Thoughts of Passion

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is more notable for its gratuitously excessive violence than it is for anti-Semitism. In fact, present-day Romans could make a better case for being defamed than might the Jewish community. The sadistic behavior of most of the Roman soldiers is the most lasting impression of the two-hour film. Unless one were forewarned that this is an unrelentingly brutal film, it would be difficult to sit through it.

The negative view of the Romans is offset to some extent by the portrayal of Pontius Pilate, memorably acted by Hristo Shopov. He gives us a weak, well-meaning man who can’t bring himself to do the just thing when it is patently against his own best interests. Caiaphas, the high priest, and scribes and elders, on the other hand, have no redeeming feature in their manipulative scheming. They are determined to remove a bothersome popular reformer who threatens their power of religious authority. Gibson, who otherwise eagerly mines all four Gospels for every scrap of dialogue, heightens their villainy by leaving out the report in one Gospel that Caiaphas advised his circle that it was better to have one man die for the people rather than allow his movement to grow until many would be killed -- presumably in a Roman crack-down on unrest. But Gibson is an equal-opportunity omitter -- he inexplicably leaves out the words of the Roman centurion who, as Jesus breathed his last, exclaimed, according to Mark, “Truly this man was God’s son.” Matthew and Luke record similar remarks.

The Gospels themselves show varying degrees of hostility to the Jewish religious establishment, written as they were in a time when the early Christians had failed in their hopes of forging a new Christ-centered faith with their Jewish neighbors. They were no longer welcome in the synagogues. So Gibson is drawing largely from writings that were not in themselves neutral. One looking for signs of anti-Semitism might also cite Gibson’s personifications of satanic forces as emanating from Jewish figures such as the hooded woman and the children tormenting Judas.

Christians also find much to fault in the film. First, it presupposes a strong knowledge of the Bible that probably won’t be found in most of today’s viewing audience. Viewers will wonder what this man Jesus did to become such a threat. The flashbacks are not sufficient to supply this understanding and they strangely omit the most threatening action Jesus took, that of driving the sellers of animals and money changers from the outer temple, declaring that it had been turned from a house of prayer into a den of thieves. There is no opportunity to discover what manner of man this Jesus is, other than one with an infinite capacity to accept suffering as the fate that has been divinely ordained.

Some Christians will regret the unbalanced use of a budget that is lavish in production but employed only one person, a Jesuit priest, for theological interpretation. This limited use of sources may explain the predominance of the theme of atonement and a staging that essentially follows the Catholic ritual of the Stations of the Cross in that agonizing walk to Golgotha. Some mainline Christians have also seen a political motive in presenting an interpretation that can be endorsed only by the most conservative of Christian denominations.

Although some Jewish leaders and the Roman military are certainly portrayed as extremely unpleasant individuals, I did not find that the film was anti-Semitic. Jewish film buffs should nevertheless spare themselves the scenes of excessive violence and, if interested in gaining more understanding of Jesus Christ, stay home and watch a videotape of Babette’s Feast.