Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the
innocent blood (αιμα
αθωον). And they said, What is that to us?
See thou to that. (Matt 27:4)
Innocent
blood is a Hebrew idiom for the death of “an innocent man” (TEV). GeCL inverts the order of the two clauses:
“An innocent man will be killed, and I have betrayed him.” In fact some
translations find it natural to restructure even more radically, as they put I have sinned at the end of these
clauses: “I have betrayed an innocent man who will now be put to death. This
was a sin.” Or “A man will die because I sinned and betrayed him.” (Barclay
Moon Newman and Philip C. Stine, A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew [UBS
Handbook Series; New York: United Bible Societies, 1992], 840)
Innocent
Blood in Matthew
In Matthew the charge of innocent blood at Jesus’ death
does not stand alone. In contrast to Susanna, where Daniel’s cry of innocent
blood emerges from nowhere, in Matthew Pilate’s solemn statement and the
people’s response is the climactic reiteration of a charge of innocent blood
that has been made twice already: at Judas’ death in 27:4–10 and in Jesus’ woes
against the Pharisees, culminating in 23:35. Both of these passages have to do
with corrupt leaders and the problem of innocent blood and its cost for the
people.
Seeing that Jesus is handed over to Pontius Pilate and so
to execution, Judas tries to return the thirty silver pieces, now blood-money,
to the priests. “I sinned,” he says, “in betraying innocent blood” (ἥμαρτον παραδοὺς αἷμα ἀθῷον, 27:4). “What is that to us?” the
priests respond. “See to it yourself” (i.e. it is your responsibility) (τί πρὸς ἡμᾶς; σὺ ὄψῃ,
27:4). Their exchange anticipates the exchange between Pilate and the people at
Jesus’ sentencing: “I am innocent of the blood of this man,” Pilate says,
reversing Judas’ formulation. “See to it yourselves” (ἀθῷός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τούτου; ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε,
27:24). Pilate and the priests alike refuse responsibility for the blood they
are about to shed, leaving it upon Judas’ or the people’s heads. Judas,
ominously, hangs himself. The priests buy with the blood-money—which, as the
price of blood and therefore unclean, cannot stay in the temple—a burial ground
for foreigners, a place doubly unclean. That field is called “to this day,”
Matthew says, “field of blood” (ἀγρὸς
αἵματος, 27:8). Innocent blood and its taint
linger upon the ground and upon the people.
Innocent blood and its ominous effect upon the land and
the people is, in fact, already suggested in Matt 23, in the passage that finds
an echo in 27:25 at the climax of the passion narrative. Matthew 23:35 forms
the culmination of Jesus’ charges against the Pharisees: hypocrites, blind
guides, claiming to know the laws of heaven they make their converts children
of hell (23:13–15); claiming to be innocent of the blood of the prophets they
kill prophets and wise ones and scribes (23:30–34), so that, Jesus says, “upon
you may come all the innocent blood poured out upon the earth from the blood of
Abel the righteous to the blood of Zechariah … Amen I say to you, all this will
come upon this generation” (ὅπως
ἔλθῃ ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς
πᾶν αἷμα δίκαιον ἐκχυννόμενον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος Ἅβελ τοῦ δικαίου ἕως τοῦ αἵματος Ζαχαρίου … ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἥξει ταῦτα
πάντα ἐπὶ τὴν γενεὰν ταύτην, 23:35–36). As teachers and guides and
judges the leaders pervert their proper role; their corruption culminates in
the shedding of innocent blood, and the whole people bear the consequences. Not
only upon the Pharisees, but upon “this generation,” the stain of innocent
blood will come.
Jesus moves directly from this word to the lament over
Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, city that kills the prophets and stones those
sent to it … behold your house is left to you, desolate.” The prediction of the
Temple’s destruction, and the general cataclysm, follows (Matt 24). The
proximity of the prophecies of desolation and destruction—precisely of temple
and city, the centre of the life of the people of God—to the warning that
innocent blood will come upon the people, invites us to see the two statements
in relationship. The cost of the leaders’ corruption and the shedding of
innocent blood is the destruction of the holy place, city and temple alike.
Indeed, the desolation of Jerusalem becomes, in the order of Matthew’s
narrative, a sign and harbinger of the cataclysm that marks the end of all
things and the coming of the day of the Lord: immediately after the prophecy of
Jerusalem’s desolation, upon hearing of the destruction of the Temple the
disciples ask, “When will these things be, and what is the sign of your
parousia and the end of the age?” The Matthaean apocalypse follows (cf.
24:3–51). When, therefore, the people at the decisive moment of Jesus’ trial
say to Pontius Pilate, “His blood be upon us and upon our children,” their cry
points to the fulfillment of Jesus’ words in 23:35 and the lament over
Jerusalem sounds in the background.
Matthew departs from Susanna not only in his emphasis on
innocent blood, but in the story’s immediate outcome. In Susanna, the people
turn back at Daniel’s cry from shedding innocent blood. Daniel, inspired by an
angel of the Lord (OG) or with the holy spirit awakened in him by God (θ) becomes for the people the true leader who
makes justice possible—and so “innocent blood was saved on that day.” In
Matthew there is no just judge, either in Rome or in Israel, and Jesus’ blood
is shed. The moment of divine intervention, of overturning the threat of
innocent blood, is not yet. As a result, innocent blood in Matthew’s narrative
is poured out upon the land, and Jesus’ death augurs the cataclysm.
When Jesus is crucified, at the moment he gives up the
spirit with a great cry, we read: “behold the veil of the temple was torn from
top to bottom in two, and the earth was shaken and the rocks were split” (καὶ ἰδοὺ τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ ἐσχίσθη ἀπʼ ἄνωθεν
ἕως κάτω εἰς δύο καὶ ἡ γῆ ἐσείσθη
καὶ αἱ πέτραι ἐσχίσθησαν …, 27:51). These are
standard images in Old Testament theophanies: when God descends the mountains
reel and rock, the earth shakes, rocks break in pieces; in Zech 14:4 the Mount
of Olives is split. In the prophets such signs usher in the Day of Judgment and
the reign of God.69 Cosmic signs mark, too, the apocalypse in Matt
24: “the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the
stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven will reel and rock”
(24:29, quoting Isa 13:10, cf. Joel 2:10; 3:4; 3:15 and Ezek 32:7). Matthew,
that is, collapses the death of Jesus into the Last Day and the upheaval of the
earth that marks the final cataclysm. The parousia of the Son of Man will be a
cataclysm, even a second flood (κατακλυσμός,
24:37–39). The cosmic consequences of innocent blood—culminating in the blood
of Jesus—announced in Matt 23 already begin at Jesus’ death.
(Catherine Sider Hamilton, “Blood and Secrets: The
Re-Telling of Genesis 1–6 in 1 Enoch 6–11 and Its Echoes in Susanna and the
Gospel of Matthew,” in “What Does the Scripture Say?”: Studies in the
Function of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Synoptic Gospels,
ed. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias [Studies in Scripture in Early
Judaism and Christianity 1; London: Bloomsbury, 2013], 127–129)
IV.
Reexamining the Texts of Matthew 27:4 and 27:24
Thus far I have been laying out a case that Matthew
anticipates (see 23:35–24:2) and frames his account of Jesus’ passion (27:19,
34, and 39) with allusions to Lamentations in order to make the point that
Jesus’ death at the instigation of the religious establishment stands as the
act of righteous bloodshed that becomes the cause of the disastrous events of
70 c.e.
If this case is generally sound, then the presence of
variants in the manuscript tradition that use language amenable to the overall
argument Matthew has constructed is tantalizing. Indeed, a reference to αἷμα δίκιαον (“righteous blood”) at the very
beginning of the passion account would serve Matthew’s polemic perfectly, since
it would effectively recall to his readers’ minds the ominous predictions that
were made in chs. 23–24, predictions mediated through the connection in
Lamentations of righteous bloodshed by the religious leadership with God’s
judgment on Jerusalem and the temple.
I have previously highlighted the fact that δίκαιος language indisputably appears in this
portion of Matthew’s narrative (see 27:19). This observation, particularly when
taken together with the presence of other allusions to Lamentations throughout
his passion account and the echo of 23:35 in the language of 27:24–25, suggests
that Matthew effectively reminds his readers of the earlier allusion to
Lamentations and encourages them to connect that allusion with the death of
Jesus. It would not, then, be surprising to find him explicitly again using
language that would connect the passion narrative with Matt 23:35–24:2 and thus
with Lamentations. In fact, the manuscript tradition contains two more
instances in Matthew 27—v. 4 and v. 24—where language highly evocative of Matt
23:35 occurs.
In Matt 27:4 the NA27 and UBS4
texts have Judas state, ἥμαρτον
παραδοὺς αἷμα ἀθῷον (“I have sinned by handing over
innocent blood”). There is an interesting variant, however, in which Judas
says, ἥμαρτον παραδοὺς αἷμα δίκαιον (“I have sinned by handing over
righteous blood”). Explaining the choice of the UBS4 committee to
favor ἀθῷον over δίκαιον, Bruce Metzger comments, “[T]he weight
of the external evidence here is strongly in support of ἀθῷον.” He goes on to add that on
transcriptional terms a scribe would be more likely to make a change in the
direction of harmonizing Matt 27:4 with 23:35 and thus change ἀθῷον to δίκαιον, rather than shift away from δίκαιον to ἀθῷον.
Metzger is correct that the bulk of the external evidence
supports the UBS4 reading. In fact, the only majuscules that support
the presence of δίκαιον are
the first corrector of B, L, and Θ.
These are joined by five of six quotations by Origen, the Latin versions,
several Latin fathers33 and a handful of other versions all of whose
renderings suggest that the Greek Vorlage on which their translations
were based read αἷμα
δίκαιον. On the other hand, numerous majuscules
(e.g., א, A, B, C, W, Δ, E, F, G, H, and Σ), minuscules, versions, and Greek fathers
attest ἀθῷον. In
short, while δίκαιον
seems clearly to have prevailed in the Latin tradition, ἀθῷον has much broader and stronger support
in terms of numbers of manuscripts and of geographic distribution.
Yet in spite of this external evidence, good reasons can
be adduced in support of reading δίκαιον
instead of ἀθῷον at
Matt 27:4. First, Origen’s Contra Celsum
provides the earliest external attestation, and it is clear that, in this text
at least, Origen knows αἷμα
δίκαιον in Matt 27:4. This places the reading
in Palestine not later than the middle of the third century. When coupled with
the attestation of the Latin witnesses, the reading is shown to carry some
significant support both in terms of age and geographic distribution.
Second, it should be noted that Matthew uses δίκαιος with relative frequency. Excluding
27:4, ἀθῷος only occurs once in
Matthew (27:24). Matthew, then, is more likely to have used δίκαιος than ἀθῷος.
Third, when one stops to consider what a scribe might
have been likely to do, it is surely significant that the collocation of a form
of αἷμα and a form of ἀθῷος is more common biblical language than
the collocation of αἷμα and
δίκαιος. Both phrases occur in the LXX, but the
former collocation outnumbers the latter by more than five to one. Given the
relatively low number of occurrences of αἷμα
together with δίκαιος, it
seems more likely that a scribe familiar with biblical language would gravitate
toward the more common phrasing of αἷμα
plus ἀθῷος.
The probability that this happened in Matt 27:4 increases
dramatically when one considers the attribution to Jeremiah of the account of
Judas’s returning the money with its biblical citation in Matt 27:9–10. Davies
and Allison point out that there are a number of points of contact between Matt
27:3–10 and passages such as Zech 11:12–14 as well as chs. 18, 19, and 32 of
Jeremiah. Interestingly, of the twenty-one instances of the collocation of αἷμα and ἀθῷος in the LXX, six of them occur in
Jeremiah (2:34; 7:6; 19:4; 22:3, 17; 33:15). In view of the attribution of the
biblical quotation in Matt 27:9 to Jeremiah, it seems entirely possible that a
scribe might attempt to harmonize the relatively rare αἷμα δίκαιον of 27:4 with the better known and more
frequent language in Jeremiah. Since the entire story of Judas returning the
money to the religious authorities is attributed by Matthew to Jeremiah, one
can well understand why an early scribe might gravitate toward the more common
phrasing in Jeremiah (i.e., αἷμα
ἀθῷον) and effectively bring the account more
closely in line with the language of the Matthean attribution.
Fourth, bearing all these points in mind, it is surely
significant that the presence of δίκαιος
language at exactly this place in Matthew’s narrative makes excellent sense in
the light of the connections I have shown above between Lamentations, righteous
bloodshed by the hands of the Jewish religious leadership, Jesus’ crucifixion,
and the temple’s destruction.
In Matt 27:1–9 Judas seeks to return the money he
received from the religious leaders for betraying Jesus. The mention of blood
in 27:4, the emphasis placed on the religious leadership, and the reference to
Jeremiah in 27:9 all serve to bring the warnings of chs. 23–24, and especially
the allusion to Lamentations in 23:35, back to mind. Given this apparent echo
of 23:35, it seems on the whole more likely that the harmony evident between
the variant reading αἷμα
δίκαιον of 27:4 and the αἷμα δίκαιον of 23:35 was in fact what Matthew wrote
and, contra Metzger, not the result of scribal ingenuity.
Additionally, it would make good sense in 27:4 for
Matthew to have Judas use the very language of 23:35. The presence of αἷμα δίκαιον in 27:4 would serve at least two
functions. First, since this is toward the beginning of the passion narrative,
it provides a clear point of contact between the warning given in chs. 23–24
and the act of killing Jesus. Since Matthew continues to make references to
Lamentations throughout his passion narrative, such a move prompts readers to
begin thinking again of 23:35 and thus also of Lamentations. Second, Judas’s
comments would serve as an obvious warning to the religious leaders that the
course they are embarking upon will bring about the temple’s destruction. In
other words, this is a polemic. Such a warning, with its implicit appeal to the
very themes from Lamentations that Matthew has previously stressed, leads the
reader to view the leaders as being without excuse. Yet, instead of taking this
warning seriously, Matthew has them curtly respond to Judas, σὺ ὄψῃ (“you see [to it]”).
In sum, when viewed in light of the case I have laid out
in support of Matthew’s use of Lamentations as an intertext to portray Jesus’
death as the shedding of righteous blood par excellence, the evidence from
intrinsic probability strongly suggests that, in spite of the external
evidence, good warrant exists for concluding that the variant attested by the
corrector of B, L, Θ and
the Latin tradition is the original reading of Matt 27:4. Given that (1) the
effect of the variant is both to connect the death of Jesus with the
prediction/warning of Matt 23:35–24:2 and thus with the allusion to
Lamentations and to implicate the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem in the shedding
of this righteous blood and thus lay the blame for the temple’s destruction at
their feet; and that (2) these effects cohere perfectly with the broader
argument Matthew is constructing both before (see 23:35) and during his passion
narrative (see 27:19, 25, 34, and 39), it seems much more likely that this
variant belonged to Matthew’s original text than that a scribe modified the
text in such a way that these connections were further emphasized.
Similar points may be made with respect to the variant
found in Matt 27:24. Here the NA27 and UBS4 texts have
Pilate respond to the request that Jesus be crucified by stating, ἀθῷός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τούτου· ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε (“I
am innocent of the blood of this one, you see [to it]”). There is, however,
solid manuscript evidence for Pilate’s reply, ἀθῷός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ δικαίου τούτου· ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε (“I
am innocent of the blood of this righteous one, you see [to it]”).
As with 27:4, the editors of the NA27 and UBS4
chose not to include the variant for two main reasons. First, some early and
strong external evidence excludes the phrase τοῦ δικαίου. For example, B, D, and Θ, as well as some of the Latin manuscripts
and other versions exemplify a text without this variant. Additionally, the
earliest witnesses such as Eusebius and Novatian, as well as several later
fathers like Ambrosiaster, Basil the Great, and Chrysostom show no knowledge of
the qualifier δίκαιος.
Metzger also points out that “the best representatives of the Alexandrian and
Western texts” do not attest the variant.41 Second, at the
transcriptional level, Metzger judges that the textual plus is probably “an
accretion intended to accentuate Pilate’s protestation of Jesus’ innocence.”
Nevertheless, several points can be put forward that, especially when taken
together, tip the balance in favor of the original status of τοῦ δικαίου in Matt 27:24.
First, this longer variant is not without strong external
support. The phrase τοῦ
δικαίου τούτου is read in the majuscules א, L (the only majuscule to have a form of δίκαιος in both v. 4 and v. 24), W, E, F, G, H,
and Σ. Multiple minuscules
including f1, f13, 33 and a host of
representatives from the majority text also support its presence. Additionally,
several Greek and Latin fathers such as Ambrose, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome,
Maximus of Turin, and Hilary of Poitiers attest this variant. Finally, a similar
variant involving a simple transposition reads τούτου τοῦ δικαίου and is attested by A, Δ, and some Latin witnesses.
Second, the omission of τοῦ δικαίου in Matt 27:24 can be easily accounted
for as an instance of parablepsis occasioned either by homoioteleuton or
homoioarcton. If the original text read ἀπὸ τοῦ
αἵματος τοῦ δικαίου τούτου, one can see how the string of genitive
endings in τοῦ δικαίου τούτου might have led to the accidental loss
of τοῦ δικαίου by way of homoioteleuton. On the other
hand, one can just as easily see how the presence of the initial τοῦ and the τούτου might have led a scribe to skip the
phrase inadvertently by way of homoioarcton. In either case, the shorter
reading adopted by NA27 (i.e., ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τούτου) is easily explained. Indeed, such a
hypothesis would well explain the data one finds in the manuscript tradition.
The longer reading found in א
and L more readily explains the existence of both the manuscripts that contain
the elements τοῦ δικαίου and τούτου in inverted order and the manuscripts
that read only τοῦ δικαίου, than does the hypothesis that the
shorter reading is original.
Third, a few points regarding internal evidence stand in
favor of the presence of τοῦ
δικαίου in Matt 27:24. As previously noted, the
term δίκαιος is
not uncommon in Matthew. Yet this point proves even more poignant here, since
the term fits the immediate context so well. In 27:19, Pilate’s wife has just
described Jesus as “that righteous man.” There is, then, good internal
justification for Pilate to refer to Jesus in the same terms, that is, as τοῦ δικαίου τούτου, “this righteous man.”
Fourth, intrinsic probability once again suggests that
this variant is not, contra Metzger, a scribal accretion heightening Jesus’
cachet, but rather an original part of Matthew’s Gospel. In 27:24 Pilate washes
his hands to indicate his innocence with regard to Jesus’ death. He then lays
the responsibility for crucifying Jesus squarely on the religious authorities
by using the very words they spoke to Judas in 27:4 against them, ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε (“you see [to it]”). In view of the
connection made in ch. 27 between v. 4 and v. 27 by having Pilate mimic the
words of the Jewish religious authorities, and the larger argument linking
righteous bloodshed and the temple’s destruction in Matthew, it would make
perfect sense for Matthew to have Pilate describe Jesus as “δίκαιος.” If Matthew originally did have Pilate
speak of Jesus as a “righteous” man, then, in light of Matthew’s allusions to
Lamentations, the implication of Pilate’s comments is perfectly clear—Jesus’
death will result in the temple’s destruction. Again, such a warning serves to
heighten the culpability of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem in the eyes of the
reader.
I would add that it is surely no accident that in the
face of this second warning Matthew presents the response of the people in
27:25 not only in terms reminiscent of 23:35 and the allusion to Lamentations
found there but also in terms of full culpability in the death of Jesus.
To summarize: if, as I have tried to show, Matthew
employs Lamentations to construct an argument that (1) links the shedding of
righteous blood on the part of the religious leaders with the destruction of
the temple, and (2) presents Jesus’ crucifixion as the act of shedding
righteous blood par exellence, then it would make perfect sense for him to
utilize “δίκαιος”
language precisely at points like 27:4 and 27:24, where one or more of these
very elements is being emphasized. (David M. Moffitt, "Righteous
Bloodshed, Matthew's Passion Narrative, and the Temple's Destruction:
Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext," Journal of Biblical Literature 125,
no. 2 [Summer 2006]: 313-19)
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