SCAURUS ON THE CROSS
Scaurus continued, “I pass over a good many columns in Mark before I come
to anything of the nature of a precept. Then I find the following, ‘There
is nothing outside the man, entering into him, that can defile him.’ Now
you might suppose that this would have been good news, addressed as it
is, to the needy multitude. For it would have enabled them (you may say)
to eat pork like their Greek neighbours and would have saved them trouble
and expense in preparing food.
“But look at the context. Jesus is upholding the written law of Moses
against the teachers of unwritten traditions. These teachers told people
that if a particle of this or that came off their hands into their
mouths while they were eating, they were defiled. These traditions also
prescribed minute regulations about preparing meat, and about avoiding
meat sold in the markets of Greek cities. Look at Paul’s Corinthian
letters about this. These regulations must have been very inconvenient
for the poor Jews in the Greek cities of Galilee. Jesus stood up for the
poor, and for the written law, which said nothing about such details.
Long after the crucifixion, Peter was told by ‘the Lord’ in a vision
(you will find it in the Acts) that he might eat anything he liked, pork
included. But Jesus said nothing of the kind before his death. Turn to
the Acts and you will find it as I have said.”
I turned, and found, as usual, that Scaurus was right, though there
was no special mention of pork in the Acts, but only of “beasts and
creeping things,” which Peter calls “unclean.” Scaurus continued, “Now
look carefully at what follows in Mark and Matthew. Mark represents the
disciples—but Matthew represents Peter—as questioning Christ privately
about this startling saying. The questioners are said to have called it a
‘parable.’ There was no ‘parable’ about it at all. But the fact was that,
_after the resurrection, it was revealed to Peter, or to the disciples_,
that the meaning of the saying ‘Nothing outside defileth’ went far beyond
its original scope; so that it swept away the whole of the Levitical
ordinances about things ‘unclean.’ If you examine Mark’s words carefully
you will see that he inserts a comment of his own (which Matthew omits)
namely that Jesus _uttered these words_ ‘_purifying all kinds of food_.’
If by ‘purifying,’ Mark meant ‘purifying _in effect_,’ or ‘purifying,
_as the disciples subsequently understood_,’ then he was right. If he
meant ‘purifying _at once_,’ or ‘purifying _in such a way as to abrogate
immediately the Levitical prohibitions_,’ then he was wrong; for that was
not the meaning.
“What indeed do you suppose would have happened, if Jesus and his
disciples had sat down to a dinner of pork on that same day? They would
have been stoned by the multitude. The meaning was limited as I have
said above. Mark has probably mixed together what occurred before, and
what occurred after, the crucifixion. It was very natural. How many
of the ‘dark sayings’ or ‘parables’ of Jesus might remain ‘dark’ to
the disciples, till they reflected on them after his death! Moreover
the evangelists believed that Jesus, after his death, rose again and
appeared on several occasions to the disciples, apart from the rest of
the world—that is, ‘in private’—and that he explained to them after
death what had been dark sayings during his life. How inevitable for
biographers—writing thirty, forty, or fifty years after the events they
narrated—sometimes to confuse explanations, or other words of Christ,
uttered ‘in private’ after death, with those uttered before death,
whether in private or not! I shall have to mention other instances of
such confusion. It is not surprising that Luke omits the narrative.”
I could not deny the force of this. But, though it derogated from Mark
as a witness, it did not seem to me to derogate from Christ as a prophet.
I felt that no wise teacher could have desired, thus by a side-blow, to
sweep away the whole of the national code of purifications. So I was
ready to accept Scaurus’s view, at all events provisionally.
“I pass over,” said Scaurus, “the precept, ‘Beware of leaven,’ which
was certainly metaphorical; and two narratives of feeding multitudes
with ‘loaves,’ which in my opinion are metaphorical; and a mention of
‘crumbs,’ which my reason leads me to interpret in one way, while my
desire suggests another. About this I shall say something later on, as
also about predictions of being killed and rising again. Now I reach
these words, ‘If anyone wishes to come after me, let him disown himself,
and _take up his cross and follow me_. For whosoever desires to save his
life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for the sake of me
and the gospel shall save it.’ Note that these words are preceded by
a prediction that the Son of man must be ‘killed.’ Also remember that
the ‘cross’ is a punishment sanctioned by Roman but not by Jewish law.
Bearing these facts in mind, imagine yourself in the crowd, and tell me
what you would think Christ meant, if he turned round to you and said,
‘You must take up your cross.’ Do not read on to see what I think; for I
doubt whether Christ used these words. But, if he did use them, tell me
what you think he meant by them.”
I was taken aback by this. For I perceived that the sense required a
metaphorical rendering, and, at the same time, that such a metaphor was
almost impossible among any Jews, _before Christ’s crucifixion_. At first
I tried to justify it from Paul’s epistles, which declared that, in
Christ’s death, “_all died_”—meaning that all, by sympathy, died to sin
and rose again to righteousness. Paul said also “I have been crucified
with Christ,” and “our old man”—meaning “our old human nature”—“has been
crucified with Him,” and “the world has been crucified to me and I to the
world.” But these expressions were all based on the Christian belief that
the “cross” was the way to “resurrection.” They were quite intelligible
after the resurrection, but not before it.
Then I tried to imagine myself in the circle of disciples surrounding
Socrates in prison, and the Master, with the bowl of poison in his hands,
preparing to drink it, and looking up to us and saying, “If you intend
to be disciples worthy of me, you too must be prepared to take up the
hemlock bowl.” What, I asked, should I have understood by this? It seemed
to me that the words could only mean “You, too, must be prepared to be
put to death by your countrymen.”
Now as the hemlock bowl was the regular penalty among the Athenians,
so the cross (as Scaurus had said) was the regular penalty among the
Romans _but not among the Jews_. So, when I tried honestly to respond to
Scaurus’s appeal, and to imagine myself in the crowd following Jesus, and
the Master turning round to us, and saying, “Take up your cross,” I was
obliged to admit, “I should have taken the Master to mean, ‘If you are to
be worthy followers of mine, you must be prepared _to be put to death as
rebels by the Romans_’.”
Scaurus took the same view. “Well,” he continued, “I will anticipate your
answer, for it seems to me you can only come to one conclusion. You,
in the crowd, would take the words to mean that you must follow your
Master to the death against the Romans. But all intelligent readers of
the Christian books ought to know that he could not have said that. He
was a visionary, and utterly averse to violence, so averse that he was
on one occasion reproached for his inaction by John the Baptist—who once
said to him, in effect, ‘Why do you leave me in prison? Why do you not
stir a hand to release me?’ Moreover, if Jesus had said this, what would
the chief priests have needed more than this, to get Pilate to put him
to death: ‘This man said to the rabble, If you are intending to follow
me, you must go with the cross on your shoulders’? ‘Can you prove this?’
would have been Pilate’s reply. They would have proved it. Then sentence
would have followed at once as a matter of course. And who can deny that
it would have been just?”
I certainly could not deny it. Then Scaurus pointed out to me how
Luke avoided this dangerous interpretation, by inserting “daily,” so
as to give the words a metaphorical twist, “Let him take up his cross
_daily_.” But this, he said, was manifestly an addition of Luke’s. If
Jesus had inserted “daily” why should Mark and Matthew have omitted it?
“Daily” would make no sense till a generation had passed away, so that
“to be crucified with Christ” had become a metaphorical expression for
mortifying the flesh. On this point, at all events, Scaurus seemed to me
to be right.
He continued as follows, “I am disposed to think that Mark has
misunderstood a Jewish phrase as referring to the cross when it really
referred to something else. You know that, in Rome, a rascally slave,
regarded as being on the way to crucifixion, is called ‘_yoke-bearer_,’
which means practically ‘_cross-bearer_.’ Mark, who has a good many
Latinisms, might regard _‘take the yoke’ as meaning ‘take the cross’—if
the former expression could be proved to have been used by Jesus_. Still
more easily might ‘_take the yoke_’ be regarded as equivalent to ‘_take
the cross_’ _if it could be proved that the Jews themselves connected
‘taking the yoke’ with martyrdom_.
“Both these facts can be proved. In the first place, Christ actually
said to the disciples, ‘_Take my yoke_ upon you.’ It is true that
this saying is preserved by Matthew alone; but its omission by others
is easily explained, as I will presently shew. In my judgment, it is
certain that Christ did give this precept, and that it had nothing to do
with crucifixion. The context in Matthew declares that the kingdom of
heaven is revealed only to ‘babes’—whom Christ elsewhere calls ‘little
ones’ or those who make themselves ‘least’ in the kingdom of God—and
soon afterwards come the words, ‘_Take my yoke upon you_ and learn from
me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.’ This is the fundamental truth
of Christ’s teaching, that those who make themselves the humblest of
servants to one another are greatest in his ‘kingdom.’ In order to reign,
one must serve, or ‘_take the yoke_.’
“The next fact is that Jews of the present day—so I am credibly
informed—would say of a Jewish martyr that he ‘_took the yoke_ upon
himself,’ when he made a formal profession of obedience to the Law just
before death. This I must ask you to take for granted. It would be
too long to prove and explain.” I suppose Scaurus heard this from the
teacher he called “his rabbi.” It was confirmed, to my own knowledge,
by something that happened nearly thirty years ago when one of the most
famous Jewish teachers, Akiba by name, was put to death under Hadrian. I
heard it said by a credible eyewitness that “they combed his flesh with
combs of iron,” and another added “Yes, and Akiba, all the while, kept
_taking upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven_,” by which he
meant repeating the profession of faith.
“A third fact,” said Scaurus, “is that the Christians, from a very early
period, used the word ‘_yoke_’ in a depreciatory sense to mean the
‘bondage’—as they called it—of the Law of Moses. Paul calls the latter
‘_the yoke of bondage_.’ The Christians, at their first public council,
speak of it as ‘_a yoke_’; and a Christian writer named Barnabas says
that ‘the new law’ is ‘_without the yoke of necessity_.’ I suspect that
among the Greeks and Romans the servile associations of ‘yoke’ have also
tended to the disuse of the term among the Christians of the west. You
may object that the associations of ‘cross’ are still more disgraceful
than those of ‘yoke.’ But I do not think they would be so for Christians,
who regarded the disgrace of the cross as a step upward to what they
call ‘the crown of life.’ Indeed I am rather surprised that Matthew’s
tradition ‘Take my yoke upon you’ has been retained at all, even by a
single evangelist.”
Most of this was new to me. But, even if it was true—as seemed to me not
unlikely—the same conclusion followed as above. The mistake derogated
from Mark, not from Christ. Indeed Scaurus’s interpretation seemed to
me to exalt Christ. For might not some people, of austere and fanatical
minds, find it easier to “_take up the cross_,” that is, to lacerate and
torture themselves, than to “_take up the yoke_,” that is, to make their
lives subservient to the community in a spirit of willing self-sacrifice?
Indeed Scaurus himself said, “If I am right, the Christians have lost
by this misunderstanding. When I say ‘lost,’ I mean ‘lost in respect of
morality.’ For some may ‘_take up the cross_’ like the priests of Cybele,
finding a pleasure in gashing themselves—such is human nature. But it
is not so exciting a thing to ‘_take up the yoke_’ if it implies making
oneself a drudge for life to commonplace people.”
This seemed very true. And afterwards I was not surprised to find that
the fourth gospel contains no precept to “take up the cross.” But it
commands Christians to “love one another”—a precept that nowhere occurs
in Mark. Also what Scaurus said about “making oneself a drudge” was, in
effect, inculcated by the fourth gospel where it commands the disciples
to “wash one another’s feet.” Sometimes I have asked why this gospel did
not restore the old tradition about “yoke.” Perhaps the writer avoided it
as he avoids “faith,” and “repentance,” and other technical terms that
might come between Christians and Christ. Scaurus himself said, “There
seems to me more morality in the old rule of Moses, ‘Love thy neighbour
as thyself’ than in either ‘Take up the cross’ or ‘Take up the yoke.’
If ever this Christian superstition were to overrun the world, I could
conceive of a time when half the Christians might fight with the war-cry
of ‘the yoke,’ and the other half with the war-cry of ‘the cross,’
cutting one another’s throats for these emblems. But I could not so
easily conceive of a time when men would ever cut one another’s throats
with the war-cry, ‘We love one another’.”
These words of Scaurus seemed to me at the time to be quite true. Now,
forty-five years afterwards, they seem to me true as to fact, but not
quite true as to interpretation. For, since what Scaurus called “the old
rule of Moses” included “Love God,” as well as “Love thy neighbour,” it
followed that the Lord Jesus, in saying “Take my yoke,” meant “Serve
God,” as well as “Serve man.” And, in order to serve God, must not one be
prepared to suffer, as God also is called “longsuffering”? And of such
“suffering” can there be any better emblem than Christ’s cross?
I cannot honestly deny the force of the evidence adduced by Scaurus to
prove that the Saviour did not really utter the precept of “taking up
the cross,” and that He did utter the precept of “taking up the yoke.”
But I can honestly accept the former as an interpretation of the latter,
an interpretation fit for Greeks and Romans when the gospel was first
preached, and likely to be fit for all the races of the world till the
time of the coming of the Lord. If Scaurus is right, only the precept of
the yoke was inculcated by Christ in word. But all agree that the precept
of the cross was inculcated by Christ in act. Both metaphors seem needed,
and many more, to help the disciples of the Lord to apprehend the nature
of His Kingdom, or Family.