The Jesus Trial

The Council of Trent dealt with the matter in the 16th century, the Second Vatican Council took it up again in the 20th, and the issue has been debated in countless forums in the intervening years. But the question of whether the Jews or the Romans were ultimately responsible for the execution of Jesus had never been threshed out in a civil court of law. Last week a two-month trial of the matter in Troyes, France, came to an end. The verdict: the Romans killed Jesus.

The actual plaintiff in the case, popularly known as "the Jesus trial," was Jacques Isorni, 63, an ultraconservative lawyer, legal historian and author of a 1967 book called The True Trial of Jesus. In it he blamed Pilate for the Crucifixion. The defendant, accused of libel, was the Rev. Georges de Nantes, 50, also an ultraconservative, who in a review of the book last year called Isorni a "Christian renegade" and the "apparently benevolent defender of the Jews."

Isorni first gained notoriety in France following World War II when he unsuccessfully defended collaborationist Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, leader of Vichy France during the Nazi occupation, against charges of treason. In The True Trial of Jesus, Isorni set out to prove the innocence of the Jewish people. Isorni's thesis is similar to that of Jewish Historian Haim Cohn, author of The Trial and Death of Jesus, and Anglican Scholar S.G.F. Brandon, who wrote The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth. They argue that Jesus was condemned to die not because a Jewish tribunal objected to his calling himself the son of God, but because he had rebelled against the Roman occupation. In an emotional courtroom oration, Isorni claimed that if the court did not find De Nantes guilty of libel, it would in effect be "justifying him for preaching the massacre of the Jews."

Banned from the Pulpit. No less colorful than his accuser, the Abbe de Nantes was banned from the pulpit in the diocese of Troyes in 1966 for his inflammatory opinions, one of which is that Pope Paul VI is a heretic. Placing a crucifix at the base of the courtroom microphone, the abbe told the court that Isorni had falsified the New Testament. ("Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him," according to John 5:18, because he had not only broken the sabbath, but said that God was his father.) Absolution of the Jewish people would amount to a contradiction of Catholic dogma, De Nantes asserted, concluding: "I have only defended my faith and my church."

The three justices who heard the case prepared a 30-page verdict that was delivered by Judge Pierre Bondouaire. In it he abided by the Vatican declaration of Oct. 28, 1965, which stated that although Jewish authorities pressed for the death of Jesus, all Jews could not be held responsible for what eventually happened. The judge then found De Nantes guilty of libel. As for Isorni, he was awarded exactly what he had asked for: symbolic damages of one franc--or about 22-c-.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.