Cutting off the ear of a slave.

[Ben C. Smith]

All four canonical gospels record this incident:

Matthew 26.50b-54: 50b Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?"

Mark 14.46-47: 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Luke 22.49-51: 49 When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" 50 And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered and said, "Stop! No more of this." And He touched his ear and healed him.

John 17.10-12: 10 Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave's name was Malchus. 11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" 12 So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him....

Could there be any connection to this incident from the Year of the Four Emperors?

Tacitus, Histories 3.84b: 84b On the capture of the city Vitellius was carried on a chair through the rear of the palace to his wife's house on the Aventine, so that, in case he succeeded in remaining undiscovered during the day, he might escape to his brother and the cohorts at Tarracina. But his fickle mind and the very nature of terror, which makes the present situation always seem the worst to one who is fearful of everything, drew him back to the palace. This he found empty and deserted, for even the meanest of his slaves had slipped away or else avoided meeting him. The solitude and the silent spaces filled him with fright: he tried the rooms that were closed and shuddered to find them empty. Exhausted by wandering forlornly about, he concealed himself in an unseemly hiding-place; but Julius Placidus, tribune of a cohort, dragged him to the light. With his arms bound behind his back, his garments torn, he presented a grievous sight as he was led away. Many cried out against him, not one shed a tear; the ugliness of the last scene had banished pity. One of the soldiers from Germany met him and struck at him in rage, or else his purpose was to remove him the quicker from insult, or he may have been aiming at the tribune — no one could tell. He cut off the tribune's ear and was at once run through [aurem tribuni amputavit ac statim confossus est].

This would have happened in AD 69.

Ben.

[Peter Kirby]

I do think that there has to be some common cultural understanding of what it means to have your ear cut off.

It's not often that you'll have your ear cut off by accident. It may occasionally happen in battle, of course. In the passage quoted, people didn't believe readily that the tribune had been the target. Perhaps they had a hard time believing that the perpetrator would consider it just to strike the tribune in a way that removed his ear.

Some other passages.

“Antigonus himself also bit off Hyrcanus’s ears with his own teeth, as he fell down upon his knees to him, that so he might never be able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated were to be complete, and without blemish.” (Josephus, War, 1.13.9)

Leviticus 21:18 - "For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous..."

Apparently a Persian self-mutilated as a way to make himself appear out of favor with his king, to their enemies.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ,001:3:155
The king reacted very violently to seeing a man so well-respected mutilated, and springing from the throne he uttered a cry and asked Zopyrus who it was who had mutilated him and why. [2] “There is no man,” he said, “except you, who has enough power to do this to me, and no one but I myself did this, O King, because I felt it terribly that Assyrians were laughing at Persians.” [3] Darius answered, “Unfeeling man, you give a pretty name to an ugly act if you say that it was on account of those besieged that you did for yourself past cure. Why, you poor fool, will the enemy surrender sooner because you mutilated yourself? How could you not have been out of your mind to disfigure yourself?” [4] “Had I told you,” said Zopyrus, “what I intended to do, you would not have let me; but now I have done it on my own. Now, then, if you do your part we shall take Babylon. I shall desert to the city as I am, and I shall say to them that I suffered this at your hands; and I think that I shall persuade them, and thus gain a command. [5] Now, on the tenth day after I enter the city, take a thousand men from the part of your army about which you will least care if it is lost, and post them before the gate called the gate of Semiramis; on the seventh day after that, post two thousand more before the gate called the gate of the Ninevites; and when twenty days are past after that seventh, lead out four thousand more and post them before the Chaldean gate, as they call it; allow neither these, nor the others that go before them, to carry any weapons except daggers; leave them these. [6] But immediately after the twentieth day command the rest of your army to assault the whole circuit of the walls, and post the Persians before the gate of Belus and the gate called Cissian. For I think that once I have done conspicuous things the Babylonians will give me, among other things, the keys of their gates; then it will depend on me and on the Persians to do what is necessary.”

In ancient Egypt, removing the nose and ears was a punishment for giving false testimony or for corruption.

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstr ... sequence=1

"As Amun endures and as the Ruler endures, if I speak falsehood [replaceable by potentially any reprehensible action], may there be cut off my nose and ears, me being (banished) to Kush."

There is also a specific part of the code of Hammurabi that addresses slaves and cutting of their ear:

http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.olds ... e/Hamm.htm
If a slave has said to his master, "You are not my master," he shall be brought to account as his slave, and his master shall cut off his ear.

By contrast: "The Greeks were honourably distinguished in the ancient world for their aversion to torture and mutilation in every shape" - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ry=crux-cn

To strike for the ear of the high priest's slave would be to set yourself up as the one executing a punishment for a crime where the purpose of the punishment is to humiliate and remove from respectable society (and from temple service).

[Ben C. Smith]

There is also this:

Exodus 21.5-6: 5 But if the slave plainly says, "I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man," 6 then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

[neilgodfrey]

If the Gospel of Mark uses parts to represent wholes in his proleptic messages of their future fates -- e.g. traders for the temple, temple curtain for the Mosaic system, Peter for the twelve, etc -- then it is a reasonable option to interpret the cutting off of the ear of the high priest's slave as a symbolic defilement of the high priest himself and a declaration of the high priest no longer being qualified to lead the Jewish religion. The entry of Jesus into his Passion marks the end of the legitimacy of the high priest.

(See Peter's quote from Josephus above -- the physical blemish of the loss of an ear disqualifies one from priesthood.)

[neilgodfrey]

Well, well... speaking of symbols... See http://www.jstor.org/stable/44088945

Viviano, Benedict T. 1989. “THE HIGH PRIEST’S SERVANT’S EAR: MARK 14:47.” Revue Biblique (1946-) 96(1): 71–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44088945 (March 4, 2018).

Some extracts....

The servant of the high priest was not a lowly domestic but the segan hacohanim, the prefect of the priests, the chief assistant, or deputy, of the high priest. In Luke he is the one designated the strategos tou hicrou or captain of the temple (Luke 22:4, 52; Acts 4:1; 5:24, 26). The same usage prevails in Josephus (Bell. Jud. 6.5.3 § 294). Misunderstanding arises because doulos in Greece meant a slave in the literal sense but in the Near East it was also used as a deferential reference to a royal or religious oflicer (e.g., 1 Sam 19:5, 30; 19; 4; 2 Sam 14:19 in HT and LXX). According to the Mishnah, the segan serves at the right hand of the high priest in the temple (m. Yoma 3:9; 4:1; Sota 7:7, 8). 7 Thus it is understandable that Mark saw in him the representative of the high priest and thus a symbol of the Temple administration, the highest ofTicial instance of the national religion.

Viviano explains that Mark does not say the ear itself was cut off but only the earlobe -- a small portion of the ear.

Then...

We begin with some of the qualifications for priests in Israel as listed in Leviticus 21:16-23.

(16) And the Lord said to Moses (17) “Say to Aaron, None of your descendants throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. (18) For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, (19) or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, (20) or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles; (21) no man of the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord’s offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. (22) He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, (23) but he shall not come near the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the Lord who sanctify them.”

We notice at once the relevance of v. 18 to our passage: “No one who... has a mutilated face...shall draw near. ״ Just as the sacrificial
offering must be unblemished (22:17-25), so the priest who offers it must be without bodily defect. 8 This principle was taken so seriously in Israel that when there were rivalries among candidates for the high priestly office in Israel it sometimes occured that one candidate would mutilate his rival's face by cutting off his ears, thereby disqualifying him from the priestly office. Before conside- ring some cases of this, we should notice the development of precision of meaning in this passage of Leviticus which occurs in the Septuagint. In verse 18, the Septuagint translates: No man who has a blemish on him shall draw near: a man lame, blind, with his nose disfigured, or his ears cut (ώτότμητος).

Viviano then cites Josephus's account of Antigonus cutting off the ears of Hyrcanus to disqualify him from the priesthood. As quoted above.

Then....

Another such case is recorded in the Tosefta to the Mishnah (t. Para 3:8):

A story is told concerning a certain Sadducee. He had awaited sunset (for purification) and (then) came to burn the cow (the red heifer). And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai became cognizant of his intention, and he came and placed his two hands on him, and said to him, ,‘My lord. High Priest. How fitting are you to be high priest. Now go down and immerse one time .” He went down and immersed and emerged. After he came up, he (Yohanan) slit his ear (rendering him unfit to serve). ......

Since Yohanan ben Zakkai is counted as a first generation tanna (ca. A.D. 10-80), and the story presupposes the existence of the Sadducess and of the Temple, we may reasonably date this story some time between the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple, that is, between about A.D. 40 and 65.

Another...

In 1934 Michael Rostovtzeff noticed a parallel with Mark 14:47 in Papyrus Tebtunis III, 793, col. xi, 1, dated from 183 B.C. 14 The papyrus contains a police report of a scuffle between Hesiodos, a Thracian cleruch of the fifth hipparchy, and Dorion, a desert guard (eremophylax), late one evening when Hesiodos was returning home from work. Dorion with some associates attacked Hesiodos and started to beat him and to wound him with swords. At this "Hesiodos cut off the right ear of Dorion completely ״ (δεξιόν ώτα εις τέλος έξέτεμεν). Rostovtzeff concluded that this act was intended as a gesture of contempt, not as a serious effort to wound him fatally or to kill him. It was a symbolic act which would mark him with disgrace for life.

The earliest reference is found in Herodotus 3.69.5: 4 ״It is known that Cyrus son of Cambyses had in his reign cut off the ears of this Magian, Smerdis, for some grave reason.

The third case, from Tacitus, Annales 12.14.3, describes a Persian punishment for treason. “With all hope lost, Meherdates now listened to the promises of his father’s vassal Parraces, and, by an act of perfidy on his part, was thrown into chains and surren- dered to the victor; who, upbraiding him as no relative of his, nor a member of the Arsacian house, but an alien and a Roman, struck off his ears and commanded him to live (auribus decisis vivere iubet)—an advertisement of his own mercy and of our dishonor." Here the punishment is seen as both merciful and shaming, a viewpoint which brings us back to Mark 14:47.

By now it should be clear that the verse in Mark recounts an event which is far from accidental. The anonymous agent inflicts a symbolic wound intended to shame, not to kill, a type of punishment not unknown in the ancient near east. The symbolic character is all the more obvious if it is in fact the earlobe which is excised. The peculiarly Palestinian, Jewish aspect of the events is connected with the character of the victim, the representative of the high priest. The deed makes a statement, saying in effect: "You, and the one you represent, are gravely unworthy to stand as mediator between God and men. You have proven your unworthiness by coming here to lay violent hands upon the anointed holy one of God. I hereby make visible your unworthiness and disqualify you from further exercising your high office."

Once the incident is understood in this light, as a criticism of the religious establishment in Israel, that is, the temple service as it was being conducted by the (predominantly Sadducean and collaborationist) priesthood, then its connection with other temple-critical passages in Mark and in Qumran becomes readily apparent. Henceforth, the verse should be drawn into the discussion of this much examined theme. 19

[arnoldo]

All four canonical gospels record this incident:

Matthew 26.50b-54: 50b Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?"

Mark 14.46-47: 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Luke 22.49-51: 49 When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" 50 And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered and said, "Stop! No more of this." And He touched his ear and healed him.

John 17.10-12: 10 Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave's name was Malchus. 11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" 12 So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him....

. . .

FWIW, Paul Anderson notes the similarity between the Lukan and Johannine account (the right ear cut off) may indicate that the writer of Luke had access to Johannine traditions. Anderson cites several other instances where the writer of Luke sides with John rather than Mark or Matthew.

[Secret Alias]

There is also the bit about the followers of Marcellina (or some gnostic) who brand the ear.

[hakeem]

All four canonical gospels record this incident:

Matthew 26.50b-54: 50b Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?"

Mark 14.46-47: 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Luke 22.49-51: 49 When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" 50 And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered and said, "Stop! No more of this." And He touched his ear and healed him.

John 17.10-12: 10 Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave's name was Malchus. 11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" 12 So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him....

. . .

FWIW, Paul Anderson notes the similarity between the Lukan and Johannine account (the right ear cut off) may indicate that the writer of Luke had access to Johannine traditions. Anderson cites several other instances where the writer of Luke sides with John rather than Mark or Matthew.

The additional "details" in gJohn show that it is more likely than the Johanine Gospel used gLuke or gLuke sources.

1. gMark and gMatthew mention cutting off the ear of the slave.

2. gLuke later adds that it was the right ear of the slave.

3. gJohn adds another later "detail" that the name of the slave was Malchus whose right ear was cut off.

There are more examples which show that the Johanine version of the Gospel must be or most likely later than the Synoptics.

[neilgodfrey]

Haenchen points out the curious emphasis Luke introduces -- that it is the "right" ear that was cut off. He opines that this would have required some considerable dexterity to achieve if aimed deliberately, in the night.

[Ben C. Smith]

All four canonical gospels record this incident:

Matthew 26.50b-54: 50b Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?"

Mark 14.46-47: 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

Luke 22.49-51: 49 When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" 50 And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered and said, "Stop! No more of this." And He touched his ear and healed him.

John 17.10-12: 10 Simon Peter then, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave's name was Malchus. 11 So Jesus said to Peter, "Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" 12 So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him....

. . .

FWIW, Paul Anderson notes the similarity between the Lukan and Johannine account (the right ear cut off) may indicate that the writer of Luke had access to Johannine traditions. Anderson cites several other instances where the writer of Luke sides with John rather than Mark or Matthew.

Yes, there are rather many of those instances. And that is not even counting the big, obvious overlaps such as the appearances in Jerusalem (instead of Galilee) and the stories about Mary and Martha.