Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (861 page)

The Evangelist assures us, with the most solicitous earnestness, that this really happened to Jesus, and that his account is trustworthy, as being founded on personal observation (v. 35). According to some, he gives this testimony in opposition to docetic Gnostics, who denied the true corporeality of Jesus:
^†
but wherefore then the mention of the
water?
According to others, on account of the noteworthy fulfilment of two prophecies by that procedure with respect to the body of Jesus
^‡
But, as Lücke himself says, though John does certainly elsewhere, even in subordinate points, seek a fulfilment of prophecy, he nowhere attaches to it so extraordinary a weight as he would here have done according to this supposition. Hence it appears the most natural supposition that the Evangelist intended by those assurances to confirm the truth of the death of Jesus,
^§
and that he merely appended the reference to the fulfilment of Scripture as a secondary illustrative addition. The absence of an historical indication, that so early as the period of the composition

* Comp. the similar statement of an anatomist in De Wette, in loc. and Tholuck ut sup.

† Weistein and Olshausen, in loc. ; comp. Hase, ut sup.

‡ Lücke, in loc.

§ Thus Less, Auferstehungsgeschichte, s. 95 f. ; Tholuck, in loc. According to Weisse (die evang. Gesch. 1
,
s.
102, 2, s. 237 ff.) the Evangelist referred to a passage of the apostolic epistle, under a misapprehension of its meaning, namely, to i John v. 6 :
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of the fourth gospel, there existed a suspicion that the death of Jesus was only apparent, does not suffice, in the paucity of information at our command concerning that period, to prove that a suspicion so easy of suggestion had not actually to be combated in the circle in which the above gospel arose, and that it may not have given occasion to the adduction of proofs not only of the resurrection of Jesus, but also of his death.
^*
Even in the Gospel of Mark a similar effort is visible. When this Evangelist, in narrating Joseph’s entreaty for the body of Jesus, says:
And Pilate marvelled if he were alreadj dead
(v. 44): this suggests the idea that he lent to Pilate an astonishment which he must have heard expressed by many of his cotemporaries concerning the rapidity with which the death of Jesus had ensued; and when he proceeds to state that the procurator obtained from the centurion certain information that Jesus
had been some time dead,
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:
it appears as if he wished, in silencing the doubt of Pilate, to silence that of his cotemporaries also; but in that case he can have known nothing of a wound with a spear, and its consequences, otherwise he would not have left unnoticed this securest warrant of death having really taken place: so that the representation in John has the appearance of being a fuller development of a tendency of the legend already visible in Mark.

This view of John’s narrative is further confirmed by his citation of Old Testament passages, as fulfilled in this event. In the stroke of the spear he sees the fulfilment of Zech. xii. 10 (better translated by John than by the LXX.), where Jehovah says to the Israelites [Heb. letters]
w
^e
hibbiytu ‘elay ‘eth ‘asher
they shall look on him whom they have pierced,
in the sense, that they will one day return to him whom they had so grievously offended.
^†
The word [
Heb. letters
]
daqar
to pierce,
understood literally, expresses an act which appears more capable of being directed against a man than against Jehovah: this interpretation is supported by the variation in the reading [
Heb. letters
]
‘elayu
; and it must have been confirmed by the succeeding context, which proceeds in the third person thus:
and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.
Hence the Rabbins interpreted this passage of the Messiah
ben Joseph,
who would be pierced by the sword in battle,
^‡
and the Christians might refer it, as they did so many passages in Psalms of lamentation, to their Messiah, at first understanding the piercing either figuratively or as implying the nailing of the hands (and feet) in crucifixion (comp. Rev. i. 7); until at last some one, who desired a more decisive proof of death than crucifixion in itself afforded, interpreted it as a special piercing with the spear.

If then this trait of the piercing with the spear proceeded from the combined interests of obtaining a proof of death, and a literal

* Comp. Kaiser, bibb. Theol. 1, s. 253.

† Rosenmüller, Schol. in V. T. 7, 4, p. 340.

‡ Vid. ap. Rosenmüller, in loc. ; Schöttgen, 2, p. 221 ; Bertholdt, § 17, not. 12
.
fulfilment of a prophecy: the rest must be regarded as merely its preparatory groundwork. The piercing was only needful as a test of death, if Jesus had to be early taken down from the cross, which according to Jewish law (Deut. xxi. 22; Josh. viii, 29, x. 26, f. — an exception occurs in 2
Sam. xxi. 6 ff.
^*
) must in any case be before night; but in particular in the present instance (a special circumstance which John alone notes), before the commencement of the passover. If Jesus died unusually soon, and if the two who were crucified with him were yet to be taken down at the same time, the death of the latter must be hastened by violent means. This might be done likewise by means of a stroke of the spear: but then the piercing, which in Zech. xii. 10 was predicted specially of the Messiah, would equally happen to others. Thus in their case it would be better to choose the breaking of the legs, which would not, indeed, instantaneously superinduce death, but which yet made it ultimately certain as a consequence of the mortification produced by the fracture. It is true that the
crurifragium
appears nowhere else in connexion with crucifixion among the Romans, but only as a separate punishment for slaves, prisoners of war, and the like.
^†
But it was not the less suitable in a prophetic point of view; for was it not said of the Paschal lamb with which Jesus was elsewhere also compared (x Cor. V.
7): not a bone of him shall be broken
(Exod. xii. 46)? So that both the prophecies were fulfilled, the one determining what should happen exclusively to Jesus, the other what should happen to his fellow-sufferers, but not to him.

§ 135.
BURIAL OF JESUS.

According to Roman custom the body of Jesus must have remained suspended until consumed by the weather, birds of prey, and corruption;
^‡
according to the Jewish, it must have been interred in the dishonourable burying place assigned to the executed :
^§
but the evangelical accounts inform us that a distinguished adherent of the deceased begged his body of the
procurator, which, agreeably to the Roman law,
^||
was not refused, but was immediately delivered to him (Matt. xxvii. 57
parall.). This man, who in all the gospels is named Joseph, and said to be derived from Arimathea, was according to Matthew a rich man and a disciple of Jesus, but the latter, as John adds, only in secret; the two intermediate Evangelists describe him as an honourable member of the high council, in which character, Luke remarks, he had not given his voice for the condemnation of Jesus, and they both represent him as cherishing messianic expectations. That we have here a personal description gradually developed into more and more preciseness is evident. In

* Comp. Joseph. b. j. iv. v. 2
.
Sanhedrin, vi. 5,
ap. Lightfoot, p. 499.

† Vid. Lipsius, de cruce, L. II. cap. 14.

‡ Comp. Winer, i, s. 802.

§ Sanhedrin, ap. Lightfoot, p. 499.

|| Ulpian, xlviii. 24, 1 ff.the first gospel Joseph is a disciple of Jesus — and such must have been the man who under circumstances so unfavourable did not hesitate to take charge of his body; that, according to the same gospel, he was a
rich man
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already reminds us of Isa. liii. 9, where it is said [
Heb. letters
]
wayyitten ‘eth-resha’iym qibro w’eth-’ashiyr bemothayw
which might possibly be understood of a burial with the rich, and thus become the source at least of this predicate of Joseph of Arimathea. That he entertained messianic ideas, as Luke and Mark add, followed of course from his relation to Jesus; that he was a
counsellor,
b
o
u
l
e
u
t
h
V
, as the same Evangelists declare, is certainly a new piece of information: but that as such he could not have concurred in the condemnation of Jesus was again a matter of course; lastly, that he had hitherto kept his adherence to Jesus a secret, as John observes, accords with the peculiar position in relation to Jesus which this Evangelist gives to certain exalted adherents, especially to Nicodemus, who is subsequently associated with Joseph. Hence it must not he at once supposed that the additional particulars which each succeeding Evangelist gives, rest on historical information which he possessed over and above that of his predecessors.

While the synoptists represent the interment of Jesus as being performed by Joseph alone, with no other beholders than the women, John, as we have observed, introduces Nicodemus as an assistant; a particular, the authenticity of which has been already considered in connexion with the first appearance of Nicodemus.
^*
This individual brings spices for the purpose of embalming Jesus; a mixture of myrrh and aloes, in the quantity of about a hundred pounds. In vain have commentators laboured to withdraw from the word
l
i
t
r
a
,
which John here uses, the signification of the Latin
libra,
and to substitute a smaller weight:
^†
the above surprising quantity is, however, satisfactorily accounted for by the remark of Olshausen, that the superfluity was a natural expression of the veneration of those men for Jesus. In the fourth gospel the two men perform the office of embalming immediately after the taking down of the body from the cross, winding it in linen clothes after the Jewish practice; in Luke the women, on their return home from the grave of Jesus, provide spices and ointments, in order to commence the embalming after the sabbath (xxiii. 16, xxiv. 1); in Mark they do not buy the
sweet spices
a
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m
a
t
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until the sabbath is past (xvi. 1); while in Matthew there is no mention of an embalming of the body of Jesus, but only of its being wrapped in a
clean linen cloth
(xxvii. 59).