INRI

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INRI from the Isenheim Altarpiece

INRI (also INRI or JNRJ ) are the initials of the Latin sentence Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum - " Jesus of Nazareth , King of the Jews ". According to Jn 19 : 19-22 EU, this sentence was written  in Hebrew , Greek and Latin on a plaque that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate had placed on top of the cross of Christ to indicate the legal basis of his condemnation. The other Gospels also mention such a blackboard inscription with small variations. It is therefore also called the title of the cross ( Titulus crucis ) .

The public announcement of the guilt of an executed person corresponded to the Roman custom of the time. Since the Romans had forbidden Jewish vassal rulers from wearing the title of king at that time and the expression "King of the Jews" only appears in the New Testament (NT) in statements by non-Jews, the title is considered a clue for a historical death sentence that Jesus implicitly or explicitly passed Messiah claim may have provoked.

New Testament

The abbreviation goes Jn 19:19  VUL in the Latin Vulgate back, which in the Latin Church prevailed. According to the oldest Greek text of the Gospel of John , the sentence reads:

"Jesus, the Nazarene, the King of the Jews"

The expression "Nazarene" is also used in Mt 2.23  EU , Lk 18.37  EU and Joh 18.5.7  EU and possibly originally referred to a baptismal or teaching activity, since there were also Aramaic-speaking Anabaptist sects of the 1st or 2nd century possibly so called. The synoptic Passion Reports use the expression Nazarenos here (as in Mark 1.24  EU ; 10.47 EU ; 16.6 EU ; Lk 4.34  EU ; 24.19 EU ). The evangelists use both expressions to designate Jesus' place of origin "from Nazareth " or "from Nazareth".

In Joh 19,19 f. the inscription Τίτλος is called Titlos , in Latin Titulus . On the orders of the Roman governor, it was written in three languages ​​in Hebrew, Latin and Greek and attached to the cross. The other Gospels give no information about the authors and languages ​​of the inscription; Only in some manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke is the indication of the three languages ​​also found (according to today's opinion of the textual criticism as a learned correction added later). If the title is historical, the sentence may not have been written in Hebrew but in Aramaic , the colloquial language of Palestinian Jews at the time. For this, Wilhelm Brandt set up the conjecture in 1893 : מלכא דיהוד (א) יא( malka dijehud (e) je ).

Markus Luke Matthew John
Verses Mk 15.26  EU Lk 23.38  EU Mt 27.37  EU Joh 19,19-20  EU
languages - - - Hebrew, Latin, Greek
Standard translation And an inscription (on a plaque) stated his guilt: The King of the Jews. There was a plaque above him; it read: This is the King of the Jews. Above his head they had an inscription stating his guilt: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Pilate also had a shield made and attached to the top of the cross; the inscription read: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

Historical background

The Romans were familiar with the custom of making known the guilt of a convicted person by means of a plaque that was hung around him or carried in front of him in order to publicly humiliate and mock him before his death. This is testified by four Roman sources, including Suetonius for the execution of sentences on insurgents under Emperors Caligula and Domitian . Cassius Dio also mentions the custom once at a crucifixion. The placing of a plaque over the crucified is only mentioned in the NT.

From the death of Herod the Great (4 BC) until the end of Pilate's term in office (37 AD) , the Romans had Jewish rulers wearing the title "King of the Jews", which all evangelical versions of the text hand down together Governors of Judea strictly forbidden, as they administered Judea directly together with Idumea and Galilee during this period . The Jewish historian Flavius ​​Josephus reports of "kings" who led many Judean rebels ( Antiquitates Judaicae 17,283–285). The Roman general Varus had rebellious Jews who claimed the title of king crucified in large numbers around 6 AD ( Bellum Judaicum 2.75). The legal reason for this was the majesty law lex Iulia de maiestate , enacted by Emperor Augustus , according to which the claim to royal dignity in Roman provinces without imperial permission was considered a rebellion ( seditio, perduellio ) and an attack on the emperor himself ( crimen laesae maiestatis ). Since the reign of Emperor Tiberius (14–37 AD), this was punishable by crucifixion.

The title “King of the Jews” appears in the Gospels only in the Passion story, except in Mt 2.2. According to the New Testament scholar Klaus Wengst , it can hardly be derived from the faith of the early Christians, but rather reflects the perspective of the Romans. It can therefore be considered historical that they executed Jesus as a “messianic rebel”. Because they did not differentiate a religious claim from a political claim to leadership and therefore understood the title of king as a state crime similar to today's high treason . Jesus confirmed this accusation with his silence during interrogation by Pilate and thus incurred a death sentence that is valid under Roman law .

For the Jewish profane historian Paul Winter , the crucifixion and the title of the cross were the only historical details of the depiction of the process of Jesus in the Gospels. There was no allusion to the Old Testament in the inscription on the cross . The title “King of the Jews” meant nothing to the non-Jewish readers and listeners of the Gospels. Its mention could therefore not come from any messianic expectation or theological teaching. The guilt of Jesus mentioned in the title of the cross was thus his supposed claim to a royal dignity. New Testament scholar Martin Karrer also concluded from the sources: “It was a political process. Jesus' execution set an example for Judeans, Galileans and, last but not least, the descendants of Herod the Great to be content with the non-royal administrative structure granted by Rome. "

Theological background

The crucial question for historians and theologians is what claim Jesus himself made that triggered the death sentence of Pilate. Because in the NT versions of the interrogation of Jesus by Pilate nowhere does Jesus refer to himself literally as "King of the Jews". According to Mk 15.2  EU ( Lk 23.3  EU ), Jesus answers Pilate's direct question “Are you the King of the Jews?” With “You say so”. If Pilate had understood this as an admission of guilt, he should have ordered Jesus to be executed immediately. Instead, according to the context, he offered Jesus' release because he was not convinced of his guilt. Jesus' answer is therefore also interpreted as a distancing (“you claim it”) or as a request (“say it, judge for yourself”).

According to Jn 18 : 36-38  EU , Jesus answered: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were from this world, my people would fight so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. ”When Pilate asked him, he replied:“ You say I am a king. I was born for this and came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is from the truth listens to my voice. ”With this he rejects the accusation of a claim to political power. Accordingly, Pilate emphasizes to the accusers: "I find no reason to condemn him."

According to all versions, Pilate did not release Jesus, but finally gave in to the continued demands of the Sadducee temple priests and their Jerusalem followers ("Crucify him!"). Accordingly, they carried out Jesus' execution. According to Jn 19.21  EU they protested at Pilate's table of the cross: Jesus only claimed to be the “King of the Jews”. This points back to the previously described process or the interrogation of Jesus before the Sanhedrin . His death sentence is justified in Mk 14.61 ff.  EU with Jesus' answer to the high priest 's messiah question :

"It's me. And you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. "

A Messiah claim was not considered worthy of death in Judaism, since the further course of history would prove or invalidate it anyway. Since the fall of the Jewish kingship, Jewish kings and aspirants to the throne never claimed the honorary title of anointed one (Hebrew maschiach , Greek christos ) for themselves. Jesus, too, only did this at this single point in the Gospels, which is strongly shaped by Christian preaching intentions.

Like many earlier prophets, most recently John the Baptist , he had not proclaimed his own claims to power, but the kingdom of God . In Jewish apocalyptic, this was understood as the otherworldly break in world history, not as the result of a historical development. This corresponded Jesus handed response to the cheers of festival pilgrims (during his entry into Jerusalem Mk f 11.9.  EU ; Mt 21.9  EU ; see. Lk 19,38  EU ):

“Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, which is now to come. "

This expressed the then widespread expectation of a political liberator in King David's entourage , who would drive the Romans out of Israel. According to Luke 24:21, his disciples shared this expectation of Jesus. In contrast, Jesus' ride on a young donkey was a reminder of the promise of a powerless Messiah who would command the peoples to completely disarm all means of war (Zech 9.9 ff.). This symbolic act rejects the popular Davidic and Zealot Messiah hope, but at the same time confirms an implicit Messiah claim by Jesus.

In Jn 12: 13-16 there is no reference to the kingdom of David, so that Jesus' entry appears as an " epiphany ". Some exegetes conclude: The evangelist had moved Jesus away from messianic-apocalyptic ideas of a coming earthly kingship, which can be found in the Psalms of Solomon (17.1–4.21.42) and in Luke (Lk 19.38; Lk 23.2 f .; Lk 23.37 f.) And were summarized in the title "King of the Jews". At the same time, according to the “wisdom” royal tradition (for example in Wisdom 6: 1–16; Isa. 24: 21–23; Mi 4, 6–8; Zef 3:14 f.), Jesus is here as the “King of Israel”, who already is God's kingdom realized have been shown.

According to Mk 11.15 ff., Jesus' arrest was caused by his driving out of the sacrificial traffickers from the temple courtyard for non-Jews, who the Sadducees - not the Romans - had to understand as an attack on the temple cult. But only his announcement of the Son of Man would explain the traditional death sentence of the Sanhedrin and Jesus' surrender to Pilate. Of all the sovereign titles given in the Jewish tradition, Jesus can have already claimed that of the apocalyptic Son of Man (Dan 7:14) for his earthly actions, since he has for example his authority to forgive sins (Mk 2,10) and his healing on the Sabbath (Mk 2, 27) justified. This claim made Jesus' cleaning of the temple appear to be a threat to the temple cult shortly before Passover , so that the Sadducees turned Jesus over to Pilate as a political agitator.

Christian art

Inscription with reverse N of the Renaissance capital, baroque crucifix, Rockenberg monastery church (Hesse)

Because of the statement in Mt 27:37 and Lk 23:38 that the titulus was fastened above the head of the crucified Jesus, Christians assumed that the longitudinal bar of the cross of Jesus protruded over the crossbar at arm height, in order to facilitate the fastening of the INRI- Allow blackboard. In Christianity, this led to the crucifix being depicted as a Latin cross instead of the dew cross common to the Romans .

The INRI has been part of crucifixion scenes in Christian iconography since the 4th century . It is found there in the form of an inscribed or engraved wooden panel or as text on parchment. In the Eastern Church iconography, the cross heading is usually "The King of the World" in the respective national language, a theological reinterpretation. The tradition of a tablet of the cross inscribed with the Latin abbreviation INRI goes back to the itinerary of the consecrated Virgin Egeria from around 380. In this travelogue she stated that she had seen the original of the titulus with the Latin sentence in the Church of Jesus' Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (Chapter 37.1).

In the font Renaissance- Kapitalis or the early humanist capitalis, the letter N is often reversed as a retrograde N.

relic

The relic of Titulus (right) in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

According to church tradition, the Holy Cross was discovered in Jerusalem in 325 by Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta , mother of the Roman emperor Constantine , together with three nails from the crucifixion and the inscription on the cross, and most of the find was brought to her palace in Rome . Helena later bequeathed this palace with the name " Sessorianum " to the church, so that it became the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme . During renovations in 1492, the relic with half of the inscription and the seal of Pope Lucius II is said to have been rediscovered. Since then it has been shown as the original title of the cross of Jesus. On July 29, 1496, Pope Alexander VI declared. them with the bull Admirabile Sacramentum for real.

The wooden board is made of walnut, weighs 687 grams, is 25 centimeters long, 14 centimeters wide and 2.6 centimeters thick. It is described in three lines. The first line contains six only partially preserved Hebrew letters. The second and third lines with the Greek and Latin inscriptions are better preserved, the legible words of which are:

  • ΙϹ • ΝΑΖΑΡΕΝ Ȣ ϹΒ ( IS • NAZARENOUSB ; the Ζ is the only letter not mirrored, Ϲ is the lunar sigma , Ȣ is the OY ligature .)
  • I • NAZARINVSRE (There was no distinction between U and V.)

Atypically, these two lines are written from right to left, as is Hebrew or Aramaic, both of which are left-hand script .

On April 25, 1995, the church historian Maria-Luisa Rigato from the Gregorian University in Rome photographed and weighed the tablet. She identified the letters on the first line as Aramaicישו נצר מ מ (Jeschu nazara mm) , whereby the abbreviation mm stands for malkekem : "Jesus Nazara your king". She considers the tablet to be a true copy of the original cross title. This was actually written by a Jewish wage clerk on behalf of Pilate and thus the first piece of literature about Jesus.

The wood has been eaten away by insects and fungi. In 1998 Michael Hesemann examined the object and dated the font of the inscription to the 1st century. He also presented his results to Pope John Paul II in a private audience . Seven palaeographers from three Israeli universities, Maria-Luisa Rigato and the papyrologist Carsten Peter Thiede, confirmed the dating of the font. Other researchers dispute the authenticity of the tablet and consider Hesemann's method of investigation to be inconclusive.

More recent investigations with the radiocarbon method have shown that the tablet was probably made between the late 10th and early 12th centuries.

See also

literature

to the New Testament

to the relic

  • Michael Hesemann: The Jesus panel - the discovery of the inscription on the cross. Herder, Freiburg 1999, ISBN 3-451-27092-7 .
  • Carsten Peter Thiede , Jeffrey d'Ancona: The Quest for the True Cross. London 2000.
  • Johannes Röll: Remarks on the Titulus Crucis in S. Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. In: Thomas Weigel, Britta Kusch-Arnhold, Candida Syndikus (ed.): The virtus in art and art theory of the Italian Renaissance. Festschrift for Joachim Poeschke on his 65th birthday (= symbolic communication and social value systems. Volume 46). Rhema, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-86887-022-0 , pp. 93–110.

Web links

Commons : INRI  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: INRI  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mark Lidzbarski : Ginza. The Treasure or The Great Book of the Mandaeans. (1925) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1978, ISBN 3-525-54123-6 .
  2. ↑ Hans Heinrich Schaeder : Article Nazarenos, Nazoraios. In: Gerhard Kittel (Hrsg.): Theological dictionary for the New Testament . (1942) Volume 4, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1990, pp. 879-884.
  3. ↑ Paul Winter : On the Trial of Jesus. De Gruyter, Berlin 1961, p. 107.
  4. ↑ a b Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, p. 160 f.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Reinbold: The process of Jesus. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-61591-4 , p. 84.
  6. ↑ Klaus Wengst: The Gospel of John. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-17-033331-4 , p. 251 f.
  7. ↑ Klaus Haacker: Who was to blame for Jesus' death? In: Klaus Haacker: Reconciliation with Israel. Exegetical contributions. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2002, ISBN 3-7887-1836-6 .
  8. ↑ Paul Winter: On the Trial of Jesus. 1961, p. 108 f.
  9. ↑ Max Küchler, Rainer Metzner: The celebrities in the New Testament: A prosopographical commentary. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-53967-5 , p. 116, fn. 413 ; Michael Wolter: The Gospel of Luke. Mohr / Siebeck, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-16-149525-0 , p. 740.
  10. ↑ Martin Karrer: Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Göttingen 1998, pp. 135-138.
  11. ↑ Eckart and Wolfgang Stegemann: King of Israel, not King of the Jews? Stuttgart 1993, pp. 44 f., 53, 412.
  12. ↑ Bertold Klappert: The raising of the crucified. The approach of the Christology of Karl Barth in the context of the Christology of the present. Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1971, ISBN 3-7887-0289-3 , pp. 114-118. (§ 7: The subject question in the context of the Son of Man problem )
  13. ^ Georg Röwekamp (Ed.): Egeria: Itinerarium, travel report. Herder, Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3-451-22143-8 , p. 272 ​​f.
  14. ^ Maria-Luisa Rigato: Il titolo della croce di Gesù. Confronto tra i Vangeli e la Tavoletta-reliquia della Basilica Eleniana a Roma. 2nd revised edition, Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome 2005, ISBN 88-7652-969-1 .
  15. ^ T. Söding: Review of M. Hesemann, Die Jesus-Tafel, in: Neuer Theologischer Literaturdienst. 1 (2000), p. 7 ( Memento from January 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  16. ↑ Francesco Bella, Carlo Azzi: journals.uair.arizona.edu 14 C Dating of the 'Titulus Crucis'. University of Arizona , 2002, pp. 685-689 (PDF, 75 kB).