Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 07-21-2004, 02:19 AM

Rome is famous and infamous for its amazing spectacles. It was also very interested in theatre. drama, and rhetoric - Cicero lived just before the alleged time of Christ. Plays were performed in the Temples. Pompeii built the first permanent theatre in Rome and was roundly condemned for it - Rome did not want these Greek ideas permanently displayed! The victors of wars had the pleasure of being crowned in laurel leaves and leading a procession into Rome.

We have been discussing the heroic themes in the Gospels.

Maybe it truly is all mythos - in a theatrical way, that for various reasons got solidified into an alleged "historical" messiah.

I would also question the assumed timeline and geographical positioning very strongly.

The contradictions about the census and Herod are fundamentally important.

The strange view of Pilate is also suspicious.

Let's place the beginnings of these plays about 50 BC in the Roman Jewish community. Much later on, they were formalised and so called "historical" details added.

None of it was fraudulent - everyone thought in terms of gods and heroic episodes. We forget how alien the Roman world is to us, we easily believe people were thinking like us - they were not!

Add in some wacky backy and fears about political changes and we are definitely having a good time!

The splitting of religion and theatre is a modern idea!

Vorkosigan · 07-21-2004, 02:35 AM

See

http://www.nazarenus.com

which analyzes the Passion as a possible play by Seneca.

Clivedurdle · 07-21-2004, 03:21 AM

Possible play by Seneca? This looks like game set and match to me!

I had no idea that this had been proposed! Why is it not common knowledge? It fits!

The little details in John about the crowd coming to arrest Jesus stepping back, the squashing of time at the trial.

Is it because most theologians are not historians of theatre?

Clivedurdle · 07-21-2004, 05:11 AM

Old thread

Very interesting how this has been rapidly rubbished for example by Holding.

But Holding does not go into the detail on nazarenus.com for example the obvious stage directions that are replicated in John - the group arresting Jesus stepped back for example -

it's rubbish

I note the call three years ago for further work on this - we need classical theatre experts on this - not theologians!

Clivedurdle · 07-21-2004, 05:37 AM

The following seems to be very interesting evidence of something originally written in Latin and then translated into GreeK!

Quote:

According to Mark (16:5) the young man was covered with a white stolé (a long dress that reached the feet). According to Matthew (28:3) the angel had an appearance like lightning and his garment was white as snow. According to Luke (24:4) the two angels were in a lightning dress.[4] Finally, according to John (20:22) the two angels are in white things. The four gospels substantially agree with each other, except that Mark, Matthew, and John mention a white color, whereas Matthew and Luke refer to the shine of lightning. The explanation is that Seneca had described the robe as brilliantly white using the word fulgeo. In Latin fulgeo means to shine like lightning, but is commonly used with the name of a color to indicate that the color is bright. Matthew, followed by Luke, translated literally the Latin fulgeo into Greek as astrapto, but in Greek this verb is used only in its narrow sense as referring to lightning, and is never applied to clothes or to color.

Seneca had spoken of brilliant white and had said nothing about lightning, but it is possible that Matthew and Luke were influenced by a stage effect. We know that Greek playwrights were fond of presenting lightning effects on the stage and these were obtained with the help of a device called keraunoskopeia, the device that makes one see thunderbolts. Unfortunately we can only guess how this device operated. Since the figure of which the gospels speak was just beyond the angle of vision of the audience, it is possible that with the help of mirrors flashes of light were made to shine onto the stage from behind the mound. John, who based himself on the script of the play, is the least sensational of the gospel writers, stating merely that the apparition was in white things.

It is not difficult to explain why the apparition is described in totally divergent terms by the four gospels. It would seem impossible that the gospel writers could not even agree on the point whether the men or angels were one or two. This uncertainty provides the solution. The Greek text of Luke refers to andres duo, two men, of which the exact Latin equivalent is viri duo (as proved also by the Vulgate and other Latin translations). The resurrected Jesus had been described by Seneca as viridis. In Latin viridis originally was the equivalent of the English verdant and referred to the vivid green of new leaves, but it had acquired the mean�*ing of youthful, healthy, vigorous, energetic.

Seneca wanted to indicate that the resurrected Jesus was now full of power and no longer showed the traces of his mortal sufferings. In the last scene the resurrection turns into an apotheosis, an ascent to heaven as a divine figure, modeled closely on the ascent of Hercules in Hercules on Oeta. Hence, in preparation for the final scene, the resurrected Jesus is more than an ordinary living man. What Mary saw was the resurrected Jesus; not a Jesus in the form of a miserable body mangled by suffering, beating and crucifixion, but a radiant, mighty Jesus.[5]

The resurrected Jesus was younger than he was at death; but since the gospel writers did not want to accept that the appearance in question was that of Jesus, Mark speaks of a young man. Luke misunderstood viridis as viri duo, two men and Matthew probably understood viridis as viri dei, of a man of god. It is remarkable that in the mentioned extra verse in the early Latin translations of Mark, those older than the Vulgate, the text at this point reads vivi dei, of the living god, a reading which most editors correct into viri duo two men.

Since all tragedians resorted to lines with alliterations at the crucial points of the drama, there is a likelihood that Seneca ran a line like

viridis vivi viri, vere dei
of a youthful living man, truly of a god

in order to describe the appearance of the resurrected Jesus. An alliterate line, like a tongue twister, could be misunderstood by the audience and easily mangled by copiers of manuscripts. [6

Clivedurdle · 07-21-2004, 05:45 AM

Quote:

posted August 01, 2001 01:44 PM �*�*�* �*�* �*�* �*�* �*�*

I think that "The Gospel According to Seneca" should be evaluated on its own merits, preferably by someone who knows Latin and Greek. I find it fascinating that the passion conforms so closely to what would be expected in a Roman drama, and that some terms make more sense when translated into Latin than in Greek or Aramaic.

Magdlyn · 07-21-2004, 07:20 AM

I have not read all the links to older threads, so do not know if this was addressed, but I think this Seneca theory helps explain the confusing line in Pauls' letter to the Galatians, 3:1...

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

...as Pagan citizens of Galatia were not likely to have been at Jerusalem at that particular Pesach celebration time, but could well have seen a drama enacted of it, perhaps as part of a mystery rite/sacrament.

Amlodhi · 07-21-2004, 07:22 AM

Hi Clivedurdle,

Why, I wonder, would it be necessary for a play by Seneca to be specifically about the personage of Jesus? Is there any direct attestation that the proposed 'lost play' was entitled "nazarenus"?

A couple of quotes from the old thread are relevant to my ideas here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Actually, I think the author's claims suffer from overreaching. I think the reader in her own mind must separate the "Seneca" claim from the claim that the Passion Narrative (PN) was originally a play. Realization that it could have been a play, possibly in latin, and that there might be some interesting insights to be gained by regarding it as such, ought to be enough. There's no evidence that Seneca ever wrote such a play, so no speculation on that matter is warranted.

As we had discussed before, we know that c. 40 b.c. Publius Vergilius Maro, (i.e. Vergil, or Virgil), was writing verse, such as the 4th Eclogue which, it has been said, were also performed as stage plays:

Quote:

portion of 4th Eclogue:

Now the last age by Cumae’s Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling centuries begins anew:
Now the virgin returns, the Golden Age returns
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do thou (Lucina), smile at the child’s birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden age arise…
Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain
Of our old wickedness, once done away
Shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear.
He shall receive the life of gods, and see
Heroes with gods commingling, and himself
Be seen of them, and with his father’s worth
Reign o’er a world at peace.

Thus, we know that there were suspiciously similar motifs in Roman drama, as Toto indicated:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I find it fascinating that the passion conforms so closely to what would be expected in a Roman drama, and that some terms make more sense when translated into Latin than in Greek or Aramaic.

On the other hand, Seneca did write a play about a hero who was sacrificed and rose to heaven - the hero's name was Herakles (or Hercules), and there is rampant speculation that the Herakles myth was a forerunner of the Christ Myth.

Also, there are indications that the understanding of the original followers of Jesus was within the framework of acceptable Jewish eschatology; i.e. sans the later accoutrements of Paul and the gospel writers.

It seems then, to me, that the proposed play of Seneca would not have had to feature the personage of Jesus as protagonist at all. IOW, all that would have been necessary for syncretism (into Paul's thinking and into the later gospel narratives) was the basic motifs and storyline of any number of Roman dramas.

Amlodhi

Clivedurdle · 07-21-2004, 07:42 AM

Let's try and keep the two things separate! Nazarenus.com is worth a detailed read.

Firstly are we reading in the Gospels descriptions of a Roman play originally written in Latin?

Secondly who is likely to be the author of this play? Seneca?

Clivedurdle · 07-22-2004, 01:40 AM

The Coronation

We are used to referring to the crown worn by Jesus as a crown of thorns, the common understanding being that it was put on him as a mockery and that it inflicted suffering. But the procedure before Pilate makes sense only if it is a true royal crown. Some critics have concluded that the crown worn by Jesus was the radiate crown worn by Roman Emperors.[1] The crown consisted of a series of spikes, representing rays.

In the lines we have quoted from Seneca’s Thyestes, it is the purple robe and the royal tiara that are identified as the main symbols of royalty. These are the very items worn by Jesus in Pilate’s praetorium. According to the dramatic conventions followed by Seneca, the wearing of such royal symbols, even unintentionally, was an invitation to disaster.* The chorus of Seneca’s Thyestes alludes to the fatal risks inherent in kingship:

Whoso will may stand on royalty’s slippery pinnacle in his power

I would be steeped in sweet repose.

In order to make Thyestes a suitable victim for his intended crime, Atreus must coerce his brother to accept the title of king and its physical symbol, the royal crown. Thyestes is unwilling:

style=' line-height:As for the crown, that mark of royalty

style=' line-height:would scarce become this ruined head.

And again:

style=' line-height:I am determined to refuse the crown.

But Atreus persists and at last his brother gives in to the form, though not the substance, of royalty:

I accept it; I shall bear the title of king imposed upon me,

but laws and army and I too shall be at your discretion.

With these words he allows himself to be crowned. But even the formal acceptance of kingship is an expression of what the Greeks called hubris, or overweening pride, and at that very moment his fortune takes a disastrous turn. As Atreus places the crown on his brother’s head, he hints darkly at what is to follow.

** Come, then, and let your venerable head suffer the yoke that I shall put upon it.

** Then I shall offer the gods above the sacrifice that I have prepared for them.

Roman audiences did not need to be told that a victim intended* for sacrifice is first crowned. They knew, for instance,* that when Agamemnon* was* preparing to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, he first crowned her, as if for marriage.* Seneca could employ such double meanings because he could rely on his audiences to understand and appreciate them. The Christians who attended a performance of Seneca’s play on Jesus, however, failed to grasp the fact that Pilate, by crowning Jesus as king, was in fact marking him as a sacrificial victim.

In his theory of tragedy, Aristotle stresses that the turn of fortune, which is the most important moment in the entire drama, while sudden and unexpected, must be in some sense deserved. The hero overreached himself, perhaps unwillingly or through ignorance, and his punishment must be, if* possible, a direct and immediate consequence of this very act.

Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world; like Thyestes, he rejected kingship in the ordinary senseyet he accepted the crown and robe of a king. Following the ancient concept of tragedy, once Jesus had assumed the trappings of royalty, his fate was sealed.[2] Hence Pilate stepped out*side and addressed them. The apparent ambiguity of this pronoun, which has no antecedent, is explained by the fact that Pilate is addressing the chorus. The composition of the audience is made clear two verses later: high priests and their assistants. Pilate shouted to the crowd:

Look, I am taking him outside to you,

so that you may understand that I do not find any guilt [in him].

The appearance of Jesus was made more spectacular by having Pilate announce* it beforehand, raising the audience’s expectations. The audience had not seen Jesus since he was led as a bound prisoner into the praetorium. Pilate’s words directed their gaze toward the balcony from which Pilate was speaking.

John continues:

Accor*dingly Jesus came outside wearing the pointed crown and the purple clothing.

Jesus appeared in full view only when Pilate brought him out into the open, and at that moment he appeared above the heads of the chorus, dressed in the royal purple and pointed crown, such as was worn by the Roman emperors and which the Romans associated with royalty. The result was a startling impact, as the dramatic situation required.

According to John Pilate said to them:

Behold the man.

This is one of the passion scenes that has most influenced the imagery of the Christians through the centuries. Scholars have long debated about what Pilate meant by Behold the man. The most common explanation is that Pilate intended to elicit pity: Behold the poor man. Another explanation is that Pilate intended to express contempt; still another is that Pilate intended to convey that Jesus was a ridiculous figure, in gene*ral or at that moment, that his claim to kingship was a ridiculous one. An opposite, less common, interpretation is that Pilate intended to express admira*tion by saying: Here is a man! The overt disagreement among the interpretations reflects the fact that the Greek sentence used by John does not have a parallel in Greek literature, so that we are left wondering as to its meaning.

The expression Behold the man is an attempt to translate the Latin sentence Ecce homo, which is exactly the sentence used by the Vulgate version of St. Jerome in retranslating the Greek into Latin. Ecce homo is a perfectly common sentence in Latin; very similar ones are found in the dialogues of Latin comedies. It means He is here in person or There, I give him to you in person. What Pilate wanted to indicate was that in substance he was handing him over to them for a decision. They could hail him as their king, but instead they made their decision by screaming: Crucify! Crucify!, the words that many people remember best from the passion story. The masses who through the centuries have been aroused to anti-semitism by this episode more than by any other text of the New Testament, have grasped better than most commentators the dramatic intent of this scene.

*It is characteristic of Seneca’s dramatic style that as the action of the play approaches its climax the chorus assumes a more active role, and the lines spoken by it acquire a sense of urgency, becoming brief and argumentative. Pilate’s response to the demand that he crucify Jesus is to throw the onus back on the Jews:

You take him then and crucify him; I find no guilt in him.

This is the third time that Pilate declares Jesus innocent. Luke, too, reports three such declarations by Pilate, with the last one immediately following after the crowd’s demand for crucifixion. The chorus responds:

We have a law that says he ought to die,

because he claimed to be the Son of God.

The three-fold declaration of the Roman governor that Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him caused his accusers to change their tune. The charges originally brought against Jesus by the high priests had been tailored to appeal to Pilate’s concerns: urging the people not to pay taxes and declaring himself king in opposition to Caesar. After Pilate has declared Jesus innocent of these charges for the third time, Jesus was considered to be cleared of them. The Jewish leaders had no alternative but to reveal that Jesus had already been indicted on a charge of blasphemy. Hence Pilatereturned to the praetorium once more and asked Jesus:

Where do you come from?

Pilate was in effect asking whether it was true what the Jews were alleging, that he claimed to be the son of God. Jesus did not respond, just as he had maintained his silence when asked a similar question by the Jewish Senate. But Pilate pressed him further:

You will not speak to me?

Remember I have the authority to set you free

And also have authority to have you crucified.

Pilate explains to Jesus the essence of clemency, as conceived by Seneca: the restraint on the part of someone who has the power to punish. But Jesus retorts:

You have the authority over me only because it was given to you from above.

That a ruler acts at the sufferance of heaven was a concept dear to Seneca. Not only is it the initial and leading thought in his treatise On Clemency, it is brought out again in his Thyestes, where the chorus addresses the rulers of men:

You whom the ruler of sea and land

has vouchsafed high authority over death and life

lay aside your inflated and pompous bearing.

All that a lesser being fears of you

A greater master holds over you;

your sovereignty is subject to a higher sovereignty.[3]

Having reduced Pilate to a mere instrument, Jesus points to the real villain:

Therefore the one who gave me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

John reports that these words made Pilate even more anxious to set him free. Pilate must have uttered words to this effect, because in the very next verse some members of the crowd are heard shouting their response:

If you set him free, that means that you are not Caesar’s friend!

Anyone who claims to be a king is the Caesar’s enemy.

Suddenly Pilate finds himself on the defensive. He capitulates, but at a price. John reports that Pilate now took Jesus outside for the last time and sat down on his magisterial seat of judgment. This means that the main actors, including Pilate and Jesus, appeared at stage level. As mentioned earlier, the conventions of the ancient theater would not have permitted a major personage like Pilate to use one of the side doorsit was the central doors of the praetorium that now swung open to reveal Pilate leading Jesus, who was still dressed in the royal robe and wearing the crown. Hence Pilate said to the Jews:

Here is your king!

This is a more positive statement than his earlier declaration: Here is the man! Likewise, the shouts of the Jewish leaders become more fervent:

Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!

At last Pilate is in a position to extract his political price by asking them:

Shall I crucify your king?

They are no longer able to equivocate, as they had done in the previous scene. Having raised the specter of Pilate’s disloyalty to Rome, were he to set Jesus free, they had no option but to declare their own allegiance to the Emperor:

We have no king but Caesar!

Just as Pilate was given the last word in the debate with Jesus, he won the debate with the Jews by forcing them to acknowledge Caesar as their king. Pilate, as a Skeptic, was not concerned about the genuineness of the Jewish expression of loyalty to Rome. An outward manifestation of loyalty is all that is important to a Skeptic. In terms of the dramatic development of Act Two, Jesus had been a mere pawn in Pilate’s struggle with the Jewish leaders. His purpose accomplished,

Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be nailed to the cross.

[1] Campbell Bonner, Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953), pp. 47-48. The text of the gospels is ambiguous on this point: it is true that one of the meanings of the word akanthôn is of thorns, but an equally valid translation would be of acanthus leaves.Perhaps the evangelists had some reason to specify acanthus as the plant from which the crown was made, since this plant symbolizes heaven in later Christian iconography. Cf. E. R. Goodenough and C.B. Welles, Harvard Theological Review, 46 (1953), 241-2. In Greek the plural akanthai simply means pointed or jagged.

[2] In Seneca’s Thyestes, Atreus refers to the crown he is offering his brother as vincla, literally, chains. Perhaps Pilate used some unusual expression for the royal crown he was offering to Jesus, causing confusion for the evangelists. The Latin word* spinosa, or thorny, can mean burdensome, frought with difficulty. Cf also Seneca’s Agamemnon, where Clytemnestra prepares her husband’s murder by persuading him to wear a royal robe that she had prepared for him (lines 881–889).

[3] * Thyestes, lines 607ff., transl. by Moses Hadas (New York, 1957); cf. De Clementia I. 1-

07-21-2004, 02:19 AM	#1
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	The Gospels - are they Roman plays? Rome is famous and infamous for its amazing spectacles. It was also very interested in theatre. drama, and rhetoric - Cicero lived just before the alleged time of Christ. Plays were performed in the Temples. Pompeii built the first permanent theatre in Rome and was roundly condemned for it - Rome did not want these Greek ideas permanently displayed! The victors of wars had the pleasure of being crowned in laurel leaves and leading a procession into Rome. We have been discussing the heroic themes in the Gospels. Maybe it truly is all mythos - in a theatrical way, that for various reasons got solidified into an alleged "historical" messiah. I would also question the assumed timeline and geographical positioning very strongly. The contradictions about the census and Herod are fundamentally important. The strange view of Pilate is also suspicious. Let's place the beginnings of these plays about 50 BC in the Roman Jewish community. Much later on, they were formalised and so called "historical" details added. None of it was fraudulent - everyone thought in terms of gods and heroic episodes. We forget how alien the Roman world is to us, we easily believe people were thinking like us - they were not! Add in some wacky backy and fears about political changes and we are definitely having a good time! The splitting of religion and theatre is a modern idea!

07-22-2004, 01:40 AM	#10
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	exactly why is this not a play? The Coronation We are used to referring to the crown worn by Jesus as a crown of thorns, the common understanding being that it was put on him as a mockery and that it inflicted suffering. But the procedure before Pilate makes sense only if it is a true royal crown. Some critics have concluded that the crown worn by Jesus was the radiate crown worn by Roman Emperors.[1] The crown consisted of a series of spikes, representing rays. In the lines we have quoted from Seneca’s Thyestes, it is the purple robe and the royal tiara that are identified as the main symbols of royalty. These are the very items worn by Jesus in Pilate’s praetorium. According to the dramatic conventions followed by Seneca, the wearing of such royal symbols, even unintentionally, was an invitation to disaster.* The chorus of Seneca’s Thyestes alludes to the fatal risks inherent in kingship: Whoso will may stand on royalty’s slippery pinnacle in his power I would be steeped in sweet repose. In order to make Thyestes a suitable victim for his intended crime, Atreus must coerce his brother to accept the title of king and its physical symbol, the royal crown. Thyestes is unwilling: style=' line-height:As for the crown, that mark of royalty style=' line-height:would scarce become this ruined head. And again: style=' line-height:I am determined to refuse the crown. But Atreus persists and at last his brother gives in to the form, though not the substance, of royalty: I accept it; I shall bear the title of king imposed upon me, but laws and army and I too shall be at your discretion. With these words he allows himself to be crowned. But even the formal acceptance of kingship is an expression of what the Greeks called hubris, or overweening pride, and at that very moment his fortune takes a disastrous turn. As Atreus places the crown on his brother’s head, he hints darkly at what is to follow. Come, then, and let your venerable head suffer the yoke that I shall put upon it. Then I shall offer the gods above the sacrifice that I have prepared for them. Roman audiences did not need to be told that a victim intended* for sacrifice is first crowned. They knew, for instance,* that when Agamemnon* was* preparing to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, he first crowned her, as if for marriage.* Seneca could employ such double meanings because he could rely on his audiences to understand and appreciate them. The Christians who attended a performance of Seneca’s play on Jesus, however, failed to grasp the fact that Pilate, by crowning Jesus as king, was in fact marking him as a sacrificial victim. In his theory of tragedy, Aristotle stresses that the turn of fortune, which is the most important moment in the entire drama, while sudden and unexpected, must be in some sense deserved. The hero overreached himself, perhaps unwillingly or through ignorance, and his punishment must be, if* possible, a direct and immediate consequence of this very act. Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world; like Thyestes, he rejected kingship in the ordinary senseyet he accepted the crown and robe of a king. Following the ancient concept of tragedy, once Jesus had assumed the trappings of royalty, his fate was sealed.[2] Hence Pilate stepped outside and addressed them. The apparent ambiguity of this pronoun, which has no antecedent, is explained by the fact that Pilate is addressing the chorus. The composition of the audience is made clear two verses later: high priests and their assistants. Pilate shouted to the crowd: Look, I am taking him outside to you, so that you may understand that I do not find any guilt [in him]. The appearance of Jesus was made more spectacular by having Pilate announce it beforehand, raising the audience’s expectations. The audience had not seen Jesus since he was led as a bound prisoner into the praetorium. Pilate’s words directed their gaze toward the balcony from which Pilate was speaking. John continues: Accordingly Jesus came outside wearing the pointed crown and the purple clothing. Jesus appeared in full view only when Pilate brought him out into the open, and at that moment he appeared above the heads of the chorus, dressed in the royal purple and pointed crown, such as was worn by the Roman emperors and which the Romans associated with royalty. The result was a startling impact, as the dramatic situation required. According to John Pilate said to them: Behold the man. This is one of the passion scenes that has most influenced the imagery of the Christians through the centuries. Scholars have long debated about what Pilate meant by Behold the man. The most common explanation is that Pilate intended to elicit pity: Behold the poor man. Another explanation is that Pilate intended to express contempt; still another is that Pilate intended to convey that Jesus was a ridiculous figure, in general or at that moment, that his claim to kingship was a ridiculous one. An opposite, less common, interpretation is that Pilate intended to express admiration by saying: Here is a man! The overt disagreement among the interpretations reflects the fact that the Greek sentence used by John does not have a parallel in Greek literature, so that we are left wondering as to its meaning. The expression Behold the man is an attempt to translate the Latin sentence Ecce homo, which is exactly the sentence used by the Vulgate version of St. Jerome in retranslating the Greek into Latin. Ecce homo is a perfectly common sentence in Latin; very similar ones are found in the dialogues of Latin comedies. It means He is here in person or There, I give him to you in person. What Pilate wanted to indicate was that in substance he was handing him over to them for a decision. They could hail him as their king, but instead they made their decision by screaming: Crucify! Crucify!, the words that many people remember best from the passion story. The masses who through the centuries have been aroused to anti-semitism by this episode more than by any other text of the New Testament, have grasped better than most commentators the dramatic intent of this scene. It is characteristic of Seneca’s dramatic style that as the action of the play approaches its climax the chorus assumes a more active role, and the lines spoken by it acquire a sense of urgency, becoming brief and argumentative. Pilate’s response to the demand that he crucify Jesus is to throw the onus back on the Jews: You take him then and crucify him; I find no guilt in him. This is the third time that Pilate declares Jesus innocent. Luke, too, reports three such declarations by Pilate, with the last one immediately following after the crowd’s demand for crucifixion. The chorus responds: We have a law that says he ought to die, because he claimed to be the Son of God. The three-fold declaration of the Roman governor that Jesus was innocent of the charges brought against him caused his accusers to change their tune. The charges originally brought against Jesus by the high priests had been tailored to appeal to Pilate’s concerns: urging the people not to pay taxes and declaring himself king in opposition to Caesar. After Pilate has declared Jesus innocent of these charges for the third time, Jesus was considered to be cleared of them. The Jewish leaders had no alternative but to reveal that Jesus had already been indicted on a charge of blasphemy. Hence Pilatereturned to the praetorium once more and asked Jesus: Where do you come from? Pilate was in effect asking whether it was true what the Jews were alleging, that he claimed to be the son of God. Jesus did not respond, just as he had maintained his silence when asked a similar question by the Jewish Senate. But Pilate pressed him further: You will not speak to me? Remember I have the authority to set you free And also have authority to have you crucified. Pilate explains to Jesus the essence of clemency, as conceived by Seneca: the restraint on the part of someone who has the power to punish. But Jesus retorts: You have the authority over me only because it was given to you from above. That a ruler acts at the sufferance of heaven was a concept dear to Seneca. Not only is it the initial and leading thought in his treatise On Clemency, it is brought out again in his Thyestes, where the chorus addresses the rulers of men: You whom the ruler of sea and land has vouchsafed high authority over death and life lay aside your inflated and pompous bearing. All that a lesser being fears of you A greater master holds over you; your sovereignty is subject to a higher sovereignty.[3] Having reduced Pilate to a mere instrument, Jesus points to the real villain: Therefore the one who gave me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. John reports that these words made Pilate even more anxious to set him free. Pilate must have uttered words to this effect, because in the very next verse some members of the crowd are heard shouting their response: If you set him free, that means that you are not Caesar’s friend! Anyone who claims to be a king is the Caesar’s enemy. Suddenly Pilate finds himself on the defensive. He capitulates, but at a price. John reports that Pilate now took Jesus outside for the last time and sat down on his magisterial seat of judgment. This means that the main actors, including Pilate and Jesus, appeared at stage level. As mentioned earlier, the conventions of the ancient theater would not have permitted a major personage like Pilate to use one of the side doorsit was the central doors of the praetorium that now swung open to reveal Pilate leading Jesus, who was still dressed in the royal robe and wearing the crown. Hence Pilate said to the Jews: Here is your king! This is a more positive statement than his earlier declaration: Here is the man! Likewise, the shouts of the Jewish leaders become more fervent: Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him! At last Pilate is in a position to extract his political price by asking them: Shall I crucify your king? They are no longer able to equivocate, as they had done in the previous scene. Having raised the specter of Pilate’s disloyalty to Rome, were he to set Jesus free, they had no option but to declare their own allegiance to the Emperor: We have no king but Caesar! Just as Pilate was given the last word in the debate with Jesus, he won the debate with the Jews by forcing them to acknowledge Caesar as their king. Pilate, as a Skeptic, was not concerned about the genuineness of the Jewish expression of loyalty to Rome. An outward manifestation of loyalty is all that is important to a Skeptic. In terms of the dramatic development of Act Two, Jesus had been a mere pawn in Pilate’s struggle with the Jewish leaders. His purpose accomplished, Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be nailed to the cross. [1] Campbell Bonner, Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953), pp. 47-48. The text of the gospels is ambiguous on this point: it is true that one of the meanings of the word akanthôn is of thorns, but an equally valid translation would be of acanthus leaves.Perhaps the evangelists had some reason to specify acanthus as the plant from which the crown was made, since this plant symbolizes heaven in later Christian iconography. Cf. E. R. Goodenough and C.B. Welles, Harvard Theological Review, 46 (1953), 241-2. In Greek the plural akanthai simply means pointed or jagged. [2] In Seneca’s Thyestes, Atreus refers to the crown he is offering his brother as vincla, literally, chains. Perhaps Pilate used some unusual expression for the royal crown he was offering to Jesus, causing confusion for the evangelists. The Latin word* spinosa, or thorny, can mean burdensome, frought with difficulty. Cf also Seneca’s Agamemnon, where Clytemnestra prepares her husband’s murder by persuading him to wear a royal robe that she had prepared for him (lines 881–889). [3] * Thyestes, lines 607ff., transl. by Moses Hadas (New York, 1957); cf. De Clementia I. 1-

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07-21-2004, 02:35 AM	#2
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	See http://www.nazarenus.com which analyzes the Passion as a possible play by Seneca.

07-21-2004, 03:21 AM	#3
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Possible play by Seneca? This looks like game set and match to me! I had no idea that this had been proposed! Why is it not common knowledge? It fits! The little details in John about the crowd coming to arrest Jesus stepping back, the squashing of time at the trial. Is it because most theologians are not historians of theatre?

07-21-2004, 05:11 AM	#4
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Old thread Very interesting how this has been rapidly rubbished for example by Holding. But Holding does not go into the detail on nazarenus.com for example the obvious stage directions that are replicated in John - the group arresting Jesus stepped back for example - it's rubbish I note the call three years ago for further work on this - we need classical theatre experts on this - not theologians!

07-21-2004, 07:20 AM	#7
Magdlyn Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 2,230	I have not read all the links to older threads, so do not know if this was addressed, but I think this Seneca theory helps explain the confusing line in Pauls' letter to the Galatians, 3:1... Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? ...as Pagan citizens of Galatia were not likely to have been at Jerusalem at that particular Pesach celebration time, but could well have seen a drama enacted of it, perhaps as part of a mystery rite/sacrament.

07-21-2004, 07:42 AM	#9
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Let's try and keep the two things separate! Nazarenus.com is worth a detailed read. Firstly are we reading in the Gospels descriptions of a Roman play originally written in Latin? Secondly who is likely to be the author of this play? Seneca?

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