“The flesh is the hinge of salvation.”
—Tertullian
Although some reviewers of The Passion of the Christ
stuck gamely to the prefabbed “anti-Semitic” line that preceded its
release by a year, many of the film’s harsher critics chose to
touch on that issue only as an afterthought, if at all. In the
absence of horned, hook-nosed Hebrew antagonists cackling with
deicidal glee during Christ’s crucifixion, critics intent on giving
Mel hell had to take different tacks.
Some have cried historical inaccuracy; others, scriptural
infidelity. A third group has focused on allegedly deficient
production values: uneven pace, thin characterization, turgid
score, sloppy gaffing, what have you. The merits of these kinds of
critiques rest comfortably within the bounds of filmmaking
principles and, to some extent, personal taste.
But we have seen another, more nuanced line of attack pursued by
Passion-detractors, one that strives to claim the
theological high ground and beat devout director Gibson at his own
evangelical game: the charge that the film is too violent, too
“coarse,” too preoccupied with gouged eyeballs and sopping blood to
be a licit portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth. That the inspiring
spiritual message of this great teacher — peace, love, and
tolerance — is completely hidden behind the red mist.
The New York Times review lamented that the film’s
focus on the “savagery” of Christ’s suffering “succeed[s] more in
assaulting the spirit than uplifting it.” Andrew Sullivan held out
hope that, in effect, the Crucifixion didn’t necessarily have to be
all that bad for Jesus, and offered that the brutality in The
Passion was more a product of Mel Gibson’s “psycho-sexual
obsession with extreme violence” than a historically accurate
rendering (and more to the point, a theologically accurate
rendering) of what happened on the first Good Friday. And a writer
at one independent Internet movie-review outfit, disappointed “as a
Christian” with Gibson’s “gorefest,” asked plaintively, “Where is
its spirituality?”
In one way or another all these criticisms miss a very
fundamental point, and in so doing betray a tendency towards a
modern incarnation of an ancient Gnostic heresy.
NOW, THE FINER POINTS of Gibson’s approach are certainly fair game
for debate. How long should he have lingered on the scourging
scene? How many gratuitous blows to Jesus’ head from anonymous
Roman soldiers can the camera show before their dramatic effect is
lost on the viewer? Was separating Jesus’ shoulder, in order to get
the second nail in, pouring it on just a little too thick?
But those are questions of method, not of message. Gibson’s
critics display their neo-Gnostic sensibilities not in questioning
Gibson’s technique, but the theological premises he means to convey
by it. Most importantly, that the primary mission of the God-man
was not to teach or inspire but to suffer and die; and that his
suffering was not only real and physical but more profound in every
way than any human suffering before or since, being in some way
proportionate to the sin expiated by it.
Those critics of the Passion — especially those self-identified
as Christians — who lament its supposed fixation on Christ’s
physical suffering rather than the nice, unbloody, purely spiritual
significance of his life (“Where’s its spirituality?”) hearken back
to the early Gnostic heresy of Docetism. The Docetists (from the
Greek dokein, “to seem” or “to appear”) believed that
Christ didn’t have a human body at all, but only appeared to.
Consequently, he never really suffered physically during his
Passion, instead putting on a grand act for those assembled at
Calvary. (Some Docetists believed it wasn’t even Christ up there at
all, but Simon of Cyrene gone in his place, or even Judas.) Their
version of Jesus was more or less angelic; he came to earth to
bring salvation not by his suffering and death, but to transmit by
his teachings the saving knowledge of hidden spiritual
mysteries.
Neither the Jewish nor the Greek mind of Jesus’ day could wrap
itself around the concept of a God who truly became human; the very
idea was scandalous both to Hebrew monotheism and Hellenic
idealism. Docetism provided relief from the scandal. The Word
didn’t really become flesh; he was just made to look as if
he had. God didn’t really suffer unspeakably at the hands of his
creatures; it was all a grand illusion put on for us by a divine
Wizard of Oz.
That scandal is no less evident today. Passion critics
who decry the “gorefest” on high-minded spiritual grounds are
saying with the Docetists, “Pay no attention to the man up on the
cross.”
AND WHAT OF THOSE like Sullivan who contend it’s a sign of
depravity — “sadistic embellishment” — to take the depiction of
Christ’s sufferings to such extreme heights (or depths)? Does he
have a point when he argues that, say, an ordinary flogging and a
typical, workaday crucifixion would have sufficed for the salvation
of the world?
Well, God could have effected the redemption in any way of his
choosing. And even if Jesus had to die, the Romans (or
whatever people unto whom God chose to deliver his son) could have
hanged Jesus without making so much as a mark on his face or
spilling a drop of his blood. He didn’t have to be
scourged, or crowned, or mocked.
“But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity” (Isaiah
53:10). In bearing unto himself, as Christians believe, the sins
(and suffering for sin) of all mankind throughout all history,
nothing less than the most extreme torture pushing the uttermost
limits of human endurance would seem fitting. Christ’s presence on
earth was not a purely angelic one, and his sufferings
were not limited to psychological and spiritual angst.
I think that Mel Gibson, with every slow-motion moment of flying
blood and flayed flesh, is providing viewers a profound meditation
on the Christian belief that God truly became man, suffered, and
died. And far from overdoing the torture, I believe he has only
scratched the surface of conveying the true horrors Christ
endured.
