"Passion" fails to nail key point

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 3/5/04 | Andrew Greeley

[walden]

'Passion' fails to nail key point

March 5, 2004

BY ANDREW GREELEY

'The Passion of the Christ'' is a celebration of the bloody suffering of Jesus, a fundamentalist interpretation by a man who rejects the Vatican Council. It is not, contrary to claims, a literal interpretation of St. John's Gospel but is based on the ''revelations'' of a 19th century mystic. It is a film about torture, legitimated because it is the torture of Jesus. ''Passion'' is a glorification of sado-masochism.

For most of the first millennium of Christian history, the church spread a veil of modest discretion over the physical suffering of Jesus. It respected the privacy of his final hours and celebrated the empty crucifix as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus (an event that is noted only weakly and vaguely in Mel Gibson's conclusion). The Greek churches even to this day resist sensationalist presentations of the suffering of Jesus. However, in the Middle Ages, the Western church gradually put the corpus back on the cross, though it did not present Jesus as naked, as he in fact would have been. The cult of the physical suffering of Jesus became especially strong during the Renaissance. It was not always a completely healthy devotion as the cult of the flagellants demonstrated.

Crucifixion was a cruel form of execution. After the slave revolution of Sparticus, 30,000 slaves were crucified along the Apian Way. The death of Jesus was not unique in its cruelty, however horrible it may have been. Whether our modern methods of execution are any more humane might be an open question. It was typical of everything in the life of Jesus that he chose to be united in his death with the poor and the oppressed, a point Gibson seems to have missed.

Those religious conservatives who seem to delight in how much Jesus suffered are certainly correct that his sufferings were terrible. Those who say the sufferings were absolutely unique to him simply display their own ignorance of history.

Gibson showed his hand in his interview with Diane Sawyer when he said that because the gates of heaven were closed by the sin of our first parents, Jesus had to suffer to open them again. This metaphor, which my generation heard often in grammar school, is a poor adaptation of the teaching of St. Anselm, who proposed that the suffering of Jesus paid the blood price to satisfy God and free us from our sins. Anselm's theology is not Catholic faith. It has caused a lot of misunderstanding among Catholics who absorbed it in their youth.

One may wonder what kind of God it would be who would demand such a price from his beloved son. Is this the same kind of implacably forgiving God whom Jesus preached about in his life?

We all must suffer; we all must die. Death, no matter how brief or how protracted, is horrible. Do those who die after a prolonged battle with cancer die any less horribly than Jesus? What does his death say to all of us who must die? One will watch ''The Passion of the Christ'' in vain for any hint of an answer to that question.

The lesson of Good Friday, properly understood, is that God suffers with us. Like every good parent, he suffers when his children suffer. When Jesus hung on the cross, God (the person was the Second Person of the Trinity) made common cause with the Iraqi peasant shot in the back and tossed into the pit to be consumed by fire. God cannot prevent our sufferings, but he suffers with us.

Isn't God above all suffering? One can only reply that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures presents himself as suffering with his people. Good Friday is good precisely because on that day God identified himself with his people. ''Christ,'' as Annie Dillard writes, ''hangs on the cross, as it were, forever, always incarnate and always nailed.''

That fundamental flaw that St. Paul describes as the struggle between what we want to do and what we actually do (and which St. Augustine dubbed ''original sin'') is our fear of our own mortality. We do those things that we know we shouldn't do because we are afraid of death. On Good Friday, God did not take away death, but he did absorb our God-forsakenness and promise that when it is time to die, he will die once again with us.

[dangus]

Well, he is *only* a priest, and he's only news because the liberal screw-heads in the press love him. It's the heretical *bishops* which I find so troubling.

[dangus]

... besides, anyone who *wants* to know what the Catholic church stands for can always check with the saints, the catechism, the councils... and of course, their source.

[heyheyhey]

"Passion" fails to nail key point
Does anybody else find that title offensive? The key point was Jesus and, yes, He did get nailed. Bad, offensive title...

I agree, it's a terrible title by Greeley - a Catholic priest. He should not make a joke out of Our Lord's salvific Passion.

[Destro]

The flaw of "The Passion" is its lack of Greek - done on purpose because of the hostility Gibson's brand of Catholic has towards the Greek rite of the faith. The said is a "graffitio" from Roman times from some anti-Christian Roman soldiers making fun of a Christian is not written in Latin but in Greek.

The first part says either the Greek (note the use of the lamda) Ale for Olous in English All the second part reads to me as "Ellinas" or Greeks so in English "All Greeks" or it is the name "Alexandros" the second part CEBETE (the C is pronounced as an s) is the Greek word for respects or worships the last part I can't make out.

The graphiti is in Greek not Latin.

[Destro]

The very first surviving picture of the crucifixion comes from second century Rome:

a)Graffiti on the Palatine Hill in Rome

b) Now in the Kircherian Museum in Rome

c) The graffiti depicts a stick man standing beside a cross, hand raised in worship, and on the cross is a man with the head of a donkey!

d) The scribbled words (misspelled like much graffiti often is) reads: Alexamenos cebete (sic, sebete) Theon

e) “Alexamenos (Alexander) worships God.”

f) Christianity depicted as the worship of an ass by only reprobates and fools.

[heyheyhey]

because of the hostility Gibson's brand of Catholic has towards the Greek rite of the faith

I've never encountered a shred of any such "hostility" in modern times. In fact, His Holiness John Paul II speaks of "the two lungs of the Church - Greek (East) and Latin (West)."

At least do a little research before posting revelations.

[Destro]

Gibson is not in communion with the Pope in Rome - I said Gibson's brand of Catholicisim - the so called Traditionalist Catholics.

[Destro]

Extremely rare and valuable books THE ENEMY IS HERE! and IS THE POPE CATHOLIC? by Hutton Gibson, the father of movie actor Mel Gibson

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Is there any historical writing which can be shown to "prove" that Pilate spoke Greek or Latin in carrying out his administration?

Were Roman Legionaires (not the auxilliares, but Legionaires) at that time not all from Italy? Did Italian Plebes speak Latin or Greek?

[AnAmericanMother]

You won't find any official Roman records written in Greek - private correspondence, yes, on occasion, but not official materials. From an administrative point of view, it is likely that Pilate spoke Latin to his subordinates as well. The educated upper classes of Rome spoke Greek as a matter of cultural superiority - but I don't think they would have used it in administration any more than a British Colonial would have spoken Latin to his subordinates.

Also, the Greek of the Eastern Mediterranean was not the classical Greek on which the Romans plumed themselves, but the koine Greek that was a merchants' lingua franca. Might be sort of like my French-speaking friend whose French did NOT go in Haiti . . . Creole is French based but she couldn't understand word one.

This is from memory, but if I recall correctly, two of the cohorts assigned to Palestine at the time were from Italian legions, one was a locally raised auxiliary. The X Fretensis was the legion that was stationed in Jerusalem permanently; others came and went. Auxiliary troops did not as a general rule wear the same uniforms as the legionaries, however.

[Destro]

Is there any historical writing which can be shown to "prove" that Pilate spoke Greek or Latin in carrying out his administration?

THE COINS OF PONTIUS PILATE

They are not really beautiful, or truly rare, nor are they of very great monetary value. Yet these apparently modest coins carry in their weight an era and an act which would have immense consequence to the history of the world. Indeed, they are closely associated with three basic factors which saw the foundation of Christianity :

1 - The temporal proximity : Most modern experts agree in recognising that the year now designated 30 C.E. marked the trial and the death of Jesus. Given that time-frame, Pilate's coins were minted in 29, 30 and 31 C.E.

2 - The geographic proximity : The most credible hypothesis indicates that these particular coins where struck in Jerusalem, the city in which the significant events took place.

3 - The human proximity : Pontius Pilate himself designed and put the coins into circulation, and of course he was the man who conducted the trial and ordered the crucifixion of Jesus.

Pilate's coins are Roman coins, the words on them are Greek, they were circulated in Judea, and today they are to be found distributed among world-wide collectors after having spent 2000 years buried in the earth. They were minted and used during a period which produced an event destined to change the face of the world, and issued at the command of one of the principal actors in that event. An amazing and dramatic destiny for apparently such humble and unassuming little coins !

For 35 years Pilate's coins were passed from hand to hand every day. They knew the scent of spice-stalls, heard the merchants' ranting, smelled the sweat and dust of daily works. They were alive to the sounds of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin voices ­ now haggling over a price, now offering prayers to YHVH, Jesus or Jupiter.

THE TEXTS

The legends on Pontius Pilate's coins are written in Greek. Judea, governed by the Ptolemy dynasty (301 to 198 B.C.E) then by the Syrians until 63 B.C.E, came under the same powerful influence of the Hellenic culture which touched the other territories of the ancient Persian Empire won by Alexander the Great. In spite of a certain amount of resistance, this Hellenistic heritage eventually crept into every aspect of daily life. Apart from the dates, the texts on Pilate's coinage consisted of only three different words : - TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC (Of Tiberius Emperor) on all three coins; - IOYLIA KAICAPOC (Empress Julia) added to the coin of year 29.

[Destro]

You won't find any official Roman records written in Greek - private correspondence, yes, on occasion, but not official materials.

You spoke too soon - see above # 52

[heyheyhey]

You are trying so hard. :)

[Destro]

...actually it was easy. These Pilate coins are famous and easily affordable. Some can imagine that these coins may have been among the coins Jesus himself scattered when he overturned the tables of the money changers.

[AnAmericanMother]

Roman coins of small denominations (and these look like quadrans (Roman) or obols (Greek) - very tiny copper coins) were minted in the provinces and used by the common people. They naturally had inscriptions in the local languages and pictures of the local gods. You'll find pictures of Serapis and Isis on Roman Egyptian coins, etc. In the entire east, the coinage was based on the Greek system of 1 drachma = 1 Roman denarius.

But a coin is not an "official record" - it's a medium of exchange.

[Destro]

But a coin is not an "official record" - it's a medium of exchange.

That is wrong. If you dared deface Roman money you would find yourself in the custody of the local cohort because you defaced an official symbol of the Emperor and the Empire. Remember the Jesus' remarks about who the money belonged to?

In any case, that was not the question. In the above you have physical proof that when Pilate himself designed the local coin of the realm the language he used for the legend was Greek. Thus indicating that historical writing does exist which can be shown to "prove" that Pilate spoke Greek in carrying out his administration, as per Hermann's question.

[heyheyhey]

These Pilate coins are famous and easily affordable.

The one and only known historical non-Biblical evidence of Pilate's existence is ancient inscription in stone found in Caesarea 1961.

Greek coins could have been used along with all other coins in the ancient world. There is good information about old coins here.

When the Jews tested Jesus He said to them, "'Show Me a denarius. Whose likeness (image) and inscription does it have?' And they said, 'Caesar's'" (Luke 20:24; also Matt. 22:19-21; Mark 12:15-16)

[AnAmericanMother]

No, it doesn't prove anything but the usual Roman accommodation to the locals in issuing coins for local use.

This was done all over the Empire - which is why I mentioned Egypt. Of course Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemies, who WERE Greek, and the Romans kept the Ptolemaic coinage system that was already in place. But you'll see Egyptian gods on Egyptian coins, British gods (Sulis/Minerva) on British coins, etc. But the official administrative records would still be in Latin.

If you care to puzzle through this very weighty review of a German work in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review (a collection of essays on colonial administrative practices in the Empire), it appears that the local proclamations, inscriptions, etc. were bilingual and that local governors did operate with reference to existing local law. But the structure of the Empire remained Roman and Latin, and internal records (of which few survive) appear to have remained so as well. I imagine that Greek in the east became more and more the language of empire as East and West split, but not as early as 33 A.D.

[VRWC_minion]

He believes that If Jesus died of natural causes in a sandstorm, there would be no difference. The guy sounds like satan to me.