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  Jesus and the Grace of the Cross Luke 23:34a and the Politics of ‘Forgiveness’ in Antiquity JAMES R. HARRISON T he historical authenticity of Jesus’ prayer to God to forgive his enemies (Luke 23:34a: Πάτερ, ἄφες αὐτοῖς) is still debated by New Testament scholars. The disputed textual tradition underlying the verse and the ambiguous status of the internal arguments in favour of the logion have meant that a definitive answer to its authenticity remains elusive.1 Where Luke 23:34 is accepted as an authentic Jesus logion,2 scholarly discussion largely revolves around the identity of those whom Jesus forgives (Jews, Romans, or both?) and the ‘ignorance’ motif (Luke 23:34; cf. Acts 2:36; 3:17; 13:17; 17:30). Significant investigations of ἀφίημι and ἄφεσις have been undertaken,3 but this discussion has not been brought into dialogue with the variegated understanding of forgiveness in antiquity and its dominant terminology (συγγνώμη; συγγιγνώσκω). The time is long overdue for a reappraisal of the authenticity and the import, socially and theologically, of the logion. 1 2 3 For recent discussions, see J.H. Petzer, ‘Eclecticism and the Text of the New Testament’, in P.J. Hartin and J.H. Petzer (eds.), Text and Interpretation: New Approaches in the Criticism of the New Testament (Leiden/New York/Kobenhaun/ Köln: E.J. Brill, 1991), 47-62; G.P. Carras, ‘A Pentateuchal Echo in Jesus’ Prayer on the Cross: Intertextuality Between Numbers 15, 22-31 and Luke 23, 34a’, in C.M. Tuckett (ed.), The Scriptures in the Gospels (Leuven: Leuven University Press/Peeters, 1997), 605-16; J. Delobel, ‘Luke 23:43a: A Perpetual Text-Critical Crux?’, in W.L. Petersen (ed.), Sayings of Jesus: Canonical and Non-Canonical Essays in Honour of Tjitze Baarda (Leiden/New York/Köln: E.J. Brill, 1997), 25-36; J.A. Whitlark and M.C. Parsons, ‘The “Seven” Last Words: A Numerical Motivation for the Insertion of Luke 23.34a’, NTS 52 (2006),: 188-204; J.M. Strachan, The Limits of a Text: Luke 23:34a as a Case Study in Theological Interpretation (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012). Among Lukan commentators supporting the authenticity of the saying, see M.-J. Lagrange (Paris: Gabalda, 1921), 587; G.B. Caird (New York: Seabury Press, 1963), 251; E. Schweizer (SPCK: London, 1964), 359-360; L. Morris (London: IVP, 1974), 326-327; I.H. Marshall (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 867-868; J. Nolland (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993), 1144; D.L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1848-1851, 1867-1868; F. Bovon (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2009), 368-369. C.F. Evans (London: SCM, 1993), 867-868 supports its inclusion in the text of Luke, though not necessarily as a saying of the historical Jesus. F.W. Danker (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 373, argues that no conclusive judgement can be made regarding the ‘ambivalent manuscript tradition’. J.M. Creed (London: Macmillan, 1930), 286, argues that the logion is inauthentic. J.A. Fitzmyer (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 1500, 1503-1504, seems to adopt a position of historical ‘agnosticism’ regarding the authenticity of the logion. E.g. R. Bultmann, ‘ἀφίημι, ἄφεσις, παρίημι, πάρεσις’, TDNT (G. Kittel, ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1.509-12; H. Leroy, ‘ἀφίημι, ἄφεσις’, EDNT (H. Balz and G. Schneider, eds.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 181-83; C. Spicq, ‘ἄφεσις’, TLNT (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 238-44; C. Breytenbach, ‘ἀφίημι, ἄφεσις’, ThBLNT (L. Coenen and K. Haacker, eds.; Witten: SCM/R. Brockhaus, 2010), 1737-42. 42 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 42 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS Luke is a third generation document, as the preface to the Gospel makes clear (Luke 1:1-4).4 While some scholars assign the Gospel to a pre-70 date, the majority conclude that the work was written c. AD 80–90.5 New Testament scholars have justifiably concentrated on the manuscript evidence in determining the authenticity of our logion, but the text-critical results of this debate, as we shall see, have been less than conclusive. Consequently, a more comprehensive approach that takes seriously the Jewish and Graeco-Roman understanding of forgiveness is required. Only then will we be able to address properly the historical status of the logion, both in its late twenties Palestinian oral context and its early eighties Graeco-Roman literary context. An investigation of both contexts of the logion is required if we are to determine the likelihood of whether a) the logion is the theological invention of an unknown interpolator, whose motives for adding the logion to the text remain a matter of speculation and whose textual legacy was confined primarily to the Western witnesses; b) the logion is the theological invention of Luke, designed for the pastoral and theological edification of his Graeco-Roman readers; c) the logion is an authentic logion of the historical Jesus, but is now without a recoverable context in his ministry, due to the difficulties of our manuscript tradition; d) the logion is an authentic saying of the historical Jesus, uttered in the context of his crucifixion, notwithstanding the difficulties of our manuscript tradition. If it can be demonstrated that our logion does not fit comfortably with what we know of forgiveness in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman contexts, then (c) and (d) are most likely options because of the discontinuity of the logion with its late twenties and early eighties contexts. To determine whether the context of the logion is historically recoverable to Jesus’ crucifixion—i.e. (d) as opposed to (c)—we have to consider the strength of the internal literary arguments. At the outset, several brief comments need to be made on scholarship on the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman context of our logion. First, it is surprising that the Graeco-Roman context of forgiveness has not caught the attention of Lukan scholars in a Gospel designed for a Gentile audience. Even more remarkable is the fact that classical scholars and modern philosophers have only just begun to investigate the little studied motif of forgiveness in antiquity.6 The evidence of the philosophers is instructive in this regard,7 as well as the writings of the rhetoricians and the dramatists.8 Nor has the related concept of ‘clemency’ been brought into a sharp dialogue with Jesus’ prayer 4 5 6 7 8 First generation: αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι (Luke 1:2). Second generation: πολλοί ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν (1:1). Third generation: ἡμῖν, i.e. Luke, Theophilus, and the church (1:3). See E. Scheffler, ‘Compassionate Action: Living According to Luke’s Gospel’, in J.G. van der Watt (ed.), Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament (Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 77-106, at 79. Note the differing dates for the composition of Luke’s Gospel suggested by scholars: the late sixties approaching AD 70 (e.g. I.H. Marshall, Commentary on Luke [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], 33-35) or AD 80-85 (e.g. J.A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981], 57). C.L. Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); D. Konstan, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); C.L. Griswold and D. Konstan, Ancient Forgiveness: Classical, Judaic, and Christian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). For discussion, see K. Metzler, Der griechische Begriff des Verzeihens (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 137-81. See D.A. Hester, ‘To Help One’s Friends and Harm One’s Enemies: A Study in the Oedipus at Colonus’, Antichthon 11 (1977), 22-41; Metzler, Der griechische Begriff, 121-27; M.W. Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), s.v. Index, ‘Forgiveness’. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 43 43 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS of forgiveness.9 Danker has helpfully appealed to ‘clemency’ (clementia) of the imperial benefactors as background to our logion.10 However, Danker has not sharply enough differentiated the Lukan understanding of ‘forgiveness’, with its different terminology, from its imperial counterparts, Augustan and Neronian. Moreover, Danker does not take into account the spread of Stoic opinion regarding clementia in the first century. We cannot assume that Luke’s Gentile auditors would have necessarily agreed with the imperial propaganda regarding the Roman ruler’s clementia, even though they would have been well aware of its ubiquity. Second, in terms of the Jewish context, it is curious that most commentators have evinced no interest in Luke’s use of ἀφίημι in Luke 23:34 against the backdrop of the LXX or the wider literature of Second Temple Judaism.11 Consequently we have no way of discerning whether Jesus’ prayer for his enemies on the cross (Luke 23:34; cf. 6:27-28, 35) is socially radical in its Jewish context or even distances itself from other notable Jewish approaches to forgiveness. Thus this article will first address the Jewish corpus of literature before proceeding to the Graeco-Roman understanding of forgiveness. I will argue that Luke’s Graeco-Roman auditors would have struggled to reconcile their cultural understanding of forgiveness with the forgiveness offered by the crucified Christ. The widespread maxim of ‘helping friends and harming enemies’ would have better expressed the social realities of the first-century world for Luke’s auditors. Equally, Jewish auditors of Luke’s Gospel—including those Palestinian auditors who originally heard and preserved Jesus’ logion for posterity in the late 20’s or early 30’s—would have been initially disturbed by the theological and social implications of Jesus’ prayer, if the Greek Jewish use of ἀφίημι is sufficiently representative. Alternatively, they may well have been attracted by Jesus’ highly unconventional view of social relationships in God’s counter-cultural Kingdom—an attraction that ensured that the logion became part of the oral and written dominical tradition. Jesus’ logion, argued to be authentic in this article, radically undermined the ancient politics of hatred, irrespective of its religious and cultural context. At the outset we turn briefly to the difficulties posed by the manuscript traditions and assess if we can determine, on text-critical and stylistic grounds, the authenticity of the logion. 1. Assessing the Manuscript Traditions of Luke 23:34a The issue of the manuscript evidence is delicately poised.12 The prayer logion (Luke 23:34a) is included in ancient authorities from the mid-second century AD onwards including Tatian, Hegesippus, and Marcion.13 This does not seal the case for authenticity, however. The manuscript On clemency in antiquity, see D. Konstan, Pity Transformed (London: Duckworth, 2001); F.B. Dowling, Clemency and Cruelty in the Roman World (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2006); S. Braund, Seneca: De Clementia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 10 F.W. Danker, Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St Luke’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 373. See also S. Matthews, ‘Clemency as Cruelty: Forgiveness and Force in the Dying Prayers of Jesus and Stephen’, BibInt 17 (2009), 118-46. On patronage in Luke, see J. Marshall, Jesus, Patrons and Benefactors (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). For extra discussion, see J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Volume IV: Law and Love (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 478-646, esp. 528-51. 11 The only exception to this is D.L. Bock, Luke 9:51—24:53 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1849-50. 12 See Strachan, The Limits of a Text, 10-11, for a useful summary of the textual evidence. 13 Delobel, ‘Luke 23:43a’, 29, points out that the testimony of Tatian is the ‘terminus ante quem of Luke 23:34a as part of the third Gospel in the middle of the second century’. On the basis of this, he concludes: ‘It would appear, therefore, that from the point of external criticism the attestation in favour of the original presence of the logion is stronger than is usually thought’. 9 44 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 44 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS evidence for the inclusion of the logion in its longer reading comes almost exclusively from the Western witnesses. Only after the fourth century do other witnesses start to appear. By contrast, consistently early witnesses omit the logion, including the Codices Vaticanus and Bezae, as well as papyrus Bodmer XIV-XV, among others. Moreover, these witnesses belong to different textual families (Western, Alexandrian) and they exhibit geographical diversity.14 Consequently, scholars have argued that the logion, interpolated after the composition of Luke, (a) disrupts the flow of the crucifixion pericope;15 (b) did not belong to the earlier Markan passion narrative (i.e. Luke’s source);16 and (c) is modelled on Stephen’s prayer in Acts 7:60 or on Isaiah 53:12.17 Moreover, the ‘ignorance’ motif accompanying Jesus’ prayer of forgiveness is found exclusively in Acts (3:17; 13:27; 17:30), as opposed to the Gospel of Luke (pace, Luke 12:48). This feature, it is claimed, is another pointer to the logion being a theological creation of the early church or of an unknown interpolator.18 In response, scholars upholding the authenticity of the logion as part of the original Lukan autograph have argued that the logion fits perfectly Luke’s motifs of prayer for the enemy, forgiveness, and ignorance.19 The close parallelism between Acts 7:60 and Luke 23:34a points to the dependence of the pericope of Stephen upon the Jesus prayer logion, not the other way around.20 Various theories have also been posited for the logion being omitted by later scribes. Two examples will suffice.21 First, since an anti-Judaic sentiment had penetrated certain quarters of early church life,22 Jesus’ logion was suppressed because those with anti-Judaic feelings found it inconceivable that God could forgive the Jews.23 Second, since Jesus’ prayer for forgiveness did not avert the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the logion was omitted lest it appear that God did not hear Jesus’ prayer.24 But such arguments are double-edged and are able to be turned back on their proponents. For example, with reference to the first theory outlined above, it could be argued that an antiJudaic interpolator added the ‘ignorance’ motif to the logion in order to exculpate the Romans and thereby increase Jewish responsibility for Jesus’ death. In other words, the same theory—i.e. the presence of anti-Judaic sentiment in the early church—can spawn contradictory text-critical 14 Whitlark and Parsons, ‘“Seven” Last Words’, 189; Delobel, ‘Luke 23:43a’, 28. 15 Fitzmyer, Luke, 1503. C.F. Evans, Saint Luke (London: SPCK, 1990), 867, comments: ‘Structurally it breaks the sequence, so that And they cast lots … as the action of the executioners follows awkwardly after it’. 16 Delobel, ‘Luke 23:43a’, 29. 17 Marshall, Luke, 868. 18 J.B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 821, observes that the ‘ignorance’ motif is presaged in Luke 12:48 and is also found in the Pentateuch (Lev 5:17-19; Num 15:25-31). Similarly, E.E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1974 rev.), 267-68; Carras, ‘A Pentateuchal Echo’, passim. 19 F.B. Craddock, Luke (Louisville: John Knox, 1990), 273, argues that the ‘forgiveness’ logion (Luke 23:34) is anticipated beforehand in Jesus’ instructions to pray for the enemy, love him, and forgive him (6:27-28, 35; 17:4). Similarly, see Danker, Jesus and the New Age, 373. 20 Craddock, Luke, 273, states: ‘In writing the Gospel, Luke Anticipated Acts, so that much in the Gospel has its fulfilment and clarity in Acts. To try to understand either without the other is a fruitless exercise in excessive rigidity’. Bock, Luke, 1868, observes: ‘Luke frequently notes parallelism between events’. 21 In what follows, I am indebted to the discussion in Petzer, ‘Eclecticism’, 57. 22 A. von Harnack, Studien zur Geschichte des Neuen Testaments und der alten Kirche (Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1931), 92-98. 23 G.B. Caird, The Gospel of Luke (New York: Seabury Press, 1963), 251; E. Schweitzer, The Good News according to Luke (London: SPCK, 1984), 359. The ‘ignorance’ motif (Luke 23:34a) was also dropped because of anti-Judaic sentiment within the later church (E.J. Epp, ‘The “Ignorance Motif” in Acts and Anti-Judaic Tendencies in Codex Bezae’, HTR 52 [1962]: 51-62). 24 See F. Bovon, L’Évangile selon saint Luc 19, 28-24, 53 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2009), 369; Marshall, Luke, 868. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 45 45 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS hypotheses. The different manuscript readings among our witnesses can be explained either as a scribal omission of an authentic Jesus logion or as an interpolator’s addition of an inauthentic Jesus logion.25 How do we determine which hypothesis will best account for the manuscript divergence at Luke 23:34a? The decision is, of course, entirely subjective. In sum, while some of these text-critical hypotheses are possible, their speculative nature and contradictory results mean that they are ultimately unprovable.26 The logion, of course, might belong to the fluid oral tradition of Jesus’ logia and was inserted by a copyist at a later stage into the Western editions of Luke’s Gospel, though not necessarily in the precise context in which it was originally articulated.27 But the stylistic parallelism between the Jesus and Stephen tradition is too carefully constructed for this, presupposing the priority of the Jesus logion in the Lukan text.28 In particular, Stephen’s martyrdom is strongly modelled on the paradigm of Jesus’ death, a good argument for Luke 23:34a having been originally uttered in the historical context of Jesus’ crucifixion. Further, as Marshall points out,29 each of the major subunits in Luke’s passion narrative contain a logion (Luke 23:28-31, 43, 46), but this stylistic feature is interrupted if this particular saying in verse 34 did not belong to the Lukan autograph. Nonetheless, the reason for the omission of the logion in so many diverse authorities remains a mystery, notwithstanding the strong stylistic arguments for its inclusion. Either way, there is no reason to doubt, as we will see, the historical authenticity of the logion as an oral tradition. The logion fits the criterion of coherence,30 being congruent with what we know of Jesus’ distinctive teaching in the Gospels regarding the enemy (Luke 6:27-36). But, significantly, it also meets the criterion of dissimilarity, as we will see, by virtue of its distinctiveness in its Jewish and Graeco-Roman context.31 2. The Jewish Understanding of Forgiveness: A Study of ἀφίημι and ἄφεσις We have noted above that very few Lukan commentators have attempted to situate Luke 23:34a within the wider Jewish understanding of forgiveness. Further, no attempt has been made to situate the logion within a comprehensive study of ἀφίημι and its cognates in the Greek Jewish 25 One could even envisage a third hypothesis where a later interpolator relocated an authentic Jesus logion, uttered in a totally different context of Jesus’ ministry, to the context of Jesus’ crucifixion and then added the ‘ignorance’ motif to heighten anti-Jewish sentiment over Jesus’ death. The increasing complexity of such hypotheses points to their ultimate weakness. 26 Petzer, ‘Eclecticism’, 57. 27 R.H. Stein, Luke (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1992), 589, airs this as a possibility, but also concedes that the logion might have been part of the original text of Luke (‘it is impossible to be dogmatic’). 28 See especially the arguments of Delobel, ‘Luke 23:43a’, 34-35. 29 Marshall, Luke, 868. Contra, Evans, Saint Luke, 867. 30 On the criterion of coherence and its limitations, see S.E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical Jesus Research: Previous Discussions and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 79-82. On the criterion of dissimilarity and its limitations, see G. Theissen and D. Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville/London, 2002), passim; Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity, 70-76. 31 See especially the recent defence of the historicity of Jesus’ teaching on ‘love of enemy’ in Meier, A Marginal Jew. IV.478-646. 46 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 46 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS literature.32 In this section we will examine the use of ἀφίημι and ἄφεσις in the LXX, the Greek Jewish pseudepigrapha, Philo and Josephus. The secular usage of each word will be bypassed, unless it has relevance for the social and economic relations of the covenantal people of God. We will also bring into discussion the attitude evinced towards the ‘enemy’ or ‘outsider’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the strategies that the rabbis commended for handling insult or provocation. Hopefully, we will then be able to determine under what tradition of forgiveness the logion falls and whether it is distinctive in its cultural and religious context. 2.1 ἀφίημι and ἄφεσις in the LXX Where divine forgiveness is mentioned in the Hebrew Old Testament writings, the verb ἀφίημι translates either nasa (‘to release from guilt or punishment’) or sala (‘to forgive’, ‘to pardon’). The instances where ἀφίημι renders the Hebrew nasa are usually petitionary. God is addressed in heartfelt prayers for personal forgiveness (LXX Ps 24:18 [MT 25:18]; LXX Ps 31:1, 5 [MT 32:1, 5]) or for the forgiveness of others (ἀφιήμι: Gen 18:26; Exod 32:32; Num 14:19). On occasion, the certainty of God’s forgiveness (LXX Ps 84:2 [MT 85:2]) becomes the grounds for the petition for the restoration of Israel (Ps 84:4-9 [MT 85:4-9]). Other affirmations of God’s forgiveness (Isa 33:24b) crown his promises of a restored Jerusalem (33:20-24a). Significantly, the occasional human transaction of forgiveness is also included under this terminology, including the reconciliation of Joseph with his brothers (Gen 52:17: ἀφίημι [Hebrew: nasa]). In instances where ἀφίημι renders the Hebrew sala, the emphasis is more on the forgiveness mediated though the ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ offerings of the Levitical cultic system (Lev 4:20, 35; 5:6; 19:22; Deut 15:2). Both ‘intentional’ and ‘unintentional’ sins are covered under divine forgiveness (Num 15:25, 26, 28). Thus we see how God has graciously set in place the cultus by which a right relationship with him, when ruptured by sin, can be restored though the appropriate sacrifice. This is further illustrated when ἀφίημι renders the Hebrew kipper (‘to make atonement’) in Isaiah 22:14. By contrast, the noun ἄφεσις in the LXX focuses heavily on the social and economic relations of the people of God. First, ἄφεσις translates the Hebrew word yobel, or the ‘Jubilee’ year, during which the inhabitants of the land were freed (Lev 25:10, 11, 12, 28, 31, 33, 40, 41, 50, 52, 54; 27:17, 18, 21, 23, 24; Num 36:4). Second, ἄφεσις also translates the Hebrew samat, a word that referred to the ‘release’ from debts on the seventh year (Deut 15:1, 2, 3, 9; 31:10). Third, the sabbatical release of the land from cultivation each seventh year was rendered by ἄφεσις (Exod 23:11; Lev 25:2-7; Hebrew equivalent: samam). This ‘release’ motif is expanded metaphorically in Isaiah 58:6 and 61:1 where ἄφεσις begins to acquire the ‘messianic’ nuance of freeing the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘captives’.33 But only once in the LXX, as several scholars have 32 Forgiveness terminology abounds in the Gospel of Luke. The noun ἄφεσις (‘forgiveness’) and its verbal form ἀφίημι (‘to forgive’) are used 46 times (1:77; 3:3; 4:18 [bis]; 4:39; 5:11, 20, 23; 6:37; 7:47 [bis]; 8:51; 9:60; 10:30; 11:4 [bis]; 12:10 [bis], 39; 13:8, 35; 17:3, 34; 18:16, 28; 19:44; 21:6; 23:34; 24:47). See the helpful article, engaging the writings of N. T. Wright: J. Chatraw, ‘Balancing out (W)Right: Jesus’ Theology of Individual and Corporate Repentance and Forgiveness in the Gospel of Luke’, JETS 55.2 (2012), 299-321. For an attempt to understand Jesus’ forgiveness solely in prophetic terms, see T. Hägerland, Jesus and the Forgiveness of Sins: An Aspect of His Prophetic Ministry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Inexplicably, Hägerland omits any discussion of Luke 23:34a. 33 Spicq, ‘ἄφεσις’, TLNT, 240-41. Isaiah 61:1-2 was an important messianic text for the writers of the Dead Scrolls (4Q521 1 ii 1-14), but Jesus claimed to be the text’s messianic fulfilment in his sermon at the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-21; cf. 7:22). For discussion, see C.A. Evans, ‘Jesus and the Messianic Texts from Qumran: A Preliminary Assessment of the Recently Published Materials’, in, C.A. Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies (Leiden, New York, and Köln: Brill, 1995), pp. 83-154, esp. 118-24, 128-29. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 47 47 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS noted,34 does ἄφεσις acquire the nuance of forgiveness in the release of the sin-bearing scapegoat into the desert (Lev 16:26), although there is no Hebrew equivalent in this particular case.35 Finally, elsewhere in the LXX, an ethos of divine reciprocity is articulated in order to encourage human forgiveness with the covenantal community: ‘Forgive the neighbour the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray’ (ἀφιήμι: Sir 28:2).36 In sum, ἀφίημι and ἄφεσις are not widely used in the LXX for forgiveness. The cultus-centred aspect of forgiveness in the Old Testament meant that different semantic domains expressed the reality of divine mercy towards sinners (washing, cleansing, covering, etc.).37 2.2 ἀφίημι and ἄφεσις in the Pseudepigrapha, Philo and Josephus As far as the Jewish understanding of forgiveness in the Jewish pseudepigrapha, the offer of divine forgiveness was often predicated on the prior repentance of the offender (ἀφιήμι: TGad 6:3; 7:5; PssSol 7:7; TAb 14:12, 14; cf. 3:8; PrMan 7, 13f; Sir 17:29; 1 En 50:2-4; Jub 41:23-25).38 Occasionally, the practicality of dealing with the intransigence of the unrepentant forces a different strategy: ‘But even if he is devoid of shame and persists in his wickedness, forgive him from the heart and leave vengeance to God’ (ἀφιήμι: TGad 6:7). In terms of background to the ‘ignorance’ motif in Luke 23:34a, there are traditions where petitioners invoke God for forgiveness due to the limitations arising from their own ignorance (ἀφιήμι: Jub 41:25; cf. JosAsen 6:7; 17:10; TJud 19). Last, cultic sacrifice (ἀφιήμι: TJob 42:8) and heart-felt prayer (ἀφιήμι: 1 En 13:14, 6) also effects divine forgiveness. By contrast, Philo (20 BC—AD 50) largely allegorises references to forgiveness in the LXX. In terms of ἀφιήμι, Philo interprets Cain’s lack of forgiveness in Genesis 4:14 as a reference to the danger of divine abandonment (ἀφιήμι: Det 141-149, 150-155). The mention of forgiveness in Exodus 32:32 (ἀφιήμι: Her 20-21) is allegorised as the wise man’s freedom of speech. Philo adopts the same approach with ἄφεσις. Philo interprets Abraham’s intercession for the forgiveness of Sodom (ἄφεσις: Gen 18:16ff) as an allegory about the prayers of those instructed in wisdom (Mut 228-229). Elsewhere, Philo uses ἄφεσις conventionally of the remission of sins through the sacrificial system (Mos 2.147; Spec 1.190, 215, 237), as well as the forgiveness for intentional and non-intentional murder (Leg 3.128). However, Philo also speaks in a Stoic manner about the emancipation of the human soul from the passions through prayer or by the exercise of humility (Her 273; Congr 108). Last, in an intriguing sidelight to the public humiliation of Jesus’ crucifixion, Philo refers to the (so-called) ‘forgiveness’ that the governor of Egypt extended to Jews who had rebelled in AD 38 against his decision to erect statues of Caligula in the synagogues of Alexandria. The Jewish rebels 34 Leroy, ‘ἀφίημι, ἄφεσις’, EDNT; 181-82; C. Brown, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘ἀφίημι’, NIDNT (C. Brown, ed.; Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1975), 698. 35 In sharp contrast, however, note what Spicq, ‘ἄφεσις’, TLNT, 242, says about the surprising use of ἄφεσις in the New Testament: ‘It is remarkable that the NT writers use ἄφεσις thirty-six times, always meaning pardon from sins; there is never a secular meaning, as if this were a technical term reserved for religious use’. 36 On the emergence of more reciprocal understandings of divine grace in the LXX, see J. R. Harrison, Paul’s Language of Grace in Its Graeco-Roman Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 110-14. 37 Brown, NIDNTT, 698. 38 The later rabbinic literature also brings out this emphasis. The Midrash, for example, states the case unequivocally: ‘Says the Holy One, even if they (your sins) should reach to Heaven, if you repent I will forgive’ (Pes. Rab. 44:185a). Interestingly, the Tosefta, on the basis of Exodus 34:6-7, quantifies God’s forgiveness as five hundred-fold that of His wrath (t. Sot. 4:1). 48 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 48 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS were crucified alive, after they had been publicly scourged, at the very same time as the festival honouring the emperor’s birthday. As Philo ironically observes regarding the coincidence of the timing of their crucifixion (Leg 84) with the public festival, [Flaccus] commanded living men to be crucified, men to whom the very time itself gave, if not entire forgiveness, still, at all events, a brief and temporary respite from punishment; and he did this after they had been beaten by scourgings in the middle of the theatre; and after he had tortured them with fire and sword […] In the case of Josephus (AD 37/38—c. 100), the historian routinely employs ἀφίημι in contexts dealing with political acquittal or pardon (e.g. Joseph: AJ 2.146; Solomon: AJ 7.362; Herod the Great: BJ 1.455, 505; AJ 15.258; Herod Philip: AJ 18.107). However, Josephus does occasionally refer to the forgiveness of God (AJ 6.92; 11.144) and the release of the Jubilee year (AJ 3.282). 2.3 Jewish Understandings of Forgiveness in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Literature a. Forgiveness in the Dead Sea Scrolls Literature The literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls is particularly revealing for the attitude that it takes to the enemies of the community. While the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls boldly highlight the reality of divine forgiveness and justification,39 strong imprecations are brought against God’s enemies that emphasise their exclusion from divine forgiveness. The enemy, in the view of the Qumran covenanters, was to be accorded no mercy (1QS 2.5-8), Be cursed in all the works of our guilty wickedness, May God make you an object of terror by the hands of all the avengers of vengeance […] Be cursed, without mercy, according to the darkness of your works. Be damned in the place of everlasting fire. The community rules of conduct are equally clear regarding the disobedient (IQS 10.20), I will bear no rancour against them that turn from transgression, but will have no pity on all who depart from the way. Finally, in an anti-Samaritan writing possibly ante-dating the destruction of the rival temple on Mount Gerizim by John Hyrcanus (4Q372 fr.1. ll. 14-20),40 the writer presents the Samaritans as inciting Joseph’s brothers to hand Joseph over to the foreigners. In the revealing filial prayer of Joseph to God, God is invoked to judge Joseph’s captors and to extend grace towards the covenantal community: 39 On divine forgiveness, see IQH IV Hymn 1; VI Hymn 5, XIV Hymn 14; XV Hymn 17; XVI Hymn 18; XVIII Hymn 19; XXI Hymn 24; IIQPsa XIX; IIQ13 ll.5ff. On the divine justification of sinners (especially in light of Genesis 15:6), see MMT C (= The Exhortation) 4Q39814-17 ii conflated 4Q399 ll.25-26, 31-32; IQS XI. ll.5ff, ll.10ff; CD IV ll.5ff. The translation used is G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin Books, 41998). 40 4Q372 fr.1 ll. 12-13: ‘They made for themselves a high place on an elevated mountain to excite the jealousy of Israel. They spoke wor[ds of … ] of the sons of Jacob and caused disgust with the words of their mouth, blaspheming against the Tent of Zion’. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 49 49 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS And for all of this, Joseph [was put] into the hands of strangers to consume his strength and break his bones until the time of his end […] cried to the mighty God that he should save him from their hands. He said, ‘My Father and my God, do not abandon me to the hands of the nations. Execute judgement for me so that the humble and the poor may not perish. Thou hast no need of any nation or people to help Thee. [Thy] fing[er] is greater and more powerful than anything in the world. For Thou optest for the truth, and in Thy hand there is no violence whatever. Also Thy mercies are many and Thy loving-kindness is great for all those who seek Thee. They are stronger than I and all my brothers have joined me. The ‘judgement’ motifs in this text are just as rhetorically compelling as the ‘mercy’ motifs. Because the ‘nations’ have no power in comparison to Joseph’s all-powerful God, the ‘humble’ and ‘poor’ of God’s covenantal community will be exalted over their enemies. God would execute his judgement on behalf of Joseph with the ‘signs and wonders’ reminiscent of the later Exodus generation, as the writer’s allusion to the ‘finger of God’ motif makes clear (Exod 8:19; cf. 3:20; 6:1, 6; 9:3; 13:3, 14; Luke 11:20). b. Forgiveness and the Handling of Insult in the Rabbinic Corpus The rabbinic corpus post-dates the New Testament and its traditions cannot be traced with certainty back to the New Testament era.41 Notwithstanding, the voices of those who inherited and developed the oral and scriptural traditions of rabbinic Judaism post AD 70 repay careful attention for the light they throw on the continuities and discontinuities with the pre-70 Jewish traditions of forgiveness. In the rabbinic discussions of forgiveness, there is strong emphasis on how one reacts to injuries against oneself or to the intentional disgrace of one’s neighbour. This provides an interesting point of comparison for Luke 23:34a, especially if the logion is considered the product of a later interpolator in the Western witnesses from the second century AD onwards. In each of the texts cited below, the rabbis characteristically cite Old Testament texts or point to the example of God in order to articulate the rationale for conciliatory behaviour in the face of personal provocation or insult. Consequently, they provide an interesting backdrop for assessing what might be distinctive about our prayer logion. Meg. 28a brings out in a manner similar to Sirach 28:2, discussed above, the divine forgiveness of sins that occurs when forgiveness is willingly offered to others: Mar Zutra, when he went to bed, was wont to say: ‘Forgiven be everybody who may have done me an injury’ […] Raba said: If a man passes by his rights, his sins shall be passed by. For it says, ‘He pardons iniquity and passes by transgression’ (Mic. 7.18). Of whom does he pardon the iniquity? Of him who passes by an offence [done to him].42 Similarly, according to T.Bab.K. 9.29.30, God reciprocates compassion to those who are compassionate to their unrepentant tormentors: If a man has received an injury, then, even if the wrongdoer has not asked his forgiveness, the receiver of the injury must nevertheless ask [God] to show the wrongdoer compassion, even as Abraham prayed to God for Abimelech (Gen. 20.17) and Job prayed for his friends. 41 G.W. Buchanan, ‘The Use of Rabbinic Literature for New Testament Research’, BTB 7 (1977), 111-22; P.S. Alexander, ‘Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament’, ZNW 74 (1983), 237-46; S.T. Lachs, ‘Rabbinic Sources for New Testament Studies—Use and Misuse’, JQR 74.2 (1983),159-73. 42 C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology (New York: Schocken, 1974), §1510. 50 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 50 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS R. Gamaliel said: Let this be a sign to you, that whenever you are compassionate, the Compassionate One will have compassion on you.43 Tanh.B., Hukkat, 63b cites Numbers 21.7 to highlight Moses how forgave and prayed for those who had spoken against his leadership of Israel during the wilderness wanderings. The text concludes by emphasising the centrality of prayer in the process of forgiveness: For one who pardons can never become cruel. And how do you know that if a man asks pardon of his neighbour whom he has offended, and that if the neighbour refuses to pardon him, he, the neighbour, and not the offender, is called a sinner? Because Samuel said, ‘As for me, far be it from me to sin unto the Lord by refraining to pray for you’ (1 Sam 12:23). When was this? When the people came and said, ‘We have sinned’.44 Finally, the long-suffering of God towards the blaspheming nations is cited as another reason for forbearance of the offended towards those who revile them (Midr. Ps. on Ps.86:1 [186b, §1]), R. Abba said in the name of R. Alexandri: He who hears himself cursed, and has the opportunity to stop the man who curses him, and yet keeps silence, makes himself a partner with God, for God hears how the nations blaspheme him, and he is silent.45 2.4 The Historicity of the Luke 23:34a in Its Jewish Context The logion of Luke 23:34a fits the genre of the LXX petitionary prayers of Abraham and Moses for the forgiveness of cities and the nation of Israel. Prayer for personal forgiveness, a marked feature of the Old Testament penitential Psalms and the Thanksgiving Hymns of Qumran, is glaringly absent from the Jesus’ own prayer life with the Father. Further, the forgiveness requested for others is in no way linked to the cultus, as forgiveness often was in the LXX. There is no connection between the logion and the ‘Jubilee’ or ‘release’ traditions of the LXX, even though Jesus alludes to these traditions elsewhere as the rationale for his ministry (Luke 4:18-21; cf. 7:22). Nor is there any hint of the allegorising of forgiveness, as with Philo. There is probably implicit recognition on Jesus’ part of the LXX distinction between ‘intentional’ and ‘unintentional’ sin in his reference to sin committed in ignorance (Luke 23:34a: οὐ γὰρ οἴδασιν τί ποιοῦσιν). But even here Jesus’ approach is different to the Old Testament pseudepigraphic literature where the petitioner’s ignorance is at the forefront. What seems to be primary in Jesus’ approach in petitioning forgiveness for others is his filial consciousness, a feature absent from the requests of Moses and Abraham. Significantly, Πάτερ is in the emphatic position in the Greek rendering of the prayer (Luke 23:34a). This filial consciousness is certainly present in the prayer of Joseph in 4Q472 fr.1. However, the writer of the Dead Sea Scroll also distances Joseph sufficiently in his intimacy with God so that there is no overestimation of Joseph’s status: the prayer address is ‘My Father and my God’. Nor is there any expectation in Jesus’ logion that God will reciprocate forgiveness if forgiveness is extended to others, a feature that is present in Sirach and the later rabbinic traditions. Somehow, precisely because of Jesus’ filial consciousness (Luke 23:34a, 46a: Πάτερ) and his dependence upon the 43 Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, §1282. Der.Er.Z. 7.3. fin (§1285) states: ‘Let a man forgive the disgrace to which he has been subjected: let him seek no honour through the disgrace of his neighbour’. 44 Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, §1296. 45 Montefiore and Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology, §1286. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 51 51 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS Father (23:46a: εἰς χεῖράς σου παρατίθεμαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου), the fulfilment of the prayer—in Luke’s view at least—bears its own momentum as far as God’s soteriological plan (cf. Acts 3:17; 13:27; 17:30). Also the prayer logion is marked by forgiveness towards the enemy in a way that differentiates Jesus from the traditions found in the LXX and Second Temple Judaism.46 We have noted how the Dead Sea Scrolls writers extend no mercy to the outsider (1QS 2.5-8; IQS 10. ll.5ff). Only the ‘humble ‘and ‘poor’ of the covenantal community will be vindicated (4Q472 fr.1). Furthermore, unlike many of the imprecatory Psalms in the Old Testament (Pss 55:15; 58:6; 69:28; 109:9; 137:9), Jesus did not call for his vindication over his enemies and, concomitantly, their destruction. Nor did Jesus call down judgement against his persecutors, as did the Maccabean martyrs in 2 Macc 7:19, 34-35 and 4 Macc 9:15. Perhaps the later rabbinic handling of insult perhaps comes the closest to Jesus’ extension of forgiveness: but the level of provocation discussed is the routine collisions of every-day social relations. If the historical context of Jesus’ prayer logion is indeed the cross, we have moved into new territory in terms of forgiveness of the enemy. Additionally, the rationale of the rabbinic prayers for forgiveness is founded on oral tradition, scriptural precedent, and the imitation of God. There is nothing comparable to the sense of filial consciousness that precedes Jesus’ request for the forgiveness of others. In sum, the prayer logion of Jesus does exhibit distinctiveness within the ‘forgiveness’ traditions of the LXX and Second Temple Judaism. While we might be hesitant to invoke the ‘criterion of dissimilarity’ in all its force for the prayer logion, given some of the continuities noted above, its distinctive features make its historicity in a Jewish context highly likely. The original late twenties to early thirties Palestinian auditors would have been as much surprised by the logion as Luke’s auditors later in the century. 46 In saying this, I am not implying that love towards the enemy was absent from the LXX, Second Temple Judaism, and the later rabbinic corpus. Admittedly, in the Old Testament there is no explicit commandment to love the enemy. Indeed, to the contrary, strong nationalistic expressions of hatred towards the enemy occasionally emerge (e.g. Exod 23:22; Lev 16:7-8; Deut 6:19; 20:14; 21:4; Josh 10:13; Judg 5:31; 1 Sam 14:24; Esth 7:13; 9:1, 5, 16). Nevertheless, there is the Mosaic commandment to assist the enemy in the case of emergency (Exod 23:4-5). In Proverbs 25:21-22, a text cited by Paul (Rom 12:20), the writer urges beneficent treatment of the enemy, with the promise of divine reward to the merciful (Prov 25:22b) and, conversely, an intensification of the enemy’s shame or punishment because of the beneficence (Prov 25:22a). On the history of interpretation of Proverbs 25:22a and Romans 12:20b, see Fitzmyer, Romans, 657-658. Gloating over the fall of an enemy is also inimical to God (Prov 24:17). More generally, retaliation in kind against one’s neighbour is forbidden (Prov 24:29; cf. Lev 19:17-18), though the enemy is not in view here. In the apocryphal literature, 4 Maccabees 2:14 stipulates that beneficence should be exercised towards the enemy in particular circumstances. In the pseudepigraphic literature, Joseph and Aseneth (Jos. Asen. 23:9; 28:4, 14) emphasises the importance of not rendering evil for evil to the neighbour, though once again any application to the enemy is bypassed. By contrast, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus and Philo are all silent regarding loving the enemy. As far as the rabbinic literature, it is stated in t. Baba Metzia 2.26 that helping the enemy should be the social priority before helping one’s friends: ‘Aid an enemy before you aid a friend, to subdue hatred’. Nor should there be any gloating over the demise of the enemy: ‘Let not your heart be glad when your enemy falls lest the Lord see it and it displeases him’ (Talmud, Ethics of the Fathers 4:24). Last, in y. Ned. 9.4, the writer, citing Leviticus 19:19, denies the right of vengeance towards the brother. In conclusion, although mercy might be exercised to the enemy in some situations for the sake of social cohesion, there is nothing like the openended nature of Jesus’ command to love the enemy in Second Temple Judaism. Even the emphasis on non-retaliation in several Jewish writings is more focused on the ‘brother’ or ‘neighbour’ than on the ‘enemy’. Above all, Jesus’ radical coupling of the general ‘love’ command with beneficence towards (Luke 6:27b), prayer for (6:28b), and blessing and forgiveness of the enemy (6:28a; 23:34a), goes far beyond what was expected in social relations in first-century Judaism. For an excellent discussion of the issue, see Meier, A Marginal Jew, IV.532-51. 52 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 52 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS 3. Graeco-Roman Understandings of Forgiveness 3.1. Introduction In the eastern Mediterranean world forgiveness was not considered one of the Greek heroic virtues. The retributive ethos of helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies was too securely established through the Homeric world of Achilles, Patroclus, Hector and Odysseus.47 ‘Forgiveness’ terminology was used in a variety of stereotyped contexts. First, the language of ‘forgiveness’ was part of the diplomatic parlance used in negotiated or enforced surrenders of the defeated to the victorious in war.48 Second, the language of ‘forgiveness’ was also used in the law-courts for the pleas of defendants in the legal process.49 Third, there is sporadic mention of the forgiveness of the gods/god—or at least supplication for it—on the part of various dependents, or the forgiveness of their providentially appointed representatives in terms of the imperial ruler.50 However, there is virtually no comment in the literary sources on what this forgiveness (cultic?) means in practice.51 Outside of these stereotyped conventions we gain little insight into the dynamics of ancient ‘forgiveness’. Cicero’s tortured comment in Ep. 2.16 demonstrates the complexities of enmity and forgiveness within the shifting alliances of the late republic: Now the fact of my finding it pleasantest to reside in my marine villa causes some to suspect me of an intention to embark on a voyage: and, after all, perhaps I should not have been unwilling to do so, had I been able to reach peace: for how could I consistently sail to war: especially against a man who, I hope, has forgiven me, on the side of a man who by this time cannot possibly forgive me?52 Occasionally we find evidence of the unexpected abandonment of status and honour, in the face of considerable provocation, by an act of forgiveness that goes against the agonistic culture of antiquity. Diodorus Siculus mentions how the poet Alcaeus, a confirmed enemy of Pittacus, had reviled him mercilessly in his poetry. However, Alcaeus fell into Pittacus’ hands, but was unexpectedly freed by Pittacus with the maxim: ‘Forgiveness is preferable to punishment’.53 However, such magnanimity is rare. 3.2. Aristotle’s Understanding of Forgiveness In Aristotle, language of ‘forgiveness’ routinely appears in ethical contexts involving the ticklish question of human responsibility. συγγνώμη—and its cognates—is used in discussions relating 47 Hester, ‘To Help One’s Friends’, 24-25, 29. 48 Appian, BCiv. 5.10.96; 5.13.124; BPun. 12.88; BHisp. 9.48; Diodorus Siculus 9.31.3; 10.27.2; 11.45.5; 16.20.1; 17.109.3. Pausanias 4.20.10; 7.15.2; Josephus, BJ 2.52, 301; 5.348; Polybius 23.16; Plato, Menex. 242C; Livy 6.26. 49 Demosthenes, Or. 23.132; 24.66, 126; 40.46; 45.82; Andocides, Or. 1.90; 3.21; Diodorus Siculus 11.26.1; Isocrates, Plat. 30; idem, Big. 12; Herodotus 8.140A.1; Lysias, Or. 19.56; 18.20; Dinarchus 1.11. Note the impressive array of terminology used in Lysias, Or. 14.40: ‘Wherefore you ought now to condemn this man as one whom you have judged to be a hereditary enemy of the city, and to set neither pity (ἔλεον) nor forgiveness (συγγνώμην) nor any favour (χάριν) above the established laws and the oaths that you have sworn’. 50 Tacitus, Hist. 2.29; Ann. 11.6. 51 Pindar, Pythian Odes, 4; Cicero, Deiot. 7.21; Lucan, Pharsalia, 9.38, 117, 938; Livy, 1.31; 3.58; Aristophanes, Vesp 1.36.7; Pliny, HN 14.28; Euripides, Ion. 1437; Plautus, Amph. 3.21. 52 Note, too, the acerbic comment of Cicero in Mur. 31.65: ‘Forgive nothing … Say rather, forgive some things, but not everything’. 53 Epictetus, Frag. 63 reports the maxim more fully: ‘Forgiveness is better than punishment; for one is the proof of a gentle, the other of a savage, nature’. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 53 53 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS to (a) the extent to which succumbing to the passions is ‘excusable’ (EH 3.1.1: συγγνώμηϛ; 7.6.2: συγγνώμη; 7.8.6: συγγνωμονική);54 and (b) the degree to which ‘ignorance’ contributes to actions being deemed ‘pardonable’ or ‘unpardonable’ (EH 5.8.12: συγγνωμονικά, οὐ συγγνωμονικά).55 While Aristotle’s reference to ‘ignorance’ recalls the ‘ignorance ‘motif of Luke 23:34b, Luke’s concern is more salvation-historical rather than the decidedly ethical emphasis of Aristotle. Apart from this insignificant thematic overlap, the concerns of each author are fundamentally different. Of greater interest is Aristotle’s discussion of ‘consideration’ (γνώμη). Somewhat artificially, Aristotle strains the meaning of γνώμη and its derivatives (συγγνώμη: ‘forgiveness’; συγγνωμονικόϛ: ‘forgiving’) in order to establish a link between the consideration for others and equitable judgement (ἐπιεικήϛ).56 In other words, the extension of ‘forgiveness’ in social relationships must not undermine fundamental issues of justice and equity in the allocation of ‘consideration’ to others. The text is important because it laid the ground for Seneca’s discussion of clementia in Book 2 of De Clementia. Aristotle’s text is rendered below (EH 6.11.1), The quality termed ‘Consideration’ (γνώμη), in virtue of which men are said to be considerate, or to show consideration for others (συγγνώμην), is the faculty of judging correctly what is equitable (ἐπιεικοῦϛ). This is indicated by our saying that the equitable man is specially considerate for others (forgiving: συγγνωμονοκόν), and that it is equitable (ἐπιεικέϛ) to show consideration for others (forgiveness: συγγνώμην) in certain cases; but consideration for others (συγγνώμη) is that consideration (γνώμη) which judges rightly what is equitable (κριτική τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦϛ ὀρθή)—judging ‘rightly’ meaning judging what is ‘truly’ equitable. In sum, we see how the Greek understanding of forgiveness, at least in Aristotle’s rendering, could not easily be extended to those who had broken the just requirements of divine law. Behind Aristotle’s understanding of ‘forgiveness’ lay an ethical meritocracy that would not have easily accommodated Jesus’ prayer for the ungodly on the cross. 3.3. Traditional Stoic Understandings of Clemency Before we explore Seneca’s understanding of mercy, it is important to appreciate that in orthodox Stoicism clementia (‘mercy’) was dismissed because it was founded on an emotional impulse and was therefore undesirable. Precisely because clementia failed to impose a just and deserved penalty, the justice of its operations was held in question. A fragmentary source commenting on the Stoics says (SVF 3.640), They say that the good man is not lenient (ἐπιεικῆ), for the lenient man is critical of a punishment that is deserved; and they identify being lenient with assuming that the punishments fixed by law are too harsh for wrongdoers and with thinking that the law-giver is distributing punishments contrary to what is deserved. Diogenes Laertius (7:13 = SVF 3.641) observes that Stoic wise men do not experience pity (συγγνώμην) or have forgiveness (τὸ εἴκειν) for anyone; they do not relax the penalties fixed by the laws, since indulgence (ὁ ἔλεοϛ) and pity (ἐπιείκεια) and even 54 Epictetus 2.21. 55 For discussion of Aristotle’s language of ‘forgiveness’, see Griswold, Forgiveness, 4-12; Metzler, Der griechische Begriff, 155-74. 56 On ἐπιεικήϛ, see Metzler, Der griechische Begriff, 166-72. 54 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 54 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS leniency are psychological incapacity, pretending kindness in place of punishment.57 Cicero (Tusc. 3.20-21), too, denies that the wise man is animated by any compassion: The wise man, however, does not come to feel envy; therefore he does not come to feel compassion either (ergo ne misereri quidem). But if the wise man were accustomed to feel distress he would also be accustomed to feel compassion (miseri etiam soleret). Therefore distress keeps way from the wise man. Finally, Stobaeus agues that the Stoics do not extend forgiveness because it the personal vices of the forgiven are inevitably whitewashed. Ultimately, forgiveness undermines moral accountability: They say that <the sensible man> forgives <no one; for it is characteristic of the same man to forgive> and to think that the man who has made a [moral] mistake did not do so because of himself, although [in fact] everyone who makes a [moral] mistake does so because of his own vice. And that is why it is quite proper for them to say that he does not even forgive those who make [moral] mistakes.58 Given this depreciation of clementia in traditional Stoic thought, Seneca’s approach represents an ideological novelty in its first century context. How is Seneca different to other Stoics on the issue of clemency? 3.4. Seneca’s Understanding of Clemency Seneca’s two-volumed (but incomplete) work, De Clementia (‘Concerning Mercy’) is datable to the year AD 55-56, given the clear allusion to the eighteenth year of Nero in Clem. 1.9.1.59 For our purposes, the most interesting observations concerning clementia as a royal virtue occur in De Clementia II, a manuscript that has not come down to us intact.60 There the king is to demonstrate a particular type of ‘mercy’: clementia (‘mercy’) over against misericordia (‘pity’).61 According to Seneca, clementia (‘mercy’) restrains the mind from taking vengeance in cases where retribution is deserved, 57 Note Diogenes Laertius’ comment (7.123) that the Stoic wise men ‘are not pitiful and make no allowance for anyone; they never relax the penalties fixed by the laws, since indulgence and pity (ὁ ἔλεοϛ) and even equitable consideration are marks of a weak mind, which affects kindness in place of chastising. Nor do they deem punishments too severe’. Gellius (NA 14.4) quotes Chrysippus’ comment on Justice: ‘He wished it to be understood that the judge, who is the priest of Justice, should be dignified holy, austere, incorruptible, proof against flattery, pitiless and inexorable towards the wicked and guilty, upright, lofty and powerful, terrifying thanks to the force and majesty of equity and truth. Stobaeus classifies the passions under appetite, pleasure, fear and distress (2.90, 19—91, 9 = SVF 3.394, part.: tr. A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers. Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary [Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1987], 412 §E). In the case of ‘pity’, it is categorised under distress (cf. Diogenes Laertius 7.111). Again, Diogenes Laertius (7.115) observes: ‘And as in the body, there are certain predispositions [to disease], for example catarrh and diarrhoea, so too in the soul there are tendencies, such as proneness to grudging, proneness to pity (ἐλεημοσύνη), quarrelsomeness and the like’. See also Seneca, De Ira 2.10: ‘That you may not be angry with individuals, you must forgive mankind at large (universis ignoscendum est), you must grant indulgence to the human race (generi humano venia tribuenda est)’. 58 Stobaeus 2.11d. Tr. B. Inwood and L.G. Pearson, Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 21997), 220-21. 59 On the dating of De Clementia, see B. Mortureux, ‘Les idéaux stoïciens et les premières responsibilities politiques: le “De Clementia”’, ANRW 2.36.3 (1989), 1641-45; Braund, De Clementia, 16-17. 60 It is beyond the bounds of this article to resolve the tension between De Clementia I, where pardon and forgiveness are virtues, and De Clementia II, where they are vices. For discussion, see Konstan, Pity Transformed, 103. 61 For discussion of the definitions of venia (‘pardon’), clementia, and misericordia, see Dowling, Clemency and Cruelty, 6-8; Braund, De Clementia, 38-40. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 55 55 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS or where one is tempted to be too lenient in fixing a punishment (Clem. 2.3.1-2). By contrast, misericordia (‘pity’) is a mental defect because, according to Stoic thinking, it succumbs with sorrow at the sight of people’s ills (Clem. 2.4.4-5.1; 2.6.4).62 As Seneca observes, ‘Pity (misericordia) regards the plight, not the cause of it; mercy (clementia) is combined with reason’ (Clem. 2.5.1). By contrast, the wise man, guided by clementia, has a serene mind that is not clouded by the plight of others or by strong emotions such as sorrow (Clem. 2.5.4-5). Seneca argues that clementia serves the cause of justice by not succumbing to misericordia in pardoning crimes worthy of punishment (Clem. 2.7.1, 3), Pardon is given to a man who ought to be punished; but a wise man does nothing which he ought not to do, omits to do nothing which he ought to do; therefore he does not remit a punishment which he ought to exact […]. Mercy (clementia) has freedom in decision; it sentences not only by the letter of the law, but in accordance with what is fair and good (aequo et bono); it may acquit and it may assess the damages at any value it pleases. It does none of these things as if it were doing less than is just, but as if the justest thing were that which it has resolved upon. But to pardon is to fail to punish one whom you judge worthy of punishment; pardon is the remission of punishment that is due. Mercy (clementia) is superior primarily in this, that it declares that those who are let off did not deserve any treatment; it is more complete than pardon, more creditable. But, given that clementia as a virtue was the preserve of the Julio-Claudians, what ethical paradigms does Seneca advocate for handling routine breakdowns in human relationships? 3.5. Seneca and the Firmness of the Wise Man: Strategies in Dealing with Injury and Insult According to Seneca, clementia is the preserve of his young charge, Nero. The ruler, as the head of the body of state, infuses the body politic with both justice and mercy when he exercises clementia properly in his rule. But how then does the ‘wise man’ respond to every-day provocations—with forgiveness, or with another strategy entirely? Seneca’s answer to this question is addressed in his treatise De Constantia. He argues in De Const. 3.2 that the wise man can receive no injury (iniuria) or insult (contumelia). This is because, as we will see, the wise man is invulnerable to injury because of his superior moral strength as opposed to the routine endurance of normal human beings (De Const. 3.2-3). As Seneca elucidates, ‘the power of wisdom is better shown by a display of calmness in the midst of provocation’. After making a distinction between iniuria and contumelia (De Const. 5.1), Seneca asserts that the wise man can never be robbed of his virtue (5.3-5), Injury has as its aim to visit evil upon a man. But wisdom leaves no room for evil, for the only evil it knows is baseness, which cannot enter where where virtue and uprightness already abide. Consequently, if there can be no injury without evil, no evil without baseness, and if, moreover, baseness cannot reach a man already possessed by uprightness, then injury does not reach the wise man […]. Virtue is free, inviolable, unmoved, unshaken, so steeled against the blows of chance that she cannot be bent, much less broken. 62 On the differing stances of Stoicism to clementia—one favourable, the other unfavourable—see Braund, De Clementia, 66-68. 56 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 56 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS In this imperturbability to any injury, Seneca proposes, the wise man becomes ‘like a god in all save his mortality’ (De Const. 8.2).63 Thus the wise man casts ‘all injuries far from him, and by his endurance (patientiaque) and his greatness of soul (magnitudine animi) protect himself from them’ (De Const. 9.4; cf. 15:3: animi magnitudinem). In regard to the handling of insults, ‘magnanimity (magnanimitatem), the noblest of all the virtues’ enables the wise man to scorn ‘the puffed-up attitude’ of the proud and the arrogant (De Const. 11.1). Seneca presents Cato as the supreme exemplar (De Const. 14.3-4; cf. 1.3; 7.1) in handling the provocation because he does not engage in forgiving his provocateurs but instead displays sublime indifference to the world: ‘But,’ you ask, ‘if a wise man receives a blow, what shall he do?’ What Cato did when he was struck in the face: he did not flare up, he did not avenge the wrong (vindicavit iniuriam), he did not even forgive it (ne remisit quidem), but he said no wrong had been done. He showed finer spirit in not acknowledging it than if he had pardoned it (maiore animo non agnovit quam ignovisset) […]. He does not regard what men consider base or wretched; he does not walk with the crowd, but as the planets make their way against the whirl of heaven, so he proceeds contrary to the opinion of the world.64 Only in one place in De Constantia (19:3) does Seneca assign to prayer a positive role. In the midst of the heated battle, it enables the warrior to move towards the truth and the imperturbability of being a wise man. But, once the wise man has emerged from the crucible of injury and insult, he is self-sufficient and has no need for prayer.65 4. Luke’s Graeco-Roman Auditors and Jesus’ Logion in Luke 23:34a We have already determined that the prayer logion reported in Luke 23.34a was historically distinctive in terms of the contemporary Jewish understandings of forgiveness. But what would the Mediterranean basin auditors of Luke’s Gospel in the early eighties have made of Jesus’ prayer to his Father to forgive his persecutors? In terms of the Graeco-Roman context, Jesus’ prayer for the forgiveness of his enemies, as he was nailed to the cross, would have repulsed traditional Stoics. Forgiveness and mercy, in their view, belonged to the unstable emotions as opposed to the rational faculties. While Luke’s presentation of Jesus on the cross is more ‘Stoic’ and martyrological than his Markan counterpart, discussed below, the outburst of Jesus’ emotional prayer entirely destroyed the credibility of Luke’s portrait. Moreover, Jesus’ inability to absorb injury without resorting to the desperate expedient of 63 Seneca, De Const. 8.3: ‘The man who, relying on his reason, marches through mortal vicissitudes with the spirit of a god, has no vulnerable spot where he can receive an injury’. 64 Note the comment of the Loeb translator (J.W. Basore, Seneca: Moral Essays. Volume 1 [London: W. Heinemann, 1963], 90) regarding Seneca’s imagery: ‘It was supposed that the sphere of heaven revolved about the earth from east to west, and that while the sun, moon, and planets were swept along in this revolution, they also moved in their own courses in the opposite direction’. As Seneca concludes about the wise man (De Const. 15.2-3), ‘his virtue has placed him in another region of the universe’. Seneca also cites Socrates and Antisthenes (De Const. 18.5) as further exemplars of endurance (quorum laudamus patientiam). 65 Dio Chrysostom (Or. 8.15-16.) states that in facing hardships the wise man does not pray for relief: ‘nor does he pray to draw another antagonist, but challenges them one after another, grappling with hunger and cold, withstanding thirst, and disclosing no weakness even though he must endure the lash or give his body to be cut or burned’. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 57 57 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS prayer would have disqualified him as a man of virtue: he did not exhibit the sublime indifference and self-sufficiency required in the time of testing. As far as the Senecan model of ‘clemency’, Jesus did not show sufficient discrimination in his bestowal of forgiveness, offering it to malefactors who did not respond with gratitude and who had not displayed the requisite evidence that they would change for the better. Aristotle’s concern for equity was similarly bypassed: true justice had been demeaned in this wasted demonstration of ‘unjust’ forgiveness. Above all, at the most basic level of ancient civic ethics, Jesus had not helped his friends at all by loving his enemy. The security of the state was predicated on helping friends and hating the enemy. We are facing here the appearance of a radical new ethic and paradigm of behaviour that would transform social relations in antiquity. We might ask, in light of the incomprehensibility of Jesus’ prayer for his enemies on the cross for Graeco-Roman auditors, what Lukan auditors might have gleaned that was positive in terms of their own cultural expectations and recognition. First, the benefaction context is important here. The three-fold taunt of the malefactors at the cross to save himself (v. 35: σωσάτω ἑαυτόν; v. 37: σῶσον σεαυτόν; v. 39: σῶσον σεαυτόν) might have posed the question about the kind of benefactor he was. A series of questions emerge here. Was Christ the ‘endangered’ benefactor who risked his life or resources on behalf of the city, celebrated in the honorific inscriptions?66 Was he like Pittacus, noted above, who did not take advantage of those who had reviled him? Was he like those ancient heroes who died for their city and friends, as was the case with the Spartans and Athenians who had perished for Greece against the Persians at Thermoplylae (480 BC) and at Plataea (479 BC)?67 Was he like those first Maccabean martyrs who were killed on the Sabbath, refusing to fight against the Seleucids on God’s holy day and thereby dishonour their Lord (1 Macc 2:29-38)? Luke’s salvific language could conceivably point in any one of these directions, recalling the illustrious exempla of their beneficent deaths. But somehow such suggestions do not embrace the depths of Christ’s unsolicited forgiveness and his compassion for the spiritual blindness of his opponents. As Bock correctly observes, Jesus is interceding for his enemies because they have made an erroneous judgement about him. This should not be their last chance. More chances to respond were graciously given as the disciples preached to them often in Acts about the opportunity to receive forgiveness. There is is no vindictiveness in Jesus, only hope for a reversal.68 Christ’s unusual act of beneficence had gone far beyond all contemporary expectations. To be sure, the endangered benefactor places himself in situations of serious risk and so identifies himself with the needs of his dependents that his own resources are genuinely imperilled. But, unlike Christ, he does not die for his dependents: only living ‘endangered’ benefactors are honoured. Further, in contrast to Pitticus, Christ had blessed his tormentors while he was still under their power. In the case of those who had died for their city and country, Christ had forgiven and died for his entirely ignorant persecutors and enemies, irrespective or whether they were Romans, Jews, or just the uncomprehending crowds watching his tortured fate on the cross. Nor had he died for the sanctuary of Zion and God’s holy Law, as did Maccabean martyrs. Rather he died, as 66 On the ‘endangered benefactor’, see F.W. Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St Louis: Clayton Publishing House, 1982), 417-27. 67 See M. Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament (London: SCM, 1981), 6-15, for examples. 68 D.L. Bock, Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels (Leicester/Grand Rapids: Apollos/Baker Academic, 2002), 386. 58 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 58 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS the Gospels of Mark and Luke make clear, in the place of the ‘many’, a role divinely assigned to him who, as the Isaianic suffering Servant,69 would inaugurate the new covenant (Mark 14:24; Luke 20:22b) that would supplant the old Mosaic covenant by establishing a new Exodus through the soteriological deliverance of his death (Luke 9:31: ἔλεγον τὴν ἔξοδον αὐτοῦ, ἣν ἤμελλεν πληροῦν ἐν Ἰεροθσαλήμ).70 Finally, ironically, as a crucified criminal, Christ experienced the full curse of the Law (Deut 21:23; cf. Gal 3:13; Luke 22:37: μετὰ ἀνόμων ἐλογίσθη), thereby establishing a sharp contrast between his ignominious (but covenant-renewing) death and the Law-affirming deaths of the righteous Maccabean martyrs.71 Again, the contemporary paradigms of sacrificial beneficence were undergoing radical revision. Second, in Luke’s portrait, Christ called upon his Father, amidst his own desolation, to forgive his enemies (Luke 23:34a: Πάτερ) and then, again in total dependence upon the Father, handed his spirit back to the God in sublime calmness before dying (23:46b: Πάτερ). This would have spoken powerfully to Luke’s contemporaries about the love of God amidst the vilest of humanity’s acts in history, as well as the imperturbability of divine love in the face of the injuries perpetrated by one’s enemies. At the deepest level, the Stoic quest for insulation from life’s shocks had been met in the most profound and paradoxical way through the death of Christ on the cross and by virtue of his unbreakable filial relationship with the Father. We now turn to a comparison of the account of Christ’s crucifixion in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, with a view to seeing why Luke has adopted such a different approach to the death of Jesus. 5. Luke’s Intention in Inserting the ‘Forgiveness’ Logion into the Crucifixion Narrative: Comparing the Markan and Lukan Accounts of Jesus’ Death 5.1. The Mockery and Irony of the Cross: Speaking Authentically to the Late 60’s Roman Audience of Mark’s Gospel Our investigation of Mark’s account of the crucifixion will focus upon four pericopes: the crucifixion itself (Mark 15:22-27), the mockeries (15:29-32), the death of Jesus (15:33-37), and its consequences (15:15:38-41). Mark’s masterly use of intertextual echoes and direct LXX citations 69 On πολλῶν, see LXX Isa 53:10, 12b: αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκε; cf. λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν: Mark 10:45b; τὸ αἷμα μου τὸ ἐκχυννόμενον ὑπὲρ πολλῶν: 14:24: τὸ αἷμα μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ ἐκχυννόμενον ὑπὲρ πολλῶν; cf. Luke 22:20b [τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν], 37 [Isa 53:12]; 23:33. See D.J. Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives (Sheffield: Almond, 1983), 122-138. Contra, see C.K. Barrett, ‘Mark 10:45: A Ransom for Many’, in New Testament Essays (London: SPCK, 1972), 20-26, who argues for a Maccabean background for Mark 10:45. Additionally, supporting the ‘Servant’ allusions, see V. Taylor, Jesus and His Sacrifice: A Study of the Passion Sayings (London: MacMillan, 1951), passim; S. McKnight, Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2004), 207-24; contra J. D. G. Dunn, Christianity in the Making Volume 1: Jesus Remembered (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2003), 809-18. Isaiah 53:12c—where the suffering Servant is reckoned among the transgressors—also coheres with features of Luke’s passion narrative: Christ was led away with criminals (Luke 23:32), crucified with them (23:33), and placed under the same sentence (23:40b), even though he was innocent (23:41; cf. Isa 53:9b). 70 LXX Exod 24:8: τὸ αἷμα μου τῆς διαθήκης; Mark 14:24: τὸ αἷμα μου τῆς διαθήκης; Luke 22:20 (1 Cor 11:25), ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἴματι μου. 71 On Jesus’ understanding of himself at the Last Supper as the eschatological Passover lamb (Luke 22:20) who would establish a new covenant community by means of his impending death, see B. Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 374-443. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 59 59 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS of the Psalms, as well as the literary use of doublets and triplets, opens up important theological perspectives regarding the death of Jesus. First, prior to the crucifixion, Mark has already established intertextually that Jesus was the Isaianic suffering Servant. As noted, there are the two πολλῶν references denoting the dependents benefiting from his death (Isa 53:12; Mark 10:45b [ἀντὶ πολλῶν]; 14:24 [ὑπὲρ πολλῶν]). Also, there are the sets of two references to Jesus’s silence, one set occurring before the High Priest Caiaphas (14:60a; 14:61) and the other before Pontius Pilate (15:4a; 15:5), each recalling the silence of the Isaianic lamb led to its slaughter (Isa 53:7a, 7b. 7c). Second, the relentless drive of Mark’s narrative towards the eventual death of Jesus on the cross in Mark 15 is given increased momentum by • the three divisions of time (Mark 15:25 [third hour], 33 [sixth hour], 34 [ninth hour]); • three mockeries (15:17-20 [soldiers], 15:31 [chief priests and teachers of the law], 15:32 [the two crucified criminals flanking Jesus]); • three reactions to Jesus’ death (Mark 15:39 [centurion], 40-41 [Galilean women], 42 [women from Jerusalem and environs]).72 But an increased theological emphasis accompanies this increase in narrative momentum. The heavy emphasis upon ‘time’ points to the imminent fulfilment of eschatological time announced at the beginning of the Gospel (Mark 1:15a). Furthermore, the time references point forward ‘to the hour of the consummation of God’s final judgement (Dan 11:40, 45 LXX)’.73 The Messianic Kingdom was about to appear, with the count-down near to conclusion in its progress, and paradoxically, its advent to be achieved through the death of the promised Messiah. The mockeries add further hues and pathos to the rejection suffered by Jesus as the suffering Servant (Isa 53:3 [cf. 50:6]; Mark 10:45; 14:24), the righteous Sufferer of the Psalms (Ps 22:6-8; Mark 15:34 (Ps 22:1]), and the stricken Shepherd of Zechariah (Mark 14:27 [Zech 13:7]; cf. the allusion to the Ezekiel ‘shepherd’ traditions in Luke 10:3; 19:10; 15:4-6 [Ezek 34:16, 23-24; 37:24]).74 Christological issues, therefore, are at the forefront of the Markan narrative of human mockery. Last, the reactions to Jesus’ death pose the real question in terms of the reversal of expectation: a Roman centurion (Mark 15:38-39) responds to the crucified Christ and the women, largely absent from Mark’s Gospel, demonstrate that they are the only faithful disciples remaining till the end with Christ as opposed to the conspicuously absent Twelve (15:40-41). Will the faithless male disciples ever make the grade? The sons of Zebedee, who had requested places at Jesus’ right and left in glory (Mark 10:37), are nowhere to be seen, now that two robbers have been crucified at Jesus’ right and left (15:27). The two disciples had failed to understand that the entry into glory for every believer was cruciform (Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). But even the courageous women, if Mark 16:8 represents the unconventional ending to the Gospel,75 cower in fear at the news of the resurrection 72 H. Wansbrough, The Passion and Death of Jesus (London: Dartman, Longman, and Todd, 2003), 102. 73 B. Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 379. 74 See the masterly discussion of J. Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 172-198. For the entire list of the Psalms of the Righteous Sufferer in Mark’s passion narrative fron Ch. 14-15, see ibid., 174-75. Additionally, see C.A. Evans, ‘Jesus and Zechariah’s Messianic Hope’, in B. Chilton and C.A. Evans (ed.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2002), 373-88; W.H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer (eds.), Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998). 75 See the insightful discussion of D.J. Juel, A Master of Surprise: Mark Interpreted (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 107-21, explaining the theological force of a verse 8 ending, traditionally conceived. 60 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 60 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS and remain silent, paralysed in disobedience to the angel’s command (Mark 16:7). Humanly speaking, one could not imagine a worse start for early Christianity. Third, deeply embedded in the Mark’s narrative of the crucifixion are three sets of doublets: two drinks offered Jesus (Mark 15:23, 36), two mentions of the crucifixion (15:24, 25), and two loud cries of Jesus (15:34, 37). Mark’s intertextual echoes and quotations of LXX Psalms tell us that the invisible hand of God is powerfully at work despite appearances to the contrary, bringing his long-prophesied soteriological plan to completion. The wine offered Jesus is mixed with myrrh, fulfilling Psalm 69:21b; the division of Jesus’ clothes by casting lots fulfils Psalm 22:18. But most crucial of all is Jesus’ intonation of Psalm 22:1 (Mark 15:34), significantly rendered in Greek and in Aramaic. Cullman rightly comments regarding the confronting logion that ‘we dare not gloss it over’,76 especially when it is followed hard on the heels by another inarticulate cry (Mark 15:37). We are staring at death ‘in all its frightful horror’.77 Lane lends further insight by observing that ‘Jesus’ cry of dereliction is the inevitable sequel to the horror which he experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane’ (Mark 14:33-34, 36).78 How, then, is Mark 15:34 to be understood? First, from God’s side, it represents the wrathful sundering of the uninterrupted filial relationship between the Father and Son, notwithstanding the perfect submission of the Son up to and including the cross (Αββα Ὁ Πατήρ: Mark 14:36;79 Ὁ θεός μου Ὁ θεός μου: 15:34b; cf. Πάτερ: Luke 23:34a, 46b). The Son, vicariously and representatively, had embraced his Isaianic Servant role of sin-bearing for the many (Isa 53:12b [cf. vv. 4-6, 8, 10b, 11b]; Mark 10:45; 14:24, 27; cf. 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13), drinking the cup of God’s wrath until it was empty (14:36a). But what of the inarticulate cry in Mark 15:37? Does this represent the triumphant cry of Christ handing back his shattered life to the Father for postmortem vindication (cf. Luke 23:46)? Or is this the inconsolable cry of the bereft Christ who now faces cosmic emptiness, robbed of the Father’s eternal loving presence because of his Messianic sin-bearing on behalf of many? Mark’s ambiguity is impenetrable. The ‘loudness’ of each of Jesus’ cries (Mark 15:34, 37) calls us to ponder which interpretation is the most apposite, but with no easy resolution provided. Mark’s tension is agonisingly deliberate. Nevertheless, there are glimmers of the decisive eschatological victory to come. The whole context of Psalm 22 is intoned by Jesus, finding fulfilment in his experience of the cross (Mark 15:24 [Ps 22:18], 25 [Ps 22:16b], 29 [Ps 22:7-8], 34 [Ps 22:1]), but, more importantly, it speaks of the Lord’s dominion over the nations that will be established by the divine reversal of the Psalmist’s suffering (Ps 22:27-31).80 So it will be for the crucified Christ three days after the Golgotha experience (Mark 8:31-32; 9:30-32; 10:32-34). However, unbeknown to modern readers, further mockery ripples beneath the surface of Mark’s narrative for its original audience. The gallows humour attached to crucifixion by the ancients is highly revealing in this regard.81 A witty epigram of Lucillius, an unknown writer from the reign of Nero, lampoons the crucified by attributing to them exactly the same invidious drive 76 O. Cullmann, ‘Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection from the Dead: The Witness of the New Testament’, in K. Stendahl (ed.), Immortality and Resurrection. Death in the Western World: Two Conflicting Currents of Thought (New York: MacMillan, 1965), 17. 77 Cullmann, ‘Immortality of the Soul’, 17. 78 W.L. Lane, Commentary on the Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 572; Witherington, The Gospel of Mark, 398-99; R.H. Stein, Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 715-16. 79 See Stein, Mark, 662-63. 80 See the close parallelism detected by Marcus, Way of the Lord, 182, between Psalm 22 and Mark 15:20b—16:7. 81 On the gallows-humour attached to crucifixion in antiquity, see Welborn, Paul, the Fool of Christ, 124-47. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 61 61 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS for celebrity and social ascendancy at the moment of their death as the élites of antiquity.82 The epigram, which acerbically highlights by implication the social envy characteristic of the élites, states that Envious Diophon, seeing another man near him crucified on a higher cross than himself, fell into a decline.83 While the envy of the crucified man may just be limited to his rival’s ‘more impressive cross’, as Cook has argued,84 it is more likely that the higher position of the cross, symbolic of social superiority in a world of grandiose élite monuments, also consumes the victim. A joke from the Philogelos (‘The Laughter-Lover’), an ancient joke book dateable to after AD 391, presents the continued competition of an athlete on the cross with this wry observation about his superior ‘athletic’ status: On seeing a runner who had been crucified, an Abderite remarked, ‘By the Gods, now he does fly—literally!’ 85 Further, Gaius Maecenas—the famous Roman literary patron, writer and friend of Augustus— prays to live longer no matter what suffering still remained ahead of him. It is worth observing that the ancients did not baulk at linking the experience of the crucified on the cross to people suffering with physical disabilities. Both groups belonged, in the view of the ancient élites, to the contemptible ‘no accounts’ of society: Fashion me with a palsied hand, Weak of foot, and a cripple; Build upon me a crook-backed hump; Shake my teeth till they rattle; All is well, if my life remains. Save, oh, save it, I pray you, Though I sit on the piercing cross.86 In other words, the cross was seen by Mark’s Graeco-Roman contemporaries as so antithetical to the ancient celebrity circuit of the political élites that they could devise jokes about the crucified competing for social status and ascendancy while pinioned to the cross and still get a humorous rise of recognition from their audience. The Gospels, too, reflect aspects of this grim cruciform humour when the two crucified rebels alongside Christ derisively heap insults upon him (Mark 15:27-32), rejecting this failed would-be Messiah and Prophet who could not save himself or fulfil any of his pathetic prophecies. Furthermore, the scene of the cross is prefaced by the mock-homage paid by the Roman soldiers to Christ as King of the Jews, spoofing a royal coronal investiture by offering him the purple robe and crown of thorns (Mark 15:16-19). 82 On the grandiose funeral monuments of the Roman élites and imperial rulers from the republic to the late Empire, see P.J.E. Davies, Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), 1-48. 83 Lucillius, Anthologia Graeca 11.192. 84 J.G. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 10. 85 B. Baldwin, The Philogelos or Laughter-Lover (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1982), §121. 86 Seneca, Ep. 101.11. For full discussion, see J.R. Harrison, ‘Paul and the Social Relations of Death at Rome (Rom 5:14, 17, 21)’, in S.E. Porter (ed.), Paul and His Social Relations. Pauline Studies: Volume VII, (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 85-123, at 122-23. 62 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 62 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS The cross of Jesus, therefore, is inherently social in its ideological outworking, precisely because it was inextricably enmeshed with the political power of the élites over the condemned in a first-century context, as much as it was soteriological in the eternal plan of the omnipotent God of the universe. Mark spoke adeptly into both contexts, social and theological, displaying the paradoxical triumph of Christ in abject weakness and foolishness for all to see. Despite the relentless mockery, gallows humour, and shame associated with the cross, the élites—Herod, the Temple priests, and Pilate—would not determine the final result of Christ’s ministry, as the élites and their followers thought that they so decisively had: ‘Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we might see and believe’ (Mark 15:22; cf. 14:63-65; 15:15). Rather, precisely by remaining on the cross as an abject figure of ridicule, Christ undid the power of his opponents and secured salvific freedom for his dependents. The savagery of the mockery endured by Christ in his weakness would have had powerful resonance with the Roman audience of Mark’s Gospel in the capital of the Empire,87 especially if the work was written c. AD 69, as Hengel argues.88 After the savagery of the Nero’s persecution of believers in AD 64 and the terror aroused by the rumours abroad about the dead Nero returning redivivus at the head of the Parthian armies,89 Mark’s portrait of a shamed and reviled Christ, who was vindicated over the Herodian and Roman élites by his Father for the sake of his cowardly and faithless disciples, would have generated in them deep comfort and raised the expectation of Christ’s resurrection renewal in their lives (Mark 16:7). Why, then, does Luke diverge from this paradigm in his presentation of the crucifixion in Chapter 23, adding his own special ‘L’ tradition (Luke 23:34a), whereas Matthew, by contrast, remains much more conservative in handling the Markan tradition that he has inherited?90 5.2. Forgiving the Ignorant (Luke 23:34a), Moving Beyond the Imperturbability of the Graeco-Roman Sage to the Transformation of the Believer in Christ At one level, it was the very success of Mark’s portrait of Christ’s crucifixion that demanded a more nuanced approach from Luke as he sought to commend the spread of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome to interested Graeco-Roman auditors in Luke-Acts. The cruciform horror of Christ’s death in Mark’s narrative may have posed a problem for some of his Graeco-Roman auditors in that the foolishness of the cross was such an object of ridicule that any consideration of its redemptive claims almost became an impossibility. Cullmann spotted the problem in his famous study on how Socrates and Christ faced death.91 Socrates towered over his distraught disciples by virtue of his imperturbability just before his suicide, welcoming death as a liberating friend, whereas Christ trembled at the approach of his death, considered by him to be the disruptive enemy of God’s creation, seeking on three occasions the comfort of his sleep-sodden disciples and praying that, if possible, he might be spared the impending tribulation. 87 For a Roman destination for Mark, with the capital of the Empire firmly in view, see Lane, Mark, 16-21. 88 See M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (SCM: London, 1985), 1-30. 89 Rev 13.3; 17:8-11; Sib. Or., 4.119-124; 5.137-141; 5.361-396; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 21; Tacitus, Hist. 1.2; 2:8-9; Dio Cassius 46.19.3; Suetonius, Nero 40; Dom. 57. 90 On Matthew and the passion of Jesus, see Weber, The Cross, 110-17. 91 Cullmann, ‘Immortality of the Soul’. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 63 63 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS However, in the famous suicide scene of Nero’s tutor at Rome (AD 65), contemporary with Mark’s Gospel, the Stoic philosopher Seneca, clear limits to the Socratic paradigm of imperturbability emerge, notwithstanding its venerable tradition. However, Seneca’s wife resisted his pleas, suiciding with him (Tacitus, Ann. 15.63). But, whereas Socrates dismissed the women and children just before his suicide and upbraided his disciples for their sorrow, Seneca treats his wife Paulina with tenderness: Seneca embraced his wife, and with a tenderness very different from his philosophical imperturbability, entreated her to moderate and set a term to her grief, and take just consolation, in her bereavement, from contemplating his well-spent life.92 Likewise, Luke presents Christ accepting his ignominious death with equinamity. He upbraids the distraught women following his processional route towards the cross, forbidding them to weep for himself, but, in his selfless concern for the weak in any time of crisis, counselling them to weep instead for themselves and their children as the impending judgement of Jerusalem drew ever closer (Luke 23:28-31). Symbolically the way to avoid judgement is acted out before them in the figure of Simon of Cyrene: he picks up Christ’ cross and follows the Messiah to his death (Luke 23:26; cf. 9:23; 14:27).93 The death of the Lukan Christ is martyr-like in its dignified nobility, characterised by a calm and prayerful engagement with his Father to the very end, and by a confident submission to the Father in handing back his πνεῦμα to him (Luke 23:46). The Markan cry of dereliction (Mark 15:34), also reproduced in Matthew 27:46, is tellingly omitted from Luke’s account. The logion is replaced both by Christ’s prayer of forgiveness for his unknowing tormentors (Luke 23.34a) and also by his final prayer of faith (Luke 23:46 [Ps 31:5a). The final quotation from another Psalm of lament, as Weber correctly concludes,94 is inserted as a replacement for Mark 15:34 because the cry of Ps. 22:1 might be misinterpreted as ‘a cry of despair’. But, ironically, in so doing, Luke included a new dominical tradition (Luke 23:34a) that was, as we have argued, equally confronting to Jewish and Graeco-Roman auditors. Notwithstanding these Lukan rhetorical flourishes, it would be unwise to assume ‘that Luke described the passion purely as the martyrdom of a righteous one, and thus replaced the theology of the cross by a theology of exaltation’.95 The strategic placement of the Simon of Cyrene pericope symbolically endorses a cruciform discipleship, cohering with Christ’s teaching elsewhere. Furthermore, Satan’s ‘opportune time’ for the future testing of Christ (Luke 4:13) ultimately arrived with the defection of Judas (22:21-23, 47-48), the betrayal of Peter (22:31-34, 54-65), and the ‘time of trial’ at Gethsemane and Golgotha (22:46).96 Why, then, did Luke include this startling logion? Scholars have suggested several viable reasons. First, Strahan has argued that the logion of Luke 23:34a is coherent textually because it shows: (a) the consistency between Christ’s exemplum on the cross and his dominical teaching on forgiving and benefiting one’s enemy (Luke 6:27-28); (b) the connection between the ignorance of the Jewish and Romans persecutors, which is understood to involve their misperceptions regarding Jesus’ messianic identity (cf. Luke 9:45; 18:34; 24:1-49; Acts 3:17; 13:27), and God’s offer of Christ’s grace and forgiveness to 92 93 94 95 96 Tacitus, Ann. 15.63. Weber, The Cross, 123-24. Weber, The Cross, 119. Weber, The Cross, 121. See ibid., 121-24, for a rebuttal of this position. Weber, The Cross, 121-22. 64 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 64 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS them through the apostolic preaching of the Resurrected One (e.g. Acts 6:7; 9:1-9; 10:1-8 [cf. Luke 23:47]; 13:12).97 Second, the pericope regarding the repentance of the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-43; cf. 5:32; 18:13; 19:8) strategically follows the forgiveness logion (23:34a), demonstrating how the passion of Christ effected not only the radical experience of the divine forgiveness for the marginalised (e.g. Luke 4:18-19 [Isa 61:1-2a]; 5:12-26; 5:27-39; 7:36-50; 15:2; 19:1-10) but also provided entry into the Messianic kingdom in the present age (23:42-43).98 Thus the strategic placement of the forgiveness logion affords uninterrupted views of important soteriological vistas in Luke-Acts. It seems highly unlikely, therefore, that Luke 23:34a was a ‘floating’ logion in the Jesus tradition without any context and opportunistically seized by Luke for his own theological agenda. How Luke derived this historical tradition is unknown, though the authenticity of the logion is certainly secure within its Jewish and Graeco-Roman context, as demonstrated above. Was it one of the watching women at the foot of the cross who heard Jesus’ quietly breathed prayer of forgiveness for the ignorant—reserved exclusively for the hearing of the Father but providentially overheard by her—and who understood much better than the male disciples its revolutionary content? Women are more prominent in the Gospel of Luke (1:26-28 [cf. 46-55], 39-45, 57-60; 2:36-38; 7:11-15, 36-50; 8:2-3, 40-56; 10:38-42; 11:27-28; 21:1-4; 23:27-31, 49; 24:1-12; cf. 15:8-10; 18:1-8) as opposed to the Gospel of Mark (5:24b-34; 7:24-30; 12:41-44; 14:3-9; 15:40, 47; 16:1).99 Luke, therefore, was sensitive not only to their portrait but also presumably to the historical traditions regarding the historical Jesus that they alone possessed. But more than contextual issues within the Gospel dictate Luke’s inclusion of the logion. The ethical paradigm of the imperturbability of the Graeco-Roman sage in the face of hardships represented a challenge to the potential growth in godliness among the members of the early house churches in the Mediterranean basin.100 Its seductive influence, if succumbed to, could stifle the ability of believers to act with compassion towards hostile outsiders and, indeed, sympathetically towards each other. Only the forgiveness of the cross, appropriated by believers and extended to others, could release people from the straightjackets of imperturbability. Selfcontrol and self-protection, each quality summoned in response to the provocation of others and to personal tragedy, were important ethical values in Graeco-Roman social relations and were regularly articulated in popular philosophy. In seeking release from the imperturbable Self by means of Christ’s transforming forgiveness, believers were freed to seek the very best for their enemies through prayer and beneficence, with a view to ushering them into the Kingdom of God by an encounter with the grace of the crucified Christ. 97 Strahan, The Limits of a Text, 61-87. 98 See the insightful discussion of R.C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation. Volume 1: The Gospel According to Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 125-27. 99 See E.V. Dowling, Women, Theology and the Parable of the Pounds in the Gospel of Luke (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2007); S. Miller, Women in Mark’s Gospel (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2004). 100 Thus Seneca writes: ‘Know, therefore, Serenus, that this perfect man, full of virtues human and divine, can lose nothing… The walls which guard the wise man are safe from both flame and assault, they provide no means of entrance, are lofty, impregnable, godlike’ (Ep. 1.6.8). On the intersection of early Christianity with the imagery of the wise man’s high citadel of reason (cf. 2 Cor 10:3-6), see A.J. Malherbe, ‘Antisthenes and Odysseus, and Paul at War’, in Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 91-119, at 101-03. JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 65 65 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS 6. Conclusion This article has argued that Luke 23:34a is an authentic logion of the historical Jesus, inserted by Luke in its original context, as opposed to it being a case of the inclusion of a free-floating Jesus logion in a theologically convenient pericope. My speculation is that the history of the tradition originated with one of the nearby women disciples at the foot of the cross, who overhead Jesus’ quietly intoned prayer for his tormentors.101 Given Luke’s close attention not only to traditions about women in his Gospel but also to their own eyewitness testimony about Jesus, it is not surprising that this logion belonged to Luke’s own special tradition (‘L’) about the historical Jesus. The disputed status of the saying in the Lukan manuscript tradition remains an unresolved problem. Scholarly arguments regarding the reasons for the omission of the logion in some manuscripts reach diametrically opposite conclusions and, therefore, there is considerable subjectivity as to which hypothesis might be correct, if any. However, after an extensive investigation of ἀφίημι and συγγνώμη and their cognates in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman literature, as well as the wider forgiveness traditions of antiquity (including the role of clementia, the handling of insult, the strategy of imperturbability, etc.), the distinctive nature of Jesus’ prayer in its ancient context ensured its historical authenticity. The difficulties of the manuscript tradition have precluded New Testament scholars from considering in sufficient depth the theological implications of the logion’s meaning in its exegetical context and in the Gospel of Luke more generally, though the suggestions of Strahan and Tannehill have shown the profit to be gained by such an analysis. This article has widened the parameters of the investigation by comparing the Markan and Lukan accounts of Jesus’ passion. It has been argued that Mark’s depiction of the shame, mockery, and divine forsakenness of the cross was so effective in its graphic portrayal that it potentially posed for auditors the question whether Jesus died with a cry of despair on his lips (Mk 15:34; Ps 22:1), as opposed to the Psalmist’s uncompromising trust in God, no matter the gravity of the circumstances. By contrast, Luke’s powerful portrait of Jesus’ martyr-like death—obedient to the Father until the very end and selflessly invoking divine grace towards the sinfully ignorant—would have captured the attention of Graeco-Roman auditors. It may have reminded them of the death of Socrates (Plato, Apology 30d; 41d),102 or of the various martyrs who died for their cities. But the Graeco-Roman model of the imperturbable sage has distinct limitations as a paradigm for transforming social relations. The sage insulates himself from the vicissitudes of life through his self-control and indifference to personal insult and provocation, effectively isolating himself from social interaction as opposed to embracing his opponents relationally. Jesus, however, draws upon God’s love for and mercy to his enemies (Luke 6:32-36; cf. Rom 5:6-8) and, by virtue of his 101 On the women at the cross and the tomb in Mark and Matthew being the sources of their own eyewitness stories, due to their being the only disciples present, see R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 39–66. 102 Socrates (Plato, Apology, 39d) states: ‘I am certainly not angry with those who convicted me, or with my accusers’. W. Klassen, Love of Enemies: The Way to Peace (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 21-23, argues that Socrates was the first Greek thinker who did not accept ‘the notion that it is best to harm your enemies and do good to your friends’. (p.21) But, as Klassen (p.23) notes, Socrates did not weep over Athens in the same way that Christ did over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44). Nowhere in the Greek tradition, adeptly set out by Klassen (pp. 12-26), is love towards, prayer for, beneficence to, and divine forgiveness of the enemy combined in such a comprehensive set of social relations as it is in Jesus’ teaching (Luke 6:27, 28, 35; 7:36-50; 9:51-55; 10:25-37; 15:11-32; 14:7-14; 18:9-14; 19:1-10; 23:34a). 66 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 66 SEPTEMBER 2017 20/9/17 2:15 pm JESUS AND THE GRACE OF THE CROSS special status as the messianic and eternal Son, engages his Father to forgive them.103 There is no impassivity on the part of either God or Jesus in this process of reconciliation. The Old Testament portrait of a suffering God and the depiction of Jesus’ emotions in the Gospels speaks against divine impassibility.104 Ultimately, Luke’s ‘Stoic’ presentation of the cross, in comparison to the Gospel of Mark, undermined several central tenets of Stoic belief, opening up new possibilities for the transformation of the ‘politics’ of hatred through the experience of divine forgiveness. James R. Harrison Sydney College of Divinity 103 Klassen, Love of Enemies, 91, writes: ‘Jesus does not forgive his enemies. To offer forgiveness to those who are not interested in it, is always to cheapen forgiveness. The triumph of his spirit of love is to request of God that in some way he may grant forgiveness’. 104 T.E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); S. Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Gospels (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2011). JOURNAL OF GOSPELS AND ACT S RESEARCH VOL. 1 SCD-JournalOfGospels-Issue1-Text-ART3.indd 67 67 20/9/17 2:15 pm