The Non-Apocalyptic Jesus and the Kingdom of Nobodies

by Ioanes Rakhmat

In his recent essay “A Future for the Christian Faith?” (1999), published in 2000, John Dominic Crossan, referring to his work In Parables (1973), reminds his readers, “You know that almost thirty years I have argued in print that Jesus’ Kingdom of God was eschatological but not apocalyptic.”[1] By eschatological, Crossan means “any vision or program for which this world is so radically unjust that only transcendent remedy is possible.” It is a world-negating vision. It indicates “a radical criticism of culture and civilization and thus a fundamental rejection of this world’s values and expectations.”[2] By apocalyptic, he means “that type of echatology that awaits an imminent divine intervention to eradicate injustice and violence here below and to establish a utopian world of justice and peace on earth.”[3]

Crossan terms the eschatology of Jesus “ethical eschatology” or “ethicism.” The ethical eschatology of Jesus stands in contrast to the apocalyptic eschatology of John the Baptist, Jesus’ mentor, which awaits imminent intervention of God in the world.[4] Jesus broke with John’s apocalyptic vision[5] and developed quite a different message for his own program which emphasized the permanent presence of God for human beings here and now, of a God who challenges the world and shatters its complacency repeatedly.[6] When one adopts apocalyptic eschatology, he or she is waiting for the imminent advent and interventional act of the avenging and violent God here in the world. Apocalypticism “negates the world by announcing that in the future, and usually the imminent future, God will act to restore justice in an unjust world.” In ethical eschatology, God is understood as waiting for us to act here and now. When people adhere to ethical eschatology, they “negate the world by actively protesting and nonviolently resisting a system judged to be evil, unjust, and violent.” In ethicism, as distinct from apocalypticism, God is depicted as a nonviolent God of a nonviolent kingdom, a God of nonviolent resistance to structural as well as individual evil.[7]

The kingdom of God in the teachings and deeds of the non-apocalyptic Jesus is the kingdom that knows no hierarchy and domination of one upon the other. No distinction of rank and status will exist in this kingdom. Jesus heals, and his companions are told to go do the same. Jesus’ companions can do exactly what Jesus himself was doing. The kingdom is not his monopoly; it is for anyone with courage enough to accept it. Jesus announces its presence, its abiding, permanent possibility. He does not initiate its existence. He does not control its access.[8] The unmediated Kingdom was Jesus’ alternative symbolic universe which “negated alike and at once the hierarchical and patronal normalcies of Jewish religion and Roman power” and espoused the “unmediated physical and spiritual contact with God and unmediated physical and spiritual contact with one another.”[9] Lest he be interpreted and hoped for as simply a new broker of a new God, Jesus “moved on constantly, settling down neither in Nazar­eth nor Capernaum. He was neither broker nor mediator, but, somewhat paradoxi­cally, the announcer that neither should exist between humanity and divinity or between humanity and itself.”[10] In short, God’s kingdom in Jesus’ vision and program is a “companionship of empowerment”, not a realm of domination, nor a kingdom of control and mastery.[11]

Jesus’ companions were increasingly dispossessed peasants forced off their lost farms into survival on the roads of the countryside or in the streets of the cities.[12] Jesus himself was a tektōn, namely, a dispossessed Jewish peasant,[13] a landless laborer, a marginalized peasant.[14] Thus, the kingdom of God is the kingdom for the religiously and economically poor,[15] for the persecuted,[16] for the hungry.[17] God is for the poor, that is, for the destitute, the beggars, the vagrants, the powerless, the hungry and the persecuted, the undesirables, the unholy, because their situation is structurally unjust. The beatitude of Jesus declared blessed not the poor, but the destitute, not poverty but beggary. Jesus spoke of a Kingdom of the unclean, degraded, and expendable classes.[18] The ethical Kingdom of God is the Kingdom for “children,”[19] that is, for “nobodies,” since, Crossan asserts, “to be a child” in the ancient societies of the Mediterranean world, “was to be a nobody.”[20] Jesus and his companions were “nobodies”; his Kingdom movement was therefore a movement of nobodies and nuisances.[21]

Due to his view of Jesus’ social status as a nobody, a nonentity, a nuisance, and his kingdom movement as a movement of nobodies, Crossan has strongly determined his judgment that there is no Jesus’ trial in history. Crossan’s judgment is very clear that “there would be no need to go very high up the chain of command for a peasant nuisance nobody like Jesus, no need for even a formal interrogation before Caiaphas, let alone a detailed trial before Pilate. In the case of Jesus, there may well have been arrest and execution but no trial whatsoever in between.”[22] However, there is another point in Crossan’s assessment of the Jesus’ movement that seems to be contradictory to his judgment that Jesus was a nobody.

Crossan asserts that Jesus was the Temple’s functional opponent, alternative and substitute;[23] and the Kingdom movement he initiated was “clearly a deliberate challenge to the Kingdom of Caesar”[24] as well as to the Jewish Temple state. When Jesus went to Jerusalem, according to Crossan, the egalitarianism in spiritual and economic realm he preached in Galilee exploded in indignation at the Temple as the seat and symbol of all that was nonegalitarian, patronal, and even oppressive on both the religious and the political level. His demonstration in the Temple actualized what he had already said in his teachings, effected in his healings, and realized in his mission of open commensality.[25] Furthermore, Crossan asserts that “Jesus was not a victim but a martyr. Pilate got it right: he was subversive, he was dangerous―but he was far more subversive and far more dangerous than Pilate imagined.”[26] He then concludes that martyrdom is the final act of ethical eschatology, the ultimate and public act of nonviolent resistance to violent authority.[27] With this, Crossan seems to have boxed himself into a corner, for, if Jesus was so subversive and dangerous, and his movement was a serious, deliberate challenge to both the Kingdom of Caesar and the Jewish Temple state, one wonders, why Crossan does not proceed to the logical consequence of this argument that it was no surprise that Jesus was finally arrested and then tried by the Jewish authorities and the Roman prefect on the charge of sedition, that is, of arousing people to rebel against the Jewish Temple state and Roman Empire. Found guilty of this charge, he was executed by crucifixion.

Notes

[1] Crossan, “A Future for the Christian Faith?” in The Once and Future Jesus (the collection of keynote addresses delivered in the Jesus Seminar’s celebration at Santa Rosa, CA, October 1999; Polebridge Press: Santa Rosa, CA, 2000) 118 [109-129]; Crossan in Robert J. Miller, ed., The Apocalyptic Jesus. A Debate (Santa Rosa, California: Polebridge Press, 2001) 119; Birth of Christianity, 257-58.

The non-apocalyptic view of Jesus is characteristic of the Jesus Seminar’s point of view. At least three other scholars in the Jesus Seminar guild can be mentioned as entertaining the non-apocalyptic view about Jesus: Marcus Borg (Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship [Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994] 74-84; see also in Robert J. Miller, ed., The Apocalyptic Jesus. A Debate, 31-48, 114-119, 131-137, 152-157); Stephen J. Patterson (“The End of Apocalypse: Rethinking the Eschatological Jesus” in Theology Today 52/1 [1995] 29-48; idem, The God of Jesus: The Historical Jesus and the Search for Meaning [Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1998] 163-84; see also in Robert J. Miller, ed., The Apocalyptic Jesus. A Debate, 69-82, 123-127, 142-146, 160-163) and Robert J. Miller, “Is the Apocalyptic Jesus History?” in the Jesus Seminar’s publication, The Once and Future Faith (Santa Rosa, California: Polebridge Press, 2001) 101-134.

In response to, a.o., Dale C. Allison’s work Jesus of Nazareth (see also Allison’s position in Robert J. Miller, ed., The Apocalyptic Jesus. A Debate, 17-29, 83-105, 109-114, 147-152) the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar (in the Spring meeting of March 3, 2000, in Santa Rosa, California), voting on the “red”, reaffirmed and “agreed strongly” that the “imminent eschatological expectation misrepresents what Jesus was all about.” See The Fourth R 13/3 (2000) 3-5; cf. W. Barnes Tatum’s book review in The Fourth R 14/1 (2001) 8-10; cf. also The Five Gospels, 4. Allison himself maintains that the elimination of apocalyptic eschatology from the earliest tradition is utterly implausible (Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, 65). In keeping with Allison’s view, see Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus. Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford, 1999); idem, The New Testament. A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20043 [2000]) 250-274. Another recent book on the apocalyptic Jesus is that of Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (New York: Vintage Books, 2000 [1999]) (p. 97: “Moving backward along a trajectory from later text to earlier text to, finally, Jesus himself, we might hypothesize a gradient of increasing apocalyptic intensity.” P. 197: “Jesus shared with John the same urgent message to prepare for God’s fast-approaching Kingdom.”).

[2] Jesus, 52.

[3] “A Future for the Christian Faith?”, 118 (emphasis removed). In Historical Jesus (p. 285), Crossan understands “apocalyptic” “not in the sense of a destroyed earth and evacuation heavenward for the elect, but rather of something like a heaven on earth.”

[4] In a debate concerning the apocalyptic or non-apocalyptic Jesus, Crossan suggested six distinctions within apocalyptic eschatology (that is, destructive or transformative apocalypse, material or social apocalypse, primary or secondary apocalypse, negative or positive apocalypse, passive or active apocalypse, instantive or durative apocalypse), and claimed that “[A]n ‘apocalyptic’ Jesus... where the emphasis is on transformative, social, secondary, positive, active, and durative apocalyptic rather than on destructive, material, primary, negative, passive, and instantive apocalyptic, is so close to what I termed ethical eschatology or the radicality of divine ethics.” See Robert J. Miller, ed., The Apocalyptic Jesus. A Debate, 69 [48-69]; see also Crossan’s articles: “A Future for the Christian Faith,” 109-129; “Eschatology, Apocalypticism, and the Historical Jesus” in Marvin Meyer and Charles Hughes, eds., Jesus Then and Now: Images of Jesus in History and Christology (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001) 91-112.

[5] The texts that indicate the break between Jesus and John the Baptist which occurred after the death of the latter, are Gospel of Thomas 78:1-3, Q Gospel in Luke 7:24b-27 (= Matthew 11:7b-10); Gospel of Thomas 46:1-2, Q Gospel in Luke 7:28 (=Matthew 11:11); Gospel of Thomas 113:1-4 = 3:1-3 = 51:1-2 = 18:1-3; Q Gospel in Luke 17:23-24 (= Matthew 24:26-27); Mark 13:21-13 (= Matthew 24:23-25); Luke 17:20-21; Mark 2:18-20, Q Gospel in Luke 7:33-34 (= Matthew 11:18-19). See Historical Jesus, 236-238, 259, 260; Jesus, 46-48; Birth of Christianity, 305-316.

[6] In Parables, 26.

[7] Birth of Christianity, 279, 283-284, 287, 317-344.

[8] Birth of Christianity, 333, 336.

[9] Historical Jesus, 422.

[10] Historical Jesus, 422, cf. 346.

[11] Birth of Christianity, 336-337.

[12] Birth of Christianity, 336.

[13] Here I deliberately do not mention Crossan’s Jesus as a peasant Jewish Cynic, but rather only as a Jewish peasant (minus the word “Cynic”). In response to his critics, Crossan recently has conceded that “If cynicism had never existed, nothing would change in my reconstruction of Jesus as a Mediterranean Jewish peasant. I use the doctrine of Cynicism comparatively but do not need it constitutively. I have never considered a Cynic Jesus as some sort of replacement for a Jewish Jesus; indeed, I find that idea little short of absurd. My reply to the Cynic hypothesis was and is: if you want to imagine a Cynic Jesus, go ahead, but you better imagine a Jewish peasant Cynic” (Birth of Christianity, 334).

It must be noted however that, in comparison to his earlier treatment in Historical Jesus (1991) of the historical Jesus in which Jesus’ cynicism was put on the overriding center (see pp. 72-90; 303-353, esp. pp. 338-44; 421f.), here in Birth of Christianity (1998; see especially pp. 280-81, 333-35, 412-13), as well as in Jesus (1994; see pp. 102-22, 197f.), the very Jewishness of Jesus comes to a prominent place and the fundamental differences between Jesus’ movement and the Cynic preachers are significantly stressed. I note several changes in Crossan’s Christology. For instance, first, in Historical Jesus we find the following assertions: “The historical Jesus was, then, a peasant Jewish Cynic. His peasant village was close enough to a Greco-Roman city like Sepphoris that sight and knowledge of Cynicism are neither inexplicable nor unlikely” (p. 421); “Jesus ... is establishing... a Jewish and rural Cynicism rather than Greco-Roman and urban Cynicism” (p. 340). Second, in Jesus, Crossan admits that “We have, in the final analysis, no way of knowing for sure what Jesus knew about Cynicism, or whether he knew about it at all. That, however, is not really the point. Maybe he had never even heard of the Cynics and was just reinventing the Cynic wheel all by himself.... Maybe Jesus is what peasant Jewish Cynicism looked like.” (p. 122; emphasis added). And finally, in Birth of Christianity (cf. Historical Jesus, p.338f.): “It is especially in the symbolic catecheses of their [that is, Jesus’ and the Cynic’s] dress codes that comparison is most instructive. I find this very illuminating, even if Jesus knew nothing whatsoever about Cynicism.” (p. 334f.; emphasis added).

[14] Birth of Christianity, 350, 352. Employing Gerhard Lenski’s typology of human societies which divides agrarian societies into upper and lower strata (see Lenski’s work, Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification [New York: McGraw-Hill. 1966]), Crossan places Jesus in the social stratum of Peasant Artisan class. Peasants are exploited and oppressed farmers, and, by definition, illiterate; they live at subsistence level in the ecology and sociology of urban-rural interchange where the cities exploit the countrysides of the peasants (Birth of Christianity, 155, 158, 216-18, 223, 234-35). Peasant artisans were lower, not higher, than peasant farmers in social class, but higher than the “Uncleaned and Degraded Class” (e.g., porters, miners, and prostitutes, namely those who “had only their bodies and animal energies to sell and who were forced to accept occupations which quickly destroyed them­”) and the lowest “Expendable Class” (which comprised “a variety of types, ranging from petty criminals and outlaws to beggars and underemployed itinerant workers, and numbered all those forced to live solely by their wits or by charity.”) (Ibid., pp. 155). See also Crossan, Historical Jesus, 125-28; idem, Jesus, 25.

[15] Gospel of Thomas 54; Q Gospel in Luke 6:20 = Matthew 5:3.

[16] Gospel of Thomas 68 = 69:1; Q Gospel in Luke 6:22-23 = Matthew 5:11-12.

[17] Gospel of Thomas 69:2; Q Gospel in Luke 6:21a = Matthew 5:6.

[18] Birth of Christianity, 318-322; Historical Jesus, 270-282.

[19] Gospel of Thomas, 22:1-2; Mark 10:13-16 = Matthew 19:13-15 = Luke 18:15-17; Matthew 18:3; John 3:1-5, 9-10.

[20] Historical Jesus, 269.

[21] Jesus, 54ff.

[22]Who Killed Jesus?, 117; Jesus, 152.

[23] Historical Jesus, 303-53, esp. 332ff., 355, 360.

[24] “A Future for the Christian Faith”, 127.

[25] Historical Jesus, 360; Jesus, 133-36; Who Killed Jesus?, 65. Open commensality, that is, eating together without using table (because table was considered as a miniature map of society’s vertical discriminations and lateral separation) was the heart of Jesus’ original Kingdom movement; it was his strategy for building or rebuilding peasant community on principles radically opposed to those of honor and shame, patronage and clientage (Historical Jesus, 341, 344; Jesus, 66-70).

[26] Birth of Christianity, 285.

[27] Birth of Christianity, 289.

Iliad and Odyssey: A Brief Glimpse

by Ioanes Rakhmat

The works Iliad and Odyssey were composed by Homer sometime between 800 and 680 BCE, with Iliad preceding Odyssey in time of composition.[1] Iliad is a tragedy and Odyssey is a novel;[2] both were designed to be heard and recited in public performance, before a live audience, and not to be read in private.[3] Both had their origins in oral performances.[4] The central theme of both works is the suffering of pious and innocent people during the Trojan War (Iliad) and its aftermath (Odyssey). The mythological hero Heracles plays a non-active role in both works (Iliad, books XVIII and XIX; Odyssey, book XI). According to Aune, Heracles was “the single most popular” mythological hero in ancient Greek and Roman folklore, being honored as a god or a son of the god Zeus. Heracles was never understood to have been “an actual historical individual”; but, from antiquity to the present, his figure has appeared in diverse folktales, myths, local cults and literary adaptations, as well as in artistic representations which were made as early as the eighth century BCE.[5]

A cumulative oral tradition and a mass of legendary and mythical material of very ancient date were worked up by Homer into seemingly historical tales;[6] the result was a new genre called epic poetry[7] and marked by fictitious character.[8] Historical interest sometimes motivates one to treat Iliad and Odyssey as historical sources to be employed in excavating and reconstructing ancient Greek life and culture which are seen as interwoven or embedded in the layers of the mythical texts. This effort is based on the unwarranted assumption that mythical literary works always contain some historical material.[9] This assumption becomes questionable when scholars advance conclusions such as the following: “[S]trictly speaking there is no such thing as ‘Homeric society’; there is the society of the Iliad and that of the Odyssey.”[10] This does not mean that there is nothing historical at all in Iliad and Odyssey; the city of Troy, e.g., was once a fact in the history of this world. Nevertheless, as a whole, the central concern of both these works is not history.

In Thomas Finan’s view, Iliad has a mythic, universalising, paradigmatic or representative character; it represents a human revolt against the human condition “at its most ultimately tragic, faced not just with innocent suffering but with the final unredeemed futility of death.”[11] Homer opens Iliad by telling that all events therein related are “in fulfillment of the will of Zeus.”[12] Thus, all the events connected with the war between the Achaeans (or Grecians) and the Trojans, including occurrences such as the grisly death of Hector, the Trojan leader, together with the mal-treatment of his corpse by Achilles, the Grecian leader, are presented as having been divinely foreordained. Indeed, Homer paints Zeus, the supreme Olympian deity, as neutral; but he is said to have ordered all the other gods to join either the Achaeans or the Trojans and to assist, as their sympathies dictate, the side chosen (Iliad, Book XX).[13]

In Odyssey, the protagonist is the innocent sufferer Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, who, with others of the Greek chieftains, is returning home after the war. Odysseus is depicted as being very eager to be reunited with his virtuous and single-hearted wife, Queen Penelope. Odysseus stands out as a heroic, suffering figure who is, in the words of G. S. Kirk, “long-suffering, patient, wise, humane, resigned, philosophical, hard-headed, practical, brutal when circumstances demand it, boastful at times.”[14] Sometimes, however, Odysseus can feel disquieted and doubtful of his own strength. In preparing for the struggle to remove the suitors who had been disturbing his wife while he was away in Troy, Odysseus was very anxious. At that moment, his patroness, the goddess of the gleaming eyes, Athene, the daughter of Zeus, descended from heaven and drew near to him, encouraging him by saying to him: “Unbelieving one, most men are ready to trust a comrade, a mortal man without my strength and without my cunning; yet I am a goddess, one who through all your trials has guarded you continually....”[15] The divine vindication of the suffering innocent Odysseus is announced when Zeus, replying to Athene, utters these words, “…Was it not you who framed this plan, so that Odysseus at his homecoming should be revenged upon the suitors? You may work in any way you please, but I will tell you what way is best. Now that the king has taken his vengeance on the suitors, let both sides make a solemn covenant; let Odysseus reign there all his days, while we ourselves bring about forgetfulness of the slaughtering of sons and brothers. Let them all be friends as they were of old, and let there be wealth and peace in plenty” (Odyssey Book XXIV 442-525).[16]

Notes

[1] Walter Shewring (trans.), Homer, The Odyssey. Introduction by G. S. Kirk (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982 [1980 (first ed.)]) xvi; Rieu, Homer, The Odyssey, 11 n.†; M.M. Austin and P. Vidal-Naquet, Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece: An Introduction. ET by M.M. Austin (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973 [1972]) 37-38.

[2] Rieu, Homer, The Odyssey, 10; Homer, The Iliad (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1960 [19501]) vii.

[3] Elizabeth Minchin, “The Performance of Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics” in Ian Worthington, ed., Voice into Text: Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece (Mnemosyne: Supp. 157; Leiden, etc.: Brill, 1996) 4 [3-20]; Walter Shewring, Homer, The Odyssey, viii.

[4] In modern scholarship, the theory that Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odyssey originated in oral public performances is first contended by Milman Parry and Albert Lord. For a historical and methodological study of this theory, see John Miles Foley, The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988). In his work, Against Apion 1.11-12, Flavius Josephus (born 37/38 CE) writes: “....Throughout the whole range of Greek literature no undisputed work is found more ancient than the poetry of Homer. His date, however, is clearly later than the Trojan war; and even he, they say, did not leave his poems in writing....”

[5] The mythological figure Heracles himself goes back at least to the Mycenaean period (1400-1000 BCE), if not earlier. See David E. Aune, “Heracles and Christ. Heracles Imagery in the Christology of Early Christianity” in David L. Balch, Everett Ferguson, Wayne A. Meeks (eds.), Greeks, Roman, and Christians (Essays in honor of Abraham J. Malherbe) (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990) 4f. [3-19]; see also Roman Garrison, Why Are You Silent, Lord? (The Biblical Seminar 68. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 37-44.

[6] Walter Shewring, Homer, The Odyssey, xiii-xvi; Rieu, Homer, The Odyssey, 11.

[7] W. Merrit Sale, “Homer and Avdo: Investigating Orality Through External Consistency” in Ian Worthington, ed., Voice into Text, 21-42. “Epic poetry” is a genre, either oral or imitative of oral in origins, which is composed throughout by a technique indistinguishable from the oral; in this regard, “an oral technique amount[s] to oral composition” (p. 24). On the “oral-formulaic theory” of Homer’s works, see also Mary Sale, “The Oral-formulaic Theory Today” in Janet Watson, ed., Speaking Volumes: Orality and Literacy in the Greek and Roman World (Mnemosyne: Supp. 218; Leiden, etc.: Brill, 2001) 53-80.

[8] See, e.g., W.B. Stanford, “Homer” in T. James Luce, ed. in chief, Ancient Writers Greece and Rome, vol. 1: Homer to Caesar (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982) 2, 25 [1-41]; D.C. Feeney, “Toward an Account of the Ancient World’s Concepts of Fictive Belief” in Christopher Gill and T.P. Wiseman, eds., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1993) 232-233 [230-244].

[9] However, according to Feeney (“Fictive Belief”, pp. 242, 233), we should also pay serious attention to “the various margins between fictive and other narratives, especially the margin between the belief accorded to fictions and the belief accorded to other modes of speech or representation” (for instance history and science), and to the “difference between history and epic” which has nothing to do with what we might label “historicity” (whether something had happened or not), but was rather a question of the mode of treatment, the degree of “fictiveness” which is applied in the narrating. See also Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford, 1991) 44-45, 253-56, 261-264.

[10] Austin and Vidal-Naquet, Economic and Social History, 39.

[11] Thomas Finan, “The Myth of the Innocent Sufferer: Some Greek Paradigms” in Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 9:121-135 (Dublin: Irish Biblical Association Publications, 1985) 125f.

[12] Rieu, trans., Homer, The Iliad, 23; Frans van Oldenburg Ermke, trans., Homeros, Ilias en Odyssea (Retie: Kempische Boekhandel, 1959) 7.

[13] Rieu, The Iliad, 366.

[14] “Introduction” to Walter Shewring, Homer, The Odyssey, xix.

[15] Walter Shewring, Homer, the Odyssey, 243ff. (Book XX).

[16] Walter Shewring, Homer, the Odyssey, 296-297.

Titulus Crucis

Di dalam kisah Markus mengenai pengadilan Yesus, muncul gelar-gelar kristologis “Mesias" atau “Kristus” dan “Anak dari Yang Terpuji” atau “Anak Allah”, dan juga gelar “Raja”; semua gelar ini, dalam pandangan sejumlah pakar, John Dominic Crossan di antaranya, adalah ciptaan penulis Injil Markus yang menyusun kisah fiktif ini berdasarkan Mazmur 2./1/

Dengan demikian, bagi Crossan, titulus pada salib Yesus (titulus crucis) yang menyebut Yesus sebagai “Raja Orang Yahudi” (Markus 15:26; Matius 27:37; Lukas 23:38), yang menurut Yohanes 19:19-20 ditulis dalam tiga bahasa (Ibrani, Latin dan Yunani), adalah bagian dari kisah fiktif tentang pengadilan Yesus. Namun, mayoritas para ahli berpendapat bahwa titulus pada salib Yesus harus dipandang sebagai suatu bukti bahwa pengadilan Yesus oleh Pontius Pilatus adalah suatu peristiwa sejarah.

Bammel, misalnya, menilai bahwa kata-kata yang dipakai pada titulus, sebagaimana dicatat dalam injil-injil, sangat mungkin autentik, dan harus dipandang sebagai sebuah bukti sejarah yang nilai dan kepentingannya hanya dapat ditentukan dalam hubungan dengan bagian-bagian lain dari kisah pengadilan Yesus./2/

Mengenai titulus, Raymond Brown menandaskan bahwa “tidak ada sesuatu pun yang tidak masuk akal mengenai titulus ini sebagai suatu tuduhan yang dijatuhkan oleh seorang gubernur Romawi yang mengaitkan tindakannya ini dengan kebijakan umum Lex Iulia de maiestate dalam yurisprudensi Roma yang biasa, ketika dia memutuskan suatu kasus berdasarkan pemeriksaan pengadilan yang umum dijalankan di suatu kawasan kecil seperti Yudea.” Brown menyimpulkan, “Saya tidak menemukan keberatan yang meyakinkan terhadap kesejarahan titulus sebagai suatu pernyataan tertulis atas tuduhan yang menjadi alasan penghukuman mati Yesus oleh orang Roma.”/3/

Untuk mempertahankan autentisitas dan historisitas titulus, Theissen dan Merz mengajukan argumen berikut: pertama, tata krama untuk menuliskan alasan suatu penghukuman pada sebilah perisai ditemukan dalam banyak dokumen (misalnya, Suetonius, Kaligula 32.2, dan Domitianus 10:1; Dio Cassius, Sejarah Roma 54, 3, 7); tetapi praktik seperti ini tidak sangat sering dilakukan sehingga terbuka kemungkinan bahwa hal ini hanya direka-reka oleh seorang narator di dalam suatu kisah tentang penghukuman mati; kedua, titulus pada salib Yesus dirumuskan dari sudut pandang Romawi sebagaimana diindikasikan oleh pemakaian sebutan “raja orang Yahudi” (Markus 15:26) ketimbang “Kristus, raja Israel” (Markus 15:32). 

Selain itu, kita tahu, hanya orang Romawi saja yang dapat mengklaim ius gladii (“hak pedang”), yakni hak untuk menggelar suatu pengadilan atas kasus-kasus hukuman mati dan untuk mengeksekusi tanpa melakukan banding kepada Kaisar (lihat Yohanes 18:31; Yosefus, Perang Yahudi 2.8.1; # 117)./4/ 

Dan, akhirnya, komunitas Kristen pasca-Paskah tentu tidak ingin merekayasa suatu tuduhan bahwa Yesus mengklaim kedudukan sebagai raja orang Yahudi mengingat tuduhan semacam ini membuka kemungkinan bagi kesalahpahaman politis dan karenanya akan menimbulkan kesulitan berat bagi mereka (bdk. Kisah Para Rasul 17.7)./5/


Catatan-catatan

/1/ J.D. Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1995) 108-110; idem, The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (New York: Harper & Row, 1988) 56-61.

/2/ Ernst Bammel, “The Titulus” in Ernst Bammel & C.F.D. Moule, Jesus and the Politics of His Day (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1988 [1984]) 363f. (353-364).

/3/ R.A. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. AB. 2 vols. (New York, etc.: Doubleday, 1994) 2. 968, lihat juga 1.717-19, 725.

/4/ Lihat juga A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. The Sarum Lectures 1960-1961 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992 [1963]) 8; Brown, Death of Messiah, 1.337-338; 363-372.

/5/ Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (ET by John Bowden; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) 458.

The Historical Pontius Pilate

One of the reasons why some scholars reject the gospel trial narratives as historical is to be found in their conclusion that the portrayal of Pontius Pilate in the gospels is not that of history but rather that of a literary figure through whom early Christians expressed their pro-Roman attitude. They are of the opinion that in the gospels Pilate is exonerated and full responsibility is placed upon the Jewish authorities for the condemnation and execution of Jesus. With this, Pilate became a friend of the early Christians, whereas the Jews became the Christians’ foes. They see the picture in the gospels of a vacillating Pilate, trying to set Jesus free, as being in sharp contradiction with that found in extrabiblical sources, such as the writings of Philo and Josephus. But, in judging those extrabiblical pictures as history, they do not consider the theological, apologetic, and rhetorical interests of each of the extrabiblical writers.

In Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium

In the recent study of Pontius Pilate by Helen K. Bond,[1] it has been convincingly shown that the portraits of Pilate in both Philo and Josephus, while doubtlessly containing a core of historical fact, were shaped significantly by each of those writers’ general theological and rhetorical aims. In his Embassy to Gaius (or Legatio ad Gaium), Philo describes how Pilate offended against the Jewish Law by setting up iconic shields in Jerusalem; by means of an embassy, the Jewish leaders appealed to the emperor Tiberius and the emperor ordered Pilate to remove the shields (§§ 299-305). Concerning the personality of Pilate, Philo wrote that Pilate “...was a man of inflexible, stubborn, and cruel disposition...” (301); and about Pilate’s deeds, Philo noted “... his venality, his violence, his thefts, his assaults, his abusive behaviour, his frequent executions of untried prisoners, and his endless savage ferocity” (302). Bond points out that this depiction of Pilate employs stereotypical language that was commonly used of those who acted against the Jewish Law, and she concludes that “the description of Pilate’s character and motivation stems largely from Philo’s political rhetoric, in which he tries to persuade Claudius not to adopt Gaius’ attitude to the Jews, and from his theology, in which the enemies of Judaism are the enemies of God and are thus portrayed extremely negatively. This ‘theologically interpreted history’ is found in other Jewish writings of the period, particularly 2 Maccabees, Esther and Judith.”[2] Bond maintains that “behind theological gloss, the historical Pilate is just visible; though Philo allowed his imagination to play a part in describing Pilate’s character, his description of the facts seems trustworthy. Pilate appears as a governor intent on showing his loyalty to the Emperor.”[3]


In Josephus’ Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews

In the Jewish War (written ca. 75-79 CE) Josephus relates two incidents involving Pilate: one describing his introduction of iconic standards into Jerusalem (2.169-174), the other his appropriation of Temple funds to build an aqueduct in the city (2.175-177). These two events in Pilate’s governorship are used by Josephus to strengthen the foremost rhetorical aim of the Jewish War, namely, to stress that resistance against Rome is futile and that only passive acceptance of Roman rule can produce harmony amongst subject peoples. These two accounts of Josephus do display certain characteristics of Pilate: he can be insensitive towards the people, expecting them to act as do other nations and accept the symbols of Rome; yet he can be moved by a religious demonstration and show himself as averse to excessive bloodshed. Within the bureaucracy of the Roman Empire, Pilate is a governor intent on preserving Roman law and order in Judaea; in the Jewish War, therefore, Pilate is placed alongside the other relatively able governors in the early period of that area’s status as a province of the Roman Empire.[4]

In another work by Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (written ca. 93/94 CE), there are four narratives involving Pilate. The first two of these (concerning the military standards in 18.55-59 and concerning the aqueduct in 18.60-62) are paralleled in the Jewish War (see the previous paragraph). These are followed by the execution of Jesus, “a wise man”, in 18.63-64, and an incident involving Samaritans which culminated in Pilate’s removal to Rome on the orders of Vitellius, the governor of Syria in 18.85-89. In the episode concerning the military standards, Pilate consciously and deliberately breaks the Jewish Law by introducing military standards containing an effigy of Caesar into Jerusalem, something which no previous governor had dared to do. This gave rise to a relatively quiet protest which lasted for six days by the Jewish people in Caesarea, the place of the governor’s residence. When Pilate threatened the protesters with death if they did not end their protest and leave, the people prostrated themselves, bared their throats, and declared that they would gladly welcome death rather than transgress the wise provisions of the Law. Pilate, astonished at the strength of their allegiance to the Law, immediately had the standards removed from Jerusalem and returned to Caesarea. In Josephus’ relating of this incident, the Jews are shown as demonstrating the supremacy of their ancestral religion and Pilate is shown to have had enough flexibility to rescind his orders, remove the standards and replace the troops.

In the matter of the aqueduct (Antiquities 18.60-62), according to Josephus, it was not its construction which caused offence but rather Pilate’s misuse of Temple funds, the fact that he had completely drained the available financial resources. While the aqueduct is being built -or perhaps after it was finished-the people waited for Pilate’s visit and then expressed their grievances in a riot. The governor sent some of the Roman soldiers, dressed as the Jewish people were but armed with clubs under their garments, to circulate among the crowd. When the Jews were in full torrent of abuse, the governor gave the pre-arranged signal. His soldiers, however, used excessive force indiscriminately against the people in the crowd, punishing alike both those who were rioting and those who were not, causing panic among the people. In Josephus’ picture, Pilate thus shows some reluctance to use excessive force.

Josephus’ account in Antiquities 18.85-89 relates an incident involving Pilate and the Samaritans that occurred at the end of the prefecture of Pontius Pilate (ca. 36 CE). A false prophet announced to the Samaritans that if they would go to Mount Gerizim with him, he would show them the site in which Moses had deposited the sacred vessels. In response to this announcement which they regarded as probable, a great multitude of Samaritans gathered at Tirathana with arms. When they began climbing Mount Gerizim, Pilate, perhaps apprehensive of eschatological fanaticism, had their projected route blocked by a detachment of cavalry and heavily armed infantry. There was an encounter; some Samaritans were slain, the leaders executed, and many imprisoned. According to Bond, in this incident, Pilate acted well within his rights and responsibilities as the guardian of Roman law and order in the province; this Samaritans’ religious activity would inevitably lead to an escalation of political tensions, and this a Roman governor must avert at all costs.[5]


In the Gospel of Mark

In Bond’s analysis of Pilate’s role in the trial and execution of Jesus, there is an important contribution to the character of the historical Pilate. Most commentators regard the picture of Pilate in Mark’s Gospel-that of a weak figure who is convinced of Jesus’ innocence-as central to Mark’s attempt to exculpate the Romans and make the Jews responsible for Jesus’ death; but, according to Bond, Pilate was not a tool in the hands of the chief priests and the crowd; rather it was Pilate who was in control of the whole development. Pilate recognizes the self-interest in the actions of the chief priests (“it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over”, Mark 15:10); but Pilate also recognizes that Jesus as a messianic claimant (Note his question in Mark 15:2: “Are you the king of the Jews?”) is a potential threat to stability and the social order. Nevertheless, Pilate realizes that, to try Jesus during the time of the Passover celebration could very well provoke rioting, because Jesus was popular with many of the people. Pilate himself came up with an ingenious solution: he would exchange roles with the people, asking them what should be done with Jesus, and thereby putting them into the role of judge. For the Roman government, the voice of a local population, while not sufficient to decide a trial’s verdict, was valued in determining the political feasibility of a verdict. In the current case (the trial of Jesus) if the crowd itself were to call for Jesus’ execution, then there would be much less of a likelihood that later displays of discontent against Roman harshness would occur. So, Pilate puts the people on the spot, issuing a direct challenge to their political allegiance: “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” (Mark 15:12).[6] This question, writes Bond, is not a sign of weakness on Pilate’s part; rather it is his testing of the allegiance of the Jewish people, his pushing them to become part of the decision, thereby implicating themselves also. It shows, therefore, the shrewdness of Pilate and his cautious judgment.

According to Bond, there are two other accounts in Josephus’ Antiquities which illustrate how Mark’s first century readers might have understood Pilate’s action in the trial and execution of Jesus. The first of these is found in Antiquities 13.288-296. The envy of the Jews, especially the Pharisees, had been aroused against the Jewish King Hyrcanus because of his successes and those of his sons. A Pharisee named Eleazar, during a feast, said that, if the king wished to be adjudged righteous, he should give up the office of highpriest and be content with governing the people. This remark provoked the other Pharisees to indignation and Hyrcanus to fury. A Sadducee, named Jonathan, persuaded Hyrcanus that all the Pharisees were of the same opinion, and advised the king that this would become clear if he were to ask them what punishment Eleazar deserved. Hyrcanus followed this advice, telling the Pharisees that “he would be convinced that the slanderous statement had not been made with their approval if they fixed a penalty commensurate with the crime” (294). The Pharisees, feeling that death was too harsh a penalty, suggested stripes and chains, and this leniency convinced Hyrcanus that the slander had been done with the Pharisees’ approval; from that time on, the king sided with the Sadducees.

The second account, Antiquities 17.149-67, concerns the famous “eagle affair” that occured in the end of the reign of Herod I (4 BCE). The king had erected over the great gate of the Temple a large golden eagle (probably a low relief stone sculpture covered with gold leaf), the “symbol of Roman control and Jewish submission”,[7] and had dedicated it to the Temple. But it was pulled down and destroyed by a number of young men, followers of Judas and Matthias, the most celebrated interpreters of the Jewish laws. No fewer than forty young men, together with their masters, were arrested. Herod summoned the Jewish officials to the amphitheatre, reminding them of how much he had done for the nation and that, furthermore, pulling down the eagle was in effect a sacrilege. “Because of his savage state and out of fear that in his fury he might avenge himself upon them, those present said that the things had been done without their consent, and it seemed to them that the perpetrators should not be exempted from punishment” (164). Since the Jewish officials had been quick to condemn those responsible for the deed, Herod dealt mildly with the officials themselves. In the parallel account in Jewish War (1.648-655), the people are summoned and ask Herod to deal only with the perpetrators of the deed.

In both these accounts, a group of people is called to pass judgement on a crime, and this is then used by the Jewish ruler to assess their complicity in the affair. Furthermore, in the second account, the Jewish officials under Herod could hardly have later complained of the king’s harshness toward those who pulled down the golden eagle since they themselves had sanctioned such treatment and were only too pleased to be able to escape their own complicity and resulting punishment. In neither of these examples is the behavior of the ruler a sign of weakness; it is rather a deliberate challenge to the allegiance of their subjects, an attempt to make them part of the decision which they then have no alternative but to accept.


Notes

[1] Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation. SNTSMS 100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). See also: Brian C. McGing, “Pontius Pilate and the Sources” in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53 (1991) 416-38; Harold W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas: A Contemporary of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980 [reprint of SNTSMS 17. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1972]) 172-181; cf. idem, “Why Did Pilate Hand Jesus over to Antipas?” in The Trial of Jesus. Cambridge Studies in Honour of C.F.D. Moule, ed. Ernst Bammel (SBT Second Series 13; London: SCM Press, 1970) 84-90; Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, 1996) 305ff.; Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context. Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition. ET by Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991) 174 n.21 (“Still, Agrippa I’s petition primarily represents Philo’s point of vew”), 183 n.38; Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah. From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. AB. 2 vols (New York, etc.: Doubleday, 1994) 859, states that instead of exonerating Pilate, the gospel portrayal of Pilate intends to “show the transparent falsehood of the pretense that Jesus had threatening royal ambitions.”

[2] Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate, 47.

[3] Bond, Pontius Pilate, 47.

[4] Bond, Pontius Pilate, 62.

[5] Bond, Pontius Pilate, 91.

[6] Bond, Pontius Pilate, 113.

[7] Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews, 15-18; John D. Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) 199-200.

Acta Martyrum

The term “acts” (Latin: acta) is used synonymously with the Greek word hypomnēmatismoi (“recollections”) for which the more precise equivalent in Latin is commentarius (-i). Used as a legal term, it is given to the official records of Roman trials, as taken down by offical scribes. Commentarii (“trial records”, “minutes”, “memoranda”, “records of proceedings” or “protocols”) consist primarily of discourses between magistrates and defendants (or martyrs) in a courtroom.

Acta Martyrum

In his work Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii, Gary A. Bisbee, employing historical methods together with source-, text-, and form-criticism, has shown that several acta paganorum (acts of the pagan martyrs) and acta Christianorum (acts of the Christian martyrs) drew upon commentarii or were actually copies of commentarii. In their extant form, acta martyrum (the inclusive term used for both types of acta just noted) divulge stages of development beginning with commentarii, official records of historical proceedings in a courtroom. A Commentarius purports to be an “historical account,” recording “the ipsissima verba of martyrs’ trials.”[1] Although the framework of a commentarius could be fictional and while the content usually shows some reworking at various stages from the primitive copies (such as the adding of overt political propaganda), fundamentally the work is an historical document. As such, some of its details can be also found in other sources, for example, in the writings of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus (fl. 20 BCE - 40 CE).[2]

In his work on acta paganorum entitled The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum, Herbert A. Musurillo presents an analysis of the Roman martyrologies in which the historical famous protagonists, the martyrs, are portrayed as nobly defending themselves during their trials and then in facing execution.[3] The Acta Alexandrinorum, studied by Musurillo, come from the period of the first century (the reign of the emperor Claudius, 41-54 CE) to the third-century; the Acts of the Christian Martyrs (postdating the NT gospels), of the same genre as the Acta Alexandrinorum, have also been edited and commented upon by Musurillo.[4] Musurillo has chosen twenty-eight of the acts of the Christian martyrs from the second to the fourth century CE which he judges to be historically the most important and reliable, even if there are fictional elements in some of them.[5] Opposed to this judgment is that of Timothy D. Barnes who considers only nine of the acts of the Christian martyrs as authentic.[6]

From his form-critical analysis of different documents of the Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Musurillo lists the following elements as being common to the genre. First, a judicial proceeding against the martyr is carried out in a court in which witty judges do their job, bystanders show their reactions, the martyr expresses his or her faith and urges the judges to perform their duty. Second, the martyr is then imprisoned or executed, with the soldiers and gaolers treating him or her harshly. Before execution, the martyr utters a special prayer and makes some apologetic remarks, with the crowds or bystanders expressing their reactions. In this part of the work, a first-person narrative-technique is employed. Third, just before dying, the martyr claims to see a vision or some kind of miracle occurs. After the martyr’s death, it is noted that some people experienced an apparition, as if the martyr had been restored to life. Any propagandistic elements in these acts may have an anti-Roman quality[7] and/or an anti-Semitic one.[8]

Musurillo points to what he considers as obvious similarities between pagan and Christian martyr-acts: a) the use of the dramatic “protocol” style; b) the emphasis on lively verbal exchanges and aphorisms; c) the display of heroic contempt for death; d) rather long, irrelevant speeches delivered by the martyrs; and, lastly, e) the caricature of Roman officialdom. The last two elements stand out in the later and admittedly fictional Christian passiones. However, Musurillo does not postulate any interdependence; rather, he contends that “it is a fact of common experience that similar stimuli operating upon somewhat similar environments can be expected to produce somewhat similar effects.”[9]

Indeed, all the literary evidence points to the broad literary and general historical environment in which these works were produced, an environment which was also that of the authors of the NT gospels. And so Bisbee contends that the matter has to be expressed rather dialectically: “The historian cannot assume...that the genre acta Christianorum was not influenced by pagan genres, but neither should one assume... that it was.”[10] It also follows, states Bisbee, that, with regard to the gospel trial narratives, one must be open to “the possible formal influence that they may have exerted upon later acta Christianorum,” or the other way round, “...the possibility that commentarius-form exerted an influence upon the forms given to traditions regarding Jesus’ trial.”[11] In other words, authentic commentarii produced in Roman courtrooms in which actual trials had been conducted were the seedbed for any martyr-acts.


The Formal Elements of A Commentarius

As a result of form-critical analysis, a commentarius may be divided into four sections:[12]

1) Caput or kephalaion (introductory elements/formulae), comprising:
* “extract-phrase”, indicating that the record is a copy or extract from an archival original;
* name and title of the presiding magistrate;
* date formula;
* location;
* “presence-phrase”, referring to the plaintiff;
* “participants-formulae”, stating the parties involved in the case;
* “delegation-phrase”, used in two senses: first, to denote that a magistrate with imperium and iurisdictio has “delegated” a case to a subordinate magistrate; second, to refer to a delegation to a magistrate, as, e.g., a delegation from a city to a governor;
* and “ellipsis-phrase” or “phrases of the meth’ hetera type”, indicating that the copyist omitted portions of the longer account;

2) Body of the judicial proceedings containing a record of the speeches between magistrates and participants, given either in oratio recta or in oratio obliqua and/or “narrative abstract” or “summarized discourse” as a means of shortening the copy;

3) Krisis or the magistrate’s judgment which in most cases is recorded in oratio recta, direct speech, and occasionally in a summarized form or narrative abstract;

4) Concluding matters in which a certificate of accuracy is the statement most frequently found.


The Commentarius of Jesus’ Trial?

On the basis of form-critical analysis, Bisbee concludes that, in the gospel trial accounts there are no formal elements that exactly match those of the Roman commentarii or Roman official trial records. Of course this is the case, since what is contained in the Christian gospels are not Roman official records but rather Christian theological narratives.[13] If, however, it is accepted that the historical Jesus was tried by the historical Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, then, in Bisbee’s opinion, one must assume that, “...like other trials before Roman magistrates, there would have existed a commentarius of Jesus’ trial before Pilate. Such a commentarius...would have resembled P.Oxy. 37 (49 CE), which is representative of first-century commentarius-form.”[14] Drawing on the formal elements of P.Oxy 37, and apparently following the formal elements and general sequence, as well as the main characters of the gospel trial narratives, Bisbee offers his conjecture of what the commentarius of Jesus’ trial might have been, when he writes that “The form of the commentarius of Jesus’ trial perhaps resembled the following”:[15]

From the commentarii of Pontius Pilate, governor.
The [year] of Tiberius Caesar Augustus, [month and day].
Caiaphas, high priest of the Jewish religion having accused Jesus,
a Jew, of treason, Jesus appeared before the tribunal.
Pilate: “Do you call yourself king of the Jews?”
Jesus: “As you say.”
Pilate: “Don’t you understand the severity of the charges that have been
brought against you? Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
When Jesus made no reply,
Pilate: “Since Jesus has been charged with and
found guilty of treason, he is to be scourged and taken outside the city to be crucified.”

Again, this commentarius of Jesus’ trial is only Bisbee’s speculative reconstruction; (and I find it interesting that his reconstruction seems like a slightly expanded form of the “trial record” of Jesus which is found in the original Testimonium Flavianum). It is possible of course to believe that such a commentarius never existed. On the other hand, if one believes that it can be proved that Jesus was tried before historical Roman and Jewish authorities, then a conjecture such as Bisbee’s is worthy of consideration. The extra-biblical evidence, such as P.Oxy 37 and P.Oxy 3464 (dated to ca. 54-60 CE), the judicial processes of epikrisis or eiskrisis already carried out in Roman Egypt from the time of Augustus, as well as the historicity of the original Testimonium Flavianum, make it plausible to assume that a commentarius of Jesus’ trial did once exist, even though, until now, decisive proof of this has not been found. Nevertheless, the degree of plausibility for such an assumption becomes even greater when one takes into account the situation in Judea where “...the prefect had authority to try and execute provincials and probably also citizens within his area of jurisdiction. He would presumably have a system of assizes [a meeting or meetings of a special court held by an important judge travelling from one country town to another] to which cases could be brought and receive a hearing.”[16] Finally, Musurillo has made an important point in writing that “...it may not be too rash to suppose that the Christians were inspired in their attempts to obtain and adapt the copies of the commentarii by the knowledge that this had been successfully done before." [17]


by Ioanes Rakhmat

Notes

[1] Gary A. Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii (HDR 22; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 16. The word “pre-Decian” contains a reference to the name Decius (Gaius Messius Quintus), the Roman emperor who ruled only two years (249-251). He assumed the additional surname Trajan to express strongly his case of promoting an aggressive frontier policy. In order to preserve the empire, he restored the state cults and persecuted Christians. However, his approach was outdated, and his reign initiated the worst period of the third century crisis. He was the one and only Roman emperor who was slain by his enemy; and this incident marked a very low point in the history of the Roman empire. See Michael Grant, The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire (London/New York: Routledge, 1999) 9-10.

[2] Herbert A. Musurillo, The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs: Acta Alexandrinorum (New York: Arno Press, 1979) 259–260 (see the literature cited there).

[3] Musurillo, Acts of Pagan Martyrs.

[4] The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Introduction, texts and translation by Herbert A. Musurillo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).

[5] Musurillo, Acts of Christian Martyrs, xiii-l.

[6] Timothy D. Barnes, “Pre-Decian Acta Martyrum”, Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1968).

[7] Musurillo, Acts of Pagan Martyrs, 256f.

[8] Musurillo, Acts of Christian Martyrs, lii -liii.

[9] Musurillo, Acts of Pagan Martyrs, 262, 247.

[10] Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts, 13-14; Musurillo, Acts of Pagan Martyrs, 260ff.

[11] Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts, 91.

[12] Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts, 33-64, 171-172; Musurillo, Acts of Pagan Martyrs, 249-252.

[13] However, Bisbee (Pre-Decian Acts, 92-94) notes some remote resemblances between the commentarius-form and certain elements in the gospel trial narratives: John 18:28 resembles a caput; John 19:13-34 gives location and time; Mark 15:4 shows remote resemblance to oratio recta; the element of krisis is found in Pilate’s judgment in Mark 15:15 (pars. Matthew 27:26; Luke 23:24-25; John 19:16) though “none of these sentences is in commentarius-form.”

[14] Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts, 91 (see p. 163 for the Greek text of P.Oxy 37).

[15] Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts, 92 n.28.

[16] A. Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (London: Routledge, 1993) 55-56.

[17] Musurillo, Acts of Pagan Martyrs, 262, 252 n.1.