Complicity

Scripture treats partnership in another's wrong as a wrong of its own. The one who consents, who keeps silent, who shares the table, who supplies the weapon, who hires the crowd, who delivers the verdict on demand — each is taken to have done the deed. The same logic runs from the silent partner of the thief in Proverbs to Pilate at the judgment-seat.

Sharing in Another's Sin

The Psalmist names the pattern in two strokes: a willing eye and a willing hand. "When you saw a thief, you consented with him, And have been a partaker with adulterers" (Ps 50:18). What the wisdom tradition calls a partner is something stronger than a witness. "Whoever shares with a thief hates his own soul; He hears the adjuration and utters nothing" (Pr 29:24). The hearer of the curse who refuses to speak is treated as the thief's accomplice, and reckoned to have turned against himself.

Paul carries the same logic to its sharpest point. Those who do evil are joined by those who applaud it: they "knowing the ordinance of God, that those who participate in such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also give their approval to those who participate in them" (Ro 1:32). Approval is not a lesser act than commission; it is paired with it.

The Tongue That Whitewashes

A particular form of complicity belongs to the speaker who calls evil good. Proverbs marks both the public condemnation it earns and the moral inversion it performs. "He who says to the wicked, You are righteous; Peoples will curse him, nations will abhor him" (Pr 24:24). And again: "Those who forsake the law praise the wicked; But such as keep the law contend with them" (Pr 28:4). To praise the wicked is to forsake the law; to keep the law is to contend.

The Greeting at the Door

The shortest and most concrete formulation in the apostolic letters is John's instruction about the false teacher. "If anyone comes to you⁺, and doesn't bring this teaching, don't receive him into [your⁺] house, and give him no greeting: for he who gives him greeting shares in his evil works" (2Jn 1:10-11). Hospitality is not neutral; the greeting is itself a share in what is done.

Paul presses the same point on a household scale. "Therefore don't be⁺ partakers with them" (Ep 5:7). And on the scale of worship: "You⁺ can't drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: you⁺ can't partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons" (1Co 10:21). Sharing the table is sharing the work. The vision in Revelation makes the warning escalate to the limit case: "Come forth, my people, out of her, that you⁺ have no fellowship with her sins, and that you⁺ do not receive of her plagues" (Re 18:4). Fellowship in the sin is fellowship in the judgment.

Instances at the Trial of John and the Trial of Jesus

The Gospels supply three named instances gathered under this head.

The daughter of Herodias. The girl is not the contriver of the request, but she carries it. "And she came in right away in a hurry to the king, and asked, saying, I want that you forthwith give me on a platter the head of John the Baptist" (Mark 6:25). The verb is hers; the wish is her mother's. She is the messenger who makes the murder possible.

The chief priests. Mark records the mechanism by which the verdict against Jesus was secured: "But the chief priests stirred up the multitude, that he should rather release Barabbas to them" (Mark 15:11). And Judas's handlers earn the same notice: "And they, when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently deliver him [to them]" (Mark 14:11). The crowd is moved, the betrayer is paid, the deed is done.

Pilate. The trial in the synoptics and John makes Pilate's complicity unusually legible, because the governor states aloud that he finds nothing worthy of death and then sentences. In Mark: "And Pilate said to them, Why, what evil has he done? But they cried out exceedingly, Crucify him. And Pilate, wishing to content the multitude, released to them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified" (Mark 15:14-15). In Luke, the contradiction is stretched out across three appeals: "I, having examined him before you⁺, found no fault in this man... and look, he has been participating in nothing worthy of death" (Luke 23:14-15), and yet "Pilate gave sentence that what they asked for should be done... but Jesus he delivered up to their will" (Luke 23:24-25). In John the same hand-off is final and explicit: "Then therefore he delivered him to them to be crucified" (John 19:16). The delivery is the act; the prior verdict of innocence makes the delivery culpable.

Hired Hands and Base Fellows

A recurring Old Testament figure is the man whose distinct contribution to evil is that he can be enlisted. The "base fellows" of Deuteronomy are the agents who draw a town into apostasy: "Certain base fellows have gone out from the midst of you, and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you⁺ haven't known" (De 13:13). Jezebel's plot against Naboth requires two such men: "and set two men, base fellows, before him, and let them bear witness against him, saying, You cursed God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him to death" (1Ki 21:10). The Chronicler describes the same dynamic gathering around Jeroboam: "And there were gathered to him worthless men, base fellows, who strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them" (2Ch 13:7). The base fellow is the instrument, but the instrument is itself reckoned guilty. So in Maccabees the army of the day is hired to the same end: the besiegers "have hired the Arabians to help them" (1Ma 5:39).

Alliances with the Wicked

Beyond the act of a single accomplice, scripture treats the league — the formal alliance with evil — as a third form of complicity. The kings of Canaan show what one-mindedness looks like in the wrong direction: they "gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord" (Jos 9:2). Eglon and Jabin do the same in Judges (Jg 3:13). Asa, more disastrously, hires the Syrian against the Northern Kingdom: "[There is] a league between me and you, between my father and your father: look, I have sent to you a present of silver and gold; go, break your league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me" (1Ki 15:19). Jehoshaphat falls into the same kind of partnership with the house of Ahab — "Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance; and he joined affinity with Ahab" (2Ch 18:1) — and again with Ahaziah, of whom the Chronicler says "the same did very wickedly" (2Ch 20:35).

The prophets read alliances with foreign powers in the same key. "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many" (Is 31:1), against those who "set out to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh" (Is 30:2). Hosea names both ends of the swap: "they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt" (Ho 12:1). The Psalms gather the pattern: "The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against Yahweh, and against his anointed" (Ps 2:2); "they have consulted together with one consent; Against you they make a covenant" (Ps 83:5). Maccabees opens with the same plot turning inward: "In those days there went out of Israel wicked men, and they persuaded many, saying: Let's go, and make a covenant with the nations that are round about us" (1Ma 1:11), and the politics among the Hellenistic kings runs on it: Ptolemy "sent ambassadors to Demetrius, saying: Come, let's make a covenant between us, and I will give you my daughter whom Alexander has, and you will reign in the kingdom of your father" (1Ma 11:9).

Sirach gives the most explicit warning in the wisdom literature: "Do not stick to the wicked or he will overthrow you; And he will turn you out of your house" (Sir 11:34). And again on the practical level: "Do not give him weapons of war. Why should he turn them against you?" (Sir 12:5). And on the moral level: "So is he who joins with a man of pride And wallows in his iniquities" (Sir 12:14). The point in each case is that the alliance does not isolate the evil; it spreads it.

Inducement and the Multiplier of Influence

A separate strand in the tradition treats the one whose evil is contagious — not the accomplice but the influencer. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Ga 5:9) and "Don't you⁺ know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" (1Co 5:6). The metaphor sets the scale: a small evil becomes structural. Paul's pastoral applications make the personal consequence concrete. "For if a man sees you who has knowledge sitting at meat in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?" (1Co 8:10). And the principle stated: "if because of meat your brother is grieved, you walk no longer in love. Don't destroy with your meat him for whom Christ died" (Ro 14:15).

The historical books document the inverse — the influencer of the powerful. "For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods" (1Ki 11:4); and Ahab "sold himself to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up" (1Ki 21:25). Jeremiah extends the indictment to the prophetic guild: "from the prophets of Jerusalem has ungodliness gone forth into all the land" (Je 23:15). Sirach's image fits the same machinery: "From a spark, a charcoal increases; And [from] a worthless man, he lies in wait for blood" (Sir 11:32). And Diognetus's note that the alternatives offered by the philosophers "are absurdities, and error of impostors" (Gr 8:4) belongs in the same register — the falsehood of the teacher is part of the harm.

Refusal: Coming Out

The counter-movement scripture sets against complicity is not silence but withdrawal joined to reproof. "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, and even better, reprove them as well" (Ep 5:11). Paul's command to the Thessalonians joins the two: "Now we command you⁺, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you⁺ withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly" (2Th 3:6). And the older summons stands behind both: "Therefore Come⁺ out from among them, and be⁺ separate, says the Lord, And touch no unclean thing; And I will receive you⁺" (2Co 6:17), echoing Isaiah's call to the exiles bearing the temple vessels: "Depart⁺, depart⁺, go⁺ out from there, touch no unclean thing; go⁺ out of the midst of her" (Is 52:11).

The shape of the refusal mirrors the shape of the complicity. Where the partner consents, the faithful contend; where the alliance is hired, the alliance is broken; where the influencer leavens, the leaven is purged; where the greeter shares the work, the door is shut. The deed shared is the deed owned — and the deed not shared is the deed renounced.