When Did we See You Naked?. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ in various attitudes as a grim joke, till owing to the vast numbers there was no room for the crosses, and no crosses for the bodies. (War, V. 446–52)10

      The effectiveness and security of the Roman troops in Palestine was ultimately based on the legions in Syria and – if necessary – elsewhere in the Empire. The relatively small force in Palestine was able to maintain order because it was backed by an assurance of severe reprisals if serious rebellion broke out. The combination of moderate presence and massive threat was usually enough to preserve the so-called ‘peace’ of the pax Romana.

      The mass crucifixions with which the Romans responded to major incidents conveyed the message of fearful retaliation with a terrifying clarity. Josephus describes how in 4 BCE Varus (governor of Syria) responded to the upheaval caused by the inept rule of Herod’s son Archelaus with the crucifixion of 2,000 ‘ringleaders’ of the troubles (War II. 69–79 [75]). The census revolt when Quirinius was governor of Syria (6–7 CE) and Coponius procurator of Judea (6–9 CE) also met with widespread reprisals (Ant. 18.1–10; War II. 117–18). Josephus also records that when Cumanus (procurator of Judea 48–52 CE) took a number of prisoners involved in a dispute, Quadratus (governor of Syria) ordered them all crucified (War II. 241). Likewise, when Felix (procurator of Judea, 52–60 CE) set out to clear the country of banditry, the number that were crucified ‘were too many to count’ (War II. 253). Josephus also records how, in the build-up to the revolt of 66 CE, Florus (procurator 64–66 CE) raided the Temple treasury and then – because of the disturbance that followed – scourged and crucified men, women and children until the day’s death toll was 3,600 (War II. 305–08).

      Individual crucifixions should be understood within this political context. Even if only one victim was crucified, the execution had more significance than the punishment of an individual victim. Crucifixion was an important way in which the dire consequences of rebellion could be kept before the public eye. Individual crucifixions served to remind people of the mass crucifixions and other reprisals that the Romans were all too ready to use if their power was challenged.

There are few detailed descriptions of how crucifixion took place – the Gospels provide the fullest description in ancient literature – but the picture that emerges fits the profile of public state torture very well.11 The victim was tied or nailed to a wooden cross to maximize their public humiliation: a contrast of the shame of the victim with the might of imperial power. The Romans displayed the victim on a roadside or similar public place. Crucifixion was a protracted ordeal that might last a number of days, a sustained attack on the dignity of the human spirit as well as the physical body.12 The shame for Jews was further heightened by the belief that ‘anyone hung on a tree is under a curse’ (Deut. 21.23), a curse that Paul refers to in relation to Jesus’ crucifixion in Galatians 3.13.

      Crucifixion and sexual abuse

Testimonies to torture in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Central America and elsewhere consistently report stripping and sexual abuse as part of torture.13 In Brazil torture by electric shock invariably included shocks to the genitals.14 The same focus on the genitals was shown in Argentina. The preferred instrument for administering electric shocks in Argentina, la picana (a small electrified prod), is itself highly suggestive of the sexual element in this torture.15 Its use in the rape and sexual abuse of women has been well documented and at least two Argentinean male victims also witness to how this abuse eventually led to anal rape.16

      For a reading of crucifixion, two elements of these torture practices deserve particular attention. First, sexual assault and humiliation were standard practices in state torture practices; sexual abuse was standard rather than unusual or exceptional. Second, the awareness among a wider public of a victim’s sexual humiliation was often an important part of this humiliation.

      Against this background, the crucifixion of Jesus may be viewed with a disturbing question in mind: to what extent did the torture and crucifixion of Jesus involve some form of sexual abuse? The testimonies from twentieth-century Latin America create hermeneutical suspicions that merit careful examination of the Gospels to see whether there is any evidence that this was the case.

      To explore this question further, it is helpful to distinguish between sexual abuse that involves only sexual humiliation (such as enforced nudity, sexual mockery and sexual insults) and sexual abuse that extends to sexual assault (which involves forced sexual contact, and ranges from molestation to penetration, injury or mutilation). The Gospels clearly indicate that sexual humiliation was a prominent trait in the mistreatment of Jesus and that sexual humiliation was an important aspect of crucifixion. If this is the case, the possibility of sexual assaults against Jesus will also need to be considered. In the absence of clear evidence to decide this one way or another, I will suggest that what has proved so common in recent torture practices cannot be entirely ruled out in the treatment of Jesus.

Crucifixion in the ancient world appears to have carried a strongly sexual element and should be understood as a form of sexual abuse that involved sexual humiliation and sometimes sexual assault. Crucifixion was intended to be more than the ending of life; prior to actual death it sought to reduce the victim to something less than human in the eyes of society. Victims were crucified naked in what amounted to a ritualized form of public sexual humiliation. In a patriarchal society, where men competed against each other to display virility in terms of sexual power over others, the public display of the naked victim by the ‘victors’ in front of onlookers and passers-by carried the message of sexual domination. The cross held up the victim for display as someone who had been – at least metaphorically – emasculated.17 Depending on the position in which the victim was crucified, the display of the genitals could be specially emphasized. Both Josephus and the Roman historian Seneca the Younger attest to the Romans’ enthusiasm for experimentation with different positions of crucifixion.18 Furthermore, Seneca’s description suggests that the sexual violence against the victim was sometimes taken to the most brutal extreme with crosses that impaled the genitals of the victim. This practice might never have been the case in Palestine – and there is no evidence that suggests it happened to Jesus – but at the very least it suggests the highly sexualized context of violence in which Roman crucifixions sometimes took place.

The sexual element in Roman practices was part of their message of terror. Anyone who opposed the Romans would not only lose their life but also be stripped of all personal honour and human dignity. It is therefore not surprising that the Gospels themselves indicate that there was a high level of sexual humiliation in the way that Jesus was flogged, insulted and then crucified. From evidence of the ancient world it seems that flogging the victim in public while naked was routine. Mark, Matthew and John all imply that this was also the case with the flogging of Jesus.19 Likewise, as noted above, crucifixion usually took place while the victim was naked and there is little reason to think that Jesus or other Jews would have been an exception to this.20 If the purpose was to humiliate the victim, full nakedness would have been particularly shameful in the Jewish context.21 Furthermore, prior to crucifixion, Jesus was handed over to a cohort of Roman soldiers to be further humiliated (Mark 15.16–20; Matt. 27.27–31; John 19.1–5).22 All the Gospels apart from Luke report that the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus by placing СКАЧАТЬ