The Last Seven Days: The Story of Jesus and Holy Week 1573127868, 9781573127868

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Regent’s Study Guides General Editor: Paul S. Fiddes

The Last Seven Days The Story of Jesus and Holy Week

Regent’s Study Guides

The Last Seven Days The Story of Jesus and Holy Week

G. Henton Davies J. E. Morgan-Wynne

Regent’s Park College, Oxford with Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc. Macon, Georgia

Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc. 6316 Peake Road Macon, Georgia 31210-3960 1-800-747-3016 ©1999 by Smyth & Helwys Publishing All rights reserved. Davies, Gwynne Henton. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data G. Henton Davies, J. E. Morgan-Wynne. The last seven days: the story of Jesus and Holy Week Includes bibliographical references and index. p. cm. (Regent's study guides: 7) 1. Jesus Christ—Biography—Passion week. 2. Passion narratives (Gospels)—Criticism, interpretation 3. Passion narratives (Gospels)—Homiletical use. 4. Holy week. I. Morgan-Wynne, J. E. II. Title. III. Series. BT414.D38 1999 232.96—dc21 99-28534 CIP ISBN (US) 978-1-57312-786-8

Contents Authors’ Preface....................................................................................vii General Editor’s Preface ........................................................................ix Acknowledgement ................................................................................xii 1. Introduction: A Holy Week..................................................................1 I. The First Four Days of the Week G. Henton Davies 2. The First Day of Holy Week ..............................................................9 3. The Second Day of Holy Week ........................................................19 4. The Third Day of Holy Week ............................................................25 5. The Fourth Day of Holy Week ..........................................................43 II. The Last Twenty Four Hours of Jesus’ Life: during the Fifth and Sixth Days J. E. Morgan-Wynne 6. The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Mark..............................51 7. The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Matthew ........................77 8. The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Luke ..............................87 9. The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to John ............................105 III. The Seventh Day of the Week J. E. Morgan-Wynne 10. Holy Saturday in the New Testament............................................123 11. Holy Saturday in the Tradition and Theology of the Church ........135 IV. The Point of the Story 12. The Constant Themes of Holy Week (G. Henton Davies) ............151 13. The Theology of Holy Week according to the Evangelists ..........169 (J. E. Morgan-Wynne) Epilogue (G. Henton Davies) ..............................................................199 Select Bibliography ............................................................................201 Index....................................................................................................203

Authors’ Preface The following pages are based on lectures and chapel addresses given during the fourteen years I was Principal of Regent’s Park College, in the University of Oxford. Terms at Oxford are so arranged that students are not usually resident in what is styled Holy Week. So our custom was, once every three years, to set apart the last week of February as our ‘putative’ or ‘virtual’ Holy Week. Chapel occasions in the morning, after mid-day meal and again late at night, were devoted to the events of the successive days of the last week in the life of Jesus. Each generation of my students had this experience in which tutors and students co-operated most willingly. E.L. Mascall, formerly Professor of Historical Theology in the University of London, once published a letter in The Times in which he appealed to students of the New Testament to show a more believing and accepting attitude to the Gospels. With that appeal I am fully in sympathy as the reader will find in this study of the passion of Jesus Christ. During the years of the writing of this book, the Revd Dr Paul Fiddes, presently Principal of Regent’s Park College, Oxford and General Editor of the present series, has given us helpful and formative counsel. In his perusal of the first draft of the manuscript, he commented on the fact that whereas one method of presentation had been used for the first four days of Holy Week, a different method had been employed for the last two. For the first four days, a consensus of the four Gospels had been given collectively for each day. But, in view of the significance and dire events of what really was the last day, that is, late afternoon on Thursday, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the last time until the time of his death at 3.0 pm on Friday, a change in method had been made. The events of these last hours had been treated Gospel by Gospel in separate accounts. Dr Fiddes therefore suggested that the Revd Dr John E. Morgan-Wynne, previously tutor in New Testament at the College, and until recently Principal of Bristol Baptist College, should be invited to participate in the work by providing the commentary on these separate Gospels. This suggestion was immediately adopted. Dr Morgan-Wynne has also written an introduction and contributed some additional notes to the early chapters, and we have both written chapters which aim to explain the theological significance of the Gospel stories.

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This joint work, in which Dr Fiddes has further honoured us by writing a preface, is now laid before the reader. We must also acknowledge our debt to my daughter, Yona, for typing the entire manuscript, and to her husband, Revd Dr David Pusey, Pastor at Hebron, Saundersfoot, for the preparation and collation of the text prior to final editing. —G. Henton Davies April 1998 It has been a great privilege to join in the writing of this work with the Revd Dr Henton Davies, whose first proleptic ‘Passion Week’ at Regent’s Park College in 1959 sparked off an interest in the historical and theological issues of the passion story which has remained with me ever since. A good deal of the material in Chapter 14 was originally delivered as the Whitley Lectures in 1974, and now at last appears in print in what I hope is an improved version. —J. E. Morgan-Wynne April 1998

General Editor’s Preface This is a book for preachers. It will, of course, also be of great help to all those who want to make a serious study of the events of Holy Week, and of the meaning which the Gospel writers find in them. But this book will have a special interest to those who are called to preach on the happenings and themes of those ‘last seven days’, or who want to prepare a series of services and studies during Holy Week in their own congregation. This is not because the book presents such a series ready-made, for it does not. Nor is it only because it provides a rich source of scholarly material, as it certainly does. Rather, the attraction for those who preach is that the book tells a story, and should help preachers to tell the story in their own way for their own place and time. The two authors, who are both biblical scholars, both have a feel for a good story. They come from two different specialities in biblical studies, G. Henton Davies from the world of Old Testament scholarship, and John Morgan-Wynne from that of the New Testament. But they are agreed on one essential point of method. The Gospel writers are deliberately telling their own story of Holy Week, and they use various literary devices and forms to do so. Yet they are also drawing upon a story that actually happened, and our authors believe that there is good reason why we, the readers, should try and discover from the Gospel accounts the main features of that story in history. So there is a story of history and there is a story of faith, and the two intertwine in the story of the Gospels. The authors of this book are well aware that this can be a controversial approach. Some biblical scholars may object that it is impossible to find the story in history at all, and other people may insist that there can be no differences between that story and the way it is told in the Gospels. But our authors are agreed that we will find the true meaning and depth of the story, and will ourselves encounter the Word of God who truly enters our history, if we take the approach to which they are committed. The book therefore first traverses the days of Holy Week one by one, exploring the interaction between the way that the Gospel writers tell the story and the events as they most probably happened. This day-by-day account is rather unusual, since it does require the commitment to history I have described. It will be particularly helpful to those who want to trace the path of Jesus in their own celebration of Holy Week. The book then moves on in the final part to drawing out the theological meaning in the

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way that the Gospel writers each tell their story. This is a more usual approach to Gospel studies, but here takes on a special character because of the path trodden earlier in the book. While our two authors are agreed upon the principle of studying the Gospels, and each is enthusiastic about telling the story through their own scholarship, readers will be bound to notice some differences between them. In the first place, they are not entirely agreed upon the results of applying the method. That is, they do not always arrive at exactly the same view of the contents of the ‘story in history’, the events as they happened. But this means that they leave readers space to make their own decisions, not forcing a fixed conclusion on them. They fairly set out the possibilities, and invite readers to make their own judgement and take their own steps of faith and response. But I do not want to over-stress these differences, which do not jarr in what is a remarkably unified project, reflecting the deep respect and friendship our authors have enjoyed over many years. The difference between the two authors that may strike the reader more obviously, and this is a highly fruitful one, is the style of the story they tell. G. Henton Davies has a feel for drama, and highlights the dramatic aspects of the Gospel accounts. I think, for example, of his imaginative account of the part that Psalm 23 might have played in the mind of Jesus as he took an active role in the unfolding drama of Holy Week. Another example is his presentation of the dramatic impact of the assertion of the priests, that ‘we have no king except Caesar’, played out on the stage in front of the judgement seat of Pilate. The story that John Morgan-Wynne tells is sensitive to dramatic aspects, but has more of the character of a detective story, probing at the clues in search of the truth which illuminates. Was the Last Supper a Passover meal? Did the trial of Jesus before the Jewish religious authorities take place during the night or in the early morning? What was really said at the trials? The reader will, I believe, be fascinated in following the ‘plot’ that John Morgan-Wynne marks out as he explores the details of the Gospel texts, and the theological significance he uncovers from the similarities and differences between the four Gospel writers. It is then appropriate to the style of their story-telling that G. Henton Davies should expound the first four days in a more synthetic approach,

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taking all the Gospel writers together, while John Morgan-Wynne should look at the last twenty four hours (days 5-6) Gospel by Gospel. But both drama and detection are in the service of finding the meaning for our faith in these climactic events at the end of the life of Jesus. Both authors in the final part of the book take up such themes as the kingship of Jesus, the divine purpose which lies behind the cross, the forsakenness of Jesus and the forgiveness offered through him. Finally, the reader may ask why more is not said in this study about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is, of course, only possible to understand the true significance of the cross, and the events leading up to it, from the perspective of the resurrection. The risen Jesus is the crucified Jesus, for ever living but also for ever bearing the scars of death; from the viewpoint of the resurrection we understand that God was in Christ, reconciling the universe to himself in the cross. Our authors certainly have this in mind, and in particular trace the expectations of Jesus in the last days of his life that in some way he will be vindicated, or ‘put in the right’ by his Father. In his chapters on the sixth day, or ‘Holy Saturday’, John Morgan-Wynne is especially concerned with the theme of the conquest of death by Jesus and firmly locates this in Jesus’ resurrection to new life. But we must also recognize the character of this book, which is to walk the way of the cross with Jesus, from Palm Sunday to the grave of Holy Saturday. We are invited to share, with reverence and as far as is possible, the experience of Jesus himself. For these seven days, the resurrection still lies ahead; living through them with Jesus, we come to know that there is no way to resurrection except through the darkness of the cross.

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Afterword As General Editor, it is with sadness I record that since the three prefaces above were written, Dr. Gwynne Henton Davies died in October 1998.

Acknowledgement Where the authors have not made their own translations of Biblical texts, the version quoted is The Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version, copyright 1946/1952 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and is used by kind permission.

Abbreviations for English Translations of the Bible KJV NIV NRSV REB RSV

King James Version New International Version New Revised Standard Version Revised English Bible Revised Starndard Version

1 Introduction: A Holy Week 1. The concept of ‘Holy Week’ ‘Holy Week’ has become the established title for the last week of Jesus’ life, a week spent in Jerusalem or its environs. This week inevitably has special significance for Christians, for whom Jesus’ death and resurrection are central events. Of course, it is true that for Christians every day is a holy day and every week is a holy week, in which we may present ourselves as living sacrifices for God. But while recognizing this, the title ‘Holy Week’ for Jesus’ last seven days is still acceptable and appropriate. We owe the very idea of a ‘Holy Week’ to the evangelist Mark, who organizes the shape of the first written Gospel in such a way that considerable emphasis is given to the last week of Jesus’ life and ministry, and who mentions particular events on each of the days within it. After Mark’s description of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, which occupies from 1.14 to 9.50 (including occasional journeys elsewhere, eg. 5.1; 7.24,31; 8.27), Mark reports a journey south to Perea (10.1) and then devotes the whole of the remaining chapters (11.1 to 15.47) to what is only a brief ministry in Jerusalem. It seems that this short ministry only lasts a few days. We know that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, the day before the Jewish Sabbath, which was Saturday (15.42); so by working backwards from the day of crucifixion using Mark’s references to time, we arrive at the following series of events which lasts six days: 1. Sunday—The entry into Jerusalem. Jesus returns to Bethany (Mark 11.1-11) 2. Monday—Jesus cleanses the temple (Mark 11.12-19) 3. Tuesday—Jesus teaches in the temple, engaging in discussion of various issues with certain groups. He holds a discourse on the Mount of Olives with four disciples (Mark 11.20-13.37) 4. Wednesday—Jesus is anointed in Bethany. In Jerusalem his arrest, death and betrayal are planned (Mark 14.1-10). 5. Thursday—After careful preparation Jesus celebrates the Passover in Jerusalem. Later he prays in Gethsemane, is arrested and put on trial (Mark 14.12-72). 6. Friday—The Sanhedrin (Jewish court) reaches its decision. Jesus is taken before Pilate. He is crucified and buried (Mark 15.1-47)

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Although a detailed day-by-day account is not to be found in the Fourth Gospel, it is nevertheless clear that the Fourth Evangelist stresses that the last week of Jesus’ life would end with the Passover and Sabbath coinciding (John 19.31). He tells us at 12.1 that Jesus came to Bethany just outside Jerusalem ‘six days before the Passover’. This would be on the Saturday with a meal (12.2) in the evening. The entry into Jerusalem took place on the next day (12.12), which—in accord with Mark’s account—was the the Sunday. According to this Gospel, however, Jesus’ last meal (13.2) was not the actual Passover feast (see 18.28). By placing such a large amount of material in chapters 13-17 the fourth evangelist has underlined the importance already given by the other Gospel writers to the end of Jesus’ life. By his repeated concept of ‘the hour’, the evangelist has given further weight to the end of Jesus’ story: earlier in the Gospel ‘the hour’ is said not yet to have come (2.4; 7.30; 8.20), and then finally is announced to have arrived: 12.23; 13.1,31; 17:1). 2. The Wider Context of Holy Week The four Gospels together present us with evidence that Jesus was in Jerusalem for longer periods than the five or six days actually mentioned in Mark. For instance, there are Jesus’ words of reproach to those who come to arrest him in Gethsemane: ‘Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. (Mark 14.49). This suggests not merely that particular last week, but longer periods before this. We may compare Luke 21.37 (‘every day he was teaching in the temple’), which was probably a tradition independent of Mark. Then there is Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem, which comes from an early collection of words and deeds of Jesus which was apparently used by both Matthew and Luke in writing their Gospels, and which is usually called ‘Q’ for short by scholars (from the initial letter of the German word ‘Quelle’, meaning a source). Jesus’ anguished cry (Matt 23.37, parallel Luke 13.34) points to an unavailing effort to woo and win over Jerusalem, which must have been sustained over a period of time: ‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!’ Indeed, according to John’s Gospel, Jesus is in Jerusalem throughout the period beginning at chapter 7 verse 10 and on to the

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crucifixion, except for brief withdrawals to Perea (10.40-42) and Ephraim (11.54-57). The obscure reference to Ephraim favours the reliability of 11.54. References to Jesus’ friends is also illuminating. We know that Jesus had a friend in Bethany willing to loan him a donkey (Mark 11.1-6), and another in Jerusalem willing to let him celebrate the Passover in his home (14.12-16). Exactly how many times Jesus had visited Jerusalem over the years we do not know, although one rule in the Old Testament requires visits three times each year (Exodus 34.23). He may have inherited some friendships from his parents, while some would have emerged through his own ministry in the capital. The fact that Jesus apparently knew the layout of the city’s streets (John 18.1-2) indicates frequent visits. On this last occasion Jesus may well have been a wanted man (see John 11.53, 57), so that his friends ran great risks in helping him. How long Jesus had been in Jerusalem before Holy Week cannot thus be ascertained with certainty, but we ought to reckon with a longer ministry there than Mark narrates. It seems that some compression has taken place in Mark’s presentation; for example, it is possible that some of the material now presented on the Tuesday may have occurred earlier in the Jerusalem ministry. All this does not undermine the significance of ‘Holy Week’. Rather, it gains meaning when we see it in the wider context of Jesus’ ministry to Israel, which is focussed on the sacred city, David’s city, celebrated throughout long history as ‘God’s earthly abode’. Moreover, there was a special aspect to this last week that singles it out. However wide the context of Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry, he came there at the last not primarily to teach, but to keep the Feast of the Passover. Passover would be ‘in the air’, with everyone talking about it, just as Christmas or Easter are talked about in our day. The context of Jesus’ thoughts and intentions is Passover, and that is the reality behind all four Gospels. Jesus’ mind and his destiny at this time must be understood in terms of Passover, and that is the basis for the idea of a Holy Week. 3. The Political Background of Jesus’ Ministry After the death of the Jewish King Herod the Great in 4 BC his domain had—with the approval of the Roman Emperor—been divided between three of his sons. One of these, Archelaus, to whom Judea,

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Samaria and Idumea had been given, ruled so harshly and brutally that the Romans deposed him in 6 AD and assumed direct rule of these three areas. During Jesus’ ministry the Roman prefect here was Pontius Pilate (26-36 AD). A second son, Herod Antipas, was given Galilee and Perea (see Mark 6.14-28; Luke 13.31; 23.6-12; there is also mention of a ‘Herodian party’ in Mark 3.6; 12.13). The third son, Philip, ruled the area north east of Lake Galilee. Scholars are currently divided over whether there was a specific group called the Zealots in existence before, during and after Jesus’ ministry, or whether this term in fact covers several different forms of social unrest. There were certainly no direct revolutionary uprisings between 6 and 41 AD, though we know of a number of instances when Pilate deeply offended Jewish feelings and susceptibilities. A widespread range of feelings towards Roman rule may be assumed, from passive acceptance to seething resentment. The burden of taxation was heavy (on top of the temple tax and tithes). Roman deposition of high priests in the period 6 to 18 AD (before Caiaphas’ long tenure of office), and their possession of the high priests’ ceremonial vestments would cause outrage, and not merely among the priestly aristocracy. The Holy Land belonged to Yahweh, and the presence of Roman troops would be regarded as an affront to God. A burning issue was therefore bound to be how God’s people should conduct itself in the situation in which it found itself under Roman rule. Various ‘answers’ to this question had been worked out by different groups: 1. The party of the Sadducees (a kind of religious and lay aristocracy) collaborated with the Romans, though not liking the situation (cf. John 11.49-50). 2. The Pharisees (to whom a majority of the Scribes belonged) were quietistic, seeking to live in a holy manner, and applying to themselves even the priestly laws of purity. In their view matters could be left to God who would intervene at the appropriate time and usher in his kingdom. 3. Whether or not there was a Zealot party as such, some people may have believed that a God-ordained duty existed to rid the land of pagans. John 6.14 indicates willingness among a Galilean crowd to embrace revolution

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by making Jesus king; Mark 15.7 refers to an uprising in Jerusalem and murder committed during it. 4. One group had withdrawn to build the community of Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea, believing that the majority of Israelites were apostate. They had sympathizers who counted themselves as followers of the community throughout the land but who did not embrace the ‘monastic’ life of Qumran itself. The Qumran group expected a final cosmic war of ‘the sons of light’ against ‘the sons of darkness’. 4. Jesus and the nation Jesus approached Israel’s problems in his own distinctive way. In the first place, there is his comment to his disciples recorded in Mark 10.42-3: You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it shall not be so among you.....

This seems to show that Jesus was well aware of the darker side of the results of colonization within the Roman Empire, despite the advantages for peace which were brought by a single dominant power with an effective army (the Pax Romana). Then his reply over payment of taxes to Caesar (Mark 12.16-17) shows both an acceptance of responsibilities by the governed to their government, and equally a subordination of all demands of government to God’s own claims: They brought [a denarius]. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s, Jesus said to them, ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s’, and to God the things that are God’s.’

The vast difference between this kind of politics and any approach motivated by an anti-Roman spirit is further shown by Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies and his teaching on non-retaliation and non-seeking of revenge. These intructions are deeply rooted in the tradition of Jesus’ sayings, being contained in the early collection ‘Q’ (see Luke 6.27-8, with parallel in Matt 5.43-48; Luke 6.29-30, parallel in Matt 5.38-42). In accord with his own teaching, Jesus does not react with outraged nationalism when he is informed of Pilate’s massacre of some Galileans in the

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temple, but seeks to turn the hearers to repentance (Luke 13.1-5). Likewise, Jesus refused to countenance a revolt after the incident of the feeding of the multitude and withdrew from the crowd (John 6.15). Jesus’ message was not directly political, but was bound to have political implications in that it was directed to the life of the whole nation as well as to the individual. He offered forgiveness of sins and entrance into the coming Kingdom of God to all who would repent and trust in him as God’s representative. It was an appeal to all, regardless of social or religious status in society, addressed to social outcasts as well as to the respectable. Had Israel responded to Jesus’ appeal, the result would surely have been a defusing of a political situation whose tenseness, beneath the surface, could at any moment erupt; at the same time it would have been a creative step forward in God’s purposes for the life of the nation. As we proceed now to consider the last days of Jesus’ life in detail, this background should offer a useful clue as to his general intention. At the same time they acutely raise the question of why Jesus was accused before Pilate of being ‘King of the Jews’, and why the Jewish authorities believed that they could make the charge stick.

I The First Four Days of the Week G. Henton Davies

2 The First Day of Holy Week The first day of Holy Week was the first day of the Jewish week, a day which was eventually to become the Christian Sunday, and to bear the name of ‘Palm Sunday’. Mark and Matthew speak of ‘branches’ from trees strewn on the road, but John specifies branches of palm trees. Palm Sunday will thus be a convenient name for this day. 1. The purpose of Jesus On that day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and this ride is surely the clue to the intention of the day. Jesus, we understand, walked wherever he went, but on this day he chose to ride. On the second, third and fifth days of Holy Week he walked into Jerusalem, but on this day he rode on a donkey. This ride thus provides the evidence of a set purpose, a purpose born of a passage in Old Testament prophecy and of Jesus’ own conviction. The ride can be interpreted as an example of what has been described as ‘prophetic symbolism’, for the prophets in the Old Testament often acted their message in dramatic action. (Of course, in this context, the phrase ‘Dominical symbolism’ would better suit the story, as it would Jesus himself.) Mathew and John in their Gospels quote the prediction recorded in the prophet Zechariah 9.9: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.

This piece of Hebrew verse, in lines of three accents, offers a good illustration of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, whereby every two lines of the English text is the equivalent of one Hebrew line in two parts, in which the second part repeats or in some way reflects or parallels the first part. In the passage just quoted the second line is parallel to the first, the fourth to the third and the sixth to the fifth. The parallelism of the first two lines is very close. The fourth line parallels the third by referring to qualities of kingship; the Hebrew phrase

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translated here ‘triumphant and victorious’ (NRSV) can also carry the meaning ‘righteous and having salvation’, and here we may compare Isaiah 45.21 about the kingship of God: and there is no other God besides me; a righteous God and a Saviour.

In Zechariah 9.9 ‘having salvation’ is a participle in the passive mood, and can also be translated as ‘saved’ or ‘victorious’. In Isaiah 45.21, however, the Hebrew participle is causative and active, meaning ‘saving’, or a Saviour. The root meaning of the verb used in both these participles is ‘to make wide, spacious’. We notice that when the crowd greets Jesus with the cry of ‘Hosanna!’ (‘save now’!) on Palm Sunday, they are appealing to God actively to bring salvation. The passage from Zechariah is quoted in full in order to explain a misunderstanding that has arisen in Matthew’s use of this prophecy. The last two lines of the quotation from Zechariah (9.9) are in parallel. This means that the ass of the first line is the same animal as ‘a colt, the foal of an ass’ in the second line. So only one animal is described in Zechariah, a colt. Mark, Luke and John or their sources mention a colt, but Matthew or his source mention ‘an ass tied, and her colt with her’, and so either ignore or fail to understand the parallel sense of the Zechariah passage. Only one animal is intended in the story that lies behind the Gospel accounts, though the scholar Krister Stendahl believes1 that Matthew knew a tradition which spoke about two asses. The remark that nobody had ever sat upon the animal (Mark 11:2) is probably no more than a factual reminiscence, but many have argued for a sacred purpose suggested by such passages as Numbers 19.2 and possibly I Samuel 6.7. 2. The response of the crowd Jesus, through a code of words no doubt previously arranged, commandeered the colt—unless of course the phrase ‘the Lord has need of him’ refers to the animal’s owner who would then be accompanying Jesus. Mark, probably following Peter, who may well have been one of the two disciples sent to fetch the colt, gives the most detailed account of the incident. People began to gather as Jesus rode along. Their behaviour and their shouting must have attracted others, and so a considerable group

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must have formed, some preceding, some following and the disciples all around him. Some people put garments on the animal as a saddle, but II Kings 9.13 suggests that some of the garments were used as a mark of homage to a king. The shouts of the people are described as follows: Mark

Matthew

Luke

John

Hosanna!

Hosanna to the son of David!

no equivalent

Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord

as Mark

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord

Blessed is the King of Israel who comes in the name of the Lord

Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming

no equivalent

no equivalent

no equivalent

Hosanna in the highest

as Mark

peace in heaven and glory in the highest

no equivalent

These four columns show the differences and similarities in the four Gospels, and thus make the distinctive elements of the occasion evident. Mark, Matthew and John all have ‘Hosanna’, but Luke omits this. The word ‘Hosanna’ is the equivalent in Aramaic, the popular patois, of the Hebrew word meaning ‘save now’, or ‘please do save’, familiar from Psalm 118.25. While the need for salvation which is fundamental to its meaning is still present, it seems to be overlaid here by the use of the word as a term of praise to God. ‘Praise in the highest’ may be variously explained, but is perhaps best understood as ‘maximum praise’. The phrase ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ was basically the blessing that was invoked upon each and every person coming to one of the great feasts of Israel’s year, Tabernacles and Passover in

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particular. But in all four Gospels the blessing has been uttered with Jesus specifically in view, and words are added in Luke and John to refer to him explicitly as King: so Luke has ‘the King who comes in the name of the Lord’ and John has ‘the one who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel’. Further shouts of the crowd recorded in Mark and Mathew also emphasize the motif of kingship; Mark has ‘Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming’, and Matthew has the briefer ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ At this point, immediately following the words of the crowd, John adds a reference to the prophecy in Zechariah about the coming king, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold your king is coming, sitting on an ass’s colt!’, whereas in Matthew the reference appears earlier in the story. Luke alone presents the multitude as saying: Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest,

which suggests a parallelism of verse; in this case the first and rather mysterious clause, so different from Luke’s ‘Peace on earth’ in his birth stories (2.14), could be an expression of praise to match the second clause (cf. Job 25.2). Further, Luke has expanded the story in Mark with several additions, namely, the request from the Pharisees to rebuke the noisy crowd (19.39f), and Jesus’ lament over the city of Jerusalem (19.41-44). The contrast between the triumphant multitude and the weeping Jesus is the first of many dramatic contrasts which mark the story of the Holy Week in all four Gospels. 3. The meaning of the event How then are we to assess the meaning of this inaugural event of the last week in the life of Jesus? It is clear that the ride into the city of Jerusalem was planned, and was a deliberate part of Jesus’ strategy as he came to the city. He came at Passover time when the city’s population was greatly increased by pilgrims. He chose to ride in, with an action which was in part fulfilment of the prophecy found in Zechariah 9.9. The prophecy itself was a reflection or residue of ancient Israel’s coronation ritual for the royal house of David, and must be understood more fully in the light of the royal Psalms of the Psalter, such as 2, 72, 89 and110, and the ritual

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portrayed in I Kings 1. In Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem ordinary people accompany him. In I Kings 1 Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and Benaiah a military chief are mentioned as accompanying Solomon who is about to be crowned king. Solomon is mounted on David’s mule, and he rides down with the procession to the spring of Gihon. Here, presumably, Solomon was washed or ‘baptised’. Zadok then anointed Solomon king and blew the trumpet to signal the crowning to the accompaniment of the shouts and dances of the people. Jesus’ own ride must therefore be interpreted mainly in terms of entrance upon kingship. As we have seen, the references are explicit. Even if the acclamations by the crowd of Jesus as ‘king’ and ‘king of Israel’ are the expression of later reflection by the Gospel writers in the early church, such additions draw out the basic core of meaning in the event and the prophecy on which it is based. That is, they illustrate what the writers understood to be the mind and intentions of Jesus himself. 4. The kingdom and the king Anticipations of Jesus’ forthcoming fate during this last visit to Jerusalem are present in what Jesus is presented as saying. He makes, for example, a threefold prediction of his death as recorded in Mark 8.31, 9.31 and 10.32. These passages go some way back in the story, the first prediction of his death following on after Peter’s confession, that is, even before the event of his ‘transfiguration’ (Mark 9.2). Some scholars have thought that the three predictions are simply variants of one utterance; but each has its own distinctive context and shows a certain progression, the last being the most detailed. While the progression in detail may be due to Mark himself, that does not mean that a prediction by Jesus was not already present. With so much on his mind a threefold repetition of the prediction of his suffering should cause no surprise. In truth a certain fear of the future had seized upon his followers as they began to go up to Jerusalem (Mark 10.32). Indeed when Jesus had last visited Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles the previous September/October (John 7), he must have realised how dangerous the city had become, a discovery reflected in his words: ‘for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem’ (Luke 13.33).

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Yet even more precise indications of his plans may be found in the sayings of Jesus. Thus in 8.38 and 9.1 Mark records two predictions of a future ‘coming’ in power and glory, the second being one of the most difficult and puzzling statements in his Gospel. 8.38 concludes: ‘. . . of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ Here there appears to be a clear reference to the parousia, or the ‘appearing’ of Jesus as the Son of Man at the end of the age. This is followed by a further saying which may be linked historically to the preceding verse, but more probably is an independent saying taken from what was originally another context. The verse reads: ‘And he said unto them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power”’ (9.1 and cf. 13.30 and Matt 10.23). This difficult verse has prompted various interpretations, some thinking that it refers to the transfiguration of Jesus, others that it refers to the resurrection, or Pentecost or even the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman army in 70AD. All these interpretations are based on the assumption that, unlike Mk. 8.38, 9.1 does not refer to the parousia, the final appearance of the Lord. This assumption seems to be correct because of a vital difference among many differences between the sayings in 8.38 and 9.1. The difference is that 8.38 is timeless, but 9.1 is dated, i.e. within the lifetime of some present and so very near. Such a prediction is in contrast to Jesus’ avowal in 13.32 that neither human beings, angels nor ‘even the son’ know the hour of that event. When 9.1 is thus detached from the parousia, the verse becomes less difficult, and contains within itself a reference that may be a clue to its meaning. 9.1 refers to the kingdom of God coming with power. Matthew has ‘the Son of Man coming in his kingdom’ (16.28), and Luke has ‘... before they see the kingdom of God’ (9.27). The emphasis on kingdom in these three Gospels at this point, and the emphasis on kingdom and kingship in the account of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem in all four Gospels, suggest that these passages might be linked, and that Mark 9.1 is the first hint of the subsequent triumphal entry. Since Jesus’ predictions of his death both antedate and follow the transfiguration, an early indication of a kingly entrance into Jerusalem cannot be precluded. This would

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mean that the so-called triumphal entry had been planned a considerable time before the event itself. 2 There are, of course, other interpretations of the saying in Mark 9.1. But if we follow the interpretation suggested above, it confirms that Jesus enters the city to claim that city and that people as his own. It gives a strong clue to the intention in the mind of Jesus. The first day of this week is the day of Jesus’ royal claim. The character of that royal claim, moreover, is clear from the context. W. Robertson Smith in his classic study of The Religion of the Semites3 describes in an eloquent passage the character of kingship: What the Semitic communities asked, and believed themselves to receive, from their god as king lay mainly in three things: help against their enemies, counsel by oracles or soothsayers in matters of national difficulty, and a sentence of justice when a case was too hard for human decision. The valour, the wisdom and the justice of the nation looked to him as their head, and were strengthened by his support in time of need.

Ample illustrations of these three benefits of kingship may be found in the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, and Jesus’ own kingship may be explained in comparable terms. Protection was certainly an aim in the teaching and kingship of Jesus. In the context of Holy Week, for example, he cries out, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Matt.23.37 and cf. Lk.13.34 in an earlier context). The quality of wisdom was certainly apparent in his function as a counsellor to his followers and to his people. We only need recall the place given to ‘the wise’ in his teaching: for example, the wise builder (Matt.7.24-27), the wise virgins (Matt.25.2), and the faithful and wise steward (Lk.12.42). Justice and righteousness are the hallmarks of the kingdom that Jesus proclaims. Jesus thus enters Jerusalem as a king—but a king of peace. He rides on an ass, and not a warhorse. Luke brings in the word ‘peace’ in his ascription ‘peace in heaven’ and we are reminded of the prediction in Isaiah 9.6-7:

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authority rests upon his shoulders and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace.

The strange and new dichotomy expressed in the name ‘Prince of Peace” is reflected in Jesus coming to Jerusalem on an ass in peace. The week begins as it ends. On the first day he enters as king; and on the Friday he is crucified under the superscription which at least contained the words: The King of the Jews. The key question, however, remains: Why did Jesus regard himself and allow himself to be called and treated as a king in this last week of his life? True, he had preached the gospel of the kingdom of God throughout his ministry, and presented himself as God’s representative in offering entrance to this kingdom. But in John 6.15 Jesus withdrew—fled—when he realised that the people ‘were about to come and take him by force to make him king’.4 Surely the experience of transfiguration and then the triumphal entry are the evidence that by this time Jesus had personalized the kingdom of God into his own life. The coming of the kingdom was now inseparable from his own coming as king. Of course Jesus had identified himself with the kingdom of God from the beginning of his ministry; such passages as Mark 9.37b; 11.6; Matthew 11.16; Luke 7.23 come readily to mind. But now for the first time the terminology of ‘kingdom’ is complemented and personalized in the terminology of his own ‘kingship’. In the technical terms of the theologians, what was an ‘implicit Christology’ to this point now became an ‘explicit Christology’. The proclaimer had become the proclaimed. This was the final form and fashion in which Jesus presented the kingdom of God to Jerusalem, to his people, in this last week. The kingdom of God had become, to use Origen’s splendid word, the autobasileia of Jesus. Subsuming his roles as Son of Man, Servant of God and Messiah, he comes as the gentle king of the people and their city. Mark’s account of the first day of Jesus’ last week ends with the laconic statement that having entered the city of Jerusalem and its temple, Jesus looked round at everything. Then, because it was getting late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve (Mk.11.11). Obviously that Sunday afternoon he took stock of the situation. He had something more in mind.

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Notes Krister Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1968), p. 200. 2 For different interpretations of Mark 9.1, the reader is referred to the standard commentaries on Mark in English, eg. Hugh Anderson (New Century Bible, Oliphants, London, 1976); Morna D. Hooker (Black’s New Testament Commentaries, A. & C. Black, London, 1991); or monographs on the Kingdom of God, eg. Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (SCM, London, 1967), pp.199-201; G.R.Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Eerdmans/Paternoster, London, 1986), pp.187-193. 3 W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 3rd edition (LA. & C. Black, London, 1927), p. 64. 4 See C.H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity (Collins, London, 1971), ch. 7. 1

3 The Second Day of Holy Week 1. The shape of the day The second day of the week was our Monday. Mark tells us that after the triumphal entry and a visit to the temple, Jesus with all his disciples had returned for the night to their lodgings at Bethany (Mark 11:11). Both Matthew and Luke, however, appear to ignore that return journey to Bethany, and go on to the story of the cleansing of the Temple as if that event had taken place on the first day, our Sunday. Their intention, at least, is thus to portray the cleansing of the Temple as the aim and outcome of the triumphal entry. This variation in the presentation of the first day in Matthew and Luke against Mark does not affect the thought of kingship which, we have seen, is the prominent motif of the day. Mark clearly places the cleansing of the temple on the Monday, prefacing that story with the event of the so-called ‘cursing’ of the fig tree, a story which Luke does not mention. Neither therefore does Luke have the sequel to the story of the fig tree, following the cleansing incident, on the third day of the week (Mark 11.20-21 and cf. 22-26). A further complication is that the Fourth Gospel relates a story of the cleansing of the Temple as taking place early on in the ministry of Jesus (2.13-25), during a visit by Jesus to the Passover feast in Jerusalem, following the marriage at Cana (2.1-11) and a short stay of Jesus with his family and disciples in Capernaum (2.12). The question thus arises as to whether there were two cleansings, or, if there was only one cleansing, whether it was at the beginning of Jesus’ Judean ministry, as John says, or at its end as the other three Gospels declare. Of course a double cleansing would have dramatically highlighted the point of the event, but indications exist in the way John recounts the story, and in its theological implications, to make us think that John’s account originally did belong to the end of Jesus’ ministry and not to its beginning. In the present study the accounts in the other three Gospels are therefore followed. The cleansing of the temple took place in the last week, probably on the second day, our Monday.1

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Thus, for this second day, the events of the so-called ‘cursing’ of the fig tree, and the cleansing of the temple that followed are what initially call for consideration. 2. The curious incident of the fig tree On the Monday morning, Jesus and his disciples left Bethany before breakfast and approaching Jerusalem they felt hungry and noticed a fig tree which only had leaves on it. Mark tells the story like this: When he [Jesus] came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs; and he said to it: ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again’. And his disciples heard it. (11.12-14).

Mark continues the story the next morning (our Tuesday): ...they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered.’ And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God’.

Having appealed for faith, Jesus goes on to illustrate the power of faith for prayer (for example, for the removal of a mountain) and for forgiveness (11.20-26). Matthew’s account of the same incident is that after noticing the fig tree and discovering only leaves on it, ‘he [Jesus] said to it, “There shall no longer be fruit from you for ever”, and the fig tree withered at once’. So what was a wish in Mark has become in Matthew a prophecy of fact. Jesus goes on as in Mark to explain this miracle in terms of the power of faith (Matt 21.18-22). According to Matthew, immediately Jesus spoke, the tree withered. This happened on the Monday, though Mark says the withering was not noticed until the following morning, when Peter, somewhat surprised, drew Jesus’ attention to it. Luke omits this story of the fig tree, but in another place, at 12.6-9, relates the parable of the fig tree without fruit. John has not given any account of this story of the fig tree at all. One scholar, J. D. Douglas, describes this story of the fig tree as ‘this intriguing incident’.2 This is a strange adjective to describe what might be regarded as probably the most difficult and puzzling piece of Jesus’ behaviour in the Gospels. Taking the story as it stands, as if it happened exactly as related, we notice several problematic things about it.

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First, this is the only miracle in which Jesus seems to act in his own interest. He is hungry, he finds no fruit, he is vexed and he condemns the tree (cf. Matt 17.24-27). Secondly, this miracle seems to be quite out of character with the Jesus we otherwise know. This alone of the miracles of Jesus is a miracle of destruction. Are Christian folk obliged to believe that Jesus killed a tree? Thirdly, this miracle appears to be unreasonable because figs could not and would not be found on fig trees at this passover time of year. Remove the miracle to a more suitable time of the year— but the problem remains: Jesus apparently killed a fruitless tree. Fourthly, this is the only miracle in Mark in which Jesus is said to take the initiative. In every other miracle in Mark, and indeed in most of the miracles in the four Gospels, Jesus is put into a position from which he is only able to remove himself by performing a miracle. Here Jesus did something he had no need to do, and was not compelled to do. He took this very strange initiative. Many scholars consider that this tree was behaving in the same way as the nation, that is, guilty of false pretence.3 But this itself does not resolve the problematic features of the story. The above considerations accept the story in its worst scenario, but the story may be interpreted from two points of view, namely what Jesus said, and then what Peter and the others believed Jesus had done. In other words when Jesus said ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again’ (11.14), was he, despite the double Greek negative, merely expressing a wish, but no curse? Or alternatively, was he performing a piece of prophetic symbolism which did not contain, and was not intended to contain, any curse element? Certainly, the story as told, which seems to be based on a genuine memory of Peter, shows that Peter, next day, remembered what Jesus had done, and said, ‘Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered’. Matthew says the tree had withered immediately Jesus had spoken (21.19), but Mark says Peter noticed the withering the next day. If Jesus did not intend a curse by his words, then Peter’s interpretation (‘you cursed it’) must be denied. If Jesus’ action was not a curse, the alternative is that in ‘denouncing’ the tree Jesus was intending an acted parable, a piece of so-called prophetic symbolism—or rather what we might call ‘dominical symbolism’. The cleansing of the temple is related between the two parts of this fig tree story, so that the cleansing and the fig tree could relate to the same

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bundle of ideas: that is, the reform and so fruitfulness of Israel, or the fate of Jerusalem, its worship and its people in face of unfruitfulness. So the fig tree may be Israel, or may be Jerusalem; if it is not related directly to the cleansing of the temple, the fig tree could relate to the generally fruitless history of Israel, or even to that primeval tree in the garden which first brought death into the world, and all our woe (Genesis 2-3). On any view the story does contain an element of judgement. I suggest that Jesus might have intended the withering of the tree as part of the acted parable, as it would portray the fate of Jerusalem and Israel. On the other hand, Jesus may not have intended the tree actually to die, as the symbolism would still be effective without the withering of the tree there and then, but for some reason the withering still occurred. There remain, then, some unresolved questions about this incident. There is a possibility that this story is a miracle story which was developed as a sequel to the parable of the fruitless fig tree which Luke records at 12.6-9; the parable would have been transformed, as it were, into fact.4 In my view, however, the incident really happened. Jesus passed the fig tree on two successive mornings, which suggests that his customary route took him past the tree and that it may thus have figured in his thoughts for some time. 3. The cleansing of the temple The sequel to Jesus’ visit to the temple on Palm Sunday seems inevitable. Jesus returned to the temple and cleansed it of the merchants and money traders whom he had seen plying their trade there. This action took place in the court of the Gentiles. Mark’s reference to ‘sellers and buyers [i.e. the pilgrims]’ may be a Hebraism (expressing two opposites) for ‘everybody’. In justification of his action Jesus quotes Isaiah 56.7, ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’; the last four words of the quotation, ‘for all peoples’ or ‘for all the nations’, are most apt in view of the location, although Matthew and Luke omit these four words. The Gentile motif will continue to appear throughout this last week. Jesus’ accusation that they have made the place a den of robbers recalls the words in Jeremiah 7.11. Trade in the temple court was, of course, necessary. The purchase of materials and animals for the sacrifices would best be done in the court,

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where only certified animals would be on sale. Since the temple taxes had to be paid in the so called Jewish or Tyrian shekel, approved other moneys had to be changed into the required coinage. Mark alone mentions Jesus’ prohibition of transit through the court, a further emphasis on the sacredness of the enclosure. Thus not only the profiteering was wrong, but the wickedness was compounded by the setting in which it was taking place. By his action Jesus was carrying the claim of the previous day a step further. He came into the city on Palm Sunday as a king claiming city and people for his kingship. On the next day he asserted his royal claim to the centre and religious life of his people: the temple and its worship had to be holy too. According to Mark, the rumpus in the court of Gentiles appears to have been the crisis point in the events of this week. At this juncture chief priests and scribes decided that Jesus must be eliminated, but because of Jesus’ popularity with the people, especially after his attempt to stop the fleecing of the people in the temple trading, the leaders were nonplussed as to how they might carry out their purpose and any plans they had to make. They were not to know that in two days’ time their problem was to be solved by the treachery of one of Jesus’ own followers. This frightened response of the authorities is the surest index of the extent of the disturbance among the people caused by Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. Meanwhile after a further session of teaching, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city and presumably returned to Bethany for the night. Luke mentions that Jesus lodged on the Mount of Olives, but that wide description might well have included Bethany. Jesus was safer from the authorities outside the city, and safer still as far out as Bethany, where he was among friends. 4. The temple and the kingship an additional note by John Morgan-Wynne

Most scholars assume that Jesus made a limited gesture by overturning one or two stalls, and that he did not take control of the whole temple. Such a step would surely have provoked intervention by the temple police and, almost certainly, Roman troops.

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Several questions arise about Jesus’ intention. Was he protesting against Israel’s failure to be a true source of blessing to the nations (Gen 12.3; cf. Isa 42.6)? Allowing trading to go on in the Courtyard of the Gentiles would be one instance of this failure, and the quotation of Isa 56.7 at Mark 11.17 would fit in, if indeed Jesus used the verse and it is not an interpretation from the early church. Or was Jesus protesting against sacrificial worship as such? The prediction of the destruction of the temple and the announcement of a replacement for it (see Mark 13.2; 14.58; John 2.19) could support this view. Anyway, the cleansing episode continues the kingship theme present in the entry to Jerusalem, only this time more below the surface than overtly enunciated. It is present in the totality of the episode rather than in any specific detail or phrase. In ancient Israel, the Davidic kings were responsible for the Jerusalem temple. In 2 Kings, two descendants of David, Hezekiah and Josiah, may be said to have cleansed the temple of abuses (see 2 Kgs 18.1-6; 22-23), and to a certain extent so might Joash before them (see 2 Kgs 11-12). In Jesus’ action, a son of David also cleanses the temple. Thus there may well be an implicit messianic claim being expressed by Jesus in this event. Notes 1 Here see the useful note in Vincent Taylor, The Gospel according to Mark, Second Edition (Macmillan, London, 1966), pp. 461-2; cf. Raymond G. Brown, The Gospel according to John I-XII, The Anchor Bible (Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1975), pp. 117-18). 2 In J.D. Douglas (Ed.) The New Bible Dictionary (Inter-Varsity Fellowship, London, 1962), p. 422b. 3 For a comprehensive study, see W. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree (Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1980). 4 So Vincent Taylor, The Gospel according to St Mark, pp. 458f; H. Anderson, The Gospel of Mark, pp. 263-4; and many other scholars.

4 The Third Day of Holy Week 1. A very full day This is the Day of Confrontation. A list of all the events, parables, speeches and sermons which are said to have taken place on this third day of the last week of the life of Jesus will assist the understanding of the day, and the impact the day made on all concerned. Such a list may be collated as follows: List of events Withered fig tree and exhortation The question of authority Parable of the two sons Parable of the wicked tenants

Mark 11.20-26

Matthew 21.18-22

Luke absent

11.27-33

21.23-27

20.1-8

absent

21.28-32

absent

12.1-12

21.33-46

20.9-19

Parable of the marriage feast

absent

22:1-14

placed earlier: 14: 16-24

Pharisees and Herodians: question of tribute Sadducees: question of the resurrecton The Lawyer: the great commandment Jesus’ question about David’s son

12.13-17

22.15-22

20:20-26

12.18-27

2.23-33

20.27-40

12.28-34

22.34-40

absent

12.35-37

22.41-46

20.41-44

Beware of Scribes The six woes Murder of prophets Widow’s gift Leaving the temple

12.38-40 absent absent

23.1-12 23.13-36 23.37-39

12.41-44 13.1-2

absent 24.1-2

20.45-47 absent placed earlier: 13:34-35 21.1-4 but compare 21:37-38

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Sermon on the Mount of Olives Parable of fig tree Parable of the porter Command to watch Parable of the faithful servant Parable of virgins Parable of talents

13.3-37

24.3-44

21.5-36

13.28-32 13.33-34

24.32-41 absent

21.29-33 absent

13.35-37

24.42

21.36

absent

24.45-51

absent absent

25.1-13 25.14-30

Sheep and goats

absent

25. 31-46

placed earlier: 12:42-48 absent placed earlier: 19:12-27 absent

Coming of the Son of Man

absent

25.31-46

absent

Two days’ notice

14.1-2

26.1-5

22.1-2

This long list of items shows that of the 24 listed only 10 are to be found in all three Synoptic Gospels, though of course some overlap in the longer items must be allowed for. Notable omissions occur in each of the first three Gospels, and the almost complete absence of information in the Fourth Gospel will be considered shortly. Such a list might thus give support to the claim often made that this Tuesday must have been one of the fullest days recorded in the life of Jesus, but the list also inevitably poses two questions. The first question is whether such a series of events could in fact have taken place on that one day from early morning until late evening. Were there sufficient hours in the day between the coming from the Mount of Olives (Bethany) in the morning and the return to Bethany on Tuesday evening? The second, related question is whether such a series of encounters between Jesus and all he met would not have involved an expenditure of spiritual energy, of patience and bravery beyond the capacity of most humans, and even of Jesus himself. 2. The character of the day The events of this day are reported as if they occurred in rapid succession without any thought of intervals and periods of respite. The movement is from the mount of Olives into the city, into the temple, out of the temple, into the city, back to Olives, and thence to Bethany. Such periods of

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walking must have taken several hours. Again, how long did he sit watching the gifts to the treasury before he told of the widow’s small gift? These are only two examples of the periods of time which must be considered. The above list shows that Mark has no less than 15 separate items involving a period of time. The list in Matthew duplicates Mark’s list but adds some 6 further parables. These are the two sons; the royal marriage feast; the faithful servant; the virgins; the talents; and the sheep and goats. Matthew also has an extended version of the warning to beware of the scribes, and his own addition of the 6 woes (23.13-26). To Mark’s list of 15 items, 8 further items are therefore added by Matthew. Matthew omits the story of the widow’s small gift (traditionally called ‘the widow’s mite’). Luke largely recapitulates Mark, without Matthew’s additions, but omits the sequel to the story of the withered fig tree and the lawyer’s question concerning the greatest commandment. Luke adds at 21.37-38 a note to describe the customary activity of Jesus during the first three days of this last week. John’s record is quite different. The Fourth Gospel records only one event between the triumphal entry and the last supper. That event, which is peculiar to John, is the visit of some Greeks who sought an interview with Jesus, and the resultant and lengthy meditation which Jesus went on to give. John places this incident (12.20-50) immediately before the events belonging to the last supper on the Thursday evening, so the incident probably falls sometime late on the Tuesday. The earlier commentator Westcott1, states that ‘the time at which it occurred is not given distinctly, but from v.36 (‘hid himself from them’) it appears to have happened at the close of the conflict. It forms indeed the conclusion of the history’. A more recent scholar, G. R. Beasley-Murray,2 thinks that ‘their interest in Jesus will have been stimulated by his entry into Jerusalem, and possibly by his cleansing of the temple...’. Such an incident would have taken a good hour of time, and thus extends the problem of the time factor of that particular day. The ‘form-critical’ studies of the New Testament initiated by Martin Dibelius and Rudolph Bultmann have accustomed students to engage in the kind of literary analysis of the Gospel materials which sees them as a variety of separate literary units which are capable of presentation at

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almost any point in the gospel story. Such a study of literary forms is very valuable in itself, but does not of necessity cast any light on the historical authenticity of the events and sayings recorded. Unfortunately, Bultmann combined such a literary analysis with a thorough-going scepticism about historicity, and this led him to see in the Gospels a great deal of legendary material arising not out of the life of Jesus, but out of the practical needs of the early Christian Church. These scholars have taught us that a good deal of what may be described as ‘organized literature’ must be recognised in the four Gospels, and the third day of Holy Week is a prime example of such organization of literary pieces into a whole. The question then arises: what does and does not belong to this day? We notice that of the 24 items which are presented by the first three Gospel writers, only ten are held in common by all of them. Surely then, in these ten pieces of the story the firmest clues to the understanding and intentions of the day are to be found. In the following pages the phrase ‘synoptic items’ will refer to these items common to all three Gospels. This of course does not mean that there are three independent witnesses guaranteeing the placing of these ten items on the third day of the week, the day of confrontation. One witness, Mark, is confirmed by two further witnesses largely dependent on him. I am proposing, however, the experiment of working with these ten items, adding to them some of the material that belongs to Mark alone, to see whether a picture emerges which allows us to see the progress of the day, its characteristics and the concerns of Jesus. I believe it does, though I am well aware that other scholars think it more likely that the material in Mark 11-13 has been arranged in a topical rather than chronological way.3 Mark begins his account with the discovery of the withered fig tree by Jesus and his disciples on the way to the temple (11.20-21), leading to a short homily on faith in God (vv. 22-25) which appears to many to be a series of reflections very relevant to the occasion. This short homily could, nevetheless, be relevant anywhere in the Gospels. While an older scholar like H. B. Swete4 says of 11.25, ‘As the words stand in the true text of Mark, they possess an individuality which shows that they have not been imported from another context’, most modern scholars believe that Mark 11.22-25 is a collection of various sayings spoken on different

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occasions. For instance, the logion about faith removing mountains (Mark 11.22) appears also in Matt 17.20 and Luke 17.6, and each reference occurs in a different context! It is thus possible that the incident, though probably not the homily, begins the Tuesday.5 The synoptic items that follow on this day appear to fall into three forms. First, a series of incidents show the attacks of the principal groups of the authorities on Jesus: Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, Scribes. Secondly, a considerable portion of the material represents not so much Jesus’ own defence as his counter-attack, centring mainly on his riddle about David’s son (Mark 12.35-37 and parallels), and the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12.1-12 and parallels). The third type of material could be described as the last words and last public teaching of Jesus, not related directly to the confrontations of the day, but related to his general mission. While John’s story of the visit of the Greeks also belongs to this day, it is unique to the Fourth Gospel and cannot be treated within this overall pattern. 3. The question of authority The first synoptic item is thus the question of authority. Jesus, walking in the temple, is accosted by a group of people from the chief priests, scribes and elders. Such a list of dignitaries suggests a very high powered deputation. So the claim is often made that the deputation officially represented the Sanhedrin, the highest authority of the Jerusalem Jews, but we are not so informed. The question is whether the Sanhedrin would have wished to give their opponent the kudos and importance which an official delegation would undoubtedly have done in the eyes of the people. Probably then the delegation was officially arranged, but unofficially sent in the names of the parties rather than the great tribunal itself. The delegation puts two very skilful questions to the Nazarene. ‘By what authority do you do these things?’, and, ‘Who gave you this authority to do them?’. The deputation raises both the nature and the source of Jesus’ authority. Jesus’ counter question concerning the work of John the Baptist is no less astute, and it also reflects the long struggle between John and the authorities: ‘Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?’ The deputation refuse to answer Jesus’ question, since they will be forced into either approving of John’s ministry or antagonizing the larger part of the

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population; likewise Jesus refuses to answer their questions, and the first attack mounted on Jesus fails. The skilfulness of Jesus’ answer is demonstrated by two features. First, we note the order in which Jesus words his reply: ‘the baptism of John, was it ...’ is an emphatic and challenging order of words. Secondly, Jesus demands an answer: ‘Answer me.’ The authority of the imperative in the situation is striking. The second synoptic item is the parable of the Wicked Tenants which Mark and Luke introduce with the words, ‘And he began to speak to them in parables...’ while Matthew has, ‘Hear another parable.’ Mark and Luke thus imply that this parable is the immediate sequel to the dispute about authority, Matthew having introduced another parable first. This beautiful parable (Matt 21.33-46, Mark 12.1-12, Luke 20.9-19) has inevitably been the subject of much discussion all through the history of the church. Latterly many scholars have been led to conclude that the parable is an interpolation into its present context, pointing out, among other reasons for example, that Mark’s comment at 12.12, ‘and they left him and went away’ is the proper end to the incident concerning the authority of Jesus. Other scholars have found that the end of the parable is such a detailed account of what happened to Jesus that the parable must have arisen out of the needs of the early church to explain, ‘How did it all happen?’, ‘How did Jesus come to his death?’, rather than from the immediate context. Cogent reasons exist, however, to show that this parable is in its right place, as the Synoptic writers claim, and that the parable is such that no need exists to look for some genius or committee in the early church which composed a parable of such quality as to equal and even better the best of Jesus’ teaching. The first reason for the authenticity of the setting is found in the sequence about identity which occurs between the encounter concerning authority and the parable. Through its emissaries the Sanhedrin had struck at the personal source of Jesus’ authority. ‘Who gave you this authority . . .?’ This was a blow at the very centre of Jesus’ self-consciousness, his sense of calling and identity. Jesus refuses to answer, but then himself goes on the attack by means of this parable—which developed into a revelation of his own identity. The second reason is the sheer vitality of the parable itself. That the parable is based on Isaiah 5 is shown by a comparison of the words in the

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Septuagint Greek version of Isaiah re-appearing in the parable. As in Isaiah 5, the style is simple in its active verbs, accurate in its description of the making and care of a vineyard, logical in its sequel of rent collectors, culminating in the appearance of the owner’s only son in the absence of the owner himself. With the appearance of the son, the parable becomes unique among Jesus’ parables, for this parable now becomes biographical in intention; or perhaps we should we say autobiographical in a third person, that is, biographical, form. The third reason is the timing of the parable. In the crisis days of this last week, as the centre of attention and attack from many sides, so solitary in all that was happening and with an inevitable doom before him, is there any wonder that when Jesus turns on his enemies, he reaches into Israel’s history and into himself for ultimate answers? The parable is not an interpolation into this context. In that context Jesus himself feels obliged to offer an explanation of his own situation, and that explanation is given in the parable. Further, Jesus himself gives the explanation. Removing the parable from this context, and denying Jesus its authorship, is to remove from the events of the week one of the plainest signposts for the end of the journey. There is no need here to trace every detail of the parable to the history of Israel and then to the event of Jesus’ death. We notice that Matthew and Luke, either severally or together, depart from Mark from time to time. The treatment of the servants differs ever so slightly but the results remain the same. They are sent away empty. More note worthy is that the owner’s son is said to be treated differently in the three Gospels. Mark

Matthew

Luke

and they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard

and they took him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him

and they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Thus, Matthew and Luke are suggesting that Jesus’ excommunication from Israel took place before his death, whereas Mark implies that his excommunication was the result of his death. Both interpretations carry theological weight.

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Another important point is the twofold activity of the vineyard’s owner following the death of his son. First, the owner destroys the present tenants of the vineyard, which seems to be a prediction of the future destruction of Jerusalem; this eventually took place in AD 70, some forty years later. I suggest that, in context, this prediction was to give rise in turn to further prophecies on this theme later that very same day. Second, the owner gives the vineyard to others, but who are these others? Clearly, they are non-Jews. Several fathers of the early church, including Origen, thought that ‘the others’ were the apostles, or the church rulers hereafter, but these identifications are too precise. A modern scholar, Joachim Jeremias, believes that ‘the poor’ were meant by the others.6 The others must be, in general, the Gentiles, and perhaps ‘others’ was a technical term used at the time, like the ‘many’ of Mark 10.45. In Jesus’ own commentary on the parable he is portrayed as appealing to the Old Testament image of ‘the stone which the builders rejected’ (Mark 12.10 and parallels). This stone has a double identity and a double function. The stone is Israel as described in Psalm 118.22, a Psalm which, as Acts 4.11 and 1 Pet 2.4-7 show, was pivotal for the Christology of the apostolic church. In the explanation of the parable Jesus becomes the stone, rejected on the one hand, like Israel, but, unlike Israel on the other hand, foundational. As H. B. Swete puts it, ‘But the “Corner Stone” clearly emphasizes the cohesion of believers in the Body of Christ, as the Foundation Stone (1 Cor 3.11).’ The Stone is thus for the destruction of Israel (Luke 20:18) and for the building of the church. In this final detail of the parable many scholars find an addition from the thought of the early church, and this may well be correct. 4. More questions put to Jesus The next stories which all three Synoptic writers proceed to relate are the questions concerning the tribute payable to Caesar, and the question of resurrection raised by the Sadducees. Although two separate stories, each complete in itself and each with its own pronouncement saying, they are nevertheless in their proper context, germane to the theme of the hostility of the authorities against Jesus, and they carry the theme of the week a stage further. There is no explicit reference to the when or where of these

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conversations (except Matt 22:23, ‘the same day’), but this may well be because place and occasion are obvious from the setting. With the question about the tribute money, the confrontation continues. Mark’s introductory words, ‘and they sent to him some of the Pharisees’ might in the Greek be an impersonal or indefinite plural for a passive, ‘Certain of the Pharisees . . . were sent’. On either view the deputation was sent as the three Gospels testify, and this fact of being sent confirms the view that the earlier deputation reported in Mark 11.27 was a delegation of all the parties that made up the Sanhedrin. When the representative deputation failed, now the various parties make their own separate attempts. Representatives of the Pharisees and of the followers of Herod Antipas, a very strange and unholy alliance (as in 3.6), wrap up in great courtesy their question—a question concerning the payment of tribute to Caesar. The Romans imposed other taxes as well. One scholar, John Riches, concludes that ‘some evidence suggests that the burden of taxes under direct Roman rule was greater than under the Herods’.7 M. Borg points out8 that the double system of taxation—Roman and Jewish— demanded 35-40% of the small landowner’s produce, perhaps even more. In all three Gospels the representatives go out of their way to be polite and complimentary to Jesus, a courtesy which only deepens the hypocrisy of their approach. Luke’s introduction is quite elaborate and makes the intention of the deputation explicit, namely a trick with a view to his arrest (Luke 20.20). Mark reports that three compliments were paid to Jesus: ‘you are true’, in which the word ‘true’ occurs only here in the Synoptic Gospels, but is frequent in John’s Gospel; ’you are completely impartial’, in which the Hebrew phrases hiccir panim and, more frequently, nasa panim clearly shine through; ‘you truly teach God’s way’, in which the word ‘way’ is another Hebraism, meaning what God ordains for human beings. Then comes the crunch question: ‘Is it lawful [ie according to God’s law] to pay poll tax to Caesar, or not?’ A negative answer would be treason; a positive answer would have lost him the sympathy of the people. In response to Jesus’ request they bring the coin; they handle it, he does not. Jesus’ simple but brilliant answer baffles them: ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.’ They can

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only marvel at him (Mark 12:17). Jesus had recognized their hypocrisy (only here in Mark), their wickedness (Matt 22.18) and their craftiness (Lk 20.23). The parties and the questions change in yet another so-called Pronouncement story. Some Sadducees come to question him, and consequently the political question is replaced by what was no doubt a stock theological conundrum. The Sadducees were the powerful aristocracy of Jerusalem, priestly, wealthy and not very popular in the city. Most probably the title for them is derived from the name Zadok, the high priest of the god El Elyon found by David when he captured Jerusalem (II Sam 5 and cf. 8.17). The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, and so put a series of conundrums based on a belief in resurrection. Jesus first rebuts them directly, denying that the Sadducees understand the Scriptures or the power of God. Then Jesus quotes the great autobiographical pronouncement of God to Moses: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and of Jacob’ and draws the conclusion that ‘God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.’ Luke makes his meaning clear by adding, ‘for all live to [God]’ (20.38), and Matthew mentions the astonishment of the people (22.33). The plot deepens. Jesus remains free and as yet unscathed. The authorities are rebuffed and seek some way to carry out their nefarious plans, not knowing that on the very next day they were to be rescued from their helplessness by an unsought ally from the very camp of him who was the object of their hate and conspiracy. At this point Mark and Matthew report the lawyer’s question as to which was the first and greatest commandment. Luke reports a lawyer’s question elsewhere in his Gospel (10. 25-28) with a different question, but Luke’s story may once have had its original context here on the Tuesday of Holy Week. 5. The counter-attack of Jesus The three Synoptic writers now report another conflict story, but at this stage Jesus takes the initiative and turns the tables on his opponents by asking them a difficult question. Various scholars deny the historicity of the incident or its context here, or even question its meaning. But surely the simplest explanation is that with some degree of exasperation, and not

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without some humorous intent, Jesus poses a riddle: ‘How could David’s son be his lord?’ No doubt this was an old chestnut—perhaps the kind of riddle Jesus knew from his youth in Nazareth. The heart of the riddle lay in the customary title ‘Son of David’ given to the hoped-for Messiah. Yet, as Jesus points out, if the ‘my Lord’ mentioned in Psalm 110.1 is taken to be a reference to the Messiah (as it seems to have been), and David was the author of Psalm 110 (as he was traditionally thought to be) then David is rather oddly calling his own son his lord. No doubt Jesus’ purpose was to end with a riddle what was becoming such a dangerous confrontation. Perhaps also Jesus went some way beyond the riddle, affirming that the Messiah was of Davidic descent, but that the appellation ‘Son of David’ was a long way short of his own consciousness of himself as the Son of God. Anyway, the ridicule and mockery implied in Jesus’ use of the messianic riddle—‘how could David’s son be David’s lord or master?’—now give way to a brief but pungent attack on his opponents—the Scribes. All three Synoptic writers report how Jesus publicly denounces the Scribes. Mark and Luke have ‘Beware of the Scribes. . .’, while these few words are expanded in Matthew into a long denunciation (23.1-13) of both Scribes and Pharisees which then leads to a long section on the six woes (23.15-39). The original and terse warning, “Beware of the Scribes”, has thus been lost in the larger and more strident Matthean context of the six woes, paralleled in Luke at 11.37-12.1. Such arrangements of material prompt us to consider the question of its relevance, and whether it rightly belongs to this particular day of Holy Week, questions which continually dog a scholarly examination of the various redactional items which make up the Synoptic Gospels. We may observe that the Gospels contain memorable sayings, and, what is more, these are the memorable sayings of a memorable person. These sayings often occur in memorable contexts and on memorable occasions. It is thus not surprising that such memorable sayings are remembered. Yet sayings like these also attract comment and observation from those who recalled them and repeated them. In memorable sayings a principle of ‘agglomeration’ is thus at work by which additional material is attracted to the original basic core, and without such a basic core would not have been so

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attracted. This agglomeration factor is illustrated in such passages as Mark 2.1-3.6; the parables in chapter 4 and later in his Gospel. Thus in this section of the denunciation of the Scribes, the basic core was surely the few sentences that occur in Mark concerning long robes, street salutations and best seats in the synagogues. Such expressions were the common street gossip about these notabilities. Jesus hardly invented such sayings. He may however have used popular expressions like this to bolster his denunciation, for such popular expressions would delight the great mass of people who heard him. The further expansions in Matthew simply illustrate the agglomerative principle. Mark and Luke share only three clauses with Matthew. Since Luke records the ‘woes’ elsewhere (11.37-53), the Matthean ‘woes’ probably do not belong in this present context. In both Matthew and Luke the ‘woes’ appear as an example of organized literature, where similar sayings from different contexts have, by the medium of a catchword—woe—been put together. Jesus then at this moment, in the presence of the crowd, has his final fling against his opponents. The day in Jerusalem ends with the story of Jesus’ appreciation of the widow’s tiny gift in the temple, which is included by Mark (12.41-44) and by Luke (21.1-4), but strangely omitted by Matthew. The poor widow’s gift was a very small sum indeed. Mark has to add an explanatory note, ‘which is a quadrans’, presumably for the guidance of readers in the west. H. B. Swete explains the amount as two lepta (copper coins) each ‘half a quadrans (i. e. the eighth part of an as or 1/128th part of a denarius)...’, a fraction of a penny. 6. The farewell discourse of Jesus As the day comes to its close, Jesus leaves the city amid the remarks of his followers concerning the splendour of the city’s architecture. Jesus meets these remarks by warning them of the impending and total destruction of the buildings they admire. On the one hand, Jesus thus resumes the prediction already given in the parable of the Wicked Tenants which in turn serves as a foretaste and cause of the long speech later on the Mount of Olives. On the other hand Jesus must have realized that his tremendous and undiminished popularity with the great mass of the people, coupled with the ever-growing hatred of the rulers of the people, would inevitably

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lead to a clash or worse. He must then have wondered what circumstances would surround him when next he came to the city for the celebration of Passover. Thoughts concerning the city, its present state and its future destiny must have filled his mind when climbing the Mount of Olives: he would see the whole panorama of the city laid out to the west and below him. During the climb they stop to rest and four disciples, Peter, James, John and Andrew, question him concerning his recent pronouncement over the city. The place, Jesus sitting down, and the reference to the four disciples, are three memorable details which guarantee the context. The four disciples simply must be a historical detail. As we know, Jesus normally took with him only three of these named four. So it was remembered that Andrew was there too, as Jesus enters upon his final discourse. At the begining of this century H. B. Swete in his commentary on St Mark could set out the character of the address on the Mount of Olives on the Tuesday evening as Jesus’ great prophecy of the future. After the opening reference to the destruction of the temple in 13.1-2, Swete divides 3-37 into six sections, but he regards the whole piece as a unity spoken by Jesus even if some of the sayings are to be found in other contexts in all three Gospels. Even 13.10 (‘and the gospel must first be preached to all nations’), which seems to break the sequence of 9 and 11, and has consequently since been almost universally regarded as a Markan interpolation, is for Swete a natural expansion of the thought in verse 9. By contrast, since the middle of the last century, this discourse has been interpreted as a ‘Little Apocalypse’; in this approach the chapter has been regarded as containing a basically Jewish apocalypse revised by Christian thought, making a kind of ‘Jewish-Christian apocalypse’. Scholars also point out that although apocalyptic elements are present, the substantial form of the discourse is an exhortation which depends largely on the use of the second person plural imperative. So Cranfield in his commentary9 divides Mark 13.5-23 into three parts, the characteristic features of the several parts being the appearance of deceivers, the suffering of Christian believers, and the testing of their faith. Vincent Taylor, however, disregards any possible unity.10 He wonders whether 13.3ff was not originally a Markan introduction to 5.37, or better 14.20. He divides the chapter into eight sections, but finds the primitive core in 7f., 14-20, and

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24-27. Groups of sayings with Markan interpolations have gone to make up the present discourse. Most recently Morna Hooker has described the speech as Jesus’ ‘farewell discourse’. The chapter is thus an exhortation of unusual form with prophetic and apocalyptic features, divided into ten sections devoted to two main themes: the suffering and vindication of Jesus and his followers, and the failure and judgement of the contemporary Jewish community. Professor Hooker matches the repeated Greek akouete, ‘listen!’, of Mark chapter 4 (verses 3, 9, 24, 29, 33) with the repeated blepete, ‘look!’ of chapter 13 (verses 2, 5, 9, 23, 33); here she understands blepete to take an accusative of personal reference, meaning ‘Look to yourselves!’, with an immediate audience in view. So we find a unity of theme, and hearers in mind, throughout the discourse, and we might reasonably suggest that this reflects some actual farewell address on the Mount of Olives, although Professor Hooker herself does not draw this conclusion.11 The Synoptic account of this farewell address of Jesus has its place in any exposition of the meaning of this last week in the life of Jesus, although, of course, it has to be seen in parallel with the longer, richer and far deeper farewell speeches of Jesus recorded in the Fourth Gospel. The main issue I wish to discuss here, in considering the mind and purpose of Jesus in his last days, is that of the passages in Mark 13.14, 26f and parallels which refer to the book of Daniel 7.13, 9.27, 11.31 and 12.11. These concern the ‘abomination that desolates’ and the ‘coming’ of the Son of Man in glory. Both Mark (13.14) and Matthew (24.15) foretell a ‘desolating sacrilege’ (or ‘abomination of desolation’ KJV) ; according to Mark, the abomination ‘stands where he (personal pronoun) ought not to be’, and according to Matthew, it (impersonal) ‘stands in the holy place’, that is in the temple. Luke, however, has quite a different account of the ‘desolation’: ‘But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near’(21.20). This Lukan passage is admittedly more in keeping with the other circumstances mentioned in the Synoptic context. The existence of this variant in Luke seems to imply that Jesus’ prophecy that Jerusalem would be destroyed had been fulfilled at the time of writing, but that Luke could find no situation which reasonably fitted

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the presence of the ‘abomination that desolates’, whether a person (Mark) or an image (Matthew). The problem may not be resolved with certainty. All three Synoptics go on to depict, with very slight differences, the picture of the Son of Man coming in the clouds (or cloud: Mark 13.26f; Matt 24.29b-31; Luke 21.27), and this is often taken to mean the parousia, or the second coming of Jesus Christ. The question thus arises as to whether the passage in Daniel (7.13) really gives any support to such an interpretation. I suggest that it does not, for the following reasons. First, the Synoptic writers offer a prelude to the picture, with the announcement that ‘the powers of the heavens shall be shaken’, Matthew following this with the phrase ‘the sign of the Son of Man in heaven’ (24.30). This prelude thus clearly draws our attention to a heavenly scene, not an event happening on the earth. In the second place, not one of the Synoptic writers complete the quotation from Daniel. Dan 7. 13 reads as follows: As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. . . .

In Daniel then, the triumphant procession of the Son of Man ends in the presence of the Ancient of Days in heaven, and not in any parousia on earth. The Synoptics have thus omitted this part of the Danielic account in favour of a second coming. The Synoptics, and many scholars, seem to have ignored the original Danielic references. When Jesus quoted this passage from Daniel, did he also ignore the original reference? In other words, was Jesus referring to his return to heaven (cf. John 13.1)—or was he describing the second coming? Thirdly, Mark and Matthew continue in a passage, not present in Luke, ‘and he will send out his angels. . . .’ with the purpose of gathering the elect ‘to the uttermost part of heaven’ (Mark 13.27), or ‘from one end of heaven to the other’ (Matt 24.31b). Clearly the sending forth of the angels is from heaven, not following any second coming on earth, and the gathering of the elect is again to heaven. In conclusion then we may fairly affirm that Jesus was not thinking of any distant parousia, the date of which was unknown to him, but of a

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situation far nearer and more relevant to him within a few days of his impending death. Jesus’ thought and hope for a reunion with his Father in heaven was surely the ultimate essential in his own understanding of this last week of his life, rather than a more distant pre-figuring of a return to earth. Jesus further says that his hearers will ‘see these things coming to pass’ (Mark 13.30; Matt 24.33; Luke 21.31), a promise that is explicable in the light of an impending resurrection and ascension, but is difficult to reconcile with the promise of a future, undated parousia. My conclusion then is that Jesus was not predicting a parousia, but expecting his Father to vindicate and receive him, just as in Mark 8.38, Matthew 16.27 and Luke 9.26 a similar situation and interpretation are probably present. 7. Two other interpretations of Mark 13 an additional note by John Morgan-Wynne

The reader may also like to consult G. B. Caird’s study on The Language 12 and Imagery of the Bible, for Caird’s view that Biblical writers regularly used end-of-the-world language metaphorically, to interpret an historical event. That is, they were not actually using it to describe the end of the world, but as a way of depicting a ‘world-shattering’ event within history. Caird believed that this is how Jesus used language in Mark 13. He suggests that Jesus means: The disaster to Jerusalem will come within the lifetime of the present generation, and, when it arrives, they are to see in it the coming of the Son of Man to whom God has entrusted the judgement of the nations.13

However, Caird remains rather isolated in this view of Mark 13. More typical would be the approach that sees in the chapter Mark’s message to a church just before or after the Jewish war of 66-70 AD, while also reminding his readers that he who now in the story goes to a shameful death will also come again in glorious power for the elect at God’s appointed time.

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Notes B.F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John (Murray, London, 1894, repr. 1924), p. 180 on John 12:20-50. 2 G.R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary (Word Books, Waco, 1987), p. 211. 3 For the view that the arrangement of material is more likely to be topical than chronological in chapters 11-13, the reader is referred to two commentaries, one British and one American: H. Anderson, The Gospel of Mark, pp. 259-60; J.A. Brooks, Mark, The New American Commentary 23 (Broadman, Nashville, 1991), pp. 176-7. 4 H.B. Swete, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 3rd ed. (Macmillan, London, 1909), on Mark 11.25. 5 See the examination of this story in the previous chapter. 6 Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, Revised Edition, transl. S.H. Hooke (SCM Press, London, 1963). p. 76. 7 John Riches, Jesus and the Transformation of Judaism (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1980), p. 79. 8 M. Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (Edwin Mellor Press, Lewiston/Lampeter, 1984), p. 33. 9 C.E.B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to Saint Mark, The Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary, 3rd. impression (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1959), pp. 387-91. 10 Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark, pp. 501-2. 11 M.D. Hooker, Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark, pp. 297300, 306. G.R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Future (Macmillan, London, 1954), offers an exhaustive survey of earlier scholarly research. Now also see G.R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days (Hendrickson, Peabody, 1993). 12 G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Duckworth, London, 1980), pp.243-71 on ‘The Language of Eschatology’, and especially pp. 266-7 for Mark 13. 13 Ibid., p. 266. 1

5 The Fourth Day of Holy Week Mark’s notice that the Passover feast and the celebration of Unleavened Bread was only two days away brings us to the fourth day of Holy Week, that is, Nisan 14, and Wednesday. Matthew puts the notice in the mouth of Jesus himself, and Luke follows Mark, but less precisely (Mark 14.1, Matt 26.2, Luke 22.1). Passover was an old nomadic feast associated with Israel’s deliverance from Egypt (Ex 12), and Unleavened Bread was an agricultural feast taken over from Canaanite religion and culture when Israel began to occupy the promised land (Ex 23.15). 1. A betrayal and an anointing Mark disposes of this day in eleven verses (14.1-11). These verses record how the authorities were seeking to arrest and execute Jesus (1-2), and how Judas, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, went to those same authorities to propose to them a scheme whereby they could achieve their aim (1011). The intervening verses which divide these two brief sections are devoted to the anointing of Jesus by a woman at Bethany. One scholar, Cranfield, is inclined to think that these intervening verses 3-9 are an interpolation which parallels an anointing story in John 12.1-8. The story in John is said to have taken place on the Sabbath day, that is before Holy Week begins, and Cranfield thinks that ‘it may be that the Johannine dating is more correct’.1 If then the anointing story is removed to the previous Sabbath, then Mark’s original account of Wednesday was merely four verses devoted to the plotting against Jesus. Since the four Gospels contain three anointing stories, then the three should be compared to discover if they are duplicates of one incident, or whether Mark (parallel in Mathew) and John tell the same story, and the Lukan day of anointing is a different occasion (7.36ff). Details of the anointing stories in the four Gospels are as follows:

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Mark 14.3-9 (Matt follows Mk)

Luke 7.36-50

John 12.1-8

Bethany Simon the leper’s house

in the town (unnamed) Simon the Pharisee’s house no date meal immoral woman of town Myrrh anointing feet Pharisee meditates Jesus uses a parable

Bethany

Wednesday meal unamed woman Perfume on Jesus’ head Onlookers complain Jesus rebukes Jesus uses the word kalon Anointing was ‘for burial’ Reward

Sabbath meal Mary perfume on Jesus’ feet Judas complains Jesus rebukes for ‘my burial’

Jesus dismisses woman

These three columns show the similarities and the differences in the four accounts. The least congruous account is that of Luke, where the similarities are few—the house of someone called Simon, a meal, and an anointing—but the differences are many. In Luke’s story the incident takes place in a country town, the woman is ‘immoral’, she uses her own hair, there is no rebuke by the disciples or by Jesus, but a parable on forgiveness. Probably then Luke is describing an incident away from Jerusalem, in which the courtesies of hospitality were extended to Jesus by a woman who was a prostitute. Luke’s story has nothing to do with the anointing in Bethany before or in Holy Week. Mark (Matt) and John correspond very closely. The differences are that in John there is a a different home, where Martha serves; the day is different; the woman is named, as Mary; Jesus’ feet, not his head, are anointed; Judas, not the onlookers, complains. Despite the differences, John’s story may record the same incident as Mark (Matt). John’s date— the previous Sabbath—may also be correct, and the issue may not rightly be decided. For the immediate purpose, and since Mark and Matthew both include the incident for the Wednesday, the story will be treated as a Wednesday incident. At a meal in Simon’s house in Bethany a woman, not named in Mark (Matt), anointed Jesus’ head with perfume. This unnamed

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woman is named in John as Mary. If the woman was Mary the sister of Martha, then Mark’s failure to give her name is extraordinary. She must have been a Bethany woman who knew of the occasion, who was prompted by some great feeling of gratitude, love and appreciation. If she was not Mary, then she might have been a friend, even perhaps the betrothed of Lazarus. 2. A deed to be remembered Three further points must be given special attention. Jesus uses the word kalon to describe the woman’s deed; he describes the deed as preparing for his burial and he announces worldwide remembrances of her deed. Jesus’ word kalon means ‘good or beautiful’, and expressed Jesus’ own appreciation of her act in anointing his head. For this he announced a reward as being that ‘wherever in all the world the gospel is proclaimed, what she has done will be told as her memorial’ (Mark 14.9, N.E.B.). Surely the reward was out of all proportion to her deed! Was Jesus so surprised by her action that for the moment he lost his sense of balance, was carried away, and announced such a tremendous and disproportionate award for the deed? That the deed was beautiful, preparatory for burial, carries us some way into the reason for Jesus’ award, but was there still some deeper satisfaction taking place in Jesus’ mind that he then announced so great a reward? Perhaps a clue lies in the fact that Jesus’ head was anointed. This surely was unusual and rare in hospitality customs. Cranfield gives the following references in the Old Testament by way of illustration: 1. Exodus 29.7—the anointing of Aaron’s head with oil as part of the ritual for consecration to priesthood. 2. 1 Samuel 10.1—Samuel anoints Saul’s head as a sign of Saul’s kingship over Israel. 3. 2 Kings 9.3, 6—Elisha anoints Jehu as a sign of his kingship over Israel. 4. Psalm 133.2f—oil on the head of Aaron as a figure of the unity of kindred. 5. Psalm 141.5—an act of courtesy and hospitality that the psalmist does not want to receive from the wicked.

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None of these seem to offer parallels to the incident in Mark (Matthew), where the oil is said to be an act in preparation for burial. But Cranfield does not mention Psalm 23.5: ‘You anoint my head with oil’. The question arises as to whether Psalm 23.5 was indeed the verse that came into Jesus’ mind, that occasioned his surprise and prompted the announcement of the astonishing reward. Some further clues in Psalm 23 point in the same direction. For example: ‘You prepare a table before me/ in the presence of my enemies’, and again ‘my cup overflows’ and yet again, ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’. The ‘table’, the ‘cup’ and ‘death’ take us to the heart of Jesus’ expectation and experience in the two days that remained of his life. Did the ‘table’ of Psalm 23 provide Jesus with the idea of adding the communion table to the Passover celebration? Did the reference in Psalm 23 to the table as being ‘in the presence of my enemies’ give rise to Jesus’ assertion at the Last Supper, ‘One of you who is eating with me shall betray me!’ The image of ‘the valley of the shadow of death’ is perhaps the background to the fact that Jesus three times predicted that he was on his way to Jerusalem to be killed (Mark 8.30; 9.31; 10.33). Jesus’ prediction that he would ‘drink the cup new in the kingdom of God’ finds a parallel in the closing verse of Psalm 23: ‘I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever’. These similarities suggest that Psalm 23 may be the source of the activities Jesus was planning in anticipation of his visit to Jerusalem, and finally in the upper room. Such were his plans, but one item in this part of Psalm 23 did not at all fit the plan. He obviously could not and did not arrange for the anointing of his head. This would be a feature in the psalm he would have either ignored or disregarded until in fact it happened to him. A woman—some woman or another—astounded him by fulfilling that part of Psalm 23 which he could not fulfil or plan himself. She anointed his head. What this woman did must have been a final confirmation of his plans. All unconsciously the woman bore the message of the psalm, and was thus the messenger of a sign unplanned, unexpected, doubtless for Jesus of divine origin, and which prompted the word kalon, the prediction of burial and the outstanding reward of a worldwide memorial for her. The woman’s extraordinary reward was thus the sequel and consequence

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of the divine confirmation that entered the mind of Jesus through her deed. Her immense reward matches the immense conviction and confirmation in Jesus’ mind. Suffice it to add that if this incident took place not on the Wednesday but on the previous Sabbath—Saturday—(as John indicates) then the effect on Jesus must have been of greater significance still; it would have enhanced his awareness of the week that lay before him and his preparation for it. Psalm 23 thus helps us to understand the events of the fourth and fifth days of Holy Week, and indeed points to an understanding of the mind of Jesus himself in this crisis of his life. The incident stands in Mark (Matt) in contrast to the perfidy of Judas. The woman’s anointing: Judas’ plan of betrayal. Further, if the anointing story is to be moved to the previous Sabbath evening, after the Sabbath itself was of course over, then this fourth day of Holy Week appears to be empty except for the treacherous activities of Judas. Jesus was quietly in Bethany, awaiting the final two days, and no doubt preparing in his mind those great farewell discourses which are recorded in John 14-17. 4. The promise of Jesus an additional note by John Morgan-Wynne

Concerning the disproportionate nature of the reward promised, the reader might like to ponder whether or not this is in fact characteristic of Jesus’ mode of teaching: see Mark 10.14; 10.29-30; Luke 12.8-9; Matthew 7.24-27 and parallels; 11.21-24 and parallels. The authenticity of the promise to the unnamed woman in Mark 14.9 has been widely challenged for two reasons: (a) the language is Markan (specifically ‘the gospel’ and ‘to preach’); (b) the verse seems to assume a worldwide missionary preaching (cf. Mark13.10), whereas Jesus’ own expectation appears to have been the summons of non-Jews to make the journey to Jerusalem (Matt 8.11-12, parallel Luke 13.28-29). It may be that the first half of the saying (‘wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world’) has undergone some Christian expansion, but the rest may be accepted as a saying of Jesus: what she has done will be spoken of in remembrance of her.

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Behind the passive ‘will be spoken of’ we should perhaps think of the witness of the Son of Man who will speak on her behalf to recall her deed before the divine court, or possibly what the angels will say on her behalf before God. Note Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark, p. 415.

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II The Last Twenty-Four Hours of Jesus’ Life During the Fifth and Sixth Days John E. Morgan-Wynne

6 The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Mark 1. How Mark tells the story The Thursday began with Jesus’ disciples asking him where he wished them to prepare the passover meal. Jesus despatched two of them to Jerusalem where they would meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. They were to follow him, and prepare the Passover at his house. Jesus came into the city in the evening (i.e. on Jewish reckoning, the start of their Friday), and ate the meal with his disciples. During the meal Jesus predicted his betrayal and instituted what we have come to know as the Lord’s Supper, by actions and words with bread and a cup of wine. After the meal Jesus and the disciples went to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was seized with great distress and prayed, seeking to avoid what lay ahead, but submitting in obedience to his Father’s will. After the third time of prayer Judas and the arresting party arrived. After some sort of scuffle, and a verbal protest by Jesus at his arrest in such a manner, Jesus was seized and led off to the high priest’s residence, Peter following at a distance. The Sanhedrin had been assembled. Witnesses summoned to testify against Jesus delivered conflicting evidence concerning what he said about the temple. The high priest asked Jesus whether he was the Messiah, the son of God, to which Jesus replied, ‘You have said that I am’, which is taken as proof of the prisoner’s guilt. He was pronounced guilty and reviled by all. Meanwhile Peter had been denying all knowledge of Jesus among the high priest’s servants. Very early in the morning, probably about 6.00 a.m., Jesus was led away to the Roman governor, Pilate, who proceeded to interrogate Jesus on whether he claimed to be king of the Jews, to which Jesus replied, ‘You have said so’. Pilate, following an annual custom of releasing a prisoner at the Passover, wanted to set Jesus free, but the crowd, stirred on by the chief priests, demanded the release of an insurgent, Barabbas. So Pilate sentenced Jesus and had him scourged. The Roman troops mocked Jesus’ claims to kingship.

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Then, at 9.00 am, Jesus was led out to be crucified. Weakened by his ordeal, Jesus was unable to carry his cross and a passer-by was pressganged into doing it for him. Jesus was crucified with two insurgents on either side. The passers-by, the chief priests and scribes, and also the two insurgents all in varying ways mocked and insulted Jesus as he hung on the cross. There was a period of darkness from 12.00 noon to 3.00 p.m. Then Jesus cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He was offered wine vinegar. With a loud cry he then died. At that moment the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, and the Roman centurion was moved to say, ‘Truly this man was the son of God’. Joseph of Arimathea requested permission to remove Jesus’ body, and this was granted by Pilate after he had verified the fact of death. Joseph buried the corpse in a rock tomb, observed by two Marys, who had been among the women followers who had stood at a distance during the crucifixion. Such, in brief outline is the story as Mark narrates it. We now turn to a detailed examination of the various parts of the story, and of the historical questions to which the text gives rise. The theological issues will be dealt with at length later, in chapter 13. 2. The events at the meal Having earlier, on the Thursday, sent two disciples to prepare the Passover meal at the house of an unnamed friend/ sympathizer/disciple (the arrangements suggest a degree of secrecy to ensure that the whereabouts remained concealed), Jesus went to Jerusalem when the evening came. In Mark the meal was a Passover (unlike John’s account, see 18.28), and presumably Jesus followed the pattern of observance usual at the time. The account in Mark contains only what interested the Christian community in respect of its own celebration of the Lord’s Supper (see Mark 14.22-25). So there is no mention of the Passover lamb and other traditional details. We may assume that Jesus said more than is actually reported in Mark, or else the ‘words of institution’ with the bread and wine would have been difficult to comprehend.

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Broadly speaking we have two accounts of the supper, Mark 14.22-25 and 1 Cor 11.23-26. Both agree that Jesus took bread, said a prayer, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples. He interpreted the bread by action and in words. Mark 14.22

1 Corinthians 11.24

Take; this is my body

This is my body which is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

The action of breaking, and the words ‘This is my body’ (presumably Paul’s tradition added ‘which is for you’ as a further explanation) interpret the bread in terms of his imminent violent death. By sharing the bread thus interpreted with them, he presumably gives them a share in what will result from that death. (The textual variant in the Pauline tradition, which is broken for you’ is probably a correct interpretation of the sense.) According to Paul, Jesus took a cup ‘in the same way after supper’— that is, after they had finished eating. So Jesus’ two actions and words, relating to the bread and the cup, were separated by part of a meal. The phrase ‘in the same way’ means that Jesus gave thanks to God as he had done earlier for the bread, and Mark corroborates this with his ‘when he had given thanks’. The interpretative words which follow, however, differ more sharply in our two sources than with the bread: Mark 14.24

1 Corinthians 11.25

This is my covenant blood, poured out for many

This cup is the new covenant in my blood (= ‘sealed by my blood’)

Two explanations are possible: either Mark preserves the original and Paul’s tradition is recast to avoid any suggestion of drinking blood (the so-called criterion of dissimilarity could support Mark); or Paul preserves the original and Mark’s version is the result of liturgical assimilation to the form of the bread saying—‘This is my body . . . This is my covenant blood’. Both versions contain the fundamental idea of covenant, and we observe that one of the goals of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt was the covenant at Mount Sinai/Horeb. Either Jesus saw his violent death in

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terms of a covenant sacrifice, renewing the old covenant (so Mark, echoing Exodus 24.8), or Jesus’ death inaugurates the new covenant promised by Jeremiah (31.31-4). Possibly Mark’s version contains an allusion to the servant of Isaiah 53 ( earlier Is 42.6 and 49.8 had said that Yahweh would make the servant a ‘covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles’). The so-called eschatological saying at Mark 14.25 (cf. 1 Cor 11.26) shows Jesus’ hope that he would be vindicated, that beyond death he would share in the future kingdom of God. Given Jesus’ criticism of the Sadducees on the issue of resurrection, this saying could be taken to imply resurrection: I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

Where Mark is silent it is difficult for us to go further, but the cup saying allows us to speculate that Jesus drew some parallel between the first great redemptive act (Passover—Exodus) and the salvation about to be achieved through his death. The Passover context was certainly conducive to thoughts about the covenant. The meal concluded with a hymn (one of the ‘Hallel Psalms’) and, en route to the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark records Jesus’ double prediction of the abandonment of himself by the disciples and of Peter’s triple denial (14.26, 27-31). A special feature in Mark’s account is that the triple denial would take place before a second cock crow (14.30 cf. 14.72; contrast Matt 26.34, 74-75; Luke 22.34, 60-62). 3. The scene in the garden From the upper room, Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, a name which clearly came to Mark in his tradition. There are a number of unevennesses in Mark’s account which we may briefly mention: (a) Jesus tells the disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray’ (14.32) but then takes three disciples with him (v. 33) only to separate himself by a little distance even from them (v. 35). Yet this distinction between the three and the remaining eight disciples does not seem to be maintained in vv. 38-42.

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It is reminiscent of the way that Jesus is portrayed as acting in 5.37 and 9.2 (cf.13.3) and could be a Markan touch. (b) There are two prayers of Jesus reported, one in indirect speech (v. 35) and the other in direct speech (v. 36), each using a striking word picture: ‘hour’ in v. 35, and ‘cup’ in v. 36. (c) Jesus goes away and returns to his disciples three times (vv. 35, 39, 41), although the third occasion actually only mentions his return. The way that Mark tells the story here emphasizes heavily the failure of the disciples. Concerning the two prayers, the parallel in Luke 22.42 (which comes from what scholars usually recognize as Luke’s special source material, or ‘L’), plus John 18.11, support the imagery of the cup in the second one. The fact that the imagery of the ‘hour’ in the first prayer also occurs at Mark 14.41, in the phrase ‘The hour has come’, may mean that Mark has combined two traditions, each of which used a different word picture. The Lukan account is simpler in structure and knows of only one departure, prayer and return to the disciples. All this points to a shaping of the tradition by Mark himself. However the basic fact that Jesus agonized in prayer over his fate remains; only extreme forms of criticism allege that the whole episode was spun out of some Old Testament passages. John 12.27, and perhaps Heb 5.7, appear to support, in other branches of Christian tradition, the memory of a prayer-agony of Jesus. In his hour of anguished distress (14.34), Jesus reaches out to the God whom he knows as ‘Abba’, and also acknowledges the all powerful sovereignty of God (‘All things are possible for you’). With this address to God, he prays that the cup might pass from him. Clearly something unpleasant, even fearful, is in his mind, for Jesus asks to be spared drinking this cup. In the Old Testament often the ‘cup’ to be drunk is a symbol of God’s wrath and judgement (Ps 75.8; Isa 51.17ff; Jer 25.27ff; 49.12; 51.7; Lam 4.21; Ezek 23.31ff; Zech 12.2). In some way Jesus, who has been an obedient and well-pleasing servant-son, will endure judgement in order to re-establish the old covenant, or inaugurate the new one covenant. So he surrenders his personal wishes to God’s overall purposes.

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Jesus’ words, ‘But not what I want, but what you want’ (v. 36), are another striking illustration of Jesus’ will to carry out God’s purposes (cf. Mark 3.35, and the later Johannine formulation, 4.34; 17.4). Through what has aptly been called the ‘prayer struggle’ in Gethsemane, Jesus aligns his will with what he believes to be God’s will for him and he can bid the disciples ‘Rise, let us go. Look, my betrayer has come’ (14.42). 4. The arrest of Jesus According to Mark, Judas is accompanied by a group of men armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests, elders and scribes (14.43). They appear to have expected some resistance, and a scuffle ensues. Mark’s description is vague: One of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear (14.47).

If the vague ‘one’ was, in Mark’s view, a disciple, it is strange that he did not write ‘one of his disciples’. Indeed some scholars think that one of the arresting party may have struck one of his own men! Jesus protests at the manner of his arrest—they have come out to seize him as if he were a criminal—(Lestes can mean thief or insurrectionist, and the latter fits the context better), and at the timing of his arrest— they have come by night, although he had been teaching in the daytime in the temple precincts (14.48). He resigns himself to his fate: ‘But let the scriptures be fulfilled’ (v.49). His disciples flee, and apparently no attempt is made to pursue them. That they go pell-mell for Galilee is a figment of hyper-critical scholars’ imagination. Mark adds a curious note about a young man who has followed Jesus to the garden: he is seized but escapes, leaving a garment or sheet behind, and flees naked. Who he was remains unknown. Symbolic interpretations seem utterly fantastic; surely this curious note simply records a historic fact! 5. The Jewish trial of Jesus Jesus is led away by the arresting party ‘to the high priest’, who had gathered together all the chief priests, elders and scribes who comprised the Sanhedrin, or highest Jewish Council (v. 53). Mark narrates first that Peter

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followed at a distance (v. 54), before he tells the story of Jesus’ trial (vv. 55-65). At this point it seems that the reader has to make a decision whether to follow Mark’s account of a trial at night and before dawn (14.53, 5565; 15.1a), or Luke’s account of the commencement of the trial at daybreak (22.66-71). The following points have been made in favour of placing the trial during the night, and in support of the nature and content of the trial as recorded by Mark. (1) It has been urged that locating the trial at night cannot be correct, since the Mishnah (a codification of Jewish law) forbids trials during the night hours; it also forbids the passing of the death sentence at the same session as the examination of the suspect. But in fact this codification was made about 200 AD and represents the viewpoint of the Pharisaism dominant at that time, which was more humane than the Sadducean party whose influence was dominant before AD 70. Whether the Mishnah rules were in force about AD 30 is quite uncertain. (2) Anyway, the desire to eliminate Jesus may have been so overwhelming as to induce the Jewish hierarchy to proceed with speed and ruthless disregard for legal niceties. (3) The objection that blasphemy according to the Mishnah was restricted to pronouncing the divine name (and so cannot apply to Mark’s account) falls under the same criticism as (1) above. This restricted definition may not have been in force as early as AD 30. (4) The lighting of a fire (Mark 14.54,67) shows that the high priest’s household was awake, not sleeping, during the night, and this might support the assumption that something was going on, namely that the Sanhedrin was in session. Even if Peter’s denial was originally not part of the passion story, and Mark himself has intertwined it with the trial of Jesus, it is possible that Mark possessed an indication that in fact the two events were simultaneous. (5) While no disciple was present at the trial, the broad outlines of what happened must inevitably have become known (for example from Joseph of Arimathea or from the converted priests mentioned in Acts 6.7). In

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Jerusalem, in debates with Christians, the Sanhedrin would have had to defend itself against the charge that it found an innocent Jew guilty. (6) The Romans kept the right of capital punishment (so, correctly, John 18.31). So the objection that had the Sanhedrin trial taken place, Jesus would have been stoned, falls to the ground. (7) It could be argued that Luke’s placing of the scene in the morning (22.6) should be understood as due to a literary working over of Mark’s account, rather than being due to an independent tradition. (8) Mark 15.1 (‘as soon as it was morning...’) simply resumes the story of what was happening to Jesus after the ‘interruption’ of the story of Peter’s denial. This verse is not to be read as recording the holding of a consultation (see further below), and so this episode and the trial in 14.55-65 are not duplicate accounts1 (which could support Luke’s timing); neither is it an account of a second session, which might be postulated to remove the apparent conflict between accounts of a trial at night and in the morning. (9) A certain parallelism exists between the Jewish and Roman trials in Mark, but to leap to the conclusion that therefore the former has been invented on the basis of the latter, and so is unhistorical, is unjustified. Such a step confuses issues of literary form and historicity.2 The parallelism is the result of the author’s decision to tell the story in a certain way—it does not impugn the historicity of a Jewish trial. For the moment we shall leave open the historical question of the time of the trial before the Sanhedrin. As we shall see, it is possible that there is less of a real conflict between Mark and Luke than appears at first sight.3 Rather, we turn our attention to the question of what happened at this trial. Two issues are prominent in Mark’s account: the first is what Jesus is alleged to have said about the temple, and the second is the question of messiahship. We may regard these as two phases in the trial. (a) First stage: the question of the temple With regard to the first issue about the temple, although the Jewish hierarchy sought witnesses against Jesus, these witnesses did not agree (14.55-56). Eventually some alleged—falsely according to Mark—‘We have heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands and in

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three days I will build another not made with hands’ (14.57-58). John records a similar saying of Jesus: ‘Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days’ (2.19). This double attestation strongly supports the view that Jesus did say something about the temple. Comparison of the two versions suggests that ‘made with hands’ and ‘not made with hands’ are an early Christian interpretative expansion (either by Mark or in the preMarkan tradition), and that Mark’s phrase ‘I will build’ is more original than John’s ‘I will raise’ (which has resurrection overtones which the Fourth Evangelist wished to convey—see John 2.21). Mark’s version thus characterizes the temple (and the whole religious system of Judaism which it epitomized) in a pejorative manner as something not derived from God but of human origin, and promises something of divine origin in its place. What could be the meaning of this other ‘temple’? There are two possibilities: either Jesus envisaged a new, purified temple building to replace the existing one, or he was using ‘temple’ as a metaphor to describe a new community. In the second case, a community dedicated to doing God’s will was being envisaged as a spiritual temple. This kind of imagery is present in 1 Cor 3.16; 2 Cor 6.16; Eph 2.20-22; 1 Pet 2.5; and Matt 16.18; indeed in the pre-Christian era, the Qumran community seems to have envisaged itself in these terms, while also nourishing hopes of eventually worshipping in a purified Jerusalem temple. Further, in the Letter to the Hebrews there is a contrast between the earthly and the heavenly temple: 9.23-24. Most people tend instinctively to opt for this second option about what Jesus meant—and that is almost certainly Mark’s view—but the matter is not so simple as it might seem. We know that in Jewish writings of the first centuries BC and AD that have been influenced by apocalyptic movements, the hope of a new transformed temple is strong, and this is conceived as the task of the Messiah (see 1 Enoch 90.28-29; 4 Ezra 9.3810.27; 2 Baruch 32.2-4; 4Q Flor. 1.10ff). We know that Jesus expected an eschatological pilgrimage of the nations (Matt 8.11-12; parallel Luke 13.28-29—cf. Isa 2.2-4; Mic 4.1-4). And we know that some of the earliest Christians worshipped in the temple, that is the Aramaic-speaking wing (see Acts 1-5) in contrast to the Greek-speaking wing under Stephen: the fact that two wings of the Jerusalem Christian community

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could take different views about the temple suggests that Jesus may not have expressed an opinion that was unambiguous and unequivocal. In this case, the falsity of the witnesses according to Mark could have consisted in alleging that Jesus said that he personally would destroy the temple. The Johannine version can, on grammatical grounds, be translated ‘If this temple is destroyed.....’ This line of approach clearly did not lead to a definite result as far as the trial went (see Mark 14.59-60), but the merest suspicion that Jesus might have been disrespectful towards the temple would certainly have prejudiced his position in the eyes of a court not friendly disposed towards the accused. Over the years a number of scholars have, however, argued that the temple issue did not originally figure in the trial scene at all, but was inserted into it by Mark. Their reasons are generally twofold: (i) that 14.59 (‘their testimony did not agree’) picks up and resumes v. 56 (‘many bore false witness against him, and their witness did not agree’) because the intervening verses about the destruction of the temple have been inserted; and (ii) the temple saying occurs in a non-trial setting in the Fourth Gospel (John 2.18-22). In response to the first objection, it has been argued that ‘duality’ or repetition is a characteristic of Markan style, and that therefore this cannot be used as an infallible sign that material has been inserted. With regard to the second point, it can be maintained that John has removed the story of the cleansing of the temple for thematic reasons to the beginning of his Gospel from its original position within the closing days of Jesus’ life. Equally clearly, then, he has also put back into the ministry elements of the Jewish trial which he does not in fact record. In 10.24-38, for example, he handles in an almost trial-like setting the two titles ‘messiah’ and ‘Son of God’ which figured in the trial scene. The saying about the temple at 2.19 can be seen as another such example. We do not believe therefore that John’s setting can in fact be used against Mark. Before the second phase of the Jewish trial is discussed (14.61b-64), the question arises as to whether any inherent link exists between the two phases. Phase one centred on the temple question; phase two, broadly speaking, centres on the messianic question. Is there an inner link between these two, or have they been juxtaposed artificially by Mark?

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Many scholars are now coming to recognize that an inner link between these two themes can be seen. We have already noted that there was a hope of a new temple in a new age in some Jewish circles. At Qumran, the promise of God through Nathan to David recorded in 2 Sam 7.12-14 was interpreted eschatologically of the Messiah: a son of David, who would be God’s son, would build a house for God (4Q Flor.). Of course Qumran was only part of Judaism at that time. But what the evidence does reveal is that within pre-Christian Judaism a link of Messiah and temple was held by some, and was not considered strange. This surely demands that the Markan sequence of temple and Messiah deserves serious consideration, and not the scepticism with which it has often been treated. (b) Second stage: the question of the Messiah The second phase of the Jewish trial sees the intervention of the high priest (un-named in Mark). When asked by him what these previous accusations involved, Jesus maintained his silence (14.60-61a). This could be both historical and also remind Mark and his readers of the suffering servant of Yahweh (Isa 53.7), and the suffering righteous of the Psalms (38.13-14; 39.1-2, 9). The high priest then, according to Mark, asks Jesus: ‘Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed?’ This has frequently been dismissed as unhistorical because it is argued that in pre-Christian Judaism applying the title ‘son of God’ to the Messiah was avoided for fear of wrong associations. However in 4Q Floregium (referred to above), 2 Sam 7.10-14 is applied to the Messiah, with God saying, ‘I will be his father and he shall be my son’. Also in IQ Sa. 2.11f, Psalm 2.7 (‘You are my son; today I have begotten you’) is used in connection with the idea of God’s causing the Messiah to be born, although the actual title is not used. An Aramaic text from Qumran (4Q ps Dan Aa) does say of, apparently, the Messiah, ‘He shall be hailed as the son of God and they shall call him the son of the Most High’. Clearly, the term ‘the Blessed’ as a periphrasis for the divine name points to a Jewish milieu. Ferdinand Hahn, a by no means conservative scholar in Germany, wrote in 1963 that it was ‘extremely probable’ that in Palestinian late Judaism ‘the titular use of ‘son of the Blessed’ and the like had come to

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be common already in pre-Christian tradition’.4 The more conservative German scholar, Martin Hengel, agreed that ‘the title of ‘Son of God’ was not completely alien to Palestinian Judaism’.5 James D. G. Dunn maintains that the question of the high priest is ‘a most natural one—“Are you (accused of saying you would rebuild the temple; therefore) the (royal) messiah, the son of the Blessed?”’6 How then did Jesus reply? Here there is some diversity of witness: (1) Most manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel have ‘I am’. (2) A few Markan manuscripts plus the early Christian scholar Origen (c. 184 -254 AD) have, ‘You have said that I am’. (3) The parallel in Matthew’s Gospel has, ‘You have said (so)’ (26.64). (4) In Luke 22.70 Jesus, in response to ‘Are you then the son of God?’ says, ‘You say that I am’. Was there a tradition of a less direct reply, which would account for (3) and (4) (and possibly (2), unless the latter is to be accounted for by the powerful influence of Matthew’s version on scribes as they wrote out Mark)? If so, Mark may have altered the less direct response into the direct affirmative ‘I am’. It seems easier to envisage this than Matthew and Luke traversing the opposite direction of altering the direct into a less direct reply. Mark, then, sharpened up Jesus’ reply to the high priest: the Markan Jesus accepts the designation ‘the Messiah, the son of the Blessed’. For Mark the time of concealment is drawing to a close, and what Jesus has asserted in the context of human rejection (14.63-64) will soon be affirmed in his darkest hour by a human being (15.39). However, this does not mean that Mark was being unfaithful to his source. If the form ‘You have said (so)’, or ‘You say that’ is circumlocutory as regards form but affirmative as regards content and meaning, then Mark was only drawing out what was implicit and below the surface. According to Mark, Jesus then follows up this affirmation ‘I am’ with a prophetic threat: ‘and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven’. Jesus threatens the members of the Sanhedrin that they will see him enthroned at God’s right hand (the language of Ps 110.1) and coming with the clouds of heaven (the language of Daniel 7.13). The authenticity of this saying has often

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been dismissed and attributed to the creative activity of Mark who would thus have concentrated in short compass three major titles for Jesus— Christ (Messiah), son of God, Son of Man. There are, nevertheless, arguments for as well as against the authenticity of the saying about the Son of Man. In favour, we may consider the following: (1) The evangelist Mark would hardly attribute an unfulfilled prophecy to the lips of Jesus, and so would have been unlikely to have created this one. (2) It is said that a well-known title for Jesus in the early church has been placed on his lips. But where is the real evidence that ‘Son of Man’ was indeed a widespread title in the early church? Why should Mark make it a vehicle for a significant moment in the story of Jesus? (3) There are other indications that Jesus expected to play a key role at the last judgement (eg. Luke 12.8-9 Q ). (4) Jesus expected to be vindicated (eg. Mark 14.25). (5) Both Psalm 110.1 and Daniel 7.13, where the title occurs, deal with vindication in the face of enemies, and this fits the situation of Jesus at his trial. Surely Jesus himself reflected on the Old Testament. However, against the authenticity of the saying the following arguments may be urged: (1) The combination of Old Testament texts (and one used against the sense of Daniel 7 where the movement of the Son of Man is from earth to heaven, not as here from heaven to earth) is more typical of the early church than Jesus. (2) All the Son of Man sayings in the Gospels may be judged to be created by the early church, so that Mark 13.26, which also uses Daniel 7.13, offers no support. (3) The high priest’s exclamation of blasphemy in v. 63f is an appropriate response to Jesus’ claim to sonship of God—or his refusal to disavow it— and does not need to be occasioned by a claim to be the Son of Man.

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(4) If Mark expected the parousia in the near future, then the ‘You will see the Son of Man.... coming’ would not necessarily create problems for him. The statement ascribed to Jesus about the Son of Man might then be accepted as either a historic word of Jesus or a Markan confession in the exalted Jesus who would return as judge. Whichever the reader chooses, two major issues still emerge at Jesus’ trial: Jesus’ attitude to the temple on the one hand, and the messianic question on the other. In both cases, Jesus’ attitude could be deemed offensive. He had remained silent when charged with being disrespectful to the temple, the centre of Judaism; and he had either avowed or refused to disavow messiahship and divine sonship. It could appear intolerably outrageous in the ears of the high priest and others that this untrained teacher/preacher from Nazareth should take a hostile attitude to the temple, and appear to believe that he stood in a special relationship to God. He would seem to be making a mockery of the hopes of Jewry. His lack of power and prestige was a standing denial of any claim to the highest dignity which God could bestow on a man. On top of suspicions about his attitude to the temple, his words sealed his fate. The high priest had to rend his clothes (there is no reason to suspect him of hypocrisy in this gesture). On the assumption that the Mishnah’s narrow interpretation of blasphemy was not in force in AD 30, the Sanhedrin judged him guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death (v. 64b). The members of the Sanhedrin are depicted as venting their disgust in a forthright manner (v. 65). Some scholars have queried whether they would have behaved in this way, and certainly Luke 22.63-64 attributes the mishandling of Jesus to the men who arrested him and who guarded him overnight. Before moving on it is worth pointing out that in the Markan presentation, the Jewish trial represents an important point of challenge to the reader. As the reader confronts Jesus on trial, Jesus confesses himself to be the Messiah, the son of God, the Son of Man. In him the Old Testament hopes come to their fulfilment. He has a special relationship to God. He is the one who will be the judge at the End. As yet, no human being has confessed him son of God—that is still to come (15.39). Mark

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has also showed a keen interest in a temple theme (see 11.12-18; 13.1-2, 4-16; 14.58; 15.29-30, 38). The final note is yet to come in which the temple curtain is to be torn apart (15.38), but already sufficient has been said to show that the temple, epitomizing Jewish religion, lies under divine judgement. What response is the reader to make to all this? Mark now proceeds to tell the story of Peter’s threefold denial, and since this does not concern Jesus himself, it is sufficient to say that the Markan presentation gives a kind of contrasting ‘diptych’; we have the facing pictures of the confessing master (14.55-62) and the denying disciple (14.66-72). Mark may have been responsible for the intertwining of the two stories—in order to highlight the contrast mentioned above—and may thus have created the impression that the two events were simultaneous. This implication for the timing of the trial will be further examined in the chapter on Luke. 6. The Roman trial The Sanhedrin might have the right to pass the death sentence, but they could not carry it out; the Romans retained that in their own hands. But would Pilate agree to their decision, which was a religious one? A classic illustration of how a Roman governor refused to get involved in purely religious internal Jewish matters is related in Acts 18.12-17, when Gallio dismissed the Jewish case against Paul (see 18.15). We may also compare the cautious attitudes of Claudius, Lysias and Festus, also in a case against Paul, in Acts 23.26-30 and Acts 25.18-19, 24-25; 26.30-32. This fact clearly explains that whereas Jesus was condemned on a religious charge by the Sanhedrin, he was accused of a political charge by them before Pilate. What the Sanhedrin did was to transpose the charge from ‘one key’ to another: from a religious one to a political one calculated to arouse Pilate’s concern, namely that Jesus was claiming to be a Jewish king and so was a rebel against Rome. The Roman prefect would have to investigate such a charge. When Mark simply says that the members of the Sanhedrin handed Jesus over to Pilate, we may infer that they informed Pilate of their charge, and this would explain why Pilate asked, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ (15.2).

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A further look at Mark 15.1 is necessary here because an important difference exists among the manuscripts. Here is a literal translation of the two possibilities: (1) ‘Having reached a decision, immediately the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole Sanhedrin had Jesus bound and early in the morning led him off . . .’ (2) ‘Immediately early in the morning after they had held a meeting, the chief priests . . . had Jesus bound and led him off.’ The first option points to a single session of trial, and the decision mentioned refers back to 14.64 (‘....and they all condemned him as deserving death’). On this reading, Mark is resuming the thread of the story interrupted by the account of Peter’s denial. But the second reading suggests that a second session was held in the early morning. (It should be noted that this would not remove any supposed conflict with the Mishnah rule that sentence of death should not be passed on the same day as the trial, since, on the Jewish method of reckoning a day from sunset to sunset, ‘early in the morning’ is still the same day). While the majority of Greek manuscripts support the second reading, scholars now recognize that manuscripts must be weighed rather than just counted. The rarer phrase sumboulion hetoimazein (‘reach a decision’) is more likely to have been altered into ‘hold a meeting’ than vice-versa, while the Matthean parallel sumboulion lambanere probably assumes sumboulion hetoimazein in his Markan source, as the two phrases come very close to one another in meaning. The choice made here is for reading ‘having reached a decision’ thus pointing to a resumption of his story by Mark in this half verse. That the Sanhedrin had Jesus led to Pilate early in the morning need occasion no surprise, as we know that some Roman governors conducted business at an early hour. Mark’s account of the trial before Pilate does not of course record all the details of what transpired. Mark only records what seemed to him to be of significance. The Roman trial clearly contains elements similar to those in the Jewish trial, though in a different order. To assist the reader the elements are set out in tabular form:

The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Mark

Jewish Trial

Roman Trial

Accusations

14.56-59

15.3

Enquiry as to why Jesus offers no response Jesus’silence

14.60

15.4

14.61a

15.5

Direct question by interrogator

14.61b

15.2a

Jesus’ reply

14.62

15.2b

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A certain, though not perfect parallelism, is evident in the two accounts. It can be seen that the parallel would be perfect if the sequence of verses in the pre-Markan tradition originally ran 15.3, 4 (omitting the word ‘again’, a favourite word of Mark), 5, 2. But to deduce from this, as some scholars do, that the Jewish trial is a Christian invention based on the Roman trial is, we believe, erroneous. Such a view confuses literary form and historicity. A story teller may choose to tell his or her story in a certain way and following certain forms, but method is no clue to the historicity of what is narrated. Here a storyteller may have assimilated the two trial accounts in their structural elements for literary reasons. This literary technique in no way calls into question that there was a Jewish trial as well as a Roman one. The Roman trial in Mark only occupies four verses (15.2-5), and is then followed by the Barabbas episode (vv.6-15) and the scourging of Jesus (vv.16-20a). As already stated, some compression has taken place. The reader is referred to the chapters on Luke and John for accounts which differ in length and detail compared with Mark’s, and for the historical issues raised by these differences. The reply of Jesus to Pilate’s direct question, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’, is—as in the reading preferred in the reply to the high priest in 14.62—circumlocutory in form but positive in intention. Jesus’ reply accepts what the speaker asks, but puts the onus for having raised the issue in such terms on the questioner: ‘You say (so)’ or ‘The words are yours’. The Markan account contains no reaction of Pilate to Jesus’ reply; in fact, no formal declaration of Jesus’ guilt or a formal passing of sentence at all is found Mark 15.2-15. This has led some to suggest that the pre-

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Markan passion tradition read 15.3-5, 2 followed by a now missing sentence delivered by Pilate, and continuing in 15.15b. The flow of the narrative, it is suggested, has been broken by the Barabbas episode which is a secondary insertion. This proposal has its attractions because of the difficulties admittedly inherent in the story of Barabbas. The ‘custom’ mentioned of releasing a prisoner is not found in Jewish writers like Philo or Josephus, or other Jewish sources. Nor is such a custom attested elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Moreover, would the Romans allow to go free a prisoner who, from their viewpoint, was dangerous and who could prove to be a ‘thorn in their flesh’ all over again? In general, the portrait of Pilate drawn in this story seems to stand in some tension with the picture of a cruel and insensitive man drawn by Philo and Josephus, though that portrait may itself not be totally objective and untendentious. All this said, no-one on the other hand has yet come up with a really convincing explanation for the Barabbas story, if indeed it is not historical. Certainly no attempt is made in the Gospels to exploit the episode theologically as an illustration of the vicarious, substitutionary character of Jesus’ death. Furthermore, if John is independent of Mark, his Gospel affords independent attestation of the tradition. The same might be true if Luke draws on an independent passion story. In addition a passage in the Pesachim Tractate (8.6a) in the Mishnah might reflect the custom of releasing a prisoner. This passage lists the categories for whom the slaughter of the passover lamb is forbidden, including ‘one whom they have promised to bring out of prison’ (that is, a non-Jewish prison). The situation envisaged seems to be that only a promise of release has been made , and the Roman governor might not finally agree to the request. So the Tractate, because of the uncertainty, does not allow the slaughter of the passover lamb for the prisoner in question. While this Mishnah reference does not offer complete certainty, some support for an amnesty custom is suggested by it. A final consideration is that there are occasions when truth is stranger than fiction! It is clear from Mark’s description (15.7) that Barabbas was what today we would call a freedom fighter or terrorist, depending on our standpoint. Independently of whether any Zealot party existed in AD 30, many Jews were implacably opposed to Roman rule and were prepared to

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take up arms against those whose presence defiled the holy land which belonged rightfully to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Although preachers and hymn writers often speak of the ‘fickleness’ of a crowd who could acclaim Jesus on Sunday and cry ‘crucify him’ on Friday, the contrast is probably not valid. Those who shouted ‘Hosanna’ on Sunday were Galilean pilgrims coming up to Jerusalem, whereas the crowd involved in Mark 15.6-15 would probably be Jerusalemites. Indeed one is tempted to speak of a ‘rent-a-mob’ in the light of v.11 where the chief priests ‘stirred up the crowd’ to ask that Barabbas should be released to them rather than Jesus. The chief priests surely had the power and the means to manipulate some Jerusalem inhabitants and so make them a tool in their desire to have Jesus eliminated. Verses 9-14 suggest that Pilate was truly convinced of Jesus’ innocence (cf.v.14 ‘Why? What wrong has he committed?’), but was careless enough to try to use the paschal custom to secure his release. Or was he too clever by half, and his stratagem back-fired? If we read Mark on his own, uninfluenced by a reading of the Fourth Gospel, a picture of Pilate emerges which would not be incompatible with that of Philo and Josephus: he detects envy towards the prisoner on the part of the chief priests, ‘strings them along’ with his suggestion of releasing Jesus, and then callously consigns an innocent man to death to satisfy the crowd. That is one possibility. On the other hand, Pilate might have condemned Jesus because he had concluded that there was no smoke without a fire, and Jesus’ popularity with the crowds might pose a threat to Roman power. After all, when the chief priests accused one of their own nation, that had to be taken seriously. Any possible messianic pretender constituted a threat to the emperor and to Rome. Pilate would not wish to expose himself to the accusation that he had treated a possible threat lightly. He could not afford to deal casually with any suspicion of an infringement of the emperor’s majesty. Although Mark 15.15 does not contain any reference to a formal promulgation of the death sentence, such a sentence must surely have been pronounced: Pilate gave orders for Jesus to be scourged and then crucified. The soldiers who carried out the scourging acted on the assumption that their prisoner had been condemned to death. According to contemporary sources the scourging was physically extremely weakening. The

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troops also pick up, and subject to mockery, the idea of ‘king of the Jews’ (15.18; cf. vv.2, 9, 12) 7. The crucifixion of Jesus It looks as if Jesus was weakened by the scourging since the Romans compelled a passer-by to carry Jesus’ cross for him (15.21). Mark’s note that Simon was a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, suggests that, at point of origin, this tradition circulated in a church which knew Alexander and Rufus, and this church could well have been the Greekspeaking church in Jerusalem—the Hellenists of Acts 6-8, 11. The language of some Markan verses from now on is indebted to what Old Testament scholars call the ‘Psalms of the Righteous Sufferer’: 15.23 15.24 15.29 15.34 15.36

wine mixed with myrrh division of garments by casting lots passers-by wag their heads cry of desolation giving of sour wine

Psalm 69.21 22.18 22.7 22.1 69.21

Some scholars maintain that the early Christians invented these aspects of the passion story on the basis of Psalms 69 and 22: Jesus was the Righteous Sufferer; the Old Testament was prophetic of him; therefore these things must have actually happened to him. Such a position is surely to be deemed unnecessarily sceptical, since many of the details are historically credible, for example, the offer of drugged wine to lessen pain; and the prisoners’ clothes being the perks of the executioners. What we can and ought to say is that it would not be unnatural for Christians steeped in the Old Testament to borrow and utilize its language when describing analogous events in the passion of Jesus. Mark has a three-fold time division of the passion story: vv.25, 33-34 mention 9am, 12 noon and 3pm (the third, sixth and ninth hours respectively). Again, scholarly opinion is divided on whether these references are historically accurate or a Markan scheme imposed on the material. The idea has been suggested that a pattern of liturgical practice lies behind them; this can be neither proved nor disproved, but certainly no corroborative evidence for such practice exists as early as the composition of Mark’s Gospel.

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According to Mark 15.25, Jesus was crucified at 9am. All that Mark narrates could presumably take place within three hours (assuming that Jesus was presented to Pilate and his interrogation began on or before 6am, as I have proposed). By contrast, Luke has two sessions before Pilate, separated by Jesus’ appearing before Herod; while John says that Jesus was formally condemned at about 12 noon (see 19.14) The reader is referred to the chapters on Luke and John for further discussion of the question of length of time involved in Jesus’ trial and execution. The account of the crucifixion itself is remarkably restrained in Mark, and indeed in the other Gospels too, and does not dwell on the sufferings endured. The inscription over the cross (15.26) picks up the charge ‘King of the Jews’ (cf. 15.2, 9, 12, 18). Jesus was crucified between two insurrectionists (15.27) indicating further that the authorities were convinced that Jesus represented a threat to Roman order. Then follows mockery by three different sets of people: Passers-by Chief priests The two others crucified

15.29-30 15.31-32a 15.32b

The theme of the mockery of the passers-by (15.29-30) is the templesaying cited earlier during the trial. These people are assumed to be supporters of the Sanhedrin, described in language used of the enemy of the suffering righteous person (Psa 22.7). The mockery of the chief priests and scribes (15.31-32a) centres on the titles which have figured earlier, that is ‘Messiah’ in the Jewish trial (14.61-62) and ‘King of Israel (the Jews)’ in the Roman trial (e.g. 15.2). The insults of those crucified with Jesus are not spelled out (15.32b). Scholars disagree on the extent to which Mark may have elaborated the acts of mockery, and especially those of second group. We notice that there is some overlap between the taunts of the first two groups, in the idea of Christ’s saving himself and coming down from the cross. Those who accept Markan shaping of the scene also feel that the phrase ‘that we may see and believe’ (15.32) reflects Christian language. That Jesus was mocked may be accepted as likely. What seems to be a distinct possibility is that the scene has been expanded and now, in its present form, succeeds

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in presenting the isolation of Jesus—he is the butt of ridicule from Israelites, lay and priestly, from respectable citizens and insurgents against Rome. As such, the mockery prepares the way to some extent for the next scene, verses 33-34. Is the three hour period of darkness from 12 noon to 3pm intended literally, or is it a piece of theological symbolism? Several scholars have pointed to Amos 8.9: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord Yahweh, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon and I will darken the earth in the clear day.’ In Amos this darkness is a visible sign of Yahweh’s displeasure with the sins of northern Israel, and his determination to enter into judgement with his people. It is connected with the day of the Lord. If this passage was behind the tradition and/or in the mind of Mark, the darkness could be a symbol of the eschatological significance of what was happening at Calvary. At the end of the darkness Jesus cries with a loud voice (15.34): ‘Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani’ ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

This is clearly a use of Psalm 22.1, parts of which have been utilized earlier. But what is the meaning of these words? Is it a ‘cry of desolation’? This idea has been challenged by those who claim that Jesus must have had the whole psalm in mind, and, since the Psalm ends on a note of trust and faith and confidence in Yahweh (vv.22-31), Jesus was not in fact despairing. This seems like special pleading. If this were the case, why was 22.24 not quoted? Just to leave Psalm 22.1 as it now stands does not create the impression of confidence in Yahweh’s help. On the contrary, the impression is of Jesus reaching out to the God who did not seem to be there. The full horror of these words must surely be allowed to stand, and must not be watered down. Furthermore, these are the only words that the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel utters from the cross. We must recall that the first readers of the Gospel of Mark had only these words from the cross. While Matthew follows Mark in having only these words of Jesus spoken from the cross, neither Luke nor John have these particular words, but three very different phrases, as a result of which their presentation of the dying of Jesus comes over rather differently. Such differences raise the question

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as to whether Mark is the straightforward ‘historical’ record, while Luke and John, modifying the stark horror of the Markan story, reflect a ‘theological’ perspective on the cross. Possibly the theological interpretation of the cross only began (so to speak) after Mark. But perhaps the process had already begun before Mark. Does even the ‘cry of desolation’ itself represent a theological insight, one way of looking at the cross that was current in the early church—that is the idea that Jesus bore our sins on the tree (cf. 1 Peter 2.24), that he died for our sins (1 Cor 15.3), after the manner of the suffering servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 53? Each reader must decide the matter for themselves. This is ‘holy ground’, and no decision can be lightly reached. Jesus’ cry provokes a misunderstanding that he is calling for Elijah to help him (15.35). A Roman soldier would hardly be acquainted with Elijah, whereas a Jew would hardly mistake Eloi (‘my God’) for Elijah. The mistake is more understandable in Matthew’s account, since he transliterates the quotation from the Hebrew version of the Psalm—Eli, Eli . . .’, not from the Aramaic as Mark does. Tradition interpreted the offer of sour wine as part of the sufferings of the Righteous One as foreshadowed in Psalm 69.21 (15.36). With a wordless cry Jesus dies (15.37). As the Markan narrative stands, there are two utterances from the cross: the one already considered at v. 34, and this wordless one in v. 37. If vv. 35f about Elijah and the offer of sour wine were an expansion of the tradition, however, v. 37 could be understood as the same cry as that in v.34. In verses 38 and 39 we have what might be called ‘interpretation’ of the death of Jesus. First there is the rending of the temple veil (15.38). Whether this event happened literally or not, it has probably been recorded for the theological significance which was perceived to be expressed in it; if not, why narrate it at all? If the curtain referred to was the inner one, separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place, then the symbolic meaning is that what was seen as the separation of God from men and women has been torn in two. The old order has been judged and found wanting and is now at an end. The temple theme, prominent in the last week of Jesus’ ministry in Mark (see 11.12-17; 12.38-44; 13.1-2,14; 14.58), now reaches its climax. Access to God has been opened up, apart from the old cultic practices, through the death of Jesus. His death is the

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sacrifice for sins which secures access to God for men and women. His death is ‘the ransom for many’ (10.45); his blood shed inaugurates the covenant offered by God to men and women (14.24; and cf. Heb 10.10, 14, 19-20; 9.12-14). The second piece of interpretation comes when the centurion is portrayed as saying, ‘Truly this man was the son of God’. Though the word ‘son’ in the Greek has no definite article (‘the’), this is due to the fact that ‘son’ as complement is placed in front of the verb; therefore the translation ‘the son of God’ is grammatically sound and accords with Mark’s 7 intention. The primary question must be what Mark intended the centurion to say, and not what a pagan Roman soldier might have said in this situation. In the light of Mark 1.1, 11 (3.11-12); 9.7; 14.62, there can hardly be any doubt that Mark intended a full-blown Christian confession. This is the first time in Mark’s Gospel that a human being has confessed Jesus as the son of God (unaided by evil spirits as in 5.7; cf. 3.11-12). The time is significant: as Jesus hangs on the cross in weakness and despair, and dies, he is confessed in this way! The ‘secret’ is out; it has been penetrated. Mark is in effect saying to us that the cross reveals the true identity. If you want to know who Jesus is, you must look at him on the cross, not at his great miracles or his astonishing teaching. Mark is a theologian of the cross! 8. The burial of Jesus Verses 40-41 of chapter 15, which name some of the women who were ‘looking on from afar’, are probably Mark’s own composition; he has fused the two notes about the women from 15.47 and 16.1, on the basis of having some tradition that the women looked on at the crucifixion. Mark 15.42-47 records the official certification of the death (vv.4445a) and the burial of the corpse of Jesus by one Joseph of Arimathea (vv.45b-46), who is described as being a pious Jew (v.43), though in view of the fact that his name was retained, he may have become a disciple. The later evangelists (Matt 27.56; John 19.38) certainly took him as such, and Luke 22.51 takes great pains to dissociate him from the Sanhedrin’s verdict. The paragraph closes with a note that two women disciples observed the place where Jesus was buried. That a burial story should complete the

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passion story accords with the note in the pre-Pauline formula of 1 Cor 15.3ff: ‘and that he was buried’. Notes Mark does incorporate such a ‘doublet’ in his narrative with the two accounts of the feeding of the multitude in chapters 6 and 8. 2 A similar point is made by G. Henton Davies in chapter 12 below: see pp. 163-4 3 See below, pp. 95-6. 4 Ferdinand Hahn, The Titles of Jesus in Christology, transl. H. Knight and G. Ogg (Lutterworth Press, London, 1969), p. 284. 5 Martin Hengel, The Son of God. The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion, transl. J. Bowden (SCM Press, London, 1976), p. 45. 6 James D.G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism, and their Significance for the Character of Christianity (SCM Press, London, 1991), p. 52. 7 So, rightly, New International Version, but not, unfortunately, the Revised English Bible; the New Revised Standard Version has ‘God’s son’. 1

7 The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Matthew Mark remains without any doubt Matthew’s chief source for his telling of the passion story, with the exception of his recounting of the fate of Judas in 27.3-10. Occasional references show that Matthew knew of another tradition, but where he differs from Mark this is mainly to be explained by Matthew’s own editorial work. Accordingly, there is no need to repeat the summary of events in the last twenty four hours of Jesus’ life which already stands at the beginning of the previous chapter on Mark. In its main features, Matthew tells the same story as Mark. Our method in this chapter, therefore, will be to examine the sections of Matthew’s account in sequence, to see what issues are raised for the detail of the story by Matthew’s particular way of telling it. 1. From the meal to the arrest (a) Preparation for the Passover (26.17-20) Matthew portrays Jesus as sending all the disciples into the city to prepare the passover meal (vv.17-18). The rather vague instruction in verse 18 that they are to meet ‘such a person’ would be unintelligible by itself, and so the account presupposes that the reader is already acquainted with Mark’s story about the householder with an upper room. Matthew, however, emphasizes Jesus’ awareness of what is happening by adding, ‘My time is near’, in the message to the owner of the house (v.18, cf. 26.1-2). The account of the disciples’ obedient carrying out of Jesus’ command (v.19) is reminiscent of Matthew’s phraseology at 21.6 and 1.24: they did as they were directed. (b) The announcement of the betrayal (26.21-25) In a way typical of him, Matthew shows how the eleven address Jesus as ‘Lord’ (v.22), whereas Judas uses ‘Rabbi’ (v.25). Matthew underlines the hypocrisy and guilt of Judas by having him ask, ‘Surely it isn’t I, is it, Rabbi?, to which Jesus replies, ‘You have said so’ (cf. 26.64; 27.11).

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(c) The last supper (26.26-29) Matthew adds ‘eat’ to Jesus’ command to take the bread (v. 26), and he smoothes out the account of the action with the cup. Jesus commands,’Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant....’ (v. 27), replacing the awkward sequence in Mark in which the disciples first drink and then Jesus afterwards explains the significance of what they have done. Perhaps this wording reflects the celebration of the supper in the context of worship in the community of the early church. Matthew also adds ‘for the forgiveness of sins’ to the cup saying (v. 28), a phrase which he had actually dropped from his account of the preaching of John the Baptist as he had received it from Mark 1.6 (see Matt. 3.2, 11). Here the words stress the atoning value of Jesus’ death, as the basis for forgiveness. Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ abstinence from the wine, and so his awaiting of the final coming of the kingdom, by adding, ‘from now on’ in v. 29, while Mark’s ‘kingdom of God’ becomes ‘the kingdom of my Father’ (v. 29—a typically Matthean touch). (d) The prediction of Peter’s denial (26.30-35) Matthew, like Luke, has only one cockcrow (v. 34 = Luke 22.34) in the prediction of Peter’s denial, as opposed to two in Mark 14.30. This agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark could be due to their both being aware of a non-Markan tradition. However, some scholarly opinions that Luke used Matthew, or Matthew used Luke, seem equally untenable. (e) Gethsemane (26.36-46) Matthew introduces some significant changes to the story. He drops the concept of ‘the hour’, and concentrates on the image of the ‘cup’ although he uses the same phrase as Mark 14.35: ‘if it is possible, let this cup [hour] pass from me’ (v. 39, cf. Mark 14.35-46). Matthew specifies the content of Jesus’ second prayer, which contains further echoes of the Lord’s prayer (‘that you may not enter into temptation’— v. 42: cf. ‘Father... as you will’ in v. 39 ). He also mentions that Jesus went away and prayed a third time, saying the same words (v. 44).

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(f) The arrest (26.47-56) Matthew has introduced a reply of Jesus to Judas’ kiss: ‘Friend, (do) that for which you are here’ (v. 50), and has made the vague Markan phrase about the person who draws a sword, ‘one of the bystanders’ (Mark 14.47), into a definite reference to one of those with Jesus (v. 51). Verses 52-54 are peculiar to Matthew and again raise the question of whether he had a source other than Mark: 52. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54. But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?’

Something of a parallel to v.52a exists in John 18.11a, but no parallel is found in John to the ‘for’ clause. Unless John’s knowledge of Matthew is presumed, common use of some tradition would be the best explanation. Verse 53 emphasizes Jesus’ sovereign position and his voluntary renunciation of the help of angels which could be at his disposal. Verse 54 is in accord with Matthew’s interest throughout his Gospel in the fulfilment of scripture in the life and ministry of Jesus. The way of humiliation is the way marked out for Jesus in scripture. Thus, the theme and language suggest Matthean composition for vv.53-54. 2. The Jewish trial In his account of the Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin (26.57-68), Matthew knows the name of the high priest, Caiaphas, probably from oral tradition (v.57). He is probably responsible himself for the detail that there were two false witnesses (v. 60; cf. Deut 19.15), and for the phrasing of the accusation that Jesus said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God . . .’ (v. 61). He drops the antithetical phrases ‘made with hands’ (about the present temple) and ‘not made with hands’ (about a new temple). Perhaps he was aware of a form of the saying without these words, such as also appears in John 2.19. When Caiaphas asks the question about whether Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus’ reply runs:

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You have said so: but I say to you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power [i.e. God] and coming on the clouds of heaven’ (v. 64).

If the text of Mark 14.62 is accepted as ‘You have said that I am’ (as I suggest in the previous chapter), then Matthew has simply abbreviated Jesus’ words while retaining the essential meaning. However, the Matthean addition of the phrase ‘from now on’ seems to suggest the immediacy of Jesus’ vindication; this might, however, illustrate that Matthew was more flexible in his use of imagery than scholars have given him credit for, and that he means that the vindication of Jesus would paradoxically begin with the events of his condemnation and execution. This is lost in the NIV rendering of the phrase as ‘in the future you will see’, which is open to the criticism of inaccuracy. Interestingly, Luke 22.69 also has ‘from now on’, though the Greek phrase which he uses is different from Matthew’s. The different Greek phrases used by each evangelist are characteristic of each of them, and this would suggest independent adaptation of Mark by the two of them. Matthew may have known a non-Markan tradition of the mockery of Jesus by the members of the Sanhedrin. He shares with Luke 22.64 the question, ‘Who is it who struck you?’ (v.68, not in Mark), but curiously has no reference to the blindfolding (Mark and Luke have it), which in Luke 22.63 makes the question intelligible. 3. Peter and Judas In his account of the denial of Jesus by Peter (26.69-75), Matthew introduces certain changes into the story as told by Mark. Peter is said to have ‘denied before them all’ (v. 70); a second maidservant presents him with the second challenge (v. 71), not the same one as in Mark; Peter denies ‘with an oath’ (v. 72) and the bystanders comment that ‘your accent gives you away (v. 73), instead of ‘you are a Galilean’. Describing Peter’s reaction to the cock crow, Matthew omits the word epibalon in Mark (whose exact meaning is difficult to determine: RSV: ‘he broke down’) and replaces it with the stark ‘he went out’ (v. 75). With regard to the death of Judas (27:3-10), Matthew’s account differs markedly from that of Acts 1.15-20, but as it has no bearing on the passion of Jesus, a discussion of the differences may be omitted.

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4. The Roman trial In recounting the appearance of Jesus before Pilate (27.1-2,11-14), Matthew adds that Jesus was silent when the chief priests and elders accused him, an inference from Mark 15.4. Otherwise the exchange between Pilate and Jesus follows that as presented in Mark. When the story moves on to deal with Barabbas (27.15-23), some manscripts of Matthew give his name as ‘Jesus Barabbas’ (vv. 16-17). Since it is unlikely that any Christian scribe would add such a sacred name on his own account, we probably ought to accept this reading. Presumably Matthew picked up this information about Barabbas’ full name from oral tradition. As part of the episode, Matthew alone records that Pilate’s wife had a dream about Jesus and advised her husband to have nothing to do with one who was innocent (or righteous: v. 19). Either this is Matthew’s own expansion of the tradition, in the Jewish style of commentary called a ‘midrash’, or he drew on an oral tradition which had already expanded the original. When Pilate delivers Jesus to be crucified, the scene of Pilate’s washing his hands of the deed and the people’s acceptance of responsibility for the death of Jesus is unique to Matthew (27. 24-26). This is one of the most dramatic and theologically significant moments of Matthew’s whole passion story. The washing of the hands as a sign of innocence appears to be a Jewish custom (see Deut 21.6-9). Matthew switches at v. 25 from the Greek word ochlos for ‘crowd’ to the more solemn word laos, ‘people’: the Jewish people are accepting blood guilt for the death of their own Messiah. This surely is the hinge in the drama, the moment when for Matthew the kingdom of God was taken away from the nation (see 21.43, a Matthean addition to his Markan source, Mark 12.11), and its status as the covenant people was forfeited. Again the episode is either Matthean ‘midrash’, or he drew on oral tradition which had already expanded the tradition. The episodes involving Pilate and his wife cohere insofar as both of them, non-Jews, recognize the fundamental innocence or righteousness of Jesus. These episodes are probably the work of Matthew and therefore ought not to be used to reconstruct the historical course of the trial before Pilate.

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5. The crucifixion of Jesus In his narrative of the mockery and execution of Jesus (27.27-37), Matthew essentially follows Mark, while tidying his account up. He changes the colour of the robe put on Jesus from Mark’s purple to red, the colour of soldiers’ cloaks (v. 28). He infers from Mark that the soldiers put a reed in Jesus’ hand as a mock sceptre, and brings forward to this moment the detail that they actually knelt before Jesus (v. 29). In Matthew, the drink offered to Jesus (v. 34), becomes ‘wine mixed with gall’, thus securing another allusion to a Psalm of the Righteous Sufferer (Ps 69.21, in the Greek Septuagint version). He adds ‘this is Jesus’ to the charge ‘the king of the Jews’ (v. 37). While Matthew basically follows Mark in recounting the mockery of Jesus on the cross (27.38-44), he has edited his source to focus the mockery on Jesus’ divine sonship: (1) The passers-by say ‘save yourself, if you are the son of God’ (v. 40). The words in italics are new over against Mark 15.30, and of course they recall the temptation narrative in Matthew 4.1ff. (2) A new sentence occurs in the mockery of the chief priests, scribes and elders (v. 43): ‘He trusted in God; let God rescue him now if he wants; for he said, “I am God’s Son”’, which recalls Psalm 22.8 and Wisdom of Solomon 2.18-20 (of which there may have been a Hebrew original). So the theme of the Righteous Sufferer surfaces once again. (3) The freedom fighters who are crucified with Jesus mock him ‘in the same way’ (v. 44—a Matthean addition to Mark 15.32). This implies that the divine sonship of Jesus is also the theme of their insults. Thus, what has been deemed blasphemy from the Jewish side (26.65) is derided and mocked. But what has been rejected by his own people will shortly be affirmed by Gentiles (27.54 cf. v. 19). 6. The death of Jesus Matthew conforms the cry of desolation from Mark’s Aramaic version (Eloi, Eloi....) more closely to the Hebrew (Eli, Eli.....), which means that the bystanders’ assumption that Jesus was calling Elijah becomes more intelligible (vv. 46-7).

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More significantly, Matthew expands Mark’s account of what happened at the time of Jesus’ death (51b-53). In addition to the tearing in two of the temple curtain, the story continues: and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised and, having come out of their tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city and appeared to many.

The earthquake is a frequent accompaniment of ‘appearances’ of God (called theophanies) in both the Old Testament and post-Old Testament Jewish literature. The opening of the tombs and the resurrection of the dead were events that were expected to happen at the end of time. The phrase ‘after his resurrection’ produces a hiatus between the raising of the Old Testament saints and their emergence from the graves, while safeguarding the primacy of Jesus’ resurrection. Two possible explanations seem open: Either (1) Matthew found this tradition associated with the resurrection of Jesus and transferred it to the moment of Jesus’ death, while being forced to add ‘after his resurrection’ to preserve the priority of Jesus’ resurrection. Or (2) Matthew came across this tradition which was a way of interpreting the death of Jesus and asserting its redemptive, saving, liberating quality; but he felt constrained to add the phrase ‘after his resurrection’ to preserve the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection. The second seems the more satisfying explanation. The passage about the earthquake (51b-53) is thus pre-Matthean tradition. It should not be taken as a literal description but as an interpretative ‘midrash’, no less valuable for not being an account of what literally happened. To readers steeped in Old Testament and Jewish modes of expression, these verses would speak of God’s verdict on the death of Jesus. God vindicates Jesus in his death, both declaring him to be a ransom for men and women, and confirming him in his status as Son of God. The vivid imagery of earthquake and resurrection affirms that God is present in Jesus’ death, giving life and liberation. In the context of Matthew’s story, these images also explain the awesome fear produced by the manner of Jesus’ death in the centurion and his men, which prompts their confession that Jesus was the

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Son of God (v. 54). So the non-Jewish soldiers acknowledge what was denied by the Jews in vv.39-44. In naming the women who stood looking on from afar throughout these events, either Matthew replaced Salome (Mark 15.40) with ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’ (v.56), or he knew that Salome was in fact the name of their mother, and preferred to refer to her in this way because of her presumptuous request recorded in 20.20 (where Matthew alters Mark 10.35 from a request of the sons to that of the mother). 7. The burial of Jesus In telling the story of how Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus for burial (27.57-61), Matthew treats this Joseph as a definite disciple of Jesus where Mark is vaguer (Mark 15.43, ‘looking for the kingdom of God’). Perhaps Matthew knew of oral tradition to this effect, or assumed that Joseph must have been a disciple. Matthew increases the reverence with which Jesus was buried, referring to a ‘clean’ sheet (v. 59) and a ‘new’ grave (v. 60), and eliminates the reference to Pilate’s verification of the fact that Jesus had died (Mark 15.44-45). The sequel in which Pilate sets a guard on the tomb of Jesus is only in Matthew’s account (27.62-6). As elsewhere with episodes peculiar to Matthew, we are faced with the usual choice between whether this is Matthean ‘midrashic’ commentary, or some sort of oral tradition which Matthew has reduced to writing. Would the Jewish hierarchy have gone on the Sabbath to Pilate to ask for the tomb to be guarded? The reason given is that the disciples might steal the body and pretend that Jesus’ predictions of his resurrection had been fulfilled; but how public were such predictions (assuming for the moment the genuineness of those recorded in the Gospels)? Decisions about these questions are, of course, bound up with our estimate of the episode in 28.11-15 which is a continuation of the story. 8. Conclusions: Matthew and his story As we have surveyed the differences between Matthew’s account and Mark’s, two questions arise. First, among the traditions which Matthew may have drawn on and which he did not owe to Mark, are there any which deserve consideration in a reconstruction of what actually

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happened during the last hours of Jesus’ life? I suggest that the name of the high priest, Caiaphas (26.57), and the name of ‘Jesus Barabbas’ (27.17) are certainly to be accepted. Matthew also clarifies certain features of Mark’s story; he corroborates Jesus’ giving a less definite reply to Caiaphas (26.64), fills in the detail that those who struck Jesus asked him ‘Who struck you?’ (26.68, clarifying the command ‘prophesy’ in Mark), and makes clear that Jesus told his disciples not to resist arrest (26.52). Matthew’s story makes reference to only one cockcrow in the prediction of Peter’s betrayal (26.34), which might well have been the case. Matthew may have known that Joseph of Arimathea became a disciple. On the basis of such evidence, however, it cannot be affirmed that Matthew substantially increases our knowledge of what happened in Jesus’ last twenty four hours. A second question is what Matthew was aiming to preach or teach through his particular shaping of the passion story. The answer to this will be explored at some length in chapter 13 below, but for the moment we should briefly observe the following: (1) Matthew shows Jesus as well aware of what is about to happen (26.18 [cf. 26.2, 12], 56) and as knowing his betrayer (26.25, 50). (2) He understands Jesus’ death as atoning for sins (26.28), and as liberating from death (27.51b-53). (3) He stresses Jesus’ submission to the will of his heavenly Father (26.39 with 42-3), even to the extent of not being prepared to summon angelic hosts to rescue him (26.53). Correspondingly, Matthew is ready to follow the lead of earlier passion story writers and use the motif of the Righteous Sufferer (27.34, 43). (4) What is rejected by the Sanhedrin as blasphemous (26.59-66), and mocked when Jesus hangs on the cross (27.40, 43, 44)—namely Jesus’ sonship—is vindicated by God in cosmic signs (27.51b-53) and acknowledged by non-Jews (27.54), who also testify to his innocence (27.19 cf. vv. 23a, 24). (5) The Jews have forfeited their position as God’s covenant people (27.25). Their leaders maintain their opposition to Jesus right to the end, even beyond his burial (27.62-6; 28.12).

8 The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to Luke 1. How Luke tells the story While Matthew’s outline of the passion story closely follows Mark, there are sufficient differences in Luke’s account for us to need to remind ourselves of the way that he tells the story. Luke begins the final phase of Jesus’ life by reporting how the wish of the chief priests and scribes to kill Jesus was materially assisted by Judas going to them and offering to betray Jesus into their hands. Then Luke describes how Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare the Passover in Jerusalem. At the appropriate time Jesus and the disciples gathered to celebrate it, Jesus expressing how he had longed to eat that Passover with them, and how he would not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. After the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus gave a ‘farewell discourse’ (unparallelled in Mark at this point, but not as long as the Johannine one). Luke offers a brief description of Jesus’ agonized prayer on the Mount of Olives, noting that an angel came to him to strengthen him. Even so, the sweat poured off him like drops of blood. Judas then approached and kissed Jesus, no doubt as a means of identifying him in the darkness. One of Jesus’ disciples cut off the ear of one of the arresting party. Jesus stopped any resistance, and proceeded to heal the man’s ear. After protesting at the manner of his arrest, Jesus resigned himself into his arrestors’ hands, exclaiming, ‘This is your hour and the power of darkness’. Jesus was led off and kept under guard overnight. The guards blindfolded him, struck him, and asked him to say who struck him. Meanwhile in the high priest’s courtyard Peter denied Jesus three times. At daybreak the Sanhedrin met. Jesus was asked two questions— whether he was the Messiah and whether he was the Son of God. He refused to answer the first, and to the second said,’You say so’, which was taken as a sign of guilt. The Sanhedrin led him off to Pilate, and accused Jesus of various offences against Roman rule. Pilate, unconvinced, declared that he thought Jesus innocent, but on learning that Jesus was a Galilean, sent him to Herod who was also in Jerusalem.

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Herod with his soldiers mocked Jesus and returned him to Pilate, clearly not finding him guilty either. When Pilate proposed scourging Jesus and releasing him, the people demanded the release of Barabbas and called for the crucifixion of Jesus, a demand repeated when Pilate for a third time reiterated his belief in Jesus’ innocence. Pilate gave way and delivered Jesus to be crucified. As Jesus was being led to the place of execution, a number of Jerusalem women uttered laments, but Jesus bade them not to weep for him, but for themselves, since a dreadful time was coming upon the city. After being nailed to the cross, Jesus prayed for God’s forgiveness on those who have done this deed to him. He had to endure insults from the rulers and the Roman troops. He assured one of the insurgents who had acknowledged his guilt that he would be in paradise that day. After the three hour darkness, from 12 noon to 3 pm, the temple curtain was torn in two and Jesus died, committing himself into the hands of his heavenly Father. The centurion was moved to acknowledge his innocence and the people beat their breasts in remorse at what had taken place. Joseph of Arimathea was granted permission to bury Jesus, and the Galilean women who had witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion at a distance saw where Jesus was buried and returned home to prepare spices to anoint the corpse again after the Sabbath. Such is the story of the final phase of Jesus’ life as told by Luke. The question as to whether Luke followed Mark as his only source (altering fairly freely) or whether he had a non-Markan source as his primary tradition (adding a few verses from Mark to this source) is a highly controversial one and shows no sign of resolution. The constraints of space permit only a brief statement of my preference for the latter view. Only this, I believe, can explain why there are no less than twelve differences in the order of events between Luke and Mark in the passion story. These may be set out as in the table overleaf. If Luke were following Mark alone at this point, then his handling of Mark’s order would differ very considerably from the way that he handles Mark’s material earlier in his Gospel. I propose that we grant that Luke does have a non-Markan passion source which he uses in preference to Mark, and adopt the method of exploring the extra material that he therefore offers for consideration. This will also lead us to ask various questions about the historicity of the narrative.

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Event

Mark

Luke

1. Prediction of betrayal

14.18-21—before the meal

22.21-23—after the meal

2. Eschatological saying

14.25—after the meal

22.18—before the meal

3. Prediction of denial

14.27-31—en route to Gethsemane

22.31-4—at the meal

4. Peter’s denial

14.66-72—after the trial

22.54-62—before the trial

5. Mockery scene

14.65—after the trial

22.63-65—before the trial

6. Jewish trial

14.55-64—at night

22.66-71—in the morning

7. Questions to Jesus

14.61—one

22.66-71—two

8. Accusations by chief priests

15.3—after Pilate’s question

23.2—before Pilate’s question

9. Mockery by Roman troops

15.16-20—before the crucifixion

23.36—during the crucifixion

10. Mention of two others crucified

15.27—after the mention of the inscription

23.33—before the mention of the inscription

11. Mention of the inscription

15.26—before the mockery

23.38—after the mockery

12. Rending of the temple curtain

15.38—after Jesus’ last cry

23.44—before Jesus’ last cry

2. The Last Supper In Luke’s account of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, a strong eschatological emphasis is present in two verses, 22.16 and 18; Jesus vows that he will neither eat the Passover (v. 16) nor drink the cup (v. 18) until the kingdom of God comes. Mark only has a parallel to the second saying, while the first indicates that the Passover itself will find its fulfilment in the kingdom of God. Both sayings thus point to the future kingdom, though neither in themselves indicate when the kingdom will come. Does verse 15 (‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’) indicate a satisfied or non-fulfilled desire? If the last

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supper was a Passover, as clearly Luke thought in the light of 22.7-13, then it will be a fulfilled desire: Jesus wanted to reach Passover because of its associations with the redemption of Israel by God at the beginning of its history, and its connection with the covenant given to Israel at Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. Now, through his suffering and death, God will give a new covenant to Israel, and through it to others. A minority of scholars, however, hold that in a non-Markan tradition underlying 22.15-18, verse 15 originally expressed a desire that will remain unfulfilled because Jesus’ death will prevent his eating the Passover with his disciples. He can, however, look forward in faith to the Passover’s fulfilment in the perfect kingdom of God. His impending death, moreover, will make a renewal of the covenant possible. This view assumes that Luke took the account of the preparation of the Passover (22.7-13) from Mark, and that adding this to his other tradition altered the sense of verse 15, which must now refer to a fulfilment of Jesus’ wish. If this were were correct, the ‘L’ tradition (i.e. the non-Markan source special to Luke) would support the Fourth Gospel’s view that the Last Supper was not a Passover. The identity of the meal is a question to which I 1 intend to return when we look at the way John tells the story. If the last supper were a Passover meal, then the cup mentioned at v.17 would be one of four cups drunk by the participants of the Passover. The disciples are told to drink it, but Jesus refrains, an action which is interpreted as a vow of abstinence until the banquet of the kingdom (v.18). Some scholars hold that 22.15-18 represent a very early tradition of the last supper which concentrates in meaning on the (imminent) future coming of the kingdom to be inaugurated by Christ’s parousia. The words Marana tha (come, O Lord) of 1 Cor 16.22 had their original setting in the meals of the early Christians (Acts 2.42, 46), and further support is claimed from The Didache 9-10, where no mention of the redemptive aspect of Jesus’ death occurs. Detailed discusssion of this issue is not possible here. Suffice to say that it is unnecessary to postulate a development in which the earliest meals had a solely eschatological stamp, while as time went on the bread and wine were interpreted to refer to Jesus’ saving death. Both ideas were probably present from the start precisely because both go back to Jesus himself. The Gospels were not interested in

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recording everything that happened at the last supper, and some streams of tradition may have preserved items not included by other streams. The longer text of vv.19-20 is probably what Luke wrote, rather than the shorter text of v.19a which is printed in some English versions (for example the RSV). Detailed discussion is not possible; suffice it to say that following the manuscripts which have the longer reading means that Luke portrays Jesus as serving the disciples with two of the four cups usual at the Passover meal, and so here there is a cup both before and after Jesus’ breaking of the bread (vv. 17, 20). In the ‘bread’ saying, Luke is closer to Paul than Mark. Luke has ‘This is my body which is given for you’ (Paul has ‘which is for you’, and has the ‘my’ in a different position from Luke), plus the command to repeat the celebration in identical words to Paul. Probably Luke has added ‘given’ as an interpretation of the rather terse ‘which for you’ in the Pauline tradition. The words interpret the action, that is of breaking. The action and the words are a passion prediction—a prediction of violent death (though not to be pressed in too literalistic a manner). By giving the bread thus interpreted to his disciples, Jesus is giving them a share in what his death accomplishes. The Lukan phrase ‘given’ coheres with this idea that Jesus’ death does something for the disciples, and they are already receiving a share of this in advance. Luke agrees with Paul in having the action and the interpretation of the ‘covenant’ cup after supper (22.20), which would presumably be the fourth cup in the Passover celebration, if the supper were a Passover meal. In the cup saying Luke seems to blend Pauline and Markan traditions: ‘this cup is the new covenant [sealed] in my blood (Paul has a slightly different way of putting ‘my blood’ but the sense is exactly the same) which [is] poured out for you’. The last phrase echoes Mark’s ‘which [is] poured out for many’ (14.24), although Luke has not made it agree grammatically with its antecedent ‘blood’. In the mind of Jesus at the last supper lies the conviction that his death would inaugurate the new covenant predicted by Jeremiah. His death would be the sacrifice inaugurating this new relationship with Israel, guilty once more of breaking God’s covenant, and through her with others. At the last supper Jesus imparted proleptically a share in his imminent death and its results to his disciples.

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2. Farewell Discourse Jesus’ farewell discourse at the supper, in 22.21-38, may have come into being as a result of a process of growth (cf. John 14-17). Among the sayings in the discourse, those which predict Jesus’ betrayal and Peter’s denial (vv. 21-3 and 33-4) are supported by the Markan and Johannine traditions as being in connection with the supper (with vv. 21-3 cf. Mark 14.18-21; John 13.21, 26; and with vv. 33-4 cf. Mark 14.29-31; John 13.37-8). But the dispute over rank and precedence (vv. 24-7) occurs during the ministry in Mark (see Mark 9.33-7; 10.41-5), while the saying promising a share in the kingdom of Jesus (vv. 28-30) has a partial parallel in Matthew 19.28, Luke seeming to have blended a ‘Q’ saying2 with another saying. The saying of verses 29-30a with its reference to Jesus’ own kingdom does not seem to fit the emphasis on the kingdom of God in 22.16,18 and in Mark 14.25. On the other hand, some promise of sharing in the rule of God’s kingdom such as in verse 30b, does fit the eschatological emphasis noted earlier. With regard to the foregoing sayings, then, Luke himself may have been responsible for bringing in verses 24-27 (the dispute over rank) and 29-30a (sharing in the kingdom of Jesus). The setting of a meal facilitated the drawing in of verses 24-27, while the Greek verb ‘to appoint’ in verse 29 comes from the same root as ‘covenant’ in verse 20.3 Considering the further content of the discourse, the saying about Satan sifting the disciples (verse 31), and Jesus’ prayer for Simon (verse 32), with their sense of urgency and struggle, fit the tenseness of the closing phase of Jesus’ ministry. Simon is accorded a certain ‘primacy’ here (cf. Matt 16.18; John 21.15-17), insofar as he is given the pastoral role of strengthening his brothers. The sayings of verses 35-38 (hardly a creation by the early church!) recognize the nearness of a change that is imminent (‘But now....’ v. 36), in contrast to the halcyon days of the early ministry (‘when I sent you out....’). The section reflects the tenseness created by the growing opposition to Jesus, and to those associated with him. Strictly speaking, verse 35 (‘when I sent you out with no purse or bag or sandal’) refers back to the episode in 10.4 which in Luke is the giving of mission instructions to the seventy (or seventy two) other disciples rather than to the twelve!

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However, this difficulty is removed if Luke had two mission charges at his disposal—a Markan and a ‘Q’ one—and developed the concept of a second mission involving seventy disciples, perhaps to symbolize the Gentile mission, while not ‘tidying up’ the reference in 22.35. In this present saying Jesus warns that, unlike the situation of mission in the past, the disciples cannot now expect hospitality, but rather hostility (v. 36). The reference to buying a sword is ‘an example of Jesus’ fondness for violent metaphor’ (G. B. Caird). The disciples take him literally (v. 38a), but he dismisses their misunderstanding with a curt ‘Enough of that’ (v. 38b). Jesus also here reveals an awareness of his impending death (v. 37). Like God’s servant in Isaiah 53, he will be branded a lawbreaker (‘he was reckoned with the transgressors’). After all, Jesus had had enough forewarning of this in the criticism of the Pharisaic scribes to see where things were likely to end up. The question whether Jesus was influenced by the Isaianic servant idea remains a controversial one and verse 37 could be an early Christian reflection. Nevertheless, Isaiah 53 is itself part of a widespread tradition of the Righteous Sufferer and this could have helped Jesus himself to come to terms with a violent and early death; added to this there was the tradition Jesus must have known that the prophets had all met a violent end. Jesus could then have spoken the sayings in verses 31-2 and 35-8 at the supper; on the other hand a desire to create a ‘farewell discourse’ by Jesus, relevant to the life of the church, may have been present in the mind of Luke or others before him. This could have attracted material into this setting. 3. Jesus’ prayer struggle Luke’s narrative of the scene of Jesus praying (22.39-46), which is independent of Mark, has a less complicated structure than Mark’s and is clearly shaped for teaching purposes. Luke says that Jesus was accustomed to go to a certain place on the Mount of Olives (v. 39). The account of Jesus’ prayer begins and ends with the same warning: ‘Pray lest you enter into temptation [or testing]’(v. 40) and ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation [or testing]’ (v. 46). Jesus is thus an example of one who

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prayed not to enter temptation, in the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer (see 11.4). Luke does not describe any separating of three disciples from the others or a threefold prayer and return. The image in Jesus’ prayer is that of the cup (22.42), as in the second prayer given by Mark (14.36) although Luke’s version has ‘will’ as a noun in the petition ‘Nevertheless not my will but yours be done’, rather than the verb to will or wish (‘Not what I will...’ Mark 14.36).4 Luke’s source reports that an angel came to strengthen Jesus (v. 43), yet even so the intensity of the prayer struggle increases to such an extent that the sweat pours off Jesus like drops of blood (v. 44). These last verses (omitted by several manuscripts, no doubt for Christological reasons as they portray an all too human Jesus in his weakness) together with Hebrews 5.7 (generally reckoned to allude to this event) and John 12.27, show that Jesus’ struggle in prayer before his death had made a big impact on Christian thought and devotion. 4. The arrest of Jesus The arrest scene (22.47-53) has some details peculiar to Luke. Jesus actually asks Judas, ‘Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss, Judas?’ (v. 48); the disciples ask, ‘Lord, shall we strike [them] with the sword?’ (v. 49); Jesus commands his disciples, ‘Stop, no more of this!’ (v. 51); and Jesus heals the servant’s ear, specified as his right one (v. 50-1). Jesus then speaks to those who have come to arrest him, and for these words Luke may have borrowed material from Mark (vv. 52-3). In Luke, those who make the arrest are said to be the chief priests, captain of the temple guard and the elders. (Though, would the chief priests really have come out for the arrest on Passover night?) We note that , ‘But this is your hour and the power of darkness’(v.53b) is peculiar to Luke and suggests that the passion is being seen in terms of the struggle between the kingdom of God and Satan. The picture of Jesus healing the ear of one of the arresting group fits in with Luke’s picture of Jesus as compassionate and caring. Luke wants to show him as fulfilling his own teaching on loving one’s enemy. This touch would be a Lukan enhancement of the story. Peter’s denial following the arrest in Luke (22. 54-62) contains so many minor differences from Mark, that it is the easier option to postulate

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an independent source rather than an—unnecessary—rewriting of Mark’s account. Luke’s telling of the story implies that Jesus could actually see Peter (22.61). This is nowhere stated or implied in Mark. If historical, it must go back ultimately to a reminiscence of Peter. Some scholars, however, see it as a powerful detail elaborating the original account. 5. Mockery of Jesus by the guards The following passage (22. 63-5) relates how the guards who held Jesus overnight indulged in some horseplay at his expense. The Lukan story holds together logically in a way that neither Mark’s nor Matthew’s do. Luke’s account opens with a general statement that the guards mocked Jesus by striking him, which is elaborated with the motions of blindfolding, and the demand to play the prophet and identify the speaker. (Mark has the blindfold, the striking and the demand, ‘Prophesy!’, but no ‘Who struck you?’; Matthew has the striking and the demand, ‘Prophesy who struck you’, but no blindfold!) John 18.22 notably records what is deemed to be an illegal striking of Jesus at the interrogation by Annas. That ‘precedent’ might well have encouraged the guards in their behaviour. The historian faces the issue: was there some physical maltreatment of Jesus by the guards while he was being held during the night (so Luke, compare John), or was this inflicted during the trial with members of the Sanhedrin mainly responsible (Mark 14.65)? The language in common between Mark and Luke seems to preclude two incidents. Luke’s account seems to be the more likely historically. 6. The Jewish trial The verses describing the trial before the Sanhedrin in Luke (22.66-71) present a major difficulty in establishing the course of events, as we have already seen in looking at Mark’s account. For all their differences, Mark 14.55-64 and Luke 22.66-71 clearly describe the same scene. In the chapter on Mark, I argued that Mark 15.1 simply resumes the account of the trial, which has been interrupted by the story of Peter’s denial, and does not indicate a second separate session which would be one way of resolving the apparent conflict. In Luke the Sanhedrin trial takes place at daybreak; in Mark it occurs—apparently—at night time. We must,

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however, say ‘apparently’ because nothing in the account itself indicates the time; the time reference is only gained through the link with Peter’s denials which took place at night and before cockcrow. If Mark were responsible for this intertwining of the episodes of the trial and Peter’s denial, then the two events did not necessarily coincide in time. So, the historian faces the question as to whether Luke’s time reference is correct or not. One argument brought against the Lukan account of the trial at daybreak is that of the Roman historian, A. N. Sherwin-White, who maintains that the presence of the servants around the fire—i.e. at night time, when it was cold—points to a concurrent session of the Sanhedrin: the reason why the servants were not in bed was that something was happening.5 But two points might be made in response. First, these ‘servants’ (so Mark 14.54) might well be official servants of the Sanhedrin, rather than personal servants of members of the Sanhedrin who had arrived for the trial. Second, these servants could not go off duty since the high priest wished to interrogate Jesus at some time and, once he had finished, their services would be required to guard Jesus. So the detail of the fire cannot be pressed to the extent that Sherwin-White does. We may conclude that Mark may just not be interested in giving a time for the trial of Jesus at all; his concern may rather be to present a contrast between the denial of Peter and the confession of Jesus as two opposing pictures, and twining them together has given the impression that the two episodes took place at the same time. If this is right, then we should follow Luke in his deliberate timing of a morning trial. The historian also needs to discuss the interrogation of Jesus by the high priest (so Mark) and members of the Sanhedrin (so Mark and Luke). In Mark, after asking why Jesus has not replied to the accusation concerning the temple, the high priest asks one question: ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?’(14.61). In Luke, the members of the Sanhedrin ask two questions: (1) ‘If you are the Messiah, tell us’ (v. 67); and (2) ‘Are you then the Son of God?’ (v. 70). Has Mark or his tradition fused the original two questions into one, or has Luke expanded the original one into two? We notice that the Lukan and Johannine traditions seem to be close here because in John 10.24-38 there is a discussion between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ which centres on whether he is the Messiah

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and the Son of God, and Jesus’ response to the question of whether he is the Messiah is akin to Luke’s account here (22.67). Probably some compression took place within the Markan tradition, and the original proceedings touched on messiahship and sonship separately. Having drawn a blank on asking Jesus about messiahship (compare Jer 38.14-15 for a prophetic refusal to answer), a different tack was tried by the Sanhedrin and the question of sonship was broached. In the chapter on Mark the authenticity of the longer reading of Jesus’ reply—‘You have said that I am’—was upheld. Certainly both Jesus’ replies in Luke avoid a direct answer, while equally not returning a negative: 22.67: ‘If I told, you would not believe and if I put a question, you would not answer’ 22.70: ‘You say that I am’

If compression took place in Mark, then the first reply was dropped. According to Luke 22.71, the latter reply made Jesus guilty in the eyes of the Sanhedrin, though Luke does not use the term ‘blasphemy’ as Mark does in 14.60. No mention of Luke 22.69, Jesus’ saying about the Son of Man, has so far been made: ‘But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God’.

This is generally regarded as brought in by Luke from Mark and altered by him, even by defenders of a non-Markan source for the passion story in Luke. Luke drops ‘you shall see [the Son of Man]’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’; by adding ‘from now on’, he secures a prediction of the immediate vindication of Jesus in terms of sitting at God’s right hand, while his deletions avoid any suggestion of an imminent parousia which could be seen by members of the Sanhedrin. 7. The trial before Pilate and the interview before Herod The section Luke 23.1-25 is probably one entity. The episode of Jesus before Herod (vv. 6-12) is peculiar to Luke and of necessity creates two sessions before Pilate. Scholars who reject its historicity assume that

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Luke has spun out the appearance of Jesus before Pilate to secure a triple assertion of Jesus’ innocence by Pilate (to reassure Luke’s readers that Christianity was politically harmless). However, since John’s Gospel also has a triple assertion of Jesus’ innocence, and since Luke and John are independent of one another, we must reckon seriously with a non-Markan tradition in which Pilate proclaimed Jesus’ innocence three times. A related theory is that Luke created the Herod episode on the basis of Psalm 2, whose second verse portrays a consultation between several rulers and kings (cf. Acts 4:26-7): The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsels together, against the Lord and his anointed.

But the weakness of this theory is that in Psalm 2.2 the rulers and kings devise plans against the Lord’s anointed, whereas in Luke 23 it is Pilate and Herod who find no fault in Jesus and wish to release him; it is the Jewish people and their leaders who want to see Jesus disposed of! If Luke had invented the Herod episode out of the text of Psalm 2 he would surely have shown Pilate and Herod as hostile to Jesus. The Herod episode has a good claim to historicity, the more so as the possibility existed under Roman law of sending prisoners to their provinces of origin for trial, especially to enable the procurator or proconsul involved to avoid a tiresome case.6 Luke’s account of the trial before Pilate begins with the Sanhedrin specifying the charges which they were bringing against Jesus (23.2 cf. v. 5). These are political charges, not the religious ones of the Jewish trial (22.67-70). This need occasion no surprise. Accusations of a purely religious nature would not interest a Roman governor (see Acts 18.12-16). But when a religious accusation is transposed into a political one, and messiahship becomes kingship (‘saying he is Christ a king’), then the Romans would be interested! If the facts were being massaged (‘perverting our nation’) or the Sanhedrin was being ‘economical with the truth’ (‘forbidding the payment of tribute to Caesar’), this need not occasion great surprise. The first declaration by Pilate of Jesus’ innocence comes at v. 4 (cf. John 18.8). The further accusation that Jesus was stirring up the people (v. 5) is again slanting the presentation of the ministry of Jesus to

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support the accusation (in this verse ‘all Judea’ is used in a broad sense to mean the whole country, as at 1.5; 4.44). Learning from these accusations that Jesus is a Galilean, Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, the Jewish ruler under whose jurisdiction Galilee came, and who was also in Jerusalem. Jesus maintains silence to all Herod’s enquiries. In the end Herod returns Jesus to Pilate (vv. 6-12), who formally declares that Herod has found no cause of death in Jesus (v.15). By the mocking act of garbing Jesus in a gorgeous robe, Herod had presumably showed how lightly he took the idea of Jesus as king! The sending back of Jesus prompts a second declaration of Jesus’ innocence by Pilate (v.14, cf. John19.4), who suggests that he scourge Jesus and then release him. Then comes the demand from the Jewish side for the release of Barabbas (vv.18-21), the third declaration of Jesus’ innocence (v.22 cf. John 19.6), and a final granting of their wish for the release of Barabbas and the death penalty for Jesus (vv. 23-5). This Lukan sequence of events, which involves a day-time Jewish trial, a session before Pilate, an interview before Herod and then another session before Pilate, if it were to be accepted inevitably poses several problems. Could all these events take place, with the journeys involved between the various buildings, and Jesus still be hanging on the cross by 9 a.m. as Mark 15.26 has it? Though Luke does not reproduce a reference to time for the beginning of the crucifixion like Mark 15.26, he does reckon the three hour darkness from about 12 noon to 3 p.m. (23.44); so clearly, even according to Luke, Jesus was on the cross before noon. To envisage all these events within three hours (about 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.), or even before John’s 12 noon (19.14) might be stretching the timescale somewhat, though it is not entirely impossible. If John’s time reference is preferred, then the three hour darkness from noon to 3 p.m. (Mark 15.33) must be taken symbolically, but then that is the view of many scholars in any case (cf. Amos 8.9). The difficulty with the timescale has led a minority of scholars to suggest that the Last Supper was earlier in the week than Thursday, to allow for the events outlined to take place over a longer period. Thus, for example, it has been suggested that Jesus’ last meal was on the Tuesday evening, with his arrest in the garden later that night, followed by the interrogation before Annas (John 18.13,19-23) and Peter’s denial. The

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trial before the Sanhedrin commenced on Wednesday morning. The trial before Pilate and the interview by Herod are placed on Thursday, with the final sentence by Pilate on Friday, followed by the scourging, the crucifixion, death and burial. Such a timetable certainly allows for all the various events, but it remains a minority viewpoint. Some will be unhappy at such a far-reaching recasting of the Gospel chronology. 8. The way to Golgotha The bulk of the scene of the execution march to Golgotha (Luke 23.2632), that is the words of Jesus to the women of Jerusalem, is peculiar to Luke. It reveals an interest in what might be called the ‘political’ dimension of Jesus’ ministry—an interest which seems to be characteristic of the material from Luke’s special source (‘L’), as can be seen in such passages as 19.41-4; 21.20-4; 23.2, 5. Jesus predicts an awful fate for the city when the childless will be counted fortunate (v. 29) and people will long for an earthquake to bring an end to their lives; it would be better to be buried by an avalanche of rocks than go on living (cf. Hosea 10.8). 9. The crucifixion and death of Jesus Luke’s narrative of the crucifixion (Luke 23.33-49) bears a very different character from Mark’s, not least because he records three sayings of Jesus as opposed to the one in Mark. Proponents of the view that Luke has used Mark as his sole source believe that he has re-written Mark to secure two further witnesses to Jesus’ innocence (vv. 41, 47), and to remove the cry of desolation in favour of a calm and trusting commitment of himself into God’s hands (v. 46). To this we shall return. The first saying of Jesus is a prayer to God for the forgiveness of those who are perpetrating his death (v. 34a: some manuscripts, out of anti-Jewish feeling, omit this saying). Jesus lives out his own teaching on loving his enemies (6.35). There follows mockery by the Jewish rulers (23.35) and by the soldiers who offer him sour wine and taunt him: ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself’ (v. 36; either ‘L’ contained this or Luke transferred the Roman soldiers’ mockery from the scourging to this point).

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The second saying from Jesus on the cross occurs in what may be called ‘the episode of the penitent freedom fighter’. While one insults him, the other rebukes his fellow: ‘Do you not fear God because you are under the same sentence? In our case it is right for we are getting what our deeds deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong’. And then he says, ‘Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom’. To this Jesus replies, ‘In truth I tell you, you will be with me in paradise today’ (vv.3943). As in his ministry Jesus was the friend of sinners, so in his death. He opened the kingdom of God to sinners in life; in his death he assured the penitent freedom fighter of a place in paradise. Then follows the three hour darkness (v. 44), the rending of the curtain of the temple (v. 45) and the third and final word of Jesus from the cross, already referred to (v. 46): ‘Father, I commend my spirit into your hands’—drawn from Psalm 31.5. Jesus dies calm and serene in his trust in God. The first and the last words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel contain the word ‘Father’ (2.49; 23.46). There is a calm beauty about Jesus’ death as recorded by Luke. When the Roman centurion observes the manner of his dying, he says, ‘This man was indeed innocent’ (v. 47, taking dikaios in this sense). The representative of Rome at the cross acknowledges the rightness of Jesus’ case. The crowds, earlier represented as observing a watchful silence in contrast to their rulers who mock (23.35), beat their breasts as a sign of mourning for what had happened, and return home (v. 48). According to Luke, Jesus’ male friends and women followers stand at a distance to see the event (v. 49). The language is reminiscent of Psalms 38.11 and 88.8 describing the Righteous Sufferer’s anguish that his friends stand aloof from him. At the pre-Lukan level, this may have also been the intended meaning, i.e. Jesus is the Righteous Sufferer; at the level of Luke’s own intentions the phrasing (‘stood at a distance’) is probably being used in a positive sense: the disciples were there, even if at a distance. We have in this study assumed an ‘L’ account of the passion story, that is the dependence of Luke on his special source rather than his wholesale rewriting of Mark’s story. If the understanding of Jesus as the Righteous Sufferer of the Psalms was indeed a very early one, as seems likely, it would then have been taken up into all the collections of Jesus’

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sayings and deeds, including that used by Luke. The appearance of the theme in both Mark and Luke does not therefore mean that Luke has simply re-written Mark. Echoes of the Psalms of the Righteous Sufferer are discernible as follows: Luke 23. 34 35b 36b 46 49

Psalm 22.18 22.7 69.21 31.5 38.11; 88.8

Depicting Jesus as the Righteous Sufferer by such language means that the sufferings of Jesus do not disprove his claims; on the contrary, they authenticate them. From a historical point of view, we need to consider the issue of the words of Jesus from the cross. In Mark (and Matthew) there is only the cry of desolation; in Luke there are three totally different ‘words’ or sayings, and John’s Gospel provides us with a further three, none corresponding to those in the Synoptic Gospels. Did Jesus speak all seven, beginning with the cry of desolation and working through the sense of the absence of God to calm trust again (Luke 23.46) and to a sense of victory (John 19.30)? That would be the view of many devout Christians, especially those nurtured within traditions accustomed to a Good Friday three hour meditation, often focused on ‘the seven words from the cross’. Thus, for example, one well-used book of prayers7 lists the seven words in this order: Luke 23.34; 23.43; John 19.26, 27: Matt 27.46; John 19.28; 19.30; Lk. 23.46 (in this sequence the cry of desolation occurs in the middle). Alternatively, as some would argue, did Jesus utter only the cry of desolation (Mark 15.34 = Matt 27.46) and later Christian writers have modified that from their own Christological perspective? Yet another view would be that all the words from the cross, including the cry of desolation, are interpretations of the event by the different evangelists. If this is so, then the Markan tradition is using words from the Righteous Sufferer of Psalm 22 in a passion story which stresses how (to use Pauline language) Christ became a curse for us. To take another example, the Johannine tradition is portraying Jesus as crying ‘it is accomplished’

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because it sees the cross as the completion of Jesus’ work and a moment of victory, and therefore the hour of Jesus’ glorification. We are ‘on holy ground’, sacred to all believers. Readers must make up their own minds on this question of Jesus’ words from the cross. Luke is fairly close to Mark in recounting Joseph of Arimathea’s request to Pilate for the body of Jesus, and his taking Jesus down from the cross and burying him (23:50-53). Luke mentions that the women from Galilee observed where the body of Jesus was buried (v. 55), and how they then returned to where they were staying and prepared spices (to anoint Jesus’ body), but rested on the Sabbath in accordance with the law (v. 56). 10. Luke and the story Following these various historical issues, the several threads in Luke’s narrative may now be drawn together. In seeking to trace what happened to Jesus, the historian needs to take seriously the Lukan material at the Last Supper; the maltreatment by guards overnight (22.63-65); the daytime trial before the Sanhedrin and its pattern of two questions (22.66-71); two sessions before Pilate, divided by an interview before Herod (23.1-25); and the words of Jesus to the women on the way to the place of crucifixion (23.27-31). At these points Luke offers a different picture from Mark. Notes See below, pp. 109-110 For ‘Q’, see above p. 2 3 For another view of the significance of this saying in the passion narrative, see chapter 13 by G. Henton Davies, p. 154 4 [Ed] The verbal form is found in the Lord’s Prayer as recorded by Matthew: ‘Your will be done’. Luke does not include this petition in his version of the prayer (11.2-4). 5 A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963), pp. 44-7. 6 A. N. Sherwin-White argues this; see note 5 above. 7 Frank Colquhoun (Ed.,) Parish Prayers (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1967). 1 2

9 The Last Twenty-Four Hours according to John 1. How John tells the story At the Last Supper, which is not a Passover in John, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, interpreted this action and held it up as an example to be followed. Jesus gave a lengthy farewell address plus a prayer, before leaving with his disciples and crossing the Kidron valley to enter a garden well known to him. There he was seized by the arresting party led by Judas. Initially they collapsed before Jesus, but he allowed himself to be taken, stopping Peter, who had cut off the right ear of a servant of the high priest, from resisting further. Jesus was taken to the high priest’s father-in-law, Annas, who proceeded to interrogate Jesus about his disciples and his teaching, one of the officials striking Jesus during the proceedings. Meanwhile Peter, whose admission to the high priest’s courtyard was obtained by another disciple, denied all knowledge of Jesus three times. From Annas Jesus was led to Caiaphas, and from him to Pilate. A series of interviews by Pilate with Jesus on the one hand and the Jews on the other took place, inside and outside the governor’s residence respectively. Inside, Pilate was discussing kingship and authority with Jesus, while outside the Jews admitted that they had no power to carry out the death sentence, requested the release of Barabbas and demanded the crucifixion of Jesus, whose claim to be the Son of God rendered him guilty in their eyes. The Jews exerted pressure on Pilate by saying, ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar’. In the middle of this movement in and out of the governor’s residence, Pilate had Jesus scourged, and the Roman troops mocked Jesus. Pilate’s attempt to elicit pity for the prisoner garbed in a royal cloak proved unavailing. In the end, the Jews admitted, ‘We have no king but Caesar’. At that point Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified, and he was led off to Golgotha carrying his cross. Despite the Jews’ request that he modify the written charge against Jesus, Pilate insisted that it stayed as ‘The king of the Jews’ (written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek). Four women disciples, including Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalene (later to be a recipient of an appearance of the risen Jesus), plus the

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beloved disciple, were standing near the cross. Jesus entrusted his mother to the beloved disciple and him to her, said that he was thirsty (some wine vinegar in a sponge was held to his lips) and then uttered his final words, ‘It is finished’, and died. At the Jews’ request, to hasten death so that the bodies could be removed and buried, the soldiers broke the legs of the other two crucified but, as Jesus had already died, they refrained from doing so in his case; nevertheless, one of them thrust a spear in his side, whereupon blood and water flowed out, a fact on which much stress is laid in John’s account. The non-breaking of Jesus’ bones and the spear thrust into his side are said to fulfil scripture. Joseph of Arimathea was given permission to remove the body, and in this he was assisted by Nicodemus. The two together took Jesus’ body down from the cross, anointed it with spices and then laid it in a new tomb in a nearby garden. After this survey of the story in John’s Gospel, as we have already done with the Synoptic Gospels we turn now to consider the different episodes and the historical questions which arise in connection with them. The treatment of John’s narrative in this chapter makes the following three assumptions. First, John is independent of the Synoptic writers. Second, John’s account often contains sound historical tradition. Third, John often moulds tradition with a sovereign freedom and creativity. History becomes the vehicle for theology. We learn from his account of the last discourse of Jesus that the evangelist believed himself to be the agent of the Paraclete-Spirit whose task it was to take the things of Jesus (his words and deeds) and re-proclaim them in an interpreted manner to new situations in the ongoing life of the church (see 14.26; 16.13-15). The paradox within the Fourth Gospel is this: the evangelist is committed to history because the Word became flesh, but in order to be true to the meaning of the history of the Word-become-flesh, the evangelist may have to mould that history. 1. The arrest of Jesus Reading John’s account of the arrest of Jesus (John 18:1-12) we discover that the Johannine tradition knew of the brook Kidron (v. 1), that Jesus often resorted to a garden beyond it (v. 2), and that the high priest’s

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servant’s name was Malchus (v. 10). (‘Johannine’ here and elsewhere means characteristic of John the evangelist and of the particular community in the early church to which he belonged): Some ‘Johannizing’ has gone on in vv. 4-9 where several typical Johannine themes are evident: (a) Jesus’ knowledge of what is to happen (v. 4, cf. for example 6.64; 13.1, 3, 19). (b) The absolute ‘I am’ in answer to the question about his identity (vv. 5f, cf. for example 8.28, 58). (c) Jesus allows himself to be arrested (vv. 6-8a, cf. 10.18). (d) Jesus’ saying about not losing any given to him by the Father (v. 9, cf. 6.39; 17.12). The evangelist names Simon Peter as the disciple who cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. This may have been in his tradition or it may be a case of names being ‘supplied’ in the course of time (for example, in the episode of the anointing of Jesus at 12.1-8 the evangelist may have ‘supplied’ Judas in v. 4). Jesus’ command to sheathe the sword (v. 11a) is comparable to Matthew 26.52, but the vocabulary is different. The use of the ‘cup’ imagery (v. 11b) reminds us of Jesus’ prayer in Mark 14.36 in the Gethsemane story. Who effected the arrest? Were Roman troops involved? Some scholars maintain this in view of John’s vocabulary: he uses the terms speira (vv.3, 12—the word used of a Roman cohort, i.e. a tenth part of a legion, normally 600 men) and chiliarchos (v. 12, used of a military tribune, the commander of a cohort). But it should be observed that both these words are used of Jewish troops and their leader in both the Septuagint and Josephus, while Mark 6.21 uses chiliarchos of Herod Antipas’ military chiefs. Moreover, Jesus would almost certainly have been led straight to Pilate if Roman troops had been involved. Accordingly, the view that Roman troops were involved in the arrest of Jesus may be rejected. 2. Jesus before Annas According only to John, Jesus is taken first for an interview with Annas (John 18.13-14, 19-24). Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas and retained considerable prestige and influence after his deposition from the

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high priesthood (v. 13) in 15 AD. That Annas should be asked to carry out a preliminary interrogation with a view to securing incriminatory evidence against Jesus is plausible. Annas sought information in two specific areas—Jesus’ disciples and his teaching—to see whether Jesus was aiming at leading a revolutionary movement (his disciples) and/or whether as a false prophet he was leading the people astray (his teaching). There is some light ‘Johannizing’ of Jesus’ words. In verse 20 we notice the occurrence of ‘the world’ and ‘the Jews’ (both terms frequent in John), and the contrast between ‘open’ and ‘secret’ (these words occur nine times and three times respectively in John). Jesus’ assertion that he had spoken openly in public places is reminiscent of a similar protest placed earlier in the Synoptic tradition, at the time of arrest (Mark 14.49 and parallels). One of the officers is said to strike Jesus during the interrogation (v. 22). As I have already suggested, given this precedent it would not be inconceivable if, later on, the guards physically abused Jesus, as Luke describes it in 22.63-5 3. Peter’s denial In the episode of Peter’s denial (18.15-18, 25-27), peculiar to John is the reference to another disciple in addition to Peter. This disciple, because known to the high priest, was able to secure admission for Peter into the courtyard (vv. 15-16). The differences between John and Mark on the one hand and between John and Luke on the other—differences which have no theological significance—are such that John’s independence of the Synoptics may be assumed. Like Mark, John surrounds another episode with Peter’s denial, but he does so more thoroughly than Mark, with Peter’s first denial being mentioned before Annas’ interrogation and the other two denials after (vv.17 and 25-27). 4. The ‘missing’ Jewish trial John gives no account of the proceedings of the trial before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin in the place where the Synoptic Gospels would lead us to expect it (18.24, 28). There is mention of Jesus in the house of Caiaphas, but no trial. Some have used this as an additional proof of the unhistorical

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character of the Synoptic account of the Jewish trial. Two other explanations, however, are possible: (a) It may be that John had already ‘used up’ the Christological issue from the Jewish trial, that is the question about messiahship and sonship, at 10.22-39 (see especially v. 24: ‘If you are the Christ, tell us plainly’ and v. 36 ‘Do you say.... “You are blaspheming” because I said, “I am the Son of God”?’). This might be described as a technique of retrojection into earlier phases in the ministry, another example being the placing of the incident of the cleansing of the temple back into 2.13-22. In other ways, of course, the Christological issue is constantly being raised in John (see 5.17-18, 19ff. for example). Having dealt earlier with the Christological question that arose in the Jewish trial, John was thus able to concentrate on the Roman trial and bring out in a highly dramatic way many themes which he wanted to stress. (b) Alternatively, we notice that John has narrated an account of an earlier formal session of the Sanhedrin which determined on the death penalty for Jesus (11.47-53). Thus R. E. Brown considers that John’s arrangement could be more historical, and a simple interrogation after Jesus’ arrest more likely than a full-scale Sanhedrin trial.1 Brown concedes, however, that John’s arrangement may be more theological than historical: the Sanhedrin session of 11.47-53 is held because of the raising of Lazarus. The first solution, in my view, probably raises fewer problems than the second. 5. The date of the Passover John 18.28 shows quite clearly that, for John, Jesus’ last meal could not have been a Passover, although it was held in proximity to Passover: Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the praetorium. It was early. They themselves did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.

Thus, according to John, when Jesus was crucified at 12 noon this was the very moment when the Passover lambs were being killed in the temple in preparation for the meal (19.14). Many scholars believe that John altered the date in order to portray Jesus as the true Passover lamb, and the

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scripture said to be quoted in 19.36 (‘not a bone of him shall be broken’) could be a reference to the preparation of the lamb in Exodus 12.46/ Num 9.12. Verse 31 refers to the day of crucifixion as the day of ‘preparation’ for the Sabbath which on this occasion is said to be a ‘great’ day, probably because it coincided with 15th Nisan, the Passover. (Bultmann’s argument that 19.31 does not explicitly mention the Passover because it was originally part of a source which agreed in dating with the Synoptics2 is not necessarily correct). The conflict between John and the Synoptic Gospels over the date of the Last Supper has generated a great deal of discussion and no generally agreed solution has been reached. The problem cannot be solved by postulating that Jesus celebrated Passover according to an ‘unofficial’ calendar (evidence of which is observed in the Book of Jubilees and Qumran), while the official Passover was celebrated in the evening after his death.3 Karl G. Kuhn has shown convincingly that the so-called unofficial calendar is an ideal construct and in practice unworkable, being based on a lunar month and not the real month.4 Detailed discussion of this point is precluded by reason of space. If John is right, then Mark 14.12-16 which identifies the Last Supper as a Passover meal is an early church elaboration based on Mark 11.1-10. If the Synoptic Gospels are right, John 18.28 is making a theological point rather than a historical one: Jesus is indeed the true Passover lamb at the centre of God’s redemptive act. For my part, I must say that sometimes my mood is to go with the Synoptics and sometimes with John,5 as far as the historical issue is concerned. It is important to notice, however, that the Synoptics and John are in agreement theologically: we are being invited to understand the death of Jesus in terms of Passover themes, and we may ourselves associate these both with the Last Supper and the moment of the cross. 6. The Roman trial What has been described as the ‘Johannizing’ of the material is particularly evident in John’s account of the Roman trial of Jesus (John 18.28-19.6), and especially in 18.33-8. The result is brilliant from a literary angle, deeply moving from a devotional angle, and profound from a theological angle. Whereas the Synoptic tradition portrays a Jesus largely

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silent before Pilate (Mark 15.4-5), a passive figure, the Johannine Jesus engages in dialogue with Pilate; though ostensibly Jesus is the prisoner and Pilate the judge, a subtle reversal of roles takes place and Pilate becomes the one on trial and Jesus himself the judge. The material has probably been arranged in seven scenes, alternating between inside and outside the Praetorium, with the mockery scene as the central episode (this comes at the end of the proceedings in the Synoptics). Scene i: Scene ii: Scene iii: Scene iv: Scene v: Scene vi: Scene vii:

outside inside outside inside outside inside outside

18.28-32 18.33-38a 18.38b-40 19.1-3 19.4-8 19.9-11 19.12-16a

(i) 18.28-32 In this scene we note that the Jews say, ‘It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death’ (v. 31b). Although a number of scholars dispute this claim, it remains probable that this accurately reflects the state of affairs, that is the Romans reserved to themselves the right of capital punishment. The evangelist points out that (since the Jews would execute someone by stoning) this meant that Jesus’ earlier saying about his being ‘lifted up’ (literally, on a cross, and metaphorically exalted to the Father) would be fulfilled: see 3.14-15; 8.28; 12.32-3. Such a death could only be actualized by the Roman method of execution, not by the Jewish. (ii) 18.33-38a The question, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’, becomes the springboard for a discussion of kingship. The Johannine Jesus points out that kingship does not originate from within this world order (v. 36)—a fact illustrated by the lack of organized military resistance to his arrest. His kingship is basically a kingship of truth, to witness to which he came into the world (v.37). Truth is not something theoretical or abstract, but is a saving concept: God loves the world and seeks to draw men and women into union with himself through the incarnate Son/Word. The predestinarian

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colouring of ‘everyone who is of the truth’ (i.e. who belongs to the truth, whose life is governed by the truth) is typically Johannine (cf.10.26). We must not fail to observe, however, that these predestinarian-type sayings lie side by side with sayings which demand the exercise of faith. As G.B. Caird puts it, the Hebrew mind tended to ‘set two ideas side by side and allow the one to qualify the other without bothering to spell out in detail the relation between them’6 (technically, this literary style is called parataxis). (iii) 18.38b-40 Pilate declares Jesus innocent for the first time. At this point, he should have released Jesus, but he makes the mistake of trying to bargain with the Jews. He saw the truth (the innocence of Jesus) but did not act accordingly, and became embroiled in the consequences of his own mistake. John’s report of the amnesty custom is brief, culminating in the terse but powerful remark, ‘Now Barabbas was a bandit’ (REB). (iv) 19.1-3 The centrepiece of the tableau is the mockery of Jesus as king of the Jews. The reader knows that what the soldiers mock is in reality true—Jesus is a king! (v) 19.4-8 Pilate’s second declaration of innocence occurs (v. 4). Again the truth is spoken in irony—‘Behold the man’ (v. 5). A third declaration of innocence follows (v. 6). The Jews mention Jesus’ claim to divine sonship which in their opinion merits the death penalty (cf.5.17-18, 19ff; 10.3138). Pilate experiences a sense of religious fear, lest Jesus is some divine being appearing in human guise—another sign of the consequences of his failure to act according to his conviction that Jesus had done nothing worthy of death and ought to be released. (vi) 19.9 -11 Another dialogue between Jesus and Pilate ensues. First, the question of Jesus’ origins is raised (v. 9, cf. 7.27-8; 8.14; 9.29-30) to which Jesus offers no reply, although the reader knows that Jesus has come ‘from

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above’, from God. But then the dialogue focuses on the question of authority (vv. 10-11). Pilate claims to possess authority over life and death, but Jesus points out that it is a God-delegated authority. In God’s purposes, the Romans will bring about the lifting up of Jesus, though this does not absolve Pilate from having refused to act in accordance with the truth. (vii) 19.12-16a The Jews play what has been called ‘their last trump card’: ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar’ (v. 12). The Jewish leaders exploit Pilate’s by no means secure position at the imperial court in Rome. To save his own skin, Pilate proceeds to condemn to death a man whom he three times has declared to be innocent. At this juncture, he is one who has preferred darkness to light (3.19), falsehood to truth, and shown himself to be from below, not from above. There is high drama at the close of this scene. The chief priests announce ‘we have no king but Caesar’ (v. 15c). This is a betrayal of the fundamental tenet of Israel’s faith, that Yahweh alone was their king. This dramatic point is comparable to the scene in Matthew 27.24-25, and may aptly be called a ‘hinge’ of the passion story in John; the interesting use of language at this point (‘then.... therefore’, v. 16a) is examined further in a later chapter.7 A minority of scholars believe that the second main verb in 19.13 should be given a transitive sense, i.e. ‘sat [him] down on the judgement seat’, meaning that Pilate made Jesus sit there after he had brought him out to the crowd. The suggestion is an attractive one as it would contain another example of Johannine irony, but in default of a ‘him’ it is perhaps wiser to think of Pilate’s sitting down. 7. The way to Golgotha and the inscription In John’s account of the path to Golgotha (John 19.17), Christological considerations have probably led to the elimination of Simon of Cyrene from the story, and the assertion that Jesus carried his own cross. Jesus, on the way to his triumph and glorification, does not show weakness.

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The inscription of Jesus’ ‘crime’ is said to have been written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, as if the kingship of Jesus is being proclaimed to the world (cf. 4.42). In accord with this, Pilate refuses the Jewish request to amend the notice from ‘The king of the Jews’ to ‘He said, I am the king of the Jews’ (vv. 20-22). 8. The crucifixion and death of Jesus At the scene of the crucifixion (John 19.23-30) the soldiers, in accordance with custom, dice for the prisoner’s clothes (v. 23). John alone itemizes a seamless robe belonging to Jesus (v. 23b). Some later interpreters have seen a symbolic significance in the nature of this garment (for example, the unity of the church). In contrast to the soldiers, a group of believers stand close to the cross. They consist of four women (Jesus’ mother, Jesus’ aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene) and ‘the beloved disciple’. John has probably brought the women close to Jesus’ cross (in the Synoptics they are at a distance) and introduced the figure of the beloved disciple (vv. 25-26). Who the beloved disciple was has been, and probably always will be, a matter of dispute. He was certainly a historical character as the reference to him at 21.23 shows. He was probably also thought of as an ideal disciple; he is portrayed as being ‘in the bosom of Jesus’ (13.23) as Jesus was ‘in the bosom’ of the Father (1.18), and Jesus ‘loved’ him. He seems to excel Peter in spiritual insight (20.8; 21.7). If the disciple mentioned in company with Peter in 18.15 was this ‘beloved disciple’, then he was known to the high priest and so may have been a southerner rather than coming from the north like the other disciples. Jesus entrusts his mother to the beloved disciple and him to her, and we learn that he took her into his home from that moment on (vv. 26-27). The reader must judge whether Jesus left it to being at the very point of death to make final arrangements for his mother, or whether this is John’s adaptation of the tradition. If the latter, why does he adapt the story in this way? Is Mary being ‘singled out’ in this act from the four believing women (as Mary Magdalene is in 20.1-18 and Thomas in 20.24-29) as a type of the believer, who is pointed to the beloved disciple as her spiritual guide and protector? We notice that in chapter 21 there is a concern to define the different spheres of responsibility of Peter and the beloved

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disciple in the community of the early church (21.15-23). Peter has a pastoral role, but the beloved disciple will remain ‘until Jesus comes’; the writer here denies that ‘remaining’ means that the beloved disciple would not die, perhaps then implying that what remains is his spiritual legacy. John makes no mention of the three hour’s darkness nor of the cry of desolation, probably on Christological grounds. For John, the cross is Jesus’ lifting up (exaltation) and glorification (e.g. 12.23; 13.31; 17.1): all that does not fit in with such a view is left out and the picture is of Jesus in control to the end. Having entrusted his mother to the beloved disciple, Jesus fulfils scripture by saying ‘I thirst’ (Ps 22.15) and cries out in triumph, ‘It is finished’—he has accomplished the work entrusted to him by the Father (cf. 4.34; 17.1-4). 9. The piercing of Jesus’ side To avoid the bodies remaining on their crosses on the next day, the Sabbath, the Jews ask Pilate to hasten death by breaking the legs of the victims (19.31). As we have already seen, the scholar Bultmann thought that the reference only to the Sabbath in v.31, without mention of the Passover which might have been expected in John’s time scale, reflected a tradition akin to the Synoptics. But the specification of this Sabbath as a ‘great (day)’ may go back to the evangelist himself, in which case there could be no tension with the dating in 18.28 and 19.14. John has already used the term ‘great’ of a feast day in 7.37; here the festal day would be the Passover. When the side of the already dead Jesus is pierced by a spear, verses 34b-35 add that blood and water issue forth. This detail may well be an elaboration by the evangelist of the tradition he had received. The scriptural proofs offered in the following verses (vv. 36-7) evidently relate only to the non-breaking of the bones of Jesus (v. 33) and the spear thrust by the soldier (v. 34a). They do not refer to the outflow of blood and water, the event which, according to verse 35, has belief-arousing potential! Whether it be accepted or not that the detail is an elaboration, on the level of theological interpretation verse 34b is clearly of considerable importance. Various interpretations have been suggested:

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(a) The outflow of blood and water is said to prove the real humanity of Jesus, against any incipient trends to spiritualize his body (as appear, for instance, in later second century Gnosticism). But it is not clear how proving the humanity of Jesus should be the ground for believing in him (v. 35). (b) Blood and water stand for the sacraments of the Lord’s supper and baptism. Apart from the odd order, if this were so, ‘blood’ is not a natural way of referring to the Lord’s Supper. The same objection to (a) would apply here too. (c) Blood (compare 6.55) and water (cf. 3.5; 7.38; 4.14) refer to the fact that ‘those living streams by which [people] are quickened and the church lives’ proceed from the crucified one (C.K. Barrett).8 (d) Blood refers to the atoning value of Jesus’ death (cf. 1 John 1.7; see also John 1.29) and water refers to the gift of the Spirit (3.5; 7.38; cf. 4.14). The last two explanations both offer a satisfactory basis for the appeal to believe, contained in verse 35: He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth—that you also may believe.

Clearly the writer of this verse attributed vital importance to the incident of the outflow of blood and water. Some readers of my treatment of this passage may feel that the claims to be a witness of the event in verse 35 are incompatible with the suggestion made earlier that verses 34b-35 might well be an elaboration of the tradition. Such a feeling probably rests on the assumption that the claim to have ‘seen’ points to a literal eyewitness. But the verb ‘to see’ is often used in the Johannine writings of spiritual seeing. Take Jesus’ words to Philip in the farewell discourse: ‘If you had known me, you would know my Father also. And from now on you know him and have seen him. The person who has seen me has seen the Father’ (14.7, 9). Arguably, the seeing of 1.51 (‘you will see heaven opened...’) also refers to the spiritual perception of how the man Jesus unites heaven and earth. Likewise the seeing (and hearing) of 3.11, 32, which forms the basis of witnessing (‘we bear witness to what we have

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seen’), would seem to refer to spiritual realities (cf. 6.46; 8.38; 11.40, all these instances using horan, to see). In 1 John 4.14 we read, ‘And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent his Son as the saviour of the world’ (theasthai is used). No-one literally saw the Father send the son! Hence the possibility also exists that the language of the prologue of 1 John (‘that which we have heard, that which we have seen.... which we have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life’) should also be taken spiritually. We may further compare the language of ‘tasting’ the Lord’s graciousness in 1 Peter 2.3 and ‘tasting’ the heavenly gift in Hebrews 6.4-6. In context, ‘he who saw it’ in verse 35 presumably refers to the beloved disciple, the authority behind the Fourth Gospel. In 21.24 the group which ‘published’ the Gospel offers an authentication of his witness. We come back to the scriptural quotations in 19.36-37, relating to the non-breaking of the legs of Jesus and the piercing of his side: For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken.’ And again another scripture says, ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced.’

On the assumption that these quotations belonged to the tradition, then the original aim might have been to show Jesus as the Righteous Sufferer predicted both in Psalm 34.20 (first quotation) and Zechariah 12.10 (second quotation). Alternatively, the first quotation might have been intended to allude to Exodus 12.46 and Numbers 9.12, thus showing Jesus to be both the true Passover lamb (first quotation) and the Righteous Sufferer (second quotation). Whatever the original intention of the obscure passage from Zechariah 12.10 (‘when they look on him whom they have pierced’), early Christians surely linked the pierced one with the ‘smitten shepherd’ of Zechariah 13.7; indeed, they seem to have drawn on Zechariah 9-14 as an important seed-bed from which support for the gospel story, and interpretation of it, could be drawn. If the Fourth Evangelist was personally responsible for moving the date of the Last Supper to make the death of Jesus coincide with the Passover, then he could also have been responsible for understanding the quotation in v.36 as coming from the regulations about the Passover lamb in Exodus 12.46/Numbers 9.12.

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10. The burial of Jesus John describes Joseph of Arimathea as a secret disciple (cf. 12.42). The Synoptic Gospels know nothing of the role of Nicodemus in the burial (19.39) and this must probably be credited to the work of the evangelist. John records a highly respectful and honourable burial given to Jesus’ body (vv. 39-40—note the huge amount of myrrh and aloes). According to verse 41 the tomb was new, not previously occupied; this agrees with Matthew who describes the grave as new (27.60), and with Luke who says that no-one had yet been laid in it (23.53). The actual anointing of the body at the time of burial stands in contrast to Mark 16.1 and Luke 23.56-24.1 where the women are said to go to the grave later to anoint the body. Most scholars think that the Synoptic account is more likely to be historical. 11. John and his story Finally, we ask what extra historical evidence John might provide for the last twenty four hours of Jesus’ life, as an evangelist not using the Synoptic Gospels for his source. First, the interrogation by Annas needs to be taken seriously, as there is no theological reason why the Fourth Evangelist should ‘transfer’ a scene originally held before Caiaphas to Annas. Conversely, the absence of the Jewish trial in John’s account is explicable and should not be used to deny the historicity of that event as recorded by the Synoptic writers. Second, John confirms the historicity of the Barabbas episode and the mockery by the Roman troops, but the dialogues between the Johannine Jesus and Pilate essentially convey Johannine theology. However, the threat that the release of Jesus would mean that Pilate was no friend of Caesar, made from the Jewish side (19.12), could reflect the historical situation; no emperor viewed kindly any slight on the dignity of the imperial office. Finally, we must recognize that John’s theology conditions the way he tells the story of the passion. For him it is not the nadir of Jesus’ humiliation, but Jesus’ moment of exaltation and glorification. Inevitably this shapes his story.

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Notes Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Vol. I (Doubleday, New York, 1994), pp. 425-6. 2 Rudolph Bultmann, The Gospel of John. A Commentary, transl. G.R. Beasley-Murray (Blackwell, Oxford, 1971), p. 676. 3 As suggested by A. Jaubert, The Date of the Last Supper (Alba House, New York, 1965). .. 4 Karl G. Kuhn, ‘Zum essenischen Kalendar’, Zeirschrift fu r Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 52 (1961), pp. 65-73. 5 The Johannine version might also support the theory that the Last Supper and the arrest of Jesus took place earlier in the week: see above, pp. 99-100. 6 G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Duckworth, London, 1980), p. 118. 7 See ch. 13 by G Henton Davies, pp. 157-8. 8 C.K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John (SPCK, London, 1967), p. 463. 1

III The Seventh Day of the Week John E. Morgan-Wynne

10 Holy Saturday in the New Testament 1. Where was Jesus between death and resurrection? Jesus was buried before 6.00 pm on the Friday. The grave was discovered empty early on the Sunday morning. What had happened to his body? The New Testament proclaims that God raised Jesus from the dead and glorified him, and so Paul, for example, can speak of Jesus’ ‘glorious body’ (Phil 3.21; cf. 1 Cor 15.47-8). But what had happened to Jesus before this moment of resurrection, during the intervening day? The natural assumption to make is that his followers thought that Jesus had been in Sheol, or the abode of the dead, until God raised him from the dead. Some scholars have suggested that another way of interpreting the empty grave was available, which would have consequences for the state of Jesus immediately after death. This was the idea of bodily ‘rapture’ or ascent to heaven on the analogy of Enoch, Elijah and (in some circles) Moses. The Jewish historian Josephus was acquainted with the idea of Moses’ rapture, even if he did not personally accept it, and the presence of Moses with Elijah in Mark 9.4f may reflect it too. The weakness of this suggestion is that Enoch and Elijah are depicted as being taken by God to heaven when they were still alive, and where bodily rapture was also postulated of Moses, he would be assumed not to have died (despite Deut 34.5). We shall come back to this suggestion later. The belief that Jesus had been in Sheol is reflected in two speeches in Acts. First, Peter, on the day of Pentecost, asserts that God has raised Jesus—‘He loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him [Jesus] to be held by it’—and then backs up this assertion by quoting Psalm 16.10 (Acts 2.24-8): You will not leave me in Hades (= Sheol) nor will you let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life, so you will fill me with joy in your presence.

As the speech continues, Peter takes Psalm 16 to be a prophetic assertion by David of the resurrection of the Messiah: ‘he foresaw that... he was not abandoned to Hades.’ (2.30-31).

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Second, Paul, at Pisidian Antioch, also asserts that God has raised Jesus from among the dead. Psalm 2.7 is applied to the resurrection, and then Paul goes on to use Psalm 16 in claiming: As for the fact that [God] raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he spoke in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of [= promised to] David’. Therefore he says also in another psalm: ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption’ (Acts 13.30, 3335).

There are good reasons for believing that the use of Psalm 16 pre-dates Luke’s own writing. Paul in his own letters is a witness to the view that Jesus went to Sheol. In Romans 10.6-9 he quotes and interprets christologically Deuteronomy 30.12-14, a passage about the law (cf. Baruch 3.29-30). Paul replaced the idea of going across the sea to find the law with the idea of descending ‘into the abyss’ (cf. Targum Neofiti: ‘who would descend into the depths of the great sea?’), and interpreted this phrase by ‘that is, to bring Christ up from the dead’. Paul’s argument is that there is in fact no need to do this, for God has already done so! Here Paul clearly assumes that Jesus was ‘in the abyss’, in Sheol, in the realm of the dead, from where God raised him. Later in Romans, Paul asserts that Jesus died and came to life again for the very purpose of becoming Lord over the dead and the living (14.9). The point is that Jesus’ experience of death was a necessary qualification for becoming Lord over the dead. Later than Paul, from two writings both probably originating in the 90s AD, we meet again the idea of Jesus having been in Sheol. First, the risen Lord Jesus says to John of Patmos, ‘I was dead and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and death’s domain [literally Hades = Sheol]’ (Revelation 1.18). There seems a link between the experience of death and coming to life again on the one hand, and now having possession of the keys of death’s domain. Second, there is the saying about the sign of Jonah in Matthew 12.3840, whose history is much disputed. Space precludes a detailed discussion, but the following seems the best explanation:

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(1) Mark 8.12 preserves the original saying of Jesus (its Greek is a very literal rendering of an originally Semitic idiom), which is an outright rejection of the request for a sign: ‘No sign shall be given to this generation.’ 1

(2) The community responsible for the ‘Q’ tradition interpreted this saying by adding ‘except for the sign of Jonah’ (so Luke 11.29), understanding the sign to be Jonah’s preaching. We might paraphrase this—‘No miraculous sign will be given to this generation; all it will have to go on is preaching, just as the Ninevites only had Jonah’s preaching to go on’. (3) Matthew then re-interpreted the phrase about the sign of Jonah by referring it to Jonah’s sojourn in the big fish. ‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the big fish, so the Son of Man will be for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ (Matt 12.40). The heart of the earth can only refer to Sheol, the abode of the dead, located under the earth (cf. the phrase ‘under the earth’ in Phil 2.10). (The phrase ‘three days and three nights’ comes from Jonah 1.17 and ought not to be used to prove the priority of Matthew’s version over against Luke 11.29.) Jewish thought about what happened to people after death had undergone development between the composition of Daniel and the time of Jesus. Daniel 12.2 had depicted people sleeping in the dust of the earth until awakened at the time of God’s appointing (cf. Isa 26.19). But certain Jewish thinkers felt that it clearly was not right that the faithful righteous should have to wait till the End and the time of resurrection—they should be rewarded before that! Accordingly we meet the idea that the good should enjoy paradisal-type conditions, and also that the bad should suffer torments before the End (though on this view it is perhaps difficult to see what ‘extra’ the last judgment can bring!). (See 4 Ezra 8.52; I Enoch 17-19; 60.8; 61.12; 2 Enoch 8.1; T. Levi 18.10) This viewpoint is reflected in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, peculiar to Luke (16.19-31). Lazarus is in Abraham’s bosom, apparently a place of comfort, bliss and honour, while the rich man suffers torments in flames. In another passage peculiar to Luke, Jesus assures the penitent freedom fighter, who acknowledges the justice of his own punishment, while

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declaring Jesus to be innocent of any wrongdoing: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’ (23.43). If this is an authentic saying of Jesus there is no difficulty in fitting it in with Jesus’ belief in resurrection (as contained in Mark 8.31 and 9.31, which may well be authentic if we take ‘after three days’ as meaning ‘in a short while’); clearly Jewish thinkers could combine the concepts of paradise and resurrection. We shall proceed on the assumption that the earliest Christians thought of Jesus as in the abode of the dead after he died. But the question then arises: did they speculate about this state? In particular, did they attribute any ‘activity’ to Jesus while he was there? 2. Ephesians 4.9: activity of Jesus in Sheol? In pursuance of the question as to what Jesus might have been believed to be doing in Sheol, we turn first to Ephesians 4.9, which has often been taken as referring to Jesus’ descent into Sheol. The author of Ephesians has just quoted a version of Psalm 68.18 (in a form closest to the Targum, which differs from both the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint): When he ascended on high he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

He now proceeds to exegete two phrases from the verse Christologically: ‘he ascended’ and ‘he gave gifts’. Verse 9 runs: Now the phrase ‘he ascended’, what does it mean but that he also descended to the katotera tes ges.

The phrase transliterated from Greek above could theoretically be translated in two ways: ‘the lowest parts of the earth’ (taking tes ges as a partitive genitive) or ‘the lowest parts, that is, the earth’ (taking tes ges as an explanatory or epexegetic genitive). The first translation could be taken as referring to Sheol, while the second could not. The issue is resolved immediately we consider that Ephesians operates with a two decker universe (earth and heaven—1.10; 3.15), with the evil powers located in between the two levels, not at a third level below the earth (2.2; 3.10; 6.12). Thus, the second translation is really the only possible one (so NIV and REB, and scholars like Schlier, Mutzner, Gnilka and Schnackenburg from Germany, and Caird, Milton and Bruce from Britain). Most scholars

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now take this ‘descent’ as a reference to the incarnation of Jesus, though G.B. Caird understood it to refer to the return of Christ to his church through the Spirit at Pentecost to bestow gifts on them.2 Despite the traditional view, Ephesians 4.9 does not refer to a descent into Sheol. The passage cannot then supply any clues to the belief of early Christians about any activity of Jesus in Sheol. 3. 1 Peter 3:18-20: preaching in Sheol? We turn now to two passages in 1 Peter. In the first, the author says that Christ died for our sins to bring us to God, and that: he was put to death in the flesh, made alive by the Spirit, en ho he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient when God patiently waited in the days of Noah ... (3.18d-20a).

The passage bristles with difficulties and has provoked much discussion. In verse 18d we have translated ‘made alive by the Spirit’ and not ‘made alive in the (i.e. his) spirit’. The latter implies that Jesus ‘went in his spirit’ to preach; this assumes a dualistic anthropology foreign to the New Testament, which envisages human beings as animated bodies and not as spirits imprisoned in a body. The resurrection is a work of God through his Spirit (cf. Rom 8.11). This does involve taking the two datives (flesh, spirit) in different ways (‘in the flesh.... by the Spirit’), but this is not impossible. We may compare 1 Tim 3.16 where Christ’s vindication must be ‘by the Spirit’ in contrast to his being manifested ‘in the flesh’. What then does the phrase en ho mean, if it does not mean ‘in which’ (i.e. in his spirit)? This phrase may be used with various meanings, of which ‘at which time’, ‘in which circumstances’, ‘in which process’ seem 3 the most relevant here. If we take it in a temporal sense (.... ‘at which time he went and preached to the spirits in prison’), we face a choice between reference to the time when Jesus died and was in Sheol, or the time after he had been raised. Our decision here will be linked to several questions.

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(a) Where did Christ go to preach? In a nutshell, is the ‘prison’ where Christ went and preached the abode of the dead under the earth, or is the prison to be located in one of the spheres between earth and heaven? In Jewish tradition a prison is located under the earth in Jubilees 5.6, 10 (cf. Rev 20.1,3,7). It is located in the second of seven heavens by 2 Enoch 7.1-3; 18.3-6 (the date of 2 Enoch is uncertain, but possibly first century AD). The prison is located at the point where heaven and earth joins in 1 Enoch 17-18 (the material in this part of Enoch being dated at least as early as pre-70 AD). This lack of uniformity in the Jewish background certainly handicaps the interpreter. (b) To whom did Christ go and preach? Who were ‘the spirits’ who were disobedient at the time of Noah? Are they the fallen angels of Genesis 6.1-4, or the wicked humans of Noah’s time, who were destroyed in the flood (Gen 6.5-7.24)? We note that the term ‘spirits’ is really used absolutely and not ‘the spirits of those who formerly disobeyed in Noah’s day’. In addition, the fallen angels of Genesis 6 are prominent in both Jewish and Christian literature as the source of evil. On balance, ‘spirits’ probably refers to the fallen angels. (c) So, when did Christ go and preach to these spirits? Did Jesus go in between his death and resurrection or did he go after his resurrection (either before he ascended or during his ascension to heaven or after his resurrection-ascension)? B. Reicke, the Swedish scholar, argued for ‘on which occasion ... namely when he died’ on the grounds that the immediately preceding phrase (‘being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit’) was a parenthesis and so our clause is to be linked directly with v. 18a, ‘Christ died for sins once-for-all’. It was on the occasion (en ho) when he died for the unrighteous that he went and preached to the spirits in prison. On the other hand, the apparently parenthetical character of ‘put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit’ may be significant: the author wanted to secure a reference to the resurrection because it was the risen Christ who went and preached to the fallen angels. To locate the preaching after the resurrection has the advantage of preserving the ‘deadness’ of Jesus when dead and fits the

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‘aliveness’ of his risen state. Furthermore, does not the resurrection set the stamp of God’s approval on the redemptive work of Jesus? We can assert that he died for our sins because he was raised. If this line of reasoning be acceptable, then: (a) where the prison was is of less significance; and (b) this verse has no bearing on the Saturday of Holy Week. While dogmatism is out of the question, we may accept that 1 Peter 3.19 most likely refers to a going of Christ when he had been put to death and had been raised, to preach to the fallen angels imprisoned on account of their wickedness. Equally we can see that the verse could be taken as referring to the period between Christ’s death and resurrection, once pneumati (‘in or by spirit’) was understood to refer to Christ’s own spirit; this would be likely to happen in a culture given to viewing humans as a body plus a spirit. (d) What did Christ preach? The normal use of kerussein (‘to preach’) in the New Testament refers to the good news of salvation. Some object to this application here, and prefer the theme of judgment or the victory of the cross. Can we gain any help from the context of the passage? (1) If Christ went and preached even to the fallen angels, then this could act as support for the exhortation that Christians ought to be ready to give a reason for the faith which is in them to their human detractors (3.15). (2) If Christ went and announced judgment or his victory to the fallen angels who still control the earthly powers, Christians need not be afraid of such powers (3.13-14). (3) According to 3.22 the angels and authorities and powers have been subjected to Christ who is in heaven at God’s right hand. (The text does not say anything about the manner of the submission, whether it was accepted gladly or reluctantly.) The encouragement to Christians undergoing some form of abuse and harassment from the authorities is clear. Though the context is illuminating for the passage, it does not give much help for determining the theme of the preaching. Since the author has not expanded on his brief mention of preaching, perhaps we should be satisfied with a general defining of the content of the preaching—that is,

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Jesus’ own ministry as the suffering and yet victorious Messiah and Son of God. 4. 1 Peter 4.6: preaching the gospel in Sheol? We turn now to 1 Peter 4.6, which abounds with as many problems as 1 Peter 3.19! It is important to set the context. The author has just encouraged the readers no longer to live in any way that they had done in their pagan past (vv. 2-3), even though former friends are puzzled as to why they no longer do so and subject them to verbal abuse. They will have to give account to him who will judge the living and the dead, a phrase which is used twice elsewhere in the New Testament, both times with reference to Christ as the judge (Acts 10.42; 2 Tim 4.1, cf. Rom 14.9). Then comes verse 6 with its linking ‘for’, which I will quote initially in the RSV translation: For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.

Probably verse 6 grounds the thought of the whole section 4.1-5, rather than just the statement that Christ will judge the living and the dead (v. 5). Verse 6 must then fit in with this context. The first question is the translation of the verb in the main clause, the passive voice of the verb ‘to preach the gospel’, which has no expressed subject (literally, ‘it [or he] was preached’). The impersonal use of any verb is rare in the New Testament and there is no instance of such a use of the verb ‘to preach the gospel’ elsewhere in the New Testament. Accordingly some doubt must be placed against the translation ‘the gospel was preached’. The alternative, ‘he (namely Christ) was preached’ or ‘The gospel of Christ was preached’ must be seriously considered. This puts a question against the view that Christ was the preacher. The second question is who are meant by ‘the dead’. Upholders of the view that the sense of the verse is that Christ preached good news to the dead are on strong ground in maintaining that the ‘dead’ in verse 5 and verse 6 are most naturally taken to mean the same people. Thus the dead who are to be judged (v. 5) were the dead to whom Christ preached (v. 6). An alternative, however, is that dead Christians are meant in verse 6. That is, Christ was preached to those who received him while alive and who

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are now dead. The author might have done better to have written ‘This is why Christ was preached to those who have fallen asleep’ but the use of ‘the dead’ affords a link with v. 5. So a novelist or poet might use the phrase ‘The doomed vessel left the harbour’; the vessel is called ‘doomed’ even though it was not known at the time of leaving that the ship would go down at sea. (This use is called ‘prolepsis’.) The third question is the link with the context. The detractors of Christians have been scornfully pointing out that becoming a Christian seemed to have little advantage to it since it involved suffering and, in the end, death like anyone else. What gain was it to give up ‘the pleasures of this life? Verses 5 and 6 provide the answer. These detractors will have to give an account to Christ at the last judgment (verse 5). Believers who have in human eyes been condemned, either formally in a court or in the opinion of pagan neighbours and former friends (‘though judged in the flesh like human beings’) will in fact enjoy eternal life, vindicated by God (verse 6). This seems better than grounding Christ’s right to judge the living and the dead on the fact that he preached to those who were in the realm of the dead. It certainly offers more encouragement and comfort to the recipients of the letter. Thus a coherent sense can emerge: Christ was preached in their lifetime to believers who are now dead. Though they seem to be condemned on human estimates, they will in fact enjoy eternal life in the realm of the spirit . The thought would be especially akin to that expressed in The Wisdom of Solomon chapters 2-5. On this interpretation there is no reference at all to a preaching by Christ (either before or after his resurrection) to those in the realm of death. If, however, readers feel that the linguistic argument that the ‘dead’ in verses 5 and 6 must carry the same sense is decisive, then they must do so in the awareness that the impersonal use of the verb in the main clause is unusual, and that a less satisfactory link between verse 6 and the preceding context results. A discussion of 1 Peter 3.19 and 4.6 had to be undertaken, but has yielded a somewhat negative result for our investigation. The former is best taken to mean preaching by the risen Christ, while the latter is best understood as not referring to preaching by Jesus personally at all.

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5. Other New Testament passages: the conquest of death’s domain? We next turn to Matthew 27.52-53, the episode of the earthquake and resurrection of the saints at the time of Christ’s death. If, as we argued previously, this was a tradition which came to Matthew associated with the moment of crucifixion, and it is Matthew who has added ‘after his resurrection’ to safeguard the primacy of Jesus’ own resurrection, then we have to ask whether the episode as originally conceived contributes to our theme. Did the originators of this tradition envisage any activity of Jesus associated with the dead, overcoming the domain of death? It seems more likely that God is the actor behind the passive ‘were raised’ at the end of verse 52. In other words, the story is saying that because Jesus’ death has immediate retrospective efficacy, God anticipated the general resurrection by raising the saints of the Old Testament era. In the vision of the risen lord Jesus experienced by John of Patmos, the risen Lord says: Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the one who lives, and I was dead and, see, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and death’s domain [literally Hades = Sheol] (Rev 1.17-18).

Although the emphasis in the vision is on the majesty and power of the risen Jesus, we may assume that his resurrection was not his own work, but that of God the Father who gave him authority over death and death’s domain as a result (the thought is akin to Rom. 14.9). As with the picture of Matthew 27.52-3, there is no need to read these verses as if Jesus 4 entered death’s domain, conquered it and carried off the keys. Similarly, there is no need to read a descent of Jesus into Sheol as conqueror during Holy Saturday into Hebrews 2.14f, although this affirms Jesus as the one who conquers ‘through death him who has the power of death, the devil.’ 6. Conclusion In summary, examination of the New Testament reveals no support for an activity of Jesus during the time he was dead in the grave. 1 Peter 3.19 is best taken of the risen Jesus—he went and preached to the rebellious angels in prison. The other text from 1 Peter, often linked with it, proves

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not to be about a preaching activity of Christ himself (4.6). Other passages like Matthew 27.52-3; Revelation 1.17-18 and Hebrews 2.14-15 can be interpreted without recourse to an activity of Jesus between the moment of his death and resurrection. Ephesians 4.9 has widely been recognised in recent scholarship as having no reference to a descent into Sheol. What the New Testament tells us about Holy Saturday is that Jesus was in the abode of the dead. I will return to the theological sigificance of this at the end of the next chapter. Notes on ‘Q’, see above, p. 2. G. B. Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison, Introduction and Commentary. New Clarendon Bible (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976), p. 74. 3 See Leonhard Goppelt, A Commentary on 1 Peter, transl. J. Alsup (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1993). Goppelt takes en ho as a conjunction, best rendered as ‘wherein, thereby, thus’. For him the expression appropriates what precedes in its entirety: he writes, ‘thus, ie. as one who died and rose’ (p. 256). Later he writes, ‘I Peter 3.19 and 4.6 are the only NT passages that speak of a ministry of the dead and resurrected Christ among the dead’ (p. 263; italics mine in both quotations). Thus, Goppelt propounds the view that Christ descended to the world of the dead to preach after his resurrection, not during the three days. 4 Against the view of G.B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine, Black’s New Testament Commentaries (A. & C. Black, London, 1966), p. 26; so also R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, International Critical Commentary (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1920). 1 2

11 Holy Saturday in the Tradition and Theology of the Church In the previous chapter it was shown that in the New Testament itself there is only one reference to Christ’s preaching to ‘disobedient spirits’ and that this took place after his resurrection (1 Pet 3.19). Otherwise, the New Testament assumes that Jesus lay dead until God raised him from the dead on the third day. As Christian thinkers reflected on the period between the death and resurrection of Jesus, however, a development occurred in the writings outside the New Testament up to 250 AD that is well worth exploring, and which—towards the end of this chapter—we will finally assess from the perspective of a theology for today. Briefly, Christian people became fascinated by the idea that Christ might have preached salvation to at least some of the dead before his resurrection. 1. The Apostolic Fathers: an emerging twofold theme The only references which call for comment in the early writings known as ‘the Apostolic Fathers’ are from Ignatius and the Shepherd of Hermas. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, while en route for Rome under escort to be martyred there about 110 AD, wrote letters to six churches and one individual. In Magnesians 9.3, Ignatius wrote that the prophets, who were Jesus’ disciples, were waiting for Jesus Christ: ‘And for this reason, he whom they were rightly awaiting, when he came, raised them from the dead’. Unfortunately for our enquiry, there is no clear indication of the time reference of ‘when he came’ or ‘raised them’. Some scholars 1 assume, without discussion, a reference to the descent into Sheol/Hades 2 while others firmly reject such a reference. If Ignatius had any passage in mind, one suspects that it was more likely to be Matthew 27.52-53 than 1 Peter 3.19. In The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.16.6-7, it is said that the apostles and teachers who preached the name of the Son of God went, after their own deaths, and preached to the dead and baptized them. Since this does not concern Jesus himself, it will be sufficient to note that what Hermas said indicates that in the first half of the second century (assuming that The Shepherd was composed in sections over a longish period)

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the concept of preaching the gospel to the dead was around. At the end of the century, Clement of Alexandria took this passage up and extended the recipients of the preaching to include the righteous pagans as well as Jews (Stromateis 2.43.5), while Hippolytus of Rome (c.160-235) made John the Baptist, as Christ’s forerunner, preach to those in the realm of the dead, after his own death (De Antichristo 45). Of these ideas, we do not meet the idea that Christ raised the prophets to life in subsequent writings; but the theme of preaching to the dead, especially to the righteous dead of the Old Testment, is frequently encountered together with the concept of Christ’s invasion of the realm of death and the liberating of death’s prisoners. In the larger part of this chapter we shall survey the witnesses to these two themes of Christ’s preaching to the dead and his despoiling death. 2. Christ’s preaching to the dead (a) Justin Martyr Among the writings of Justin, who was martyred about 165 AD in Rome, is the Dialogue with Trypho. Though Trypho was an imaginary Jew, the dialogue reflected actual discussions this Christian apologist had with Jews. In chapter 72, the bulk of which is concerned to show that Jesus Christ is the true paschal lamb, Justin also alleges that Jeremiah contained a passage which the Jews had suppressed. We need not concern ourselves with the question of supposed suppression, but the alleged Jeremiah passage runs: And the Lord God remembered his dead ones from Israel, who had fallen asleep in the earth of the tomb, and he went down to them to proclaim the good news of his salvation to them. [There is a textual variant: ‘God, Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead ones ...’]3

The passage shows a concern for the pious in Israel, and whether Christ’s salvation reaches them. Clearly Justin and his source for this had Christ in mind. Christ descended to Sheol and preached. Unfortunately we gain no impression from the passage when Christ is supposed to have gone— during the ‘three days’ before his resurrection or after it. 4 The Norwegian scholar, Oskar Skarsaune, has made the significant observation that this idea of a descent seems to have no echoes in Justin’s

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own theology, at least not in his preserved writings, but was found in his source by Justin. (b) Irenaeus Irenaeus, made Bishop of Lyon in 178 AD, wrote extensively to refute heresies. He alludes to the pseudo-Jeremiah passage six times in his Adversus Haereses (on three occasions, it would appear loosely from 5 memory ). In one place (A. H. 3.20.4) the text is quoted as being from Isaiah, although it has been argued that the reference in the original Greek 6 was again to Jeremiah: ‘The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead ones who had slept in the earth of the grave and descended to them to preach the good news of the salvation which is from him, that he might save them’.7

Irenaeus used this passage to prove, against the heretics, that it was no mere man who should die for us. There is no indication, however, when Irenaeus thought that Christ had so preached. A comparable passage (in A.H. 4.22.1) has Irenaeus saying that Jesus served the disciples while they reclined at a meal, parallelling those who reclined in the earth while he came to bring life. After the pseudo-Jeremiah quotation at that point, Irenaeus adds, ‘Here he also gives the reason for his death; for his descent 8 into hell was salvation for the departed.’ (‘Hell’ here means the realm of the dead). Because of differences between Justin and Irenaeus in their quotation of this pseudo-Jeremiah passage, it is impossible to be sure whether Irenaeus used Justin directly or Justin’s source. However, in Adversus Haereses 4.27.2, Irenaeus refers to the Lord’s descent into Sheol as something he got from the Elder in Asia Minor who had known the disciples of the apostles. This tradition declared that God had punished the deeds committed by the ancients: It was for this reason too that the Lord descended into the realms beneath the earth, preaching his advent there also and (declaring) the remission of sins as available for those who believe in him. Now all those who hoped in him, that is, who proclaimed his advent beforehand and submitted to his dispensations, the righteous men and the prophets and the patriarchs, believed in him, to whom he forgave sins in the same way as he did to us.....9

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Here the aim of the descent is to preach and to offer forgiveness of sins to the Old Testament saints. Again we have to say that it is not clear when Christ is envisaged as descending to Sheol. Irenaeus’ attribution of this tradition to the Elder takes us back to the early second century, that is not far removed from the date of 1 Peter, if that letter is pseudonymous in authorship. (c) The Odes of Solomon The date of the Odes is disputed, but most scholars place them in the second century AD.10 Ode 42 has a speech of Christ in which, after a reference to his death and resurrection, he returns again to describe his death: ‘Sheol saw me and was shattered, and death ejected me and many with me .... and I made a congregation of living among his dead and I spoke with them by living lips, in order that my word may not be unprofitable. And those who had died ran toward me and they cried out and said, Son of God, have pity on us, and deal with us according to your kindness and bring us out from the bonds of darkness and open to us the door by which we may come out to you. For we perceive that our death does not touch you. May we also be saved with you, because you are our Saviour. Then I heard their voice and placed their faith in my heart. And I placed my name upon their head, 11 because they are free and they are mine.’ (42.11,14-20) In verse 11b ‘Death ejected me’ could refer to Jesus’ resurrection and thus explain the comment of the dead ‘we perceive that our death does not touch you...’(v. 17c). Scholars who are convinced that the Odes are influenced by Gnosticism might wish to take v. 17c in a different way, but if 12 we do not see the Odes from a Gnostic angle then Ode 42 would seem to portray the risen Christ as speaking to the dead. Here Christ’s condition is seen as different from the dead, presumably because he had been perfectly obedient and good. Christ speaks with

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them and they plead for redemption from death and its domain. The reference to his ‘name’ suggests preaching which claims the hearers as his own. (d) The Gospel of Peter This apocryphal Gospel was being used at the church at Rhossus, some thirty miles from Antioch in Syria, at the end of the second century. The attention of Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, was drawn to its heretical nature (docetic) and he wrote a work against it. Chapter 41 presents Jesus as coming out of the grave with two others: .....two of them supporting the other, and a cross following them; and the head of the two reached to heaven, but that of him who was led by them overpassed the heavens. And they heard a voice from the heavens saying, ‘Have you preached to those who sleep?’ and a reply was heard from the cross, ‘Yes’.13

(e) Tertullian of Carthage This formative Latin theologian (c.160—post 220 AD) refers to Christ’s descent into the realm of death in de Anima 55, a work that can be dated to the first decade of the third century AD. He writes that, in the three days between the death and resurrection, Christ ‘descended into the lower regions of the earth that there he might make patriarchs and prophets aware of himself’. (f) Origen This highly original Greek theologian, in a book refuting the pagan critic of Christianity, Celsus (Contra Celsum, written c. 248 AD), quotes Celsus as saying sarcastically, ‘You will not say of him, I presume, that having failed to convince men on earth he travelled to Hades to convince them there’. Origen replies that ‘When Christ became a soul unclothed by a body, he conversed with souls unclothed by bodies, converting also those 14 of them who were willing to accept him’. (g) The Sybilline Oracles A passage from the Sybilline Oracles is worth quoting (8.310-312) as it yet again illustrates Jewish-Christian interest in the theme of Christ’s visit to death’s domain:

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He shall go into Hades to proclaim hope to all the saints, the end of the ages and eternal day; and he will fulfil the law of death by sleeping for three days.15

Two ideas seem to be juxtaposed here: preaching to the saints of the Old Testament era, and Christ’s death as being in accordance with the lot of all humans. The theme of Christ’s preaching in death’s domain is widespread in the second century and on into the third. 3. Christ’s conquest of death and liberation of the dead (a) The Odes of Solomon We have already quoted Ode 42 as portraying the preaching of Christ to the dead. In two other passages a different motif connected with the descent of Christ into death’s domain may surface. In Ode 22.1 Christ speaks, ‘He who brought me down from on high also brought me up from the regions below’ and ‘God gave him power to loose his bonds and to 16 destroy the dragon with seven heads’ (vv. 4-5). The dragon with seven heads could be a reference to death. Ode 17 may allude to Christ’s own resurrection from death’s realm (vv. 1-6) or it may be that the writer of the Odes is vividly describing his own ‘conversion’ experience. However, from verse 8 onwards the language seems more appropriate of Christ. He opened closed doors (v. 8) and broke bars of iron in pieces (v. 9); he loosed his bondsmen (v. 11) and transformed them into himself and they received his blessing and lived (v. 13); they were gathered to him and were saved—they were his members and he was their head (v. 14). One scholar, Charlesworth, leaves open the possibility that there is a reference here to the descent into Sheol, adding cautiously that ‘the present passage may refer to those who are bound by 17 sin on earth’. The liberation of the dead may then be the theme of these two Odes. (b) Melito Melito, who was Bishop of Sardis (fl. 180 AD) composed a homily on the passion. In 17.13-17 the theme of Jesus’ invading death’s domain and abolishing it could not be more clearly stated:

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‘I,’ he says, ‘[am] the Christ, I have dissolved death, I have triumphed over the enemy and trodden down Hades and bound the strong man and carried off humanity into the heights of the heavens....’18

(c) The Ascension of Isaiah This writing, in origin a Jewish work with substantial Christian additions, may be dated in its present form to the latter half of the second century AD. One passage mentions the ‘descent of the Well-beloved into Sheol’ (4.21). Another passage runs: When he has plundered the angel of death, he will ascend on the third day ... And then many of the righteous will ascend with him, and he will send his preachers all over the earthly globe and will ascend into heaven (9.16-17).19

Here the time reference is clearly indicated—the liberation of the dead took place before the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. In 10.8-14 God commands his Beloved to descend through the heavens to the earth ‘even as far as to the angel in Sheol’ (though not to Haguel, the great abyss reserved for evil angels at the End). (d) The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs It is widely accepted nowadays that the Testaments is a Jewish work which has suffered Christian interpolations, often without much regard for context, probably in the course of the second century AD. In the Testament of Levi 4.1 Hades is despoiled by ‘the passion of the Most High’, probably an allusion to the earthquake and resurrections of Matthew 27.52. The Testament of Dan 5.10f. says that the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ will make war against Beliar. ‘He shall take from Beliar the captivity, the souls of the saints.’ Here the descent into the realm of the dead is not specifically mentioned, but is assumed. Finally, The Testament of Benjamin 9.5 refers to Jesus’ residence in death’s domain: ‘He shall ascend from Hades and shall pass from earth to heaven. And I know how lowly he shall be upon earth and how glorious in heaven.’ The sentences in the Testaments of Levi and of Dan both speak of Christ’s despoiling Sheol and liberating its captives. H. W. Hollander and

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20

M.de Jonge in their commentary on The Testaments believe that the former refers to ‘Jesus’ descent to Hades between his death and resurrection’. (e) Christian creeds To round off this brief survey, we should observe that the first appearance of the idea of Christ’s descent into the underworld in a creed is that of the Fourth Formula of Sirmium, also known as ‘the Dated Creed’ of 359, which includes the following sentences: [The only-begotten Son of God] ..... was crucified and died, and descended into hell, and regulated things there, Whom the gatekeepers of hell saw and shuddered, and rose again from the dead on the third day....21

This was not, of course, an ecumenical creed recognized by both East and West. The descent to Hades also figures in the so-called ‘Apostles’ Creed’ (itself an elaborate variant of the Old Roman Creed), the ‘received text’ of which originated about the late sixth or seventh century: descendit ad inferna is usually translated ‘he descended into hell’, but inferna refers to regions under the earth and is to be taken as the realm of the dead. 4. Summary of development to 250 AD We have seen that two main themes are associated with Christ’s visit to the realm of the dead in post-New Testament literature up to about 250 AD . First there is the preaching of Christ to the dead, chiefly the Old Testament saints (so the Elder of Asia Minor, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, The Odes of Solomon, The Gospel of Peter, The Sybilline Oracles, Tertullian, Origen: cf. Hermas, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus). Second, there is the theme of Christ’s attack on death, his conquest of it and the liberation of its prisoners (so The Odes of Solomon, Melito of Sardis, The Ascension of Isaiah, and the Christian interpolator of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs). In how many of these writers, however, is a given theme associated specifically and precisely with the three days in the grave or, as we might focus it, with the Holy Saturday? This is expressly mentioned in The Gospel of Peter, The Odes of Solomon, The Ascension of Isaiah, The Sybilline Oracles, Tertullian and Origen. Therefore the issue is, how far

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was it assumed in the other writings? The scholar Jean Daniélou felt that ‘the descent into hell’ was a subject of central importance for what he 22 calls ‘Jewish Christianity’. He would tend, therefore, to assume its presence in the writers’ minds even when no express reference to it occurs. Certainly, by the end of the second century AD it was widely held that during ‘the three days’, centred in Holy Saturday, Christ had either preached to the Old Testament saints or had plundered death’s realm of its victims. In some cases these two ideas are quite specifically located in the period between the death of Christ and his resurrection, while in others there seems an assumption that this is so. When de-mythologized, I suggest that the two pictures seem to be saying that: (1) The salvation achieved by Jesus has retrospective significance. It extends ‘backwards’ as well as forwards. (2) The power at work in Jesus’ death and resurrection will bring about the release from death of those past generations. It has retrospective influence. In the final section we shall discuss the issue whether, in the light of the New Testament and of general considerations, we ought to tie in these two ideas with that of a descent to the realm of death during ‘the three days’. In other words, can we affirm these two ideas without necessarily associating them with Holy Saturday? 6. The day of silence in Christian theology Jesus died. He was confirmed dead to Pilate. He was taken down from the cross and buried. The burial is the certification of the death. The death was final, complete, total. Origen’s view of Jesus still carrying on as a soul unclothed by a body owes more to Greek philosophy than to the Biblical tradition. His view would imply that really only Jesus’ body ceased functioning, while his real self continued to exist. It is the picture of the body like an envelope and the soul as the letter. It would imply that death, in the case of Jesus, was not total—the whole person did not die. Nor can we subscribe to a view which says that Jesus’ human nature died, but his divine nature continued totally unaffected. To import a ‘two natures’ doctrine into the New Testament is illegitimate, and the matter of

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death would be one point at which this doctrine, from a theological point of view, reveals its weakness—its difficulty in presenting us with a unitary person. It has been the merit of Hans Urs von Balthasar among recent theologians to emphasize the absolute reality of the death of Jesus, and to explore the ‘being dead’ of the Son of God which is expressed by the 23 silence of Holy Saturday. His work has exercised a good deal of influence on modern theologians. This final section of the chapter seeks, by working from the New Testament tradition and in awareness of the early tradition of the church, to reach out and join hands with a doctrinal specialist. Death is, according to Paul, the wages for sin. If Jesus died for our sins, then he must experience death in all its finality and completeness. Otherwise, he has not undergone representatively our death. Consequently, as Irenaeus foreshadowed in the second century in his idea of Christ’s ‘recapitulation’ of human experience, and as Gregory Nazianzus was to enunciate in the fourth century, ‘what has not been assumed has not been healed’. The realization that 1 Peter 3.19 refers to the activity of the risen Christ comes, therefore, as a relief! If it was the risen Christ who went to preach to the disobedient spirits in prison, then this in no way minimizes or detracts from Jesus’ experience of death. He experienced death to the full; he knew the silence of the grave. It needed an act of God—resurrection—to return Jesus to life, to being. He was not, of course, returned to a continuation of life as before, but to a qualitatively different life, life wholly spirit, ‘a glorious body’; this is a life both of radical discontinuity with what went before, and yet of continuity in that it is the Jesus who lived and was crucified who is alive. This paradox is brilliantly caught by John of Patmos when he describes the one whom all heaven acclaims and worships as a Lamb bearing the marks of slaughter, the crucified one (Rev 5.6-14). Jesus was dead. He was in solidarity with sinners, completely under the judgment of God. He was with the dead, in the realm of the dead. The solidarity of Jesus with sinners is, then, underlined by his being with the dead, on Holy Saturday. Being with the dead is part, we might say, of ‘being made sin’ of which Paul spoke in 2 Corinthians 5.21. Jesus

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suffered death on the cross, was buried and was with the dead. He shared our flesh and blood ‘in order that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, namely the devil’, as Hebrews 2.14 puts it. ‘Through death’ includes being with the dead, the utmost solidarity with sinners. He tasted death to the full (Heb 2.9); he did not wriggle out of it. Any idea of Jesus, on Holy Saturday, attacking death, or Satan and the hosts of evil weakens this solidarity with sinners. If these reflections are right, we may still accept the essence of what second century Christians affirmed about the victory of Christ. But rather than locating their affirmations on Holy Saturday, we may place them in the Easter period. The triumph over death comes with the Easter event— God raised Jesus from the dead. And this victory in the case of Jesus has consequences for the rest of humanity, past, present and future. Jesus is ‘the first fruits of those who slept’ (1 Cor.15.20), ‘the beginning’ of a new humanity (Col 1.18), the last Adam. Put mythologically or pictorially, the risen Jesus can be described as the conqueror who storms the gates of death and sets its captives free. The resurrection sets God’s seal of approval on Jesus’ obedience and the atoning sacrifice of Calvary (cf. 1 Cor.15.14, 17; Rom 4.25). This obedient offering, representatively made by Jesus (cf. Rom 5.19) has consequences for humanity, past, present and future. Put mythologically or pictorially, the risen Jesus can be described as going to the realm of the dead and preaching what he had done and achieved and thereby releasing the Old Testament men and women of faith from the realm of death. Notes For example, J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Part II, Vol. II, Second Edition (Macmillan, London, 1889), p. 131; W. Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiocha. Die Apostolischen Väter, Handbuch zum NT (J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen, 1923), p.227; J. Lawson, A Theological and Historical Introduction to the Apostolic Fathers (Macmillan, New York, 1961), p. 123; and W.R.Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Fortress, Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 123-5. 2 For example, E.G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of Peter (Macmillan, London, 1946), p. 343. W. Bieder, in Die Vorstellung von der Höllenfahrt Jesu Christi (EVZ Verlag, Zürich, 1949), pp. 142-3, believes that while the passage does refer to Christ’s descent into Sheol, it does not represent an integral part of Ignatius’ thought but has been incorporated by him into his statement here. In this view 1

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Bieder is followed by Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1964), pp. 236-7. 3 My translation based on original text of Dialogue 72, as printed in Oskar Skausane, The Proof from Prophecy, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 56 (Brill, Leiden, 1987), p. 41. 4 Skausane, The Proof from Propecy, p. 285. 5 Adversus Haereses 4.33.1, 12; 5.31.1. 6 So A. Rousseau, in A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau (eds.), Irénée de Lyon: Contre les Hérésies, Livres 3, Tome 1. Sources Chretiennes 100 (Editions du Cerf, Paris, 1965), p. 354. 7 My translation, based on the text printed by Skarsaune, The Proof from Prophecy, p. 41, in a tabular comparison of Justin and Irenaeus on this theme. 8 The passsage from Psuedo-Jeremiah is also quoted in the Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching 78, now only extant in Armenian. Translation by J.P. Smith, St. Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, Ancient Christian Writers 16 (Newman, New York, 1952), p. 97. 9 My translation. Text in WW. Harvey, Adversus Haereses (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1857). 10 Scholars who assign them to the early second century include J. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon (Scholars Press, Missoula, Montana, 1977; corrected repr. of edition published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973), and D.E. Aune, ‘The Odes of Solomon in Early Christian Prophecy’, New Testament Studies 28 (1982), p. 436 assigns them to the early second century as did Harnack before him. However, a late second century date is preferred by J. Bernard, ‘Odes of Solomon’. Texts and Studies 8/3 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1912) and the Oxford Syriac scholar, S.P.Brock (in a personal letter to me). A date about 275 AD is argued for by the Dutch scholar, H.J.Drijwers, in ‘Odes of Solomon and Psalms of Mani: Christians and Manichaeans in third-century Syria’, in R. van den Brock and M.J. Vermaseran (eds.), Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (Brill, Leiden, 1981), p. 117. 11 Translation by J. Charlesworth, Odes of Solomon, p. 145. 12 Charlesworth argues strongly that the Odes are not gnostic: see Charlesworth, ‘The Odes of Solomon – Not Gnostic’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 31 (1969), pp. 357-69; ‘Qumran, John and the Odes of Solomon’, in J.H. Charlesworth (ed.), John and Qumran (Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1972), p. 135. 13 Translation adapted from E.G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter, p. 344. 14 Contra Celsum 2.43. Translation by Henry Chadwick, Origen Contra Celsum (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1953), pp. 99-100. 15 Translation by Jean Daniélou, Theology of Jewish Christianity, p. 244. 16 Translation by Charlesworth, Odes of Solomon.

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Charlesworth, Odes of Solomon, commenting on Ode 17. Translation in Richard A. Norris (ed.), The Christological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), p. 47. 19 Translation by Daniélou, Theology of Jewish Christianity, pp. 242-3. 20 Marinus de Jonge and H. W. Hollander, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Brill, Leiden, 1985), p. 140. 21 Translation by J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (Longmans Green, London, 1950), pp. 289, 378. 22 Daniélou, Theology of Jewish Christianity, p. 233. 23 Hans Urs von Balthasar Mysterium Paschale. The Mystery of Easter, transl. A. Nichols (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1990), chapter 4, ‘Going to the Dead: Holy Saturday’, pp. 148-85. 17

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IV The Point of the Story G. Henton Davies and John E. Morgan-Wynne

12 The Constant Themes of Holy Week G. Henton Davies A review of this last week in the life of Jesus Christ prompts the question as to which features are constantly present. What are these recurrent aspects, the ‘constants’ in the story? 1. The temple constant Recurrent references to the Jerusalem temple are present throughout the story. Mark’s account of the week clearly shows this. Jesus’ preliminary survey of the temple scene after the triumphal entry (11.11) is followed the next day by the so-called cleansing of the temple (11.12-17). Next day Jesus is seen walking in the temple (11.27, and cf. Lev 26.12), teaching in the temple (12.35, and cf. Matt 21.23). Then on the Tuesday evening he leaves the temple (13.1), only to seat himself on Mount Olives opposite the temple (13.3), to speak of the desolation of the temple (13.1-37 and parallels). The destruction of the temple figures in one of the accusations against Jesus (14.57-58 and cf. 15.29). In the garden Jesus defends himself against those who came to arrest him by reminding them that he had been available when teaching in the temple (14.49 and parallels). Matthew also records some features not mentioned by Mark, for example the healing of the blind and the lame in the temple (Matt 21.14-17) The last reference to the temple occurs at the moment of Jesus’ death for then ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom’ (Mark 15.38 and parallels). The temple theme thus ends in the dramatic context of the Saviour dying forsaken by God (15.34), and the veil hanging in front of the holy place, separating God from all Israel, is broken. The sacrifice of the One achieves the possibility of the reunion of God 1 with the whole Jewish nation. The temple thus figures prominently in the passion story of the first three Gospels, but is only mentioned twice in the Fourth Gospel in the same context. John says that many Jews in the temple were wondering if Jesus would come up to Jerusalem for the Passover feast (11.55-57). John also says that Jesus defended himself to the high priest by pointing out that he had always taught openly ‘in the synagogues and the temple’ (18.20). The temple theme is thus not very prominent in the actual pas2 sion story within the Fourth Gospel. Nevertheless the temple theme is

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surely one of the constants in these passion stories and must have been present in the earliest forms of the tradition. 2. The kingship constant A constant feature of these last days is the way in which Jesus is continually described in terms of kingship. Whether or not the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was, as I have proposed, the actual fulfilment of his prediction that bystanders, hearing his words, would ‘see the kingdom of God come with power’ (Mark 9.1 and parallels), Jesus rides into Jerusalem as a king. The terms used are: Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming (Mark 11.10). Hosanna to the son of David (Matt. 21.9). Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord (Luke 19.38). ‘Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your King is coming....’ (John 12.15)

Luke and John thus make the thought of kingship explicit. Moreover, ‘Hosanna’, (Mark and Matthew) which of course means ‘save now’, is here probably used as a greeting for a king (cf. 2 Sam 14.4 and 2 Kgs 6.26). The phrase ‘blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming’ (Mark) is omitted in the other Gospels, and has consequently been suspected to be a later comment. That may well be, but then the comment only re-inforces the royal emphasis. We must understand the occasion as a fairly minor incident for the people, but for Jesus as the fulfilment of the prophecy in Zechariah 9.9, a prophecy cast not necessarily in terms of a Messiah, but certainly of a king who would speak peace ‘to the nations’. The reference to nations tends in fact to eliminate the narrower concept of a Messiah for the Jewish people. In a quiet way Jesus has made a claim for this kingship. Matthew adds that even the children playing in the temple area were crying out, ‘Hosanna to the son of David’ (21.15). The chief event of the Monday is the cleansing of the temple. On the previous day immediately after the triumphal entry, Jesus went straight to the temple; according to Matthew he ‘cleansed’ it there and then, but in Mark and Luke the cleansing took place on the following day, the Monday. Thus the suggestion may reasonably be made that if Jesus’ mind was full of kingship, then the cleansing was an assertion of his royal

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power because the entry as king and the cleansing are so closely linked. Professor Hooker points out that King Josiah had ‘cleansed’ the Jerusalem temple (2 Kgs 23), as had Judas Maccabaeus (1Macc 4.36-59). During her discussion of the cleansing story she asks, ‘Was this a symbolic action, equivalent to his proclamation: the kingdom of God is at hand; repent!?’3 Tuesday begins with an attempt by the members of the Sanhedrin council to challenge the authority of Jesus. ‘By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?’ (Mark 11.28 and parallels). This challenge to the authority of Jesus is the fundamental theme of this day of confrontation, the last day of the public teaching of Jesus. The authority of Jesus is the permanent question which is ever addressed to Jesus Christ. The answer begins by recognizing the authority with which he impressed all who heard him teach. The authority with which he spoke caused astonishment and amazement. Further this authority was the authority of the preacher of righteousness; more, this authority was the authority implicit in the proclamation of the kingdom of God; still more, this authority was the authority of the bearer of that kingdom, and, so at last, it was the authority of the personification of the kingdom in his own person. Again, we reach the conviction of the Church Father Origen, that Christ was autobasileia (‘the kingdom in himself’). During the day of confrontation, his authority was such that Jesus could adjudicate on the rights of Caesar on the one hand, and of arrangements in heaven on the other. It was a royal authority, or the authority of the son of God. This royal authority is shown again in the puzzle that Jesus puts to the Pharisees and Scribes, when he asks, ‘How is Christ David’s son?’ (Mark 12.35-37 and parallels). By way of posing the question, Jesus makes use of words attributed to David in Psalm 110.1: The Lord says to my lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool’.

While setting a riddle, as we have seen, (‘How can David call his son 4 Lord?’) these words also carry implications for Jesus’ own claims to kingship. His authority is again demonstrated in the final sermon on the

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Mount of Olives that evening, when his remit is seen to extend into both the near and more distant parts of the future. In the scarcity of events on the Wednesday of Holy Week, and for the most part of Thursday as well, we do not see the theme of kingship arising again until the events of Thursday evening and night, that is of Jesus’ Friday, are reached. At the last supper Jesus inaugurates in his own person that new covenant predicted by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. As God is the author of the covenants with individuals in the Old Testament (for example with Abraham and David), and of the great national covenant with Israel made through Moses at Mount Sinai (Ex 19-24), so now Jesus bestows a new covenant on his followers. As the giver of the covenant, Jesus is lord of the covenant, with the authority of the Lord. In his theology of that evening, Luke makes that authority plain, as he presents Jesus as saying: ‘But you are those who have continued with me in my trials; as my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint a kingdom for you, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (22.14-16; 24-30).

Here the themes of kingship and covenant are united. The translation of the Greek word in the text by the English word ‘appointed’ does not make clear the force of the Greek. Rather, the meaning is that Christ ‘covenants’ with his disciples a kingdom, as God ‘covenants’ a kingdom with Christ. Kingship by covenant is thus explicit, and that at the very heart of the last supper. Of the alternative readings possible it is better then to construe the verb ‘appoint’ with the twice mentioned kingdom, rather than with the phrase, ‘that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom’ (22.29). In this context, the heightened effect of ‘my kingdom’ must be noted. The Greek word for ‘covenant’ used in this passage is diatheke and not syntheke. The first of these two nouns describes a covenant imposed or granted by a superior to an inferior. The second Greek noun relates to covenants between equals, and this noun does not occur in the New Testament or indeed in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament), although the verbal form of the second Greek noun is present in both texts. Here the one who makes the covenant (diatheke) possesses the kingdom.

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Sometime on that same evening the Fourth Gospel records the socalled high priestly prayer (John 17). This prayer contains six occurrences when God is addressed. Four, in verses 1, 5, 21 and 24, are the single word, ‘Father’, but two are even more striking. In verse 11 we find ‘Holy Father’, an address which is parallel to the opening of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father.... Hallowed (holy) is your name....

Finally in verse 25 we have ‘O Righteous Father’. Normatively and logi5 cally ‘righteous’ is an adjective of kingship, so the Lord’s Prayer is paralleled once again: Our Father.... Your kingdom come...

A similar collation of thoughts is also found in such phrases as ‘Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness’ (Matt 6.33). These parallels suggest that these two forms of address to God in the Fourth Gospel (‘Holy Father’, ‘Righteous Father’) are not to be interpreted as a Johannine re-phrasing of the prayers of Jesus, but rather as parallels to the way in which Jesus ordinarily prayed. Thus the kingship theme shows through in his very prayers. The drama moves on apace and the last day in the life of Jesus is reached. In the presence of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, Jesus affirms his heavenly kingship (Mark14.62; Matt 26.64 and Luke 22.69). In Jesus’ first appearance before Pilate, Luke states that Jesus’ Jewish accusers now made a precise political accusation against Jesus. ‘We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king’ (Luke 23.2). Such an exact political charge is uncharacteristic of Luke’s style, as he usually portrays Jesus in terms of a suffering martyr-prophet, and so the accusation is particularly important. It led directly to Pilate’s question to Jesus as reported in all four Gospels: ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ This question gives some indication of what had been brought to Pilate’s notice, and of Pilate’s own estimate of what had been reported to him. It also hints, indirectly, at Pilate’s surprise that such an accusation

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could be brought against the tired, woe-begone figure who now stood before him: ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ In what follows it will be best to pursue the way that the kingship theme is handled in the first three Gospels, and afterwards to turn to the Fourth Gospel. According to the Synoptic writers, then, after Jesus’ brief answer to Pilate’s question—‘So you say’—Jesus maintains his silence in the continuing interviews with Pilate. Then Pilate offers Jesus’ accusers the release of Jesus with Barabbas, saying: ‘Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ The chief priests stir up the multitude to demand the release of Barabbas (Mark 15.11). Mark tells us that in reply Pilate demands, ‘Then what shall I do with the man whom you call the King of the Jews?’ (15.12), while in Matthew the question is more religious: ‘Then what shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ?’ (Matt 27.22). The upshot is that Pilate hands Jesus over to be crucified. Mark and Matthew then report that the Roman soldiers mock Jesus as king in three ways. They dress him in a purple robe, don him with a crown of thorns, and salute him, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ (Mark 15.16-19; Matt 27.27-30). Soon after reaching Calvary, Jesus is crucified under the words: The King of the Jews This is Jesus, the King of the Jews This is the King of the Jews

Mark 15.26 Matt 27.37 Luke 23.38

On the cross, Jesus is mocked by bystanders and the chief priests: Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross... (Mark 15.32). He is the king of Israel; let him come down now from the cross.... (Matt 27:42) If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself! (Luke 23:37)

Holy Week began on Palm Sunday with Jesus’ triumphal entry as king into Jerusalem, and the week ends with the death of Jesus as the crucified king. While the kingship of Jesus may fairly be claimed as a constant theme of this last week in the Synoptic Gospels, in the Fourth Gospel this

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theme is heightened and made much more dramatic—indeed, literally crucial. In chapters 18.33-19.16, ten references to the kingdom/king theme occur. The soldiers mock him as king (19.13). Pilate five times addresses him, or refers to Jesus, as king, and he puts the title, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews’, on the cross (18.33, 37, 39; 19.15). In v.37 Jesus replies to Pilate’s question, ‘Are you a king?’, by saying, ‘You say that I am a king’. Jesus goes on to confirm that his duty was to bear witness to the truth. Three times in v.36 Jesus speaks of ‘my kingdom’ as ‘not of this world’. In 19.15 the chief priests deny the kingship of Jesus in their assertion and implied threat against Pilate, ‘We have no king but Caesar’. These religious leaders of the people may have meant ‘we have no earthly king but Caesar’. This then would have meant a denial of the divine right of the Davidic dynasty ever to rule over Israel. As so interpreted, the statement would have denied the messianic tradition so central to the Jewish hope and faith. However, the assertion is open to be taken in a more absolute manner: ‘Caesar is our only king!’ In this sense, the assertion would be the ultimate blasphemy, one made not by the ordinary people of the Jewish nation but by their religious leaders. Israel had always stood for and confessed the sovereignty of God, in such phrases as ‘The Lord (Yahweh) reigns’ and ‘Yahweh is king’. This is the motto of Israel, the heart of Israel’s religion and this is the final message of the Old Testament to the world, a message and a faith taken over by Jesus himself in his teaching and preaching of the kingdom of God. This is the faith denied by the chief priests in the presence of Pilate and of Jesus himself. Surely Pilate, a Gentile, would not have understood the theological implications of the priestly assertion. It was sufficient for him that the chief priests were declaring their loyalty to the Roman Empire, and hinting that he should too. Pilate then handed Jesus over. ‘Then he delivered him therefore to them to be crucified’ (19.16). The dramatic intensity of the pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘them’ may cause us at first sight to overlook the importance of the two little words ‘then’ (tote) and ‘therefore’ (oun). To give these little words their full value as the chronological and logical foci of the verse, let us render 19.6 in this way:

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It was at that moment [then] and for that reason [therefore] that he delivered him to them to be crucified.

Translated in this way it is clear that verses 15 and 16 have a ‘hinge’ character in the passion story . The turning point in each of the passion narratives in the Gospels is the moment when Jesus is sentenced to death by Pilate, and here in John it takes the thoroughly theological form of the matter of kingship. The assertion of the chief priests, ‘we have no king but Caesar’ is, at this juncture, the cause of Pilate’s verdict. Pilate may not have realized what the priestly assertion really meant, but the author of the Fourth Gospel knew, and with the two words ‘then’ and ‘therefore’ he clinched and concluded the episode, and thus recognized this absolute blasphemy for what it was. It is worth pointing out that the combination of tote (then) and oun (therefore) as two adverbs in the same clause, qualifying the same verb, is very rare. This combination appears only in John, and only in his Gospel at three other places (John 11.14, 19.1, 20.8) All four Gospels thus show that the passion narrative portrays the kingship of Jesus as a basic constituent and a ‘constant’. Moreover, it is the author of the Fourth Gospel who, in his theology of the cross, sees the kingship of Jesus as the real clue to the understanding of the crucifixion. His theological understanding of the kingly triumph and glorification of Jesus will be explored more fully in the next chapter. 3. The personalities of the week Another constant is to be found in the various individuals and groups of people in the story, who appear and re-appear during Holy Week. First there are the masses of people who witness the events which crowd in on Jesus during the last week. Crowds accompany him on his triumphal entry, are astounded as he cleanses the temple, and overhear his disputations with their leaders on Tuesday. A multitude, in Matthew ‘a great multitude’ (26.47 and cf. John12.12), are present at the arrest in Gethsemane, and finally watch him die on the cross. Then in the successive stories of the week a number of individuals appear. A constant feature of this week is the way that a large number of people emerge from the crowd and are individually mentioned, far more than at other times in the story of Jesus. Some bystanders, or owners, protest at the untying of the colt before the triumphal entry. A group of

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Greeks seek an interview with Jesus, and a certain Philip of Bethsaida is the agent of contact. An individual scribe puts the stock question, ‘Which is the first commandment?’ A widow woman is observed by Jesus at the treasury. There is Simon the leper who invited Jesus to a meal, and at whose house there is a woman with an alabaster box of perfume (though, as suggested, this story probably occurred after Sabbath, that is the Saturday evening prior to ‘Palm Sunday’) . A man carrying a pitcher of water is mentioned, and so is the owner of the house where the last supper took place. In the garden later, the victim of Peter’s attack is identified as Malchus—a servant of the high priest, and an unnamed young man fled naked from the garden. A cohort of soldiers and their chief captain are mentioned (John 18.12). Annas and Caiaphas are particularly named in the trial scenes. The soldiers and officers who arrested him are mentioned on several occasions and especially because of their cruelty (Mark 14.65). A maid who kept the gate, and presumably another maid of the high priest challenge Peter. A further male bystander also accuses Peter. As we approach the end, Pilate the governor appears. Herod also figures. Barabbas the robber is mentioned as an alternative to Jesus. On the way to the cross Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry Jesus’ cross, accompanied by a great multitude and a company of the women of Jerusalem. The two robbers crucified with Jesus are mentioned, as are the four soldiers who shared Jesus’ garments. At the cross itself, Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister are named, as are Mary the wife of Clopas, and of course his faithful friend Mary Magdalene with John the beloved disciple. Mark 15.40 may mention three or four women, and Salome is the same person as Matthew’s ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’. A bystander tried to give Jesus a drink from a sponge full of vinegar. A centurion at the cross has the last verdict on Jesus, and now at last Joseph of Arimathea and the great Nicodemus arrange and preside at Jesus’ burial. Daily at the centre of events is Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, day by day throughout the week, a considerable number of persons, men and women, are individually mentioned. The exact number is difficult to ascertain because of references to several officers as well as four soldiers at the cross. All told, the figure must have been a minimum of thirty people mostly referred to by name, not to mention a company of Greeks, a group of women dwellers in Jerusalem, and the six disciples of

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Jesus who are actually named: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip and Judas Iscariot. The simple, almost routine tasks which these disciples are called upon to perform, without any of the apostolic or hierarchical overlay of early church practice, point to the accuracy of Mark’s portrait of these people. According to Luke 6.13 Jesus did speak of the disciples as apostles, and by 22.30 they are given an exalted role presumably to be exercised after the parousia. 4. The pervasive sense of destiny Overarching the whole of the gospel story, and especially the narratives of the passion, is the sense of destiny, a destiny which is portrayed in the three-fold strands of a sense of the eternal reality. The first strand is Jesus’ own prior knowledge; the second is scriptural prediction, and the third is the fulfilment of both in the events of the here and now on the ground in Jerusalem during this week. The second and third strands are frequently connected in the narratives. The Gospels offer abundant examples of the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, especially in Matthew. Thus the triumphal entry is the fulfilment of Isaiah 62.11 and Zechariah 9.9 (Matt 21.4-5 and John 12.14-16), and Jesus himself justifies the response of the people by reference to Psalm 8.2 (Matt 21.16-17). Similarly the cleansing of the temple is seen in the context of Isaiah 56.7 and Jeremiah 7.11. On the Tuesday, Jesus’ parable of the Wicked Tenants is clearly an adaptation of Isaiah’s parable of the Vineyard in 5.1-2, and Psalm 118.22-23. Later Jesus counters the question of the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, a question itself based on the law of Moses (Gen 38.8 and Deut 25.5-6), by himself referring to Ex 3.6 with the comment that God is the God of the living and not the dead. In reply to the scribe Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6.4f. and Leviticus 19.18. Again in his riddle (Mark 12.35) Jesus quotes Psalm 110.1. Jesus explains current disbelief by reference to Isaiah 53.1 (John 12.37-43). Later, in Matthew’s six ‘woes’ (23.15-39), several echoes of scripture passages are to be found (cf. vv.23, 35, 38f.). In the Tuesday evening sermon on the Mount of Olives Jesus calls to mind Daniel’s prediction of the ‘abomination which desolates’ (Dan. 9.27; 11.31 and 12.11), and he also draws a parallel between the days of Noah and his own coming (Matt. 24.37-39). The arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane is

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included in the words ‘but the scriptures must be fulfilled’ (Mark 14.49). The various acts during the crucifying are under the aegis of scripture, such as Jesus’ bones not broken (John 19.36), and the contemplation of the crucified (19.37). Such examples show how the second and third strands of the destiny of Jesus are manifest in the course of the narratives. The relation of the first strand of the destiny—the knowing beforehand of what was going to happen—to the third strand—the actual events in the life of Jesus—is also clearly indicated, even if the nature of the relation between what Nicolas Berdyaev calls the ‘celestial’ knowledge6 and the historical events is not really explained. Two series of references illustrate how the heavenly and the earthly are interwoven. A kind of heavenly, supernatural knowledge breaks in through Jesus’ own predictions. Already on the way to Jerusalem he predicts his own demise (Mark 10.32 and cf. 8.31 and 9.31; Matt 26.2). These outline predictions are followed by a series of particular predictions of his death in the context of his speech with the Greeks (John 12.32f.), of the destruction of the temple (Luke 21.5), and captivity ‘until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled’ (v.24). A similar prediction comes at the end of the parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12.9 and cf. Matt 21.43). He predicts Peter’s denial (Mark 14.30 and parallels) and his betrayal by Judas (14.18 and parallels). He speaks in John’s account of the coming of the Comforter (14.26). These ample predictions, covered by such a general statement in the sermon on the Mount of Olives as ‘Lo, I have told you beforehand’ (Matt. 24.25), must reflect an original element in the passion tradition, even if they include some additions or expansions. An original core of prediction is, I suggest, further buttressed by the recognition Jesus makes of his own situation as characterized by his constant reference to the word ‘hour’. 5. The repeated reference to ‘the hour’ The theology of the ‘hour’ in the thinking of Jesus is the particular way in which Jesus transfers his sense of destiny into the events of the moment. So the ‘hour’, ora, is a prominent feature in the Holy Week narratives. Of Mark’s 12 uses of the word ‘hour’, 10 occur in Holy Week. A number of these are simple time markers (eg.11.11, 13.11, 14.37). Four refer to the hours of the cross (15.25, 33, 34 twice). The two vital references

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occur in Gethsemane: Jesus prays that the hour might pass from him (14.35), and, shortly after, ‘the hour has come’—the hour of betrayal and death (14.41). Here Jesus witnesses to the supernatural destiny which is breaking in upon him. Of Matthew’s 24 uses of the word ‘hour’, 11 fall in Holy Week. Matthew closely follows Mark in his usage, except no reference to the third hour at the cross is mentioned. Mark’s use of the decisive hour (14.41) is paralleled in Matthew 26.45: ‘the hour is at hand’. Of Luke’s 17 uses of the word ‘hour’, seven occur in Holy Week, and these seven are spread out over several events mostly as time factors. The decisive reference, especially important in Luke is 22.53, ‘but this is your hour, and the power of darkness’, in which words Jesus’ sense of destiny alerts him to the hour of evil. John uses ora 26 times, and of these 12 are in Holy Week. A number of references simply mark the time, and in John 16.2 and 4 ora is usually translated as time, not hour. Five references to ‘hour’, however, are destiny references. Jesus is said to reply to the request of the Greeks for an interview with the words, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’ (12.23). Bernard writes in his commentary on this passsage7 that: The Fourth Gospel is written throughout, as Jesus himself spoke, sub specie aeternitas. He is represented as knowing from the beginning the time and manner and sequel of the end of his public ministry in the flesh.

According to 12.13 he is to be ‘glorified’ by and in his death. The other references in John are to be found at 12.27 (twice), 13.1 and 17.1. John emphasizes the supernatural value of Jesus’ destiny more than the other Gospels, but while the actual focus of the sayings about ‘the hour’ is the cross, this is not explicitly mentioned. Another word used occasionally to express this sense of supernatural destiny is the ordinary Greek word for time, kairos. Mark has five references, and three are used in Holy Week, but as time signals only. Matthew has 10 references, four of these in Holy Week, and one full of a sense of destiny: 26.18 reports that Jesus sends a message to the owner of the house of the last supper, ‘My time is at hand’. Of Luke’s 13 uses of the

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word kairos, five occur in Holy Week, but only one has a possible reference to destiny ordained in heaven: ‘until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled’ (21.24). John uses kairos four times but none in Holy Week. 6. The constants and the narrative The place of these features, such as temple, kingship, personalities, predictions and Jesus’ own personal sense of destiny, is of vital importance in seeking to establish the growth and extent of the passion narrative. Thus, Vincent Taylor’s reconstruction of the narrative has taken practically no account of these constants in the story. In his introduction to Mark 15.218 24 he envisages a ‘comparatively brief foundation story’. This he believes has been expanded and compiled ‘to meet the religious needs of 9 a Gentile church’. In a lengthy note , Vincent Taylor adopts as his starting point the meagre basis represented by Rudolph Bultmann’s analysis, but of necessity expands Bultmann’s few foundation verses and contends for a primary or foundation narrative of the crucifixion story in Mark 15.2124, 26, 29f., 34-37 and 39; secondary passages are 15.25, (27), 31f., 33, 38 and 40f. The primary passages are marked by the virtual absence of semitisms, and the secondary contain a number of possible semitisms. Vincent Taylor says this result may seem ‘unduly conjectural’, but finds confirmation in the distribution of semitisms. The original mistake, I suggest, was to adopt Bultmann’s view that only a few verses formed 10 the foundation. This was too narrow a basis for Vincent Taylor, and he accordingly finds further elements in the form of two main stages cover11 ing the material from chapters 14.1-16.8, which he names A and B. In text A as he reconstructs it, the temple constant does not appear at all; the kingship constant only appears when the superscription on the cross, ‘The king of the Jews’, is mentioned. In text A Jesus is said to predict a betrayer, and Peter’s denial, but A contains no reference to Jesus’ own predictions concerning himself except Mark 14.21, and the terms hour’ and ‘time’ used as markers for the passing of time. All the features which we have seen to be so constant in the Holy Week stories of the four Gospels, are said to be absent from the basic original, and then to have been imported to meet the needs of the Gentile church. Such a view is a transformation of the narrative which, in my view, is scarcely credible. That Jesus’ recognition of his hour and his time

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were entirely secondary is past belief, especially if they are the creation of the early church. To regard Jesus’ own private philosophy as thus secondary, or even legendary, is too difficult to accept. The original error lay in Bultmann’s own analysis, in which he was accompanied by other German scholars. In 1933 a small group of British students, of whom I was one, were invited by Bultmann to attend his select seminar, entry to which was otherwise by examination. We argued with the great professor that, whereas the literary classifications of gospel material were of immense value, the inference that such classifications were in themselves a standard of credibility did not follow. For instance, the ‘form’ classification of the Psalms by Hermann Gunkel did not inhibit some who adopted his approach from offering a revised dating of the Psalms which placed them in a much earlier period, in fact all as preExilic except Psalm 137! The fundamental error of the Formgeschichte school was to confuse the question of literary form with that of authenticity, and this has led to much scepticism concerning the credibility of the gospel narratives in general, and the passion narrative in particular. The ‘constants’ in the Holy Week narrative point to another way of discovering the true contents and course of the story of the last week in the life of Jesus. Besides, Luke himself gives us two examples in which the events of the last days of Jesus’ life are summarized, by the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24.18-24) and by Jesus himself (24.25-27) and these also must be taken into consideration in grasping the ‘shape’ of the story. Special Note ‘Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachtani’: the desolation of the cross

This cry of desolation, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’, is the direst moment of the most awful death in the history of the human race. Jesus’ death was the most awful death on record, not because of the character or means of the death, for many have died a more terrible death than that of Jesus. Jesus’ death was the most awful death because no other than the Son of God was slain. Representatives of the human race had God’s Son crucified at the hands of Roman soldiers. Human representa-

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tives they were; this is the central point, rather than that they were Jews, or that they were the ecclesiastical rulers of that people. In that most awful of all acts, the direst moment was when the sufferer felt himself to be deserted by God, whom he had claimed all his life, since he was 12 years of age, to be his Father in heaven. Bystanders thought he was calling on the prophet Elijah (Mark 15.35; Matt 27.47). Luke and John do not report that Jesus uttered these words, and the New Testament scholar J. M. Creed supposes that Jesus’ saying ‘...into your hands...’ in Luke 23.46 ‘replaces the despairing cry from Ps. XXII, My God, my God....’12 The authenticity of the saying, despite its absence from Luke and John, is surely beyond doubt. Nevertheless the saying is so mysterious that some early heretics like the Ebionites believed that the Holy Spirit fell on Jesus at his baptism, but departed from him before Jesus died, and this saying means the departure of Jesus’ divinity from him. Such speculation shows how troubled Christian minds have been with this saying of Jesus. Many scholars have endeavoured to lessen the mystery of these words by insisting that since these words are only from the opening of Psalm 22, they should be understood in the light of the entire psalm. Analysis of Psalm 22 certainly shows that besides elements of lament such as verses 1-2 and 6-8, there are protestations of trust such as verses 3-5, 9-11, 22-24, prayers such as verses 19-21, and a hymn of triumph in verses 22-31. Such a varied contrast, however, does not and cannot deny the reality of the experience expressed in the cry of desolation. Some scholars have asserted with care and reverence that Jesus was mistaken. Thus T. R. Glover says: ‘I have sometimes thought there never was an utterance that reveals more amazingly the distance between feeling and fact. That was how he felt—worn out, betrayed, spat upon, rejected. We feel that God was more there than ever.’13 According to this understanding, whereas we may indeed say, ‘there was God’, this was not the feeling, or rather the experience, of Jesus. But could Jesus at the supreme, redemptive moment of his life have been mistaken? The paradox must surely be asserted: if God were there, he was there in his absence. If present, he behaved as if he were absent: present, but he hid his face: present, but he was silent.

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S. E. Balentine in his recent study, The Hidden God. The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament 14 has shown that a theology of the deserting God is to be found in the Old Testament. This of course is matched by the doctrine of the returning presence of God. (To give but one example, compare Ezekiel chapter 10 with chapter 43). In the New Testament the experience of Jesus is described in many ways. Jesus had to be made like his brethren in every respect (Heb 2.17; 4.15). Christ became poor (2 Cor 8.9). God did not spare his own Son... (Rom 8.32), but made him to be sin who knew no sin (2 Cor 5.21). God is described thus as the author of Christ’s sinful status. If then Christ is in sin, though sinless, God demonstrates the attributed state of Christ’s sinfulness by separating himself from the Son. Putting the point another way: Christ came to seek and to save the lost, but only by becoming lost himself could he find, experience and redeem the lost. That is to say, Christ himself died lost. He also died believing, with the words ‘Into your hands I commit my spirit’, except there was nobody there to receive his spirit. Jesus was further into the far country than anybody else had gone, or indeed could go. H. H. Farmer thus described God’s abandonment of Jesus as the supreme indictment of the love of God, but also as the supreme and full revelation of that same love. That is the character of the worst moment in the history of mankind. 15 Notes 1 [Editor’s note: Mark also intends us to understand that the curtain of separation between God and Gentiles has also been removed. See below, p. 175] 2 [Editor’s note: but earlier in the Fourth Gospel, the temple is a significant theme connected with the death and resurrection of Jesus: see above, pp. 58-60, 109. 3 Morna Hooker, Mark, p. 265. 4 see above, pp. 34-5 5 see above on the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, pp. 9-10 6 Nicolas Berdyaev, The Meaning of History (Bles, London, 1936), ch. IV. 7 J.H. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, Vol. 2 (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1928), at 12.23. 8 Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark, p. 587. 9 Ibid., Note H, pp. 649-51. 10 In Bultmann’s view, the core is 15:20b-24a, (27), (37). 11 He sets out the full text of A in his commentary (op. cit.), pp. 660-62.

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12 J.M. Creed, The Gospel According to St. Luke (Macmillan, London, 1930), p. 284. 13 T. R. Glover The Jesus of History (SCM, London, 1917), p. 192. 14 S. E. Balentine, The Hidden God (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1983). 15 See H. H. Farmer, The World and God Nisbet, London, 1935, p. 243, for a deeply moving and profound analysis of this moment; see also Vincent Taylor, Jesus and His Sacrifice (Macmillan, London, 1937), pp. 294-8, for an analysis of the principle of sacrifice which he believes binds together all the passion sayings of Jesus.

13 The Theology of Holy Week according to the Evangelists John E. Morgan-Wynne 1. Mark By the time the readers of Mark’s Gospel stand at the gate of Jerusalem, they have already learned several times that Jesus will suffer and die. Twice before Caesarea Philippi the readers are alerted to the untimely end of Jesus—at 2.20 (‘the bridegroom will be taken away’) and 3.6 (the Pharisees and Herodians plot to kill Jesus). From Caesarea Philippi, where Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus teaches about his suffering, death and resurrection (8.27-33), Mark guides the readers’ gaze to the cross. Passion predictions ring out like hour bells (9.12, 31; 10.334, 45), while the voice at the transfiguration, which commanded the disciples to listen to God’s son (9.7), must in the Markan context refer to paying heed to Jesus’ teaching on suffering and death, rejected by Peter (8.32). This suffering is a divine necessity (8.31) and laid down in scripture (9.12). Readers well-versed in the Old Testament would have discerned, in the description of Jesus’ destiny in terms of drinking a cup and being plunged beneath waters (10.38), the experience of divinely inflicted judgment; moreover, in the light of the famous ‘ransom’ saying (10.45), this judgment can only mean one undergone for the sake of others. The ransom saying points to Jesus’ death as the climax of a life given over to serving others rather than being served. In some way Jesus’ death will procure release for others from sin. It will be a vicarious atonement. Thus, many clues to the meaning of the suffering and death of Jesus have been given to the readers by the time we come to Holy Week. So what themes did Mark wish to stress to the readers in chapters 11-15? (a) A divine purpose and plan The passion as an event set within the divine will revealed in scripture is to be found in these chapters. At the Supper Jesus says, ‘The Son of Man goes as it is written about him (14.21). The Son of Man‘goes’—i.e. to his death, in accordance with divine will laid down in scripture.

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After the supper and en route for Gethsemane Jesus announces, ‘All you will be offended’. This prediction is then grounded in a scriptural quotation from Zechariah 13.7, ‘I will smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered’. The first part of the quotation clearly alludes to Jesus’ death. In both the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Septuagint there is an imperative ‘smite!’, but since Zech 13.8 says that Yahweh will bring his own hand against the shepherd, Mark’s ‘I will smite’ could be seen as 1 a correct interpretation of the sense of the passage. While the main concern of Mark 14.27-8 is the disciples’ conduct (‘the sheep’), nonetheless the fate of Jesus as foretold in scripture also emerges. The death of the shepherd which precedes and causes the scattering of the sheep is laid down in scripture and is within God’s will. The twofold prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane—the first in indirect speech concerning the hour (v. 35), the other in direct speech concerning the cup (v. 36)—both in their own way emphasize that the passion lies in the will and power of God. He to whom all things are possible controls the hour and gives the cup. At the arrest, Jesus protests at the manner in which it has been effected, for he has been daily teaching in the temple, but they had not tried to arrest him there. Then follows a reference to Scripture (14.49c). We can translate either ‘let the Scriptures be fulfilled’ or (assuming ellipsis) ‘these things have happened that the scriptures might be fulfilled’. Either the arrest in particular or the passion as a whole happens because it was ordained in scripture. So, then, these four verses (14.21, 27, 35f and 49) cohere with the assertions made earlier in the Gospel. It was important for Mark, and for early Christianity as a whole, to assert that Jesus was not the helpless victim of events and circumstances and human machinations. Once the cross was seen as the saving event for all humanity, it was all the more important to see it as within God’s plan of salvation. (b) The identity of Jesus Christology, that is who the person of Jesus is, is a major concern of Mark. In the first incident recorded by Mark after the call of the first four disciples, a man with an unclean spirit claims, ‘I know who you are, holy one of God’, and is immediately silenced (1.24-5). The astonished crowd

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exclaims, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even unclean spirits and they obey him’ (v. 27). ‘What is this?’ becomes ‘Who is this?’ in the response of the disciples after the stilling of the storm: ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?’ (4.41). Mark records speculation about Jesus which had reached the ears of Herod (6.14-15). At Caesarea Philippi Jesus himself asks about this speculation and then poses the question directly: ‘Whom do you say that I am?’ (8.28-9). Although God (1.11; 9.7) and evil spirits (1.34; 3.11-12) know the identity of Jesus, no-one during the ministry in fact penetrates the ‘secret’ of Jesus, not even his disciples—and this despite stupendous miracles like the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the feeding of the five thousand, and the walking on the water, as the paragraph at 8.17-21 amply reveals: ‘Do you not yet understand?’ asks Jesus (if, as most scholars accept, the two feeding stories are doublets of the same event, then clearly Mark has had a hand in shaping the paragraph and the question of Jesus at 8.17-21). True, at Caesarea Philippi Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah, but he soon reveals how much his views and Jesus’ diverge on the meaning of this title. Within Holy Week as recounted by Mark, the issue of Jesus’ identity is often raised: for example, in the question about his authority (11.27-33, harking back to the action in the temple, 11.15-17), and then by allusion in the son and heir of the owner of the vineyard in Jesus’ parable (12.112). Jesus himself raises the question about the relation of Davidic descent to messiahship and, at the very least, puts a question mark against its being a prime factor (12.35-7). Then the issue surfaces prominently in the two trials, and especially the Jewish trial. In the trial before the Sanhedrin, the high priest asks Jesus, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?’, to which Jesus responds, ‘You have said that I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven’ (14.61b-62). Here, in brief compass, are the three major titles for Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. Even if through the circumlocutory reply, Jesus does not accept responsibility for having raised the assertion, neither does he deny what has been asked. In the heading to the Gospel two of these titles have already been mentioned—‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus the

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Messiah, the Son of God’ (1.1, assuming the longer reading); a Messiah is confessed at 8.29, and Son of God at 15:39. Mark has already emphasized that the Son of Man is going to suffer greatly and be killed (8:31). Accordingly, at the Markan level, there can by now be no misunderstanding. Jesus is a suffering Messiah and Son of God. He will be exalted and will come again, but before that he has to suffer. In the Roman trial, Pilate asks Jesus, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’, to which Jesus answers, again with a circumlocutory reply, ‘You say so’ (15.2). On the Markan level, there can be no possibility of reading political implications into this (cf. the protest at the arrest 14.48-49). Even Pilate asks, in response to the first demand to crucify Jesus, ‘What evil has he done?’ (15.14). The Barabbas episode (15.6-15) clearly points a contrast between Barabbas, guilty of rebellion and murder, and Jesus, the one who eschews violence and is prepared to tread the path of innocent suffering for others. The kingship theme emerges at 15.9, 12, 16-20, 26, 32. The phrase ‘king of the Jews’ is used by Pilate. The ‘king of Israel’ is the phrase used by the chief priests and scribes when they mock Jesus (15.32). The last occurence of the title ‘king’ focusses our thoughts on the people of God. Here is the true king of Israel who suffers and dies to establish God’s covenant. Kingship is defined now by the cross. So we come to the centurion’s confession at 15.39. Thus far in the Gospel, no human being has confessed Jesus as the Son of God (the confessions at 1.24; 5.7 are due to the evil spirits who possess the individuals who speak). The sequence of events is that after the three hour darkness Jesus cries out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (15.34). An incident involving offering Jesus some wine vinegar to drink then follows (vv.35-6), after which Jesus lets out a loud cry (wordless in Mark) and dies (v. 37). The centurion then makes the confession, ‘Truly this man was the son of God’. For Mark, this is the moment when the ‘secret’ is penetrated! At the cross—of all places and times—Jesus is at last confessed as God’s son. What God had announced at the beginning of the story (1.11), is now attested by a human being. The ‘revelation’ of the cross has evoked the true confession. Mark has led us to this moment. With this climax to his Gospel, Mark is revealed as much a ‘theologian of the cross’ as we may

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describe Paul. The cross is the key to a true understanding of Jesus. The miracles, the authoritative teachings and actions are all important, but in the end it is to the cross that Mark turns our attention as the clue to unlock the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Mark leaves us with the mystery of why death in weakness and humiliation, in loneliness and desolation, in noGod’s-land, should be revelation. Yet Christians down the ages have found it to be so. As Charles Wesley put it, Vouchsafe the eye of faith to see The Man transfixed on Calvary; To know Thee who Thou artThe one eternal God and true! And let the sight affect, subdue, And break my stubborn heart.2

(c) Conflict with the authorities The reference to the rending of the temple curtain in 15.38 brings us on to another theme important for Mark. Throughout his Gospel Mark has often shown Jesus to be in conflict with the religious authorities of Judaism (for the scribes see 2.6, 16; 3.22; for the Pharisees 2.24; 3.2, 6; 8.11; 10.2; for the two in concert 7.1, 5; see 8.15 for a warning against both the Pharisees and the Herodians). The theme of conflict continues in the group of pericopes assembled in chapters 11-12 in Holy Week. The three groups within the Sanhedrin (chief priests, scribes and elders) challenge his action in the temple and ask for the basis of his authority (11.27; cf.12.2); the Pharisees (12.13) and the Sadducees (12.18) put hostile questions to him; while Jesus makes critical comments about the teaching and behaviour of the scribes (12.35, 38-40). Then at 14.1 we are told that the chief priests and scribes decided to eliminate Jesus. Jesus’ protest at the clandestine mode of arrest under the cover of darkness (14.48-9) makes the leaders appear disgraceful in the course of action pursued by them. Mark involves the whole Sanhedrin in the case against Jesus (14.53). They resort to false witnesses (14.55) and all condemn Jesus (v.64b), while some physically abuse him (v.65). The whole Sanhedrin take Jesus to Pilate (15.1), and the chief priests stir up the crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas, not Jesus (15.11). Finally, Mark

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says that the chief priests and scribes pursue Jesus to the end and mock him while he hangs on the cross. It is against this background of a clash between Jesus and the authorities of Judaism that we must set Jesus’ attitude to the temple and his words about it during Holy Week. In Mark, Jesus, after entering Jerusalem, looked round the temple and then returned to Bethany (14.11). It is as if he took everything in, and having worked out a plan of action returned next day to implement it: he proceeded to drive out the buyers and sellers, and overturn the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and stopped people using the temple precincts as a short cut (11.15-16). The whole action seems to be that of a reformer. The use of the quotation from Isaiah 56.7 seems to accept the temple as a house of prayer, but, by implication, reject sacrifice. In 13.2 Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple: not one stone will be left on top of another. That would be consonant with the action of an army which captures and destroys the building. In 13.14 a prediction is made of its desecration by some abominable thing (the phrase is drawn from Daniel 9.27; 11.31; 12.11 where it refers to the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes). Presumably the action of an invading army is in mind; the action of Pompey earlier in 69 BC would be an illustration of desecrating the temple. There is no reason to suppose that desecration and destruction are incompatible, and that Mark could not hold both actions together in his mind; after all, the author of Psalm 74 did, who refers to pagan soldiers both destroying the sanctuary and defiling it (vv. 4-8). In the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, false witnesses allege: ‘We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands and in three days I will build another not made with hands’ (14.58 cf.15.29). Presumably the falsity for Mark lay in their declaring that Jesus said that he personally would destroy the temple. But what did Mark understand by the temple not made with hands? We really have to surmise here, but a plausible suggestion is that the community of Jesus would be in mind. The centre of the spirituality of Judaism, the temple, is destined to be replaced by the new temple, the Christian community (cf. 1 Cor 3.16; 1 Pet 2.5).

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This idea of the end of the temple as the spiritual centre of God’s purposes would fit in with the symbolic interpretation widely given to the so-called ‘cursing’ of the fig tree, into which incident Mark has placed the cleansing of the temple, to illuminate one another. The lack of fruit on the fig tree and the saying, ‘May no-one ever again eat fruit from you’ are a pronouncement of judgment on unfruitful Israel and its centre, the temple. (Mark 11.12-14, 20-21). It also fits in with the rending of the temple curtain, which provides the climax of the theme which we are now pursuing. If we assume that the curtain in mind is that between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, then we may reasonably take the symbolism to be that of the opening up of access to God’s presence. The inaccessibility of God—only the high priest and he only once a year could enter the Holy of Holies, as Hebrews 9.7 says—is brought to an end. The death of Jesus on the cross has achieved the possibility of access. Mark had previously recorded the ransom saying (10.45). In the rending of the curtain, we see the effects of that ‘ransom for many’, and when the Gentile centurion makes his confession immediately after the tearing of the curtain, he becomes the prototype of believers who take advantage of what Jesus’ death has achieved (15.39). That a Gentile makes the crucial confession must also be taken as an indication that the access to God is open to all, irrespective of race or nationality. The discourse of Mark 13 had already indicated that the gospel must be preached to all nations (13.10; cf.14.9), from whence at the end the angels of the Son of Man will gather the elect (13.27). The centurion is the first of many who will form the community of the risen Christ. Mark, too, like Paul, proves himself to be an evangelist of a gospel for all the world. (d) The failure of the disciples The failure of the disciples is a well known motif of Mark’s Gospel. The New Testament scholar A. E. J. Rawlinson once remarked that he had some sympathy with the view of a friend of his, that ‘Mark hates the Twelve’! More recently, some scholars have argued that Mark makes the Twelve the upholders of the kind of Christology which he is combatting, and that this accounts for the uncomplimentary picture of the disciples in

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Mark. This seems an extreme viewpoint and flounders on the promise in 14.28 that the scattered flock will be reconstituted. The failure of the disciples in Mark is both a historical fact and part of Mark’s attempt to underline (largely by contrast) the significance of the cross. The failure of the disciples is continued in the Holy Week section. En route from the supper to Gethsemane, Jesus predicts the complete failure of the entire disciple group and Peter in particular (14.27-31). This failure is grounded in scripture (Zech 13.7), but their restoration under the risen shepherd is equally predicted (v. 28). Through the triple prayer of Jesus in the garden, the disciples’ sleep and failure to keep awake and pray is correspondingly underlined (14.37, 40, 41). The disciples sleep while the master prays. Their failure to keep awake and pray acts as a kind of foil by which the example of Jesus himself is set off the more strikingly. The brief note at 14.50 reports that all forsook him and fled. Though all had protested that they would stick by Jesus, they leave him in the lurch. Through the Markan technique of intertwining, the story of Peter’s denial is the frame for the trial of Jesus (14.53, 54-65, 66-72). We have a vivid contrast: the disciple who, though he promised much, denies his master three times (as predicted in 14.30), and the master who, after silence, answers the question whether he is the Messiah, the Son of God, ‘You have said that I am; and you shall see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven’ (14.62). There is a diptych of facing pictures: the denying disciple and the confessing lord. The follower shifted his stance under pressure and, despite his protestations of loyalty, ended up by denying all knowledge of Jesus, accompanying this denial with a curse and an oath; the master stood firm by his convictions. The preaching value of this antithesis in the situation of a church under pressure is obvious. Christians are exhorted to be faithful like their lord and to stand firm as he did. The note at 15.40-1 records that it is the women and not the men who are spectators at the crucifixion, just as they and not the men witness the burial (15.47) and discover the empty tomb (16.1ff). In the light of all this, the promise of a rendezvous with the risen Jesus (14.28; 16.7) strikes the note of grace—the failures are to be taken afresh into fellowship with their master.

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(e) The future glory of Jesus The message of Mark 13 calls for comment in a review of Mark’s theology of Holy Week. Although there is far more teaching material in Mark than at first sight might appear (as the ‘pronouncement stories’ show), it is clear that Mark has gathered teaching material into two major blocks in his Gospel—chapters 4 and 13. Mark has placed the block of eschatological teaching, that is teaching about the things of the end-time, within the context of Holy Week. This teaching immediately precedes the passion story proper. Temple and christological themes are intertwined in this discourse, as we have already seen that they are in the passion. What I want to emphasize now is that readers of the Gospel come to the last forty eight hours of Jesus’ earthly life through the discourse of chapter 13. They learn that the one who is about to suffer and die will come in glorious power, with angels at his disposal, to wind up history and usher in the perfect kingdom of God (13.26-27) at a time determined by the Father (13.32). By placing the eschatological discourse at this point, Mark holds together the suffering and the triumph of Jesus. This is reiterated when Jesus affirms that his judges will see the Son of Man seated at God’s right hand and coming with the clouds of heaven (14.62). (f) Human hostility and its absorption There is in many ways a stark contrast between the proclamation of the triumph to come in chapter 13 and the narrative of chapters 14 and 15 which follows. Apart from the beautiful deed of the un-named woman in 14.3-9 and the centurion’s confession (15.39), the Markan story is one of almost unrelieved hostility towards Jesus and makes for grim reading. The religious leaders determine on his death (14.1-2), pursue this aim ruthlessly, even using false witnesses (14.55-9), and vent their anger with physical violence after the trial (14.65) and with verbal abuse at Golgotha (15.31-32). It is they who stir up the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus (15.6-15). The Roman troops carry out a mock coronation scene (15.16-20), and then lead Jesus out to be crucified.

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Of his disciples, one betrays him (14.10-11, 43-5); another denies him three times (14.29-31, 66-72); all sleep when they should have supported him in prayer themselves (14.32-42) and leave him in the lurch (14.50). Jesus himself has gone through a physically and emotionally draining period of agonized prayer (14.32-42); has been subjected to two trials and two sets of physical violence (14.65; 15.16-20), as a result of which he is unable to carry his cross (15.21); and is then insulted by three sets of people (15.29-32). It is quite probable that the offer of wine vinegar (15.35-6b) is intended in a malevolent sense—to prolong Jesus’ life so that the non-appearance of Elijah might prove that Jesus’ claim to messiahship is false. The passion story as told by Mark is well-nigh unbearable in the element of hostility concentrated, focused and channelled upon Jesus. Nothing relieves the picture until the confession of 15.39. The three hour darkness descends from noon until 3 pm. Most scholars accept that Mark was using the darkness as a symbol, and many have brought Amos 8.9 (a prophetic oracle of doom upon Israel) into the discussion. ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.’ The darkness would be a symbol of God’s judgment upon his people which has rejected his son through its failure to recognize who he is. The constant barrage of hostility directed at Jesus reminds us of a sentence from Hebrews 12.3: ‘Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners.’ Mark’s emphasis on this hostility prompts us to understand that one aspect of Jesus’ redemptive suffering is the absorption of evil. Paul said: ‘Overcome evil with good’ (Romans 12.21), and that is in a sense what we see the Jesus of Mark’s narrative doing; he takes the worst that people could do to him, yet without retaliating in the same way, so absorbing and neutralizing the evil, and thereby transforming it into a means of blessing and a power for good to humankind. Mark’s picture, then, points to the isolation and loneliness of Jesus, which reaches its nadir at 15.34 with the cry of desolation: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’. Now, this is the only word of the Markan Jesus from the cross, and it is important to realize this and to give it its full weight when we are trying to listen to what Mark is saying. We

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seem to plumb the depths here. The awfulness of such a moment comes home to us: that Jesus who had heard God’s voice at his baptism, ‘You are my only/beloved son; I am well pleased with you’, and who had heard a similar voice at the transfiguration addressed to the disciples, ‘This is my only/beloved son; listen to him’—that he should feel like that! Even he feels deserted and abandoned by God, left in the lurch by God. Such a passion story may be said to be a martyr’s passion story. There is no miraculous deliverance, no last minute rescue, no deus ex machina. God seems to be absent. If the Gospel of Mark were composed at Rome sometime in the period 65-75 AD then such a passion story would fit well with the situation of a church, many of whose members had passed through the fires of Nero’s persecution. Others had had to endure people’s hatred, scorn and hostility. It does not demand a Roman setting, but is consonant with it. To any church which had experienced persecution, it would be a comfort to know that God’s own son had trodden that path which seemed ‘God-forsaken’. If the master had trodden the path of persecution, should not the disciple tread it also? And the Christian should not look for any supra-human intervention when in a situation of potential martyrdom, for the one who endures to the end will be saved (13.13) and be part of those gathered in by the angels (13.27) to enjoy the messianic banquet (14.25). By extension of application, today in our own preaching and pastoral care, we may use the Markan portrayal of Jesus’ sense of forsakenness to help those who feel bereft of all comfort, support and friendship. 2. Matthew We shall assume that Matthew’s Gospel was written about 90—100 AD and that Matthew’s church had separated from the Jewish synagogue, an experience whose traumatic nature has left its mark on the Gospel. Matthew has gathered material together and at times shaped that material for the benefit of his church: a good example of this is the way in which he has enlarged and edited the block of teaching which in Mark occupied the Tuesday (see Matt 21.18-25, 46). So, what were the theological themes which Matthew wanted to stress in his Holy Week section?

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(a) The divine sonship Matthew is concerned with the person of Jesus. In his birth stories he had set forth Jesus as Son of David (1.1, 20) and Son of God (2.15). Both titles figure in the Gospel before Holy Week: ‘Son of David’ occurs in 9.27, 12.23 and 15.22 (all touches from Matthew himself), and ‘Son of God’ in 14.33, 16.16 (also Matthean), 4.3, 6 and 11.27 (in material which came to him). Matthew makes more precise the vague phrase in Mark 11.9-10 in the triumphal entry. Mark’s ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!’ becomes in Matthew ‘Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Matt 21.9). In the immediate sequel, the cleansing of the temple, we are told that the blind and lame came to Jesus in the temple and he healed them, while children shouted out: ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’ (21.14-15). Son of David he may be, but Jesus differs from his ancestor. When David sought to capture Jerusalem, a scornful message was conveyed to David from the inhabitants, ‘You will not come in here, even the blind and lame will turn you back’ (2 Sam 5.6, REB). Because of this David encouraged his men to attack the lame and blind, ‘those whom David hates’. The Old Testament account goes on to comment, ‘Because of this, people say, The blind and the lame shall not enter the house of the Lord’ (2 Sam 5.8 in the Septuagint; the Hebrew lacks ‘of the Lord’; cf. Lev 21.18). Jesus, the son of David, is more gentle, merciful and compassionate than his ancestor; as the children hail him as Son of David, he heals the blind and the lame in the house of the Lord. (Cf. Matt 11.29; 21.5 quoting Zech 9.9. See also the stress on mercy at 9.13; 12.7, enunciated by Jesus quoting Hosea 6.6; both texts are Matthew’s redaction). This may help us to understand how Matthew may have taken the dialogue of Jesus with the Pharisees concerning the Messiah and Davidic descent (Matt 21.41-46). We have already seen that Jesus seems to place a question against this, on the basis of a psalm which was generally under3 stood to refer to the Messiah as David’s ‘lord’ (Psalm 110.1). This saying would have been potentially embarrassing to the early church, which stressed Jesus’ descent from David. Matthew, we may suppose, would

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have understood the saying to be implying that Jesus was not only Son of David but also Son of God, descended from David and yet David’s lord. As Son of God, David’s lord, he shows his gentleness and mercy to those hard hit by life. Matthew’s interest in Jesus as Son of God comes to the fore in the story of the mockery of Jesus on the cross. His divine sonship is mocked by three groups from the Jewish side: the passers-by (27.39-40 . . . ‘if you are the Son of God’); the chief priests, scribes and elders (27.41-42 . . . ‘he said, I am God’s son’) and those crucified with him (27.44 . . . ‘In a similar way.....’). The assumption of the taunts is that Jesus cannot be God’s son if he continues to hang there, if there is no last minute miracle of deliverance. This ridicule of Jesus is counterbalanced by the theophanic signs accompanying the death of Jesus which are God’s attestation of his son (27.51-53) and by the confession of the centurion and his men: ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’ (27.54). A diptych of two contrasting pictures emerges: denied by the Jews, confessed by the Gentiles. Matthew shows Jesus as God’s son, the righteous one par excellence. Precisely because he is such, he has to suffer at the hands of evil-doers. It is not a miraculous deliverance but the trustful obedience along the path of suffering which proves Jesus as the Son of God. While on the theme of Christology, we may note a tendency on the part of Matthew to increase the emphasis on Jesus’ awareness of what was happening. Thus where, at the beginning of Mark 14, Mark states that the Passover was two days ahead and the chief priests and scribes were looking for an opportunity to kill Jesus, Matthew has Jesus addressing his disciples at 26.2: ‘You know that the Passover will take place in two days time and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified’’. Then, when Jesus sends his disciples to prepare the Passover, according to Matthew the message to the owner of the house includes the phrase: ‘My time is near. I will celebrate the Passover at your house with my disciples’(26.18). The phrase ‘My time is near’ is akin to the ‘hour’ references in the Fourth Gospel. The time is the time of his death which is close at hand. There is no question of Jesus being taken by surprise. In his dealings with Judas, the Jesus of Matthew’s account is perfectly well aware of what is happening. This is more explicit than in the Markan

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source. Thus only in Matthew does Judas ask at the last supper, ‘Is it perhaps I, rabbi?’, the evangelist suggesting a feigned hesitant question (26.25). Jesus says to him, ‘You have said so’. At the arrest when Judas has kissed him, Jesus says, ‘Friend, do that for which you have come’ (26.50). The element of knowing that scripture has foretold everything which already occurs in the arrest scene in Mark is heightened by a second reference to this by Matthew. He adds verse 54 with its forceful emphasis that to accept angelic help would be to nullify scripture: ‘How then should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen like this?’ he asks. Jesus understands what lies ahead of him because scripture has laid it down. In full awareness of the suffering ahead the Son of God goes forward in obedience. The obedience of Jesus had emerged in Mark’s story of the garden of Gethsemane; if anything, Matthew further underlines this. Where Mark says that Jesus went away and prayed using ‘the same words’ (Mark 14.39), Matthew fills this in, as it were. He portrays Jesus as praying: ‘My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, let your will be done’ (26.42). The phrase ‘let your will be done’ is word-for-word from the Lord’s Prayer in the Matthean version (6.10—Luke’s version does not have this particular petition, 11.2). In other words, Jesus carried out what he enjoined on his followers: he like them was under God’s will and committed to it. Here then is the picture of an obedient, submissive son praying to his Father. If the Father wills that he should drink the cup of suffering, then he will do so. If there is no other way, then he will drink the cup. Obedience, suffering and sonship go together. Suffering, far from disproving Jesus’ sonship, confirms it. A phrase from the Letter to the Hebrews may aptly be quoted: ‘Son though he was, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered’ (Heb 5. 8). (b) The true people of God Matthew is concerned about the question of God’s people. Who are the true people of God—the Jews or those who confess Jesus as Messiah and Son of God? This theme is discernible in Matthew’s Holy Week narrative. We meet it in the two parables, those of the Wicked Tenants and the Royal

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Wedding Feast in 21.33—22.14, the former edited from Mark and the latter possibly edited from the ‘Q’ document. With regard to the former parable, Matthew has merged the individuals sent by the owner in Mark’s version into two groups (21.34, 36). These two groups remind us of the former and latter prophets sent by God to Israel. Then the son is sent and is killed outside the vineyard by the tenants (Jesus died outside the city of Jerusalem). Matthew has the hearers reply to Jesus’ question, ‘What will he do to those tenants?’, with the verdict ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons’ (21.41) The phrase ‘who will give him the fruits in their seasons’ is not in Mark. Then Matthew further adds verse 43: ‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people producing the fruits of it’. Clearly the Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel announces the forfeiture by the Jews of their special position. The possibility of this had earlier been stated by Matthew in words inserted into the story of the healing of the centurion’s servant: I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness (8.11-12).

Matthew has made the parable of the Wicked Tenants into an allegory of ‘the history of salvation’. Something similar happens with the parable of the Wedding Feast in 22:1-14. The meal which is mentioned in the introduction seems originally to have been a banquet held by an ordinary citizen (so Luke 14.16, following ‘Q’), but Matthew has changed this into a royal marriage feast. When the guests who were first invited refuse to attend, the king sends troops to destroy their city (verse 7). Except for a few scholars, most see this detail as a Matthean allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem. The king says to his servants, ‘The marriage feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. . .’ (verse 8). Thus the original guests are the Jewish people who refused God’s invitation issued through Jesus, and have thus forfeited their right to be part of God’s kingdom. It may be objected that this interpretation is too broad because Matthew said of the parable of the Wicked Tenants that the chief priests and Pharisees knew that he was speaking about them (21.45), and the parable

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of the Royal Wedding Feast is introduced by ‘Jesus again spoke in parables to them’, with no change of audience. It may be urged then that the target is not the whole Jewish people. In response, it may be said that Matthew broadens out in Chapter 23 from criticism of the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ to ‘Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her’ (verse 37), that is from leaders to the nation (represented by Jerusalem). There can be no doubt about the condemnation implied in 23.38, ‘Your house is left (desolate) to you’, even if some may want to see a glimmer of hope for Israel’s conversion in verse 39: ‘You will not see me from now on, until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. Confirmation that Matthew does not intend a rigid separation of leaders and people comes in the highly dramatic scene when Pilate washes his hands in front of the crowd and says, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this man’ (27.24). Matthew then departs from using ‘crowds’ (ochloi) to use the more solemn ‘people’ (laos): ‘All the people said, “His blood be upon us and on our children”’ (v. 25). The Jewish people accept blood guilt for the death of Jesus. This is surely the moment when, for Matthew, the kingdom of God was taken away from the Jewish nation. No doubt Matthew saw Jewish unbelief further illustrated in the way the nation’s leaders bribed the guards to spread a falsehood about the resurrection of Jesus— that the disciples stole the body and fabricated the story of the resurrection. This falsehood, the evangelist notes, continued to be spread among the Jews in his own period (28.15, see 27.62-6; 28.11-15). Christians are embarrassed today by some of the statements made by Matthew—and John—about the Jewish nation and its leaders. They are certainly embarrassed, and should be deeply repentant, about the way in which the statements of Matthew and John have been used by the church to persecute Jews down the centuries. While we must in no way condone this use, the statements in Matthew become more intelligible against a background of the split between synagogue and church. In the fierce debate, each side claimed to be the true heirs of the Old Testament heritage. Sadly, as so often in family disputes, this dispute was carried out in a somewhat acrimonious manner and the parting of the ways was accompanied by much bitterness on both sides.

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(c) The law and love The cause of the division between the Christian church and the Jewish synagogue in Matthew’s time has already been traced to a large extent, namely the differing perceptions of the person of Jesus: Son of David and Son of God for Christians, he was an imposter or deceiver (27. 63), guilty of blasphemy (26.65) for Jews. These differing perceptions in turn rested on differing attitudes to the religious Law and the traditions of the Elders. The main body of Matthew’s Gospel contains a great deal of material on this theme, and during the Holy Week narrative this topic is touched on twice. First, there is Matthew’s editing of the pericope about which is the greatest commandment, which we observe is a question to test Jesus in Matthew’s account (22.35), not the sincere question it is in Mark 12.2834. At the end, after Jesus has enunciated the double love command (‘You shall love the Lord your God.... and you shall love your neighbour as yourself’), Matthew adds that ‘On these two commands hang the whole law and the prophets’ (22.40). The way Jesus extrapolates these two commands and makes them the criteria of all else would have been unacceptable to Pharisaic Judaism. (Cf. 7.12, ‘the Golden Rule’, and 19.18-19 where Matthew has added ‘love your neighbour as yourself’). Second, in chapter 23, while Jesus apparently bids his disciples to do what the scribes and Pharisees teach (23.3), he proceeds in fact to subject Pharisaic-scribal teaching to ruthless criticism (e.g. on oaths, 23.16-22). One instance may be quoted. The scribes and Pharisees (Matthew links them together) tithe mint, dill and cummin (small herbs), but ‘have neglected the weightier matters of the Law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised these without neglecting the others’ (23.23). In Luke’s parallel saying (11.42) the phrase in italics does not occur, and probably Matthew has introduced it. Again, Jesus according to Matthew assumes distinctions within the law: some matters are more important than others and they must have precedence and must act as a yardstick for the rest. The Pharisees are free to tithe even insignificant garden herbs, but not at the expense of more important demands from God.

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Thus, Matthew maintains into Holy Week his picture of Jesus as the Messiah who, while holding to the Law, also reinterprets it in the light of the double love command. The Law is valid because at its heart is love. (d) The forgiveness of sins Finally, we consider what, for Matthew, the death of Jesus achieved. At the Last Supper, Matthew has added, ‘for the forgiveness of sins’ to the cup saying (26.28). Clearly for Matthew, Jesus’ death has atoning significance. Jesus’ death obtains forgiveness of our sins and inaugurates the new covenant, or restores the old covenant broken by Israel. When reflecting on the signs accompanying Jesus’ death (27.51-53), I argued that Matthew has modified the tradition he received by adding the phrase ‘after his resurrection’ to the account of the raising of saints from their tombs (v. 53). Matthew wants to preserve the primacy of Jesus’ own resurrection, while at the same time he is affirming that Jesus’ death in its atoning power has retrospective significance and sets free ‘saints’ of the past from the realm of the dead. Perhaps one could say that for Matthew the resurrection completes what Jesus’ death commenced. In Matthew’s Holy Week narrative, we see themes which have been treated earlier receiving further elaboration. He is concerned to argue for Jesus’ divine sonship; for Christians having superseded the Jews as God’s people, expected to live by the double love command; and for the saving, liberating consequences of Jesus’ death. In other words, christological, ecclesiological, ethical and soteriological themes are interwoven in this powerfully written story. 3. Luke (a) The journey and the goal Luke, more clearly than the other evangelists, has emphasized Jerusalem as the goal of Jesus’ journey and life: he sets his face to go to Jerusalem (9.51), for there he will have to suffer (see 9.31 for his exodos—death and departure, and perhaps new exodus) because a prophet could not perish outside Jerusalem (as he conveyed to Herod with savage irony, 13.33b). Luke has imposed the concept of a journey on material not originally part of such a concept, and he keeps the notion of a ‘way’ and the goal of this

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journey before the reader in notes at 9.57; 10.38; 13.22, 33; 17.11; 18.31; 19.11, 28. As the scholar Hans Conzelmann put it, ‘Jesus’ awareness that 4 he must suffer is expressed in terms of the journey’. After the resurrection, the risen Jesus expounds the Old Testament scriptures to the husband and wife on a journey, on the road to Emmaus: ‘O foolish and slow to believe all that the prophets have said! Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter his glory?’ (24.25-6). If suffering in Jerusalem is the goal of his life’s work, this gives him no pleasure, for quite apart from how it affects him personally (of which we catch a glimpse in his prayer agony, 22.44), it will bring about a tragedy for Israel. In rejecting him, Israel will bring judgment on itself (see 19.41-44), a judgment which will be effected through Roman troops (see 21.20-4; cf. 23.27-31). Jesus takes no pleasure in the outcome of Israel’s rejection of himself. In the enigmatic sayings of 12.49-50, we hear something of the anguish which tears at his inmost being: ‘I came to scatter fire on the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled! And I have to be plunged beneath the waters, and how distressed I am until it be accomplished.’

The Lukan version of the Wicked Tenants has the audience exclaiming, ‘God forbid’, at the fate of the tenants (to be destroyed and lose the vineyard, 20.16), and ends with the solemn warning: ‘Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush whomsoever it falls on’ (v.18).

Indeed, after Jesus has died, all the crowd which had gathered together to observe the spectacle returned home smiting their breasts as a sign of distress and mourning (23. 48). (b) A struggle between good and evil According to Luke, Satan entered Judas Iscariot and, as a result, he went off and agreed to betray Jesus (22.3-4). This note stands at the beginning of Luke’s passion story proper. A little later, in the hours after the supper at the moment of his arrest, Jesus protested at the mode of his arrest and then added: ‘But this is your hour and the power of darkness’ (22.53b). In

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these two remarks Luke indicates that the passion is part of the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, God and Satan. Conzelmann has, I believe, exaggerated in postulating the concept that there is a ‘Satan-less’ period during Jesus’ ministry as recounted by Luke from 4.13 to 22.3; passages like 8.12; 10.18; 11.4 and possibly 13.16 suggest otherwise. Nonetheless the mention of Satan at 22.3 is striking, and reminds the reader of a cosmic dimension in the passion story. (c) Compassion and service What other aspects of Jesus emerge from Luke’s Holy Week section? In his ministry Jesus has been the ‘friend of sinners’, and Luke offers more material on this theme than any other evangelist. On the cross Jesus assures the penitent freedom fighter, who has acknowledged that his punishment is just: ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ (23.43).

As in life, so in death, Jesus was the friend of sinners. In life he received them and ate with them; in death he ‘received’ the sinner also, and with sovereign authority assured him of a place in paradise. Although Luke is frequently accused of not having a ‘theology of the cross’, he does have Jesus remarking at the Last Supper that the passage from Isaiah 53.12, ‘And he was reckoned among the transgressors’ was being fulfilled. This helps to reinforce the picture of one who was a friend of sinners. Compassion is a trait with which we associate Jesus as Luke portrays him, even if the verb ‘to have compassion’ only occurs once of Jesus. This single reference is at 7.13, where Luke records that Jesus had compassion on the widow of Nain, whose only son had died. By abbreviating the introduction to the story of the feeding of the 5000, Luke actually loses a reference to the compassion of Jesus towards the crowds which Mark has at 6.34. By omitting the feeding of the 4000 altogether he loses also a further reference at Mark 8.2. It is noteworthy, however, that Luke omits the references to Jesus’ anger at Mark 1.41 (the probable reading, ‘moved with anger’) and at 3.5. Moreover, it is probably the magnificent ‘programme of the ministry’, drawn from Isaiah 61.1-2 at Luke 4.18f, with its concern for the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed (cf. Luke

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7.21-22), which has created the impression of a compassionate saviour in Luke. At two points in the passion story this picture is reinforced. At the arrest in the garden one of the disciples slashes off the right ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus, Luke tells us, heals the man (22.50-1). En route for the place of crucifixion, Jesus evinces concern and compassion for the women of Jerusalem who are lamenting his impending death: ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but rather weep for yourselves.....’(23.28-31). Furthermore, Jesus’ concern for the poor is a major motif in Luke’s Gospel and during Holy Week we glimpse it in the story of the poor widow who gave two small coins ‘out of her poverty’ (21.1-4, taken over from Mark). Luke’s christology has sometimes been called a ‘servant christology’. Whether Luke has deliberately moved the dispute over precedence among the disciples from the ministry to the Last Supper or not (22.24-7), the episode has its own powerful impact in its setting at the Supper. ‘For who is greater, the person who sits down to eat, or the one who serves? Is it not the person who sits down to eat? But I am among you as one who serves’ (22.27). The Lukan Jesus is pre-eminently a man of prayer (see 3.21; 5.16; 6.12; 9.18, 28-9; 11.1), and this is associated with concern for others. This feature continues in the Holy Week section. In the discourse of chapter 21, Jesus bids people to watch at all times and pray that they might have strength to escape all these events which are going to happen and to stand before the Son of Man (v.36). Jesus mentions at the Supper that he has prayed for Simon in order that Simon’s faith might not collapse before the attacks of Satan (22.31-2). He himself prays in agony of spirit, even after having been strengthened by an angel from heaven. He urges the disciples to pray lest they enter into temptation (22.40, 46). Thereafter there is no hint of perturbation on the part of Jesus. Presumably for Luke he had fought the battle not to go on, and won it there on the Mount of Olives. Accordingly he can pray at his last moment, ‘Father, I commend my spirit into your hands’ (23.46). He thus dies, trusting and believing, with no sense of God’s remoteness as in the Markan picture. There is no interruption of the communion between Jesus and

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God in Luke. He dies calm and serene, in the knowledge that God’s everlasting arms are about him. Luke presents Jesus as stressing the need to love one’s enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who maltreat us (6.27-8). By loving our enemies, we shall be sons and daughters of God, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked (6.35). We are to be merciful as our Father is merciful (6.36). In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus commands his followers to pray, ‘Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive those who sin against us’ (11.4). While it is true that he has some strong words to say to the doctors of the law and the Pharisees (eg.11.37-52; 16.15), on the cross itself he prays for those responsible for his death: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’ (23.34). (The omission of this prayer in some ancient manuscripts of the Gospel is a sure sign of how hard some in the church found it to carry out this teaching when it came to the Jews.) In the hour of his death, Jesus is a model example of one who freely forgives. In this prayer of forgiveness from the cross, we see outlined one of the themes of Christian preaching as presented by Luke in Acts—the forgiveness of sins for all (eg. Acts 2.38-9; cf. Luke 24.47). (d) The innocence of Jesus Finally we turn to that theme which, arguably, dominates the way that Luke tells the passion story—Jesus’ innocence of the charges brought against him. Luke spells these charges out at 23.2: ‘We found this man subverting our nation, trying to prevent the paying of taxes to the emperor, and making himself out to be the Messiah, a king’. We may also compare 23.5: ‘He stirs up the people by his teaching throughout the whole province, beginning from Galilee to here’. The charge of trying to prevent the paying of tax is untrue, as the episode narrated at 20.19-26 shows. At no point had Jesus encouraged the crowds who have flocked to him to behave in a seditious manner. In fact he had urged people to love their enemies. No doubt the very fact of the presence of large crowds could be presented as a potential threat to public order. Three times Pilate acknowledges the innocence of Jesus over against the charges levelled against him. The first occasion is 23.4: ‘Pilate said to

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the chief priests and crowds, ‘I find no guilt in this man’. Then Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, who, after seeing Jesus, returns him. Soon after this Pilate affirms Jesus’ innocence a second time, and also reveals that Herod has found no cause for sentencing Jesus: ‘You brought this man to me as one who was stirring up the people. I examined him before you all and found no guilt in this man concerning the charges of which you accused him. And nor did Herod, for he returned him to us. See, he has done nothing worthy of death. I will therefore scourge him and release him’ (23.14-16).

A third time, Luke says, Pilate asserts Jesus’ innocence in the face of the demand that he should crucify Jesus. ‘What wrong has he done? I find no reason for the death sentence in him. I will therefore scourge him and release him’ (v.22). Thus, the Roman prefect and the Jewish prince have both asserted that Jesus is politically harmless. The next ‘witness’ to Jesus’ innocence is the penitent freedom fighter who rebukes his colleague’s ranting against Jesus. ‘Do you not fear God, for we are under the same judgment? And we justly, for we are receiving just reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong’ (23.401). Finally, the Roman centurion in charge of the execution, when he observes the death of Jesus, glorifies God: ‘Truly this man was innocent’ (v. 47). The whole sequence from the Roman trial to the death scene is, then, punctuated by affirmations that Jesus was innocent, and should not have been executed. If already in the pre-Lukan tradition Jesus was represented as the innocent martyr, or perhaps we should say the innocent prophet-martyr, for Luke this motif of Jesus’ innocence suited his apologetic purpose of assuring people in the Graeco-Roman world that Christianity was not a subversive movement, but could be embraced without fear. Jesus was no freedom fighter or insurrectionist: he was not one of that type who eventually pushed the Jewish people to revolt against Rome in 66-70 AD, but a peaceful, innocent man who never countenanced the use of force or the resort to violence, but taught and lived out the love of one’s enemies. Jesus was indeed the suffering servant-Son of God whose destiny was laid down in scripture (22.37; 24.25-6,46; cf. 18.31). As Luke records in

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Acts, Philip preached Jesus to the Ethiopian eunuch: ‘He was led like a sheep to be slaughtered; and like a lamb that is dumb before the shearer, he does not open his mouth. He has been humiliated and has no redress’ (8.32). But for Luke it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer in this way and then enter his glory. 4. John (a) Control of events by Jesus If, in Mark’s account of the actual passion, Jesus is a passive figure, that is things are done to him, the reverse is true of John’s narrative where Jesus remains in control of events. In John’s Gospel Jesus has already said that no-one takes his life from him, but he lays it down of his own accord; he has power to lay down his life and to take it again (10.18). So Jesus takes the decision to go to Bethany because of Lazarus (11.15), even though (as one disciple, Thomas, clearly believed) to do so will involve him in death (11.16). Though ‘troubled’ according to 12.27, he knows that to seek to avoid what lies ahead would really negate the purpose of his coming (v. 27). His sole concern is to glorify the Father (v. 28). Jesus knows that he will die by being ‘lifted up’ (crucifixion, 12.3233) he warns people that he has only a little while with them and summons them to believe while they have the light (vv. 35-6). In the garden he voluntarily surrenders to the arresting party who have collapsed to the ground before him (18.4-8). Earlier the evangelist had said that no-one had laid hands on Jesus because his hour had not yet come (7.30; 8.20), and now Jesus allows them to arrest him because he knows that his hour has come (cf. 13.1). At the same time as he permits his own arrest, he also ensures the safety of his disciples (vv. 8-9). He intervenes to stop further resistance to the arrest by Peter, saying ‘Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?’ (v. 11). The passion is no chance event but grounded in the purposes of the Father, purposes of which the Son is fully aware. Jesus ‘stands his ground’ in the interrogation by Annas, protesting against the illegality of striking him (18.19-23), and throughout the Roman trial, though formally Pilate is the judge and Jesus the prisoner, the roles are really reversed. Jesus points out that what Pilate can and will

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do is permitted by God (19.11). Furthermore, what Pilate does in jest serves only to witness to the true kingship of Jesus (19.3, 5, 14, 20-22). As John tells the story, Jesus carries his own cross (19.17) and there is no mention of Simon of Cyrene. While on the cross, Jesus makes arrangements for his mother (vv.26-7), fulfills scripture (v.28) and then announces, ‘It is finished’, which, in the light of 17.4, can only be a triumphant cry—the work is done! Thus, as the story of Holy Week unfolds in John, we are left with this abiding impression that Jesus was ‘in control’. (b) The hour of glorification During the first half of his Gospel, the evangelist has indicated that there is an impending climax to which the ministry is heading—‘the hour’. This hour is to be a ‘lifting up’ in a twofold sense, on the cross and to glory, and this idea occurs in the Holy Week section when Jesus announces that if he is lifted up he will draw all people to himself (12.323). The cross is exaltation. This hour of exaltation will also be his glorification. Previously mentioned at 7.39, the idea recurs in the narrative of Holy Week. We are told in connection with the triumphal entry that the disciples did not understand its significance at first, but that ‘when Jesus had been glorified’ then they remembered, with understanding (12.16). Not long afterwards, following a request from some Greeks to meet him, Jesus announces that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified (12.23). The parable of the grain of wheat dying (v. 24) helps to elucidate this and point us to his death. This hour of his glorification also involves the Father, for Jesus prays to the Father, ‘Glorify your name’ (12.28; cf. 17.1). The way in which the evangelist can describe events as having happened and yet going to happen is amply revealed in connection with this theme of glorification. At 13.31 (Judas having left the room) Jesus says, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified’, yet in 17.1 he prays, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you’ (cf. v. 5). The reader has to accept this way of proceeding that at first appears disconcerting. It is part of the way in which John writes interpreted history. Now, if the cross is exaltation and glorification, it is not surprising that John leaves out elements of the passion story. There is no mockery of

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Jesus hanging on the cross, nor is there a three hour darkness. One could almost say that the Jesus portrayed by John could not say, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ As Jesus explains in the farewell discourse, ‘The hour is coming and has come when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me’ (16.32). The Johannine Jesus is conscious that he is going home; he is leaving this world and returning back whence he came (eg. 13.1; 17.11). The cross is the means by which he leaves and returns. This is bound to ‘colour’ the way in which the evangelist tells the story, and accounts for the very distinctive Johannine passion story, and for the omission of certain material from his account. (c) The kingship of Jesus The kingship theme is prominent. In John’s account of the triumphal entry, Zechariah 9.9 is expressly quoted with its reference to ‘your king comes, sitting on a foal of a donkey’ (12.15), and this may have led to the expansion of the cry of acclamation to include a reference to kingship: ‘Hosanna! blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel’. But if he is a king, he is a servant king who also washes his disciples’ feet (13.1-11). Kingship is the theme which dominates Jesus’ first conversation with Pilate, and sets the tone for how to understand the kingship theme which follows. The origin of Jesus’ kingship is beyond this world order—it is ‘from above’, from heaven, from God (18.36). Its ideals and modalities are determined by spirit, not flesh. It can only be understood by one born from above, of the spirit. The foundation of this kingship is truth—the truth that God loves the world and seeks to draw men and women into a unity with himself through his Son. While the appeal to believe in the Son is constantly made in John, it is equally true that ‘everyone who is of the truth hears [Jesus’] voice’ (18.37). John leaves these two aspects—the appeals for faith and the assertions of predestination—side by side. He attempts no philosophical synthesis but lets the two aspects mutually interact with and illuminate each other. At the centre of the Roman trial stands the mockery scene: the mock coronation and acclamation proclaim what is in fact true—that Jesus is

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the king of the Jews (19.3; cf. vv. 14-15), and that kingship is a symbol of the greater kingship from above; thus John presents this kingship as being proclaimed to ‘the world’ in three major languages, Aramaic, Latin and Greek. (19.20-2). Throughout the Roman trial, then, the participants unconsciously proclaim what is the truth about Jesus. So Pilate announces, ‘See—the man!’ (19.5), unwittingly identifying Jesus as the Man, the heavenly Man who is king ‘from above’. (d) Judgement here and now John’s Gospel proclaims that salvation and judgment take place now, in the present. The classic passage for this is 3.18-21 (cf. 5.24; 9.40-1). The scenes involving Jesus and Pilate illustrate the idea of present judgment. Jesus bears witness to himself, to why he has come into this world, to the nature of his kingship. Will Pilate show himself to be ‘of the truth’ or not (18.37)? Pilate asks, ‘What is truth?’ (v.38), but this is probably to be taken as a refusal to accept Jesus’ witness, even though he is convinced that Jesus is innocent of the charges brought against him (v. 38b). That being so, Pilate should release Jesus forthwith, but instead tries to bargain with the crowd (vv. 39-40). Not even the attempt to stir the crowd’s pity for a ‘ridiculous figure’ garbed in a purple robe and a crown of thorns succeeds (19.8). The second discussion between Jesus and Pilate centres on the issue of power and authority. Jesus asserts that Pilate only wields power by the consent of God, who has willed that his Son should be lifted up to glory (19.11). This makes Pilate want to release Jesus all the more, but the Jews trap him in the web of self-interest: ‘If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar’ (19.12). So Pilate ends up condemning someone whom he knows to be innocent (18.38; 19.4, 6). He has abused the power which he wields. In effect, he has loved the darkness rather than the light; he has refused the truth, when it was presented to him. Truth in the person of the incarnate son of God confronted him and Pilate failed to recognize the crucial moment when it came. He did not see the Sender in and through the one sent (12.45, 48-9; cf.14.9). The remark of the chief priests, ‘We have no king but Caesar’ (19.15) is also a dramatic moment. They have previously accused Jesus of being a

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wrong-doer (18.30); shouted out the demand that Jesus be crucified (19.6); charged him with breaking the law by claiming to be Son of God (19.7). Now they deny the cardinal tenet of Israel’s faith—God’s rule over Israel. They too at that moment have refused the truth and belong in the realm of falsehood and darkness, the realm below. Judgment has taken place. (e) The sign of victory At John 12.32 Jesus has said, ‘If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself’. At the actual crucifixion the evangelist narrates a ‘sign’ which, he believes, has belief-arousing power, namely the outflow of blood and water (19.34b). It was recorded so that the reader might believe (v. 35), and might let himself or herself be drawn to Jesus lifted up on a cross and to glory. Cleansing from sin and the gift of the Spirit stem from this lifting up and are given to all those who believe and receive Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. It may be that in the concern of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus to give Jesus’ body an honourable burial (19.38-42) we begin to see the one who was lifted up on the cross drawing people to himself, so that what he did on the cross is being actualized in their life. They who were ‘secret’ believers now come out into the open. By moving the women disciples, depicted as standing afar off in the Synoptic tradition, to the foot of the cross, and by moving this reference to earlier in the story, John has achieved a striking diptych of facing pictures: the soldiers, representing the world, dice for Jesus’ clothes; the women, representing believers, stand by the cross, together with the beloved disciple (19.25-27). The contrast is emphasized by the Greek grammatical device of men ... de in vv. 24c and 25a. ‘So (men) that is what the soldiers did, But (de) standing by the cross were [the women]? The women are symbolical of those who have received the incarnate word and so have became children of God (cf. 1.12-13). It is clear that John looks back at the cross from the vantage point of faith. He is no modern historian, but an evangelist; he is no annalist or chronicler, but one who bears witness. It is as if, when he gazes at the cross, the pain and the agony and the horror fade into the background, and a glory suffuses that cross on Golgotha. John sees it not as a defeat, but as

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a victory; not as a reversal, but a triumph; not a check, but a success: the climax of God’s purposes to draw men and women back to himself. In the Fourth Gospel the greatest ‘sign’ is really not the raising of Lazarus, but the cross, the lifting up of the Son of man. Jesus was lifted up on a cross and to the Father’s ‘home’, in order that where he is, believers might be also (12.26b; 14.3; 17.24). *** Each evangelist has written ‘from faith to faith’, writing from the position of faith in order to strengthen faith or arouse it. Each has been caught by some aspect of the significance of the passion, and invites the reader to share his vision. They should not be seen as conflicting, but as complementary. Each feeds into the totality and understanding of Christ crucified, and of what the cross meant and can still mean today. Notes The singular ‘shepherd’ agrees with the Masoretic (Hebrew) text against the Septuagint (Greek) and was preferable on Christological grounds. 2 Charles Wesley, hymn ‘O Thou who hast redeemed of old’. 3 See the treatment of this as a ‘riddle’ by G. Henton Davies in ch. 4 above, pp. 34-5. 4 Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke, trans. G. Buswell (Faber and Faber, London, 1960), p. 65. See 9.44; 17.25; 18.31 for references to suffering. 1

Epilogue G. Henton Davies In the preceding pages we have endeavoured to trace as best we could the sequence of events from day to day in Holy Week, to enter into the sequence of thought revealed in those events, to explore the purposes of the evangelists who tell the story of the week, and in some degree also to try to understand the mind of Jesus himself as the days passed. Since the Gospels devote so much of their content to these events, the attempt to penetrate their secrets must be an ongoing task and adventure. In these events a person is portrayed in such a way that event, character and motive are the logical and psychological constituents of that portrayal. In his study of The English Novel (1913), G. Saintsbury said: ‘It is what the author does with his materials, not where he gets them, that is the question’. Where the four evangelists procured their material is a vitally important question, but they transformed that material as it was into a Gospel, a Gospel of kingdom and kingship. In describing the Jesus of the last week, the Old Testament may be said to show some partial prototypes. All are familiar with the picture of the David-Messiah-to-be and with the suffering servant of Isaiah 40-55; but perhaps not so well-known would be the suffering (royal) saint of the so-called Passion Psalms. Traits of all these figures are to be found in the portrayal of Jesus in this last week. The essence of that portrayal is surely a suffering Lord, a suffering king, a suffering Son of Man who is no less than the suffering Son of God. The passion stories of the four Gospels make clear the compulsive situation in which Jesus found himself in these closing days of his life. That compulsive context may be identified in two ways, each separable from the other, yet united in their impact upon Jesus. First Jesus lives in a hostile context, in which forces are arrayed against him, and which at the last he was powerless to combat. Secondly, however, he was aware, and testified to the fact, that the will of God was operative and in control of the situation. Even Luke, with his ‘This is your hour’, testifies to an overruling reality, to which Jesus and all others concerned are subject. For Jesus the will of God was also to be found in the nefarious hostility of his enemies, so that the divine overruling and the hostilities were the two separate and yet united themes of the situation in which he found himself.

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Naturally, Jesus could not help but protest and rebel against that situation in so far as that situation was the will of God. His Gethsemane prayer shows his great desire to be freed from his fate. His prayer brings no response. God is silent. Jesus capitulates to the will of God as he also submitted to the will of human beings. The cry of desolation is the ultimate despair of Jesus. He felt that God had deserted him, as the people, the rulers and most of his disciples had also deserted him. That is the dreadful end of these terrible last hours, an end which describes the greatest wickedness ever committed by humankind—and it is humanity we are concerned with here, not a particular race—the crucifixion of the Son of God. The enormity of the act is not to be measured by the character of the crime, its cruelty and the like, but by the rank and identity of the innocent victim.

Select Bibliography E. Bammel (Ed.), The Trial of Jesus (SCM Press, London, 1970) E. Bammel and C.F.D. Moule (Eds.), Jesus and the Politics of his Day (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984) J. Blinzler, The Trial of Jesus. The Jewish and Roman process against Jesus Christ described and assessed from the oldest accounts, English transl. from 2nd and revised edition (Newman Press, Wesminster, 1959) E.K. Broadhead, Prophet, Son, Messiah: Narrative Form and Function in Mark 14-16 (Sheffield Acaemic Press, Sheffield, 1995) R.E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah (Chapman, London/New York, 1994) J.R. Donahue, Are You the Christ? The Trial Narrative in the Gospel of Mark (Scholars’ Press, Missoula, 1973) J.B. Green, The Death of Jesus: Tradition and Interpretation in the Passion Narrative (Mohr, Tübingen, 1988) L. A. Jaubert, The Date of the Last Supper, English transl. (Alba, Staten Island, 1965) D. Juel, Messiah and Temple (Scholars’ Press, Missoula, 1977) W. Kelber (Ed.), The Passion in Mark (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1976) S. LeGasse, The Trial of Jesus, English transl. (SCM Press, London, 1997) E. Lohse, History of the Suffering and Death of Jesus Christ (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1967) I. de Potterie, The Hour of Jesus. The Passion and Resurrection of Jesus according to John, English transl. (St. Paul’s Press, Slough, 1989) E. Riviken, What Crucified Jesus? (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1984) E. Ruckstuhl, Chronology of the Last Supper, English transl. (Desclée, New York, 1965) A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963) M.L. Soards, The Passion According to Luke (Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1987) Vincent Taylor, The Passion Narrative of St. Luke (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1972) E. Trocmé, The Passion as Liturgy, English transl. (SCM Press, London, 1983) P. Winter, The Trial of Jesus Christ, 2nd edition rev. T.A. Burkhill & G. Vermes (W. de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1974)

Index —A— Abraham 34, 154, 183 Aaron 45 Acts, Book of 32, 57, 59, 65, 70, 80, 90, 98, 123, 124, 130, 132, 145, 166 agglomeration, principle of 35, 36 Amos 72, 99, 178 Anderson, H. 17, 24, 41 Andrew, brother of Simon Peter 37, 160 Annas 95, 99, 105, 107, 108, 118, 159, 192 anointing 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 107, 118 anthropology 127 Antiochus Epiphanes 174 apocalypse 37, 38, 40, 59 apostles 32, 135, 137, 160 Apostles' Creed, 142 Archelaus 2 arrest of Jesus 1, 2, 33, 43, 51, 56, 77, 79, 85, 87, 94, 99, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 119, 151, 158, 160, 170, 172, 173, 182, 187, 189, 192 Ascension of Isaiah 141, 142 Aune, D.E. 146 authority 16, 25, 29, 30, 105, 113, 117, 132, 153, 154, 171, 173, 188, 195 —B— Balentine, S.E. 165, 167 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 144, 147 baptism 29, 30, 116, 165, 179 Barabbas 51, 67, 68, 69, 81, 88, 99, 105, 112, 118, 156, 159, 172, 173, 177 Barrett, C.K. 116, 119 Baruch, Book of 59, 124 Bauer, W. 145 Beasley-Murray, G.R. 17, 27, 41, 119

‘Beloved Disciple’ 106, 114, 115, 117, 159, 196 Berdyaev, N. 161, 166 Bernard, J. 146 Bethany 1, 2, 3, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 43, 44, 45, 47, 174, 192 betrayal 1, 43, 47, 51, 77, 85, 88, 92, 113, 161, 162 Bieder, W. 145, 146 blasphemy 57, 63, 64, 82, 85, 157, 158, 185 Borg, M. 33, 41 Brock, S.P. 146 Brooks, J.A. 41 Brown, R.G. 24, 109, 119 Bultmann, R., 27, 28, 115, 119, 164, 166 —C— Caesarea Philippi 169, 171 Caiaphas 79, 85, 105, 107, 108, 109, 118, 155, 159 Caird, G.B. 40, 41, 93, 112, 119, 126, 127, 133 Cana 19 Capernaum 19 Celsus 139 Chadwick, H. 146 Charles, R.H. 133 Charlesworth, J. 140, 146, 147 cleansing of the temple see temple Clement of Alexandria 136, 142 Colossians, Letter to 145 Colquhoun, Frank 103 conflict, theme of 27, 34, 58, 66, 95, 110, 173 Conzelmann. H. 187, 188, 197 Corinthians, First Letter to 53, 174 Corinthians, Second Letter to 144, 166 covenant 53, 54, 55, 74, 78, 81, 85, 90, 91, 154, 172, 186

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Cranfield, C. 37, 41, 43, 45, 46, 48 Creed, J.M. 167 cry of dereliction see forsakenness, cry of cup, image of 46, 51, 53, 54, 55, 78, 89, 90, 91, 94, 107, 169, 170, 182, 186, 192 —D— Daniel 38, 39, 62, 63, 125, 174 Daniélou, J. 143, 146, 147 David, King 3, 11, 12, 13, 15, 24, 25, 29, 34, 35, 61, 123, 152, 153, 154, 180, 181, 185, 199 Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching 146 Deuteronomy 79, 81, 123, 160 Dibelius, M. 27 Didache 90 Dodd, C.H. 17 Douglas, J.D. 20, 24 Drama x, xi Drijwers, H. J. 146 Dunn, D.G. 62, 75 —E— Elijah 73, 82, 123, 165, 178 Elisha 45 Emmaus 164, 187 Enoch 123, Enoch, First Book of 59, 125, 128 Enoch, Second Book of 125, 128 Ephesians, Letter to 59, 126, 127, 133 Ephraim 3 eschatology 54, 59, 72, 89, 90, 92, 177 eternal life 131 evil 74, 126, 128, 141, 145, 162, 171, 172, 178, 181, 187, 188 Exodus 3, 45, 53, 54, 110, 117 Ezekiel 154, 166 Ezra, Fourth Book of 59, 125

—F— faith 20, 28, 29, 37, 72, 90, 112, 113, 129, 138, 145, 157, 173, 189, 194, 196, 197 fallen angels 128, 129 ‘farewell discourse’ of Jesus 36, 38, 47, 87, 92, 93, 105, 116, 194 Farmer, H.H. 166, 167 fig tree, withering of 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 175 forgiveness 6, 20, 44, 78, 88, 100, 138, 186, 190 Form criticism, 164 forsakenness, cry of 52, 70, 72, 82, 100, 102, 115, 151, 164-66, 172, 178, 194, 200 Fourth Evangelist see John, the Gospel-writer Fourth Gospel see John, the Gospel-writer fulfilment 12, 38, 56, 64, 79, 84, 87, 89, 90, 111, 115, 117, 152, 160, 161, 163, 170, 182, 188, 193 —G— Galilee 1, 4, 56, 99, 103, 190 Genesis 22, 128 Gentiles 5, 22, 23, 24, 32, 82, 93, 157, 161, 163, 166, 175, 181 Gethsemane 1, 2, 51, 54, 56, 78, 88, 107, 158, 160, 162, 170, 176, 182, 200 Glover, T.R. 165, 167 Gnosticism 116, 138, 146 God, the Father 14, 16, 40, 55, 78, 79, 85, 88, 101, 107, 111, 114, 115, 116, 117, 132, 153, 154, 155, 165, 177, 182, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194 sovereignty 55, 157, 199 Yahweh 4, 54, 61, 69, 72, 73, 113, 157, 170

Index

Goppelt, L. 133 Gospel of Peter 139, 142 Gregory Nazianzus 144 Gunkel, H. 164 —H— Hades 123, 124, 132, 135, 139, 141, 142 Hahn, F. 61, 75 Harnack, A. 146 Hebrews, Letter to the 59, 94, 117, 132, 133, 145, 175, 178, 182 Hengel, M. 62, 75 Henton Davies, G. ix, x, 8, 75, 103, 119, 149, 151, 197, 199 Herod the Great 3 Herod Antipas 4, 33, 71, 87, 88, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 107, 159, 171, 186, 191 Herodians 25, 29, 169, 173 Hippolytus 136, 142 historicity ix, x, 28, 34, 58, 67, 89, 97, 98, 118 Hollander, H.W. 147 ‘Holy Saturday’ xi, 1, 2, 47, 123, 129, 132, 133, 135, 142, 143, 144, 145, 159 Holy Spirit 106, 116, 127, 165, 196 Hooker, M.D. 17, 38, 153, 166 ‘hour’, theme of 2, 14, 55, 78, 87, 94, 103, 161, 162, 163, 170, 181, 187, 192, 193, 194, 199 —I— Idumea 3 Ignatius Bishop of Antioch, 135, 145 Irenaeus 137, 142, 144, 146 Isaiah 10, 15, 22, 30, 31, 54, 73, 93, 137, 141, 142, 160, 174, 188, 199

205

—J— James, son of Zebedee 37, 160 Jaubert, A. 119 Jeremiah 22, 54, 91, 136, 137, 146, 154, 160 Jeremias, J. 32, 41 Jesus Christ burial 1, 45, 46, 52, 74, 84, 85, 88, 100, 103, 106, 118, 123, 143, 145, 159, 176, 196 corner stone 32 cross xi, 1, 3, 52, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 82, 85, 88, 89, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 129, 132, 139, 143, 145, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197 crucifixion see cross destiny 3, 37, 160, 161, 162, 163, 169, 191 ‘friend of sinners’ 188 glorification 103, 113, 115, 118, 158, 193, 196 innocence 58, 69, 81, 85, 87, 88, 98, 99, 100, 112, 113, 126, 172, 184, 190, 191, 195, 200 King of the Jews 16, 51, 65, 67, 70, 82, 100, 105, 111, 112, 114, 155, 156, 157, 163, 172, 195 kingship 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, 45, 51, 98, 99, 105, 111, 114, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 163, 172, 193, 194, 195, 199 last Adam 145 Messiah 16, 24, 35, 51, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 69, 71, 79, 81, 87, 96, 97, 98, 109, 119, 123, 130, 152, 157, 169, 171, 172, 176, 178, 179, 180, 182, 186, 187, 190, 192, 196, 199

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obedience 51, 145, 181, 182 resurrection xi, 1, 14, 32, 34, 40, 54, 59, 83, 84, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 160, 166, 169, 184, 186, 187 Righteous Sufferer 61, 70, 71, 82, 85, 93, 101, 102, 117 Servant of the Lord 16, 54, 55, 61, 73, 93, 105, 189, 191, 194, 199 Son of David 12, 35, 152, 180, 181, 185 Son of God 35, 51, 52, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 74, 75, 82, 83, 84, 87, 96, 97, 105, 109, 130, 135, 138, 142, 144, 153, 164, 172, 176, 180, 181, 182, 185, 191, 195, 196, 199, 200 Son of Man 14, 16, 26, 38, 39, 40, 48, 62, 63, 64, 80, 94, 97, 125, 162, 169, 172, 176, 177, 189, 193, 199 Son of the Blessed 61, 62, 96, 171 transfiguration 14, 16, 169, 179 see also ‘farewell discourse’; forsakenness, cry of; miracles; parables of Jesus; parousia; silence of Jesus; trials of Jesus; triumphal entry John the Baptist 29-30, 78, 136 John, the Gospel-writer 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 29, 33, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 52, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 79, 87, 90, 92, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 102, 105118, 119, 124, 151, 152, 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 181, 184, 192-97. John of Patmos 132, 144 see also Revelation, Book of John, son of Zebedee 37, 160 Jonah 124, 125

Jonge, M. de 142, 147 Joseph of Arimathea 52, 57, 74, 84, 85, 88, 106, 118, 159, 196 Josiah, King 24, 153 Jubilees, Book of 110, 128 Judas Iscariot 43, 44, 47, 51, 56, 77, 79, 80, 87, 94, 105, 107, 160, 161, 181, 182, 187, 193 judgement 22, 38, 40, 55, 63, 65, 72, 113, 125, 129, 131, 144, 169, 175, 178, 187, 191, 195 Justin Martyr 136, 137, 142, 146 —K— Kelly, J.N.D. 147 Kidron 105, 106 kingdom of God 6, 14, 16, 17, 46, 54, 78, 81, 84, 87, 89, 90, 92, 94, 101, 152, 153, 155, 157, 177, 183, 184 kingdom of heaven 183 Kuhn, K.G. 110, 119 —L— Last Supper 27, 46, 51, 52, 78, 87, 89, 90, 91, 99, 103, 105, 110, 116, 117, 119, 154, 159, 162, 182, 186, 188, 189 law 103, 185, 186 Lawson, J. 145 Lazarus 45, 109, 125, 192, 197 Leviticus 160 Lightfoot, J.B. 145 literary analysis 27, 28, 58, 67, 164 Lord's Supper see Last Supper love 5, 45, 166, 185, 186, 190, 191 Luke 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 47, 54, 55, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 78, 80, 87-103, 108, 118, 125, 152,

Index

154, 155, 156, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165, 167, 183, 186-192, 197, 199 —M— Maccabaeus, Judas 153 Mark 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51-75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103, 107, 108, 110, 111, 118, 123, 125, 126, 151, 152, 153, 156, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 169-79, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 188, 189 Martha 45 Mary, Mother of Jesus 105, 114, 159 Mary, of Magdala 52, 105, 114, 159 Mary, sister of Martha 44, 45 Mary, wife of Clopas (= mother of James and Joses?) 52, 114, 159 Matthew 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27, 30, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 62, 72, 77-85, 92, 95, 102, 103, 107, 113, 118, 124, 125, 132, 133, 135, 141, 151, 152, 156, 158, 160, 162, 179-86 Melito, Bishop of Sardis 140, 141, 142 midrash, 84 Milton 126 miracles 20, 21, 22, 74, 171, 173, 181 Mishnah 57, 66, 68 mission 29, 92, 93 Morgan-Wynne, J.E. vii, ix-x Moses 34, 123, 154, 160 Mount of Olives 1, 23, 26, 36, 37, 38, 87, 93, 151, 154, 160, 161, 189

207

—N— nation, of Israel 5, 6, 15, 21, 69, 81, 151, 155, 157, 184, 190 Nazareth 35, 64, 157, 159, 173 Nicodemus 106, 118, 159, 196 Norris, R.A. 147 Numbers, Book of 10, 117 —O— Odes of Solomon 138, 140, 142, 146, 147 oppressed, the 188 Origen 32, 62, 139, 142, 146, 153 —P— Palm Sunday 9, 10, 22, 23, 152, 156 Parables of Jesus Marriage Feast 183, 184 The Faithful Servant 26, 27 The Porter 26 The rich man and Lazarus 125 The Sheep and Goats 26, 27 The Talents 26, 27 The Two Sons 25, 27 The Virgins 26, 27 The Wicked Tenants 25, 30, 36, 160, 161, 182, 183, 187 paradise 88, 101, 125, 126, 188 parousia 14, 39, 40, 64, 90, 97, 160 Passover 1, 2, 3, 12, 19, 37, 43, 46, 51, 52, 54, 69, 77, 87, 89, 90, 91, 94, 105, 109, 110, 115, 117, 136, 151, 181 Paul, the Apostle 53, 65, 91, 123, 124, 144, 173, 175, 178 Pentecost 14, 123, 127 Perea 1, 3, 4 Perrin, N. 17 persecution 176, 179 Peter 10, 20, 21, 37, 44, 51, 57, 70, 80, 87, 92, 95, 96, 105, 107, 108,

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113, 114, 115, 117, 123, 159, 160, 161, 163, 169, 171, 176, 189, 192, 193 Peter, First Letter of 73, 117, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 138, 144 Pharisees 4, 12, 25, 29, 33, 35, 153, 169, 173, 180, 183, 185, 190 Philip, of Bethsaida 4, 116, 159, 160, Philip, the Deacon 192 Philippians, Letter to 123, 125 Pilate 1, 4, 5, 6, 51, 52, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 81, 84, 87, 88, 89, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105, 107, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 143, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 172, 173, 184, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195 politics 5, 6, 34, 65, 98, 100, 155, 172, 191 Pompey, the Great 174 prayer 20, 22, 51, 53, 55, 56, 78, 87, 92, 93, 94, 100, 103, 105, 107, 155, 170, 174, 176, 178, 187, 189, 190, 200 preaching to the dead 130, 132, 135, 136, 137, 140, 142, 145 predestination 194 prediction 9, 13, 14, 15, 24, 32, 36, 46, 54, 78, 84, 85, 91, 97, 152, 160, 161, 163, 169, 170, 174 priests 4, 23, 29, 51, 52, 56, 57, 66, 69, 71, 81, 82, 87, 89, 94, 113, 156, 157, 158, 172, 173, 174, 181, 183, 191, 195 prophecy 9, 10, 12, 13, 20, 37, 38, 63, 152, 160 Psalms 11, 12, 32, 35, 45, 61, 63, 70, 72, 73, 82, 98, 101, 102, 117, 123, 124, 126, 146, 153, 160, 164, 165, 174, 180, 199 Psalm 23 and Holy Week 45-7

—Q— 'Q' (source) 2, 5, 92, 93, 103, 125, 133, 183 Qumran 5, 59, 61, 110, 146 —R— ransom 74, 83, 169, 175 Rawlinson, A.E.J. 175 redemption 54, 83, 90, 110, 129, 165, 178 Reicke, B. 128 Revelation, Book of 124, 128, 132, 133, 144 Riches, J. 33, 41 righteousness 15, 81, 153 Robertson Smith, W. 15, 17 Roman authorities 3, 4, 5, 14, 23, 33, 51, 52, 58, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 81, 87, 88, 89, 96, 98, 100, 101, 103, 105, 107, 109, 110, 111, 118, 142, 156, 157, 164, 172, 177, 179, 187, 191, 192, 194, 195 Romans, Letter to 124, 127, 130, 132, 145, 166, 178 Rome 65, 69, 72, 101, 113, 135, 136, 179, 191 Rousseau, A. 146 —S— Sabbath 1, 2, 43, 44, 47, 84, 88, 103, 110, 115, 159 sacrifice 24, 54, 74, 91, 145, 151, 167, 174 Sadducees 4, 25, 29, 32, 34, 54, 160, 173 Salome 84, 159 salvation 10, 11, 54, 129, 135, 136, 137, 141, 143, 170, 195 Samaria 4 Samuel 45

Index

Sanhedrin 1, 29, 30, 33, 51, 56, 57, 58, 62, 64, 65, 66, 71, 79, 80, 85, 87, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 103, 108, 109, 153, 155, 171, 173, 174 Satan 92, 94, 145, 187, 188, 189 Saul 45 Schoedel, W.R. 145 Scribes 4, 25, 29, 35, 36, 153 Selwyn, E.G. 145, 146 Serapion, Bishop of Antioch 139 Sheol 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 145 Shepherd of Hermas 135, 142 Sherwin-White, A.N. 96, 103 sign of Jonah 124, 125 silence of Jesus 54, 64, 81, 111, 165 Simon of Cyrene 193 Simon, ‘the leper’ 44 Simon, the Pharisee 44 sins 6, 72, 73, 74, 85, 101, 127, 128, 129, 137, 138, 144, 145, 178, 186, 188, 190 Sirmium, Creed of 142 Skarsaune, O. 136, 146 Solomon 13, 15, 82, 131 Stendahl, K. 10, 17 story ix-xi, 2, 9, 10, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 34, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52, 55, 57, 58, 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 94, 95, 97, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 113, 114, 117, 118, 132, 151, 153, 158, 159, 160, 163, 164, 172, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194, 196, 199 suffering 13, 37, 38, 61, 71, 73, 90, 130, 131, 155, 169, 172, 177, 178, 181, 182, 187, 191, 197, 199 Swete, H.B. 28, 32, 36, 37, 38, 41 Sybilline Oracles 139, 142

209

symbolism 21, 22, 55, 56, 72, 175, 178, 195, 196 —T— Tabernacles, Feast of 11, 13 Targum Neofiti 124 taxes 4, 5, 23, 33, 190 Taylor, V. 24, 37, 41, 163, 166, 167, 202 Telford, W. 24 temple 1, 2, 4, 6, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 36, 37, 38, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 71, 73, 79, 83, 88, 89, 94, 96, 101, 109, 151, 152, 153, 158, 160, 161, 163, 166, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 177, 180 cleansing of 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 60, 109, 151, 152, 153, 160, 174, 175, 180 curtain, tearing of 52, 65, 73, 83, 88, 89, 101, 151, 166, 173, 175 Tertullian 139, 142 Testament of Levi 125, 141 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 141, 142, 147 The Testament of Benjamin 141 The Testament of Dan 141 theophany 83, 181 Thomas 114, 192 Timothy, First Letter to 127 trials of Jesus, 1, 57, 63, 88, 96, 98, 99, 100, 103, 111, 159, 174, 176, 177 Jewish trial 56, 58, 60, 61, 64, 66, 67, 71, 79, 89, 95, 98, 99, 108, 109, 118, 171 Roman trial 58, 65, 66, 67, 71, 81, 109, 110, 172, 191, 192, 194, 195 triumphal entry 1, 2, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 24, 27, 151, 152-3, 156, 158-9, 160, 166, 180, 193, 194

210

The Last Seven Days

truth 13, 68, 101, 111, 112, 113, 116, 157, 194, 195, 196 —U— Unleavened Bread, Feast of 43 —V— Veil, tearing of see Temple: curtain, tearing of Vermaseran, M.J., 146 —W— Wesley, Charles 173, 197 Westcott, B.F. 27, 41 wisdom 15 Wisdom of Solomon 82, 131 —Z— Zadok 13, 34 Zealots 4, 68, 101, 125, 188, 191 Zechariah 9, 10, 12, 55, 117, 152, 160, 170, 176, 180, 194