§ d 36–46 Gethsemani (Mk 14:32–42; Lk 22:40–46)—36–38. They come to a plot of land (χωρίον) at the foot of the western slope of Olivet, facing the temple; a garden, Jn 18:1, called ‘the oil-press’, gaṯ šemānî(m), doubtless because of some rustic installation among the olive-trees. Eight of the Apostles remain near the gate but Peter, James and John, witnesses of Jesus’ glory (17:1–2; cf. 2 Pet 1:17–18) are invited to see him in his suffering. The prospect of his passion brings distress and dismay (W7291V) and mortal sadness. He asks his friends to remain wakeful with him. 39–44. In an attitude of complete prostration but with his human will deliberately turned to the Father he asks that the cup of sorrow (cf. 20:22) may pass him by if this may be done without upsetting the divine redemptive plan. There are two wills in Christ: the divine will and the human will. We may distinguish a double act in the human will: the act of the will which may be called ‘instinctive’ (voluntas ut natura) and the deliberate, considered act (voluntas ut ratio). Our Lord’s instinctive will, true to its nature, shrank from suffering and death considered in themselves; his deliberate will embraced them for the sake of what they were to bring: the redemption of man in the way God willed it. ‘Placebat enim Christo secundum voluntatem divinam … ut voluntas naturalis in ipso et voluntas sensualitatis secundum ordinem suae naturae moverentur’ (ST7292 3, 8, 6). With the restlessness of sorrow he seeks the solace of his disciples but he asks them to pray not for him but for themselves. Peter’s loyalty, so eagerly expressed, 35, is not enough: without prayer, fear for bodily security will overwhelm the will. In his second prayer our Lord uses the words he taught his disciples to say, 6:10. 45–46. His first words, 45a, are perhaps a question: ‘Are ye going to sleep on (τὸ λοιπόν) and take your rest?’ (7293*Plummer, Mt, 371) and he awakes them with ‘Behold …’, stirring them to activity with ‘Rise …’. Others prefer the tone of melancholy resignation to the disciples’ weakness: ‘Very well, then, sleep; (it is too late to worry what you do), the hour has struck …; let us go to meet the traitor’.
§ e 47–56 The Arrest (Mk 14:43–50; Lk 22:47–53; In 18:2–12)—47–49. Judas was familiar with this garden and with our Lord’s habits, Jn 18:2. He knew, too, that Jesus would not have gone to Bethany because paschal night was to be spent in Jerusalem or in the immediate neighbourhood. He now leads what is (to judge by their impromptu weapons) a casual gang hired for the purpose, but there is evidently an escort of Roman soldiery, Jn 18:3. The kiss (natural enough from disciple to master) is ostentatious (κατεφίλησεν) to avoid mistakes. 50. The clipped, and therefore obscure, Greek phrase (ἐφʼ ὅ πάρει; lit7294. ‘for what thou art come’) is interpreted as a question by D7295V (and KN7296T); more probably it is an exclamation either fully expressed (‘for what a purpose art thou come!’, W7297V) or, perhaps better, cut short by emotion, e.g. ‘(A kiss), friend, for such a purpose!’, Lagrange. Lk 22:48 appears to render this last sense. 51–54. Peter’s half-parried blow at Malchus, Jn 18:10, is rebuked by our Lord. Firstly, it is useless—violence must always take the consequence of violence and, in this case, the power is apparently on the wrong side. Secondly, it is unnecessary and undesired—the Son does not choose to exercise his power: twelve times six thousand armed angels, not eleven impotent Apostles, waited his word. But how, were he to give that word (‘how, were it so …?’ KN7298T), would this consort with the prophecies (e.g. Is 53) of a meekly suffering Messias? 55–56. Our Lord objects to the absurd drama of his arrest and to the show of violence. It implies that he is a dangerous bandit. Yet it must have been clear from his general habit of public teaching (‘daily’ in the temple; cf. especially Jn 7:14; 8:2, 20, 59; 10:23) that he was no secret conspirator and that he could have been seized at any time. He thus lays bare the leaders’ fear of overt unpopular action, 26:5. The evangelist notes on his own account, 56, what our Lord had already said, 54—the whole incident is a prelude to the fulfilment of prophecy. He does not deem it necessary, however, to point out that the flight of the Apostles verities our Lord’s recent forecast, 31.
§ f 57–68 Before the Council (Mk 14:53–65; cf. Lk 22:54–55, 63–71 and Jn 18:12–14, 19–24)—57–58. The prisoner is taken back along the Kedron to the Gate of the Fountain at the SE. angle of the city-walls and so up the graded road to the palace of Caiaphas in the SW. quarter of the city. For Caiaphas cf. 26:3–4, § 719a. To judge by the Talmud (cf. Edershei7299m 2, 533 f.) night-trials were illegal, but details like this are dwarfed by the monstrous injustice of the whole process. Peter has followed at a safe distance; having reached the palace (αὐλή; D7300V ‘court’) he ventures into the court, Mk 14:54, to await the upshot (τέλος). 59–62. All three classes of the council are represented (chief priests, elders, scribes; cf. 57). This council (or ‘Sanhedrin’—the Greek συνέδριον in Aramaic form) totalling 71 members was the supreme judiciary body of the Jewish nation and met under the presidency of the reigning high-priest. For capital trials a quorum of 23 sufficed, according to the Mishna, Sanhedrin 4:1; it is not, therefore, necessary to understand ‘whole council’ strictly. The object of the meeting is to formulate a capital charge to present to the procurator, who alone had power to order execution of sentence; cf. Jn 18:31; Schürer 1, 2, 57 f.; Jos., Ant. 20, 9, 1. For appearance’ sake the formalities had to be observed (Num 35:30 etc.) and eventually the necessary two witnesses are found though even these are not in complete agreement, Mk 14:59. They pervert our Lord’s words, slightly in words, profoundly in sense; cf. Jn 2:19. The high-priest is not satisfied; he seeks a capital charge and hopes to condemn our Lord from his own mouth: ‘Answerest thou naught? What is it that these men allege against thee?’ (W7301V). § g 63. Jesus, ignoring the trumped-up charge of the witnesses, will not refuse an answer to an independent and formal demand from the highest authority (‘by the living’, and therefore avenging, ‘God’): ‘Tell us if thou be the Christ, the Son of God!’. The Rabbis never give the title ‘Son of God’ to the Messias (Bonsirven 1, 366 f.) and the Jewish writings about our Lord’s time are shy of it, Lagrange, Le Messianisme, 104 f. The titles ‘son of God’, ‘Christ’, are therefore probably not equivalent for Caiaphas. But the term ‘Son of God’ had been used of our Lord in his own circle. Mt 16:16; Jn 11:27, and the fact was known outside that circle, 27:39–40. It is probable that Caiaphas, aware of all this, adds the title to the term ‘Christ’ and so feels his way to a charge of blasphemy, a capital crime, Deut 13:2–6. 64. Mt’s ‘thou hast said it’ is equivalent to Mk’s ‘I am’ with a faintly ironical touch as if Caiaphas by using the terms already assumed their truth. Taking this fictional assent as starting-point our Lord proceeds to build upon it. ‘Moreover’, he says solemnly, ‘from now onwards (ἀπʼ ἄρτι, cf. 23:39) you shall be witnesses of the situation described by Daniel. ‘See’, in regard to apocalyptic vision is not so much physical vision as intellectual appreciation. The sentence is better punctuated: ‘You shall see “the Son of Man”, Dan 7:13, “sitting on the right hand of the Power” [i.e. of the Almighty; cf. Ps 109(110):1] and “coming upon the clouds of heaven” ’, Dan 7:13. This punctuation by indicating a mere juxtaposition of tableaux removes the confusion of imagery. In effect, the ‘sitting at the right hand’ and the ‘coming upon the clouds’ indicate the same thing. The twin-thrones for God and the Messias suggested by the psalm (and cf. Dan 7:9) indicate a participation in the divine administration of the world. The same idea is found in the Daniel text where one ‘like a son of man’ ‘comes’ (i.e. to the Ancient of Days for investiture, not to the earth for Judgement) riding on the clouds to receive his Kingdom. In Daniel there is no suggestion of a ‘coming’ in a distant perspective of ‘Last Judgement’: it is a question of the new Messianic era. Jesus, too, speaks of the new era which begins now (ἀπʼ ἄρτι) on earth; its glory is paradoxically inaugurated by the whole process of the Passion itself; cf. Jn 12:31–33. § h 65–66. The second of Caiaphas’s two questions (Christ? Son of God?) may have been asked after the reply of 64 as in Lk 22:66, 70. In any case, it is clear that the high-priest takes our Lord’s transcendental Messianism for capital blasphemy. Jesus, therefore, is not claiming a mild, political Messianity though Caiaphas will find the ‘Messias’ admission useful before the pagan tribunal. He tears his garments, from the neck downwards for a palm’s length, in the ritual manner prescribed for the hearing of blasphemous speech. For the religious court the case is clear, Lev 24:16; it remains to secure sentence from the procurator, 27:1. 67–68. Mt leaves us to understand that our Lord was blindfolded; cf. Mk 14:65; Lk 22:64. Those who strike him (not necessarily the Sanhedrists, even in Mt) defy him to use his prophetic or clairvoyant gifts; cf. Ac 23:2 for similar action of another high-priest.
§ i 69–75 Peter’s Denials (Mk 14:66–72; Lk 22:56–62; Jn 18:17, 25–27)—Peter is in the open-air courtyard round which the palace was built (αὐλή as in 58 but here further defined by ἔξω). Meanwhile, Jesus is on trial in an upstairs room, Mk 14:66, of the building itself. In the light of the fire, Lk 22:56, Peter is recognized by a maid; his public denial is not less real for being indirect. He moves from the light towards (εἰς) the gate and another maid (the portress?) challenges him. The denial is formal this time. Then (‘about an hour later’; Lk 22:59) Peter is once more at bay among many accusers. His Galilean dialect (confusion of the gutturals: heth ‘ayin, ’aleph; difficulty with the vowels: a, i, o) proclaims him a northerner. The third denial is emphasized by oath and straightway signalized by the crowing of the cock for the second time; cf. Mk 14:68–72. It is a bitter reminder of our Lord’s words, 26:34.
The evangelists do not, as a rule, purpose to give the exact words of speeches—of accusations and denials in this case—nor the exact order of events. From 26:34 we should expect three denials, but the combined gospel accounts suggest more by naming five different accusers at least. The solution probably lies (cf. Prat 2, 355 f.) in assigning the multiplicity of accusers to three groups only, thus:
First Denial: in the courtyard (Mt, Mk, Lk) by the fire (Mk, Lk). Accused by a maid (Mt, Mk, Lk), the portress (Jn). The cock crows for the first time (Mk). Second Denial: in the forecourt (Mk) near the door (Mt) a little later (Lk). Accused by the same maid (Mk ‘the maid’) whose accusation is supported by others (Jn) including another maid (Mt), a man (Lk). Third Denial: apparently by the fire again, a little later (Mt, Mk), after about an hour’s time (Lk). Accused by the bystanders (Mt, Mk) including another man (Lk) and a relation of Malchus (Jn). The cock crows for the second time (Mk) immediately (Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn).
§ 721a 27:1–2 Jesus and Pilate (Mk 15:1–15; Lk 23:1–25; cf. Jn 18:28–19:16).
27:1–2 Jesus delivered to Pilate (Mk 15:1; Lk 23:1; Jn 18:28)—The second meeting of the Jewish council (Luke, simplifying, records only one) was at dawn, Lk 22:66; it was evidently short because it was still early morning when Jesus reached Pilate’s residence, Jn 18:28. The meeting was held probably in the Sanhedrin’s assembly-hall (the gazith), on the southern side of the ‘court of the Israelites’. Its purpose was to pass sentence of formal condemnation in legal day-session (57–58, note) and to formulate a charge which would impress the governor. They decided upon a political one (27:11; cf. Lk 23:2). In the Roman province of Judaea only the procurator (Pontius Pilatus, a.d. 26–36) could order execution of the death-sentence (S7302B 1, 1026; cf. Holzmeister, Historia, 82–4). Normally resident at Caesarea Palestinae, the procurator established his military headquarters (‘praetorium’) in Jerusalem for the dangerous periods of the great feasts. In the year of Christ’s death at least this praetorium was probably established in the Antonia, the fortress abutting on the NW. corner of the temple-enclosure.
b 3–5 Fate of Judas (cf. Ac 1:18–20)—The whole incident, 3–10, presented parenthetically, serves to underline the Sanhedrin’s contempt for justice and the hypocrisy of its members. 3–5. Mt’s ‘then’, as so often, is vague—the time may be after the condemnation by Pilate. Possibly Judas had thought that the evidence would prove insufficient for condemnation or possibly his crime came home to him only when he saw its fruit and handled the bribe. Filled with remorse (not true ‘repentance’ because empty of hope) he sought to dissociate himself from the affair by proclaiming his Master’s innocence. The unscrupulous cynicism of the judges showed the attempt hopeless and drove him to a desperate decision. The money was now worse than useless; he flung it down in (εἰς) the temple (ναός, a word which, to judge from its use in Jn 2:20, may include the temple buildings such as the gazith). The place of his suicide is unknown.
§ c 27:6–10 Scruples of the Unscrupulous (Mt only)—6–8. The Law, Deut 23:18, forbade the price of chastity to be put to sacred use; the Sanhedrists now extend the principle to blood-money—it must not be put into the temple-treasury (qorbānā’, Aram. ‘offering’). With it they buy ‘Pottersfield’ (hitherto a well-known name, evidently, and doubtless so called because it contained potter’s clay); thenceforth it was called in Aramaic ḥaqēl demā’ ‘field of blood’ because bought with blood-money, but cf. Ac 1:18 f. This cemetery for strangers (probably Jews who died on pilgrimage in Jerusalem—pagans were the Romans’ affair) lay on the southern slope of the Hinnom valley. § d 9–10. Mt, as usual, hastens to associate the OT with the event; cf. Zach 11:12–13; Jer 18:2–4; 19:1–2; 32:7–9. The prophet Zacharias, a true shepherd of Israel, is assessed by the false shepherds, the political authorities, at the mean price of thirty pieces. It is an insult to God whom Zacharias represents. ‘Throw it to the potter! [i.e. to the cheap shop] a fine price at which to be assessed by them!’. The words are God’s. The striking similarity of situation and the concurrence of the ‘thirty pieces’ with ‘the potter’ call Mt’s attention to a text which he freely adapts, apparently from the Hebrew text: ‘And they [the priests—the prophet himself, ‘I’, in H7303T of Zach] took the thirty pieces of silver, the assessment at which he was assessed [lit7304. ‘of one assessed’]—they were of Israel who assessed him—and gave them to the potter’s field’ (Zach ‘and I threw them into the potter’s workshop’; trans. Van Hoonacker). Mt adds, in Zacharias’s name, ‘as the Lord directed me’, betraying the original ‘I’ of the preceding verbs in H7305T. In so doing he underlines the fact that the hand of God was in the first situation and therefore prepares us for a higher, Messianic, significance. The Rabbis, too, applied the passage messianically but the thirty pieces of silver become the thirty precepts given by Moses to Israel, Edershei7306m 2, 736. The attribution of the text to Jeremias, strongly supported by the MSS (though Ta; 33; Φ; 157; a; b; syrsin; peš. omit ‘Jeremias’) is strange. It is possible, however, that the text is a fusion of Zach and Jer. Jer 32 recounts the purchase of a field, symbolic of confidence in Judah’s rehabilitation; Jer 19:11 has a curious rapprochement of the potter’s vessel and Hinnom; Jer 18 tells of a visit to a potter of which (according to Van Hoonacker, Les Douze Petits Prophètes, Paris 1908, 677) the text in Zach is an ‘adaptation’. In this case, Mt assigns the text to Jer (as Mk 1:2–3 assigns a composite Is-Mal text to Is only) as being the more ‘important’ prophet or as heading the fifteen prophets in the Jewish canon of the time (S7307B 1, 1029 f.; for this opinion cf. Knabenbauer, Buzy, Bover, W7308V, KN7309T, etc.). § e If the reminiscence of Jer seem too slight to make this view acceptable, it still does not follow that formal error is to be attributed to the evangelist himself. Indeed, according to Lagrange, Mt, 515, it is ‘psychologically improbable’ that the evangelist, who appears to have adjusted a Hebrew text which he had in front of him, could have made such a mistake. From purely rational considerations, therefore, it is not improbable that the name of the prophet was inserted by an early copyist misled by the faint echoes of Jer. It has been recently suggested (G. Courtade, S.J., DB7310V (S) 4, 542) that, in any hypothesis, the principle of inerrancy remains untouched since the mind of the evangelist (?) is not formally to teach the derivation of the prophecy from Jeremias, he merely uses the name ‘Jeremias’ en passant ‘without guaranteeing its exactitude’. Augustine’s explanation, P7311L 34, 1175, is not dissimilar: he concedes that the use of the name may have been an initial inadvertence of the evangelist which, however, subserved the purpose of the Holy Spirit who wished to inculcate the unity of the prophets. In this case, the categoric statement of the inspired writer which is guaranteed by inspiration is: ‘It was said by one of the prophets’; to this he adds, equivalently: ‘by Jeremias, I think’.
§ f 11–26 Jesus before Pilate (Mk 15:2–15; Lk 23:2–5, 18:25, Jn 18:28–40; 19:1–15)—The scene is Pilate’s praetorium, the residence of the commander-in-chief with adjoining barracks. In this year it was apparently established not in the palace of Archelaus, the dispossessed Herodian, but in the Antonia; cf. 2, § 721a. Jn 19:13 names the place of judgement ‘Lithostrotos’ ‘paved place’ and ‘Gabbatha’ ‘eminence’. The terms admirably fit the recently excavated court attached to the Antonia: it is a paved space more than 50 yards square and occupies the highest point of the city’s eastern side; cf. Jn 19:13, note. 11–14. The interview takes place on some terrace of the Antonia looking on the street since the Jewish leaders are present but do not enter the building, Jn 18:28. The accusation is a political one (the ‘tribute’ question; cf. Lk 23:2) prejudicing the title ‘king of the Jews’ to which, however, our Lord does not refuse claim (‘Thou sayest it’, cf. 26:64, note). John’s fuller account, 18:33–38, explains how Pilate, despite the claim to kingship, remains unconvinced of our Lord’s guilt—a kingdom of ‘truth’ (whatever that be! cf. Jn 18:38) is not a political entity within Pilate’s competence. Our Lord answered none of the accusations; calumny’s best answer is silence. § g 15–18. Pilate is impressed and seeks to apply the Roman abolitio (suspension of criminal proceedings) in our Lord’s favour. Such a concession was made on certain festal occasions (κατὰ δὲ ἑορτὴν) in the provinces (cf. the papyrus of a.d. 80 for a similar occurrence in Egypt, Papiri Fiorentini 1, Milan 1906, 113). Pilate offers the one alternative (there were others possible, cf. Mk 15:7) of the murderer Barabbas (‘Jesus Barabbas’ is a probable reading; cf. Vaganay, Textual Criticism of the New Testament, London 1937, 193–6). The contrast, he thinks, will decide the case in favour of Jesus Christ. He appeals to the people because he has been informed, reliably enough, that the cause of our Lord’s arrest was precisely the leaders’ envy of his popularity with them. 19. (Mt only). For the evangelist the incident of Pilate’s wife (Claudia Procula by name according to the apocryphal gospels) underlines the malice of Israel—a pagan woman pleads the cause of Jesus against his own people. For Pilate it confirms his own uneasy wonder by thickening the atmosphere of mystery. For the Jewish leaders it provides an opportunity of organizing their supporters. § h 20–23. The modern technique of mob-management shows how a multitude, even well-disposed, can yield to a vociferous and violent minority—moreover, Barabbas was suffering for a nationalist cause, Mk 15:7, and would have noisy supporters among the crowd. 24–25. By an action familiar to Jews, Deut 21:6, and Gentiles, Herod 1:33, Pilate disclaims responsibility, saying: ‘I am innocent of this blood’ (W7312V). It is an act rather of private superstition than of public administration. This latter Pilate is as impotent to decline as the Jews are powerless to assume. It is before God and not before Tiberius that the Jews take responsibility upon themselves and their descendants. 26. Mt omits Pilate’s further attempt to release our Lord after the scourging, Jn 19:4–15. The scourge was normally the prelude of the cross. Its leathern thongs usually carried pieces of bone and metal. The naked victim’s hands were tied to a low column; this bent position made the executioner’s work easier and more efficient. In Roman practice the number of blows was limited only by the endurance or taste of the executioner. It was not uncommon for victims to die under the lash.
§ 722a 27–30 The Mockery (Mk 15:16–20; cf. Jn 19:2–3)—27–28. Our Lord is brought from the paved outer court into the praetorium properly so called, i.e. to an inner court of the Antonia, Mk 15:16, which appears to be that in which the barracks were placed. Only the off-duty men of the cohort would be present (the ‘cohort’, σπεῖρα—there were five in Judaea, one permanently resident in the Antonia—was larger in the minor provinces of the empire than the ‘cohort’ which formed part of a ‘legion’; it mustered sometimes nearly one thousand men). Our Lord has evidently been allowed to dress after the scourging, but now his outer garments at least are replaced by a crimson military cloak symbolizing ironically the imperial purple, Mk 15:17. 29–30. The emphasis is on the ridicule rather than on the pain of the crowning. The ‘thorn’ is, with some probability, the poterium spinosum which abounds about Jerusalem and was used then, as now, for firewood; its spikes are slender. The form of the ‘crown’ may have been that of a head-dress, as in the 2nd cent. representation in the Catacomb of Praetextatus, though the phrase πλέξαντες στέφανον suggests a fillet; but cf. R7313B 42 (1933) 230–4; DA7314C 5, 4141; 1150. The earliest (5th cent.) representations of the Crucified show him without the crown; it was perhaps laid aside with the reed (his ‘sceptre’).
§ b 31–32 The Way to Calvary (Mk 15:21; Lk 23:26–32; Jn 19:17a)—31. Jesus carried his own cross, Jn 19:17, from the praetorium, 31, until the procession left the town, 32. The shape of this cross is not certainly known. The X, Y and T forms were in use, but in our Lord’s case the T-shape with upward prolongation of the vertical (crux immissa) is witnessed by the best authority (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 2, 24, 4) and leaves room for an inscription ‘over his head’, 37. The transverse beam was called the patibulum and, in Rome at least, it was customary for the criminal to carry only this beam. This may be true of our Lord; the σταυρός of Jn 19:17 may mean patibulum only. In the middle of the upright was usually a small block to serve as a seat and so take some weight from the hands which were sometimes bound to the patibulum, but usually nailed, as in our Lord’s case; cf. Jn 20:25, 27; Lk 24:39. In Christian art the seat has become a foot-support, doubtless for aesthetic reasons. There is no reason to think that our Lord’s feet were nailed together: all representations of the Crucified up to the 12th cent. show them nailed separately. (But cf. Barnes, The Holy Shroud of Turin, London 1934.) 32. Simon, born in Cyrene (N. Africa; a town with a large Jewish colony) is conscripted (ἀγγαρεύω, i.e. to press into governmental service) into carrying the cross in place of our Lord (cf. Lk 23:26, note) who seems to have collapsed. § c 33–34 Crucifixion and Derision (Mk 15:22–32; Lk 23:33–43; Jn 19:17b–27)—33. Golgotha (simplified form of Aramaic gulgoltā’ ‘skull’; Latin ‘calvaria’) was the name for the mound, rising about 15 ft. from the surrounding soil, just outside the city-walls (cf. Vincent & Abel, Jérusalem Nouvelle, 89–300) and about half a mile from the Antonia. 34. It was the custom for pious women (S7315B 1, 1037 f.) to administer narcotics to condemned criminals. The ‘gall’ (χολή) of Mt is used, as in LX7316X, in a general sense: bitter drug (more precisely ‘myrrh’, cf. Mk 15:23). Our Lord refuses the alleviation. 35. The soldiers take their customary perquisite of the criminal’s possessions, but Mt (strangely) does not call attention to this fulfilment of Ps 21 (22):19, though the text has been imported into Mt by some few MSS from Jn 19:24 and is found in V7317g and D7318V. 37. The exact form of the inscription is not known (four different forms are found in the four gospels) but would certainly include the name of the crucified and the charge (‘cause’): Jesus, the ‘king of the Jews’; this proves too laconic for the chief priests’ liking. 38. The episode of the brigands (λῃσταί), like the gesture and words of the passers-by and the mockery of the priests are all verbally reminiscent of OT passages (Is 53:12, cf. Lk 22:37; Ps 21 [22]:8; Wisd 2:13, 18; Ps 21 [22], 9) but in no case does Mt remark the fact. 39–40. Criminals were usually crucified by the roadside for a warning. The passers-by railed at him, tossing their heads (W7319V), i.e. in derision (‘Vah’, οὐά, is a cry of ironic admiration ‘Ha!’; it is absent from the Greek text of Mt but present in Mk 15:29). 41–44. Representatives of the Sanhedrin are there to see their work carried to its conclusion. Unlike the vulgar public they do not hurl their taunts directly at the Crucified. They (or Mt, interpreting their thoughts) use the words by which the sufferer is mocked in Ps 21 (22):9.
§ d 27:45–50 Death (Mk 15:33–37; Lk 23:44–46; Jn 19:28–30)—45. From noon until three in the afternoon darkness covers Jerusalem and its horizon (not ‘the whole inhabited earth’—ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τήν οἰκουμένην, but ‘the whole land’—ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, cf. Ex 10:22; Prat 2, 409). It is clear that the evangelist thinks of a miraculous event; possibly the frequent April ‘black sirocco’ occurred in this year with miraculous intensity (Pirot, La Sainte Bible, ix, Paris 1946, 596). The miracle should have reminded the scribes of the darkness associated with the great day of God’s judgement in the prophetic writings (Jl 2:10; Am 8:9; Is 13:10; Jer 15:9). 46. ’Elî ’Elî lemāh šeḇaqtānî are the opening words in Aramaic (’Elî is the Hebrew form also) of Ps 21 (22). Doubtless our Lord continues the psalm in silence. The fact that the words are a quotation removes the dogmatic difficulty. The psalm is not a cry of despair but, on the contrary, a hymn of supreme confidence in God despite profound suffering. As in our Lord’s case the divine ‘forsaking’ in the psalm is no more than a poetical expression of acute physical and mental pain to which God has ‘abandoned’ the psalmist without, however, having ‘turned his face away’, Ps 21 (22):2, 25. In our Lord’s mouth, indeed, the words are not even a complaint because his intention is simply to show that the fruitful martyrdom of the innocent psalmist was a shadow of his own; cf. NR7320T 70 (1948) 137–49. It is worth noting, however, that the mental shock that the words, coming from the God-man, must produce, powerfully argues the fidelity of the evangelists who ran this risk in the interests of honest report. § e It will be observed that in our explanation of this quotation on our Lord’s lips the question does not formally arise of his enjoyment of the beatific vision even during the passion (the common opinion of theologians). That the uninterrupted beatific vision in the highest faculty of the soul is compatible with bodily, mental and even spiritual suffering (e.g. the uselessness of his passion for some souls) becomes clear to our intellect, not to our imagination, if we remember that the formal object of the vision and the formal object of the suffering are different. Compare the simultaneous joy and sorrow of a parent whose son leaves home to become a priest. (And cf. § 720d.) 47–49. Misunderstanding (deliberately?) the ’Elî, articulated with the difficulty of a dying man, the Jews, 47, 49, think or affect to think that this ‘Messias’ may have his precursor-Elias at hand; 17:10 ff., notes. A soldier, moistening a sponge with the sour wine (posca) of his flask, places the sponge on the end of a long reed (or javelin? cf. Jn 19:29, note). He was moistening our Lord’s lips with it (ἐπότιζεν); others, apparently Jews, adopting the Elias-jest, bid him to desist—not wishing to spoil the atmosphere of empty expectation. In Mk 15:36 the soldier, too, weakly makes his compassionate action part of the joke. 50. At about three in the afternoon when, a few hundred yards away, the paschal lambs of the old rite were being slain in the temple, the Lamb of God died; cf. 1 Cor 5:7. His last cry was loud and clear. Lk 23:46 tells us what it was: ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit’.
§ f 51–54 Prodigies after the Death of Jesus (Mk 15:38–41; Lk 23:45b, 47–49)—51. The veil of the temple (ναός) may be the curtain of the inmost sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, of the appearance of which nothing certain is known; or possibly the enormous and elaborate curtain to the outer sanctuary, the Holy Place; cf. Jos., BJ, 5, 5, 4. If the first, the priests, many of whom were converted, Ac 6:7, could verify and report the prodigy. The symbolism seems to favour this inner veil, Heb 10:20 f.; cf. 9:7, 25. If God used secondary causes (Mt does not say) we may possibly think of the gale, miraculous now in intensity, that dissipates the black sirocco of spring, 27:45, note. 52–53. The earth, too, was torn (Mt, alone, mentions the earthquake) and opened some of the rock-tombs: vertical earthquake-fissures are still to be seen in the rock of Calvary (Vincent & Abel, Jérusalem, 2, 186). It seems probable that the bodily resurrection and apparition of many dead just ones did not occur until after our Lord’s resurrection (cf. 1 Cor 15:20–23) and that it is mentioned here because the earthquake prepared their exit from the tombs. 54. The manner of our Lord’s death, the darkness, the earthquake, all impress the pagan guards. They confess the justice of the title ‘Son of God’ with which they had heard Christ’s foes ironically taunt him, 27:40, 43, however little they may realize all this title holds.
§ g 55–56 The Holy Women (Mk 15:40–41; Lk 23:49)—The Galilean women stood watching from some distance: Mary of Magdala (el-Mejdel on the lakeside 7321c 3 m. N. of Tiberias) whom our Lord had exorcized, Lk 8:2; Mary, mother of James (the ‘Less’) and of Joseph, 13:53–54, note; the mother of the sons of Zebedee (20:20, note) probably the ‘Salome’ of Mk 15:40.
§ h 57–61 Burial (Mk 15:42–47; Lk 23:50–56; Jn 19:38–42)—57–58. The sacred body had to be removed and buried before the first stars announced the beginning of the Sabbath, Jn 19:31. It would be about four o’clock in the afternoon when Joseph, sympathetic throughout to our Lord, Lk 23:51, approached Pilate to whom, as an influential member of the Sanhedrin, Mk 15:43, he would have access. He was of Arimathea (Ramathaim; cf. 1 Kg 1:1, 19 etc.) 7322c 12 m. N. of Lydda. 59–61. He had purchased a worthy linen shroud, Mk 15:46, and Nicodemus, Jn 3:1–15, had bought a quantity of spices, Jn 19:39, to place on the shroud and round the body. In the presence of the women, and doubtless with their help, they laid Jesus in Joseph’s own unused tomb about fifty yards from the cross. The more well-to-do Jews cut the family tomb in the rock, usually on the side of a slope; a low entrance closed by a thick disc of stone led to the vestibule which in turn led to the tomb proper by a small communicating cavity. Joseph’s tomb had one shelf on the right of the entrance, Mk 16:5, for the reception of the body. For a description of the contemporary tombs of Abu Gosh cf. R7323B 34 (1925) 275–9. The two Marys (56; cf. Mk 15:47) remained. Others of the holy women prepared spices for a further and less hurried anointing, Lk 24:1.
§ i 62–66 The Tomb-Guard (Mt only)—A night passes—the night of Friday, the ‘parasceve’ or ‘preparation-day’ of the Sabbath. On the Saturday there is no formal meeting of the Sanhedrin (Mt does not mention ‘ancients’) but it occurs to a few of the priests and Pharisees that the dead ‘impostor’ promised his resurrection after three days; cf. 12:40. The disciples must be prevented from removing the body during these crucial three days. The first ‘imposture’—our Lord’s claim to Messiahship and more—had been effectively answered by crucifixion; the second (resurrection, possibly to be alleged by the disciples) would be more difficult to counter should the body be stolen. Pilate, who sounds tired of the whole affair, allows the Jews to use their supporting posse of Roman troops (cf. Jn 18:12) for the guardianship of the tomb. The stone is then joined to the surrounding rock, presumably by means of a tape and the official seal.
§ 723a G. 28:1–20 The Resurrection and after—The women see the angel and the empty tomb, 1–8; the Magdalen sees the risen Christ, 9–10; the tomb-guards are bribed into silence, 11–15; the Eleven meet our Lord in Galilee, 16–17, and from him they receive the universal mission, 18–20.
1–8 The Empty Tomb; the Angel (Mk 16:1–9; Lk 24:1–9; cf. Jn 20:1)—1. The sabbath-rest was observed, Lk 23:56. When the Sabbath was over (ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων: after the sabbath; W7324V) as the sky was lightening towards sunrise on ‘the first day of the week’ (Sunday; cf. S7325B 1, 1052) the women (Mk 16:1; Lk 24:10) including Mary the Magdalen and Mary the mother of James, 27:56, came to watch at the tomb (Mt) with a view, no doubt, to completing the hasty anointing of Friday, Mk 16:1, Lk 24:1. 2–4. Before their arrival as it seems (2–4 are probably parenthetical) a considerable earth-tremor declared the advent of the angel in human form. His purpose was to declare the physical Resurrection of Christ and to confirm his message by the spectacle of the empty tomb. He therefore rolled away the stone not to enable the already risen Christ to emerge (cf. Jn 20:19, 26) but to allow the women to enter. Mt gives the impression that the angel was still seated on the stone when they arrived but that he preceded them into the tomb (ἐκάθητο, δεῦτε ἵδετε). Terror made the guards powerless to interfere; it is probable that they made off citywards before the coming of the women since the angel and the women ignore them completely and there is no trace of their presence in Mk 16:1–8 or Lk 24:1–8; and see on Mt 28:11. § b 5–8. But for the women (true seekers of the crucified one) there was no cause for such terror (‘Fear not you’—emphatic). The Lord’s promise was fulfilled; cf. 16:21; 17:22; 20:19. Escorted by the angel they saw the empty tomb for themselves. The physical body had risen. Now they were to tell the disciples that the risen Christ would be found in Galilee. (7 is better punctuated thus: ‘… say to his disciples: “He is risen and behold he will go before you into Galilee [will be there when you, his disciples, arrive]; there you shall see him”. Lo, I have told you’ i.e. There, that is all; Joüon). It is possible that the verb ‘go before’ (προάγειν) is to be translated ‘lead, conduct’ (Braun, Jésus, Paris 1947, 190–4) in which case Mt clearly supposes that our Lord appeared to the disciples in Judaea. But in any case it is Mt’s plan to describe only the Galilean episode. By a kind of factual ‘inclusion’ (§ 702), he presents Galilee as the starting-place of the universal mission as it had been the starting-place, 4:12–16, of the first, restricted preaching of the Kingdom. Hence he is careful, unlike Lk and Jn, to report the angel’s message concerning the Galilean rendezvous and to reinforce it, 10, with our Lord’s instruction to the same effect.
§ c 9–10 Magdalen and the Risen Christ (cf. Mk 16:9–11; Jn 20:11–18)—Some Catholic authors identify this apparition, the first mentioned by Mt, with the apparition to Magdalen alone, Jn 20:11–18. In this hypothesis Mt attributes to the women-group (as opposed to the ‘brethren ‘in 10; i.e. the disciples; cf. 12:49) what happened to their single representative. Such a ‘plural of category’ is perhaps not unfamiliar to Mt; cf. 2:20; 24:8; 27:44; Levesque, R7326B 25 (1916) 13–16. The identification would also explain Lk 24:22–24 where it seems that the women had reported no more than the angel and the empty tomb. Other Catholic authors (e.g. Bover, SJ, El Evangelio de San Mateo, Barcelona 1946, 518–20) oppose the identification and explain (cf. Buzy, Mt, 384) that 9 refers to a second visit of the women (without Magdalen). Whatever the solution, it must take account of the extreme telescoping of Mt’s last chapter.
§ d 11–15 The Guard bribed (Mt only)—As the women were still on their way, certain of the guard were in touch with the priests. It is probable that the guard had already left for the city before the women arrived at the tomb; 28:2–4, note. The Gk tenses used do not contradict this suggestion (‘whilst they [the women] were on their way [from the tomb] the guards having reached the city told …’). The situation of the guards is awkward: the true, supernatural, explanation of their discomfiture would be laughed at in a court martial. The priests, therefore, have no difficulty in bribing them to suppress an explanation that would have been useless in any case. The main point of the priests’ instruction was the alleged theft by the disciples. This the soldiers agreed to and this story became the current explanation in Jewish circles; cf. 15 and Justin, Contra Tryphonem, 108. The ‘sleep’ excuse is thrown out carelessly as a suggestion. It could be used only before the general public; clearly if it came to an official inquiry (14: ‘if the case should be brought before the Governor’) sleeping on duty would be no adequate excuse. The priests undertake, in this case, to bribe in high places (for πείθω ‘persuade’ in this sense, cf. 2 Mac 4:45; 10:20).
§ e 28:16–17 Galilee: Apparition to the Eleven (Mk 16:15–18)—The Eleven remained in Jerusalem until the end of paschal week, Jn 20:26, when, naturally, they went back to their homes with the assurance, 7, 16, that they were not leaving the risen Christ in Jerusalem. Mt is aware of the fact (though, like the other evangelists, he does not report Christ’s own words) that our Lord had indicated a particular ‘mountain’ in Galilee. The ‘mountain’ is doubtless the high ground above the Lake (as in 5:1; 14:23; 15:29)—perhaps, fittingly, the hill of the Discourse which inaugurated the Kingdom, 5:1. ‘Some doubted’, says Mt. It is probable that he is simply recording a fact (mentioned by the other evangelists, Mk 16:11, 13, 14; Lk 24:11, 21 ff.; Jn 20:25) without reference to this particular occasion. The reason may lie in the summary nature of Mt’s final chapter (Buzy) or possibly the phrase is to be translated: ‘they, the very ones who had doubted, adored’; cf. Abel, Grammaire du Grec Biblique (Paris 1927) 119.
§ f 18–20 The Universal Mission (Mk 16:15–18)—18. The obedience unto death of the man-Christ has resulted in the Resurrection which constitutes his formal investiture as king of the kingdom of heaven and earth, cf. Phil 2:8 f. Sovereign powers were his before (11:27; cf. Jn 3:35), a necessary consequence of the Incarnation, but now the Son of Man has formally taken possession of his throne, Dan 7:14. The Resurrection inaugurates the new and worldwide epoch of the Kingdom. The Kingdom has come ‘in power’. 19. Consequently (οὖν) the old restriction of apostolic preaching, 10:5 f., is abrogated. Enrolment of disciples (μαθητεύσατε; D7327V ‘teach ye’), baptism, religious and moral instruction are for Gentiles also. The exact conditions of Gentile-reception will cause difficulty later (cf. Ac 15) but the principle is already clear. The rite of enrolment is baptism according to Mt (all MSS and versions) and Mk 16:16, and indeed the rigorous and universal practice of the early Church is explainable only by the historical fact of Christ’s command. ‘In the name of, is not ‘on the authority of’ (ἐν τῶ ὀνόματι; cf. Ac 2:38; 10:48) but ‘by way of consecration to’ (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα). By baptism ‘the neophyte becomes the property, and therefore the protégé, of the person named’. It therefore seems probable (Prat 2, 567) that the Trinitarian formula was necessary for the efficacy of the rite, and it is attested early in the 2nd cent. (Didache, 7:1; Justin, Apol. 1:61). It is possible, however, that our Lord is not prescribing the exact formula to be used but describing the effects of the rite—consecration to the blessed Trinity; cf. Lebreton, History of the Dogma of the Trinity, 1, 439. 20. Faith and ritual are not sufficient. There are obligations of the moral order. ‘In a few words our Lord initiates a regime hitherto unknown to the ancient peoples: a doctrine not only religious but, at the same time, moral’, Lagrange, Mt, 545. His precepts and his spirit are known to the Apostles who will, nevertheless, need the light and force of his presence in the hard days ahead. These will be with them until the era of the Messias on earth draws to its close. The promise has held good for two thousand years.