Ben-Hur

By 2026, the world hardly needed any convincing regarding the strident zeal for endless vengeance in the Middle East, given the genocide still occurring in Gaza against the Palestinian people. In 1945, the world had needed no convincing on just how severe, and at what tremendous scale, state-sponsored (and engineered) hatred against a people deemed “subhuman” could be. The 1959 film-version of Ben-Hur is saturated with the desire for vengeance, with the antipodal motive of forgiveness only being shown as a more powerful, and thus stronger, phenomenon at the end of the film when Judah Ben-Hur’s mother and sister are spontaneously cured of leprosy at the very moment in which Jesus dies on the Cross. Only in aiding Jesus with water on his arduous way to the Cross does the Jewish man, Judah, realize the value of the suffering man’s righteous, unmerited suffering, especially relative to the value of even satisfied vengeance. At the moment of his death, Jesus, freed of a mortal body, cures the two women as a result of Judah’s change of heart. The message is that forgiveness wins over resentment and vengeance from a spiritual standpoint.

Prior to the period shown in the film, the wealthy Ben-Hur family took in and raised the Roman boy, Messala. So, it is with a sense of utter ungratefulness that as an adult and a Roman official that Messala turns on Judah for refusing to divulge the names of dissidents by banishing him to work in as a rower in the Roman navy for five years and sending Judah’s mother and sister to prison and then to a leper’s colony. Fortunately, Judah saves a Roman general from drowning in a battle-at-sea and is rewarded by being adopted by the general and given Roman citizenship. Judah has the wherewithal to return to Jerusalem to challenge and vanquish Messala in a chariot race. Even after Messala dies from being injured by Judah’s chariot during the race, Judah is still not satisfied—still not free of his resentment. He walks by as people are gathering to hear Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, which causes Balthasar to remark, “You are choosing death.” This intriguing line can be unpacked.

Even vengeance satisfied, albeit with Judah’s mother and sister still suffering from leprosy, is death—of the spirit—whereas the qualities valued by Jesus in his sermon represent a freed up spiritual life. Interestingly, were Balthasar to deliver the line to Judah as Jesus is dying on the Cross, the allusion to death could be taken literally, given the soteriological meaning of the Passion Story. Specifically, the salvific meaning of Jesus’s death and resurrection is that the vicarious, voluntary sacrifice pays off original sin and thus reconciles humans with God. Literally walking past Jesus on the Cross would connote the choice of death rather than eternal life. It is interesting that Balthasar remarks that Judah is choosing death in refusing to stay to hear Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. The death is figurative, in that Judah is still buried in resentment because his mother and sister are still ill as a result of Messala’s punishments. As for Messala, in turning on, in utter betrayal, the generous family that had raised him, he can be reckoned as spiritually dead, and his literal death occurs before he can let go of his chackles. Judah takes considerable time, but, unlike his adopted-brother, Jesus’s example of selfless agape-love even amidst severe suffering sinks in and softens Judah’s harden heart.

Before Messala’s death at the hands of Judah in the famed race, Judah is rebuffed in his zeal for vengeance by Ester, who, having heard Jesus preach, tells Judah that a young rabbi has said that “forgiveness is greater, and love is more powerful than hatred.” Later, just before the horse race in which Judah intends to kill M, Judah prays, “God forgive me for seeking vengeance, but my path is set. Into your hands I commit my life. Do with me as you will.” The request to be forgiven is a lie because Judah himself has decided that his path towards exacting retribution is set. Judah is not committing his life to God in any sense, and is again lying when he says God can do with him what God will. In actuality, Judah is very much in the driver’s (or chariot’s) seat concerning what he will do during the upcoming race.

Judah goes on to win the race and, in the process, he has killed his nemesis who has so unfairly subjected Judah to years of severe hardship and suffering simply because Judah would not betray his fellow Jews. The presiding Roman official remarks at the end of the race that the spectators have made Judah the victor their god, albeit just for the time being. Drunk with having exacted revenge, Judah is still of a hardened heart when he leaves the track and walks past Jesus, who is shown atop a hill in the distance—and not shown frontally in a close-up—just as he is just about to give his famed Sermon on the Mount. Judah is still hardened, nevertheless, because his mother and sister still have leprosy as a result of having been in a dank prison-cell for five years. As his dying nemesis says to Judah just before dying after the race, “The race continues.”

In witnessing Jesus struggling physically and mentally as he is being prodded and whipped by Roman guards no the way to be crucified, Judah is taken back. “What did this man do to deserve this?” Judah asks out-loud. That is the man who helped Judah with water when Judah was under extreme duress. It is not suffering itself that is given positive significance, but, rather, the willingness to take on the sins of others by suffering what they should by all rights suffer. The silent strength evinced by the suffering man who seems so weak suddenly is clear to Judah, who can now free himself from the chains of his own resentment. Ironically, letting go of resentment owing to the ongoing suffering of his mother and sister ends their suffering. He lets go of his resentment prior to the miracle healing that removes the ongoing reason for the resentment.

The miracle itself is important because it shows that in the story-world of the film, as in that of the Gospels, Jesus is the Son of God. Esoterically (i.e., the following is optional reading), the noetic significance of the religious title is dwarfed by the ontic significance of spiritual freedom over spiritual captivity, as evinced by Judah Ben-Her in the film as he offers Jesus water on the way to the Cross over having felt himself internally compelled to pass by Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

Whereas the sort of explicit power evinced by Messala and the ship-galley task-masters, and, moreover, the Romans in Jerusalem even against Jesus on the way to the Cross, is quite visible, the power of letting go of vengeance and even offering compassion to detractors and even enemies is silent yet paradoxically stronger. The litmus test for Judah has finally to do with which of the two types of power he values more in the sense of which is stronger, and thus has more worth in itself. The relevant death is not physical, but, rather, spiritual, as per the human instinct for freedom, which Nietzsche ironically calls the will to life, or will to power, as ultimately felt best in overcoming (i.e., mastering, not repressing!) one’s most intractable instinctual urge, such as that of vengeance.  

Gladiator

Even though it may be tempting to summarize the virtues of ancient Rome as “might makes right” because of the emphasis, which is even in the Latin language, on fighting armies and repressing rebel populations, the virtues did not reduce to those of war. In fact, such virtues, as Nietzsche suggests in his texts, can serve as a refresher for our species as it has “progressed” through the centuries since the Roman Empire existed. Even though the film Gladiator (2000) contains much mortal combat albeit contained in coliseums rather than unrestrained on battle fields, at least three clusters of virtues can be gleamed and articulated as alternative “schools” of virtue ethics. This is not to say that all three are equally valid, however. The virtues cherished by the Emperor Commodus, for instance, are arguably inferior ethically to those of his father, Marcus Aurelius, and even those of the gladiators.

In the film, Commodus suffocates Marcus Aurelius just after the father has informed the son that Maximus, a renown general, will become the next emperor. As Marcus Aurelius has explained to Maximus, Commodus “is not a moral man” and therefore “should never hold power.” How true that is, and yet even in modern democracies very unethical people have succeeded in gaining immense power of public office. Marcus Aurelius should have made his announcement to the entire camp, which includes two visiting senators from the Roman Senate, before confiding in his malicious son, Commodus. It is in that very conversation that the father and son discuss different virtues, and thus present the film viewers with the notion that “virtue” is not a homogeneous category; people can hold different virtues, and even be deemed as immortal because the same virtue can be emphasized and left out by different people.

After being told that he would not be emperor when his father dies, Commodus admits that he has failed in the four virtues that Marcus Aurelius esteems: wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Later in the film, the failure of Commodus to be just is clear when he secretly stabs Maximus, who is tied up after being captured by Emperor Commodus’s guards, so to have an unfair advantage in fighting Maximus in the Colosseum, and yet, fittingly, Maximus wins the match even though he quickly dies from the stab-wound. Back when Commodus is talking to Marcus Aurelius about succession, the latter says, “You go too far” in speech; in other words, even in a conversation involving virtues, Commodus demonstrates a lack of temperance.

But there are other virtues, Commodus tells his father. Ambition can be a virtue because with it a person can strive for excellence. Aristotle’s notion of virtue is closely associated with doing something well. Marcus Aurelius has lamented to Maximus that only four years of twenty as emperor have been in peace; ambition for territory (and plunder) can be inferred as another, less boast-worthy, virtue esteemed by Marcus. As for the virtues of Commodus, he lists loyalty to Rome and filial piety towards his father, Marcus, although the son shows a lack of sonly duty to his father in murdering him. Commodus adds bravery, but with an important—to Romans—caveat. Bravery does not necessarily have to be demonstrated on a battle field. This would be a hard sell to a Roman.

In fact, the virtues cherished by the gladiators are strength and honor, especially in physical combat. Physical strength, and being willing to constrain it to be exercised within the confines of honor, are not valued by Commodus, as demonstrated in his unfair fight with Maximus, and even Marcus Aurelius is not a showcase in physical strength, though he is quite old by the time he is planning for his successor.  

To be sure, virtues can be combined out of the three clusters. Honor, wisdom, and justice go well together, as do fortitude, ambition and loyalty (to Rome). “There was a dream that was Rome,” Lucilla, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, says in the Coliseum as she cries over the body of Maximus. Ambition can indeed serve good ends, but throughout the film the substance of that dream eludes the Romans. What does “Rome” stand for? Which virtues? If only ambition, is that in itself really a virtue if it is by military conquest? This is a pitfall with virtue ethics. Leaving the content open can invite the sort of defense that someone as ethically sordid as Commodus can use—namely, that there are different virtues. It is not a matter for relativism that Maximus is ethically superior to Commodus; that they have different virtues does not equate the two men ethically.

When the film ends, we can expect that Senator Gracchus, whom Maximus has just set free from the imprisonment by Commodus, will do as Lucilla asks; Rome will again be a republic headed by the Senate and presumably two consuls. That Gracchus values the virtue of honor as a constraint on ambition is clear when he asks those gathered around Maximus’s dead body, “Who will help me carry him?” In utter contrast, Maximus has remarked to Commodus, "The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end." The difference between people who value honor and those who do not is huge, and this can be seen in what other people say about a person. At the end of the film, no one wants to carry the dead, defeated body of the cheater-emperor, Commodus, whereas Maximus is already a hero because he fought for Rome as wanted by Marcus Aurelius, who directed Maximus to assume the reins of power in order to return Rome to the rule of the Senate.  

To be sustained again as a republic, Rome as an ideal to look up to and be proud of will depend on there being enough men of honor among the political and military elite. As nice as this sounds, the actual history of the Roman Republic and the ensuing Roman Empire demonstrate just how weak a reliance on a virtue can be in the face of raw ambition sans virtue, meaning ambition for its own sake, more territory for its own sake, and more power for its own sake. Choosing between alternative clusters of virtues may be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; as our species has evolved, we seem ill-equipped to give virtue its due when acting virtuously is no longer convenient.

Paul: Apostle of Christ

The film carries great weight, theologically, in that Paul describes a very particular kind of love that Jesus preaches and lives out in the Gospels. In so doing, Paul: The Apostle of Christ (2018) shows an overlooked criterion by which people who claim to be Christian can be ascertained as such or not. One implication from the film is that Christianity has contained (and still contains) a number of nominal Christians who are not in fact Christian. A related implication is that the historically (and modern) criteria by which people are considered (and consider themselves) Christian is not as useful (and valid) as the overlooked criterion that is so salient in the film.

In the film, Aquila heads a small Christian enclave in Rome at the time of Nero’s persecution of Christians (and Paul, who is arrested and sentenced to death) for being responsible for burning half of Rome. Never mind that Nero set the fire to have something other than refusals to sacrifice to the Roman gods, including the emperor with which to go after the Christians. When Cassius’s nephew is fatally beaten by Roman guards as the boy was voluntarily on an errand that had been arranged by Aquila, Cassius explodes in anger, insisting that he would extol revenge on Roman guards and then instigate a coup (supposing that Christian rulers would be better). “If any of you take up arms, you have no place within this community,” Aquila tells him. A woman then reminds the irate Cassius that Christians “are to care for the world, not rule it.” Luke reminds the young, passionate Cassius that “Paul has not raised a finger against his oppressors. Let peace be with you,” Luke advises, “for we live in the world but do not wage war as the world does. Peace begins with you, Cassius. Love is the only way.” Paul will tell Luke, “We cannot repay evil with evil; it can only be overcome with good.” The overcoming of the world’s evil is something that Jesus’s real followers, the anonymous Christians, do by valuing and putting into practice Jesus’s dictum to love your enemies, which translates into more than turning the other cheek (i.e., refusing to fight back); a proactive desire to help is also part of Jesus' conception of the Kingdom of God. 
In Luke 6:27, Jesus says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." To be sure, he also goes on to say, "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." The Golden Rule, "Do to others as you would have them do to you," encompasses both; don't fight back and try and help those who insult, hit, and steal from you. Further in the passage in Luke, Jesus points out, "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? for even sinners do the same." Doing good to those who piss you off, or even just annoy you, talk behind your back to take you down, or assault you is so hard to do--so contrary to the default in human nature--that a holiness attaches to the person who takes this leap in faith to do what the world says is weakness. Strength in the kingdom typically stands as weakness according to human reckoning. In fact, where you come out on whether not only turning the other cheek, but also helping, such as Jesus does when he heals the ear of the guard whose ear Peter has cut off, is strength or foolishness determines whether you value Jesus' way into the Kingdom of God, and thus the latter as well. Jesus says he came to preach the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. You cannot disvalue the latter and still worship the means, which is the distinctive holy-rendering that goes with not only not fighting, but also not refusing to help. This could even be the litmus test in whether a person is a follower of Jesus.
In the film, Cassius is unyielding, and he goes on to storm the prison when both Paul and Luke are being held in Paul’s cell. It is extremely important theologically that Aquila tells the Christians living in the enclave that taking up arms, including to kill even enemies including the persecuting Romans, is enough to get them kicked out of the enclave. The implication is startling, for even having the cognitive belief that Jesus is the Son of God is not enough to counter or outweigh the criterion of valuing and practicing the kind of love taught by Jesus. Abstractly, valuing and practice are here more important than belief. Though this too is in the mix, is not valuing and doing something closer to love than is a cognitive belief? Aquila's criterion serves in the film as the litmus test for whether a person is a Christian or not because Aquila tells Cassius that he must leave the enclave if he insists on raising the sword to return evil for evil rather than good for evil. That Cassius believes that Jesus is a certain thing does not get Cassius a pass from Aquila; Cassius still gets the boot if he does not value and practice the particular kind of love valued and exampled by Jesus in the Gospels.

When Luke visits Paul in his prison cell after the incident with Cassius, Luke admits that Cassius’s reaction is sensible given what the Roman guards on the Palatine had done to the boy. Paul immediate chastises Luke by accusing him of not having accepted Christ, by which Paul means, the particular kind of love preached and exampled by Jesus. It is THE WAY into the Kingdom of God—Jesus’s mission being to preach the mysteries (i.e., the unknown) of the Kingdom. Both the means and the end must be valued, or else the Christian believer is only nominal rather than genuine.

It may be common for Christians to say like Augustine did that God is love without knowing that the love being invoked is actually of a particular sort (i.e., a particular concept of love, rather than just love broadly construed). In what I take to be the highlight of the film (without a doubt in terms of acting), Paul gives Luke a description of the love that had been so hard and yet achievable for Paul. 
“Love is the only way,” Paul says. “A love that suffers long, does not envy, is not proud, does not dishonor or seek for itself, is not easily angered, rejoices in truth, never delights in evil, protects, trusts, hopes, and endures all things. That kind of love sets us free and answers evil with good.” Cassius wants to answer the Roman guards’ evil deed with anger and destruction (killing). In a Gnostic vein wherein knowledge plays a vital role, Paul admits he had to “learn how to love”—meaning he had to know this particular form of love and how make the metric of his conduct toward other people, even the Romans. “This power,” Paul says at one point, “is strewn in weakness”—meaning human nature. The desire for vengeance can even be second nature to a person, whereas compassion and aid to enemies is anything but. 
So the suffering that is long in this kind of love goes further than "turning the cheek" when persecuted, attacked, or even insulted. Besides, relative to when the Romans persecuted Christians, not many modern-day Christians face persecution because of the Christian faith. Even the suffering that Paul and Luke face in the film as they face the Perfect's persecution goes further to include an even richer suffering--namely, that which is experienced from resisting the sort of instinctual urge that anger fuels in returning evil for evil. Luke and Paul are disgusted with the Roman guards and their superiors, and yet both of these Christians suffer through helping the Prefect's ill daughter rather than engaging in passive aggression by omission. 
The sort of suffering that goes beyond suffering persecution is distinctively Christian, whereas anyone could suffer persecution voluntarily. In fact, "carrying your cross" may refer not only to the suffering that goes with the pain in being persecuted, but also, and even more so, to the pain of resisting the urge to hit back and going on to help, even with compassion, those people who have taken from you, attacked you, or even just insulted you. Answering good for evil may itself be painful, whereas satisfying the urge to retaliate can be quite satisfying. Even though the pain of being stolen from, attacked, or insulted is significant, the more subtle pain of resisting the temptation to inflict pain in return and then actually being nice and feeling it may really get at what Jesus of the Gospels wants from his followers. Such suffering does not depend on the particular case of being persecuted for one's faith. Given Jesus' emphasis on internal feeling, and that the way to his Father's Kingdom turns the way of the world (i.e, human nature) upside down, the suffering that goes beyond turning the other cheek to actually loving rather than retaliating may actually be more important.

The film shows us an example of Paul putting the distinctive love into practice when he tells the Roman Prefect of the prison, who has had Paul whipped several times, that he knows a good physician (namely, Luke), who can heal the Prefect’s severely ill daughter. Although Luke asks Paul, “How can I bring healing when [the Prefect] and Rome bring so much suffering,” Paul replies that “God’s mercy, and thus his kingdom, are open to all,” and “Where sin abounds, grace abounds more.” Luke is convinced and volunteers to heal the daughter. The Prefect’s reaction is interesting—something more than puzzlement suggesting that something odd from the standpoint of human nature has just been witnessed. A similar facial expression is evinced by Pontius Pilot as he sees the strength of the whipped Jesus walking closer through a hallway in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Of course, that Paul and Luke can accomplish in their human nature a skewed human nature suggests that our own nature is pliable enough to incorporate such love, which, as Augustine wrote, is God. 

For implications for leadership, see "Christianized Ethical Leadership, a booklet available at Amazon.