"Ecce homo." Cum ergo vidissent cum pontifices et ministri, clamabant, dicentes: "Crucifige, crucifige eum." Dicit eis Pilatus: "Accipite eum vos, et crucifigite: ego enim non invenio in eo causam." Responderunt ei Iudaei: "Nos legem habemus, et secundum legem debet mori, quia Filium Dei se fecit." Cum ergo audisset Pilatus hunc sermonem, magis timuit. Et ingressus est praetorium iterum: et dixit ad Iesum: "Unde es tu?" Iesus autem responsum non dedit ei. (Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint John, from the Liturgical Action in Commemoration of the Passion and Death of the Lord - St. John, xix, 5-9: "'Behold the Man.' When the chief priests, therefore, and the servants, had seen him, they cried out, saying: 'Crucify him, crucify him.' Pilate saith to them: 'Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause in him.' The Jews answered him: 'We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.' When Pilate therefore had heard this saying, he feared the more. And he entered into the hall again, and he said to Jesus: 'Whence art thou?' But Jesus gave him no answer.")
Besides friends and disciples, there is another tribunal before which every new doctrine must appear, namely, the tribunal of the people. After having spoken in secret to the chosen ones, it becomes needful to quit the chamber, to appear in public, to speak to mankind of all ages and conditions, to those who have not leaned upon the bosom of the Master, who have not received the education of friendship, who know not what is required of them, who oppose to the word of doctrine a host of passions blended with as many prejudices.
Jesus Christ did this; He heard the murmurs of the crowd around Him, and was undaunted before the account which He had to give them of Himself. "How long," cried they to Him, "dost Thou hold our souls in suspense? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus Christ answered them: "I speak to you, and you believe not; the works that I do in the name of My Father, they give testimony of Me. ...I and the Father are one.".
At that saying, which expressed all, the Jews took up stones to stone Him, and Jesus said to them: "Many good works I have showed you from My Father; for which of these works do you stone Me?" The Jews answered Him : "For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, maketh Thyself God."
The language which Jesus Christ held towards the people in order to make known to them the origin and mission of their new spiritual Master, was, then, language free from all constraint and obscurity. He fearlessly uttered to them that terrible phrase : "I and my Father are one", EGO ET PATER UNUM SUMUS. But, above the people, that confused mass whose voice is at the same time the voice of God and the voice of nothingness, above the people who form at the same time the highest and the lowest authority rises, with calm vigilance and self-respect, the highest representation of right and truth, every nation possesses a supreme magistracy which concentrates in itself the glory and enlightenment of the country. And before it every doctrine claiming to rule, either by doing apparent or real violence to received traditions, must at last appear. Jesus Christ could not escape from this general law of the human order. He is called before the council of the elders, the priests, and the princes of Judea.
After hearing evidence more or less inconsistent, the high priest at length resolves to place the question in its true light; he stands up and addresses this solemn charge to the accused : "I adjure Thee by the living God that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus Christ calmly replies in two words: "EGO SUM", I am! And He immediately adds, in order to confirm His avowal by the majesty of His language: "I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tears his garments. "What need we any further witnesses?" he exclaims. "You have heard the blasphemy! What think you?" And they all condemn him, as guilty, to death. He is then brought before the Roman governor, who, not finding good reasons for His condemnation, wishes to release Him; but the princes of the people persist: "We have a law," say they, "and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." Pilate so fully comprehends this, that his Roman, and therefore religious, ear is all attention; he draws Jesus Christ aside, and timorously asks Him whence He is: "UNDE ES TU?" Jesus Christ is silent; He confirms by His silence all that He is accused of having said of Himself, and what, in fact, He has said.
The people who witness His crucifixion understand His condemnation in the sense in which it was pronounced; they insult Him even in death by these expressive derisions : "Vah, Thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it: save Thy own self; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." And, when darkness covers the earth, when the rocks are broken in pieces, when the veil of the temple is torn in two, and all Nature proclaims to mankind that a great event is in action, the lookers-on and the Roman centurion strike their breasts, saying: "Indeed, this was the Son of God!" And the apostle St. John concludes his gospel in these words: "These [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."
Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)
Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris (1846)
