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Reuven Kimelman disagrees, and argues that this ritual curse entered synagogue services considerably later and so could not have precipitated a first-century crisis.
John chooses to tell the story of Jesus as a story of cosmic conflict—conflict between divine light and primordial darkness, between the close-knit group of Jesus’ followers and the implacable, sinful opposition they encountered from “the world.”
When they find his words incomprehensible, Jesus proceeds to identify “the Jews” who had previously believed in him as Satan’s own: “You are of your father, the devil; and you want to accomplish your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning”
Rudolph Bultmann: “There can be no doubt about the main point of the passage, which is to show that the Jews’ unbelief, with its hostility to truth and life, stems from their being children of the devil” (emphasis added).14 Bultmann adds that John, like Matthew and Luke, in effect charges the Jews with “intentional murder.”15
Bultmann points out, “the Jews” become synonymous with that rejecting, unbelieving “world.”
From a general non-acceptance of Jesus by people in the early chapters [of John], the opposition becomes more and more identified with a [specific] group …, the Jews. Ultimately the group stands for the forces opposed to Jesus, which are the forces of darkness. It is obvious that we are not dealing with an ethnic group, but with a dramatic theological symbol.… We would miss the full significance of this symbol if we considered the Jew in John only as an historical figure.… “The Jews” are an ever-present reality and threat to any worship of God in spirit and in truth (emphasis added).18
Sandmel points out that John does not charge “humanity” or “the world” in general for actively seeking Jesus’s execution, but specifically singles out “the Jews.”19
From the beginning of the gospel, then, as we have seen, the author of John, like his predecessors at QÛmran, draws the battle lines between the “sons of light” and the “sons of darkness,” although in this case the “light” is specifically represented by Jesus.
“I must do the work of him who sent me, while it is day; the night is coming, when no one may work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (9:4–5).
During supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him.… Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” … So after receiving the morsel, [Judas] immediately went out; and it was night”
John, like Luke, suppresses all traces of Roman initiative in Jesus’ execution. In nearly every episode, John displays what one scholar calls “bizarre exaggeration” to insist that the blame for initiating, ordering, and carrying out the crucifixion falls upon Jesus’ intimate enemies, his fellow Jews.
“Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law,” the “Jews” answer, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death” (18:31). Some scholars insist that this last statement is wrong. Richard Husband claims that under first-century Roman law the Jewish Sanhedrin retained its traditional right to execute people for certain crimes defined as religious, such as violating the Temple precincts, transgressing the law, and adultery.
Jewish leaders had become more cautious about executing without Roman permission.
A man named Jesus bar Ananias, who had loudly predicted the downfall of Jerusalem and its Temple, was arrested and beaten by prominent Jewish leaders. When they brought him before Albinus, the same Roman prefect, apparently hoping to secure the death penalty, Jesus refused to answer the prefect’s questions, and so Albinus let him go as a maniac. Thus, despite their anger, the Jewish leaders, who could arrest and flog, did not dare execute this Jesus as they had executed James (War 6.2).
According to Luke’s account in Acts, Paul regarded Roman magistrates as his protectors against Jewish hostility; and Paul himself, writing to Christians in Rome, orders them to “obey the higher powers; for there is no authority except from God, and the powers that exist are instituted by God,” even in their God-given right to “bear the sword” and “execute God’s wrath” (Rom. 13:1).
Luke goes so far as to suggest that Jesus’ crucifixion forged an unholy alliance between Pilate and Herod, so that the Roman and Jewish authorities became friends “that day” (23:12).
As Christian preachers increasingly appealed to Gentiles, many found that what had offended most Jews about Christianity offended pagans even more: “Christians severed the traditional bonds between religion and a nation or people,” and, as the historian Robert Wilken points out, “Ancient people took for granted that religion was indissolubly linked to a particular city, nation or people.”
Christians saw themselves not as philosophers but as combatants in a cosmic struggle, God’s warriors against Satan.
their amazing confidence derived from the conviction that their own agony and death actually were hastening God’s victory over the forces of evil,
Justin realized that his objections to the old man’s arguments derived simply from his blind acceptance of Plato’s authority—not from any conviction or experience of his own.
the mind itself is infested with demonic powers that distort and confuse our thinking. Before he—or anyone else—could achieve understanding, the old man said, Justin would have to receive the divine spirit—a power far greater than our comprehension, a power that “illuminates the mind.”10 But first Justin would need to undergo exorcism, a ritual in which the celebrant, himself filled with the divine spirit, would invoke that spirit to drive out the demonic powers inhabiting the candidate’s mind and body and holding him, like all the unbaptized, captive to confusion and ignorance.
Before the old man left him, Justin says, he admonished the young man to “pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be perceived or understood by everyone, but only by the person to whom God and his Christ have given wisdom.”12 After he left, Justin says, immediately a flame was kindled in my soul, and a love … of those people who are friends of Christ possessed me; and, while turning his words over and over in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.13
For Justin, conversion changed all this. Every god and spirit he had ever known, including Apollo, Aphrodite, and Zeus, whom he had worshiped since childhood, he now perceived as allies of Satan—despite
despite the fact that they were worshiped by the emperor himself, who served in person as their pontifex maximus (“greatest priest”).
Justin saw the universe of spiritual energies, which pious pagan philosophers called daimones, as, in his words, “foul daimones.”
and the Greek term daimones, “spirit energies,” would become, in English, demons.20 So, Justin says,
Justin now sees the old society as evil—a society that, for example, abandons infants to die or to be raised by opportunists, who train them as prostitutes and sell them on the slave markets “like herds of goats or sheep.”28 As a privileged philosophy student, Justin might have displayed moral indifference; instead he is indignant about those abandoned children, and castigates moral relativists who pride themselves on their philosophical sophistication: “The worst evil of all is to say that neither good nor evil is anything in itself, but that they are only matters of human opinion.”
Justin’s life now has a moral direction. He contrasts the natural life he once lived as passive prey to demons, with the spirit-infused life he lives now:
His baptismal exorcism placed him in opposition to the gods he had worshiped all his life and in potentially lethal conflict with virtually everyone he had ever known—above all, with governmental authorities.
Justin knows of cases in which believers or their slaves, including women and children, had been tortured until they “admitted” seeing Christians engage in atrocities, including ritual eating of human flesh and drinking blood from freshly slaughtered infants.
Justin reads that after God’s spirit descended on Jesus at baptism, Satan and his demonic allies fought back, opposing Jesus, and finally hounded him to his death. So also now, Justin realizes, when the spirit descends on those who are baptized, the same evil forces that fought against Jesus attack his followers. The gospels show Justin how spiritual energies, demonic and divine, can dwell within human beings, often without their knowledge, and drive them toward destruction—or toward God. Now Justin understands the Pauline warning that our contest
The conviction that unseen energies impel human beings to action was, of course, nothing new; it was universally accepted throughout the pagan world. A thousand years earlier, Homer had described how such energies played upon human beings—how
Recalling the death of Socrates, Justin realizes with a shock that Socrates himself had said the same thing the Christians are saying—that all the gods Homer praises are actually evil energies that corrupt people, “seducing women and sodomizing boys,” and terrorizing people into worshiping them as gods.34 It was for this reason, Justin says, that Socrates denounced traditional religion and was charged with atheism. These same demonic powers, furious with Socrates for threatening to unmask them, drove the Athenian mob to execute him. This universal demonic deception, Justin realizes, accounts
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Justin warns the rulers of the Roman world, “these demons seek to keep you as their slaves, by preventing you from understanding what we say.”
incited the Athenians to kill Socrates; now, for the same reason, these spirits are driving them to kill Christians.
Having lost their case in the Roman court, Justin and his companions walked toward the flagellation cell, consoling themselves that they had nonetheless won the decisive battle; they were triumphing over the demons, who wielded terror—fear of pain and death—as their ultimate weapon.
