2. The Death of a Philosopher

The preoccupation of the Roman elite with death in the early imperial period is well documented.Footnote ⁷ The turbulent political climate in the dying days of the Republic, along with the state executions and forced suicides in the reigns of the ‘bad’ emperors (notably Nero and Domitian) created a culture in which the manner of a person's exit became particularly important. Stories of noble deaths were drummed into Roman boys from their youth (Seneca, Epistles 24.6), and collections of deaths appear to have been common (so-called exitus literature).Footnote ⁸ A striking feature of Roman heroes from the civil war onwards is that their glorious deaths often occur in the context of failure and defeat. As Carlin Barton observes, heroic figures in this period tend to be drawn from the disgraced and redeemed.Footnote ⁹ We might think of Cato the Younger, the Stoic Opposition or legendary characters who became popular at this time: Mucius Scaevola, for example, who was captured while sneaking into the Etruscan camp but restored his honour by putting his right hand into the altar fire and watching impassively as it burned;Footnote ¹⁰ or Publius Decius Mus, who, seeing his men suffer heavy losses in battle, dedicated himself to the infernal gods and through his death spurred the Romans on to victory.Footnote ¹¹ The vital thing in all these stories is the way in which the hero faces death: it is clear that the manner of his end mattered far more than what killed him.

A person's death was felt to be an indication of his or her true character, so it is hardly surprising to find biographers taking a particular interest in their subject's exit. Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars provides a good example of a how a biographer can use a well-composed death scene to pass judgement on his subject. The ‘good’ emperor Augustus dies quietly at home with his wife, the peace and control of his passing reflecting the harmony and stability that he has brought to the empire, and his supreme dignity is maintained to the end.Footnote ¹² By contrast, Nero's snivelling and unmanly behaviour marks his end as abhorrent and shameful (Nero 49). A calm, courageous, dignified acceptance of one's fate marked a good death, while loss of control, frenzied begging for mercy and an unwillingness to face one's end marked its opposite.

Of particular interest to the present study are the deaths of philosophers. In a detailed analysis of the monumental work of Diogenes Laertius, Sergi Grau observes that ‘[l]ike a hero in battle, a wise man is not fully confirmed until the moment of his death’.Footnote ¹³ Philosophers offered practical guidance on how to live in a meaningful way, and it was only to be expected that they should put those principles to good use in their own lives. The philosopher thus became the supreme example of his own doctrine. What was crucial was that his end should be in keeping with his teaching, that death was simply an extension of the principles by which he lived. A good death, a blissful, even joyful, exit in extreme old age, underscored not only the integrity of the philosopher, but also the truth and consistency of his teaching. Conversely, a bad death, from disease or a ridiculous accident, undermined both the philosopher and the authenticity of his message. Both extremes are well illustrated in the works of Lucian. His own teacher, Demonax, died peacefully in old age, exerting control over his own death and retaining his wisdom and humour to the end (Demonax 65). By contrast, Lucian's Passing of Peregrinus satirises a pointless philosophical death, the showy end of a man preoccupied only with acquiring personal fame and glory (Peregrinus 35–9).Footnote ¹⁴

A variant on the good death in extreme old age was the philosopher who met a violent end, defending his philosophical convictions to the last. Grau refers to such men as ‘martyrs of philosophy’, people who stood firm despite torture and eventual execution at the hands of tyrants.Footnote ¹⁵ Exemplary here were Zeno of Elea and Anaxarchus of Abdera, who both stood firm before tyrants.Footnote ¹⁶ The ultimate paradigm, however, was Socrates. Not only did he face his end with a courageous spirit, but just as importantly his death emphasised the truth and consistency of his teaching. Throughout life, he had already distanced himself from the pursuits and distractions of the flesh. Showing no anguish, he faced his end with fearlessness and nobility, safe in the assurance that his soul would live on in a better world. As the numbness from the poison spread from his feet up through his body, he faded gently from life, the moment of death almost imperceptible as his soul was set free from its physical prison. He was released from life without violence because he had practically released himself already; death for him was simply one more step along the path he travelled, so that at the end there was nothing to constrain his eternal soul.

Yet, as Christopher Gill notes, this is hardly a credible portrayal of the effects of hemlock poisoning – which involved trembling, spasms, convulsions, vomiting, and finally organ failure.Footnote ¹⁷ However the ‘historical Socrates’ died, it was not like this. Clearly what mattered most was not historical detail, but the way that the story was told – the details, additions, or omissions, that transformed even a hideous state execution into something noble and praiseworthy. Indeed, there seems to have been a general expectation that authors might be allowed a certain amount of artistic licence when it came to describing their subject's demise. Cicero, for example, maintained that historians have a right when describing death to ‘adorn it rhetorically and tragically’ (Brutus 11.42). Even when writing about some of the most documented men of his day, Suetonius seems to have been free both to invent details and to introduce an artistic patterning across his whole sequence of death scenes.Footnote ¹⁸ Last words were particularly susceptible to ‘improvement’, and few biographers worth their craft could resist the temptation to assign an apposite and revealing final quotation.Footnote ¹⁹

Often a biographer would find conflicting accounts of a subject's end in his sources. The same exit might be described in very different ways, depending on who was doing the telling. A man's friends would be quick to point to the nobility of his passing, while detractors would find evidence of an unmanly spirit. Diogenes Laertius was well aware that several of his philosophers had attracted competing accounts of their ends; rather than choose between them, he preferred to report them all. Thus we are told that various accounts of Diogenes the Cynic's death were in circulation: some said he was seized with colic after eating raw octopus, others that he was bitten on the foot while dividing an octopus between his dogs, but a third version (favoured by his friends) was that he held his breath in a deliberate attempt to end his life (Lives 6.2.76–7).Footnote ²⁰ Clearly a philosopher's final moments were often a contested issue, with rival groups of followers or opponents producing versions to suit their own estimation of the man and his message. In most cases, of course, the biographer would simply choose whichever account best suited his purposes.

It was vitally important, then, that Mark should give his hero a commendable exit, one which continued to demonstrate and reflect his earlier way of life and teaching. But how exactly was this to be done? I shall begin at the place where Mark undoubtedly also began – with an appreciation of the full horror of Jesus’ humiliating death.

3. A Slave's Death

Crucifixion was the most shameful, brutal and degrading form of capital punishment known to the ancient world, reserved for slaves, brigands and any who set themselves up against imperial rule.Footnote ²¹ It was intended to be public, to act both as a deterrent to others and to provide spectacle, even entertainment, to onlookers.Footnote ²² It was a form of death in which the caprice and sadism of the executioners was allowed full reign, as they devised ever more gruesome ways to ridicule the condemned.Footnote ²³ Stripped naked, the victim was humiliated and shamed as he suffered extreme agony, perhaps for several days, until, overcome by suffocation and exhaustion, he met his merciful end. So offensive was the cross that civilised people preferred not to talk about it, and few Roman writers ever dwelt on any of the details.Footnote ²⁴ Cicero described crucifixion as ‘the greatest punishment of slavery’ (Verr. 2.5), while Josephus labelled it ‘the most pitiable of deaths’ (J.W. 7.203).

Jesus’ crucifixion would have come down to Mark as part of his inherited tradition and was presumably too well known to be omitted or lightly brushed aside. In any case, its salvific effect was a crucial part of Christian teaching, as Paul's letters make clear.Footnote ²⁵ A work like Q, which was largely a series of sayings, might not need a coherent account of Jesus’ demise (though even here it is clearly alluded to, Luke/Q 11.49–51).Footnote ²⁶ A biography of Jesus, however, would need to face it head on. But how should it be done?

I have already noted my scepticism regarding a pre-Markan passion narrative, an early source that was so well known and influential that Mark felt compelled to include it. But this does not, of course, mean that Mark had no sources or traditions before him. Quite the contrary – it seems to me that there were likely to have been many accounts of Jesus’ death in existence, some perhaps already in written form.Footnote ²⁷ Already in the fifties, Paul could link Jesus’ death to the paschal lamb (1 Cor 5.7), the Servant of the Lord (Phil 2.5–11), and even the curse of Deut 21.23 (Gal 3.13). The heavy use of LXX Ps 21 in Mark's crucifixion scene suggests that this, too, was traditional. All of these were attempts to come to terms with Jesus’ violent death, to make sense of it against the history of Israel, and to construct a distinctively Christian story around it. The commemoration of the Eucharist would undoubtedly have ensured that one, or perhaps several, of these understandings was articulated over and again within Mark's Christian fellowship. My working assumption is that, although Mark drew on many of these traditions, he was himself responsible for selecting and crafting his material (sometimes quite substantially). I see Mark's work as a very specific reception of the Jesus tradition, one that harnessed disparate sources and collective memories of Jesus and transposed them into the expectations of a particular literary genre. Adapting material so that it fitted into a biography, particularly a biography of a revered teacher, was by no means a mechanical undertaking. Traditions, anecdotes and sayings had to be weighed, sifted and placed appropriately; connections needed to be made across various sections; and the final product needed both to produce a pleasing effect and to speak to the present needs of the anticipated audience.

Our familiarity with Mark's account of the crucifixion should not blind us to the fact that our author had many other options. The cross itself was a given, but almost all of the details could have been written up differently. Mark could, for example, have recorded Jesus’ death fairly briefly; instead, he seems to dwell on it, to go out of his way to describe Jesus’ last few moments at length, producing the longest account of a crucifixion to have come down to us from antiquity.Footnote ²⁸ It would have taken some skill, but even a crucifixion could – like hemlock poisoning – have been redeemed. Jesus could have shown courage and calmness throughout, blissfully giving up his spirit in the final moment, perhaps with the voice of God commending his actions. More specifically, Jesus could have been cast as an innocent martyr,Footnote ²⁹ with the hero displaying a noble spirit and a stoic indifference to death. But although Mark does include a handful of more ‘noble’ features (which we shall come back to), this is not the dominant tone of his narrative. There is no getting away from the fact that Mark's account, particularly in the crucifixion scene, is the very opposite of a ‘good death’: Jesus dies alone, in agonised torment, with no one to perform even the most basic rites. As Adela Yarbro Collins puts it, Jesus’ death in Mark is ‘anguished, human, and realistic’.Footnote ³⁰

Rather than reading Mark's crucifixion against more traditionally ‘noble’ categories, we would do better to look at the way in which our author actually works with his material. One striking feature is that, despite its length, the narrative contains surprisingly little on Jesus’ physical sufferings. He is beaten by Jewish council guards (14.65), flogged by Roman soldiers (15.15) and crucified (15.24, noted again in 15.25), but Mark does not dwell on any of this. There is no gory interest in torture, or praise of endurance such as we find in accounts of the Jewish martyrs or the Greek Anaxarchus. What Mark does emphasise, however, are the negative associations commonly linked to crucifixion: the victim's passivity, the general sense of mockery and the final abandonment. Each of these is worth exploring in more detail.

The Markan Jesus becomes increasingly passive as the scenes unfold. The once authoritative, combative Jesus who bested opponents with ease is gradually silenced by the narrative. He speaks boldly before the High Priest (14.62), but manages only two words before Pilate (15.2), and after that says nothing until his agonised cry on the cross. Nor does the omniscient narrator give us any further insight into his thoughts or feelings.Footnote ³¹ Others assert their power over Jesus’ body: arresting him (14.43–50), beating him (14.65), binding him (15.1), scourging him (15.15), changing his clothes (15.16–20), and finally crucifying him (15.24). His lack of agency is emphasised by the verb παραδίδωμι, as he is passed from one authority to another (9.31; 10.33; 14.10–11, 18, 21, 41–42; 15.1, 10, 15). Like a slave, Jesus endures it all, disempowered, humiliated, shamed, violated – nothing less manly and dishonourable could be imagined.Footnote ³²

Perhaps even more striking is the mockery here. It begins already in Pilate's court. ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’, the prefect asks (15.2), and the repeated use of this phrase, even towards a crowd which has clearly expressed its preference for an insurrectionary, can only be read as a taunt.Footnote ³³ Once Jesus is passed into the hands of the Roman soldiers, the mockery becomes even more intense. Now he is dressed up in imperial purple and given a crown, while the soldiers salute him, strike him and spit upon him, and kneel down in mock-homage (15.16–20). Clearly they find the idea that such a man might be ‘King of the Jews’ utterly ridiculous. Once they emerge from the praetorium, the soldiers commandeer Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross. While this is often seen as a gesture of good will, there is no textual warrant for such a claim. Those who press Simon into service are exactly the same people who have just mocked Jesus and subjected him to abuse. It is better to understand their actions here as a continuation of the mockery. Simon takes his place in the grim procession to Calvary, forced to carry the condemned man's crossbeam like a magistrate's lictor with his fasces.Footnote ³⁴ Jesus’ Roman executioners are unrelenting in their brutality: they offer him wine mixed with myrrh, not as an analgesic but as a further means of torture,Footnote ³⁵ and, as a final insult, they attach the scornful title ‘King of the Jews’ over his dying body. Even on the cross, the ridicule continues, now from passers-by, chief priests and scribes, and even those crucified with him (15.29-32).

Finally, Jesus dies abandoned by all. The teacher who only a few days previously attracted large and enthusiastic crowds at his entry into the city (11.9–10) is now rejected by everyone: first by Judas, ‘one of the Twelve’ (14.10–11), then by the rest of the disciples (14.50), a naked young man (14.51),Footnote ³⁶ Peter (14.66–72) and the crowd (15.6–15). On the cross, the Markan Jesus endures the depths of abandonment and degradation, articulated through the words of LXX Ps 21. The psalm plays an important role in the crucifixion scene and may well go back to an early stage of reflection on Jesus’ death,Footnote ³⁷ but within its present Markan context it expresses the hero's sense of utter desolation.Footnote ³⁸ This comes out most strongly in Jesus’ last audible cry: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (15.34).Footnote ³⁹ Despite attempts to argue differently, it is better to take Mark's text at face value here: his Jesus dies in utter desolation, abandoned not only by his erstwhile followers, but apparently by God himself.Footnote ⁴⁰ Last words, as we have seen, were particularly important within the biographical tradition. Socrates’ command to offer a cock to Asclepius expressed his piety (despite his conviction for atheism), and was perhaps an ironic jest that he was now ‘cured’ from physical existence. Lucian's Demonax died with humorous words on his lips; Suetonius was always careful to record fitting last words for his emperors; and even a manly silence could be commendable.Footnote ⁴¹ In contrast to all of this, Jesus’ cry of desolation signifies a bad death, a wretched and miserable exit, fully in keeping with his servile execution.

In this vivid scene, Mark has turned conventional ideas of a good death upside down. He has gone out of his way to emphasise Jesus’ passivity, the mockery that he endured, and his abandonment and degradation. In order to appreciate the full scope of what our author is doing, we need to turn back for a moment to the earlier parts of the biography, first to the opening chapters, and then to the major body of teaching in 8.22–10.52.

4. Teaching and Showing the Way

Mark begins his biography by sketching a portrait of Jesus that would be attractive to Jew and Gentile alike. He is adopted by God as his Son (1.9–11) and quickly shows himself to be a force to be reckoned with. Thoroughly at home in the public sphere, he energetically travels throughout Galilee in the company of his male companions, outmanoeuvring opponents wherever he goes. He is a powerful healer, one able to rally crowds and inspire amazement in all he does (1.27–8; 2.12; 5.42; and so on); a man who can provide food for thousands of people (6.30–44; 8.1–10), control the forces of nature (4.35–41; 6.45–52), and even raise the dead (5.21–4). Although worthy of high honour, he refuses titles and public esteem, modestly referring to himself only as the ‘Son of Man’.Footnote ⁴² We are presented in these opening chapters with an authoritative, self-controlled Jesus, offering benefactions to all who petition him, and demonstrating many of the qualities prized by elite males.

Although he is referred to as ‘teacher’, however, the main body of instruction is reserved for the central section of the biography, in 8.22–10.52. Here the Markan Jesus turns all worldly conceptions of honour on their head in favour of a deeply counter-cultural, shocking and distasteful focus on what contemporary society would usually brand as shameful.Footnote ⁴³ Disciples are called on to deny themselves, to act as slaves or servants to one another, and to care nothing for status or prestige. They are asked to give up everything – not only riches (10.17–22) but homes and families too (10.23–30), and possibly even their lives (8.34–8). True honour and greatness in the community which gathers around Jesus lies not in courting the esteem of others, but in embracing a new understanding of honour based on ignominious service, suffering and disgrace. Significantly, however, this is not only instruction given to others, but is crucially the basis for Jesus’ own way of life and, ultimately, his death (as 10.42–5 makes clear).Footnote ⁴⁴

As Mark moves towards the Passion Narrative, it becomes apparent that Jesus has a choice over his own death. Our author stresses Jesus’ courage and fortitude as he makes his way to Jerusalem in obedience to the will of God, even though he knows how things will end (8.31–2; 9.30–2; 10.32–3). The Gethsemane scene points in the same direction. Although commentators since Celsus have tended to stress Jesus’ strong emotions here, the significance of the scene (as Origen pointed out) is surely to be found in Jesus’ final words to the Father, ‘not what I want but what you want’ (14.36).Footnote ⁴⁵ The Markan Jesus submits to his cruel death in the full knowledge of what he is doing. When his ‘hour’ arrives (14.41) he is ready, and welcomes the arresting party with a quiet dignity (14.43–50).Footnote ⁴⁶ Such foreknowledge and resolve finds many parallels within the biographical tradition: Apollonius, for example, similarly knew when his end was upon him, as did Demonax, who took steps to speed it up.Footnote ⁴⁷ Philo's Moses, too, strikingly prophesied not only his own death but also his subsequent ascension into heaven (Mos. 2.288–91). Clearly, then, the ‘good’ philosopher knows when his end has come and does not shirk from embracing it.

It is also worth noting that Mark is quite clear that Jesus has done nothing to deserve death. He draws on the motif of the unjust ruler who acts against the hero out of ‘envy’ (φθόνος). This tradition was exemplified by the case of Socrates, where the state acted unjustly against a pious man (Plato, Apol. 28a), but it is also found in numerous other bioi and martyr literature.Footnote ⁴⁸ ‘Envy’, of course, is a clever trope: it not only implies that any accusations are unfounded, but also raises the standing of the one envied.Footnote ⁴⁹ It is important to note that Mark does not say that Jesus was innocent;Footnote ⁵⁰ the charges are true – Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed (14.61), and, in a sense, he is a King (15.2, 26). The problem is that opponents cannot see it.

For Mark, then, Jesus’ free choice to submit to the will of the Father, even though he has done nothing deserving death, is the ultimate expression of what it means to be a ‘slave of all’. As David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey and Donald Michie note, Jesus’

It was surely with this end in sight that Mark composed his carefully integrated central chapters.Footnote ⁵² His artful composition shows that there is no mismatch between what Jesus teaches and his death; he remains true to his teaching to the very end. And, just as significantly, what he demands of others is no more than he is prepared to undergo himself.

Jesus’ lonely and voluntary death has theological significance for Mark: it acts as a ransom and offers those who follow him a new way to relate to God.Footnote ⁵³ Once he has drunk the ‘cup’ of suffering, however, others can follow in his path. Like other biographers, Mark has consistently presented his subject as a model for disciples, and this continues into the Passion Narrative in a series of contrasts (or synkriseis). In Gethsemane, our author sets up a striking contrast between Jesus who prays alone to the father, anxiously awaiting his ‘hour’, and an inner group of disciples who are blissfully unaware of the crisis in which they find themselves (14.32–42). Similarly, Jesus’ calm acceptance of the arresting party, who have no need of their swords and clubs (14.48), contrasts with the panicked flight of the disciples and even a young man who runs naked into the night (14.50–51). Throughout the scandalously unjust Jewish trial, Jesus stands his ground before the High Priest and answers clearly and openly (14.62), while Peter outside, accosted by a lowly serving maid, refuses to confess that he is a follower of Jesus in a desperate attempt to save his life (14.53–72).

If our author wrote for an audience who had experienced (or feared) persecution, an emphasis on the paradigmatic death of the leader is not hard to understand. Such an audience may have been particularly interested in Jesus’ demise, seeking reassurance that, despite its horror and suffering, Jesus remained true to his teaching until the end. If they were called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice, his example would provide a model for their own.Footnote ⁵⁴

5. A Wider-Angled Lens

Of course, this is not all that Mark wants to say about Jesus’ crucifixion. Space does not allow us to explore the fascinating way in which he plays with Roman ideas of kingship and power in these final scenes, destabilising traditional meanings and replacing them with highly subversive and counter-cultural ways of looking at the world.Footnote ⁵⁵ The juxtaposition of Jesus with Barabbas, effectively replacing what might have been a final speech before Pilate, shows how far Jesus is from the warlike insurrectionists who so recently had led the nation to disaster.Footnote ⁵⁶ And the clever framing of the narrative with themes associated both with the Roman triumphFootnote ⁵⁷ and the highly visual spectacles of death known from the arena,Footnote ⁵⁸ all conspire to dismantle traditional concepts of honour and shame, first and last, slave and free.

But in other ways, Mark is entirely conventional. The deaths of extraordinary people were always accompanied by signs and portents, and Jesus is no exception.Footnote ⁵⁹ As he hangs on the cross, the ‘whole earth’ is plunged into the darkness of a solar eclipse, a phenomenon often associated with a crime or the death of a king.Footnote ⁶⁰ At the moment of his death, the Temple veil rips from top to bottom (15.38),Footnote ⁶¹ most likely a sign of the impending destruction of Jerusalem.Footnote ⁶² And afterwards the disappearance of the body indicates the ‘translation’ of Jesus into heaven.Footnote ⁶³ Together, these signs show that Jesus’ death will be vindicated. He has gone to the cross not only in obedience to the Father but in a manner consistent with his teaching. In the world of radically new values that Mark presents, Jesus’ shameful end is in fact the triumph of God's Son – for those with ‘eyes to see’.

And this, I suggest, is what the centurion ‘sees’. What prompts his declaration is not the darkness, or the power of Jesus’ dying shout, or even the tearing of the Temple curtain.Footnote ⁶⁴ Still less does the centurion articulate the necessity for the Messiah to suffer (could any of Mark's Christ-following audience really be in any doubt about that by the seventies ce?). The Roman's remark is prompted – as Mark clearly indicates – by observing the way in which Jesus dies (ἴδὼν … ὅτι οὕτως ἐξέπνευσεν, 15.39). From his vantage point, facing Jesus (ἐξ ἐναντίας αὐτοῦ), even a hostile executioner recognises Jesus’ shameful death for what it ‘truly’ is (ἀληθῶς): a perfect expression of his teaching and a confirmation of his status as God's Son.