An Apocalyptic Epiphany

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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mbuckley3
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Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2017 6:47 am

An Apocalyptic Epiphany

Post by mbuckley3 »

Schweitzer in his 'Quest' made great fun of the opposition to the emerging idea of Jesus as an eschatological prophet. E.g. "When any sayings were found of which the wording did not absolutely imply an eschatological connection there was a great jubilation. These at least had been saved uninjured from the coming debacle" (1st ed., ch.20).
Nevertheless, even now, disregarding Jesus-questing, confessional considerations, etc, 'we' still have a tendency to relegate tedious apocalyptic texts of the End Times to the margins. It's the 'wrong' form of esotericism, the ancient equivalent of solitary keyboard warriors fantasising in a basement. That may be true, but there was a solid context for the beliefs of which the texts are only an epiphenomenon.
In the period of interest to this forum, part of lived experience and expectation was that a 'lord' could appear, whose word was law, who imposeď extreme demands, who threatened - and sometimes executed - the total destruction of your world if your actions were less than perfectly compliant.

For illustration, I'll use the Greek letters ascribed to Brutus (texts and translations accessible in an article of that title by Christopher Jones). The context is his attempts in 43/42 BC to raise forces from various cities in Asia Minor during the civil wars. While the cities' replies are avowedly the work of 'Mithridates' the collection's editor, Jones argues for the authenticity of Brutus' 35 letters, and notes that they are short enough to fit onto placards in the attested method of spreading the message. Whether authentic, or credible C1 AD forgeries, is immaterial here; it's the credibility that counts.

"Whatever equipment..you have you must send to Caunos within no more than 30 days of the
receipt of this letter...Otherwise we shall be forced to use against you what we have
prepared for use against them."
"If you allow him to escape further to any place on earth, I will count it against you both as
injury [ 'αδικίας ] and as treachery."
(δικ-stem words, (in)justice/injury, occur frequently in the letters)
"One should not give room for repentance [ μετάνοιαν ] to those who only repent once they
are completely exhausted."
"So be careful, or I may believe more in the malevolence of your actions than I find pleasure
in your words, and so may treat you as enemies."
"Your deliberations are negligent, your services slow. What do you expect will be the result
[ τέλος ] ?"
"We have accordingly judged them to be deserving of complete annihilation, and we forewarn
the others, if they do not admit us immediately, that none of them will find our judgement more
merciful than the fate of the Xanthians was."
"When the Xanthians revolted [ 'αποστάντας ] from us, we subdued them, slew the adult
population, and burned their city down...You can see with your own eyes whether you should
choose us to be your enemies, as the Xanthians did, or to be your friends and benefactors.."
"The Xanthians despised my goodwill and their city serves as the tomb of their madness."


The inferno at Xanthus is described in Plutarch's Life of Brutus ch.31, where the rhetoric of pathos is used to evoke emotion, the 'civilised' alternative to the chiaroscuro language of apocalyptica :
"But the Lycians were suddenly possessed by a dreadful and indescribable impulse to
madness, which can be likened best to a passion for death...They spread the fire over the
city, feeding it with all sorts of material and increasing its strength and fury in every way...
All sought in every way to destroy themselves, men and women alike; even the little children
with shouts and shrieks either leaped into the fire, or threw themselves headlong from the
walls, or cast themselves beneath their fathers' swords, baring their throats and begging to be
smitten.After the city had been thus destroyed, a woman was seen dangling in a noose; she
had a dead child fastened to her neck, and with a blazing torch was trying to set fire to her
dwelling...
"So then the Xanthians, after long lapse of time, as though fulfilling a period set by fate for
their destruction, had the boldness to renew the calamity of their ancestors; for these too, in
the time of the Persian wars, had likewise burned down their city and destroyed themselves."


When studying texts we tend to assume a 'fixed' reality. Yet stability was not necessarily the norm.For instance, by one count, in the 260 years from the death of Alexander to Pompey's capture of Jerusalem, there were at least 200 military campaigns fought in or across Palestine...
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