The Athenian general Nicias in the history of Thucydides was not the superstitious man scared by a lunar eclipse in the biography of Plutarch

Thucydidean Nicias is presented as a rational general and tactician ... he has no relation to Plutarch’s fearful and superstitious character. ... Nicias’ decision to side with the seers may have been a rationally based choice with the aim of avoiding mutiny in his army – a mutiny which would have proven fatal to their survival. ... the historian shows profound admiration of Nicias in a funerary epigram in which he praises the latter as a man of exceptional arete. ... Nicias’ partiality to the manteis was considered a weakness by the historian, but it was a tiny part of his overall positive presentation: we might call it a mere parenthesis, rather than a judgment long held back, as the authoritative commentator [Hornblower] puts it.

-- Nanno Marinatos, A NOTE ON THE THEIASMOS OF NICIAS IN THUCYDIDES, C&M 70 (2022) 1-16.

 

Late stage civilization

 

Odysseus gets Polyphemus drunk, mosaic, Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina, Italy

 

 Prosperity begins to mellow,

And drops into the rotten mouth of death.

-- William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 4, Scene 4

Joe Biden was widely regarded as the clown of the U.S. Senate 1973-2009 for offensive antics like this, but America made him president anyhow

 

 Because whom the gods would destroy they first make insane.

 

President Joe Biden has enraged Catholic Church regulars with his latest show of approval for abortion, a Vatican red line.

On Tuesday in Florida, where he blasted the state’s impending six-week abortion ban, Biden blessed himself with the sign of the cross when the woman introducing him referenced Florida’s shorter window for abortion.

The group Catholic Vote blasted Biden’s actions on X.

More.

No fine people on either side

 While I am a beggar, I will rail,

And say there is no sin but to be rich:

And being rich, my virtue then shall be,

To say there is no vice but beggary.

-- William Shakespeare, History of King John, Act 2, Scene 1

Jesus' call to extreme discipleship causes exceeding sorrow, but Paul will have none of that

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And the young man, having heard the word, went away sorrowful [λυπούμενος], for he had many possessions;

-- Matthew 19:21f.

And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved [λυπούμενος]: for he had great possessions.

-- Mark 10:21f.

"Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."

-- Luke 12:33

"So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions."

-- Luke 14:33 

And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful [περίλυπος]: for he was very rich.

-- Luke 18:22f.

Each one must do just as he has decided in his heart, not out of sorrow [λύπης] or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-- II Corinthians 9:7

 

Stand by for a word from our fearless leader, preferably at a safe distance

Duchess of Cornwall, surprised by Biden air biscuit 2021

 As when we a gun discharge,

Although the bore be ne'er so large,

Before the flame from muzzle burst,

Just at the breech it flashes first;

So from my lord his passion broke,

He farted first and then he spoke.

-- Jonathan Swift

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night. 

-- Job 5:14

 Solar eclipse frenzy sweeps across North America • FRANCE 24 English:

 

Touch me not for I am not yet ascended, or Today shalt thou be with me in paradise?

 

The problem of the resurrected but not yet ascended Jesus telling Mary not to touch him but encouraging Thomas to do so in John 20 is hardly the only problem with John's death and resurrection narrative about Jesus. 

John never even gives us the promised ascension at all, despite all the talk in that gospel of the descending and ascending Son of Man.

The absence is not unique to John, however, which tells us that the thinking about all this was, if not fluid, at least not fully formed at the time.

Luke does not reconcile the ascension stories he himself tells in Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:9 with the words of Christ from the cross which he alone records, which imply that Jesus simply expected at death to go to heaven immediately, not to rise from the dead and ascend later, let alone descend into hell in the interim.

Compare Luke's Lazarus, who dies and goes to the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man who ignored him dies and goes to hell (Luke 16:22ff.). This is what is supposed to happen, right? There is no resurrection until "the last day", as Martha informs us (John 11:24). Everybody knows that! But then John's Jesus raises her brother anyway.

And like Matthew's I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (28:20), the resurrected Jesus in John 21 never really exits the world either. He can appear at any time and say Follow me. Even to one untimely born (I Corinthians 15:8).

Matthew's Jesus doesn't leave in an ascension. He is always present.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 

-- Matthew 18:20

The ending supplied to Mark 16, however, agrees with Luke that Jesus ascended to heaven and sat on the right hand of God. Its fascination with signs done by those who believe echos the early Christian history recounted by Luke in Acts, and doubtlessly comes from that part of the tradition and is not originally Marcan.

 

And [the other malefactor] said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

-- Luke 23:42f.

Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: 

-- John 19:32f.

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.  

-- John 20:17

The stated goal of Rachel Crandall-Crocker's Transgender Day of Visibility is power

Rachel Crandall-Crocker says several times in a 2020 interview, if you can manage to get through the whole thing, that the goal of organizing their day in the first place was to obtain power.

Just turn the sound off and turn on the closed captions and you'll see for yourself.

Comments to the YouTube video, by the way, have been turned off overnight, which is exactly what you would expect from people who want power, which to them means they have a say and you don't.

The success of this gay man's effort, originally organized on Facebook in 2009, elicited the Oy vey! he exclaimed about four minutes in. This attention-seeking larper must be even more thrilled now.

This was April 21, 2020, not quite a year before Joe Biden became the first American president to recognize the day officially, which in retrospect seems indicative not so much of Joe Biden's thinking on the matter but of the unseen activists in his administration who drive his policies behind the scenes because Joe is too feeble of body and mind to exercise executive function.

Americans didn't notice at the time in March 2021 for good reasons.

Their attention was consumed by the COVID-19 hysteria, by the Trump defeat, by the roll-out of the new vaccines, uptake of which peaked in April because of sudden deaths for some Johnson and Johnson vaccine recipients which in turn launched the seemingly interminable vaccine controversy, and in the summer by the Afghanistan debacle.

But now that the day happened to coincide with Easter three years later, Americans have noticed, which has had the unintended effect of making their day more visible and powerful than it might have been. We have taken the bait and given them the attention which they wanted, which is the basis of their power. Their success may be measured by how the conversation of the country was dominated by their day, not by ours.

Note that when confronted with what he had done, Joe Biden denied that he had declared Easter Sunday the Transgender Day of Visibility. But of course he did. He brought the Trojan Horse of Transgenderism into the government and now we awaken from a long sleep and find that Troy has already fallen.

Since their goal is power, we may imagine that it won't be long now before America has its own attention-seeking Emperor Nero, who played the bride to a man he had married, consummating it on a couch in full public view. Or before we have a transgender woman Elagabalus, the Roman Emperor who said "I am a lady". 

The freaks will be thrilled.

What will you be?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phil Yancey thinks Christians have done a pretty good job of making disciples of all nations lol

In short, [Jesus] was elevating human agency so that his followers would do the work of God, just as he had done.

. . . It’s up to you now, he said in effect.

Jesus had healed diseases, cast out demons, and brought comfort and solace to the poor, the oppressed, and the suffering—but only in one small corner of the Roman empire. Now he was setting loose his followers to take that same message to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

Two thousand years later, 3 billion people around the world identify as followers of Jesus. The message he brought has spread to Europe, Asia, and every other continent. 

The chance of that spread without the jolting event we celebrate as Easter is vanishingly small. Before his resurrection, Jesus’ few followers were denying him and hiding from the temple police. Even afterward, Thomas doubted until he saw proof in flesh and scars. But as they came to understand what had happened in the Resurrection, the disciples were able to glimpse Jesus’ cosmic view.

Here.

Apart from the dubious assertion that Jesus embraced human agency, let's just look at the numbers.

Are the chances of Christianity's growth to 3 billion "vanishingly small" without the resurrection?

One estimate of the global Christian population in 1800 puts it at about 204 million, growing to 2.7 billion by 2025. Not that far off from Phil Yancey's 3 billion. He is rounding up, obviously.

The rate of growth? 1,227%.

How about for Islam, though, over the same period?

2,067%.

Hindus have grown by a respectable 922%. 

And the Sikhs by 1,567%.

Meanwhile more than 7 BILLION people have died globally from 1850 to 2022.

If "it's up to you now", are those deaths on them, many of whom never heard the gospel?

These things boggle the mind, but not Phil Yancey's, who has been writing books since 1976.

Cosmic Cowboy 1978