Contempt

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  φαυλίζω, fut. Att. ἐῶ, to hold cheap, to depreciate, disparage, Twa or τι Plat. Legg. 667 A, Xen. Mem. 1. 6, 5., 4. 4, 14, etc. Ἂ φαύλιος, a, ον, -- φαῦλος, but only used of certain fruits, coarse, μῆλα φ. Teleclid. ᾿Αμφιμκτ. 2; φ. ἐλαία or φαυλία alone, a coarse hind of olive, produced from the κότινος or wild-olive, Theophr. C. P. 6. 8, 3, H. P. 2. 2, 12, Luc. Lexiph. 5, Poll. 6. 14. ; φαυλισμός, 6, depreciation, contempt, LXXx (Isai. 51. 7, al.):—so pav- λισμα, τό, Ib. (Zeph. 3. 11), Origen. φαυλιστής, οὔ, ὁ, a despiser, Eccl.:—fem. φαυλίστρια, LXX (Zeph. 3.1). φαυλό-βιος, ov, living badly or meanly, Schol. Ar. Ran. 425. φαυλο-διδάσκαλος, 0, a teacher of evil, Eust. Opusc. 163. 3. 1659 φαυλό-δοξος, ov, ill-judging, Eust. Opusc. 37. 82, φαυλο-κόλαξ, ἄκος, ὁ, a flatterer of bad men, Nicet. Ann. 174 B, Eust. Opusc. 261. 20. φαυλο-λογίοα, ἡ, evil or mischievous speaking, Eust. Opusc. 131. 44. φαυλό-νους, our, ill-disposed, Schol. Ar. Nub. 625. φαυλο-ποιός, dv, ill-doing, Eust. Opusc. 81. 83. φαυλορρεπῶς, Ady. to the side of evil, κλίνειν Eust. Opusc. 3. 50. φαυλορρημόνως, (ῥῆμα) Adv. speaking evilly or ill, Poll. 8. 81.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ὠμότης, τος, 7, rawness, esp. of unripe fruit, Arist. Meteor. 4. 3, 4, Theophr. Fr. 7. 4. 2. indigestion, crudity, in pl. ὠμότησιν ἁλί- oxerat Plut. 2. 661 B, cf. Diosc. 3. I. II. metaph. savageness rudeness, fierceness, cruelty, Eur. lon 47, Xen. Cyr. 4.5, 19, Isocr. 64 A, 227 E, Dem., etc. ; ἴσον λεαίνης καὶ γυναικὸς ὦ. Menand. Monost. 267 ; @p. kara Twos Luc. Phal. 1. 6; in pl., Id. V. H. τὸ 3. ὠμοτοκέω, to bring forth untimely, miscarry, LXX (Job 21.10); ὠμο- τοκοῦσαί τε... Kal νεκρὰ τίκτουσαι Dion. H. 9. 40. ὠμοτοκία, 7, miscarriage, Ptol. ὠμο-τόκος, ov, bringing forth untimely offspring, miscarrying, Call. Cer. fe 3 ὧμ. ὠδῖνες untimely, Id. Del. 120:—metaph. of a vine, Anth. P. 501 ne -τομέω, to cut (imposthumes) raw or before the time, Paul. Aeg. 6. 34 so verb. Adj. ὠμοτομητέον, Archig. ap. Galen. ὠμο-τρἴβής, és, gen. cos, pressed raw, wu. ἔλαιον oil from unripe olives, preferred for many purposes, Theophr. Odor. 15, Diosc. 1. 29. ὠμόῦπνος, ov, (ὠμός) with sleep rudely broken, with one’s sleep not slept out, ὧμ. ἀνιστάναι τινά Eupol. Incert. 8; wp. ἀναπηδᾶν Philostr. 371; ὧμ. βλέφαρον Manass. Chron. 5301. ὠμοφᾶγέω, to eat raw flesh, Arr. Ind. 28. 1, Porph. Abst. § 13, etc. ὠμοφᾶγία, ἡ, an eating of raw flesh, Plut.2.417C, Clem. Al. 11, Eus., etc. 3 , > 9 ὥμος — wry: beasts, λέοντες, θῶες, λύκοι Il. 5. 782:, 11. 479., 16. 157; θῆρες h. Ven. 124; of the Centaurs, Theogn. 542; of savage men, Thuc. 3. 94, Porph. Abst. § 13 ;--τὰ ὠμοφάγα Arist. H. A. 9. 1, 10, cf. P. A. 4. 12, 17 ;—ap. χάρις (cf. ἀνδρόβρως) Eur. Bacch. 139. Cf. ὠμάδιος, ὠμηστής. 11. rarely proparox. ὠμόφαγος, ov, pass. eaten raw, δαῖτες ὧμ., οἵ sacrifices offered to Dionysus, Eur. Fr. 475 a. 12. ὠμοφορέω, fo bear on the shoulders, Joseph. A. J. 3. 7, 2, Dion. Alex. ap. Eus. H. E. 7 22. ὠμοφόριον, τό, a νγοτηδῃ᾽ 5 tippet covering the shoulders, Byz.; ὡμόφορον in Anna Comn. 1. 346. II. in Eccl. an episcopal tippet, v. Ducang. ὦμο- φόρος, ὁ 6, one who bears on the shoulders, Epiphan.639 D, 643 B, al. ὠμοφροσύνη, ἢ cruelty of mind, Planud. ὦμό- pov, ovos, 6, ἣ, (φρήν) savage-minded, savage, like ὠμόθυμος, λύκος Aesch. Cho. 421; of persons, Soph. Aj. 931, Tr. 975, Ph. 194, Eur. El. 27, etc.; metaph., ὦ. σίδαρος Aesch. Theb. 730. Adv. ὠμο- φρόνως, Id. Pers. gil. aed (1, ἄκος, 6 or }, a prop for the forks of vines (v. ὦμος 11), Geop. 5:22 ὁμοιχαρούργητος, ov, (ὠμός) operated on before its maturity, of an abscess, Schol. Hipp. ὠμφύνω, f. 1. for ὀμφύνω in Hesych. ὦν, Ion. and Dor. for οὖν : v. sub οὖν II. Ova, ὦναξ, poét. and Ion. contr. for ὦ ἄνα, ὦ ἄναξ. ὥναιος, a, ov, (ὀνίνη μι) profitable, Inscr. in Carapan. Dodoné, pl. 38.1. ὠνάμην, ὥνατο, aor. med. of ὄνομαι, 1]. ; v. ap. Lob. Phryn. 12. 11. also of ὀνίνημι, ν. sub voc.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ὠμός, 7, dv: (v. sub fin.):—raw, undressed, Lat. crudus (v. Arist. Meteor. 4. 3, 4 sq.): 1. properly of flesh, raw, uncooked, Il. 22. 347, Od. 18. 87, al.; opp. to dmradéos, Od. 12. 396; to ἑφθός, Theophr. Fr. 8.2; ὠμὸν καταφαγεῖν τινα or ὠμοῦ ἐσθίειν τινός to eat one raw, proverb. ee savage cruelty, Xen. An. 4. 8, 14, Hell. 3. 3, 6; so, ὠμὸν βεβρώθοις Πρίαμον Wy Ae 35, Gf ΘΠ 15: 87: εἴς: 2. of vegetables, μυκῆτας ὡμοὺς .. φαγεῖν Antiph. Παροιμ. 1; κριθαί Luc. Asin. 17; cf. ὠμήλυσις. 3. of water, crude, opp. to dnabees, Alex. Πυθαγ. 1. 4. of fruit, uncooked by the sun, unripe, opp. to πέπων, Ar. Eq. 260, cf. Xen. Oec. 19, 19, Arist. Meteor. 4. 3, 4, 5. of metallic ores, wzsmelted, Byz.; and of pottery, wubaked, Geop. 10. 21,1: even of the earth which needs to be exposed to the sun, ws ἡ ὠμὴ αὐτῆς ὀπτῷτο Xen. Oec. 16, 15; so, κέραμος ὠμός Arist. Meteor. 4. 3, 7, cf. GipAve2. 0: 10; 6. of food, undigested, Plut. 2. 131 C, 133 Dz. II. metaph. savage, rude, fierce, cruel, [δεσπόται] ὠμοί τε δούλοις Aesch. Ag. 1045; ὦ. φρόνημα Id. Theb. 536; wun ξὺν ὀργῇ Id. Supp. 187; δαίμονες Soph. O. T. 828; τὰ... ᾿Αγαμέμνονος κλύεις ὠμὰ καὶ πάντολμ᾽ Eur. I. A. 9133 ὠμὸς és τινα Id. Hipp. 1264; and so in Prose, ὠμὸν τὸ βούλευμα... ἔγνῶσθαι Thuc. 3. 36; οὕτως ὠμὴ στάσις προὐχωρήσεν 10. 81 ; ὠμοὶ καὶ ἄνομοι Plat. Lege. 823 E; ὠμὴ ψυχή Ib. 718D; χαλεπὸς καὶ ὦ. Xen. An. 2.6, 12; τὸν οὕτως ὠμόν, τὸν οὕτως ἀγνώμονα Dem. 546. 23 80, b. neut. pl. ὠμά, as Adv, savagely, Il. 23. 21; but in Prose we have the regul. Ady., ὠμῶς καὶ ἀπαραιτήτως Thuc. 3: 84, cf. Xen. Vect. 6, 6; ὠμῶς καὶ σχετλίως Isocr. 390D; ὠ. καὶ πικρῶς Dem. 845. 9; ὠμῶς ἀποκτείνειν Lys. 155. 33; Sup., ὠμότατα διακεῖσθαι πρός τινα Isocr. 1098 E. 2. rude, rough, hardy (v. ὠμοκρατής), Sopb. Aj. 548; δηλοῖ τὸ γέννημ᾽ ὠμὸν ἐξ ὠμοῦ πατρός Id. Ant. 471; ὠμότερος συκοφάντης a more coarse, more unmitigated sycophant, aes 298. 29 :—Adv. rudely, coarsely, παρελθεῖν ὠμῶς καὶ ἀναιδῶς Id. 321. 8. (from I. 4) ὠμὸν γῆρας an un- ripe, untimely, premature old age, Od. 15. 357, Hes. Op. 703; cf. ὦμο- γέρων :---ὠμὸς τόκος an untimely birth, Philostr. 555. (Cf. Skt. G@m-as, am-as (crudus) ; Lat. am-arus; cf. O. H.G. am-pher (sorrell).) ὠμό-σαρκος, ov, raw, κρέας reel ὦὠμό-σττος, ov, eating raw meat, of the Sphinx, eating men raw, Aesch. Theb. 5413; xnAatow ὠμοσίτοις, also of the Sphinx, Eur. Phoen. 1025 ; σκύλακες Id. Bacch. 338. II. pass. eaten raw, Lyc. 654. ὠμο-σπάρακτος [a], ov, torn in pieces raw, Ar. Eq. 345. ὠμο-τάρϊῖχος, 6, the flesh of the tunny pickled, and so eaten (without being boiled), Nicostr. “ABp. I. 2, Alex. ᾿Απεγλαυκ. 1. 4; cf. Diosc. 2. 33 :—also ὠμοτάριχον, τό, Diph. Siphn. ap. Ath. 121 B.

• From From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (2019)

  But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. In prophetic tradition, the word pair of “righteousness” and “justice,” is a call for transformative investment in the common good that inevitably includes the vulnerable and the disenfranchised (see Isa. 5:5; 9:7). But of course that verse of summons is preceded in the same chapter by two accent points. On the one hand Amos reprimands Israel for the dearth of justice and righteousness in Israel (5:7; see 6:12), and identifies the economic abuse of the poor that will have a bad outcome for the exploiters: Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. 5:11 On the other hand, by a series of imperatives—“seek me,” “seek the LORD,” “seek good,” “hate evil and love good,” “establish justice”—Amos makes clear that engagement with YHWH, the God of Israel, is an equivalent to the practice of economic justice. The verses preceding 5:24 articulate a divine rejection of cultic practices (vv. 21–23); Israel’s liturgies had become a narcotic that screened out the economic realities of life. HOSEA Hosea belongs roughly to the same cultural-historical context of Northern Israel as does Amos. He reports that his passion for prophetic utterance has grown out of his anguished personal experience of a vexed and scandalous marriage. Out of that personal disaster Hosea is able to speak about the alienation that is coming between YHWH and Israel, a “breakup” that will end in suffering, displacement, and wretchedness. The exact linkage between the personal and the prophetic is a bit elusive, but it is not doubted that this poet is propelled, like every poet, out of his lived reality. It is evident that Hosea arose from the covenantal circles of Deuteronomy that were deeply committed to the Sinai covenant with its rigorous commandments and its inescapable sanctions of blessing and curse. Indeed in 4:2 Hosea specifically cites the commandments of Sinai. The best-known text of Hosea, in Christian usage, is verse 6:6, which is twice quoted by Jesus (Matt. 9:12–13; 12:7): For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. As we have seen in Amos 5:21–23, this prophet also looks askance at worship practices that function in Israel, as they often do, to legitimate worship as a substitute for covenantal activity. The pairing of “steadfast love” and “knowledge of God” refers to covenantal practices. In the tradition of Deuteronomy, those covenantal practices pertain to neighborly generosity and solidarity with a special regard for the poor, widows, orphans, and immigrants (see Deut. 14:28; 24:19–22). Thus Hosea links the reality of YHWH, the Lord of the covenant, to concern for the neighborhood.

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  I recall I paused before Tossi, the great Moroccan, sprawled drunk across the chair arm, his workman’s pants at mid-shin, hands loose across a cock he boasted always stiff, even when he slept. I squatted between his knees and nuzzled him. I often gave him the same service Benny gives me—” (He gestured where the naked boy slept with the dog.) “—and Olaf or Pietro, the big blond Italian, would do for Tossi what you and the fishermen did for me. But Tossi grunted and pushed me away. Had he wakened I would have taken him with me. But he didn’t. The probable fate of the others? I’m sure the police apprehended them later. The money and the prestige of the Count held the law off us. Without him we were vulnerable. I knew that. So I left my favorite, drunken and doomed, without regret. Such departures are strange, and very easy. “You have asked me about the woman? Here she makes her first entrance into my wanderings. Let me introduce her by explaining that I moved down through Italy, keeping to smaller towns. A week from Zurich round me living with a grave digger and his son. Where the mother had gone, or, in truth, if there was actually blood between man and boy, I never knew for sure. The father, whose acquaintance I made in a narrow street lit by half a moon at midnight, had raised the child to his own tastes. They disinterred dead women, carried them to their shack—a print of the Virgin was tacked over the fire, and the roof leaked after any more than an hour’s rain steady—where, with dirty fingers, and stained teeth, father and son would bruise and tear the cold mouth, breasts, buttocks, and box. Though liking to lick, lip, and tongue the cool and putrid corpses, they preferred to give up their juice in something warm, wet and responding, while they groveled, growled and bit. Often they would perform this service for one another (reluctantly claimed the father), one on his knees, hugging the hips of the other, who lowered over the figure on the table flickering under the candles. But their real pleasure was to indulge the yellowing, lardy lumps together while somebody else—male or female, it was no matter—crouched for them. Often I saw their clotted hands meet, while man and boy exchanged congealed kisses, tongueing a bit of fat between them. “I met Guido, the grave digger, as I say, in a dark street. His black eyes followed mine, pulled me around.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  This savior, I shall attempt to show, deceived many and caused them to accept a form of belief harmful to the well-being of mankind. Taking its root in the lower classes, the religion continues to spread among the vulgar: nay, one can even say it spreads because of its vulgarity and the illiteracy of its adherents. And while there are a few moderate, reasonable, and intelligent people who are inclined to interpret its beliefs allegorically, yet it thrives in its purer form among the ignorant. It is not enough, therefore, to keep saying that Jesus was not born of a virgin, not born of David’s lineage, not born in Bethlehem, that there was no stable, no shepherds, no star, no Magi, no massacre of the infants, and no flight into Egypt. All of that is quite true, but it still begs the question of who he was and what he did that caused his followers to make such claims. That is a historical question, and it cannot be dismissed with Celsus’s sneer. Chapter 2The Jordan Is Not Just WaterTHE NEAR EAST AND MEDITERRANEAN types of apocalypticism are certainly the most literarily elaborated….However, if we widen our scope, we will find striking phenomenological parallels in the cultures of the Americas, Africa and Oceania, which can hardly be explained with reference to early historical connections with the above area, or by way of diffusion…. The revitalization of mythic material and its reinterpretation with reference to the contemporaneous situation is a recurrent feature in these movements. Tord Olsson, in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East , David Hellholm, ed. (Tubingen: Mohr, Siebeck, 1979) TO THE PURIST the millennium can properly refer only to the fixed period of 1000 years that is found in the Judaic-Christian tradition. In our perspective, however, the term may be applied figuratively to any conception of a perfect age to come, or a perfect land to be made accessible. The picture will vary according as time is fitted into the scheme of the cosmos. The perfect age may come by an act of regeneration, time being bent back, as it were, to recapture some state of harmony in which the world began. It may have some of this quality of early freshness and yet come as time is running out. It will then last for a period that is fixed, variable, or indeterminate, and it may even form part of a cycle of ages. Or it may be an age to last indefinitely, with no doom ahead. Sylvia L. Thrupp, in Millennial Dreams in Action: Studies in Revolutionary Religious Movements (New York: Shocken, 1970) God Now Rested over Italy In the previous chapter the Jewish historian Josephus was mentioned in passing. It is now time to meet him more formally and consider him more fully. He was born into the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem in 37 C.E . and appeared in Rome before the emperor Nero to defend some fellow priests in 64 C.E .

• From The Tides of Lust (1973)

  “But you’ve faked seven. That’s the important one.” The captain laughed and sat on the lower step. “Tell me about Catherine.” He leaned back and put his elbow on the pelt to look up at the artist. “You say I must spill my next shot glass full before midnight?” He looked around the room. A square clock had been painted, in grisaille, with four human orifices, two male and two female, at noon, three, six and nine. The long hand was a penis, the short, a hirsute sack: they swung round the day. “It was from an old Coca Cola advertisement clock,” Proctor explained. “A healthy buck like you should be able to recuperate in the few hours left.” “Catherine,” the captain repeated. “Prime me out with tales of her, unless you yourself are too tired—” “I never tire. And seldom sleep.” “But your mind is on other things, yes?” “I am simply pondering the fact that man and the devil share equally in the rewards to be gleaned from their enduring relationship.” The captain waited the explanation. “The obviation of the knowledge that both are going to die. Man has devised three systems for effecting the oblivion necessary for sanity. First, the whole bourgeois preoccupation—such a very good word, ‘preoccupy’—with work and the objects of its reward. Second, the religious erection—ahem—of a moral, ethical, and ritual matrix that must absorb man’s consciousness to be efficacious. And third is the erotic life in which we have chosen to submerge ourselves. I say we; more accurately, you. The artist is perhaps the only one free to indulge in all three, religious, erotic, and ergonic, simply to fulfill his calling. He reports to the practitioners of each what is going on within the circles of the others. That is why society supports him, I suppose. And they are all, always, so fascinated to learn.” “Tell me about Catherine.” “An ordinary woman, really. An old friend. Somewhere in the nexus, ergonic, religious, erotic, there is the proof of human consciousness. We have done a tiny bit to free the darkeys in this country. But the devil is still very much our slave.” “Do you believe in the devil?” the captain asked. “No. But then, I don’t believe in black slavery, either.” To the captain’s frown, Proctor nodded. The captain asked, “Who are you, Proctor?” Candlelight on the black cheekbones, in the skin of the heavy lips; and the lips parted on a whisper: “Why are you here?” “What can I tell you?” “Much as you will.” The captain pressed his lips out so for a moment they thickened like a black pig’s snout. Then, apart again, they gave up low laughter. Over it, Proctor began: “Have you ever heard of me? My name, my work? I have something of a reputation, and I firmly believe a man must first be that. But you, yes, you just come to return a wallet an acquaintance of mine dropped by chance. Like Bull might; like Nazi.”

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Patron and Client Recall, from Chapter 1, that there were only two classes in ancient society, a very small upper class and a very large lower class. With no middle class in between, what kept such a society from breaking absolutely apart? What kept it together were multiple ligatures of patronage and clientage. Those without power could be clients to the patrons above them, and those patrons might even be themselves clients to others far more powerful still. Brokers were clients to those above them and patrons to those below. In a patronal society such as the ancient Roman one, and unlike modern American society, influence was a moral duty: the emperors needed it, the moralists praised it, and countless inscriptions publicly proclaimed it. Patronage and clientage, at their best, gave some hope or chance to individuals among the lower classes, but at their worst they confirmed dependency, maintained hierarchy, sustained oppression, and stabilized domination. This is Thomas F. Carney’s description of patronal society: This was a society based on patronage, not class stratification; so little pyramids of power abounded…. Thus society resembled a mass of little pyramids of influence, each headed by a major family—or one giant pyramid headed by an autocrat—not the three-decker sandwich of upper, middle, and lower classes familiar to us from industrial society…. The client of a power wielder thus becomes a powerful man and himself in turn attracts clients [that is, he becomes a broker]. Even those marginal hangers-on to power attract others, more disadvantageously placed, as their clients. So arise the distinctive pyramids of power—patron, then first order clients, then second and third order clients and so on—associated with a patronage society. It is quite different from the three-layer sandwich of a class society.* It is easiest to give examples of patronal society as it works horizontally between equals taking turns in playing patron or client to one another. The Romans called that amicitia or “friendship”—but in our sense of cronyism, good old boys, or the old-school-tie network. Examples of such patronal friendship can be seen in the surviving letters of any important or aristocratic Roman. It is of course much, much harder to see the vertical processes of patronage, especially from the viewpoint of lower-class clients . Even if we had such letters—written, say, for illiterates by the alley scribes of Egypt—they would have to be carefully deferential and politely respectful. There is, however, one place to catch a glimpse of what it must have been like to be such a dependent, and that is in Juvenal’s Fifth Satire , which I cite from Hubert Creekmore’s translation. But it must be read with care, not only because it is savage satire but also because Juvenal, who lived around 60 to 127 C.E ., was banished from Rome by the emperor Domitian and returned later, impoverished, dependent, fearful, and, above all, bitingly scornful of a rich world in which he, unlike Epictetus, described in the next chapter, longed mostly to participate more fully.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Believers, in a similar but of course quite separate process, went back to their respective foundational texts, one to the Iliad and the Odyssey of the Homeric tradition, the other to the Law and the Prophets of the Hebraic tradition, and each found exactly what was needed, one to exalt Italy over Greece, the other to exalt Christianity over Judaism. Jesus, in terms of history’s best guess, was born, possibly just before 4 B.C.E ., to Joseph and Mary at Nazareth, a tiny hamlet whose population has been estimated at anything from twelve hundred to two hundred people, and although I earlier accepted that former assessment, I am now more inclined to presume the latter. He was born into but not necessarily as the first of a large family and had at least six siblings. The rest is mythology, telling us much about Jesus’ later followers but nothing about Jesus’ earlier origins, telling us how future history might be founded but not at all how past history had happened. In one sense, however, that is all beside the point. The pious pastor and the village atheist who argue for and against the historicity of Jesus’ birth stories miss a far more fundamental issue. The divine origins of Jesus are, to be sure, just as fictional or mythological as those of Octavius. But to claim them for Octavius surprised nobody in that first century. What was incredible was that anyone at all claimed them for Jesus. Sometime between 177 and 180 C.E ., with the emperor Marcus Aurelius already persecuting Christians, the pagan philosopher Celsus wrote his True Doctrine as an intellectual attack on their religion. When he discusses Jesus’ virgin birth, for example, he never says that such an event is incredible in itself. What is incredible is that it could happen to a member of the lower classes, a Jewish peasant nobody like Jesus. What absurdity! Clearly the Christians have used the myths of the Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus’ virgin birth…. After all, the old myths of the Greeks that attribute a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus and Minos are equally good evidence of their wondrous works on behalf of mankind—and are certainly no less lacking in plausibility than the stories of your followers. What have you done by word or deed that is quite so wonderful as those heroes of old? It is not absurd, in Celsus’s mind, to claim that Jesus was divine , but it is absurd to claim that Jesus was divine. Who is he or what has he done to deserve such a birth? Class snobbery is, in fact, very close to the root of Celsus’s objection to Christianity: First, however, I must deal with the matter of Jesus, the so-called savior, who not long ago taught new doctrines and was thought to be a son of God.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  He first enlarges the Pilate disturbances to three, closing with a new one that cost Pilate his job and could well have cost him his life if the emperor Tiberius had not died before he reached Rome for judgment. That set of three Pilate disturbances is similar in that the authorities involved are all to blame for the troubles. But then Josephus inserts, between those older two items in 18.55–64 and the newer final one in 18.85–89, three more disturbances in 18.63–64, 65–80, and 81–84. This second set is also similar, but in the opposite way to the first set. Now it is not the authorities but the protagonists who seem more to blame for the disorders. The first in this new set concerns Jesus, and that is quite appropriate since he appeared under Pontius Pilate. But the next two inserts are quite strange. They both involve disturbances, to be sure, but in Rome rather than Jerusalem. In one story priests of the Egyptian goddess Isis assist a libertine aristocrat in seducing a high-born Roman matron named Paulina. The guilty priests are crucified and their temple is destroyed as a punishment. In the other story “a certain Jew, a complete scoundrel, who had fled his own country because he was accused of transgressing certain laws and feared punishment on this account” (18.81), conspired to defraud an aristocratic Jewish proselyte named Fulvia of gifts designated for the Temple at Jerusalem, and the result was that “the whole Jewish community” (18.83) was ordered to leave Rome as punishment. The juxtaposition of Pilate disturbances and Rome disturbances, of those criminal fraud stories and the Jesus story, gives the latter a rather negative context. Was that Josephus’s purpose and design? Is the story of Jesus to be judged by association with the two incidents that follow it? Jesus, the Isis priests, and the Jewish “scoundrel” may well have been, for Josephus, three warnings of how public disturbances and official punishments may be caused by individual religious malfeasance. Third, text. Even if the context has been deliberately arranged to cast some negative reflection on the Jesus story, the text itself, in Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64, is quite carefully neutral. But, above all, notice those same four elements found earlier in the Tacitus summary: [1. Movement ] About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man . For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah . [2. Execution ] When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, [3. Continuation ] those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  But they tell us something nonetheless; they suggest that perhaps Jesus healed in ecstatic trance. Here is another example. In the Q Gospel both John and Jesus are attacked, but in opposite ways: For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Q Gospel 7:33–34) That text contains precious information and serious misinformation, and it is the latter that seduced Sanders into his strange conclusion about Jesus. The first half of each verse tells us something factual and historical about John, Jesus, and their contrasting programs. The second half of each verse is vituperative name-calling. There should, therefore, be no more serious historical discussion about John the Baptist as possessed than about Jesus as glutton and drunkard, friend of tax collectors and sinners. Similarly with the accusation against Jesus in John 8:48 that “you are a Samaritan and have a demon.” There need be no serious discussion about the ethnic identity or possessed state of Jesus. Finally, there is a text where Jesus speaks of John the Baptist in terms of tax collectors and prostitutes: Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.” (Matthew 21:31b–32) That passage, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with the present discussion, although it is often cited as if it did. Those named individuals could be seen as coming to John in repentance, which would not be a case of name-calling at all. Similarly, Mark 2:13–17 has Jesus say that “he came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Sinners are “called,” of course, to repentance and not to continued or increased sinning. In case there is any misunderstanding, Luke expands his Markan source by saying that Jesus “came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance ,” in his parallel 5:32. Later on (19:1–10) Luke gives a clear example of such repentance in the case of Zacchaeus, identified as tax collector and sinner. What has happened here is a confusion between what Bruce Malina and Jerome Neyrey describe as “calling Jesus names” and what Sanders describes as Jesus’ programmatic actions. Think of this example. If you were a white racist looking at a black man and a white woman sitting together at a whites-only lunch-counter in the American early sixties, what would you call him and what would you call her? And would that be calling names and slandering people or describing individuals and defining programs?

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Next, the execution . In the course of six campaigns at coastal Caesarea, seat of the Roman occupation authorities in the Jewish homeland, an Italian archeological expedition discovered in 1961 a relocated and reused dedicatory block of local limestone containing those same two imperial names in Latin. Even in its present very damaged condition, the first line mentions a “Tiberiéum,” apparently some edifice dedicated to that emperor, the second and third lines name “[Po]ntius Pilate” the “[pre]fect of Judaea” as the dedicator, and the fourth, obliterated line must have had some verb like made, gave , or dedicated . Tacitus simply retrojected the title of procurator , current from the time of the emperor Claudius between 41 and 54, back onto Pilate, who was actually prefect at that earlier period. Then, the continuation . That third phrase clarifies his preceding sentence. The execution of Jesus was intended to stop a movement already begun by him , but it failed to do so. For Tacitus, continuation was like the progression of a disease thought to have been eliminated by medicine. Execution had failed its purpose, but that made Christ founder of the name of Christian . Finally, expansion . Tacitus let his distaste and contempt for Christianity display itself here most openly. Not only did the movement continue in Judaea, but it spread all the way to Rome itself, where everything rotten arrives eventually. And there, had Tacitus but known it, lay the future. In Finnegans Wake James Joyce, playing with the expression to make a long story short and thinking of Tacitus on Ireland rather than on Christianity, called him “our wrongstoryshortener.” Exactly. Tacitus, alone among those first three pagan outsiders, tells us briefly but clearly about Christ, his movement, and his execution, and how, despite that sentence, the movement not only continued but expanded all the way from Judaea to Rome itself. Those same four points were also noted even before the end of the first century by another outsider, not pagan this time but Jewish, the historian Flavius Josephus. An Unbroken Love Flavius Josephus, or Joseph ben Matthias …[is] certainly the single most important source for the history of the Jewish people during the first century C.E. Harold W. Attridge, “Josephus and His Works,” p. 185 Josephus … can invent, exaggerate, over-emphasize, distort, suppress, simplify, or, occasionally, tell the truth. Often we cannot determine where one practice ends and another begins. Shaye J. D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome , p. 181 Both Tacitus and Josephus were aristocratic historians, one from the Roman consular nobility, the other from the Jewish priestly elite. Both lived to their early sixties, but Cornelius Tacitus, born around 55, was the younger contemporary of Flavius Josephus, born around 37. Both remained profoundly faithful to their origins—Tacitus to the senatorial ideals of the Roman republic, Josephus to the sacerdotal ideals of the Jewish theocracy.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  I focus here on the second element, on rural settlement change as small peasant freeholders yielded before “the increasing agglomeration of rural estates” owned by urban elites (155). “The problem then arises of what this change actually meant in practice for the common people who owned or occupied these estates. Various possibilities could exist: that the peasants remained on the land as tenants of the larger proprietors, living in poor and squalid circumstances; or that they left the land to become bandits … or departed the land altogether to go to the city” (155). I presume, speaking systemically rather than individually, that none of those three options is a particularly happy one for the peasants involved. Could an archeologist ask, regarding Sepphoris and Tiberias, a question similar to that asked by Patterson regarding Samnium and Lycia? Is any relationship discernible between city growth and rural consolidation? And if smaller rural plots are being unified into larger holdings, can one legitimately infer something about what those cities were doing to the “livelihoods and lives” of the peasants (and thereby to their “attitudes and sentiments” about them)? We can note, in any case, that Sepphoris is never mentioned in the gospels and Tiberias is mentioned only in John, once directly in 6:23 and twice indirectly in 6:1 and 21:1. Why is that? Andrew Overman asks this obvious question (and answers it as well): “Why do these cities [Tiberias, Magdala, and Sepphoris] not figure more prominently in the gospel tradition?… We would posit that the absence of these significant and unavoidable urban centers relates to the issue of power which these centers represent and possess” (1988:167). He repeats that conjunction of city and power again in a more recent article: “I would suggest that the designation city has mostly to do with power, whether economic, political or symbolic…. In no way do I suggest that everyone was comfortable with the freight of this symbol. I do say though that most people in the Galilee were familiar with the symbol and its implications, as well as its concrete economic and cultural ramifications…. Any hypothetical program for the Jesus movement, or an analysis of parables or aphorisms in the Gospels, should take account of this information from the Galilean material world” (1993:47–48). All of that is absolutely correct, but I would ask whether the phrase “not comfortable with” might not be too benign a formulation for the reaction of those who may have opposed Roman urbanization because it dislocated the traditional peasant way of life and pushed individuals from poverty into destitution, from small landowner into tenant farmer, from tenant farmer into day-laborer, and from day-laborer into beggar or bandit. Peasants and Artisans Even at the village level [in agrarian empires] a measure of specialization was not uncommon, since in the agricultural off-season peasants were frequently obliged to turn to handicrafts to make ends meet, and in time certain villages developed a reputation for superior skill in the production of some particular commodity. Gerhard E.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Finally, and climactically, God gets the last word—as the first word—in this fascinating satire: The Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (4:10–11) What message does this story intend? It is surely, you might argue, an example parable, a story warning you that you cannot disobey God or avoid your vocation? Why, then, do I call it a challenge parable? Because of, on the one hand, what the standard biblical tradition expects of prophets and, on the other, what it does not expect of Gentiles. How, next, does Jonah the short story become a challenge parable? First, the general expectation of biblical prophecy is both clear and consistent. It is forged in the dialectic between these two standard and reversed phrases: The message of God comes to the prophet The prophet proclaims the message of God The prophetic destiny is a reciprocal and interactive loop between divinity and humanity, as the message received becomes the message delivered. That interaction is best expressed by the insistent mantra “Thus says the Lord,” a phrase that appears in the prophetic books over 350 times. The traditional biblical prophet is—need it be said?—obedient to God. The very term announces that fidelity, as it comes from two Greek words: pro, “for,” and ph [image "image" file=Image00047.jpg] mi, “to speak.” A prophet is one who speaks for God, whether the message is about past, present, or future matters. An obedient prophet is a redundancy. A disobedient prophet is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, a square circle. Furthermore, a biblical prophet is not just obedient, but often eager to deliver the divine message. A classical example is the call of Isaiah, who “heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Isaiah said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ (6:8). So much, then, for the biblical tradition’s positive expectations of prophets. What about its negative expectations of Ninevites? The traditional image of biblical Nineveh is equally clear and consistent. The ancient city was located on the east bank of the Tigris (near modern Iraqi Mosul) and became the magnificent capital of Sennacherib, who ruled the Assyrian Empire from 705 to 681 BCE . His father, Sargon II, who ruled from 722 to 705, had completed the devastation of the northern half of Israel in 721 BCE . Sennacherib then tried to do the same to the southern half in 701 BCE , but was ultimately unsuccessful.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  For they fast on the second and fifth [day] of the sabbath. You, on the other hand, fast during the fourth [day] and the [day] of preparation [for the sabbath]. Likewise, do not pray like the hypocrites but like the Lord commanded in his good news. Pray thus : [The Our Father]. Pray thus three times per day. (Didache 7:4–8:3) Another question now joins that former one concerning food. Who are the hypocrites? They fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but we fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. We pray the Our Father thrice daily, and they presumably do not. What is at stake in all of this? That mention of “hypocrites” and that intransigent separation over details of fasting and praying seem primarily intended to establish firm boundaries between an us and a them . But who are they? We are not dealing with Christian Jews against non-Christian Jews or with Christian pagans against Christian Jews. The Didache , in fact, is a very clear example of a text that is both totally and profoundly Jewish and totally and profoundly Christian. We are dealing, more likely, with a fairly recent split within the Didache group itself. Perhaps in correlating those preceding items—the emphatic position and relative freedom of the food regulation in 6:3, the double mention of hypocrites in 8:1–3, and the quantitative emphasis on training in 1:1–6:2 (in the so-called Part I)—we can learn more about the Didache split. Milavec brings those three points together by focusing them around the inclusion of pagan converts in the Didache community. This is the social situation or communal crisis that generated the document itself. Jews who became Christian would already know the basics of Jewish ethics and piety, but what about Gentile converts? If Christian pagans were not living up to the ethical standards of Christian Jewish converts, could the latter continue to associate with them? And, in any case, how would food regulations be maintained in common meals of Christian pagans and Christian Jews? “Judging from the basics covered in the initiation program, however, one can surmise that Gentiles were being accused of practicing the pagan ways that they were supposed to have left behind. The pastoral genius of the Didache is that it proposed to put into place two novel programs which would attack the very source of these outbursts of righteous anger. This was effected in two ways: (1) by demanding of all future Gentiles a systematic training in the basic standards of conduct which the Lord requires of them [1:1–6:2], and (2) by requiring a weekly confession of faults against these basic standards prior to the community Eucharist [14:1–2]” (1989:123).

• From From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (2019)

  Beyond that, the oracle of Hosea 4:1–3 claims that violation of covenantal command will disrupt creation. In verse 2, Hosea uses a version of the pairing in 6:6, the pairing twice quoted by Jesus: “loyalty . . . knowledge of God.” He lists the offenses of Israel related to Sinai—swearing, lying, murder, stealing, committing adultery. But then, remarkably, he dares to assert in verse 3 that such disregard of the covenant will cause a drought that will trouble creation and devastate populations of animals, birds, and fish; the violation of covenant leads to environmental crisis! MICAH Micah is a bit later than Amos and Hosea, and is located in the south, in Judah, in the village of Moresheth to the southwest of Jerusalem. He is likely a village elder who championed the peasant farmers who were regularly exploited by the urban entrepreneurs in Jerusalem. His best-known verse is 6:8: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? This verse comes at the end of a poem that articulates the way in which the life of Judah deeply contradicted the intent of YHWH. His summons to be attentive to YHWH uses the pairing of justice and covenantal loyalty, the latter of which is translated in Hosea as “loyalty.” The third element in his imperative, “walk humbly with your God,” is not an invitation to meekness but rather a readiness to submit one’s self willingly to God’s purpose for the world. As in Amos and Hosea, this covenantal summons is contrasted in verses 6–7 with cultic sacrifices presided over by priests that are an enactment of ideology and have nothing to do with neighborly reality. THEIR MESSAGE These prophets derive from somewhat different circles of tradition. Nonetheless they all address a common socioeconomic reality. Our attention to accent points among these poets yields a cluster of familiar terms: •Amos: justice and righteousness (5:24)Hosea: steadfast love and knowledge of God (6:6)

• From From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets (2019)

  Hosea and Amos both preached in Israel. Hosea was probably the only one of the fifteen prophets who actually originated from the north. Amos came from Tekoa, south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in Judah. He traveled north to deliver his message to the rulers of Israel, most likely because Israel dominated Judah at that time. Like Amos, Micah spoke truth to power from an outlying region. He was from Moresheth-Gath, which was southwest of Jerusalem in Judah. His message was directed primarily against Jerusalem. Isaiah was the only one of these four prophets who made his home in Jerusalem and enjoyed access to the Judean kings. All four of these prophets are known for insisting that religious sensibilities and ethical behavior are inseparable. They advocated social justice, mercy, support for weaker neighbors, and faithful ethics. All four prophets anticipated disaster for regimes that failed to maintain justice for their people, so when the nation of Israel was destroyed in 722 BCE by the Assyrian empire, the prophets’ judgments seemed vindicated. This calamity became an object lesson for Judean prophets, both in that century and later. Isaiah, in fact, preached against both powers early in his career and lived to see at least three Assyrian campaigns in three decades, the first obliterating Samaria and the third, in 701 BCE, devastating most of Judah and nearly destroying Jerusalem. The prophets’ urgency was underscored by the disasters of their times. These books were reviewed and likely augmented by scribes a century later, when regional powers shifted once again and Assyria was defeated by Babylon, and especially after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in 587 BCE. At this point, Jerusalem’s apparent “stay of execution” in 701 was ended, and the judgment that had been threatened seemed finally to have materialized. In fact, the book of Jeremiah, which concerns this time period, actually quotes from Micah’s warning that “Zion [another term for Jerusalem] shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house [i.e., the temple] a wooded height” (Mic. 3:12; see also Jer. 26:18). ISAIAH, A UNIQUE BOOK

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Praxagora explains that before individuals can choose the most attractive, they must first accept the least desirable as well. She judges this “a nice democratic device” and “a popular system as ever was tried” (lines 611–630). The idea of absolute communalism of money, land, and sex was easily imagined and easily mocked. It is interesting, however, that male control and private property, or female control and communal ownership, should stand or fall together for Aristophanes and his audience. I cite that text as epigraph to indicate how easy it is to mock and deride attempts at human equality through common property and shared possessions. Maybe derision is appropriate, but it is also appropriate to ask who gains by such derision. In any case, I leave Aristophanes’ words there as a warning. AN EGALITARIAN COMMUNITY? The second half of Luke’s two-volume gospel is now called the Acts of the Apostles, and its theological intention is clearly proclaimed in Acts 1:8. The book is about the Holy Spirit’s movement from Jerusalem through Judaea and Samaria and thence out to the ends of the earth, or at least to Rome as the world’s center. It is about the change in the Holy Spirit’s headquarters from Jerusalem to Rome. Against that background Luke describes the Jerusalem community as follows: All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. (Acts 2:44–45) That is a rather swift and passing description for something so radical, but Luke repeats it later on, giving more details. There are three sections in this later account. The first one more or less repeats the earlier claim. The second and third sections give positive and negative examples of the process at work. [1] Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. [2] There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. [3] But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Miracle , from individual intervention to apocalyptic consummation, could presume divine nonviolence (those elephants could have all fallen asleep) but more usually presumes divine violence, with or without assistance from human violence. Martyrdom , alone among these responses, accepts human violence and opposes it nonviolently, although of course it too can invoke future divine violence as retribution. When, however, it presumes a nonviolent God, it cannot make such an invocation. Martyrdom, in any case, is the ultimate and public act of nonviolent resistance to violent authority, and by its own individual nonviolence it lays bare the corporate violence it confronts. Martyrdom is, therefore, the final act of ethical eschatology. PART VIIHealers and Itinerants[There are] evil rumours and reports concerning shameless men, who, under pretext of the fear of God, have their dwelling with maidens, and so expose themselves to danger, and walk with them along the road and in solitary places alone…. Others, too, eat and drink with them at entertainments allowing themselves in loose behavior and much uncleanness—such as ought not to be among believers, and especially among those who have chosen for themselves a life of holiness. Others, again, meet together for vain and trifling conversation and merriment, and that they may speak evil of one another; and they hunt up tales against one another, and are idle: persons with whom we do not allow you even to break bread. Then, others gad about among the houses of virgin brethren or sisters, on pretence of visiting them, or reading the Scriptures to them, or exorcising them. Forasmuch as they are idle and do not work, they pry into those things which ought not to be inquired into, and by means of plausible words make merchandise of the name of Christ…. Now we, if God help us, conduct ourselves thus: with maidens we do not dwell, nor have anything in common with them; with maidens we do not eat, nor drink; and, where a maiden sleeps, we do not sleep; neither do women wash our feet, nor anoint us; and on no account do we sleep where a maiden sleeps who is unmarried or has taken the vow [of celibacy]: even though she be in some other place if she be alone, we do not pass the night there.

• From Sometimes an Art: Nine Essays on History (2015)

  The first phase of interpretation of the loyalists was dominated by participants in the Revolution or their immediate successors, hence writers who were still part of the Revolution itself, and fiercely polemical. The patriots’ chroniclers—Mercy Otis Warren, David Ramsay, and William Gordon1—eager to establish the righteousness of the American cause, seized the historiographical initiative and portrayed the loyalists as betrayers of their homeland, sycophants of ruling aristocrats, unnatural sons, traitors. Any impulse that might have been felt to explain the popularity or the logic of the loyalist opposition to the Revolution was constrained by a logical embarrassment. The central object of these first, patriotic chroniclers of the Revolution was to prove that the Revolution was not just a contested party victory but a spontaneous uprising of the entire population. The dignity of the new nation was involved, and there was no desire to make sense of the Americans who had opposed the creation of the nation, or even to notice their existence. And when, during the first party battles of the post-Revolutionary period, the very survival of the nation seemed to be at stake, what purpose could be served by proving that the birth of the United States had been fiercely opposed by a sizable and highly placed segment of the American population and that the Revolution’s aims had not been shared by important American leaders? So the historical heroics of this earliest, myth-making period were grotesquely exaggerated: the Founding Fathers were portrayed as flawless paragons commanding the almost universal allegiance of the population, and those loyalists who could not be totally ignored were blasted as parasites typical of the worst corruptions of the ancien régime.