Vatican City, Mar 11, 2012 / 12:58 pm
Jesus was a prophetic voice but not a violent political revolutionary, Pope Benedict XVI said in Sunday comments on Christ’s expulsion of the animal sellers and money changers from the temple in Jerusalem.
“It is impossible to interpret Jesus as a violent person. Violence is contrary to the Kingdom of God, it is a tool of the Antichrist. Violence never serves humanity, but dehumanizes,” said the Pope in his March 11 Angelus address at the Vatican.
His remarks criticized the occasional interpretation of this episode in a political revolutionary sense that places Jesus in line with the Zealot movement.
The Zealots were a Jewish political movement who were “zealous” for God’s law and “ready to use violence to enforce it,” the Pope explained. They were waiting for a Messiah who would liberate Israel from Roman rule. Jesus, however, “disappointed them in this” to the extent that “some disciples deserted him and even Judas Iscariot betrayed him.”