Note 157 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

Of the conduct of the Jews who were present at the crucifixion of Jesus, John tells us nothing; Luke represents the people as standing to look on, and only the rulers ἄρχοντες and the soldiers as deriding Jesus by the summons to save himself if he were the Messiah, to which the latter adds the offer of the vinegar (v. 35 ff.); Matthew and Mark have nothing here of mockery on the part of the soldiers, but in compensation they make not only the chief priests, scribes, and elders, but also the passers by, παραπορευόμενοι, vent insults against Jesus (v. 39 ff., 29 ff.). The expressions of these people partly refer to former discourses and actions of Jesus; thus, the sarcasm: Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it again in three days, save thyself (Matt. and Mark), is an allusion to the words of that tenor ascribed to Jesus; while the reproach: he saved others, himself he cannot save, or save thyself (in all three), refers to his cures. Partly however the conduct of the Jews towards Jesus on the cross, is depicted after the same psalm of which Tertullian justly says that it contains totam Christi passionem.157 When it is said in Matthew and Mark: And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads and saying: οἱ δὲ παραπορευόμενοι ἐβλασφήμουν αὐτὸν, κινοῦντες τὰς κεφαλὰς αὑτῶν καὶ λέγοντες· (Luke says of the rulers ἄρχοντες they derided him ἐξεμυκτήριζον), this is certainly nothing else than a mere reproduction of what stands in Ps. xxii. 8 (LXX.): All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip and shake the head: πάντες οἱ θεωροῦντές με ἐξεμυκτήρισάν με, ἐλάλησαν ἐν χείλεσιν, ἐκίνησαν κεφαλὴν; and the words which are hereupon lent to the Sanhedrists in Matthew: He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will have him, πέποιθεν ἐπὶ τὸν θεὸν, ῥυσάσθω νῦν αὐτὸν, εἰ θέλει αὐτὸν, are the same with those of the following verse in that Psalm: He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him, ἤλπισεν ἐπὶ Κύριον, ῥυσάσθω αὐτόν· σωσάτω αὐτὸν, ὅτι θέλει αὐτόν. Now though the taunts and shaking of the head on the part of the enemies of Jesus may, notwithstanding that the description of them is drawn according to the above Old Testament passage, still very probably have really happened: it is quite otherwise with the words which are attributed to these mockers. Words which, like those above quoted, are in the Old Testament put into the mouth of the enemies of the godly, could not be adopted by the Sanhedrists without their voluntarily assuming the character of the ungodly: which they would surely have taken care to avoid. Only the Christian legend, if it once applied the Psalm to the sufferings of Jesus, and especially to his last hours, could attribute these words to the Jewish rulers, and find therein the fulfilment of a prophecy.