Jesus Lacked the Rights of a Citizen

Caravaggio: Ecce Homo, circa 1605–1609, Private collection/Museo Nacional del Prado

Attributed to the wrong artist and in poor condition, Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo was nearly auctioned off for a mere €1,500. But, according to Ingrid Rowland, the painting caught the eye of art experts, and it was reconnected to its true maker and restored. Ecce Homo eventually did sell to a private buyer for €30 million, and it was recently on exhibit at the Prado.

The painting is inspired by John 19:4-6 and bears the name of the Latin translation of “Here’s the man,” Ecce homo, of John 19:5: “Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.’ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’

Caravaggio’s unique take on John 19:5 is needed right now. His imagination is required because we, at least in the U.S., lack leaders who can inspire us to rethink our values.

Rowland’s description of Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo is worth our full attention:

The scowling Pilate, caught in the coils of Roman law, leans over the parapet of his palace, visibly racked by doubt, the tousled hair peeking out from his velvet cap suggesting an official so confused he can no longer bother with his personal appearance—he seems to have been tearing his hair before he put on his headgear, the sign of his rank. If Pilate’s face says “Don’t make me do this,” his hands are obeying the swifter movements of his heart: his right gestures open-palmed at the hopeless conundrum, but his left has stretched out to support the bruised, swollen hand in which Jesus still clutches his mock scepter. Pilate is changing his mind, which means that we, caught in the position of the crowd gathered beneath the governor’s window, are the ones who are called upon to shout either “Crucify him!” or “Let him go!”—not the Jews, not the Romans, no one but ourselves.

Pilate and the boy are looking at us, the crowd, asking, “Do you really want to kill this man? Why, he has done nothing wrong?!” Rowland observes that “[n]o other Ecce Homo has dared to turn Pilate into a comforter, or one of Christ’s tormentors into a hierophant. . . .”

Today, Jesus has no such comforter or hierophant. Rowland rightly points out that “Jesus, who lacks the rights of a Roman citizen, can be, and has been, swiftly subjected to the empire’s most ignominious punishments: flogging, torture, and the prospect of death by crucifixion, an excruciating public form of execution reserved for enemies of the state.”

And the crowd? We are of no comfort to Jesus. The electorate has made its choice clear, “Crucify him!” His life is not as important to us as the price of eggs or the politics of petty vengeance. We gather at the Tesla dealership while the nails are hammered into Jesus’s wrists and ankles.

Are we sure we want to behave this way?