Faith: A History of Christianity

Chapter I The Cross Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" cried the dying man. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). This forlorn reproach was delivered from a hillside on the periphery of the Roman Empire, in a strange tongue unknown to the vast majority of its subjects, by a condemned man of profound obscurity who had an alien belief in a single God. A darkening sky; a claim that the veil in the Temple of Solomon, far down the slope from the execution ground, was "rent in twain" at the moment of death; a strange earthquake, mentioned only in Matthew's gospel, that split open rocks and opened tombs but did no damage to buildings--the Father's response to the crucifixion of the Son was modest even in the Gospels that proclaimed it. Human reaction was as muted. The Roman governor who had authorized the execution--with such extreme reluctance that some Christians later honored his memory with a feast day--marveled only that Jesus had died so swiftly, in little more than three hours. To the soldiers who carried it out, the crucifixion was mere routine, a standard punishment for slaves and non-Romans, that ended in the traditional perk of sharing out the victim's clothes. The priests who had demanded the death noted with sarcastic satisfaction: "he saved others, himself he cannot save" (Matt. 27:42). No disciple or relative was bold enough to claim the body for burial. He had been almost recklessly brave at his trial; they had expected miracles at his death, and none had occurred. They hid their ebbing belief behind barred doors in the steep streets of Jerusalem. The painters and sculptors who were to fill the world with his image worked from imagination alone. No physical description of Jesus was left by any who knew him; no hint existed of the color of the eyes, the timbre of the voice, the carriage of the head. His age, and the year of his birth and death, is not accurately recorded. The abbot Dionysius Exiguus, who created our system of dating years from the conception of Christ, as anno Domini, the year of the Lord, made his calculations five hundred years later. The abbot estimated that Jesus was born in the year 753 a.u.c. of the Roman system of dating ab urbe condita, "from the founding of the city" of Rome. He set this as a.d. 1, with previous years in receding order as "before Christ," b.c. or a.c. for ante Christum in Latin. But Matthew's gospel says that Jesus was "born in Bethlehem . . . in the days of Herod the King." Herod is known to have died in 4 b.c., and most modern scholars date Jesus' birth to 6 or 5 b.c.* The dates of his brief ministry--John's gospel supports a ministry of two or three years, the others of a single year--and his final journey to Jerusalem are also uncertain. The crucifixion may have been as early as a.d. 27, instead of the traditional date of a.d. 33; it is certain only that he died on a Friday in the Jewish lunar month of Nisan, which straddles March and April. A single incident is known of his childhood; as a twelve-year-old, he went missing on a visit from his native town of Nazareth to Jerusalem until his parents found him in the temple, "sitting in the midst of the doctors both hearing them and asking questions" (Luke 2:46). He may--or may not--have worked as a carpenter in his youth. His public ministry probably lasted little more than two years at most and seemed fragile and incomplete. His teaching was informal, often in the open air; his message was literally hearsay, for no contemporary notes were written down. It demanded an absolute morality and selflessness never expressed before; it lacked the familiar comfort of an established rite, and he had taught only a single prayer, the brief formula beginning "Our Father, which art in heaven . .Moynahan, Brian is the author of 'Faith: A History of Christianity' with ISBN 9780385491143 and ISBN 038549114X.