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Today, Good Friday, I’ve been meditating on the line from Matthew (27:25), spoken by the enraged Jews in response to Pilate’s continual efforts to set Jesus free: “His blood be on us and on our children.”
These words appear only in the Gospel of Matthew. It isn’t clear what we should literally take them to mean in any case — it seems unlikely that the crowd shouted this “all with one voice,” as it were, though we can fairly suppose that words to this effect must have been heard from multiple mouths. Gibson took some grief for putting this phrase into his Passion film, on the grounds that it has sometimes been used as a justification for tormenting the Jews as “Christ-killers.” He eventually agreed to take it out… but in fact he only removed the English subtitle, not the actual words, which rock-star-atheist Christopher Hitchens immediately took as evidence for Gibson’s true anti-Semitism.
Nobody should let the furor of all that silliness obscure their meditations on these profound words. I sometimes feel that the “felix culpa” puzzle of St. Paul is all encapsulated in this one line. Here we see the Jews ostensibly (and in their own minds) asking for something very evil — that Our Lord, though wholly innocent and good, should be put to death. But at the same time, in fact, they are pleading for something wonderful — that His blood should mark them and their children forever. For, as we know, the Blood of the Lamb has the power to redeem them from this and all their other sins. We can hardly help but think of the blood of the Passover, which marked the doors of their ancestors and thus saved their children from the angel of death. Mankind’s greatest sin, and its plea for redemption, are captured all in this one sentence.
I was looking through the Catena Aurea this morning, hoping to find something on this passage, but there was nothing. If anyone knows of anything good that has been written on it, please do share.
“It isn’t clear what we should literally take them to mean in any case”
I disagree — it is clear. In the preceding verse (St. Matt. 27.24) we see, “taking water [Pilate] washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it.” Pilate lamely attempted to deny responsibility by ceremonially washing his hands of Christ’s Blood. The crowd responded in kind. They virtually said, “YOU may deny responsibility, but we accept it. We do not see the Blood as something to be washed off.” Pilate’s reference to the Blood and the crowd’s reference to it need to be taken together.
“it seems unlikely that the crowd shouted this “all with one voice,” as it were, though we can fairly suppose that words to this effect must have been heard from multiple mouths.”
The verse says, “And the whole people answering said.” In verse 22, “Let him be crucified” is prefaced “They say all.” “Whole” and “all” indicate pretty clearly that this was something more than just “multiple mouths” in the crowd. How could this be? I don’t think this was a spontaneous crowd spontaneously shouting the same words. In verse 20, it says, “But the chief priests and ancients persuaded the people, that they should ask Barabbas, and make Jesus away.” If you know how mobs work, probably the Chief Priest or one of his lieutenants shouted the answer first, with the expectation that the crowd would repeat it. Then they could fall to chanting the words like a slogan. (Is this how it is presented in “The Passion”?) If the crowds all shouted their own demands out of synch with anyone else, how was any message supposed to be sent? In any case, the verse say, “the whole people,” meaning of course the people there in the courtyard (I’m not disputing the “words to this effect part”).
Oh, certainly Pilate’s words about the Blood, and the crowd’s reply, need to be taken together. I just don’t think we need take it more literally than the text intended — for example, the “all” needn’t be taken to imply that literally every person present said it. We wouldn’t normally mean to be quite that literal when we say, “and the people were all yelling…”
I guess what I had in mind was something more like this: someone yells out the words, and lots of people on their own hear it, like it, and start echoing it on their own. Not in unison, Borglike, but more in a wave. That seems to capture the sense of the text, and seems a lot more plausible when you imagine an angry mob of people. And you can certainly imagine something like that happening with the words “Not this man but Barabbas” or “Crucify Him!”
” for example, the “all” needn’t be taken to imply that literally every person present said it. ”
So what you meant was, “It *is* pretty clear what we should literally take them to mean.” Good, we agree.
Whatever. I just meant that the text was ambiguous as to whether they were all supposed to be speaking simultaneously, or in a wave, or what have you. Imagination can fill in the spaces a bit. Probably partly what was in my mind was those silly people (like Hitchens) who somehow think it’s a “problem” that Matthew is the only Gospel that includes this particular line. Doesn’t seem like any big problem to me — presumably it was a crazy scene with lots of shouting and screaming. Different words and details might have stuck in different witnesses’ minds.
Here’s Cornelius A Lapide commenting on this passage: “Let the guilt thou fearest be transferred from thee to us. If there be any guilt, may we and our posterity atone for it. But we do not acknowledge any guilt, and consequently, as not fearing any punishment, we boldly call it down on ourselves. And thus have they subjected not only themselves, but their very latest descendants, to God’s displeasure. They feel it indeed to this day in its full force, in being scattered over all the world, without city, or temple, or sacrifice, or priest, or prince, and being a subject race in all countries. It was, too, in punishment for Christ’s crucifixion that Titus ordered five hundred Jews to be crucified every day at the siege of Jerusalem, as they crowded out of the city in search of food, ‘so that at last there was no room for the crosses, and no crosses for the bodies’ (Josephus B. J., VI 12) ‘This curse,’ says Jerome, ‘rests on them even to this day, and the blood of the Lord in not taken from them,’ as Daniel fortold (IX 27)
From verse 20 it is evident that that the people were urged by their leaders to ask for Barabbas in unison, “and destroy Jesus.”Likewise “Crucify Him. Crucify Him,” is repeated on several occasions in unison. By the time Pilate washed his hands, the multitude was in full swing and a unified tumult was immanent. Moreover Pilate was adopting a familiar Jewish custom in trying to wipe away the guilt of Christ’s blood while saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.” Their retort, “His blood be upon us…,” would flow quite naturally and spontaneously from all.
I don’t see “in unison” in verse 20. It does say that they were encouraged by their leaders. Gibson portrays it somewhere in between a wave and a unison chant, with a few core people in the middle managing to stay in unison, while the rest of the crowd is just going crazy. That seems more plausible to me.
Anyway, I don’t think this is really