The Origins of the Entombment of Christ 7
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Origins of the Entombment of Christ 7 Chapter 1 The Origins of the Entombment of Christ Biblical Basis The narrative scene of the Entombment of Christ is recorded in all four Gos- pels in a rather cryptic fashion; the story is fleshed out in the apocryphal Gos- pel of Nicodemus, which is generally believed to have been composed sometime in the fourth century.1 The Synoptic Gospels feature different as- pects of the burial of Christ, including the participants who witnessed the event. Indeed, the burial of Christ seems a minor event in the history of the Passion: after Christ is crucified, Joseph of Arimathea, alone or in the company of Nicodemus, carries the body of Christ wrapped in a shroud for burial to a rocky cave. Mark (15.40–47) records that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, Salome, and many other women look on from afar. Joseph asks Pilate for the body of Christ and then wraps his body in fine linen and lays him in a sepulcher as Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of Joses look on: And there were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome: Who also when in Galilee followed him, and ministered to him, and many other women that came up with him to Jerusalem. And when evening was now come, because it was the Parasceve, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a noble counselor, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. 1 Mark 15.40–47; Matthew 27.55–66; Luke 23. 49–56; and John 19. 25, 38–42; See James E. Cross, Denis G. Brearley, Julia Crick, Thomas Hall and Andy Orchard, Two Old English Apocrypha and their Manuscript Source: The Gospel of Nicodemus and the Avenging of the Saviour (Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 19, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1996). Karsallah (Mises au tombeau, 25–27) feels that the textual source of the Entombments is version M of the Gospel of Nicodemus that dates to the late ninth cen- tury. This version is notable because it includes Christ’s descent into hell. The Gospel of Nicodemus was once dubbed the Acts of Pilate in Greek (the Acta Pilati) and incorpo- rated into the Evangelium Nichodemi. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004293144_003 8 Chapter 1 But Pilate wondered that he should be already dead. And sending for the centurion, he asked him if he were already dead. And when he had understood it by the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And Joseph buying fine linen, and taking him down, wrapped him up in the fine linen, and laid him in a sepulcher, which was hewed out of a rock. And he rolled a stone to the door of the sepulcher. And Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of Joses, beheld where he was laid.2 Matthew (27.55–66) recounts a similar tale; but in his account, Pilate, remind- ed by the Priests and Pharisees of Christ’s promise to rise after three days, adds the guard to watch the tomb. Luke (23.49–56) embellishes the burial by re- counting how the Holy Women prepare the spices and ointments for Christ’s body and then rest the Sabbath day. John (19. 25 and 38–42) relays how Nicode- mus brings the spices, a mixture of myrrh and aloes, and prepares the body of Christ according to the Jewish tradition. It is the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus that includes Mary the mother of Christ and John the Evangelist among those assembled at the tomb of Jesus.3 Joseph begs for and finally procures the body of Christ from Pilate and returns to Nicodemus and discloses to him all that occurred. They (Joseph and Nicode- mus) with Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Salome, along with John, and the rest of the women on the road to Calvary did what was customary by wrapping the body in white linen and placing it in a tomb.4 According to Forsyth, this text explains the extended group of onlookers found in the later medieval sculp- tural representations of the Entombment.5 There is another variant of the text that is closer to the Synoptic Gospels (Greek recension A) in which Nicode- 2 Mark 15.40–47 Douay Rheims version of Holy Bible (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publish- ers, Inc. , 1971). 3 As Karsallah (Mises au tombeau, 28–29) points out, it is only logical that Mary and John would leave the scene of the Crucifixion to follow the body of Christ to the site of his entombment. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus thus fills the gap left by the Synoptic Gospels’ account of the entombment. 4 Forsyth, The Entombment of Christ, 7 citing “The Gospel of Nicodemus (The Acts of Pilate), Second Greek Form,” trans. Alexander Walker in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1903), VIII. Ch. II, 431–432. 5 Forsyth, The Entombment of Christ, 6–7; Karsallah (Mises au tombeau, 26–27) notes that it is primarily variation M of the text that includes all of these people and that this version stems from a Byzantine text, which was in turn a tributary of a Latin text that was widely diffused in the Middle Ages, even in the west. See also L’Évangile de Nicodème ou les actes .