Nathan Eubank, «Dying with Power. Mark 15,39 from Ancient to Modern Interpretation», Vol. 95 (2014) 247-268
This article examines the reception-history of Mark 15,39 to shed new light on this pivotal and disputed verse. Mark's earliest known readers emended the text to clarify the centurion's feelings about Jesus and to explain how the centurion came to faith. Copyists inserted references to Jesus' final yell around the same time that patristic commentators were claiming that this yell was a miracle that proved Jesus' divinity, an interpretation which was enshrined in the Byzantine text and the Vulgate. The article concludes that a 'sarcastic' reading is a more adequate description of 15,39 as found in B, NA28 etc.
05_Eubank_247_268 15/07/14 12:19 Pagina 255
DYING WITH POWER 255
In the 8th century the English monk Bede wrote that, “The cause
of the centurion’s wonder is clear because seeing the Lord thus ex-
pire, that is, send forth his spirit (spiritum emisisse) he said: ‘Truly
this man was the son of God.’ For no one has the power to send
forth the spirit (emittendi spiritum) except the creator of souls” 19.
Paschasius Radbertus (785-865) specifically contrasts the Markan
version with Matthew’s: “For Mark did not say what Matthew said,
namely, that ‘the centurion saw the earthquake and the things that
were done,’ but only that ‘thus crying out, he expired.’ Whence the
centurion understood something great in the yell and also in that
he released his spirit” 20. Thomas Aquinas argued that, “In order for
Christ to show that the passion inflicted by violence was not taking
away his life, he conserved his natural bodily strength, so that at the
last moment he was able to cry out in a loud voice, that his death is
counted among his miracles. Hence it is written… [Mark 15,39]” 21.
Similar interpretations are common in medieval and early modern
commentators 22.
The longstanding tradition of making sense of the centurion’s
remark by investing Jesus’ yell with great import is doubly signi-
ficant. It demonstrates, first of all, that careful attention to the way
Mark’s words run leads one into a corner: if the centurion confessed
belief in Jesus because of the way Jesus expired then there must
have been something exceptional about his dying breath. As
19
In Marci euangelium expositio, 4.15.
20
Expositio in Mattheo, 12.4264.
21
Summa theologica, III.47.1.
22
E.g., Theophylact’s commentary on Mark (11th century): “When the
centurion … saw how Jesus as Master of life gave up His life, he marveled
and confessed Him” (The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact Archbishop
of Ochrid and Bulgaria of the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark [House
Springs, MO 1993] 137); Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermones super Cantica
Canticorum, 28.4); the Glossa ordinaria on Mark 15,39; Cornelius à Lapide
(d. 1637) connects Mark 15:39 to John 10:18. After explaining the latter, he
writes: “hence Christ on the Cross cried aloud and gave up the ghost to show
that He died without compulsion, and of His own accord, when He might,
had He so willed, have lived on. For He who had strength to cry aloud, had
strength also to live, so that the centurion beholding this said, ‘Truly this was
the Son of God’”. S. John’s Gospel — Chapters 1 to 11 (trans. T.W. MOSSMAN;
vol. 5 of The Great Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide; Edinburgh 1908)
372-73; M. HENRY, Comprehensive Commentary on the Whole Bible (Brattle-
boro, VT 1834) 395.