Macbeth and the Bible

Peter Milward writes of “meta-drama” in Hamlet and Macbeth in his contribution Shakespeare’s Christianity. He argues (unconvincingly) that Shakespeare had in mind the situation of recusant Catholics in England. Milward’s analysis of the biblical features of the play is more compelling.

He notes that “already from the opening description of Macbeth’s performance on the field of battle, in the words of the bleeding sergeant, we are introduced to him as one set to ‘memorize another Golgotha’ (1.2.41), and so he does, not just in the battle but in his subsequent murder of ‘the gracious Duncan’ (3.1.66). For the time being he seems to be a loyal subject to his king, but his loyalty is soon undermined (or betrayed) by the witches, when they greet him with ‘all hail!’—the very word used by Judas on his betrayal of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:49).20 Thus Macbeth in turn becomes Judas to his lord and master Duncan” (12).

He recalls John’s words when Judas leaves the upper room: “Satan entered into him”(John 13:27), a phrase that could describe Macbeth. Further, “it was then . . . that Jesus said to Judas, ‘That thou doest, do quickly!’—and similarly, when Macbeth has left the supper-room, he begins his famous soliloquy, as though it were echoing the thoughts of Judas, ‘if it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well/ it were done quickly’ (1.7.1–2)’” (12).

If Macbeth is Judas, then Duncan is the betrayed and murdered Jesus. Milward invites us to hear the Christological echoes in Macbeth’s description of Duncan’s body: “‘his silver skin lac’d with his golden blood’ (2.3.113), as if recalling the words of St. Peter on ‘the precious blood’ of Christ being of more value than ‘gold or silver’ (1 Pet 1:18–19)’” (12). The blood flows from Duncan’s body as from a “temple.”

Macbeth’s use of the unusual phrase “gouts of blood” fits into this typology: “This is a word unique to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, an english form of the French gouttes for drops, maybe suggested to him at this point—though to few of his commentators—by the Latin guattae sanguinis for the sweat of blood during the agony of Jesus in the Garden as narrated by Luke (22:44)” (13).