March (happily) to the scaffold.

I remember, in France, there was an Englishman, a noble Englishman, and he lost his head. No matter. It was a far, far better thing he did. Twenty or so years earlier, somewhere in the German states, there was a sorrowful young man. He shot himself above the right eye at the stroke of midnight. He died the next morning, leaving a terribly bloody mess on the floor. That was very selfish of him.

Is it really fair? Charles did not lose his head. Albert was not shot, especially not by himself. What is more, Charles and Lucie lived happily ever after, and Albert and Charlotte lived miserably ever after. Still, those dead ones are dead for the sake of these living ones, both by their own volition. But wait! Is that really true?

It is not. Only the Englishman (call him Sydney) did that. The sorrowful German youth (call him Werther) died only for himself. Not for a single moment was he interested in sacrifice, only in the childish angst of not getting his way. When he pulled the trigger, he was not killing himself, but all the world around him (as per Chesterton's view of suicide) and ensuring (as he well knew, regardless of any delusion otherwise) that he would hurt others greatly, especially Albert and Charlotte. So the difference is that Sydney Carton cared for Lucie far more than himself, and Werther thought he loved Charlotte, in fact only loving himself.

Reportedly following the publication of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, there were a few suicides attributed partly to the influence of the book. These people missed the point. Sydney Carton, though fictional, understood. Please understand.

Philosophy of Art

There has occurred, my dear friends, on the Forum Ludorum a delightful topic, whose four questions were proposed by our much beloved friend Chad, whose interweb site is Doxazo Theos. The whole thread can be viewed here, but my posting here concerns only my pontifications on the subject, modified slightly for its new home, though not granted much more formality thereby. My reason for placing these words here is that I thought them worthy of elevation from forum posting to weblog posting, though I realize the irony that almost certainly the forum posting is more widely read. No matter! Regardless, being that I frequently babble about Art here, I thought it only right to give this lowly post a loftier position among my ramblings, so here it is.

Part I: Does art have an objective quality to it? If so, what is it and how do we know it? (Similarly, does art have intrinsic value, or is its value extrinsic only?

If Art does have any objective quality (and I think it does), I am inclined to think that it is rooted in a particular work's relation to reality, which it can either imitate or distort. The latter verb is not to be taken in a necessarily negative sense. Creation is Art. Natural Creation, that is the Created world, is the most perfect example of Creation; therefore, it is the most perfect example of Art. For instance, it has always been held in Western music that the human voice is the most perfect instrument, and this is believed for many excellent reasons (not least among them its timbre).

We are Creative beings made in the image of a Creator, who I am inclined to believe is the only ultimate source of objectivity in reality. So it follows that our Art should take its cue from His Art. Not only that, though, as precise imitation of nature is not Art at all, or at least highly uninteresting Art. I make a tree. So what? I make a topiary. Now we have something intentionally creative, a distortion of reality. Say I carve it into the shape of a dragon. Now I have distorted reality in another way and provided representation of reality in yet another. Let me turn now to music again. If I record a birdsong, certainly I have not made Art. If I mimic birdsong in an orchestral score, in the way of either Messiaen or Scriabin, then we have something, especially if the music carries some further representative value into which the birdsong is incorporated. This is also good basis for rejecting the starvation of a dog and people's reactions thereto as being at all Artistic.

So far I have relegated myself to Art dealing with the natural world, which is my own preference, admittedly. As a civilized person, I am allowed to admire nature without being afraid it will kill me, at the risk of sounding Freudian. What, though, of Artistic representations of humanity? Not of human form, mind you, as that fits in with the previous category. What of human reality? Consider Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment. To simplify the whole novel very briefly for my purposes, his crime and his guilt are all our crimes and all our guilt represented. So too are his confession and redemption our confession and redemption, or alternatively is Svidrigailov's continued debauchery up to his suicide our own choice to continue with sin, even unto (carnal and spiritual) death (which is a chosen death, a suicide). Contrast this with a psychologist's notes on the behavior of a patient. What is the difference? Crime and Punishment is meant to distort reality into its representative narrative, and the psychologist's notes are meant to convey reality as it actually is. Art is therefore also a matter of intent, but as I have demonstrated in the examples of the tree and the birdsong (and the starving dog), intent is not a sufficient condition for Art. Art must be representative of reality by distortion.

Consider lastly the photograph. There is Artistic photography and there are asinine snapshots that appear all over the MyFace (always a funny phrasing, even if it is far from original). What is the difference? A camera could by some unintended activation photograph a scene of profound Artistic merit, but it would not be Art. Furthermore, that same scene could be captured by an intentional photographer, and it would certainly be Art. There is intentionality. What of representation and distortion? (On a side note, I think that black and white photographs seem more artistic because they inherently distort reality more than colored photographs do.) A photograph, for one is a static image of dynamic world. That gives a degree of Artistry to any intentional photograph, for that is very much a distortion. Representation is the tricky part, and usually this should have to involve some scene-making or something like that to create a meaningful photograph, such as some good album covers. Remember, though, I am no photographer; rather, I am one who has chosen to ramble about photography. Regardless, I think the point holds.

Art is objective, and it is such by being an intentional, representative distortion of reality, which is itself Creation. As you probably guessed, I have thought a good deal about this before, so I am largely reiterating old thoughts.

Part II (Not to be taken seriously.): What is "good" art as opposed to "bad" art, and does "bad" art even exist? Is this an entirely subjective question?

Good Art is geometric in philosophy, adhering to the Golden Ratio in all its dimensions (even unto the thousand and first dimension), representative of reality by distortion, and it solves a problem which it proposes at the start. I believe that the goodness of a work of Art can be measured on a Cartesian plane, wherein the worth of the Art's purpose is quantified on the y-axis and the extent to which the purpose is achieved is quantified on the x-axis. This response consists of a couple of serious points hidden in a fog of giggles.

Part III (to be taken just as superficially as I treated it): What is beauty?

Beauty is complexity made understandable and apparently simple by order. I may revise this opinion if I look into it more, but that is my line of thinking right now. There is the issue of wonder, after all. Beauty, I suppose, is also the realization of unfathomable complexity, but still clearly ordered. Ordered complexity, understood or not (for enlightenment or wonder respectively), I suppose is my answer, already revised before posting!

Part IV (to be better discussed in Part V): Do pieces of art exist, at least in some sense, before they’re “created”?

The twelve tones of our Western musical system exist. Colors and shapes exist. I do not think that is much of a sense, though. Ideas are another matter. Marcel Duchamp seemed to think that the ideas involved in a chess match were Art. I think he was wrong.

Part V: Parts II, III, and IV treated with more dignity.

There is also the important matter of craft, which I did not mention before. Craft is the means by which Art is made; it is the means by which ideas or concepts are expressed. Concept and craft together constitute Art, and the two are in tension with one another. This is essentially a variation on the proposition that form and content are opposites, a proposition with which I am inclined to agree. The quality of a work of Art is dependent upon the proper balance or imbalance of concept and craft, but both must be present. Pure concepts, like Duchamp's chess, are devoid of craft, and thus they are not themselves Artistic. In this sense, then, neither the conceptual existence nor the existence of the components of a work of Art constitute the work's existence at all before the work is created in the synthesis of concept and craft. Here craft might also be rendered as "medium." Of course, the existence of pure craft is not Art, either. The excellent plumber knows his craft very well, but excellent plumbing is not Artistic plumbing. I fear to think what might happen if a plumber thought it Artful to apply conceptual development to his work. Thus neither concepts nor crafts alone are Artistic.

Taken as an equation, where i represents the idea or concept, c represents craft, and A is Artfulness, c/i=A. The perfect value for A is 1, for then the execution of craft is perfectly matched to the concept, and this allows for maximal values in both areas. Project this onto a Cartesian plane, as y/x=m, so as to visualize this measure better. The numbers themselves do not matter, rather, the point rests purely on the ratio and the premise that somehow Art is axiologically quantifiable. Consider, though, for the matter at hand what happens in the absence of either craft or concept. Without craft, Artfulness is 0, and this is what we get in Duchamp's chess, to mention it again. In the absence of concept, Artfulness becomes undefined, and the question arises what is to be done with this, and this is the next question worth answering.

Craft without concept (or at least no concept beyond the craft itself) can be either functional or functionless. The craft of the plumber is functional, and it makes no claim to be Artful. Functionless craft, under which I place the common "arts and crafts," is another matter. How shall we deal with this? I call it kitsch, the Art of happiness. Generally speaking, it is not representative of anything beyond itself, its own craft, though it does successfully and inevitably distort reality. Being that I refer to it as "the Art of happiness," clearly I am granting it some degree of Artfulness, which I leave (according to the equation) undefined (and this is why i must be the denominator). Kitsch does not know what to do with itself because it is lacking in purpose (or function). Representation, I suspect, is the function of serious Art, but kitsch forgoes depth, being light Art. Thus I believe that a distinction must be made between serious Artistic pursuits and light Art. Perhaps serious Art leans more toward concept and light Art is dominated by craft. And perhaps it is bad Art that by the failure of the serious Artist becomes more craft than concept. Please note that kitsch is not itself bad; indeed, I find it good if not overwhelming (or stupid, such as involving cats).

To illustrate this point, first recall Beethoven's fifth symphony. It takes a concept (the problem to be solved, to reiterate an important point I mentioned briefly before), namely the short-short-short-long rhythm, and by way of ingenious craft works out the problem over the next half hour or so. On this basis alone, the symphony is a work of awe-inspiring genius, never mind its striking originality and distinction. In pure music the highest concepts tend to be the simplest ones, for they synthesize best with perfect craft (which is itself is most Artful when it faces deviation). On the other hand, though call to mind Beethoven's first symphony. No, I cannot remember how it goes, either. It is of fine classical craft; one might think it to have come from Mozart, but it is lacking in any deep concept. It has its themes, yes, and it follows the usual form, but nothing much is to be said beyond that. Beethoven's early work is hardly Artful at all compared to his later style.

I cannot think of anything else to say, so I will end with a comment about the starving dog. The starving dog is not Artful for another reason: that it is devoid of craft.

The Eschatologist on Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, my friends! The flowers are blooming, the trees are lavishly adorned in foliage, the birds and squirrels and elephants and rhinoceroses are out, and Springtime is in the air. Breathe deeply of life! It is Earth Day!

Some people think that Earth Day exists that we might celebrate the natural beauty of the earth by planting trees and recycling. This is a fine thing to celebrate on any other day, but these people are wrong about Earth Day, as they have been fooled by an illusion. Earth Day is really a reminder that all earthly life is doomed. Specifically, Earth Day festivities revolve around the idea that humanity is responsible for expediting the inevitable demise of our planet, and that humanity the earth's only hope because humanity ruined everything in the first place. The children plant trees saying, "O tree! You are my moral superior, for I shall be the death of the earth, but you will let it linger a bit longer!"

Humanity is wrong about being solely responsible for the waning of the earth. Our universe is entropic, so the existing order is bound for chaos and death if allowed to continue to that end, which is heat death. It is inherent in the nature of this fallen existence that things decline and die, and the earth itself is no exception. It is almost as if humanity thinks that the earth is its home, but that would also be wrong. There is more to reality than life on earth.

The celebration of decay by the entropic curse on this universe which is Earth Day is no fun, then. That poor, fictitious child planting the tree! When we plant trees on Earth Day, we shall celebrate the beauty of the natural world, yes? We plant a tree saying, "Our fleeting glimpses of Creation speak of life and wonder far beyond all this!" That is what must Earth Day must be, regardless of what it is. I am going out to ride an elephant now.

I am sorry. I had intended for this to be sillier.

My Secret Plan for a --------- ---- based on ------ ---------.

Good evening, best of friends. This evening, I am going to share with you some of the secret wisdom to which I have been devoting my private studying. That is the sort of studying the academic establishment is not interested in endorsing. As you are surely not aware, I have been planning a --------- ---- based on ------ ----- and --------- since November. It is a grand vision, and I hope I can achieve it successfully, for the sake of the -------- ------ and -------- ---------- on which it was conceived. The first book I obtained for the project is called ------ ---- --- ------ by ------- ------, and it was written in the early twentieth century. It was gifted to me at Christmastime in accordance with my explicit request. Since then, I have continued with another, more recent book, albeit a less scholarly one, on the same topic, called very similarly ------ ----- --- ------- by ----- -----. This one I have not yet finished, but I have finished the section on the matter at hand, which pertains specifically to -------.

Following those -------- aspects of the pursuit, there is the vastly significant ------- elements thereof, which I currently research in the books ------'- -------- ----- ----- by ------ ------ and more importantly, --- ------- ----- -- ------- by ------ -------. The latter, you see, contains a very informative and detailed dissertation in the preface, explaining more than I had ever hoped to find on the subject of ------- ----- -----, the ----- ----, and the --------, though I had not quite counted on the latter two, despite their being a vast source of ideas. Back to the books, both these works have complemented each other significantly, having emerged from the same nineteenth century movement to -------- the ------- ----- of -------. Both the authors knew and cited one another, though ------'s work involves little actual text, excepting the introduction. With every passing page, though, my confidence in the feasibility of the task which I have appointed to myself grows along with its prospects for success. The last note I should like to make is that I saw mentioned in one of these books, ------'s, the name of ----- -------, whose book on ------------- I have possessed for a long while but never read. It is also serving me well at this moment, allowing me to take the ---------- influence from the proper context. He also was a well-humored writer, which is just grand.

It is all a delightful business, and I shall conclude finally by saying that I hope the fulfillment of the plan, both in work and in result, is even more splendidly delightful.

Dream those troubles away.

Good evening. I have a suspicion that there is trouble brewing, unless of course I am just looking upon trouble fermenting or even trouble already drunk. Regardless, I believe that there is trouble, and it is troubling. There were these rituals, and they were broken. Broken rituals always lead to disaster. Also, I had this dream earlier in the week, and I was fighting off a zombie apocalypse. I think I won, but I do not really remember. One can only assume.

Another night I had this other dream, and I woke up saying, "It is a good thing that was only a dream!" Then, later that day, it came true. I did not want that dream to come true, you see, for I wanted it to come false. Thus trouble, but it could have been far worse.

That same day there were these sounds, but they were perceived as other sounds, which spread difficulty and confusion. Confused difficulty was spread, I mean. Understanding was confounded by these sounds, I mean. I mean, these sounds were meant to be some sounds, but they were to the foreign ear some different sounds. I wish the sounds had been right and proper. Do you know what I mean?

Today I saw a doppelganger of a dream. I had seen it happily before, but today it died with much misfortune. What does this make of the true dream? I do hope it shall be all right, for it is the nigh unto best of dreams, one to be dreamt by day and by night.

Can you hear the silence? Neither can I, and it is dreadful, but there are worse matters. In a certain place much now lingers in ruin, and only for the occasional death agony is the void filled. Troubles unto overflowing have brought this fate. To alleviate this fate there must be dreams, and they must be worth coming true. I am glad to have such dreams.

On Evil, Albeit Briefly

The problem of evil, as it is known, is somewhat unique in being an atheological argument, though it has been just that for most of Western history. Even from its notable formulation by Epicurus, it has retained the same essential form, that God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence are inconsistent with the presence of evil in Creation. Put more basically and completely after the formulation of J.L. Mackie in his article “Evil and Omnipotence,” traditional theism purports that God is omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, and yet the existence of evil apparently contradicts the union of these three aspects of the Deity’s nature. If the logic holds, Mackie claims that the theist must then either abandon one or both of these characteristics of God or deny evil. At any rate, an account must at least be given against the existence of such an inconsistency. The latter can be done by a defense and a theodicy, a defense being aimed at the establishment of the coherent possibility of the coexistence of both God and evil, a theodicy being aimed at the establishment of the probable coexistence of both God and evil. There can be no theodicy without a defense, so that shall be the starting point of this theodicy, which is to be generally be composed around the traditional free will response.

Thus it is here held that no inconsistency exists among the propositions that God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolnet, and that evil exists. It is even admitted by Mackie in the same article that these premises alone present no immediate contradiction, and that “some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules” are needed to demonstrate the set to be what Alvin Plantinga in his God, Freedom, and Evil designates in direct reference to Mackie’s article as being “implicitly contradictory,” found contradictory by “adding a necessarily true proposition,” this fulfilling the absent explicit contradiction. It is rather uncertain; however, what such a proposition should be, and none has yet satisfactorily formed such a contradiction. Now, having brought Mackie in, he shall not simply be dropped, for he proposes to complete his argument that “good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can,” and that “there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do.” Thus that which is both omnibenevolent and omnipotent must eliminate all evil, but still evil exists, he says. Plantinga’s response is to add to the proposition that “God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so,” which he proceeds to explain is a possibility; all that it must be to function. This is the essence of the defense, that there is a possible formulation that allows for both Divine omnipotence and omnibenevolence and evil. Leaving off there, this paper proceeds with its own attempt to show that such is a coherent and probable formulation.

In addressing such claims as Mackie’s, it is imperative that evil itself be established, for surely it is the most nebulous premise as far as precise meaning goes. Evil can be moral evil or natural evil, though some, Plantinga included, propose that all evil may well be moral evil, usually by a theological adventure of some kind. Before treating these varieties of evil specifically, though, it seems apt to treat evil in general. Evil itself is something of a problem for the atheologian, for in an atheistic frame, God is lost as the source of absolute morality, begging questions on such matters as the axiological difference between eating a breakfast of cold cereal and serial murder. Does not the atheologian then have to turn to the denied God in order to define the evil that is supposed to negate his existence? Morality from some lesser source cannot very well be applied to Omnibenevolence, after all. So where the theist can understand both that evil exists and what evil is, the atheist must formulate some moral paradigm to show that evil exists, and even succeeding in that, there yet lurks the question as to its basis, which is its own matter entirely. The only immediately visible way around this trouble, at least in advancing an atheological argument from evil, is to base it entirely upon internal inconsistency with the theist’s own establishment thereof, contrary to the traditional (á la Hume) claim that evil is obviously everywhere. This is the paradigm that shall be hereby assumed in this treatment of the argument: that the problem of evil must be purely based on internal inconsistency, for the atheologian should in reality hold none of the beliefs in the supposedly incoherent set.

Back to the two varieties of evil, the existence of which is here granted on theistic grounds, moral evil is the most pertinent, for it is rooted in the actions of moral entities, humans. This is highly conducive to a free will explanation of evil, but natural evil is much less so. Natural evil consists of those apparent evils beyond the conscious control of humans, so it seems that human will is not involved. Though it is far from certain, the existence of natural evil shall be granted for argument’s sake. Both of these appear with great prominence in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and one instance for each shall be considered. In the famed chapter “Rebellion,” Ivan describes to his brother Alyosha a little girl aged five years who “was subjected to every possible torture by [her] cultivated parents” (V; IV, 224). This is moral evil is committed by the will of humans, and this accounts for the torture, even if it truly happened to be utterly senseless. On what grounds, though, could the complete senselessness of these sufferings be established? Therein lays the trouble in advancing such a claim. Ivan argues that such suffering of an innocent being is not at all worth moral freedom or knowledge, for “Why should [man] know good and evil when it costs him so much?” (V; IV, 224). So even granted free will, according to Ivan Karamazov, perhaps God was wrong in granting it as he did, and a wrong God is no God at all. Before making such a judgment as that, though, further axiological consideration of human existence is required, as addressed by the end of Dostoyevsky’s novel and in relation to natural evil.

A free will solution is not so simple when it comes to natural evil, though, granted its existence as distinct from moral evil and its actually being evil (as opposed to amoral), either of which are conceivable. The Brothers Karamazov contains the example of the illness and death of the child Ilusha, which is easily taken as an example of natural evil according to its definition. Despite the great suffering of both the child, and it is no coincidence that these are children so prominently featured, and his loved ones, the result of Ilusha’s passing had a striking effect on Alyosha and the boys whose community had grown around him. The final chapter of The Brothers Karamazov is laden with Christological parallels, notably Ilusha having died and Alyosha being the risen Messiah, soon to depart for an indefinite period of time. Most significantly, though, is Kolya’s statement shortly after Alyosha’s arrival, that he “‘should like to die for all humanity’” (Epilogue; III, 695), expounding concisely the possibility of and nobility in suffering for the sake of goodness and growth. This is the position of Leibniz in his Theodicy: A Defense of Theism, in which he memorably advances that the fall of man was a felix culpa, or “happy sin,” for it allowed for the advancement of humanity through Christ. On a purely Christian note, also, do the sufferings of Christ not also serve to exemplify this thought? The use of suffering from both moral and natural evil seems to be perfectly acceptable for a God over free Creation, a creation which he means to restore.

Though man may be free to will, man is not perfect, and he has not achieved the fullness of his being, where the fullness of his being should be his likeness to Being which no greater can be conceived, God, so far as man’s nature allows. As far as morality goes, certainly a man endowed with free will has the potential to do good always, though the reality seems different. It is a frequent and egregious error that the aim of human existence is pleasure, and indeed pain is much too often equated with evil for the atheologian’s argument from evil. While such a view should not be injurious to the atheological argument, it is certainly not conducive to a proper understanding of this theistic paradigm, in which the travails of fallen man are intended to aid in forging a fully human being. This view is basically represented in John Hick’s Evil and the God of Love, as in the statement that “our theodicy must find the meaning of evil in the part that it is made to play in the eventual outworking of its purpose; and must find the justification of the whole process in the magnitude of the good to which it leads.” Eschatologically speaking, Hick means that no amount of evil is not worth the end result of this world of becoming. To cite the example of Christianity once more, Paul writes to the Corinthians, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (II Corinthians 4:17-18). From such a perspective as this, evil and the suffering it entails begin to seem downright insignificant in relation to the whole of existence.

The evils can be purposeful, even pedagogical, or senseless, and Creation as becoming remains, for the absence of evil would mean that Creation has fully become in the moral sense. To illustrate, Leibniz compares human existence to a piece of music in his Theodicy, saying that some discords provide a vastly superior Art. It is certainly beneficent to consider all Creation as a Divine Art, if for nothing else than to better reflect on the continued creation, or more specifically in the Christian frame of a fallen world, continued recreation that is the becoming of humans. Should further creation not be expected of a God already known to create, especially in the interest of perfecting his creation? Furthermore, why should he not make use of time to do this? It seems that from the very start a problem presented itself for such a creation as this world, and that is freedom. How and why should free beings freely pursue the fullness of being? This world, it is now reasonable to say, is the answer, even in progress.

Thus it should first and at the very least be clear that the theistic position that God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent and that evil exists is defensible. On deductive grounds, the problem of evil does not necessarily expose any contradiction, as Plantinga demonstrates of Mackie’s argument. The current, therefore, is now with a probabilistic problem of evil, and this is what the preceding theodicy sought to address. As essentially as can be, Creation is becoming, and only having become should evil not be expected. Creation must become because man is endowed with free will, and this is the problem to be solved in Creation as Art.

Bibliography

Bible. II Corinthians. New International Version. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1984.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Constance Garrett, tr. The Brothers Karamazov. Barnes and Noble, New York: 2004.

Pojman, Louis P. Michael Rea, ed. Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Fifth Edition. Thomson, Belmont, CA: 2008.

Green Tea Day

Wednesday 9 April 2008 is Green Tea Day. I know this is true, for a sign told me so. Having heard, I proceeded to ask the sign what Green Tea Day is all about, and I asked how I might celebrate. My imagination held some exciting prospects, after all, but I imagined all wrongly. Green Tea Day, the sign responded, is about longevity, for it is a celebration of longevity. What this has to do with green tea I am not sure, but it is all very disappointing. Where I had planned to have a grand festival while sipping green tea, I now must celebrate something I do not have: longevity. The reason for this is that I am full of youth, strength, and vitality. Who knows? I could die a most courageous and noble death in a duel and never attain longevity, so what reason have I to be festive? In response, I am hosting my own personal Green Tea Day on Wednesday 9 April 2008 in true celebration of Green Tea. It will be grand, and tea time shall be all day. I implore all my noble and courageous friends to join the festival, even unto fjestival, and to implore all others to do the same. It is good for the insides, after all, and studies tell us that healthy insides just might lead to longevity.

Judea under Seleucid Rule

Disclaimer: Recall the disclaimer for "Postexilic Judean Politics from Persian to Ptolemaic Rule," for it is much the same. On a couple of other points, I have little doubt that I made at least a few egregious errors, which will be fixed when I find out about them. Also, there is a Part II to this assignment, but it is on a different topic, and I do not think it is very good at all. Do not think that this alone warranted the loss of sleep that I suffered. Also also, my methods of citation and bibliography are somewhat apathetic because precision of format was not a requirement for them. Now enjoy, or something like that. Next time I will grace you with a paper on evil, unless of course I despise it when it is done or if I write something else between now and then.

In 198 BC Judea, part of the larger region known as Coele-Syria, fell into the hands of the Seleucid emperor, Antiochus III Epiphanes, following the defeat of the Ptolemaic general Scopas at the Battle of Panion. Since the 301 Battle of Ipsus, it had been ruled by Ptolemaic Egypt, though the latter was not represented in the battle; rather, Ptolemy exploited the situation to take hold of Judea. The next century, then, would be marked by numerous wars as the two empires clashed over this border region. In the end, though, it was indeed the Seleucids that achieved victory, and from 198 until the Maccabean Revolt of the 160’s they held Judea. Now, during this time, there are three distinct phases through which the Judeans passed: the initial conquest, the Hellenization, and the Maccabean Revolt. Each of these, in turn, might fairly be considered in terms of both politics and culture.

At the very outset, the coming of the Seleucids seemed a rather welcome prospect for the Judeans and not without reason. Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, cites a letter which he claims to have been sent by Antiochus III to Ptolemy, evidently the governor of Coele-Syria, which is here assumed to be a basically accurate account of Antiochus’ treatment of the Judeans. Therein it is recorded that Antiochus shall, first of all, provide the necessary resources for the completion of the temple sacrifices, as well as cover the costs for the restoration of the temple, which had presumably been significantly damaged over the preceding century (Antiquities XII, 138-141), in all very reminiscent of the Persian support of several centuries earlier. Indeed, the practice of supporting local cults was widely practiced by Antiochus, again much like the Persians, as it served his interests well not to interfere too much with his subjects. According to the letter, though, Antiochus’ basis for doing this is the friendliness with which the Judeans welcomed his conquest, offering him military aid in driving out Scopas’ army. In all probability, this was an instance of a people siding with the clear winner in the struggle over their territory, knowing that such support warrants good treatment, and opposition does not. Surely also, the Judeans would have known at least to a point of Antiochus’ dealings with other conquests.

Aid with the temple was not the only benefit that Josephus’ citation offers the Judeans. In addition to temple funding, Antiochus grants several tax immunities to “the senate, the priests, the scribes of the temple, and the temple singers,” as well as to any new immigrants in the near future “for three years,” and in addition to that, it reduces the annual tribute and restores any Judeans enslaved in the preceding conflict to their previous stati (Antiquities XII, 142-144). Clearly, then, the interest here is not merely the appeasement of a conquered territory; rather, it is the appeasement and strengthening of a conquered territory on a historically contested border. By exempting the leading local officials, Antiochus courts their continued favor, which in turn has a significant effect on the loyalty of the people as a whole. By exempting immigrants and restoring would-be slaves, Antiochus boosts the population and, resultantly, prosperity. It is one thing, after all, to hold such a territory on one’s own, but the task grows much simpler when the local population offers its support, and it is sufficiently potent to do so significantly. So not only did the Judeans play the situation well by favoring the Seleucid conquest, but they also found themselves in a natural position, geographically even, to obtain considerable favor.

At the time of the Seleucid conquest Simon Son of Onias, later called Simon the Just, was high priest, and he being high priest was the administrative head of Jerusalem. When Antiochus, then, began to support the activities of the temple, the apparent prosperity reflected very well on Simon. This is likely the cause of his almost grotesque veneration by the hand of Ben Sira, given at the end of a chronological praise of the great heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures, containing such eulogies as “Like the morning star among the clouds, like the full moon at the festal season” (Sirach 50:6). It is believed that such passages were composed not long after Simon’s death, Ben Sira being his contemporary. Of course, before this, Ben Sira attributes to Simon the restoration of Jerusalem as warrant for the praises that proceed, saying that he “in his life repaired the house, and in his time fortified the temple. He laid the foundations for the high double walls…In his days a water cistern was dug…He considered how to save his people from ruin and fortified the city…” (Sirach 50:1-4). Simon, by Ben Sira’s interpretation, was the fulfillment of the latter’s ideal of a wise and virtuous, priestly ruler for the Judean people, Ben Sira himself being something of a philosopher-teacher and an obvious devotee of the canonical Book of Proverbs. It is significant, then, that he makes no mention of any earthly authority besides Simon, as such would be contrary to his purpose in venerating him. It would be far preferable to see this turn of events as a show of Judean autonomy and strength, according to the ideal, but it still winds up with an unwitting thankfulness toward the Seleucids, if extrapolated beyond the author’s intent.

A full denunciation of these circumstances occurs in the Book of Daniel, recorded as prophesy:

In those times many will rise against the king of the South. The violent men among your own people will rebel in fulfillment of the vision, but without success. Then the king of the North will come and build up siege ramps and will capture a fortified city. The forces of the South will be powerless to resist; even their best troops will not have the strength to stand. The invader will do as he pleases; no one will be able to stand against him. He will establish himself in the Beautiful Land and will have the power to destroy it. (Daniel 11:14-16)

Not only does this immediately denounce any Jew supporting Antiochus, evidently referring specifically to those living in Egypt, but it also paints a rather unpleasant picture of the nature of Antiochus’ rule over Judea, the Beautiful Land. Explicitly stating the power to destroy would seem to imply that such a power might feasibly be employed, after all. Where Ben Sira praises Simon and ignores the Seleucids, then, the Book of Daniel strikes against both the Seleucids and those cooperating with the Seleucids, which would certainly include Simon, if indeed he utilized Seleucid support in restoring Jerusalem, which is without question.

As it turned out, though, mistrust of the Seleucids was not ill-placed, for in 190 BC Antiochus would be defeated at Magnesia by the Roman commander Lucius Cornelius Scipio, as the Book of Daniel records notes, “Then he will turn his attention to the coastlands and will take many of them, but a commander will put an end to his insolence and will turn his insolence back upon him” (Daniel 11:18). This was crushing for the Seleucids, who were all of a sudden bearing a colossal debt to Rome. As far as the matter at hand goes, this meant that there would be no more Seleucid funding for the operations in Jerusalem, and certainly there would be no more tax breaks or the like. In fact, it set in motion quite the opposite throughout the empire, Judea being no exception, and thus began the decline of the Seleucid Empire.

The first major sign of trouble arose when, under Seleucus IV, the official Heliodoros was sent to remove the wealth from the temple in Jerusalem (II Maccabees 3:7). The text then proceeds to lament the abhorrent depravity entailed in such an act, both as thievery and a violation of the temple’s sanctity (II Maccabees 3:12). The event is also mentioned rather matter-of-factly in the Book of Daniel: “His [Antiochus III’s] successor will send out a tax collector to maintain the royal splendor…” (Daniel 11:20). Obviously, there are two distinct facts; that the Seleucids were in need of money, and that they were not necessarily interested in obtaining it in a respectable manner. In fact, the looting of temples would become commonplace at this time, Antiochus III being killed in the midst of just such an endeavor. What is more, the attempt as given in II Maccabees is thwarted not by any resistance on the part of the Jews, but rather by direct intervention from the Deity: “For there appeared…a magnificently caparisoned horse, with a rider of frightening mien; it rushed furiously at Heliodorus and struck him with his front hoofs. Its rider was seen to have armor and weapons of gold” (II Maccabees 3:25). After this, two presumably angelic beings proceeded to beat upon Heliodorus. Interestingly, as it shall be seen, II Maccabees very clearly marks this as the beginning of the takeover of the Hellenists, who it recalls as being above all corrupt and unscrupulous individuals, certainly creatures formed from the dire straits of the Seleucids. When God himself strikes against this trend from its very beginning, how could Hellenistic practice be anything but a moral abomination, the very antithesis of all things Jewish? So it is in II Maccabees.

Jason was the first of these Hellenizers, who under Antiochus IV “obtained the high priesthood by corruption, promising the king at an interview three hundred sixty talents of silver, and from another source of revenue eighty talents” (II Maccbees 4:7-8). Far more importantly, though, it was under Jason that those in power began to consciously impose Greek culture upon the Jerusalemites. Famously, Jason “took delight in establishing a gymnasium right under the citadel, and he introduced the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat” (II Maccabees 4:12). This had to be a true abomination in the eyes of II Maccabees’ author, one with a vested interest in Judean autonomy and one who is clearly willing to paint those advancing “Judaism” against “Hellenism,” words whose first known occurrence is in the text of II Maccabees, as heroically as possible. The gymnasium, after all, was a true symbol of Greek culture, and an excellent vehicle for the dissemination thereof, especially among the elite population that would actually put it to use. Moreover, all the while Jason maintained the procedure of a truly Hellenistic ruler, as opposed to a high priesthood, welcoming Antiochus IV to Jerusalem with great pomp (II Maccabees 4:22) while the priests were “despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices” (II Maccabees 4:14). In II Maccabees, Jason is as much, if not more, an anti-Judaizer as he is a Hellenizer, emphasizing that Hellenism as the negation of Judaism.

Menelaus followed Jason as high priest, obtaining the office by “outbidding Jason by three hundred talents of silver” (II Maccabees 4:24), and he is by all accounts portrayed as being even worse than his predecessor. Immorality and Hellenization do go together, after all. Having been placed in the high priestly office, he proceeded then not to actually pay out the promised bribe (II Maccabees 4:28), which could not have won him any favor with Antiochus. That, however, was far from enough villainy for Menelaus, for further caused universal agitation with the murder of the former high priest, Onias, an act carried out only by Menelaus’ urging, II Maccabees says. Onias, it is written, discovered that Menelaus had been selling “gold vessels of the temple” and offering others to Andronicus, Antiochus’ deputy (II Maccabees 4:31-32). The text notes that “for this reason not only Jews, but many also of other nations, were grieved and displeased at the unjust murder of the man” (II Maccabees 4:35), so he was loathed not only by Jews but also by many Greeks. Of course, it could also be that he was a more moderate character, failing to fulfill the hopes of both extremes. II Maccabees shows that he certainly was not working in any way to advance the goals of the Judaizers, but any real advancement of a Hellenistic program is also conspicuously absent, where such acts as the construction of the gymnasium were so prominent under Jason.

All the same, it is to this universal hatred that II Maccabees attributes Antiochus IV’s action against Menelaus’ Jerusalem, and then against Jerusalem in general, in the form of the very important anti-Jewish decrees. Having established his villainy, though, the text quickly places Menelaus in league with Antiochus in opposition of Judaism in relation to the pillage of the temple in 169 BC, “…guided by Menelaus, who had become a traitor to both the laws and his country” (II Maccabees 5:15), the earlier attempt at which by Heliodorus marking the beginning of the active Hellenization of the Jews, to which the text compares the former event. It is noted that II Maccabees places this event after Antiochus’ second campaign in Egypt in 168 BC, but I Maccabees and Daniel 11:28 place it after the first in 169 BC. The latter is assumed, making negligible analytical difference. Now, Antiochus came to Jerusalem while returning from his first campaign in Egypt, so he had an army behind him (I Maccabees 1:20). Recalling then that Menelaus had not paid the promised price for the high priesthood, it is no wonder that he would be completely willing to give Antiochus payment in the form of plunder at this time. Thus once again it was not that Menelaus was in conscious collaboration with the Hellenistic powers, it was just that they were the source of his power, and he could not very well defy them. After all, if Hellenistic principles outweighed Menelaus’ mere desire for power, why oust Jason?

II Maccabees concludes its treatment of the time before Antiochus’ decrees with Jason’s attempt at regaining the high priesthood by military force, to which it attributes the decrees. “When a false rumor arose,” II Maccabees says, “that Antiochus was dead, Jason took no fewer than a thousand men and suddenly made an assault on the city,” shedding much blood in the process, and failing in the end (II Maccabees 5:5-7). It is this eruption of violence that provoked Antiochus to take military action against the Jews, partly perhaps because his campaigning in Egypt had been stopped by the coercion of the Romans: “At the appointed time he will invade the South again, but this time the outcome will be different from what it was before. Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant” (Daniel 11:29-30). It was this act of Jason the Hellenizer that brought the wrath of the Hellenistic emperor upon Jerusalem. Judaism was in no way faulted in this fate; rather, the Jews’ allowance of Hellenistic influence allowed the inherent evils of Hellenism to play freely upon them. On this II Maccabees and Daniel are in agreement.

So began the first known persecution of a people organized by the hands of a government, here summarized in the Book of Daniel:

He will return and show favor to those who forsake the holy covenant. His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him. (Daniel 11:30-31)

It began when the mercenary captain Apollonius was sent to Jerusalem with orders to slaughter the men and collect the women and children to be sold as slaves, feigning peaceful intent until the Sabbath day, at which point he struck (II Maccabees 24-26). Following this, they allied themselves with “renegades,” Hellenized Jews of apparent significance, and fortified themselves within the “citadel,” whose precise location is now uncertain (I Maccabees 1:33-34). Having secured this military occupation, the subjugation of Jewish identity was initiated by dedicating the temple to Zeus (II Maccabees 6:2), forbidding traditional offerings at the temple, outlawing the Sabbath and festivals, “defil[ing] the sanctuary and the priests,” erecting shrines and altars to idols, “sacrific[ing] swine and other unclean animals,” and banning the continued practice of circumcision (I Maccabees 1:45-48). Furthermore, according to I Maccabees 1:54, the Seleucids “erected a desolating sacrilege on the altar of burnt offering,” after aforementioned the allusion in Daniel. Most importantly of all, though, these decrees were enforced by pain of death (I Maccabees 1:50).

This led both to the martyrdoms, something not much seen in preceding Jewish history or indeed in history in general. In the course of the persecution, many fled into the wilderness. One particular group is noted to have been approached and attacked on the Sabbath day, offering no resistance (I Maccabees 2:29-38). This is particular affront to Jewish culture, for it is the very exploitation of tradition against the continuation thereof. The same applies to the women whose sons were circumcised according to the Law, but contrary to Antiochus’ decrees. These were “publically paraded…around the city, with their babies hanging at their breasts, and then hurled…down headlong from the wall” (II Maccabees 6:10). The martyrdom accounts of Eleazar and of the mother and her seven sons echo the same chord of dying for the preservation of tradition, that is, for the sake of the survival of Judaism itself. In the case of Eleazar, he is recorded to have said that by dying he would “leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws” (II Maccabees 6:28). It is also notable that the mother of the seven brothers “encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors” (II Maccabees 7:21) as they faced torture and death. Notably, these events also brought the theological point of resurrection into far greater prominence than ever before. That said, the attitudes of these martyrs in fight for Judaism set up the principles of the Maccabean Revolt that would soon follow, and indeed this ought to be taken as a significant narrative point in II Maccabees, and certainly not one removed from reality, either.

The Maccabean Revolt itself arose in 167 BC when Mattathias, a patriarchal figure whose sons would lead the revolt, not least among them Judas Maccabeus, refused to endorse the pagan practices commanded by Antiochus and with narrative dramatics slew a Jew who meant to offer an impure sacrifice on the alter in the town of Modein (I Maccabees 2:17-24). Thus the revolt began with zeal for the law and for the Judaism founded in it. Perhaps best representative of the aims of the revolt would be Judas’ supposed speech before the battle at Emmaus, invoking “how our ancestors were saved at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh with his forces pursued them,” and “the covenant with our ancestors” (I Maccabees 4:9-10). Against Lysias at Beth-zur, he does much the same, this time recalling the military prowess of David and Jonathan (I Maccabees 4:30). By these allusions, the purpose of the revolt, the defense of traditional Judaism and the covenant on which it stands, is plainly evident. Thus the Maccabean Revolt, in fact one of many local revolts that periodically took place throughout the Seleucid Empire, is important not just because it ended in success, but because of the deeply rooted traditions of its supporters. If Antiochus had intended in his decrees to undermine Judaism, thereby assimilating Judea, it was a sore underestimation of Judaism’s strength.

In 164 BC, the temple was restored. Demonstrative of the fulfilled aims of the revolt, as the author of I Maccabees should surely take delight in pointing out, is the institution of a new festival, for which “the dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth month of Chislev” (I Maccabees 4:59), and this, of course, is Hanukkah. Traditionally, the state of the temple had been and still is highly definitive in the periodization of the Jews’ history, so this restoration should have struck a significant chord with the Jews, whose sound would be echoed each year upon the festival. The Hasmoneans, as these rulers would be called, led the revolt on the basis of tradition, and they secured their position by the same means, evidently fairly well, as they would last until Pompey’s conquest of Jerusalem a century later. The irony, of course, is that the Hasmonean dynasty was not the least bit traditional as far as a Judean government goes, though it seems they were enough aware of this to play upon tradition with great skill. Though the fighting was far from over and the revolt’s darkest day not yet come, certainly they were right about the beginning of a new, independent era for the Jews, even if it would end as it did.

In review, Judea came under Seleucid rule after a century of Ptolemaic hegemony, and they seem to have been quite accepting of the new circumstances, especially in light of the benefits the Seleucids offered them in no unusual practice. Of course, none of this lasted, and the bad fortunes of the Seleucid Empire against the Romans began their decline, and Judea felt this considerably. In the meanwhile, pushes for Hellenistic reform both from within and without Judea began to make progress, especially under the high priesthood of Jason, a man given away by his very name. As strife rose within Judea, the Seleucids seem to have thought it best to impose control upon these unruly subjects, and thus the infamous decrees, and thus both the nonviolent and violent resistance of the martyrs and the Maccabean Revolt. These clashes and syntheses of Hellenism and Judaism, terms truly forged from this Seleucid period were the great forces in Judea at the time. Just as Judea’s sights expanded to the wider Hellenistic world, the Hellenistic world caught a glimpse of the wider Mediterranean world, and of the Romans who would make it their dominion. And thus it might also be said, that in a perfectly general fashion, this period could be well interpreted as a duel between interiority and exteriority, and in Judea we see just how strongly interiority can retain its grasp.

Bibliography

Apocrypha: I Maccabees, II Maccabees, Sirach. New Revised Standard Version. HarperCollins, San Fransisco: 2006.
Bible: Daniel. New International Version. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1984.
Josephus, Ralph Marcus tr. Jewish Antiquities. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1987.

Experiencing Things

O friends! O kind and gentle friends! I have been awake for more than thirty consecutive hours now for the sake of paper-making. It is 6:11 pm on 3 April 2008, by the way. I ceased to think on a rational basis a long time ago. Presently I am doing little more than sensing and watching the show that my part-sleeping brain is putting on. For instance, I am having a blue experience right now, for I am gazing upon a blue label. It is made of plastic, so I am also having a plastic experience. All day I have been seeing the people walking around, sitting around, and standing around, and these respectively gave me sitting person, walking person, and standing person experiences. Many of them caused me distress with their crude guffawing and their laser vision and their mind-reading powers. I am hiding inside now, but the window is open so that I can escape.

This morning I had a thought. I think it was this morning, at any rate. When one employs superhuman powers to forgo sleep, the time of day has considerably less meaning. At any rate, I was in a room, and I had this thought, and the thought was disturbing and unpleasant, so I gazed at the wall. It gave me an off-white experience and a smooth experience. Goodbye bad thoughts. I am now am experiencing Wall. Have you ever seen my impression of a wall? I borrowed it from classical literature. I would hate for anyone to go without a me-as-wall experience.

In the outdoors last night, in the area of 2:30 am the temperature was colder than yesterday at 2:30 pm. I know this because I went out with a coat at 2:30 am, but I went without my coat at 2:30 pm. The nighttime is different from the daytime. It is easier to do evil in the nighttime, except evil in broad daylight. Of course, eventually, I looked out the window and I saw that it was light out. O gnos! Daytime experience! Sunrise experience! Window experience. At one point I was looking at the floor getting a floor experience, and there was this paper sitting there, except it was moving, except it was still. Do you know what I mean? Psychedelic paper experience!

I will conclude with a sensational English alphabet and several other sounds:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z sh ch cthulhu