Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/584

 PASSION

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PASSION

new Masses in honour of the Passion, such for example as those which are now almost universally celebrated upon the Frid;iys of Lent. Lastly, an inspection of the prayer-books compiled towards the close of the Mid- dle Ages for the use of the laity, such as the "Horse Beata' Maria; Virginis", the "Hortulus Anima;", the "Paradisus Anima;" etc., shows the existence of an immense number of prayers either connected with incidents in the Passion or addressed to Jesus Christ upon the Cross. The best known of these perhaps were the fifteen prayers attributed to St. Bridget, and described most commonly in English as "the Fifteen O's", from the exclamation with which each began.

In modern times a vast literature, and also a hyra- nology, has grown up relating directly to the Passion of Christ. Many of the innumerable works produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have now been completely forgotten, though some books like the medieval" Life of Christ " by the Carthu- sian Ludolphus of Saxony, the "Sufferings of Christ" by Father Thomas of Jesus, the Carmelite Guevara's "Mount of Calvary", or "the Passion of Our Lord" by Father de La Palma, S.J., are still read. Though such writers as Justus Lipsius and Father Gretser, S.J., at the end of the sixteenth century, and Dom Calmet, O.S.B., in the eighteenth, did much to illustrate the history of the Passion from historical sources, the gen- eral tendency of all devotional literature was to ignore Buch means of information as were provided by archa;- ology and science, anfl to turn rather to the revelations of the mystics to supplement the Gospel records.

Amongst these, the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden, of Maria Agreda, of Marina de Escobar and, in comparatively recent times, of Anne Catherine Emmerich are the most famous. Within the last fifty years, however, there has been a reaction against this procedure, a reaction due probably to the fact that so many of these revelations plainly contradict each other, for example on the question whether the right or left shoulder of Our Lord was wounded by the weight of the cross, or whether Our Saviour was nailed to the cross standing or lying. In the best modern lives of Our Saviour, such as those of Didon, Fouard, and Le Camus, every use is made of subsidiary sources of information, not neglecting even the Talmud. The workofPereOllivier, "The Passion" (tr., 190.5), follows the same course, but in many widely-read devotional works upon this subject, for example: Faber, "The Foot of the Cross"; Gallwey, "The Watches of the Passion"; Coleridge, " Passiontide " etc.; Groenings, "Hist, of the Passion" (Eng. tr); Belser, D'Gesch. d. Leidens d. Hernn; Grimm, " Leidengeschichte Christi", the writers seem to have judged that his- torical or critical research was inconsistent with the aecetical purpose of their works.

Herbert Thurston.

Passion of Jesus Christ in the Four Gospels. —

We have in the Gospels four separate accounts of the Passion of Our Lord, each of which supplements the others, so that only from a careful examination and comparison of all can we arrive at a full and clear knowledge of the whole story. The first three Gospels resemble each other very closely in their general plan, 80 closely indeed that some sort of literary connexion among them may be !is.sumed; but the fourth Gospel, although the writer was evidently familiar at least with the general tenor of the story told by the other three, gives us an independent narrative.

If we begin by marking in any one of the Synoptic Gospels those verse.s which occur in substance in both of the other two, and then read these verses contin- ously, we shall find that we have in them a brief but a complete narrative of the whole passion story. There are of course very few details, but all the essentials of the story are there. In St. Mark's Gospel the marked verses will be as follows: xiv, 1, 10-14, 1&-18,

21-23, 26, 30, 32, 35-«, 41, 43, 45, 47-9, 53-4, 65 to XV, 2, 9, 11-15, 21-2, 26-7, 31-33, .37-9, 41, 43. 46-7. Verbal alterations would be required to make the verses run consecutively. Sometimes the division will not quite coincide with the verse. It is po.ssible that this nucleus, out of which our present accounts seem to have grown, represents more or less exactly some original and more ancient narrative, whether written or merely oral matters little, compiled in the earliest days at Jerusalem. This original narrative, so far as we can judge from what is common to all the three Synoptics, included the betrayal, the prepara- tion of the Paschal Supper, the Last Supper with a brief account of the institution of the Eucharist, the Agony in the Garden, the arrest and taking of Our Lord before Caiphas, with His examination there and condemnation for blasphemy. Then follow Peter's denials, and the taking of Our Lord before Pilate. Next comes Pilate's question: "Art thou the king of the Jews?" and Our Lord's answer, "Thou eayest it", with Pilate's endeavour to set Him free on account of the feast, frustrated by the demand of the people for Barabbas. After this Pilate weakly yields to their in.sistence and, having scourged Jesus, hands Him over to be crucified. The story of the Crucifix- ion itself is a short one. It is confined to the casting of lots for the garments, the accusation over the head, the mocking of the chief priests, the supernatural darkness, and the rending of the Temple veil. After the death we have the confession of the centurion, the begging of the body of Jesus from Pilate, and the burial of it, wrapped in a clean linen cloth, in Joseph's new tomb hewn out in the rock close by.

In order to distinguish what is pecuhar to eachEvan- gelist we must notice a remarkable series of additional passages which are found both in St. Matthew and St. Mark. There are no similar coincidences between St. Matthew and St. Luke, or between St. Mark and St. Luke. These passages taken as they occur in St. Mark, are as follows: Mark, xiv, 15, 19-20, 24-28, 31, 33-4, 37-40, 42, 44, 46, 50-2, 55-S, 6a 4, xv, 3-8, 10, 16-20, 23-4, 29-30, 34-6, 40, 42. They have the character rather of expansions than of additions. Still some of them are of considerable importance, for in- stance, the mocking of Our Lord by the soldiers in the Prajtorium, and the cry from the Cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Possibly this series also formed part of an original narrative omitted by St. Luke, who had a wealth of special infor- mation on the Passion. Another explanation would be that St. Mark expanded the original narrative, and that his work was then used by St. Matthew.

The passages found in St. Mark alone are quite un- important. The story of the young man who fled naked has very generally been felt to be a personal reminiscence. Mark alone speaks of the Temple as "made with hands", and he is also the only one to note that the false witnesses were not in agreement one with another. He mentions also that Simon the Cyre- nian was "father of Alexander and of Rufus", no doubt because these names were well known to those for whom he was writing. Lastly, he is the only one who records the fact that Pilate asked for proof of the death of Christ. In St. Matthew's Gospel the peculi- arities are more numerous and of a more distinctive character. Naturally in his Gospel, written for a Jewish circle of readers, there is insistence on the posi- tion of Jesus as the Christ. There are several fresh episodes possessing distinctive and marked character- istics. They include the washing of Pilate's hands, the dream of Pilate's wife, and the resurrection of the saints after the death of Christ, with the earthquake and the rending of the tombs. The special features by which St, Luke's passion narrative is distinguished are very numerous and important. Just as St. Matthew emphasizes the Messianic character, so St. Luke lays stress on the universal love mani-