The story is told of Oscar Wilde that at his university Greek examination, he was given the 19th chapter of John’s Gospel to translate extemporaneously. He made his translation quickly and fluently. When told he could stop, he demurred and quipped, “I want to find out how it ends.”
Everything that happens in the two chapters of this Passion narrative has long been iconic. Even as background knowledge of scriptural events and idioms ebbs away in American culture, many of the scenes here have remained familiar. Jesus is arrested in the garden, at the cost of Malchus’s ear. Jesus is arraigned before the high priest. Peter denies knowing Jesus before the cock crows. Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus is flogged, stripped, and mockingly dressed in a purple robe and a crown of thorns. Jesus is crucified between two other victims. Jesus dies with the words, “It is finished.” His side is pierced. He is taken down and buried in an unused tomb.
Each incident is the subject of countless paintings, carved altarpieces, poems, dramas, theological expositions, and meditations. And each is placed, so to say, in the foreground. I have long been haunted by Caravaggio’s The Denial of St. Peter, which shows the apostle with his accusers in extreme close-up, his hands ironically turned inward against himself and his face furrowed and turned slightly aside with dissembling. It’s as if nothing else in the whole wide world is happening.
