Blood libel

Hollywood actor Mel Gibson, an American who grew up in Australia is a man of great ambitions. Until recently, he, thanks to a spectacular appearance, acted primarily as the hero of the super -workers, but he always attracted him to directing and more serious genres. His adaptation of the Shakespearean Hamlet failed and was ridiculed, but he answered that he raised the bar above - his new film called “Passion” is the story of the last 12 hours of life of Jesus Christ, as it is displayed in the Gospels. Judging by some reviews, this is really not a work of ordinary.

Nevertheless, I want to immediately make a reservation that this program will not be devoted to discussing the film Gibson - for the simple reason that the work on it has not yet been completed, and it will be released only next year. It will be about the scandal that erupted around him with an advance - about the passions around the passions.

The fact is that Gibson, as he himself repeatedly stated, sought to make his film extremely authentic. The result, apparently, was not released for family leisure - this film aims to shake, and not cheer up, it is full of violence and naturalism. Moreover, almost like a slap in the mass market, one can perceive the fact that all the action takes place in two languages, Aramaic and Latin, on which few people speak today - moreover, as Gibson insists, without subtitles, although we will see this. Here, I must say, the consultants clearly brought him - Aramaic was indeed in those days a conversational language in the Middle East and his relatives for Jesus, but they were excited with Latin - she was known for rare scientists, and the imperial authorities used Greek in communication with the population. This circumstance correctly reflected Mikhail Bulgakov in Master and Margarita, although otherwise it was Bulgakov, and not with Gibson, Hollywood won the story, and this would still be a chance to talk about.

Unlike Bulgakov, Mel Gibson is a deep man, and therefore he, by his own admission, understands the historical accuracy as fidelity to the gospel text. But the gospel and history are far from the same. For those who are familiar with the Gospels, the essence of the problem that has arisen is probably understandable. The point is that the Jews are not on specific historical Jewish personalities, but in fact on the whole people - a collective fault for the death of Christ is entrusted to the whole people. I will give an excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew.

“On the holiday of Easter, the ruler had the custom to let the people one prisoner who wanted to. They had a famous prisoner called Varavva then. So, when they gathered, he told them Pilate: whoever you want me to let you go, Varavva or Jesus, called Christ? For he knew that they had betrayed him out of envy.

Meanwhile, as he was sitting in a judicial place, his wife sent him to say: do not do anything to the righteous, because now in a dream I have suffered a lot for him. But the high priests and elders excited the people to ask for a varavoy, and destroy Jesus.

Then the ruler asked them: which of the two do you want me to let you go? They said: Varavva. Pilate says to them: What will I do to Jesus, called Christ? They say everything: let it be crucified! The ruler said: what evil he did? But they shouted even more: let it be crucified!

Pilate, seeing that nothing helps, but confusion increases, took water and washed his hands in front of the people, and said: I am innocent in the blood of this righteous man; Watch you ".

It is easy to imagine what coloring can be given to this episode in the cinema, and what delicacy the director should have in order to avoid inciting low passions among the mass audience of cinema. Can we count on the fact that Mel Gibson, whatever his directorial talents, is endowed with the necessary tact?

This is where doubts arise. The fact is that Mel Gibson belongs to the ultra -conservative Catholic sect, which broke away from the church after the second Vatican Cathedral. His father Hatton Gibson, a famous writer of this ideological direction, once called the Council of the Masonic conspiracy, carried out with the support of Jews. He also denied the fact of the mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis.

The second Vatican cathedral, convened by Pope John XXIII in the early 60s of the last century, took a number of radical measures to bring Catholic teaching and practice in accordance with the reality of the 20th century. In particular, he canceled the Latin liturgy and introduced a worship in modern languages. In addition, the cathedral put an end to centuries -old intolerance and exclusivity, allowing the idea of personal salvation outside the church. One of the most important decisions was a decree on the inadmissibility of the assignment of collective guilt for the death of Jesus Christ on the whole Jewish people in all subsequent generations.

These decisions, as well as many others, caused the indignation of adherents of conservative and anti -Semitic views. It was they who compiled the core of the opposition to which Mel Gibson and his father belong.

In the light of these facts of Gibson's assurances in historical and dogmatic accuracy, it must be said, in a slightly different light. That is why the whole project from the very beginning caused distrust from a number of religious figures and experts. An expert group was formed, which, in addition to Jews, also included Christians, including Catholics. The film itself at that time was still far from the end, but they managed to contact the director’s consultant and get the script - not quite official, but, as they then believed, legally.

The expert opinion was completely not in favor of Gibson. And the point is not only that he, in their opinion, ignored the official teaching of the Church, rejecting the idea of the collective guilt of the Jews. Here we need to cast a cursory look at the ideological history of the Catholic Church. Like Orthodox, it is focused on the liturgy, while reading the Bible is more likely to Protestants. The church never encouraged such a reading among parishioners, and they did not even have the opportunity for this - before the second Vatican Council, the only official version of the Bible among Catholics was the Vulgata - the Latin translation made in the 4th century by the era by the Holy Jerome.

This, of course, does not mean that the Catholics were not interested in the life of Jesus and the events accompanied by her. But the narratives that they resorted to in search of this information were not biblical - these were the stories of ecstatic nuns, which were directly present in their trance during crucifixion. One of the most famous was Anna Katerina Emmerich, who lived at the beginning of the 19th century. Already in childhood, she conducted lengthy conversations with the baby Jesus, and the German poet-romantic Clemens Brentano recorded the story of passions. Neither Emmerich nor others read her and wrote anything to her, because they did not know how, but they knew well who they love and whom they hate. The stories of passions in their presentation are filled with the most rampant anti -Semitism.

Such records of ecstatic visions to this day are widely popular among conservative Catholics, and it was their influence that experts found in the script of the film Gibson. The accusation of inciting religious razor and neglect of official Catholic teaching was charged. Mel Gibson led a counterattack and filed a lawsuit to members, accusing them of illegally acquiring the script. At the same time, he began to organize targeted demonstrations of a non -completed film for selected audiences, from which he hoped to find support. According to some reports, he even went further, introducing positive images of Jews into the script.

Apparently, the intensity of passions about the "passions" of Mela Gibson has recently slept somewhat. The conference of the Catholic bishops of the United States apologized to the director in connection with the not quite legally obtained script, and the recent approving review of the film of the influential cardinal Dario Castrilon Oyos was interpreted by many as the good parting words of the Vatican. Such an interpretation is premature if you take into account that it is Cardinal Castrillion who is in the church with relations with conservative schismatics.

However, I was very surprised by the publication in the Slate’s network magazine notes of a certain Stephen Waldman, whose composition is intentionally provocative: at first he almost seriously calls on the Jews to admit that some of their ancestors were guilty of the death of Jesus, and only then resorts to the delicate criticism of biblical sources. He defends the right of Gibson and any other to shoot a film based on the Bible, completely not mentioning his dependence on versions of the hysteria sisters.

“To say that films should not show how important the Jews played in the death of Jesus - it means to say that you should not make films based on the Bible. The idea that influential Jews wanted the death of Jesus is not a distortion of Christianity, but, to good or to thin, an accurate reflection of the New Testament.

Moreover, in one of the few non -biblical messages about the life of Jesus, the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius also notes that at least some prominent representatives of the Jewish authorities wanted the condemnation of Jesus. In his Jewish antiquities, he writes that Pilate pronounced Jesus "after he listened to the accusations against him from people of a very high position among us."

It is possible that the Bible itself actually distorted this story with the role of Jews. In other words, the statement of Mel Gibson and his defenders that his film cannot be incorrect, since it is based on the Bible, ignores the possibility that the New Testament in itself does not describe the story. ”

Then I would like to refer to the replica of one of the readers of the Slate magazine on his discussion site. This person notes that the works of Flavius were repeatedly redistributed, primarily by Christians, and therefore it is difficult to judge that he belongs to his pen, and what is the pen of later decorators. The reader gives an excerpt from an ancient Arab translation, completely different from the canonical.

“At that time, a wise man named Jesus lived. And he behaved well, and he was wise virtuous. And many among the Jews and other peoples became his disciples. Pilate sentenced him to crucifixion and death. And those who became his disciples did not renounce him. According to them, he appeared to him after the crucifixion and was alive; it was quite possible, about which the prophets had predicted miracles.

It is characteristic that in this option there is not a hint of any Jewish guilt, and the condemnation of Jesus is entirely assigned to Pilate. I have never heard about the Arab version, but I know well about the discrepancies of Flavius translations - in the famous Old Russian there is, for example, information that cannot be found in the Greek "original".

But here the time came to turn to the Gospels themselves, and although for their detailed criticism I have neither time nor qualifications, we can talk about the figure of Pontius Pilate - an undeniably historical person. Pilate was the middle hand by an official - the prefect of Judea, and not at all a prosecutor, that is, a private guarantee. He was in the service under the start of the Proconsul of the province of Syria, in which Judea entered as a Roman colony after the death of its last king Archela.

In the form in which Pilate is represented in the Gospels, he makes the impression of a thoughtful truth -seeker - and the later the gospel is written, the more thoughtful and meek. This version, I must say, was completely swallowed by Mikhail Bulgakov, thereby taking a direction directly perpendicular to historical truth. In fact, a lot of information can be drawn about Pilate with the same Joseph Bvius or the Jewish philosopher Filon Alexandria - these sources were quite accessible to Bulgakov, but he decided to neglect them. It would be better if he talked to Berlioz before he was suddenly cut off his head.

The real Pontius Pilate was the worst version of the colonial official - rude, cruel and knew only one way of proceeding with the local population: mass bloodshed. His debut in the position of Prefect Judea immediately presented him in all administrative brilliance: the legionnaires who came with him introduced into the walls of the sacrificial symbols, legion eagles and busts of the emperor to the walls of the city. The population was covered by indignation, but it resorted to the inventive tactics of civil disobedience, laying down on the ground and substituting the neck under the swords of the legionnaires. This time, Pilate had to give in, but he mercifully made up everything in the future. He drowned the uprising in his blood, which rose when he removed funds from the treasury of the temple and used them for the construction of aqueducts. And in the tenth year of his administration, he committed the Samarit massacre - the echoed Jewish sect, which arranged a religious festival on his Holy Gorizim. This feat was overwhelmed by the Patience of the Roman superiors, and Syria Pronsul Vitelli sent a tactless gendarme to resign. In the year 39, the era Pilate committed suicide - it is unlikely that he was in a fit of repentance, rather because his patron, a high -ranking king Seed, was convicted of a conspiracy against the emperor.

Now let's try to look with enlightened eyes at the excerpt from the Gospel from Matthew shown at the beginning. Since Pilate actually acts as a judge, it must be assumed that Jesus is charged with something difficult, deserving the highest measures under Roman laws. This in no case could be blasphemy in Jewish terms - only a refusal to worship the divine person of the emperor was considered a serious blasphemy among the Romans, and it was traditionally not charged with Jews. Most likely, given the claims of Jesus to the tsarist title, albeit in an exalted sense, it was an insult to Majesty - the crime is really capital, but it is more incredible to imagine that Pilate, as we know from history, entrusted the fate of the criminal to Jewish discharge. And to call Jesus the righteous me to be at risk of his own life.

The described episode, most likely, was never - the prefect was condemned by the troublemaken, gave it to torture and beating, and then subjected a typically Roman execution - the crucifix, which was carried out by the Roman legionnaires.

Why, in this case, the gospel description so sharply diverges from the historical facts known to us? There are good reasons for that, although they have nothing to do with facts. Modern biblical history experts doubt that the authors of the gospels were exactly those people whose names they were signed. Of course, it can be argued about this, but it is quite reliably established that the Gospel of Mark, the earliest, dates from approximately 70 years of our era. At this time, the Jewish war was raging, and for Christians, in order not to relate to repressions along with the Jews, it was very important to dissociate themselves in the eyes of the Romans. It was all the easier that by that time the so-called Judeo-Christianity, the sect, led by the brother of Jesus Jacob, was completely decline. As a result of the guilt of the Romans in the death of Jesus, she began to be understated - she was laid on Jews. The central image of Pilate for this version is becoming more positive and positive, which is easy to trace, moving from the earliest gospel to later. This evolution of a fictitious Pilate in the direction of righteousness did not cease after the Gospels - according to the later legend, he subsequently adopted Christianity, and the Ethiopian church went farther and ranked it to the saints.

Already one analysis of the image of Pontius Pilate convincingly demonstrates that the gospel and historical truths are incompatible, and that the director in any case has to choose only one of two.

However, it is quite possible to imagine that the Jews involved in the martyrdom of Jesus were indeed, but there can be no shame for the whole people in this. Such Jews were most likely the so -called Saddukes, the temple aristocracy, which referred to their own religion and culture with complete contempt and valued only by their position and mercy of the Romans. It was from their number that the high priests were usually elected. It was them that was supposed to annoy the seditious preaching of the wandering preacher with his dangerous statements to the colonialists, and it was they who could come up with the idea to quickly put him in the hands of Pilate. As for the Pharisees, unflattering statements about which the evangelists are so often invested in Jesus’s mouth, their religious and moral teaching largely coincides with his own sermons - he himself was Pharisee. The Pharisees were full of contempt and hatred of the Romans - it is practically unthinkable for them to betray one of their own in their hands, despite his unorthodox statements.

However, it is time to leave biblical criticism aside and turn to the main idea of Steven Waldman's note: can the director be forbidden to put a film on biblical events that they seem to be his understanding? The question is asked incorrectly. Принимая во внимание сущность споров, вызванных "Страстями" Мела Гибсона, вопрос должен был бы звучать так: имеет ли режиссер право проповедовать принцип коллективной ответственности - даже в том случае, если он прямо вытекает из Священного Писания, А в том, что вытекает, сомневаться трудно - Ветхий Завет изобилует эпизодами, в которых Бог поощряет евреев на истребление целых народов и возлагает на них массовую вину, включая грядущие поколения - отцы, дескать, ели кислый виноград, а у детей на зубах оскомина.

Христианство дало в свое время толчок великой нравственной революции, перенеся бремя ответственности в личную плоскость. Грех и покаяние стали с тех пор личным выбором каждого из нас. Но от теории до практики всегда далеко, и на протяжении столетий христиане карали и истребляли неверных - или насильно их обращали. Ирония судьбы сегодня превратила их из орудия в мишень - самое время задуматься над историческим опытом евреев. И католическая церковь, пусть и совсем недавно, отвергла принцип коллективной ответственности на своем представительном соборе. Потому что такой принцип - это неприкрытая идеология геноцида.

Не исключено, что все это не имеет никакого отношения к фильму Мела Гибсона, который нам еще предстоит посмотреть. Но мы не должны путать идею свободы творчества с идеей нагнетания религиозной ненависти и ксенофобии. Недавно почившая Лени Рифеншталь, придворный кинематографист Гитлера, была, судя по всему, ничуть не менее одарена, чем Гибсон, но мы не хотим повторения такого таланта. Мы хотим сами отвечать за собственные поступки. Не исключено, что среди моих предков были убийцы - это не значит, что я должен идти за них на электрический стул.