Daily Archives: 29/04/2026

The triumph of the cross

The ever-helpful YouTube offered me a video which, a little research showed, drew on a 1995 paper by W. E. Schmidt entitled The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession. It was a revelation to me. The article demonstrates the remarkable, and clearly deliberate, similarity between Mark’s account of the humiliation of Jesus as he goes to the Cross and the Imperial Triumph tradition. Mark has shaped his account to show how the Romans (at the instigation of the Jewish authorities) have actually given Jesus an Imperial Triumph, culminating in the Cross as his final victory.

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