Gibsons Passion and Lessons from the Past: Representations of The Jews in Medieval Christian History

1
Gibsons Passion and Lessons from the
PastRepresentations of The Jews in Medieval
Christian History

• Dr. Douglas L. Berger
• Oakton Community College

2
Grounding in Sacred Narrative

• Critics who have a problem with me don't really
  have a problem with me in this film, they have a
  problem with the four Gospels. That's where their
  problem is.
• Mel Gibson in an interview with Diane Sawyer,
  February 16, 2004

3
Gibsons Innovations to the Passion Narrative as
is found in the Gospels James
Carroll, The Boston Globe, 2/24/04

• Pilate's wife Claudia is an actual heroine, who
  aligns herself with Mary. Mary, terrified for
  her son, appeals to benign Romans against the
  hostile Jewish crowd.
• Claudia is the woman behind the Romans. Her
  dramatic counterpart, the woman behind the Jews,
  is none other than a female Satan.
• Pilate kindly offers Jesus a cup of water.
  Pilate orders Jesus flogged, but only to satisfy
  the Jewish bloodthirst.
• The Jews are expressly indicted by the Good
  Thief, who, after the crucified Jesus says,
  "Father, forgive them . . . ," tells Caiaphas
  that "He prays for you.

4
Additional Implications of Gibsons Portrayal for
Jewish Audiences

• The film, beginning with the trial, obfuscates
  what the dispute is between Jesus and the
  Priests, and Gibson represents all dissenters
  among the Priests at the trial as being forcibly
  removed before their voices are heard
• Romans do carry out execution of Jesus, but only
  under political pressure from the Jewish High
  Priest and the crowds
• The crowds at Jesus trial demand, at the High
  Priests urging, that Jesus be crucified, and
  when Pilate excuses himself of responsibility,
  the crowds cry out in Aramaic, quoting Matthews
  gospel, his blood be on our hands!
• Though just before his execution, a flashback is
  given of Jesus saying I give my own life, I have
  the power to lay it down while looking the
  Jewish High Priest in the eyes, the earthquake
  that follows immediately on his death tears the
  temple court in half, and reduces the High Priest
  to tears (in the Gospel version, only the curtain
  of the temples inner sanctum is torn in half)

5
The Morals of Story-Making

• Appropriately contextualized representations are
  more likely to avoid accusations of mass-guilt.
• Lessons from the mortal errors of past uncritical
  interpretations must be heeded in all modern
  religious self-understanding.
• In its literalism and traditionalism, as well
  as its particular embellishments, Gibsons
  portrayal risks perpetuating past errors.

6
THE SCALES OF INTERPRETATION

• Canonical Scriptures themselves are variant
  interpretations, employing different narratives
  and emphases.
• The Passion narrative, being a morality play,
  necessarily raises questions of culpability for
  its victims execution.
• Given the history of interpreting the Passion
  narrative, the culpability issue must be
  approached through an historically-informed care.

7
Biblical Precedents Paul

• From Paul, Romans 101-4
• Brothers, my hearts desire and my prayer to God
  is for Israel, that they may be saved. For I
  testify about them that they have a zeal for God,
  but not according to knowledge. For being
  ignorant of Gods righteousness, and seeking to
  establish their own righteousness, they didnt
  subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
  For Christ is the fulfillment of the law for
  righteousness to everyone who believes.

8
Biblical Precedents Paul

• From Paul, Romans 1128-32
• Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for
  your sake. But concerning the election, they are
  beloved for the fathers sake. For the gifts and
  the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you in
  times past were disobedient to God, but now have
  obtained mercy by their disobedience, even so
  these also have now been disobedient, that by the
  mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy.
  For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he
  might have mercy on all.

9
Biblical Precedents Matthew

• From Matthew 2722-25
• Pilate said to them, "What then shall I do to
  Jesus, who iscalled Christ?"They all said to
  him, "Let him be crucified!"But the governor
  said, "Why? What evil has he done?"But they
  cried out exceedingly, saying, "Let him be
  crucified!" So when Pilate saw that nothing was
  being gained, but ratherthat a disturbance was
  starting, he took water, and washed his
  handsbefore the multitude, saying, "I am
  innocent of the blood of thisrighteous person.
  You see to it."All the people answered, "May his
  blood be on us, and on ourchildren!"

10
Biblical Precedents John

• From Johns Gospel 837 44
• I know that you are descendants of Abraham yet
  you seek to kill me, because my word finds no
  place in you. You are of your father the devil,
  and your will is to do your fathers desires. He
  was a murderer from the beginning, and has
  nothing to do with the truth, because there is no
  truth in him.

11
Biblical Precedents John

• From Johns Gospel, 18 12-14
• So the band of soldiers and their captain and the
  officers of the Jews seized Jesus and bound him.
  First they led him to Annas for he was the
  father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest
  that year. It was Caiaphas who had given counsel
  to the Jews that it was expedient that one man
  should die for the people.

12
Biblical Precedents John

• From Johns Gospel, 194-9
• Pilate went out again, and said to them, See, I
  am bringing him out to you, that you may know
  that I find no crime in himBehold the man!
  When the chief priests and the officers saw him,
  they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him!
  Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and
  crucify him, for I find no crime in him. The
  Jews answered him, We have a law, and by that
  law he ought to die, because he has made himself
  the Son of God.

13
Biblical Precedents John

• From Johns Gospel, 199-16
• Jesus answered him, You would have no power over
  me unless it had been given you from above
  therefore he who delivered me to you has the
  greater sin. Upon this Pilate sought to
  release him, but the Jews cried out, Away with
  him, away with him, crucify him! Pilate said to
  them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief
  priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
  Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

14
Two Streams of Christian Interpretation Regarding
the Jews

• Natural Conversionist Interpretation The Jews
  are collectively guilty for the crucifixion, but
  will be collectively converted by God before the
  final judgment. (Paul)
• Compulsory Conversion Interpretation The Jews
  are collectively guilty for the crucifixion, and
  must be actively converted by the Church. (John)

15
IMPERIAL AND POST-IMPERIAL EDICTS

• 315 Constantines Edict of Milan bars Jewish
  residence in Jerusalem and proselytizing
• 379-395 - Emperor Theodosius Proclaims
  Christianity the State Religion of Rome and
  therewith prohibits conversion to Judaism, orders
  separation of Jewish and Christian communities,
  orders repossession of synagogues and abolishes
  Jerusalem Patriarchate
• 380-538 Sporadic Legal and Mob Campaigns
  against Synagogues in Imperial Territories
• 599 Pope Gregory I issues Sicut Judaeis,
  prohibiting forced conversion upon or violence
  against Jewish communities, but imposing strict
  regulation on Jewish occupations

16
Attitudes of Church Fathers

• Origen of Alexandria (185-254) (Responding to
  Christian complaints that, unlike themselves,
  Jews were exempt under Roman law from annual
  religious offerings to the Roman emperor Decius)
• We may thus assert in utter confidence that the
  Jews will not return to their earlier situation,
  for they have committed the most abominable of
  crimes, in forming this conspiracy against the
  Savior of the human racehence the city where
  Jesus suffered was necessarily destroyed, the
  Jewish nation was driven from its country, and
  another people was called by God to the blessed
  election.

17
Attitudes of Church Fathers

• John Chrysostom, Bishop of Antioch (344-407) (in
  387, encouraging the faithful to avoid
  Judaizing tendencies)
• Tell me, do you praise the Jews for crucifying
  Christ, and for, even to this day, blaspheming
  him and calling him a lawbreaker?...The synagogue
  is worse than a brothelit is the the cavern of
  devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jewsa place
  of meeting for the assassins of Christ a house
  worse than a drinking shopa den of thieves I
  would say the same thing about their soulsAs for
  me, I hate the synagogueI hate the Jews for the
  same reason.

18
Attitudes of Church Fathers

• St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (339-397) in an
  Oration at the funeral of Emperor Theodosius,
  395, on the legend of the Discovery of the True
  Cross
• The Church manifests joy, the Jew blushes. Not
  only does he blush, but he is tormented also,
  because he himself is the author of his own
  confusion. The Jew confesses We thought we had
  conquered, but we confess that we ourselves are
  conquered. Christ has risen again,Let
  synagogues be burned, that there might not be a
  place where Christ is denied.

19
Attitudes of Church Fathers

• St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (c. 354-430), City
  of God, Book 4, written in c. 425, giving advice
  in the question of how Jews are to be handled in
  the Empire
• But the Jews who killed him and refused to
  believe in him, to believe that he had to die and
  rise again, suffered a more wretched devastation
  at the hands of the Romans, and were utterly
  uprooted from their kingdom they were dispersed
  all over the world, for indeed there is no part
  of the earth where they are not to be found, and
  thus by evidence of their own Scriptures they
  bear witness for us that we have not fabricated
  the prophecies about Christ

20
Attitudes of Church Fathers

• St. Augustine cont.
• Scatter them. For if they lived with that
  testimony of the Scriptures only in their own
  land, and not everywhere, the obvious result
  would be that the Church, which is everywhere,
  would not have them available among all nations
  as witnesses to the prophecies which were given
  beforehand concerning Christ.

21
Attitudes of Church Fathers

• Pope Gregory I The Great (590-604) from the
  Papal Declaration Sicut Judaeis, forbidding both
  forced conversion of Jews as well as violence
  against Jewish communities, but preventing Jews
  from employing Christian servants.
• Spare the JewsJust as Jews must not be allowed
  freedom in their synagogues more than is decreed
  by law, so neither ought what the law concedes
  them suffer any curtailment

22
THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES

• 1096-1099 Launching of First Crusade by Urban
  II, led by Peter the Prelate, leads to forced
  conversions and massacres of Jewish communities
  in fourteen cities in the Rhineland and
  eventually in Jerusalem
• 1123 Pope Callixtus II reissues Sicut Judaeis,
  which leads to large-scale efforts to protect
  Jews from mob-violence during Eugene IIIs Second
  Crusade
• 1144 First Occurrence of Blood Libel Charge in
  Norwich through which Jews were accused for
  centuries of annually murdering a Christian boy
  during Passover week to mock, and repeat the
  crucifixion rejected by Church but prosecuted
  by mobs
• 1179-1215 Lateran Councils reinstitute early
  Councils restricting Jewish economic rights

23
Crusade Fever Attitudes

• Peter the Prelate, Leader of First Crusade, Good
  Friday Sermon at the Church of Cologne, 1096,
  inciting widespread anti-Jewish violence
• Yes, you Jews. I say, do I address you you, who
  till this very day, deny the Son of God. How
  long, poor wretches, will ye not believe the
  truth?You are children of those who killed our
  object of worship, hanging him on a tree, and he
  himself had said There will yet come a day when
  my children will come and avenge my blood. We
  are his children and it istherefore obligatory
  for us to avenge him since you are the ones who
  rebel and disbelieve him.

24
Crusade Fever Attitudes

• St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), from Letter
  to the People of England, urging that Jews in
  Europe be spared during Second Crusade.
• The Jews are not to be persecuted, killed or even
  put to flight. The Jews are for us the living
  words of scripture, for they remind us always of
  what our Lord suffered. They are dispersed all
  over the world so that by expiating their crime
  they may be everywhere the living witnesses of
  our redemption. Hence the same Psalm (59) adds
  Only let thy power disperse them.If the Jews
  are utterly wiped out, what will become of our
  hope of their promised salvation, their eventual
  conversion?

25
Crusade Fever Attitudes

• Fourth Lateran Council (1215) Cannon 69, ratified
  by its convener Pope Innocent III, on social
  permissions and restrictions of Jews, one of four
  separate cannons regarding various policies.
• Text. Since it is absurd that a blasphemer of
  Christ exercise authority over Christians, we on
  account of the boldness of transgressors renew in
  this general council what the Synod of Toledo
  (589) wisely enacted in this matter, prohibiting
  Jews from being given preference in the matter of
  public offices, since in such capacity they are
  most troublesome to the Christians.

26
THE INSTITUTION OF THE INQUISITION

• 1242 Papal Authorization of Confiscation and
  Destruction of Talmud in Christian Kingdoms as
  part of First Inquisition
• 1278 Pope Nicholas III (1277-1280) reissues
  Sicut Judaeis, with new provisions on mandatory
  conversion
• 1350 Pope Clement VI (1342-1352) issues Papal
  Bull declaring Jews not responsible for Black
  Plague
• 1391 Massacres of Jewish communities throughout
  Spanish cities incited by preacher Ferrant
  Martinez, ordering local populations to give Jews
  the option of converting or dying
• 1478 Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) gives his
  authorization to the Spanish Inquisition,
  targeting Judaizers and conversos of recent
  decades

27
Inquisition Attitudes

• St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) from Summa
  Theologiae (1273), Chapter on The Cause of
  Christs Passion
• A distinction must be drawn between the Jews who
  are educated and those who are not. The educated,
  who were called their rulers, knew, as did the
  demons, that Jesus was the Messiah promised in
  the Law, for they saw all the signs in him, which
  had been foretold.

28
Inquisition Attitudes

• Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254) on continuing the
  Ratification of the First Inquisition into the
  Jewish Talmud
• Ungrateful to the Lord Jesus Christ, who, His
  forbearance overflowing, painfully awaits their
  conversionthey follow Thalmuth,and in it are
  blasphemies against God and His Christ, and
  against the Blessed Virgin Yet this is what they
  teach and feed their childrenand render them
  totally alien to the Law and the Prophets,
  fearing lest the Truth which is understood in the
  same Law and Prophets, bearing patent testimony
  to the Only Begotten Son of God, who was to come
  in flesh, they be converted to the faith, and
  return humbly to their Redeemer.

29
Inquisition Attitudes

• Giodano da Rivalto, November 9th, 1304 Sermon to
  Dominican Friars in Florence, Italy on redoubling
  efforts to convert Jewish communities
• It was they who crucified Christ, and I say first
  of all that they repeat it in their hearts with
  all will, wherefore they are evil at heart and
  hate Christ with evil hatred and they would, were
  they able, crucify him anew every dayThey are
  hated throughout the world because they are evil
  toward Christ, whom they curse.

30
Inquisition Attitudes

• Council of Constance, 1415, from the Edict
  condemning Jan Hus, reflecting attitudes about
  recent Jewish converts to Christianity
• O cursed Judas, because you have abandoned the
  councils of peace, and have counseled with the
  Jews, we take away from you the cup of redemption.

31
EXPULSION AND GHETTO DURING REFORMATION

• 1492 Expulsion of Jews from Castille and Aragon
  issued by Ferdinand and Isabella led to the
  emigration of approximately 300,000 Jews
• 1543 Luther publishes tracts advocating
  persecutions and expulsions of German Jews
• 1547 Council of Trent notes that Crucifixion
  was the responsibility of sinful humanity, not
  Jewish people
• 1555 Pope Paul IV issues Papal Bull
  establishing Roman ghettos for Jews

32
Reformation Attitudes

• Martin Luther (1483-1546) from That Christ Was
  Born a Jew (1523)
• Passion preachers during Easter Week do nothing
  else but enormously exaggerate the Jews misdeeds
  against Christ and thus embitter the hearts of
  the faithful against themThe Jews who resisted
  attempts by Christians to covert them were right.
  If I had been a Jew, I should rather have been
  turned into a pig than become a Christian.

33
Reformation Attitudes

• Luther, From On The Jews and Their Lies (1543),
  defending the decision of Prince Frederick of
  Saxony in his repression of the peasant uprisings
  against him in 1524-25.
• First, their synagogues should be set on fire,
  and whatever does not burn up should be covered
  or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever
  be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this
  ought to be done for the honor of God and of
  Christianity in order that God may see that we
  are Christians, and that we have not wittingly
  tolerated or approved of such public lying,
  cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His
  Christians.

34
Reformation Attitudes

• Luther, From On The Jews and Their Lies cont.
• When you lay eyes on or think of a Jew you must
  say to yourself Alas, that mouth which I there
  behold has cursed and excoriated and maligned
  every Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has
  redeemed me with his precious bloodSuch a
  desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and
  devilish lot are these Jews, who for these
  fourteen hundred years have been and still are
  our plague, our pestilence, and our misfortune.

35
Reformation Attitudes

• Luther, From Of The Unknowable Name and The
  Generations of Christ, 1543
• Still they must insist on being right even if
  after these 1,500 years they were in misery
  another 1,500 years, still God must be a liar and
  they must be correct. In sum, they are the
  devils children, damned to Hell...Yes, that
  tastes good to them, into their hearts, they
  smack their lips like swine. That is how they
  want it. Call more Crucify him, crucify him.
  Scream more His blood come upon us and our
  children. (Matthew 2725)

36
Reformation Attitudes

• Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1547, Note 30,
  Section IV, on the responsibility for the
  crucifixion
• In this guilt are involved all those who fall
  frequently into sin for, as our sins consigned
  Christ the Lord to the death of the cross, most
  certainly those who wallow in sin and iniquity
  crucify to themselves again the Son of God. . .
  .  This guilt seems more enormous in us than in
  the Jews since, if they had known it, they would
  never have crucified the Lord of glory while we,
  on the contrary, professing to know him, yet
  denying him by our actions, seem in some sort to
  lay violent hands on him).

37
Reformation Attitudes

• Pope Paul IV (Pietro Caraffa), 1555 Papal Bull
  Cum Nimis Absurdum, establishing Roman ghettos
  for Jewish populations.
• Inasmuch as it is unreasonable and unseemly that
  the Jews, whom God has condemned to eternal
  slavery because of their guilt should, under the
  pretense that Christian love cherishes them and
  endures their dwelling in our midst, show such
  ingratitude to the Christians as to render them
  insult for their grace and presume to mastery
  instead of the subjection which beseems themJews
  are to live on a single street, or in a
  distinctive quarter cut off from other sections
  of the town or city.

38
Post-Holocaust Revisions

• Institution of Inquisition persisted in Europe
  for more than three hundred years
• Some European ghettos designed for Jews began to
  be dismantled in nineteenth century, only to be
  renewed under Nazi regime
• Holocaust was not an unpredictable anomaly, but a
  mass-scale revival of a long history of
  ethno-nationalist and religious hatred
• Modern Catholic and Protestant positions are
  revisions and attempts at correcting this legacy

39
VATICAN II RESTATEMENT Gibson Rejects Vatican
II

• Nostra Aetate, 4, Document of Vatican II (1965)
• True, the Jewish authorities and those who
  followed their lead pressed for the death of
  Christ still, what happened in His passion
  cannot be charged against all the Jews, without
  distinction, then alive , nor against the Jews of
  today. Although the Church is the new People of
  God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected
  or accursed by God, as if this followed from the
  Holy Scriptures.

40
RESTATEMENT OF THE MODERN LUTHERAN CHURCH

• From 1994 Declaration of the American Lutheran
  Church
• In the spirit of that truth-telling, we who bear
  his name and heritage must with pain acknowledge
  also Luther's anti-Judaic diatribes and the
  violent recommendations of his later writings
  against the Jews. As did many of Luther's own
  companions in the sixteenth century, we reject
  this violent invective, and yet more do we
  express our deep and abiding sorrow over its
  tragic effects on subsequent generations. In
  concert with the Lutheran World Federation, we
  particularly deplore the appropriation of
  Luther's words by modern anti-Semites for the
  teaching of hatred toward Judaism or toward the
  Jewish people in our day.