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| Francesco Bassano, Purification of the Temple Italian, 1585 Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado |
"Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
"Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
(John 2:13-17)
Excerpt from the Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year B
The episode in which Jesus comes to the temple in Jerusalem and drives out the traders who had established their businesses within its walls is one of the most dramatic of the events of His life, prior to the Passion. The writers of the Synoptic Gospels place it in the early days of what we now call Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ life and may have been the last straw that gave the Jewish temple faction their excuse for stage managing His crucifixion. On the other hand, John, the writer of the Gospel used on the Fourth Sunday of Lent in Year B of the reading cycle, places it earlier in Jesus ministry. Its actual chronology in His life is, however, less important than its meaning.
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| Valentin de Boulogne, Purification of the Temple French, c. 1626 Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum |
In Jesus’ time the second temple, built only in recent decades by Herod the Great, had certain requirements. First, there was a temple tax, which needed to be paid. It could not be paid by using Greek or Roman coins, which were marked by images of the gods or of deified emperors. Therefore, there were merchants who provided the services that we today call foreign exchange, buying the unacceptable coins in exchange for allowable coins (at a profit, of course).
In addition, to supply pilgrims with the animals needed for the temple sacrifices, there were traders who provided the animals, among them oxen, sheep and doves. While all these businesses served legitimate purposes related to the temple worship, they had encroached on areas of the temple that were off limits for such activities, therefore, defiling the sanctity of those areas. And this is not even to mention the potential for corruption that the association of commerce and the temple rituals could cause: bribes, kickbacks, price gouging, etc. Jesus reacted to this by an outburst of spontaneous, prophetic action.
In addition, to supply pilgrims with the animals needed for the temple sacrifices, there were traders who provided the animals, among them oxen, sheep and doves. While all these businesses served legitimate purposes related to the temple worship, they had encroached on areas of the temple that were off limits for such activities, therefore, defiling the sanctity of those areas. And this is not even to mention the potential for corruption that the association of commerce and the temple rituals could cause: bribes, kickbacks, price gouging, etc. Jesus reacted to this by an outburst of spontaneous, prophetic action.
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| Rembrandt, Jesus Overturning the Tables of the Moneychangers Dutch, 1626 Moscow, Pushkin Museum |
The image of the outraged Jesus, assembling a makeshift whip out of cords, and then driving these merchants out of the temple is one that still astonishes. Indeed, it may be more astonishing today than at times in the past.
The image of Jesus that today exists in many minds is more that of a gentle guru than an outraged and zealous prophet. A couple of centuries of “gentle Jesus meek and mild”, accepting and affirming everyone and everything, have blinded us to the possibility that some things might actually matter to Him. It is a huge stretch of the imagination to picture a Jesus who would create a whip out of cords and use it to drive people out of the building or who would overturn the foreign exchange tables, spilling the piles of coins to the floor.
This wasn’t the way earlier centuries saw this episode.
As far as I have been able to determine, the earliest images of the Purification occur during the Middle Ages in manuscript illumination and wall painting.
Early images seem to be more like symbolic representations of the event than imaginative records of it.
As far as I have been able to determine, the earliest images of the Purification occur during the Middle Ages in manuscript illumination and wall painting.
Early images seem to be more like symbolic representations of the event than imaginative records of it.
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| Jesus Overturning the Tables of the Moneychangers From the Gospel Book of Otto III German (Reichenau), c. 1000 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek MS Clm 4456, fol. 119v |
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| The Purification of the Temple (Jesus, the sellers of doves, the moneychangers) German (Rhineland), c. 1151-1165 Schwartzrheindorf, Saint Clement Church |
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| Jesus Overturns the Tables of the Moneychangers Byzantine, c. 1180-1190 Monreale, Church of Santa Maria la Nuova |
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| Hand B of the Munich Psalter, Purification of the Temple English (Oxford), First quarter of the 13th century London, British Library MS Arundel 157, fol. 6v (detail) |
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| Jesus Expelling the Animal Sellers Italian, c. 1255 Assisi, Basilica of San Francesco, Upper Church If you look closely at this image you will see the rear ends of two sheep and three cattle behind the merchants. So, these are the sellers of livestock for the sacrifices, not moneychangers. |
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| Scenes from Holy Week From the Angevin-Hungarian Golden Legend Hungarian or Italian, c. 1320-1345 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 360, fol. 5r (top) |
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| Master of the Harvard Hannibal, Purification of the Temple From a Meditationes vitae Christi French (Paris), c. 1420-1422 London, British Library MS Royal 20 B IV, fol. 82 (detail) |
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| Jesus Orders the Moneychangers to Leave From Le Mirouer de la redemption de l'umain lignage French (Paris), c. 1493 Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France MS VELINS 906, fol. 73r |
,%20c.%201495-1505_New%20York,%20Pierpont%20Morgan%20Library_MS%20H%205,%20fol.%2044v.jpg) |
| Jesus Expels the Moneychangers From a Book of Hours French (Paris), c. 1495-1505 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS H 5, fol. 44v |
During the Renaissance and later periods, as artists became more comfortable with using such tools as scientific perspective, this changed and the representations of the Purification or Cleansing of the Temple began to show more violence.
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Lorenzo Ghiberti, Purification of the Temple
Italian, c. 1403-1424
Florence, Baptistery
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| Rambures Master, Purification of the Temple From a Biblia pauperum Hesdin or Amiens, c. 1470 The Hague, Museum Meermanno MS MMW 10 A 15, fol. 27r (detail) |
In these two images (from Ghiberti's doors to the Baptistery of Florence cathedral and from the 1470 Biblia pauperum) there is no doubt that the action of Jesus is a real action, as the other figures react to it.
The level of violence and the number of figures and animals involved increased over time, until by the Baroque period, Jesus sometimes became lost in the crowd.
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| Pieter Aertsen, Purification of the Temple Dutch, c. 1570-1575 Sold at Christie's Amsterdam on November 9, 1998 |
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| Jacopo Bassano, Purification of the Temple Italian, 1580 London, National Gallery |
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| El Greco, Purification of the Temple Greco-Spanish, 1570 Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art |
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| El Greco, Purification of the Temple Greco-Spanish, 1610 London, National Gallery |
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| Valentin de Boulonge, Purification of the Temple French, c. 1618 Rome, Gallerie Nazionali Barbarini Corsini |
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| Jacob Jordaens, Purification of the Temple Flemish, c. 1640-1645 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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| Giovanni Battista Castiglione, Purification of the Temple Italian, c. 1645-1655 Paris, Musée du Louvre Here Jesus is a tiny figure in the background, almost swallowed up by the crowds of animals and people scattering before Him. |
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| Luca Giordano, Purification of the Temple Italian, c. 1675 St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum |
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| Jean Jouvenet, Expulsion of the Merchants from the Temple French, 1714 Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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| Cosmas Damian Asam, Purification of the Temple German, c. 1731-1732 Osterhofen (Bavaria), Church of St. Margaret |
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| Giovanni Pannini, Purification of the Temple Italian, c. 1724 Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection |
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| Bernardo Bellotto, Purification of the Temple Italian, 1773 Warsaw, National Museum
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At the same time the image of Jesus became more and more that of the gentle, meek, quiet victim. And, in keeping with this, the images of the Purification of the Temple become quieter, assuming, once again, a more symbolic character. This time, however, the world presented to our view is not the barely indicated one of the medieval image, but the carefully constructed, even archaeological, setting of 19th century historicism.
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| Raymond Balze, Purification of the Temple French, 1850s Montauban, Musée Ingres
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© M. Duffy, 2012
Excerpts
from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of
the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001,
1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington,
DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be
reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
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