Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§17.4 Crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato
saying had been extracted for separate use? Either way, the double attestation of
Mark and Luke indicates that Jesus was remembered as using the imagery of
baptism to describe the suffering he expected to have to endure. 197
In the Markan/Matthean context, the cup saying (Mark 10.38a/Matt. 20.22)
also denotes expectation of suffering. 198 What is striking is the prediction that
James and John would have to drink from the same cup (Mark 10.39a/Matt. 20.23
— and endure the same baptism: Mark 10.39b). Such a prediction can hardly have
been first articulated in the early years of Christianity. 199 It must go back to Jesus
and have been retained within the Jesus tradition, despite lack of fulfilment thus
far, because it was remembered as a prediction of Jesus and treasured as such. 200
Here we should recall also that the cup imagery reappears in all forms of
the Gethsemane tradition (Mark 14.36 pars.). 201 Jesus in his great distress and
anguish asks to be exempted from the suffering implied in the image: 'let this
cup pass from me'. As already noted, 202 the not at all flattering portrayal of Jesus
in the garden is probably a fair representation of his state of mind. By then, Jesus
must have been all too well aware of what likely lay ahead, and was recalled as
blanching at the prospect.
More intriguing is the double fire/baptism saying in Luke 12.49-50. (1) It
is highly enigmatic. To what did the early churches refer it? From what fulfilment
could they have derived it? (2) The sayings are obviously parallel in form
('fire I came to cast. . . ; baptism I have to be baptized with . . .'), suggesting a
Semitic structure and origin. 203 (3) Thomas has an interesting parallel to Luke
12.49: 'Jesus said, 'I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until
it is ablaze' (GTh 10). Both Luke and Thomas recall Jesus as talking about casting
fire on the earth/world.
197. On baptism as a metaphor for suffering see below (n. 206 and §17.5c).
198. The 'cup' to be drunk from was a familiar metaphor for suffering divine judgment
(e.g., Pss. 11.6; 75.7-8; Isa. 51.17, 22; Jer. 25.15-17, 27-29; Ezek. 23.31-34; Hab. 2.16; Zech.
12.2; lQpHab 11.14-15; Pss. Sol. 8.14). Casey draws attention also to Mart. Isa. 5.13, and
Targ. Neof. on Deut. 32.1: 'people (sons of men) who die and taste the cup of death'. See further
Bayer, Jesus' Predictions 10-11.
199. James was martyred about 44 CE (Acts 12.2), but Irenaeus reports that John lived to
the time of Trajan (98-117 CE; Adv. haer. 2.22.5; 3.3.4); the data are briefly reviewed in Davies
and Allison, Matthew 3.90-92, including n. 39 on the much less reliable tradition that John was
killed at the same time as James.
200. See also Bayer, Jesus' Predictions 59-61.
201. Although John has totally transformed the tradition of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane,
he has taken care to include reference to the cup of suffering: 'the cup which my Father has
given me, shall I not drink it?' (John 18.11).
202. § 16.2b.
203. Burney, Poetry 63, 90; see also Black, Aramaic Approach 123. Characteristic
Lukan style (echo, synechomai) demonstrates no more than performance variation (cf. Beasley-
Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom 248-49).
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