(do I need to put in a spoiler warning here? I’m guessing we mostly know the plot of this film already…)
At one point in the movie Passion, some stuff occurs between Mary and Pilate’s wife that I just don’t understand.
Jesus is being scourged, and Mary is there in the courtyard. Pilate’s wife (Claudia?) comes up with a bunch of white cloths and gives them to Mary. After the soldiers have finished with Jesus and drag him off, she uses them to mop up his blood.
What’s going on? Why does she do this? Is this a Catholic doctrine thing? What about Claudia giving her the towels … is that mentioned by any ancient writers? Does the Vatican have a bunch of bloodsoaked cloths sitting around somewhere with a sign saying it’s the authentic blood of Jesus?
I haven’t seen the movie, but this is not in any of the Gospels. I believe it is Gibson exercising artistic license.
There is a story about Veronica wiping the face of Jesus, and His face making a permanent image on her veil, but this is a later tradition. I suspect Gibson wanted to incorporate the story without adding a complicating character, so he transferred the story to Mary.
Mary during the Flagellation of our Lord**
I SAW the Blessed Virgin in a continual ecstasy during the time of the scourging of her Divine Son; she saw and suffered with inexpressible love and grief all the torments he was enduring. She groaned feebly, and her eyes were red with weeping. A large veil covered her person, and she leant upon Mary of Heli, her eldest sister,* who was old and extremely like their mother, Anne. Mary of Cleophas, the daughter of Mary of Heli, was there also. The friends of Jesus and Mary stood around the latter; they wore large veils, appeared overcome with grief and anxiety, and were weeping as if in the momentary expectation of death. The dress of Mary was blue; it was long, and partly covered by a cloak made of white wool, and her veil was of rather a yellow white. Magdalen was totally beside herself from grief and her hair was floating loosely under her veil.
When Jesus fell down at the foot of the pillar, after the flagellation, I saw Claudia Procles, the wife of Pilate, send some large pieces of linen to the Mother of God. I know not whether she thought that Jesus would be set free, and that his Mother would then require linen to dress his wounds, or whether this compassionate lady was aware of the use which would be made of her present. At the termination of the scourging, Mary came to herself for a time, and saw her Divine Son all torn and mangled, being led away by the archers after the scourging: he wiped his eyes, which were filled with blood, that he might look at his Mother, and she stretched out her hands towards him, and continued to look at the bloody traces of his footsteps. I soon after saw Mary and Magdalen approach the pillar where Jesus had been scourged; the mob were at a distance, and they were partly concealed by the other holy women, and by a few kind-hearted persons who had joined them; they knelt down on the ground near the pillar, and wiped up the sacred blood with the linen which Claudia Procles had sent.
I can’t find the Devil and Baby there, either. (Though, the devil does make an appearance in the Garden of Gethsemane as per Anne Catherine’s visions and not as per any of the Gospels.) The devil and child may have been purely Mel’s doing.
Anne Catherine’s visions had the Jewish leaders bribing the Roman soldiers to go extra hard on Jesus. And so, my jaded WAG: I think Mel switched out the Jewish leaders for the devil to be implicitly the goader in order to avoid the charges of anti-Semetism.
Of course, Mel could have avoided many of the charges of anti-Semiticism if he didn’t keep drawing from an anti-Semitic source like Anne Catherine.