JBL 129, no.

3 (2010): 559-574
"What Women Were Accustomed to Do
for the Dead Beloved by Them"
(Gospel of Peter 12.50): Traces of Laments
and Mourning Rituals in Early Easter,
Passion, and Lord's Supper Traditions
ANGELA STANDHARTINGER
Standhartinger@staff.uni-marburg.de
Philipps-Universitt Marburg, D-35037 Marburg, Germany
In the NT, characters participate in mourning rituals from antiquity, includ-
ing Jewish rites. Tabitha, after her death, is laid out in her house, and widows keen
over her (Acts 9:37, 39). Loud weeping and wailing are heard in the house of the
dead daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:38-39 par.).
1
Mary and Marthas neighbors come
to the house of mourning to console them (John 11:17) and accompany the sor-
rowing Mary to the tomb. Others follow in the funeral procession for the son of the
widow of Nain (Luke 7:13). Mourning women follow the condemned Jesus to the
place of execution (Luke 23:27).
2
During and after the burial of Stephen, pious men
raise a loud lament (Acts 8:2). Women are present also at Jesus' burial (Mark 15:47
parr.) and visit the tomb on the third day (Mark 16:1 parr.)
What seems to be missing, at first glance, is mourning for Jesus, but in my
opinion this is a misleading impression. In harmony with a number of contribu-
tions in recent years I would like, in what follows, to show that mourning rituals and
lament traditions are presupposed and theologically reflected upon by some of the
Easter and passion accounts. To begin with, let me point to a number of funda-
mental features of ancient mourning rituals.
For the translation of this article, I thank Linda Maloney.
1
In Matt 9:23 with flute players ().
2
Matthew 11:16-17//Luke 7:32 asks for a reaction: "we wailed, and you did not weep." The
heroic Jesus of Luke 23:27-28 asks the daughters of Jerusalem to stop beating their breasts and
wailing for him (cf. Hercules in Seneca, Here. Ot. 1962-76).
559
560 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
I. MOURNING RITUALS AND MOURNING FOR THE DEAD
IN ANTIQUITY
Care for corpses and mourning for the dead were the work of women in antiq-
uity, just as in traditional societies in the modern era.
3
The mourning began at the
moment of death and continued through the burial and at the tomb. Mourning
songs and visits to the tomb took place over a long period of time, for example, on
the third, seventh, ninth, thirtieth, or fortieth day.
4
In this way, contact was main-
tained with the dead. The custom of offering food to the dead could also be con-
nected to preserving the memory of those who had died.
5
In caring for the dead
through burial and mourning, it was the purpose of mourning laments to touch
those present and give expression to their sorrow.
6
This served to catalyze the pain
they were feeling, giving space to their grief, and so also offer something to hold on
to.
Lament for the dead is a genre that existed in ancient cultures and continues
to exist in many traditional modern cultures. In the OT, not to be mourned was
regarded as a punishment. Mourning was loud and expressive (Amos 5:16). The
mourning rites included the removal of ordinary garments, striking one's breast
(Jer 32:9-12; 41:5-6), and breaking the bread of sorrow (Jer 16:6). Prophets call
upon women to mourn for the dead.
7
Although mourning the dead represents a widespread cultural phenomenon,
only a few songs of lament have survived in the literature, and then only in a highly
transformed state. The Iliad contains the laments of the women of Troy at the death
of Hector (Homer, IL 24.721-76); the books of Samuel offer us David's laments for
Saul, Jonathan, and Abner (1 Sam 1:19-27; 2 Sam 3:33-34); the Liber Antiquitatum
3
See Eugen Reiner, Die rituelle Totenklage bei den Griechen (Tbinger Beitrge zur Alter-
tumswissenschaft 30; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1938); Wilhelm Kierdorf, "Bestattung," DNP2.5S7-
92; Leo Koep, Eduard Stommel, and Johannes Kollwitz, "Bestattung," RAC 2:194-219; Alexandra
von Lieven, "Totenkult," DNP 12:707-14.
4
See Emil Freistedt, Altchristliche Totengedchtnistage und ihre Beziehung zum Jenseits-
glauben und Totenkultus der Antike (Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen 24; Mnster:
Aschendorff, 1928); Ulrich Volp, Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike (Sup-
plements to Vigiliae Christianae 65; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 225-27.
5
See section IV below.
6
See Hedwig Jahnow, Das hebrische Leichenlied im Rahmen der Vlkerdichtung (BZAW
36; Gieen: Tpelmann, 1923).
7
Jeremiah 9:17-21; cf. 2 Sam 1:24; 2 Chr 35:25; Zech 12:11-14; and frequently elsewhere;
see also Silvia Schroer, "Husliche und auerhusliche religise Kompetenzen israelitischer
Frauen: Am Beispiel von Totenklage und Totenbefragung," in Haushalt, Hauskult, Hauskirche:
Zur Arbeitsteilung der Geschlechter in Wirtschaft und Religion (ed. Elmar Klinger et al; Wrzburg:
Echter, 2004), 9-34, esp. 13-26.
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 561
Biblicarum has the lament of Jephthahs daughter Sheila (40:5-7); and 4 Maccabees
has a hypothetical lament of the heroic mother (16:6-11). Other examples could be
added, but on the whole the findings are meager.
8
Thus, lament for the dead is a
phenomenon that, while it was undoubtedly practiced by people in the biblical
world, is scarcely reflected in the literature. What is said about the content, form,
and structures of ancient mourning songs must therefore be augmented by addi-
tional sources. Hedwig Jahnow, Margaret Alexiou, and Gail Holst-Wahrhaft have
been able, using comparative cultural studies, to demonstrate continuities in the
form and content of laments for the dead from Homer through ancient tragedy
and the OT and into traditional societies in modern times.
9
The problems in the
cultural hermeneutics of such initiatives are currently under discussion, because
they tend to generalize local and historical peculiarities. But for the question we
are pursuing here they are at least helpful because they can fill lacunas of histori-
cal knowledge. Modern ethnography can thus help to interpret evidences of a cul-
ture that is not well documented in literary and archaeological remains.
Ancient evidence, interpreted with the help of ethnographical studies, attests
the following basic structures in the mourning songs or songs of lament:
The songs of lament call on other mourning women or nature to act as wit-
nesses and to join in their lament.
10
8
Nevertheless, there are a few women's literary laments, at least in the Jewish-Hellenistic
and rabbinic writings. For example, the lament of Jephthahs daughter Sheila in LA.B. 40:5-7
takes up some typical motifs from the Greek mourning tradition. In four sections at the begin-
ning the mountains, hills, cliffs, and heaven are called on to witness the lament (40:5). Then Sheila
mourns her lost youth and the marriage she has not enjoyed, and, in a modulation of the theme,
her mother's labor in vain. Death will be her (already prepared) marriage with the underworld
(40:6). Finally, nature (trees and animals) is again called on to lament and to care for the dead
(40:7). Mothers mourn in 4 Ezra 9:38-10:4 and 4 Mace 16:6-11 over the loss of their children, con-
trasting their labors as well as their former happiness with their present misery. See further T. Job
25. The rabbinic tradition is aware that mourning is primarily the work of women (m. Mo
c
ed Qat.
4:1), knows their antiphonal songs (ibid.), and requires that everyone hire at least two flute play-
ers and a mourning woman for a dead wife (m. Ketub. 4:4). In the name of Rab, b. Mo
c
ed Qat. 28b
offers quotations from the mourning songs of the women of Shokenzeph in Aramaic, that is, the
common language. For the typical motifs employed here, see Emanuel Feldman, "The Rabbinic
Lament: Estrangement and Desacralization," in idem, Biblical and Post-biblical Defilement and
Mourning: Law as Theology (Library of Jewish Law and Ethics; New York: Yeshiva University
Press, 1977), 109-37, esp. 129-32. Cf. also Sem. 13:13.
9
Jahnow, Leichenlied; Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1974); Holst-Wahrhaft, Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Lit-
erature (London/New York: Routledge, 1992).
10
Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 40:5-7. See Margaret Alexiou and Peter Dronke, "The
Lament of Jephthahs Daughter: Themes, Traditions, Originality," Studia medievali, ser. 3, 12
(1971): 819-83.
562 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
Antiphonal singing, meter, and dialogical structure shape the form.
11
The contrasting of happiness and unhappiness, then and now, life and death
is constitutive.
12
The central theme is the encounter with pain and the misery and feeling of
abandonment on the part of the survivors.
13
The circumstances of the death
14
and the fate of the dead in the underworld
are also described.
15
The lament is an expression of protest against death and its consequences
for the survivors.
16
There is often a dialogue between the survivors and the dead. The deceased
is called on to console those who remain behind.
17
In some mourning songs the mourners imagine that death has not occurred
and that they will meet the deceased person again.
18
Finally, the deceased not only may be called on or summoned up, but also
may speak through the mourners and say words of farewell to those who
remain behind.
19
11
For the underlying antiphonal structure, see Nadia Seremetakis, "The Ethics of
Antiphony: The Social Construction of Pain, Gender, and Power in the Southern Ploponnse,"
Ethos 18 (1990): 481-511.
12
See Reiner, Totenklage, 15-16; Alexiou, Lament, 131-85, as well as, e.g., Helenas lament
(Homer, //. 24.762-75), or the mourning for Job's wife, T. Job 25.
13
See Alexiou, Lament, 110-28. Alexiou points to the modern Greek term for laments,
monologo, which in the first place means "stating (ones own) fate." She also shows that one's own
fate had a central place in women's laments in ancient drama as well as in the present. See also
Reiner, Totenklage, 15-16, with examples from ancient drama, as well as the work of Anna
Caraveli-Chaves, "Bridge between Worlds. The Greek Women's Lament as Communicative Event,"
Journal of American Folklore 96 (1980): 129-57, documenting mourning songs from Dzermiades
on Crete.
14
See, e.g., Hecuba's lament (Homer, II. 24.750-56). See also Alexiou, Lament, 165-84;
Caraveli-Chaves, "Bridge," 132-39. The day or moment of death is spoken of often in laments; see
Holst-Wahrhaft, Dangerous Voices, 59.
15
Alexiou, Lament, 185-205; Anna Caraveli, "The Bitter Wounding: The Lament as Social
Protest in Rural Greece," in Gender and Power in Rural Greece (ed. Jill Dubisch; Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1996), 185-86.
16
Caraveli, "Bitter Wounding," 181-89.
17
See Anthologia Graeca 7.486: "Often on this her daughter's tomb did Cleina call on her
dear short-lived child in wailing tones, summoning back the soul of Philaenis, who ere her wed-
ding passed across the pale stream of Acheron" (trans. W R. Paton, LCL); see also Pausanias Descr.
1.43.2; Alexiou, Lament, 108-10.
18
Reiner, Totenklage, 16; Alexiou, Lament, 178-82; Caraveli-Chaves, "Bridge," 139.
19
Thus in the earliest tomb inscriptions, in which the deceased speaks to passersby in the
first person. See Jesper Svenbro, Prasikleia: Anthropologie des Lesens im alten Griechenland
(Munich/Paderborn: Fink, 2005), 31-46. Katharine Derderian, Leaving Words to Remember: Greek
Mourning and the Advent of Literacy (Mnemosyne Supplements 209; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 76-96.
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 563
In what follows I will investigate the passion and Easter narratives in terms of
these basic structures, because on closer examination we notice certain hidden
pointers to the mourning songs for Jesus. Thus, in the farewell discourses in the
Gospel of John we read: "Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the
world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy" (John
16:20).
20
Beyond this there are narratives that show women caring for the dead
(Mark 14:3-9 parr.), at the tomb (Mark 16:1-8 parr.//Gos. Pet. 12.50-13.57), and in
dialogue with and about the one who has died (John 11:17-35; 20:16-18). Finally,
we can find traces of laments and mourning rituals also in the Markan passion nar-
rative and in the Lord s Supper traditions.
II. THE INFLUENCE OF MOURNING RITUALS
IN THE EASTER TRADITIONS
Care for the Body of Jesus
Marianne Sawicki has discovered a mourning ritual behind the story of the
anointing at Bethany (Mark 14:3-9//Matt 26:6-13//John 12:l-8).
21
This is the locus
of the lavish use of expensive, sweet-smelling oil (; Matt 26:6; Mark 14:3;
John 12:3)
22
and the motif in John of a woman wiping it away with her hair (John
12:3). Anointing of the corpse and tearing the hair, giving locks of hair, or cutting
off the hair are part of the rituals for the dead that accompany the preparation of
the body immediately after death.
23
In the narrative context of the Gospels of Mark,
Matthew, and John, the woman is performing a prophetic symbolic action.
24
The
There are many analogies in the modern era: cf. Alexiou, Lament, 123-24. Caraveli-Chaves writes:
"Ritual lamentation as a whole constitutes a dialogue between the mourner and the deceased, the
living and the dead. The forms of direct address from one group to another as well as stichomythic
dialogues between them are the concretization of such an interaction between the two realms"
("Bridge," 141). "The lamenter becomes the medium through whom the dead speaks to the liv-
ing . . . thus effecting a communal confrontation with death and through it, a catharsis. In her
capacity as a mediator between realms, the lamenter affects the entire community" (p. 144).
20
Cf. also the dancing song in Acts John 95: "Grace is dancing. will pipe, dance all of you!'
'Amen.' will mourn, lament all of you!' 'Amen.'"
21
Marianne Sawicki, Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices (Min-
neapolis: Fortress, 1994), 149-82; see also eadem, "Making Jesus," in A Feminist Companion to
Mark (ed. Amy-Jill Levine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 136-70.
22
Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.66; Lucan, Luct. l; m. abb. 23:5; August Hug, "Sal-
ben," PW 2A 2:1851-66, esp. 1857.
23
Cf. Plutarch, Cons. ux. (Moralia 609C/F); Lucian, Luct. 12; Jahnow, Leichenlied, 15-17;
Reiner, Totenklage, 45-46.
24
See Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist-Theological Reconstruc-
tion of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 198-99.
564 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
end of the story links her action to the proclamation of the gospel. Sawicki sees this
as pointing to the context in which the story originated: it tells of the beginnings
of Easter faith in the circle of women in Jerusalem.
Visits to the Tomb
Visits to the tomb were also part of ancient mourning rituals. As Carolyn
Osiek and Antoinette Clark Wire have demonstrated, the narratives of the empty
tomb allude to these rituals. This could be an indication that the story has a his-
torical core.
25
Wire suggests ancient oral traditions,
26
because the narratives of the
empty tomb differ greatly in their details. Each Gospel names one specific motive
for the women's going to the tomb. In Mark, the women come to anoint the body
of Jesus, which conflicts with his having already been laid in the tomb (16:1; cf.
15:42-47). Matthew therefore corrects to "to see the tomb" (28:1). Luke speaks of
their bringing spices, which could point to an offering for the dead at the place of
burial (23:56-24:1). John at first mentions no motivation, but later speaks of Marys
weeping at the tomb (20:11).
In the Gospel of Peter, Mary Magdalene comes with her women friends to the
tomb "to do what women were accustomed to do for the dead beloved by them"
(12.50). They try to enter the tomb "in order to sit beside him and do the expected
things" (12.53). But should that not be possible, they want to "throw against the
door what we bring in memory of him" (12.54). The Gospel of Peter does not say
what they have with them. The Synoptics suggest ointment, oil, and spices, but in
antiquity flowers and personal items also were brought to the tomb, or bread, wine,
milk, honey, and other foodstuffs.
27
The five tomb narratives thus give every indication of being rituals for the
dead Jesus. However, they refer to different phases, from the preparation of the
corpse (Mark) to delayed rituals for the dead (Gospel of Peter), mourning at the
tomb (John), watching at the tomb (Matthew), and finally care for the tomb after
burial (Luke).
25
Carolyn Osiek, "The Women at the Tomb: What Are They Doing There?" HvTSt 53
(1997): 103-18; Antoinette Clark Wire, "Rising Voices: The Resurrection Witness of New Testa-
ment Non-Writers,*' in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds. Essays in
Honor of Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza (ed. Alice Bach, Esther Fuchs, and Jane Schaberg; New
York/London: Continuum, 2004), 221-29.
26
Wire, "Rising Voices," 224-26. Adela Yarbro Collins ("The Empty Tomb and Resurrection
according to Mark," in The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context [Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1992], 119-48) thinks otherwise, on the basis of the redactional insertion of the women
in Mark 15:40-41,47; she thinks that the narrative is the invention of the author of the Gospel of
Mark.
27
Concerning food for the dead, see Volp, Tod, 61-62. The practice of eating at a tomb con-
tinued into the Christian era (ibid., 214-24; and see below).
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 565
These echoes of rituals for the dead by Jesus' women disciples in Jerusalem,
probably historical, are also significant if one presumes, for good reasons, that there
was no knowledge of any tomb for Jesus at all. Laments for the dead are, as Mary
Rose D'Angelo has shown in a comparison of cultures, by no means dependent on
the actual existence of the place of burial.
28
In Jewish tradition those who were exe-
cuted by a non-Jewish state were mourned even in the absence of the corpse.
29
Kathleen Corley finds that the formula "raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:4) contains the historical kernel of the grave traditions and
reflects women's care for the corpse of Jesus.
30
The traditional formula in 1 Cor
15:3-5 thus attests that "Jesus' followers, especially women, indeed mourned his
death, retold the story of his death in song, and memorialized his presence."
31
However we judge the historicity of the empty tomb, the most important point
seems to me to be the linkage of visiting the tomb to keep in touch with the beloved
dead one and the experience of the resurrection. This is the core of the narrative,
independent of the question whether the appearance of an angel to the women or
the appearance of the risen One represents the oldest tradition.
32
The narratives
about the empty tomb attest that there was a Jerusalem tradition that placed the
experience of the resurrection in the context of rituals at the graveyard.
Laments for the dead remain significant beyond the Easter experience as well.
The Fourth Gospel points to this in a number of stories about women at tombs.
Conversations at the Tomb
Ethnographic studies show that laments for the dead mediate between the
world of the living and that of the dead. There are appeals and addresses to the
dead; songs create an imaginary dialogue that includes accusations and quarrels
but can also convey information from the world of the living to that of the dead.
28
D'Angelo, "Re-Reading Resurrection," Toronto Journal of Theology 16 (2000): 109-29,
here 118: "The recognition that Jesus s comrades were unlikely to have known where or even if he
had been buried offers an invaluable theological resource to a time in which genocides, disap-
pearances and exile play so large a role. The Jesus whose burial place was unknown and not ven-
erated emerges as the companion of the disappeared."
29
Semahot 2:9 makes it clear that many of the relatives of crucified persons did not receive
the bodies of the dead. The passage also shows that laments for the dead were possible, and indeed
necessary, even without a corpse, or at a mass grave.
30
Corley, "Women and the Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus," FF Forum 1 (1998): 181-225.
31
Ibid., 217.
32
For an overview, see Roman Khschelm, "AngelophanieChristophanie in den Synop-
tischen Grabgeschichten Mk 16,1-8 Par. (Unter Bercksichtigung von Joh 20,11-18)," in The Syn-
optic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism. 41
st
Session of the Colloquium
Biblicum Lovaniense (d. Camille Focant; BETL110; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993), 556-
65.
566 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
Encounters with the dead are imagined. In some songs of lament, but especially in
ancient tomb epigraphs, the dead even speak in the first person through and to the
survivors.
The Fourth Gospel contains three tomb dialogues. In John 20:11-18 the
mourning Mary Magdalene first enters into dialogue with the angels, and then with
the risen One himself; the exchange of words between Mary and the risen One
reflects the slow process of recognition.
33
John 11 contains two other dialogues
between women and Jesus at a tomb.
34
Here the subject of discussion is the expe-
rience of death in light of its having been overcome in Jesus' resurrection.
35
How-
ever, the two dialogues proceed in an utterly different manner. Mary's lament
(11:28-37) at the tomb of her dead brother shakes Jesus, disturbs him, and makes
him weep (John 11:32, 35, 38).
36
The use of the verb shows that she
reminds him of his own death (cf. John 11:33; 12:27; 13:21). Jesus here enters into
the lament for the dead raised by Mary of Bethany.
37
In contrast, Jesus' dialogue with Martha (John 11:17-27) contains a theolog-
ical discussion about resurrection, culminating in Martha's christological confes-
sion. Strikingly, however, Martha's confession of the resurrection precedes the
mutual lament of Mary and Jesus at the tomb. The resurrection faith to which the
dialogue with Martha attests thus by no means makes the lament, and Jesus' par-
ticipation in it, superfluous. The risen One is in solidarity with those who remain
behind in the process of their mourning.
The very different dialogues with the two sisters begin with the identical
3 3
Mary Rose D'Angelo, "A Critical Note: John 20:17 and Apocalypse of Moses 31," JTS 41
(1990): 529-36.
3 4
Scholars are agreed that the experience of resurrection is reflected in this story. Rudolf
Bultmann discovers behind John 11 an ancient epiphany story (Das Evangelium des Johannes
[KEK 2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959], 299). Hartwig Thyen, who in contrast to
Bultmann sees in John 11a "palimpsest over synoptic traditions," finds tomb and resurrection
narratives reflected here, e.g., Luke 16:19-31 and Mark 14:3-9 (Das Johannesevangelium [HNT 6;
Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005], 510-11).
35
See Sandra M. Schneiders, "Death in the Community of Eternal Life: History, Theology,
and Spirituality in John 11," Int 41 (1987): 44-56.
36
Thyen shows that the three emotions Jesus is said to show (, ,
) reflect sorrow at the death of a friend (Das Johannesevangelium, 532-35). Regarding
the unusual (actually "snored"), he points to the Vulgate translation,/remo ("to be
saddened") and translates "he was deeply moved." Johannes Beutler shows that there is an allu-
sion here to the lament Psalm 42/43 ("Psalm 42/43 im Johannesevangelium," NTS 25 [1978]: 33-
57, here 46).
3 7
See Schneiders, "Death," 54: "Jesus' tears are an honest sharing in Marys grief and perhaps
in her anger at death, the enemy of all life. Jesus, in his most fully human moment in the Fourth
Gospel, legitimates human agony in the face of death, an agony he will feel for himself as he shrinks
from the passion in chapter 12."
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 567
address: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21,
32). The address remains ambivalent. It expresses both trust in God, who has raised
the dead, and despair in the face of death, with its power to destroy community
and to separate. Cries of accusation against the dead as well as against perpetra-
tors, collaborators, nature, and even God are not infrequent in laments for the
dead.
38
Such a lament can then, ultimately, be observed also in one part of the pas-
sion traditions.
III. LAMENT FOR THE DEAD AND THE PASSION NARRATIVE
The passion story is one of the oldest narrative traditions in incipient Chris-
tianity. In the background of the tradition cited in 1 Cor 15:3-5 is a narrative con-
text, just as is the case with the Lord's Supper tradition with its location of the meal
"in the night in which he was handed over" (1 Cor 11:23). Unfortunately, it is hard
to say how close these oral narratives came to the oldest literary tradition of the
passion story in Marks Gospel.
39
But the references to the Scriptures in 1 Cor
15:3-4, in Luke 24:26-27, 30-31, and in the words of institution hint at the role
that scriptural interpretation played in their development.
40
38
Cf., e.g., Andromache's reproaches to her dead husband, Hector (Homer, II. 24.724-45),
or the laments of women from Mani (Greece) quoted by C. Nadia Seremetakis, The Last Word:
Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press,
1991), 75-76: "Hey, you God, from high above where the gun can't reach you! Why don't you
descend below to talk about rights? We have the most [rights] for we are left without child." "I
began mourning and like a madwoman I screamed 'God is a merciless criminal to have killed the
orphan [her son].' Relatives advised me, with friends and co-villagers together, not to curse God,
for it's sinful and bad. And I replied to them, 'This thing that God did on the Savior's Day, killing
the orphan, is this not sinful and bad?'"
39
Most interpreters assume that Mark was revising an older, pre-Markan passion story.
Unfortunately, the literary-critical attempts to reconstruct such a document seem to have failed.
More recent suggestions for the most part avoid trying to reconstruct the exact wording and pur-
sue the question instead by, for example, comparing the Johannine and Markan passion narratives
(see Wolfgang Reinbold, Der lteste Bericht ber den Tod Jesu: Literarische Analyse und historische
Kritik der Passionsdarstellungen der Evangelien (BZNW 69; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1994)
or proceed on the basis of tradition-critical considerations. See Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A
Commentary (Hermeneia Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 621-29.
40
Helmut Koester, "The Memory of Jesus' Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord," in
idem, From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2007), 211-24; and in the same volume, "The Story of Jesus and the Gospels," 235-50,
esp. 237-40. See also Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, Jesus'Death in Early Christian Memory: The Poet-
ics of the Passion (NTOA 53; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Freiburg: Herder, 2004),
27-52.
568 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
In addition, it has been suggested that laments for the dead influenced the
passion narrative. For Kathleen Corley, it is imaginable that some "oral lament tra-
ditions about Jesus' death may have been transmitted by early Christian men and
women. This context may also explain the use of lament Psalms . . . in the devel-
opment of a written passion narrative."
41
Butbecause the Markan passion narra-
tive contains no reflection of lament traditions, such as antiphonal patterns or
address to the deadthis passion tradition was, in her opinion, completely lost.
For John Dominic Crossan, laments for the dead are one of "two equiprimordial
processes" that contributed to the origins of the Markan passion narrative.
42
According to Crossan, the basis of the passion narrative is scriptural interpreta-
tion, but it was female "ritual lament... that changed prophetic exegesis into biog-
raphical story" and "in the absence of a body and a tomb . . . wove exegetical
fragments into a sequential story."
43
The multiple oral performances of the women
were not transmitted in the Gospels, however. After the story was written down by
Mark, the female ritual laments were forgotten.
Songs of lament can, in fact, contain biographical narratives and descriptions
of the day of death and the circumstances of the death, but they are significantly dif-
ferent in both form and structure from the passion accounts, as Corley has shown.
Nevertheless, the latter suggest the influence of lament traditions at other points.
Recently some exegetes have shown that Mark's passion refers quite specifically to
Psalm 22.
44
Here the psalm is not used as a scriptural attestation to what has hap-
pened, as it is in John 19:24, "So they said to one another, 'Let us not tear it, but cast
lots for it to see who will get it.' This was to fulfill what the scripture says, They
divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.'" Nor
does it serve as a proof that Jesus is the Davidic messiah or king who speaks in the
psalm,
45
or that Jesus knew in advance everything that would happen. Such inter-
pretations of Psalm 22 first appeared in the second century, through Justin Martyr.
46
41
Corley, "Women and the Crucifixion," 215-16.
42
John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years
Immediately after the Execution of Jesus (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 527-73.
43
Ibid., 573.
44
Martin Ebner, "Klage und Auferweckungshoffhung im Neuen Testament," Jahrbuch fr
Biblische Theologie 16 (2001): 73-87; Bernd Janowski, "Die Jdischen Psalmen in der christlichen
Passionsgeschichte," in Freiheit und Recht: Festschrift fr Frank Crsemann zum 65. Geburtstag
(ed. Christof Hardmeier et al.; Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus, 2003), 397-413; Stephen P.
Ahearne-Kroll, The Psalms of Lament in Mark's Passion: Jesus' Davidic Suffering (SNTSMS 142;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
45
So Justin, Dial. 97.3-4; cf. 1 Apol. 35.5-7; Tertullian, Marc. 3.4-5; 4.42,45.
46
Justin is the first to quote a translation of Ps 22:17 (LXX 21:17) in relation to the passion
narrative: ("they pierced my hands and my feet"). According
to Justin, this verse clearly proves that the whole psalm refers to Christ and no other king, since
"when they crucified him, they pierced his hands and feet by thrusting nails through them" (Dial.
107.3). For the problem of translating v. 17, see Naomi Koltun-Fromm, "Psalm 22's Christologi-
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 569
In the Gospel of Mark, in contrast, the crucifixion scene itself reflects motifs from
the psalm. It is striking that it is only the passages of lamentation and accusation
from the psalm that are alluded to, but not the statements of confidence. Further,
the whole psalm is reflected in reverse order.
47
Thus, nothing indicates that the
thanksgiving song at the end is given any consideration.
48
On the contrary, the cru-
cifixion scene culminates in Jesus' cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?" The cry unmistakably pours out sorrow about the suffering,
before and against God.
Mark's Gospel leaves open the question whetherand, if so, whenGod
answers the crucified. Does the tearing of the curtain of the temple indicate God's
response, or is that a sign that the creation joins Jesus in his lament?
49
Is the cen-
turion's comment, "Truly this man was God's son!" to be interpreted as an acquit-
tal of the sufferer, or is it the final jeer of a Roman soldier?
50
Why is there no
narrative of the resurrection in this Gospel? To the very end, Jesus remains for Mark
"the crucified" (16:6).
51
The Markan crucifixion narrative sets Jesus' suffering at the center. In my
opinion, there could in fact be lament traditions behind this structure and its appli-
cai Interpretative Tradition in Light of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic," JECS 6 (1998): 37-57.
Moreover, according to Justin (Dial. 98-106), the whole psalm (22:2-24) shows "how he [Christ]
showed himself obedient before the Father, how he surrendered everything to the Father, and
how, through his prayer to the Father, he was rescued from death; at the same time the psalm
reveals who were those who conspired against him and that he [Christ] was truly a person to be
clung to in suffering" (98.1). In a verse-by-verse exegesis, Justin thus interprets the whole psalm
"in terms of Christ" (99.1). On this, see Judith M. Lieu, "Justin Martyr and the Transformation of
Psalm 22," in Biblical Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (ed. Charlotte
Hempel and Judith M. Lieu; JSJSup 111; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 195-211. It is striking that as regards
the manner of death, Dial. 90-91 and 105 do not, as does Dial. 107.3-4 (1 Apol. 35), cite Ps 21:17
LXX but Ps 21:22 LXX: "Save me from the lions mouth; and regard my lowliness from the horns
of the unicorns." Here "the horns of the unicorns" represent the cross (Dial. 105.2; cf. Tertullian,
Marc. 3.19.5-6).
47
This was first noted by Vernon K. Robbins, who attempts to locate it within a ritual rejec-
tion embedded in an ancient royal ritual ("The Reversed Contextualization of Psalm 22 in the
Markan Crucifixion: A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis," in The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans
Neirynck [ed. F. van Segbroeck et al; 3 vols.; BETL 100; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992],
2:1161-83,.
48
See Hartmut Gese ("Psalm 22 und das Neue Testament," Z7X65 [1968]: 1-22), who sug-
gests that Jesus prayed the whole psalm in Mark 15:34. See also Rikk E. Watts, "The Lords House
and David's Lord: The Psalms and Marks Perspective on Jesus and the Temple," Biblnt 15 (2007):
322: "implicitly an appeal for deliverance and vindication."
49
See D. F. Fredrickson, "Nature's Lament for Jesus," WW 26 (2006): 38-46; and Ahearne-
Kroll, Psalms, 219-20. Yarbro Collins (Mark, 759) points to the ambiguity of such signs, e.g., in
JosephusJ.W 6.288-300.
50
See Ahearne-Kroll, Psalms, 220-21.
51
Ebner ("Klage," 79-80) sees in this the expression of God's hidden intervention.
570 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
cation. The narrative does not turn aside from suffering. On the contrary, it appeals
for suffering-with and lamenting-with the righteous one abandoned by God. Per-
haps in this way it produces a cathartic effect like that described by many of those
who lament. It is certain, however, that it gives voice and space to each individual
lament.
Laments for the dead are made up to a great extent of fixed forms and imagery,
handed down over centuries from lament song to lament song. They constitute the
repertoire from which mourners can draw.
52
It is not the composition of Marks
passion narrative, but the specific role of lament and accusation in the shaping of
the narrative that could be due to the influence of laments for the dead.
What is of the highest theological importance is that Mark linked his biogra-
phy of Jesus with this specific passion tradition. In being given written form, the
narrative was at the same time transformed. The lament over Jesus' death became
the lament of the sufferer himself. The accusation against the mockers and ene-
mies became narratives about the mocking of the Son of God. The injustice
encountered is no longer a subjective experience of the one lamenting, but is objec-
tified in the narrative. In this way the narrative succeeds in giving the lament a
place in memory that has endured for millennia.
IV. LAMENT FOR THE DEAD AND WORDS OF INSTITUTION
The passion story contains the Lord's Supper tradition not only in the Gospels
but also in Paul. In 1 Corinthians, the recollection of "the night he was handed
over" (11:23) establishes the connection. Moreover, the liturgical actions of break-
ing bread and drinking from the cup carried out at such times show that the nar-
rative was dramatized.
53
52
Our picture of Jewish mourning rituals around the turn of the era is unfortunately insuf-
ficient for us to be able to say anything about the role played by the psalms in those rites. Some
of the songs of praise from Qumran make use of a psalm. See most recently Heike Omerzu, "Die
Rezeption von Psalm 22 im Judentum zur Zeit des zweiten Tempels," in Psalm 22 und die
Passionsgeschichten der Evangelien (ed. Dieter Snger and Eberhard Bons; Biblisch-theologische
Studien 88; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2007), 33-76, esp. 33-37. See also Heinz-
Josef Fabry, "Die Wirkungsgeschichte des Psalms 22," in Beitrge zur Psalmenforschung Psalm 2
und 22 (ed. Joseph Schreiner; FB 60; Wrzburg: Echter, 1988), 279-317. Yarbro Collins sees the
life of the Teacher of Righteousness as the setting for the use of these songs ("The Appropriation
of the Psalms of Individual Lament by Mark," in The Scriptures in the Gospels [ed. C. M. Tuckett;
BETL 131; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997], 221-41). She also points to a messianic read-
ing of the psalms by the mourners for Zion (ibid., 237-39). Later midrashes connect Psalm 22 with
Esthers story. See Esther M. Menn, "No Ordinary Lament: Relecture and the Identity of the Dis-
tressed in Ps 22," HTR 93 (2000); 301-41. Ahearne-Kroll (Psalms, 40-214) locates the setting of
the psalms of lament used in the passion in the life of David.
53
See Aitken, Jesus' Death, 48-53; and eadem, " : The
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 571
The words of institution, repeated four times in the NT, have presented
exegetes with a whole series of riddles.
54
Because of their christological content,
they cannot be traced to the historical Jesus.
55
Analogies to a divine figures self-gift
in bread and wine can be found in Jewish wisdom theology and in the ancient mys-
tery cults.
56
The latter, however, contain elements of lament within their ritual
dramatizations.
57
The memorial formula handed on by Paul and Luke, "Do this in
remembrance of me," has parallels in the context of endowed memorial meals for
the dead.
58
Eating together is part of mourning rituals as well. The burial is followed by
mourning banquets at the grave or in the home of the deceased. We can find indi-
cations of eating at tombs in the OT and in ancient Judea.
59
Early Christian women
Eucharistie Memory of Jesus' Words in First Corinthians," HTR 90 (1997): 359-70; see also
Helmut Koester, "The Historical Jesus and the Cult of the Kyrios" in idem, From Jesus to the
Gospels, 225-34.
54
For details compare Angela Standhartinger, "Die Frauen von Jerusalem und die Ent-
stehung des Abendmahls: Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der Einsetzungsworte im
Neuen Testament," in "Eine gewhnliche und harmlose Speise"? Von der Entwicklungen frh-
christlicher Abendmahlstraditionen (ed. Judith Hartenstein et al; Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlags-
haus, 2008), 74-104.
55
See Dennis E. Smith, "Table Fellowship and the Historical Jesus," in Religious Propaganda
and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi (ed. Lukas
Bormann et al.; NovTSup 74; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 135-62.
56
See Philo, Spec. Laws 3.86; etc.; Jos. Asen. 8:15-16; Karl-Gustav Sandelin, Wisdom as Nour-
isher: A Study of an Old Testament Theme, Its Development within Early Judaism, and Its Impact
on Early Christianity (Acta Academiae Aboensis, Ser. A, Humaniora 64.3; bo: bo Akademi,
1986); and Hans-Josef Klauck, Herrenmahl und hellenistischer Kult: Eine religions-geschichtliche
Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief (NTAbh n.F. 15; Mnster: Aschendorff, 1982), 91-166.
57
See Firmicus Maternus, Err. prof. rei. 22:1; 27:1-2; Clement of Alexandria Protr. 2-3 (12.2;
13.1; 19.2; 20.1). Justin was aware of a similarity between the word's of institution and some ritu-
als in mystery cults: "For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called
Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and
when He had given thanks, said, 'This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body'; and that,
after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, 'This is My blood'; and
gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, com-
manding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain
incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn" (1 Apol.
66:3-4).
58
See Epictetus in Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 10.18; Cicero, Fin. 2.31.
59
Cf. the mourners' bread and cup of consolation in Jer 16:6; Ezek 24:17; Hos 9:4; Sir 7:33.
Some texts speak of eating with the dead (Deut 26:14; Tob 4:17: "Place your bread on the grave of
the righteous, but give none to sinners"). On archaeological evidence for grave goods, and tables
and chairs at the graveyard in ancient Israel, see R. Wenning and Erich Zenger, "Tod und Bestat-
tung im biblischen Israel: Eine archologische und religionsgeschichtliche Skizze," in "Ihr alle aber
seid Brder": Festschriftfr A. Th. Khoury zum 60. Geburtstag (ed. Ludwig Hagemann and Ernst
Pulsfort; Wrzburger Forschungen zur Missions- und Religionswissenschaft, Religionswissen-
572 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
went to the tombs of their relatives and of the martyrs to break bread and drink
wine, to the disapproval of the church fathers.
60
In the Acts of John the believers go
on the third day to the tomb of Drusiana, in order "to break bread there" (72).
61
Augustines mother, Monica, brings pap, bread, and wine to the tombs of the mar-
tyrs (Conf 6.2). Gregory of Nazianzus praises a Christian mother because she will
neither sing a mourning song nor call the mourning women nor set out bread of
mourning (Or. 15.9).
62
Augustine attests that "drunken revels and luxurious feasts
in the cemeteries are wont to be regarded by t he. . . multitude as not only an hon-
our to the martyrs, but also a solace to the dead" (Ep. 22.1.6).
63
Epiphanius con-
siders it an implicit confirmation of the resurrection faith that the Greeks, at their
meals at tombs, call the dead by name and say: "Arise, NN, eat and drink and
rejoice!" (Ancor. 86.5).
In laments the deceased may speak through the mourners and say words of
farewell to those who remain behind.
64
Further, in Greek and Latin epitaphs col-
lected from gravestones the deceased sometimes asks for food or drink.
65
In mod-
ern times the eating of the mourning banquet and common meals at tombs has
been regarded as eating with the dead.
66
The deceased is thought of as present or
schaftliche Studien 14; Wrzburg: Echter, 1990), 285-303. Some texts oppose this praxis, e.g., Sir
30:18, "Good things poured out upon a mouth that is closed are like offerings of food placed upon
a grave."
60
On this, see Freistedt, Totengedchtnistage, 90-118.
61
It is true that Drusiana has already risen and the Eucharist is celebrated in common. Joy-
ful and jubilant gatherings at the tombs of the martyrs are also attested in Mart. Pol. 18.2-3, like-
wise a second-century writing.
62
Despite the faith in the resurrection, which they certainly shared, many Christian women
continued to mourn at tombs, which John Chrysostom vehemently combated. See Horn. Jo. 11:1-2
(62.4); and Horn. Matt. 9:18 (31.4).
63
Cf. Augustine, Mor. eccl. 34 (75); also Zenon, Tractatus 1.25(15).6.11.
64
See, e.g., Anthologia Graeca 7.568: "Fate carried me off but fourteen years old, the only
child that Thalia bore to Didymus. Ah, ye Destinies, why were ye so hard-hearted, never bring-
ing me to the bridal chamber or the sweet task of conceiving children? My parents were on the
point of leading me to Hymen, but I went to loathed Acheron. But, ye gods, still, I pray, the plaints
of my father and mother who wither away because of my death" (trans. W. R. Patn, LCL).
65
Richmond A. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (1942; Illinois Studies in
Language and Literature 28; repr., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), 126-29.
66
See Loring M. Danforth, The Death Rituals of Rural Greece (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1982), 105: "Women in Potamia hold that the food distributed at memorial services
somehow finds its way to the other world, where it is eaten by the dead. They say that the distri-
bution of food takes place 'so that the dead may eat' and 'whatever you give out becomes available
for the dead'! Just as the body of the dead must be destroyed or eaten by the earth in order to pass
into the other world, so the food distributed at memorial services must be consumed in order for
it to reach the dead. Those who eat the food handed out by the relatives of the deceased substi-
tute for the deceased. By consuming the food they enable it to pass into the other world, where it
nourishes the dead."
Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do 573
is even the true host.
67
The common meal creates a substantial tie beyond the
boundary of death.
68
This allows us at least to consider the hypothesis that behind the shared bread
broken and wine drunk from a common cup stands a cup of remembrance at ban-
quets for the dead, in memory of or in communion with the crucified Jesus. The
Sitz im Leben of the words of institution is in dramatizations of the passion and
resurrection (1 Cor 11:23). The liturgical celebration "in the night in which he was
handed over" was probably shaped by the kind of basic antiphonal structure rep-
resented by laments for the dead. We may suppose that there were antiphonal songs
by various groups of mourners, contrasts between then and now, a narration of the
fate of the deceased and the survivors, and shifting emotions between deep sorrow
during the lament and subsequent relief aided by joy in the resurrection.
Songs of lament implicitly speak of the experience of resurrection. The
deceased has not just disappeared. Contact is maintained through the mourners.
The deceased can, in the lament, address words to the survivors, speaking through
the mouths of the mourners. The context of the lament for the dead and the mourn-
ing banquet can clarify the puzzling words of the dead and risen Kyrios "This is my
body" and "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." The Kyrios speaks through
the mouths of the mourners and, in a common meal, shares bread and wine with
them.
V. CONCLUSION
The traces of a lament for the dead Jesus described here can represent some-
thing like the "missing link" between the experience of the passion and the Easter
joy. Lament traditions constitute the background of the narratives about the anoint-
ing at Bethany (Mark 14:3-9 parr.) and the empty tomb (Mark 16:1-8 pzrr.llGospel
67
According to Artemidorus Daldianus, a dream in which one invites others to a great Sym-
posion is a premonition of one's own death (Onir. 5.82). In Petronius, Satyricon 65, a late-arriving
guest apologizes by saying that he was taking part in a meal for the dead and comments: "But
anyhow it was a pleasant affair, even if we did have to pour half our drinks over his lamented
bones." Lucian mocks the practice of feeding the dead "so that if anyone has not left a friend or
kinsman behind him on earth, he goes about his business there as an unfed corpse, in a state of
famine" (Luct. 9; cf. also Char. 22-23).
68
See Danforth, Death Rituals, 104-5: "Food mediates the opposition between life and
death It is believed to cross the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the
dead, to pass from this world on over into the other world where the souls of the dead dwell.
These souls are thought to have the same needs as living human beings, yet they are unable to sat-
isfy them without help. They are dependent on the living, and on their surviving kin in particu-
lar, to provide them with clothes, light, water, and food. In Greek funeral laments the living are
often portrayed as sending food to the deceased. In one lament, for example, the dead woman is
told to watch for a basket of food which is being sent to her by her living relatives."
574 Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010)
of Peter 12.50-13.57). Therefore, Sawicki and others are probably correct in their
observation that the Easter experience originated in the context of women's mourn-
ing rituals at least in part.
Even beyond Easter, laments and mourning rituals are meaningful to those
who remain in the communities. The risen One himself, in John 11, joins Mary's
lament at the tomb. In his dialogue at the graveyard with Mary Magdalene as well
as with Mary and Martha he emphasizes God's solidarity with those who have left
their beloved ones.
With its broad appropriation of Psalm 22, the Gospel of Mark incorporates
lament into its biography of Jesus. With this the Gospel of Mark shows that laments
for the dead, including the protests against death that they express, played a part in
the earliest liturgical dramatized passion narratives. Lamentation, dirge, and emo-
tions were part of the passion liturgy in Jerusalem in the fourth century C.E. as one
can learn from the pilgrim Egeria's account.
69
In the common meal in the context of the dramatically told passion and res-
urrection narratives, people experience the presence of the Kyrios. Here the risen
One speaks to his community and gives himself in bread and wine (Mark 14:22-
25; 1 Cor 11:23-26). This practice might have had its origin in memorial meals
through laments, in which the deceased one could address words to survivors
through the mouth of mourners. Therefore, dialogues between the keening ones
and the deceased might be a key to the origin of the words of institution in the
Lord's Supper tradition.
The Gospel of Mark eventually transforms the passion narrative into written
tradition. This causes an important transformation. Laments for Jesus become part
of the story and the lament of the dying Jesus himself. Unlike the other passion
narratives, the Markan account devotes a significant amount of space to this feature.
With this, the Gospel of Mark underlines that suffering and death are not a passage
to heavenly glory but an emphasis on God's solidarity with the crucified One and
his suffering sisters and brothers.
69
See Egeria, Itinerarium 34; 36.3; 37.7; and Pierluigi Piovanelli, "Pre- and Post-Canonical
Passion Stories: Insights into the Development of Christian Discourse on the Death of Jesus,"
Apocrypha 14 (2003): 99-128, esp. 126-27.
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