῃστεία, 2.142), respectively. Josephus similarly instructs his own soldiers to abstain from “theft, banditry, and pillage” (κλοπῆς τε καὶ λῃστείας καὶ ἁρπαγῆς, 2.581) On this, see Mason, Judean War 2, 115 fn. 881. 93 94

3. The λῃστής

185

Barabbas (18:40). The usurper and the thief respectively foreshadow Judas and Barabbas. Scholars recognise the relationship the good shepherd discourse has with the preceding healing of the man born blind. Since John 10:1 has no introductory formula, it continues Jesus’ indictment of the Pharisees’ sin in 9:41.98 What Jesus says in v. 39 about his judgement both restoring those who cannot see and destroying those who can see, moreover, contextualises the shepherd discourse. 99 Without the context here, the subsequent distinction between shepherds does not make sense. 100 In all of 10:1–10 Jesus may therefore be read to “condemn the false shepherds whom Jesus addresses in 9:41.”101 They do not rule the people (Ps 78:71) the way the shepherd David did (v. 70), with goodness and skill (v. 72), but they are stupid and foolish shepherds (Jer 10:21) who destroy the vineyard (12:10).102 In light of John 10:1 and 8, 18:40 means to contrast the λῃστής Barabbas with the shepherd Jesus. 103 Jesus’ accusers are unsatisfactory shepherds who themselves “follow” the λῃστής (18:40) “who comes before him” (10:8).104 They are not sheep who hear and know the shepherd’s φωνή (“voice,” v. 4), who are out of the truth and hear Jesus’ φωνή (18:37).105

98 On this, see John Painter, “Tradition, History and Interpretation in John 10,” in The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context: Studies by members of the Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Johannes Beutler and Robert T. Fortna (SNTSMS 67; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 53–74 (54, 58). Also, Jan A. du Rand, “A Syntactical and Narratological Reading of John 10 in Coherence with John 9,” in The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context, 94–115 (94) calls John 9–10 the “co-text” of John 10. 99 Ulrich Busse, “Open Questions on John 10,” in The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context, 6–17 (8). 100 Busse, “Open Questions on John 10,” 13. 101 Painter, “Tradition, History and Interpretation in John 10,” 61. 102 Painter, “Tradition, History and Interpretation in John 10,” 56 fn. 17 cites these and other references. 103 Meeks, Prophet-King, 68; Lindars, John, 563; Moloney, John, 499. 104 On the imagery of shepherd and sheep in Ezekiel 34; 37:15–23 and John 10:1–30; 11:51–52, see Gary T. Manning, Jr., “Shepherd, Vine and Bones: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John,” in After Ezekiel: Essays on the Reception of a Difficult Prophet, ed. Paul M. Joyce and Andrew Mein (LHB/OTS 535; London: T&T Clark, 2011), 25–44 (27–36) – revised from idem, Echoes of a Prophet: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John and in Literature of the Second Temple Period (JSNTSup 270; London: T&T Clark, 2004). Manning, “Shepherd, Vine and Bones,” 29 sees in Ezekiel and John “the same central idea: the leaders of Israel have failed to care for the sheep, but Ezekiel’s God and John’s Jesus will take up the role of proper shepherding.” Manning (p. 30), adds, “The fact that Jesus’ shepherd discourse links him to both good shepherds, God and David, makes it clear that the passage is intended to communicate Jesus’ messianic identity in divine and human terms.” 105 Busse, “Open Questions on John 10,” 9 sees this connection.

186

Chapter 7: Scene 3, John 18:38b–40

Yet, John contrasts the defiling λῃστής with the purifying shepherd only then to collapse the two figures. The crucified Jesus has to embody both the national defilement from below and the universal purification from above. By comparison, when Josephus implores the λῃστής John of Gischala on behalf of Titus, he concludes, Who does not know the recorded predictions of the ancient prophets, and that oracle hanging over our poor city which is now coming to fulfilment? They foretold that the time of the city’s capture would be when any of us started killing our own people. And is not the city, and the whole temple as well, filled with the bodies of your victims? It is God then, God himself who is working through the Romans to bring purging fire to his temple and to extirpate a city flooded with such gross pollutions. (Josephus, War 6.109–10)

With the same scheme, Jesus has to become the λῃστής so that God can use Rome to destroy the temple of his body and so purify what has been defiled. The decision of the council, prompted by the high priest Caiaphas, to execute Jesus was not only sinful but misguided.106 The way the Ἰουδαῖοι cause the death of Jesus anticipates the way they cause the destruction of the nation and its temple. In that way Jesus demonstrates his prophetic role. Ezekiel writes “Jerusalem” on a brick (Ezek 4:1), sets up a mock siege around it (v. 2), and puts it in motion as the “sign” for Israel (v. 3), before lying on either side to take on himself the punishment of Israel and Judah (vv. 4–8). When Jesus both purifies and removes sin, he is both Barabbas and himself, both “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” and “the Nazarene” (John 19:19, 21). As “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” the crucified Jesus embodies the imperial crime of which he has been falsely accused. Jesus’ crucifixion therefore demonstrates the Ἰουδαῖοι’s crime of calumnia and maiestas. Jesus becomes Barabbas, the defeated λῃστής who epitomises both the false accusation against the accused and sin of the accusers. That is the only sense in which Jesus is “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (vv. 4, 14, 15, 19), as the goat for removing sin and sending away. And not only does Jesus become the λῃστής (vv. 2, 4, 14, 15), but he is defeated as it (vv. 3, 19), as I will go on to argue.107

4. Summary 4. Summary

What happens to Barabbas after John 18:40 is ambiguous. I conclude that the parenthesis ἦν δὲ ὁ Βαραββᾶς λῃστής anticipates the rest of the episode. The tradition of Barabbas hangs unresolved in John, unless Pilate and the soldiers 106 107

See earlier Chapter 4. See later Chapter 8.

4. Summary

187

resolve the third scene in the fourth, transforming Jesus into the usurper. As usurper, Jesus epitomises the sin and the nation. When sin is put on him, he becomes the means of the Ἰουδαῖοι slandering God and Caesar. And only as such can Jesus remove the sin of the nation, its impiety against God and Caesar. Jesus becomes the immolated goat and the send-away goat, the atoning dyad reunited unconsciously by the Ἰουδαῖοι. John may not mention the goats, but Jesus takes on their functions, as he removes the national sin and purifies the whole world from it. Jesus purifies his disciples with the word that he speaks (15:3), but his unbelieving accusers die in the sin (8:24) he removes (1:29). The paradox is that Jesus removes the sin of unbelieving liars and murderers only when they sin against him in the crucifixion.

Chapter 8

Scene 4, John 19:1–3 The reverse of an Alexandrian coin depicts “divine Augustus” in a radiate crown, and the obverse depicts “Tiberius Caesar Augustus” in a laureate crown. 1 During the lifetime of Jesus, when John is set, these crowns were associated with Roman imperium, which was predicated on Roman maiestas. With such a crown, as well as the colour purple, Pilate and his soldiers make out of Jesus an “imperial image.”2 In this chapter I will continue to argue that the accusation the Ἰουδαῖοι make against Jesus is disloyalty to Caesar, that the accusation is false, and that the Roman figures are cognisant of those two points. I will also analyse the target of Roman mockery in 19:1–3. And, as has been done with respect to Mark and Luke, I will read John in light of triumphal processions, in particular the Flavian one in 71 CE. As King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 3) in crown and purple (v. 2), the Johannine Jesus resembles the protagonists of the 71 CE triumph, not only Simon bar Giora but also Titus and Vespasian. Jesus resembles both victim and victor, both the conquered usurper and the conquering Flavians. He embodies the false accusation against him as self-made King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, abuser of Rome’s maiestas, and he also signals John’s pro-colonialist perspective on Rome. Τότε οὖν ἔλαβεν ὁ Πιλᾶτος τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ ἐμαστίγωσεν. 2 καὶ οἱ στρατιῶται πλέξαντες στέφανον ἐξ ἀκανθῶν ἐπέθηκαν αὐτοῦ τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἱμάτιον πορφυροῦν περιέβαλον αὐτὸν 3 καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν καὶ ἔλεγον· χαῖρε ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων· καὶ ἐδίδοσαν αὐτῷ ῥαπίσματα. So then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe, 3 and they kept coming up to him saying, “Hail, King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” and they were giving him slaps. (John 19:1–3)

1 H. St. J. Hart, “The Crown of Thorns in John 19:2–5,” JTS 3 (1952): 66–75 includes the billon tetradrachm from Alexandria. Obverse: ΤΙΒΕΡΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΣ, head of emperor, in laureate, 19/20 CE. Reverse: ΘΕΟΣ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΣ, head of Augustus, in radiate. Coin in H. St. J. H. collection. 2 Foster, The Gospel of Peter, 270 sees this in Gos. Pet. 3.8, citing Suetonius, Tiberius 17 “[a]s an example.”

1. How John suppresses torture and redirects mockery

189

1. How John suppresses torture and redirects mockery 1. How John suppresses torture and redirects mockery

Though Luke has no scourging scene, Mark and Matthew parallel each other closely. And like Mark and Matthew, John includes the soldiers dressing Jesus in robe and crown and saluting him.3 Like Mark 15:17 // Matt 27:27, John 19:2 mentions the twisting of a “crown out of thorns” (στέφανον ἐξ ἀκανθῶν). Mark 15:17 and John 19:5 call it a “thorny crown” (ἀκάνθινον στέφανον), but that does not mean the crown is for torture.4 Actual instances of torture – the blindfolding, punching, spitting, mocking genuflexion, and striking on the head – are missing from John. 5 After the cohort of Roman soldiers strike Jesus’ head with a reed, spit on him, and kneel to worship him in Mark 15:19, they turn to “physical abuse.”6 And before spitting on him and using the reed to strike Jesus on the head in Matt 27:30, the soldiers place that reed in his right hand as they kneel, mock, and salute him as “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 29). So in comparison with Mark and Matthew, John suppresses any sense in which the Romans torture Jesus. By suppressing that torture, John amplifies the notion of mocking visible elsewhere in the wider Jesus tradition (Mark 15:20 // Matt 27:31; Luke 23:11). “The mockery is not so much cruel as crude,” Lindars writes.7 The question is, why? Whereas Brown acknowledges that John keeps the “nonviolent actions” and ignores the “violent actions,” he only suggests that John was “resisting” these elements in Mark and reverting to its “preferred language.” 8 Thompson recognises that the mockery concerns kingship, but she supposes that the mockery applies to both the Ἰουδαῖοι and Jesus. 9 However, Pilate has declared Jesus innocent of that claim (John 18:38b; later 19:4, 6b), which determines the accusation made against him by the Ἰουδαῖοι as false. The target of the mockery would therefore be the accusers.10 They (18:35), not Jesus (v. 37), say that he is King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate and his 3 Therefore, as Brown, Death, 865 notes, either John relied on Mark and Matthew, or the mockery was fixed in the tradition. 4 Brown, Death, 860 writes, “there is no stress on torture; and the crown is part of the royal mockery, like the robe and the scepter.” 5 Moloney, John, 495. 6 Brown, Death, 868. 7 Lindars, John, 565. 8 Brown, Death, 872, 873. 9 Thompson, John, 383. Moloney, John, 495 and Lindars, John, 564 also focus on the kingship of Jesus, not the accusation against him. 10 So on John 19:1, Michaels, John, 928 recognises “an elaborate mockery” of the Ἰουδαῖοι, not Jesus; “The idea of this pitiful subject people having their own ‘king’ is an absurdity to Pilate,” and so Jesus becomes “a fitting potentate for a despised and subjugated people” (p. 929).

190

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

soldiers mock the accusers guilty of lying, not the accused who is innocent and witnesses to the truth. Two other related idiosyncrasies of John’s scourging scene concern its setting: it is not public (against Mark 15:16 // Matt 27:27, both mentioning the cohort), and it occurs in the middle of the proceedings, well before Jesus is delivered to be crucified (against Mark 15:15 // Matt 27:26).11 Unlike John, Mark and Matthew reflect occasions in which Romans used scourging simply as prelude to crucifixion. 12 Without a scourging scene, Luke makes Pilate offer scourging as an alternative to crucifixion (Luke 23:16, 22), because he declares Jesus innocent (vv. 14, 22, also v. 4). Pilate also declares Jesus innocent in John (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), but he does not connect it to an offer of release (much later, 19:12) in any explicit or direct way. So unlike John again, Luke reflects occasions in which Romans flogged innocent victims of native accusations.13 The precise moment in which Pilate passes the formal sentence in John does not seem clear to Barrett, who notes that it would be irregular if John includes the scourging before the verdict.14 But because I take John 18:38b; 19:4, 6b as the repeated verdict of innocence, the placement of the scourging amid those repetitions seems to me unrealistic.15 What seems more plausible is that it has something to do with the Johannine agenda to suppress Jesus’ torture and redirect his mockery toward the Ἰουδαῖοι. The ambiguity is the way in which the Romans mock the Ἰουδαῖοι when Jesus himself is the one who is dressed up and treated as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Taken with other literature, this paradox of John 19:1–3 begins to make sense. After Philo, Flaccus 36–40, Brown cites Isa 50:6, Psalm 69, and Wisdom 2, with the overarching suggestion, “There is little likelihood that the scene took its inspiration from Israelite tradition.”16 Whether or not that is Michaels, John, 929 refers to the “horseplay” in John as “private.” For one, “many inoffensive citizens were arrested and hailed before Florus, who had them flogged first and then crucified” (Josephus, War 2.306). In addition, during the Jerusalem siege, Jews “were scourged and put to every form of torture before death, then crucified in front of the wall” by the Roman soldiers (5.449–54). 13 Four years before the war, Albinus flogged a certain Jesus, who had spoken against Jerusalem and the temple and upset the leading citizens, only to conclude he was mad and then release him (Josephus, War 6.300–10). But Thompson, John, 382 writes, “John places the scourging in the middle of Pilate’s investigation of Jesus rather than at its end, perhaps because the scourging is also offered as an alternative to crucifixion… It could also be seen simply as the use of gratuitous torture, a way for Rome to humiliate and flex.” 14 Barrett, John, 539. 15 Lindars, John, 563 suggests that John’s placement of the scourging scene is both unrealistic and impossible. 16 Brown, Death, 874. 11 12

1. How John suppresses torture and redirects mockery

191

the case, I will argue that these traditions illuminate John 19:1–3. In Philo, Flaccus 36–40 the Alexandrians similarly mock Agrippa, not the poor puppet Karabas. In Isaiah 50 the servant recognises the judgement his accusers bring on themselves. In Psalm 69 the psalmist prays that God will judge those who falsely accuse him. In Wisdom 2 those who unjustly accuse the innocent man suffer spiritual death.17 The reading of John 19:1–3 I will propose, which is strengthened by those other traditions, is that Pilate and his soldiers mock the Ἰουδαῖοι, who by way of the accusation they bring against Jesus accuse themselves. In John 19:1 Pilate takes and flogs Jesus, and in v. 3b the soldiers give slaps to Jesus. The pair of actions frames the scourging scene. The same pair of actions also occurs in Isa 50:6: “I have given my back to scourges (εἰς μάστιγας) and my cheeks to slaps (εἰς ῥαπίσματα), but I did not turn away my face from the shame of spittings (ἀπὸ αἰσχύνης ἐμπτυσμάτων).”18 John uses μαστιγόω, which is cognate with the term used by Isaiah, μάστιξ. And ῥάπισμα occurs with δίδωμι in both texts. These similarities between the texts may seem innocuous on the surface, but the respective contexts suggest otherwise. Isa 50:6a

John 19:1–3

τὸν νῶτόν μου δέδωκα εἰς μάστιγας

τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ ἐμαστίγωσεν (v. 1b)

τὰς δὲ σιαγόνας μου εἰς ῥαπίσματα

καὶ ἐδίδοσαν αὐτῷ ῥαπίσματα (v. 3c)

In the first place, a few verses earlier, John 18:32 has connected the crucifixion of Jesus with a semantic and thematic thread in Isaiah, and it has also connected Jesus with the prophet Isaiah himself.19 By replicating John 12:38a, 18:32a characterises Jesus to resemble Isaiah. And by replicating 12:33, 18:32b portrays Jesus’ crucifixion by way of Isaiah’s glorificationexaltation thread.20 So as the axe and saw are glorified-exalted in judgement by the Assyrians (LXX Isa 10:15), Jesus is glorified-exalted in judgement by the Ἰουδαῖοι. And as the Assyrians are then judged (v. 12), the Ἰουδαῖοι are then judged. The sense of judgement in John 18:28–19:22, in particular 19:1–3, is illuminated by what follows from the scourging and slapping of the servant in Isa 50:6. The servant is not disgraced and will not be shamed (v. 7). Because See later Chapter 10. Brown, Death, 872; Barrett, John, 540. 19 For detail, see earlier Chapter 5. 20 As further indication of the wider importance of Isaiah throughout the gospel, John 12:38 uses Isa 6:10, and John 12:40 uses Isa 53:10. 17 18

192

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

Yahweh justifies (δικαιόω, ‫ )צדק‬him, he challenges those who judge or contend with (κρίνω, ‫ )ריב‬him (v. 8). He asks who will condemn him (v. 9a).21 His accusers will become like an old garment eaten by moths (v. 9b). Those who disobey the servant (v. 10) make for themselves judgment: “walk into your fiery flame, walk among the firebrands you lit” (v. 11). “The attackers’ tactic is an inherently dangerous one, and they will pay the price for it.”22 So also, those who oppress the innocent in Ps 57:6 dig a pit in his path only to fall into it themselves.23 The accusers perish by the weapons they bring against the accused. John uses the very same scheme, which resembles, as I overviewed earlier, the way in which calumnia works in imperial sources: false accusers wear the accusation they make as well as its corresponding penalty.24 Mark 15:19 does not reference the giving of slaps in Isa 50:6a, but it references the spitting in v. 6b. However, it is the other way around in John, which references only the slapping. Brown finds the omission of the spitting “curious.”25 What seems to be happening is that John both retains the Isaiah reference and does away with – what Brown elsewhere calls – “the more harmful action.” 26 John rejects the more shameful action, “the shame of spittings” (Isa 50:6b). John elsewhere shames the Ἰουδαῖοι who reject Jesus: because they “accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God” (John 5:44), Moses accuses the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 45). So whereas the slaps would also seem shameful on the surface, they may function in another way. I argued earlier that John 18:38b– 40 anticipates Pilate and his soldiers answering the demand of a usurper with Jesus. In light of that, the soldiers would give Jesus slaps to play out his mock defeat as if in procession, as if he were Simon bar Giora in the Flavian triumph (see below).

LXX τίς κακώσει με, MT ‫( מי הו ירשיעני‬Isa 50:9a). John Goldingay and David Payne, Isaiah 40–55, vol. 2 (ICC; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 218. 23 Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary (trans. David M. G. Stalker; OTL; London: SCM Press, 1969), 235: “As the Psalms show us, these are metaphors to describe the action of the transgressors against the righteous. Ps. 57.5 (4) is similar, ‘among those who spit flames, whose teeth are spears and arrows’. In those Psalms whose subject is the action of the godless, the punishment measures up to the action (57.6 [5] ‘they dug a pit and have fallen into it’). Similarly here, ‘walk into the glow of your fire and into the brands which you set alight’. That is to say, they are to perish by means of the weapons they had used against the righteous.” 24 See earlier Chapter 1. 25 Brown, Death, 869. 26 Brown, Death, 869. 21 22

1. How John suppresses torture and redirects mockery

193

The passion account in John is set around the year 30 CE. Ten or so years later is set Philo’s story of a certain gentile lunatic named Karabas. Karabas is mocked by the Alexandrians (Philo, Flaccus 36–40), who are attempting to spite the visiting Agrippa, grandson of King Herod (Flaccus 25–35).27 Brown has discussed the Karabas episode, but only with respect to the function of Barabbas in the passion tradition.28 So here I want to elaborate on Brown’s important suggestion that what happens to Karabas actually “is much closer to what happens to Jesus.”29 Turning to the account, Karabas was a lunatic, “whose madness was … of the more relaxed and gentler variant” (Flaccus 36).30 He is presented with mock diadem, robe, and sceptre on a gymnasium platform (Flaccus 37). He assumes the main role in “a theatrical mime,” where the affairs of the royal court are satirised (Flaccus 38). He is addressed “Lord” in Aramaic by the crowd, as though he were Agrippa (Flaccus 39). The revilers “dared in both deeds and words, both openly and indirectly, to insult (ὑβρίζω) someone who was a king and a friend of Caesar (φίλος Καίσαρος), someone who had been honoured by the Senate of Rome with the praetorian insignia” – but to Philo’s dismay, Flaccus did nothing to stop it (Flaccus 40). The context is significant. The misrule of Flaccus was exacerbated by the visit of Agrippa, to whom Caligula had given kingship (Flaccus 25). Caligula himself suggested to Agrippa the route through Alexandria (Flaccus 26). Due to their envy (φθόνος) and hatred of Ἰουδαῖοι, the Alexandrians were distressed at anyone becoming the Jewish King (βασιλεύς Ἰουδαῖος, Flaccus 29). 31 The friends of Flaccus try to make him feel envy, for the visit of Agrippa will destroy him (Flaccus 30). They persuade Flaccus that Agrippa did wrong by him and undermined him by coming through Egypt (Flaccus 31). Flaccus pretends to be his friend in public, but insults (ὑβρίζω) him in private (Flaccus 32). The crowd of Alexandria passes the time by way of slander (διαβολή) and blasphemy (βλασφημία), and Flaccus commanded them to abuse (κακηγορέω) the king (Flaccus 33). He did not punish the blasphemies, because he instigated them:

On Karabas and the mockery in the passion of Mark, see Jeff Jay, The Tragic in Mark: A Literary-Historical Interpretation (HUT 66; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 242–48. 28 Brown, Death, 812. 29 Brown, Death, 813. Brown himself does not probe the resemblance between the figures of Jesus and Barabbas in, for instance, Matt 27:17. Further, in Matt 27:29, like Philo, Flaccus 37, for instance, a sceptre is placed in Jesus’ hand. 30 Translation from van der Horst, Philo’s Flaccus. 31 On the envy of the Egyptians toward Jews in Alexandria, see Sarah J. K. Pearce, The Land of the Body: Studies in Philo’s Representation of Egypt (WUNT 208; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 65–68. 27

194

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

Why, then, did he not become angry?, why did he not arrest them?, why did he not punish them on account of their insolent slander? Even if Agrippa had not been a king but only one of the members of Caesar’s household, did he not deserve to be treated with at least some privilege and honor? (Philo, Flaccus 35)

Philo stresses the slander made by Flaccus against Agrippa, who is part of the wider imperial household and made king by the emperor himself. To insult one of Caesar’s kings with blasphemy is to do the same to Caesar. Flaccus and Alexandria thus commit maiestas. Like the Johannine Jesus, Karabas is made king to mock someone else and himself poses no threat of violence. And so with Pilate, Flaccus’ responsibility is to protect Caesar. The problem in Philo’s view is that the prefect Flaccus himself is complicit with the misuse of Karabas to insult “a friend of Caesar” (Flaccus 40). In reality, it is an appeal against Flaccus aimed at discrediting him politically. The unfolding of the story gives the impression that not only was Agrippa offended by this grotesque show, but also the Emperor himself was indirectly mocked… With Alexandrian subtlety, Philo’s narration creates the impression that the Jews were the friends of Rome, while their detractors were troublemakers and bad subjects of the Empire.32

What Philo does for imperial Jews over against Alexandrians, John does for imperial Jesus-believers over against Ἰουδαῖοι. Unlike the unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι, Jesus and his believers are not disloyal to Rome. The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι will threaten Pilate, “a friend of Caesar,” because Jesus makes himself king and opposes Caesar (John 19:12). The accusation is false, as Pilate has already (18:38b) and will continue to declare (19:4, 6b). The soldiers treat Jesus as a defeated usurper to mock the Ἰουδαῖοι and the false accusation they make. The Romans do not oppose Jesus. They merely use him to signal the maiestas perpetrated by the Ἰουδαῖοι.

2. Triumphs and the Flavians 2. Triumphs and the Flavians

By the τότε οὖν, John 19:1 not only flows out of 18:40, but the totality of scene four responds to scene three, where the Ἰουδαῖοι demand a λῃστής in place of Jesus.33 After the scourging, the Romans’ response to the Ἰουδαῖοι’s Baudouin Decharneux, “The Carabas Affair (in Flacc 36–39): An Incident Emblematic of Philo’s Political Philosophy,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History, ed. Peter J. Tomson and Joshua Schwartz (CRINT 13; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 70–79 (76). 33 Thompson, John, 382 is unsure whether or not Pilate is responding to the Ἰουδαῖοι. The other three New Testament occurrences of τότε οὖν are also in John: Jesus responds by clarifying the confusion caused by what he said about Lazarus’ death (11:14); the anonymous 32

2. Triumphs and the Flavians

195

demand continues with the soldiers transforming Jesus into royalty (v. 2) and mocking the accusation that he is King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 3). Either side of this central scene, Pilate pronounces Jesus’ innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b) and expresses the desire to transfer him to the Ἰουδαῖοι (18:31, 39; 19:6b). To make sense of these Johannine idiosyncrasies, I propose that what Pilate and his soldiers do in 19:1–3 is transform Jesus into a λῃστής, the type of figure responsible for the temple’s destruction. This is the most satisfying reading of the text, especially if situated as part of the triumphal tradition. As the praetorium and Pilate enter the narrative, so also does the wider world of Rome – with, for instance, its “triumphal culture.”34 That culture incorporates purple robes and crowns. In more specific terms, it also brings the propaganda of the Flavian dynasty that flowed out of the corresponding triumph and revolved around the Jerusalem temple’s destruction. In this section I will discuss the Johannine paradox of the conquering-if-conquered Christ in that light. Earlier, I noted that the crown does not torture the Johannine Jesus. Barrett supposes that it was “probably intended … as a crude imitation of the radiate crowns worn by supposedly divine oriental and Hellenistic ruler.”35 H. St. J. Hart argues that Jesus’ crown is “a caricature of the radiate crown of the divine ruler.”36 The “radiate crown” vividly represents the rays of the sun, to symbolise the god Helios. Hart notes that the crown is “elusive in literature,” but he also cites Suetonius, Augustus 94. 37 The father of Augustus dreams about seeing “his son of greater than mortal size with a thunderbolt and sceptre and emblems of Jupiter Best and Greatest and a radiate crown, on a chariot decorated with laurel drawn by twelve horses of astonishing whiteness.” Hart considers the numismatic context, too. Across a series of eight coins he sees consistency in the radiate crown, from roughly 200 BCE. Depicting Tiberius, the latest in the series is a billon tetradrachm of 19/20 CE from Alexandria. In terms of the proportions, the rays that rise up from the band of the crown are approximately half the height of the face. 38 So, the group reacts to Pilate handing Jesus over to be crucified by taking him (19:16b); and the lingering disciple goes into the tomb only once Peter has done so (20:8). 34 Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge: Belknap, 2007), 57. 35 Barrett, John, 540. Similarly, according to Lindars, John, 564, the robe is an “obvious symbol of royalty.” 36 Hart, “The Crown of Thorns,” 67. Not many commentators refer to him. Lindars, John, 564 suggests the possibility that the crown of Jesus was made from “spiky leaves of a frond of a palm tree, used to represent the radial crown of a king in the likeness of the sun and its rays.” 37 Hart, “Crown,” 70. 38 Campbell Bonner, “The Crown of Thorns,” HTR 1953 46:1 (1953): 47–48 follows and strengthens Hart’s case that the scene is mockery not torture.

196

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

image of the radiate crown was widely known in the first century CE, and it was immediately connected to Caesar. Making the imperial imagery more specific, Suetonius associates special robes and crowns with public displays.39 When he crossed a bridge as part of a spectacle, Caligula “was distinguished by his oak wreath, his Spanish shield, his sword, and his golden cloak” (Suetonius, Caligula 19). By way of that procession, Suetonius writes, Caligula signalled his claim on the empire. 40 Later, as he was giving some gladiatorial games, Caligula welcomed and then executed another, visiting ruler, because he “attracted the attention of the crowd” with “the splendour of his purple cloak” (Caligula 35). In purple and crown, Nero performed in Augustus’ own triumphal chariot, “being preceded by a procession displaying his other crowns, labelled to indicate whom he had defeated and with which songs or dramas” (Nero 25).41 Domitian presided over contests in purple and crown, “and at his side sat the priest of Jupiter and the college of Flaviales, dressed in the same manner except that their crowns also had images of the emperor” (Domitian 4). If the prefect and his soldiers dress the Johannine Jesus in crown and purple, they connect him to the imperial maiestas, to the way Caesar marks his superiority on public occasions. I suggest that John 18:28–19:22 uses the robe and the crown as triumphal tropes.42 Mary Beard’s thesis is that the Roman triumph is more a “cultural 39 Notwithstanding the above emphasis on radiate crowns, whether or not it is that crown (Suetonius, Augustus 94), or otherwise an oak wreath (Suetonius, Caligula 19), for instance, is unimportant. 40 Suetonius, Caligula 19 interprets the procession: “the astrologer Thrasyllus had reassured Tiberius, when he was anxious about who might succeed him and favoured his real grandson, that Gaius was no more likely to rule the empire than he was to ride with horses across the bay of Baiae.” 41 During another performance, Nero, having banned the use of purple, “noticed a woman wearing a forbidden colour and pointed her out to his agents, who dragged her out and stripped her on the spot not only of her robe but also of her property” (Suetonius, Nero 32). 42 Beard, Triumph, 81 generalises that the triumphing general “was dressed in an elaborate costume, a laurel crown, an embroidered tunic (tunica palmata) and a luxurious toga (originally of purple, toga purpurea, later decorated with golden stars, toga picta).” Elsewhere, Beard (p. 14) describes “the traditional costume of the triumphing general, which included an ornate purple toga and tunic.” With that has to come the warning that such generalisations are “grossly misleading,” for the “attempt to sum up a thousand years of ritual practice must involve drastic processes of selection, and the smoothing out of inconsistencies” (p. 82). However, the purple and the crown seem to be among the more stable elements of the triumph: “For Romans, triumphal costume certainly conjured up an image in purple and gold. These colors are consistently stressed in ancient accounts of the ceremony and are so closely linked with the figure of the general that writers can describe him simply as ‘purple,’ ‘golden,’ or ‘purple-and-gold.’ We also find a clear assumption in

2. Triumphs and the Flavians

197

idea” or “trope of power” than a “procession through the streets.” 43 Beard argues that in ancient Rome the triumph “remained a live presence in almost every usage” – in the triumph of slaves (over masters) in comedy, of clemency (over victory) in Seneca, and of Jesus in early Christianity.44 That is, “the triumph, as a cultural category as well as a ritual, had shifting and potentially controversial boundaries.”45 Read as part of the ancient triumphal tradition, what then is John’s “intellectual and ideological agenda”?46 Does John take up or oppose triumphalist ideology? Does John satirise triumphs? Or, does John sympathise with triumphalism?47 I am going to argue that John 18:28–19:22 depicts the death of Jesus as triumphal, paradoxically resembling both the “disapproving accounts of austere Roman moralists” and at the same time reproducing a Roman type of triumphalism over against unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι. 48 John uses the crown and purple to make Jesus the conquered “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” who conquers as “Jesus the Nazarene.” John disapproves of earthly triumphalism but approves its own heavenly triumphalism. “Petty sacrilege is punished; sacrilege on a grand scale is the stuff of triumphs” – Beard begins her monograph by quoting Seneca, Ep. 87.23, noting that the “quip is uncomfortably subversive.”49 She also considers what Cicero writes of the third triumph for Pompey, “he’s safeguarding that dinky little triumphal toga of his by keeping quiet” (Att. 1.18.6). “Either way, the attributes of triumphal glory are here cast as an unworthy obsession, the trinkets of honor rather than the real thing.” 50 And lastly she sees “a characteristically cynical narrative of the triumph” in Tacitus, Ann. 1.55. On the 17 CE triumph of Germanicus, Tacitus shows “that the very same ceremony can for some observers be a glorious celebration, for others a hypocritical sham.” 51 So, there is cynicism aimed at the triumph in ancient authors that the general’s ceremonial dress did represent a distinctive, special, and recognizable ensemble” (p. 228). 43 Beard, Triumph, 333. 44 Beard, Triumph, 50. She (p. 346 fn. 14) cites Plautus, Bac. 1068–75 (slaves); Seneca, Cl. 1.21.3; Ep. 71.22 (clemency); 2 Cor 2:14; Col 2:15; Tertullian, Apol. 50.1–4 (Christian triumph). 45 Beard, Triumph, 270. 46 Beard, Triumph, 38. 47 Beard, Triumph, 4 notes, “within Roman culture the triumph was the context and the prompt for some of the most critical thinking on the dangerous ambivalence of success and military glory.” 48 Beard, Triumph, 5. 49 Beard, Triumph, 1. 50 Beard, Triumph, 31. 51 Beard, Triumph, 109.

198

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

philosophical (Seneca), political (Cicero), and historical (Tacitus) commentary from Rome. If it is not uncommon and neither “un-Roman” nor “anti-Roman” to satirise the triumph, or a specific instance of it, then John may be pro-Roman and yet satirise certain aspects of triumphs.52 To make the comparison more plausible, the cultural category of the triumph is drawn on in wider early Christian theology, as the two occurrences of the verb θριαμβεύω (“triumph”) in the Pauline literature demonstrate. Colossians 2:15 reads, “he disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a show in public, triumphing over them in it (θριαμβεύω αὐτοὺς ἐν αὐτῷ).” 2 Corinthians 2:14, in addition, reads, “but grace to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ (τῷ πάντοτε θριαμβεύοντι ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ), and through us reveals in every place the smell (ὀσμή) of his knowledge.”53 Beside 2 Cor 2:14, 16, the noun ὀσμή occurs twice more in the Pauline corpus: in Phil 4:18 the ὀσμή relates to the sacrifice the Philippians made for the apostle, and in Eph 5:2 it relates to the sacrifice which Christ made for the believers. Suetonius, Nero 25 also associates the smell of death with triumph: “Everywhere he went, sacrificial victims were slain, perfume was sprinkled in all the streets.” Later in Paul’s letter, Christ dies and so all die (2 Cor 5:14), and Christ lives and so all live (v. 15). Jesus was conquered and at the same time is conquering, and so also are those in him. Pauline theology characterises Christ as victor and victim. Apart from the crown and purple in John 19:1–3, does the wider Johannine corpus intimate the triumphal tradition? In John 12:12 the great crowd takes branches of palm trees and meets Jesus outside Jerusalem, welcoming him as King of Israel (v. 13). The palm not only has branches, but it also produces Beard, Triumph, 139: “But the most militaristic societies can also be – and often are – those that query most energetically the nature and discontents of their own militarism. If we do not spot this aspect in the case of Rome, the chances are that we have turned a blind eye to those Roman debates, or that we have been looking in the wrong place. Literary representations of the triumph, with all their parade of hesitation and ambivalence over the status of victor and victim, are one of the key areas in which the problems as well as the glory of Roman victory were explored.” 53 Similarly, Tertullian, Apology 50. According to the NRSV, God “leads us in triumphal procession.” On the text and the question of whether Paul is writing as conqueror or conquered, see Christoph Heilig, Paul’s Triumph: Reassessing 2 Corinthians 2:14 in Its Literary and Historical Context (BTS 27; Leuven: Peeters, 2017). Others doubt that θριαμβεύω refers to the triumph of Rome, such as Paul Brooks Duff, “Metaphor, Motif, and Meaning: The Rhetorical Strategy behind the Image ‘Led in Triumph’ in 2 Corinthians 2:14,” CBQ 53 (1991): 79–92; Tzvi Novick, “Peddling Scents: Merchandise and Meaning in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17,” JBL 130:3 (2011): 543–49; Dominika A. Kurek-Chomycz, “Spreading the Sweet Scent of the Gospel as the Cult of the Wise: On the Backdrop of the Olfactory Metaphor in 2 Corinthians 2:14–16,” in Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible, ed. Christian Eberhart (RBS 68; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 115–33. 52

2. Triumphs and the Flavians

199

dates and thorns. 54 Because palms had thorns as well as branches, John assumes an implicit connection between 12:12 and 19:2.55 The palm is central to both Jesus’ triumphal city entry and Jesus’ triumphal presentation before his accusers. 56 Jesus is then exalted (ὑψόω, 3:14; 8:28; 12:32) as an otherworldly king (18:36) on the Johannine cross, after reassuring his disciples that he conquers the world (16:33), as he casts out (12:31) and judges its ruler (16:11), who has nothing over him (14:30).57 And for 1 John, believers also conquer the evil one (1 John 2:13, 14); the one who conquers the world is born out of God (5:4) and believes that Jesus is the son of God (v. 5). So the wider historical and narrative settings sharpen the triumphal connotations of John 19:1–3, as the centre of 18:28–19:22. Wherever exactly they were, late-first-century Jews would have known about the triumph led by Titus and his father Vespasian.58 Josephus records its most detailed account in The Jewish War, which he had at least mostly finished by 79 CE.59 There were earlier triumphs which pertained to Judea, namely those for Pompey (61 BCE) and Sosius (37 BCE).60 And Josephus refers to the capture of the temple by Pompey and its recapture by Sosius.61 Yet, the war that revolved around the Jerusalem temple’s destruction was Num. R. 3.6 states, “as the palm tree yields juicy dates, nicolaos dates, and dates of an inferior quality and also produces thorns, so it is with Israel.” 55 In both cases the subsequent verse describes a group acclaiming Jesus as King – of Israel in John 12:12, of Ἰουδαῖοι in 19:2. 56 Hart, “Crown,” 72. 57 Pompey’s triumphs (c. 80 BCE, 71 BCE, 61 BCE) similarly celebrated “Pompey the Great as world conqueror, and of Roman power as world empire” (Beard, Triumph, 10). They marked out “the planet as his, and as Rome’s, domain” (p. 15). “In Roman cultural memory Pompey’s whole life – his death no less than his birth – was tied to his moment of triumph” (p. 36). In John the λόγος won some type of victory over the darkness during creation (1:5). As with Pompey, the start and end of Jesus’ story are “tied to his moment of triumph.” Beard (p. 123) applies the language of global conquest to triumphs in general. She (p. 286) also remarks on the association between triumphs and the theme of death: “It was in Roman terms magnificently appropriate that when the emperor was looking for a theme for his triumphal dinner party, he should take such a funerary turn.” 58 There was also the triumph of Domitian (89 CE, over the Germans and Dacians), on which, see Dio 67.9; Beard, Triumph, 257–58. 59 For discussion of date, Steve Mason, “Josephus’ Judean War,” in A Companion to Josephus, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 13–35 (14–17). 60 Pompey led the Hasmonean King Aristobulus in the procession; see Appian, Mith. 117; by contrast, Josephus, Ant. 14.142. 61 Steve Mason, “Josephus’ Portrait of the Flavian Triumph in Historical and Literary Context,” in Der römische Triumph in Prinzipat und Spätantike, ed. Fabian Goldbeck and Johannes Wienand (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017), 125–76 (140 fn. 45) cites Josephus, War 2.356, 392; 5.396–98, 408–09, 506; 6.436. 54

200

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

something else – as was the ensuing Flavian triumph. What I will establish in this section is not what Johannine – implied, ideal, intended, real, or otherwise – audiences throughout the empire knew about the Flavian triumph. What I will show, rather, is that whichever part of the historical record – numismatic, archaeological, literary – is examined, the Flavian programme relied on the memory of the Jerusalem temple and the Jewish nation. The interpretation of John – in particular when Rome, the prefect Pilate, and his soldiers enter the narrative – ought not to neglect the records from the wider imperial world, especially those concerning the nation and temple of the Ἰουδαῖοι.62 Notwithstanding the oddities and ambiguities of the war, its use “for purely propagandistic purposes” is well attested. 63 The destruction of the Jerusalem temple was the basis for the renewed Rome under the Flavians, as is shown by the major economic markers of that dynasty: the tax (of the Jews), the coins, the arches, the new temple (of Peace), and the restored temple (of Capitoline Jupiter).64 At every turn, the Flavian economy had in view one building program that reflected one military triumph.65 According 62 Some analyses of Mark and Luke draw on the triumphal tradition: Paul Brooks Duff, “The March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the Greco-Roman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem,” JBL 111 (1992): 55–71; Schmidt, “Mark 15.16–32”; Brent Kinman, “Parousia, Jesus’ ‘A-Triumphal’ Entry, and the Fate of Jerusalem (Luke 19:28–44),” JBL 118 (1999): 279–94; Allan T. Georgia, “Translating the Triumph: Reading Mark’s Crucifixion Narrative against a Roman Ritual of Power,” JSNT 36:1 (2013): 17–38; Michal Beth Dinkler, “Reading the Potentials of Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” (Luke 19:28–40),” RevExp 112:4 (2015): 525–41. 63 Jürgen K. Zangenberg, “Peace from the Ashes: Commemorating the Wars in the East, the Centre, and the West of the Roman Empire during the ‘Long Year of the Four Emperors’ (68–70 CE),” in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy, ed. Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigchelaar, with the assistance of Laura Carlson, James Nati, Olivia Stewart, and Shlomo Zuckier (JSJSup 175; Leiden: Brill, 2017), 1418–52 (1432). 64 Similarly, James S. McLaren, “The Jews in Rome during the Flavian period,” Antichthon 47 (2013): 156–72 (159): “In Rome the Flavian victory was commemorated by the construction of five monuments: the Temple of Peace; the amphitheatre; two triumphal arches; and the restoration of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter.” Rashna Taraporewalla, “The Templum Pacis: Construction of Memory under Vespasian,” Acta Classica 53 (2010): 145– 63 (146) argues that Vespasian used the Temple of Peace to “construct a shared memory of the Jewish War and its consequences for Rome and the empire, thereby validating his claim to power.” 65 On this, see Mary Beard, “The Triumph of Flavius Josephus,” in Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. Anthony Boyle and William J. Dominik (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 543– 58 (557). Other factors suggest the unit of the Flavian economic programme and propaganda. On the Haterii tomb relief in Rome and the Flavian programme “grounded in the destruction of Jerusalem,” see Mason, History, 39–41. And on the Flavian Amphitheatre – or, Colosseum – that “was not an isolated monument, but the centrepiece of the dynasty’s monumental

2. Triumphs and the Flavians

201

to Jürgen K. Zangenberg, victors gain control over the memory of their victories, and the way in which the victories are remembered is “essential.”66 Victories can be remembered, furthermore, “in multiple, sometimes very different ways.”67 Vespasian had already started by minting IVDAEA CAPTA coins in Titus’s name in 69; in 70, he personally took possession of the city; in summer 71, he celebrated a triumph de Iudaeis with his sons, introduced the fiscus Iudaicus, reformed the financial system, and began prestigious building projects. Of these monuments, the Capitoline temple, the Templum Pacis, the Amphitheatrum Novum, and the temple of Claudius were completed by Vespasian himself. His successors Titus and Domitian continued his work by enlarging the Amphitheatrum Novum, building a temple for Vespasian on the Forum Romanum, and adding two monumental arches; in addition to that, they continued to mint the victory coins.68

The coins, the tax, the temples, the amphitheatre, and the arches convey over and again that “Judaea was, for the Flavians, the gift that kept on giving.”69 When Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian minted coins with the specific legend IUDAEA CAPTA or even the generic capta type, they recalled the Jerusalem temple’s destruction. 70 The generic capta type encompasses “a number of designs on which the provincial is represented as utterly defeated and the conqueror as all powerful.” 71 Jane Cody discusses its multiple variations from the first year of Vespasian through the reigns of his sons.72 David Hendin considers the coins in Judea from the reign of Domitian “echoes” and “continuations” of IUDAEA CAPTA.73 Hendin reasons that if Domitian used the same victory motifs as his kin did before his own Germany triumph, they referred to Judea.74 The type’s victory motifs reminded Judea that “the Flavian dynasty has defeated you and Domitian is the current representative of that dynasty and its power.”75 Domitian associated himself program,” see Andrew Zissos, “The Flavian Legacy,” in A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, ed. Andrew Zissos (BCAW; Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 487–514 (506). 66 Zangenberg, “Peace,” 1418. 67 Zangenberg, “Peace,” 1418. 68 Zangenberg, “Peace,” 1437. 69 Mason, History, 42. 70 Many of these coins can be viewed at http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?people=155346&peoA=155346-1-5, accessed September 13, 2018. 71 Jane M. Cody, “Conquerors and Conquered on Flavian Coins,” in Flavian Rome, 103– 23 (105). 72 Cody, “Coins,” 107. 73 David Hendin, “Echoes of ‘Judaea Capta’: The Nature of Domitian’s Coinage of Judea and Vicinity,” INR 2 (2007): 123–30. 74 Hendin, “Echoes,” 129. 75 Hendin, “Echoes,” 128.

202

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

with the victory, the glory of which was his to share76 As far as the legends go, Hendin notes one fouree denarius which portrays Domitian on the obverse and inscribes IUDAEA on the reverse. 77 But moreover, in 85 the IUDAEA CAPTA legend is itself explicitly attested on an orichalcum sestertius from Rome that depicts Judea seated and soldier standing, tied to a trophy (RIC 2, 280). 78 IUDAEA CAPTA probably recalled AEGYPTO CAPTA, the legend on coins issued by Augustus after Actium. Just as Augustan propaganda had AEGYPTO CAPTA, so Flavian propaganda had IUDAEA CAPTA. 79 In Zangenberg’s words, the IUDAEA CAPTA coins made up “the longest single coin family circulating in Roman imperial minting.”80 The association between the divinity of Titus and the Flavian triumph over the Jews and Jerusalem was memorialised in not one monumental arch, but two.81 The surviving (and restored) arch is in the Roman Forum, the recently discovered one in the Circus Maximus. First, covering the Sacra Via at the

Hendin, “Echoes,” 129. Hendin, “Echoes,” 125 fn. 3, plate 15:1. 78 On RIC 2, 280, see Martin Goodman, “The Fiscus Iudaicus and Gentile Attitudes to Judaism in Flavian Rome,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, 167–77 (171). D. Barag, “The Palestinian ‘Judaea Capta’ Coins of Vespasian and Titus and the Era on the Coins of Agrippa II Minted under the Flavians,” NC 7/18 (1978): 14–23 suggests that the IUDAEA CAPTA coins in Judea were minted from 71 to as late as 79. Cody, “Coins,” 112 highlights that in 85 and 87 Domitian issued coins with the inscription GERMANIA CAPTA. 79 Jonathan Edmondson, “Introduction: Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, 1–33 (10). 80 Zangenberg, “Peace,” 1431. 81 They “occupied two of the most prominent and visible locations in the entire city of Rome,” and they “lay directly on this route” of the triumph. On this, see Fergus Millar, “Last Year in Jerusalem: Monuments of the Jewish War in Rome,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, 101–28 (103, 106). Also, the relief on the surviving arch depicts the triumph of 71 passing under an undefined arch (also War 7.130) (Millar, “Last Year in Jerusalem,” 123). Maggie L. Popkin, The Architecture of the Roman Triumph: Monuments, Memory, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 115 also relates the arch in the Circus Maximus to the route of the triumph. Penelope J. E. Davis, Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 23 suggests that the arch on the Velian “cannot be regarded as a simple triumphal monument”: “Rather, with its apotheosis scene and its celebration of Titus as a divus, it functioned as a commemorative monument occasioned by his death.” Similarly, R. Ross Holloway, “Some Reflections on the Arch of Titus,” AC 56 (1987): 183–91 argues that the two arches were intended to be read together, as the eulogy of Domitian for Titus. 76 77

2. Triumphs and the Flavians

203

Velian, the arch in the Forum was erected in the early 80s – probably soon after Titus died.82 The inscription on the side facing east reads, the Senate and the Roman People to the Deified Titus Vespasianus Augustus, son of the Deified Vespasianus.83

Of the two panels inside the passage, one depicts Titus in his chariot alone.84 The other highlights the carrying of the booty from the Jerusalem temple, in particular its menorah. Each side of the arch depicts the procession, but the underside celebrates the apotheosis of Titus. This apotheosis, where Titus became divine, was the rationale for the monument. 85 Beard notes “the structural connection between the ceremony of triumph and the divine status of the general.”86 The triumph not only demonstrated Flavian maiestas but also sealed it, into the following decade and eternity.87 Second, the inscription on the Circus Maximus arch reads, the Senate and People of Rome to Imp(erator) Titus Caesar Vespasianus, son of the Deified Vespasianus, pontifex maximus, with tribunicia potestas for the tenth time, (hailed as) Imp(erator) for the seventeenth time, consul for the eighth time, their princeps, because on the instructions and advice of his father, and under his auspices, he subdued the race of the Jews and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, which by all generals, kings, or races previous to himself had either been attacked in vain or not even attempted at all.88

82 See broadly Jaś Elsner, “Introduction,” in Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, ed. Jaś Elsner and Michel Meyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 1–34 (8–17), as well as Galit Noga-Banai, Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome (OSLA; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 10–13. On the testimony of only the surviving arch and Josephus, see Barbara Eberhardt, “Wer dient wem? Die Darstellung des Flavischen Triumphzuges auf dem Titusbogen und bei Josephus (B.J. 7.123–162),” in Josephus And Jewish History in Flavian Rome And Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (JSJSup 104; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 257–77. 83 Senatus Populusque Romanus Divo Tito Divi Vespasiani f(ilio) Vespasiano Augusto (CIL 6.945 = ILS 265); text and translation from Millar, “Last Year in Jerusalem,” 123. 84 Josephus places Vespasian before Titus, and Domitian among them (War 7.121). See Davis, Death, 68. 85 On this, see Michael Pfanner, Der Titusbogen (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1983), the standard monograph on the arch. 86 Beard, Triumph, 238. 87 Similarly, Mason, History, 36–37: “The remarkable thing for us is that, after a decade of Flavian rule and the deaths of the first two Flavians, this arch shows that Judaea remained the family’s great achievement and signal testament to Titus’ character.” 88 Senatus Populusq(ue) Romanus Imp(eratori) Tito Caesari divi Vespasiani f(ilio) Vespasian[o] Augusto, pontif(ici) max(imo), trib(unicia) pot(estate) X, imp(eratori) XVII, [c]o(n)s(uli) VIII, p(atri) p(atriae), principi suo, quod praeceptis patr[is] consiliisq(ue) et auspiciis gentem Iudaeorum domuit et urbem Hierusolymam omnibus ante se ducibus,

204

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

So the Senate honoured Titus as new princeps, because he subdued the nation of the Ἰουδαῖοι and destroyed the city of Jerusalem. Steve Mason sets out to reframe Josephus’ account of the epochal Flavian procession “as one part of” The Jewish War, “to understand the triumph in its literary context.”89 The main themes of the book are “those connected with the Judaean character, with managing the polis, with Jerusalem’s unfolding tragedy, and with the temple’s holiness, pollution, and purification.” 90 The “climax” of the “plot” is the burning of the temple, which is God judging the impurity of the nation, not the will of Titus. 91 The triumph account itself “seems odd from the perspective of Josephus’ narrative,” and Josephus’ nice Titus “sits awkwardly with the all-conquering hero of Flavian propaganda.”92 Mason argues that Josephus accentuates the jarring relationship between the events in Judea and their part in the ensuing dynastic propaganda.93 Mason concludes that “the Flavian triumph as Josephus presents it was a thoroughly manufactured, artificial affair.” 94 The new dynasts had to cast it as “Augustus-like” and “epoch-making.”95 As Zangenberg notes similarly, “this triumph was the public inauguration of a new imperial family that here and now, for the first time, appeared in public together.”96 The account of the Flavian triumph is in Josephus, War 7.116–57.97 Before the triumph began, the sight of the three Flavians together overjoyed the multitude in the city (War 7.120). At the start of the day, Vespasian and Titus emerge for their triumph crowned (στεφανόω) with laurels and wearing the traditional purple robes (πορφυρᾶς δ᾿ ἐσθῆτας πατρίους ἀμπεχόμενοι, 7.124). 98 There are customary prayers (εὐχὰς ἐποιήσατο τὰς νενομισμένας, 7.128), and there is the gate through which processions always (ἀεί, 7.130) go. It was ancient tradition to stop the procession (ἦν γὰρ παλαιὸν πάτριον

regibus, gentibus aut frustra petitam aut omnino intemptatam delevit (CIL 6.944 = ILS 264); text and translation from Millar, “Monuments,” 120. 89 Mason, “Triumph,” 126, 170. 90 Mason, “Triumph,” 141. 91 Mason, “Triumph,” 135, 136. 92 Mason, “Triumph,” 141, 147. 93 Mason, “Triumph,” 156. 94 Mason, “Triumph,” 170. 95 Mason, “Triumph,” 172. 96 Zangenberg, “Peace,” 1439. 97 In his discussion Mason separates the text into War 7.122–31 (preparations), 132–35 (treasure), 136–38 (gods, animals, prisoners), 139–47 (floats, battle tapestries), 148–52 (temple spoils), 153–57 (executing Simon). For parallels, see Suetonius, Vespasian 8; Titus 6; Dio 66.7.1. 98 Mason, “Triumph” 156, italics original: “They do everything that Roman tradition expects”; “Josephus emphasizes by repetition the traditional nature of all this.”

2. Triumphs and the Flavians

205

περιμένειν) until the execution of the enemy general at the Capitoline temple – the purpose (τέλος) of the procession (πομπή) – was reported (7.153). So Simon bar Giora was led in the procession among the captives (πεπομπευκὼς ἐν τοῖς αἰχμαλώτοις) and then tormented (αἰκίζω), before death for his wickedness (κακουργία, 7.154). 99 He was slain at the temple, according to Roman law (νόμος δ᾿ ἐστὶ Ῥωμαίοις, 7.154). It is the pinnacle of the mimetic exercise (7.146), in which generals of different cities were represented as they were taken (7.147). 100 Josephus then turns, by way of epilogue, to Vespasian building the new temple of Peace (7.158) and housing in it items from the Jerusalem temple (7.161). The law and the purple curtains were to be stored in the royal palace (7.162).101 If “Rome is restored as kingmaker,” then the usurper Simon bar Giora must be sacrificed.102 He fails to escape in purple from the temple ruins (War 7.29), and Caesar decides to keep him for the triumph (θρίαμβος) at Rome (7.36). In Josephus’ literary account, Simon becomes as an enemy king in the Flavian triumph.103 Beard writes the following on the importance of foreign kings to Roman triumphs: The triumph, as it came to be written up at least, was a key context in which Rome dramatized the conflict between its own political system … and the kings and kingship

99 See Beard, Triumph, 128 for the executions that sometimes occurred as the triumphal parade was about to ascend the Capitoline hill. She (p. 131) expands: “But that does not necessarily indicate that celebrity executions toward the end of the procession were a regular feature of the ceremony. Far from it. The economy of violence and power is extremely complex, and it operated in Rome, as elsewhere, by fantasy, report, threat, and denial as much as it did by the sword or noose itself… But often, as here, there is a good case for seeing the bloodshed more as part of a pattern of menacing discourse than of regular practice.” 100 On this mimetic exercise, see Beard, “Triumph,” 551: “With mimesis like this, who needs reality?… Nothing so unusual about that: it was one of the standard stunts of a triumphal procession to show off the star enemy prisoners, acting out the circumstances of their own defeat … Triumphal processions also served to model Roman imperialism: they put on show the fruits of conquest at the very heart of the empire; they brought the empire to Rome, for all to witness.” 101 With the reference to Simon emerging from the temple ruins, the text has one of the two uses of πορφυροῦς (“purple”) in The Jewish War: 7.29 and 162. 102 A. J. Boyle, “Introduction: Reading Flavian Rome,” in Flavian Rome, 1–67 (57). 103 Mason, “Triumph,” 169 highlights just how jarring this seems: “Aemilius Paullus forced King Perseus to shuffle along behind his children and their attendants in pathetic humiliation (Plu. Aem. 33.6–34.2). Pompey reportedly exhibited an enormous statue of the deceased Mithridates along with 324 generals and royals whom he had fought (App. Mithr. 116). Augustus had portrayed the dead Cleopatra (Cass. Dio 51.21.8). The Flavians had no great generals or monarchs to put on display – since, again, they had ‘conquered’ one of their own provinces. They had to use Simon bar Giora as a symbol of the make-believe enemy nation, as though Simon were the champion of war against Rome.”

206

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

which characterized so much of the outside world. Of course, many Roman triumphs did not actually celebrate victories over kings; still less did they have a king on display in the parade. Nevertheless, kings were seen as the ideal adversaries of Roman military might. They dominated the imaginative reconstructions of historical triumphs; and the inscribed triumphal Fasti in the Forum specified carefully when the celebration had boasted a royal victim, by adding the king’s name to the usual formula of defeat – “de Aetolis et rege Antiocho,” “over the Aetolians and King Antiochus.” No other category of enemy was picked out in the inscription in this way.104

Simon bar Giora has kingship that opposes the imperial maiestas. And in the same way, the accusation made against Jesus in John concerns a usurping kingship that overrides Caesar. Josephus uses the adjective πάτριος (War 7.124, 153) to situate the crown and the purple of Rome as traditional, as well as the execution of their enemy. Whereas in Mark 15:18 the soldiers mock the “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” by saluting him, in John 19:3 they mock him by repeatedly giving the “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” slaps, as if to represent his defeat. 105 Moreover, whereas in Mark 15:20 the soldiers change Jesus out of the purple into his own clothes after completing the mockery and before the crucifixion, in John Jesus remains in the kingly appearance.106 In purple and crown (v. 2), and mockdefeated with slaps as “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (v. 3), the Johannine Jesus enters the triumphal tradition as paradoxically victor and victim, as both executed national king made by the Ἰουδαῖοι and divinised temple builder offered to the world.107 Jesus is, like Simon bar Giora, the usurping King of the Ἰουδαῖοι who destroyed the temple. And he is, like Vespasian, the glorious sign that God is using Rome to restore the temple.108 Vespasian, Titus, and eventually Domitian had imperium on the basis of the maiestas Judea’s capture and the ensuing triumph demonstrated:

Beard, Triumph, 121, italics original. John connects together three imperfect verbal forms – ἤρχοντο (“they were coming”), ἔλεγον (“they were saying”), ἐδίδοσαν (“they were giving”) – to emphasise continuous action performed by the soldiers present. 106 According to Brown, Death, 870 John “clearly imagines that at the moment of crucifixion (19:23) Jesus is wearing ordinary clothes, including a tunic, and not royal purple.” Michaels, John, 940 suggests, “Jesus is no longer said to be wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorns.” Yet, John has not mentioned any change in appearance since 19:2 and 5, and that modified appearance has become crucial to what Pilate is trying to communicate to the Ἰουδαῖοι. Whereas Mark 15:20 makes clear that Jesus is changed out of the purple and into his own garment, John does not. 107 Georgia, “Translating the Triumph,” 30 “Mark 11 and 15 develop the practical logic of the Roman triumph to depict Jesus in a polysemic way, as victor and victim, in each text.” 108 The two anonymous others with Jesus (John 19:18) make an echo of the three triumphal Flavians (Josephus, War 7.152) easier to imagine. 104 105

3. Summary

207

almost all the wonderful items of great value produced by various other nations, which individuals who have made their fortune could only acquire one by one, were here on this day exhibited in profusion to demonstrate the reach of the Roman Empire (τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονίας ἔδειξε τὸ μέγεθος). (Josephus, War 7.133)

Likewise, in John the Son takes on the δόξα of the Father on the triumphal cross, and the Son alone bears and shares that δόξα. The triumph not only memorialised the victory but also sealed the new Flavian epoch. To recognise the epoch, and that the law and the curtains of the Jerusalem temple are moved to the palace in Rome, Josephus observes that God is with Italy, not Judea (War 5.367).109 So many Judeans unsurprisingly wanted to stay with Titus, whether in Judea or elsewhere, according to the tradition in Suetonius, Titus 5. John seems to be in at least a similar sense anti-Judea and pro-Rome. As the sacrifice of that λῃστής inaugurated the Flavian dynasty and reinstated Roman maiestas throughout the entire empire, the Johannine Jesus dies as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι not only to send away the sin of the nation but also to reaffirm Rome as kingmaker.110 Johannine theology is thus pro-colonialist.111

3. Summary 3. Summary

John characterises Jesus as ambiguously victor and victim. Of the Roman triumph, Beard asks, “Where, we are being asked to wonder, does the boundary lie between triumphant general and this proud prisoner? Both are royally clad in purple, aloft in their chariots, leaders (duces) of their people. What does it take to tell them apart?”112 The Johannine Jesus exploits “the slippage between captive and triumphator.”113 John 19:1–3, the centre of the 109 On positive Jewish views of Rome before and during the war, see Julia Wilker, “‘God is with Italy Now’: Pro-Roman Jews and the Jewish Revolt,” in Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba: Groups, Normativity, and Rituals, ed. Benedikt Eckhardt (JSJSup 155; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 157–87. 110 Schmidt, “Mark 15.16–32,” 15 concludes that Mark’s triumph culminates in “the moment of Jesus’ death, the moment of sacrifice.” On Jesus as the atoning goat that removes the nation’s sin, see earlier Chapter 7. 111 Unlike Luke: Dinkler, “Reading the potentials,” 536 finds that “anti-colonialist and pro-colonialist potentials are paradoxically woven together throughout Luke’s Triumphal Entry scene.” 112 Beard, Triumph, 136, on Ovid, Tr. 4.2.19–24, 27–28, 47–48. Also, Georgia, “Translating the Triumph,” 32: “The slippage between the proud captive of a Roman triumph and the triumphing general has been exploited in Mark’s Gospel to invest within Jesus the role of both.” 113 Turn of phrase from Georgia, “Translating the Triumph,” 33, who is writing about Mark.

208

Chapter 8: Scene 4, John 19:1–3

episode at Pilate’s praetorium, portrays Jesus as a twofold triumphal protagonist, as executed national king made by the Ἰουδαῖοι and divinised temple builder offered to the world. As he reflects Titus and Vespasian, Jesus upholds the imperial maiestas. And reflecting Simon bar Giora, Jesus abuses it. As both conqueror and conquered, Jesus embodies the twofold mockery of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Because he is conquered by Rome as the king they make, he conquers the world the Ἰουδαῖοι represent.114 The inescapable problem is that, notwithstanding the paradoxical subversion, John produces an undesirable triumphalism over the unbelieving world of the Ἰουδαῖοι.

114 Adam Winn, The Purpose of Mark’s Gospel: An Early Christian Response to Roman Imperial Propaganda (WUNT 2/245; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 132 notices that in Mark the accusers of Jesus give him his own triumph.

Chapter 9

Scene 5, John 19:4–8 Just as tradition has obscured the probability that the famous Ecce Homo arch in Jerusalem is from the second, not first, century CE, so the history of reception has obscured the ambiguity of who makes the famous ecce homo pronouncement in John 19:5.1 The subject of λέγει in καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος is ambiguous. Is it Pilate, or Jesus? If Pilate, he may be endorsing Jesus, the heavenly judge of the Ἰουδαῖοι. But if Jesus, he may be endorsing Pilate, the earthly judge of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Or, combining both readings, the emergent meaning could be that John connects the earthly and heavenly judgements of the Ἰουδαῖοι. But the Ἰουδαῖοι see neither the sin they are doing nor the impending judgements from Caesar and God. They accuse Jesus as self-made Son of God (v. 7), even though Pilate tells them that he finds in Jesus no cause for accusation for the second (v. 4) and third (v. 6b) times, and even though Pilate offers to transfer Jesus to them for the third (v. 6b) time. Pilate aims to persuade the Ἰουδαῖοι by bringing Jesus outside, to display him as the dressed (vv. 2, 5) and defeated (vv. 1, 3) usurper (18:40). But they remain blind. Καὶ ἐξῆλθεν πάλιν ἔξω ὁ Πιλᾶτος καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἴδε ἄγω ὑμῖν αὐτὸν ἔξω, ἵνα γνῶτε ὅτι οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ. 5 ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἔξω, φορῶν τὸν ἀκάνθινον στέφανον καὶ τὸ πορφυροῦν ἱμάτιον. καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος. 6 Ὅτε οὖν εἶδον αὐτὸν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ ὑπηρέται ἐκραύγασαν λέγοντες· σταύρωσον σταύρωσον λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Πιλᾶτος· λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς καὶ σταυρώσατε· ἐγὼ γὰρ οὐχ εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ αἰτίαν. 7 ἀπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι· ἡμεῖς νόμον ἔχομεν καὶ κατὰ τὸν νόμον ὀφείλει ἀποθανεῖν, ὅτι υἱὸν θεοῦ ἑαυτὸν ἐποίησεν. 8 Ὅτε οὖν ἤκουσεν ὁ Πιλᾶτος τοῦτον τὸν λόγον, μᾶλλον ἐφοβήθη, On the reception of John 19:5, see Mark Edwards, John (BBC; Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 176–77. And on the second-century date of the Jerusalem arch, see Caroline Arnould, “The ‘Ecce Homo’ Arch in Jerusalem: Analysis of the Architecture and New Evidence for Dating,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, Division B: History of the Jewish People, ed. Ron Margolin (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2000), 45–48; Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon’s Temple to the Muslim Conquest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 158; Kathryn Blair Moore, The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 138. 1

210

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

Pilate exited outside again. And he says to them, “Look, I am leading him to you outside, in order that you may recognise that I find in him no cause for accusation.” 5 So Jesus exited outside, wearing the thorn-crown and the purple robe. And he says to them, “Behold, the human!” 6 So when the chief priests and the assistants saw him, they shouted, saying, “Crucify! Crucify!” Pilate says to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify; for I find in him no cause for accusation.” 7 The Ἰουδαῖοι answered him, “We have a law, and according to the law, he ought to die, because he made himself Son of God.” 8 So when Pilate heard this word, rather, he became afraid. (John 19:4–8)

1. ἴδε, the accusation, and Jesus’ innocence 1. ἴδε, the accusation, and Jesus’ innocence

The scene begins in John 19:4 with a small textual problem. The NA28 reads και εξηλθεν (“and he exited”) with A, B, and L. However, ℵ has εξηλθεν (“he exited”), without any conjunction. P66 was corrected to read, like N and W, εξηλθεν ουν (“therefore, he exited”). The uncertainty among the manuscripts problematises the connection between vv. 3 and 4. Does it need a conjunction? And if so, which one? NA28 seems right to give καὶ ἐξῆλθεν. But whether or not that was the earliest, prevalent reading is beside the point. The emergence of the conjunction οὖν throughout the manuscript tradition is significant in itself. Copyists added it to mark the nature of the transition between vv. 3 and 4. Copying and reading communities (N, W, P66 corrector) assumed that v. 3 causes v. 4 in some sense. What has just happened has caused Pilate to exit and make an announcement. But that causal relationship is not immediately clear. What has happened in scene four? And what does Pilate therefore announce? John 19:1–3 portrayed Pilate scourging Jesus, the soldiers dressing Jesus in crown and purple, and then defeating him as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate had just declared Jesus innocent in 18:38b. What Pilate announces in 19:4, when he returns outside, follows. He says that he leads Jesus outside to make the Ἰουδαῖοι recognise the innocence verdict. The purpose clause reads, “in order that you may recognise that I find in him no basis for accusation” (ἵνα γνῶτε ὅτι οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ). Pilate assumes that he needs to make the verdict visible. But he has already announced it in 18:38b, so what has changed since then? How does the intervening fourth scene necessitate another two verdict announcements (vv. 4, 6b)? What does the verdict have to do with Jesus emerging from the praetorium (v. 4)? What does the verdict have to do with the scourges, crown, purple, and slaps (vv. 1–3)? I suggest that the answer lies with the interjection Pilate uses in v. 4: ἴδε. The use of ἴδε in John 19:4 is peculiar, not least because the similar interjection ἰδού occurs in v. 5. If the object of attention is about to become apparent, ἴδε is used. But if it is already apparent, ἰδού is used. So the deciding variable seems to pertain to time. In “look out (ἴδε) everywhere for a small donkey for him” (πανταχόθεν ἴδε αὐτῷ μικρὸν ὀναρίδιον) ἴδε marks the

1. ἴδε, the accusation, and Jesus’ innocence

211

order to search for the donkey.2 In “behold (εἰδού), the purple is put with the tools” (εἰδοὺ γὰρ καὶ τὸ πορφύρειν μετὰ τῶν συ[ν]έργων κεῖντε) εἰδού marks the order to pay attention to where the purple is.3 Also, ἴδε is the imperative of εἶδον (“see”), and ἰδού is the imperative of εἴδομαι (“be apparent”); one is active, the other middle. So ἴδε occurs when the object of seeing is becoming apparent, and ἰδού occurs when it is already apparent. John presumes that difference between ἴδε and ἰδού, and uses them accordingly. Usually ἴδε signals an idea that an episode repeats another time.4 In John 11:3 Lazarus’ sisters tell Jesus, “Lord, look (ἴδε), he whom you love (ὃν φιλεῖς) is sick.” Then in v. 36 the Ἰουδαῖοι say, “Look (ἴδε), how he loved him (ἐφίλει αὐτόν).” Both texts pair φιλέω (“love”) + pronoun with ἴδε. In 1:29, when he saw Jesus approaching, John announced, “Look (ἴδε), the lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world.” Then in v. 36 John largely repeats himself when he sees Jesus walking by him the next day: ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.5 In 19:26 Jesus sees his disciple with his mother and tells her, “Look (ἴδε), your son.” And in v. 27, Jesus says to his disciple, “Look (ἴδε), your mother.” In v. 4 Pilate tells the Ἰουδαῖοι, “Look (ἴδε), I am leading him out to you.” And in v. 14 Pilate points to Jesus, seated on the judgement bench, and tells the Ἰουδαῖοι, “Look (ἴδε), your king.” In light of v. 14, v. 4 emphasises what the accusation against Jesus looks like. The use of ἴδε in v. 4 fits a pattern seen across the gospel. John 19:4 seems to portray two senses, that is, of two corresponding verdicts. The more immediate one is that Pilate mocks the Ἰουδαῖοι by presenting Jesus to them as the usurping and defeated King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Pilate intends to make the Ἰουδαῖοι recognise the verdict that Jesus is innocent. The other sense of the announcement is more subtle. John 18:38b; 19:4, 6b emphasise the innocence of Jesus, and 19:4 visualises that verdict. So if Jesus is so explicitly and visibly innocent, is some other party guilty? If Pilate finds in Jesus no basis for the accusation, why is Jesus dressed and defeated according to it? The target cannot be Jesus himself. Rather, the accusers themselves are in view. Pilate and his soldiers have defeated the λῃστής the Ἰουδαῖοι demanded (18:39). If Pilate declares the innocence of MM, s.v. ἴδε, citing P. Ryl. II, 23921 (3rd c. CE). MM, s.v. ἰδού, citing P. Oxy. VII, 106911 (3rd c. CE). 4 Otherwise, in another pattern, John uses ἴδε with παρρησία (“boldness”) four times: (a) καὶ ἴδε παρρησίᾳ λαλεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν αὐτῷ λέγουσιν (John 7:26), with vv. 4, 13; (b) ἴδε ὁ κόσμος ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ ἀπῆλθεν (12:19), with 7:4, 13; 11:54; (c) ἴδε νῦν ἐν παρρησίᾳ λαλεῖς καὶ παροιμίαν οὐδεμίαν λέγεις (16:29), with v. 25; (d) ἴδε οὗτοι οἴδασιν ἃ εἶπον ἐγώ (18:21), with v. 20. Sometimes ἴδε does not so clearly fit in any pattern: ἴδε ἀληθῶς Ἰσραηλίτης ἐν ᾧ δόλος οὐκ ἔστιν (1:47); ἴδε ὑγιὴς γέγονας μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε ἵνα μὴ χεῖρόν σοί τι γένηται (5:14). 5 In John 3:26 the disciples of the baptiser use ἴδε: “the one to whom you witnessed, look (ἴδε), he baptises.” 2 3

212

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

Jesus, he also declares the guilt of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Jesus is innocent of declaring kingship not ratified by Caesar, but the Ἰουδαῖοι are guilty of doing so. Jesus did not pronounce a king, but the Ἰουδαῖοι did. So by the accusation they bring to Pilate, the Ἰουδαῖοι oppose Caesar. John 19:5a continues the emphasis on the visuality of the verdict: “So (οὖν) Jesus exited outside, wearing the thorny crown and the purple robe.” To emphasise the connection between Pilate’s verdict and Jesus’ emergence, John uses the conjunction οὖν. Pilate wants the Ἰουδαῖοι to recognise the verdict, and the result is that he brings Jesus outside as a defeated usurper. John 19:5 repeats, from v. 2, the details of the thorny crown and purple robe. This repetition emphasises that the items were not taken off Jesus. The Johannine Jesus is not stripped before being crucified, as the Markan // Matthean // Lukan Jesus is.6 John places the tradition of the soldiers dividing Jesus’ clothing after John 18:28–19:22 ends.7 He approaches the cross in his purple and his crown.8 He goes to death as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, according to the accusation the Ἰουδαῖοι made against him, of which Pilate has declared him innocent.

2. ecce homo in reverse 2. ecco homo in reverse

Barrett calls John 19:5 “one of the most dramatic moments” at the praetorium.9 The accusers did not see the accused at all in the first half of the episode. They had interactions with Pilate in scenes one (18:29–32) and three (vv. 38b–40). They are unaware of what precisely has transpired between Jesus and Pilate in scene two, where Jesus has shown that the accusation is wrong. Because Pilate goes on immediately to announce Jesus’ innocence to the accusers in scene three (v. 38b), Jesus has won Pilate’s sympathy in scene two. The fifth scene, before which the Ἰουδαῖοι did not anticipate or witness Jesus being dressed up and treated as defeated royalty, repeatedly stresses the appearance of Jesus. In v. 4 Pilate tells the accusers to “look” (ἴδε), and in v. 5 the crown and the purple are again, after v. 2, mentioned. Pilate intends to communicate the verdict by what the accusers see. Confirmation comes in the shouted response of v. 6a: “Crucify! Crucify!” The reader recalls 8:28 and the

Mark 15:20 // Matt 27:31 // Luke 23:34. John and Luke are not very different: John 19:23–25a occurs after the writing of the inscription (vv. 19–22); Luke 23:38 mentions the inscription after the stripping (v. 34). 8 Moloney, John, 495. 9 Barrett, John, 541; “The situation is highly dramatic but equally improbable” (p. 540). 6 7

2. ecco homo in reverse

213

prophecy about the Ἰουδαῖοι “taking it upon themselves” to exalt Jesus. 10 Pilate replies with his verdict, stated the third time, in v. 6b. What happens next is particularly problematic. John 19:5b has καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος (“and he says to them, behold, the human”). The subject of the verb λέγω (“say”) is unstated, as also is the identity of the ἄνθρωπος (“human”). Three readings are possible. First, Pilate says, “behold, the human,” with respect to Jesus. Second, Jesus says, “behold, the human,” with respect to Pilate. And third, the openness of the text leads into an unexpected, paradoxical interplay of the first two readings. The second and third options may seem strange, in particular in light of the strong reception of the first option throughout history. But three arguments from John problematise that first reading. So in the following I will analyse the way John uses ἰδού (“behold”), the syntax of John 19:4 and 5, and the function of the expression ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος in LXX 1 Sam 9:17. John uses ἰδού (“behold”) four times, in 4:35; 12:15; 16:32; 19:5. First, Jesus says to the disciples, “do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? Behold (ἰδού), I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the fields, that they are ripe for harvesting” (4:35). Second, Jesus sits on a young donkey, “as it is written: ‘Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion: behold (ἰδού), your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt’” (12:14–15, quoting Zech 9:9).11 Third, Jesus says to his disciples, “behold (ἰδού), the hour is coming and has come” (16:32).12 The sample is only small, but these are the only data in John. As far as those instances of ἰδού complement 19:5, John prompts an interpretation in which ἰδού is on Jesus’ lips (4:35; 16:32), or in a quotation from the scriptures (12:15). I suggest that the text is sufficiently ambiguous for both to be the case. So 19:5b may well be interpreted as though Jesus is quoting a scripture that applies to Pilate. But Pilate may also, according to the tradition, be taken as the one who says ecce homo. Taken together, John 19:4 and v. 5 indicate that Jesus says “behold, the human” (ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος) in relation to Pilate. Verse 4 uses ἐξῆλθεν + ἔξω + ὁ Πιλᾶτος to indicate that Pilate exits outside. And v. 5 uses ἐξῆλθεν + ὁ Ἰησοῦς + ἔξω to indicate that Jesus exits outside. The subject of the first verb, ἐξῆλθεν, is given in each text, but the subject of the second verb, λέγει, is given in neither. So just as the most natural reading of v. 4 is “[Pilate] says to them,” so the most natural reading of v. 5, is “[Jesus] says to them.” Put simply, the text does not explicitly indicate that Pilate says “behold, the Moloney, Glory not Dishonor, 139. See earlier Chapter 6. 12 Each of the three uses of ἰδού occur with ἔρχεται. Instead of the present tense form ἔρχεται, or the perfect tense form ἐλήλυθεν, John 19:5 has the aorist tense form ἐξῆλθεν (“he went out”); the verbs ἔρχομαι and ἐξέρχομαι are cognate with each other. 10 11

214

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

human.” And furthermore, it implicitly makes Jesus the more natural grammatical subject. I am not excluding the possible reading of v. 5b that Pilate says “behold, the human,” but following on from v. 4, Jesus is comfortably the more plausible subject. Why then would the Johannine Jesus say “behold, the human” (ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος) about Pilate? When Samuel sees Saul in LXX 1 Sam 9:17, Yahweh says to him, “behold, the human (ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος), he whom I said to you, ‘this one will rule among my people.’” 1 Samuel 9:17 relates to the law of kingship in Deut 17:14–20.13 As 1 Sam 9:2 makes clear that Saul is superior among the sons of Israel, so Deut 17:15 stipulates that an Israelite must be the one who rules Israel. Yet other Jewish literature incorporates foreign, imperial rulers. 14 In Isaiah and 2 Chronicles Yahweh anoints his servant and shepherd Cyrus to rule the earth and build the temple. In Wisdom Sophia allows imperial rulers to participate in a universalised, democratised Davidic kingship. And in The Jewish War God has moved over to and rules through the Romans. So as Pilate is given the imperial maiestas to judge from Caesar into Judea, he is also given ἐξουσία to release and to crucify (John 19:10) from God (v. 11). In John 19:5b, then, Jesus may identify the ruler of the nation, just as Yahweh did in LXX 1 Sam 9:17: not Saul the Israelite, but Pilate the Roman.15 Those three arguments aside, the comparison between LXX 1 Sam 9:17 and John 19:5b can be read another way. Jesus can proclaim Pilate as ruler, but the inverse can also work, if Pilate is taken as the subject of λέγει in John 19:5b. As Thompson has noted, “Pilate’s words … echo” Yahweh’s.16 But as Brant concedes, “What Pilate could mean by these words is less clear.”17 I Christophe Nihan, “1 Samuel 8 and 12 and the Deuteronomistic Edition of Samuel,” in Is Samuel among the Deuteronomists? Current Views on the Place of Samuel in a Deuteronomistic History, ed. Cynthia Edenburg and Juha Pakkala (AIIL 16; Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 225–73 (236) suggests that some specific texts (such as 1 Sam 8:5 and 10:24) and the unit more widely (that is, 1 Samuel 8–12) were probably always transmitted with the law of kingship in Deut 17:14–20. Wilson, Kingship, 100 similarly says that 1 Sam 8:20 was “mnemonically linked” to the law. 14 On this and below, see earlier Chapter 2. 15 Whereas Yahweh will reject Saul (1 Sam 15:23, 26, 28) and regret making him king (v. 35), John does not suggest that Pilate will be rejected by God. 16 Thompson, John, 383. Dieter Böhler, “‘Ecce Homo!’ (Joh 19,5) ein Zitat aus dem Alten Testament,” BZ 39 (1995): 104–08 proposes that John 19:5 echoes LXX 1 Sam 9:17. Keener, John, 1123 likewise suggests, “here John may well expect the more biblically literate members of his audience to recall Samuel’s acclamation of Israel’s first king with identical words.” Jason J. Ripley, “‘Behold the Man’? Subverting Imperial Masculinity in the Gospel of John,” JBibleRecept 2:2 (2015): 219–39 (223 fn. 10) agrees that the use of ἄνθρωπος is governed by an allusion to LXX 1 Sam 9:17. 17 Brant, John, 247. 13

2. ecco homo in reverse

215

suggest that Pilate’s words would be prophetic, a trait of his I have already interpreted in 18:33–38a and 19:16b–22. 18 The literary settings of LXX 1 Sam 9:17 and John 19:5b are moreover very similar. The emphasis on Jesus’ kingship is strengthened by the connection John 19:4 has through the use of ἴδε with v. 14, ἴδε ὁ βασιλεὺς ὑμῶν. 19 Just as Saul’s kingship is not yet established, so Jesus’ kingship waits until the cross. Both kingships are foreign, Saul’s is from other nations (Deut 17:14), and Jesus’ is from another world (John 18:36). And the audiences of ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, Samuel and the Ἰουδαῖοι, are in both cases conflicted about the impending, foreign kingships. Yet Yahweh and Pilate – on this particular reading of John 19:5b – confirm Saul and Jesus as kings. But that is not the only way in which Pilate can be read as the speaker of ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος in John 19:5b. One other instance of ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος appears in the Testament of Abraham: And coming near to the house they sat down in the court, and Isaac seeing the face of the angel said to Sarah his mother, “My lady mother, behold, the human (ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος), the one sitting with my father Abraham is not a son of the race of those that dwell on the earth.” (T. Abr. 3.520)

That human, the angel Michael, is a messenger between divine and human, from above to below. In John, too, Pilate may call Jesus “the human” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος) to indicate his otherworldly origin and mediating function. LXX Daniel also pairs ἰδού with an otherworldly nuance of ἄνθρωπος in epiphanies. LXX Dan 7:13 has, “And behold (ἰδού), on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming (ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἤρχετο).”21 Verse 14 elaborates that the figure has eternal authority and kingship. Also, LXX Dan See earlier Chapters 3 and 6. By comparison, although I would not elaborate on the analogy in the same way, see M. David Litwa, “Behold Adam: A Reading of John 19:5,” HBT 32 (2010): 129–43 (135): “That Saul is a “man” and simultaneously king fits well with the idea that Jesus is presented as king in John 19 (note in particular the parallel ἴδε ὁ βασιλεὺς ὑμῶν in 19:14). In this reading, John’s thrust in the verse is less ironical than anti-Judaic. Just as the Israelites rejected YHWH as their king in favor of the human king Saul (1 Sam 10:19), so they reject Christ their king in exchange for the human king Caesar (John 19:15).” 20 Translation from Dale C. Allison, Jr., Testament of Abraham (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 117. 21 1 En. 46.1 refers to “another, whose face had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of grace like one of the holy angels. For text, translation, and interpretation, see Leslie W. Walck, The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch and in Matthew (JCTS 9; London: T&T Clark, 2011), 53–82. In the Animal Apocalypse humans symbolise either angels or transformed humans. See John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (2nd ed.; BRS; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 104. Angels appear as human messengers and interpreters in Ezekiel 8–10; 1 En. 87.2; 90.14. 18 19

216

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

10:5 reads, “I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, one man (ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος εἷς), who was clothed in linen girded with gold around the waist and a light his middle.” 22 So with ἰδού, the term ὁ ἄνθρωπος can refer to a heavenly messenger who appears as royalty and brings divine revelation. That sense is compatible with the identity and function of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (“Son of Man”) in John. For one, the Son of Man is glorified (δοξάζω, John 12:23) in crucifixion. But moreover, the Ἰουδαῖοι will recognise (γινώσκω) that the Son of Man is both the revelation of the divine identity and the revealer of the divine words when they exalt (ὑψόω, 8:28) him. So to recognise the Son of Man as revelation and revealer, the Ἰουδαῖοι need to exalt him. During the episode in which the exaltation occurs, Pilate refers to the Ἰουδαῖοι recognising (γινώσκω) Jesus’ innocence (19:4). The use of the verb γινώσκω in 19:4 recalls its use in 8:28. In 19:5b, therefore, the use of ὁ ἄνθρωπος may evoke an epiphany of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Moloney thus argues that in 19:5b ὁ ἄνθρωπος recalls ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, that ὁ ἄνθρωπος is shorthand for ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.23 The introduction of the term υἱός to the accusation in v. 7 (ὅτι υἱὸν θεοῦ ἑαυτὸν ἐποίησεν) strengthens the interpretation. Pairing ἰδού with the Davidic designation υἱός θεοῦ (see below), moreover, recalls Zechariah’s epiphany – ἰδοὺ ἀνήρ – of the royal, temple-building Sprout (Zech 6:12), which Lindars recognises, too. 24 If Pilate implies the kingly revelation of temple building with the designation Ναζωραῖος on his inscription in John 19:19, he may do so earlier in v. 5, too.25 Other texts include, “And behold one in the appearance of a man was standing before me” (καὶ ἰδοὺ ἔστη κατεναντίον μου ὡς ὅρασις ἀνθρώπου, LXX Dan 8:15; 10:18 has ὡς ὅρασις ἀνθρώπου); “And behold, as the likeness of a human hand (ἰδοὺ ὡς ὁμοίωσις χειρὸς ἀνθρώπου) touched my lips” (LXX Dan 10:16); “And on the likeness of the throne was a likeness as an appearance of a human from above” (καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ὁμοιώματος τοῦ θρόνου ὁμοίωμα ὡς εἶδος ἀνθρώπου ἄνωθεν, LXX Ezek 1:26). 23 Moloney, John, 495. So also, Brant, John, 247: “The intended readers of the Gospel are certainly meant to recognize that, with reference to Jesus, ‘man’ no longer signifies mortality but echoes Jesus’s own use of the term “Son of Man” (huios tou anthrōpou).” However, Michaels, John, 930 notes the combination with ἰδού in Mark 14:41 and adds the possibility that Pilate is “simply calling attention” to Jesus in a way that “recalls the repeated references to Jesus as ‘this man’ throughout the Gospel, usually by the Ἰουδαῖοι, and often with disdainful connotations” (so John 5:12; 9:16, 24; 11:47; 18:17, 29). And according to Thompson, John, 383, the term ἄνθρωπος is “used sometimes disparagingly, sometimes innocently, but usually ironically (cf. ‘a man,’ 4:29; ‘the man,’ 5:12; ‘you, being a man,’ 10:33; ‘this man,’ 11:47).” 24 LXX Zech 6:12 reads, ἰδοὺ ἀνήρ Ἀνατολὴ ὄνομα αὐτῷ καὶ ὑποκάτωθεν αὐτοῦ ἀνατελεῖ καὶ οἰκοδομήσει τὸν οἶκον κυρίου. On this, see Lindars, John, 566; also Kubiś, Zechariah, 454–59. 25 See earlier Chapter 3. 22

3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear

217

The ambiguity of John 19:5b is that the subject of λέγει is unspecified. Jesus may be telling the Ἰουδαῖοι to behold Pilate, the earthly ruler of the accusers. Or, Pilate may be telling the Ἰουδαῖοι to behold Jesus, the heavenly ruler of the accusers. Or again, Jesus and Pilate may be endorsing each over against the false accusers they are addressing. That is the interplay of the two senses, of both Pilate and Jesus announcing “behold, the human.” The openness of the text and the absence of a clear way to decide between the two discrete options – as with John 19:13, 16, as well as 3:3, 5 – leads to paradoxical interplay. There, Pilate and Jesus exercise divine authority in harmony with each another. They make possible the Son of Man’s exaltation and glorification, the epiphany to the Ἰουδαῖοι that he is the revelation of divine identity and the revealer of divine words. And together, Pilate and Jesus, as well as those who send them, Caesar and God, are abused by the false accusers whom they face outside the praetorium. But this is probably only some of the “surplus of meaning which goes beyond any one intertextual echo or suggested background” in John 19:5b.26

3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear 3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear

Before being accused of making himself Son of God in John 19:7, in 5:18 the narrator notes that the Ἰουδαῖοι try to kill Jesus, who is “calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.”27 Either side of the narrator’s note, Jesus says that he works as God also works (v. 17), and that he does whatever God does (v. 19).28 Thompson refers to some New Testament texts to suggest that the accusation “is not simply that he referred to God as his Father. 29 However, Rom 8:15 and Gal 4:6, with Mark 14:36, when they use “Abba! Father,” seem to depend on the christology the Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι suppose to be criminal. So does 1 John 3:1, as v. 8 refers to Jesus as “Son of God” – again, the crux of the conflict. The issue is early Christian theology. Peter Schäfer concludes from midrashim touching on the divine family that they are most concerned with whether God has a son, which probably

Litwa, “Behold Adam,” 135. So also Thompson, John, 236: “The charge against Jesus, that he has made himself the Son of God (19:7), is essentially equivalent to the charge that he makes himself equal to God.” 28 Jesus’ outline of the relationship between the Son and the Father then follows (through v. 47). 29 Thompson, John, 125. 26 27

218

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

demonstrates rabbinic polemic aimed at early Christian theology.30 And yet, God is often addressed as “father.”31 So the way in which Jesus “calling God his own father” amounts to “making himself equal with God” is ambiguous. The issue may be in John’s use of ἴδιος, with which, as Thompson well notes, Jesus “claims a distinctive relationship with God precisely by his right to exercise divine prerogatives and power.”32 The footnote Thompson adds suggests that ἴδιος is “likely emphatic,” in contrast to seemingly “superfluous” instances in John.33 The repetition of ἴδιος in John 5:43, after v. 18 earlier in the passage, nuances the precise problem. In v. 43 Jesus contrasts coming in one’s Father’s name with coming in one’s own name. The issue is that Jesus claims God’s name. Jesus claims that he is the divine Son sent with the divine Father’s own name. Later, Jesus is accused of making himself, a human, God (10:33); but Jesus disagrees that calling himself “Son of God” amounts to blasphemy (v. 36), because he is doing God’s works (v. 37).34 As Joshua Coutts writes, “It may not be coincidental that two passages which feature charges of blasphemy against Jesus (5.17–47; 10.22–39) also feature his self-defence in terms of the divine name (5.43; 10.25).”35 It is Jesus’ claiming to share the divine name that is blasphemy. The same sense continues in 7:18, where Jesus says that speaking from oneself entails seeking one’s own glory. By contrast, the Son seeks the glory of Father who sent him. On the use of ἴδιος in 10:3, Barrett notes, “Since the shepherd calls his own sheep it is implied that there are in the fold other sheep which are not his.”36 By analogy, 5:18 means to separate Jesus’ own father from his opponents’ father. This anticipates when Jesus, in the next of 30 Peter Schäfer, The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 150–59. 31 For instance, “father” (Wis 14:3; Luke 11:2); “our father” (Isa 63:16; 64:7; Matt 6:9); “father and master of my life” (Sir 23:1); “my father, my God” (Apocryphon of Joseph, or, 4Q372). 32 Thompson, John, 125. 33 Thompson, John, 125 fn. 23: “but see John 1:41: Andrew found ‘his own [idion] brother, Simon,’ where idion is superfluous.” 34 In Lev 24:16 the blasphemer is punishable by stoning, and in m. Sanh. 7.5 blasphemy is committed “only when he will have fully pronounced the divine Name.” Between references to those two traditions, Lindars, John, 371–72 comments on John 10:33, “It is not easy to see what was felt to be blasphemous in Jesus’ teaching.” However, Per Jarle Bekken, The Lawsuit Motif in John’s Gospel from New Perspectives: Jesus Christ, Crucified Criminal and Emperor of the World (NovTSup 158; Leiden: Brill, 2015), 57–60 suggests that Philo’s broad understanding of blasphemy – “an encroachment upon divine prerogatives and a usurpation of a role inappropriate to his status as a human being” (p. 60) – illuminates John. 35 Joshua J. F. Coutts, The Divine Name in the Gospel of John: Significance and Impetus (WUNT 2/447; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 182. 36 Barrett, John, 369, italics original.

3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear

219

his three major disputes with the Ἰουδαῖοι, identifies the Ἰουδαῖοι as offspring of an archetypal διάβολος (8:44). Michaels interprets the accusation against the Johannine Jesus as false: Jesus does not make himself anything, and John 19:7 and 12 ignore Pilate’s verdict (18:38b; 19:4, 6b).37 Jesus does and says what is commanded by the Father (5:18; 7:18), and he was sent by the Father (10:36). Yet David Litwa is also right that, in rhetorical terms, the Johannine Jesus constructs his own divinity, with the additional observation: Granted, there is a fine line between explaining the Jewish charge in light of Johannine mythology and simply siding with Jesus against the Jews. My point is that modern exegetes seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. That is, they want to argue (1) that the Jews are wrong to accuse Jesus of making himself equal to God, and (2) that Jesus is of course right to say that he is equal to God.38

I would echo the concern, but I would also maintain that it is possible not to conflate analysis with assessment, in respect of Johannine rhetoric. With Michaels, the Johannine narrative portrays the accusation against Jesus as false. But with Litwa, too, Johannine theology may not be right, true, or even safe. Notwithstanding that disagreement, Michaels and Litwa share what seems to me an error: they both interpret John 19:7 and 12 as accusations distinct from each other. In the heat of the moment they have inadvertently revealed their true reason for wanting Jesus dead, not that he claimed to be king, or posed a threat to the Romans or to the social order, but (just as before) that ‘he made himself the Son of God.’39 Officially Jesus is put to death for sedition against Rome. From the perspective of the gospel writers, however, he is arrested and executed for the Jewish charge of blasphemy. What constituted Jesus’s blasphemy, in Jewish eyes, was his self-deification. The gospel of John brings out this charge most clearly. The Jews declare before Pilate: “We have a law, and according to this law he must die, because he made himself son of God (huion theou)” (John 19:7).40

However, the accusation that Jesus makes himself Son of God is no sidenote to the accusation that he makes himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. The accusers are not oscillating between “religious” and “political” accusations. 41 “This Michaels, John, 939. M. David Litwa, Desiring Divinity: Self-deification in Early Jewish and Christian Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 72–73. 39 Michaels, John, 933. Differently again, Brant, John, 247–48: “That to proclaim oneself the Son of God is not self-evidently blasphemy or a violation of Jewish or Roman law renders this an excited utterance rather than a calculated effort to move the case forward.” 40 Litwa, Desiring Divinity, 87. 41 Against Lincoln, John, 468 and Michaels, John, 939. 37 38

220

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

dichotomy was unknown to, or at least irrelevant to, traditional GraecoRoman worship and other honours to benefactors.” 42 They would be irrelevant categories to a Roman character such as Pilate. 43 Once they are discarded the accusation that Jesus has misled the nation away from Caesar is far easier to analyse. So Warren Carter explains, Whatever law is in view, and given that these leaders are allies with Rome and addressing the Roman governor, a claim of violating the law of treason seems as likely as the more commonly alleged claim of blasphemy: they accuse Jesus of designating himself an emperor by usurping the title and place of Rome’s ruler. In relation to the term basileus, or “king/emperor,” I observed (above) that it was sedition to claim to be a king without Rome’s blessing. The same charge is made in 19:7 with the language of “Son of God.”44

Though I agree that John 19:7 and 12 refer to the same crime, I disagree that blasphemy is absent from the picture. The accusation flows out of the conflicts between Jesus and the Ἰουδαῖοι in which the ultimate problem is unique divine sonship. To be Israelite king is to have divine sonship in some sense. Nathanael, for instance, confesses Jesus as Son of God and King in the same breath.45 The Hebrew Bible equates the offices of king and son of Yahweh. 46 Psalm 2 characterises the king as the son of Yahweh. Yahweh calls him son (v. 7). And Yahweh can make the nations and the ends of the earth belong to his son (v. 8). There is also Psalm 89. The king addresses “my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation” (v. 26). The king is made the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth (v. 27). Finally, 2 Samuel 7 includes the promise concerning Solomon. He will build the temple for Yahweh (v. 13). Yahweh

Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (OCM; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 3, challenging an “ingrained distinction between religion and politics” that is “in our own mental makeup.” 43 In a helpful way, Meeks, Prophet-King, 64 uses the categories only to collapse them: in “we have no king except Caesar” (John 19:15) he sees the “religious” and “political” questions as “inextricably merged.” 44 Warren Carter, John and Empire: Initial Explorations (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 195, referring to p. 192: “Rome ruled through alliances with local elites, so Rome appointed or recognized local kings who were loyal to Rome. Herod is one such king, identified as ‘King of the Jews’ … Rome regarded as sedition any other claims to kingship. They attacked and executed those in Judea and Galilee who set themselves up as kings in a tradition of popular kingship… The Ioudaioi show themselves to be allies of the emperor in charging Jesus with setting himself up as a king.” Later, Carter (p. 307) reiterates that John 19:7 and 12 share the one accusation. 45 On this, see earlier Chapter 6. 46 Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 2. 42

3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear

221

says, “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me” (v. 14). So according to the Jewish scriptures, to make oneself “divine son” (John 19:7) can, by extension, be to make oneself “king (v. 12).” As these are by no means disconnected titles, John 19:7 and 12 are inextricably connected. Like an Israelite king, a Roman emperor can be divine, if not also a divine son. In the documentary record, moreover, maiestas is translated with θειότης.47 And the crime against the maiestas of the emperor, according to Dio’s terminology, is impiety (ἀσέβεια). As well as impiety, Tacitus saw the crime as against religio and maiestas. Velleius Paterculus 2.126.1 explains that Tiberius consecrated his father Augustus by worship (religio), not power (imperium). 48 Pliny, Pan. 11.1 writes that Tiberius made Augustus divine with the ulterior purpose of introducing maiestas trials. 49 As a divi filius (“divine son”), Tiberius interpreted slander against the new god as slander against himself.50 In a dynastic sense, Tiberius inherited Augustus’ maiestas. The title divi filius had already defined Octavian’s rule in terms of dynastic ideology.51 In the same way, the Johannine Jesus is, as part of the Davidic dynasty, a divine son himself.52 Whereas not every emperor was ipso facto divi filius (Caligula, Claudius, Vespasian), such significant emperors as Tiberius, Titus, and Domitian were. 53 Roman traditions of divine sonship pertain to the danger of maiestas accusations, to the reigns of Tiberius and Domitian, and therefore also to John 19:7. I conclude that the accusation against Jesus remains misleading the nation away from the empire: he declares himself divine and king without the confirmation of God and Caesar.54 On the accusation that Jesus made himself Son of God in John 19:7, Barrett references not only 5:18; 10:33 but “also perhaps” Wis 2:18.55 Like John, Wisdom satirises impious accusers who unjustly condemn an innocent On the documentary record, Dio, and Tacitus, see earlier Chapter 1. Tiberius did not merely label August divine; he made his father as such through action. 49 Barabara Levick, Tiberius the Politician (2nd ed.; London: Routledge, 1999), 151, 152 observes that under Tiberius, the deification of Augustus was the major contributor to the developing crime of maiestas. 50 Levick, Tiberius, 153. 51 Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 47. On the topic of divine sonship in the imperial world and the gospels, see also Adela Yarbro Collins, “Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Greeks and Romans,” HTR 93 (2000): 85–100. 52 Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World, 48. 53 Robert L. Mowery, “Son of God in Roman Imperial Titles and Matthew,” Bib 83:1 (2002): 100–10 collates the ancient evidence. 54 See earlier Chapter 5. 55 Barrett, John, 542. 47 48

222

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

man of making himself a divine son (see in particular Wis 2:18). Wisdom portrays the unrighteous shaming themselves as they attempt to shame the righteous one. And as John does, so Wisdom exposes them. Those who unjustly accuse the innocent man suffer spiritual death.56 NA28 lists nineteen references in the Johannine literature to Wisdom, three of which occur in one episode: Wis 1:16–2:24.57 According to NA28, John 3:20 alludes to Wis 2:14, John 5:18 (and Matt 6:9) alludes to Wis 2:16, and John 8:44 (and Rev 5:12) alludes to Wis 2:24.58 I will show in the following the ways in which the three texts from Wis 1:16–2:24 illuminate aspects of John 18:28–19:22. Wis 1:16–2:24

John

he has come into being against us for an evidence (ἔλεγχος) of our intentions (Wis 2:14)

for all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their works may not be evidenced (ἐλέγχω) (John 3:20)

and he boasts God as father (Wis 2:16)

he was also calling God his own father (John 5:18)

but through a slanderer’s (διάβολος) envy (φθόνος) death enters the world, and those who belong to death’s faction (μερίς) test (πειράζω) humanity (Wis 2:24; trans. adapted from Zurawski)

you are from your father the slanderer (διάβολος), and you want to do your father’s lusts; he was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44)

The episode in Wis 1:16–2:24 represents a speech by impious ones who do evil, in particular against a certain “just (δίκαιος) poor man” (Wis 2:10). They say, “may our strength be the law of justice, for weakness is evidenced (ἐλέγχω) as useless” (v. 11). The righteous one is damning evidence (ἔλεγχος) of the intentions of the impious (v. 14). The judicial sense of the noun ἔλεγχος may be present when John 3:20 uses the cognate verb ἐλέγχω.59 The subject is Jesus, the true light of all people (1:4, 9) and the world (8:12; 9:5). Those who do evil do not come to him, because he evidences – or, attests, substantiates – evil works (3:20). But he also, conversely, exposes (φανερόω) the works of those who do what is true and come to him. If they do what is true in God (v. 21), the opposite, according to John’s dualism, is See earlier Chapter 9. Winston, Wisdom, 10 labels the episode “Speech of the wicked who have covenanted with Death (1:16–2:24) (tēs ekeinou meridos forming an inclusio).” 58 Winston, Wisdom, 120 compares Wis 2:14 with John 3:20. 59 The uses of ἐλέγχω in Eph 5:11, 13 also entail exposure, as light makes visible the works of darkness. 56 57

3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear

223

doing what is false in the διάβολος. The equivalence of doing what is evil with doing what is false anticipates John 18:28–19:22, where the accusation that Jesus does evil (18:30) is false (v. 38b; 19:4, 6b), which makes the Ἰουδαῖοι who accuse him guilty of doing that same evil – to both Caesar an God. As crucified King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, Jesus evidences the lie and the evil, the crimes of calumnia and maiestas. The righteous man calls himself a child of the Lord (καὶ παῖδα κυρίου ἑαυτὸν ὀνομάζει, Wis 2:13), and he boasts that God is his father (καὶ ἀλαζονεύεται πατέρα θεόν, v. 16b).60 He considers his opponents false, and he avoids what they do as he does impurity (v. 16a). The impious wish to test (πειράζω) whether his words are true (v. 17), whether or not he is a divine son (εἰ γάρ ἐστιν ὁ δίκαιος υἱὸς θεοῦ, v. 18). 61 They set out to “examine (ἐτάζω) him with insult (ὕβρις) and torment” (v. 19), condemning him to a shameful death (v. 20).62 The way they treat the innocent man indicates the blindness of the impious ones to divine mysteries (v. 21). For one link with the passion, Kristin De Troyer has argued that the mention of the innocent man’s claim to divine sonship in Wis 2:18 explains Matt 27:43, where those who mock the crucified Jesus do so on the basis of the same claim. But more importantly here, the righteous man presumes that his divine sonship sets him apart from his opponents, those he considers false and impure. John uses the same framework: the accusation of John 19:7 that Jesus makes himself Son of God begins in 5:18, when Jesus distinguishes his own father of the truth, 60 On Wis 2:13, Winston, Wisdom, 119–20 notes, “The author’s treatment of the suffering and vindication of the child of God is a homily based chiefly on the fourth Servant Song in Isa 52:12.” 61 Kristin De Troyer, “An Exploration of the Wisdom of Solomon as the Missing Link between Isaiah and Matthew,” in Isaiah in Context: Studies in Honour of Arie van der Kooij on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Michaël van der Meer, Percy van Keulen, Wido van Peursen, and Bas ter Haar Romeny (VetTSup 138; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 215–27 proposes that Matt 27:43 (“he trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he wants to; for he said, ‘I am Son of God’”) combines LXX Ps 22:9 (“he hoped in the Lord; let him rescue him; let him save him, because he wanted him”) with Wis 2:18 (“for if the righteous man is Son of God, God will help him and will rescue him from the hand of those who oppose him”). 62 LSJ, s.v. ἐτάζω has “examine, test.” When not used of God in the Septuagint, ἐτάζω occurs in serious, sometimes fatal judicial situations. LXX Job 36:23 reads, “And who is it that examines (ἐτάζω) his works, or who is it that states, ‘He has done injustice’?” And in LXX Est 2:23 the king examines (ἐτάζω) two eunuchs and hangs them. Otherwise, texts often refer to God examining (ἐτάζω) people (LXX Gen 12:17; 1 Chr 28:9; 29:17; Ps 7:10; 138:23; Jer 17:10). The cognate ἀνετάζω means, according to BDAG, s.v. ἀνετάζω, “give someone a hearing.” It occurs only three times across the Old and New Testaments. Judges 6:29 uses ἀνετάζω with ἐκζητέω (“search out”) for the investigation of who perpetrated a particular crime. Acts 22:24 and 29 use ἀνετάζω when the tribune uses scourges to investigate the crime of which Paul is accused. LSJ, s.v. ἀνετάζω has “inquire of” and “examine.”

224

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

whose name he shares, from his opponents’ father of the lie (with 8:44). Jesus is therefore pure, and the unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι are not. The beginning of Wis 1:16–2:24 characterises the impious ones (ἀσεβεῖς) who oppose the innocent man as those who befriended and covenanted with death (1:16). An impious one in death’s faction is a διάβολος who kills people through envy (2:24). 63 Outside John, the New Testament associates φθόνος (“envy”) with δόλος (“deceit”). The vices 1 Pet 2:1 lists include δόλος, φθόνος, κακία (“evil”), ὑπόκρισις (“hypocrisy”), καταλαλιά (“slander”). In Mark 14:1 // Matt 26:4, more significantly, the priests and the scribes plot the arrest and execution of Jesus by δόλος, and in Mark 15:10 // Matt 27:18 Pilate realises that Jesus is delivered to him out of φθόνος. The connection of Wis 2:24 with the wider passion tradition strengthens its connection with John 8:44 and 18:28–19:22. Jesus explains that the Ἰουδαῖοι want to lie and murder because they are offspring of an archetypal διάβολος (John 8:44). Wisdom and John both link the themes of death and slander. In the fifth scene of 18:28–19:22, furthermore, these same offspring of the διάβολος, in the face of the verdict that he is innocent (19:4, 6b), falsely accuse Jesus of making himself Son of God (v. 7). These accusers reflect the false and impure ones who unjustly condemn the innocent divine son in Wis 1:16–2:24. Michael Kolarcik’s analysis of five diptychs and seven antitheses in Wisdom further elucidates the role of judgement in the text’s theology. In the five diptychs an injustice brings about judgement that correspond to the injustice done.64 The Nile drowns Hebrew boys, and blood defiles the Nile (Wis 11:6–14).65 The Egyptians worship animals, and the animals consume Egypt (11:15–16:14). The Egyptians ignore God of the heavens, and the heavens shower down disaster (16:15–29). The Egyptians enslave the Hebrews, and darkness enslaves the Egyptians (17:1–18:4). Hebrew boys are killed, and Egyptian boys are killed (18:5–19:21). Injustice bears fruit that come to haunt the perpetrators. 66 The pattern is noticeably similar to the Roman tradition of calumnia, the crime in which the false accuser is subjected to the penalty of the corresponding accusation (for instance, Cicero, “It was through the devil’s envy that Death entered into the cosmic order, and they who are his own experience him” (Wis 2:24; trans. Winston); “but through the envy of the devil death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it” (Wis 2:24; NETS). 64 Michael Kolarcik, “Universalism and Justice in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Treasures of Wisdom: Studies in Ben Sira and the Book of Wisdom: Festschrift M. Gilbert, ed. Nuria Calduch-Benages and Jacques Vermeylen (BETL 143; Leuven: Peeters, 1999), 289–301 (298–300). 65 The second is as “conviction” (ἔλεγχος, Wis 11:7) for the first. The verbal cognate of Wisdom’s noun occurs in John. The light convicts (ἐλέγχω, John 3:20) evil deeds. 66 Kolarcik, “Universalism and Justice,” 298. 63

3. Son of God, Wis 1:16–2:24, and Pilate’s fear

225

Caelius 47; Suetonius, Augustus 32).67 In similar Jewish traditions, those who oppress the innocent dig a pit in his path only to fall into it themselves (Ps 57:6), and those who disobey the servant (Isa 50:10) make for themselves judgment: “walk into your fiery flame, walk among the firebrands you lit” (v. 11).68 The use of Wisdom to illuminate John’s view of judgement is also justified by another important set of comparisons. Wisdom distills the Exodus tradition so that Sophia resists terrible kings with signs and wonders (Wis 10:16). Like Wisdom, John includes seven signs.69 And in both cases, each sign encapsulates present judgment and future hope. 70 Wisdom pairs the plagues in Egypt with the gifts in the wilderness, and John pairs material plights with immaterial remedies (below). Egyptians (Wisdom) or unbelievers (John) endure destruction, whereas Israelites (Wisdom) and believers (John) enjoy restoration. Sophia turns water to blood and provides water in the desert (Wis 11:5–14), and Jesus turns water to wine (John 2:1– 11). 71 God destroys the food of the Egyptians and sends the manna to the Israelites (Wis 16:15–29), and Jesus brings imperishable not perishable food (John 6:27). God brings darkness to Egypt and light to Israel (Wis 17:1– 18:4), and Jesus makes those who see blind and those who are blind see (John 9:39). God sends the destroyer to kill Egyptian but not Israelite children (Wis 18:5–25), and Jesus raises Lazarus from death to life (John 11:25). God drowns the Egyptians and parts the waters for the Israelites (Wis 19:1–9), and Jesus’ death brings life. In the seven antitheses, Kolarcik observes, salvation See earlier Chapter 1. See earlier Chapter 9. 69 The following three essays analyse the signs in Wisdom and John, and they assess whether or not John depends on Wisdom: Georg Ziener, “Weisheitsbuch und Johannesevangelium (I),” Bib 38 (1957): 396–418; independently from Ziener, Douglas K. Clark, “Signs in Wisdom and John,” CBQ 45 (1983): 201–09; examining Ziener and Clark, as well as a previously unpublished letter of John Muddiman, Eric Eve, “Signs and Syncriseis in John and the Wisdom of Solomon,” in The New Testament and the Church: Essays in Honour of John Muddiman, ed. John Barton and Peter Groves (LNTS 532; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 24–36. What I am suggesting in the discussion, however, is less that Wisdom and John can be demonstrated to correspond in some exact way and to indicate therefore an influence-dependence relationship. 70 Daniel J. Harrington, “‘Saved by Wisdom’ (Wis 9.18): Soteriology in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in This World and the World to Come: Soteriology in Early Judaism, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 181–90 (188–90) discusses the series of contrasts in Wisdom. 71 The next two comparisons are less useful: Sophia sends animals that reduce appetite and provides delicious animals (Wis 11:15; 16:1–4), and Jesus’s food (John 4:34) is saving the sick from death (vv. 46–54); Sophia sends animals that kill and sends animals that save (Wis 16:5–14), and Jesus heals the paralytic (John 5:1–17). 67 68

226

Chapter 9: Scene 5, John 19:4–8

comes to the innocent through the means by which judgement comes on the guilty – and I would add that the same is the case in John.72 With John 19:7 analysed in terms of accusers who bring on themselves judgement, the nature of Pilate’s otherwise enigmatic fear in v. 8 becomes clear. At the moment when (ὅτε) Pilate hears them, and by consequence (οὖν) of what they say to him, he becomes very scared.73 What scares Pilate, who has recognised and declared Jesus’ innocence, is that the accusers are so false and impious that he realises they are also about to implicate him in Jesus’ crime. Pilate is not scared that, for instance, the accusers demand Jesus’ crucifixion. The ambiguous appeal to a law – which plausibly invokes the Jewish penalty for blasphemy and the Roman penalty for maiestas – that pertains to divine self-declarations is not the issue by itself. The issue is that putatively legal appeal in the face of Pilate’s repeated innocence verdict. Pilate senses the tension between his repeated innocence verdict (18:38b; 19:4, 6b) and the accusation that Jesus makes himself Son of God (19:7). What the Ἰουδαῖοι said scares Pilate, because it betrays to him what they are about to do. He realises beyond doubt that the Ἰουδαῖοι will falsely accuse him. Pilate’s fear recalls 9:22, where some who confessed Jesus as Messiah were scared of the Ἰουδαῖοι, who agreed that believers would be expelled from the synagogue. Pilate may also fear a type of expulsion, in the sense that, on an accusation of maiestas, Pilate himself would be removed for misrule. The point in 19:8 is that what the accusers just said, rather than anything else they said, scares him.74 The result will be misrule and maiestas, as the direct threat in v. 12 will show.75

4. Summary 4. Summary

The major ambiguity of the fifth scene in John’s praetorium episode is the subject of λέγει in καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος (John 19:5). I have concluded that by the openness there John prompts a paradoxical interplay of Michael Kolarcik, “Universalism and Justice,” 299, and 301 on the antitheses. Earlier, I translated, “So when Pilate heard this word, rather, he became afraid.” However, Barrett, John, 542 has, “he was very much afraid,” and Lindars, John, 567 has, “exceedingly afraid.” Like John 19:6, v. 8 uses ὅτε οὖν, which is not attested in the New Testament outside John. See also John 2:22; 4:45; 6:24; 13:12, 31; 21:15. The sense of ὅτε οὖν is temporal and consequential. The initial event grounds the subsequent action. 74 So Michaels, John, 933, Pilate has not already been afraid, so he cannot be more afraid. For μᾶλλον, see, aside from John 3:19; 5:18; 12:43; 19:8, also Mark 15:11: οἱ δὲ ἀρχιερεῖς ἀνέσεισαν τὸν ὄχλον ἵνα μᾶλλον τὸν Βαραββᾶν ἀπολύσῃ αὐτοῖς. There, μᾶλλον compares Barabbas with Jesus. The chief priests do not want Jesus, but Barabbas instead. 75 See later Chapter 10. 72 73

4. Summary

227

two potential readings. So, Jesus tells the Ἰουδαῖοι to behold the earthly ruler from Caesar, and Pilate tells the Ἰουδαῖοι to behold the heavenly ruler from God. But persisting with the accusation that Jesus misleads the nation away from Caesar, despite Pilate’s repeated verdict of innocence, the Ἰουδαῖοι defile themselves with duplicity, which betrays the parentage of the διάβολος. They will go on to implicate Pilate in Jesus’ alleged crime, but only to bring judgement on themselves, because Jesus and Pilate share an ἐξουσία from above that oversees the cross. Yet without the judgement that is in the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, Pilate cannot also write the hope that is in Jesus the Nazarene (19:19). Because Jesus is destroyed in the lie of the Ἰουδαῖοι, the world is restored in his truth.

Chapter 10

Scene 6, John 19:9–12 To strengthen the empire, Caesars extended friendships to foreign nations and kings.1 So considering in particular the dynasties of the Hasmoneans and the Herodians, the accusation against Jesus in John 19:12 cannot be mere kingship. It has to be, rather, taking kingship not ratified by Caesar. But as Pilate has declared three times by now (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), Jesus is not guilty. In the preceding fifth scene Pilate begins to fear that the Ἰουδαῖοι are going to implicate him in Jesus’ purported maiestas crime (19:8), and they do so at the end of the sixth scene (v. 12). But as he earlier falsified the accusation against himself, Jesus now falsifies the accusation of misrule against Pilate.2 Pilate has ἐξουσία (“authority”) to release or crucify (v. 10) that is from God (v. 11), which is where Jesus himself originates (v. 9). And the ἐξουσία Jesus has to lay down his own life (10:18) is compatible with the one Pilate has, in the sense that it leads toward the cross. Pilate is able to maintain friendship with Caesar and with God at the same time, even in judging Jesus. However, the Ἰουδαῖοι and the one who delivered Jesus to Pilate belong to an archetypal διάβολος who lies and murders (8:44). καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον πάλιν καὶ λέγει τῷ Ἰησοῦ· πόθεν εἶ σύ; ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἀπόκρισιν οὐκ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ. 10 λέγει οὖν αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος· ἐμοὶ οὐ λαλεῖς; οὐκ οἶδας ὅτι ἐξουσίαν ἔχω ἀπολῦσαί σε καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔχω σταυρῶσαί σε; 11 ἀπεκρίθη [αὐτῷ] Ἰησοῦς· οὐκ εἶχες ἐξουσίαν κατ᾿ ἐμοῦ οὐδεμίαν εἰ μὴ ἦν δεδομένον σοι ἄνωθεν· διὰ τοῦτο ὁ παραδούς μέ σοι μείζονα ἁμαρτίαν ἔχει. 12 Ἐκ τούτου ὁ Πιλᾶτος ἐζήτει ἀπολῦσαι αὐτόν· οἱ δὲ Ἰουδαῖοι ἐκραύγασαν λέγοντες· ἐὰν τοῦτον ἀπολύσῃς, οὐκ εἶ φίλος τοῦ Καίσαρος· πᾶς ὁ βασιλέα ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν ἀντιλέγει τῷ Καίσαρι. He entered into the praetorium again. And he says to Jesus, “Where are you from?” And Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate says to him, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above; because of this the one who delivered me to you has greater sin”: 12 As a result Pilate was

1 For example, the reverse of RPC 1, 3031 reads, ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙCΑΡ ΦΙΛΑΔΕΛΦΩΝ ΜΑΚΕΔΩΝ – photographed and discussed in Michael P. Theophilos, “John 15.14 and the ΦΙΛ- Lexeme in Light of Numismatic Evidence: Friendship or Obedience?” NTS 64 (2018): 33–43. 2 Schnackenburg, John, 3:260 pairs John 19:9–12 with 18:33–38a.

1. The ἐξουσία Jesus and Pilate display in the cross

229

venturing to release him. And the Ἰουδαῖοι shouted, saying, “If you release this man, you are not a friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar.” (John 19:9– 12)

1. The ἐξουσία Jesus and Pilate display in the cross 1. The ἐξουσία Jesus and Pilate display in the cross

After Pilate repeats his verdict of innocence (John 18:38b; 19:4, 6b), the Ἰουδαῖοι continues to accuse Jesus of misleading the nation away from Caesar (v. 7). Pilate therefore becomes afraid (v. 8), the implication being that he expects an accusation of misrule from the Ἰουδαῖοι. Beginning the sixth scene, Pilate returns to Jesus inside the praetorium (v. 9) and asks him, “Where are you from?” Bultmann connects the question to the preceding mention of Jesus’ divine sonship (v. 8), with the inference that the prefect is implying Jesus’ divine origin.3 Jesus has already said that he is from above and not from this world (8:23), and he has also said as much to Pilate about his kingship (18:36). After raising the ambiguity of Jesus’ origin (19:9), the scene then raises the ambiguity of Pilate’s authority (v. 10). 4 The implicit impression is that the one ambiguity is supposed to answer the other. Jesus’ silence allows – and perhaps invites – the reader to read Pilate as connecting the dots between the truth of where both his own ἐξουσία and Jesus himself come from. Pilate has already joined the lie of the βασιλεία of Jesus (18:33, 36) with the accusing nation and its priests (v. 35) in the second scene.5 But on another level, Pilate also asks Jesus where he is from to confirm the jurisdiction to which he belongs. What he finds, however, is that he – not Antipas, that is – has ἐξουσία to release or to kill the Son from the Father. Luke illuminates the situation. There, Pilate asks if Jesus is a Galilean (Luke 23:6) and then sends him to Antipas (v. 7). 6 Antipas questions Jesus, and Jesus remains silent (v. 9), as the chief priests stand by accusing him (v. 10). Herod and his soldiers mock Jesus and adorn him as king before sending him back to Pilate (v. 11).7 Herod and Pilate now become friends, though they had earlier been enemies (v. 12). Pilate announces that he finds Jesus innocent (v. Bultmann, John, 661. I disagree with interpreters who characterise Pilate as “incensed” at Jesus’ silence and his statement here as a “threat,” as though his “bubble of … conceit” needs pricking by Jesus; see Ridderbos, John, 602; Schnackenburg, John, 3:261; Lindars, John, 568. 5 See earlier Chapter 6. 6 Barrett, John, 542 suggests that if in some way John 19:9 recalls Luke 23:6, “the meaning has been transformed into Johannine style,” or, “a characteristic double meaning has been attached.” 7 By contrast, Jesus is dressed up by the Roman soldiers in John 19:2, and he is silent before the Roman prefect in v. 9b. 3 4

230

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

14), as also does Herod (v. 15). Like Luke, John pairs the threefold announcement of Jesus’ innocence with the problem of his origin.8 Except the Johannine innovation concerns the characterisation of Pilate, who enquires about the truth (18:38a) and Jesus’ origin (19:9).9 Jesus’ origin is “one of the ironically ambiguous themes of the narrative.”10 On the one hand, in 7:27 some in Jerusalem suppose that they will not know where the Messiah is from (πόθεν), though they know where Jesus is from (πόθεν).11 Yet on the other hand, in 8:14 Jesus claims that the Pharisees do not know where he has come from (πόθεν), a notion they later echo in 9:29 and 30 (πόθεν). Jesus’ origin is known and unknown. In addition, both the new wine (2:19) and the living water (4:11) are from (πόθεν) Jesus, though others do not understand. “The πνεῦμα blows where it wants, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know from where (πόθεν) it comes and goes – so it is with everyone who is born ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος” (3:8). The connection between the πόθεν theme and the term πνεῦμα makes the theological issue clear. Those born ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος (“out of the Spirit”) do not know where the πνεῦμα (“the wind”) comes from. Between the uses of πόθεν in 2:19 and 4:11, its use in 3:8 implies that Jesus is the source, the one who delivers the πνεῦμα (19:30).12 When Pilate uses πόθεν, John hints that Pilate may be born ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος, through experience of Jesus. Just as Coponius carries the universal ἐξουσία (“authority”) into Judea (Josephus, Ant. 18.2), or, the ἐξουσία to kill (Josephus, War 2.117), from Caesar, so Pilate after him has the ἐξουσία to release and the ἐξουσία to crucify Jesus (John 19:10). 13 When John’s Jesus goes on to affirm that Pilate’s ἐξουσία over him is ἄνωθεν (“from above,” v. 11), the sense may be from Caesar or from God. If the ambiguity here allows both, John may be Luke 23:4, 14, 22; John 18:38b; 19:4, 6b. Against Schnackenburg, John, 3:260 and Lindars, John, 568, the question Pilate asks Jesus in 19:9 is not “full of misgivings” and an attempt “to exert his authority.” 10 Moloney, John, 495; Lincoln, John, 467; Barrett, John, 542: his “origin is both known and not known.” 11 By contrast, Mark 6:2 // Matt 13:54, 56 use πόθεν in relation to the wisdom and power of Jesus. 12 Jesus and the πνεῦμα he delivers resemble each other throughout the Johannine corpus. The Son will ask the Father to send another παράκλητος (John 14:16). The Father sends this παράκλητος in the Son’s name, to teach the disciples and remind them of everything Jesus told them (v. 26). Jesus sends the παράκλητος, the Spirit of truth, from the Father, to bear witness about him (15:26). Jesus can send the παράκλητος because he goes away in the first place (16:7). 1 John 2:1 refers to “Jesus Christ the righteous one” as the παράκλητος with the Father for those who sin. 13 Thompson, John, 385: “Speaking as the Roman governor of a relatively small province, Pilate reminds Jesus that he holds the power of life and death: he has the authority to release or to crucify Jesus.” 8 9

1. The ἐξουσία Jesus and Pilate display in the cross

231

read in light of the widespread connection made between heavenly and earthly authorities. Paul reasons that because there is no ἐξουσία except from God, existing authorities are instituted by God (Rom 13:1). Resisting such divinely determined authorities therefore incurs judgement (v. 2). 14 Daniel attributes to God both wisdom and superiority (Dan 2:20b), and he claims that God makes both kings (v. 21a) and sages (v. 21b).15 Job refers to human wisdom (12:12) before saying that both wisdom and power, the two characteristics of the ideal ruler, are with God (v. 13).16 Wisdom herself says that she has wisdom and strength (Prov 8:14), and that kings reign (v. 15) and rulers rule (v. 16) through her. God gave Caesar power (Josephus, War 1.390). Rome’s empire was possible through alliance with God (2.390). 17 God aids the Romans in war against the Ἰουδαῖοι (6.411; 7.319). So the Roman prefect has authority from not only Caesar but also God to release and to kill in John. Just as the ἐξουσία Pilate has is ultimately from God, so Jesus is also ἄνωθεν, from heaven (John 3:31).18 Jesus moreover is the Son who has from the Father ἐξουσία to lay down his own life (10:18).19 The ἐξουσία Pilate has and the ἐξουσία Jesus has seem to be one and the same, in the sense that it is an ἐξουσία from God that leads toward the cross. Pilate and Jesus are in John 19:10 and 11 aligned, not opposed. Jesus teaches as though he has ἐξουσία in the other canonical gospels (Mark 1:22 // Matt 7:29 // Luke 4:32), and his ἐξουσία is such that unclean spirits obey his command (Mark 1:27 // Luke 4:36).20 The ἐξουσία the διάβολος has in Luke 12:5 is to cast into (ἐμβάλλω) hell. But when Jesus dies, according to John 12:31, he casts out (ἐκβάλλω) of Lindars, John, 568; Thompson, John, 385. Carol A. Newsom, Daniel: A Commentary (OTL: Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 72: “Thus the two categories of human agents in the story (kings and sages) appear to manifest respectively the two featured characteristics of God.” 16 On this, see Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1985), 220. 17 Also, Essenes are faithful to those in power, because no one has authority without God (Josephus, War 2.140). 18 The chief priests and the elders ask Jesus in Mark 11:28 // Matt 21:23 // Luke 20:2 about his ἐξουσία and its origin. Jesus does not answer them (Mark 11:33 // Matt 21:27 // Luke 20:8). 19 The Father, in addition, has given (δίδωμι) the Son authority (ἐξουσία) to make judgement (John 5:27). The Father gives (δίδωμι) the Son authority (ἐξουσία) to give (δίδωμι) eternal life (17:2). Those who believe are given (δίδωμι) authority (ἐξουσία) to become children of God (1:12). 20 In Mark 2:10–11 // Matt 9:6 // Luke 5:24 the Son of Man has ἐξουσία on earth to forgive sins and therefore to heal. The response of the crowds in Matt 9:8 then is to glorify God for giving such ἐξουσία to humans, in this case Jesus. Mark 3:15; 6:17 // Matt 10:1 // Luke 9:1 narrate Jesus giving ἐξουσία to the twelve to cast out unclean spirits and heal. 14 15

232

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

the world the same διάβολος, the ruler of the world.21 The ἐξουσία Pilate and Jesus share in John opposes the one of the διάβολος, the same figure who in Luke 4:6 offers Jesus the δόξα and ἐξουσία of the kingdoms of the world. But John’s Jesus is the Son who has from his Father δόξα and ἐξουσία in the crucifixion to which Pilate guides him.

2. The sin of misrule, and the greater sin of false accusation 2. The sin of misrule, and the greater sin of false accusation

An immediate problem that reading may pose is that Jesus seems to imply that Pilate has sin. If “the one who delivered me to you has greater sin” (John 19:11b), Pilate has sin by implication. But three issues problematise the interpretation. The deliverer, the sin, and what the sin is greater than are points of ambiguity. In this section I will argue that the deliverer is Judas, and that his sin is false accusation (calumnia), which is greater than the misrule (repetundae) of which Pilate is falsely accused. According to Rutledge, Yet Judas was only part of a much larger phenomenon, for it was during Tiberius’ reign (AD 14–37), according to our sources, that informants and accusers – delatores and accusatores – began to ply their trade as they viciously attacked those suspected of disloyalty towards their emperor.22

So on my reading, the second and sixth scenes at the praetorium in John both centre on the refutation of a false accusation. The initial false accusation was maiestas against Jesus, but now it is maiestas against Pilate. However, in both cases Jesus exposes as false the accusation made by the Ἰουδαῖοι. Here, he has affirmed that Pilate has ἐξουσία to kill and to release ἄνωθεν, from Caesar and God. The importance of repetundae grew as did imperium: the greater the power, the greater the chance of misuse.23 The charge of repetundae related to maiestas, in the sense that rule in the empire amounted to disloyalty toward its emperor. Cicero, Piso 50 attests that offences such as unauthorised military ventures may count as both repetundae and maiestas. After making his friend Gallus prefect of Alexandria and Egypt, accusations of repetundae and maiestas forced Augustus to give his renuntio amicitiae – the victim then

Carter, John and Empire, 290–91 argues that Pilate is the ruler of the world. Carter compares John 14:30 with 19:11. He suggests that neither Pilate nor the ruler of the world has power over Jesus. What 19:11 says, however, is that Pilate would have no authority over Jesus unless it had been given him from above. So according to 14:30, Pilate contrasts with the ruler of this world, who has no authority over Jesus. 22 Rutledge, Imperial Inquisitions, 3. 23 See earlier Chapter 1. 21

2. The sin of misrule, and the greater sin of false accusation

233

killing himself. 24 In 15 CE Tiberius convicted the former governor of Bithynia, Marcellus, of maiestas (Tacitus, Ann. 1.74). In 22 CE C. Silanus (formerly in Asia) was accused of maiestas and repetundae, though the maiestas charge was dropped (Tacitus, Ann. 3.67.2). Philo, Gaius 299–305 portrays Pilate in terms of misrule, in the sense that he did not properly honour Caesar in Judea. Josephus, Ant. 18.55–89 implies that Pilate was ejected from Judea because of misrule. 25 Suetonius, Domitian 8 tells that Domitian inspired integrity and justice in his provincial officials, though the crimes multiplied after his reign ended. The wider imperial climate and the way John portrays the interactions at the praetorium between the Ἰουδαῖοι and Pilate make the issue clear.26 The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι falsely accuse (calumnia) Pilate of misusing the imperial authority (repetundae) and therefore abusing Caesar (maiestas). Misrule in the empire is one thing, but a false accusation against Pilate to that effect is far greater. Whether authority over Jesus (19:11) or capacity to come to Jesus (6:64), it is given (δίδωμι) from above (19:11) – or, from the Father (6:64).27 As Jesus has divine ἐξουσία to lay down his own life (10:18), Pilate has divine ἐξουσία (19:11) to release or kill Jesus (v. 10).28 The gravity of the false accusation is compounded by Pilate bearing the imperial superiority. If

24 Suetonius writes that Augustus was constant toward his friends, only two of whom fell away, namely Salvidienus Rufus and Cornelius Gallus (Suetonius, Augustus 66). By contrast, friendship with Caligula often proved fatal (Suetonius, Caligula 26). 25 Josephus, Ant. 18.171–78 attests Tiberius’ policy of appointing prefects infrequently, in order to avoid regular extortions. And Ant. 18.177 cites Pilate and his long tenure in Judea as proof of the policy. 26 I am considering verisimilitude, not historicity. Whether or not John’s history is somehow accurate, the gospel sits comfortably alongside other ancient sources for repetundae. Barrett, John, 544 proposes that John portrays the persuasive efforts of the accusers in a realistic way. Moloney, John, 50 writes, “It is most unlikely, historically, that any Jewish crowd would have articulated this form of threat against the Roman procurator … Dramatic irony, not history, is the major feature of the episode.” Mine sits somewhere between Barrett’s and Moloney’s positions, because both historical and literary concerns seem to me significant to the meaning of John 19:12. 27 What is given is not necessarily the ἐξουσία, since it is feminine while the participle δεδομένον is neuter; commentators translate the text variously. Thompson, John, 385 translates, “any authority over me except what has been given … from above.” Barrett, John, 543 translates, “Unless it had been granted you to have authority.” Ridderbos, John, 603 supposes that the feminine noun is simply carried on in the neuter, which denotes “the concrete situation, that is, Pilate’s power to release Jesus or to crucify him.” However, Michaels, John, 936 suggests that it is not “authority” but “the entire series of events by which Jesus has been handed over to Pilate, and Pilate now has the ‘authority’ to exercise judgment.” 28 Michaels, John, 935 notes the echo of 10:18 in 19:11.

234

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

Pilate is a true friend of Caesar, his false accusers bring on themselves judgement from Caesar. 29 When Pilate tries to release Jesus in v. 12, the Ἰουδαῖοι shout, “If you release this man, you are not a friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar.” Because he attempts to release Jesus on the verdict of innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b), the Ἰουδαῖοι make the false accusation against Pilate. Excursus: Some scholars resort to the figure of Sejanus to make sense of the threat against Pilate in John 19:12. Keener writes that Pilate was “once supported by the corrupt Sejanus,” his “patron.” 30 As “client,” Pilate “gained his office through the graces of the anti-Jewish Sejanus.”31 E. Stauffer suggested that Pilate was appointed by Sejanus to help him destroy the Jews.32 According to Helen Bond, Stauffer “neatly created two Pilates, the Pilate of Philo and Josephus and the Pilate of the gospels, with a specific historical event – the fall of Sejanus – to account for the change.”33 Paul Maier follows Staufer, supposing that Sejanus himself sent Pilate to Judea in 26 CE and commissioned him to aggravate the

With references to John 19:12; Josephus, Ant. 18.85–89; and Philo, Gaius 299–305, James R. Harrison, “The Social Context,” in The Content and the Setting of the Gospel Tradition, ed. Mark Harding and Alanna Nobbs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 105–26 (107) notes, “The Roman Prefects were also dependent upon their imperial patrons and were vulnerable to threats of the withdrawal of Caesar’s friendship, as was the case with Pilate.” According to Barrett, John, 543, similarly, “He dare not face the renuntiatio amicitiae.” Michaels, John, 938 fn. 116 observes debate over whether or not the title “friend of Caesar” is honorific or technical, and whether Pilate already had the title or merely aspired to it. Whereas Barrett, John, 543 and Thompson, John, 387 read “friend of Caesar” as a “semitechnical term,” Brant, John, 248 reads it as “a technical term signifying that Caesar’s patronage is direct.” 30 Keener, John, 1106. 31 Keener, John, 1128. Brant, John, 243, 248 supposes that the patron of Pilate, Sejanus, and not Pilate himself was (technically) designated “friend of Caesar” (amicus Caesaris). On this as a technical title, see Ernst Bammel, “Φίλος τοῦ Καίσαρος,” ThLZ 77 (1952): 205–10. But as Barrett, John, 543 argues, “John would not have been aware of these political entanglements.” Moreover, Thompson, John, 387 does not even mention the name Sejanus. 32 Bond, Pilate, xiii, citing E. Stauffer, “Zur Münzpragung und Judenpolitik des Pontius Pilatus,” La Nouvelle Clio 1–2 (1949–50): 495–514. 33 Bond, Pilate, xiv. Bond (p. xvi) also writes: “Pilate research today therefore broadly encompasses two different interpretations of the historical prefect. On the one hand he is seen as deliberately provocative, of a callous disposition, merely a minion of Sejanus and his antiJewish plot. The events of the Jewish literature belong to the time before Sejanus’ fall whilst the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth takes its place afterwards. The other approach rejects the theory of an anti-Jewish plot of Sejanus, reading all the sources in context and suggesting that there is no fundamental difference between the Pilates encountered in each one. With the recent publications referred to above, it is this second view which is gradually becoming the dominant one.” 29

2. The sin of misrule, and the greater sin of false accusation

235

Jews. 34 Maier needs the relationship between Pilate and Sejanus to rationalise the recklessness of Pilate in Josephus and Philo and more significantly the threat against Pilate in John 19:12. 35 However, the relationship is unattested, and Pilate does not appear so differently across the sources. 36 Jean-Pierre Lémonon, for instance, rejects the SejanusPilate connection. 37 Brown also calls for caution. First, John 19:12 may have been composed “on the basis of such memories” as the shields (Philo, Gaius 299–305) and the Samaritans (Josephus, Ant. 18.85–89), incidents “without any background of a SejanusPilate relationship.” 38 Second, the plot of Sejanus against the Jews, which only Philo, Gaius 160–61 records, is historically dubious, since the rhetorical setting is Philo attempting to persuade Tiberius to help. 39 In sum, Sejanus should not factor in the interpretation of John 19:12.

Like ἄγουσιν (“they lead”) in John 18:28, ὁ παραδούς (“the one who delivers”) in 19:11 has no clear subject.40 The διάβολος, Judas, Caiaphas, and the Ἰουδαῖοι are the candidates for “the one who delivers” Jesus to Pilate.41 The verb παραδίδωμι occurs in the plural with the Ἰουδαῖοι in 18:30 and 35.42 Caiaphas initiates the plot against Jesus (11:50) that needs informers of Jesus’

Tiberius had retired to Campania and Capri that year; see Tacitus, Ann. 4.41, 57; Suetonius, Tiberius 41. See Paul L. Maier, “Sejanus, Pilate and the Date of the Crucifixion,” CH 37 (1968): 3–13 (9 fn. 29). 35 Maier, “Sejanus,” 10. 36 Bond, Pilate, 201; Brian C. McGing, “Pontius Pilate and the Sources,” CBQ 53 (1991): 416–38 (428–38). 37 Jean-Pierre Lémonon, Pilate et le gouvernement de la Judee: Textes et monuments (Paris: Gabalda, 1981), 275. Bond, Pilate, 21 observes that the coins issued by Pilate “have often been used to substantiate a link between the prefect and Sejanus.” See, for detail, eadem, “The Coins of Pontius Pilate: Part of an Attempt to Provoke the People or to Integrate them into the Empire?” JSJ 27 (1996): 241–62. Following Bond, Joan E. Taylor, “Pontius Pilate and the Imperial Cult in Roman Judaea,” NTS 52 (2006): 555–82 (562) situates the idea that Sejanus appointed Pilate among “psychological hypotheses” which “sidetrack scholars from seeing what Pilate actually achieves in the coinage.” 38 Brown, Death, 693. 39 Bond, Pilate, 22 fn. 119: “Only Philo, Embassy 159–60 and the beginning of In Flaccum (followed by Eusebius, EH 2.5.5), records Sejanus’ anti-Jewish policy. Whilst Suetonius (Tib. 36.1), Tacitus (Ann. 2.85.5) and Dio Cassius (157.18.5a) write of an expulsion of Jews from Rome in 19 CE, they do not associate it with Sejanus. Unfortunately, Tacitus’ account of 30/1 CE in the Annals has not survived.” See also Brown, Death, 694. 40 Mark 15:1 has the chief priests, the elders, the scribes, and the whole sanhedrin; Matt 27:1 has the chief priests and the elders of the people; Luke 22:66 has “the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes.” 41 Michaels, John, 937; but Schnackenburg, John, 3:261, for instance, suggests that the participle in ὁ παραδούς μέ σοι (John 19:11b) has “a general meaning … [a]ll those who have done it.” 42 Bultmann, John, 662 fn. 6; Lindars, John, 569; Lincoln, John, 468. And Pilate will deliver (παραδίδωμι) Jesus, whose assistants do not contend (18:36), to the Ἰουδαῖοι (19:16a). 34

236

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

whereabouts (v. 57), and he is the last to see Jesus before Pilate (18:28).43 But since 18:2, the one leading the cohort and the assistants from the chief priests and the Pharisees has been Judas. 44 Judas is moreover the subject of παραδίδωμι (“deliver”) the first eight times that John uses it. 45 John characterises Judas as thief (12:4, 6), as inspired by the διάβολος (13:2), as impure (v. 11), as entered by the σατανᾶς (v. 27), and as the one who delivered Jesus (ὁ παραδιδοὺς αὐτόν, 18:2, 5). 46 Judas is the most natural figure in view in 19:11. He is the impure, diabolical thief who delivers Jesus to Pilate. If Judas has greater sin (μείζονα ἁμαρτίαν ἔχει), Pilate presumably has lesser sin. 47 John tends to use μείζων (“greater”) to recall an object from context for comparison.48 John 15:13 also uses μείζονα … ἔχει. It uses οὐδείς with μείζων to indicate that “laying down one’s life for one’s friends” has no comparison whatsoever.49 That is the greatest love, and it is what Jesus does in his crucifixion. If Pilate has sin, therefore, John has to supply it. If his delivering Jesus to be crucified is his sin, Pilate has not yet done it. Anyway, his ἐξουσία from above to release and to kill Jesus has just been affirmed. The prefect has no sin by way of what God has given him.50 By contrast, the Moloney, John, 500. John seems to mean Judas as the χιλίαρχος in 18:12. He is the one “taking” (λαμβάνω, v. 3) the cohort and the (Jewish, v. 12) assistants from the chief priests and the Pharisees – which N. T. Wright, with J. P. Davies, “John, Jesus, and ‘The Ruler of This World’: Demonic Politics in the Fourth Gospel?” in Conception, Reception, and the Spirit: Essays in Honour of Andrew T. Lincoln, ed. J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2016), 71–89 (82) also suggests. He is the leader of the “they” in the plural ἄγουσιν (“they lead”) of v. 28 (also ἤγαγον, v. 13), namely the assistants clearly continuing to accompany Jesus when he is with Annas (v. 22). Annas and Caiaphas, by contrast, do not say anything in the Johannine account; Annas only sends them to Caiaphas (v. 24). 45 John 6:64, 71; 12:4; 13:2, 11, 21; 18:2, 5; Barrett, John, 543; Thompson, John, 386. 46 Wright, “John, Jesus, and ‘The Ruler of This World,’” 80: “This is the only explicit mention of ‘the Satan’ in John, and it has its literal Hebrew force; it isn’t just that Judas is demon-possessed, but rather that he becomes ‘the accuser,’ setting the prosecution of Jesus in train.” 47 Michaels, John, 937. 48 See μείζων in, for instance, John 1:50 (things greater than Jesus seeing Nathanael under the fig tree); 4:12 (Is Jesus greater than Jacob?); 5:20 (the Father will show the Son greater works than “these”); 13:16 (servants and messengers are not greater than masters and senders). 49 BDAG, s.v. μέγας notes that μείζων is losing its comparative sense, and it cites then the comparative μειζότερος (for instance, 3 John 4). However, μείζων functions comparatively across John itself. 50 Lindars, John, 568 writes, “if Pilate is true to his derived authority, and remembers its true source, he is not to be blamed for carrying out his duty.” The text is, for Lindars (p. 569), “to some extent exonerating Pilate.” 43 44

3. Vertical friendship between rulers

237

διάβολος and σατανᾶς enables the deliverer to sin. 51 Sin can come from below, but it cannot come from above. John has to supply Pilate’s sin somewhere nearby, but in some sense it has to come from below. I suggest that διὰ τοῦτο (“because of this”) and ἐκ τούτου (“out of this,” or “consequently”) in 19:11 and 12 point not only backward but also forward. In a similar way, in 6:65 and 66 Jesus’ words cause the disciples’ action (διὰ τοῦτο), and the disciples’ action is the consequence for Jesus’ words (ἐκ τούτου).52 The sin and its comparison lie with 19:12. The sin of Judas, which the Ἰουδαῖοι continue, is calumnia against Pilate, and John compares that sin with the content of the false accusation, namely disloyalty and misrule. So in Jesus’ words to Pilate in v. 11 the sin of calumnia is underway, and its point of comparison is coming up in v. 12. Jesus means that Judas, the deliverer, has an even greater sin than the sin of which the Ἰουδαῖοι are about to falsely accuse Pilate. In v. 11 Jesus anticipates the threat of the Ἰουδαῖοι in v. 12 to calm Pilate, who had become afraid in v. 8. Simply put, a false accusation pertaining to impiety and misrule is itself greater than impiety and misrule. Unlike Pilate, the διάβολος and σατανᾶς whom Judas embodies is condemned (16:11).

3. Vertical friendship between rulers 3. Vertical friendship between rulers

After the Ἰουδαῖοι threaten Pilate with an accusation of misrule in John 19:12a, they tell Pilate in v. 12b that Jesus makes himself king and opposes (ἀντιλέγω) Caesar in so doing. 53 Brant reads the alleged crime as a “counterclaim to Caesar’s rule.”54 And Lincoln reads Pilate as faced “with a decision between Jesus and Caesar.”55 In this section I will argue, rather, that Jesus and Caesar are compatible with each other, and that Pilate need not decide between them. The emphasis in the accusation is not Jesus’ kingship but Jesus’ taking Caesar’s imperium to ratify kings. Caesar has unparalleled I disagree with Bultmann, John, 663, who says Pilate emerges no better than the Ἰουδαῖοι, in the sense that he is an unaware instrument of both God and the διάβολος. 52 “Because of this (διὰ τοῦτο) I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is given to him out of the Father” (ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ δεδομένον αὐτῷ ἐκ τοῦ πατρός): as a result (ἐκ τούτου) many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” John’s uses of διὰ τοῦτο point forward to ὅτι (John 5:16, 18; 8:47; 9:23; 10:17; 12:18, 39; 13:11; 15:19; 16:15) and ἐκ τούτου (6:65; 19:11); διὰ τοῦτο sometimes points backward to ἵνα (1:31) and ὅτι (15:19). John 7:22 and 12:27 are outliers, without any of ὅτι, ἐκ τούτου, or ἵνα in surrounding clauses. 53 For ἀντιλέγω, see Sir 4:25; Josephus, Ant. 18.89; 20.7; Ap. 1.259; Prayer of Joseph 2.2. 54 Brant, John, 249. 55 Lincoln, John, 469. 51

238

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

maiestas, and he therefore has universal imperium. Caesar alone may share that imperium, and those who take it from him diminish his maiestas. To sharpen that sense of John 19:12, I will trace the friendship of the Hasmoneans and then the Herodians with Rome. And to illuminate the possibility that Pilate may be loyal to both Caesar and Jesus, I will turn to the friendship between divine and human rulers in the Wisdom of Solomon. Judea and Rome had “untarnished” friendship from 161 to 63 BCE. 56 When he heard about the Romans, Judas Maccabaeus initiated friendship and alliance with them (1 Macc 8:1; also Josephus, Ant. 12.414).57 His brother Jonathan sent an embassy to Rome to renew the friendship (1 Macc 12:1, et passim). When Simon the high priest sent his ambassadors, the Romans called the Ἰουδαῖοι friends, allies, and brothers (1 Macc 14:40; 15:17). After Simon died, his successor John Hyrcanus renewed the alliance (Ant. 13.259). Before Pompey arrived, the kings of the Ἰουδαῖοι remained the allies and friends of the Romans (Josephus, Ap. 2.134). 58 Afterward, Hyrcanus had Julius Caesar confirm the friendship and alliance (Ant. 14.185). Marc Antony said that Gaius Cassius plundered the nation of the Ἰουδαῖοι, even though they were friends and allies (Ant. 14.320). So for the Hasmoneans, friendship with the Romans was necessary. The same was the case for the Herodians, if not more so. In particular, the element of obligation came to be accompanied by emotion: friendship with Rome was not distant politics, but evolved through personal ties.59 “Of all the Near Eastern dynasts, the Herodians had, no doubt, the closest contacts with Rome.” 60 Herod became friend of Caesar when Antony came to prefer Cleopatra (Josephus, War 1.390–93). 61 Besides Agrippa, Caesar preferred Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Jerusalem Against Rome (ISACR 7; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 7, and see the overview through p. 21. Even more thorough is Ernst Baltrusch, Die Juden und das Römische Reich: Geschichte einer konfliktreichen Beziehung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002), 83–113. Introducing 1 Macc 8:17–32, Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland, Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar (London: Routledge, 2005), 265 write, “Rome was to send no actual aid for fifty years after this ‘alliance’, which was renewed in 142, 139, and 132 (1 Macc. 12.1–4, 14.24; Joseph. 13.5.8, 13.7.3, 13.9.2).” 57 See 1 Macc 8:17 for the terms συμμαχία and φιλία. 58 Caesar made Hyrcanus high priest and ethnarch (Josephus, Ant. 14.190–95), not king, and annexed the Greek cities to Syria, whose Roman legions quelled rebellions in the next two decades. 59 On friendship in imperial Rome, Sandra Citroni Marchetti, “‘I Could Not Love Caesar More’: Roman Friendship and the Beginning of the Principate,” CJ 99:3 (2004): 281–99 emphasises emotional ties. 60 Kropp, Images and Monuments, 36, who notes the next two texts, too. 61 According to Suetonius, the first Caesar, Julius, wins over not only friends of Pompey and the Senate (Julius 27), but also kings and provinces (Julius 28). Among the foreigners 56

3. Vertical friendship between rulers

239

Herod to all other friends; and besides Caesar, Agrippa preferred Herod to all other friends (Josephus, Ant. 15.361). Herod can be made “King of Ἰουδαῖοι” by Antony (War 1.282; also Ant. 15.373), or, “King of Judea” by Cassius and Marcus (Ant. 14.280).62 Before Herod, Antipater already had friendship with the emperors (Ant. 14.164), which made him and his family citizens of Rome (War 1.194). Not only did he inherit citizenship, then, but Herod was also called φιλοκαῖσαρ (“friend of Caesar”) and φιλορωμαῖος (“friend of the Romans”) during his reign, as the inscriptions attest.63 LΛΒ ΒΑC[ΙΛΕΩC] ΗΡ[ΩΔΟΝ] ΕΝ[ΕΡΓΕΤΟΝ?] ΦΙΛΟΚ[ΑΙCΑΡΟC] / ΑΓΟΡ[ΑΝΟΜΟΝ] / ΜΝΑ ΤΡ[ΙΑ] Year 32 of King Herod, Benefactor, Friend of Caesar / Inspector of markets / Three minas64 ΒΑCΙΛΕΥΟ / ΝΤΟC ΗΡΩ / ΔΟΥ ΕΥCΕ / ΒΟΥC ΚΑΙ Φ / ΙΛΟΚΑΙC[ΑΡΟC] In the time of King Herod / pious / and Friend / of Caesar65 Ο ΔΗΜΟ[C] / ΒΑCΙΛΕΑ ΗΡΩΔΗΝ ΦΙΛΟ / ΡΩΜΑΙΟΝ ΕΥΕΡΓΕCΙΑC / ΕΝΕΚΕΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΝΟΙΑC ΤΗC / ΕΙC ΕΑΥΤΟΝ The people to King Herod / Friend of the Romans / because of his good works and good will toward the city66 [Ο Δ]ΗΜΟC / [ΒΑCΙ]ΛΕΑ ΗΡΩΔΗΝ ΕΥCΕΒΗ ΚΑΙ ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙΣΑΡΑ / [Α]ΡΕΤΗC ΕΝΕΚΑ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΕΡΓΕCΙΑC The people / to Herod the pious King and Friend of Caesar / because of his moral excellence and good works67 [Ο ΔΗΜΟC] / [ΒΑCΙΛΕΑ ΗΡΩΔΗΝ ΕΥ]CΕΒΗ ΚΑΙ / [ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙΣΑΡΑ / ΑΡΕΤΗC] ΕΝΕΚΑ / [ΚΑΙ ΕΥΕΡΓΕCΙ]ΑC

lamenting Caesar, the Jews are singled out (Julius 84). The reputation of Augustus, too, drew foreign embassies seeking his friendship and that of the Romans (Augustus 21). The friendly and allied kings dedicated new city and temple projects to him, but also dressed only as clients whenever around him, whether in Rome or when he travelled (Augustus 60). 62 Also for Herod, see War 1.388 (βασιλεύς ἐν πᾶσιν); Ant. 14.9 (βασιλεύς τῶν Ἰουδαίων); 15.409 (ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων βασιλεύς). In addition, War 6.103 has βασιλεύς Ἰουδαίων for Jehoiachim, and 7.171 has it for Alexander Janneus; Ant. 7.101 has ὁ βασιλεύς τῆς Ἰουδαίας for David. 63 On the inscriptions, see David Braund, Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of the Client Kingship (London: Croom Helm, 1984), 105–07; Richardson, Herod, 203–11; Marshak, Herod, 154–56. 64 Y. Meshorer, “A Stone Weight from the Reign of Herod,” IEJ 20 (1970): 97–98, plate 27. The second letter of the third word, εὐεργέτης, should be upsilon, not nu. 65 Alla Kushnir-Stein, “An Inscribed Lead Weight from Ashdod: A Reconsideration,” ZPE 105 (1995): 81–84. 66 OGIS 414, from the Acropolis in Athens. 67 OGIS 427, from the Acropolis in Athens.

240

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

The people / for Herod the pious King and Friend of Caesar / because of his moral excellence and good works68

“Connection to Augustus, the source of all legitimacy in the post-Actium world, was essential” – not only for Herod, throughout his reign, but also for his descendants.69 His grandson Agrippa I, who for roughly three years ruled the reunited kingdom (41–44 CE), used the same propaganda. ΕΠΙ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΓΡΙΠΠΑ ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙCΑΡΟC ΕΥCΕΒΟΥC ΚΑΙ ΦΙΛΟΡΩΜΑ[Ι]ΟΥ Concerning great King Agrippa, Friend of Caesar, pious, and Friend of the Romans70 ΕΠΙ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΜΑΡΚΟ[Υ ΙΟΥΛΙΟΥ ΑΓΡΙΠΠΑ ΦΙΛΟ] / ΚΑΙCΑΡΟC ΚΑΙ ΦΙΛΟΡΩΜΑ[Ι]ΟΥ Concerning great King Marcus Julius Agrippa, Friend of Caesar and Friend of the Romans71 [ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC ΑΓ]ΡΙΠΠΑC ΦΙΛΟΚΑΙCΑΡ / [ΚΑΙ ΦΙΛΟΡΩ]ΜΑΙΟC King Agrippa, Friend of Caesar [and Friend of the Ro]mans72

Antipas remained tetrarch until 39 CE, when Agrippa I had him banished by Caligula (to Lyons in Josephus, Ant. 18.245–52; to Spain in Josephus, War 2.183), on being (probably falsely) accused (κατηγορία, κατηγορέω) of banding for revolt (ἀπόστασις) with Sejanus against Tiberius and with Artabanus against Caligula (Ant. 18.250, 252). Dio attests the friendship of Agrippa with Caligula (59.24.1), as well as his praetorian and later consular rank (60.8.2). In 41 CE Claudius gave Agrippa Judea, Samaria, and Abila (Ant. 19.274–75; War 2.215), and he gave his brother Herod Chalkis. In 42/43 CE these brothers then minted coins. The obverse depicts Claudius between Agrippa and Herod, each of whom has their name superscribed, and the reverse surrounds a pair of clasped hands with an important legend. ΟΡΚΙΑ ΒΑΣ(ιλέως) ΜΕ(γάλου) ΑΓΡΙΠΠΑ Π(ρὸς) ΣΕΒ(αστὸν) ΚΑΙΣΑΡ[Α Κ(αί) ΣΥ]ΝΚΛΗΤΟΝ Κ(αί) ΔΗΜΟ(ν) ΡΩΜ(αίων) Κ(αι) ΦΙΛΙ(α) Κ(αι) ΣΥΜΜΑΧΙ(α) ΑΥΤΟΥ Sworn treaty of the great king Agrippa to Caesar Augustus, the Senate and the Roman people, his friendship and alliance73

Benjamin D. Merritt, “Greek Inscriptions,” Hesperia 21 (1952): 340–80, no. 14 (370). Marshak, Herod, 156. 70 OGIS 419. 71 OGIS 420. 72 OGIS 424. 73 Text and translation from Kropp, Images and Monuments, 38: the reconstruction is based on Agrippa’s issue; Herod’s is abbreviated, not to mention only attested by seven deficient specimens (fn. 264). Another witness to the treaty between Claudius and Agrippa is Josephus, Ant. 19.275. 68 69

3. Vertical friendship between rulers

241

The φιλία-συμμαχία language brings this discussion full circle, back to 1 Macc 8:17, in that first Judea-Rome treaty. From the second century BCE, and through the first century CE, friendship with Rome was crucial to ruling Judea. Friendship with the Romans was predicated on the maiestas of the people and later the emperor of Rome. It was the basis of kingship, without which the Hasmoneans and especially the Herodians had neither security nor strength. What constitutes friendship with Rome is at stake in John 19:12. Roman friendship allows, not disallows, Jewish kingship. Roman alliances with the Hasmoneans and the Herodians always enabled kingship in Judea. If the accusation against Jesus is that he opposes Caesar, it cannot be in the sense that he merely has kingship. Kingship itself constitutes no crime against Rome, but taking it without Roman friendship is. But if the accusation is that Jesus takes kingship not already ratified by Caesar, the accusers are wrong. Jesus retreats from the type of kingship Antipas, loyal friend of Tiberius, so wanted (6:15).74 Jesus has not made himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, and Pilate has recognised as much (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). Jesus’ kingship is from another world (18:36), from God, and it means witnessing to the truth crucified on the cross (v. 37). So, Jesus neither makes any counterclaim to Caesar’s imperium, nor does he take Caesar’s imperium to make kings. If anything, in particular considering that they share ἐξουσία, Jesus and Pilate seem to have friendship, not enmity, in John. And if so, John would resemble the theology of Wisdom, which relates human kingship to friendship with the divine. Wisdom teaches judges (Wis 1:1) and kings (6:1) that the divine gives kingdoms (v. 3). These judges and kings are assistants to the kingdom of the divine (v. 4). If they love Sophia (6:12, 18; 7:10; 8:2), they gain another kingdom (6:20), in which they rule forever (v. 21) with the divine (1:7; 3:8). Everyone is created to rule (9:3), but only with Sophia (v. 6, vv. 9–12). “In each generation she creates friends of God and prophets by passing into holy souls” (7:27). She enters (εἰσέρχομαι) the soul of the prophet (10:16), through whom she acts (v. 17; 11:1). By φιλία with Sophia (8:18; συγγένεια, v. 17), humans can have φιλία with the divine (7:14). The divine loves those who live with Sophia (v. 28) and Sophia herself (8:3).75 And as Sophia shares in συμβίωσις with the divine (v. 3), so the anonymous author shares in συμβίωσις with Sophia (vv. 9, 16). The way Wisdom uses friendship language indicates an important dualism. Whereas Sophia migrates (χωρέω) through pure spirits (Wis 7:23), and she migrates (χωρέω) through all things because she is pure (v. 24), she “will not See earlier Chapter 2. The divine also loves (ἀγαπάω) those who please him (Wis 4:10), all creation (11:24), and its sons (16:26). 74 75

242

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

enter (εἰσέρχομαι) a soul that plots evil or make home (κατοικέω) in a body involved in sin” (1:4) – the prime deterrents being duplicity (δόλος, v. 5) and slander (καταλαλιά, v. 11). Whereas holy children established the divine law in ὁμόνοια (18:9), the nations had ὁμόνοια of wickedness (10:5). Whereas humans can trust (πείθω) the divine (3:9; 16:24), and its works persuades (πείθω) them (13:7; 16:8), they can also trust (πείθω) lifeless idols (14:29). Whereas the divine tests (πειράζω; δοκιμάζω, 3:6) and finds worthy (ἄξιος) of himself some humans (v. 5), only fools test (πειράζω, 1:2; δοκιμάζω, v. 3) the divine. And whereas the ungodly who summoned death are worthy (ἄξιος) to belong to its faction (μερίς, v. 16), the divine hates humans for doing unholy things (12:4). According to Wisdom, if one does not have friendship with both Sophia and God, one has enmity with them and therefore has friendship with both other evil ones and death itself. Wisdom 1:16 describes death as the φίλος of the ungodly, and the ungodly as in the μερίς of death. To strengthen the comparison with John, the terms φίλος and μέρος – cognate with μερίς – appear to have some semantic equivalence in the gospel. ἐὰν μὴ νίψω σε οὐκ ἔχεις μέρος μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ if I do not wash you, you have no share with me (John 13:8) ἐὰν τοῦτον ἀπολύσῃς οὐκ εἶ φίλος τοῦ Καίσαρος if you release this one, you are not a friend of Caesar (John 19:12)

Though in the first place linguistic, the similarities between the two texts are thematic in two significant ways. The context of 13:8 introduces the deliverer, Judas, (vv. 2, 10, 11), along with the issue of purity (vv. 10, 11). And the context of 19:12 refers back to the deliverer (v. 9), who has an instrumental role in the defiling behaviour of the Ἰουδαῖοι at the praetorium (18:28). If he has no sin except for the false accusation against him, Pilate maintains friendship with both Jesus and Caesar. The opposition Pilate faces from the Ἰουδαῖοι places him on the opposite side of the dualism. Much as Wisdom does, John constructs a dualism between friendship and enmity with the divine. When Jesus gives his disciples δόξα, they become one (John 10:30; 17:11, 22), as the Son and the Father are (v. 21). As the one shepherd for the one flock (10:16), Jesus ingathers the children of God (1:12; 11:52; 20:17). And the world knows that the Son also loves the Father, because the Son keeps the Father’s commands (14:31). Jesus loves his own, his disciples (13:1, 34; 15:9, 12), who love him by following his commands (14:15, 21, 23, 24), in particular to love one another (13:34; 15:12, 17). As the Father loves the Son (3:35; 10:17; 15:9; 17:23, 24, 26), he also loves those who love the Son, the disciples (14:21, 23; 17:23). But because

4. Summary

243

unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι are children of the διάβολος, not God (8:44), they cannot love the Son (v. 42). The world hates the Son and the Father (7:24), as well as the otherworldly disciples (15:19).76 More than divine δόξα, they love human δόξα (12:43). They love the darkness (3:19), and they hate the light (v. 20). If Caesar represents the human maiestas and God the divine δόξα, then John intimates friendship with both go hand in hand. The true friend of Pilate and therefore Caesar is the true friend of the Son and therefore the Father. And the enemy of Caesar who slanders Pilate is the enemy of the Father who slanders the Son. Pilate and Jesus share and act on the same ἐξουσία that comes from those who send them. And Pilate is not necessarily unaware of this. There are in fact indications to the contrary. When the Ἰουδαῖοι mention friendship with Caesar and by implication with Jesus (John 19:12), Pilate may ponder whether Jesus’ friendship is otherworldly, as his kingship is (18:36). By his verdict of innocence (18:38b; 19:4, 6b) and his inscription (19:19, 22), moreover, Pilate both trusts the words of Jesus and exercises the imperium of Caesar. As Roman friendship always enabled Hasmoneans and Herodian rule, so divine friendship always enables human rule. Wisdom’s σοφία and John’s λόγος bring divine friendship to human rulers – though they are Roman, not Jewish.

4. Summary 4. Summary

The origin of Jesus is ambiguous to Pilate – at least at first. After the accusation of Jesus’ divine sonship, and after Jesus explains that any ἐξουσία Pilate has over him is from above, Pilate may sense that Jesus’ origin is indeed from another, heavenly place. The reader, moreover, understands that the ἐξουσία Jesus has is in effect the same, as it leads toward the cross. So Pilate does not lose his friendship with Caesar, and he may even gain friendship with God, the ultimate source of his ἐξουσία, through Jesus. By contrast, Judas is the thief, inspired by the διάβολος, impure, entered by the σατανᾶς, and the one who delivered Jesus. He and the Ἰουδαῖοι after him hate Caesar by threatening the prefect with the false accusation of misrule. And they hate the Father by rejecting the Son with the false accusation of misleading the nation away from Caesar. As enemies of Pilate and therefore Caesar, not to mention of the Son and therefore his Father, the Ἰουδαῖοι are destroyed and judged. They are no longer Ἰουδαῖοι. The tragedy of the

76

James 4:4 also equates friendship with the world and enmity with God.

244

Chapter 10: Scene 6, John 19:9–12

Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι is that they abandon the divine and human rulers who make and keep them Ἰουδαῖοι.

Chapter 11

Scene 7, John 19:13–16a Like the Passover lambs, John’s Jesus was killed the day before the Passover (John 19:14). By that Passover christology and other Johannine idiosyncrasies, in this chapter I will argue that John expropriates the identity of the Ἰουδαῖοι. 1 John’s use of Ἑβραϊστί to switch code when naming Gabbatha (v. 13), in particular, seems to relate the identity of the Ἰουδαῖοι to the topography of Jerusalem. But the primary ambiguity of scene 7 is whether ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος describes Pilate or Jesus sitting down in judgement. Pilate is the prefect and would be the normal fit, that is if the context is earthly judgement. As received in Gos. Pet. 3.7 and Justin, 1 Apol. 35.6, however, John may be mocking those who install Jesus as judge even as they attempt to have him judged. Perhaps, moreover, John is using the openness to lead the reader into a paradox. With no way to decide that either Pilate or Jesus is the exclusive judge, the potential result is that both are imagined as sitting in judgement. Because Jesus suffers earthly judgement from Caesar, the Son also brings heavenly judgement from the Father. Despite the allegiance they confess to the emperor (John 19:15), the accusers receive the king they made to crucify (v. 16) under an inscription written by Pilate (v. 19) – one they want him to rewrite (v. 21). ὁ οὖν Πιλᾶτος ἀκούσας τῶν λόγων τούτων ἤγαγεν ἔξω τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον Λιθόστρωτον, Ἑβραϊστὶ δὲ Γαββαθα. 14 ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, ὥρα ἦν ὡς ἕκτη. καὶ λέγει τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις· ἴδε ὁ βασιλεὺς ὑμῶν. 15 ἐκραύγασαν οὖν ἐκεῖνοι· ἆρον ἆρον, σταύρωσον αὐτόν. λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Πιλᾶτος· τὸν βασιλέα ὑμῶν σταυρώσω; ἀπεκρίθησαν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς· οὐκ ἔχομεν βασιλέα εἰ μὴ Καίσαρα. 16 Τότε οὖν παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς ἵνα σταυρωθῇ. So hearing these words, he led Jesus outside and sat him on a judgement bench in a place called Lithostrotos, and in Hebrew Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover – it was the sixth hour. And he says to the Ἰουδαῖοι, “Look, your king!” 15 So they shouted, “Away! Away! Crucify him!” Pilate says to them, “May I crucify your

Reinhartz, Cast Out of the Covenant, 52 argues that John means not only to appropriate Jewishness but moreover to expropriate it from unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι. 1

246

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king except Caesar.” 16 So then he delivered him to them, in order to be crucified. (John 19:13–16a)

1. καθίζω and transitivity: when Pilate and Jesus both sit in judgement 1. καθίζω and transitivity: when Pilate and Jesus both sit in judgement

The expression ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος in John 19:13 is ambiguous. Even if it was only with Codex Washingtonianus that it appeared for the first time, the definite article intimates that the anarthrous βῆμα in John 19:13 was sometimes difficult for scribes. 2 The difficulty presented by John 19:13 is acute, considering the definiteness of every other New Testament βῆμα – not least the close parallel of Matt 27:19.3 There are three important differences between the use in John 19:13 and the one in Matt 27:19. Matthew includes the term βῆμα with a pronoun and a definite article in a genitive absolute construction: καθημένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος. The βῆμα in Matthew is a definite one (τοῦ), and Pilate sits on it (αὐτοῦ). The string of genitives in Matthew – not to mention also the subsequent mention of Pilate’s wife, ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ – makes clear that it is the prefect who is sitting on his own judgement bench. The clarity in Matt 27:19 exacerbates the ambiguity in John 19:13. The judgement benches mentioned in Acts belong to human rulers. King Herod puts on his royal clothing and sits on the judgement bench (καθίσας ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος, Acts 12:21). Corinthian Jews forcefully bring Paul to the judgement bench (ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα) of Gallio the proconsul of Achaia (18:12; also vv. 16 and 17). Paul is at Festus’ judgement bench (Acts 25:6; also τῇ ἑξῆς καθίσας ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος, v. 17) in Caesarea when he appeals to Caesar’s Codex Washingtonianus is typically dated to the late fourth or early fifth century. Ulrich Schmid, “Reassessing the Palaeography and Codicology of the Freer Gospel Manuscript,” in The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove, ed. Larry W. Hurtado (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 227–49 has reopened the debate and tentatively suggested the sixth century. Other manuscripts with the article include K Γ Δ Θ. An anarthrous βῆμα appears in P66 ℵ A B L N. 3 Like ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος in John 19:13, Josephus, War 2.172 has καθίσας ἐπὶ βήματος. As Michaels, John 940 fn. 122 notes, both texts use the verb καθίζω (“sit”) with the anarthrous prepositional phrase ἐπὶ βήματος (“on a judgement bench”). Mason, Judean War 2, 143 fn. 1076 states that the “raised podium” would have been an occasional structure for “trying cases or hearing appeals” in this stadium. By contrast, in the second of two accounts about Pilate in The Jewish War Josephus specifies a definite judgement bench: War 2.175 has περιστάντες τὸ βῆμα, and 2.176 has ἀπὸ τοῦ βήματος. Another anarthrous prepositional phrase is in Josephus, War 2.2: ἀφ᾿ ὑψηλοῦ βήματος καὶ χρυσοῦ θρόνου (“from an elevated bench and a gold throne”). 2

1. καθίζω and transitivity: when Pilate and Jesus both sit in judgement

247

judgement bench in Rome (ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος Καίσαρος, v. 10). The judgement benches in the Pauline literature, however, belong to divine rulers. All will stand at God’s judgement bench (τῷ βήματι τοῦ θεοῦ, Rom 14:10). And all must appear before Christ’s judgement bench (ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βήματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, 2 Cor 5:10). With those Lukan and Pauline texts in view, the ambiguity around the judge on the judgement bench in John 19:13 is conspicuous and allows for either a human or divine figure. The ambiguity of John 19:13 compounds with the aorist form ἐκάθισεν (from καθίζω), which may be functioning either transitively (Pilate seats Jesus) or intransitively (Pilate seats himself). 4 “It is not easy to determine who sat upon the βῆμα,” writes Barrett. 5 On the face of it, the transitive arguments seem to me far more salient than the intransitive ones. Against the transitive reading, the other uses of καθίζω in John are intransitive, and Roman prefects do not seat prisoners on judgement benches in the ancient sources.6 But for the transitive reading, the image of Jesus in judgement fits both with the Johannine judge christology and with the kingship theme in 18:28–19:22.7 The incarnation and the crucifixion in John constitute judgement, and the accusation against Jesus pertains to kingship.8 By John 19:13, Jesus has been dressed in crown and purple (v. 2), as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι (v. 3), and revealed as such to the Ἰουδαῖοι outside (v. 5). And in this final scene at the praetorium, Pilate will question the Ἰουδαῖοι about their king (vv. 14 and 15). Though the intransitive reading strains the imagination of the reader less, the transitive reading enhances the meaning of John 19:13 in light of the surrounding episode and the surrounding gospel. Anyway, Johannine meaning, based in the incarnation and completed in the crucifixion, relies on paradoxical imagination. On top of that argument from Johannine coherence, early Christian literature attests the transitive reading of ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος in John 19:13. Two second-century Christian texts show awareness of an interpretation of John in which Pilate seats Jesus as king exercising judgement.9 So, Gos. Pet. Bultmann, John, 664 prefers the intransitive reading. Thompson, John, 388 writes, “on balance it is more likely that Pilate is depicted here as finally taking his place as judge in order to pass judgment on Jesus.” 5 Barrett, John, 544, who briefly overviews the arguments I discuss. I will return to Barrett’s conclusion. 6 John 8:2 has καὶ καθίσας ἐδίδασκεν αὐτούς (“and when he sat down, he taught them”), and, as part of a quotation, 12:15 has καθήμενος ἐπὶ πῶλον ὄνου (“sitting on a donkey’s colt”). 7 Judgement and kingship come together in Ps 10:16–18; Isa 11:1–4; Dan 4:37. 8 See earlier my introduction. 9 Charles E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 306–09, 312–317 discusses the Gospel of Peter and Justin’s 1 Apology as part 4

248

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

3.7 reads, “and they clothed him in purple and they sat him on the seat of judgment (ἐκάθισαν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ καθέδραν κρίσεως) saying, ‘judge justly, King of Israel.’” 10 And Justin’s 1 Apol. 35.6 reads, “they seated him on the judgment seat in ridicule and said ‘give judgement for us’ (διασύροντες αὐτὸν ἐκάθισαν ἐπὶ βήματος καὶ εἶπον Κρίνον ἡμῖν).” 11 With John 19:13, Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1 Apol. 35.6 both include an indefinite judgement bench. But whereas Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1 Apol. 35.6 indicate the transitivity of καθίζω with the accusative αὐτόν, John does not include αὐτόν. And whereas Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1 Apol. 35.6 use the plural ἐκάθισαν (“they seated”), John uses the singular ἐκάθισεν (“he seated”). 12 The Gospel of Peter and Justin’s 1 Apology explicitly depict the Ἰουδαῖοι installing Jesus as their own judge. The nature of the interaction between John, the Gospel of Peter, and Justin’s 1 Apology is unclear. Charles Hill proposes that one “exegetical tradition” underlies Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1. Apol. 35.6, and that this “common source” is John “combined with an exegesis” of Isa 58:2. 13 Timothy Henderson similarly also considers the possibility that Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1. Apol. 35.6 share a “testimony source.”14 As Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1. Apol. 35.6 receive John 19:13 in different language and in different contexts, they imply that the transitive reading was sufficiently embedded very early. Perhaps Gos. of the reception of John in the years 150 through 170 CE. Christian Maurer and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, “The Gospel of Peter,” in New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher (rev. ed.; trans. R. McL. Wilson; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 216–27 address the question of dating the Gospel of Peter cautiously. They (p. 218) note that P. Oxy. 2949 indicates use of the text in Egypt from as early as the end of the second century CE if not the start of the third. Though “an exact dating is not possible,” its awareness of both all four canonical gospels and older traditions entails the middle of the second century as “a natural hypothesis” (p. 221). Notwithstanding the “very divergent opinions” of scholars and the fact that “[m]any questions remain open,” they (p. 219) maintain that the Gospel of Peter is clearly aware of and using the canonical gospels in some way or another. 10 Text and translation from Foster, The Gospel of Peter, 198, 199. 11 Text and translation from Minns and Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, 176, 177. See also 1 Apol. 35.4: “they ask me now for judgement (αἰτουσί με νῦν κρίσιν) and dare to draw near to God.” By contrast, Isa 58:2 has “they now ask of me righteous judgement (αἰτοῦσίν με νῦν κρίσιν δικαίαν).” 12 Michaels, John, 940 fn. 125 distinguishes the plural “they” (Ἰουδαῖοι) in Gos. Pet. 3.7, and 1 Apol. 35.6 from the singular “he” (Pilate) in John 19:13, seemingly in order to stress distance between the traditions. 13 Hill, Johannine Corpus, 330, 331. Hill (p. 330) suggests that the transitive reading of καθίζω in John 19:13 makes it possible for Justin’s 1 Apology to interpret Isa 58:2 in light of Jesus’ death. 14 Timothy P. Henderson, The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics: Rewriting the Story of Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection (WUNT 2/301; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 71.

1. καθίζω and transitivity: when Pilate and Jesus both sit in judgement

249

Pet. 3.7 and 1. Apol. 35.6 appropriated the transitive reading from John itself – and not only that, but more. Henderson observes a “transfer of blame” from Pilate in Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1. Apol. 35.6 that is not in the canonical gospels.15 By contrast, I have read John as blaming the Ἰουδαῖοι, who crucify Jesus (John 19:16), not Pilate, who declares Jesus innocent (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). So Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1. Apol. 35.6 may read more out of John than the solution to that grammatical ambiguity in ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος. I propose that Johannine theology makes sense of the way the Gospel of Peter uses the title “King of Israel.”16 John distinguishes the universal and

15 Henderson, Gospel of Peter, 59, 60, 75. Henderson discusses the tendency of the Gospel of Peter to exonerate Pilate, specifically in relation to Pilate’s handwashing, Jesus’ condemnation by Herod, and Pilate’s role as a friend of Joseph. 16 Foster, The Gospel of Peter, 145, 146, 263 argues that, though there can be no “degree of certainty,” the Gospel of Peter plausibly knows and uses John “sparingly,” rather than as a “main source”; it is “heavily influenced by the Johannine narrative,” but not “directly dependent on it.” The points of contact between the Gospel of Peter and John are variously identified by critics, some seeing more, and some seeing fewer: Maurer and Schneemelcher, “Gospel of Peter,” 226–27 note ten comparisons between the Gospel of Peter and John: (1) Gos. Pet. 2.5b and John 19:31; (2) Gos. Pet. 3.7 and John 19:13; (3) Gos. Pet. 4.14 and John 19:31 ff.; (4) Gos. Pet. 5.17 and John 19:28, 30; (5) Gos. Pet. 5.18 and John 11:10; (6) Gos. Pet. 6.21 and John 20:25, 27; (7) Gos. Pet. 6.24 and John 19:41; (8) Gos. Pet. 11.48 and John 11:50; (9) Gos. Pet. 12.50 and John 20:19; (10) Gos. Pet. 14.60 and John 21:1 ff. Hill, Johannine Corpus, 306 lists instances of “the influence of special material” from John on the Gospel of Peter: (1) Gos. Pet. 3.7 and John 19:13; (2) Gos. Pet. 3.9 and John 18:22; 19:3; (3) Gos. Pet. 3.9 and John 19:1; (4) Gos. Pet. 4.14 and John 19:32–33; (5) Gos. Pet. 6.21 and John 20:25; (6) Gos. Pet. 12.50 and John 19:38; 20:19; (7) Gos. Pet. 14.60 and John 21:1–3. The suggestion from Hill that Gos. Pet. 3.9 preserves “vocabulary distinct to John” (specifically 18:22; 19:1, 3) needs to be nuanced. First, μαστιγόω (“scourge”) occurs not only in John 19:1 but also when the synoptic Jesus foreshadows his own death (see Mark 10:34; Matt 20:19; Luke 18:33). Second, the noun ῥάπισμα (“slap”) occurs in John 19:3 (ἐδίδοσαν αὐτῷ ῥαπίσματα, “they gave him slaps”) as well as Mark 14:65 (ῥαπίσμασιν αὐτὸν ἔλαβον, “they received him with slaps”); in addition, its verbal cognate ῥαπίζω (“slap”) occurs in Matt 26:67. So, Hill may go too far with turns of phrase such as “influence of special material” and “preserving vocabulary distinct to John.” Foster, The Gospel of Peter, 146 argues, “Yet, paradoxically, it is something not contained in the extant portion of the Gospel of Peter that makes knowledge of the fourth gospel by the Gospel of Peter more plausible. The conclusion of the narrative breaks off mid-sentence at the Gospel of Peter 14.60. This final verse has just set the scene for a post-resurrection incident that is about to take place beside some unspecified sea. Among the canonical gospels, only in John do we have a post-resurrection scene that takes place beside the shores of a body of water (Jn 21.1–23). In the Johannine account the water is named as the Sea of Tiberias, and like the Gospel of Peter the name of the first disciple in the two admittedly unidentical lists is given as Simon Peter.” Foster concludes that perhaps “the narrative is

250

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

spiritual community of Jesus from the national and political identity of the people of God, inasmuch as ἔθνος and Ἰσραήλ connote it.17 In Gos. Pet. 3.7, first, the Ἰουδαῖοι address Jesus as “King of Israel,” after in 3.6 they designate him as “Son of God.”18 John also pairs the “Son” and “King” titles, at the start (John 1:49) and the end (19:7, 12) of the narrative.19 Jesus corrects Nathanael’s confession (1:50), and Pilate finds the Ἰουδαῖοι’s accusation false (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). In Gos. Pet. 4.11, second, the inscription on the cross has “King of Israel,” but in the canonical gospels it has “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” (Matt 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19). Paul Foster supposes that “Israel” distances Jesus from the “Ἰουδαῖοι,” a change due to the text’s “clearly heightened anti-Jewish tendency.”20 However, considering that “Israel,” unlike “Ἰουδαῖοι,” is an insider term, the Romans are not the unspecified ones erecting (ὤρθωσαν) and writing (ἐπέγραψαν) on the cross in Gos. Pet. 4.11.21 The rhetoric of “Israel” in the Gospel of Peter is therefore anti-Jewish. The Gospel of Peter follows John, which assigns agency to the Ἰουδαῖοι, who destroy Jesus’ body (John 2:19), exalt the Son of Man (8:28), and take (19:16) and crucify (v. 18) him. So I am choosing to read John 19:13 as though Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1 Apol. 35.6 are also reading it in an attempt to resolve the ambiguity in ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος. If they sense ambiguity in ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος, they resolve it by making the expression explicitly transitive. I agree with Joseph Verheyden that Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1 Apol. 35.6 “do not as such offer proof that Jn must be understood in this way,” but I disagree that “they are after all only of secondary importance for explaining v. 13.” 22 The Gospel of Peter in particular illuminates not only the one element of John’s judgement paradox, as I just discussed. In a similar vein, Lindars suggests that Gos. Pet. 3.7 and 1 Apol. 35.6 represent “embellishment of the tradition of the mocking.”23 Yet, these texts – and John 19:13 before them – do not see Jesus as in any way the developing the Johannine story,” though there is not enough of the text preserved for “a secure conclusion.” 17 For discussion and literature, see earlier Chapter 6. 18 On “let us drag the Son of God, having authority (ἐξουσία) over him” (Gos. Pet. 3.6), see Foster, The Gospel of Peter, 153. Again, the Gospel of Peter may be appropriating John, which uses the term ἐξουσία in relation both to Jesus’ authority over his own life (John 10:18) and to Pilate’s authority as the imperial representative in Judea (19:11). 19 Foster, Gospel of Peter, 154 compares Gos. Pet. 3.7 with Matt 27:42 and Mark 15:32, and also notes John 1:49 and 12:13. 20 Foster, The Gospel of Peter, 155. 21 On the ambiguity there, see earlier Chapter 3, and on “Israel” as an insider term, see earlier Chapter 6. 22 Verheyden, “De la Potterie,” 832–33. 23 Lindars, John, 570.

1. καθίζω and transitivity: when Pilate and Jesus both sit in judgement

251

target of this mockery. I suppose that Pilate would only mock Jesus if he declares him guilty of making himself King of the Ἰουδαῖοι, but Pilate has done the opposite (18:38b; 19:4, 6b). The judgement bench image mocks only the accusers.24 Having given arguments for the transitive reading from Johannine coherence and early reception, here I turn to the problem of the language in John 19:13. Ignace de la Potterie has argued that ἐκάθισεν is transitive. 25 Because καθίζω is a stative verb, de la Potterie begins, the dynamic verb ἄγω governs εἰς τόπον (εἰς usually used in John to indicate motion). 26 Taken together, he continues, καθίζω and ἄγω “express one action, and a single motion.” 27 The direct object of not only ἤγαγεν but also ἐκάθισεν would therefore be τὸν Ἰησοῦν.28 De la Potterie’s proposal is that “when two coordinated verbs have a common direct object it is almost always placed between the two verbs, and in this case it is not repeated pronominally after the second verb.” 29 Notwithstanding some problematic instances of the pattern, an illuminating point of comparison for 19:13 also involves Pilate.30 John 19:19 reads, ἔγραψεν δὲ καὶ τίτλον ὁ Πιλᾶτος καὶ ἔθηκεν ἐπὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ (“now Pilate wrote a titulus and placed on the cross”). The form ἔθηκεν has no object, but it assumes τίτλον. So if Pilate can place on the cross

24 Against Lincoln, John, 469: “But if Jesus is seated on the judgement seat, this reads more naturally as a further aspect of Pilate’s humiliation of Jesus, which he also employs to mock ‘the Jews.’ Jesus has already been dressed up as king; now the judge’s bench serves as his throne in this mock coronation.” 25 Ignace de la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge according to John 19.13,” Scr 13 (1961): 97–111 translates and shortens idem, “Jésus Roi et Juge d’après Jn 19,13: ἐκάθισεν ἐπί βήματος,” Bib 41:3 (1960): 217–47, followed by Meeks, Prophet-King, 73–78; C. H. Giblin, “John’s Narration of the Hearing before Pilate,” Bib 67 (1986): 221–39 (233–37). 26 De la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge,” 99–100; for supporting Johannine evidence of this construction, see also “Jésus Roi et Juge,” 222 (edited out of the English version of the article). 27 De la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge,” 99. 28 De la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge,” 100. 29 De la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge,” 100, italics original. 30 De la Potterie, “Jésus Roi et Juge,” 223–24 lists seventeen instances of the pattern: John 5:21; 6:11; 7:34–36; 10:12; 11:44; 12:3, 47; 13:5; 14:7, 17; 17:26; 18:12–13, 31; 19:6, 16, 19; 21:13. John 18:31, for instance, is problematic. It reads, λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς καὶ κατὰ τὸν νόμον ὑμῶν κρίνατε αὐτόν. But because the concluding αὐτόν does not always appear (ℵ* W), the construction cannot be used as secure evidence of Johannine style. Also, whereas 19:6 reads, λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς καὶ σταυρώσατε (“take him yourselves, and crucify”), the absence of a pronoun after σταυρώσατε may be due simply to what the Ἰουδαῖοι have just said, which is also without a pronoun: σταύρωσον σταύρωσον.

252

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

that object that he first wrote, he can also install as judge the one whom he first led.31 Verheyden has problematised de la Potterie’s proposal on Johannine style, but his discussions of three texts allow the transitive reading of John 19:13.32 Verheyden, first, uses LXX 1 Sam 5:11 to show that εἰς τὸν τόπον can go with καθίζω without an accompanying dynamic verb.33 However, he does not note that καθίζω, with its complement αὐτῆς, functions transitively there. LXX 1 Sam 5:11 indicates that καθίζω may therefore occur transitively with εἰς τὸν τόπον in John 19:13. Second, Verheyden suggests that the use of καθίζω in Eph 1:20 – a text to which de la Potterie appeals – is “unambiguously transitive in meaning.”34 Yet if it is context that so restricts the meaning, the same is the case with καθίζω in John 19:13.35 Verheyden seems to assume that Eph 1:20 has to describe God seating Christ, not himself, only because Christ has just been mentioned. By comparison, Jesus has just been mentioned as object in John 19:13. And as the larger context of Ephesians conceptualises Christ in the same judicial function as 1:20, so John also does.36 And third, whereas Verheyden asks why John 19:13 would leave the transitive sense of καθίζω so unclear, he does not explain why 1 Apol. 35.6, where he reads the pronoun complementing both the participle and the verb in διασύροντες αὐτὸν ἐκάθισαν, is any less ambiguous.37 Verheyden dismisses the transitive reading, concluding that Pilate “must take his seat on the βῆμα” to pronounce and execute judgement.38 And de la Potterie dismisses the intransitive reading, arguing that Pilate installs Jesus as judge. But Barrett dismisses neither the transitive nor the intransitive reading, taking the type of symbolic approach de la Potterie remarks is “complicated” and “hardly in accord with John’s use of symbolism.” 39 Yet as Barrett 31 According to de la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge,” 101, without the article, βῆμα denotes a “temporary tribunal” (so Josephus, War 2.172), or simply a “place where justice is dispensed.” 32 Verheyden, “De la Potterie,” 820. 33 LXX 1 Sam 5:11: “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it lodge in its own place, and it shall not put us and our people to death” (ἐξαποστείλατε τὴν κιβωτὸν τοῦ θεοῦ Ισραηλ καὶ καθισάτω εἰς τὸν τόπον αὐτῆς καὶ οὐ μὴ θανατώσῃ ἡμᾶς καὶ τὸν λαὸν ἡμῶν). 34 Eph 1:20: “raising him from the dead and seating him on his right in the heavenly places” (ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις). According to Verheyden, “De la Potterie,” 831, “Intransitive καθίζω would be utterly nonsensical.” 35 Verheyden, “De la Potterie,” 832. 36 Eph 1:3: “in the heavenly places, in Christ” (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ); John 5:22: “but he has given all judgement to the Son” (ἀλλὰ τὴν κρίσιν πᾶσαν δέδωκεν τῷ υἱῷ). 37 Verheyden, “De la Potterie,” 832–33. 38 Verheyden, “De la Potterie,” 837. 39 De la Potterie, “Jesus King and Judge,” 97.

2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί

253

demonstrates, John uses words with double meanings (birth ἄνωθεν, spiritual sight, 3:3), subverts the judicial process (spiritually blind, sinful Pharisees, 9:41), and characterises the Son as being given judgement (from the Father, 5:22).40 Beyond the “human scene” of Pilate sitting on the βῆμα, John also portrays “for those with eyes to see” the divine scene of the Son of Man sitting on his throne (similarly, 1 En. 71.14).41 Jesus judges as Son of Man, and he is judged as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. But more than a double entendre, this is a paradox. John 19:13 has not two possible senses but one sense with two jarring elements, one causing the other. Only when the Ἰουδαῖοι exalt the Son of Man, they will recognise him as revealer and as revelation (8:28). Because the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι is judged, the Son of Man also judges. And the paradox is tragically ironic, since the Ἰουδαῖοι are unaware of what they are bringing on themselves.

2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί 2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί

What do the Ἰουδαῖοι bring on themselves from the human and divine judges? John 19:13–16a captures the judgement of the Ἰουδαῖοι in part by an instance of a wider pattern in Johannine language: the use of the adverb Ἑβραϊστί, which means “in Hebrew.” I will argue in this section that John uses Ἑβραϊστί to judge and expropriate identity from unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι. Ἑβραϊστί occurs five times in John: 5:2 (ἡ ἐπιλεγομένη Ἑβραϊστὶ Βηθζαθά); 19:13 (εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον Λιθόστρωτον Ἑβραϊστὶ δὲ Γαββαθα), 17 (εἰς τὸν λεγόμενον Κρανίου Τόπον ὃ λέγεται Ἑβραϊστὶ Γολγοθα), 20 (καὶ ἦν γεγραμμένον Ἑβραϊστί Ῥωμαϊστί Ἑλληνιστί); 20:16 (λέγει αὐτῷ Ἑβραϊστί ραββουνι ὃ λέγεται διδάσκαλε). 42 I will not analyse the etymologies and definitions of the three Jerusalem toponyms – Beth-zatha, Gabbatha, Golgotha.43 The way I am reading John 18:28–19:22 depends, rather, not only on why John renames those toponyms in Hebrew, as well as Greek, but also on why John repeatedly uses Ἑβραϊστί in so doing. Why does 19:13 in particular add “and in Hebrew Gabbatha” to “a place called Lithostrotos?” I suggest that verisimilitude cannot be the exclusive significance of Ἑβραϊστὶ δὲ Γαββαθα in John 19:13. Michaels compares 19:13 with 5:2 (Ἑβραϊστί); 9:7 (εἰς τὴν κολυμβήθραν τοῦ Σιλωάμ ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Barrett, John, 544, followed by Bond, Pilate, 190 fn. 105. Again, Barrett, John, 544. 42 Elsewhere in the New Testament, Ἑβραϊστί occurs in Rev 9:11 (angel name); 16:16 (place name); noted below. 43 Bultmann, John, 664 fn. 4 remains agnostic on the “uncertain” meaning of Gabbatha; and Barrett, John, 544 notes that its derivation is “obscure.” 40 41

254

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

ἀπεσταλμένος); 10:23 (Solomon’s portico); and 19:17 (Ἑβραϊστί), and he concludes, “The notice simply lends concreteness to the narrative, telling the reader that these were real events that happened at a particular time and place, not forgotten but known and remembered by the author and other witnesses.”44 So according to Michaels, the reason for the reference is simply verisimilitude.45 Thompson notes, however, that whereas John makes it sound “as though the place of Jesus’ judgment is well known,” neither term is necessarily a place name that identifies it.46 That point problematises whether verisimilitude on its own – if at all – is sufficient reason for the reference to Hebrew in 19:13. 47 In addition, neither Mark 15:22 nor Matt 27:33 uses Ἑβραϊστί with the transliteration Γολγοθα.48 If there is any verisimilitude in the Johannine usage of Ἑβραϊστί, I suggest, it cannot be without any rhetorical and theological import. Whereas the first three Ἑβραϊστί texts give the Greek before the Hebrew, the fifth and final texts gives the Greek after the Hebrew: “she says to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni,’ which means ‘Teacher’” (John 20:16). 49 John has Michaels, John, 941. On using Johannine data with archaeology to emphasise historical reliability over against literary symbolism, see Urban C. von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,” in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: 2006), 523–86 (525): “By gathering together what is known of all the unique Johannine references as well as what is known of the singular details in John’s other references, it is possible to put the Johannine data as a whole into better perspective. In this way not only can any vestige of claims of sheer fictitiousness or symbolism be rejected once and for all, but also the value of the Johannine information for understanding various aspects of the ministry of Jesus can be seen more clearly.” 46 Thompson, John, 388. The present participles ἐπιλεγομένη (John 5:2; 19:13) and λεγόμενον (19:17) indicate that the place names are putatively contemporaneous with the writing of the gospel. For a similar effect, see 1 Sam 9:9: “Formerly in Israel, anyone who went to inquire of God would say, ‘Come, let us go to the seer’; for the one who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.” 47 John sometimes uses Hebrew without marking it directly: for instance, ῥαββί ὃ λέγεται μεθερμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε (“Rabbi, which translated means ‘O Teacher,’” John 1:38) and εἰς τὴν κολυμβήθραν τοῦ Σιλωάμ ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται ἀπεσταλμένος (“into the pool of Siloam, which means ‘Sent,’” 9:7). 48 Mark 15:22 has ἐπὶ τὸν Γολγοθᾶν τόπον ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Κρανίου Τόπος, and Matt 27:33 has εἰς τόπον λεγόμενον Γολγοθᾶ ὅ ἐστιν Κρανίου Τόπος λεγόμενος. And moreover, Mark sometimes uses Aramaic: for instance, ταλιθα κουμ ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον τὸ κοράσιον σοὶ λέγω ἔγειρε (“‘Talitha cum,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you get up,’” Mark 5:41), and εφφαθα ὅ ἐστιν διανοίχθητι (“‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened,’” 7:34). 49 John 19:20 notes that the inscription was written in Hebrew first, Latin second, and Greek last, but John does not transliterate the Hebrew and Latin. In Chapter 3 I read that ordering of the languages as part of the trilingual tradition of inscriptions. 44 45

2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί

255

designated Mary by the Greek Μαρία (11:1; 19:25; 20:1, 11), but the resurrected Jesus calls her by the Semitic Μαριάμ (20:16).50 Supposing this man to be the gardener, it is only his use of her Semitic name that reveals Jesus’ identity to Mary. From there, the narrator follows Jesus’ lead and uses Μαριάμ rather than Μαρία (v. 18). People address Jesus as ῥαββί (“teacher”) across the narrative, but it is only with the form ραββουνι (also Mark 10:51) at the close of the narrative (20:16) that John uses the adverb Ἑβραϊστί. 51 Thompson notes that ραββουνι is Aramaic for “my teacher,” and Matthew Black suggests that ραββουνι reflects “how the word was actually pronounced in Palestinian spoken Aramaic.”52 However, as Randall Buth and Chad Pierce observe, both early Hebrew mishnaic texts and later Aramaic Palestinian Targum fragments from the Cairo Geniza attest the pronunciation ‫רבוני‬. 53 So the shifts from ῥαββί to ραββουνι and from Μαρία to Μαριάμ coincide in John 20:16, and they relate to the use of Ἑβραϊστί there. Buth and Pierce aim to “demonstrate that Ἑβραΐς means Hebrew,” and they seem to me to do so.54 “What do Ἑβραϊστί and Συριστί mean in the first century? Answer: Ἑβραϊστί means ‘Hebrew,’ Συριστί means ‘Aramaic,’ and no, Ἑβραϊστί does not ever appear to mean ‘Aramaic’ in attested texts during the Second Temple and Greco-Roman periods.”55 Though they suggest that Also BDAG, s.v. Μαρία. Jesus is designated ῥαββί in John 1:38, 49; 3:2, 26 (John the baptiser); 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8; Luke never uses ῥαββί; and Mark (9:5; 11:21; 14:45) and Matthew (23:7, 8; 26:25, 49) do so less often than John. 52 Thompson, John, 415; Matthew Black, “Aramaic Studies and the Language of Jesus,” in The Language of the New Testament: Classic Essays, ed. Stanley E. Porter (JSNTSS 60; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 112–25. 53 In particular, see m. Taan. 3:8, as well as Michael L. Klein, Geniza Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, vol. 1 (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1986), 133 (col. 2, ll. 3, 5). For discussion, see Randall Buth and Chad Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean ‘Aramaic’?” in The Language Environment of First Century Judaea: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, Vol. 2, ed. Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley (JCP 26; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 66–109 (100). 54 Buth and Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts,” 67. By contrast, Kees Versteegh, “Dead or Alive? The Status of the Standard Language,” in Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text, ed. J. N. Adams, Mark Janse, and Simon Swain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 52–74 (73) suggests that Hebrew and Aramaic “were perceived to be two levels of the same language.” 55 Buth and Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts,” 109. To a similar end, John C. Poirier, “The Linguistic Situation in Jewish Palestine in Late Antiquity,” JGRCJ 4 (2007): 55–134 has also argued that “Hebrew” did not simply mean “Aramaic” in the first century CE. However, the view is deeply entrenched in scholarship. At John 5:2, for instance, Brown, John, 206 notes that “‘Hebrew’ is used loosely, often for names that are Aramaic.” Hughson T. Ong, The Multilingual Jesus and the Sociolinguistic World of the New Testament (LBS 12; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 137 acknowledges the dispute, though he (p. 47) also refers to the “place 50 51

256

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

John’s three toponyms (John 5:2; 19:13, 17) are the only candidates for Ἑβραϊστί possibly meaning “in Aramaic,” Buth and Pierce conclude that John “treated the names as Hebrew, not as Aramaic.” 56 They explain, “Proper names may show language influence and contact but they also travel across language boundaries. Names are adopted into new languages and become part of that language.”57 What Buth and Pierce demonstrate is critical, but it does not explain the purpose of the enigmatic, sparse usage of Ἑβραϊστί in John. I suggest that the notions of bilingualism and code-switching elucidate the Johannine Ἑβραϊστί texts. J. N. Adams describes “code-switching” as “a fullblown switch from one language into another within one person’s utterance or piece of writing.”58 Such switches are typically deliberate and symbolic.59 names in Aramaic forms” in John 5:2; 19:13, 17. Holger Gzella, A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam (HONME 111; Leiden: Brill, 2015), 291–92 writes, “Ἑβραϊστί is used indiscriminately for Hebrew and Aramaic already in the New Testament, since both were associated with Jews (‘Hebrews’), written in square script, and presumably also conceived as linguistically similar. This label can thus refer even to distinctively Aramaic words like Γολγοθα ‘Golgotha’ (Matthew 27:33; John 19:17; dissimilated from /golgoltā/) with the characteristic feminine-singular emphatic state ending that is alien to Hebrew.” 56 Buth and Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts,” 97–98, 107. 57 Buth and Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts,” 100. On Golgotha, in addition, they (p. 107) explain, ““This name is fairly transparent and John tells us what it means. Both Hebrew and Aramaic have a word for “skull”… The –α at the end of a Hebrew name could have arisen from euphony, or as an assimilation to an Aramaic form of the same name, or it may be the adoption of a name that was first coined in Aramaic. None of these are grounds for saying that John was referring to Aramaic when he wrote Ἑβραϊστί.” 58 J. N. Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 19. Adams (p. 2) points to confusion in differentiating code-switching from loanwords. He (p. 3) sets out to show “‘code-switching’ as distinct from ‘borrowing’ and ‘interference.’” He (p. 8) writes that bilinguals “may have an infinitely variable range of competences in the two languages.” Therefore, the designation “bilingual” can apply to “those whose second language is far from perfect” when they “perform” in it – as opposed to the “non-bilingual” who has “at best a few bits and pieces of passive knowledge, which he may never use.” Because “written sources … convey actual ‘performance,’” the Johannine Ἑβραϊστί texts may be said to be bilingual. G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 5: Linguistic Essays (Macquarie University: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1989), 8 considers code-switching irrelevant to studying dead languages, “since it can really only be tested and observed in oral communication.” Horsley (p. 15) nevertheless refers to an instance “akin to code-switching.” Adams (p. 298 fn. 7) responds by pointing to “the sheer extent of code-switching in written texts, and the interesting question of what might have motivated a writer to change languages within a piece of writing.” 59 Adams, Bilingualism, 299: “Spontaneous switches of code are not to be expected in such a text, but a deliberate switch may allow deductions to be made about the motives of the writer on a particular occasion. Code-switching as it is attested in inscriptions, papyri and also

2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί

257

Literary code-switching in particular “often expresses social meanings in one sense or another.”60 Adams outlines four purposes of code-switching: “as a means of establishing a relationship with an addressee, as for example a sense of solidarity, or a position of dominance or aloofness”;61 “for the expression of different types of identity”;62 “as a possible response to the topic of part of an utterance”;63 “as a stylistic resource evocative (e.g.) of the exotic.”64

Adams uses Cicero to demonstrate this final feature, the “evocativeness of code-switching” or “code-switching as a stylistic resource for evocative purposes.” 65 Cicero, Att. 6.1.17 describes the statue of Hercules by the sculptor Polycles in a way that reflects standard practice among Greek sculptors, who sign their work with their Greek name even when it is for Roman clients or includes Latin inscriptions.66 Adams explains, “by his codeswitch Cicero is able to bring the object more vividly before Atticus.” 67 Cicero also gives the Greek names for Greek literary works, “showing a taste for accuracy.” 68 The use of “the proper Greek term for something in that world … might be said to have evoked the exotic.”69 For Adams, that effect becomes impossible for names when they are replaced in the new language or “adapted morphologically to the new language.”70 Julia Krivoruchko mentions Hebrew loanwords in Jewish-Greek some literary texts from the Roman period is by no means chaotic, and I will be identifying various types and factors determining switches”; “Code-switching often has an obvious symbolism.” 60 Adams, Bilingualism, 300. 61 Adams, Bilingualism, 301. 62 Adams, Bilingualism, 302. 63 Adams, Bilingualism, 303. 64 Adams, Bilingualism, 303. He (p. 413) writes, “code-switching frequently has social intention, in a variety of senses. The code-switcher associates himself with or dissociates himself from his addressees in varying degrees, to convey solidarity, shared culture, aloofness, power, etc., or constructs an identity for himself or another, whether e.g. cultural or professional, for the sake of addressees, specific or assumed.” 65 Adams, Bilingualism, 341. 66 Adams, Bilingualism, 342. 67 Adams, Bilingualism, 342. 68 Adams, Bilingualism, 342, citing Cicero, Att. 12.38a.2, 12.40.2, 13.8, 13.32.2; Varro, Rust. 1.5.1. 69 Adams, Bilingualism, 403. 70 Adams, Bilingualism, 753: “As a language dies the names of those with roots in the old culture tend to be changed in various ways”; “New names belonging to the new language may replace the old, or old names may be adapted morphologically to the new language. If a

258

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

texts, “particularly words pertaining to the Jewish religion and lifestyle”; she cites, for instance, “Sabbath” and “Passover” as words “incorporated into the morphological system of Greek.” 71 When John uses “Sabbath” and “Passover,” therefore, the terms carry no exotic quality.72 Unlike other New Testament texts, however, John uses the loanword Μεσσίας: each time, the translation of Messiah to Christ is noted (ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον χριστός, 1:41; ὁ λεγόμενος χριστός, 4:25).73 John’s use of the adverb Ἑβραϊστί marks out some instances of code-switching as distinct from even those. I propose that the gospel marks transliterations with Ἑβραϊστί as part of its overarching literary and theological agenda.74 The adverb Ἑβραϊστί – or similarly, Ἰουδαϊστί – often appears in the setting of an identity crisis that affects many Ἰουδαῖοι.75 First, some Judahite elite tell the Assyrian Rabshakeh to speak with them in Aramaic (MT ‫ארמית‬, LXX Συριστί), not Judahite (MT ‫יהודית‬, LXX Ἰουδαϊστί, Josephus, Ant. 10.8 Ἑβραϊστί), because they want the conversation to be private (Isa 36:11). 76 The Rabshakeh ignores them, delivering the message of the Assyrian King to speaker shifts to the new language and changes the inflection of his name (or the name itself) as well, he has become partly or fully assimilated to the new culture. On the other hand during a language change he may resist full assimilation, by keeping for example the original inflection of his name even when using the new language.” 71 Julia G. Krivoruchko, “Judeo-Greek,” in Handbook of Jewish Languages, ed. Aaron D. Rubin and Lily Kahn (BHL 2; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 194–225 (201). 72 σάββατον occurs in John 5:9, 10, 16, 18; 7:22, 23; 9:14, 16; 19:31; 20:1, 19; and πάσχα occurs in 2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14. By contrast, Philo, Laws 2.145 refers to τὰ διαβατήρια ἣν Ἑβραῖοι Πάσχα πατρίῳ γλώττῃ καλοῦσιν (“Passover, which Hebrews call in their ancestral tongue Passover”). 73 Κεδρών is also Semitic, and it only occurs in John (πέραν τοῦ χειμάρρου τοῦ Κεδρὼν ὅπου ἦν κῆπος, 18:1). By contrast, Mark 14:32 and Matt 26:36 have Gethsemane (καὶ ἔρχονται εἰς χωρίον οὗ τὸ ὄνομα Γεθσημανί and τότε ἔρχεται μετ᾿ αὐτῶν ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἰς χωρίον λεγόμενον Γεθσημανί), and Luke 22:39 has the Mount of Olives (καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐπορεύθη κατὰ τὸ ἔθος εἰς τὸ ὄρος τῶν ἐλαιῶν ἠκολούθησαν δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ οἱ μαθηταί). 74 Christopher B. Zeichmann, “Loanwords or Code-Switching? Latin Transliteration and the Setting of Mark’s Composition,” JJMJS 4 (2017): 42–64 (64) asks of Mark’s HebrewAramaic transliterations, “are they the work of a Roman writer evoking an ‘exotic East’? Are they there to signify the epic history of the Jewish people? Are they merely words that were commonly used in Greek-Hebrew or Greek-Aramaic bilingual discourse? Or are they the product of an entirely different sociolinguistic scenario?” I am arguing that John’s Ἑβραϊστί texts go beyond those options. 75 Likewise, in 4 Macc 12:7 and 16:15 parents encourage their children “in the Hebrew language” (ἐν τῇ Ἐβραίδι φωνῇ). 76 I translate “Judahite” to highlight that the text is referring to the language specific to the Judahites, as opposed to the diplomatic language shared among the Judahite and Assyrian elites; see also 2 Kgs 18:19–37. Aristeas 11 distinguishes the peculiar alphabet of the Ἰουδαῖοι from Aramaic (called Syriac).

2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί

259

the masses “in Judahite” (v. 13), or “in Hebrew” (Ant. 10.8). He deliberately undermines King Hezekiah, who he claims is deceiving the people (v. 14). Second, Paul addresses the Jerusalem crowd in the Hebrew dialect (τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ, Acts 21:40; 22:2). The appeal concerning the danger he poses has been addressed to Israelite men (ἄνδρες Ἰσραηλῖται, 21:28). He is accused of undermining the people, the Law, and the temple, as well as defiling the temple by bringing in Greeks. Third, in The Jewish War Josephus relates Caesar’s messages to Ἰουδαῖοι during the Jerusalem siege.77 “[Titus] sent Josephus to engage them in their ancestral language” (καὶ τὸν Ἰώσηπον καθίει τῇ πατρίῳ γλώσσῃ διαλέγεσθαι), as a “compatriot” (ὁμόφυλος) of the rebels (War 5.361). And later, “[Josephus] announced the things of Caesar by speaking Hebrew” (τά τε τοῦ Καίσαρος διήγγελλεν ἑβραΐζων) to John of Gischala – his “compatriot” and fellow “Ἰουδαῖος” (War 6.107) – about the safety and purity of the temple (War 6.96). The construction of the identity of Ἰουδαῖοι may be a major connotation when characters are narrated as using Hebrew, but the repetition of Ἑβραϊστί with transliterations in John remains strange. 78 The two occurrences of Ἑβραϊστί with transliterations in Revelation intimate spiritual and magical associations. Revelation 9:11 uses Ἑβραϊστί with an angel’s name: “his name in Hebrew (Ἑβραϊστί) is Abaddon.”79 David Noy records an amulet (perhaps Sofiana: 3rd–5th c. CE) that names angels in Hebrew and transliterates 77 William den Hollander, Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian (AJEC 86; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 147 notes the possibility that “Josephus’ interactions with the inhabitants of Jerusalem on Titus’ behalf were conducted in Hebrew/Aramaic on every occasion.” 78 Adams, Bilingualism, 21 introduces the term “tag-switching,” a sub-category of “codeswitching.” By such a switch, the bilingualism and ethnic identity of the deceased are on display; and by the Hebrew, even if the language was forgotten, their Jewishness is symbolised (p. 23). David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, Vol. 1: Italy (excluding the City of Rome), Spain and Gaul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) includes later (3rd through 6th centuries CE) Greek-Hebrew epitaphs, in which the ‫שאלום‬-tag (sometimes without the ‫ )א‬occurs: nos. 3, 47, 61, 64, 70, 71, 76, 77, 111, 134; for example, no. 47 (Venosa: early fifth century) reads: ὧδε κῖτε Ἀσθὴρ | θυγάτηρ Συρια|νοῦ ἐτῶν δύο | ‫שאלום‬, “here lies Asther, daughter of Syrianus, aged two; peace.” Sometimes ‫ שאלום‬is transliterated: no. 72 (Venosa: 5th c.; epitaph) reads, τάφος | Ἀνα διὰ βί|ου σάλωμ, “tomb of Ana, life-officer; peace.” For ‫שאלום‬, see further David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, Vol. 2: The City of Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), nos. 33, 183, 186, 193, 535, 545, 546, 560, 596; for example, no. 596 (provenance unknown: fourth century or later) reads: ἐνθάδε κεῖνται | Ἀναστασία μήτηρ καὶ | Ἀσθὴρ θυγάτηρ ἐν [εἰ]|ρήνῃ ἡ κοῖμησεις | αὐτῶν ἀμν | ‫שלום‬, “here lie Anastasia the mother and Asther the daughter; in peace their sleep; amen; peace.” 79 Test. Sol. 14.7 similarly refers to the great angel “who is called in Hebrew Bazazath” (τῷ καλουμένῳ Ἑβραϊστὶ Βαζαζάθ).

260

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

multiple Hebrew words.80 Gideon Bohak describes two instances of liturgical Hebrew transliterated into Greek, each on a gold lamella contained in an amulet.81 The first (Caernarfon, Wales, 1st–2nd c. CE) includes the divine selfrevelation “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14).82 And the second (Halbturn, Austria, 2nd–3rd c. CE) includes the opening of the Shema prayer (Deut 6:4). 83 Revelation 16:16 uses Ἑβραϊστί with the name of the mountain where demonic spirits assemble kings for battle: “the place that in Hebrew (Ἑβραϊστί) is called Harmagedon” – probably from ‫הר מגדו‬.84 The name of Mount Gerizim (‫ )הר גרזין‬is transliterated into Greek in two Delos inscriptions and a papyrus letter. 85 The first Delos inscription (c. 250–175 BCE) reads, “the Israelites on Delos who bring the first fruits into the holy Mount Garizin temple (εἰς ἱερὸν ἅγιον Ἀρ|γαριζείν).”86 The second (c. 150– 50 BCE), reads, “the Israelites on Delos who bring the first fruits into the Mount Garizin temple (εἰς ἱερὸν Ἀργα|ριζεὶν) with a gold crown Sarapion son of Jason, citizen of Knossos, because of his benefaction towards them.”87 And the writer of P. Heid. 4 (c. fifth century CE, provenance unknown) swears by Mount Gerizim: μὰ τὸν Ἁργαριζίν. The transliterations of Mount Gerizim, as well as the use of Ἑβραϊστί with a significant mountain in Rev 16:16, are particularly significant to John 19:13. In John the crucified Jesus conquers the world (John 16:33) when he Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, Vol. 1, no. 159. ‫“( משרתים‬ministering”) probably underlies μσωρθωμ (l. 10) and ‫“( שרביט‬sceptre”) probably underlies σερβιθ (1. 31). 81 Gideon Bohak, “Greek–Hebrew Linguistic Contacts in Late Antique and Medieval Magical Texts,” in The Jewish–Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, ed. James K. Aitken and James Carleton Paget (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 247–60 (247, 248–51). 82 Bohak, “Greek–Hebrew,” 249. 83 Bohak, “Greek–Hebrew,” 249 notes that the Greek transliteration “is unexpected.” Bohak (p. 249) comments, “The fact that these two amulets were found in two very distant locations argues for the wider use of such amulets among diaspora Jews, and more such amulets are likely to be found in the future.” He (pp. 249–50) speculates that the reason for transliterating the Hebrew into Greek may have been “due to a lack of familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet, or to some lingering feeling that it was more appropriate to write such texts in Greek letters, just like the non-Jewish amulets.” 84 On this novel name in Rev 16:16, see Brian K. Blount, Revelation: A Commentary (NLT; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 306. 85 Deut 11:29; 27:12; Josh 8:33; Judg 9:7 have ‫גרזים‬, and m. Sota 7.5 refers to all (except) Judg 9:7, changing the spelling to ‫ ;גריזים‬the Septuagint texts always (including 2 Macc 5:23; 6:2) have Γαριζιν with ὄρος. P. Bruneau, “Les Israelites de Delos et la juiverie delienne,” BCH 106 (1982): 465–504; Horsley, New Documents 5, 15, 138. 86 [οἱ ἐν Δήλῳ] | Ἰσραηλῖται οἱ ἀπαρχόμενοι εἰς ἱερὸν ἅγιον Ἀρ|γαριζείν. 87 οἱ ἐν Δήλῳ Ἰσραελεῖται οἱ ἀ|παρχόμενοι εἰς ἱερὸν Ἀργα|ριζεὶν στεφανοῦσιν χρυσῷ | στεφάνῳ Σαραπίωνα Ἰάσο|νος Κνώσιον εὐεργεσίας | ἕνεκεν τῆς εἰς ἑαυτούς. 80

2. Why John switches code with Ἑβραϊστί

261

casts out (12:31) and judges its ruler (16:11), who has nothing over him (14:30). The ruler is a spiritual one, the διάβολος whose offspring lie and murder (8:44). The notions of spiritual battle and judgement correspond to Rev 16:16. Mount Gerizim, in addition, is implied in John 4:20. The woman from Samaria juxtaposes her mountain with the mountain on which Ἰουδαῖοι worship in Jerusalem. In v. 21 Jesus responds by alluding to his coming hour in crucifixion as when God will not be worshipped on any mountain. The body of the Son will become the temple (2:19, 21), the place where people will worship the Father in spirit and truth (4:23).88 John is a bilingual text in a minor way, unlike Daniel and Ezra, which switch code for long sections (Dan 2:4–7:28; Ezra 4:8–6:18). Yet even they illuminate John’s type of bilingualism, in particular in terms of literary codeswitches being “intrusive and intentional,” occurring in expected places, and responding to specific content. 89 Two features of the preceding discussion shape the way I interpret “in a place called Lithostrotos, and in Hebrew Gabbatha” in John 19:13: texts highlight that characters speak in Hebrew when the setting concerns a crisis of identity, magical texts use transliterations of Hebrew identity-constructing names and formulas. I conclude, with Adams’ four features of code-switching, that John’s Ἑβραϊστί texts do not evoke an exotic past so much as they establish a position of power over Ἰουδαῖοι, expropriating identity from them. John takes the national language from unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι.90 The risen Jesus is ραββουνι (20:16), not, like Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel (3:10). The designation of the Jerusalem sheep gate “in Hebrew” (5:2) moreover hints that the city of the Ἰουδαῖοι points toward Jesus, the gate (10:7, 9) and the shepherd (v. 11). The code-switch in 19:13 is part of John’s agenda to strip Jerusalem from false

See similarly the comments in Thompson, John, 103. On Dan 2:4 (καὶ ἐλάλησαν οἱ Χαλδαῖοι πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα Συριστί), William M. Schniedewind, A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 80 writes, “Although the codeswitching in Daniel may be more complex, the switch from Hebrew to Aramaic occurs at a point where the Aramaic linguistic code was expected.” On Ezra 4:7, Schniedewind (p. 80) writes, “The linguistic code thus corresponds to the content.” And on literary code-switching specifically, he (p. 81) explains, “Rather than suggesting that these texts were ‘unselfconscious’ or random in their interchange between languages, the changes occur at points where code-switching is an expected, self-conscious sociolinguistic strategy. To be fair, code-switching is usually discussed in social situations where people are speaking, and the movement between languages can be rather fluid. In a literary text, code-switching is much more intrusive and intentional.” 90 Josephus, Ant. 12.36 connects writing in Hebrew characters (χαρακτῆρσιν Ἑβραϊκοῖς) with the language of the ἔθνος. 88 89

262

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

accusers who are disloyal toward Caesar and give it to those who inhabit the temple of Jesus’ crucified body.

3. Expropriating the Passover from Johannine unbelievers 3. Expropriating the Passover from Johannine unbelievers

John 19:14a specifies, “now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, it was around the sixth hour” (ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα ὥρα ἦν ὡς ἕκτη). As he did with respect to the naming of Gabbatha in v. 13, Michaels suggests that the purpose of the temporal note in v. 14a is verisimilitude.91 However, no text between 18:28 (ἦν δὲ πρωΐ … ἀλλὰ φάγωσιν τὸ πάσχα) and 19:14 (ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα) indicates why up to six hours would need to elapse.92 The emphasis is elsewhere; it is less historical and more rhetorical. The temporal notes in 18:28 and 19:14 both refer to the day of preparation. And when 19:14 uses the ἦν δέ parenthesis, it anticipates v. 31, which refers to the day of preparation as the reason why the Ἰουδαῖοι ask for Jesus’ legs to be broken. The soldiers break the legs of the other two victims (v. 32), but not of Jesus, because he is already dead (v. 33). He is as the slaughtered lambs (following Exod 12:46 and Num 9:12) whose bones will not be broken (John 19:36).93 So, the temporal note in v. 14 intimates the lamb christology more explicitly expressed in v. 31. But is Jesus executed at the same time as the Passover lambs were slaughtered on the day of preparation? Thompson argues against such an interpretation.” 94 She foregrounds the problem that no ancient sources say that the lambs were slaughtered at noon. 95 However, she cites Philo, Laws

91 Michaels, John, 941. Michaels (p. 940) reasons that John notes “the exact place and time” to make it “a solemn and decisive moment.” 92 John 18:28 uses ἦν δὲ πρωΐ (“now it was very early”) rather than reckoning the hour, which implies that Jesus gets to Pilate as early as sunrise. The transition from πρωΐ (“very early,” maybe sunrise) in 18:28 to ὥρα ἦν ὡς ἕκτη (“roughly the sixth hour,” midday) in 19:14 is roughly six hours. 93 Thompson, John, 404 notes this as well as the comparison with Ps 34:20 (LXX 33:21): “he keeps all their bones; not one of them will be broken.” Meeks, Prophet-King, 77 cites Exod 12:10 (“You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn”) and Num 9:12 (“They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break a bone of it; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it”) in relation to the lamb christology of John 19:36. 94 Thompson, John, 389 argues against Brown, John, 895; Moloney, John, 141. Thompson, John, 390 fn. 75 suggests, “Pilate’s sentencing of Jesus at ‘the sixth hour’ adds to the momentous movement toward his death,” drawing a comparison with Josephus, War 6.290 (κατὰ νυκτὸς ἐνάτην ὥραν, “at the ninth hour of night”). 95 Thompson, John, 389.

3. Expropriating the Passover from Johannine unbelievers

263

2.145 describing the Passover sacrifices being performed “from midday until evening” (ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας ἄχρι ἑσπέρας). “[N]o ancient source unequivocally locates this slaughter of Passover lambs at noon,” but Philo shows that this is beside the point. And like Philo, in the diaspora, John may simply be generalising. Even Josephus, War 6.423 is not much different, specifying that the priests slaughter the sacrifices from the ninth hour to the eleventh hour. According to Rabbis Meir and Judah, as well as Rabban Gamaliel, the people burn the leaven at the beginning of the sixth hour on the fourteenth of Nisan (m. Pes. 1.4–5). 96 According to the sages, moreover, whereas Judeans (tailors, barbers, laundrymen, and even laundrymen, in particular) work up to noon on the eve of Passover, Galileans do not (m. Pes. 4.1, 5, 6).97 So the general association of Passover observance with midday strengthens the lamb christology in John 19:14. Another issue is whether John 19:16b–22, when Jesus is crucified, also occurs during the sixth hour mentioned in v. 14. Another reference to the same time earlier in the narrative suggests so. Like 19:14, 4:6 also combines ἕκτος (“sixth”) with ὥρα (“hour”). The temporal note in 4:6 points forward to vv. 21 and 23, which also use ὥρα. And the νῦν in v. 23 (ἔρχεται ὥρα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν, “the hour is coming and now is”) recalls the earlier note in v. 6 that specifies the particular moment in time as the sixth hour. “Roughly noon” (v. 6) is “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (v. 23). The sense is not that worship may only take place at this time of day, but rather that the woman from Samaria may worship God in her present experience of Jesus, who then unsurprisingly ends the interaction with “I Am, 96 “R. Meir says, ‘They eat [leaven] throughout the fifth [hour on the fourteenth of Nisan], and they burn it at the beginning of the sixth hour [noon].’ And R. Judah says, ‘They eat [leaven] through the fourth hour, keep it in suspense throughout the fifth hour, and burn it at the beginning of the sixth hour.’ And further did R. Judah say, ‘Two loaves of bread of a thank offering which were invalid were left lying on the roof of the portico [of the Temple]. ‘So long as they are lying there, everybody eats [leaven]. ‘[When] one of them is removed, they suspend and do not eat [leaven] but also do not burn it. ‘[When] the second one of them is removed, everybody began burning [the leaven].’ Rabban Gamaliel says, ‘[Leaven] in the status of unconsecrated food is eaten through the fourth hour, and [leaven in the status of] heave offering through the fifth. Then they burn at the beginning of the sixth hour’” (m. Pes. 1.4–5). 97 “Where they are accustomed to do work on the eve of Passover up to noon, they do so. Where they are accustomed not to do so, they do not do so… And sages say, ‘In Judah they did work on the eve of Passover up to noon, but in Galilee they did not do so at all’… R. Meir says, ‘Any sort of work which a person began before the fourteenth [of Nisan] does he complete on the fourteenth of Nisan. ‘But he should not begin [a project] at the outset on the fourteenth, even though he can complete it [on that same day].’ And sages say, ‘Three sorts of craftsmen perform work on the eve of Passover up to noon, and these are they: tailors, barbers, and laundrymen.’ R. Yose b. R. Judah says, ‘Also: shoemakers’” (m. Pes. 4.1, 5, 6).

264

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

the one who is speaking to you” (v. 27). As 4:23 recalls v. 6, so 19:27 recalls v. 14. The narrative is set around midday, the rough time at which the lambs would be slaughtered and observance of Passover would begin, from the moment Pilate says “look, your king” (v. 14) through the moment the disciple takes his new mother into his own home in v. 27. John 1:39 is the only other place that numbers an hour in the gospel, in that case the tenth (ὥρα ἦν ὡς δεκάτη). That temporal note in 1:39 is not arbitrary, but it rationalises that the new disciples stay with Jesus because it is late.98 It is not the association with the Passover lambs, which need not be slaughtered precisely at the sixth hour, so why does John specify the sixth hour? The tradition situates the beginning of three hours of darkness as Jesus hangs on the cross at the sixth hour.99 Jesus is both judge and judged around noon in John. But no darkness is mentioned – unless, that is, the Johannine theme of judgement and its paradoxical use of the darkness-light dualism is taken into account. Luke’s Jesus, by comparison, tells the chief priests, the temple officers, and the elders that his arrest is their hour and the ἐξουσία of the darkness (22:53). Understood with Luke’s theology, I propose that in John the sixth hour on the day of preparation is when the darkness fails to overcome the light (1:5), the light of everyone that was the life in the λόγος (v. 4). Roughly midday is the time of the judgement of the world, into which the light has come (3:19).100 As the sixth hour marks the period of darkness in the other gospels, it marks the period in which those lying and murdering slanderers (8:44) who love darkness do evil to the light of the world (v. 12) in John. The self-judgement of the Ἰουδαῖοι may be subtle in John 19:14, but it emerges more clearly when the chief priests claim to have no king except Caesar in v. 15. Bultmann summarises the effect of the world’s confession: “its last word, contrary to its desire, demonstrates that Jesus is the victor. Its unbelief towards him is the judgement on itself.” 101 Meeks also concludes that the Ἰουδαῖοι are “themselves the condemned.”102 Meeks further argues that John is parodying a concluding confession of the Haggadah, “besides you we have no king, redeemer, or saviour … we have no king except

“John reports that the disciples ‘stayed with Jesus’ because it was late in the day (four o’clock)” (Thompson, John, 50). 99 Mark 15:33 // Matt 27:45 // Luke 23:44; only Mark 15:25 specifies that Jesus had been on the cross since the third hour on Passover morning. 100 See earlier my introduction. 101 Bultmann, John, 665. 102 Meeks, Prophet-King, 78. 98

3. Expropriating the Passover from Johannine unbelievers

265

you.”103 But in b. Pes. 118a the Babylonian Rabbi Judah and the Palestinian Rabbi Johanan explain m. Pes. 10.7 – “And at the fourth cup, he completes the Hallel-Psalms and after it he says the grace of song” – differently. 104 Meeks sees here “a difference between Palestinian and Babylonian practice,” and though he admits that the hymn cannot be dated with any certainty, he ventures that the Palestinian option was in use “quite early.”105 To Meeks’ argument, Charles Talbert adds the eleventh benediction, from the Eighteen Benedictions, which prays for the exclusive kingship of God.106 Robert Rowe discusses the benediction as though it is from the period before the temple’s destruction.107 So in spite of the tenuous linkage with the Haggadah, John’s priests may yet be read as abandoning God’s kingship.108 But here again the problem I have been returning to throughout this study resurfaces: John does not recognise God’s kingship in the identity of Jesus as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι. Jesus is only King of the Ἰουδαῖοι inasmuch as the Ἰουδαῖοι make the accusation against him. Pilate moreover declares him innocent of what therefore becomes a false accusation. And yet Jesus remains in imperial crown and purple.109 When he says “look, your king!” in v. 14 in “shall I crucify your king?” v. 15, Pilate is mocking the false accusers, not Jesus.110 Recalling v. 12, Michaels’ apt paraphrase is: “how dare you threaten me! He is your king after all!” 111 Michaels cites 18:31, 35, and 19:6 to elaborate the following on the role of Pilate: All along he has tried to dissociate himself from them and their grievances. Now that they have threatened to accuse him of disloyalty to Caesar, he throws the word ‘king’ back in Meeks, Prophet-King, 77. Keener, John, 1132 notes the possible allusion and represents some of the hymn as Meeks himself does, and fn. 563 notes that Meeks is citing b. Pes. 118a. 104 Meeks, Prophet-King, 77 fn. 3. 105 Meeks, Prophet-King, 77 fn. 3. 106 Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles (rev. ed.; Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2005), 250. 107 Robert D. Rowe, God’s Kingdom and God’s Son: The Background to Mark’s Christology from Concepts of Kingship in the Psalms (AGJU 50; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 109. 108 So Lindars, John, 572: “No Jew could say this with a clear conscience. Only God is Israel’s King (Jg. 8.23; I Sam. 8.7), and his anointed one (Ps. 2.2) is viceregent of God who is the true King. So with splendid irony John makes the Jews utter the ultimate blasphemy in the same breath as their final rejection of Jesus.” On God as King of Israel, see, for instance, Obad 19–21; Zech 14:9; Ps 47:2–3; Dan 7:27. 109 John has not said otherwise about the crown and the robe since 19:2 and 5; see earlier Chapter 8. 110 So Lindars, John, 571: “There is no mockery of Jesus here: it is rather a taunt to the people, bringing the irony of the whole affair to a point.” 111 Michaels, John, 943. Michaels (p. 940) argues that in John 19:13 Pilate responds to what happened in v. 12. 103

266

Chapter 11: Scene 7, John 19:13–16a

their faces. If Jesus is in any sense ‘King of the Jews’ (18:33, 39; 19:3), then it is they, not he, who are disloyal to Caesar.112

Pilate and the Ἰουδαῖοι are making opposite claims that assume an implicit dilemma: have not the accusers made the accused a king? This is the dilemma John 19:16b–22 goes on to resolve.

4. Summary 4. Summary

Whether Pilate or Jesus sits on the judgement bench in John 19:13 is ambiguous. The resulting paradox is that the earthly ruler and the heavenly ruler judge the Ἰουδαῖοι at the same time. The accusers have slandered Caesar, through Pilate, and God, through Jesus. And they therefore bring human and divine judgement on themselves. They had asked Pilate to judge Jesus (18:30, 31, 35), but Pilate judges the Ἰουδαῖοι. Through Pilate and Jesus, John expropriates from unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι the Hebrew language, the city of Jerusalem, and the liberation celebrated in the Passover (19:14). Once the light exposes them, they are no longer Ἰουδαῖοι. Though they confess Caesar (v. 15), they are disloyal to him. Pilate recognises that according to the King of the Ἰουδαῖοι accusation, Jesus is the king of his accusers (vv. 14 and 15). They make him both “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” and “the Nazarene,” both the conquered usurper and the conquering temple builder (v. 19). Caesar defeats Jesus as “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” and the Father enthrones the Son as “the Nazarene.”

112

Michaels, John, 944.

Conclusion I have argued that John 18:28–19:22 portrays a complex paradox. The first part of the paradox is that whereas they accuse Jesus of diminishing the superiority of Caesar and threaten Pilate with complicity in the crime, the Ἰουδαῖοι are false accusers guilty of that same crime. The second part is that though Jesus is conquered as the prophetic revealer of the temple’s destruction, he nonetheless conquers as the kingly revelation of the temple’s restoration. John connects the two parts of the paradox by assigning the Ἰουδαῖοι agency in Jesus’ exaltation. Because the Ἰουδαῖοι bring the accusation on themselves in the process of making the accusation against Jesus, Jesus becomes the conqueror in the process of being conquered. They accuse Jesus of misleading the nation away from the empire, of impiety toward both God and Caesar. But they fail to make the case, and they perpetrate both impieties themselves, against the divine and human rulers they pretend to serve. The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι initiate the paradox, but Pilate memorialises it.1 As the Ἰουδαῖοι make the judgement of the nation and hope of the world hang on the cross, Pilate writes that judgement and hope on the inscription. These Ἰουδαῖοι are able to function in that way by virtue of being offspring of an archetypal διάβολος who want to lie and murder (8:44). The gospel fulfils the terrible characterisation of the Ἰουδαῖοι when they bring Jesus to unjust crucifixion by way of false accusation. John asserts that anyone who does not believe Jesus is blind, determined by spiritual origin to oppose life and truth. That theology, as many readers agree, is unacceptable

Against standard scholarly readings, I have proposed that Pilate, unlike the accusing Ἰουδαῖοι, is neither judged nor unaware: Dodd, Interpretation, 436: “As there the ‘Pharisees’ sat in judgment upon the claims of Jesus, and in the end found the tables turned and sentence pronounced against them, so here Pilate believes himself to be sitting in judgment on Jesus, while he is actually being judged by the Truth”; Lincoln, John, 471: “Whatever traditions lie behind this narrative, they have been elaborated and woven into an account in which, by his witness to the truth, Jesus becomes the judge, and both ‘the Jews’ and Pilate are judged through their response to Jesus. In this way the Roman trial becomes the vehicle for the irony of the apparent judge and the apparent accusers being in fact judged by the apparent accused.” 1

268

Conclusion

and needs to be rejected.2 The violence intrinsic to the theology is dangerous and recurs throughout John’s history of reception.3 Though not guilty of later abuses done in its name, John has been amenable to them.4 I have analysed John 18:28–19:22 and the paradox of judgement. And I have aimed to “specify only to the degree that the text does” and to avoid “extraneous exposition.” 5 The results of the analysis are as follows. The Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι defile themselves because they do not believe Jesus (Chapter 4). They are false accusers who reject as they also validate the prophet from God (Chapter 5). The national security and prosperity they want to restore opposes the Roman empire (Chapter 6). They desire to follow the type of usurper who makes Rome destroy the nation and temple (Chapter 7). They epitomise the unbelieving world over which Jesus is triumphant (Chapter 8). They undermine the judicial process and ignore the verdict of innocence declared by Pilate (Chapter 9). They do not recognise the divine authority Pilate and Jesus share (Chapter 10). And they face both earthly and heavenly judgement from them (Chapter 11). In the end they crucify Jesus under an inscription judging them of declaring a king not already ratified by Caesar (Chapter 3). The paradox crystallises there in the inscription: the

2 Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, “Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism: A Hermeneutical Framework for the Analysis of the Current Debate,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 3–37 (35): “John’s intimation that the only possible reason for not accepting Jesus as mediator of God’s salvation is moral corruptness (being murderers and liars; see 8:44–45 and 55) is unacceptable.” Adele Reinhartz, “Judaism in the Gospel of John,” Int 63 (2009): 382– 93 (392, 393) lays the responsibility with the reader to “deny validity” to the text when it slanders unbelievers as offspring of an archetypal διάβολος. 3 As one terrible instance of reception, according to the transcript of the April 29, 1946 interview of Julius Streicher – editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer – during the Nuremberg trials, Streicher had earlier published an article endorsing “the extermination of that people whose father is the devil.” See Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Vol. 12 (Nuremberg: International Military Tribunal, 1947), 361. Earlier in the trial, Streicher invoked Martin Luther’s The Jews and Their Lies and suggested that Luther “would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today” (International Military Tribunal 12, 318). On the importance of John 8:44 to Luther, see Thomas Kaufmann, Luther’s Jews: A Journey into Anti-Semitism (trans. Lesley Sharpe and Jeremey Noakes; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 118, 123. 4 Reinhartz, Cast Out of the Covenant, 87, italics original, also recognises, “This is not to say that the Gospel is responsible for the violence done in its name, only that is vituperative rhetoric made it amenable for those who hated and persecuted Jews.” 5 See further Brawley, “Ἰουδαῖοι,” 127; Sheridan, “Seed of Abraham, Slavery, and Sin,” 326–27.

Conclusion

269

Johannine Ἰουδαῖοι do not only destroy the temple of Jesus’ body, but they also cause it to be restored. The reading of John 18:28–19:22 I have defended culminates in the trilingual inscription Pilate writes. In it the “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι” element is the false accusation from below. But the “Jesus the Nazarene” element is the otherworldly witness to the truth. Both elements, however, encapsulate the messianic function of Jesus, in which Pilate, as author and judge with authority from above, participates (recall the Persian Cyrus and the implied audience of the Wisdom of Solomon). In that important sense, John resembles Josephus’ interpretation of God using Rome to judge and destroy the nation of Ἰουδαῖοι. As he embodies the false accusation that brings national judgement and the destruction of the temple, Jesus functions as the prophetic Christ (recall John 18:32, for instance). Yet as he embodies the witness to the truth that brings universal hope and the restoration of the temple, Jesus functions as the kingly Christ (recall v. 37, for instance). The lie about the accused is that he is “King of the Ἰουδαῖοι,” the usurper who takes kingship not ratified by Caesar. But the truth is that he is “Jesus the Nazarene,” the restored-if-destroyed temple. The sum of the dangerous paradox in John 18:28–19:22 is that the judgement and destruction unbelieving Ἰουδαῖοι – who are lying and murdering offspring of an archetypal διάβολος – bring on themselves from Caesar’s and God’s judges is at the same time the hope and restoration of the world. Four potential areas of research emerge from what I have argued. The first area concerns what the Johannine Pilate’s trilingual titulus implies with respect to the way John views the other canonical passion accounts. It also concerns the broader role of the inscription tradition in early Christianity. Is John’s view that Jesus was only crucified as King of the Ἰουδαῖοι inasmuch as he embodied the judgement of the Ἰουδαῖοι an effort to correct the other gospels? Another possible direction of future research is the utility of early Christian literature outside the canon in the interpretation of John. What, for instance, does the widespread interplay of the negative view of the Ἰουδαῖοι and the positive view of Pilate indicate about the early receptions of the gospel? How far, furthermore, do early Christian intimations of the judgement paradox display perceptive – even instructive – Johannine readings? Third, what is the relationship between John and Josephus? Do they share the same interpretation of the Jerusalem temple’s destruction as God’s judgement through Rome? If so, John may be read alongside Josephus in other respects. Further, and finally, the anti-Jewishness of John would then need to be nuanced, not least in relation to its history of reception.

Bibliography Primary sources Aland, Barbara, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, eds. Nestle-Aland: Novum Testamentum Graece. 28th rev. ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012. Allison, Dale C., Jr. Testament of Abraham. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003. Cary, Earnest. Dio’s Roman History, Vols. VI–X, Books 51–80. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917–1927. Cooley, Alison E. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Davie, John. Satires and Epistles. OWC. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Edwards, Catharine. Suetonius: The Lives of the Caesars. OWC. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Elliger, K. and W. Rudolph. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. 5th rev. ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997. Gagarin, Michael, and Douglas M. MacDowell. Antiphon & Andocides. OCG 1. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. Gibson, Craig A. Libanius’s Progymnasmata: Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric. WGRW 27. Atlanta: SBL, 2008. Hammond, Martin. Josephus: The Jewish War. OWC. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Harris, Edward M. Demosthenes, Speeches 23–26. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Lake, Kirsopp. Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History, Vol. I, Books 1–5. LCL. London: William Heinemann, 1926. Llewelyn, S. R., with the collaboration of R. A. Kearsley. New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 7: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published 1982–83. Macquarie University: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1994. Marcus, Ralph and Allen Wikgren. Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Vol. VII, Books 16– 17. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963. Minns, Denis and Paul Parvis. Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies. OECT. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Neusner, Jacob. The Mishnah: A New Translation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Pietersma, Albert and Benjamin G. Wright, eds. A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

272

Bibliography

Radice, Betty. Pliny the Younger: Letters, Vol. II, Books 8–10; Panegyricus. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969. Rahlfs, Alfred and Robert Hanhart. Septuaginta. 2nd rev. ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006. Slavitt, David R. Horace: Odes. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014. Smallwood, E. M., ed. Documents illustrating the Principates of Gaius Claudius and Nero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967. Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Vol. 12. Nuremberg: International Military Tribunal, 1947. van der Horst, Pieter W. Philo’s Flaccus: The First Pogrom. PACS 2. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Walsh, P. G. Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters. OWC. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Secondary sources Adams, J. N. Bilingualism and the Latin Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Akmajian, Adrian, Ann Farmer, Lee Bickmore, Richard Demers, and Robert M. Harnish. Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. 7th ed. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017. Alexander, Michael C. Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149 BC to 50 BC. PSup 26. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. –. The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002. Allison, Dale C., Jr. Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010. Andersen, Francis I. and David Noel Freedman. Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 24E. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Anderson, Paul N. “The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father-Son Relationship.” Semeia 85 (1999): 33–57. Ando, Clifford. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. CCT 6. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. –. Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition. Empire and After. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Angel, Joseph L. Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls. STDJ 86. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Arnould, Caroline. “The ‘Ecce Homo’ Arch in Jerusalem: Analysis of the Architecture and New Evidence for Dating.” In Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 29–August 5, Division B: History of the Jewish People, ed. Ron Margolin, 45–48. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2000. Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. –. The Gospel of John and Christian Origins. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014. Atkins, Jed W. Roman Political Thought. KTAH. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Attridge, Harold W. “New Covenant Christology in an Early Christian Homily.” In Essays on John and Hebrews, 281–93. WUNT 264. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010.

Bibliography

273

–. “John, the Jews, and Philosophy.” In John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, ed. R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, 101–10. RBS 87. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Aubert, J.-J. “A Double Standard in Roman Criminal Law? The Death Penalty and Social Structure in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome.” In Speculum Iuris: Roman Law as a Reflection of Social and Economic Life in Antiquity, ed. J.-J. Aubert and B. Sirks, 94–133. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002. Auld, A. Graeme. Life in Kings: Reshaping the Royal Story in the Hebrew Bible. AIIL 30. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. Avi-Yonah, Michael. “The Foundation of Tiberias.” IEJ 1 (1950–1951): 160–69. Baltrusch, Ernst. Die Juden und das Römische Reich: Geschichte einer konfliktreichen Beziehung. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002. Baltzer, Klaus. Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001. Bammel, Ernst. “Φίλος τοῦ Καίσαρος.” ThLZ 77 (1952): 205–10. –. “The titulus.” In Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. Ernst Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, 353–64. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Barag, D. “The Palestinian ‘Judaea Capta’ Coins of Vespasian and Titus and the Era on the Coins of Agrippa II Minted under the Flavians.” NC 7/18 (1978): 14–23. Barmash, Pamela. Homicide in the Biblical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Barrett, C. K. “The Dialectical Theology of St John.” In New Testament Essays, 49–69. London: SPCK, 1972. –. The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978. –. “Paradox and Dualism.” In Essays on John, 98–115. London: SPCK, 1982. Barton, Carlin A. and Daniel Boyarin. Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016. Barton, John. The Nature of Biblical Criticism. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007. Bauckham, Richard. “The 153 Fish and the Unity of the Fourth Gospel.” Neot 36:1–2 (2002): 77–88. –. “James, Peter, and the Gentiles.” In The Missions of James, Peter, and Paul: Tensions in Early Christianity, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans, 91–142. NovTSup 115. Leiden: Brill, 2005. –. “The Holiness of Jesus and His Disciples in the Gospel of John.” In Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament, ed. Kent Brower and Andy Johnson, 95–113. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Bauer, Walter, Frederick W. Danker, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A GreekEnglish Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Bauman, Richard A. Impietas in Principem: A study of treason against the Roman emperor with special reference to the first century A.D. MBPR 67. München: C. H. Beck, 1974. –. Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge, 1992. –. Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge, 1996. Beard, Mary, John North, and Simon Price. Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

274

Bibliography

Beard, Mary. “The Triumph of Flavius Josephus.” In Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. Anthony Boyle and William J. Dominik, 543–58. Leiden: Brill, 2003. –. The Roman Triumph. Cambridge: Belknap, 2007. Bekken, Per Jarle. The Lawsuit Motif in John’s Gospel from New Perspectives: Jesus Christ, Crucified Criminal and Emperor of the World. NovTSup 158. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Bennema, Cornelis. “The Character of Pilate in the Gospel of John.” In Characters and Characterization in the Gospel of John, ed. Christopher W. Skinner, 240–53. LNTS 461. London: T&T Clark, 2013. Berenson Maclean, Jennifer K. “Barabbas, the Scapegoat Ritual, and the Development of the Passion Narrative.” HTR 100:3 (2007): 309–34. Berkowitz, Beth A. Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Bermejo-Rubio, Fernando. “(Why) Was Jesus the Galilean Crucified Alone? Solving a False Conundrum.” JSNT 36:2 (2013): 127–54. Bieringer, Reimund. “‘My Kingship is not of This World’ (John 18,36): The Kingship of Jesus and Politics.” In The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology, ed. Terrence Merrigan and Jacques Haers, 159–75. BETL 152. Leuven: Peeters, 2000. –, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, eds. Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. –, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville. “Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism: A Hermeneutical Framework for the Analysis of the Current Debate.” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 3–37. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Bird, Michael F. “Jesus and the ‘Partings of the Ways.’” In Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 3, part 2, ed. Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter, 1183–215. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Black, Matthew. “Aramaic Studies and the Language of Jesus.” In The Language of the New Testament: Classic Essays, ed. Stanley E. Porter, 112–25. JSNTSS 60. Sheffield: JSOT, 1991. Blank, Josef. “Die Verhandlung vor Pilatus Joh 18,28–19,16 im Lichte johanneischer Theologie.” BZ 3 (1959): 60–81. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. David Remembered: Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013. –. “The Theological Politics of Deutero-Isaiah.” In Divination, Politics and Near Eastern Empires, ed. Alan Lenzi and Jonathan Stökl, 129–43. ANEM 7. Atlanta: SBL, 2014. –. “The Theological Politics of Deutero-Isaiah.” In Essays on Judaism in the PreHellenistic Period, 1–14. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017. Blidstein, Moshe. Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Blount, Brian K. Revelation: A Commentary. NTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009. Bohak, Gideon. “Greek–Hebrew Linguistic Contacts in Late Antique and Medieval Magical Texts.” In The Jewish–Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, ed. James K. Aitken and James Carleton Paget, 247–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Bibliography

275

Böhler, Dieter. “‘Ecce Homo!’ (Joh 19,5) ein Zitat aus dem Alten Testament.” BZ 39 (1995): 104–08. Bond, Helen K. “The Coins of Pontius Pilate: Part of an Attempt to Provoke the People or to Integrate them into the Empire?” JSJ 27 (1996): 241–62. –. Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation. SNTSMS 100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. –. “Barabbas Remembered.” In Jesus and Paul: Global Perspectives in Honour of James D. G. Dunn for his 70th Birthday, ed. B. J. Oropeza, C. K. Robertson, and Douglas C. Mohrmann, 59–71. LNTS 414. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Bonner, Campbell, “The Crown of Thorns.” HTR 46:1 (1953): 47–48. Borgen, Peder. “God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel.” In The Interpretation of John, ed. John Ashton, 83–95. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997. Botha, J. Eugene. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4:1–42. NovTSup 65. Leiden: Brill, 1991. Boyarin, Daniel. Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion. KWJS 9. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press: 2018. Boyle, A. J. “Introduction: Reading Flavian Rome.” In Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. Anthony Boyle and William J. Dominik, 1–67. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Brant, Jo-Ann A. John. PCNT. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011. Braund, David. Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of the Client Kingship. London: Croom Helm, 1984. Brawley, Robert L. “The Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel of John.” In Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies of Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend, ed. Isaac Kalimi, 105–27. BRLJ 51. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Brendsel, Daniel J. “Isaiah Saw His Glory”: The Use of Isaiah 52–53 in John 12. BZNW 208. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014. Brink, C. O. Horace on Poetry: Epistles Book II: The Letters to Augustus and Florus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Brodie, Thomas L. The Gospel according to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Broer, Ingo. Hermeneutik in Geschichte: Fallstudien. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014. Brooke, George J. and Hindy Najman. “Dethroning David and Enthroning Messiah: Jewish and Christian Perspectives.” In On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets through the Eyes of Their Interpreters, ed. George J. Brooke and Ariel Feldman, 111– 27. BZAW 470. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016. Brown, Raymond E. The Death of the Messiah. From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. 2 vols. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Brown, Sherri. “What Is Truth? Jesus, Pilate, and the Staging of the Dialogue of the Cross in John 18:28–19:16a.” CBQ 77 (2015): 69–86. Brueggemann, Walter. The Theology of the Book of Jeremiah. OTT. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Bryan, Christopher. Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Buis, Emiliano J. “Law and Greek Comedy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Tragedy, ed. Michael Fantaine and Adele C. Scafuro, 321–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

276

Bibliography

Bultmann, Rudolf. “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums.” ZNW 24 (1925): 100–46. –. Theology of the New Testament, vol. 2. Translated by Kendrick Grobel. London: SCM, 1952. –. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Translated by G. R. Beasley-Murray. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971. Burnand, Chris. Tacitus and the Principate: From Augustus to Domitian. GRTC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Burton, Paul J. Friendship and Rome: Roman Diplomacy and Imperialism in the Middle Republic (353–146 BC). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Busse, Ulrich. “Open Questions on John 10,” in The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context: Studies by members of the Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Johannes Beutler and Robert T. Fortna, 6–17. SNTSMS 67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Buth, Randall and Chad Pierce. “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean ‘Aramaic’?” In The Language Environment of First Century Judaea: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, Vol. 2, ed. Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley, 66–109. JCP 26. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Bynum, William Randolph. “Quotations of Zechariah in the Fourth Gospel.” In Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, 47–74. RBS 81. Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Byrne, Brendan. Life Abounding: A Reading of John’s Gospel. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2014. Carmichael, Calum. “The Origin of the Scapegoat Ritual.” VetT 50:2 (2000): 167–82. –. Illuminating Leviticus: A Study of Its Laws and Institutions in the Light of Biblical Narratives. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006. –. The Sacrificial Laws of Leviticus and the Joseph Story. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Carroll, John T. and Joel B. Green, with Robert E. Van Voorst, Joel Marcus, and Donald Senior. “‘When I Am Lifted Up from the Earth …’: The Death of Jesus in the Gospel according to John.” In The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity, 82–109. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995. Carroll, John T. Luke: A Commentary. NTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012. Carter, Warren. Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003. –. John and Empire: Initial Explorations. London: T&T Clark, 2008. –. “Jesus and Pilate: Memories in John’s Gospel?” In John, Jesus, and History 3: Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens, ed. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, 59–76. ECIL 18. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016. Cerulli, E. “Tiberius and Pontius Pilate in Ethiopian Tradition and Poetry.” PBA 59 (1973): 141–58. Chalon, G. L’Edite de Tiberius Julius Alexander: Étude historique et exégétique. BHR 5. Olten: Graf, 1964. Chancey, Mark A. Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus. SNTSMS 134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Chaudhuri, Pramit. The War with God: Theomachy in Roman Imperial Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Chibici-Revneanu, Nicole. “Variations on Glorification: John 13,31f. and Johannine δόξαlanguage.” In Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text,

Bibliography

277

Interpretation, ed. G. Van Belle, M. Labahn, and P. Maritz, 511–22. Leuven: Peeters, 2009. Childs, Brevard S. Isaiah: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Chilton, C. W. “The Roman Law of Treason under the Early Principate.” JRS 45 (1955): 73–81. Cho, Sukmin. Jesus as Prophet in the Fourth Gospel. NTM 15. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006. Claasen, Jo-Marie. “The Exiled Ovid’s Reception of Gallus.” CJ 112:3 (2017): 318–41. Clark, Douglas K. “Signs in Wisdom and John.” CBQ 45 (1983): 201–09. Cody, Jane M. “Conquerors and Conquered on Flavian Coins.” In Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. Anthony Boyle and William J. Dominik, 103–23. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Cohen, Sarah T. “Augustus, Julia and the Development of Exile and Ad Insulam.” CQ 58:1 (2008): 206–17. Coleman, Kathleen M. “‘Informers’ on Parade.” In The Art of Ancient Spectacle, ed. B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon, 231–45. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1999. –. “Public Entertainments.” In The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, ed. Michael Peachin, 335–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Collins, Adela Yarbro. “Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Greeks and Romans.” HTR 93 (2000): 85–100. –. Mark: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. – and John J. Collins. King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 2nd ed. BRS. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Coloe, Mary L. God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2001. –. Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2007. –. “The Nazarene King: Pilate’s Title as the Key to John’s Crucifixion.” In The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle, 839–48. BETL 200. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007. –. “Temple Imagery in John.” Int 63 (2009): 368–81. –. “The Missing Feast of Pentecost: John 1,19–2,12.” SNTU 34 (2009): 97–113. Conway, Colleen M. “The Production of the Johannine Community: A New Historicist Perspective.” JBL 121:3 (2002): 479–95. –. “Speaking through Ambiguity: Minor Characters in the Fourth Gospel.” BibInt 10:3 (2002): 324–41. –. “New Historicism and the Historical Jesus in John: Friends or Foes.” In John, Jesus, and History, Vol. 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views, ed. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, 199–215. SBLSS 44. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Cook, John Granger. “Crucifixion and Burial.” NTS 57 (2011): 193–213. –. “Roman Crucifixions: From the Second Punic War to Constantine.” ZNW 104 (2013): 1–32. Cooley, Alison E., Stephen Mitchell, and Benet Salway. “Roman Inscriptions 2001–2005.” JRS 97 (2007): 176–263. Corke-Webster, James. “Trouble in Pontus: The Pliny–Trajan Correspondence on the Christians Reconsidered.” TAPA 147:2 (2017): 371–411.

278

Bibliography

Courtney, Edward. A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal. CCS 2. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. Coutts, Joshua J. F. The Divine Name in the Gospel of John: Significance and Impetus. WUNT 2/447. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Cowan, Eleanor. “Tiberius and Augustus in Tiberian Sources.” Historia 58:4 (2009): 468– 85. Cox, Ronald. By the Same Word: Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity. BZNW 145. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. Cuany, Monique. “Jesus, Barabbas and the People: The Climax of Luke’s Trial Narrative and Lukan Christology (Luke 23.13–25).” JSNT 39:4 (2017): 441–58. Culpepper, R. Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. –. “Symbolism and History in John’s Account of Jesus’ Death.” In Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature, ed. Tom Thatcher and Stephen D. Moore, 39–54. RBS 55. Atlanta: SBL, 2008. – and Paul N. Anderson, eds. John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context. RBS 87. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Cuonzo, Margaret. Paradox. EKS. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014. Daly-Denton, Margaret. David in the Fourth Gospel: The Johannine Reception of the Psalms. AGJU 47. Leiden: Brill, 2000. –. “David The Psalmist, Inspired Prophet: Jewish Antecedents of the New Testament Datum.” ABR 52 (2004): 32–47. Davies, Stevan L. “Who is Called Bar Abbas?” NTS 27 (1981): 260–62. Davis, Penelope J. E. Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. de Boer, Martinus. “The Narrative Function of Pilate in John.” In Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, ed. George J. Brooke and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, 141–58. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000. –. “Johannine History and Johannine Theology: The Death of Jesus as the Exaltation and the Glorification of the Son of Man.” In The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle, 293–326. BETL 200. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007. de la Potterie, Ignace. “Jésus Roi et Juge d’après Jn 19,13: ἐκάθισεν ἐπί βήματος.” Bib 41:3 (1960): 217–47. –. “Jesus King and Judge according to John 19.13.” Scr 13 (1961): 97–111. De Troyer, Kristin. “An Exploration of the Wisdom of Solomon as the Missing Link between Isaiah and Matthew.” In Isaiah in Context: Studies in Honour of Arie van der Kooij on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Michaël van der Meer, Percy van Keulen, Wido van Peursen, and Bas ter Haar Romeny, 215–27. VetTSup 138. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Decharneux, Baudouin. “The Carabas Affair (in Flacc 36–39): An Incident Emblematic of Philo’s Political Philosophy.” In Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History, ed. Peter J. Tomson and Joshua Schwartz, 70– 79. CRINT 13. Leiden: Brill, 2014. den Hollander, William. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian. AJEC 86. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Dennis, John. “Jesus’ Death in John’s Gospel: A Survey of Research from Bultmann to the Present with Special Reference to the Johannine Hyper-Texts.” CBR 4:3 (2006): 331– 63.

Bibliography

279

Devillers, Luc. “La croix de Jésus et les Ἰουδαῖοι (Jn 19,16): Crux interpretum ou clé sotériologique?” In The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle, 385– 407. BETL 200. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007. Dillon, Matthew and Lynda Garland. Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar. London: Routledge, 2005. Dinkler, Michal Beth. “Reading the Potentials of Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” (Luke 19:28– 40).” RevExp 112:4 (2015): 525–41. Do, Toan. “Jesus’ Death as Hilasmos according to 1 John: Expiation or Propitiation? ἐξιλάσκομαι in the Septuagint.” In The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle, 537–53. BETL 200. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007. –. “‘That you may not sin’: On the Reading of 1John 2,1b.” ZNW 102 (2011): 77–95. –. “Does περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου Imply ‘the Sins of the Whole World’ in 1 John 2:2?” Bib 94 (2013): 415–35. –. Re-thinking the Death of Jesus: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Hilasmos and Agapē in 1 John 2:1–2 and 4:7–10. CBET 73. Leuven: Peeters, 2014. Dodd, C. H. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953. Dodson, Joseph R. The ‘Powers’ of Personification: Rhetorical Purpose in the Book of Wisdom and the Letter to the Romans. BZNW 161. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. Douglas, Mary. Leviticus as Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. –. “The Go-Away Goat.” In The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception, ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler, with the assistance of Sarah Smith Bartel, 121–41. VetTSup 93. Leiden: Brill, 2003. du Rand, Jan A. “A Syntactical and Narratological Reading of John 10 in Coherence with John 9.” In The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context: Studies by members of the Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Johannes Beutler and Robert T. Fortna, 94–115. SNTSMS 67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Duff, Paul Brooks. “Metaphor, Motif, and Meaning: The Rhetorical Strategy behind the Image ‘Led in Triumph’ in 2 Corinthians 2:14.” CBQ 53 (1991): 79–92. –. “The March of the Divine Warrior and the Advent of the Greco-Roman King: Mark’s Account of Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem.” JBL 111 (1992): 55–71. Duke, Paul. Irony in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: John Knox, 1985. Eberhardt, Barbara. “Wer dient wem? Die Darstellung des Flavischen Triumphzuges auf dem Titusbogen und bei Josephus (B.J. 7.123–162).” In Josephus And Jewish History in Flavian Rome And Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi, 257–77. JSJSup 104. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Eco, Umberto. Opera aperta. Milan: Bompiani, 1962. –. The Open Work. Translated by Anna Cancogni. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. Eder, Walter. “Augustus and the Power of Tradition.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, ed. Karl Galinsky, 13–32. Translated by Karl Galinsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Edmondson, Jonathan. “Introduction: Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 1–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Edwards, Mark. John. BBC. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Edwards, Ruth. Discovering John. London: SPCK, 2003. Elgvin, Torleif. “Priestly Sages? The Milieus of Origin of 4QMysteries and 1Q/4QInstruction.” In Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead

280

Bibliography

Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 20–22 May 2001, ed. John J. Collins, Gregory E. Sterling, and Ruth A. Clements, 67–87. STDJ 51. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Elsner, Jaś. “Introduction.” In Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, ed. Jaś Elsner and Michel Meyer, 1–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Empson, William. Seven Types of Ambiguity. 2nd ed. Reprint. London: Chatto and Windus, 1949. Enns, Peter. Exodus Retold: Ancient Exegesis of the Departure from Egypt in Wis 15–21 and 19:1–9. HSM 57. Atlanta: Scholars, 1997. Escande, Jacques. “Jésus devant Pilate: Jean 18,28–19,24.” Foi & Vie 13 (1974): 66–82. Estes, Douglas. “Dualism or Paradox? Rethinking the Worldview of John’s Gospel in ‘Light’ of a Rhetorical Approach.” Paper presented in the Johannine Literature group at the annual meeting of the SBL. Boston, November 20, 2017. Evans, Craig A. “Jesus and James: Martyrs of the Temple.” In James the Just & Christian Origins, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, 233–50. NovTSup 98. Leiden: Brill, 1999). Evans, Trevor V. Verbal Syntax in the Greek Pentateuch: Natural Greek Usage and Hebrew Interference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Eve, Eric. “Signs and Syncriseis in John and the Wisdom of Solomon.” In The New Testament and the Church: Essays in Honour of John Muddiman, ed. John Barton and Peter Groves, 24–36. LNTS 532. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015. Fantham, Elaine. “Ovid, Germanicus, and the Composition of the Fasti.” In Oxford Readings in Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox, 373–414. ORCS. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Ferda, Tucker S. “Crowds, Bread and Fame: John 6.1–15 and History Revisited.” JSNT 42:2 (2019): 139–61. Finn, Jennifer. “Gods, Kings, Men: Trilingual Inscriptions and Symbolic Visualizations in the Achaemenid Empire.” Ars Orientalis 41 (2011): 219–75. Flint, Peter W. “The Prophet David at Qumran.” In Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Mathias Henze, 158–67. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. Forger, Deborah. “Divine Embodiment in Philo of Alexandria.” JSJ 49 (2018): 223–62. Förster, Niclas. “Der titulus crucis: Demütigung der Judäer und Proklamation des Messias.” NovT 56 (2014): 113–33. Foster, Paul. “The Gospel of Peter.” In The Non-Canonical Gospels, ed. Paul Foster, 30– 42. London: T&T Clark, 2008. –. The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary. TENTS 4. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Frey, Jörg. “Temple and Identity in Early Christianity and in the Johannine Community: Reflections on the ‘Parting of the Ways.’” In Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, ed. Daniel R. Schwartz and Zeev Weis, in collaboration with Ruth A. Clements, 447– 507. AJEC 78. Leiden: Brill, 2012. –. “Jesus und Pilatus: Der wahre König und der Repräsentant des Kaisers im Johannesevangelium.” In Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence, ed. Gilbert Van Belle and Joseph Verheyden, 337–93. BTS 20. Leuven: Peeters, 2014. –. “Joh 1,14, die Fleischwerdung des Logos und die Einwohnung Gottes in Jesus Christus. Zur Bedeutung der Schechina-Theologie für die johanneische Christologie.” In Das Geheimnis der Gegenwart Gottes zur Schechina-Vorstellung in Judentum und

Bibliography

281

Christentum, ed. Bernd Janowski and Enno Edzard Popkes, 231–56. WUNT 318. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Fried, Lisbeth S. “Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1.” HTR 95:4 (2002): 373–93. Frova, A. “L’iscrizione di Ponzio Pilato a Cesarea.” Rendiconti 95 (1961): 419–34. Gallagher, Catherine and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000. Gallagher, Edmon L. Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text. VCSup 114. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Georgia, Allan T. “Translating the Triumph: Reading Mark’s Crucifixion Narrative against a Roman Ritual of Power.” JSNT 36:1 (2013): 17–38. Giblin, Charles Homer. “Confrontations in John 18,1–27.” Bib 65:2 (1984): 210–32. –. “John’s Narration of the Hearing before Pilate.” Bib 67 (1986): 221–39. Gilbert, M. “‘Your Sovereignty comes from the Lord.’ Wis 6,4.” In La Sagesse de Salomon – The Wisdom of Solomon, Recueil d’études – Collected Essays, 121–40. Rome: GBP, 2011. Gizewski, Christian. “Maiestas.” In Brill’s New Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, (Antiquity volumes, translated by Christine F. Salazar); Manfred Landfester (Classical Tradition volumes, translated by Francis G. Gentry). 2006. Accessed April 23, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e718120. Glicksman, Andrew T. Wisdom of Solomon 10: A Jewish Hellenistic Reinterpretation of Early Israelite History through Sapiential Lenses. DCLS 9. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. Goff, Matthew J. 4QInstruction. WLAW 2. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Goldingay, John and David Payne. Isaiah 40–55, vol. 2. ICC. London: T&T Clark, 2006. Goodman, Martin. “The Fiscus Iudaicus and Gentile Attitudes to Judaism in Flavian Rome.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 167–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Gordley, Matthew E. The Colossian Hymn in Context: An Exegesis in Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Hymnic and Epistolary Conventions. WUNT 2/228. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Grabbe, Lester L. “The Scapegoat Tradition: A Study in Early Jewish Interpretation.” JSJ 18 (1987): 152–67. Gradel, Ittai. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. OCM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Green, Joel B. “Theologies of the Atonement in the New Testament.” In T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, ed. Adam J. Johnson, 115–34. London: T&T Clark, 2017. Gruen, Erich S. “The Expansion of the Empire under Augustus.” In The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 10: The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.–A.D. 69, ed. Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin, and Andrew Lintott, 147–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. –. “Polybius and Josephus on Rome.” In Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and History, ed. Jack Pastor, Pnina Stern, and Menahem Mor, 149–62. JSJSup 146. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Grünewald, Thomas. Räuber, Rebellen, Rivalen, Rächer: Studien zu Latrones im Römischen Reich. FAS 31. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999. –. Bandits in The Roman Empire: Myth and Reality. Translated by John Drinkwater. London: Routledge, 2004. Gzella, Holger. A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. HONME 111. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

282

Bibliography

Habel, Norman C. The Book of Job: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1985. Hadas-Lebel, Mireille. Jerusalem Against Rome. ISACR 7. Leuven: Peeters, 2006. Haenchen, Ernst. John, 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1–6. Translated by Robert W. Funk. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. Hall, Robert G. “The Reader as Apocalypticist.” In John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland, 254–73. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013. Hardin, Justin K. “Decrees and Drachmas at Thessalonica: An Illegal Assembly in Jason’s House (Acts 17.1–10a).” NTS 52 (2006): 29–49. Harker, Andrew. Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt: The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Harries, Jill. Law and Crime in the Roman World. KTAH. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Harrington, Daniel J. “‘Saved by Wisdom’ (Wis 9.18): Soteriology in the Wisdom of Solomon.” In This World and the World to Come: Soteriology in Early Judaism, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner, 181–90. London: T&T Clark, 2011. Harrington, Hannah K. Holiness: Rabbinic Judaism in the Graeco-Roman World. RFCC. London: Routledge, 2001. –. “Holiness and the Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” DSD 8:2 (2001): 124–35. –. The Purity Texts. CQS 5. London: T&T Clark, 2004. –. “Purification in the Fourth Gospel in Light of Qumran.” In John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate, ed. Mary L. Coloe and Tom Thatcher, 117–38. EJIL 32. Atlanta: SBL, 2011. Harris, Edward M. The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Harrison, James R. “The Social Context.” In The Content and the Setting of the Gospel Tradition, ed. Mark Harding and Alanna Nobbs, 105–26. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. –. “Augustan Rome and the Body of Christ: A Comparison of the Social Vision of the Res Gestae and Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” HTR 106:1 (2013): 1–36. Hart, H. St. J. “The Crown of Thorns in John 19:2–5.” JTS 3 (1952): 66–75. Hayes, Christine E. Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. –. Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Hayward, C. T. R. Interpretations of the Name Israel in Ancient Judaism and Some Early Christian Writings: From Victorious Athlete to Heavenly Champion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Heemstra, Marius. The Fiscus Judaicus and the Parting of the Ways. WUNT 2/277. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Heilig, Christoph. Paul’s Triumph: Reassessing 2 Corinthians 2:14 in Its Literary and Historical Context. BTS 27. Leuven: Peeters, 2017. Henderson, John. “Down the Pan: historical exemplarity in the Panegyricus.” In Pliny’s Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World, ed. Paul Roche, 142–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Bibliography

283

–. “Was Suetonius’ Julius a Caesar?” In Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives, ed. Tristan Power and Roy K. Gibson, 81–110. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Henderson, Timothy P. The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics: Rewriting the Story of Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection. WUNT 2/301. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Hendin, David. “Echoes of ‘Judaea Capta’: The Nature of Domitian’s Coinage of Judea and Vicinity.” INR 2 (2007): 123–30. Hengel, Martin. Studies in Early Christology. Rev. ed. London: T&T Clark, 2004. –, with the collaboration of Daniel P. Bailey. “The Effective History of Isaiah 53 in the Pre-Christian Period.” In The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher, 75–146. Translated by Daniel P. Bailey. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. Hill, Charles E. The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Hollis, H. “The Root of the Johannine Pun – ὙΨΩΘΗΝΑΙ.” NTS 35 (1989): 475–78. Holloway, R. Ross. “Some Reflections on the Arch of Titus.” AC 56 (1987): 183–91. Horsley, G. H. R. New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 5: Linguistic Essays. Macquarie University: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1989. Horsley, Richard A. “Josephus and the Bandits.” JSJ 10 (1979): 37–63. –. “Ancient Jewish Banditry and the Revolt against Rome, AD 66–70.” CBQ 43 (1981): 409–32. Hugo, Philippe. “The Jerusalem Temple Seen in 2 Samuel according to the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint.” In XII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Ljubljana, 2007, ed. Melvin K. H. Peters, 183–96. SBLSCS 55. Atlanta: SBL, 2008. Hunt, Laura J. Jesus Caesar: A Roman Reading of the Johannine Trial Narrative. WUNT 2/506. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Hunt, Steven A. “Nathanael: Under the Fig Tree on the Fourth Day.” In Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. D. Francois Tolmie, Steven A. Hunt, and Ruben Zimmermann, 189–201. WUNT 314. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Huss, W. “Die in Ptoelmaiischer Zeit verfassten Synodal-Dekrete der ägyptischen Priester.” ZPE 88 (1991): 189–208. Hylen, Susan. Imperfect Believers: Ambiguous Characters in the Gospel of John. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009. Jay, Jeff. The Tragic in Mark: A Literary-Historical Interpretation. HUT 66. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Jensen, Morten Hørning. Herod Antipas in Galilee. WUNT 2/215. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. –. “Josephus and Antipas: A Case Study of Josephus’ Narratives on Herod Antipas.” In Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Zuleika Rodgers, 289–312. JSJSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Johnson, G. J. “De conspiratione delatorum: Pliny and the Christians re-visited.” Latomus 47 (1988): 417–22. Jones, Brian W. The Emperor Domitian. London: Routledge, 1992.

284

Bibliography

Jossa, Giorgio. “Jews, Romans and Christians: from the Bellum Judaicum to the Antiquitates.” In Josephus And Jewish History in Flavian Rome And Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi, 331–42. JSJSup 104. Leiden: Brill, 2005. –. Jews Or Christians? The Followers of Jesus in Search of Their Own Identity. Translated by Molly Rogers. WUNT 202. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Judge, E. A. “The Decrees of Caesar at Thessalonica.” RTR 30 (1971): 71–78. –. “Veni. Vidi. Vici, and the Inscription of Cornelius Gallus.” In The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, ed. James R. Harrison, 72–75. WUNT 229. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Kaufmann, Thomas. Luther’s Jews: A Journey into Anti-Semitism. Translated by Lesley Sharpe and Jeremey Noakes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Kazen, Thomas. Jesus and Purity Halakhah: Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? Rev. ed. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010. Keaveney, Arthur and John A. Madden. “The Crimen Maiestatis under Caligula: The Evidence of Dio Cassius.” CQ 48:1 (1998): 316–20. Keddie, G. Anthony. “Iudaea Capta vs. Mother Zion: The Flavian Discourse on Judaeans and Its Delegitimation in 4 Ezra.” JSJ 49 (2018): 498–550. Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003. –. The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. –. “‘What is Truth?’: Pilate’s Perspective on Jesus in John 18:33–38a.” In John, Jesus, and History, Vol. 3: Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens, ed. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, 77–94. ECIL 18. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016. Kehoe, D. P. The Economics of Agriculture on Roman Imperial Estates in North Africa. Hypomnemata 89. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988. Kelly, Benjamin. “Repression, Resistance and Rebellion.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, ed. Paul J. du Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori, 374– 85. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Kerkeslager, Allen. “The Absence of Dionysios, Lampo, and Isidoros from the Violence in Alexandria in 38 C.E.” In The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, Vol. 17, 1999, ed. David T. Runia and Gregory E. Sterling, 49–94. BJS 344. Providence: Brown University, 2005. Kim, Jintae. “The Concept of Atonement in the Gospel of John.” JGRChJ 6 (2009): 9–27. Kinman, Brent. “Parousia, Jesus’ ‘A-Triumphal’ Entry, and the Fate of Jerusalem (Luke 19:28–44).” JBL 118 (1999): 279–94. Klawans, Jonathan. “Notions of Gentile Impurity in Ancient Judaism.” AJS Review 20:2 (1995): 285–312. –. Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. –. Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Klein, Michael L. Geniza Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, vol. 1. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1986. Kloppenborg, John S. “Evocatio Deorum and the Date of Mark.” JBL 124:3 (2005): 419– 50. Koester, Craig R. “Messianic Exegesis and the Call of Nathanael (John 1.45–51).” JSNT 39 (1990): 23–34. –. The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. –. “Progress and paradox: C. H. Dodd and Rudolf Bultmann on history, the Jesus tradition, and the Fourth Gospel.” In Engaging with C. H. Dodd on the Gospel of John:

Bibliography

285

Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation, ed. Tom Thatcher and Catrin Williams, 49– 65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Kohn, Risa Levitt. “A Prophet Like Moses? Rethinking Ezekiel’s Relationship to the Torah.” ZAW 114 (2002): 236–54. Kolarcik, Michael. “Universalism and Justice in the Wisdom of Solomon.” In Treasures of Wisdom: Studies in Ben Sira and the Book of Wisdom: Festschrift M. Gilbert, ed. Nuria Calduch-Benages and Jacques Vermeylen, 289–301. BETL 143. Leuven: Peeters, 1999. Kolb, Anne and Michael A. Speidel. “Perceptions from Beyond: Some Observations on Non-Roman Assessments of the Roman Empire from the Great Eastern Trade Routes.” In Rome and the Worlds Beyond Its Frontiers, ed. Daniëlle Slootjes and M. Peachin, 151–80. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Kowalski, Beate. “‘Was ist Wahrheit?’ (Joh. 18,38a): Zur literarischen und theologischen Funktion der Pilatusfrage in der Johannespassion.” In Im Geist und in der Wahrheit: Studien zum Johannesevangelium und zur Offenbarung des Johannes sowie andere Beitrage; Festschrift für Martin Hasitschka SJ zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Konrad Huber and Boris Repschinski, 201–27. NTA 52. Münster: Aschendorff, 2008. Kozyreva, N. V. “The Old Babylonian Period of Mesopotamian History.” In Early Antiquity, ed. I. M. Diakonoff, 98–123. Translated by Alexander Kirjanov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Krivoruchko, Julia G. “Judeo-Greek.” In Handbook of Jewish Languages, ed. Aaron D. Rubin and Lily Kahn, 194–225. BHL 2. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Kropp, Andreas J. M. Images and Monuments of Near Eastern Dynasts, 100 BC–AD 100. OSACR. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Kubiś, Adam. The Book of Zechariah in the Gospel of John. EBib 64. Paris: Gabalda, 2012. Kugel, James L. “David the prophet.” In Poetry and Prophecy: The Beginnings of a Literary Tradition, ed. James L. Kugel, 45–55. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990. Kurek-Chomycz, Dominika A. “Spreading the Sweet Scent of the Gospel as the Cult of the Wise: On the Backdrop of the Olfactory Metaphor in 2 Corinthians 2:14–16.” In Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible, ed. Christian Eberhart, 115–33. RBS 68. Atlanta: SBL, 2011. Kushnir-Stein, Alla. “An Inscribed Lead Weight from Ashdod: A Reconsideration.” ZPE 105 (1995): 81–84. Kyle, Donald G. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. Reprint. London: Routledge, 2001. Labron, Tim. Bultmann Unlocked. Theology. London: T&T Clark, 2011. Lange, Benjamin. Der Richter und seine Ankläger: Eine narratologische Untersuchung der Rechtsstreit- und Prozessmotivik im Johannesevangelium. WUNT 2/501. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Law, Timothy Michael and Charles Halton, eds. Jew and Judean: A Marginalia Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts. Los Angeles: Marginalia Review of Books, 2014. Lee, Dorothy A. The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and Meaning. JSNTSS 95. Sheffield: JSOT, 1994. Lémonon, Jean-Pierre. Pilate et le gouvernement de la Judee: Textes et monuments. Paris: Gabalda, 1981. Leonhardt-Balzer, Jutta. “The Ruler of the World, Antichrists and Pseudo-Prophets: Johannine Variations on an Apocalyptic Theme.” In John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland, 180–99. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013.

286

Bibliography

Leuchter, Mark. “Samuel: A Prophet Like Moses or a Priest Like Moses.” In Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, ed. Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person, Jr., 147–68. AIIL 14. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Levick, Barabara. Tiberius the Politician. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1999. Levinson, Bernard M. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. –. “The Reconceptualization of Kingship in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic History’s Transformation of Torah.” VetT 51:4 (2001): 511–34. Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, and H. S. Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Lieu, Judith. The Theology of the Johannine Epistles. NTT. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. –. “The ‘Attraction of Women’ in/to Early Judaism and Christianity: Gender and the Politics of Conversion.” JSNT 72 (1999): 5–22. –. “Review of Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John, by Adele Reinhartz.” CBQ 82 (2020): 143–44. Lim, Sung Uk. “Biopolitics in the Trial of Jesus (John 18:28–19:16a).” ExpT 127:5 (2016): 209–16. Lincoln, Andrew T. Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2000. –. The Gospel according to Saint John. BNTC. London: Continuum, 2005. Lindars, Barnabas. The Gospel of John. NCB. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972. Linebaugh, Jonathan A. “Announcing the Human: Rethinking the Relationship between Wisdom of Solomon 13–15 and Romans 1.18–2.11.” NTS 57:2 (2011): 214–37. –. God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation. NovTSup 152. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Litwa, M. David. “Behold Adam: A Reading of John 19:5.” HBT 32 (2010): 129–43. –. Desiring Divinity: Self-deification in Early Jewish and Christian Mythmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Llewelyn, Stephen and Dionysia van Beek. “Reading the Temple Warning as a Greek Visitor.” JSJ 42 (2011): 1–22. Lohr, Joel N. “The Book of Leviticus.” In A Theological Introduction to the Pentateuch: Interpreting the Torah as Christian Scripture, ed. Richard S. Briggs and Joel N. Lohr, 83–111. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012. Lonnqvist, K. “Pontius Pilate – An Aqueduct Builder? – Recent Findings and New Suggestions.” Klio 82 (2000): 458–74. Louw, J. P. “On Johannine style.” Neot 20 (1986): 5–12. Maccoby, H. Z. “Jesus and Barabbas.” NTS 16 (1970): 55–60. MacRae, George W. “Theology and Irony in the Fourth Gospel.” In The Word in the World, Essays in Honor of F. L. Moriarty, ed. R. J. Clifford and G. W. MacRae, 83–96. Cambridge: Weston College, 1973. Magness, Jodi. The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon’s Temple to the Muslim Conquest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Maier, Paul L. “Sejanus, Pilate and the Date of the Crucifixion.” CH 37 (1968): 3–13. –. “The Inscription on the Cross of Jesus of Nazareth.” Hermes 124:1 (1996): 58–75. Malul, Meir. “‫( איש עתי‬Leviticus 16:21): A Marginal Person.” JBL 128:3 (2009): 437–42. Mandell, Alice and Jeremy Smoak. “Reading and Writing in the Dark at Khirbet el-Qom: The Literacies of Ancient Subterranean Judah.” NEA 80:3 (2017): 188–95.

Bibliography

287

Manning, Gary T., Jr. Echoes of a Prophet: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John and in Literature of the Second Temple Period. JSNTSup 270; London: T&T Clark, 2004. –. “Shepherd, Vine and Bones: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John.” In After Ezekiel: Essays on the Reception of a Difficult Prophet, ed. Paul M. Joyce and Andrew Mein, 25–44. LHB/OTS 535. London: T&T Clark, 2011. Marchetti, Sandra Citroni. “‘I Could Not Love Caesar More’: Roman Friendship and the Beginning of the Principate.” CJ 99:3 (2004): 281–99. Marshak, Adam Kolman. The Many Faces of Herod the Great. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. Martínez, Florentino García. “Two Messianic Figures in the Qumran Texts.” In Qumranica Minora II: Thematic Studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, 13– 32. STDJ 64. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Martyn, J. Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. 3rd ed. NTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003. Mason, Hugh J. Greek Terms for Roman Institutions: A Lexicon and Analysis. ASP 13. Toronto: Hakkert, 1974. Mason, Steve. Life of Josephus: Translation and Commentary. Flavius Josephus 9. Leiden: Brill, 2001. –. “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History.” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–512. –, with Honora Chapman. Judean War 2: Translation and Commentary. Flavius Josephus 1b. Leiden: Brill, 2008. –. A History of the Jewish War: A.D. 66–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. –. “Josephus’ Judean War.” In A Companion to Josephus, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers, 13–35. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. –. “Josephus’ Portrait of the Flavian Triumph in Historical and Literary Context.” In Der römische Triumph in Prinzipat und Spätantike, ed. Fabian Goldbeck and Johannes Wienand, 125–76. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017. Masri, Larisa. “Rome, Diplomacy, and the Rituals of Empire Foreign Sacrifice to Jupiter Capitolinus.” Historia 65:3 (2016): 325–47. Maurer, Christian and Wilhelm Schneemelcher. “The Gospel of Peter.” In New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, 216– 27. Rev. ed. Translated by R. McL. Wilson. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003. Mays, James Luther. Micah: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976. Mazzinghi, Luca. “‘I Loved [Wisdom] and Sought Her from My Youth; I Desired to Take Her for My Counsellor’ (Wis 8:2a). Solomon and Wisdom: An Example of the Closest Intimacy.” In Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Angelo Passaro, 229–51. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2013. –. “The Figure of Moses in the Book of Wisdom.” In Canonicity, Setting, Wisdom in the Deuterocanonicals: Papers of the Jubilee Meeting of the International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, ed. Géza G. Xeravits, József Zsengellér, and Xavér Szabó, 183–205. DCLS 22. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014. McGing, Brian C. “Pontius Pilate and the Sources.” CBQ 53 (1991): 416–38. McGlynn, Moyna. Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom. WUNT 2/139. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. –. “Solomon, Wisdom and the Philosopher-Kings.” In Studies in the Book of Wisdom, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, 61–82. JSJSup 142. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

288

Bibliography

McLaren, James S. “Jews and the Imperial Cult: From Augustus to Domitian.” JSNT 27:3 (2005): 257–78. –. “The Jews in Rome during the Flavian period.” Antichthon 47 (2013): 156–72. McWhirter, Jocelyn. “Messianic Exegesis in the Fourth Gospel.” In Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini, 124–48. AJEC 106. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Meeks, Wayne A. The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology. NovTSup 14. Leiden: Brill, 1967. Melounová, Markéta. “Crimen maiestatis and the poena legis during the Principate.” Acta Ant. Hung. 54 (2014): 407–30. Menken, Maarten J. J. “Composite Citations in the Gospel of Matthew.” In Composite Citations in Antiquity, Vol. 2: New Testament Uses, ed. Sean A. Adams and Seth M. Ehorn, 34–61. LNTS 593. London: T&T Clark, 2018. Merritt, Benjamin D. “Greek Inscriptions.” Hesperia 21 (1952): 340–80. Merritt, Robert L. “Jesus Barabbas and the Paschal Pardon.” JBL 104:1 (1985): 57–68. Meshorer, Y. “A Stone Weight from the Reign of Herod.” IEJ 20 (1970): 97–98. –. A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to Bar Kokhba. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2001. Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek Testament. London: United Bible Societies, 1971. Metzner, Rainer. Das Verständnis der Sünde im Johannesevangelium. WUNT 122. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Michaels, J. Ramsey. The Gospel of John. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 3. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Millar, Fergus. “Last Year in Jerusalem: Monuments of the Jewish War in Rome.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 101–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Miller, David M. “The Meaning of loudaios and its Relationship to Other Group Labels in Ancient ‘Judaism.’” CBR 9:1 (2010): 98–126. –. “Ethnicity Comes of Age: An Overview of Twentieth-Century Terms for Ioudaios.” CBR 10:2 (2012): 293–311. –. “Ethnicity, Religion and the Meaning of Ioudaios in Ancient ‘Judaism.’” CBR 12:2 (2014): 216–65 Minas-Nerpel, Martina and Stefan Pfeiffer. “Establishing Roman Rule in Egypt: The Trilingual Stela of C. Cornelius Gallus from Philae.” In Tradition and Transformation: Egypt under Roman Rule; proceedings of the International Conference, Hildesheim, Roemer- and Plizaeus-Museum, 3–6 July 2008, ed. Katja Lembke, Martina MinasNerpel, and Stefan Pfeiffer, 265–98. Leiden: Boston, 2010. Mitchell, Stephen. “Requisitioned Transport in the Roman Empire: A New Inscription from Pisidia.” JRS 76 (1976): 106–31. –. “The Treaty between Rome and Lycia of 46 BC (MS 2070).” In Papyri Graecae Schøyen (P. Schøyen I), ed. R. Pintaudi, 161–258. Firenze: Gonnelli, 2005. Moloney, Francis J. “The Johannine Son of Man.” BTB 6 (1976): 71–86. –. The Gospel of John. SP. Collegeville: Liturgical, 1998. –. Glory not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998. –. “‘The Jews’ in the Fourth Gospel: Another Perspective.” Pacifica 15 (2002): 16–36.

Bibliography

289

–. “Israel, the People, and the Jews in the Fourth Gospel.” In Johannine Studies 1975– 2017, 93–115. WUNT 372. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. –. “The Johannine Son of Man.” In Johannine Studies 1975–2017, 223–32. WUNT 372. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. –. “The Use of χάρις in John 1:14, 16–17: A Key to the Johannine Narrative.” In Johannine Studies 1975–2017, 283–305. WUNT 372. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Moore, Kathryn Blair. The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Moore, Stephen D. “‘The Romans Will Come and Destroy Our Holy Place and Our Nation’: Representing Empire in John.” In The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays, 327–51. RBS 57. Atlanta: SBL, 2010. Morrell, Kit. Pompey, Cato, and the Governance of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Moscicke, Hans. “Jesus as Goat of the Day of Atonement in Recent Synoptic Gospels Research.” CBR 17:1 (2018): 59–85. Moses, Robert E. “Jesus Barabbas, a Nominal Messiah? Text and History in Matthew 27.16–17.” NTS 58 (2011): 43–58. Moule, C. F. D. An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959. Moulton, James Hope and George Milligan. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament: Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985. Mowery, Robert L. “Son of God in Roman Imperial Titles and Matthew.” Bib 83:1 (2002): 100–10. Muraoka, T. A Syntax of Septuagint Greek. Leuven: Peeters, 2016. Najman, Hindy. “The Symbolic Significance of Writing in Ancient Judaism.” In The Idea of Biblical Interpretation, ed. H. Najman and J. H. Newman, 139–75. JSJSup 83. Leiden: Brill, 2004. –. Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity. JSJSup 53. Leiden: Brill, 2010. –. Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Neagoe, Alexandru. The Trial of the Gospel: An Apologetic Reading of Luke’s Trial Narratives. SNTSMS 116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Newman, Judith H. “The Democratization of Kingship in Wisdom of Solomon.” In The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman, 309–28. JSJSup 83. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Newsom, Carol A. Daniel: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014. Neyrey, Jerome H. “Spaces and Places, Whence and Whither, Homes and Rooms: ‘Territoriality’ in the Fourth Gospel.” BTB 32 (2002): 60–74. Niditch, Susan. Judges: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008. –. “Judges, Kingship, and Political Ethics: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom.” In Thus Says the Lord: Essays on the Former and Latter Prophets in Honor of Robert R. Wilson, ed. John J. Ahn and Stephen L. Cook, 59–70. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Nielsen, Jesper Tang. “The Lamb of God: The Cognitive Structure of a Johannine Metaphor.” In Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Forms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language, ed. Jörg Frey, Jan G. van der Watt, and Ruben Zimmermann, 217–56. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.

290

Bibliography

Nihan, Christophe. “1 Samuel 8 and 12 and the Deuteronomistic Edition of Samuel.” In Is Samuel among the Deuteronomists? Current Views on the Place of Samuel in a Deuteronomistic History, ed. Cynthia Edenburg and Juha Pakkala, 225–73. AIIL 16. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Nodet, Etienne. “Josephus’ Attempt to Reorganize Judaism from Rome.” In Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Zuleika Rodgers, 103–22. JSJSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2007. –. “Pilate and Discrepant Sources.” In Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and History, ed. Jack Pastor, Pnina Stern, and Menahem Mor, 259–77. JSJSup 146. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Noga-Banai, Galit. Sacred Stimulus: Jerusalem in the Visual Christianization of Rome. OSLA. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Novenson, Matthew V. The Grammar of Messianism: An Ancient Jewish Political Idiom and Its Users. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Novick, Tzvi. “Peddling Scents: Merchandise and Meaning in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17.” JBL 130:3 (2011): 543–49. Noy, David. Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, Vol. 1: Italy (excluding the City of Rome), Spain and Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. –. Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, Vol. 2: The City of Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. O’Day, Gail R. Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986. Oliver, J. M. “On the Edict of Germanicus Declining Divine Acclamations.” Rivista storica dell’ antichita 1 (1971): 229–30. Ong, Hughson T. The Multilingual Jesus and the Sociolinguistic World of the New Testament. LBS 12. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Orlov, Andrei A. Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism. Albany: SUNY, 2015. –. The Atoning Dyad: The Two Goats of Yom Kippur in the Apocalypse of Abraham. SJS 8. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Painter, John. “The Church and Israel in the Gospel of John: A Response.” NTS 25 (1978– 79): 103–12. –. “Tradition, History and Interpretation in John 10.” In The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context: Studies by members of the Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Johannes Beutler and Robert T. Fortna, 53–74. SNTSMS 67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. –. 1, 2, and 3 John. SP; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2002. Pancaro, Severino. The Law in the Fourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity according to John. NovTSup 42. Leiden: Brill, 1975. Papoutsakis, Manolis. Vicarious Kingship: A Theme in Syriac Political Theology in Late Antiquity. STAC 100. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Peachin, Michael. “Augustus’ Emergent Judicial Powers, the ‘Crimen Maiestatis’, and the Second Cyrene Edict.” In Il princeps romano: autocrate o magistrato? Fattori giuridici e fattori sociali del potere imperiale da Augusto a Commodo, ed. J. Ferrary and J. Scheid, 497–553. Pavia: IUSS Press, 2015. Pearce, Sarah J. K. The Land of the Body: Studies in Philo’s Representation of Egypt. WUNT 208. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Peper, Bradley M. and Mark DelCogliano. “The Pliny and Trajan Correspondence.” In The Historical Jesus in Context, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., and John Dominic Crossan, 366–71. PRR. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Bibliography

291

Peppard, Michael. The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Petterson, Christina. From Tomb to Text: The Body of Jesus in the Book of John. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017. Pettinger, Andrew. The Republic in Danger: Drusus Libo and the Succession of Tiberius. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pfanner, Michael. Der Titusbogen. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1983. Piper, Ronald A. “The Characterisation of Pilate and the Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.” In The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle, 121–62. BETL 200. Leuven: Peeters, 2007. Poirier, John C. “The Linguistic Situation in Jewish Palestine in Late Antiquity.” JGRCJ 4 (2007): 55–134. Pölönen, Janne. “Plebeians and Repression of Crime in the Roman Empire: From Torture of Convicts to Torture of Suspects.” RIDA 51 (2004): 217–57. Popkin, Maggie L. The Architecture of the Roman Triumph: Monuments, Memory, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Porter, Stanley. “The Language(s) Jesus Spoke.” In Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 3, part 2, ed. Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter, 2455–71. Leiden: Brill, 2011. –. “John’s Gospel, Competing Gospels, and Jesus.” In John, His Gospel, and Jesus: In Pursuit of the Johannine Voice, 13–36. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. Potter, D. S., and Cynthia Damon. “The ‘Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.’” AJP 120:1 (Special Issue: The “Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre”: Text, Translation, Discussion; 1999): 13–42. Power, Tristan. “Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius.” In Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives, ed. Tristan Power and Roy K. Gibson, 1–18. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Reinhartz, Adele. “Jesus as Prophet: Predictive Prolepses in the Fourth Gospel.” JSNT 36 (1989): 3–16. –. “Judaism in the Gospel of John.” Int 63 (2009): 382–93. –. “The Gospel according to John.” In The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, 168–218. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. –. Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John. Lanham: Fortress Academic, 2018. Rendtorff, Rolf. “Leviticus 16 als Mitte der Tora.” BibInt 11 (2003): 252–58. Rensberger, David. “The Politics of John: The Trial of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.” JBL 103:3 (1984): 395–411. –. “The Messiah Who Has Come into the World: The Message of the Gospel of John.” In Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher, 15–24. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Resseguie, James L. The Strange Gospel: Narrative Design and Point of View in John. BIS 56. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Reynolds, Benjamin E. “Apocalyptic Revelation in the Gospel of John: Revealed Cosmology, the Vision of God, and Visionary Showing.” In The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, 109–28. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017. Richard, E. “Expressions of Double Meaning and their Function in the Gospel of John.” NTS 31 (1985): 96–112. Richardson, J. S. “The Purpose of the Lex Calpurnia de Repetundis.” JRS 77 (1987): 1–12.

292

Bibliography

Richardson, Peter. Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans. SPNT. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. Ridderbos, Herman. The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997. Riesner, Rainer. “The Nazareth of Jesus.” In The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context: Essays in Honour of John Nolland on His 70th Birthday ed. Aaron W. White, David Wenham, and Craig A. Evans, 1–19. LNTS 566. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018. Rigg, Horace Abram. “Barabbas.” JBL 64:4 (1945): 417–56. Ringe, Sharon H. Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999. Ripley, Jason J. “‘Behold the Man’? Subverting Imperial Masculinity in the Gospel of John.” JBibleRecept 2:2 (2015): 219–39. Rives, James. “Flavian Religious Policy and the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives, 145–66. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Rogan, Wil. “Purity in Early Judaism: Current Issues and Questions.” CBR 16:3 (2018): 309–39. Rogers, R. S. Criminal Trials and Criminal Legislation under Tiberius. Middletown: American Philological Association, 1935. –. “Treason in the Early Empire.” JRS 49 (1959): 90–94. Rogland, Max. “Verb Transitivity and Ancient Hebrew ‫ מושׁ‬in Zechariah 3:9.” VetT 63 (2013): 497–98. Römer, Thomas C. The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction. London: T&T Clark, 2005. –. “Moses, Israel’s First Prophet, and the Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Prophetic Libraries.” In Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, ed. Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person, Jr., 129–45. AIIL 14. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Rowe, C. Kavin. World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Rowe, Gregory. “The Roman State: Laws, Lawmaking and Legal Documents.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy, ed. Christer Bruun and Jonathan Edmondson, 299–318. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Rowe, Robert D. God’s Kingdom and God’s Son: The Background to Mark’s Christology from Concepts of Kingship in the Psalms. AGJU 50. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Rudich, Vasily. “Navigating the Uncertain: Literature and Censorship in the Early Roman Empire.” Arion 3/14:1 (2006): 7–28. Rudman, Dominic. “Zechariah 8:20–22 and Isaiah 2:2–4//Mic 4:2–3: A Study in Intertextuality.” BN 107/108 (2001): 50–54. Rutledge, Steven H. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London: Routledge, 2001. Ruzer, Serge. Mapping the New Testament: Early Christian Writings as a Witness for Jewish Biblical Exegesis. JCP 13. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Salvo, Davide. “Maiestas.” In Wiley’s The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. Roger S. Bagnall et al. 2012. Accessed April 24, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah19111.

Bibliography

293

Sarason, Richard S. “The Significance of the Land of Israel in the Mishnah.” In The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, ed. Lawrence A. Hoffman, 109–36. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. Schäfer, Peter. The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Schmid, Ulrich. “Reassessing the Palaeography and Codicology of the Freer Gospel Manuscript.” In The Freer Biblical Manuscripts: Fresh Studies of an American Treasure Trove, ed. Larry W. Hurtado, 227–49. Atlanta: SBL, 2006. Schmidt, T. E. “Mark 15.16–32: The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession.” NTS 41 (1995): 1–18. Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel according to St John, vol. 3. Translated by David Smith and G. A. Kon. HTCNT. Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, 1982. Schniedewind, William M. A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period. AYBRL. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Scholtissek, Klaus. “‘Geschrieben in diesem Buch’ (Joh 20:30): Beobachtungen zum kanonischen Anspruch des Johannesevangelium.” In Israel und seine Heilstraditionen im Johannesevangelium, ed. Klaus Scholtissek and Angelika Strotmann, 207–26. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004. Schulz, Verena. Deconstructing Imperial Representation: Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius on Nero and Domitian. Mnemosyne Supplements: Monographs on Greek and Latin Language and Literature 427. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Schwartz, Baruch J. “The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature.” In Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz, 3–22. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995. Schwartz, Daniel R. “Two Pauline Allusions to the Redemptive Mechanism of the Crucifixion.” JBL 102:2 (1983): 259–68. –. Studies in the Jewish Background to Christianity. WUNT 60. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992. Scott, Andrew G. Emperors and Usurpers: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History. ACS 58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Searle, John R. Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. –. “How Performatives Work.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. Daniel Vanderveken and Susumu Kubo, 85–107. PBNS 77. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001. Segovia, Fernando F. “The Gospel of John.” In A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, ed. Fernando F. Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah, 156–93. BP 13. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Sharon, Nadav. Judea under Roman Domination: The First Generation of Statelessness and Its Legacy. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Shaw, Charles S. The Speeches of Micah: A Rhetorical-Historical Analysis. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993. Sheridan, Ruth. “Seed of Abraham, Slavery, and Sin: Reproducing Johannine Anti-Judaism in the Modern Commentaries on John 8:31–34.” In John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, ed. R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, 313–31. RBS 87. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017. Sherwin-White, A. N. Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament: The Sarum Lectures, 1960–1961. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.

294

Bibliography

Smit, Peter-Ben. “The Final Verdict: A Note on the Structure of Jesus’ Trial in the Gospel of John.” RB 115:3 (2008): 383–95. Smith, D. Moody. “Theology and Ministry in John.” In Johannine Christianity: Essays on its Setting, Sources, and Theology, 190–222. London: T&T Clark, 1987. –. The Theology of the Gospel of John. NTT. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. Micah: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015. Speidel, Michael A. “Wars, Trades and Treaties: New, Revised and Neglected Sources for the Political, Diplomatic, and Military Aspects of Imperial Rome’s Relations with the Red Sea Basin and India, from Augustus to Diocletian.” In Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New Perspectives on Maritime Trade, ed. K. S. Mathew, 83–128. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017. Starr, Raymond J. “Augustus as ‘Pater patriae’ and Patronage Decrees.” ZPE 172 (2010): 296–98. Stauffer, E. “Zur Münzpragung und Judenpolitik des Pontius Pilatus.” La Nouvelle Clio 1– 2 (1949–50): 495–514. Stead, Michael R. The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1–8. LHB/OTS 506. London: T&T Clark, 2009. Stökl Ben Ezra, Daniel. The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century. WUNT 163. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). –. “Fasting with Jews, Thinking with Scapegoats: Some Remarks on Yom Kippur in Early Judaism and Christianity, in Particular 4Q541, Barnabas 7, Matthew 27 and Acts 27.” In The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas, 165–87. TBN 15. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Stovell, Beth M. Mapping Metaphorical Discourse in the Fourth Gospel: John’s Eternal King. LBS 5. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Strait, Drew J. “The Wisdom of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul’s Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech.” JBL 136:3 (2017): 609–32. Strickert, Fred. “The Coins of Philip.” In Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, vol. 1, ed. Rami Arav and Richard A. Freund, 165–89. Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1995. Stromberg, Jacob. “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration Reconfigured.” In Continuity and Discontinuity: Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40–66, ed. LenaSofia Tiemeyer and Hans M. Barstad, 195–218. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014. Subramanian, J. Samuel. The Synoptic Gospels and the Psalms as Prophecy. LNTS 351. London: T&T Clark, 2007. Sweeney, Marvin A. “Micah’s Debate with Isaiah.” JSOT 93 (2001): 111–24. –. “Zechariah’s Debate with Isaiah.” In The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi, 335–50. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. –. “Reading Prophetic Books.” In Reading Prophetic Books: Form, Intertextuality, and Reception in Prophetic and Post-Biblical Literature, 19–31. FAT 89. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Talbert, Charles H. Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles. Rev. ed. Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2005.

Bibliography

295

Taylor, Joan E. “Pontius Pilate and the Imperial Cult in Roman Judaea.” NTS 52 (2006): 555–82. Thiessen, Matthew. Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020. Theophilos, Michael P. “John 15.14 and the ΦΙΛ- Lexeme in Light of Numismatic Evidence: Friendship or Obedience?” NTS 64 (2018): 33–43. Thomas, John Christopher. “The Fourth Gospel and Rabbinic Judaism.” ZNW 82 (1991): 159–82. Thompson, L. A. “Domitian and the Jewish Tax.” Historia 31:3 (1982): 329–42. Thompson, Marianne Meye. John: A Commentary. NTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015. Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia. Priestly Rites and Prophetic Rage: Post-exilic Prophetic Critique of the Priesthood. FAT 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. –. Zechariah and His Visions: An Exegetical Study of Zechariah’s Vision Report. LHB/OTS 605. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015. Timmer, Daniel C. “Empire Here or Hereafter? A Postcolonial Reading of the Wisdom of Solomon.” SR 44:1 (2015): 77–90. Todd, S. C. A Commentary on Lysias: Speeches 1–11. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Tolmie, D. Francois. “Pontius Pilate: Failing in More Ways Than One.” In Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. D. Francois Tolmie, Steven A. Hunt, and Ruben Zimmermann, 578–97. WUNT 314. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Tomson, Peter J. “The Names of Israel and Jew in Ancient Judaism and in the New Testament.” Bijdr 47 (1986): 120–40. Tops, Thomas. “Whose Truth? A Reader-Oriented Study of the Johannine Pilate and John 18,38a.” Bib 97:3 (2016): 395–420. Török, László. “Between Egypt and Meroitic Nubia: The Southern Frontier Region.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, ed. Christina Riggs, 749–62. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Tovey, Derek. Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel. JSNTSS 151. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Trebilco, Paul R. Outsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament: Christian Communities and the Formation of Group Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Tuckett, Christopher M. “Pilate in John 18–19: A Narrative-Critical Approach.” In Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, ed. George J. Brooke and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, 131–40. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000. Tuori, Kaius. The Emperor of Law: The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. van der Watt, Jan. An Introduction to the Johannine Gospel and Letters. ABS. London: T&T Clark, 2007. Van Voorst, Robert E. Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. SHJ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. Verheyden, Joseph. “De la Potterie on John 19:13.” In The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, ed. G. Van Belle, 817–37. BETL 200. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007. Versteegh, Kees. “Dead or Alive? The Status of the Standard Language.” In Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text, ed. J. N. Adams, Mark Janse, and Simon Swain, 52–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

296

Bibliography

Volgger, David. “Die Adressaten des Weisheitbuches.” Bib 82 (2001): 153–77. von Ehrenkrook, Jason. Sculpting Idolatry in Flavian Rome: (An)Iconic Rhetoric in the Writings of Flavius Josephus. EJIL 33. Atlanta: SBL, 2011. –. “Image and Desire in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Zutot 7:1 (2011): 41–50. von Heijne, Camilla Hélena. The Messenger of the Lord in Early Jewish Interpretations of Genesis. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. von Wahlde, Urban C. “Archaeology and John’s Gospel.” In Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 523–86. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. Walck, Leslie W. The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch and in Matthew. JCTS 9. London: T&T Clark, 2011. Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. “Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King.” JRS 72 (1982): 32–48. Wardle, David. “Suetonius on Vespasian’s Rise to Power Under the Julio-Claudians.” Acta Classica 53 (2010): 101–15. –. Suetonius: Life of Augustus. CAHS. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Wassell, Blake. “‘Doing Evil’ as Maiestas in John 18.30.” JSNT 42:3 (2020): 325–49. –. “εἰ δή τις … συκοφαντοίη: Impiety and the Fiscus Iudaicus in Josephus, War 1.11.” JSJ 51 (2020): 525–70. Wead, David W. “We Have a Law.” NovT 11 (1969): 185–89. Weidemann, Hans-Ulrich. Der Tod Jesu im Johannesevangelium: Die erste Abschiedsrede als Schlüsseltext für den Passions- und Osterbericht. BZNW 122. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004. Welch, John W. “Miracles, Maleficium, and Maiestas in the Trial of Jesus.” In Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 349–83. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. Wengst, Klaus. Das Johannesevangelium, 2. Teilband: Kapitel 11–21. TKNT. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2001. Wenham, Gordon J. The Book of Leviticus. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979. Westbrook, Raymond and Theodore J. Lewis. “Who Led the Scapegoat in Leviticus 16:21?” JBL 127:3 (2008): 417–22. Westermann, Claus. Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary. Translated by David M. G. Stalker. OTL. London: SCM Press, 1969. Wheaton, Gerry. The Role of the Jewish Feasts in John’s Gospel. SNTSMS 162. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Whitlark, Jason A. Resisting Empire: Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to ‘the Hebrews.’ LNTS 484. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014. Whitton, Christopher. “‘Let us tread our path together’: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny.” In A Companion to Tacitus, ed. Victoria Emma Pagán, 345–68. BCAW. Malden: WileyBlackwell, 2012. –, ed. Pliny the Younger: Epistles, Book II. CGLC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Wilker, Julia. “‘God is with Italy Now’: Pro-Roman Jews and the Jewish Revolt.” In Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba: Groups, Normativity, and Rituals, ed. Benedikt Eckhardt, 157–87. JSJSup 155. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Williams, Catrin H. “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered: Framing Israel’s Past in the Gospel of John.” In Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, 187–212. RBS 81. Atlanta: SBL, 2015. –. “Johannine Christology and Prophetic Traditions: The Case of Isaiah.” In Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine

Bibliography

297

Messiahs, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini, 92–123. AJEC 106. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Williams, Margaret H. “Domitian, the Jews and the ‘Judaizers’: A Simple Matter of Cupiditas and Maiestas?” Historia 39:2 (1990): 196–211. Williamson, Callie. “Crimes against the State.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, ed. Paul J. du Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori, 333–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Willitts, Joel. “David’s Sublation of Moses: A Davidic Explanation for the Mosaic Christology of the Fourth Gospel.” In Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini, 203–25. AJEC 106. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Wilson, Ian D. Kingship and Memory in Ancient Judah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Winn, Adam. The Purpose of Mark’s Gospel: An Early Christian Response to Roman Imperial Propaganda. WUNT 2/245. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Winston, David. The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 43. New York: Doubleday, 1979. Winter, Paul, On the Trial of Jesus. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1961. Wong, Gregory T. K. “Gideon: A New Moses?” In Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. Robert Rezetko, Timothy H. Lim, and W. Brian Aucker, 529–46. VetTSup 113. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Wood, Michael. On Empson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. Wratislaw, A. H. “The Scapegoat – Barabbas.” ExpT 3 (1891–92): 400–03. Wright, Matthew. “Seventeen Types of Ambiguity in Euripides’ Helen.” In Truth and History in the Ancient World: Pluralising the Past, ed. Lisa Hau and Ian Ruffell, 55–80. London: Routledge, 2017. Wright, N. T., with J. P. Davies. “John, Jesus, and ‘The Ruler of This World’: Demonic Politics in the Fourth Gospel?” In Conception, Reception, and the Spirit: Essays in Honour of Andrew T. Lincoln, ed. J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen, 71– 89. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2016. Yakobson, Alexander. “Maiestas, the Imperial Ideology and the Imperial Family: The Evidence of the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre.” Eutopia 3:1–2 (2003): 75– 107. Zangenberg, Jürgen K. “Peace from the Ashes: Commemorating the Wars in the East, the Centre, and the West of the Roman Empire during the ‘Long Year of the Four Emperors’ (68–70 CE).” In Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy, ed. Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigchelaar, with the assistance of Laura Carlson, James Nati, Olivia Stewart, and Shlomo Zuckier, 1418–52. JSJSup 175. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Zeichmann, Christopher B. “Loanwords or Code-Switching? Latin Transliteration and the Setting of Mark’s Composition.” JJMJS 4 (2017): 42–64. Zerwick, Maximilian. Biblical Greek: Illustrated by Examples. Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici 114. Translated by Joseph Smith. Rome: Biblical Institute, 1963. Ziener, Georg. “Weisheitsbuch und Johannesevangelium (I).” Bib 38 (1957): 396–418. Zissos, Andrew. “The Flavian Legacy.” In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, ed. Andrew Zissos, 487–514. BCAW. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. –, ed. A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome. BCAW. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.

298

Bibliography

Zumstein, Jean. Das Johannesevangelium. KKNT. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. Zurawski, Jason M. “Separating the Devil from the Diabolos: A Fresh Reading of Wisdom of Solomon 2.24.” JSP 21:4 (2012): 366–99.

Index of References Old Testament Genesis 4:10 12:17 22 23:11 27:35 28:12–14 32:28 34:13 35:10

46 223 175 106 157 157 158 157 158

Exodus 3:14 4:16 4:17 4:30 7:1 7:3 10:2 11:9–10 12:10 12:46 12:48 21:23b–25 30:10 32–34 33:20 40:34–38

260 86 85 85 86 85 85 85 262 130, 262 130 24 170 108 158 73

Leviticus 13:11 14:6–7 14:53 15:31 16:2–28 16:8 16:22

118, 122 171 171 94 170–173 178 176

18:24 18:28 19:11 19:16 21:1–4 22:2 23:5–8 23:26–32 24:16 24:17–21 25:9

118–119, 122 119 24, 161 162 122 94 170 170 218 24 176

Numbers 9:3 9:5 9:6 9:7 9:11 9:12 11:17–25 19:11 19:14 19:16 19:22 21:5–9 24:15–27 29:7–11

114 114 114, 130 114 114 130, 262 85 114 114 114 114 3 72 170

Deuteronomy 5:22 5:31 6:4 11:29 13:1–6 16:1 16:2 16:6

76 76 260 260 145 130 175 175

300 16:18–18:22 17:14–20 17:20 18:15–22 18:15 18:18–19 18:18 18:20 18:21–22 18:22 19:16–21 19:19 27:12 31:24–26 33:8–11 34:10 34:11

Index of References 75–76 75–76, 214–215 3 63, 75, 145 76 72 63, 65, 76, 147 63 63, 77 147 24 24 260 76 72 76 147

Joshua 3:7 8:33 24:26

3 260 76

Judges 6:29 9:7 9:31 13:5 13:7 14:18 15:20 16:17

223 260 161 93 93 139 93 93

1 Samuel 5:11 8–12 8:5 8:20 9:2 9:7 9:8 9:9 9:10 9:17 10:5 10:24 10:25 15:23 15:26

252 214 214 214 214 73 73 254 73 213–215 73 214 76 214 214

15:28 16:13 16:23

214 73 73

2 Samuel 1:10 7 7:4–17 7:8 7:10–11 7:13–14 7:13 22:47–49 23:1–7 24:24

94 83 79 78 92 72, 220–221 92 3 73 73

1 Kings 8:15 13:14 13:21 13:23 13:26 13:29

73 73 73 73 73 73

2 Kings 1:13 18:19–37 18:31 22–23

73 258 151, 159 108

1 Chronicles 15:12–24 16:16–17 22:1 28:6 28:9 28:10 28:11a 28:12 28:13 28:19 29 29:17

73 73 73 73 223 73 73 73 73 73 73 223

2 Chronicles 5:4–10 7:12 7:16 8:14

73 73 73 73

301

Index of References 23:11 23:18 29:25 30:3 30:6 30:8 35:4 35:15 36:22–23

94 73 73 115 175 175 73 73 78

Ezra 4:8–6:18

261

Nehemiah 12:24 12:36

73 73

Esther 2:23

223

Job 12:12–13 19:23–29 36:23

231 108 223

Psalms 2 2:7–8 7:10 10:16–18 22:9 34:20 47:2–3 57:6 69 71:4 72 78:70–72 89:26–27 110 118:25 118:26 138:23

78 72, 220 223 247 223 262 265 225 190–191 161 78 185 72, 220 73, 78 155 160 223

Proverbs 8:14–16 14:31 22:16 28:3

231 161 161 161

Ecclesiastes 4:1

161

Isaiah 2:2–21 2:2–4 4:2 5:16 6:10 7:14 8:1–4 8:2 8:16–20 10:1–4 10:5 10:11–12 10:12 10:15 10:24 11:1–4 11:1 11:4 11:12 30:8–11 33:10 35:4 36:11 36:13–14 36:16 40:9 40:19 40:28 41:22–29 42:1–4 42:1 42:18–25 43:7 43:22–28 43:28 44:7–8 44:9–20 44:23 44:26–28 44:28 45:1–25 45:7 45:9 46:8–13 48:1–11

160 159 148 148 148 93 108 160 108 108 149 149 191 148–149, 191 149 247 92–93 92 64, 92 108 148 159 258 259 151 159 79 79 77 77 78 77 79 77 119 77 82 148 77 78, 160 77 79 79 77 77

302

Index of References

48:3–5 48:16b 49:3 49:5 50:6–11 50:10–11 52:13 53:4 53:9 53:10 55:3–4 55:3 57:6 58:2 60:7 60:13 63:11–14 63:16 64:7

77 77 148 148 190–191 225 148 172, 176 161 148 84 148 192 248 148 148 85 218 218

Jeremiah 1:7 –10 1:9 2:7 2:23 2:33 3:1 4:2 5:1–30 5:17 5:27 6:12 7:9 7:11 7:25 8:5 8:9 8:13 9:6 –7 10:21 12:10 17 17:10 25:4 25:13 26:5 29:19 31:33 35:15

65 76 119 118 118 118 92 92 151 161 73 184 179, 184 76 161 161 161 161 185 185 108–109 223 76 76 76 76 76 76

36 36:2 36:27–32 44:4

108–109 76 76 76

Ezekiel 1:26 2:8–3:3 4 4:1–8 5:11 8–10 14:11 20:7 20:18 20:30 23:30 34 34:23 36:17 37:15–23 37:15–22 37:22 37:23 37:24 37:27

216 108–109 108–109 64, 186 119 215 118 118 118 118 118 185 78 119 185 108–109 72 119 72, 78 72

Daniel 2:4–7:28 2:20b–21b 4:37 7:13–14 7:27 8:15 10:5 10:16 10:18

261 231 247 215 265 216 216 216 216

Hosea 2:14 5:3 6:10 9:4

151 118 118 119

Joel 1:12 2:22

151 151

303

Index of References Amos 2:8 4:12

161 73

Obadiah 19–21

265

Micah 3:5 3:11 4:1–4 4:4 4:7 4:11 5:2

159 159 159–160 151, 158 159 160 160

Habakkuk 3:17

151

Zephaniah 3:13 3:14 3:15 3:17 3:19 3:20

159, 161 161 155, 159, 161 161 161 161

Haggai 2:12–14 2:19

128–129 151

Zechariah 1:1 1:17 3:8–10 3:8 3:9 3:10 5:1–4 6:11 6:12–13 6:12 6:13 8:12 8:20–22 9:9 10:3–4 10:6 10:8 11:3 11:8 11:15 12:3 12:6 12:8–9 12:10 13:7 14:6 14:8 14:9 14:16–19 14:21

160 160 94, 158–160 93 173 93, 151, 173 108–109 93 94 92–93, 216 92 160 160 94, 159, 161, 213 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 94, 159 160 159 159 160, 265 160 159

Apocrypha Wisdom 1:1 1:2–3 1:4–5 1:7 1:11 1:16–2:24 1:16 2 2:16 2:24 3:5–6 3:8

81, 241 242 242 241 242 217–226 242 190–191 83 23 242 241

3:9 4:10 5:15–16 6:1–4 6:9 6:12 6:18–21 7:10 7:14 7:21 7:22–8:1 7:23–24 7:25–26

81, 242 241 81 81, 241 81 241 241 241 241 80 80 241 80

304 7:25 7:26 7:27 7:28 7:29 8:1 8:2 8:3 8:4 8:9 8:16–18 8:21 9:2 9:3 9:6 9:7–8 9:9–12 9:11–12 10:1–14 10:5 10:15–21 10:16 10:17 11:1 11:5–14 11:10 11:15–16:14 11:24 12:4 12:19 12:21 13–15 13:4 13:7 13:11 14:1–31 14:2 14:3 14:12 14:15 14:16–21 14:17 14:18 14:29

Index of References 119, 127 80 79–80, 86, 241 241 80 80 241 80, 241 81 80, 241 80, 241 81 79, 83 241 241 83 241 83 85 242 85 225, 241 241 85, 241 224–225 83 224–225 79, 241 242 83 83 80 79 242 79 82 79 83, 218 82 82 82 81–82 82 242

16:8 16:10 16:15–29 16:21 16:24 16:26 17:1–18:4 18:4 18:5–19:21 18:9 19:6

242 83 224–225 83 242 83, 241 224–225 83 224–225 242 83

Sirach 4:25 4:28 23:1 33:14 37:4 47:9

237 165 218 28 28 73

1 Maccabees 8:1 8:13 8:17–32 8:17 8:22 12:1 14:12 14:40 15:17

36, 238 3 238 36, 241 36 238 151, 159 238 238

2 Maccabees 5:23 6:2 8:16 13:14

260 260 163 163

1 Esdras 1:6

130

4 Maccabees 12:7 16:15

258 258

305

Index of References

New Testament Matthew 2:23 4:18 6:9 7:29 9:6 9:8 10:1 10:2 11:12 12:14 13:54 13:56 14:1–13 14:13 15:19 15:21 15:29 20:19 21:13 21:18–22 21:23 21:27 22:29 23:7–8 23:9 23:27 24:3–5 24:5 24:11 24:22 24:24 26:4 26:17 26:18 26:25 26:36 26:49 26:55 26:61 26:67 26:68 27:1 27:2 27:11 27:12–13

93 69, 169 222 231 231 231 231 169 70 69 230 230 68 70 128 69 69 249 179 179 231 231 145 255 169 128 145–146 170 146 139 146 161, 224 130 130 255 258 255 179 91, 146 249 146 235 113, 136, 140 14, 31, 152 165

27:14 27:15 27:16 27:17 27:18 27:19 27:23 27:24 27:26 27:27 27:29–30 27:29 27:31 27:33 27:37 27:38 27:40 27:41–43 27:42 27:43 27:44 27:45 27:61 27:63

165 169, 179 179 169–170, 193 140, 161, 224 246 139 28 179, 190 113, 126, 189–190 189 193 189, 212 254 21, 91, 95, 177, 250 179 91, 146 157 250 223 179 264 28 146

Mark 1:16 1:22 1:27 2:10–11 3:7 3:15 5:41 6:2 6:17 7:5 7:15 7:21–22 7:31 7:34 9:5 10:34 10:41–45 10:51 11:12–14 11:17

69 231 231 231 69 231 254 230 231 128 128 128 69 254 255 249 163 255 179 179

306

Index of References

11:20–24 11:21 11:28 11:33 12:24 12:36 13:4–6 13:20 14:1 14:12 14:32 14:36 14:41 14:45 14:48 14:55–59 14:58 14:65 15:1 15:2 15:3–4 15:4 15:5 15:6 15:7 15:8 15:9 15:10 15:11 15:12 15:14 15:15 15:16 15:17 15:18 15:19 15:20 15:22 15:25 15:26 15:27 15:29 15:32 15:33

179 255 231 231 145 74 146 139 161, 224 130 258 217 216 255 179 146 91 146, 249 113, 140, 235 14, 31, 152 165 152 165 169, 179 170, 179, 183 179 14 161, 224 226 14 139 179, 190 113, 126, 190 189 206 189, 192 189, 206, 212 254 264 21, 91, 95, 176, 250 179 91, 146 250 264

Luke 3:1 3:19 4:6

136 68 232

4:32 4:36 5:1 5:24 9:1 9:7 11:2 11:44 12:5 13:6–7 13:31–34 16:16 18:33 19:4 19:8 19:46 20:2 20:8 21:8 21:17 22:1 22:39 22:52 22:53 22:64 22:66 23:1 23:2–3 23:2 23:3 23:4 23:5 23:6–15 23:9–10 23:11 23:12 23:14 23:15 23:16 23:17 23:18 23:22 23:25 23:32–33 23:34 23:38

231 231 69 231 231 68 218 128 231 179 68 70 249 161 161 179 231 231 145–146 146 169 258 179 264 146 235 113 31 140, 165 14, 152 21, 68, 165, 176, 190, 230 140, 165 229–230 165 189 68 21, 68, 140, 165, 176, 190, 230 68 174, 190 179 174 21, 68, 139, 165, 176, 190, 230 179 139, 179 212 21, 91, 95, 212, 250

23:39 23:44 John 1:4 –11 1:4–5 1:12 1:14 1:17 1:21 1:25 1:29 1:31–32 1:31 1:34 1:36 1:38 1:39 1:41 1:45–51 1:45 1:46–47 1:46 1:47 1:48–49 1:48 1:49–50 1:49 1:50 1:50–51 2:1–11 2:6 2:8 2:13 2:14–16 2:16 2:17 2:18–21 2:18 2:19–21 2:19

Index of References

307

2:21

61, 65, 90–91, 112, 117, 121, 128, 146, 261 64, 130, 146, 166, 226 168, 258 18, 155, 179 155 255 158, 217, 253 155, 217 158, 230 155, 261 175 3, 16, 64, 199 175 8 226, 243, 264 222 224, 243 18 211, 255 61, 231 242 263 18 230 236 163 62 261 263 18 261, 263–264 72, 258 263–264 129 255 225 213 79 226 225 69 225 18 253–256, 261 258 216

139, 179 264

2:22 7–8, 222 264 80, 115, 154, 175, 231, 242 5–7, 63, 64, 72, 85, 154, 161, 166, 175 24, 72, 158, 166 62 62 130, 175–176, 178, 187, 211 156 175–176, 237 156, 160 130, 175, 178, 211 254–255 264 72, 258 94 24, 93, 107, 116 156–157 93 161, 164, 211 94, 151 158, 161, 173 156 160, 250, 255 94, 236, 250 157–158 225 18 163 18, 130, 168, 258 64 159, 162 107 16–17, 64 147 94 61, 65, 66, 90–91, 112, 117, 121, 128, 146, 175, 230, 250, 261

2:23 3:1 3:2–3 3:2 3:3 3:5 3:8 3:10 3:14–15 3:14 3:16 3:17–19 3:19 3:20–21 3:20 3:22 3:26 3:31 3:35 4:6 4:9 4:11 4:12 4:18 4:19 4:20–21 4:21 4:22 4:23 4:25 4:27 4:31–34 4:31 4:34 4:35 4:42 4:45 4:46–54 4:46 5:1–17 5:1 5:2 5:9 –10 5:12

308 5:14 5:16 5:17 5:18

5:19 5:20 5:21 5:22 5:24 5:27 5:30 5:33 5:37 5:43 5:44–45 5:45 5:46 5:47 6:1–15 6:1 6:4 6:5 6:11 6:14–15 6:14 6:15 6:16–24 6:23 6:24 6:25 6:26 6:27 6:31 6:35 6:41 6:45 6:48–58 6:64 6:65–66 6:70–71 6:70 6:71 7:1 7:2 7:3 7:4

Index of References 211 18, 237, 258 217 18, 70, 217–219, 221–223, 226, 237, 258 217 236 251 8, 149, 252–253 8 8, 16, 154, 231 154 166 158 218 192 24, 165 24, 116 217 69 69–70 18, 130, 168, 258 29 251 14, 62, 65–71, 74, 87, 155 62 241 69 69, 129 226 255 129–130 225 107, 130 130 130 107 130 89, 165, 233, 236 237 23 149 89, 165, 236 18 18, 168 162 211

7:8 7:10–11 7:12 7:13 7:14 7:16–19 7:17 7:18 7:19 7:22 7:23 7:24 7:26 7:27 7:28 7:31–32 7:32 7:34–36 7:35 7:37 7:38 7:39 7:40–52 7:40 7:45–46 7:47 7:50 8:2 8:12 8:14 8:15 8:16 8:23 8:24 8:28

8:31 8:37 8:39–40 8:40 8:42 8:44

168 168 146 18, 211 168 153 154 116, 218–219 24, 120, 129 237, 258 258 3, 243 211 230 154 144 163 251 18 168 159 146 62, 71–74, 87 62 163 146 155 247 75, 222, 264 158, 230 3, 8 8 162, 229 187 3, 16–17, 63, 89, 90–91, 95, 111, 149, 151, 154, 157, 175, 199, 212, 216, 250, 253 18, 127 118, 127–128 118 166 154, 243 18, 20, 23, 118, 127–128, 149, 161– 162, 164–165, 167, 219, 222, 224, 228,

Index of References

8:45 8:47 8:53 8:59 9:1–41 9:2 9:5 9:7 9:14 9:16 9:17 9:18 9:22 9:23 9:24 9:28 9:29–30 9:33 9:39 9:40 9:41 10:1–30 10:1–10 10:3 10:4 10:7–11 10:12 10:14 10:15 10:16 10:17 10:18 10:19 10:23 10:28–29 10:30 10:31 10:33 10:34 10:35 10:36 10:37 11:1 11:3 11:8

243, 261, 264, 267– 268 166 167, 237 70, 118 145 10–11, 75, 114 255 222 253–254 258 216, 258 62 9, 18 18, 226 237 216 116 230 139 9, 185, 225 128 163, 185, 253 185 184–185 167, 218 167 261 70, 251 167 72 72, 102, 112, 157, 167, 242 237, 242 61, 87, 154, 165, 228, 231, 233, 250 18 254 70 242 18, 145 70, 218, 221 107 107 94, 127, 218–219 218 255 211 163, 255

11:10 11:14 11:16 11:25 11:36 11:44 11:45–57 11:45 11:47 11:48–52 11:48 11:49–52 11:50–52 11:50 11:51–52 11:51 11:52 11:53 11:54 11:55 11:57 12:1 12:3 12:4 12:6 12:9 12:11 12:12–13 12:13–15 12:13 12:14 12:15 12:16 12:18 12:19 12:21 12:23 12:27–33 12:27 12:28 12:31 12:32–34 12:32–33

309 249 194 169 225 211 115, 251 120 18, 155 18, 144–145, 216 155 23, 112, 119–120, 132, 139, 143–144 102 178 89, 112, 121, 168, 179, 235, 249 64, 153–154, 185 143 112, 115, 157, 161, 175–176, 242 143 18, 211 18, 115, 130, 168, 258 143, 236 115, 130, 168, 258 251 23, 89, 165, 236 184, 236 18 18, 155 198–199 155, 160 250 107, 213 94, 159, 213, 247 146, 148, 154, 166 237 211 157 148, 154, 216 147 237 148, 154 4, 16, 149, 163, 199, 231, 261 148 175

310 12:32

12:33 12:34 12:37–38a 12:37 12:38a 12:39 12:40 12:42 12:43 12:47–49 12:47 12:48 13:1 13:2 13:5 13:8 13:10 13:11 13:12 13:16 13:18 13:19 13:21 13:27 13:31 13:34 14:6 14:7 14:8–9 14:10 14:15 14:16 14:17 14:21–24 14:26 14:29 14:30 14:31 15:1 15:2 15:3 15:4 15:6

Index of References 3–4, 16, 64, 102, 112, 140, 149, 157, 199 4, 154, 191 4, 145 145 4 147–148, 191 237 148 128 226, 243 147 8, 251 8 115, 130, 162, 168, 242, 258 23, 89, 165, 236, 242 127, 251 242 127, 242 89, 127, 165, 236– 237, 242 149, 226 236 115, 130 63 89, 165, 236 23, 149, 236 226 242 166, 175 251 157–158 154, 175 242 230 251 242 230 63 16, 199, 232, 261 162, 242 159 92 127, 175, 187 154 92

15:9 15:12 15:13 15:17 15:19 15:24 15:26 16:2 16:7 16:11 16:13–14 16:15 16:25 16:29 16:32 16:33 17:1 17:2 17:3 17:11 17:16 17:17 17:21–22 17:23–26 17:26 18:1–19:42 18:1 18:2 18:3 18:5 18:7 18:9a 18:10 18:10–11 18:12–13 18:12 18:13 18:14 18:15 18:18 18:19 18:20–21 18:22 18:24 18:25 18:26 18:28–19:22

242 242 236 242 237, 243 139 230 99 230 16, 237, 261 153–154 237 211 163, 211 213 16, 199, 260 7, 153 231 72 162, 242 162 94, 127, 166, 175 242 242 251 11–12 143, 258 23, 89, 165, 236 135, 143, 163, 236 23, 89, 94–95, 165, 236 94–95, 216 147 143, 168, 179 164 251 163, 236 179–180 18, 168, 179–180 168 179 144 211 163, 236, 249 168, 236 179 168, 179 10–13, 16–20, 21– 24, 26, 32, 60, 61,

Index of References

18:28

18:29 18:29–32 18:29–31 18:30 18:31 18:32 18:33–38a 18:33–36 18:33

18:35

18:36

18:37

18:38a 18:38b–40 18:38b

71, 74–75, 78, 87, 90, 112, 114, 121, 127, 129, 131, 140, 156, 162, 164, 183, 191, 196–197, 199, 212, 223–224, 247, 253, 267–269 11, 19, 23–24, 31, 89, 113–131, 135, 143, 152, 168, 175, 179, 184, 235–236, 242, 258, 262 24, 31, 161, 164, 216 11, 71, 132–150, 212 14 223, 235, 266 14, 18, 89, 178, 195, 251, 265–266 4, 63, 74, 154, 165, 191, 269 11, 61, 113, 151– 167, 215, 228 70 14, 31–32, 65, 70, 111, 113, 135, 139, 143, 168, 177, 229 14, 18, 139, 143, 189, 229, 235, 265– 266 4, 16, 18, 89, 143, 199, 215, 229, 235, 241, 243 7, 16, 71, 74, 86, 144, 177, 185, 189, 241, 269 3, 230 11, 168–187, 192, 212 13–14, 18, 21, 28, 61, 70, 86, 88, 107, 111, 121, 133, 144, 153, 161, 164, 189– 190, 194–195, 210– 211, 219, 223, 226, 228–230, 234, 241, 243, 249–251

18:39 18:40 19:1–3 19:2–3 19:2 19:3 19:4–8 19:4

19:5 19:6 19:6a 19:6b

19:7

19:8 19:9–12 19:9 19:10–11 19:10 19:11 19:12

19:13–16a

311 14, 65, 130, 156, 195, 211, 258 194, 209 11, 126, 188–208, 209–210, 249 4, 89 94, 186, 212, 229, 247, 265 14, 31, 65, 156, 168, 186, 210, 247 11, 209–227 13–14, 21, 28, 70, 86, 88, 107, 111, 121, 133, 144, 153, 161, 164, 176, 186, 189–190, 194–195, 228–230, 234, 241, 243, 249–251 5, 189, 206, 213, 247, 265 18, 89, 163, 178, 251, 265 144 13–14, 21, 28, 70, 86, 88, 107, 111, 121, 133, 144, 153, 161, 164, 176, 189– 190, 194–195, 228– 230, 234, 241, 243, 249–251 18, 23, 33, 44, 65, 70, 111, 151, 156, 229, 250 228–229 11, 61, 113, 228– 244 93, 113, 158 154, 165, 214 177–178 70, 81, 87, 89, 106, 139, 165, 250 13–14, 18, 23–24, 27–28, 31, 33, 44, 51–52, 60, 65, 70, 111, 132, 136, 144, 151, 157, 178, 180, 183, 190, 194, 219– 221, 226, 250, 265 11, 245–266

312 19:13 19:14–15 19:14

19:15 19:16 19:16a 19:16b–37 19:16b–22 19:17 19:18 19:19–22 19:19

19:20 19:21

19:22 19:23–25 19:23 19:24 19:25–27 19:25 19:26–27 19:27 19:28 19:29 19:30 19:31 19:32–33 19:35 19:36 19:37 19:38–42 19:38 19:39 19:41 20:1 20:9 20:11 20:15

Index of References 5, 126, 217 14, 186 18, 31, 129–130, 168, 175, 211, 215, 258 4, 18, 31, 89, 133, 220 4–5, 165, 167, 217 94, 235 94–95 11, 13, 19, 88–112, 215, 263, 266 175, 253–256 162, 179, 206, 250 212 14, 16, 20, 21, 62, 64, 65, 75, 156, 173, 179, 186, 216, 227, 243, 245, 250– 251, 266 18, 253–254 13, 15, 18, 20, 21, 65, 156, 165, 186, 245 15, 32, 133, 243 212 4, 89, 94, 179 63 95 255 211 264 66, 249 175 66, 230, 249 12, 129–130, 249, 258, 262 249, 262 175 262 94, 159 94 12, 249 155 179, 249 179, 255, 258 94 255 179

20:16 20:17 20:18 20:19 20:25 20:27 20:30–31 21:1–3 21:1 21:2 21:13 21:15

253–255, 261 242 255 242, 249, 258 249 249 71–72 249 69 169 251 226

Acts 1:16 2:30–31 2:36 3:14 3:16 3:22–23 4:25 7:37 10:14 10:21 10:28 11:3 11:8 12:21 13:28 17:6 17:7 17:23 18:12 18:16–17 21:28 21:40 22:2 22:24 22:29 23:28 25:6 25:10 25:17 25:18 28:18

74 74 28 179 28 145 74 145 123 21 123–125 124 123 246 21 27 26–28, 60 82 246 246 259 259 259 223 223 21 246 246 246 21 21

Romans 1:18–2:11 3:18

80 28

313

Index of References 8:15 13:1–2 14:10

217 231 247

12:14–17

118

James 4:4

243

1 Peter 2:1 2:12 2:14 4:15

161, 224 139 139 139

1 John 2:1 2:2 2:13–14 2:18–23 2:18–19 2:20–27 2:22 2:26 3:1 3:3 3:4–15 3:5–6 3:7 3:8 3:10 3:12 4:10 5:4–5

230 175–176 199 18 146 86 146 146 217 175–176 18 175–176 146 118, 176, 217 118 118 176 199

1 Corinthians 5:7 8:6

130 80

2 Corinthians 2:14 2:16 5:10 5:14–15

197–198 198 247 198

Galatians 4:6 6:12

217 156

Ephesians 1:3 1:20 5:2 5:5 5:11 5:13

252 252 198 118 222 222

Philippians 4:18

198

Colossians 1:15–20 2:15 4:11

80 197–198 169

3 John 4

236

1 Timothy 6:13

134

Jude 8–11

118

2 Timothy 2:9

139

Titus 1:15–16

117–118

Hebrews 1:3 11:28

80 130

Revelation 1:1 1 2:9 3:9 5:1 5:12 9:11 10:4 16:16

110 128 128 110 222 253, 259 110 253, 260–261

314

Index of References

Greek and Roman literature Aeschines 2.145

162

Andocides 1.20

164

Antiphon 5.7

164

Appian, Mithridatic Wars 117 199 Aristophanes, Acharnians 818–828 23 908–958 23 Aristophanes, Birds 1410–1469 23 Aristophanes, Knights 686 164 Aristophanes, Wealth 850–958 23 Cassius Dio 51.99.6 53.23.1–7 53.23.5–7 54.3.4 54.3.7 57.9.1 57.9.2 57.10.1 57.19.1 57.23.3 58.4.8 58.7.4 59.4.2–3 59.6.2 59.11.6 59.16.8 59.24.1 60.4.2–3 60.8.2

81 53 105 98 98 45 45 45 46 46 47 59 47 47 47 47 240 47 240

60.17.7–8 65.2.5 65.7.2 65.8.2–7 65.9.1–2 65.10.1–3 66.7.1 66.19.1 66.19.3 66.24.4 67.1.3 67.1.4 67.4.5 67.9 67.11.1–2 67.12.1 67.12.2 67.14.1–2 68.1.1 68.1.2 73.16.3 73.22.5 74.1.1 79.12.1

47 47 50 48 48 48 204 48 48 49 49 49 49 199 49 49 50 50 49 49 97 97 97 45

Cicero, Atticus 1.18.6 6.1.17 12.38a.2 12.40.2 13.8 13.32.2

197 257 257 257 257 257

Cicero, Balbus 16.36

34

Cicero, Caelius 47

224–225

Cicero, Epistles 8.6

51

Cicero, Invention 2.53

34

Cicero, Piso

315

Index of References 50

33, 232

Cicero, Philippics 1.9.23 29 Cicero, Verres 1.12 5.79

51 51

Demosthenes 23.100 24.131

164 164

Digest 48.18.4 48.18.6 49.15.7.1

142 142 34

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 8.82.1 177 Euripides, Andromache 336 Horace, Epistles 2.1.258

37, 82

Horace, Odes 4.15

37, 82

Horace, Satires 1.8.1–3

82

Isocrates 15.22 18.3

164 164

Julius Pollux, Onomasticon 4.38 162 Juvenal, Satires 6.184–241

Livy 38.11.2

35

Lysias 3.20 7.38 7.39 8.3 8.5 12.100 19.3 21.17

164 164 164 23 23 107 164 164

Ovid, Amores 3.9.63–64

53, 105

Ovid, Tristia 2.445–446 4.2.19–48

53, 105 207

Plautus, Bacchides 1068–1075 197 Pliny, Epistles 2.1 6.10 9.19 10.96 10.96.1–2 10.96.4–6 10.96.10 10.97.2

99–100 99–100 99–100 136 57 58 58 58

Pliny, Panegyricus 11.1–3 11.1 34.1 35.4 42.1

32–33, 149 221 43 43 32, 149–150

Plutarch, Galba 6

100

Plutarch, Pyrrhus 21.4

177

Polybius 21.32.2

35

100

Libanius, Progymnasmata 11.10 162

316

Index of References

Quintillian, Institutes 9.2.46 116 Seneca, Clementia 1.21.3 197 Seneca, Epistles 71.22 87.23 95.50

197 197 34

Suetonius, Augustus 19 40–41 21 239 32 43, 225 48 24 51–56 41 51 40–41 55 42 56 42 60 239 66 52, 233 94 195–196 Suetonius, Caligula 19 196 26 233 32 97 33–35 43 35 196 Suetonius, Domitian 4 196 8 98, 233 9 44, 97 10 44, 97 12 44, 50, 98 Suetonius, Julius 4 27–28 74 84

140 238 140 239

Suetonius, Nero 25

196, 198

32

33, 196

Suetonius, Tiberius 8 17 36 41 57 58 61

42 188 137 235 42 42, 50 42

Suetonius, Titus 6 8 9

204 43 43

Suetonius, Vespasian 8 204 12–14 43 Tacitus, Annals 1.55 1.72 1.74 3.24 3.38.1 3.67.2 4.41 4.57 6.47 12.60 14.37

197 42 51, 233 45 32, 149 51, 233 235 235 45 59 142

Tacitus, Histories 1.8.2 1.52.4 2.68.4

100 100 100

Varro, Rustica 1.5.1

257

Velleius Paterculus 2.89.3 38 2.126.1 221 2.126.2–3 38

317

Index of References

Documentary sources AE 2005 1487 9–11

35

P. Heid. 4

260

AE 2007 1504

35

P. Mich. 5 231

57

CIL 8 25943 26416

56 56

P. Oxy. VII 106911

211

P. Ryl. II 23921

211

P. Tebt. 1 43

57

RDGE 26, col. D 1–2

35

RGDA 27.1–2 33

25 25

RIC 2 280

202

RPC 1 3031

228

SB I 3924 30 42–45

55 55

I. Knidos 33 A 12–13

35

ILS 264

203–204

ILS 265

203

ILS 8995

104

OGIS 414

239

OGIS 419

240

OGIS 420

240

OGIS 424

240

OGIS 427

239

OGIS 669 II 3–4 6–10 16 25–29 40–42 43–45 63–65

56 56 56 56 57 57 57

Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre 32–33 38–39

318

Index of References

Philo Abraham 57

140

21

Gaius 41 160–161 163 171 193 206 299–305 299 301 355 356 373

158 235 48 21 48 48 233–235 113, 136 138 48 48 21

Heir 36 290

158 74

Laws 2.145 4.39–40 4.84

258, 263 24 161

158

Attack 69

46

Confusion 146

158

Dreams 1.114

158

Flaccus 9 20 25–35 36–40 86–96 89 95 97–103 104–118 104–107 128

21 54 193 190–191, 193–194 54 54, 162 54 54 54 55 141

Josephus Antiquities 2.312 6.166 7.72–73 7.101 7.334 8.109–110 10.8 12.36 12.256 12.414 13.259 13.299 13.380 14.9 14.142 14.159 14.164

175 73 73 239 73 73 258–259 261 140–141 238 238 72 140–141 239 199 180 239

14.185 14.190–195 14.191 14.280 14.320 14.384–389 15.120 15.292 15.361 15.373 15.380 15.382–387 15.409 16.241 17.224–227 17.230–232 17.239 17.271

238 238 90–91 239 238 36 181 113 239 239 66 66 239 113 67 25 25 181

Index of References 17.278–284 17.285 17.298 17.317 17.318–321 17.355 18.1–2 18.2 18.25 18.35–36 18.36–38 18.55–89 18.55–62 18.85–89 18.89 18.101–105 18.109–119 18.115 18.118 18.149–150 18.171–178 18.177 18.245–252 18.247–252 18.257 18.271 18.344 19.274–275 20.2–5 20.5 20.7 20.102 20.118–124

180–181 181 142 66 67 67 59 136, 230 59 67 67 136–139, 233 133 234–235 59, 237 68 67 68 70 68 59, 233 59 240 67 48 119 82 240 60 181 237 140–141 180

Apion 1.259 2.134

237 238

Life 21 46–47 391 408

181 181 24 24

War 1.10 1.68 1.97 1.113

90 72 141 141

1.194 1.204 1.282 1.285 1.346 1.390 1.392–393 1.644 1.646 1.664 1.668 1.282 1.388 1.390–393 2.2 2.20–32 2.20 2.56 2.57 2.60–65 2.60–63 2.75 2.77 2.93–100 2.93 2.94 2.117 2.140 2.141–142 2.150 2.168 2.169–177 2.172 2.178 2.183 2.214–217 2.215 2.217 2.220 2.232–244 2.235 2.241 2.253 2.264 2.275 2.288 2.301 2.306 2.356

319 239 180 239 27 27 231 27 66 66 66 65 65 239 238 246 67 67 181 171 181 180 140–141 142 67 66 67 60, 67, 230 231 184 123 67 133, 136–137, 246 252 68 240 26 67, 240 67 60 180 183 140–141 140–141, 181 183 180 59 113 140–141, 190 199

320 2.390 2.392 2.409 2.412 2.414 2.434 2.441 2.511 2.581 2.585–589 2.593–594 2.614 3.57 3.321 4.138 4.150 4.242 4.456 4.510 5.10 5.30 5.53 5.194 5.289 5.356 5.358 5.361 5.362 5.366–368 5.367 5.396–398 5.401–402 5.401 5.402 5.408–409 5.448 5.449–454 5.449 5.506 6.93–111 6.95 6.96

Index of References 14, 231 199 48 48 48 181 181, 183 183 184 182 182 183 69 140–141 184 184 184 69 183 119 181 183 91 141 182 182 259 182 14, 182 50, 207 199 119 129 184 199 183 190 140–141 199 183 184 259

6.98 6.101 6.102 6.103 6.104 6.107 6.109–110 6.110 6.119–123 6.124–128 6.124 6.125–127 6.125 6.127 6.129 6.290 6.300–310 6.300 6.363 6.409–413 6.411 6.417 6.423 6.426–427 6.434 6.436 7.29–36 7.116–157 7.118 7.121 7.130 7.152 7.153–154 7.158–162 7.158 7.161 7.162 7.171 7.218 7.263–266 7.319

74 74 74 239 74 259 14, 186 120 90–91 120 184 91 90 184 184 262 190 120 183 14 231 183 263 127 182 199 183, 205 204–207 182 203 202 206 183 205 50 50 50, 205 239 50 181 14, 231

321

Index of References

Dead Sea Scrolls 1QH 19.13–17

128

4Q418 8e1 3–4

84

1QM I, 1–16

18

4QFlor 10–12a 11

159 92

1QS 3.4–6 4.20–22 5.13–14 9.11

129 128 129 72

4QPBless

159

4QpGen 5.3–4

92

1Q16

73

4Q171

73

4QpIsaa 8–10 17–20 18

159 159 92

4Q173

73

4Q175

72

11QPsa 2–11

73

4Q266 frg. 3 II, 1–18

18

CD 6.14

129

4Q372

218

Jewish literature 1 Enoch 9.8 46.1 71.14 87.2 90.14

123 215 253 215 215

Aristeas 11

258

b. Avodah Zarah 16b b. Megillah 12a b. Pesahim 118a

b. Sanhedrin 43a

96

Jubilees 15.33–34 22.16 34.18

18 123 172

m. Avodah Zarah 1.7 6.3

126 81

m. Kelim 1.1

114

m. Nazir 3.6 7.3

125 125

126

77

265

322 m. Ohalot 1.1 2.3 17.5 18.6–7 18.7 18.10 m. Pesahim 1.4–5 4.1–6 8.6 8.8 10.7

Index of References

114 125 125 125 124–125 126

263 263 169 128 265

m. Sanhedrin 7.5 11.5

218 145

m. Sota 7.5

260

m. T’rumot 8.11–12

120

m. Ta‘anit 3.8

255

m. Toharot 4.5 5.1

125 125

Numbers Rabbah 3.6

199

Prayer of Joseph 2.2

237

Sibylline Oracles 3.66–69

145–146

t. Ohalot 17.7–18.11 18

125 124

Testament of Abraham 3.5 215 Testament of Dan 5.6

18

Testament of Solomon 14.7 259

Early Christian literature Acts of Paul and Thecla 38.5 177 Barnabas 12.10

99 99 99 99

Gospel of Peter 2.5b 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 4.11 4.14 5.17–18 6.21 6.23 6.24

249 250 245, 247–250 188 249 89, 90–91, 250 249 249 90, 249 90 249

74

Basil of Caesarea, Epistles 197.2 162 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 5.1.2 5.1.14–15 5.1.20–21 5.1.33 5.1.37

5.1.39 5.1.44 5.1.50 5.1.52

99 99 99 99 99

323

Index of References 11.48 12.50 14.60

249 249 249

Ignatius, Magnesians 11.1 134 Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 1.2 134 Ignatius, Trallians 9.1 134 John Chrysostom, Acts 60.72 162

Justin, 1 Apology 35.4 35.6

248 245, 247–250

Tertullian, Apology 2.20 5.2 21.24 50.1–4

96 134 134 197

Index of Subjects and Names Ambiguity 1–9, 15–17, 21, 41, 69, 71, 74, 83, 89–90, 106, 135, 139, 152, 156, 190, 209, 217, 226, 229–232, 245–250 Atonement 168–178, 186–187, 207

Friendship 24, 33–36, 47, 52–53, 62, 65–70, 79–80, 86–87, 91, 99–100, 104, 113, 160, 177, 181–182, 193– 194, 224, 228–229, 232–243, 249 Gallus 52–54, 104–106, 232–233

Barabbas 168–179, 183–186, 193, 226 Barrett, C. K. 5–6, 15, 31–32, 69, 90– 91, 102, 106, 111, 116, 139, 145, 152, 157, 169, 177, 179, 190–191, 195, 212, 218, 221, 226, 229–230, 233–234, 236, 247, 252–253 Brown, Raymond 10, 28–32, 113, 143, 169, 176, 179, 189–193, 206, 235, 255, 262 Bultmann, Rudolf 6–8, 15, 21, 63, 116, 139, 147, 229, 235, 237, 247, 253, 264 Caesar 13–16, 19–20, 22–30, 33, 36–37, 39–41, 44–48, 51–60, 61, 65–67, 74–75, 87–88, 90–91, 98, 105, 111, 132–133, 136–144, 149, 180–181, 183–184, 187–188, 193–194, 196, 203, 205, 206, 209, 212, 214, 217, 220–221, 223, 227–234, 237–243, 245–246, 259, 262, 264–269 Calumnia 22–23, 33, 39, 42–44, 50, 58– 61, 132, 144, 150, 186, 192, 223– 224, 232–233, 237 Coloe, Mary 92–95 Cyrus 62, 66, 74–80, 87, 134, 160, 214, 269 David 3, 62, 65–66, 71–87, 92–93, 113, 160, 185, 214, 216, 221, 239 Domitian 31–33, 40, 43–44, 47–50, 60, 97–98, 132, 144, 149, 196, 199–203, 206, 221, 233 Expropriation 18, 245, 253, 261–266

Herods 25–27, 36, 62, 65–71, 87, 91, 113, 124, 165, 180–181, 193, 220, 228–230, 238–243, 246, 249 Informers 22, 26, 43–49, 57–58, 120, 143, 232, 235 Innocence 11–15, 19, 21–23, 28, 54, 57, 61, 65–66, 68, 80, 88, 111, 121, 133–134, 141, 144, 153, 161, 165, 167, 168, 171–172, 174, 176, 178, 183, 189–192, 195, 210–212, 216, 221–230, 234, 243, 249, 265, 268 Irony 5–9, 46, 116–117, 130, 152–154, 230, 253 Judas 23, 63, 135, 143, 149, 184–185, 232, 235–238, 242–243 Kingship 3, 11–12, 14–15, 23–28, 31, 60, 61, 65–68, 70–94, 111, 113, 143–144, 151–152, 155–156, 162– 167, 180, 183–184, 189, 193, 205– 206, 212–215, 220, 228–229, 237, 241, 243, 247, 265, 269 Klawans, Jonathan 17, 120–129 Lincoln, Andrew 5, 8, 155, 160, 219, 230, 235, 237, 251, 267 Maiestas 22–24, 28–60, 61, 67, 74, 82, 88, 97–102, 105, 110–112, 132, 138–145, 149–150, 183, 186, 188, 194, 196, 203, 206–208, 214, 221, 223, 226, 228, 232–233, 238, 241, 243

Index of Subjects and Names Mason, Steve 17, 59, 67, 134, 136, 180– 184, 199–205, 246 Moloney, Francis 7–8, 11, 21, 88–89, 102, 147, 155–156, 185, 189, 212– 213, 216, 231, 233, 236, 262 Openness 2, 4–5, 13, 89–90, 111, 135, 213, 217, 226, 245 Paradox 2–9, 13–17, 19–20, 21–23, 60, 61–65, 87, 89–90, 95, 102, 106, 111, 131, 132, 149, 151, 153, 187, 190, 195, 197, 206–208, 213, 217, 226, 245, 247, 250, 253, 264, 266, 267– 269 Passover 64, 113–115, 120, 127–131, 168–170, 175, 178, 245, 258, 262– 266 Prophecy 14, 19, 61–87, 88, 93, 94, 99, 106–112, 118, 132, 134, 140, 144– 161, 179, 186, 191, 213, 215, 241, 254, 267–269 Purity 18–20, 94, 113–131, 168–176, 181, 184–187, 204, 223, 242, 259 Reinhartz, Adele 14–18, 63, 245, 268 Repetundae 22–23, 33, 39, 51–60, 61, 232–233

325

Slanderer 18, 23, 161, 164, 222, 264 Sophia 62, 75, 79–87, 119, 127, 214, 225, 241–242 Speech acts 13, 15, 22–23, 27–28, 165 Temple 15–16, 18, 23, 25, 32, 45, 48, 50–51, 58, 61–66, 72–75, 78–79, 83–95, 101–105, 110, 112, 113, 117, 119–121, 127–129, 132, 137–139, 143, 146, 157, 159, 161–163, 179, 182–184, 186, 190, 195, 199–201, 203–208, 214, 216, 220, 239, 255, 259–269 Tiberius 26, 29–33, 36–47, 50–51, 54– 55, 59–62, 67–70, 132, 134, 137– 141, 144, 149, 188, 195–196, 221, 232–235, 240–241 Titulus 14, 88, 95–107, 110–112, 133, 159, 251, 269 Triumph 15–16, 19–20, 43, 46–47, 106, 182–183, 188, 192, 194–208, 268 Usurper 14, 60, 90, 110, 140–141, 169, 180–187, 188, 192, 194, 205–206, 209–212, 266–269