The Spectator’s Notes | 26 March 2005

The Passion narrative, read in all churches this week, reminds one of exactly why Jesus was put to death. In Matthew’s account, it is based on the evidence of two false witnesses. They accuse Jesus of saying ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.’ Then the chief priest asks Jesus whether he is ‘the Christ, the Son of God’. Jesus replies: ‘Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power….’ This is denounced as blasphemy by the chief priest, and the crowd calls for Jesus’s death. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, says that Jesus is a ‘just person’ but literally washes his hands of him and allows him to be crucified. I wonder how Jesus would fare under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, in which the government is trying to include a clause banning ‘incitement to religious hatred’.