Easter is the time when Jesus Christ is said to have risen from the dead, having hung on a cross for six hours between two thieves. We are told that one of the thieves was saved, which Samuel Beckett described as a reasonable percentage. Itās unlikely, however, that Jesusās two companions were thieves at all. Not even the Romans were sadistic enough to roll out one of their most ghastly forms of punishment ā crucifixion ā for a couple of common-or-garden robbers.
Since the Roman state reserved this penalty almost entirely for political rebels and runaway slaves, the so-called thieves probably fell into the former category. In fact, it is quite likely that they were Zealots, members of an underground anti-imperialist movement which wanted to kick out the Romans and replace them with a purified Jewish state run by a priestly caste. The Zealots were to stage an insurrection some decades after Jesusās death, with catastrophic results. They are memorably satirised as a kind of first-century Socialist Workers Party in Monty Pythonās Life of Brian.
The point of crucifixion wasnāt so much the pain, even though we derive the word “excruciating” from the practice. It was rather to proclaim the helplessness of those who struck against Roman sovereignty, hence discouraging others from doing the same. Their mutilated bodies were turned into advertisements for the power of Rome, pinned up in public humiliation on the edge of the city. Even so, Jesus himself got off fairly lightly.
I once made the mistake of pointing this out in a talk on BBC radio, and was the recipient of a shedload of outraged letters from Evangelical Christians who promised to pray for my soul while deeply doubting that I was in possession of one. But itās true: Jesus seems to have been on the cross for only six hours, whereas there were other victims who thrashed around for days. It could be that the scourging they gave him helped to speed him on his way. If you are about to be crucified, lose as much blood as you can.
If the so-called thieves were revolutionaries, was Jesus one as well? Itās possible that the gospel-writers edited out some politically explosive stuff in order to cosy up to the authorities. Christians at the time were being savagely persecuted, and for them to portray their leader as a prototype for Lenin would scarcely have appealed to those in power. Itās true that a lot of what Jesus said might have sounded to a casual bystander like good Zealot stuff. He certainly would have had Zealots in his entourage. Judas Iscariot may have been one of them. Perhaps he sold his master out because he had expected him to lead the Jewish people against the occupying forces and was bitterly disenchanted when he didnāt. Jesusās right-hand man Peter carried a sword, an odd thing for a Galilean fisherman to do.
On the other hand, Jesus supported paying taxes to Caesar, which the Zealots didnāt. He also called down some frightful curses on the heads of the Pharisees, who were more or less the Zealotsā theological wing, perhaps in order to put some daylight between the militants and himself.
The Pharisees, incidentally, have had a particularly bad press. They were admired by most Jews for their piety and good works, but are vilified in the New Testament as legalists and hypocrites. Some modern Christians think that Judaism is about the external and collective, while Christianity is about the inward and individual. Jews are devotees of Law, while Christians are disciples of Love. The gospel-writers, who were of course Jews themselves, wouldnāt have believed any such theological nonsense, and neither would Jesus himself. But the seeds of Christian anti-Semitism can already be detected in the smearing of the Pharisees.
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