[Pilate] took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.These lines from chapter 27 of the gospel of Matthew are notorious in history for their use as warrant for the persecution of Jews. The supposedly inerrant word of God has put self-condemnation in the mouths of the Jewish people who called for the death of Jesus. Anti-Semites thus justified their characterization of Jews as “Christ-killers.”
The Roman Catholic Church did not scruple to join in the persecution of the Jews, although popes like John XXIII and John Paul II took particular pains to disavow this less savory aspect of past centuries. Benedict XVI is eager to follow in the footsteps of his distinguished predecessors. While John convened the Second Vatican Council (which declared that the Jewish people were not to be held responsible for deicide) and John Paul paid his respects at the Great Synagogue of Rome, Benedict intends to outshine them both. He figures to do so by rewriting the plain language of Matthew's gospel. One has to admire the German pope's boldness.
Of course, “rewriting the Bible” has long been charged against the popes of Rome by those who disagree with the centuries-old accumulation of Catholic dogma and tradition. It seems unkind to single out the papacy for this practice, given that all branches of Christianity regularly indulge in it. As an unchurched materialist, I don't feel any particular need to choose sides. However, Benedict's new gloss on Matthew 27 seems exceptionally egregious and worthy of note.
The pope's reinterpretation of Matthew is included in the second volume of his treatise Jesus of Nazareth, recently published in the United States by Ignatius Press. Robert Moynihan, editor-in-chief of Inside the Vatican magazine, waxed ecstatic in an article in the April 2011 issue.
Did you follow that? According to Moynihan, the pope is arguing that the first-century Jews were inadvertently calling for their salvation—asking to be bathed in the blood of the Lamb. Of course, that's not usually what someone intends when calling for a person's blood, but what a nice thought to contemplate the happy circumstance of accidental salvation.What is new about the Pope's interpretation of the cry “his blood be on our heads” is that Benedict makes explicit an argument, a truth, that I don't think any other Christian teacher has ever proposed so strongly in this way: not that this cry (“let his blood be upon us”) was not uttered; not that the Jewish crowds did not say this; but that they did not have any comprehension, not the slightest inkling, of what they were actually crying out for: that they would have upon them or over them a protection of innocent, sacrificial blood, the blood of this sinless, rejected king, who, though rejected, would not, in the end, be a curse to them, but a blessing, not their condemnation, but their salvation.
Contemporary Christians who avoid the sin of anti-Semitism usually deal with Matthew by acknowledging that it's improper to blame the entire Jewish race for the blood-lust of those who screamed in favor of crucifixion. They still treat the gospel as a historical account, but try not to read too much into it. Benedict has instead decided to read more into Matthew than anyone has ever done before, finding a novel slant on bloodthirstiness. As Moynihan puts it, “This is a profound religious and mystical insight on the Pope's part, and, as far as I know, completely original.”
Damned right.
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His blood be on us, and on our children.
I realize that it's an irrelevant objection for believers, but that really seems like an unlikely thing for anyone to ever say, doesn't it?
I guess it's good to be king. Pope, I meant. I hear there's a word for it when Catholics make up your own meanings for scripture: heresy.
";...that they would have upon them or over them a protection of innocent, sacrificial blood, the blood of this sinless, rejected king, who, though rejected, would not, in the end, be a curse to them, but a blessing, not their condemnation, but their salvation."
ELEVEN commas in half a sentence? Wow, that should be some sort of sophistry alert right away.
When I read "Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children."
I assume that Pilate was referring to *all* humankind, in the same way that Christians think that Christ died for everyone's sins, not just an elite few.
Or maybe Pilate was referring not to all Jews but to all men (not women), and only those over 5 feet two inches tall with dark hair and a small scar on their cheeks. He isn't very specific.
To assume he's referring to just the Jews in the crowd seems a bit of a stretch, unless, of course, that's the reader's intent.
As far as Pilate is concerned, it appears he was merely addressing the crowd gathered before him. The crowd in Jerusalem was presumably mostly Jewish and those inclined to over-interpret things find in the crowd's supposed multi-generational embrace of responsibility for Christ's blood sufficient cause to blame all Jews everywhere for the death of Jesus.
I hear there's a word for it when Catholics make up your own meanings for scripture: heresy.
It's different when it's the Pope. A pope, by definition, cannot commit heresy; everything they say is assumed to be the TRUTH, even if it contradicts what a previous pope said.
How this works I can't say; it doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
A pope, by definition, cannot commit heresy; everything they say is assumed to be the TRUTH, even if it contradicts what a previous pope said.
Not quite true. A pope is capable of heresy. A stark but unlikely case would be if a pope declared that he was replacing the Holy Trinity with the Dynamic Duo.
As top dog in the Church, the pope has the ultimate teaching authority. Nevertheless, his supposed "infallible" teaching authority is limited to matters of church dogma (he could announce that Skippy's is better than Jif, but that wouldn't count) and then only if he specifically invokes the "ex cathedra" teaching authority. Papal infallibility is based on Christ's statement to Peter that what he binds on earth shall be bound in heaven and what he looses on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Thus, if the pope officially defines a point of dogma, Catholics are required to believe it. Only Pius XII has ever gone that far (as in defining Marian doctrine like the "assumption into heaven," which safely claims that the Blessed Virgin's body can be found nowhere on earth).
Like any good bureaucracy, the Church has mechanisms that would forestall any seriously deranged pope from popping off some really dangerous pronouncements. If he were, for example, to tell his secretary that he was about to promulgate official church teaching on peanut butter, the secretary would alert the curia and the old guy would get bundled off to Castel Gandolfo before he knew what hit him. (The Church may be an old dinosaur, but its survival mechanisms are far from extinct.)
Zee, don't forget that in the US the majority of Christians are Protestants, who by definition do not give a rat's heinie re Papal authority. Of course, some Protestants are every bit as extreme Christians in their own way as Catholics are in theirs, while others are more moderate -- and yet others of us reasoned our way out of faith at an early age.
Oh right, like Skippy's could EVER be better than Jif... "no true Pope" would say that.
OK, yeah, I've heard of the ex cathedra thing, but I've never been clear on exactly what it entails; I've asked a lot of Catholics and they're not clear, either.
As near as I can tell, ex cathedra just means that the pope could declare himself retroactively not infallible if he were to change his mind at a later date. Which is not to say that I've ever heard of such a thing happening, but the theory -- which, again, I do not understand well -- seems sound.
Still, as long as two popes at different times can claim mutually exclusive traits for a perfect, unchanging deity and both be considered infallible, the system will remain a mess.
I'm hardly likely to forget that, Kathie, but there are more brands of Protestantism than there are of peanut butter. It's much easier to speak generally about Catholicism because of its officially monolithic nature (the reality is a little spongier). And, of course, I have lots of direct experience there (all the way back to being an altar boy).
Oh, it's a mess, all right. But the notorious doctrine of papal infallibility is so circumscribed that its real impact is microscopically smaller than its notoriety. Trust me on this one, ShadowWalkyr, no pope is going to screw up his gig by invoking infallibility to revoke a previous infallible declaration. Not going to happen. (Although it would be fun to see a pope try to do that.)
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