I
MOCKERY
MOCKERY
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this in Mt., and it is omitted by D and Sjt ^"^ in Mark. Even if original in Mk., it maj' imply that Jesus was condemned to death (cf. 'they covered Haman's face,' Est 7**), rather than that He was blindfolded so that He might be asked to prophesy who struck Him. Accordingly, the meaning may be 'foretell the future,' either generally or with a specific reference to His own fate, or to the destruction of tlie Temple, which He had been accused of predicting.
The second mockery, that before^ Herod, is free from the element of physical ill-treatment. Jesus is simply arrayed in royal garments, and a mock- ing homage is paid to Him ; then He is sent back to Pilate. Lk -iS'""'- is omitted, it is true, in Syr ^'", and is regarded by AVelliiausen as a later addition (see his note on tlie passage and on 23'^).
The third mockery is that by the Roman soldiers after the condemnation by Pilate. This narrative is omitted by Lk. but recordeil by John. Tlie soldiers take Jesus into the Pr;etorium and sum- mon the whole of their company. Tiien tliej' clothe Him in purple and put a crown of tliorns upon His head ; then thej' do homage to Him, saluting Him as king of the Jews. They keep on striking Him on the head with a reeil, spitting upon Him, and bending the knee to Him in mock homage. To this account (of Mk. ) Mt. adds, first, that before clothing Him in the robes they divested Him of His garments, and that they put a reed in His right hand, and subsequently took it from Him and struck Him on the head with it. Here ^Nlt.'s account deserves preference, for it is intrinsicallj- probable that the reed should have been given Him as a sceptre before it was used to smite Him. Jn.'s account is brief; he does not mention the reed, but says tiiat they gave Him blows with the liand. It is a mark of historicitj' in the Gospel narratives that the Sanhedrists are represented as mocking the claims of Jesus to be a prophet, M'liereas the Rom.an soldiers, quite uninterested in His prophetic cliaracter, mock His claims to be a king, which would not be so ready a subject of jesting with tiie Jews, though they mocked Him for His pretensions to be a king of Israel as He hung upon the cross.
In recent years quite new significance has been attached to the mockery. Wendland in his art. 'Jesus als Saturnalien-Konig" {Hcnnes, xxxiii. 175- 179) put forward tiie view that the Roman soldiers ridiculed Christ's royal and Divine claims by at- tiring Him in the dress of king Saturn. J. G. Frazer urges as an objection to this that, while it is possible that the Saturnalia may have been celebrated in Jerusalem at what seems to have been its original date in Marcli, it is much more likely that it was really held in December, wliicli, of course, does not h.armonize with the time of year at which the Crucifixion took place. Frazer liiniself thinks that it resemliled much more cioselj" tlie treatment of the mock king of the Sac;ea." He translates Dio Chrysostom's description as follows : ' They take one of the prisoners condemned to deatli and seat him upon the king's throne, and give him the king's raiment, and let him lord it and drink and run riot and use tlie king's concu- bines during these days, and no man prevents him from doing just what he likes. But afterwards they strip and scourge and crucify him' (Frazer, Golden Bough-, iii. 187).
Frazer argues that the Jewish Feast of Purim was a continua- tion of the Sac.-ca, and he conjectures that the Jews regularly compelled a condemned criminal to play a trag-ic part in that festival, and that Jesus perished in the character of Hanian. He admits the dilhculty caused by the fact that Purim fell a month before Passover, but he puts forward various sujrg'estions to mitigate this difficulty. He thinks that possibly the Christian tradition may have shifted the date of the Crucifixion to coincide with the Passover, thoutrh he admits that this is perhaps not possible. He points out that the Bab. festival seems to have
fallen near the time of the Passover, and that the date of Purim was altered to a month earlier so as not to clash with it. He conjectures that the Jews may ha\e sometimes, for a special reason, celebrated the Feast of Purim, or at least the death of Hainan, at or near Passover. A further suggestion is, however, that possibly the licence of thirty days allowed to the mock king of the Saturnalia was allowed to the human representative of flaman. Yet as the mockery in question was not by Jews but by Roman soldiers, the question arises whether they would have been likely to take part in a Jewish celebration. To this Frazer replies that they may have fallen in with the local cus- toms, but, quite apart from this, it was natural that without sharing Jewish beliefs they would be quite ready to join in the sport. He points out, however, that according to" Lk.'s account, it was Herod's soldiers who mocked Jesus, and they were pre- sumably Jews. Thus the Crucifi.vion on this view wa.« not a punishment specially designed for Christ, but merely the fate which annually befell the malefactor who played Hanian. It is argued that certain ditliculties in the narrative thus gain relief. Pilate was reluctant to give u)i Jesus and yet acquiesced, though he had the power to release Him. This is due to the fact that someone had to be given up to play the part of Haman. Again, would Pilate have ventured to put over the cross the inscription declaring that Jesus was king of the Jews with a tyrant so gloomy and suspicious as Tiberius, unless it had been a formula of long standing and regarded as <iuite innocuous? Since Jesus represented Hainan, it is suggested that Barabbas represented Mordecai ; and if so, he was probably released in order to play the part of a buffoon king (cf. the story of the mockery of Carabas in Philo, adt\ Flacctim, ii. 52H-523, and the ' Ride of the Beardless One ' in Per.«ia, referred to by Lagarde in his Purim). Tlie name Barabbas, Frazer suggests, was an official title mis- takenly regarded as a personal name. Originally Hanian and Mordecai were the same, but one personated the dead and the other the risen deity. The same person probably played both parts, he who was Mordecai one year was flaiuan the r.e.xt.