The meaning of order is there, but it is precisely its presence that determines the vestigial character of the treatment of it. The reason lies in the fact that the violence of the cultural order is revealed in the Gospels, both in the account of the Passion and in all the other episodes we have read, including this one, and the cultural order cannot survive such a revelation. Once the basic mechanism is revealed, the scapegoat mechanism, that expulsion of violence by violence, is rendered useless by the revelation. It is no longer of interest. The interest of the Gospels lies in the future offered mankind by this revelation, the end of Satan’s mechanism. The good news is that scapegoats can no longer save men, the persecutors’ accounts of their persecutions are no longer valid, and truth shines into dark places. God is not violent, the true God has nothing to do with violence, and he speaks to us not through distant intermediaries but directly. The Son he sends us is one with him. The Kingdom of God is at hand.
–René Girard, The Scapegoat
