The Power of Disorder: Ritual Elements in Mark's Passion Narrative

LI BRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

378 formerly the joumdl for the Study of the New Tf·stnmem Supplement serit>s

Edicor Mark Goodacre

Editorial Board John 1\,t. G. Bard a)•, Craig Blomberg, R. Alan Culpepper. j aml'S D. G. Dunn, CraiB A. Evans. Slephc n Fowl. Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathcrcolc. Jo h n S. Kloppcnborg, Michael Labahn, Robcn \.Vall, Stcvt" Walton. Robcn L. Webb, Catrin H. Williams

This page intemiollai(J' hifi bla11k

THE POWER OF DISORDER

Ritual Elements in Mark's Passion Narrative

NICOLE W I LKINSON DURAN

.\\ 1&. I clark

Copyright 1\:) Nicole Wilkinson Duran, 2008 Published by T&T Ciarlt A Cominuum imprinf

The Tower Building, II York Road, London SEI 7NX SO Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New Yorlt, NY I0038 www.continuumbooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publit'3tion may be reproduced or lr.msmitled in ~my fonn or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any infOnnation storage or retrieval S)'S-tem, without pennission in writing ffom the publishers. Nicole Wilkinson Duran has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. 1988, to be identified as the Author or this work British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record tor this book is available from the British Library ISBN-10: HB: 0-567.03306-6 ISBN-13: HB: 978-0-567-03306-2 Typeset by Data Standards Limited, Frome, Somerset, UK. Printed on :.cid-lree paper in Great Britain by MPG Biddies ltd, King's Lynn, Norfolk

CoNTENTs

A.bbrel iations

VI

1

C HAI'l'f.rt 1 IMAGINING ·rHI! PASSION AS Rn'lJAJ. CJ.JAJ~rt:R 2 0 Jf'H! REN1'1Ai'tON: M ARKt No Rn·uAL. SeEJNo SACftl f"JCE CJ.JAJ"'I'tiR 3

Ret•errnoN 1N U NlfEJ•SATt.u TIME

CHAI>l't:R 4 SmtS'J"I1 u·rtoN t N Fe:,1'1VAL, SAcRJf' JC£ ANU S·roRY

CJ.JAJ~rt:R

5

' Lr:.T nu:

0:-m \VHo

UNOERS"'.ANOs. UNOERS'l'ANu·

24

55 77

99

Bib/iogniphy

124

Index

131

AnBR~VIATIONs

<:c

Common Era

JAAR JBL NRSV

Journal of the Amcrit'llll Amdemy of Religion Joumal of Biblic-al Literature

SBL SNTSMS

New Revised Standard Ve.rsion Society of Bibli~-11 Literature Society for New T tosta menl Studies Monogra ph Series

Chapter I IMAGINING THE PASSION AS R ITUA L

Mouk's gospel is notoriously d ifficult to make sense o f. Students in church a nd academic contexts o fte n find this gospel's brevity} its abrupt ending, its rapid-fire. episodic pace. its thick-as-a-brick disciples and its unexplained secrets s ufftcient reason to more o r less reject it. \\1hen the more substantial. spacio us, and aesthetically pleasing houses that Mallhew, Luke and John built are so close at hand. they a rgue, why stay in Mark's cramped and ill
The Poll'er of Disorder

2

Mary Douglas's s tudy of the Hebrew purity system noted the links there between t he social and the individual body and changed the way t hat ma ny o f us understood biblical lnws.2 Recogn iz ing. that the biblical body is often defined .:JIIrrt'rl iml i!l thr Belcnwf Sfln (New Ha\'en: Yale Uni\'trsity Press. 1993). 4 Howard Eilbcrg-Schwnrtz. ne Sarttgi' in Judaism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Uni''ersity Press. 1990). 5 Jon L Berquist. Cm11rolli11g C'orpoJWIIity (New Brunswid:. NJ: Rutg~·rs University Pre~ 2002): Saul M. Ol~n. Bibliml Mm.~mil~~ (New York Oxford Univtrsity Press. 2004): William K . Gilders.. Blootl Riwal ilt tile 1/ebrt'lr Bib!t' (Bahimorc:: Johns Hopkins Uni\'Crsity Press.. 200-4-); Gcmld A. Klingbeil. Brkfgi11g the?GaJ' (Winonn l uke. IN: Eisc:nbrauns. 2007). 2

Imagining tlu: Passion as Riwal

3

studies virtually untouched. Jon D. Le\renson's Tltr Demh am/ Resurrection of the Belo~·t•d Son goes so fa r as to mention t he relevance o f his insights for inte rp retation o f t he New Te-swment, a nd his exploroltion of the ritual themes wit hin the He brew narrative oug.ht to have been tremendously suggestive for students o f New Testament narrative; but in the fifteen years since its publication. analogous stud ies o f the gospels have not been forthcoming. Despite the prominence o f sacrificio-11 themes in nearly every book o f t he New Testament. critics dealing with ritual elements of t he text have limited t hemselves to historical inquiry into the earliest pmctices of baptism or eucha rist. A lthough Nancy hy's book o n sacrifice and inheritance dealt with both the sacrificial system of Leviticus and that o f the Roman Catholic C hurch, she d id not allempt to apply her insights to New Testament materials, nor have others taken her methods to t he gospels.6 There are. o f course. good reasons why New Testament scholars have avoided looking at issues of ritual, sacrifice. and body in the gospels. This kind of inquiry would req uire at least implied comparison with the ritual. sacrificial practices o f other cu ltures a nd religions - modern or a ncient o r both. But such compa rison is seen as dangero us. In the history o f t he discip line. there have been in Nev..• Testament cdticism two kinds o f comparative study o f t he gospels' Pas..~; i on stories. First o f all. the Ancien t Ne-.ar Eastern festivals o f t he New Yea r, seen as a farreaching pattern by hislory-of-religion schola rs. from time to time emerg.ed in the \vorks o f those scho la rs as a nalo,gous to the Passion story, in particular aspects or as a whole. Secondly, vnrious acts o f sacrificial ritual remain a source o f comparison and struggle for interpreters who fig ht o r follow the t remendously inltuential sacrificial c.hristology of the Epistle to t he Hebrews. These lWO sets o f compar.itive studies were no t unrelated - t he fac t that the fes tivals were seen as involving sacrifice already connects the two - but they constitute d iverse impulses within comparative interpretation of the Passion. The first group of c.omparisons were bo rn a nd bred. lived and d ied wit hin the ac-.tdemy. Involving t he study o f obsc.ure and defunct languages and relig,ious traditions. the province o f Faustian schola rs, such comparisons \vere largely understood by the laily only as threatening to the sovereig.nty o f C hristian doctrine. But if the comparisons of the Passion to ancient fes tivals threatened Ch ristian doctrine, the comparisons lo ancient sacrifice were Christian doctrine. That is. t he strictest Christian orthodoxy in the modern world has 6

Nancy Jay. n/((JUghmu

Press. 1991).

Yilll~' GenrrtJiimiS Forew.r

(Chicago: Univcrsily of Chicago

4

The Poll'er of Disorder

understood Jesus• death as a holy sa crifice. at o nce compam ble a nd superior to o the r s.acrifices. particularly Jev.rish sacrifices. 1n short. there is fo r Ch ristia n theology no mo re weigh ted moment in the g.ospels than the death and resurrection o f Jesus. Comparison o f t his event to other storied de-.aths, ritual or o therwise, has been treacherous g ro und for scho lars. who risk accusntio ns of he resy o n t he o ne hand and of dogmatism o n t he o ther. In t he eo:arly years o f the tv.rentieth century. as I will d iscuss rno re fully in Chapte r 4. scho la rs d id pick up on rit ua l <1spects o f the Passion sto ry in Mark . o fte n relating it to the Roman festival o f the Satu rnalia o r t he Ba bylonian festivals of Akitu and Zagmuk. Bo ldest of them a iL J. G . Frazer no ted the similarities be tween these festivals and others. including the Jewish festival o f Purim a nd o the rs througho ut the Near East. Frazer postulates a genetic relationship between the festivals t hat is impossible to prove a nd sometimes d ifticult to believe. But Frazer's analysis. tlawed in te rms o f historica l method. is nevertheless intriguing. as we will see in C hapter 4 of this book. Tha t Frazer's e labo rate theories have holes has become a truism to any who still remember him. Like many scho lars o f his era, Frazer ~1ccepted the undocume-nted accounts o f travellers and missio naries as his raw mate rial, and these were as like ly to be fictio n as fact. He never appea.rs to doubt any of the info rmatio n he receives from these sources~ but. as Mic.ltel Trouillo t notes o f the West in general, is ha ppy to accept ' the most fantastic-a l accounts' as fac t. \Vha t is mo re inte resting here is tha t Frazer's ideas. together with the work of scholars like Alfred Loisy and Paul \Vendland. rather than being revised in light o f ethnographica l evidence a nd theoretical developments. have been more or less a bandoned. New Testament scholars rarely connect na rrative episodes fro m the gospels to ritual in a ny way, certainly no t in so subtle a nd inte resting a way as schola rs o f the Hebre\'l Bible have recently done with He brew n~umtive. Although histo rically oriented gospe l scho l<us occasio nally note the relevance of a ncient ritual practices to a particula r text. 7 a sense that there are known rituals or fes tivals with rele\•ance for the Passion as a who le has mo re or less d isappeared wit h the (in part well-deserved) d iscred iting of the history o f religio n school. Indeed . as Gera ld Klingbeil points out, 'there appears to be a disti nct bias in NT studie.s against ritual. Rjt ua l is viewed as ·•dead," " legalistic." and connected to a type 7 Sc:c for c:xampk. Jennifer Maclean. 'Barnbb:t.S. the Scapegoat Ritu!1l. :111d the Dc:\·dopml'll! of the: Passion N:trrtlli\'C.. 1/an-cwd Theologircli &ri£rtl' 100 (2007). pp. J.OC)34: On\·id Miller. ·em{'ilitl:ein: Playing the Mock G~•mc: Luke 22.6.~-64·. JBL 90 ( 1971). p. 309.

Imagining tlu: Passion as Riwal

5

o f Judaism that was always confro nting t he. earthly ministry of Jesus . .s Cl1nst. In fact. the most significant forays into the 1ittwl dimensions of the New Testamen t in recent years have been from Rene Gir.t rd. o r those who accept his p remises and expand on his arguments. But G irard is a strang.e ally for New Testament readers interested in ritual, since Girard views ritual sacrifice (the only kind of ritual that interests him) as subterfuge. t he product of what he terms the ·scapegoating mechunism'.9 Thus the vengeful a nd violent impulses of a given society are projected upon a victim who is in fact arbitr~ry and d isposable: the victim is destroyed and fu rther vio lence is averted. Those who have read Shirley Jnckson's sho rt story, 'The Lottery'. will recognize t he theme: a civilization's appa rent peace and order built upon a socially acceptable murder. 10 There is plenty of truth in G irard's analysis. Certainly Americ-ans can recognize in our nation's readiness to execute criminals and torture supposed terro rists the kind o f expiatory sacrifice that Girard describes. in which our society visualizes its sins embodied in d isposable peop le: African Americ.~m men of little mea ns or Middle Eastern Muslims. at the moment. The victim is seen as guihy nnd deserving death. Girard ma intains. even though the group in fact has chosen the victim mo re or Jess at r.tndom. The society must believe in t he victim's guilt in o rder for the sacrifice of the scapegoat to do its magic. If t he society recognized the victim as a scapegoat. the victim's death would more likely produce sympathy and o utrage t ha n catharsis. Jesus' death in the gospels, then, become.~ the unmasking o f an nncient, foundatjonal mecha nism, since it is clear to readers of the g.ospels that Jesus has done no thing to deserve death. He d ies - no t unlike the character Constance in the tilm The L({e <~{ Dm1id Gate - precisely to expose t he injustice o f the scapegoating system. Recognizing t hat the gospels do not una nimously or consistently see the cross ns primarily an injustice, G ira rd ian Ro be rt Hamerton-Kelly analyses Mar k for contrasting: strands of the text. His book. The Gospel and tile Sal'l'cd. pits the liberating. gospel against what he c.a lls the

8 Klingbeil Bridgi11g tltt' GaJ•. p. 53. 9 RenC Girard. Vio!eJtN! ami tlu!' Strcrerl. trnns. Pauid: Greg.ory {lk•ltimore: Johns Hopkins Uniwrs:ity Press. 1977). 10 The theme of primordial murder appears with such (ttqucncy in western scholarship that it a mounts ton cuhuml my1h of origins. Cf. Sigmund Freud's TtJit>m a11d T(rboo. 1mns. Jumcs Sl rachcy (~\-w York: W . W. Norton and Comp:1ny. 1950): and Emile Durkhcint's Tht? Elt>J11-t!Jtlar.r Fonns of the Rt•ligitJIIS L]t>. trans. Knren Fidds (N~o"\V York: Free. Press. 1995).

The Poll'er of Disorder

6

sac-red. in a fascinatingly negative use o f t he term. 11 The sacred, by Ha me.rton-Ke lly's definition. is made up of the ritual elemen ts t hat constit ute G irard 's scapeg.oating mech<mism, elements that try to hide or justify the violence of t he c ross, while t he gospel seeks to expose and oppose t his vio lence as unnecesso.u y. Alo ng the way. Jesus is seen as completely opposed to the temple by virt ue o f the te mple's programme

of sacrifice. This seems to be a fairly adept appropriation of G irard's assumptio ns, since Girard's e ntire thesis moves towards the fina l exposition of violence. an expositio n that he sees occurring. in Chris tianity. Raymund Schwager, on t he other hand . a lso a pplies G irard's framework to the biblical text. but d itTe rs fro m Gira rd (perhaps not intentionally) in seeing Jes us as actually an effective ato nement sacrifice, a s opposed to a fa iled attempt to bring o tT a murder as such a sacrifice. 12 Ha merton-Ke lly. Schwager, and o ther G irard ian biblical S(.~h olars all pnrtake , however. of the o tTe nsiveness of Girard 's ethnocentric a nd triumpha list unders tanding of religion.u G irard sees the hislory of relig;ion progressing. fro m ignora nce and c ruelty towards the ethica l e nlightenment o f C hristian be.lief. For Hamerton-Kelly. moments of rit ua l in Mark's gospel a re the unfortunately barba ric views o f t he onllho r seeping into the gospel's greater truth. Although the gospel is interpreted in rit ua l terms, rit ua l i L~ I f is seen as primitive. bnrba ric. bloodthirsty - a nd as something ' the gospel' expressly despises. even when t he gospels embrace it. As De He usch has no ted , G irard's theories do no t gibe \\'ell with either the historical phe.n omena of religion o r with the chronicles of his to ry itself. 14 For those who wish to see sacrifice as bad and retrograde, Hyam Maccoby's idea that Judaism develo ped from the materia l to the ethical unders tanding o f sacrifice and t hat Ch ri s t i ~m i ty \Vas a throwback to the more primitive. material view ma kes n great deo:tl mo re sense. •s It is sim ply d ifficult to understand a

II

Robe-rt G. Homerton-Kd ly. The GoJpi!l und 1/le Sacrnl (Minn~a poli s.: Fartrcss Press.

1994).

12 Raymund Schwager. Must Tllert' Bot Scapeg«IIJ~ (Sa n Frnncisco: Harper and Row. 1987). p. 205: d . RcnC Gimrd. Sra;ll'g«ll (Baltimort": Johns Hopkjns Univcrsily Press. 1986). p. 101. 13 cr. Jomcs G . Williams. Tirt> Biblt>. JlitJ!erlt'e tmd 1/Je Saan/(San Francisoo: Horpc-r.

1992). 14 Luc [)(' Hcus..-h. Sauijiri! in AjNm (Mancheste-r. UK: Manchester University I'T~'SS. 1985). 1). 16. 15 Hyom J..·lacooby, TlteSucrf'd £xerllli(llh~I· ( Ncw York: Thomes and Hudson. 1982).

Imagining tlu: Passion as Riwal

7

relig ion so wrapped up with an imag.e o f sal vi fie viole.nce. as condemning the idea that violence c-.m be salvific. 16 G irard's ideas pa rtake of ninetee-n t h-century attempts to disconnect true (ethical, rational) Ch ristianity from the uninformed , supe rstitious practice o f Christianity or any other religio n; both the nineteenth c.entury theories o f J. G. Frazer a nd those of G irard suffer fro m the late twentieth-centu ry's disembO\velment of the idea o f progr ess. a ca sualty o f the \vorld wars for most weste rners. t ho ugh clearly not fo r G irard. 17 Rela ted to the prior fa it h in progress is the understand ing: o f rit ua l as a syrnpto m o f ignor;m ce and a legitimatio n of violence. Ritual and myth fo r Frazer were simply evidence of the lack that modern science came to fill; they were early attempts to gra pple ''~th issues too big fo r the intellectua l tools o f primitive times, the trial and erro r by which science gnldua lly. thankfully, came to be. For G irard rit ua l prac tices have been superseded by the advances o f civilization. althoug h in his case it is no t scientific understa nding, but the development of j urisprudence that constitutes this forwo.trd movement . Sacrificial rillHll. according to Girard, was a c rude effo rt to curta il the cycle o f vengeance and accompanying socia l chaos set off by murder, a n effo rt made o bsolete by the ad\'ent of j udicial systems. T hus, he is led to s uch no nsensical conclusio ns as that t he practice o f sactifice 'languished ' in the Greek a nd Roman empires - news to most scholars - because systems o f justice stole its thunder. 1s Ancient Israel, which had a leg
8

The Poll'er of Disorder

historical celebration o f Purim (one thnt involved huma n sacrifice)~ while Girard and his followe rs in biblicnl scholarship are concerned with sift ing. out the real. historic-a l execution of Je-sus behind the Passion accounts. as distinct fro m a ll atte mpts to port ray the event as a sacrifice. Frazer's ideas \\•ere d ro pped abrupt ly whe n the history-of-religion school came to seem too broad in its conclusions and too d ilettante in its research. Girard's work, o n t he o ther hand. emerging a century later with a psychologic-.tlflite rary bent, lives on, perhaps Jarg.ely because. where ritual c riticism of the New Testament is concerned. it has so few competi to rs.

Mark's Passion as HistOI'Y mul Literature: C/wos and Cohe,.ence If schola rs hip, with t he exceptio n of the Girardinns. has not seen fit to examine the rit ua l elements o f ~'l a rk 's Passion narrative. hmv ho1s t he Pas..~; i on narrative been e xamined? Until recent l y~ a n attraction to t he historicity of the events that Mark describes shaped scholarship on t he Passion. Since Mark has been accepted
Imagining tlu: Passion as Riwal

9

gospel against c harges t ha t it is a n irrelevant fa iry-tale. scholarship has been loathe to consider the possibility that incompre hensio n means incomp rehension; that neither the d isciples. no r !\·la rk, no r the reader ever really gets the point: that no ne of us. includ ing Mark, ever rea lly understand the purpose and necessity of Jesus' dea t h, and that it is possible to ma intain in the face of s uch incomp rehension. as Monk does. the urgent belief that t here was a purpose and a necessity.

Literary Cl'iticism: Comem with Co/terence Because a literary understanding allows for ambiguity a nd paradox. recent literary interpretations make room fo r more o f the myste rious elements in t he Passion. Robert Fowler's e mphasis o n the irony tha t culminates in t he trial narratives and Jerry Camery-Hogatt's de~~ription o f the workings of irony in Mark nre both q uite compatible with my read ing. in part becnuse pnradox seems to be <1 fundamental element in ritua l. as certainly a re the symbolism and rnetaphor t ha t make. a literary read ing interesti ng.2 1 A major difference between these read ings a nd my own is the sou rce of the irony nnd paradox - a nd even more so o f the a rnbig uity and choppy qua lity of t he text.22 T he q uestion is \Vhether these fentures are t he evidenc.e of Mark's conscio us lite rary technique or o f his grappling wit h an unwieldy reality. C.mn ery-Hogatt goes ns far as to sny that lang uage is an effo rt to humanize experience. and tha t it is thus that the Passio n a ttempts to understand the incomprehensible lhrou,gh its narrative.21 T hat Mark ho.ts more to express t ha n o rd innry langu
Robert

Fowi~r.

Camcry· H~"'gn tt.

Uttbe Rrmler Undt•rsltmd(Minocapolis: Fortress Pr~ss. 1991): J~rry Irony ill Murk's GoJJit!l. SNTSMS 72 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Pn:ss. 1992).

22 Cf. John C. M~:tghcr. Clumsy G:mJtruclirm i11 Mark ·s Go.~pe.l. Toronto Studies in Thoology 3 (Toronto: Th<: Edwin M dl~n l,css.. 1979). who ~•ttribu tc:s these qualities to poor writing on Mark's pan. 2:0 Camery-H og~1 U. Irony. pp. 17- 19. citing Gudnmc:-r.

10

The Poll'er of Disorder

ma ke the Bible acceptable to reo.1sonable, rational people. to converse with, if not to evangelize. 'the educated unbeliever'?J The investigation of Mark's Passio n is no exception. As it \~t'as impo rta nt fo r the gospel writers to ma intain that the apparent senselessness o f a crucified Messia h re\•ealed a deepe r meaning, so it has been vital for C hristian scho larship to defend t he obscurity and ambiguity of Mark's gospel - its mystified disciples. the fits and starts o f its theology, its a brupt and scary e nding - as revealing a deeper cohe rence of intent. It is irnportant, in a social world where he \~t' ho hesitates is lost. that Mark be read as moving decisively towa rds a unifying point. Fo r t his gospel to be valuable for western intellectua ls it must no t only result in some kind of coherent me.~sag.e but be consciously designed to do so: a lmost without exception. despite a ll evide.nce to the contrary. Mark has been read as beg.inning with a clear message and setting nbout to communic-dte it. Mary Ann Tolbert. in he.r volume o n Mark. puts fo rt h coherenc.e as a criterion for adjud ic-ating. interp retations. The more t he c ritic can claim to have d iscovered a cohere nc.e intended by the author. the more persuasive t he c ritic's work . ' \Vhether ontologically gro unded in the text or in t he reader, the presumption o f intentionality, organization, coherence. a nd unity in a text underlies the who le proc.ess o f read ing a nd interpretn't" '. 26 Tolbert's discussion acknowledges t he possibility that the search fo r a n intended cohe rence is a cultural product. rather than something emerging fro m the text itself. Indeed, as she a lso acknowledges, it is a c ultuml assumptio n she claims fo r her own reading: o f Mark's gospel. which perc.eives a unity more p recise and symmetrical than most. 27 Tolbert differs from earlier read ings of Marie in the deg_ree to which she is c.onscious o f c hoosing to see a coherent and intended message in t he gospel. The p reva lent assumption of such a me.~ag.e. however, can a lmost purposefull y limit the meaning emerg.ing. fro m the text. As Kennode submits: 24 Gusta\'O Gutierrez. ·Two 11tcologic.:al Pl'1Spoctivt$' , in Tile £mt'rgt'JII GO.\]It'l INcw York: Orbis Hooks. 197&). p. 243. 25 ~:l ary Ann Tolbert. So~ri11g tht> Go.~pel !Minneapolis: Fortn:-ss Press. 1989). p. II. 26 T olhcrl (p. II). citing Fmnl: Kcrmode. Tlut Gt'tli!Sis rif St>cr« .r (Cambridge: Hnrv~ard Uni\-crsit)' Press. 19i9). p. SJ. 27 Sec especially her di~tgr.un of the rhetorical structure Mark. in Appendix A: Tolbert. Sowing the GtJSpel. pp. 311- 15.

or

Imagining tlu: Passion as Riwal

II

In establishing coherence we redu~ the text to codes implanted in our minds by the arbitrary fiat of <1 culture or an institution. and are therefore the unconscious victims of ideological oppression. Freedom. the freedom to produce meaning. rests in fortuity. in the removal of constmints on sense.~s

The limitations of insistjng upon a n intentional coherence are demo nstrated in a commentary from the 1950s, \'.:hich describes the gospel thus: 'Mark's little volume wns like a letter - penned to fill an immediate need . . . It was Mark's epistle to his dearest friends, the membe rs of the little congregation of \vhich he was a part. when they were in desperate straits.' 29 Not only is the gospel manageable a nd o rderly in such a vie\v. it has become. along with its author and his community. so t ho ro ughly domesticated as to be almost cme - quaint in the specificity of its (entirely speculative) origins. intimate. endearing. and ' little' . Mark has. this same account concludes. ·but o ne message to tell (that Jesus will come again to save his faithful followers), one exhortation to make (that Christians must be loyal to him)'.30 The re is a moral to the story, in o ther words. a point that can finally be separated fro m the narrative like the contents of a cup from the cup itself. To maintain t hat Mark is t his kind of message merely dressed in the clothes of a narrative is a way o f insisting upon the fundamentally reasonable nature of t he gospel. a nd a way of asserting: control over its import. Mark is not to be seen as a writer taken over by his story, much less as a fanatic torme nted by \•isions of the end time. but as somet hing like a country pastor, a makeshift t heologian. an uneducated man with a basic grasp o f the kerygma a nd a compo.tssionate. sane desire to convey t hat grasp in language that his community will understand. Despite the claims o f narrative biblic-al critics that their a pproach does not~ as redaclion criticism did. nttempt to disti l a theology from t he story, narra.tive criticism with few exceptions separates d iscourse from story. technique front content. in such a way as to facilitate theolog.ical condusions.J 1 The critic still sees a message distinct from the messeng.er. But the fact is that attempts to see Mark's Passio n as having a n 28 Kc-rmode. Gerwsis. p. 54. 29 Curtis lkaeh. 111e Gospt'l of .\fttrk (New Vorl:: Harper :md Brothers. 1959). p. 63. 30 lkacb. Mm-k. pp. 120- 21. 31 Soc:. for example. Elizab~·th Stnuhcrs tl.·lalbon·s chap-ter on narrative criticism in Anderson and Moore (J1fm·k as M1!tl101l. pp. 13-49). in which she- takes the question of the liter.uy <:ritic to be ·how does the story mc:an·. a ques tion quite distinct for her from that of what thc: s tory mc-.:ms. Ye-t it is clc:;.u that s he reads M:trk as ha,·ing a su.xinct m~g.c: i.e .. ' Ihe goal of 1hc journey is for all - disciples and implied rtaders - to ..sc:c·· ns Bartimacus do~·s and to follow "on the way" · (35).

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The Poll'er of Disorder

e ntirely reasonable conte nt ultimately frustrate the c ritic and ntuzzle t he. text. The appare ntly purposeful obscurity o f t he parables, the violence of the apocalypse, the inexorable agony o f the cross~ the emptiness of the empty tomb, the silences and t he. subverted declara tions - it is a terrific strain to fit a ll o f t his into o ne sensible d iscourse. More than any other New Testament writer, wit h the possible exception of Jo hn of Patmos. Mark has what John Keats called ·negative capability' : 1:: That is. the author has a n a ttraction to a nd a tolerance fo r that which he does not full y understand. a lovefhate relationship with the means of expression - the means fo r expressing and fo r trunc-.ating t he richness of perceived meaning..33 Matthew and Luke each make it very clear t hat they know what t he story they a re te lling mea ns and t hat they intend to fell you what it means~ whatever else these two gospels muy be. they a re noumtive theology in t he sense of theology made clear and palatuble as narmtive. But Mark's n ~umtive does not make his t heology clear. because Mark's theology is no t clea r - he is not a the.ologia n, but a writer. The c rea tive writer does no t begin with a fully articulated messag.e. \\1hat such writing atte mpts to convey happens to the \vriter in the p rocess of writing and to t he render in the process of read ing. a nd is in neither case sepa rable from the flo w of the writing, itself. If t heology c re of cohe rence and order. The reluctance to see ritual in this text is first o f all a reluctance to admit religion - as opposed to either disembodied spirituality o r intellectuul theology - into the life and dea th o f Jesus. But certainly in bo th t he history and the text. religion is there.

32

John K<:ats. ' l etter to George ttnd Thomas Keats. I:Xc. 2 1. 18 17'. in Tiut Nomm

hwwft((tion to Lift'rttltlfe. cd. Cmi E. Bain. Jerome:- Ekaty :tnd J. Pnul Huntl·r. Jrd cd. (New

York: W .\V. Nonon and Company. 198 1). p. 753. 33 Foucault's a nalysis of the works of the:- Marquis de Sade tc:s.tifi.c:s to the:- lo\'t/hatc relationship with language I h~H·e in mind: 'The totality of language fi nds itse-lf stcrili1.cd by the single:- and identical mowmc:nt of two in.scpar.tb1t ligures.: the strict in\'ertcd rcpctition of what htts ttlm tdy been said and the simple nttming of that whieh lies a! the limit of what we cnn say. The prttisc object of "sadism"' is not the other .. . it is everything th~ll might hnve bl-en said: "langu:tge to lnlinity". in Lmtgllugt!, Counter-AhrmtJry, mul Practice, ed. Donald F. Bood1nrd. tr;ms. Donald F. Boochard und Shc:-rry Simon {llhttca: Corndl Uni\-crsity Press.. 1977), p. 62.

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The Passion as Riw al Perhaps not coincidentally. most of t he expressly po litic-.tl read ings o f Mouk's Passion e mphasize the idea that Murk 's choice of a medium o f expressio n - na rrative - has t he ability to affirm the aocepted world view o r to assert a n altemative in its place.l 4 Herman C. \Vaetjen. in fact. claims tha t Mark is not mere.ly describing distant events or their import, but by way of ntmfering ofP<m,·!r (Minncapolis: Fortress Press, 1984}. p. 2. 36 Vakrio Valcri. Kingsllip und S.trrrifict'. trnns. Pnula Wis:'>ing (Ch i~'<'go and London: Uni ~r-si ty of Chicngo Pres.<;. 1985). p. 344. J.7 Catherine Bd l. Rituuf Theor.r, Riuraf Pruc·tice (New York: Oxford Uniwrsity Press. 1992). p. 98. 38 Victor Turner. Tlu! Fore.,·t rifSymbols Hthnc.n: Cornell Uni\'crsity Press. 1967). p. 97: Dmmas. Fii!/(l,._ tmd Mt'lttpflors ~ Jthnca: Comet! Uni\'<.nity Press., 1974), p. 284: 011 1be Etlgl! rifllle Bush. cd. Edith L 8 . TumcrtT ocson: U ni v~rsity of Arizona l>ress. 1985). pp. 163. 171: cf. Jomllhan Z. Smith. fm(lgillillg Rcligioll (Chicago: Uni,•crsity of Chic.ngo Press. 1982). p. 63. 39 Fowicr. Let tlu~ Reatler. p. 12: Camc.ry-Hogatt. /roll}'. pp. 4. 10.

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attempt. a mo ng the vast array o f such attempts that constitutes huma n c ulture, to control and express t he meaning of expe rience. The trouble with defining ritual has been amply noted and still mo re amply demonstrated. \Vhether habits like brushing our teeth, or spectacles such as pro fessional sports o r theatre constitute tituals often consumed rit ua l theorists, who attempted either to include or exclude the more mundane examples of habitual. scripted, socially circumscribed beha\~ our. Catherine Bell, in particular. has convincingly arg.ued that attempts to defi ne ritual necessarily distort the ritua ls we examine. Our definitions set rituals up as objects with particular c haracte ristics. when in fact rituals are processes always in flux. Been use rituals a re p ractices, no two will be the snme, and yet becnuse rituals den I with the meaning o f huma n experience. a nd a re not unprogrammed experience itself, they must have structure - aspects und fra meworks that repeat and can be defined . Be ll sees ritual as uniquely positio ned to frouble western scho larship. ever torn between theory and practice. since rit ua ls are in a sense a c ulture's own t heory of experience. a t heory to be known only in practice. In order not to fo.1 lsely limit or blind ourselves to what might fruitfully be seen as a rit ua l, Bell speaks instead of rit ualization. the proc~ss by which otherwise mundane actions take on a meaning beyond themselves. This process te nds. she no tes. to show some cornmon characteristics; namely, a focus on the body. repetition, and d ifferentiation or periodicity. a way of doing t hings that sets them apart fro m the ordina ry. Other c ritics note an int~reased sense of focus on place a nd a slO\\ting down om d demarc-dtion of time (J. Z. Smith) nnd, in rit ua l sacrifice. the presence of substitutio n, the sense t ha t a person or animnl o r object stands in fo r. o r swnds fo r, a nother person o r persons. The following c hap ters will look at each of these aspects as they a re found in Mark's narrative o f Jesus' death. Human beings strive to kno\v life's meaning.. a lthough, as Ecclesiastes la ments. we can never grasp it fro m beginning; to e nd (Ecd . 3.1 1). The individual human existe nce is c haotic. linear. unfathomnble, a nd unpred ictable. Any understanding we develop o f it is structured. sensicaL It will have a beginn ing a nd an end, thing..~ our experience lacks entirely - t he one lying in a n inaccessible preconscio us past. t he other in the unreachable, unthinknble fu ture. Our trouble \•.:ith attempting to make sense o f experience is this: t he more sense our cuJtural produce makes, the Jess it resembles lived experience. Artists~ theologians. and o thers who contempla te existe nce and express their contemplalions must continually c hoose be tween. o n t he o ne hand . ma ki ng. their work come to neat and tidy conclusions that may seem

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wholly a rti ficial a nd. o n the other hand~ producing work that has immed iacy bm is nearly as d ifficult to comprehend as life iL~If. Victor Turner's understand ing o f t he sensory and ideological poles o f meaning is helpful on t his point. He describes t he significata o f the sensory pole as · " gross"; that is. bo th overly general a nd fra nk l y~ even 40 flagrantly~ physiologic.al'. Turner emphasizes t he power of sensory symbo ls. as •social facts, collective representations, even t ho ugh their a ppeal is to the lowest commo n deno minator o f human feeling'.4 • The ideological pole, then. o perates on a more abstract level a nd fits more neatly the mindset of t he particular soc.iety. Together. the body a nd the mind participate in interpreting. meaning: the se.nsory a nd the ideologic.a l poles describe a continuum n·o m bod ily experience to conscious understanding, and back - not <1 progress, but a bipo lar integrity. I would argue that all huma n effort to express mea ning - the plural, wild, contrary me.aning inherent in life itself - f~1lls along a continuum between these two po les. On the one end of the continuum is structure, logic. sense, the sign. the ability to speak. On the o ther end is the thing signified . the untamed truth in unprogrammed experience. Ritual. t hen, along \\~th ils secular co unte rpart theatre. lingers near the sensory pole. comme-nting o n life experience by echo ing. framing. and designing a stretch of it. Myth (and the secular story \\~th which it blends almosl impe rceptib ly) steps free of actio n. No longer p rogramming bodily experience. it only summons to mind a designed, inte nded, framed experience, so that one feels to a certain exte nt as if one has seen o r participated in the story rek1ted . \Vords. despite t heir p lurality o f meaning, serve nonetheless to limit the menning. o f perfonned ex perien<.~ by describing it in a particular way, so as to make t he experience amenable to consciousness. Thus myth na rrows a nd defines. some substantial degrees further than does rit ual. t he surp lus o f meaning inherent in experienc-e. Expository analysis. such as that o f theology and secular philosophy. and o f the biblic.al criticism t hat constit utes this book, likewise attempts to explain nnd d istil the essence o f experience. but is at home at the ideological end o f this same continuum. Given the c-ho ice to make logical sense o r to evo ke the puzzle o f lived experience, academic language must choose the logical path or fall o ut o f the genre. Although 42 all lang uage is meta p ho rical. a nd theology often resorts to overt 40 Turner. ne Forc.sl of Symbols. p. 28. 41 Turner. nt' For~.sl of S.rmbtiiS. p. 23. 42 On this subject sec especially Jacque.s Derridu. ·white Mythology·. in .\fargins of Philosophy. trans... Abn Bass (dlicago: University Chiengo PrtSS-. 1982). pp. 107- 71.

or

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metapho rs in a struggle to grasp its sli ppery subject matter, its push is outwards from the c haotic sensory data of bodily experience towards their o rganized. logjcal expression and the conscious o:assimilutio n of their meaning. In \Ve.stern culture the push is so great, in fac t, as to facilitate a purposeful d istancing of philosophical contempla tion from the physical rea lm. as if there were something. to contemplnte aside fro m

43 . h uma n exper1ence.

Experience teaches, but huma n society's organization depends upon our being a ble to learn the lessons of experience without always having to endure the experience itself. Ritual is an effo rt to g lean both t he lessons and t he meaning o f experience by creating a particular experience for the participants. ll reto1ins the impact of Jived experience because, like experience. it consists of action performed bodily. As in lived experience, so in ritual, the body's movements, tria ls, a nd pleasures convey a meaning which need not be assimilated consciously. bm which has t he capacity to profoundly shape both the in dh~dual and the socia l relationships involved .

Tlu• Passion's R iwa/ as au £.001'1 Jo tl1ake St·•nsr Fo r Mark , meaning. is not separable from the story itself; it seems to reside in and be inextricable fro m the events us he im~1gi nes them, a nd c ritics ha ve noted the penchant in Ma rk's na rra tive style fo r showing rather than te lling. This close link between experience a nd meaning is suggestive of rit ua l as I have defined it. But in the most obvious sense. fv1ark is no1 doing: ritual o r even prescribing it: he is writing narrative. Wo rds may seem to show to a certain exte nt, but in the end even their showing is u kind of te lling ; words may evoke images o r even physica l sensatio ns. b ut they do not in themselves wield t he power o f sensory experience. And Mark's gospel is words. afie r all. Bul my argument is tha t Mark fights the medium o f words that he inhabits. using 1ittwl mo tifs and producing a rit ual ambiance in a n effo rt to go beyond invoking experience. into ritual's realm of recreating and even constituting experience. To this end he draws his message out in bodies, ~md in the clothing that socializes them. Aside from Lhe cent rality of Passover. the ritual space o f t he temple and of Jerusa lem in t his gospel. t here are also questions of substitutio n, 43 I do not mean to exclude-bcli~·r in t r
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momen ts of c.arnivalesque reversal, costumes. masks, and t he overriding sense that the c har
Det1ning ritual's rea l impo rt as residing in the events o r situations (causa) it addresses. Martin Modeus asserts: 'The ritual makes the causa. wit h all its social implications, expedentially real to those affected .·.u The heilviest and most shocking experiences of life - birt h, death. cato.lstrophe, liberation - ofte n seem (o us unreal precisely becnuse of their terrific immediacy.45 Rit ual repetitio n d iminishes the shocking event's unrenl qua lity, allows it to become, as Modeus says, •experientia lly renr. Simila rly, Americans in the rno nths after September I I, 200 1 were sickened, horrified, and still endlessly fascinated by the te levised spectacle o f twin towers falling into dust. The repetition made t he unthinkable collapse grudually thinkable, something that could be analysed and commented upon. something. amenable to language and thoug.ht. In just this way, Mark's sense that the life and times of his story are terrifyingly unprecedented leads his story into the familiar patterns of ultimate me~ming t hat constitute ritual~ in an effort to process nnd tame wha t seems untameable, to derive meaning from the seemingly meaningless. Mark is working with histo ry. tho ugh what history exactly we have no way o f kno v.ring. Something has happened. a nd he (that is to say, someone, no t only the presumably singula r and masculine a ut ho r, but the o bviously plum) readers as well, including this one) is trying to convey \llhat it was. Like most efforts to convey an experience. the story is a t the same time struggling to understand it. What has been Jacking fro m much rec.e-nt literary biblical criticism is a n attention to the o ngoing ;;ambiguity in t he write r's inte ntio ns. Critics presume that the a xe Mark has to grind is prefabricated und broug.ht to the work. But the insights of deconstruction would sugg.est that the write r's Jang.uag.e is shaping a nd turning. his o r her thinki ng; that what is conveyed then is no t the result of clear. preset intentions. but t he impressio n o f a moment 44 ~brtin Modcus. S(la(/itv! a11d Symbol: Rib/ira/ SC.Itimiiu in a Ritual Perspeclire (Stockholm: Almqvist nnd Wiksdl lnt('rnational. 1005). -15 Poet Lmuie Anderson summarizes: ' You know. I'd rather soc this on TV. Tones it clown.' 'Sharkcy·s Dny·. from MiJieJ· Hi'anbre(lk (\Varner Brothers. 1984).

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in t he ongoing. process o f a human consciousness t hat is a mixture of conscio us inte nt, subconscious desire and delight. a nd the kinks. pleasures und losses evoked in the process o f writing by the words themselves. A good writer does not a lways insist on maste ring the words, nnd Mark is. at least in this sense, a good write r. Ritunl. in ways thnt I hope to po int o ut. helps in the writing and the reading of Mark by providing room fo r that which is uncategorized and undecided. room that histo ric-.tl criticism never sough t and traditiona l na rrative c riticism cannot seem to make large e no ugh.

The connection between the experience wit hin a nd outside o f ritual is at the heart o f my understanding of Mark's use of ritual in his description of Jesus' dea th . I a m willing to give up o n detuiling. t he specific- events behind the Passion sto ry. As far as t he evidence tha t has come down to us knows, it is Mark who makes this a story, who gives it a beg.inning and an end, who takes fro m some c haotic assortment of events a nd selects und shapes a nd makes them mean ....a This remains a bit o f <1 shock for most readers. Christia n or o the rwise. Both fait h and academic contexts ha ve taught us to focus on the pre-existing event of Jesus' rninistry and crucifixion, seen t hro ugh each gospel or through a ll t he gospels c.o mbined. Bm though there wns surely such ~111 event. we do not hold it in our hands. Instead, we have a story - a story constructed as far as we know by o ne author. from sources that no lo nger exist o r from scra tc h. Other than the crucifixio n itself, there is no solid reason to claim any event in the gospel us historic.a l fact. On the o ther hand . Mark himself stakes a c laim on history. a fact t ha t ma kes it impossible to d ispense with historical issues entirely. That is to sa y. what Mark makes meom ing of is the appa rent meaninglessness o f lived experience - which has po litical and social dimensions - and where he must choose either to leave the experienc-e o r loosen his grip on meaning. he c hooses the latter. The critic is thus never freed to enter the story-world entirely apart fro m history: the history of Jesus. of Mark. a nd o f the c ritic.47 46 Each gospd writer makes his own s tory. of course: each is in a scns.: the story's c:rcator. But while the others make their s tory in pan by intcrpn:ting Mark. we ha\•e no indeprndcnt access (in effect. no aoccss al all) to whatewr it is that Mnrk himself is Ft1rrer. A Swdy in S1 Mm·k (New York: Oxford Uni\'Crsity l'n's.<;. inte-rprtting. Sec Austin 1951). p. 9. 47 As Said and others point out. e\'<.'0 work:; purposcl)' presented as fiction can nc\'Ct be \\'holly scpz1ratc from the h~tOt)' that produced them. Edward W. Said, C.tltun· mul /mpe-ri11liJm (New York Vintage Books. 1993). p. 47.

,..t.

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The fact that Mark does not provide historically accurate film footage o f the events he describes is not to say that t he gospel is without any contacts in re.al historical experience. As ma ny have noted, even Mark's apocalypse is not a fan tastic vision but the p ro phetic omd largely practical description of an imminent (and loc-.al) future. To describe as Mark does the c.areer, execution., omd resurrection o f a man c.ondemned as King o f the Jews is to deal in political history, as well as religious truth. The question of Mark's attitude towards Jews and Romans. while it need not be pushed back to the actions and attitudes o f the historit'-
Sacrificing tlw 01!Jer: Scholars, Practitioners, Viclims , Ethics The study of a killing has ethical implications. In o rder to examine the death of Jesus us in some way a ritual and if a rituaL a sacrifice. J need first to address. or at least to ncknowledg:e, ethical problems that arise. First of all . the study of sacrifice, poised between biblic--'1, religious and anthropological d isc.iplines. and in fact predating: the firm establishment o f those disciplines, has a chequered ethical history. As other cu l ture..~; have maintained elaborate systems o f ritual in order to make sense o f existence, so weste rn schola rship has writte.n e ncyclopedias of analysis o n ritual and sacrifice. in order to make sense of its own existence. Most impo rtant in the early years o f schola rship on sacrifice was t he school known as the history of religjon. The history of religion defined itse.lf as a n academic movement that laboured in sea rt~h o f the singular beginnings o f all diverse religious phenomena, present and past. and attempted to chart the course o f t he religious impulse fro m day o ne to its own day. The intention . implied in the discipline's name, was to place vmious religious practices o n one evolmionary timeline. The very word

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'p rimiti ve', still unfo rtunately in use,4~ conveys t he outlines of this project: the relig·ions of the colonized were ·primitive·, that is early. a nd revealing. often in corrupted fo rm. t he fi rst a nd natural relig.ion of huma nity.49 The assumption was that these non-weste rn traditio ns had remained static in a n ea rlier stng:e o ut o f wh it~h Judaism and then Christianity had develo ped . Thnt there was no evidence to support this assumptio n has not. to t his day. made a full impact on reli.giou.s stud ies. The idea t ha t religio n progresses, and that we can see its progression in the co m p~uison of the rnodern \Vest to every o ther place and time. persists. because it is a fo rmative. defining myth o f weste rn c ulture. The histo ry o f re ligio n had two major interests, bo th o f which J share: the agricultu ral festi vals o f New Year, which Fraze r sa w as occurring almost universally, and sacrifice. The two overlap in t hat examples of the pattern of festivnls Frazer a nd others identi fied often were said to have included, origina lly, a human sacrifice. Perhaps because it makes a primary sign of c.haos - murder - into a primary sign of o rder, t he human sacrifice t hat \vas embedded, according. to history of relig.ions scholarship, in the festivals and in o ther kinds of sacrifice continues to fascinate. In Violc-•ut Origins. J. Z. Smit h doubts in passing whet her hurna n sacrifice has ever occurred. noting that the practice is a lways IU't' u11d Jhe Scmwl. p. S. 52 Richnrd Schochn~·r. 'The: Future of Ritual·. Journal of Ritufll Studies I (1987). p. 10.

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something fi na lly c.o ncrete and relevant to expe rience, amid t he sea o f a mo rphous words and abstract concepts that comprises biblic.a l sch olarship a nd the Bible itself. Among adolescent American girls the phenomeno n o f c utting - making tiny cuts with a mzor on t heir own bodies. usually in places o thers \\~II no t see - is often explained by the girls themselves as a n e ffort to feel something. in the midst of numbing depression. The drama. t he reality. t he po te ncy of blood has undeniable appeal. whether t ha t blood is one's own or ano ther's, whether I intlict it. watch it spilled o n my TV screen. or imagine it while reading abo ut o thers' practic-es of sacrifice. Mury Keller urges an a pproach to s pirit possessio n that does no t assurne the s uperiority o f the scholar's interpretation and that ad mits to being a t least part ly moti vated by a simple desire to be near the possessed body.53 Exactly so. I admit confess might be a better word in this c.ase - thnt on some level I want to be near the killing. to see the bo rder between life a nd deat h that is the s pilled blood , in much the sa me way that J s uppose momy d id who performed and o bserved sacrifices a nd executions from ancient times until today. I hope that it is possible to shape t hat attractio n into something e thically positive. but denying t he attraction will no t s uffice. Striking in this connectio n is G irard's more salient point ~1bo ut the necessa ry otherness and sameness of the sacrifk iaJ victim. T he victim must be. ;:accord ing to Girard. similar eno ugh to be effective in negotinting the dilemmas of t hose who sac.rifice, but d itTerent enough not to inspire empathy or fears that they t hemselves might assume t he victim's place.S4 The fuct that those who, we believe, perform human sa crifice are a lways, as Smit h no tes, o ther tha n us - t he Htct, indeed. that t heir exclusion as o ther is o fte n supported by cla ims that they perform s uch sacrifice - is very much in keeping with Girard 's understa nding.55 Fro m t he Jews to the Native Americans, and on to various g.ro ups in Afric.a. the O thers that Europe encounte red, it regularly pe rceived as prac titioners of huma n sacrifice. The very like a nd unlike people who, accord ing. to Gir.,rd. might be sacrificial victims in a society that pe rfo rmed human sacrifice become in t he mind o f o ur society t he performers of h uman sacrifice - which estimatio n accords them the very inhuman, unnat ura l, unlike q uality that. coupled with t heir obvious sameness, qualifies them as (our)

53 ~br)· Keller. The Hummer u11d tile Flute (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2002). p. 10. 54 Girard. Violmre mulllut Sacred. p. 39. 55 Smith in Hamcrton·Kdly. Violml OrigillJ. p. 175.

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sacrificia l victims. 56 )f a nimals are ·good to think', on acc.o un t of their resemblance to an d d ifference from humanity.57 how much better to think a re o ther people, people who are outside of the society we a re thinking. about (henc.e their diiTe rence). yet who surprise us by remaining identifiable as people (their obvious resembla nce). The abiding interest in the Near Easte rn fes tivals of New Year likewise has functioned fo r scho larship in much t he same way t hat scho lars believe the festivals functioned fo r practitioners. These springtime festivals commemorating the rotation o f seasons and the emergence of life fro m death. a lso had t he c-apacity to negotiate. cdtlcize. a nd perpetua te t he social order. 5$ In these festiva ls. key to my own research. the.re is a revisiting o f the otllPr time, a time before social o rder. Since social order has its good a nd bad side. t he Jac.k of it likewise results at once in wild, delightful revelry a nd in outbursts of grim \'io lenc.e. T he fes tival time. in fact, looks a g reat de.al like the picture western scholars painted of no n-western religion. particularly of those supposedly c haracte rized by the Oriental d isposition: sensual. self-indulgent, passionate, uninhibited in pleo.tsure a nd in violence5 'll' - a n image later extended most notably to African religio ns. Recognizing this history o f the study of sacrifice, I pursue the study myself us a critical heir to the histo ry o f religion. I do no t believe in progress, and \vhile I am shaped by my O\Vll cult ure, I a lso recognize its weaknesses. its great historic crimes. and some of its relevant tendencies. I may not avoid or escape them, but at least I begin wit h a knowledge tha t they exist. The study o f sacrifice is fo r me not e ntirely a study of others a nd their oddities: I want to understand redemptive viole.nce bette r because my religion swe~1rs by its existe nce a nd my nation c laims to practise it continually. a nd bec-.mse against my better judgement I sometimes believe in it myself. Fina lly, my reading may turn out to be prone to the anti-semitism t hat plagues New Testament scho larship. but
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The questio n of redemptive vio lence brings me to the second ethic.a l is..~tu e tang.led up wit h the study of Jesus· death as a sacrifice. Many scholars have avoided using ritual concepts o r sacrificial vocnbulary for the study o f t he Passion. it seems. beca use they do no t want to find themselves propound ing atonement theology. This early a nd ubiquitous understanding of Jesus· death as assuaging God's a nger at human sin is essentially what G irard argues ag.ainst whenever he discusses Christianity. Belief in atonement sees Jesus taking on the sins o f humanity. consciously making himself. o r letting. God make him, a scapegoat. in o rder to d ispense \\rit h and overcome fo r all time those sins in Jesus' death and resurrection. How Jesus comes to bear our sins, how the guilt is transferred to him, a nd how it dies wit h him remo1ins mysterious to me. How t he additional death by torture of an innocent person, even if t hat person is God's son sent fo r this purpose, how t his death could offset all the evil humankind continues to do mystifies me utterly. But as a scho lar I remain o pen to the possibility that Mark's amhor advocates exactly t hat understand ing. If he d id . t hen perhaps the study of Mark's firs t--century version of atone.ment would shed some lig_ht on the doctrine's logic. If he d id not. then we may find other ways o f looking at Jesus' death as redemptive. necessary. and meaningful, ways that make more sense to those of us who find atonement inconceivable. The language o f sacrifice pervades Christian liturgy: belief that Je."~tus d ied as a sacrifice to ato ne for human sin is seen us part of the definition o f being a Christian. Yet few Christians could ar ticulate what that me~ms: or how it works, a nd many Protestants who affirm the
Chapter 2 DI ~~ERENTIATION: M ARKING RITUAL, S~f.ING SACRWICE

Cathe rine Be ll notes tha t while defining rit ua l is d ifficult. t he process of rit ua lizatio n is c haracte rized by what she ca lls 'diffe rentiation' . 1 That is to say~ the ritua lization process as a whole and t he actors. time. place and events that constitute it a re set apa rt from the ordinary. It may seem ta utological to say that what d istinguishes ritual from unprogrammed experience is t hat it is distinguished. But indeed rit ua lizatio n is the process of distinguishing some expanse of experience from the constant How o f life. If humun existe nce as we know it is a steady, often bewildering stream o f events. ·o ne da mn t hing after anothe r', t hen rit ua lization is a slowing down o f t hat frighte ning stream. a n o rchestration of it. a nd a na ming and framing o f its o therwise und istinguished e lements. Ritualized experience is set a part from o rd innry expe rience in va rious wa ys. most of which seem designed to encourage the focus a nd atte ntion o f t he participa nts. This differentia tio n happens in the Passion through a d istinct treatment of time, the defined space o f Jerusalem. a nd the sense t ha t t he events within the Passio n are those to which the gospel has been necessarily leading:. Jesus· and to some exte nt the reader's rit ua l-like focus on the meaning of wha t is ha ppening is underlined , a nd indeed made visible itself, by the lack of focus shown by the disciples. But before no ting the d istinct, unordinary na ture of t hese elements withi n the Pnssion, it is importa nt to no tice in this connectio n t he d iffe rentiation o f the Passion itself from t he rest of the gospel.

Tlw Passion's Boundal'y: Los1 in Time Mark's gospel is usually described as episodic - stories of Je-s us' power and teachings linked together simply by a n 'and ', nnd arra nged with a logic t ha t does not always leap out at the reader. But the Passion. on t he I 0 1thcrinc Bd l. Riuur/ Tl:ef1ry, Ritual Prttrlkt> (New York: 0:\ford Uni\•crsil y Pres.-;. 1991). p. :no.

Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
25

contrary, is a nticipated as the event toward which all other events are leading. Its relationship to a ll the o the r stories in the gospel may be mysterious. but the narrative repeatedly asserts ;:a relations hip. Se tting the Passio n apart from t he rest of the gospel, and also fo rming a sort o f ha llowed entryway to it> is chapter 13. Sometimes called •the- little apoculypse', these verses are less a description o f a finn! confro ntation between good a nd evil than t hey are a frightening musing on signs that the end is a ppro;1ching. Hearing Jesus' predictio n that the temple will fall (itself p rovoked by the disciples' admiration of t he temple as architecture), t he d isciples ask Jesus how t hey \\~II know th;-H this cutastro phe is about to happen. Jesus' a nswer goes o n longer t ha n any o the-r single s peech in this gospel. The d iscourse addresses t he d isciples' questions of time - ·when will t his be'!' - by bo th lifting up and pro blematizing possible indicators o f time. Even in refusing to place the coming events in time, Jesus nevertheless continually refe rs to time murke rs - the se~1so n of winter (v. 18), the change o f se-asons (v. 28). a nd the timing. o f events s uch as 'the desolating sacrilege' (v. 14). The darkening. of the sun. t hat primary marker of time, indicates the extraord ina ry a nd iime--out-o f-time nature o f t he apocalypse itself(v. 24). Although t here will be ma ny warnings o f its coming:, we are repeatedly told that most of them will be fo.tlse (vv. 56, 22). Despite or perhaps because o f the prevalence of false signs a nd false prophets. the d isciples are urged to be alert to all indications. The urgency is s uch. in fac t, t ha t t he narrator. or (strictly in the logic o f the story) Jesus. emphasizes here the importance of d iscernment, o r read ing. Often read by c ritics as brenking. down t he story's wa ll to s pe-ak directly o f (if not to) the reader, verse 14 is us ually t ranslated 'let the reader understand'. In fact. the participle Ctvaylv<~OK
26

The Poll'er of Disorder

also c.o mplete ly unknown, as •no one. not even t he Son, knows t hat hour, but only t he Father' (v. 32). As the anticipated apocalypse iL«elf is the border in lime between the old world nnd t he ne\v (though in itself it is neit her here no r there. occupying a frighteningly limina l place in time). so t he literary segment tha t is this apocalyptic chapte r is a bounda ry between what has come before o.md what comes next. Disconnected fro m the. time of the prior gospe l na rra tive, t he apoca lypse makes a po int of refusing to na me its own fut ure time (vv. 31- 32, 35), and thus remains in-between one story a nd a no ther. one time a nd ano ther. and even o ne
Fe.w ival Tim e When the gospel ta kes up its story-line again and the Passio n begins. we fi nd ourselves in an explicitly rit ua l context - the festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread. The two festivals are related here by carefully ma rked time - two days ( 14.1). T he increased attentio n and focus they e licit from t he people is a lso immedio.lle ly noted us dangerous to those in power. a,v,..u:t ).lt:tCt bVo l)f.li{Ja:~ •
II!Cti tA

And it was the Passover and the fc<\St after two days. And the chief priests and the.scribes were ~--eki ng how to arrest him in secret and kill him. Fo1· they ,,,..ere saying, ·Not during the t.--stival, lest there be a tumult or the people.' ( 14.1-2)

2 Etienne TrocrnC. Tht> Fomwlicn of thf' Gospd Ac't'O((Iil•g ro Mruk. trans. P{1mdu G:tughun (Philnddphia: Westminster Press. t975). pp. !24--25.

Diffi!teflli(lliou: 1\
21

I will argue below tha t Jerusalem itself is a rit ual space in this gospel. but while the ritual inherent in t he city must be inferred , the rit uals o f Passover a nd the Feast o f Unleavened Bread a re quite plainly stated in these verses as t he framework wit hin which Lhe Passion events take place. Furthermore, the c hief priests a nd scribes fear some power that the festjval seems to unlensh in the people - pe rha ps simply the power in numbers. as pilgrims migr ate to the d ty. The very d iffe rentiation o f the festival, it.s sense o f being not like ordinary life a nd therefore not subject to its rules. may make t he crowds a da nger to t he high priests and scribes. \Vha t the people o rdinarily aocept as a necessary evil could provoke a riot during: the festival's intense commrmitas. In fact. thoug h. by the end o f this sto ry. both the festival and t he mob mentality tha t comes wit h it \viii work in the interests o f those who seek to kill Jesus. These two verses at t he o nse( o f the Passion immedia tely d isting uish it fro m what has come before. .simply by noting: (for the first time. in t his gospel) what time of the calendar year it is. Ancho red in time. the action o f the story that remained only vaguely connected to the passage o f time, no w begins to moYe in measured and smaller segments - first in days. then hour by ho ur. Ritual. accord ing to J. Z. Smith a nd o thers. slows down nnd delineates the events within its frame. 3 In the ritual a slow motion a pplies that calls atte.n tion to every t hing that happe ns as po te ntially significam: the ritual participant acts fro m a heig hte ned a wareness o f time. Consider a traditional weste rn wedd ing:: in addition to he r clothi ng a nd ~1ppea rance. \Vhat d is ti ng:uishe..~; t he bride's walk down the aisle from her movements outside o f the ritual is that \\~t h i n the wedding. she walks so much more slowly. Her slowed , o fte n ritually halting walk at'c entuates her transition from o ne social identity to a no ther. If she o r a nyone in t he ceremony walks too quickly. they no longer seem to be taking pout in a ritual: their actions begin to look sta rtlingly munda ne a nd thus meaningless. The ritual requires movements that a re not o nly slow. but slowed. That is. the rit ual pa rticipants a re no t simply moving: slowly in the way that a person might do under mundane circumstances: rather. they are seen to be purposefull y slowing their movements, in order to m~l ke the actions mo re deliberate and thus call attention to their mean mg. In the gospel as a whole, time has been vague and merely relati ve. There a re Sabbaths, there a re mornings and evenings, und there are

3 Jonnthan Z. Smith. To T Plact' (Ch i~o-..g<>: University of Chicago Press. 19S7). p. 2S.

28

The Poll'er of Disorder

intervals - 'after some days' (2.1 ). ·after six days' (9.2}.4 From the o utset. the focal po int in time is the time of the kingdom's arrival, which constit utes the substa nce of Je-sus' preaching. The content of 'the gospel of God' is that 'the time is fulfilled a nd the kingdo m of God has come near ( 1. 15). Of the perhaps 70 references to time in th is gospel. 23 of them are to t he endtime. 15 o f those in the a pocalypse of chapter 13.5 Among the 48 references to t he time o f t he story's own events. 24 occur within the Passion. and three more in t he Passion predictions. In c hapters I to 12. in o ther words. the time o f the story itself goes by as a mo re o r less undifferentia ted la ndscape. given shape only by the sharp horizon o f t he end time a nd the la ndmark time o f Jesus· humilia tio n. death and resurrection . Once we are within t his landmark chronology. time is well defined; both days and hours are numbered and noted. At le-ast, t hey are noted by the narra to r and by Jesus. t hough t hey te nd to Hy righ t past the d isciples and. occasionally, the reader.

Pctcr•s Denial: The Slwrp Edge of Riwal Ttine When Jesus g.oes before t he Sanhedrin. Pe te r goes with him - almost. Jesus• interrogation within the court is inte rcalated in the narrative with Peter's inte rrogation by bystanders in t he yard ouL~tide. \Vhile Jesus' every word a nd silence before the council seems designed to condemn himself. Peter's every word outs-ide the council's deliberations is clearly designed to exonerate him. The two scenes arc. as has been amply noted. an exercise in iro nic counterpoint. 6 Bo th men are, in a sense, on t rial. but only one makes an effort to ;:avoid condemnation. and it is he whom the narra tive (but not t he authority wit hin it) condemns. But t he scene of Pe te r's denial acqui res its tension and po ignancy not only fro m its j uxtaposition with the Sanhedrin scene, but from its having been explicitly fore told \\~thin the story. Before Peter fe rvently. with c.urses

4 Norman Pe.rrin. Thr Rr.s11rrecli0fl A rcordi11,~ 10 Mtml!ew. Mark tmd Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress Pr<ss. 1977). p. 24. 5 I tim counting any mention of time metLSUr<:mcnts or markers: day. night. evening. morning. hour. sc:-nson. ham:sl. winter. Subtler refc:n:nccs. to time:. which S«tn to rcfc:r to or contain the question •wh<:nT without n«<:ssnrily induding words of mc:tsurc:tnent. I have also included. These lallc:r arc somewhat subjcct:ivdy sorted. however. ns I uic:d to include only th09: phrases thnl seemed more urgent!)· time-conscious. For ext•mpl<. ' \Vatch for you do not know when· ( 13.33. 35) \'ttlS oountcd. but ·when they lmd sung a hymn'114.26) was not. 6 Robert Fowler. Lettlte Retttft>.r Ur~d.'!'rslami(Min ncapolis : Fortress Press. 1991). p. 159: Jerry Cnmtr)··Hognu. lro11.r in M(ltk's Gtupel. SNTSMS 72 (Ct1mbridge: Cnmbrillgc Uni\-crsity Press. 1992). p. 171.

Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
29

a nd o at hs. denies Jesus. he has with equal fe rvour denied that he would do so. Refusing: first of all to be lieve that he deserves to be lumped with the o thers in Jesus' prediction, ·you will all fall away', Pe ter's vehemence increnses when Jesus specifically o:aims at him the predict ion of denial: ' Before the cock crows t\\~ C'e . you will deny me three times' ( 14.30). Thc.re is a folk-story quality to t his prediction. It is not n general knowledge o f Pete r's unrelinbility. but a clairvoynnt glimpse o f Pete r's immed iate fu ture . Not only does Jesus tell Peter that he will deny. he a lso tells hint when and how much. The s pecificity o f the p rediction makes it nllthe more impossible a nd terrible that Pete r nevertheless does what he is so precisely told t hat he will do. ' If I must d ie with you. I will no t deny you,' Peter adamantly, exce.o;sively (ite1i£Ql"ill do, that he has sworn never to do. Ocdtfms Rex, the classic example o f tragic irony, likewise invo lves pa inful fulfilment o f a predicted fu ture. But Sophocles' Oedip us meets his fn te in an effort to esc.ape it: he is warned that he will kill his father a nd marry his mothe-r and the very warning. sets him off o n a c.ourse that ends in t he warning's fulfi lment. Peter. on the o ther hand, is not caught in an effort to avoid his fmure. The t ragic iro ny is in a sense missing here, because unlike Oedipus, Peter does not do eve.r ything he c.a n to a void his predicted and unwanted misdeeds - instead he simply seems, lemporou ily a nd completely. to forget what he has been to ld of them. It is neither hubris nor a surplus of sight t hat ma kes Pe ter blind . It is simply human frailty: it is simply blindness. In t his prediction a nd fulfilment o f Peter's denial, time rises to a new a nd eerie impo rtance. The future reality of the denial itself is perceived by fo reknowledge from the story's present. But within that future we mark t he passage of time by the cock's cro\v. In t he present tense of the prediction's fu lfil ment. Pete r tragically beats t he clock, rnanagjng. to get in t hree deniotls in o nly the time it takes the rooster to c row twice. The tro uble is that Pe te r doe.s: not hear t he cock crow t he first time: he does no t perceive the time o f the denial itself going by, although it is preset, awnited, and mo.uked . The rooste r's crow, marking off the time. gains delineation by h;.wing. been predicted as such a markc.r. As the audience to this tragedy, the reader is aware that the prediction is being fulfilled , while Peter is o blivio us. \Ve might thus achieve some ironic d istance except that \Ve never henrd the rooster crow the first time either. In

30

The Poll'er of Disorder

e fTect, the rooste r never c.rows for t he first time within the s tory. The first

time it crows is the second time. 1\!Cti ei>ail~

i •-: bt ttTfQol!

n ftQo.:; 'TO {n)~lCt

(~~

M tt.."'tC"Q tc.tx~''l)ot\' ~L'li ave~tvr)v9r)

dnev etVt{;l 6 l •)...•ot)~ O·n

0

rtQi\' (l,\tK't'oQO

<jxo)VI)uo::u bit; tQi~ tJf tint\Qvr)v•) K.ai i1lL~w\<~w fKAcuev.

And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter reme-mbered the word. just as Jesus had said to him, 'Before the rooster crows twic.e. you ''~II deny me three times: (14.72) When the rooster crowed the first time we do no t knO\v. but when we hear it crow, we knO\v t ha t we have heard it before. A textual variant corrects this odd lapse on the reader's part by inserting ·and the rooster c rowed' just after Peter denies knowing Jesus t he fi rs t time. and after he. goe.o; out into t he outer court (v. 68). W it h that a ddition. the reader achieves t he looked-for ironic distance. hearing and understanding what Peter does not. But the desire for that d istanc.e s urely m otivated the textua l addition: accepting the text without it plac-es the reader uncomfo rtably close to Pe ter's lack of awareness. The p redicted time for denia ls has not gone unnoted, by the rooster, by Jesus, but as it we-nt both Pete r a nd t he reader remained o blivio us to its no ted a nd noteworthy passage. In effect. Peter weeps for exactly this renson, bct~ause he was deaf to the cock crowing the first time. which would have been a rem inder. a warning, a nd now he hea rs it crowing too late, no lo nger a warning. but a condemnatio n. \Vithi n Pe ter's sto ry. it seems na tura l that Jesus should measure o ut the time that we and Pete r let pass unno ticed - t hat it is Jesus only who hears. in advance. the cock's fi rs t c row for the warning that it is. G iven the general dullness of the disciples' understanding: in Ma rk, a nd given the reader's identifica tion \'lith t hem as we a lso fa il to unders tand t he mysti fying pa rables a nd the num bers of the loaves of bread left over (4.13: 8.1 9-21). it does not surprise us tha t Jesus has an awareness of time (as of everything e lse) t ha t we and Peter Jack. But within t he context of ritual. the significance of Pe te r's and the reader's inattention is mo re than a n cmpholsis o n Jesus' s uperiority. Only for Jesus does Peter's fa ilure become a kind of ritual as it happens - scripted, repeated in t he ful filling of its p rediction - because o nly Jesus has the heighte ned awarene.o;s of tim e that ritual demands. The reader a nd Pe te r hear t he rooste r's crO\ving and undersla nd t he s ig.nific-.mce o f Pete r's thoughtless denials only when both happen in memo ry - not in Pete r's or the reader's memo ry o f the event. but in Peter's (and the reader's) m em ory of Jesus ' prediction. This is in effect

Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
31

the third time t he event of Peter's denial wkes place - it is first p redicted in the future, t hen happens: in the story's: present, and t hen the futu re prediction is remembered as a past event. Only this third time, the overlay of Jesus' remembered pred iction upo n Pete r's experience, brings te rrible meaning. to Pe te r's otherwise mindless speech. As is: so o ften true o f ritualized actio ns, repetitio n adds weight and meaning to otherwise meaningless actions. There is more t ha n the literary accomplishme.n t of irony and a tiny sub-tr<1gedy at stake here. and more than the d iscip leship that Peter represents fo r C hristia n readers:. Jesus' scene before the Sanhedrin is compared in the telling to Pe ter's scene in t he court o uL
Time-. we ha ve noted. tends to be slower and better plotted \'lithin rit ual. It is significant then that t he slowest time in the gospel is the several hours o f the death itself. Here time is explicitly marked in th ree-hour intervals, the o nly instance in t he g_ospel o f time counted out in hours.9 Inte restingly, the verbs in 15.24 ('they crucify\ 'they d ivide') are in the present te nse. This use of the historic present \\till return in ve.rse 27 (again fo r the verb ' they c rucify'). But in verse 25, the t hird hour is related us having_ already passed . Where t ime itself is the subject. the 7 Eduard Schweize-r.

Tlu~

G(}(J(/ Ne1rs

Aaordi1~~

to Mark (AIInnta: John Knox Press.

1970). p. J28. S M ary Ann Tolbert. Solfillg tlur GlJSpel (Minneapolis: Forlre!'S Press. 1989). Tol bl~rt hns

noted thai key p."trablcs in JC$us· teaching actually summuri1.1: the story of this gospd; this kind of gmnd .~l'll1'!
32

The Poll'er of Disorder

narmtive insists that we recognize the time as already gone. Thus t he. knowledge o f the hours passing. comes to the reader only after the f~lct ­ we do not experience the passing of time. but only note that it has passed, in retrospect. Again, as in Pete r's denia l. t he measured nature of rit ua l time is present in the gospel, but the reader does not experience it. Again the a tte ntion to time seems to heighten as we near the mome.nt of Jesus' death in verse 33: 'And when it became t he sixth hour. there was darkness upon the whole ea rth un til the ninth hour.' But now not only is the narrative slowing d0\\>'11. but the sun seems to stop - not standing still. bu t d isappearing comp letely. Time moves. but its movement is not. fo r these three hours. marked by its primary marker - the movement (in t he a ncient view) of t he sun across the sky. It is me.olsured o nly by the narrative itself, fo r in the world where t he. c rucifixio n takes place the normal means of telling time, o r even asserting that there is s uc h a thins. has ceased to be. Only the na rrator and the reader, and perhaps the eart h itself. can measure th is darkness while it is p~tssing:. Recall that the darkening. o f the sun was prophesied back in chapte r 13 as a n indication of the beginning of the e nd . something fo r which the d isciples were told to watch (13.24). In t his moment of mo:arked time lessness. however. Jesus himself shows no watchfulness; rather it is t he fading o f his consciousness - his dying that brings on t he d arkness. \Ve might expect a frighte ned reaction. a search fo r explanations, fro m the o ther characters in t he story. Surely the s un's refusing to shine would, if nothing else would, mvaken t he attention of even the oblivious d isciples. Ye( no huma n reaction. with the possible exception o f the centurio n's, occurs in the gospel. Instead, the reader alone, . . .~th the narrator, stands in <-lWe of t he sudden d isplay of primordial chaos. Fo r once. we are permitted. as readers, truly to see what no charncter in the nnrrative does - a classic exa mple of irony. The reader .gains no sense o f privilege from t his view, though, since what we are pri \~leg,ed to see is complete darkness. \\'hat we are to understand is, precisely~ the incomprehensible. The cosmic o rder has completely. if momentarily. failed in its task to constrain a nd give sha pe to t he se nseles..~ness o f t he universe; c haos reigns while Jesus dies.

R itual Spm·e: Jerusalem

a1

Passover

Looking backward fro m the prediction a nd C\'ent of Pete r's denio.tl. there h
Diffi!teflli(lliou: 1\
33

and the d isciples are he.aded for Jerusalem has the air of something repeated. i)vav t>e i:v 1:1) 05toUz; 6 11}oo~ •.:al f(:)ap~-l.oO\"to oi be Cu.:oAovr:loVvre~ i: vUiJ~alvet\' 33 &tt lboV c.'tVt.ltxdvopev etc; 1eQov6AOJ.U~ ~ai 6 uio.; toU dv€1Q(~nov naQCti)otl·•)vtttu toi:; ciQXteQeVvtv 1l(fl Kat i~tntVuollvl\' t:tU"C(;) teal ~tav'tl)'<~uoUvtV aUt6V

•.:ai

dnot~.·•uvot'vtV

•<1.:d f..li'Tt\ tQe~ r)~tiQCt~

Ctvavnloi'T«t. And they were going up on the road into Jerusalem. and Jesus was going before them. and they marvelled. and those following were afraid. And taking the twelve aside. ag<)in he began to tell them the things about to take place: ·Look. we are going up into Jerusalem, and the Son of Moln will tx: handed over to the chief priests and the scribes. and they will condemn him to death, and they will hand htm O\'er to the nations and mock him and spit on him and beat him and kill him, and after three days he will rise.' ( 10.32-34) They are o n their way into Jerusalem when Jesus inforrns them that they are, in fact, on their way into Jerusalem. The ignorance of their destination that has gr ipped them until this moment has not p revented them from being frightened: guessing their destination apparently was as fl·ighteningas knowing it. Alberto de Mingo Kaminotwhi notes that t his gospel ha..~ kept the destination o f Jesus· joumey 'carefully concealed fro m t he reader'. until this point. 10 As readers. we have also been following Jesus in a kind of technical ignorance of our destination. Any re.ader fa miliar with any o f the gospels certainly knows that the story must lead to Jerusalem. just as we know from t he outset that Jesus will be crucified. But fo r us:. as fo r the d isciples, knowing and being. to ld are two d ifferen t things. and which one is more frightening_ may be up for debate. In the previous chapter, Jesus has predicted his own suffering and death. but in t hat prediction there was no mention of, or even allusion to. Jerusnlem. So in chapter 10 the d isciples seem to have heard what Jesus says befo re he says it - t hey are going to Jerusalem fea rfully before he tells t hem that they are going: to Jerus..1lem. and fo r a fearsome purpose. 10 Albl•rto de Min,go Kaminoochi. ·Bw It !J Nol So Among l'ou· (New York: T&T Clark. 2003). p. 109.

34

The Poll'er of Disorder

For t he humiliatio n and death of Jesus are the purpose o f t he. journey. as fa r as we know. The first mention o f the journey is. in fact, a predictio n of the Passion. There is no m entio n of going: to t he city in order to celebrate Passover there, or in order to preach or m iniste r there

- all of these things are apparently byproducts. Jesus is going to Jerusalem to d ie; as Elizabeth St ruthers Malbon puts it. 'the threat of Jerusalem is the threa t o f death' . 11 Luke notes this ee1ie itinerary in Mark's s-to ry a nd comments rathe r sardo nically upon it: ·for how can a prophet be killed outside o f Jerusalem?' (Lk. 13.33). In John. t he d isciples' fear o f Jerusalem is a mp lified: ·Let us a lso go.' Tho mas says. 'that we may die wit h him · (J n 11 . 16). Both Luke and John only ~lccentuate the sense that em erges in Mark. that Jerusalem is a fitting place for Jesus' dea th. If he goes to this place. t hen he rnus t be killed~ and if he is to be killed. the n it is to this pia<.~ he must g.o. 11 In Je rusa lem . as in a ritual space such as the temple. space is focused, deline-ated, and na med. \Vhile until this point t here have been al best wildem ess. sea. shore, and sornetimes a named town, \Ve now have s uch specific places o1s hills and courtyards noted and named wit hin the city. Fo r Mark, the c ity is a s pace mapped o ut for Jesus' death. but t he power of this demarc-.}tion comes from the temp le. \Ve rner Ke lber describes Jerusalem in Mark ns a 'place of double trauma·. that is. the trauma of Jesus' death and that of the temple's demise.u But the temple nnd t he city in Mark a re inextricably connected. It is no t that Jesus and t he. temple are in t ro uble in Jerusalem, but that Jesus is in trouble in t he temple. which is Jerusalem. Three of the four times that Jesus e nters Je.rusalem, he does .so in o rder to enter t he temple ( 11.1 1, 15, 27). Only upon his last entrance does he do anything not eit her within o r d irectly in relation to the temple. a nd t hat i.s to sacrifice the Passover. Jerusalem. for Mark. i.s a ritual place, and Jesus goes there in t his gospel fo r 1itual purposes. It is not surprising, then that Je rusa lem is a lso in this gospel the centre of t he huma n world. The d isciples, country bumpkins as they are. comment on the great building.s, the huge stones, the impressive evidence o f human e ndea vour in the city ( 13. 1). T o say, as Jesus does. thnt nol one of these will be left s tanding, is to predict a bad e-n d for huma n endeavour itself ( 13.2). And the npoc~alypse for Mark is indeed a huma n event. Not concerned \'lith the machinations o f the cosmos. or II Elizabeth Strulhcrs .Malbon. Narralire SpttCt! and Mpfu·c Mtumillg in Mml;. (Sa n Fram:isro: Harper and Row. 198-6). p. 4S. 12 Malb<m. Nurmti~'tt Sp((ce ((lUI Mythic M ea11i11g. p. 32. U Werner Kdbl·-r. Murk"s S1oq q{Je.uu (Philoddphin: Fortress Press. 1979 ). p. 70.

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rather d \velling himself in a very limited cosmos, Mark's Jesus does no t say that there will be no place in the galaxy to hide fro m God's wrath . but rather, 'Let those who a re in Judea ftee to the hills' ( 13. 14). Whether a ny area other thun J udea is in Htct in da nger, we never hear; at t his point in the gospel. there does not seem to be any o ther a rea . As the centre of Judea a nd t he place where these dire predictions take place (why were t he Galileans never warned o f the coming destruction?), Jerusalem a ppears to be G ro und Zero. In Mark's gospel. despite the text's lack o f geogrnphical savvy. plnce is never u nimportant. From t he story's beginnings in John the Baptist's wilderness ways. across the wild waters of the sea. to the lonely places apart. the untamed and uncivilized places
16 l nd~cd thc:r<: h11s been scholnrly speculation (sec- Perrin. Res1wrection. p. 24) thai Gl.lliloc reprcsc:.nts the C~lrl y church's misiion to the Gentiles. thus m:1king thc Jewish spaces through which Jesus hns moved as unso~ializc:d as is the re-gion of Gcrasu (5.1 -20). 17 Richard Schc:chner. 'The Future of Ritual'. Jo.mwl q{ Rit1ml Studies I ( 1987). pp. 533.

36

The Poll'er of Disorder

defines ritual as •ordinary activities placed within a n extraordina ry seui ng'. 18 This making: the o rdinary extraordinary can be accomplis hed by siO\ving down the ord inony actions to a sna il's pace or simply by placing them within a fra me knO\Illl to house meaning. ' \Vhen one e nters a te mple,' Smit h maintains. ·one enters marked off space . . . in which. at least in princip le , nothing is accidental; everything, at lens t potentially~ demands a ttention.' 19 But during the festiv;.t) within Mark's gospe l, it is not o nly the te mple. but the city itself that constit utes the frame a nd generates t he meaning. The city in t his gospel is perfo nnative space. s pace that dtualizes. \Vol lls a nd streets and courtyards are meant to s hape not on ly space but t he socia l interactions that take place t here. and ultimately the people who take pa rt in them:20 Jesus' entry into t he. city is the occasion fo r his cle.arest prophecy o f the temple's. o r perhaps the city's, destruction: ·oo you see these. great buildings? There will not be left o ne s tone upo n ano ther stone . . .' (13.2). It is precisely the rit ualizing, socializ.ing. power of the city's struct ures that must fall when the kingdom comes. Like the time of this gospel. t he place becomes more specified a nd ma rked as the Passion prog.resses. Throu,gho ut t he gospel until this point \Ve have had o nly towns or even regions numed, but wit hin Jerusalem, the mo untains. hills. a nd gardens have names a.~ well - The :Mo unt o f Olives. Gethsemane, Golgotha. The only specific. na med buildings in Mark are found in Jerusulem. a nd the m<1jority o f all references to a rchitectural structures are also here: 21 The open. unna med spaces o f Galilee a re left behind fo r these named , delineated places within a nd around Jerusalem. The distances in space and time have s hrunk and come into focus; everything, as Smit h says. demands ;H te ntion. Until now, Jesus has gone fro m the privacy and potenti~al clandt-stiny of the homes that seem unable to hold him. to lo nely plo1ces, wilderness. the sea. and a series o f mountains. He travels by boa t continu~1lly. sometimes no t bothering to d isemba rk. but teaching from t he sea itself. He seems at home a nd in charge o n the unpredictnble water, s peaking its la nguage with authority (4.38-41). In chapter I we are to ld t ha t alreildy Jesus• fa me has s pread so that 'he could no lo nger o penly en ter a town. 18 Smith. T(} Takt' Plact'. p. 109. 19 Smith. TtJ Take Plact>. p. 104. 20 See D.tJVid Cnmsco. Cil}' tJj Saaific(' (Bos.ton: Beacon Press. 1999). p. 14. for a discussion of the ritunl mlture of the c-ity. 21 &c Malbon. N(frralir~· S('(tce and Mythic Mt>(ming. pp. 107- 40. Much of ~falbon ·s

discussion of <•r~hitttlUrtll sp<1tt in Mark necessarily foL"!USCS on the 1ltSt two chapters of the gospeL

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but was outside, in the wilderness plac-es. and people came lo him from everywhere' ( 1.45). It sho uld not surprise us then thal his entry into the capital city o f Jerusnlem c-onstitutes a raucous quasi-royal par
Rilllal S pace tmd Political Sovereigm y Intertwined with Mark's presentatio n o f Jerusalem and his understanding of Jesus' relationship to the ritual space of the c.ity, the reader necessarily finds t he politics o f this gospel. Ritual. after all, does not deal entirely in o therwo rldly affairs. It d ictates and shapes behavio ur, 24 responds to and t ransforms social interactions o f all kinds. If Mark understands Jerusalem us a ritual spare, that understanding has everything to do with t he city's position within the structures of po litic.a l authority. The margins and open. unsocialized spaces where Jesus has been workh1g are not o nly symbolic of a pO\verful chaos antithetical to the social o rder. t hey also represent an alternative social order, that of the periphery~ as o pposed to the centre. David Carrasco. in a study of the Aztec empire, suggests that where the city is t he cen tre of imperial power. 22 23 2.$

Mnry Do ugl:..s, Purity a11cf Da11gedLondon: Ark Paperbacks. 1966). p. 97. Richa rd Schcd mcr. Tht> Futun• (}! Ritllftl ( New Yo rk: Routk-dge. 1993). p. 86. lkiL Ritual VteoJJ-. Riural Pnmicc>. p. 97.

38

The Poll'er of Disorder

that centre is cons tantly engased in a n effo rt to c.o ntinue expansion. a nd cons tantly encounte ring, in that e tTort alternate world views a nd resistance fro m the periphery. Agains t these alternatives it employs vnrious methods of re-asserting its own domina nce and re-establishing its

own world view as inevitable.~ Jesus comes to Jerusalem fro m Galilee, thus bringing: t he clashing. concerns and world view of the periphery to the centre o f Pa lestine. At the same time . Jerusalem a nd all of Palestine is at t he extrem e perip hery of the Roman Empire, quite far removed fro m its c.cntre and correspondingly resistant to the empire's dominant fram ework. Jesus is thus doubly marginnl when confronted with Ro me·s auth orit y~ a representative of the periphery's perip hery. a s pace so far removed from the s tructures of power t hat even the gospel fends to see it as lying on the brink of total chaos. \Vithin this gospe l Jerusalem and the temple th~at is its centre are not sim ply the focus of the Jewish priesthood; t hey are also the centre of Romnn power over Palestine. It is in Jerusa lem that the critical question is asked. whether Jewish Jaw allows t he Jews to pay taxes to Caesar ( 12. 15). The question. mo re so since it is described as a trap. indicates a level o f tension between Jewish practice a nd Roma n rule t hat was absent in Galilee. Mo reover. Jesus' entry into the c ity is understood to anno unc-e the return of David 's kingdom ( 11. 10), ~md it is t he Romans who refer to him as King o r the Jews. The fact t hat a Jewish kingdom and Caesar's province cannot coexist means surely that Jesus' kingship constit utes a t hrea t to Rom e. Until this poim in the gospel, there has been little suggestion t hat Jes us evoked David or t he kingship. Lacking a birth narmtive to connect Jesus to Davidic a ncestry, Murk does no t immed iately set om a royal destiny for Jesus. His messiahs hip, which certainly would ha ve ha d kingly overtones. is fa mously silenced throug,hout his ministry in this gospel,26 until Jerusale m. where suddenly it emerges in fu ll royal colours. in a procession t hat Myers has called, "the po litical t heater of imperial triumph'.27 The public prominence of the kingship in these fina l c hapters o f Mark has most frequently been attributed to t he unique nature of Jesus' kingship. He c-. m procla im himself to the high priest in the language of d ivine revelatio n - ty(_~ r ip1 (1 4.62) - because "t he d istinctive ch~uacter of his kingship will .soon be manifested·.'2~ "The 25 Carrasco. City of Surr{/it't'. p. 65. 26 &e. of coum•. Wilhelm Wrede. The .\fe.uianic Serri't. arans.. J. C. G . Greig (Cambridge: J. darke. 197 1). 27 Chcd Myl' ts. Binding 1be Smmg Ma11 (Muryknoll. NY: Orbis Books. 1988). p. 389. l8 Herman C. Wactjcn. A Reorderi11g of PoM~r (Minnc:apolis.: Fon rcss Prcsi. 1984). p. 221.

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deepe r me-a ning of Jesus' kingship', becomes clear in his resurrection for some. b ut for others in his suftb ring.29 For Kelber, •he will not be king until he is nailed to the c ross'.30 He cannot be revealed as a king~ the re--asoning goes, until it is clear t ha t he is no t a king who rules. but one who suffers a nd is humiliated. But crucifixion c.;.Hmot constitute coronation exce pt within the d ogmas of Christianity itself - dogmas Mark d id not know. A powe rless, beaten. and executed king: is not an oxymoron, a n evocative ironic d issonance: it is a contradiction in terms. a complete impossibility. \Vhere he is made to e nd ure public humiliation nnd powerle-ssness. even a king unointed with d ue. pomp und ceremony must cease to be king; it is no t a process by which a commoner becomes king. 1t is no t the humiliation of t he cross that crowns Jesus king, and the re is no time in Mark for the resurrection to be Jesus' coro nation. It is upon Jesus' entry into Jerusalem that he is clothed in royal conno tations - the sirnplest explanation fo r this is t ha t Jerusalem itself brings on the shift in emphasis. Impe rial powers te nd to reside in. and sometimes to create. the cities o f the territories t hey conquer. From there the political officials govern a nd there the expatriate citizens of the imperia l power c.;.m gather in large enough nurnbers to maintain their own Janguag,e, religion and social customs, and to impose these upon the native population.:! 1 Resentment against the imperia l power a lso focus-es o n t he cities. which are seen (more o r Jess accurately) as mdiat ing the fo rce of colonization in(o the rest o f the occupied t~ountry . Thus. the Khmer Rouge emptied o ut Cambod ia's capital city of Phnom Penh. in a bruta l e iTort to cleanse the nation o f ...\meric.;.m impe rialist influences. Adhering to th is pa ttern o f e mpires. Jerusalem is in t his gospel the centre no t only of Palestine 's own c ulture a nd religio us life. but o f its conflict wit h the occupying forces o f Rome. Indeed. the power o f Jerusalem as rit ua l space in t his gospel emerges from the contmst between t he te mple's historit'.
29

Fmnl: M:uer
1986). p. 39.

30 Kelber. Ma,.k 's Story. p. 58. 31 Edw-ard W. Said. Culture am/ lm{IC'ri(f/i.wr (N1."\V York: Vin!t1gc Books. 1993). p. 272.

40

The Poll'er of Disorder

between centre and perip hery, o rder a nd chaos. ritua l a nd rea l. Like t he. fes tival itself, the kingship o f Jesus that emerges in the city is fleeting, ma rked by violence, powerful as commentary but powerless in practicnl terms. Jn a world that seems to have become a ritual, Jes.us also seems to be thrust into a ritll
Jesus tts Sacrificitt! Victim: Willinguess and Resiswnct! Jerusalem's sacred and futal presenc.e in the Passio n evokes not only ritual in general. but sacrifice in particular. The ritual syste m of the temple is a sacrificial system, a ritual grammar whose every phrase a nd statement is punctuated with g.rain and animnl o ffe rings, t he giving over of life that is designed to make life who le. In part o n t his account. t he question o f ritual in Mark is tied to t he particular ritual demands of sacrifice. The idea that in Mark Jesus is executed in some sense as a sacrifice raises questio ns at several po ints about his resistance or willingness to be sacrificed. If Mark means to present a sacrifice. t hen we would expect to see Jesus proceeding. willingly. even passively, to the c ross. as Burkert has noted is the expectntio n o f a G reco-Roman sacrificial vi<.~tim.32 But Jesus' willingness or lack t hereof is a troubled issue for Mark. The victim's s upposed \\~lling:ness to d ie is meant in part to preclude any bloodguilt falling on those who do the killing. In the case o f Jesus this would amount to an exonera tio n of Ro me - inte restingly. t he sense t hat the cross is all part o f God's plan never seems to exo nerate t he Sanhedrin or Judas. Bm exonerati ng a nyone involved would be a political statement about which Mark appears to have mixed teelings. Nevertheless, there a re several indicators of sac.r illce in t he a ir in this gospel. They begin, not surp1isingly, with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. The procession into the city is itself a sa crificial motif. The victim in ma ny festival sacrifices was paraded t hrough t he city. a midst celebration. Jts willingness to be sacrificed \'las evinced by its walking.. apparently on its own volition. to the a ltar. Similarly> midrash e mphasizes t he repetition in Genesis 22 o f Abra.ham and Isaac \Valking together up Mount Moriah. where ls1.1ac is to be offered as a holocaust (vv. 6, 8). Isaac's walking beside his fa ther is understood lo menn t hat Isaac. no infant. g.oes to die both knowingly and willingly, t hus making Abraham's willingness to kill seem less cruel. In G reco-Roma n fes ti val. the populace was bro ught into contact with the victim during its 32 Waller Burkert. Gr~k Religion. 1rnns. John Raff:1n (Cambrid£~·: Harvard Uni\-crsity Press.. 19S5'). p. 83.

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procession thro ugh the city, so as to ta ke owners hip o f its sacrifice. Only after such contact could the slaughter be efficacio us for the city as a whole - the city. then. becomes in the processio n the force behind the sacrifice a nd its ma in be neficiary. Jesus does indeed proceed willingly into and through Jerusalem, d uly heralded, on a fo ray \vhich, aside from bringing him into contact with Jerusalem's populace. seems to have litt le purpose. Indeed, not only does Jesus go along with the proceed ings, he a rranges the details o f the procession himself, te lling his d isciples where and how to get hold of the colt he will sit upo n - we can o nly assume t he purpose of the colt is to make Jesus more visible be fo re the people ( 11.2-4). But Jesus· coming to Jerusalem of his own free will. knowing tha t he will d ie there. is perhaps ins ufficient evidence that he o ffe rs his life up voluntarily. In Gethsemane. in fac t, a cloud of ambivalence gathers that never does dissipate. Unlike its parallels in the o ther gospels. in Mark Jesus' prayer in Gethsemome is q uite clea rly fo r the suffering ahead to be averted. It is equally cle~1r that. aU pred ictions and scripture fulfi hnent to the cont rary. it is possible fo r God to stop this tra in. 'Abba , Fa ther.' Jesus prays. ·au things are possible fo r you: take this cup away from me' (1 4.36a). Jesus is on t he one hand nol willing. to die; he does not want to. Yel - ·yet not what I want. but what you want' ( 14.36b). He is no t willing. but he is willing. It is not his own will that takes him t hro ugh to the c ruc.ifixion. but the obscurely motivated will of God . Yet Jesus panicipates. s ubmits, as o ne submits to the inevitable. but wit h the knowledge that in God's terms at least this s uffering is not inevitable. In G ethsemane-particularly. Jesus' very reluctance may be read as serving to emphasize his ultimate-willingness. But it is o n this po int that t"1ark s tands om fro m t he ot her gospels: for in Murk Jesus' s ubmissio n is emphatically despite his resistance. When the party from t he chief priests comes to a rrest him, the a mbivalence continues. On the one hand. when his followers take up arms against the a rresters, Jesus does not rebu ke them. This is a rnoment o f Mark's decided diffe rence from t he other gospels that o ften goes unread .

oi be tniJ3aAov tl~~ XiiQCI~ a'lvc(!• Ktd t "Qdt •)v"'" ath6v "'7 eft; bf tu; 't(~)V 11CtQfvT'li\6T c~•t6.{>tov "'a teai &11o•~Q1Gei.; 0 l •)uoCN; eint:v at'rtoi~ <~~ t-n i AIJv'ti)v t~•)A9ate ~M&

t'G\XatQ<;:,V Ka! tVA<''" vVAAa~eiv ~( .J.9 me• 1)~(€QcW 1)~H)V rtQ6i; i1pci.; i v t(i• le()(;' btM u KC..JV ~>:ai oV~>: tKQan)oa:rt ~f c.'cAA' iva n.M)(X.;(-}c~lV al yQaq>r:tL

42

The Poll'er of Disorder And they laid hands on him and seiZt.'
Matthew, Luke . and John are unanimous in spe lling out Jesus' negative judgement o f the bystander's violence. Matthew has Jesus instruct t he ma n to put his sword away. asking,, ·Do you think that I cannot appea l to my Fat her, a nd he \\>'ill at o nce send me mo re t ha n twelve legions of angels? But how t hen sho uld the scriptures be fulfilled. lhin which a b low is struck that c uts ofT an ear, omd Jesus demands to know why he must be arrested in this momner, a midst mom y blows und words from both sides. The very fact that Jesus does no t a dmonish t he act o f violence committed o n his beha lf signifies sorne amount o f resistance o n his part, which is a mplified by the fac.t that he admonishes instead t he underha nded a nd viole-nt methods o f t he a rresting officials. Yet there com be no denying the fo rce of the phrase that concludes his s peech and his struggle: 'But that the scriptures might be fulfilled ' ( 14.49). The resignation and accepta nce in this phras-e provide a place for the interp reti.ltions of Matthew> Luke a nd John to stand. Jesus in no way acoepts the human actions o f the arreste rs, a ny more than he accepts the crucifixion. But he does accept t hem as fulfilment of scripture. Re maining human injustice. the condemnation nnd c.r ucifixion are also divine providence. There is resistanc.e, in Mark's gospel. Jesus prays fe rvently fo r t he

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looming c ru(.~i fi xio n lo be removed fro m his future; it is t he o nly thing in this gospel for which we hear Jesus pray. He does no t welco me the coming o f the arresting p
From earliest times in the history o f C hristian inte rprc(atio n, where the ritual aspects o f Jesus· deat h a re highlighted , the po litic.al nspects ha ve faded proportionally:13 Girard seems determined to take the Passion o ut o f the realm o f ritual for just this reason: he \vould like to see t he story o f the c ross as injustic-e exposed and not as sacrifice: 14 If Jesus' de-a th is a ritual with religious meaning. ns it is for the Epistle to t he Hebrews and to a lesser extent the Jo ha nnine le tte rs, then it is not. it seems. the executio n of a political prisoner. Ye t to read Jesus' executio n in Mar k as to some extent a sacri1icial ritual does not in a ny way p reclude the reading of a political conte nt t here as \veil. In tact. rit ual is intimately, inextricably connected to sod a! and po litical realitie-S. The e(..-c les i~ts tic.a l reading. o f Jesus as a sacrifice that follows Hebrews manages to erase politics o nly by d ivorcing the sacrifice from all physic.al reality. by ma king. of it an event that no lo nger happens in human time an d space, but o nly on the level of spiritual abst raction. \Vit hin Ma rk·s presenta33 Soc: H. Clay Trumbull ( Tire BlotJd C'tJrenunt (Philadelphia: John 0. Waules. 1893J. p. 214). for whom Jesus· death is the supreme sacrilicc that makes Christianity the supreme rdigion. Cf. RenC Girmd. ( fliolenct> ami the Sacred )Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1977]). in which he says that to sec a killing as sacrificial is to mystify and hide the \ 'Cry practical social benefits it com~ys. which for him include p:u:i6cation of the- society's violc-nt urges (pp. 2- 17). Girard upplics this view of sacrifice as mystifi.c:ation to the: ~:ruc:ifi xion of Jesus. whKh he sccs as simple injustic:c (Things J/idrkr1 Si11c~ tht> Fowulalirm qf tit~ World. in ooll~1bomtion with Jcnn-Michd Oug)1ourlian and Guy l e Fort. trans. Stephen B.'lnn nnd l\·IK:h.td Mc:uc:cr fStanford: Stanford Uni .,~rsi ty Press. 1987]. pp. 182- 83). 34 Girard. Tiling:; 1/iddl!n Sine~ 1be FmmdaJim• of llut World. pp. 182- 83. Although he purports to de-mystify the s:.crili<:inl c:lcrncnts of the-gospd. for Girard himscM d~C injustice: hidden lxhind the sacrificial myth has slr<mgdy little connection to the: socio-politicnl world. People controlled by primiti"c impulses kill Jesus and the-n hide: d10sc wry impulses bc:hind n myth of sacrifice. The: lcs:wn one ultimately draws from Gimrd·s reading has more-to do with doctrines of hum:m sin th"n with sociul structures.

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tion of Jesus' death . t here is no such spirit ualization. If Mark presents the events o f t he Passio n as at once history and also in some sense a rit ual, he necessarily involves himself in political and socia l issues - for these are what rit ua ls act to negotiate. Because Mark's gospel deals to a grent exte nt in Jewish ritual~ sacrificial read ings have the troubling tendency to read t he Jewish authorities. if no t the Je\vs as a whole. as the force behind t he sacrifice. Clea rly the te mple a ut ho rities - the hi£h p riests nnd scribes in Ma rk's terms - a re Jesus' e nemies in t his gospel. A variety o f factors. no t a ll of them \vholesome. have led many scho l;.us to conclude t ha t Mark is intent on blaming the Jews a nd exo ne ra ting Rome fo r Jesus' death. If the.re is sacrifice invo lved in the Passion story. it must be a Jewish sacrifice. If Jesus is 'the lamb t hat was slain' {Rev. 5. 12). then t he. presider, t he sacrificing agent. is naturally the high priest himself: for such is his job, after a l1.35 Thus a sacrificia l read ing o f Mark o fie n serves to condemn the e ntire system of temple sacrifice by accusing it o f having killed Jesus, even while such a read ing mysteriously lifts Jesus' execution out o f Roma n hands altogether. Histo ric-al and literary st~holarship's underswnd ing of t he attit ude towa rds Rome po rtrayed in Mark's gospel has varied within a somewhut limited range. For the most po.ut. scho la rs agree t ha t Mark begins the effort to a meliorate the evidence against Ro me t ha t Matthew, Luke and Jo hn continue. For scholars like Paul \Vinte r a nd S. G. F. Bmndon. Mark's e iTort to exonerate Rome nevertheless reveals the t rue nature o f the conflict bet\veen Jesus a nd the Ro man uuthorities. However Mark may tr y to uccentuate the conflict between Jesus a nd t he temple authorities, runs this argumem, the historic.a l facts that can be gleaned fro m the gospel point to Jesus' struggle with Rome as t hat which got him executed.l6 Others ag_ree that Ro me does not appear to be to bla me in Mark. but see this cha racte ristic o f t he gospel as reflecting the histo rical reality. Van lersel maintains that, 'Jesus' adversaries are not foreign tymnts who want to pe-rsuade people to despise Torah or renounce JH\VH '. On t he contrary, he claims. they are rather t he Jewish religio us leadership themselves. 37 \Vithout commenting o n the story's histo ricity} Jack 35 In R<:\•datjon itsdr. however. sz•crilicial n~fcr<:n<:es tend to represent the sulrering of Chri.st and Christ ians under Roman. not Jewish, authorities. 36 Pa ul Winter, Tile Triul tJ/ i l'JIIS. Studi•~ Judaica. B<md I (Berlin: Walter de Gruytcr. 1961). p. 24: S. G. F. Brandon. Tht' Tri((/ of J eJU.'i of N(1:arr.th (New York: Stein and Day. 1%8). pp. 8 1.88. 31 Bastian M. F. Van lcrsd. Re((dillg Mtltk. trans.. W. H. Bisschcroux (Colk.gcville. MN: Liturgjca1 Press. 1988). p. 192.

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45

Kingsbury also concludes that Mark is 44 But the dreams are wrongheaded. it t urns out. as wort hy o f Jesus' rejection as the oppression lhat they mean to era dicate. Jesus' major rebellions. in Myers' read ing. huve little to do with Ro me. Rnther, they consist of a repudiation of the temple. a subversion o f t he purity system.

38 Jack Dean King.~bUI")'. Conjlkl in Mo,-k (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1?92), p. 56. 39 Kdbcr. Murk's Story. p. 64 • .JO Kelber. Ma,-k's Story. p. 6 1. 41 Cf. Winter. Trial. pp. 23. 59. who sees Murk ns distan<:ing Jesus from the revolutionaries. and bdin't's Jesus was mistakenly crucifirc:d as a revolutionary. -12 Oscar C\lllmnnn. Tlle C/Jrisrology of tile .lti ew TtJiamellf. trans. Shirley C. Gu!hric: nnd Charles A. ~'1. Hall (Philaddphiu: Westminster 1>-tc:ss. 1963). p. ''ii. Cf. J i"SIJJ a11d tile RewJ{IIIimwries. trans. G:trc:th Putnam (New York: Harpe-r nnd Row. 1970). .J3 Bruce Chilton. Tire Temple of Jesus (Uni\'crsity Park. PA: Pl·nnsylvanin State Uni ~r.s:i ty Pl't'SS. 199'2). H "'ly<:rs. Binding. p. 79.

46

The Poll'er of Disorder

and a shak ing o f t he fo undations of ·Jewish state powe r', a n entity Mye rs serio usly overestimates:=~s The exte-nt to which the Jewish state act ually wielded power. independent of Rom;m a ut ho rities, seerns to have been fai rly small; this is. after a ll, t he definition of an imperial occupation.46 Under t he Ro mnn occupat ion. the high priest's robes were kept by the Roman procurator . and given to the high priest o nly when t he latter's request to conduct the business o f t he temple was granted. The priesthood, in other words. which consti tuted the only semblance of Jev.rish political power._ operated only under t he close o bserva tion of the Romans. Jt is not necessary to have even this very fundamental historical info rmatio n to see that neit her the view that the Ro mans: are being exonerated for their ac.tual crimes. nor the view that they ha d no ac.t ual c rimes, no r the idea t hat in
Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
41

historical sources that held the Romans responsible, then it is Mark himself who holds them responsible. Indeed. it would be historically unrea listic to expect Mark, clearly a Jewish write r of the fi rst t~entury, not to have anything to say against the Roma n occupatio n. The religious content of the gospe l o r of Jesus' ministry therein doc-s no t signify a n apo litical stance for either. As Culhnann has said, 'T he rebellion against t he Roman occupation force presented a lready in the lime of Jesus the g.re-at problem of Pa lestine, and it was simultaneously a religious and political pro blem .' 47 Bm to explore these issues._ we need to look a t t he gospel as a whole, and ho\v it deals with t he tensions between Rome, Jerusalem. and Palestine. For t his is. I want to argue, a tripartite relationship - no t simply between co lonizer and colonized , but between colonizer, collabo ra(or, and colonized.:!$ Palestine in the firs t century was in a sit ualion a nalogous to Algeria during, t he French occupation. Bo th were in fac t occupied by a deeply resented fo reign power, but as in nearly every occupation. ag.ents o f the loc-al populace were regularly used to make the foreign power's job easier. The n~sentment of t he occupied was d irected not only to the intrud ing fo reign power, but to the coope rative e lements wit hin t he populace itself - Muslims working for t he French colonial government were o ften targets o f assassina tio n by the rebel forces in Algeriu. This kind of t hree-part relatio nship is typical of colonial rea lities. Tho ugh a n individual's identity may in fact cross categories, the t heoretical catego ri c..~; o f colonizer, t~ollaborators and colonized rema in. Perhaps bec-.tuse t he collaborator is more acces..~;ib le. a nd certainly because the collaborator's c rime smac ks o f betrayal as we ll as o ppression, resent ment and violence often burn ho ttest against these local ag.ents o f t he oocupylng: fo rce. In this light. consider Jesus' a rgument wit h the scribes over Beelzebub, m Mark 3:

t«.tl ~QXt'tat ft~ oitt d.Qtov (j>ayrtv 'lt ""i v ~tar:sa-vu.; l:Atyov Ott BeeA~e~VA l Xit

tit bettf.t0Vta

23

K.at O-tt i.v t (;, dQXoVtt 't(~W bcupovlwv f-•(~..\r\et t(eti nQootatAttlt~~ttvo-;: a\){oU~ tv nccQ«.~oAal~

Cullmann. ChrisltJ!ogy of llli! New Testttmel11, p. ~: sec also Horsley and Honson. Btmdit:i. pp. 30- 37. on the cycle or prot~! culminating in the rebellion or 66 c:f... and on thetension or the colonial sihmtion of fi rst·ttntury Pales.tin< in gcncrnl. .;s Rich;.ud A. Horsley. l i!sus uml 1/Je Spiral of lliolt>.tlt't! (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1993). p. 9: Edward W. Said. Culturi! and lm{N'rialism (New York: Vintage Books. 1993). p. 262. -H

48

The Poll'er of Disorder 24 Meyt\' t.u '>toi-:; m~~ t>Uvata• Eatc.wa.; !:atavtiv t~&AAeL\' •<(.\l it't v rJ«vlAtla i'cj>' tavtt)v ~ttQ1vf:hj ol! bVvo:uu utath) V«L •l f3a o 11\tk-t h:dVIl 25 ~<«i tO.v oitVI)Ut 'tCU 1) OiKia i!l(dVI) Q"[(.\(:.h)VU:I 26 IO:Cti t l

6

L.a-tawi:C

dvtutJ)

e' fetvt6v tW:t if.tt':Qiuf:JI) oU ~Vvt.\'l'L'tl o tll Vt"\ l &AAh 'tt Ao; t xet. '.!1 tt.\A" oi~ 60vcrn:u oUi>ei.; t't~ t i)V oix:lav 'tou ivXllQoU eioeA96.,v til

v Kei>tl ati'Toi~ bu.tQ1tt.\ocu Utv pt) 1tQ<;.,tov t Ov t 6te ·n)v oltdcw aUtoV 6t.aQ1lc.ivet

ivX\..'Q(.V

tll)u1J t
A nd he comes into a house and the crowd comes together as:-din so that they were not a ble C\'Cil to cat bread. And those wilh him, hearing

it, went out to seize him, for they were saying that he was beside

himself. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were sa}ring. 'He has Bcelzebul. and by the ruler of demons he casts out the demons.' And calling them, he was saying to them in parables, ·How (."',m Satan cast out Sata n? And if a kingdom is divided against itself. thai kingdom cannot stand. And if ~\ household is divided against itself. that household will not be able to swnd. And if Satan has risen up a~ainst himself and is dtvided. he cannot srand, but is coming to an end. But no one (."'Jn enter a strong man's household and plunder his goods. unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he will plunder his house.' (3.20-27) The discussion was o f Jesus' sanity a nd spirit ua l wholesomeness~ but now it is s uddenly abo ut nations nnd ho uses - that is. political e ntities. Demon posse.o;;sion has often in history been a metaphor for, o r rather a 49 way of understanding. colonization. How the n can Sata n cast o lll Sata n? That is. how can those who h;we become aligned with. and in some sense equivalent (o. the colonizer get rid o f t he colo nizer? How can the scribes t hemselves be expected to rid the nation of its e\•il influences. when they are infected with those influences'! If the te mple a nd the nation are being plundered , it can o nly be because its rightful owners~ those who might otherwise prevent such an act. ~tre immobilized, bound and gagsed. This parnble. which must otherwise seem a rathe r facile defen~ of Jesus' mental he-.alth. is in fac t a bitter c ritique o f the colonial sit uation. Interestingly, the person robbing the house - alleg:oric.~tlly t he Romans does not actually emerge in the rnetapho r. The point is no t to criticize the robbery itself, nlthough a c.o ndemnntio n is implicit. but to wonder wh~tt hns hap pe-n ed to the s trong. ma n t hat he allows the ro bbe ry to tnke place. Like most o f Jesus' pambles. t his o ne is lllUitivalent. Is t he s tro ng 49 Honky. Jesur am/ 1he Spiml of Viole11ce. p. 187: Mary Keller. Tlw J/ammenmd the Flute (Bahimort': Johns Hopkins Uni\'Crsity Press. 2001). p. 63.

Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
49

man to represent the te mple. bound by a wrongful priesthood? O r is the man the Jews as a whole, bound by colluborators s uch as the scribes? In the latter cuse the question ' How can Sutan cast out Satan?' can also be read as as king the sc.ribes how they. demonic themselves. c~an presume to s peak against the demons s upposedly possessing Jesus. \Vhat emerges is Jesus' reversa l of the demo n-possession accusation. The scribes accuse him of being. possessed. but his response implies that the nation is possessed : it is a house turned against itself, as evident in the scribes' very nntagonism towards Jesus. This is Murk's take on the Roman-Jewish relationship. The gospel's a nger with Jewish a ut ho rities springs from their willingness to collabo rate with Ro me, to conduct the affairs of a n occupied te rritory as though it were a sovereign state. Rome itself rarely enters the d iscussion . no t becnuse it is not bitterly resented, but because the betm yal that m~1kes the Ro mnn o ppressio n possible is bitte rer a nd closer to hand.50 The robber is a robber, granted . The robber does what o ne expects from a robber. The s trange and irksome part of the robbery underway is how the ro bbe r has got into the house in t he first place. The scribes a nd t he p riests in this gospe l wnnt Jesus dend: Jesus' ministry c learly angers them. a nd t he hostility is mmual. But the conte nt o f the conflict between Jesus and t hese Jewish a uthorities is their respective attit udes towards Rome. T he Sanhedrin turns Jesus over to the Roma n a uthorities precisely because Jesus has accused them o f being in t he baC'k pocket of t hose a ut ho rities. a n accusatio n t ha t prove..; itself in the co urse of his trial und death. \Vhen the Messia h comes into contact with Rome. it is natural for t his gospel that conflict results - the sovereignty t ha t the Messia h represents is exaC'tly what Roman authorities o:are s(atio ned in Palestine to prevent. \\'hat is unnatural is that t he Messiah should be handed over to Ro me by collaborators from within t he Jewish nation itself. The priesthood arrests Jesus in this gospel. and hands him over to Rome because he has daimed to be the Christ. that is. God's a nointed one, the rightful, resto rative king (.1 4.62: 15.2). That someone s hould claim to initiate s uch <1 restora tio n has becom e a c rime in their eyes, as it is a crime in Roman eyes. 51 In fact, Ro me mus t convict Jesus of the charge the Sanhedrin brings ag-.tinst him precisely because Jesus' daim is not a c rime against them , but agains t Rome. 50 Myers. BindiHg. p. 310. 51 Leaders d aiming mc:ssiuhship did not bcx:omc: martyrs until and unless t hey wen: l'!lught. as Mark·s Jesus is. btt w~c-n the- Roman authorities and Jtws who (wilh good reason) feared lhtm. For the: opposite: view. tha t Je-sus· dujm to mcssiahs.hip threatened only the Jews. set E.. P. S:andcts. J eJIIS und Judoiwr ( Philadelphia: Fortn:ss 1~ . 1985).

50

The Poll'er of Disorder

Rome mocks J e\\~Sh sovereignty by meo.ms o f Jesus' execut ion. In t he. mockery thnt follows Jesus' condemnatio n, the Ro mans pretend to accept Jesus as a king - in their minds he is the perfect king for t he Jews~ a loser, beaten crimina l king to embody a loser, beaten people. T he fact is that the Jewish amhorities hand Jesus over to their own shame: they facilitate t heir own mockery at Ro man hands.

Sacrifice, Comrol,

~Vomen

and Blood

The d ichotomy o f control versus chaos, or perhaps a kind o f yin and yang continuity between them, is o ne o f the primary subjects that bo th rit ual and this gospel med itate upon. and bo th do so at times in gender terms. Like most texts in the \vestern literary and biblical canons, Mark's gospel sees women as mo re e mbodied and nat ura l, less c ultura l and c ultured than rnen. Not only a re women seen in much of our lite ra ture as less controlled. but they are o n en ~1llied with what must be controlled. En route to a n examination o f the issue of control. gender and sacrifice in Mark's Passion, we should perhaps begin with much mo re recent history. The ability of a woma n's body to nurture during pregnnncy, to give birt h a nd then to provide for ~111 infnnt (or two) has been o bscured and suppressed in western c ulture. Med ic-al science effectively d id what ancient Greek culture wanted to do - it mnrgina lized women's reproductive powers a nd refused those powers la nguage until they became virtually invisible. Many women in t he \Vest a nd under t he West's influence came to believe that pregnancy. childbirth and nurture of infa nts simply could not be done, or could not be do ne well, without the instructions. tools. methods and s upervisio n o f rnen. The history of c hildbirth. o f breastfeeding. and o f caesou e.an sectio ns (now again rising in po pula rity) in the \Vest a re amo ng the ma ny examples o f •his rather amazing development. The biological provision o f a woman's body for herself and her offSpring wns devalued in favour of the imitation o f t hat provision - such as fo rmula o r caesareo.m section - c reated by medica l science. The advantage o f both fo rmula a nd c-sec-tions has been seen as the mo the r's and moreover the doc.tor·s ability to measure. observe. and . above all. to contro l that both provide, and t hat breastfeeding a nd c hildbirth do not. Thus is the female bod y e ntangled with the nat ura l world in the eyes of a society that seeks to c.ontro l both. To s uppress and control t he female body's functions is to s uppress and control t he natural world : to imitate the female body"s produc tio n o f milk. to circ.u mvent its processes

Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
51

o f c hild birth, is to recreate nature under socially prescribe-d c.o nditions, conditions that t he. female body itself is seen as failing to meet. A similar dynamic may be said to underlie the Levitica l purity system's approach to menstrual blood . Mary D ougla..~·s insight. that the purity laws' concern over the boundaries of the body re flected the society's desire to pro tect the bounda ries of the social body, still bears fruit. But Howard Eilberg-Schwartz notes that while a ll bod ily fluids cross the body's boundaries. they are not all considered equa lly impure o r contaminating. Urine is no t considered impure. no r is saliva . nnd semen is much less contamina ti ng than menstrual blood .52 Not s urprisingly. the d iffere nce in relative imp urity be twee.n semen and menstrual blood is parHy t he fluid's gender. But even wit hin the g_endering p rocess is the issue o f how nmenable the fluid is to person;.ll a nd therefore social control. Urine is see-n as something that C- ii1 Jut!.ui.wu (Bloomington a nd Indianapolis: Indiana Uni\-crsity Press. 1990), p. 182. 53 Eilbcrg·S<:hwaro:. Tht> Sawtgt>. p. 187. 5-f Eilhcrg·Schwaru:. The Sawtgt>. pp. 183-8-4.

52

The Poll'er of Disorder

contro l. Unintentional blood separates those who bleed fro m society. By the-ir blatant involveme nt in t he. natural cycle that includes death, they a re te mporarily exiled fro m t he socia l \\,.orld. But t he blood of circumcisio n and sacrifice. both s hed within ritual boundaries, produced and d isplayed with intention, putify, and as contamination separates~ purific..-ttion unites. Thus the baby boy is cleansed from the blood o f his mo ther's womb and broug,ht into pro per line.ag.e with his male a ncestors by the blood of circum cision. He is thus huma nized. initiated into t he patri~uchal

human community. Similarly, t he blood of sacrifice con-

s truc ts the lineag,e o f the community as a social phenomeno n, as women's blood cons tructs it as a natural phenomenon.55 Nancy Jay notes that purific.ation from contact with a corpse is ~lccomplish ed through a sacrifice. one that seems to be socially reproducing: menstrual blood a t men's hands. The instruction that t he sacrificia l victim be a red heifer ensures that it will be fe ma le,
55 N:mcy Jay. 171rrmglww }'our Gemrralimu Fom't'r (C'hic.ago: University of Chicago 1992). p. 26. 56 Jay. Tlarouglwu1 Your GtTnemtimu·. p. 29.

P~.~

Diffi!t eflli(lliou: 1\
53

gospel.57 He is beaten ";u, slaps or punc hes ( I4.65). wit h a reed ( I 5. I 9) a nd with a whip; he is c.rowned with tho rns ( 15. 17), he is crucified and d ies quickly ( 15.44-4 5), but he does not explicitly bleed. John's gospe l corrects Lhis absence: Lhere the soldier stabs Jesus afte.r his death, producing a ftow o f blood and water. But in Ma rk's gospel, Pilate takes the centurion's word tha t Jesus has indeed died . and no blood flows. before o r after dea th. As Swanson notes. there are. o nly two explicit mentio ns of blood in Mark's gospel: t he long-te rm uncontro lled gus h o f the haemorrhaging woman in Mark 5 and the controlled a nd purposeful pouring. of the wine-become-b lood a t Jesus' final meal in chap ter 14. Jesus may be in a sense pouring out his own blood in advance a t the Passover. which wo uld expluin the lack of blood on the cross later. In that case, he would be dmining his own bod y o r blood, so tha t it becomes horrify ing.ly edible accord ing to t he laws o f kas!Jmt. Like the a nonymous woma n a nointing, his body fo r burial a head of time, Jesus does seem to be d istributing his body a nd blood beforehand , as though to leave the Sanhedrin, Pila te and the Roman soldiers a n empty hus k to play with. He pours out his blood in c hapter 14 in a rit ua l fra me, for a n intentional purpose. a nd tha t same blood is notably absent from the descr iption o f what happens later, when it would have been spilled mundanely. a po we rful souroe of contamination. The difference between two ins ta nces o f blood thut occur in t his gospel is s triking in this rega rd. The haemorrhaging woman's blood is no table fo r its ubsolutely uncontro lled q u
54

The Poll'er of Disorder

'gush' (N RSV). Perhaps the translation 'poured out' fo r what happens: to the wine become blood in Mark 14 is suggested by the fact that Jesus has just poured the stun~ o ut, into a cup, fo r the benefit o f his followers. T he issue I a m gelling a t is contro l - Jesus cont ro ls his blood to the extent that he does not even bleed it. His body. having been the agc.nt thnt stopped a torrent of a woma n's blood in ch"pter 5, 110\\' do les o ut its own blood neatly into a cup a nd gives it a way, spilling. not a drop. Strikingly. in this gospel, t he woman's blood that is so surprisingly present does no t nurture a nything. T he blood o f the bleeding \voma n is e mphatically unable to feed a ny potential o tTspring. It requires Jesus to take up that blood and give it back out again before it can feed anyone. and when the disciples drink. they drink Jesus' own blood - male blood~ and the blood o f sacrifice, the inte ntional blood that cleanses. and not the natural blood that contaminates. Yet the pro foundly physicnl connectio n bel\veen Jesus and the bleeding woma n a nd the fact that she is t he first to be healed by touching his garments seems to imply t hat Je-sus' body is made yet mo re potent by t his contact (5.29-30). Her blood spilled on the pages o f t he gospel seems to become his power, a nd perhaps. the power of his blood.

Chapter 3 RE~ETITION IN U NREI'tATEO TIM E

Repel ilion One o f the mo re o bvious identif)~ng as pects o f ritual, setting: it off from unprogro1mmed experience. is that o f repetition. /'\ ritual is repeated in a way that experience cun never be. A lthough t he acto rs. the results and the context o f a ritual m
56

The Poll'er of Disorder

fulfilmen t. Likewise. Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in the film Last of the Belles ~lccuses her husband (the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald) of writing their relationship's sto ry om repeatedly in his fk.tio n, drlven by the impulse to

get it right at last. .1 RituaL similarly. maintains n utopic qua lity through repetition. J. Z. Smith sa ys, ' Rit ual is a means of performing things the wa y things o ught to be in conscious tensio n to the way things are.'" By the very fact of being planned and repe~atable, ritual s moo thes t he rough edges o f lived experienc.e. This process of meaning-mak ing through repe tition emerges within Mark's story o.1s seemingly unscripted. one-time events within t he noumtive take on the sense o f eithe r having: been repeated or o f being repetitio ns the fi rst time they occur. Jesus' death clearly is an event t hat c-.tn o nly oc.cur once: its grounding in linear histo ry prevents it from being in this sense a repeated ritual. The book of He brews raises the unrepeaiable quality o f Jesus' death to the status of a virtue . There Jesus' death (on an unmentioned cross) bet~omes u kind o f mythic.al sacrifice, played out in a hea venly reality 'once and for all'. thus putting an end to the need fo r what t he author sees as t he tire-some daily sacrifices of the temple. But fo r Mark Jesus' death is no t a myt h and t he c ross c.;mnot go unmentioned. If this death is to be in a ny way efficacious as a ritU
Like the rooster c rowing at Pe te r's denial, Jesus· prayer at Gelhsemane emerges t hro ugh repeti tion. eve.n while the reader and t he disciples hear 3 Last of lite Jklles. George Schaffer. dirc:clOr. 1974. 4 Jonathnn Z. Smith. To T
Repetition in Unreptullc
57

it only once. Jes us first prays, a lo ne a nd o ut o f anyone's hea ring. but the reader's: ·Abba, Father. take t his c up awny from me. Yet no t what I want, but what you \Vant.' He returns to the d isciples to find them sleeping, fo r which he reprimands them. Then he g.oes o fT to pray ag,a in. This second time~ the prayer itself is repe
O¥'~J:oi ~'ta~f,QtJv6_tttV«.?t "ai ~UK .•}t>e•o~\\1 .tt t\no~tec~l~'

CWT(~l 1 K(U eQXtTCU 'tO 't(>l TO\' i\omov K-ai tivanc.tl.'leuet:;

Kt'll At)-'lt Ullto v;

IO:Cd3tvbtTf

to

And coming a~ain he fou nd them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. and they did not know what to a nswer him. And he comes the third time and says to them, ·.A.re you still lying down and resting:'?' (14.4041a) Jesus ·came for the third time'. \\rit hout. as far as we've read. having gone fo r the third time. His second repetition of t he praye r is s ummarized : his third g.oes without saying. In fact, the d isciples· failure to watc h has eclipsed Jesus· prayer as t he repeated acl. as tho ugh their failure to pmy~ or even to stay awake. with him has itself become ::a pa rt o f Jesus' praye r ritual - more important thnn the prayer itself. \Vhat emerg.es is the interplay between the no rmally unrepealable particulnr· ities of ritual - those experiential aspects that <"'.mnot be prog.rammed a nd ritual's repeatable frame\vork. The boundary, that is. be t\veen ritual a nd unprogrammed experience is blurred. even \vhile it is highlighted.

5 Cf. Dnvid in 1 Samuel 12.16-1 7.

58

The Poll'er of Disorder

Victor Turner has said that ritual's repe titive c.haracter represents continuity and fixity. as o pposed to mutability.

By dint of repetition, (ritual participants}deny the passa~ of time, the nawre of ch;.mge and the implicit extent of potential indeterminacy in social relations ... the attempt is made to fix social life. to keep it from slipping into the sea of indete-rminac.y.6 Thus. when within the narrative world of t he gospel, experience spontaneously falls into repetitive patterns. we may read an effort to fores tonly becnuse he does not pa y a dequate attention: he forgets in a ritual fashio n. Peter, Ja mes a nd John nt Gethsemou1e sleep omd ure reprimnnded likewise in a ritualized way: <1 lack of awn reness in bo th cnses ironically constitutes the ritualization. In both c.ases as well, Pe te r and friends fail to pay attention exactly while Jesus is engaged in moving fo rward tO\vards his own death. The repeated prayer a t Gethsemane signifies Jesus' decision to obey God's will a nd submit to crucifixion - a key moment after \Vhich the crucifixion approaches with speed. Likewise. while Pe ter is busy failing to pay attention or to remember, Jesus g.ets himself condemned by t he Sanhedrin, a b rief and essential step in the process that for this gospel le.ads to c rucifixion. The message seems to be t ha t if the events leading 6 Viclor Turner. 0J1tlu~ £;/ge of tht> RuJII. cd. Edith L. It Turner (Toc.son: Uni,·crsity of Aril.ona Press. 1985). p. 1&.4.

Repetition in Unreptullc
59

up to Jesus' death make up a ritual proc.ess. thnt process involves the ritualizing of what is least like ritual - an inattention. forgetfulness and sleepiness to which the huma n being. is continunlly prone.7

PrediCFions
7 lntcrc:stingly. both Buddhism nnd lsf.!1m highlight

for!.~l fulnc~ as

humanity's essc:ntinl

weakness. whic-h the: pructi.x of cnch rd igion addresses. 8 Milan Kundcm. Tht> Unlwtmble Light11ess of Being tNI:'v Yor~ : HorpcrCollins. 1984). p. 8. 'If we hn\~ only one life lo live; Tomas muses. ·we might :Ls wdl no! have lived nt nil:

60

The Poll'er of Disorder

to assis t t he. memo ry to reach t he end by ha,~ng it a nticipated somehow in the beginning'." Jesus' predictions, containing elements o f the future , encoded indeed

in the story's present, assist the reader to process the story's events as they a re to ld. by making their occurre.nce in the story's present a repetitio n. The fulfilment of t he prediction rem inds t he reader, in Havelock's echo eiTec.t . of t he earlier moment when the event was predicted. The overo11l e tTect is perform~ative - a quality shared by o ral tradition and ritual - in which the story's present te nse takes o n meaning by having been presaged. ;nvaited a nd fo retold.

'Just as he had told them': Pri•tlicting the Colt and rlw Room Jesus' mo re mundane predictions a re instructions fo r the disciples t hat antic ipate not o nly what t hey must do. bm o bs tacles they will e ncounter and ho\ll they ought to respond. These two sets of ins tructions bo th require some of the disciple..~ to precede Jes us into the city o f Jerusalem. in order to make things ready for his subsequen t entry. Indeed, the first such set of ins tructions occurs in chapter I I. j us t before Jesus e nters Jerusa lem fo r the fi rst tirne. Kat Ott tyyt~V(H\' d:; 'ltQou&\vpa d:; B•)GfJ>ayi} ~ Ctv€1Q<~mo.N tt~t\Ehvi\'. Aivau et&t6v Kt:ti 3 q:.i:Qett.. ..:ai M.v t1~ tlf.t iV et'niJ, Tf noa~lte tot)to; c'ini.tte? '0 •..:i'QtCI';

t:q> &v

alrtoi~ XQtlav l'Xtt, •..:ai tOO\~ al"t6V tinout b\.Aer nCtAw c~e." ao..:ai am)Aeov •Obov, •..:etl AtioU<.HV al,'C6\I. s .:«l 't'IVf~ '((~)\1 t..:et ~v'Ttl•<6'C6N {,\eyov al1tol;;, Tl nou:i.te ADovtt~ tQv 7t<~Aov; 6 ot be dnav al,t o«; ..:at)(~'.; ti.ntv 6 l l}voil\';· ~<etl aq,l)...:av al•to\·~.

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethpha~.e and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sends two of his disciples and says to them. 'Go into the village opposite you. and immediately going into it. you will find a tied c,olt upon '"'hich no human being has ever sat; free it and brin~. it. And if anyone says to you. "Why are you doin~ this?" S
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standing there were saying to them, ·What are you doing, fl\.>eing the colt'?' But they said to them just as Jesus had said: and they allowed them. (1 1.1- 6) Jesus' advance knowledge that t he colt that has never known a rider will be found a long. their path. pa rticuhuly \vhen their pa th into the village has not been s pecified, apparently ind icates s upernatural fo reknowledge. It has almost t he air. however. of a prearra nged signal, as t hough the scene had been carefully choreographed by Jesus (ra ther than God) beforehand. In particular. the s ugg.estion t ha t if anyone questio ns their taking the colt. they should in effect respond that Jesus sent them sounds le.ss like clairvoyance t ha n it does like Jesus wield ing his influence. \Vhen t he d isciples find the colt, they have no d e.c.1r indication that it has never been ridden, but seem to assume that since it is a colt, s uch must be the case. The re is no demonstrative pronoun or other underlining of this pa rticula r colt being. the one t hat Jesus inte nded, no statement that t he colt is fo und just where Jesus said it would be: we o1re o nly told that t hey found a colt. The only as pect of the story that s uggests dairvoyanc.e is the fact that t he colt's owners agree to this loan, a nd even then. t heir agreement and Jesus' fore knowledge of il can be read as functio ns of his fmne and popularity at this point. No doubt the Philndelphia Eagles star quarte rback Donovan McNabb could commandeer a vehicle in t he sante way (in Philadelphia). if his friends could only convince the owner that it was indeed McNabb who wanted it. Neve rtheless, the disciples' following: his instructions to t he letter. encountering precisely the question that Jesus has nnticipated and responding as they were told to do gives a n overa ll sense of right ness to the scene. The s upernatura.l scripte.d ness of t he d isciples' missio n nnd its fulfilment precise-ly according: to script loads the simp le task of finding Jes us a don key with meaning. Clenrly, whet her or no t the inst ructions are un exnmple of clairvoyance. Jesus' arrival into Jerusalem has been a nticipated . People around Je rusnlem are ready to receive him - they will even send t heir own t ransportatio n to b ring him in to t he city. Simihuly. Jes us' inst ructions to his disciples to p repare the Pas..~ovcr lie ambiguously between clairvoyant predictio n a nd display of \\:idesp read po pula r s uppo rt. though in this case le.-m ing slightly mo re toward the fo rme r. Jesus tells t he d isciples that they will meet 'a man carrying a jar o f wate r' - again. is the man carrying the water in order to be identified. by prior nrra ngeme.n t, or does Jesus know by s upernatural means that this man carrying wate r will be there? Carrying wate r is a lmost universnlly considered women's work, which perhaps makes t his m
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pnrticular man whom Jesus described. and the re is in fact t he emphasis on their d iscovery having been fo retold - emphas is that we were missing in the discO\•ery o f the colt: 'The disdples went oul, a nd they wem into the c ity, a nd t hey fo und it j ust as he h"d told them' ( 14. 16). There is a fo lkloric quality a bout these specific. somewhat c lairvoyant instructions fro m Jesus to his d isciples. So in the story of 'The Tinder Box'. a witc h ins tructs a soldier \vho has met her on the road to descend into the hollow of a t ree, tells him wha t treasure and dansers he \\~II e ncounter there. and lets him in o n the secret of how to nemraJize t he dangers. 10 Like the witch, Jesus acts wit h these predictions as a guide with s upernatural knowledge o f the territory into which the m ere mo rta ls will go. In folk-s tories this kind o f guide is necessa ry when t he. protagonist e nters a pnrticularly a nd mysteriously da ngerous place or e ncounters an otherwise insurmountable o bstacle. The presence o f s uch a motif here underlines the city of Je rusalem as a d ifficult and dangerous place, one that the average human being will require s upernatura l assistance to navigate.

The Presence of Passm•er If there is ritual repetition nowhere e lse in Mark's gospel, we can surely look for such repetition in the celebratio n of the Passover. The m eal is introduced by placing it fi rs t within the time fra me of the festiva l: 'on t he first day of the fes tival'. and then specifically within the ritual conte-xt of sac1ifice: 'when they were sacrificing t he Passover' (14. 12). Although. as we will see be low. t he rinwl p ractices of the Passover m eal are a bsent or at least invisible here. the festival nevertheless makes its presence felt. Given the vagueness of t his gospel's references to time up to t his po int. the prominence of Passover's tirne here becomes emphatic. We be.gjn t he. Passion thus o riented in narralive tim e, as readers. so thnt everything that happens in the gospel's last chapters does so against the b;1ckdrop of the myth and rit ua l o f Passover. The Exo-dus s to ry o f Passover - with its liberation through viole nce~ s laughter e ndured and escaped - fonns a founda tio na l myth within t he biblic-al tradition. That this story expresses somehow the prima ry essence of Is rael's relatio nship to God is a matter o f utmost relevance for t he inte rpretatio n o f the Passover in Mark's gospel. Fo r although t he rit ua l performed by Jesus and his d isciples varies drastically fro m t he Passover in its symbolism of a hurnan body and more so of huma n 10 Paul Ham1yn (00.). ·The Tinder Box' in H1w5 Chrisrian Andcn:-nS F:ti1y Tulr:.-; (Middlt$c:.x. UK: Hamlyn. 1959. 196SJ. pp. 7- 14.

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blood being. cons umed by pnrticipants~ yet the Pussover story makes itself felt even through t his aberrm ive interpretation. The death thut calls o n every household a nd spares only t he ritually prepared is ~at the door in Ma rk 14, where Jesus and his d isciples reside on the brink no t only of his death . but, as we have le.arned in cha pter 13, of the destruction of all b ut the elect ( 13.20, 27). TIJ ~

Absence of Pas.\·o~;•er· and the L(lck of Eucharist

In Jesus' ins tructions concerning t he upper room there is. us we ha ve seen. a kind of scrip t for the pre paration of t he Passover. But the story o f the actual 11:1eal does not revea l <111)' prescribed titua l acts. Ruther, Jesus departs fro m Passover traditions to s uch an extent that despite the text's explicit mention of the festiva L readers sometimes wonder whether this meal is to be understood as the Passover al a ll. There is no mention o f the foods or d ialogue prescribed in Exodus. nor any of the traditions that have accrued to the ho liday in the intervening t ho usand years. Jes us' declaration t hat t he wine is his blood, in particular, has been a mply no ted as s triking a jouring, o ffe ns ive note in the context o f Passover, whose temple sacrifices, ho me celebrations, and s urrounding s tory-line give blood such extraordinary power. It seems clear in t he text that this is a Passover rne.al~ nevertheless, t here is stmngely little scriptedne.ss to it as such. If the choreographed actions o f Passover are m issing here. neither are Lhey replaced by a lit urgy of eucharist. Un like Luke's gospel, there is no indicollio n here in Mark that J e..~us institutes a new ritual in his words about the bread and wine. The phrase 'do this in memo ry o f me' (Lie 22.1 9) is ubsent in Mark: Jesus does nol seem concerned nbout any fu ture repetition of this meal Rather, he emphasizes t hat he him self will never drink wine again - there will be in this sense a d istinct lack o f repetition - until the kingdom comes ( 14.2~). This unconcern fOr t he reader's est
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maste r. 11 but t he clairvoyance emerging d uring. and after t he meal emphasizes prec.isely the opposite.. The utter fa ilure o f the d isciples becomes. in fact. the favourite subject o f repetitio n from this meal through the end ing. of the gospel. Jesus· prediction of his betrayal by Judas comes closely c.onnected with the men I itself. as though brought o n somehO\\' by the act of eating.. h is t he first s peech we hear after Jesus comes to the upper room with the twelve, nnd occurs pointedly. ·while they were reclining and e~ating' (v. 18). Jesus somewhat vaguely tells t hem t ha t 'one of you will betray me'. \Vhen the disciples· reaction mixes d iscomfort with curiosity. Jesus will no t ide-ntify t he betrayer further t ha n to say that he is ·one d ipping with me into t he bowl' (v. 20). 12 This seems then to constitute. t he. betrayal: that o ne of those with whom Jesus ents in the presem will turn on him in t he immed iate fmure. Every meal is a n act o f community cons truction. Those who eat tog.ether share t he material that becomes t he human body; their bodies thereby become made of the same materia l. 13 T hose who sh;.u e a men I are constit uted in a very physical sense as family - their bodies a re connected by the meal as a family's bod ies a re connected by g.enetics. A rit ua l m eal highlights and intensifies t his connection. The Passover meal, with its s pecial dishes and specia l depdvations shared, with its bnckground of the common bloodshed o f sacrifice. constitutes t he community that celebrates it through ritunl practice as well as mythica l idea. The betraya l thnt seems to fo rm such an integrul part o f this meal in Mark·s gospel is doubly bitter for its p resence in whut s hould be a unifying communal act. As Belo no tes, every meal confirms for the participants tha t 'to live me.ans to feed upo n dea th'. 14 As o rder depends upo n chaos for its ve.ry substance, so life depends upon death. Every meal presents t he nourishm ent that life derives from death, so to make of a me.al a rituo.tl is to emphasize a nd navigate t his paradox. In the context of Mark's gospel. where chaos looms a lways a nd threatens to ovenvhelm o rder

II Albeno de Mingo KaminooC'hi. ·o ur It Is Nor So Amollg You"(New York: T&T Ckuk. 2003). p. 50. 12 Compare John (13.26) who nutkts of Je~u s· reference to dipping bn·ad a signal bl'!WeCl! J c~u s and the beloved disciple. indicating Judas a.s the betrayer. 13 Emile Durkhcim. The Elcnt<.'tlt:uy Forms of1hc Rdigious Life. trans. Karen E. Fidds {New York: The Free Press. 1995). p. 318: John E. Burkh
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utterly. the possibility of drawing. life-giving sustenance from death becomes t he gospel's o nly hope. It is this context of betrayal. t he breaking: of t he commensal circle, and the (betraying) connections between death a nd life t hat Jesus' disturbing saying arises, that the bread should be eate n because it is his body (v. 22). This oddly self-conscious institution o f a metaphor - bread is body - t he intentio nal assignment o f a deeper meaning to an o rd inary act, suggests ritualization. a process through which o therwise o rdinury actio ns ta ke on symbolic meaning,. Ye t the saying, here deals far more directly with Jesus' impending deat h than it does with t he Ch ristiun practice o f eucharist. The fa.ct that the d isciples share bread with Jesus is at once the heart o f his ministry and t he source and cause of his crucifixion. The d isciples. us becomes clear through Jesus' predictions, constitute his weakness, the opening through which the high priests gain access to him, as the high priests in t urn a re the o pening through which the Romans gain access to him. If t he group of disciples, represented here in Judas a nd Pete r, brings on Jesus' death, and the bread eaten together sustains the life of the group. t hen there is indeed a very real connection between the bread and the bro ken body of Jesus. In breaking bread with them a nd fo r t hem. establishing. and sustaining their group identity. he has set the conditions for his own death. so t ha t now as his death approaches, the group seems to draw life fro m its role in his death. But while the equation of bread and body draws us into issues of life a nd death, the equation of wine and blood pulls us more d irectly into a sacrificial reading o f t hose issues. There is no verse in Murk's gospel more conducive to reading Jesus' de.ath as a sacrifice tha n this: 'And he said to them: this is my blood of the covenant. spilled out o n behalf o f many' ( 14.24). The most o bvio us connection between covenant and blood is sacrifice. Together with Jesus' statement in 10.45 t hat 'the So n o f Man came ... to g.ive his life as a ransom fo r ma ny' . the saying a bo ut the wine pushes t he reader to the conclusion that Jesus' death is somehow life-giving. o.1 substjt ute fo r ot her lives ~ in what seems a very sacrificial sense. Sharon Dowd a nd Elizabeth Malbon emphasize correctly that there is no mention in either verse of Jesus' death as a payment for sin. Rather, they maintain. "The ··cup saying" in 14:24 alludes to Exod . 24:8. where the blood is that o f a covena nt-sea ling sacrifice. not that o f a sin or guilt o 1Tering.' 15Again unlike the Gospel o f Luke, Mark remembers Jesus sa ying: not hing a bout n new covenant, to replace o r supplement o r supersede the old (Lk. 22.20). Ra ther, the wine 15 Sharon Dowd and Elizabeth ~b l bon. 'The Signific~1nc:e of Jesus' Death in Narrati,·e Context and Authorial Audicnoc·. JBL 115/ 2. (1006). p. 171.

~i:t rk :

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is ·my blood of t he covenan t' (v. 24). There is. it seems. only o ne covena nt, t ha t between God a nd Israel. But Jesus• spilled blood

somehow takes part in t he performance of that covenant, as ot henvise blood s pilled in sacrifice could. His blood confirms or reiterates - repeats

- the established covenant and appnrent ly in that sense is spilled 'on behalf of many'- the many, it seems, who share in this d ivine-human contracl. Richard Swanson and o thers have noted that t he d isciples consume the wine that is Jesus· blood before they know what they have do ne. Ito The idea of ingesting blood . even sym bolically. must be recognized as constit uting om horrific contrast to the t rad itions o f the Passover. and to first-century Judaism in general. Interestingly, Jesus talks about t he. blood as though it \\'ere not d runk, but o nly spilled. 'This is my blood of the t~ovenomL poured out on behalf of many' (1 4.24). His blood is analog.ous. apparently, to t he blood of the sacrificial animals. po ured out on t he temple altar to confirm the people's covenant with God. Yet, although it is sa id to be poured om as sacrificinl blood, we do no t see Hte wine-becorne-blood poured o m. but only drunk. Though he breaks t he bread. Jesus is never said to pour the wine into the cup, but only to take the cup and give it to the disciples. who d rink it (v. 23). The disciples' drinking o f t he wine seen1s to constitute its pouring o ut. 17 On t he one hand, t his consumptio n of the body and blood must be read as a condemnatio n, an underlining o f the tragedy o f the death itself. (t hearke-ns back to the execution of John the Baptist. a Jewish prophet scn'cd o n a platter in the co urt of a supposed ly Jewish king. By identifying t he meal as his body and blood, Jesus in one. sense is visibly portmying: the nation in the same kind of cannibalistic act. The betraying Judas. is, d isturbingly. ll
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followers, rather than to destroy t hem. As John's ghost is seen empowering)esus' ministry. so Jesus· death feeds the life of his d iscip les. \Ve may, the n, take Jesus at his wo rd when he says that the broken bread o f t his Passover mea l is his body. But it is not o nly in its broken ness that the a nalogy lies, but in the disciples' consumption of it. Because it is his body, they a re instructed to eat it. The body is the very food that knits togethe r their physical beings. the food t hey share in common th ~at constitutes t heir physical commonality. Jesus• body is bro ken in t his gospel. as the nation is broken, but while the breaking is a horro r a nd a tragedy. it is not mterly pointless. The po int o f the lust s upper seems to be that t he d isciples at least must derive nourishment fro m Jes us' death. However d ifficult it may be for the Christian reader (at least for t his C hristian reader), it is neverthe less useful to put aside connections between these sayings and t he rit ua l of eucharist, at least temporarily. Seen wit hout the lens of contempor.\ry Ch ristia n worship. Jesus· affirmations in this gospe l that the bread is his body a nd the wine his blood o f the covena nt do not constitute a eucharistic rit uaL Rat her, they again serve to predict Jesus' death a nd to frame t he way in which the reader s hould understand it when it comes. It is not then the actions o f eating and drink ing. that, according to Mark. are to be ritually repeated . The repe tition o f this meal takes place in the event and aftermath of the crucifixion.

John the Baptist as Ritual Pa l/ern In C hapter 4. 1 will examine several figures that seem to be offered as failed substitute-$ fo r Jesus, ra ising the issue of substitution in the interpretation of his death. But while those who fa il to stand in fo r Jesus - Peter among. them - appear a nalogous to him o nly by avoid ing the fate that Jesus endure-s, John t he Baptist dies as a forerunner o f Jesus himself. John's execution in chupte r 6 sounds t he first clear no te o f fore bod ing fo r the gospel as a whole. The Baptist's p resence and his many similarities to Jesus, together with John's death. set out ~1 pattern o r script t hat Jes us' ministry a nd death repents. John a ppears in the story wit hout his social skin. C lothed in camel's ha ir a nd a leather belt. John has clearly opted o ut of socia l niceties ( 1.6). His clothing is apparently not wove.n or knitted by human hands - it is no t manufactured - but taken whole from the a nimal t hat grew and formerly wore it. Like the camel itself, John is covered by camel's hair that is fastened with a nimal skin (his lenther belt), as though John too

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were a sort of semi-domesticated anima l - at once within and outside of society. His food of locusts and wild honey is simila rly uncivilized - it is not t~ook ed or pre pared but simply gathered in its nat ura l state. Like domesticated animals. he is in these respects both like nnd unlike a huma n being.. This status o f nearness to and d ista nce from the human~ according to Girard~ makes John a good c.a ndidate for sacrificial victim. He is dose enough to o ther human beings to be understood as an e ffective substitute fo r them, but far e.n oug.h away fro m socialized people that his death does no t make them fear that t hey are next. 1s John's remarkable clothing, his location in the wilderness. a nd his d iet of locusts and wild ho ney all signify t he life o f a n intentional wild man. The weo.uing of skins recognizo1ble as such appears in mo1ny places a nd times as symbolic of a n alternative reality - fro m hermits in Ind ia to pou ticip. It is, in that social language of clothing, not unintelligible gibberish. but roHhe r plainly a curse. an act socially excluded and comprehended at on~.--e. John has wa lked o ut to the margins of the soc ial world. a bounda ry ma rked by wa te r. and he draws all o f Jerusalem and Judea out there with him ( 1.5). Jesus mo1y spend a great deal of time in the wilderness in this gospel, but he remains always a visitor. John lives t here. He is native to the place. indeed he appears to have been born there, o r sprung up from its untamed expnnse fully grown: fycvtto 1(l)avvqr; (0] pant~(I)V t v n,l tpfUi(l) KCI.i Kf1p6aarov ~ann
John was [or "became· or "happened'J. in the \\~lder n ess, baptizing and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. {1.4) As t he wilderness's one human representative, he is the tour guide for the Judeans who lenve the city's order behind to come o ut to him. In baptism he drags t hem through the wildness o f wate r. with its own symbo lism o f deat h and c haos. into some unknown o ther li fe o n t he IS Rc:ni: Gir.mL Viokmx· :md !lie- S!1m'-d (Baltimore:: Johns Hopkins Uni\"crs:ity J'n's.o;. 1977). p. 39. 19 Erncsl Cmwlcy. 'Sacrl-d Dn:ss·. in Roach and Bubolz E ic:·h~"f. Dn-ss. pp. 138- 39. Abddluh H<munoudi. The Vidim and its Mash. trnns. Paula Wissing (Chirngo: Uni\-crsity of Chicago PKSS. 1993). p. 94.

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o ther side. John does not tell the c rowd how to c.o rrect their lives (contmst Lk . 3.1 0-14). John's message in this gospel is only 'a baptism o f repentance fo r the forgiveness o f sins' : i.e.. he is here to wash away~ to pro mote a turning_ from what the people have done or been. There is no constructive aspect to Jo hn's ministry: no outline fo r a new social o rder to follow the baptism. John's sto ry remains on t he borders o f Mark's gospel. He continues to be identified as "the Ba ptist' t hroughout. thus maimaining the liminal a ura o f the rit ual he conducts in this brief initial descrip tion. \Vit h the exceptio n of this first appearance. the time in which John moves and through which his plot progresses is notably no t the time flow of the gospel story itself. Jo hn's wilderness preilching and baptizing a re the first t hing that happe ns - bo th chronologically and in t he. telling - but his arrest is to ld not as it happens. but some time later. 'After Jo hn was arrested' . is the phrase casually setting_ Jesus' movement into Gali lee in time, altho ugh we o the rwise at this po int know nothing of Jo hn's a rrest. when o r how it occurred ( 1.14). Note t hat ha\'ing begun his ministry in the gospel's second verse, Jo hn is virt ually finished twelve verses h1te r. The Ba ptist is no thing if not short-lived. Then. when in the story some time has passed since Jo hn was killed. we hea r t he relatively exte nsive account of his execution . at \vhich po int narrative time contorts beyond recognitio n. Sandwiched between the d isciples' commissioning a nd their return. the story of John's execution provides the se.nse o f time elapsed \llhile the d isciples are about their mission. Yet rather thnn taking. place within that narmtive time interval, the sto ry is a flashback. introduced , as Jo hn Drury has noted. by 'an almost Pro ustian tempo ral complexity' . in which Mark steps backwa rd through the events o f Jo hn's a rrest. imprisonment. execution, and possible resurrection in Jesus (vv. 1420).2(1 Jn verse 21. Drury no tes, narrative time meets real time again; that is. narrative time begins again to flow forward. But t his backwards motion has take n us to a time that precedes the d isciples' already accomplished departure. (f Mark is using this story simply to c reate the illusio n of time elapsed be.tween the disciples' departure and return, why does he choose to recount an event t hat ho.tppened before they left? The intercala tio n of t his story between the disciples' g.oing and coming, whatever its e tTet~ts o n that oute r sto ry. has t he eiTect on the inserted passag_e of increasing its isolation from the gospel. not unlike t he way that t he apocalyptic d iscourse in chapter 13 works both to sever the 20 John Drury. 'Mark'. in T11e Lilemry GuitlP w Jlle Bibl~. cd.. Robcn Aher and Frank Kcrmodc (Cambridge. MA: Hommi Univcrsily Press.. 19S7). p. 407.

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Passion narrative from and connect it to the rest o f t he gospel. In c hapter 6, we are out of sync from verse 14 until verse 29 - out of t he. How of time a nd events t ha t t he g.ospel recounts, and removed fro m its ma in characters. most especially fro m its central characte r. Jesus. The passage begins with a rumour, and we move from it through n world of rurnours. into a world in the past that rumours have not yet reached~ where we remain until Jo hn's body is buried a nd Jesus' disciples come back from t heir sojourn awny from us. In t his backwater world , He rod is king. As many commentators have noted. Herod was not a king but a tetr~uch, the ternt by which ~'lalthcw refers to him in the parallel and t ha t by which Luke a lso knows him. The word fla(Tt.AfU~ appears twelve times in Mark, five times in this passage. Other than these five times. it a ppears only once o utside of t he passion noumtive, na mely in Mark 13.9, where Jesus• fo llowers a re to ld t hat among t he many t ribula tio ns they will e nd ure before the end. ·You will stand before governors and kings fo r my sake.' Jo hn is standing: before a king, though not for the sake of Jesu s. Is his story t hen an initial spnsm of the coming e nd? Herod is not in fhct a king. Historic--'lly, this He rod did not daim t hat title. nor did his limited . Roman-backed sovereignty evoke it from t he people. Robert Fowler maintains that we are invited by the roya l tit le to compare Jesus to Herod, as we are urged to compa re Jesus to Jo hn. Elijah, and the fo nne.r prophets by the speculatio ns o f 6.14-15.1 1 The. story t hen - the only one in which Jesus does no t figure - is fra med a nd interpreted by questions o f Jesus' identity. The questio n of whether a nd in what sense Jesus is king is tied to the questio n of whether a nd in what sense He rod is king. \Vit11in the story, Herod's kingly ~authority emerges only in his ha ving plentiful resources al his disposal. including t he authority to promise the world to his wife's daughter. Readers ha ve lo ng recognized echoes of the book o f Esther in this ~1ccount of Herod's royal party. Esther similarly e licits wit h sexually tinged e ntertainment blind p romises and blank cheques from King Ahasue-rus. and in the e nd her king:S decrees, like Herod's. make some safe by killing o thers. The king's promise to give ·an}1hing:, even up to hnlf of my kingdom' is virtually identical be twee-n t he two stories. Both kings make gmnd promises to a pleasing. fema le subject in the midst of a royal pa rty. without realizing. what loyalties lie in the subject's heart. Josephus tells a similar story o f Agrippa, that he firs t \vi ned a nd d ined Calig.ula and then. having been repeatedly urged to name 21 Robl'11 Fowler. L tJdl't'S mul Scltolars· Press. 198 1). pp. 120-11.

Fi.~l:t':i.

SBL Disscr1ation Series. no. 54 (Chico. CA:

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a nything. even up to half of the empire-, Agrippa asked that the emperor remove his statue fro m t he. temple. Josephus reports that Calig.ula as..c;umed Agrippa would ask fo r land or other profits fo r himself; again the ruler failed to see t he real loy~1lties that lay in the heart o f the pleasing subject.22 Indeed, t he strangely formulaic story o f John's executio n up to a certain po int fits t he genre t hat Lawrence \Vilis identifies as •The Jew in the Court of t he Foreign King'.2 l Herod beh;wes t he way t he fo reign king is expected to in this genre - he is swayed by sensory pleasures and the subtle cleverness o f t he subject. easily manipulated . not purely evil. but foolishly pro ne to bad council a nd susceptible to flattery, food. and d rink.2J Unfort unately, unl ike the foreign kings in the standard examples o f the genre - \vhere the clever subject is Joseph, Esther, Daniel - Herod is no t swayed by a virtuous voice in his court. He is not swayed by John, but by Herodias. He do-es no t listen to bad council temporarily. only to be corrected by the \~rtuous Jew in his court. but quite the reverse. ll is Joh n's council to which Herod listens gladly but briefly. and the loyalties o f his daughter or step-daughter to which he is blind until too late.25 In fac t. the reversal o f time th~H began the story may indicate a more general reversal. \Vilis noles that part o f the tho ught wo rld of the biblical court storie-$ is a belief that t he royal court is t he final a rbiter o f justice. These leg.ends often assurne that 'it is in the court where all moral conflicts have their j ust resolutio n' .26 Justice happens in the court no t bec-.tuse the king. is so wise. says \Vilis, but been use of the power a nd centrality of the ro,xal court, which qualities it was assumed to derive fro nt d ivine j ustice.- 7 The fac t that Mark's story most emp hatically does not end with the court's vindicntio n of t he protagonist's virtue does no t mean that the fo rm of court legend has no relevance here; it means rather that Mark is using: the fo rm to say that he no longer shares its assumptions about d ivine j ustice o n earth. What seems to lie behind the stories of Jose ph ~ Daniel, a nd E.c;ther is a sense that t he life of Jews in the diaspor
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for t he \~rtuous. But if one was f~lithful to o ne's people and to God~ these dangers c.ould be outlived. The virtue of the faithful Jew was so great that even foreigners would see iL in the end. and rewnrd it. It is not simply that we can o bserve in this story t hat Mark no longer believes this. It is rather tha t the function o f this story in t he gospel is to mnke a gmphic contrast wit h t his myth. Look, Ma rk is saying. virtue is not rewarded: it is met with fea r and violence. The court does not dispense d ivine justice; its judgements are absurd and evil. \Vhat should be. in short. is no t: the pro per o rder - ofwhic.h t he royal court is the emblem is upside down. The story's placement between t he sending o ut and returning of t he d isciples has been taken as permission fro m the evangelist to tre::at it as a bizarre aside. tangential at best to t he. gospel. But t his story is no tangent. but a brutal. slightly tilted encapsulation o f the gospel - it is itself a gospel, in which John stands in for Jesus. to the bitter end . Like Je-sus' d isciples, He rod hears God's messenger without understanding him. like them~ he hears the message gladly, but his gladness does not prevent him from betraying t he messenger and participa ting in his execution. This gospel is mo re frightening: and less hopeful than t he Christian reader expects fro m a gos pel~ but perha ps not rno re so than the whole gospel o f Mark will turn o ut to be. \Vhen we hear the story of Je-sus· death and that of his empty tomb nnd mysterio us rising. we a re bette r able to grasp it fo r having fi rst seen John d ie. John is God's messenger, but. by his own admission, not fit to loosen Je-sus• s hoe. He bn rely lights up o ne verse before he is overcome by t he gloom of his world , a nd his rumoured resurrection is more spooky than wondrous. But he has preached as Jesus p reached, a nd like Je-sus he has made d isciples and g.athered c rowds. Now he has been arrested. executed a nd. as far o.1s his executioner is concerned. raised from t he dead. John's J.ob was to prepare t he way - Jesus' way if not the way of God ( 1.3.8).-• This he has done. John's death. like his life. is as a fore runner o f Jesus; it cuts a grim> determined path which Jesus. t he gospel. and the reader then fo llow. Yet if John's sto ry acts as a pn tte rn fo r Jesus to fo llow, it a lso constit utes in itself a repetitio n. Like Jesus, John is doomed fro m early on in his sto ry, and from very early o n in the overarching story; we know John's death in the brief past tense before we know the events that led up to it. This reverse o rder of its telling ma kes a kind o f reite ration of the sordid and otherwise nrbitrary story of the death. That a story or 2S Mary Ann Tolbert. Smri11g 40.

rh~

Gos{lt'f (Minneapolis.:

Fon~ss

Press. 1989). pp. 2J9-

Repetition in Unrept!mc
73

s tory part is repeated m eans that the audience can now process its beginning: in light of its middle and e nd. The story bec.omes no n-linear by being repeated, in that the nud ience is no long_e r limited to understanding the performance in the order in which it is suppoSt."d to have ha ppened . So, in whnt is otherwise a n odd lite rary flou rish. the s tory of Jo hn's death is to ld in non-linear fashion and becomes a kind o f repetition of itself. fulfilling its own sorry destiny. as Jesus will fulfil his, inevitably. Further. Jes us late r explains himself a nd his own death to his d isciples by referring back to John as t he Elijah fig,ure of messia nic expectations:

i n t)QC;,tc.:l' ' ai1t(W Atyovtec;, 'Ot• Ai yot•u•V oi YQGt~t~U'tti~ &t• 'HAtav bei b\eth' 11Q<~ltow 11 6 bl eq,'l uU'tol;, '1-L\l().; f.-ltV i Afk;_,v nQ<~ov dnoKU:Eho1'CtVtt 11Uvta. 1<:eti m~ yf yQ
1oU
And they were questioning him. saying. ·Why do the scribes sa)' that it is necessary lOr Elijah to come first?' But he said to them. 'Elijah commg first restores all things. and how is it written concerning the Son of l\,fan Lhat he must suO"'e r many things and be despised? But I s.ay to you. that Elijah indeed has come and they did to him whate.ver they wished, just ;.lS it is written concerning him.' (9.11-13) He re Jesus refe rs to o r predicts his own s uffering. am idst an affirmation that Jo hn·s death was indeed the fu lfil ment o f scrip ture. and a replaying o f the pro phet Elijah. In a rather puzzling sequence of t hought , Je.~us seems initially to criticize those who expect that Elijah will come 'and restore a ll things'. If t hat were the case. t hen how and why would the Son o f Man be destined to suffer'! It follows that the fact that neither a ny drama tic appea ra nce of Elijah nor any noticeable restoratjo n has occurred does not m ean t ha t Elijah has not in fact a lready come. Unnoticed and unrestoring, Jesus says. 'Elijah indeed has come. a nd they d id with him whatever they wished .' In the same way that Jesus' s uffering is written out ahead of time in scripture - y f yQarrT<Xt €11t tOv ui6v TOV Ctve Q<:,nou (v. 12) - John's s uffering. a nd death a lso occurred Ktx8c~c y€yQU7nat f TI' aUt 6v (v. 13). 'just as it was written about him·. Joh n has been used a nd abused at the whim o f an anonymous ·they·, a n o bject of play a nd cruelty. just as Jesus himself will be. In the reading: o f Mark's Jesus, Jo hn follows the pattern made by Elijah, a pattern that highlights a nd frames Jo hn's own suffering and that of Jesus. At the slory's end, which is its beginning,. John is bac k in Herod's life . ra ised in Jesus. John's death - a nd this story - is connected to the story

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of Jesus by He rod's belief t hat it is on
Intimately co nnected with the sense of destiny and scrip tedness in this gospel is t he cryptic expression so beloved o f Molrkan scho lars - bt l. Altho ugh t he word is used only once in d irect reference to Jes us' s uffering (.8.3 1). its neat. impersonal (gramrnatic.o:ally a bsolute) quali ty seems to s um up Mar k's sense of the c.rucifixion: i.e., ' it is necessa ry'. As a grammatically absolute expression, referring to necessity without indicating who or what nece-ssitates. the verb oocurs five times in Mark. Most often, noce.o;sary events in t his gospel a re the coming signs o f t he e nd. O thers howe told the d isciples that Elijah must necessarily precede the me.ssiah (9.11 ). Jesus. on t he other hand. te lls t hem that wars a nd rumours of wars are necessnry signs ( 13 .7) and t ha t the g.ospel must necessarily be preached to a ll natio ns ( 13. 10). He also warns them a bout the sacrileg,e t hat will appear 'where it must not be'. using the negative of the same word . The myste ry of why Jesus must d ie seems then to be linked to a larger q uestion of the known world's destiny. all the scripted events thnt are bound to happen. For the impe rsona l verbal form bt:i derives frorn a word meaning lite rally ·to bind', and the lite ral sense o f the wo rd a ppears to be very much on the a uthor's mind . Outside of the five appearances o f btl. other forms of the verb bf<.:J appear nine times in t his gospel, e.ac.h time in reference to act ua l bind ing. Amo ng those bound with ro pe o r chains in this g.ospel a re: t he strong man whose house is plundered (3.27). t he Gerasene demoniac (who ca nnot be bound. though many have t1ied . 5.3-4). Jo hn the Ba ptist (6.17). the colt that Jesus rides (which is loosed. un-bound, by the disciples. 11.4). and Jesus himself ( l5.1 ). Binding, for the gospel at le.ast. seems a sign o f powerlessness. a prelude to robbery or death. Yet, the Ger.\sene demoniac cannot be bound because his demons are too many o r too strong_: the lack o f restraint o nly serves to

Repetition in Unreptullc
75

harm the possessed ma n; bec-duse he is not chained, he is free to bruise himself wit h stones. If freedom has fewer positive conno tations than we post-Enlightenment readers might e xpect, binding seems to have fewer negative ones. Students o f Torah \\~II already be thinking. o f Genesis 22, a story known in Jewish tradition as the :-lknlah, The Bind ing. (of Isaac]. Through the history o f interpreting: this theologically c ha llenging story. in which God requires Abraham to a t least be willing to kill his own and o nly (recognized) son. inte rpreters focused on Isaac's binding as an exceptionally d ifficult moment for the reader. Inte rpretatio n preferred to see Isaac as obedient rathe r than ignorant before his father a nd his God. The fact that Isaac walks up !\'fo unt Moriah beside Abraham was seen as ind icating a \\~ll ingness on the part o f the boy (or better. the young mout). Isaac's pointed question ' \Vhere is t he ram'!' seemed the son's understated way of telling. his father that he sees where this journey is heading.. Rabbinic interpre ters the n we re a t pnins to expla in why Isaac had to be bound, assuming t hat he s ubmitted to the sacrifice willingly. Midrash had Isaac requesting to be bound, lest by uncontro llable instinc t he kick the knife away. Isaac's having bee.n bound. in the history o f interpre tation. has hinted disturbingly at the near-victim's unwillingness to die.29 No o ne a rgues that John the Bnptjst died w i llin gl y~ so the fact that He rod's men bind him in prison comes as no s urprise. Bm Jesus' seeming resignation makes the detnil of his binding, and his association wit h the robbed and invaded stro ng man us well as the imprisoned a nd beheaded John, something of a shock. \Vhat is bound to hap pen in t his gospel is indeed that Jesus will be bo und; like the events of the impending apoca lypse. he is tied to the scrip t a nd the script demands that he be tied . Like t he colt. led away wit h the rope that had bound it. Joh n a nd t hen Jesus a re led to t heir destinies. following an established , repeated path . The events that the Passion describes. in t hat t hey are presented as life. as histo ry. are unrepeatable. It is this expe.r iential singularity. what Kundera has c.alled t he unbearable lightness o f being., that seems to d ist inguish t he events described so sharply from ritual. Ritual is repeated. by definition. while Jesus' death by crucifixion cannot be repeated. But like the crowing o f Pete r's timely rooster. when t his death occurs the first time, it is alread y
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cannot be repeated after they occur the first time, t hey c.a n be presaged repe-atedly, so that when they at las t occur, t here is alrendy a fra mework of expectation and meaning in plac.e to rec.eive them - the kind of framewo rk that repetition sets up for ritual. In e tTect, the fi rs t and only time t he c rucifixio n happens becomes a familiar, though painfully a nd extraordinarily meaningful, repetition. Like the cock's c rowing. we have never heard it befo re, but \vhen we hear it, \VC know what it means.

Chapter 4 Suns'I'ITUTION IN FEsTI VAL, SACRIFICE ANO STORY

From Cha rles Dickens· A Tale. ofTn·o Cities. to the recent film Prestige. doubling. the idea that one being's fate could be split into two, by an association of name. role or appearance is a concept that still exerts a powerful influence on western s to ry-telling in film and literature. 1 In o ur films and fiction. a t~onfusion o r purposeful exch<m ge o ften takes place between two pt."<>ple's lives, o ne that is both de.a dly and life-giving. This idea o f doubling and exchange seems determined to pursue us. If o nly, some voice repeats, we could be two people. one who dies fo r the good a nd one who lives as a reward fo r that sacrifice. If only life. a nd death could be exchanged between good and bad people. so that t he worthless one's death e nab led t he virtuous a nd worthy to live. If life could be d ivided into l\llO, t hen life. a nd death could be united into o ne - the same person dies in o rder to Jive, a nd lives in o rder to die. Jon Levenson has convincingly argued t hat even societies that do not practise human sacrifice may still d raw power from this kind of substitutionary logic in s tory a nd ritual. Levenson's multi-fac.eted argument that sacrificio.t l logic runs t hro ugh much of Hebrew narrative deserves e·s Tlu~ z~rula (Henry Holt :md Co.. 189-1). Alexander Dumas's ·nw flicomte d.-r Rmgt>fcmne (New York: O:" (New York: John F. Blair. 1999) - nil of which ha\'C film \"Crsions us well. The fi lm Smmner:;by (dir.. Jon Amid. 1993). likewise featuring one man taking on anoth~~r·s destiny. was''" American rtnutkc of an earlier French film. U Retour de M(trtin Guerre (dir. Dt~nid Vigne. 1983).

Prisrmi!r of

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valuable and thus the most e tTective of a ll possible offerings.2 \Vit11in t he. narmtives. t hen. t he sacrifice o f the first-bo rn, beloved son continually emerges as a feared, trauma tic, a nd critical turning po int of t he inte nsely patrilineal plot. Jn Gen. 22 particularly. God unequivocally demands thnt Abraham otTer )sane as a sacrifice. nnd richly rewards Abraha m for being willing to do so. In Gen. 22 and elsewhere in the narratives. however. the sense t ha t t he father's son is t he u ltimate sacrifice emerges a longside a continuo.tl substitution of animal offerings fo r t he human . Thus Isaac initially stands in fo r the ram (as when he asks his foHher '\Vhere is the r;.lm for the ho locaust?') and then the ra nt stands in for the spared Isaac. In t he Joseph saga. a goat's blood smeared o n Joseph's coat is taken for Joseph's blood, so t hat Joseph effectively d ies (Gen. 37.32-35). The. smeared b lood o f the He brew people's lambs in the Exodus sto ry sta nds in for t he blood of their first-born sons as t he cost o f t heir own libe ra tio n.J Slaughte r is the price exacted by the ang_el~ whe re t here is no rit ual a nimal slaugh ter, as in the Egyp tian ho mes, the slaughter will be profane and human (Exod . 12.23). To gain t he be nefits of huma n death without ils cost is continually the objective of the narr~at i ve rituo.tl elements Levenson highlights: to cheat the half-blind progress of t he destroyer. The half-blindness o f the Lord, o r o f lhe Lord's destroyer - one of whom apparently does no t disting,uish between animal and huma n slaughter - evokes t he continual half-blindness of the patriouchs. )sane accepts Jacob as Esau (Gen. 27.23); Jacob accepts Leah as Rachael (Gen. 29.23-24): Judah lakes Tamar as a prostit ute (Gen. 38.15). The results a re in every c-.-se irrevocable. The mistake may be, a nd is~ d iscovered. bm t he eiTects of the substitution hold: the benefits of t he one life are impo rted into the life o f the other. To control one's own destiny by a d isguise that fools destiny itself, to cheat t he game, becomes in these stories a definiti\'ely human act. It is not o nly life t ha t is gained o r sa ved in t hese substit utions. but destiny. Joseph's brothers ne-arly kill him. then decide to sell him. a nd e nd by killing
U ni\~rsi ty

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ations. His destiny. revealed from t he beginning in his dre.a ms. o pens up throug h the door o f t his substitutionary death. As Thomas Mann noted, Joseph the brother. the Hebrew shepherd's son, d ies in his descent into the pit. and Joseph the Egyptia n slave, prisone r. a nd minister emerges thence: It was a deep d ecwage a nd abyss that divided his present from his past: it was the gra,·e ... Jacob, he knew. could not fail to take the blood of the kid for his son's blood; a nd that this must be so worked upon Joseph until it practic-.tlly oblitera ted the distinction between ·This is my blood' and 'Tl1is represents my blood.' Jacob held him for de-..td: a nd since he did so irrevocably, unalterably - then was Joseph de-.td, or was he not'?"

In the Hebrew narratives, the protagonists repeatedly acquire the benefits of the death - the cent rnl benefit of which is life itself, in some new. mo re nbundant and often libera.ted fo rm - without paying the steep price o f a human life tOr them. Yet Levenson im plies. and I would agree, that wit hin the stories· econorny. a humnn life is technicnlly what those benefits cost. and to acquire them o therwise is to o utsmart t he equation. In this chapte r we ''~II look a t t his substitution o f life for life in Mouk's Passion. Levenson himself notes the presence of the ·death o f the beloved son' patte rn in the mythology of Christianity. If in t his gospe l Jes us• death is in a ny sense a sacrifice. then it is so beca use Jesus in some way substitmes fo r others who might suffer a nd d ie. because his life is offered ' as a ransom fo r many' ( 10.45). This sense o f Jesus' life as equivalent to or in p lace of o thers· lives is embedded in the story o f the Passion in se\'eml \vays. moving. outwa rd from the Barabbas scene and the mockeries until its influence is felt througho ut t he Passion and the gospel.

Anciem Festimls: A1ock Kings. Substillltion and Sttcr{fice Both s ubstit ution and sacrifice held a prominent place in a ncient festivals that may have~ by being part of t he c ultuml m
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The Poll'er of Disorder

compa ra ble to scenes fro m Jes us· trials
of the agricultural year (Chronos meaning 'time', as in the passing o f t he seasons) and the freedom and license o f t he time before humanity had to work fo r their food.5 At t he festival's end the play ruler would be of course stripped o f his regalia . There were occasions on \vhich the festiva l king. a condemned c riminal to beg.in with, wus the-n executed as the fina l ~let restoring the social and natura l o rder.6 Mark's story o f t he Roman sold iers ro bing. mocking and disrobing Jesus between his condemnation and execution has no t only evoked the Saturnalia fo r scho lars as recently as Paul \Vinter. but has seemed to many to be an act~oun t o f a historically saturnulian event. 7 A tuntalizing. p~1ssage from Philo fu rther enco uraged a cornparison between t he festivals and the Passion along t hese lines. Returning fro m hnving been c rO\vned king: over portions o f Herod the Grea t's former territory. He rod Agrippa was. the passage recounts. o rdered by t he empero r Gaius to take the short ro ute back from Rome - thro ugh Alexandria. According: to Philo, Ag.rippa went modestly a nd wished to be unobserved, but his presence in Alexandria was d iscovered~ and t he. fuct o f his recent coronatio n was pro tested .$; But it is the fo rm of their protest t hat interested history-o f-religion scho lnrs:

There was a c.ertain lunatic named Carabas, whose m;Jdness was not of the fierce and sewage kind ... but of the easy-~oing. g:entler style. He spent day and night in the streets naked. shunning neither heat nor c-old. made game of by the childl'en and the lads who wel'e idling about. The rioters drove the poor lt!llow into the gymnasium and set him up on high to be seen of all and put on his head a sheet of bybtus spread out wide f'or a diadem. clothed the rest of his body with a rug for a royal robe. while someone who had noticed a piece of the native papyrus thrown away in the I'Oad gave it to him for his sceptre. And when as in some theatric-".tl l11rce he had received the insignia of kin~ship and had been tricked out as a king. young men c-..uryin~, rods 5 Luciun. Summulia. VI. 7. 6 Franz Cumont. ' lc Roi de Snlumnlcs·. Rerue d.- Pllilologie XXI ( tS97). pp. 143- 53. 7 \Villiam Arthur Hcidd. The Day of Yull~reh (New York: Thl· Ce-ntury Co.. 1920). p. 389: P:aul Wimer. nu~ Tritt! uf Jesu.~. Studiu Judai<:a, B<md I (Ekrlio: Walter de Gruyter. 1961). p. 102. S Philo. /11 Flamrm. IX. vi. 28.

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on their shoulders as spearmen stood on either side of him in imitation of a bodyguard. Then others approached him, some pretending to salute him. others to sue for justice, others to consult him on state affai rs. Then from the multhudes standin~. round him there 1·ang. out a tremendous shom hailing him as Marin. which is said lO be the name fo r ·tord' in Syria. F'or they knew Agrippa was both a Syrian by birth and had a great pie<:e of Syria over which he was king.9 The.re a re first of all striking similarities between this mockery a nd that o f Jesus: a makeshift ro be and sceptre. the mocking obeisance; in both c.ases the mock king is notably powerless. t he antithesis of a king - one a n idio t... the other a condemned criminal. Paul \Vendland. in some brief remarks published in 1898. wus int rigued by the comparison. He s uggests t hat both the mocke ry in the gospels and the Carabas s tory in Philo must be considered in light o f t he Sa turnalia, of which mock king;:hip \Vas s uch il pro minent element. nnd whic.h was known to have been celebrated among Roman troops such as t hose w ho here harass Jes us. \Vhether the connectio n \Vith the Satumalia is historical or poetic. says \Vc.nd land : In any c.ase the idea that the king of the festival represents the god himself and his f..-.te was long associated "~th such celebrcujons and becomes the etiological explanation. If the Roman legionnaires set up Christ as a Saturnalian king. then the thought could not be far away 1hat he would share in the fa te of this king: for after the masquerade. he is immediately led to the cn1c.ifixio n ... The Jewish King Agrippa and the Jewish kins. Jesus appeared. the one to the Alexandrians. the other ro the legionnaires. similarly laughable. On that accoum they afforded comparison with the well-known carnival king and evoked 1he particula r memory of the belo\•00 folk and soldiers ft.--...stival. 111 A lfred Lo isy pressed the comparison further to s uggest that ·car-'bas' is a corrup tion of ·Ba rabbas· a nd as s uch is in neither case a n individual's name b ut the name of a ritual festival role. tho.tt of the s ubs tit ute king (or god) who is executed in place of the senuine article. 11 The mock king representing Saturn in t he festival was at times a sort o f anti-ki ng. an emblem of social disorder as the real king was an emblem of social order. During his reign. t he poor were feasted at the expense o f the rit~h a nd servants were served by t heir masters: men were known to dress ~111d behave as \vomen and women as men. Vices such as 9 Philo. /11 Flaa um. IX. \'i. J6-40. 10 Paul \Vendland. 'Jesus nls S.1tum:dil·n-Kocnig'. Hem1e5 33 (1898). pp. 178- 79 (my

tmnslation).

II Alfred l oisy. L'£r(mgile Jelo11 M(trc (P;.uis. 1912). p. 454.

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drunkenness and sexual license bec.ame virtues a nd virtues vices. 12 In t he. Ba bylonian festival of Zagmuk, which some history-of-religion scholars described as nna logous to the Saturnalia and Chronia. t he mock king was actually a condemned criminal. He took the place of t he real king.. accepting his robes, sceptre. thro ne. a nd concubines for a n a llotted period: 'he was a llowed to give o rders. drink and reveL h;we intercourse with the king's wives: no one might hinder him in doing whatever he pleased. But in the end t he garments were to rn from him a nd he was hanged.'u \Vhile the real king is - at least in theory - abused. beaten. and humiliated. doing penance for his c rimes against the state. the mock king/criminal issues all sorts o f ludicrous and a rbitrary comma nds. In the end, however, the socia l o rder repre-sented by t he real king, must be restored: the socia l reversal must be reversed again. At t he festival's conclusion. the criminal is executed as p la nned, a nd the real king: is 14 rethroned . The Ba bylonian festival o f Akit u enacted the imprisonment o f the god Marduk. whose release o1ccompa nied the renewal of the ag:Jicultural year. A rit ual text prescribes t ha t o n the fift h day of t he Akitu, the king should ente r the temple and give over his ring. sceptre. sickle and l~rown to the priest. The priest then slapped the monarch's face and caused him to kneel a nd procla im his innocence; ha \'ing: done so. the king received
14 \Vcnsind. "The Semitic New Yc.ar·. p. 185. 15 S. E. Hooke. Cilri.ftiim Mytil und Riura/(Cicvdand: The World Publisl1ing Co.. 1965). p. 12. 16 Jon:1thun Z.. Smith. lmugini11g Riwal !Chicag-o: Uni"crsily of Chicago Press. t982). p. 91.

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arising from primitive attempts to understand o r control the ro tation o f the seasons. The ide-a o f eosmog:ony was snid to a rise fro nt contemplation o f the ne\1.: year: the c reatio n of cosmic order from c haos was s uggested to a ncient Near Easte rn societies by the a nnual re-creation o f the agricultura l year. 17 This in turn was analogous if no t identic-al to the recreatio n o f the social order, e mbo-died in the king. ' In the person o f the king ... a t each New Year the state o rder. which is the \vorld order. is confirmed afresh. ' 1 ~ A close association between kingship and the order it represents also appears in descriptio ns of the Saturnalia's mockery. Jn Lucian's satiric ess.ay on the festival, Ch ronos explains.

I take O\'er the- sovereignty again [during the festival) to remind mankind whc.H life was like under me. when everything, grew for them without SO\\~ n g and without ploughing: - not ears of wheat. but loaves ready-baked and meats ready-cooked. Wine flowed like a rh•er. and there were springs of honey and milk , for everyone was good, pure gold ... Tltere was no slavery. you see. in my time. 19 Lucinn encourages t he practice of the Saturnalia as good, d ean. socinlly meaningless fun, a sort o f nostalg;ia for an immemorial p ast when such things as pove rty d id not obstruct a good time. The tich he a dmonishes for not being good s po rts: the poor for taking t he g-.tme too n,r and acting; as though t he social reversa l were perma nent rathe r than fleeting . If they want a redist ribution o f property~ Chronos complains. they should petition Zeus. not him. He has no power over money. but can only grant wins at dic.e. bet ter singing voices. o r a nother bottle of wine.things that make poverty mo re to lerable. but c.annot make it vanish.20 The elements of substitution, mockery, beating. execution and resurrection here are striking in their reminiscence of Mark's Passion. The temporary soc-ic:d reversal in the festivals invites comparison with Jes us' predictions of a pe.rmanent social reversal. The fact t hat the soldiers in Mark press Jesus into service as a mock king ,gibes well with accoun ts o f t he Saturnalia a nd the Chro nia. The king was often fo rc.ed to be s uch. in a few insta nces at least at t he risk of his life.2 1 Furt hermo re, Paul Winter notes that in Mark·s gospel the soldiers who ro be a nd mock Jesus ' act as if they were somehow following a predete rmined pi::an . . . (They] strike s pontaneously as if rehearsing well17 IS 19 20 21

Wcnsind:. •The-Semitic New Year·. p. 158. Wcnsind:. •The Semitic New Year·. p. 176. Lucian. S(lwrnulia. 7. Lucian. S
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The Poll'er of Disorder

known lines from a convcntionul play.'22 This sense o f t he soldiers' coordinated, as though choreograp hed, e iTorl. led history-of-religion scho lars to speculate as to the events' historical roots in the Saturna lia and festivals that were seen as cognate. J. G . Fm7..er pointed o ut the parallels between t he story o f Esther - a self-proclaimed e tiology o f Purim - and the practices o f t he new year's fes tivals.::-' Mordecai is nlso, like the mock king of the Zagmuk, t he Saturnalia, and the Sacaea. d ressed in the king:'s robes and paid homage as though he \Vere the king (Est. 6.7- 11). Furthennore. this is a destiny designed for (nnd by) Hamo.m, who instead meets t he destiny he himself designed fo r Mo rdec-.ti: death by hanging. The fa te o f t he o ne is tied in a reverse correlation to the fate o ft he other in the story. just as the fates of the c riminal a nd king a re intert~hanged and interchanged
22 Winter. Trial. p. 102. 23 J. G. Fralcr. Till! SraJxtgoat. Vol. IX of 71ut Golrk11 Boug!J ( London: Macrnilbn. 19 14). p. 364. C(. E. 0 . James. St~asont~l Fe((JI.fttlltl FeJtimls (New York: Bnrnl'S and Noble. 1961). p. 112. to the effect thut bcl1ind the Esther ~tory is •a Mesopotamian Satumulian cu l t u~ !llld its lcgc:nd in whi<:h Morduk and tshtar we~ the princip.1lligurc.s·. Elymol ogie~ tracing Mordecai and Esther's names to the name:~ of these: Babylonian gods an: central to the nrgumcnt. 24 Rava. Megillull 7b. t iS cited in Ph i li~l Goodman. 71u! Purim Antlwlugy i Philaddphia: Jewi~h Publication Society of America. 194(}). p. 141. 25 Frazer. The?S.rupegoot. p. 394.

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while t he man called Barabbas had the g(){)d fo rtune to be assigned the ro le of Mordecai in t he s to ry.26

Barabbas mul Literary-culwra! Cornpttrison For the most pa rt schola rs who noted the po in ts of s im ilarity between the Passion narratives and these ancient fes tivals d id so, like Frazer. Wendland, Loisy and o thers. in o rder to make a his torical argument. Thnt is. they argued t hat events described in the Passio n narratives were historical enactments of an a ncient fes tival o r ritual practice, whethe r it be the Saturna lia (\ Vendland), Purim (Frazer), o r the Levitic.a l scapegoat sacrifice (Heidel). More recently, however, scholars like Je nnifer Maclean. while s till focusi ng somewhat narrowly on one scene o r motif in the Passion narratives. ha ve shifted the fra mework of comparison fro m a historical reconstruction of events be hind Mark's narrative to a recognition o r cultural and literary influenc.es on its composition. Macle.a n zeros in on the appeara n<.-e o f Barabbas in Mark. comparing: it to t he. communal sin sacrifice in Leviticus 16. · tn brief,' Maclean writes, among other a nimals. two goats are selcc.ted through the use of lots: One. referred to ~·s the ·immolated goat.' is chosen to be sacrificed as part of t he purgation n tual; the other, designated the 'scapegoat.' is to bear the sins of Israel into the wilderness. At first glanct. the 1>amllets to the Barabbas narrative tu·e obvious: Two goats (men) are broug!H befOre the people: one is killed. the other is released. Tllis con nee( ion would be obvious wel'e it not for the assumption. in concert whh longstanding Christian tradition, that Jesus was the sc-.tpegoat.17 Mac.Iean maintains that the earliest Christian traditions saw Jesus as the inunolated g,oat. and notes that Barabbas' release seems threatening to him, as thOU£ h he will, like the scapegoat o r the Greek pharmakos, be ins ulted, beaten, a nd sent off into the wilderness once the crowd gets ho ld o f him. The Leviticus rite, she holds, inHuenced by G reek rites o f pharmakoi. is t he rit ual source fo r the invention o r at least pre.sentation o f Barabbas as a literary foi l fo r Jesus. In the study o f Mark's Passion narrative. the aspect that has provoked most discussion of s ubs tit utio n is the ro le of Barabbas a nd his relationship to Jesus. Barabbus is a n especia l point o f inte rest for scholars with ritual in mind, since Mark's gospel itself connects the 26 Frll7.ef. Thr- Sm('t'gtKII. pp. ·H2- 23. 27 Jcnnircr K. 8C'rtnson Maclean. · s arabb:•s. the scapcg.oill ri1oal. and !he dc,•d opment or !he passion nanati,·e·. Harmrd ThL'tJiogi
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The Poll'er of Disorder

excha nge of Jesus fo r Bnrabbas with a ri1Ual practice by introducing it as

a customary pnrt of ' the fes tival', presumably Passover. !\!etta bt t oQt t) V antAvev atltoi;

l va bi:uttt0'\1 ()v TlUQI)toVvto 7 1)V

bi 6 AeyOpevo~ Baea#~-1~ ~tt't'it t<~v v'l«v u~vtOvov n enou)Kftc.l«V I! t«li dva~<\:; 6 OXAO<; •)~to Altelv€tcu t>:atk~~ tnoiet a \J'l'oi; 9 6 bt' n1.1\ci-t<>; U1ltKQ(th} al,toi.; A tyc~v etAt'Tf &noAi't,(oJ Vp\v 't6\' r.lauv\la 't(~\' 1oubal6.lV I<J tyive6vov naoabebc:~Ketoav aVtov ol «QXLt Qei; I I oi bi dQXttQtlz; a v t uetvCt\1 't6V OxAov tva ~tAMo\1 'T6V 12 BaQCt~~v dnoAl1(.U) atitoiz; 0 bt OaAtito:; n«iAt\1 tinOKQaf:Jell; Meyt\' etirfoi.; t f oliv €1iAett nou)u<" &v Atyeu -rOv ~vtAta t<~ 'lot~b(\lwv 13 oi bi nMev e.•.:Q«tav utU(!Qt\luOV al,T6v 14 0 bt nlAdtot; b\eytv aUtoi'~ Ti yi'tQ f noiq(.)t \' ~«!':6V oi 6i' ntQlvu<~ h~Qrc:l~CtV v'tUUQ(t~uoV ctlrfOv IS 0 be nlt\tlto~ f3ouA6pt\l~ T(;' OxAc,l TO lM):\IOV nou}uat Mt b\ovtv «lrroi:; tOv BccQ«~~O.v •a.:d 1tt'.\QtbCo)K'(\' TO\! 'lq vo\) V ~Qt~yeM<~'O«~ rva v't«LIQ<~(:h).

And according to the festival. he used to rele-.tse to them one pl'isone1' for whom they asked. And there was one called Barabbas with those insurrectionists bound in the insurrection for committing murder. And rising up, the crowd beg;-.tn to ask for that whic.h he would usually do fo r them. And Pilate a nswered them sayin~, ·oo you wish that I should free the King: of the Jews for you'?' fo r he knew that the high priests had handed him over because of envy. But the high priests stined up the crowd th.u they should ask tOr Barabbas inste-.td. But Pilate again a nswering was saying to them. ·What do you want me to do with the one you call King of the Jews?' And ag:
The crowd is offered a prisoner, but - although o ther prisoners are explicitly mentioned (\'. 7) - the crowd's choice must be one of these particular two. One prisoner's freedom \viii mean the o ther's de.ath. thoug.h why this should be so remains mysterious. Pilate's response to the crowd's request of Barabbas is to questio n the fate o f Jesus - the two are fatally linked, in his mind and thal of the crowd. Pilate refers to Jesus as ' the one you call ·•King of the Jews" ' (v. 12). although no Jews have been heard to call him such. Likewise, the. noumtor introduces Barabbas as an insurrectionist and murderer "who was c-alled Barabbas' (v. 7). Thal is. 'B;.u abbas' is perhaps no mo re the man's name than ·King. of the Je\vs' is the name of Jesus. ·Barabbas' is what people call him - significantly. since the word means ·so n o f the

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Father' in Ammaic. The name, then. evokes the pattern o f beloved sons pote ntially paying with their lives for benefits accruing to the fathe r. whose p lace on the altar they took. The crowd c-.-Us out for the release o f ·Son of the Father', a nd the crucifixion o f ' the King of the Jews'. The fact that both titles might be applied to Jesus - the first by his followers. the second mockingly by his detractors - s ure ly indicates that Barabbas is in some strange way Jesus' do uble. \Villiam Heidel saw this doubling: as having ritual significance and noted that ·1he release o f Barabbas and the sac.rificial death of Jesus duplicate t he p ractice of releasing, one \'ic.tim a nd offering up the o ther' ,25 that is. the sacritkial temple practice described in Le\'iticus 16. I would argue. with Maclean but more broadly, that sacrificial thinking. wit h its involvement in the langu
Die or Deny: Jesus' Followers as Fttiled Substitutes The insight t hat Barabbas· story partake....; of ritual s ubstitution o ught to be our indicator that this kind of s ubs tit utional sacrifice constitutes a main ingredient of the story thnt Mark cooks. Once substitution is noted in the text. the possible a lternatives to Jesus multiply. Jesus is notably deserted in the Passion story: that is to say that others pointedly avoid joining him in his doom. To some extent. then. a ll of his followers a llow 28

Heidel. /)try uf Ytrlu ~-elr. p. 298.

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The Poll'er of Disorder

him to d ie in order to save their own lives: his deat h in e tTect avens

the-irs. Moreover. there is a sense in which he is killed because he is thus deserted. \Vhen the c rowds call for his death, no one is there to s peak for his life. Jt is t he una nim ity of t he crowd t hat convinces Pilate, who -

ready to sentence someone to


torturous death - chooses Jesus to

satisfy t hem (15. 15). Mark further emphasizes the impo rtance of t he foiiO\vers· desertion in reading it as k nown beforeh and a nd predicted by scripture: 'You will all become deserte rs. for it is written. ' ') will s trike the s hepherd . and the s heep will be scattered'" ( 15.27. N RSV). This desertion, the refusa l o f Jesus' foiiO\vers to die with him. the fa.ct. as t he reference to Zechariah implies. that the disciples arc as useful to him as frightened s heep, makes it easier fo r Jesus to be killed. Their refusal to d ie with him, then. constitutes a refusal to risk their own Jives in a n c fTort to save his. They do not thrO\Il their lives up as a barrier to his death; in this sense they refuse to give their lives in exchange for his. Ba rabbas' story sets up an eq ua tion in which one mnn must die: t he decision is only which one. This mysterio us econom y is rctrojected t hen into o ur unders tanding of others fo r whose life Jesus' death seems to be the price. When Jesus' followers appear in d anger of dea th. in danger of a death very muc h like the o ne that Jesus d ies. the possibility is thus raised that they rnigh t have - as Bam bbas m ight have - d ied in his s tead . The sense t hat the evasion o f t he disciples sorneho\v causes or worsens Jesus' s uffering is heightened by the otherwise odd and s udden presence of Simon of Cyrene in the story. Simon e merges fro m the a nonymity of the c rowd and re{;edes as q uickly back into it. His identification by name (Peter's na me. perhaps no t coincidentally), place o f o rigin . a nd as t he father of Alexander and Rufus fun ctio ns only to point out the a rbitrary nature of his selection as the bearer of Jesus' cross - here is a particular individual grabbed from among t hose passing by and fo rced into this service. Yet he is the only person who rna nagcs to act us a n effective substitute fo r Jesus. He takes over part of Jesus' o rdenl and t hus takes it o1way from Jesus himself. His acting as a partial but effective substitute in this way s penks and follow m e' (8.34). The fact thnt this Simon's own ordeal lessens Jesus' ordeal reinfo rces a n equation: t he greater t he suffering of t he fo llower. the Jess the suffering of Jesus. and conversely Jesus suffers more for the disciples' refusal to suffer as he does. Peter himself frames the options t hat he and Jesus face separately a nd

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simultaneously: d ie o r deny ( 14.3 1). Presented as an alternative to the proceedings within the Sanhedrin. Peter's denial is in effect a refusa l no t o nly to d ie with Jesus, but to d ie instead of him - a \\~llingness to Jet Jesus die in Peter's stead . \Vhile Jesus p rocl~1ims his self-identity and thus condemns himself to death. Pe ter a verts the danger to his own life before it can materialize. Jesus asserts his knowledge of his o wn identity at the risk o f death ( 14.62). while Pe te r denies his knowledge of that same (Jesus') identity. to avoid the same risk. The two are opposite sides o f the same coin . linked in a converse equivalence similnr to thut o f Barabbas a nd Jesus at t he trial before Pila te . Pe te r a llows Jesus to be the sacrifice - t he de.a th t hat must be accepted~ facilitated. a nd cut loose if his own life is to be preserved. In this as in so m om y ways. Pete r is no t extraordina ry among t he d iscip les. but rather a synet·doche fo r them through t he specifics of Peter's desertion, we see the desertion o f a ll Jesus' fo llowers, all o f whom choose rather to deny t ha n to d ie. like Peter, the ano nymous young mom in Gethsemune and a t the to mb emerges fro m the cloud o f betrayal surrounding Jesus as an a ntis ubs tit ute. Both resemble Barabbas in that they might. but do not. die in Jesus' s tead. Bo th are endangered by the dangers that lead to Jesus' death and both are seen in efforts to esc-.-pe the d angers that Jesus endures. The young man is described almost exdusively in te rms of his clothing (o r lack thereon~ leading us to explore the symbolism o f clothing as an expressio n o f substitution .

The Young

.~ftm:

.Nudi1y , Clothing and ldem il)•

There are in Mark two places where a n a nonymous •young man ' (vt avlaKo:;) s hows up: in Gethsemane , he esc:.1pes by leaving his clothes in the hands o f his pursuers {14.51-52). and at the tomb. he is there to meet the women ( 16.5). The fact that the word vt a.viaKc>:; appears nowhere e lse in Mark has Jed literary critics to re.ad both instances as appearances o f one c hara.cter, or nt leas t to explore the possibilities for m eaning in seeing t hem as s uch. T he e.nigmatic scene in Gethsemane is not made Jess enigmatic by seeing it as tied to the scene in the tomb, but it is given a somewha t more fruit fu l complexity.29 In a reading with ritua l in m ind, these l\vo appea ra nces ta ke.n as o ne character read as one o f t he substitute.s o r a lternulives to Jesus. Like Barab bas and like Pete r, t he young m an escapes what Je."'tus 29 M)' awarcn-c:ss of the- young ma n as t1 complex point of meaning - and :1s a unity bctwoc:n his two appc:aranc~-s - is indebted to St~·phcn D. Moore, Mtrrk (111<1 Lukl! ill Poststrurturalist Perspc>t'til'~ (1\'<::w Ha\-cn: Ya1t Uniw-rsity Pn:ss. 1991). pp. 30-38.

90

The Poll'er of Disorder

e ndures - in t his case arrest. He is able to leave his go.ument behind a nd take his nude body away from the danger, unlike Je.n1s, whose garments suffer t he same fate as his body - abuse a t t he hands of the a uthorities.30 In this moment o ur attention is. however briefly. on the young man's naked. escaping body - thus the huma n body is running in the reader's rnind as t he o rdeals o f Jesus· body be,gin. Nor are we Jed astray by this alte ntion to t he body, for in t he Passion t he body rises (so to speak) to a new centrality. This focus on t he body, which accord ing to Bell is c haracte ristic o f rituaL may be traced in pa rt t hro ugh t he image of clothing:11 \Vhen Jesus is tried. he is d isrobed. costumed nnd reclothed. o nly to have his clothes removed from him again at t he crucifixion. where they are dispersed by lot as his body is being likewise split a nd bro ken o n t he. c ross. To understand the sig.nific-.mce of the young man's clothing in terms of his substit utio n fo r Jesus. we need first to see how the story of what h
Subslitution in Festiml. Sacrifice am/ Story

91

contact. and one in most societies surro unded by verbal a nd other taboos. Furthe rmore, whatever this gospel lacks in a discussio n of Jesus' blood, it more t ha n makes good with t he shee.r qua ntity of blood in t his story. Her blood is ·a fo untain' . the text tells us. a nd it is a fountain that has been flowing for twelve yea rs. He re the NRSV misleads us. translating: that 'she had been suffering. from haemo rrhages fo r twelve years' (5.25). I assume the translators meant to guide the te-xt in the d irection of realism. but the G reek does not sny that the bleeding. has been intermittenl. Rmher this woman has been 'in a How o f blood for t\velve years' (5.25). However d ifficult it may be fo r us to believe. t his woman is said to have bee.n living: in t his flow. t his fountain, hipdeep in blood . conti nuously for every minute of t hose years. The woman comes to Jesus to have he r bleeding stop ped. She believes, and she is correct. that if she only touches his garment. she can be healed. Her be-lief seems an extraordin
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The Poll'er of Disorder

Similarly. at the moment of transfiguration, it is rather Jesus' clothing than his actual fo rm that tnkes o n an unworldly appeara nce. \Ve a re told that he was ' tra nsformed before them' (puqtoQ<,p<-~,€Jq, 9.2). presumably in his body. But the wording o f \\•hat follows is so focused on his clothing as to resemble an advertisement for laund ry a ids: ·and his g~arments became s hining: exceedingly white, s uch t ha t no fuller on earth could whiten t hem' (9.3). 3 .".\ Clothing easily represents t he body - it has the body's general s hape. and it acts in ma ny ways as a second skin. a pro tective bonrier impervious to pain. like ha ir or toena ils, a helpful reinforcement o f t he body's boundaries. More than t his. t he clot hed body is the socia l body. In the a ncient world as now, clothing. classifies the clothed body ~lccording to social a nd economic status, cultura l and religious: aftiliations: 14 To be nude, then. is to be unclassified \vithln the society's: structures, particula rly within its hierarchy. •ore.ss fo r a Roman o fte n, if not primarily. signified rank. status~ o ffice, o r o.mthority.'H Clothing is huma n a nd c ultured: nudity is unima l and wild. At the same time, what is human and civilized is defined socially and constjt utes the individual's identity as a member of that pnrlic.ular society. The young, man leaving his garment behind in his night leaves a ll o f his social moorings: t he <-l Ct is one o f abandonment. in every sense. As is usually the c.ase wit h t he mo tif of na kedness in t he ancient Mediterra nean. the young man's naked ness indicates that he has 'lost all possessions a nd his last dignity'. 3~ He no t only leaves Jesus to d ie alone, but, leaving his clothes~ opts out of the social s tructure altogether, to reappenr o nly at the very edge of human existence. as a resident in the tomb. In Genesis 39, Joseph a lso leaves his clothing in the grasp o f one who threatens his safe ty. In both cases, the s ha me of public nudity, s tripped of all a ut ho rity or even identity, is overcome by the sha rne o f remuining clothed in the intolerable threat of the situntio n at hand. In Joseph's case. the fear o f the sin he is being implored to comm it compels his Hight: his fear is virtue. as is his nudity. The young man flees not to ;woid sin, but to a void the sort o f trial and torture that Jesus e.ndures. :U Fermmdo Bdo. A MarnitlliJI Rrmlit1g qf tile Gol]!i!l of Mark. trtllls. Ma llhcw J. O'Connell {Muryknoll. NY: Orbis. 198.1). p. 162. 34 Mary Ellen R0<1ch and Joanne: Bubolt. Eicher (cds). Dre.ss. Adommrm. tmd thr Social On/er{Nc:w York: John Wiley and Sons. 1965). p. 6. 35 Judith Lynn Scbasta and Larissa Bonfantc: (cds). The World of Roman Co.~tumt> (Mndison: Uni,>crsity of Wisconsin Press. 1994). p. 5. 36 M. E. Vogdzang and W. J. \·an lkkkum. ' Meaning tmd Symbolism of Clothjng in Atl(:icnt Ncar Ens tern Texts·. in Scripftl Sigrw VtJcis. cd. H . L J. \'unstiphout. K. Jongding. F. Lcc:mhuis and G. J. Reinink (Groningcn: Egbert Fors.tcn. 19S6). p. 267.

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Yet in both cases, to act in a socially acceptable wa y would be to incur social shame: t he nud ity is a \\'ay out. averting: danger by a sort of social e.u tha nasla. That the re is something a kin to death in the young man's nude ftig_ht is reinfo rced by the fact t ha t we next see him in the gr;w e. If the young man has lcfl Jesus behind in Gethsemnne. Jesus has in t urn left the young man behind here in the tomb. The man's absence marks Jesus' presence a nd \~ce versa~ where the young man is is where Jesus is not. Like Superman a nd Clark Ke nt, they never a ppear together. perhaps because, like Superman nnd Clark Kent. they are act ually aspects of the sarne person. \\' hat the young ma n escapes is wh;.lt Jesus wants to escape-. as \vitness the latter's prayer in Gethsema ne. If the young. ma n a nd Jesus are aspects o f the same person. the young ma n is a Jesus who does nol go through with t he Passion. As Jesus wants to do. as so ma ny generations o f Christians ha ve wanted to do ever sinc-e, the young ma n skips over the trial and crucifixion>and flies d irectly to the resurrection. The young. ma n is left behind in the tomb like a trace o f Jesus, as in Gethsemane the young ma n has left his clothes behind as a t race o f himself. In Matthew the nng:el in the tomb points o ut •the place where they laid him' . and in John the d iscip les see the g.raveclothes lying: e mpty a nd in disa rray (J n 20.5-7). But in Ma rk Jesus leaves no special "plac.e' in the tomb, no c.halk out line, no clothes~ no bodily trace. The only evidence remaining, is the young ma n himself, left behind like a no te. to tell the women o f Jesus· departure for G alilee. Having. removed his body from its social clo thes in the garden. the young. mnn now reap pears outside of the huma n and social world, in the to mb. in other clothes. clothes fro m an other than h umom existence. He is d ressed in the style of lhe transfigured Jesus (and of Emily Dickinson) - in white (16.5: cf. 9.3). His glorified d ress is his only supe rna tural quality. t ho ugh other gospels remember in the same role an a ngel, or perhaps l\VO a ngels, or the risen Jesus himself. It is. o f course, q uite natural to confuse the young. man with the risen Jesus, since the young rna n appears where Jesus oug ht to be. in the to mb. A further connection between the two is t he. cloth tha t one loses a nd the other ta kes on. The young man escaping from the authorities in Gethsemane left behind a (Jlv<x::.v, a c.loth, when he ran away nude. Joseph o f Arirna thea pointedly goes to the market and buys a clo th (cnvbc~v) in which to wrap und bury Jesus· na ked corpse. The repetitio n o f t he wo rd points out a detail that western readers ha ve been tr.tined to miss: Jesus d ies comp le tely and obscenely na ked ,

94

The Poll'er of Disorder

ha,~ns been stripped by the soldiers before he was c.rucified:n \\'estern

art consistently p re.-coents images o f the crucified Christ wearin~ a kind of line n loinc.lo th. o ne t hat never appears in a ny gospel text. Rather. Mark's description repeatedly emphasizes Jesus' complete and shameful nakedness. David T ombs summarizes:

*

B<.lsed on what the Gospel texts themselves indicate. the sexual element in the abuse is unavoidable. An adult man was stripped naked for flogging. then dressed in an insulting way to be mocked. struck, and spat at by a multitude of soldiers befo re being stripped again .. . and reclothed fo1· his joutney through the city - already too '"·eak to carry his own cross - only to be stripped ag-.ain (a third time) and displayed to die whilst naked to a mocking c.rowd.J9 Luke no tab ly softens t his as pect o f t he crucifixion, but Matthew follows Mark in presenting. Jesus' humilia tio n as sexual. among. its other properties. The naked departure of t he young: man from the arresting: c rowd becomes in this light a kind o f alterna tive to Jesus' own naked departure. The young. man chooses to lea ve his garment behind and risk t he shame of nudity rathe r than lose his life in Gethsemane. But Jesus loses his clothes in the shamefu l process o f losing his life. and only gnins t he gnrment the young mom left behind afte-r death. a covering that comes like Joseph of A rirnathea himself - too late to save him fro m pain a nd d isgrace.

The J\1ockeries: Costwm•s, ldemi1ies and SubstiFwiou Because clothing embraces and expresses social identity, like rit ual itself. clothing connects the body o f t he individual to the social body in which he or she dwells. •A g.lrment is that object o f materia] culture which takes the nearest position between man and his environment': condudes a study o f dress in the Ancient Near East. 'it has therefore a n i nform~1tive ftmction.' 40 Wherever they a ppear in Mar k's gospel. body coverings associate with issues o f social identity and ritual substitution. 37

Dt~ vid

Tombs. 'Crucifixion. Stat.: Terror. and Sexual Abuse·. U11itJn Semi11ury

Quurler/.r Rt·rinr 53{1- 2 (1999), p. 10 1.

38 In lhe lim st\'Cr
Subslitution in Festiml. Sacrifice am/ Story

95

The blindfolding a nd costuming in the mockeries t hat follow Jesus' e.xamination by the Sanhedrin a nd before Pilute must also be explored in this: regard. In the mockery before t he Sa nhedrin. \\•hen Jesus' bodily suffering a nd humilia tion begins. he is blindfolded - a sort of a nti-rnask, intended no t to prevent o thers: from recognizing. him~ but to prevent him from recognizing o the rs. The Greek o f this verse actually reads: AAi i}Q~avtO 1we.; i'pn
And some began to spil on him and to cover his face. ( 14.65a) Although in what follows the intention to blind him becomes ma nifest, the descriptio n here is not of cJosing his eyes. but o f hiding his face. as a mask would do. As: a mask, t he blindfold acts to conceal his face. his identifying features. As: a blindfold it works: to conceal the faces of his: abusers:. so that he is fo rced to guess. to pro phesy. whose ha nd now sla ps him. Jesus has just been q uestioned as to his identity and has decloned who he is to the high priest. to whom this identification constitutes not truth but blasphemy (1 4.64). Now Jesus' face is covered a nd his identity is hidden fro nt the Sanhed rin in t his much simp ler sense. At the same time, he is 41 asked to identify his persecutors in a game o f b lindman's blutT. Jesus is no t act ually expected to be able to ma ke the identification implied in the comma nd to prophesy: it would require a second sight that his persecutors do not believe he has. The purpose of the ga me is no t to test Jesus' powers o f perception. but to mock them - and to provide an excuse to strike him. He is as blind to his persecutors' identity now as they are to his, a nd it is this blindness that breeds the vio lenc.e. They hit Jesus wit ho ut fear o f reprisal, in part because he is ;:at their mercy. in purl because he cannot see which of them is doing: the striking:. Because he does: not know t hem they feel free to strike, und beca use they do not know him, they have t he impulse to do so. Later, in the hands o f the Romans. Jesus is dre.~ed up as a king, a costume designed to c reate a n artificial identity t hat by contrast points o ut t he humility o f his act ual identity. He is robed in o rder to show how ill the ro be becomes him: he is made a king, in order to parody the idea that he could be made a king.. C lothing acts both to reveal and to conceal the identity of the wearer; it covers the body, but reveals the 41 Da,•id C. Miller. •empaid.:ei11: Pbying the tt.·lock Game: Lukc 11.6 3-64·. JBL 90 ( 19 71). p. 310.

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The Poll'er of Disorder

social status. t he vocation. the religious beliefs that cons tit ute that body 42 socially. Jesus· clothing does its job wit h an intensity worthy of ritual~ conc.ealing. his swtus as condemned c riminal only to reveal it , revealing his status as king: onl}' to repudiate it - or perha ps, fo r t he reader, to conc.eal it. Jesus· earlier. mysterious saying "Nothing. is hidden except in order to be made mnnifest' (M