Mark's and Matthew's "Sub Rosa" Message in the Scene of Pilate and the Crowd

Abstract

This essay deals with the scene of Pilate and the crowd in Mark and Matthew. In it I suggest that the scene presents a classic, universal, and timeless trope of subaltern-dominant discourse in which the subaltern plays the role of the domi nant, and the dominant unsuccessfully attempts to play the role of the subaltern. The presentation is idealized, not naturalistic or realistic. The narratives are dis guised to contain hidden messages intended to be understood by subaltern Jews but not by dominant Gentiles/Romans, lest the subalterns be subjected to punishment. Rather than being anti-Jewish, as has been commonly held, the narratives, when correctly understood, are, like all subaltern portrayals of subaltern-dominant rela tions, partisanly pro-subaltern/Jewish and anti-dominant/Roman. The literary genre is Roman mime with an additional strong influence from Pharisaic-style parody in a foreign setting, and specifically Esther as the template. In Mark, the actors and the scene portray Caesar and the crowd at the Roman games. The idealized message is that Jesus' trial is quintessentially illegal. In addition to mime, Matthews far more sophisticated psychological narrative draws on classical Greek drama and hidden allusions from rabbinic law. In Matthew, Pilate's perform ance of the Jewish hand-washing ritual is a farce that ironically results in the crowd acclaiming Jesus by providentially accepting Jesus' same-day offer of his blood.