Read Online The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elaine Pagels
Ads: Link
gather and wait for a
sign from God, Pilate immediately sent troops to monitor the
situation. The troops blockaded the crowd, killing some and
capturing others, while the rest fled. Pilate ordered the
ringleaders executed.46
THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND THE JEWISH WAR / 33
Pilate’s rule ended abruptly when the legate of Syria finally
responded to repeated protests by stripping Pilate of his
commission and dispatching a man from his own staff to serve as
governor in his place. Pilate was ordered to return to Rome at
once to answer charges against him, and disappeared from the
historical record. Philo’s account coincides with Mark’s on one
point: that Pilate, aware of the animosity toward him, was
concerned lest the chief priests complain about him to the
emperor. Yet Mark, as we have seen, presents a Pilate not only as
a man too weak to withstand the shouting of a crowd, but also as
one solicitous to ensure justice in the case of a Jewish prisoner
whom the Jewish leaders want to destroy.
Mark’s benign portrait of Pilate increases the culpability of the
Jewish leaders and supports Mark’s contention that Jews, not
Romans, were the primary force behind Jesus’ crucifixion.
Throughout the following decades, as bitterness between the
Jewish majority and Jesus’ followers increased, the gospels came
to depict Pilate in an increasingly favorable light. As Paul Winter
observes,
the stern Pilate grows more mellow from gospel to gospel
[from Mark to Matthew, from Matthew and Luke to John]. . . .
The more removed from history, the more sympathetic a
character he becomes.47
In depicting Jesus’ Jewish enemies, the same process works in
reverse. Matthew, writing around ten years later, depicts much
greater antagonism between Jesus and the Pharisees than Mark
suggests. And while Mark says that the leaders restrained their
animosity because the crowds favored Jesus, Matthew’s account
ends with both leaders and crowds unanimously shouting for his
execution. Furthermore, what Mark merely implies—that Jesus’
opponents are energized by Satan—Luke and John will state
explicitly. Both Matthew and Luke, writing ten to twenty years
after Mark, adapted the earlier gospel and revised it in various
ways, updating it to reflect the situation of Jesus’ followers in
their own times.
34 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN
Jesus' followers did not invent the practice of demonizing
enemies within their own group. In this respect, as in many
others, as we shall see, they drew upon traditions they shared
with other first-century Jewish sects. The Essenes, for example,
had developed and elaborated images of an evil power they called
by many names—Satan, Belial, Beelzebub, Mastema (“hatred”)—
precisely to characterize their own struggle against a Jewish
majority whom they, for reasons different from those of Jesus’
followers, denounced as apostate. The Essenes never admitted
Gentiles to their movement. But the followers of Jesus did—
cautiously and provisionally at first, and against the wishes of
some members. But as the Christian movement became
increasingly Gentile during the second century and later, the
identification of Satan primarily with the Jewish enemies of
Jesus, borne along in Christian tradition over the centuries,
would fuel the fires of anti-Semitism.
The relationship between Jesus’ followers and the rest of the
Jewish community, however, especially during the first century,
is anything but simple. Mark himself, like the Essenes, sees his
movement essentially as a conflict within one “house”—as I read
it, the house of Israel. Such religious reformers see their primary
struggle not with foreigners, however ominously Roman power
lurks in the background, but with other Jews who try to define
the “people of God.”48 Yet while Mark sees the Jewish leaders as
doing Satan’s work in trying to destroy Jesus, his own account is
by no means anti-Jewish, much
sign from God, Pilate immediately sent troops to monitor the
situation. The troops blockaded the crowd, killing some and
capturing others, while the rest fled. Pilate ordered the
ringleaders executed.46
THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND THE JEWISH WAR / 33
Pilate’s rule ended abruptly when the legate of Syria finally
responded to repeated protests by stripping Pilate of his
commission and dispatching a man from his own staff to serve as
governor in his place. Pilate was ordered to return to Rome at
once to answer charges against him, and disappeared from the
historical record. Philo’s account coincides with Mark’s on one
point: that Pilate, aware of the animosity toward him, was
concerned lest the chief priests complain about him to the
emperor. Yet Mark, as we have seen, presents a Pilate not only as
a man too weak to withstand the shouting of a crowd, but also as
one solicitous to ensure justice in the case of a Jewish prisoner
whom the Jewish leaders want to destroy.
Mark’s benign portrait of Pilate increases the culpability of the
Jewish leaders and supports Mark’s contention that Jews, not
Romans, were the primary force behind Jesus’ crucifixion.
Throughout the following decades, as bitterness between the
Jewish majority and Jesus’ followers increased, the gospels came
to depict Pilate in an increasingly favorable light. As Paul Winter
observes,
the stern Pilate grows more mellow from gospel to gospel
[from Mark to Matthew, from Matthew and Luke to John]. . . .
The more removed from history, the more sympathetic a
character he becomes.47
In depicting Jesus’ Jewish enemies, the same process works in
reverse. Matthew, writing around ten years later, depicts much
greater antagonism between Jesus and the Pharisees than Mark
suggests. And while Mark says that the leaders restrained their
animosity because the crowds favored Jesus, Matthew’s account
ends with both leaders and crowds unanimously shouting for his
execution. Furthermore, what Mark merely implies—that Jesus’
opponents are energized by Satan—Luke and John will state
explicitly. Both Matthew and Luke, writing ten to twenty years
after Mark, adapted the earlier gospel and revised it in various
ways, updating it to reflect the situation of Jesus’ followers in
their own times.
34 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN
Jesus' followers did not invent the practice of demonizing
enemies within their own group. In this respect, as in many
others, as we shall see, they drew upon traditions they shared
with other first-century Jewish sects. The Essenes, for example,
had developed and elaborated images of an evil power they called
by many names—Satan, Belial, Beelzebub, Mastema (“hatred”)—
precisely to characterize their own struggle against a Jewish
majority whom they, for reasons different from those of Jesus’
followers, denounced as apostate. The Essenes never admitted
Gentiles to their movement. But the followers of Jesus did—
cautiously and provisionally at first, and against the wishes of
some members. But as the Christian movement became
increasingly Gentile during the second century and later, the
identification of Satan primarily with the Jewish enemies of
Jesus, borne along in Christian tradition over the centuries,
would fuel the fires of anti-Semitism.
The relationship between Jesus’ followers and the rest of the
Jewish community, however, especially during the first century,
is anything but simple. Mark himself, like the Essenes, sees his
movement essentially as a conflict within one “house”—as I read
it, the house of Israel. Such religious reformers see their primary
struggle not with foreigners, however ominously Roman power
lurks in the background, but with other Jews who try to define
the “people of God.”48 Yet while Mark sees the Jewish leaders as
doing Satan’s work in trying to destroy Jesus, his own account is
by no means anti-Jewish, much
Similar Books
