SPINNING PILATE: Misrepresentation of the Roman Governor in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ
By M. J. Maddox, Ph.D.
Title slide
The movie’s epigraph is Isaiah 53. The prophet Isaiah lived seven centuries before the birth of Jesus..
Sadism – pierced, crushed, wounded
As you can see, it is a fitting epigraph for Gibson’s sadistic movie
On the 2-disk DVD, Gibson declares that his intention was to create a visual record of the events narrated in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The evangelists, however, provide only some of his material. Additional details shown in the film are drawn from three other sources.
Famous paintings
Gibson frames many of his scenes to reproduce specific paintings. One example is the shot of Mary facing the audience, holding the dead body of her son. It is based on the 1876 Pieta of French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905).
Stations of the Cross
He is especially conscientious in reproducing the 14 images known as The Way of the Cross which hang in every Catholic church.
Catherine of Emmerich
Many of the gratuitous violence in Gibson’s movie can be traced to the visions of Catherine Emmerich. She was a 19th century nun whose meditation on the Passion focused on the psychological sufferings of Mary as bloody mutilations were inflicted on her son. For example, for those of you who have seen the film, the image of Jesus being dropped over the side of a stone bridge in a kind of grotesque bungee jump comes from Catherine. Her visions were written down and indexed by German poet and novelist Clemens Brentano (1778-1842),
Gibson’s imagination
A third source outside of the gospels is the imagination of Mel Gibson. At least one cartoonist credits his taste for depicting people in pain to his Catholic upbringing.
The film’s depiction of the Roman occupation of Judea is based on these three sources and the four gospels of the New Testament.
Palestine divisions
The Roman influence in Palestine predated the rule of Pontius Pilate by at least half a century. Herod the Great had been a supporter of Pompey in the Roman Civil Wars. Despite the fact, he was able to retain his kingdom under Augustus. When Herod died, however, Augustus divided the territory among three of Herod’s surviving sons. (The Decapolis (Greek: deka, ten; polis, city) was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire in Jordan Syria and Palestine. The ten cities were not an official league or political unit, but they were grouped together because of their language, culture, location, and political status. The Decapolis cities were centers of Greek and Roman culture in a region that was otherwise Semitic (Nabatean, Aramean, and Jewish). With the exception of Damascus, the “Region of the Decapolis” was located in modern-day Jordan, one of them located west of the Jordan River in Palestine (modern day Israel). Each city had a certain degree of autonomy and self-rule.)
Antipas proved to be a reliable ruler and the Romans permitted him to reign for 42 years. Archelaus was deprived of his position after about ten years and his territory was made into a minor Roman province governed at by a prefect of equestrian rank. This governor lived most of the time at Caesarea, but went to Jerusalem during festivals to keep the peace.
Pontius Pilate
What we know about the historical Pilate is colored by the politics of the men who wrote about him: Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, both Jews. The gospel accounts, however, go out of their way to whitewash him. The chief purpose of this softening of Pilate was probably to assure the Romans that Christians did not blame them for the death of Jesus.
Sensitive Pilate
According to the evangelists and Mel Gibson, Pilate was sensitive and compassionate. In some Christian traditions he committed suicide out of remorse for his part in the Crucifixion. According to others, he became a Christian and, for some, a saint.
Jews’ View of Pilate
Pilate became procurator of Judea in 26 C.E. The first thing he did was to anger the Jews by permitting his troops to bring pagan standards into Jerusalem. First he threatened to kill the Jews who protested, but then he backed down. On a similar occasion he permitted votive shields bearing the words “Son of God” in reference to the deified Augustus to be placed in the palace in Jerusalem. Herod Antipas joined the important Jews who protested. Pilate moved the shields to Caesarea. Another of Pilate’s religious gaffs was in connection with the completion of an aqueduct begun by Herod the Great. Pilate requisitioned money from the Temple tax for the project. When a crowd of protesters gathered, Pilate sent his own men, dressed like civilian Jews, to mingle with the crowd. They carried clubs under their robes. Before the day was done, had clubbed hundreds of the protesters to death.\
Pilate’s Coinage
Pilate’s insensitivity to Jewish religious feeling is revealed in his coinage. His predecessors stamped the coins they issued with palm branches, ears of barley, and bunches of grapes, images acceptable to Jews. Pilate stamped his with images of pagan worship.
Pagan symbols
The lituus was a curved stick used by augurs to mark the templum in the sky when interpreting the flight of birds. It was also the symbol of their college. The simpulum was sacrificial ladle with a long handle.
Pilate’s last, less than sensitive act, possibly one that got him recalled, had to do with the religious beliefs of the Samaritans. Several thousand Samaritans had gathered at their sacred mountain to follow a prophet who said he was going to dig up relics buried by Moses. Pilate and a thousand of his auxiliaries headed off the worshippers, killed some in a pitched battle, and captured and executed an unspecified number of the leaders. The Samaritans complained to the legate of Syria and Pilate returned to Rome.
The Romans had been occupying Judea for more than a generation by the time Pilate came along. They governed with the cooperation of the local upper classes.
Roman Allies – Caiaphas
Gibson’s film shows Pilate at daggers drawn with the high priest Caiaphas. In fact Caiaphas was one of Pilate’s advisers. As procurator Pilate had the option of appointing a new high priest if he didn’t like the one he had. The previous procurator had dismissed two other high priests before appointing Caiaphas. Since Pilate kept him for the full ten years of his governorship, the two men must have gotten along pretty well. If Jesus was declaring himself King of the Jews, Caiaphas was acting reasonably in turning him over to Pilate. By the way, Caiaphas is show wearing his priestly robes in the middle of the night in the midst of a huge impromptu meeting of the priests and people. In fact the high priest’s robes were kept under Roman guard in the Antonia Fortress. They were checked out to be worn only on the four high holy days.
While Pilate and Caiaphas got along, Pilate did not get on particularly well with Herod Antipas, the Jewish ruler of Galilee.
Roman Allies – Funny looking
Both Gibson and the producers of HBO’s Rome seem to have the idea that the Herod family dressed funny.
Roman Allies – Romanized Herods
Herod the Great didn’t get what he wanted from Augustus by dressing funny. He sent Herod Antipas to be educated with the royal children in Rome. This upbringing for the Herod offspring became a family practice. The lady Antonia, daughter of Octavia and Mark Antony, was a second mother to the Herods Agrippa.
Gibson depicts Antipas as a sybarite surrounded by transexuals.In fact he was very attached to his second wife, and he was a competent ruler. He rebuilt Sepphoris, which had been destroyed by Varus, the one who later lost the legions, and he built the magnificent city of Tiberias from scratch. His people didn’t like him very much, but he did try to observe Jewish custom, at least within the precincts of Jerusalem.
Like Pilate, Herod Antipas was in town for Passover. They did not have friendly feelings towards each other. For one thing, Antipas had challenged Pilate in the matter of the pagan standards. Another point of contention arose when Pilate executed some Galileans without first consulting Antipas. In both the gospels and the film, Pilate is portrayed as sending Jesus to Antipas in an attempt to pass the buck. It’s possible that he just didn’t want to kill another Galilean without giving Antipas a chance to say something about it. It could have been a gesture of respect. The gospels remark that after the incident with Jesus, Pilate and Herod were on better terms.
Two more misrepresentation in the movie has to do with the Roman Army.
Italian soldiers
In the film the soldiers all look Italian. Not surprising since the film was made in Italy. Pilate, however, did not have Italian troops under his command. The procurator of Judea commanded auxiliary troops. It’s possible that Pilate had a few Romans among his people, but for the most part his men were recruited locally, from Judea, Samaria, and the Decapolis. He may have had some fair-haired Gauls, but the fact that his men were able to infiltrate the crowd of Jewish protesters at the time of the Temple tax riots indicates that many of his soldiers resembled the Jews they were trying to keep in order.
Another discrepancy in the film is the uniform of the Centurion Abenader. By the way, that name Abenader, not a very Roman-sounding name, comes from the visions of Sister Catherine.
Centurion’s helmet
Abenader is supposed to be a centurion, but he wears the wrong kind of helmet and his men don’t obey him very well. HBO’s Rome got it right. Here’s Vorenus in his centurion’s helmet. After his promotion, he wore a different style.
Finally, at the heart of the Gibson film, there’s the Roman execution of a perceived rebel and terrorist. The movie presents what was a standard method of execution as a monstrously cruel, dragged out affair carried out by out-ofo-control Roman soldiers who are not only drunk, but deranged.
I’m not saying that crucifixion wasn’t a horrible way to kill a person. The Romans themselves considered it the worst possible form of execution. It was, however, an established practice with rules and specialized training for the men who carried it out. A crucifixion detail was made up of four enlisted men under the command of a centurion. The centurion would have been present for the entire process. In the film the centurion sends Jesus with enlisted men who proceed to beat him to a pulp. Later, when he sees what they have done to their prisoner, the centurion complains: “You were ordered to scourge him, not kill him!”
Roman Crucifixion
The medallions are of pagan origin. The anklebone with the nail was found in the burial of a crucified man. It was an extremely rare. The sketch represents how this particular victim was attached to the cross.
Spartacus
This picture shows a mass crucifixion of rebel slaves from the film Spartacus. Note the Tau crosses and unnailed feet. Mass crucifixions were still being carried out during the Empire. Back when Varus destroyed Sepphoris, he crucified 2,000 rebels. In general, however, crucifixion was probably pretty routine: a public scourging, sometimes at the foot of the cross, followed by being attached to the cross by ropes or nails or a combination of the two. Ordinarily the crosses were much closer to the ground.
Brutal scourging
Gibson’s movie presents the scourging as Pilate’s idea of a lesser punishment. He seems to think that if he has Jesus scourged, the Jews will drop their demand for crucifixion. Since the men doing the scourging are Roman soldiers carrying out a routine scourging, it’s not clear why the men should do it with such relish and such sadism. If nothing else, Jesus would have died under the whipping shown in the movie.
Beaten body
He doesn’t look to be in any condition to walk, let alone carry anything.
Ecce Homo
Predictably the Jews still want Jesus crucified so the next step is to force him to carry the cross to the place of execution.
Location of Golgotha
Golgotha or Cavalry was apparently the designated place for crucifixion. There is disagreement as to the location of Pilate’s “praetorium.” Many have assumed that it would be been at the Antonia Tower at the corner of the Temple. More likely it was at Pilate’s Jerusalem headquarters, a former palace of Herod the Great.
The man to be crucified would have carried just the crossbeam or patibulum. The upright posts, called stipes, would already be in place. In the film, the thieves being crucified with Jesus carry only crossbeams. Since Gibson wanted his scenes to resemble the conventional Stations of the Cross, his Jesus carries the whole thing. (According to some sources, the post and crossbeam together weigh as much as 300 pounds. Caviezel’s prop cross weighed 150 pounds. He did special weight training to strengthen his legs. And he suffered in other ways. Makeup sometimes took eight hours; sometimes he slept in it to save time the next day. He suffered hypothermia while filming the crucifixion scenes, and during the scourging, one of the executioners missed a protective device and scored a 14-inch gash in his side.)
Whipping on the way
As if the sadistic whipping wasn’t enough, Gibson throws in more whipping on the way to Golgotha. I can’t help thinking that a Roman crucifixion detail would have been too well trained to have slowed the proceedings by continuing to whip Jesus on the way, deliberately causing him to fall. Apart from training, they would have had orders to get the execution over with as quickly as possible. Both the Romans and the Jews wanted them to finish before the Holy Day that was coming up.
Whipping with Simon
Even after Simon of Cyrene is forced to help, Jesus continues to carry part of the weight. According to three of the gospels, Simon seems to have carried it the entire way. Only John says that Jesus carried the cross.
Attaching to cross
A Roman crucifixion detail would have had a more efficient method of securing Jesus to the cross than the one shown in the movie. These men don’t seem to know what they’re doing. The usual procedure was for all four of the soldiers to lie on top of the crucifixee until all the limbs were secured. I can’t think of any reason for flipping the cross over as they do in the movie. Not even Catherine of Emmerich’s gory account describes such a thing. The idea must rest with Gibson.
Piercings and souvenirs
After all the whipping, the crucifixion comes as a relief. Movie goers who wish to preserve the experience can buy souvenir nails engraved with ISAIAH 53, and a tastefully designed tear vial in which to weep when watching the DVD at home.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ purports to be a faithful visual rendering of events reported in the four gospels, but it embellishes those events with details from religious art, the visions of Catherine of Emmerich, and the imagination of Mel Gibson. In matters relating to the Roman administration of Judea in the first century C.E., it misrepresents Pontius Pilate, the Roman army, Roman allies Caiaphas and Herod Antipas, and the Roman method of execution by crucifixion.
The Gibson Canon
On the other hand, it fits right into the Gibson canon.