MODIFICACIONES Y CAMBIOS

ONLY THE ACTUAL formulation of the process by which a victim pays for

others in some way is still missing. The most explicit sentence in this regard in the Gospels is the one that John puts in the mouth of the High Priest Caiaphas during the debate that ends in the decision to put Jesus to death. It articulates unequivocally everything that I have mentioned:

Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting. "Here is this man work­ ing all these signs;' they said, "and what action are we taking? If we let him go on in this way everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy the Holy Place and our nation?' One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said, "You don't seem to have grasped the situation at all; you fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed?' He did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy that Jesus was to die for the nation - and not for the nation only, but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God. From that day they were determined to kill him. (John 1 1 :47-53)

The reason for the council is the crisis caused by Jesus' excessive popularity. But this is but the temporary form of a greater crisis in the entire Jewish society which ends, less than half a century later, in the complete destruction of the state of Israel. The existence of a debate already indicates that a decision is impossible. The indecisive debate reflects the crisis that it endeavors to decide. Because it gets nowhere Caiaphas interrupts somewhat impatiently and abruptly: "Ye know nothing at all;' he says. Listening to Caiaphas, all the leaders say: "But this is true; it is better for one man to perish and for the nation to sur­ vive. How come I didn't think of that?" No doubt they had thought of

T H A T O N L Y O N E M A N S H O U L D D I E 113

it, but only the boldest of the leaders, the most convinced and decisive, could express the thought explicitly.

Caiaphas is stating the same political reason we have given for the scapegoat: to limit violence as much as possible but to turn to it, if necessary, as a last resort to avoid an even greater violence. Caiaphas is the incarnation of politics at its best, not its worst. No one has ever been a better politician.

There are nevertheless all sorts of risks attached to violence; by tak­ ing them on Caiaphas proves himself a leader. The others rely on him. They adopt him as their model; they imitate his serene certainty. Listen­ ing to Caiaphas, they no longer doubt. If the entire nation is sure to perish then it obviously would be better for one man to die for all the others, especially since he increases the imminence of the danger by refusing to keep quiet.

Caiaphas's statement triggers to a certain extent the effect of the scapegoat it defines. It not only reassures his listeners, it galvanizes them into action; it "mobilizes" them in the sense that we speak of mobilizing the military, or the "militants" who must be mobilized. What is at work? The formation of the famous group in fusion that Jean-Paul Sartre dreamed of, without of course ever saying that it will produce nothing but victims.

For the statement to have such an effect it has to be understood in a superficial and mythic way. The political reason defined above remains mythic because it is based on what is still hidden in the political interpretation within the "victimage" mechanism, the same thing that controls the council of Caiaphas as it controls our world. The scapegoat effect is clearly very weakened just as it is weakened in modern history. That is why the political reason is always contested by its victims and denounced as persecution even by those who would unwittingly resort to it should they find themselves in a position similar to Caiaphas's. The political reason is offered because the mechanism is worn out and its transcendent qualities are replaced by the justification of social utility. The political myth permits the appearance of enough of the truthful aspects of the process to give many people today the illusion that the generalized political reading contains the sort of complete revelation of "victimage" mechanisms and their justification that has sometimes been attributed to me.

For the sentence to be truly revealing it must be understood not in the political sense but in the evangelic sense, in the context of every-

\

1 14 T H E S C A P E G O A T

thing I have identified and everything that can be identified. Then we can recognize the brilliant definition of the mechanism revealed in the Passion story, in all the Gospels, and in the entire Bible. The scapegoat that takes shape under our eyes is the same as at the origin of Judaic sacrifices. Caiaphas is the perfect sacrificer who puts victims to death to save those who live. By reminding us of this John emphasizes that every . real cultural decision has a sacrificial character (decidere, remember, is to cut the victim's throat) that refers back to an unrevealed effect of the scapegoat, the sacred type of representation of persecution.

The High Priest's decision provides the definitive revelation of sacrifice and its origin. It is expressed without either the speaker or the listeners being aware. Not only do Caiaphas and his listeners not know what they are doing, they do not know what they are saying. They must therefore be forgiven. It is all the more necessary because our political realities are usually more sordid than theirs; only our language is more hypocritical. We avoid speaking like Caiaphas because we have a clearer, though still imperfect, understanding of the meaning of his words. This is proof that revelation is making its way among us. But we would have no idea of this from reading either New Testament studies, religious his­ tory, ethnology, or political science. The experts see none of what we have been discussing. Everyone shares this knowledge except for them; the disciplines I have mentioned will have nothing to do with it. Every­ thing seems to be done to neutralize and contain true intuition rather than cultivate it. This is always the case at the beginning of great revolu-

1 1 tions. Resistance to knowledge of the scapegoat mechanism will prevent

! I the upheaval. It is merely one more sign of its proximity.

Ifwe are truly to understand the sentence in John and gain the most benefit from its revelation within the evangelic context, we must not isolate it from that context. Understanding no longer depends on merely justifying the mechanism; it is meant to increase our resistance to the temptation of the victimization, to the representations of persecution that surround it, and to the mimetic consequences that favor it. It is the

l

inverse of the effect on those who heard it first. Both effects can be ob­served today which is one of the signs that our history, for better or for worse, is inseparable from the revelation of the Gospels.

FROM THE anthropological perspective the essential characteristic of the

revelation is the crisis it provokes in every representation of persecution from the standpoint of the persecutor. There is nothing unique about

T H A T O N L Y O N E M A N S H O U L D D I E 1 1 5

the persecution in the story of the Passion. The coalition of all the worldly powers is not unique. This same coalition is found at the origin of all myths. What is astonishing about the Gospels is that the unanimity is not emphasized in order to bow before, or submit to, its verdict as in all the mythological, political, and even philosophical texts, but to denounce its total mistake, its perfect example of nontruth .

This is what constitutes the unparalleled radicalism of the revela­ tion. To understand it we must briefly evoke, in contrast, the political thought of the modern Western world. The forces of this world are clearly divided into two non symmetrical groups, on the one hand the constituted authorities and, on the other, the crowd. The former usually get the better of the latter, but in times of crisis the reverse is true. Not only does the crowd get the upper hand but it also becomes a kind of melting pot in which even authorities that seem unshakable eventually collapse. This process of fusion assures the reformation of the authori­ ties through the mediation of the scapegoat, or in other words the sacred. The theory of mimesis throws light on a process that political science and the natural sciences have been unable to penetrate.

The crowd is so powerful that the most surprising results can be achieved without even assembling the entire community. The con­ stituted authorities give in to them and yield up the victims demanded by their caprice, just as Pilate gives up Jesus or Herod John the Baptist. Thus the authorities swell the crowd with their number and are absorbed by them. In understanding the Passion we come to understand the temporary removal of any difference not only between Caiaphas and Pilate, or Judas and Peter, but between those who cry out or allow others to cry out: "Crucify him!"

No matter whether "conservative" or "revolutionary;' modern polit­ ical thought criticizes only one category of powers, either the crowd or the established rulers. For them, it is a necessity to give systematic sup­ port to the other. It is this choice that classifies them either "conserva­ tive" or "revolutionary:' The continuing fascination of the Social

Contract is owing not to the truths it may contain but to the dizzying oscillation it maintains between these two forces. Instead of resolutely choosing one and holding to that choice, like the rational members of all parties, Rousseau wanted to reconcile the irreconcilable; his work is somewhat like the disturbance of a real revolution, incompatible with the great principles it expresses.

1 1 6 T H E S C A P E G O A T

authorities, the institutions that embody the continuation of a religious, cultural, political, and judicial tradition. They are susceptible to criti­ cism for their excessive bias toward the established powers. They are equally susceptible to threats of violence from the crowd. For the revolutionaries the reverse is true. They systematically criticize institu­ tions and shamelessly revere the violence of the crowd. The revolution­ ary historians of the French and Russian revolutions mythologize all the crimes. Any serious research into the crowd is considered reactionary by them. They do not welcome illumination in these areas. It is a fact that "victimage" mechanisms need obscurity if they are to "change the world?' Nonetheless the great revolutionary writers provide explicit confirmation of the symbolic role of real violence, Saint-Just on the death of the king for example.

For the very reason that revolutionaries resort openly to violence, the desired effects are no longer produced. The mystery has been exposed. The foundation of violence was not effective and could only be maintained by terror. Some of this is true of the French Revolution com­ pared with Anglo-American democracy; it is even more valid for the Marxist revolutions. Modern political thought cannot dispense with morals, but it cannot become purely moral without ceasing to be politi­ cal. Another ingredient must therefore be mixed with morals. If we really tried to identify what this is we would inevitably end up with formulas like Caiaphas's: "It is better that this man or those die so that the community may survive?'

Different schools of political thought no less than competing schools of criticism are based on partial and biased adaptations of the Gospel revelation. Our world is full of Christian heresies, i.e., di�i�i�ns and portions. If the revelation is to be used as a weapon of dIVISIve power in mimetic rivalry it must first be divided. As long as it re�ains intact it will be a force for peace, and only if it is fragmented can It be used in the service of war. Broken into pieces it provides the opposing doubles with weapons that are vastly superior to what would be availa­ ble in its absence. This is the reason for the endless dispute over the remains of the body of the text, and why today the revelation itself is held responsible for the evil usage that has been made of it. The apocalyptic chapter of Matthew sums up the whole process in one star­ tling sentence: "Wherever the corpse is, there will the vultures gather" (Matt. 24:28).

T H A T O N L Y O N E M A N S H O U L D D I E 1 1 7

The Gospels constantly reveal what the texts of historical persecu­ tors, and especially mythological persecutors, hide from us: the knowl­ edge that their victim is a scapegoat, in the sense that we describe Guillaume de Machaut's Jews as scapegoats. The expression scapegoat is not actually used, but the Gospels have a perfect substitute in the lamb of God. Like "scapegoat;' it implies the substitution of one victim for all the others but replaces all the distasteful and loathsome connotations of the goat with the positive associations of the lamb. It indicates more clearly the innocence of this victim, the injustice of the condemnation, and the causelessness of the hatred of which it is the object.

Thus everything is completely explicit. Jesus is constantly com­ pared with and compares himself with all the scapegoats of the Old Testament, all the prophets that were assassinated or persecuted by their communities: Abel, Joseph, Moses, the Servant of Yaweh, and so on. Whether he is chosen by others or self-appointed, his role as a despised victim, inasmuch as he is innocent inspires the designation. He is the stone rejected by the builders that will become the cornerstone. He is also the millstone of scandal that will bring down even the wisest because of his ambiguous role which is easily confused with the old­ style gods. Everything down to the title of king contains a reference to the "victimary" character of sacred royalty. Those who demand an unequivocal sign should be content with the sign of Jonah.

What is the sign ofJonah? The reference to the whale, in Matthew's text, is not very revealing; Luke's silence and that of all the exegetes is preferable. But nothing prevents us from trying to provide a better answer than Matthew to the question that was probably left unanswered by Jesus himself. In the very first lines we are given the information. During a storm Jonah is chosen by lot to be the victim thrown overboard by the sailors to save their ship in distress. The sign of Jonah is yet another sign of the collective victim.

WE THEREFORE HAVE _{of text that are related to the "scapegoat?'}

Although they all �

�

_{ern victims, one and}

those of Guillaume de Machaut, for example-does not mention that the victim is a scapegoat and forces us to articulate that fact instead. The other group-the Gospels-tells us explicitly that the victim is a scape­ goat. I am not being particularly perceptive in calling Jesus a scapegoat since the text already makes that point as explicitly as possible by calling

1 18 T H E S C A P E G O A T

him the Lamb of God, the stone rejected by the builders, the one who suffers for everyone, and, especially, in presenting the distortion of persecution as distortion, that which must not be believed, in other words. I am interpreting Guillaume de Machaut, however. When I exclaim at the end of his text: "The Jews are scapegoats;' I am stating something that does not appear in the text and that contradicts the sense intended by the author. The latter is not presenting a distortion from his persecu­ tor's viewpoint but what he believes to be the bare truth. The scapegoat released to us by the text is a scapegoat both in and for the text. The scapegoat that we must disengage from the text for ourselves is the scapegoat of the text. He cannot appear in the text though he controls all its themes; he is never mentioned as such. He cannot become the theme of that text that he shapes. This is not a theme but a mechanism for giving structure.

I have promised to be as simple as possible, and the contrast be­ tween theme and structure may seem abstract and to some readers may smack of jargon. It is, however, indispensable. If it is to become clear it must be applied to the problem confronting us. The comment on Guillaume's text "The Jews are scapegoats" summarizes the correct interpretation of this text. In the place of the author's uncritical presenta­ tion of persecution we substitute an interpretation that puts the Jews in the same place as Jesus in the story of the Passion. They are not cul­ pable; they are victims of a hatred without cause. The entire crowd and in some cases the authorities are in agreement to the contrary, but this unanimity does not impress us. The persecutors know not what they are doing.

When we engage in this type of decoding, we are all involved, with­ out knowing it, in structuralism at its best. Structural criticism is older than we think, and I shall locate its origin as far back as possible in order to use undeniable and unquestioned examples. It is enough to identify the scapegoat in the case of Guillaume de Machaut because here the term articulates the hidden structural principle that is the source of all themes. It provides t�e basis for the stereotypes of persecution presented from the false perspective of an author who is incapable of recognizing in the Jews described by him the scapegoats that we identify, in the same way as the Gospels identify Jesus as a scapegoat.

It would be absurd to assimilate the two types of texts, Guillaume de Machaut and the Gospels, under the pretext that they are both deal­ ing with a certain connection with the "scapegoat:' They describe the

T H A T O N L Y O N E M A N S H O U L D D I E 1 1 9

same event in such different ways that it would be stupid to confuse them. The first tells us that the victim is guilty. Because it reflects the scapegoat mechanism that binds it to an uncritical representation of persecution, we ourselves are engaged in the criticism. The second pre­ cedes us in that same criticism since it proclaims the innocence of the victim.

It is important to understand why this potential confusion is stupid

In document PROSPECTO INFORMATIVO GLOBAL BANK CORPORATION BONOS CORPORATIVOS US$60,000,000.00 (página 69-150)