Progressive reflections on the lectionary #44
Monday 18th November 2024
John 18:33-37 'Jesus as the ideal Caesar'

I’m drawing, somewhat, on a book by Laura Hunt for this week’s reflection. Hunt has written perhaps the only book which explains in detail how one can read John’s portrayal of Jesus as a picture of an ‘ideal type’ Roman emperor. She uses sophisticated methodologies to develop this idea and her book is worth a read if you have a taste for academic work and a library copy available to you (it’s somewhat expensive to purchase).
Our passage this week is one which picks up the theme of the liturgical calendar: Christ the King. In this passage we hear the account from the Gospel of John of how Jesus was taken before Pilate and interrogated.
“Are you the King of the Jews?” Demands Pilate.
“Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Is Jesus’ somewhat salty response. The encounter continues in the same vein.
In this dialogue we get a glimpse of Hunt’s thesis - which is to say that Jesus embodies the character of an ideal type ruler according to the way that the Romans saw things. She makes the argument that John was writing for a Jewish readership in a Roman region, so they would have understood the cultural references implicit in the text.
For one thing the ideal Roman ruler should not want to rule - I agree with them on this, in some ways. The people desperate for power are probably the people who really should not have it. There can be an element of performance in this, though, a touch of the “I’m ever so ‘umble” about it at times which I like less. Still, the genuinely humble willingness to relinquish power is part of the Roman ideal and is demonstrated in John’s Jesus.
A second characteristic would be a kind of stoic self-control. Masculinity was key to ideal leadership in Roman thought, and part of what it was to be ‘masculine’ was to exert strict self control - not to be driven by ‘urges’. Side note - this idea was one which was somewhat common in classical antiquity, and in some statues it is symbolised by relatively small male genitalia which are intended to symbolise that the person depicted was not driven by sexual desire but able to exert self control.
John also, elsewhere, depicts Jesus as receiving ‘signs’ of divine acceptance - another part of the ideal divine persona which would also include miraculous powers (Vespasian, for example, had ‘miraculous’ healings attributed to him. In the same way we get clear indications that Jesus was accepted or proclaimed by the crowd - an important part of being an ideal ruler who otherwise would have been a tyrant.
There are, also, areas in which Jesus doesn’t conform to the Roman stereotype - there’s no great parade of captives or demonstrations of military might, for instance. However, that’s arguably because John sets up Jesus as the ideal king/emperor but with a different approach to kingship. Something I can’t overemphasise is that in this context politics and religion were inseparable, religious titles were political titles and vice versa. Understanding Jesus as embodying the characteristics of the ideal king/emperor/Caesar had specific religious significance which would find its completion in the proclamation of Jesus as ‘divi fili’ (son of God).
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