JBL 131, no.

4 (2012): 733754

Marks and Matthews Sub Rosa

Message in the Scene of Pilate
and the Crowd
andrew simmonds
ASimmonds@damato-lynch.com
DAmato & Lynch, LLP, Two World Financial Center, New York, NY 10281

This essay deals with the scene of Pilate and the crowd in Mark and Matthew.
In it I suggest that the scene presents a classic, universal, and timeless trope of
subalterndominant discourse in which the subaltern plays the role of the dominant, and the dominant unsuccessfully attempts to play the role of the subaltern.
The presentation is idealized, not naturalistic or realistic. The narratives are disguised to contain hidden messages intended to be understood by subaltern Jews but
not by dominant Gentiles/Romans, lest the subalterns be subjected to punishment.
Rather than being anti-Jewish, as has been commonly held, the narratives, when
correctly understood, are, like all subaltern portrayals of subalterndominant relations, partisanly pro-subaltern/Jewish and anti-dominant/Roman.
The literary genre is Roman mime with an additional strong influence from
Pharisaic-style parody in a foreign setting, and specifically Esther as the template. In
Mark, the actors and the scene portray Caesar and the crowd at the Roman games.
The idealized message is that Jesus trial is quintessentially illegal. In addition to
mime, Matthews far more sophisticated psychological narrative draws on classical
Greek drama and hidden allusions from rabbinic law. In Matthew, Pilates performance of the Jewish hand-washing ritual is a farce that ironically results in the crowd
acclaiming Jesus by providentially accepting Jesus same-day offer of his blood.

I. Pilate and the Crowd as Dominant and Subaltern

African-American actor Pigmeat Markham had a signature courtroom routine, Here Come De Judge, in which black actors performed in the most over733

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

the-top, buffoonish, demeaning, embarrassingly inappropriate racial stereotype

imaginable. I always attributed this to the demands of white audiences, until I discovered that Markham and his troop played the Chitlin Circuit to overwhelmingly
black audiences.1 Why would blacks have enjoyed seeing blacks depicted in such
seemingly extraordinarily unflattering and demeaning ways? The reason is that
white and black audiences saw the scene differently. Whites saw blacks acting
extremely badly, but blacks saw the actors portraying the quintessentially white
court system. It is no coincidence that the actors in Jean Genets Les Ngres portray
royalty and aristocrats. Nor is the genre confined to race. For example, the Keystone Cops may be viewed simply as buffoons, or as cops. The different perspectives of different constituencies in the audience is akin to Bakhtinian hetero- or
polyglossia.2
These tropes are not in any way unique to blacks or whites, Jews or Romans,
or any particular time but are universal among oppressed subaltern peoples for
expressing their relations and dealings with dominant oppressors.3 James C. Scott
explains: [F]or any subordinate group, there is tremendous desire and will to
express publicly what is in the hidden transcript, even if that form of expression
must use metaphors and allusions in the interest of safety. . . . [P]olyvant symbolism and metaphor lends itself to disguise. By the subtle use of codes one can insinuate . . . meanings that are accessible to one intended audience and opaque to
another audience the actors wish to exclude. The seditious message may be
clothed in terms that also can lay claim to a perfectly innocent construction.4
Mark seems to use this technique: on a superficial level for Gentiles, the scene
is meant to be perceived as a Jewish crowd acting extremely badly. But the evangelists meaning (to be understood by Jews, not Gentiles) is that the Jewish crowd is
not acting as Jews; they are acting as Romans in the quintessentially Roman activity of calling for the freeing, sparing, or condemning of gladiators at the games
an activity (particularly from a Jewish perspective) so depraved as to be the very

In his heyday he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

David M. Valeta, Polyglossia and Parody: Language in Daniel 16, in Bakhtin and Genre
Theory in Biblical Studies (ed. Roland Boer; SemeiaSt 63; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,
2007), 9394.
3 E.g., Dan 12:910; see David Daube, Ancient Hebrew Fables, in Biblical Law and Literature, vol. 3 of The Collected Works of David Daube (ed. Calum M. Carmichael; 4 vols; Studies in
Comparative Legal History; Berkeley: Robbins Collection, 19922009), 7012 and n. 19; idem,
The Abomination of Desolation, in New Testament Judaism, vol. 2 of idem, Collected Works,
66367, 673; Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952; repr., Westport, NY: Free Press,
1973), 925, 3235; William M. Calder, Seneca: Tragedian of Imperial Rome, CJ 72 (1976): 5, 7
8; James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven/London:
Yale University Press, 1990), xii, 2526, 36, 11415 and n. 12, 13234; Frederick Ahl, The Art of
Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome, AJP 105 (1984): 174208; Arthur Melzer, On the Pedagogical Motive for Esoteric Writing, Journal of Politics 69 (2007) 101531.
4 Scott, Domination, 158, 164.
2

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

735

antithesis of a trial at which justice is dispensed.5 Yet the circumstances of the day
brought the connection to mind. For I think God has displayed us apostles last, like
men condemned to death (in the arena), because we have become a spectacle to the
world, to angels and to men. We are (made) fools (of, baited) for Christ . . . like
scum, filth (2 Cor 4:910).6 The Talmud contains elaborate prohibitions relating
to festivals of idolaters admonishing Jews not to attend games and performances,
even of jugglers, for example, but makes the exception (that proves the rule) permitting attendance at gladiatorial contestsin order to yell out that the loser be
spared (b. vAbod. Zar. 18b2; y. vAbod. Zar. 2:5).7
What we have are subaltern depictions of subalterndominant relationships.
In Mark, the subaltern vulgar Jewish crowd acts like and as though it is the dominant Roman vulgar crowd, and then in the matching obverse figure of Matthew, the
dominant elite Roman, Pilate, performs the Jewish hand-washing ritual trying to
act like or as an elite Jew. In simplified labels of modern postcolonial discourse,
Pilate/Rome is the dominant oppressor, white. The crowd/Israel is the subaltern
oppressed, black. In white ritual (the Roman games), blacks act white and, in an
idealized depiction, accurately portray the way whites act (extremely badly), but
in the black ritual (the Jewish hand-washing ritual), the white/Pilate tries to act
black but fails miserably, causing the blacks/the crowd to act eminently black (Jewish) in response.8
In this way, the two Jewish-oriented evangelists, Mark and Matthew, employ
sub rosa parody and satire to skewer Rome. What is particularly interesting and

See Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Gladiator, EncJud (2nd ed.), 7:624; Fik Meijer, The Gladiators: Historys Most Deadly Sport (New York: St. Martins Griffin, 2007), 84. See also b. B. Mesii av
84a2a3 and nn. 22, 23, 27; b. Git.i 46b347a (all Babylonian Talmud citations are from the
Artscroll Bavli [Talmud Bavli (ed. Hersh Goldwurm; New York: Mesora, 19962005)]); Seneca,
Ben. 6.12.2; Tertullian, Spect. 3, 8, 16, 17, 22.
6 See Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 1417; Christopher A. Frilingos, Spectacles of
Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation (Divinations; Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 3, 13, 75; Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia;
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 9699; Brian J. Incigneri, The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and
Rhetoric of Marks Gospel (Biblical Interpretation Series; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003); see also
Tacitus, Ann. 15.44.4.
7 Beth A. Berkowitz, Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic
and Christian Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 15657.
8 That Pilate evokes the Jewish ritual is widely affirmed; see, e.g., Ulrich Luz, Matthew: A
Commentary, vol. 3, Matthew 2128 (trans. James E. Crouch; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress,
2005), 500; Donald P. Senior, The Passion Narrative according to Matthew: A Redactional Study
(BETL 39; Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1975), 170. Some commentators have thought that
this makes the story implausible, e.g., John P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church, and
Morality in the First Gospel (Theological Inquiries; New York: Paulist, 1979), 342. Luz (Matthew,
494) states, The scene of the Roman governor Pilate performing a biblical-Jewish ritual is intentionally bizarre.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

revealing is that Jewish Mark with his many Latinisms9 and typically Roman name,
seems to have been deeply influenced by Roman mime and uses the quintessentially
Roman literary form to best skewer Rome.
Luz remarks that it is noteworthy how little the account follows the rules of
a Roman trial.10 Commenting on the bizarre figure of Barabbas, scholars have
asked whether it is possible that the ancients saw something in this passage that
has escaped our notice, something inappropriate.11 Indeed, Jesus trial is idealized
as the antithesis of a proper trial or judicial proceeding of any sort. In the Roman
legal mind, a judge acquiescing in the wishes of a mob was precisely the epitome
of illegality. Ciceros greatest speech, In Defense of Aulus Cluentius Habitus, provides the most famous instance in Roman law of a trial as a travesty of mob rule:12
[T]he proceedings . . . really bore not the slightest resemblance to a trial, no resemblance whatever. They were entirely unrestrained. . . . They were just plain violencea sort of natural convulsion, as I said before, or a tornado; certainly the very
opposite to anything like a trial or an investigation or a legal case of any kind
(34.9496).13 Similarly, Philo describes the Jewish judicial mission to Caesar, as
in a theatre rather than a court of justice (Legat. 359, 368). Elias J. Bickerman
describes the scene of Pilate and the crowd as a coup de theatre.14
Mark and Matthew repeatedly use idealized figures to express that Jesus trial
was the height of illegality. That is why, for example, Jesus trial before the Sanhedrin is at night. The Sanhedrin never met at night; it was illegal for it to do so
(b.Sanh. 32a1). Recording that it met at night is simply an idealized statement that
the trial is illegal. The ear-cutting episode at Jesus arrest is another example of the
same device,15 as are both condemning the innocent and freeing the guilty (Add
Dan 13:52)these are idealized literary figures.

II. Marks Gladiatorial Imagery in Prior Scholarship

While Matthew is extremely esoteric, Mark is far easier to decipher. Thus,
scholars long ago observed a connection between the Markan-based portions of
9 See Adam Winn, The Purpose of Marks Gospel: An Early Christian Response to Roman
Imperial Propaganda (WUNT 2/245; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 82; Collins, Mark, 314, 721;
Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean, Barabbas, the Scapegoat Ritual, and the Development of the Passion Narrative, HTR 100 (2007): 327.
10 Luz, Matthew, 495.
11 Maclean, Barabbas, 31012; Horace Abram Rigg, Barabbas, JBL 64 (1945): 433.
12 See Cicero, Murder Trials (London: Penguin, 1975), 113, 116, 120.
13 Ibid., 18081; b. abb. 116b1.
14 Bickerman, Utilitas Crucis, in idem, Studies in Jewish and Christian History: A New Edition in English Including The God of the Maccabees (ed. Amram Tropper; 2 vols; Ancient Judaism
and Early Christianity/AGJU 68; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007), 2:751.
15 David Daube, Three Notes Having to Do with Johanan ben Zaccai, in idem, Talmudic
Law, vol. 1 of Collected Works, 42531.

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

737

the passion narratives, Saturnalia role reversal, and gladiatorial games. In 1898,
Paul Wendland pointed out the similarities between Jesus mock coronation and the
mock coronation of the Roman Saturnalia and suggested that Jesus is depicted as
the carnival king.16 In the second edition of The Golden Bough (1900), James Frazer
suggested that the prisoner-release narratives in the Gospels derive from a Babylonian festival similar to the Roman Saturnalia that included a mock king sacrifice, which the Jews brought back from their captivity as the feast of Purim.17 In
1905, Johannes Merkel suggested that Barabbass release at the request of the crowd
was inspired by Roman laws relating to the granting of amnesty by public acclamation.18
In 1965, Fergus Millar pointed out that the first-century writer Epictetus, in a
scene similar to Pilate and the crowd in John 19:12, counsels that a friend of Caesar should not show partisanship before a crowd lest the crowd in imitation do
likewise but for one other than the friend of Caesars choice (Diatr. 3.4).19 In 1985,
Robert Merritt suggested that Barabbass release and Jesus condemnation by the
acclamations of the crowd find support in Greco-Roman prisoner-release customs
and the practice of crowds being given the choice at gladiatorial games to decide
whether the loser should be killed or spared; he notes the connection to the Saturnalia festival.20 Merritt, however, was convinced that the impetus for the narrative
was the apologetic need to exculpate the Romans and put responsibility on the
Jews.21 In 1988, Ched Myers suggested that Marks narrative is in faint parody of
the gladiatorial games,22 but he believed that Mark wrote from the perspective of a
radical political community at odds with both Rome and Jews. Most recently, Adela
Yarbro Collins cites the practices of amnesty/emancipation by acclamation of
crowds and the role of the crowd in determining the fate of the gladiator as analogies that make Marks Barabbas narrative credible.23
Because scholars regarded the narrative as anti-Jewish, they failed to appreciate the idealized pro-subaltern and anti-dominant hidden message: that is, the narrative has two dimensions, a surface portrayal for Gentiles that makes the narrative
appear anti-Jewish and pro-Roman, and a deeper, more profound and obscure portrayal to be understood by Jews that is partisanly pro-Jewish and anti-Roman. Con16

Wendland, Jesus als Saturnalien-Knig, Hermes 33 (1898): 17579.

As cited in Robert L. Merritt, Jesus Barabbas and the Paschal Pardon, JBL 104 (1985):
61 n. 16; Ren Girard, Jean-Michel Oughourlian, and Guy Lefort, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (trans. Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer; Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1987), 16870.
18 Merkel, Die Begnadigung am Passahfeste, ZNW 6 (1905): 293316; Collins, Mark, 717.
19 Millar, Epictetus and the Imperial Cult, JRS 55 (1965): 14647.
20 Merritt, Barabbas, 68 and n. 48; Collins, Mark, 717.
21 Merritt, Barabbas, 6668 and n. 43.
22 Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Marks Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1988), 381.
23 Collins, Mark, 720.
17

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

trary to prevailing views, Marks gladiatorial imagery is not in faint parody and
is not an analogy that makes Marks narrative credible. Not only was there was no
paschal privilege,24 but Mark does not depict that there was one. It is the nature
of mime to portray someone and something else. In Mark, the scene is Roman;
and, because they have been slow to appreciate fully Marks hidden pro-subaltern
portrayal, only recently have scholars begun to decipher Matthews more difficult
obverse figure of Roman Pilate trying to act Jewish and the crowds oath.25

III. Humor in Serious Scripture

Humor, such as is found in Esther and Jonah, is not inimical to serious religion. In the first place, pagan gods could be guilty of outrageous conduct; the
prime example is the story of Leda and the Swan. An excellent example in a trial
setting is that of Apollos farcically inept defense of Orestes, that he could not be
guilty of killing his mother because people do not have mothers as parents, only
fathers.26
Second, humor is inherent in Eastern-style induction (in contradistinction to
typically Greek Western-style deduction). Induction tends toward what is unusual,
unexpected, shocking, surprising,27 which lends itself to humor (e.g., b. B. Mesia
i v
97a; b. Hu
i l. 12b), starting off in one direction and then unexpectedly veering off in
another.28 The Bible and much more so the Talmud are full of humor in situations

24 Merritt, Barabbas, 5859, 6167 and n. 16; Maclean, Barabbas, 30910. Pilates granting the crowd the choice has been commonly referred to as the paschal privilege custom.
25 See Timothy B. Cargal, His blood be upon us and upon our children: A Matthean Double Entendre? NTS 37 (1991): 10112; Desmond Sullivan, New Insights into Matthew 27:2425,
NBf 7, no. 863 (1992): 45357; Andrew Simmonds, Uses of Blood: Re-Reading Matt. 27:25, Law
& Critique 19 (2008): 16591; idem, Woe to You . . . Hypocrites!: Re-Reading Matthew 23:13
36, BSac 166 (2009): 33649.
26 See Philip Vellacott, Aeschylus Orestes, CW 77 (1984): 146, 150, 154, 157; Sarah Pierce,
Death, Revelry, and Thysia, Classical Antiquity 12 (1993): 23640.
27 David Daube, Two Tripartite Forms, in idem, New Testament Judaism, 38991, 397.
28 See Kathleen Stein, The Genius Engine: Where Memory, Reason, Passion, Violence and
Creativity Intersect in the Human Brain (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), 7376; Bob Rehder,
Property Generalization as Causal Reasoning, in Inductive Reasoning: Experimental, Developmental, and Computational Approaches (ed. Aiden Feeney and Evan Heit; New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 1057; Robert R. Provine, Laughter: A Scientific Investigation (New York:
Penguin, 2000); Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, Whos Kidding Whom? A Serious Reading of
Rabbinic Word Plays, JAAR 55 (1987): 76588; Hershey H. Friedman, Talmudic Humor
and the Establishment of Legal Principles: Strange Questions, Impossible Scenarios, and
Legalistic Brainteasers, online at http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/economic/friedman/
HUMOROUSCASESTALMUD.htm.

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

739

that, for the stolid Western thinker, are serious and grave.29 The greatest teachers
used aggadah for its unrivaled attention-grabbing power.
Third, a common misconception is that Scripture is about the message, not the
medium. What is popular sells, and that involves the medium. Thus, the book of
Esther has been immensely popular, despite its struggles with canonicity and its
many critics. David Daube remarks that Josephuss retelling of Esther portrays Josephus himself as a latter-day Esther.30 Esther is depicted in the third-century Dura
synagogue; she has been celebrated in art throughout the centuries and even came
to be associated with the Virgin Mary (as intercessor).31 Purportedly, [t]he number of midrashic works dealing with Esther is greater than for any other biblical
book. . . . Many people had memorized it.32 As for Jonah, the story was extremely
well known, including among Gentiles; for Jews it was the best known of the twelve
minor prophets, and at an early date it became an important part of the (serious)
Yom Kippur service. The prophet Jonah is important in the NT as the only sign
Jesus would give (Matt 12:3940; 16:4; Luke 11:2930), and the story was the most
popular OT scene depicted in early Christian art.33
Finally, no amount of reasoning can elucidate the use of humor in seemingly
inappropriate serious settings as well as the experience of having lived under an
intractable brutal dictatorship.34 In that environment, [t]hings are written so that
different people will understand them on different levels, and theatricality is
favored as an inherently evasive medium. The quintessence of a situation is compressed into unexpected ironic twists, often with hidden meanings.35 Leo Strauss
calls it writing between the lines.36

29 David Daube, Causation, in idem, The Deed and the Doer in the Bible: David Daubes
Gifford Lectures (ed. Calum M. Carmichael; 2 vols.; West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 200810), 67 (Adam to God: Who you gave me, gave me); cf. b. abb. 13b2 n. 23;
89b2.
30 Daube, I believe in Jewish Antiquities xi.237, in idem, Ethics and Other Writings, vol. 4
of Collected Works, 256.
31 Esther, EncJud (2nd ed.), 6:51518.
32 Roger David Aus, The Release of Barabbas: Mark 15:615; cf. John 18:3940 and Judaic
Traditions on the Book of Esther, in Barabbas and Esther and Other Studies in the Judaic Illumination of Earliest Christianity (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 54; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 45.
33 See Louis H. Feldman, Josephus Interpretation of Jonah, AJSR 17 (1992): 5 and n. 12,
15, 2223, 29; Bezalal Narkiss, The Sign of Jonah, Gesta 18 (1979): 6376.
34 Calder, Seneca, 78; Robert Levine, Prudentius Romanus: The Rhetorician as Hero,
Martyr, Satirist, and Saint, Rhetorica 91 (1991): 538.
35 Calder, Seneca, 5, 78.
36 Strauss, Persecution, 921, 24, 32, 3435; quotation from 24; see Dan 12:910; Matt 13:14;
24:15; Mark 13:1314; b. Yoma 20b3 and n. 28.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

IV. Satire and Parody in Roman and Jewish Literature

In Roman culture, the use of mockery, satire, and parody was pronounced.
The Roman authors acknowledged a cultural debt to Greece in many areas, but in
the case of satire they believed that they had thoroughly eclipsed the Greeks. Quintilian proudly crowed, Satura tota nostra est, Satire is all ours (Inst. 10.1.93). In
Rome by the first century, satire had devolved into mime as the most popular theatrical form, favored for its lowbrow humor and outrageous, often pornographic
content.37 Mimes are the prime example of subordinates mocking dominants.
There were usually two mimes, the first mime, the derisor, imitated dominants,
and the second, the favorite of Roman audiences, the stupidus, unaccountably
admired and imitated the derisor.38 Hence, the stupidus was a double dunce, a
mimic of a mimic.39 As the butt of the joke in the Roman depiction of Christians,
the stupidus, constantly getting hit or otherwise injured, portrayed the martyr or
person undergoing baptism.40 This use of mockery is prominent in Paul. In Galatians, Paul repeatedly uses sexually charged amatory mockery (Gal 3:25; 4:17; 5:7,
9, 1112, 1415),41 and his magnificent fools speech (2 Corinthians 1112) is a
model of insincere mockery; (sly as a fox) Paul is a stupidus for Christ (1 Cor 4:9
10).42
Derived from Roman mime, the long and pronounced Christian tradition of
monkish pranks mocking Scripture includes paschal or Christmas laughter and
sacred parody of every description.43 Undoubtedly, the height of this foolishness
is Erasmuss In Praise of Folly, in which (without significant censure from the
church) Jesus is proclaimed a foolfoolish as a lamb, that is. Similarly, in Jewish tra37 Costas Panayotakis, Baptism and Crucifixion on the Mimic Stage, Mnemosyne 4th series
50 (1997): 317; Allardyce Nicoll, Masks, Mimes and Miracles: Studies in Popular Theatre (New
York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1963), 131; R. Elaine Fantham, Mime: The Missing Link in
Roman Literary History, CW 82 (1989): 15363.
38 Barton, Sorrows, 1078, 11921, 13839, 16775; Hermann Reich, Der Mimus: Ein
litterar-entwickelungsgeschichtlicher Versuch (Berlin: Weidmann, 1903), discussed in Martin Esslin,
The Theatre of the Absurd (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), 28489.
39 Nicoll, Masks, Mimes, 87.
40 Barton, Sorrows, 168, 192; Panayotakis, Baptism, 3045; Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and
His World (trans. Helene Iswolsky; 1968; repr., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 13
14, 77, 8485.
41 See David E. Frederickson, Amatory Motifs in Pauls Epistle to the Galatians, WW 20
(2000): 25764.
42 L. L. Welborn, Paul, the Fool for Christ: A Study of 1 Corinthians 14 in the ComicPhilosophic Tradition (Early Christianity in Context; New York: T&T Clark International, 2005),
90; Barton, Sorrows, 1079, 121, 14144, 168, 17475.
43 Bakhtin, Rabelais, 1314, 77, 8485; idem, From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse,
in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. Michael Holquist; trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael
Holquist; University of Texas Press Slavic Series 1; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 6874.

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

741

dition there are the parodies of sacred literature produced for Purim, the best
known of which, Massekhet Purim, parodies the Talmud with a theme of the obligation to drink wine copiously but scrupulously abstain from water, and with the
Purim rabbi, a kind of lord of misrule, who recites the Purim Torah that is an outlandish parody.44
While not exclusive to satire, stereotype and stock characters are certainly
supremely characteristic of the genre, and Roman parody and satire overwhelmingly used these devices. For the most part ancient stereotype was not invidious, nor
was it racial. It continued in the Commedia delArte and is still popular today.45
The most famous stock character of the celebrated Roman satirist Plautus that is
pertinent here is the overweening boastful soldier, the Miles Gloriosus46 (stereotypically Caesar).47 Any Roman authority figure could be stereotypically portrayed
as Caesar. In Christian iconography during the empire, Pilate was portrayed in the
stylistic imagery of Caesar.48
When making acclamations in public spectacles, the Roman crowd was
regarded as representing all Roman citizens.49 Crowds were depicted stereotypically as fickle, unruly, degenerate, easily aroused, and hostile to Caesar, with the
question-and-answer exchange between Caesar and the crowd the liminal
moment.50 Acclamations were used as parody for defeated gladiators.51
However, while the literary form of stereotype and satire is typically Roman,
portraying the scene as foreign is not; it is Pharisaic with its distinctive use of foreign parody to mock foreigners or other Jews.52 In ancient rabbinic/Pharisaic tradition, mockery or parody was forbidden, with one important exception: it was
permitted to mock idolatry (and by extension that which is morally or legally defec44

Louis Jacobs, Purim, EncJud (2nd ed.), 16:74041; Ahron Zeev Ben-Yishai, Parody,
Hebrew, EncJud (2nd ed.), 15:65463; Israel Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature (1907; repr.,
New York: AMS, 1966), 1531, 47, 11517.
45 E.g., class clown, nerd, geek, jock, wicked stepmother, jealous husband, dumb blonde,
absent-minded professor, country bumpkin, damsel-in-distress, old miser, male chauvinist pig,
love-at-first-sight, last-minute-rescue, dying confession, and so on. Cf. Titus 1:12.
46 See The Complete Roman Drama: All the Extant Comedies of Plautus and Terence, and the
Tragedies of Seneca in a Variety of Translations (ed. George E. Duckworth; 2 vols.; New York: Random House, 1942), 1:xxxi, xxxv, 54547.
47 Frilingos, Spectacles, 2228, 36.
48 See Colum Hourihane, Pontius Pilate, Anti-Semitism and the Passion in Medieval Art
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 5760.
49 See Gregory S. Aldrete, Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome (Ancient Society and
History; Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 151.
50 Ibid., 86, 159, 163.
51 Ibid., 13233.
52 Not as one might find among the Sadducees, who were haughty and condescending, or
the Qumran rule of thumb that you cannot say enough bad things about outsiders. See LukeT.
Johnson, The New Testaments Anti-Jewish Slander and the Conventions of Ancient Polemic,
JBL 108 (1989): 441, 43435 and n. 50.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

tive).53 Apparently, for this reason it is very common to find early Jewish parody in
a foreign setting. For example, Esther is set in a foreign court with foreign-like
names and practices. Also set in foreign parts, Jonah is another prime example of
OT parody and satire, a prophet who attempts to escape God for fear his preaching will be successful.54
An example of typically Pharisaic-style parody is found in Josephuss Against
Apion 1.25 22426, 2.6 6578, in which Josephus counters the anti-Semitic
argument of Apion that the Jews of Alexandria are a disloyal minority who mock
Egyptian customs with an argument that does just that. Josephus argues that, not
only do the Egyptians believe that animals are gods (as though that were not bad
enough), but they are entirely partisan for their own specific animal god. And,
falling into splintered groups, it is the Egyptians who are the minority.55
As might be expected, there was also a Jewish tradition of parodying Caesar.56
Moreover, even when the characters were Jewish, not foreign, in ancient Pharisaic
style they may be mocked by being treated as foreigners. In the same genre, the
Pharisees attack the Sadducees as being or being like foreigners, and Jesus does the
same thing attacking the Pharisees; for that matter, Paul uses the form in Galatians
to mock the practice of circumcision (2:14; 5:1012, 1415; 6:1114).57 The greatest example of this type of mockery is found in Johanan ben Zakkais epochal defeat
of the Sadducees in a case in which the Sadducees sought to conform a point of
Jewish law to Roman law (b.B.Bat. 115b1116a1 and n. 7). Johanan ben Zakkai,
mimicking the Sadducees (who argue solely on the basis of written law), claims
that Gen 36:20, the genealogy of the descendants of Esau (Edomites, code for
Romans),58 results from maternal incest and hence, by implication, that the Sadducees who make such arguments are likewise Edomites (Romans) who practice
sex with their mothers.
There is as well the obverse matching figure of foreigners acting as Jews or in
a Jewish setting but without understanding, resulting in most perverse situations.
The classic example is the judgments of the Judges of Sodom (b. Sanh. 107b5ff.;
109a4b2 and n. 53).59 Where a man struck his fellows pregnant wife and she miscarried, the Judges of Sodom would say to her husband, give your wife to the
attacker so that he may impregnate her for you and thereby replace the unborn
child whose death he caused (parodying Exod 21:22) (b. Sanh. 109b1 and n. 1).
53

Ben-Yishai, Parody, Hebrew, 654.

See Arnold J. Band, Swallowing Jonah: The Eclipse of Parody, Proof 10 (1990): 17795;
John A. Miles, Jr., Laughing at the Bible: Jonah as Parody, JQR n.s. 65 (1975): 16881.
55 David Daube, The Finale of Horaces Satire 1.4, in idem, Ethics and Other Writings,
225.
56 See b. Tavan. 21a23 and n. 20; b. Sanh. 108b5109a1; Davidson, Parody, 2.
57 Simmonds, Woe, 345, 347 n. 50.
58 B. Yoma 10a4 and n. 39; b. Pesahi. 87b4; b. Git i. 17a; b. vAbod. Zar. 10b, 11b.
59 See Pauline Ripat, Roman Omens, Roman Audiences, and Roman History, GR 55
(2006): 16061.
54

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

743

V. Parallel Stereotype in Esther and Mark

A signature identifying stereotype is the absence of character development.
Stereotypes not only do not need but should rarely have any individuating character development, as it would seriously detract from the stereotypical message.
Stereotypes come with prepackaged causation, with extreme preparedness effects
that dissipate with individuation.60 And, because of their lack of individuation,
stereotypes can be used and reused in innumerable variants.
Mark and Matthew make frequent use of stereotype. For example, in the five
controversy scenes (Matt 21:2327; 22:1546), the question each of Jesus rivals
asks sums up the interests and posture of the group that asks it.61 Thus, the chief
priests, scribes, and elders are concerned with Jesus claim of authority. The Herodians are concerned with collecting and paying taxes to Caesar. The Sadducees are
concerned with (the denial of) resurrection, and the Pharisees are concerned with
the greatest commandment associated with Hillel.
Herodiass daughter and Barabbas are classic stereotype figures, who seem to
come out of nowhere to play extremely important rolesbalancing the Baptist in
the case of Herodiass daughter, and balancing Jesus in the case of Barabbasbut
who have no individuating character development and then disappear from the
narrative as rapidly as they entered.
As Shemaryahu Talmon notes, Esther prominently uses stereotypes: Haman
is a conniving schemer, an arrogant bully, yet a whining coward; King Ahasuerus
is an immensely powerful but witless dupe, capricious, impressionable, weak, and
unbelievably stupid; Mordecai is a righteous sage, and Esther is a weak-willed
woman, who summons great strength and courage to vanquish by her feminine
charms.62 Mark and Matthew seem to have been inspired by Esther. The sequence
runs as follows: Jesus death in Mark derives in large part from the Baptists death
(for example, the delegation of authority by Herod [Antipas] to Herodiass daughter is a parallel to Pilates delegation of authority to the crowd). In turn, Marks narrative of the Baptists death derives in large part from Esther (for example, the
formula up to half my kingdom).63 In this narrative, Mark also uses essentially the
60

John H. Holland et al., Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery (Computational Models of Cognition and Perception; Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press, 1989), 182,
175, 217.
61 Simmonds, Woe, 338.
62 Talmon, Wisdom in the Book of Esther, VT 13 (1963): 44046; see also Carey A. Moore,
Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 44; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 74.
63 See Brenda Deen Schligen, A Blind Promise: Marks Retrieval of Esther, Poetics Today 15
(1994): 11531; Winn, Purpose, 35; and S. Anthony Cummins, Integrated Scripture, Embedded
Empire: The Ironic Interplay of King Herod, John, and Jesus in Mark 6:144, in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels, vol. 1, The Gospel of Mark (ed. Thomas R. Hatina; Library of
New Testament Studies 304; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 4445.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

same stereotypes as are found in Esther: like Haman, Herodias is an archetypal

villain; like Ahasuerus, Herod is a powerful yet weak fool; like Mordecai, the
Baptist is a righteous sage; and Herodiass dancing daughter is a mindless temptress.64 There are also close parallels between Esther and Herodiass daughter. Both
are supremely seductive young women, who are presented with momentous
choices. Nonetheless, there are enormous differences. Herodiass daughter is like a
version of Vashti, who does display herself, and Herodiass daughter is also an extension of her evil mother, while Esther is an extension of righteous Mordecai. Further,
Herods raucous birthday party parallels Ahasueruss raucous party in a classic case
of portraying a Jew, Herod, as or as like a foreigner. Birthdays and birthday parties
were an immensely prominent feature of Roman culture but were completely absent
from Jewish culture.65
Mark carries over his use of such stereotypes to Pilate and the crowd. Pilate is
like Herod and Ahasuerus, an extremely powerful but inherently weak fool who
improvidently turns over his prerogative and is thereby manipulated.66 Faced with
a momentous choice, the crowd is like Esther and Herodiass daughter. A murderer,
Barabbas is like Haman and Herodias, and Jesus, a righteous sage, is like Mordecai
and the Baptist.
The connection between Mark and Esther has been obscured by later proprietary conflict67 and anti-Christian polemics especially concerning the holiday of
Purim in which Jesus crucified is equated with Haman hung up.68 The comparison
between Jesus and Haman is inapt. Descended from Esau, Haman is associated
with Rome,69 while Mordecai and Esther descend from Saul, which presents an
allusion to the premier crucifixion narrative of the OT, the crucifixion of seven of
the sons of Saul, whose corpses, through the ministering woman at the foot of their

64

Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew (SP 1; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,
1991), 21718; Mark McVann, The Passion of John the Baptist and Jesus before Pilate: Marks
Warnings about Kings and Governors, BTB 38 (2008): 15257.
65 See Kathryn Argetsinger, Birthday Rituals: Friends and Patrons in Roman Poetry and
Cult, Classical Antiquity 11 (1992): 17593; Birthday, EncJud (2nd ed.), 3:72324.
66 Aus, Barabbas, 127, esp. 45, 7-9.
67 There is conflict over Ps 22:1, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, which in
the Talmud is spoken by Esther. See Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34; b. Meg. 15b2 and n. 16; b. Yoma 29a1
and n. 11. See also Catherine Brown Tkacz, Esther, Jesus, and Psalm 22, CBQ 70 (2008): 695714.
68 See Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World; Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2006), 69.
69 Via Agag of Amalek. See Talmon, Wisdom, 435; Horowitz, Reckless Rites, 69; and Israel
Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and
the Middle Ages (trans. Barbara Harshav and Jonathan Chipman; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 58, 230. See also b. Meg. 13a1; 15b1 and nn. 12; 16a2 and n. 18; Josephus, Ant.
11.6.5 20914.

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

745

crosses, received honorable burials (2 Sam 21:114).70 Like Saul and his sons, and
unlike Haman and his sons, Jesus received an honorable burial allowing for his resurrection. While Jesus and Haman are very different, Herodiass daughter and
Barabbas are similar figures. Herodiass daughter is very much her mothers daughter, while Barabbas is his fathers son.
There is a further striking similarity between Herodiass daughter and Barabbas. They are both super-sexy. According to Origen (Comm. Matt. 14.19), Christ
cohabits with but then divorces his wife Israel/synagogue delivering a bill of divorce.
In Israels choice of Barabbas and her oath, she is unseemly, hated, and rejected,
and she marries Barabbas, while Jesus chooses another.71 But there is also a great
difference between Herodiass daughter and Barabbas. Herodiass daughter, like
Esther and the crowd, chooses; they are the contestant, the st.
i Barabbas does not
choose; he is an available choice, the suspected paramour.

VI. Stereotype of the Games

More than any other activity, the gladiatorial games stereotypically represented
imperial Rome. The games had existed on a much smaller scale before the time of
Augustus, but he greatly expanded them in order to solidify his power and smooth
the transition from the Republic to the Empire. Because of their political role, it
became the custom at the Roman games for Caesar to officiate. Thus, over a relatively brief time the games acquired a unique and overwhelmingly important place
in imperial culture.72 Johann Huizinga observes that not one of the innumerable
new cities, literally built on sand, omitted an amphitheater.73 Though such games
were totally against Jewish traditions, Herod built arenas in which inaugural games
were held in honor of Augustus (Josephus, J.W. 15.18.1; 16.5.1).74
When it appeared that one of the gladiators would clearly lose, the referees
stopped the combat, and the winner looked to Caesar for instruction whether to
impose the coup de grce. Caesar would then ask the crowd a question similar to
Pilates: What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call [giving the nickname]? (Mark 15:12 KJV).75 The crowd members would chant their partisan
responses pumping the air with either a clenched fist for mercy or a fist with
70

Cf. Josh 9:327; 2 Sam 3:7; b. Meg. 12b313a1 and n. 3; 13b1 and n. 3; 15b1 and nn.12;
16a24 and nn.18, 44; b. Sanh. 35a1; b. Yebam. 79a12;
71 See Maclean, Barabbas, 329.
72 Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon, 1950),
74, 75, 177; Barton, Sorrows, 86.
73 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, 17778; see also Frilingos, Spectacles, 2829.
74 See Mark A. Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (SNTSMS 134; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 7778.
75 Meijer, Gladiators, 17071.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

extended thumb for death.76 It is impossible to overstate the importance of the willingness of the loser to raise his head and accept death, which the Romans felt
demonstrated the most prized virtue of virtus (courage, character, fortitude), a sort
of victory over death (Cicero, Tusc. 2.17.41; Seneca, Tranq. 11.16).77
People of all classes attended; the games were the only place were the Roman
underclass could vent their uninhibited insolence directly to Caesar.78 In the language of the arena, Caesar, who gave the order, was said to kill the fallen gladiator, not the victorious combatant who wielded the sword, nor the crowd.79
According to Suetonius (Claud. 21), Claudius called the crowd his master.80 Millar
argues that traditionally the Roman crowd had an almost democratic role in passing judgment on political action, but when the Republic gave way to the Empire,
the crowds decision in gladiatorial contests replaced the political role that the
Roman crowds had enjoyed.81 Crowds in the arena learned to employ a variety of
chants, and by the use of easily recognized rhythms, large assemblies were able not
only to pronounce standard acclamations but to vary and improve them with seeming spontaneity. Acclamations in unison by a large group were frequently considered a sign of divine inspiration and purpose.82
There was an important economic aspect to the interaction between Caesar
and the crowd that should not be overlooked. Caesar bore the ultimate cost, and
popular gladiators were as valuable as sports stars are today. For Caesar, the absolute
worst outcome financially was that, to spite him, the crowd would seek to have
popular winners freed and popular losers condemned.83 That is precisely the stereotypical situation presented in Mark and Matthew.

76

Anthony Corbeill, Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 41, 6163.
77 See Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (New York: Routledge, 2001),
155; John H. Humphrey, Roman Games, in Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece
and Rome (ed. Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger; 3 vols.; New York: Charles Scribners Sons,
1988), 2:1161; Thomas Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London/New York: Routledge,
1992), 155; Barton, Sorrows, 22, 25, 32, 35 and n. 89 (citing Lucan 9.37980); Frilingos, Spectacles,
32; Meijer, Gladiators, 40.
78 Zvi Yavetz, Plebs and Princeps (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), 18; Meijer, Gladiators, 111.
79 Barton, Sorrows, 19.
80 Meijer, Gladiators, 36.
81 Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Jerome Lectures 22; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).
82 Charlotte Roueche, Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: New Evidence from
Aphrodisias, JRS 74 (1984): 18790.
83 Alison Futrell, The Roman Games: A Sourcebook (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 145;
Wiedemann, Gladiators, 119.

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

747

VII. Matthew Sharpens Marks Eternal Triangle Motif

Both Mark and Esther contain what appear to be unacceptable outrages.
Esther is essentially a courtesan who uses sex to get her way. It is outrageous that
the most powerful king on earth cannot remedy a genocidal order he issued, except
by issuing another. There is no question of Esthers forgiving the begging Haman;
she helps frame him for attempted rape (b. Meg. 16a4). Purim is a feast of misconduct, drunkenness, and sheer nonsense. In Mark, the crowd is willing to condemn
Jesus in order to beat Pilate, and the supremely powerful, yet pathetically weak
Pilate cannot manage to stop it.
The outrages in Esther and Mark are not so important because they are foreign
portrayals. In Esther it is in foreign Persia, and in Mark it is a portrayal of the Roman
games. Misconduct, whether by Esther, Herodiass daughter, or the crowd, is a parody of foreigners, not Jews. Nevertheless, except perhaps for Romans, who adored
the outrageousness of mime, Marks presentation is too unstable: having Esther/the
crowd choose Haman/Barabbas certainly paints a travesty, but it is too great a travesty. The travesty all but bursts out of the story. The foreignness of the story is not
strong enough to contain the travesty, and hence the story has to resolve itself.
The trope is classic: the eternal triangle of the woman faced with the choice
between bridegroom/husband/father of her child versus her (suspected) paramour/seducer. We can analogize: Jesus is Punch, Petrushka, Popeye, Pierre
Bezukhov, the Baptist, or Mordecai. Barabbas is Harlequin, Bluto, Anatole Kuragin,
or Haman. And the crowd called upon to choose is Judy, the ballerina Columbina,
Olive Oyl, Natasha Rostova, Herodiass daughter, or Esther. Pilate is the barker, wizard, announcer, master of ceremonies, a pharaoh-like overly possessive father figure unwilling to let his daughter go, Laban, Herod, or Ahasuerus.84 The contestant
first chooses the wrong selection (Harlequin/Bluto/Kuragin/Haman/Barabbas),
creating enormous tension. In some versions, this results in Petrushkas (for example) death, but in other versions, ultimately, to the readers enormous relief, she
affirms the right choice. Thus, for example, in rabbinic exegesis, Esther is Mordecais wife (b. Meg. 13a3 and n. 45). Moreover, in the rabbinic metaphor, Jesus is no
milk toast, but a Nazorean (Matt 2:23), evoking the super-sexy nazirite Samson,
whose seed was like a rushing stream (b. Sotai h 9b410a2 and nn. 6, 18). This
simply derives from the husband-and-wife new covenant form (Jer 31:3133), with
the metaphor bolstered in the Markan setting by the overwhelming association of
gladiators with sex.85
84 See David Daube, Exodus Patterns in the Bible, in idem, Biblical Law and Literture, vol.
3 of Collected Works, 13136.
85 Futrell, Sourcebook, 14647; Meijer, Gladiators, 59, 6876, 172, 18587; Barton, Sorrows,
48, 7374, 81; see also Tertullian, Spect. 16, 22.

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Matthew continues Marks use of stereotypes, for example, Pilates wifes dream
in Matthew is/seems based on the legends of Julius Caesars wifes dream.86 By a
slight switch of stereotypes, Matthew brings closure to Marks unstable storya
switch of Pilate as Ahasuerus in Mark for Pilate as Haman in Matthew. While in
Mark, like Ahasuerus and Herod, Pilate is a supremely powerful but actually weak
bumbling fool, in Matthew, Pilate is sinister, intelligent, conniving, and deeply evil
like Haman. Pilate tries to use the Jewish hand-washing ritual, whose purpose was
to absolve Israel (Deut 21:8), not to absolve but to condemn Israel and absolve himself! He distorts the negative eyes have not seen (Deut 21:7) to an affirmative See
to it yourselves (Matt 27:24). And, while the description innocent in Deut 21:8
refers to the victim, Pilate uses innocent to apply to himself, I am innocent
(Matt 27:24). Matthews Pilate exhibits the paramount psychological characteristic
of the quintessentially bad judge in literature, found in Markhams judge and in the
Pilate of Mikhail Bulgakovs Master and Margarita: the judge is obsessed with his
own personal problems.
In Mark, Pilate is portrayed as not so bad, and Barabbas as worse; Matthew
reverses that order. In Mark 15:15, Pilate and the crowd (like Ahasuerus and Esther,
and Herod and Herodiass daughter) get along comparatively well: Pilate releases
Barabbas and condemns Jesus to satisfy the crowd.87 To the contrary, in Matt
27:24, Pilate and the crowd (like Haman and Esther) are implacably hostile: Pilate
capitulates because a riot is breaking out before him. In Matthew, however, Pilate
is portrayed worse than in Mark, and Barabbas is portrayed better. In Matthew,
Barabbas is not the murderer of Mark 15:7; he is notorious (Matt 27:16).
Matthew also sharpens the choice for the crowd/bride to which of the two (Matt
27:21; cf. Mark 15:9).

VIII. Matthews Rabbinic Legal Genre

Since Matthews is a Rabbinic gospel,88 to understand Matthews message
fully requires an appreciation of rabbinic law far beyond anything that was required
to understand Mark. The same process that makes an elite culture nearly impenetrable from below also encourages the elaboration of a subordinate culture that is
opaque to those above it.89
86

Ripat, Omens, 16869.

One of Marks Latinisms, hikanon poiein derives from satisfacere, to satisfy (Maclean,
Barabbas, 323 and n. 65). Cicero uses satisfacere for the gladiators death, satisfying the crowd
(Tusc. 2.41). See Catharine Edwards, Death in Ancient Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2007), 7071; see also Seneca, Ep. 95.33 (satisfying spectacle, satis spectaculum).
88 David Daube, Ye Have HeardBut I Say Unto You, in idem, New Testament Judaism,
171.
89 Scott, Domination, 134.
87

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

749

The key to Matthean Jewish opacity is the hand-washing ritual (Deuteronomy 21), which in the first century was a Jewish legal cause clbre.90 In the process
leading to its abolition, the ritual was transformed from the biblical negative rule
of a complete lack of involvement in the victims death to a rabbinic positive rule of
total involvement to prevent the murder by guiding, escorting, providing for, doing
however much was required (b. Sotai h 46b3 and n. 1847a3),91 so that anyone who
came in contact with the victim could never wash their hands of the victims death.
Having failed to save Jesus, Pilate could not wash his hands of Jesus death.
While Pilates hand washing and the crowds oath involve a plethora of
talmudic/rabbinic rules, the meaning should still be evident from the verses themselves without the aid of any outside source. There has to be something in Pilates
hand washing that labels Jesus blood as sacred sacrificial blood, not innocent
bloodto use the words of Pope Benedict XVIs new book, that Jesus blood speaks
a different language from the blood of Abel (Heb 12:24): it does not cry out for
vengeance and punishment.92 Matthew conveys this idea by first leading the uninformed reader down the blind alley to which Pilates hand washing alludes, to the
innocent blood of Deut 21:78. The actual allusion, however, is not to Deuteronomy 21 but to Ps 26:6, the Lavabo, which is the hand-washing ritual that is part of
the blood sacrifice, the chernips (literally hand washer), the prosphama, preliminary sacrifice, using the perirrhanterion.93
On a rudimentary level Matthews deception is obvious. In Christian iconography, Jesus is never portrayed in the context of the Deuteronomy 21 ritual associated with its slain animal, an adolescent cow. But rabbinic exegesis reveals Pilates
90 When notorious murderers abounded, it was considered hypocritical to claim that the
identity of the murder was unknown (b. Sotiah 47b3 and n. 29; b. abb. 15a5 and n. 42). The association in the Mishna of the abolition of the hand-washing ritual with the notorious mid-firstcentury murderer Eliezer ben Dinai (a.k.a. Techinah ben Perishah, the murderous son [pursuing
his fathers profession], his fathers son) helps date these legal developments. Both because of
their very similar nicknames and because they were notorious murderers, Barabbas seems modeled after Eliezer. See b. Sotai h 47a5 and n. 46; b. Ketub. 27a2 and n. 9; Josephus, Ant. 20.1.1, 20.6.1,
20.8.5; J.W. 2.12.4.
91 See Isaac Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels (2 vols.; 191724; repr., New
York: Ktav, 1967), 1:10911, 2:3340.
92 Joseph Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI], Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week. From the Entrance
into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 187. Blood can mean alternatively kin or carnage. See also John Eisner, Cult and Sculpture: Sacrifice in the Ara Pacta Augustae, JRS 81 (1991): 59.
93 See b. Ber. 15a1 and nn. 24; b. abb. 14b1 and nn. 26; 14b5 and n. 41; 15a1; b. vErub.
21b2 and n. 17; Cato, Agr. 132; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 23.2 (On the Mysteries
5.2); Rabanus Maurus, Commentariorum In Matthaeum Libri Octo 27 (PL 107:27); Luz, Matthew,
500 n. 69; Hourihane, Pontius Pilate, 92, 111, 413. See also Froma I. Zeitlin, The Motif of the
Corrupted Sacrifice in Aeschylus Oresteia, TAPA 96 (1965): 467; Sarah Peirce, Death, Revelry,
and Thysia, Classical Antiquity 12 (1993): 21926; Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and
Classical (trans. John Raffan; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1991), 77.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 4 (2012)

hand washing to be a rank farce. The Deuteronomy hand-washing ritual happens

to be the singularly most stunningly inappropriate Jewish ritual possible for Pilate
to perform in Jerusalem on Passover, the polar opposite of the ritual of the paschal
lamb. The difference is played out in the respective animals killed.
1. (a) The heifer represents the victim of an ordinary murder (b. Sotai h
46b1).
(b) The lamb is the very special firstborn sons of Israel (b. Yoma 70b3).
2. (a) The heifer is female (b. Sotai h 45b646a1 and note 8).
(b) The lamb is male.
3. (a) In the heifer ritual, the victim can be anyone, male or female, Gentile
or Jew.
(b) The lamb represents the Jewish people.94
4. (a) The heifer can be blemished (b. Sotai h 45b646a1).
(b) The lamb must be unblemished.
5. (a) The slain heifer must be buried, not eaten (b. Sotai h 47a4).
(b) The lambs must be eaten (Exod 12:5; b. Pesah.i 97b2 and n. 15).
6. (a) The heifer ritual has to occur in a desolate place, never in Jerusalem
(b. Sotah
i 45b4).
(b) The lamb ritual has to occur in Jerusalem (b. Pesah.i 91a3).
7. (a) The heifer killed with a hatchet to the back of the neck is not a sacrifice but an exceptional case of nonsacrificial atonement (b. Sotai h
46a1 and n. 4; 46b1).95
(b) Killed from the front, its throat is slit by a specially sharpened knife;
the lamb is a sacrifice, but an exceptional case of a sacrifice that is not
an atonement (b. Pesah.i 61b1 and n. 1).96
8. (a) The heifer ritual is delictual (i.e., involving tort or crime/guilt) and is
not contractual.
(b) The lamb ritual is contractual (sacrifices are contracts with an offer
and an acceptance) and is not delictual involving fault/guilt.
9. (a) The heifer ritual involves the victims figurative innocent blood. The
heifers own blood plays no ritual role.
(b) The lambs blood plays a paramount ritual role, literally collected,
transported, poured, and landing on the altar, representing acceptance of the sacrifice; the blood of the firstborn sons played no role in
the Passover ritual (b. Pesah.i 65a2; 65b12 and nn. 45; 78b2; b.
Zebah.i 34b45; 35a23; Josephus, J.W. 6.9.3).
94

Solomon Zeitlin, Liturgy of the First Night of Passover (Continued), JQR 33 (1948):

440.
95

Jacob Milgrom and Louis Isaac Rabinowitz, vEglah vArufah, EncJud (2nd ed.) 6:22021.
Atonement and sacrifice are so closely associated that it is often stated in the Talmud that
the lamb atones, but in the case of the lamb this means that the ritual is effective, not that it literally atones. In Matt 26:28, forgiveness of sin comes from Jer 31:34.
96

Simmonds: The Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

751

10. (a) The heifer ritual cannot be used as a prophylaxis; it has no apotropaic
purpose.
(b) The lamb ritual is quintessentially apotropaic.
11. (a) The heifer ritual involves a victim who is dead. It has no application
whatever to a person who is alive at the time the ritual is performed.
(b) The lamb ritual involves persons who have been spared, not killed.
12. (a) For the heifer ritual, the victims corpse must have been on the
ground (b. Sotah i 44b56 and nn. 9, 13). If the corpse was hanging in
aircrucified, for examplethe heifer ritual may not occur.
(b) To facilitate its flaying, the lamb is elevated and suspended in air
(b. Pesah.i 64a23 and nn. 4345; 64b1).
13. (a) The heifer ritual cannot occur without the victims corpse. In the
event the victim recovers, or is resurrected, or if the corpse disappears for any reason, the heifer ritual cannot occur (b. Sotah i 45b2
and n. 12).
(b) If the lamb somehow recovers, is resurrected, or its carcass disappears, is lost, stolen, or not eaten, the lamb ritual is not invalidated.
After the sacrifice is accepted by the pouring and landing of the
lifeblood on the altar, the sacrifice is forever effective (b. Pesah.i
78b12 and nn. 1013, 19).
14. (a) For the heifer ritual, the identity of the murderer must be unknown,
and the ritual does not absolve the murderer. If, after performance of
the ritual, the identity of the murderer becomes known, the murderer
must be killed irrespective of the prior performance of the ritual.
(b) There is no issue regarding an unknown murderer in the lamb ritual,
and the lamb ritual is fully and immediately effective upon acceptance of the sacrifice, irrespective of what may happen later (b. Pesah.i
78b2 and n. 10).
15. (a) The heifer ritual cannot occur where the victim put him/herself in
danger and does not apply where the murderer is a Gentile or in a
i 45b3 and n. 19).
period of pervasive lawlessness (b. Sotah
(b) The lamb ritual has no such requirements.
16. (a) The heifer ritual is communal and cannot be employed by an individual.
(b) Passover can (and where the individual is alone must) be celebrated
by that individual, so much so that the individual, if alone, must both
ask and answer the Mah Nishtanah Passover questions aloud
(b. Pesah.i 115b3 and nn. 2627116a3 and n. 39). The lamb ritual
involves an individuals choice. An individual has to register for a
specific lamb and can eat only from the lamb they have chosen

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17.

18.

19.

20.

(b. Pesah.i 87a1ff.). The celebrants are isolated into specific dining
groups (for example, the Last Supper).97
(a) Although the heifer ritual has aspects of a court case, the hand
washing symbolizing noninvolvement does not apply to a real
judicial proceeding.
(b) Passover relates to the ordeal of the original Passover and is also
related to the ordeal of the suspected adulteress, the sti , which is a
form of judicial proceeding.98
(a) The heifer ritual is confined to the specific community where an
unsolved murder has occurred and, most decidedly, is not a holiday.
(b) Passover is a paramount national Jewish holiday.
(a) The heifer ritual must be said in the holy tongue, Hebrew (b. Sotai h,
ch. 7; 32a3).
(b) The Passover ritual (like the sti ordeal) should be said in the vernacular (b. Sotai h 32a).
(a) The heifer ritual has nothing whatever to do with the Messiah.
(b) The Messiah is an important part of the Passover liturgy.99

Not only is Pilates hand washing ridiculous under rabbinic law, but the
Romans, much more so than any other ancient or modern people, were famous for
speaking with their hands, particularly in their public oratory.100 Pilates hand washing and his statement See to it yourselves could be communicated by gestures
(hand washing, pointing to the crowd, pointing to his eye, again pointing to the
crowd), and this would have been the way (in stereotype) that he posed the question to the crowd (Matt 27:24). Moreover, this most certainly would have been the
way it was presented in Roman mime, which reveled in mocking Roman gesticulation.101 Thus, we have the classic conundrum that foreign treaties and covenants
were made in sacred oral rituals between people who often spoke different languages and did not understand each other. Pilate discourses in the Roman universal language of gesture, pantomiming the Jewish ritual that most emphatically
had to be said in Hebrew. Yet Pilate uses a Latinism, tu videris, see to it yourselves.102
Finally, even though Pilates hand washing is a farce, it is effective to remove
Pilate/Rome from the covenant between Jesus and the nation (b. Sotah
i 45b746a1

97

Zeitlin, Passover, 432, 43637.

Karel van der Toorn, Ordeal Procedures in the Psalms and the Passover Meal, VT 38
(1988): 42745.
99 David Daube, The Significance of the Afikoman, in idem, New Testament Judaism,
42528; and, in the same volume, He That Cometh, 42940.
100 Aldrete, Gestures, 7, 4043, 5053, 6567, 72, 77, 83, 89, 113.
101 Ibid., 6567.
102 Maclean, Barabbas, 327.
98

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753

and n. 65).103 King of the Jews denotes a three-party contract of Rome-suzerain,

Jesus-vassal king, Israel-vassal people. That is fine for the other acclamations, but
to make a fully bona fide Mosaic-style two-party husband-and-wife covenant
between Jesus and Israel, Pilate (Rome/Pharaoh/Laban/father of the bride) has to
be excluded and cannot be a party. In Mark 15:9, Pilate gives Jesus gladiatorial
nickname as King of the Jews. Matthew 27:22 changes that to Christ, which is
better than king for the relationship of Jewish bridegroom and his Jewish bride.
Rome has a place in acclaiming Jesus as king of the Jews, but not in acclaiming the
Jewish Messiah come to free Israel from Roman (Pharoahs/Labans) bondage.

IX. Matthews Peripeteia

Far beyond Marks monochrome, Matthew employs a literary genre of psychological complexity, peripeteia. Extolled by Aristotles Poetics, peripeteia involves
conscious suppression of uncomfortable knowledge that is nevertheless betrayed by
unwitting utterances or actionssimilar to a Freudian slip.104 First, by suppressing
their discomfort, the actors are consciously ignorant of that which a normal person would readily recognize. Jacob never suspects that Laban might switch his
daughters precisely because Jacob had made such a switch with his brother (cf.
b.Meg. 13b1). Oedipus never suspects that Jocasta is his mother, despite her age and
the fact that her husband had been killed at the very time when Oedipus had killed
a man. Despite the intimacies of the marriage bed, Jocasta never questions the
injuries to Oedipuss feet.105
The actors then betray their repressed subconscious feelings: Herod (the
Great) says to the Magi, bring me word that I too may pay him homage (Matt
2:8). Nero goes to extraordinary lengths to make his mothers death look like an
accident, only to set tongues wagging by performing as Orestes and Oedipus.106
Oedipus vows to prosecute the killer as though the victim were his own father.107
Consider also Dimmesdales choice of sermons, Hamlets play within a play, the
proverbial return to the scene of the crime, Raskolnikovs drawing attention to himself, and so on.
Matthew employs this repressed-consciousness technique by having Pilate
think that he is exonerating himself via the Jewish hand-washing ritual of Deuteronomy 21, but he really is performing the hand washing of a blood sacrifice. The
103

Daube, Causation, 29.

Laszlo Versenyi, Oedipus: Tragedy of Self-Knowledge, Arion 1 (1962): 22, 2425, 30.
105 Ibid.; see also Howard Jacobson, Ritualistic Formulae in Greek Dramatic Texts, CQ
n.s. 32 (1982): 23334.
106 Alexis Dawson, What Happened to Lady Agrippina? CJ 64 (1969): 25367.
107 Edwin Carawan, The Edict of Oedipus (Oedipus Tyrannus 223-51), AJP 120 (1999):
187222, 218 and n. 68.
104

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crowd, which previously in Mark and Matthew had been favorably disposed toward
Jesus,108 after suppressing their fondness for him in order to spite Pilate, says, His
blood on us and on our children, betraying their subconscious affinity with Jesus.
In a supreme irony that the intended audience, but not the crowd, is supposed to
appreciate,109 the crowd asserts that the proximity of the blood kinship ties between
Jesus and themselves gives them the right to have Jesus put to death.110
Blood on, in the crowds oath, reflects the crowds abiding subconscious
awareness that it is Passover, the holiday that unites all Jews in the original Passover
with the paschal blood on the houses of the people, or in the paschal temple sacrifice with the blood of the lambs on the altar, or in the blood of the covenant on
the people themselves in the making of the Mosaic covenant (Exod 24:8). The
crowds oath is meant as a miraculous acceptance, confirmation, and corroboration of Jesus offer of his blood.

X. Conclusion
The scene of Pilate and the crowd is tendentious, but not in the way supposed,
as pro-Roman and anti-Jewish. The narratives of the Jewish-oriented evangelists sub
rosa condemn Rome. In Mark, the scene is meant as a parody of the Roman games.
The members of the Jewish crowd are merely Jewish actors playing Romans. In
Mark, Pilate is portrayed as the stereotypical Roman, Caesar, in the stereotypical
Roman activity of presiding over the gladiatorial games. The stereotypical interaction between Caesar and the crowd is found in the crowds decision whether the
winning gladiator is to be freed and, even more prominently, whether the losing
gladiator is to be spared or killed. In the stereotypical conclusion, the bloodthirsty
screaming crowd has the winner freed and the loser killed, and the supremely powerful yet unbelievably stupid and weak Caesar is forced to accede, no matter how
opposed he is personally.
Matthew resituates the scene in its Jewish milieu with his analogous figure of
an elite Roman, Pilate, attempting but butchering a Jewish ritual. The subaltern
Jewish crowd (and Jewish readers/hearers of the Gospel) understand the hidden
message that Pilates actions are ridiculous, and in their final response to Pilate, the
crowd rises to the occasion and acclaims their intra-Jewish blood bond with Jesus.
In doing so, the crowd unwittingly accepts Jesus offer of his blood made earlier
that day outside their presence (Matt 26:28; 27:25; Exod 24:8).
108

E.g., Mark 1:22; 2:4, 13; 3:9; 4:1; 5:2024; 6:2; 8:1; 9:1415; 10:1; 11:18; 12:12; 14:2; Matt
9:8; 10:33; 12:23; 21:9, 46; 22:33.
109 See D. W. Lucas, Pity, Terror, and Peripeteia, CQ 12 (1962): 5354.
110 In Mark and more so Matthew, it is common knowledge that Jesus said he would die
and rise from the dead after three days (e.g., Matt 12:3841; 16:14; 27:63; 28:6).

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