A Paper given by Dr Paul Barnett at the Shalom Institute, University of New South Wales, 18th March 2004.

I have not seen The Passion of the Christ and probably won’t. From all accounts it is gruesome in its detail.

Crucifixion was common in that era.  It was an ancient Carthaginian mode of killing that the Romans adapted to suppress troublesome provincials and the lower orders, for example, the slave uprising led by Spartacus.

In Jerusalem a few years ago they discovered the remains of one Yehohanan, with iron spikes driven through ankle-bones and wrists. His are the only remains of a crucified man from the time of Christ, giving us a fair idea how they did it to Christ.  There were various ways of doing it. It might be on a pole with cross bar or just on a pole. The victim might be impaled as Yehohanan was through feet and hands or through the eyes. The crucified man died slowly through asphyxiation since he could not lever himself up sufficiently to breath. Soon enough he just hung there, breathless and exhausted. Typically those crucified were left impaled for days and alongside major thoroughfares for maximum effect. Often dogs would rip away at the lower parts. ‘Do not disturb your Roman masters’, was the clear message. Cicero advised his friends never to mention the word ‘crucifixion’ in polite company.

By contrast the Gospels record no gruesome detail. Nothing. They mention (without describing) the flogging beforehand – which was standard practice (allowing full reign to sadist torturers). Then they state without further comment that ‘they crucified him there’.

Presumably there was no need to describe the horrors since they were well enough known. Crucifixions were not uncommon.

More fundamentally, though, the Gospels see the sufferings of Christ in another realm. His cry, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ gives us the clue that his sufferings were relational. His unique relationship with God was broken. The darkness that fell on the scene – which is independently attested – pointed to the evil being wrought on this young man but also – again more fundamentally – it pointed to the barrier that now lay between God and himself – the sin of the world.

I understand the concerns of Jewish people over the screening of The Passion. However, we all must be prepared to face the facts of history, whether in regards to the execution of Christ, the anti Semitic Pogroms in Russia, the Stolen Generation in Australia, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Sandakan Death March or the Rwanda genocide.  We must be as objective and clear-eyed about one as about others.  If history has lessons for us about those events – as it surely does - then no good purpose is served by avoiding the facts.

In regards the death of Christ, the following three things can be stated:

(i) The non-Christian sources for Christ (Josephus and Tacitus) tell us that it was the Romans who executed him.  According to Josephus (a Jew) Christ was executed under Pilate, having been condemned beforehand by high-ranking Jews.

(ii) The Gospels say much the same as Josephus.  Christ was condemned by a collective of upper echelon Jews (for claiming to be the Messiah) and crucified as ‘king of the Jews’, that is, for treason by the Romans.  Only those whom the Romans appointed (as ‘client’ kings) could be ‘kings’ in a Roman province.  So far as the Romans were concerned, the fewer such ‘kings’ the better.  ‘Client kings’ were only ever a transitional arrangement paving the way for full Roman Provincial Government.

Why did Christ die?  He died at the hands of the Roman governor who found him guilty of treason, that is of claiming to be ‘king of the Jews’. There was only one ‘king of the Jews’ and that was Emperor Tiberius.

(iii) The New Testament attributes the blame for this not to the Jewish people, but to that small collective of aristocrats who composed the Jewish Senate and who governed Jerusalem.  It was a temple state, analogous to the Vatican.  At once a religious and a political entity, but in the case of Jerusalem subject to the occupying power of Rome.  This Senate (the Sanhedrin) was dominated by the High Priest of the moment and a small core group (mostly relatives).  For the best part of a century the High Priesthood was appointed to the highest bidder from one of four or five powerful families.  From the time of Herod, these High Priests were not even of priestly lineage descended from Aaron.  The appointment was political and pecuniary.

These families were corrupt, exploiting their access to the Temple by blatant trading of the merchandise (animals for sacrifice).  They had only a veneer of religious faith for the benefit of the public.  In private they were quite pagan.  Their alliances were with their Roman masters and they had as little to do with the ordinary people as possible.  In return the Romans wanted from them one thing in particular – social harmony.  For them, Jesus was a big problem.  He did not disavow Messiahship and he set out to fulfil prophecy by riding up to the City on a donkey like a new King David and cleared out the Temple traders.  A High Priest could lose his job, and his sons, sons-in-law, uncles and cousins theirs – if there was trouble in the City.  And trouble there was with the man from Galilee.
The Gospels, then, make it clear that not the Jewish people, but the tiny sect known as the Sadducees were responsible for handing Christ to the Romans for crucifixion.  The crowd that bayed for Christ’s blood was most likely a small rent-a-crowd, gathered in grounds of the military garrison in the small hours of the morning when the people of Jerusalem were still in bed.

Under the Roman system the Emperor granted the Ius Gladii,  ‘the Right of the Sword’ only to his provincial delegate, the governor.  Judaea was an occupied country; only the Roman occupying governor tried and executed those guilty of capital offences.  As the Jewish leaders said, ‘It is not lawful for us to kill anyone’ (John 18:31).  The Roman governor was judge, jury and executioner and it was he who crucified Christ.

The Apostles Creed, said in churches every week for nearly 2000 years, has it right.  Christ ‘suffered under Pontius Pilate’.

That is as true historically as it is true theologically, and sadly Jewish people began to suffer under Christians once the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the state religion.  In the fourth century we have for the first time a Christian theocracy.  Theocracies tend to oppress minorities and Jews were oppressed, not least under Theodosius later in the fourth century.

Not that anti-Semitism began with the rise of the church.  In the Greek East, for example, there was virtual civil war in the great cities Alexandria and Antioch between the pagan majorities and the Jewish minorities.  Many Jews were massacred, their beliefs and practices pilloried.

Roman authors like Tacitus vilify and mock the Jews, mostly for their standoffishness and for abstinence from pork eating , the worship of an invisible God (as opposed to the visible gods in the temples), and for doing no work on the seventh day.

Christian anti-Semitism (as from the fourth century) cannot be denied, but it rode on the back of five hundred years of Graeco-Roman anti-Semitism beforehand.

We should be sensitive to Jewish concerns about the Gibson movie.  As I understand it, the movie expresses a pre-Vatican 2 outlook.  Anti Semitism flourished under pre-Vatican 2 Catholicism, that is to say, in Europe mostly, where images of the crucified Christ on the cross are dominant. I think, for example, of the large statue of the crucified Christ on the major pedestrian bridge across the river at Prague, passed by many hundreds each day. It bears the title Latin INRI, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’. For centuries passion plays (like Omeramergau) have been part of European Roman Catholic culture.

From all accounts the Gibson movie is pre-Vatican 2 and a cinematic passion play.

I have some sympathy for Jewish people, even though I gather the movie itself is no harder on Jewish involvement than on Roman involvement.

It may be no coincidence that anti Semitism occurred in the countries where the image of the crucified Christ is dominant and passion plays were held.  On the other hand in the generally Protestant cultures of England and the US, Jewish people have prospered with relatively less suffering from Gentiles. In Protestant religious imagery we have an empty cross with no crucified body.  That is deliberate, in order to emphasise the resurrection of the one who died. The empty cross and the empty tomb express Protestant theology.  Perhaps that imagery pointed away from blaming Jews for the crucifixion.

I hasten to add that this is conjecture, though not unreasonable.

I should add, too, that I have no desire to re-ignite Catholic and Protestant fires from the past. Thankfully Catholic/Protestant relationships are generally cordial in this country as are Jewish and Christian relationships.

However, I ramble and I need to address the question given to me, namely, Why Christ died?  In my closing few minutes may I do this?

Let me pick up a point I made earlier – that the Gospels give no descriptions of the physical sufferings of Christ.  No descriptions.  No detail.  Nothing.

Nor do they set out to play some kind of blame game against the Jewish people.  The Gospel writers were themselves Jews.  If they blame anybody it is an unrepresentative sect of wealthy, Roman-connected aristocrats.

Tragically some church people – particularly in Europe – may have played the blame game, that is, blamed the Jews. They not only may have; they did! But, I repeat, the Gospel writers have no interest in blaming or settling scores.

Let me focus on the Gospel of John, which is often – and wrongly – accused of anti-Semitism.

In that Gospel, we encounter the eternal Logos become flesh, that is, as a man.  But that man is a Jewish man.  That Gospel states that ‘salvation is from the Jews’.  It is from the Jews, but for all people, including the Jews.  Salvation is from the Jews since God chose that race to be his light to the world.  Jesus was a Jew, a son of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Judah and descended from David the King.  So he must be a Jew, this word-incarnate.  But he is representative man, this God-man.  And he is that for all people of all nations, Jews and Gentiles.

His uniqueness is validated by his miracle-signs of feeding and healing.  These acts were typically done for those in need.  The ultimate miracle-sign is his historical resurrection from the dead, to give hope for all people that death and injustice do not have the last word.

Jesus is a Jewish saviour of all people and the New Testament is a Jewish book, written to complete the existing scriptures of the historic people of God, comprising the Bible of two Testaments.  The Bible and Christ are for all peoples – Jews and Gentiles.

John gives us some idea of the universal application of Christ in his frequent use of the word, ‘world’.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should have eternal life.

I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
but have the light of life.

If anyone thirst, let him come to me.
Let him drink, he who believes in me.
Out of him (that is Christ),
will flow streams of living water.

The universality of Christ’s invitations cannot be missed.  People of every nation, Jews included, have found in Christ a personal ‘friend’, one who brings inner renewal through divine forgiveness and joy in the midst of pain.

The New Testament is not anti Semitic, but holds out the promise God’s forgiveness and restoration to all people.

There is another universality that belongs to Christ.  It is behavioural. It is summed up in the word ‘love’.  Before Christ there was in the Greek language a little used word, agape. It was not eros, love because of the other’s attractiveness.  It was not storge, love of kith and kin.  It was not philos, love between mates.  It was agape, love for the good of the other, regardless of worthiness.  This rare word in the Greek language explodes in the pages of the New Testament.

Typically it describes God’s love in giving his Son for the world’s forgiveness.  But equally it is required of those who benefit from that love. They are called upon to imitate that love – to others, for their good, regardless of benefit.  I think of a friend of mine, a surgeon who lost his life in Kenya attempting to save the life of man he had never met, knowing that a blood spurt from that hepatitis infection would take his own life.  Which it did.

Christ’s love shown in his atoning death is a template for human behaviour, for all human behaviour.  He their teacher washed his disciples’ feet, to depict the moral washing of his death, but also to set the example of the great serving the lesser, the teacher the pupil, the strong the weak.  Human history is the tragic chronicle of the powerful using their power for themselves, their family and their cronies.  But in Jesus is the example for the person of power and authority using his resources, not for himself, but for others.

His sacrificial death is also the great example of all people serving others, not just the teacher serving the pupil, but each serving the other.  ‘A new commandment I give to you’, the said, ‘that you love one another as I have loved you’.  It is the word agape that he uses.  As I have loved you – seriously, ethically, at ultimate self-cost – that is how men and women should care about their fellows.

One other way Christ’s death informs human behaviour is seen in his demeanour on the cross.  ‘Forgive them’, he said.  He taught, ‘Turn the other cheek’ and though unjustly and cruelly treated he did not threaten or abuse his killers, but prayed for them.

The way of the world is payback, whether in the New Guinea highlands, the football field, the boardroom, the academic common room or between Israelis and Palestinians in the land of Israel.  Payback.  Payback with interest.  Hurt the man who has hurt you.  Make him suffer like you have and maybe a bit more.  But that is not the way of Jesus.  And that is one plank in the raft of reasons why he died.

His death ultimately was of God.  ‘Father, not my will but yours be done.’ In that death he was the Lamb of God taking away the sin – the deep wickedness – of the world.  But equally he gave the people of the world not only the assurance of divine forgiveness but a meaningful template of human behaviour, where the strong serve the weak, where each loves the other, and where we ‘cop it sweet’ and leave vengeance to the Lord on the Last Day.

Paul Barnett
March 2004