Jesus & Cynics

Jesus and the Cynics RevisitedAuthor(s): David SeeleySource: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 116, No. 4 (Winter, 1997), pp. 704-712Published by: The Society of Biblical LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3266555 .

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JESUS AND THE CYNICS REVISITED

In a well-researched and articulate essay, Paul Rhodes Eddy has recently exam- ined the question of possible links between Jesus and Cynicism.1 Eddy surveys current debate on the matter and concludes that, "with regard to the ongoing search for a viable model for the reconstruction of the historical Jesus, one must look elsewhere" than at

Cynicism (p. 469). Below I consider Eddy's treatment and argue that, although probing in certain ways, it is not quite so definitive as he suggests.

Eddy begins by noting that "Imperial Cynicism ... is ... an eclectic mix...," mak-

ing the Cynic difficult to define (p. 459). But most students of antiquity would recognize as a Cynic one who: (a) was itinerant;2 (b) lived and preached a life-style of poverty;3 (c) criticized social norms-notably, family ties;4 (d) advocated reliance on God's

power,5 (e) especially as that power is seen in natural processes;6 and (f) inhabits and invites others into a divinely established realm.7 Comparisons can be made with Jesus regarding each of these items.8

It does remain true that Cynicism was "an eclectic mix," as Eddy calls it. Indeed, F. G. Downing has already made this point at length.9 But so too were first-century CE

1 P. R. Eddy, "Jesus as Diogenes? Reflections on the Cynic Jesus Thesis," JBL 115 (1996) 449-69. Further references to this article are indicated by page numbers in parentheses.

2 See the literature cited by F. G. Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins (Edinburgh: Clark, 1992) 34 n. 30. See also, e.g., Dio Chrysostom 40.2; Diogenes Laertius 6.38; Epictetus 3.22.30.

3 See, e.g., Epictetus 3.22.47; 4.8.31; Dio Chrysostom 8.30; 55.9; 72.7; Diogenes Laertius 6.37-38, 87-88, 93; A. J. Malherbe, The Cynic Epistles (SBLSBS 12; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1977) 119, 123, 141-43, 151-53, 157.

4 See, e.g., Epictetus 3.22.72, 79-82, 93-96. See also the literature I cite in "Jesus' Death in

Q," NTS 38 (1992) 230 n. 28. 5 Cf., e.g., Epictetus 3.22.2, 3-8, 23, 46,53, 56, 69 (see below). 6 See F. G. Downing, Christ and the Cynics (JSOT Manuals 4; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic

Press, 1988) 68-71; idem, Cynics and Christian Origins,13; Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 97 ("nature," or zaiotq, provides the "salvation" or aotrnpia of mankind), 193.

7 See Epictetus 3.22.63-69, 95, Encheiridion 15; Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 211-13. See also

my "Blessings and Boundaries: Interpretations of Jesus' Death in Q," Semeia 55 (ed. J. S. Kloppen- borg and L. E. Vaage; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) 135-36.

8 Itinerancy: Q 10:2-12; poverty: Q 12:33-34; 16:13; family: Q 12:52-53; 14:26; God's power: Q 11:9-13; 12:4-7; nature: Q 12:22-31; cf. 13:18-21; kingdom: Q 7:28; 10:9; cf. 13:18-21.

9 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 26-56.

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Critical Notes

Jewish ideas and practices, a fact that gives Eddy himself pause in using the singular "Judaism" (p. 460 n. 59). Were there really more differences among Cynics than there were between, say, Philo and the Qumran community? If not, then in principle we should be as willing to advert to the one tradition as to the other.

In any case, the best approach to both is probably not to demand the uniform presence of certain specific elements but rather to seek "family resemblances."10 This method looks for a critical mass drawn from a cluster of attributes. For example, many unrelated people have large ears or a small nose or blond hair or green eyes or a square jaw. But when several individuals are encountered with most or all of these attributes, one can reasonably suspect a family resemblance. One can even gather a family group together, without any two of its members sharing every attribute. By this criterion, the above list offers substantive grounds for thinking that some connection existed between Jesus and Cynic tradition.ll

Such a connection does not, however, mean that Jesus was a Cynic. According to Eddy, "to claim that Jesus' use of aphoristic wisdom and biting wit is best understood within the context of Hellenistic Cynicism is to miss the most plausible context: Jewish wisdom" (p. 460). But no one has said that Jesus' use of Cynic thought kept him from using Jewish thought as well. Downing says that Jesus fashioned a "marriage" of Cynic ideas "with his own native Judaism,"'2 and that "Jesus the Jew must also be seen as Jesus the Cynic."13 Burton Mack says that Jesus' speaking style is "very similar to the Cynics' way with words."'4 To be similar to one thing still allows for being similar to something else. In fact, Mack has explicitly stated that he sees Jesus as using Jewish wisdom: "One might imagine Jesus doing at a popular level what many Jewish intellectuals did at a more sophisticated and conceptual level, namely, combining Jewish and Hellenistic traditions of wisdom in order to make critical judgments about the times and to propose a religious ethic held to be in keeping with Jewish ideals."'5

Eddy implies that Downing really has simply and straightforwardly identified Jesus as a Cynic per se, but he offers no citation from Downing's work in support.16 He also says that, while John Dominic Crossan and Mack may speak in terms of analogy,

10 See Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 26-30; J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) 50. For a philosophical account of this method, see, inter alia, S. S. Hilmy, The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987) 83-85; A. Levy, Wittgenstein (London: Penguin, 1973) 153, 163.

11 Indeed, this approach is suitable for the gamut of Hellenistic religions, since the charge of eclecticism can be brought against virtually all of them.

12 F. G. Downing, "The Social Contexts of Jesus the Teacher: Construction or Reconstruc- tion," NTS 33 (1987) 449.

13 F. G. Downing, Jesus and the Threat of Freedom (London: SCM, 1987) 132 (emphasis mine).

14 B. L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 68 (emphasis mine). 1.5 Ibid., 74 (emphasis mine). Jesus' eclecticism may be further seen in his functioning as an

exorcist/healer. See Eddy, "Jesus," 462; Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 130-31. 16 "Some Cynic theorists (e.g., Downing and, more cautiously, Vaage) have made explicit

claims involving 'homology"' (Eddy, "Jesus," 458 n. 49). Eddy's view on this is somewhat puzzling, given that he later admits that "Downing retains a place for a strongly Jewish, if Cynic, Jesus" (p. 467).

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Journal of Biblical Literature

they actually suggest a much stronger linkage (p. 458 n. 49). Again, however, he provides no citation, and so it is impossible to know precisely what statements he has in mind. In

my own reading of Downing, Mack, and Crossan, I have found no place which identifies

Jesus as a Cynic in such a way as to rule out continued association with his Jewish heritage.

Eddy is correct when he says that "one of the most characteristic forms of Jesus' teaching style-the parable-. ... is a fundamentally Jewish form" (p. 461). Its closest

parallels are in rabbinic literature (though these continue to have problems of dating). But when Eddy adds that Jesus' use of parables "has no real Cynic parallels" he somewhat overstates the case. Cynics were known to use parables.17 Indeed, Dio says that whenever children see someone wearing the philosopher's garb, they rush up, expecting to hear the sort of tale told by Aesop, or Socrates, or Diogenes (Dio 72.13).

Eddy admits that "on the surface," at least, "some parallels do exist" between Jesus' teaching and Cynicism.

The primary parallel is that of a warning against the seduction of wealth and material possessions. There is also the fact that both Jesus and the Cynics did

engage in social critique. However, as one begins to press these general simi- larities, they rapidly give way to fundamental differences with regard to foun- dational principles, aims, and motivations. (p. 461)

Eddy goes on to note Jesus' prohibition of a bag or staff, arguing that this is directly contrary to the Cynic practice of carrying them (pp. 461-62). But because the bag and staff represent poverty, doing without even them could signal an especially devoted

Cynic. Teles said, "Actually, it is a great and noteworthy thing to take no heed even of a wallet (tilpa), lupines, vegetables, water, but rather to be unkempt and uncompromis- ing."18 Similarly, Dio quotes Diogenes as saying he could "go by night whithersoever I will and travel by day unattended, and I am not afraid to go even through an army if need be, without the herald's staff, yea, and amid brigands . . " (Dio Chrysostom 6.60).19 Eddy also says that Jesus' "charge to refrain from greeting anyone along the way would seem to fly in the face of the Cynic pattern of'bold speech' (parresia)" (p. 462). But Diogenes taught his owner's sons "to go lightly clad, barefoot, silent, and not looking about them in the streets" (Diogenes Laertius 6.31). In a similar vein, Dio writes that the Cynic "has no companions on his walks" (Dio 33.14), suggesting a less than friendly demeanor. In any event, 7apprniia was for voicing uncomfortable or unpopular truths, not for engaging in social banter.

Eddy maintains that the Jesus movement was "largely a rural Galilean phenomenon," while Cynicism "was an urban phenomenon" (p. 462). However, as Down-

ing has explained, the distinction is not that simple. "Cynic theory insisted that city life

17 Dio Chrysostom 4.34-35; Diogenes Laertius 6.89; Epictetus 1.24.20; Malherbe, Cynic Epis- tles, 47, 131. See Downing, Christ and the Cynics, 208; idem, Cynics and Christian Origins, 139.

18 Teles, in Edward N. O'Neil, Teles (The Cynic Teacher) (SBLTT 11; Graeco-Roman Reli-

gion Series 3; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977) 47. 19 This and all subsequent quotations from Dio, Diogenes Laertius, and Epictetus are from

the Loeb Classical Library.

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was unnatural and corrupt, and Cynics claimed to live out their theory in practice."20 Downing then raises the possibility that "we always meet Cynics in town because that is where our literate commentators met them." To be sure, there is evidence for Cynics in rural areas. Dio writes of his time of exile: "I arrived in the Peloponnesus, and keeping quite aloof from the cities, spent my time in the country, as being quite well worth study, mingling with herdsmen and hunters, and honest folk of simple habits" (1.51).21 Lucian's account of Sostratus and Aulus Gellius's description of Peregrinus also point toward rural settings.22

Eddy notes that Cynicism is individualistic, while the Jesus movement is commu- nal; moreover, Cynicism bears no trace of Jesus' healings and exorcisms (p. 462). Both of these concerns have already been addressed by those in the "Jesus-as-Jewish-Cynic" camp. There does seem little doubt that Jesus and his followers were much more inter- ested in community than were Cynics.23 Regarding exorcisms, Eddy himself cites Downing's acknowledgment of Cynic indifference toward the matter (462 n. 69).24 Again, it should be remembered that no one has ever denied there are differences between Jesus and Cynics.25

Eddy states that Jesus fails to display a Cynic "commitment to freedom at any cost" (p. 463). But a number of sayings attributed to Jesus depict a life-style free from social entanglements; for instance, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head" (Q 9:58); "Leave the dead to bury their own dead" (Q 9:60); and "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62).26 Q 14:26 demands that disciples be willing to free themselves even from the closest family ties.

Eddy implies that Jesus is unlike a Cynic insofar as his "few challenges to the Jew- ish law are predicated on an unyielding commitment to the 'weightier' things of that very law and the covenant of utter dependency on God from which they stem" (p. 463). But in Q there is little mention of things of the law, "weighty" or otherwise. This relative absence of challenges to the law in Q may well be due to Jewish influence. Yet the relative absence of explicit support for the law may be attributable to Cynic influence. Mark presents a Jesus seemingly prepared to criticize two of the law's most important points: sabbath observance (2:23-28) and food laws (7:14-23). Both of these passages can be boiled down to flippant, Cynic-style "one-liners," or chreiai, which leave the real issue

20 Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 82. 21 See ibid., 83. 22 Lucian, "Demonax" 1; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 12.11; cf. Downing, Cynics and Chris-

tian Origins, 83. 23 Mack, Myth of Innocence, 73-74; idem, Who Wrote the New Testament? (San Francisco:

HarperSanFrancisco, 1995) 51; D. Seeley, Deconstructing the New Testament (Biblical Interpreta- tion 5; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 170. Cf. Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 79. Nonetheless, it should not be thought that Cynics were entirely uninterested in the subject. See M.-O. Goulet- Caze, "Le cynisme a l'epoque imperiale," ANRW 2.36.4, 2736-38.

24 Downing's article is "Quite Like Q, A Genre for 'Q': The 'Lives' of Cynic Philosophers," Bib 69 (1988) 214. For Downing's acknowledgment of Cynicism's lack of interest in healings, see

Cynics and Christian Origins, 130-31. 25 See n. 15 above. 26 See also Q 10:2-12; 12:22-31, 33-34; 14:26-27.

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dangling in uncertainty ("The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"; "It's not what goes in that defiles, but what comes out").27 The precise meaning of these two passages for Torah is uncertain. It is clear that Mark 7:19b, however, understands the second to be sweeping away the food laws.

As for dependence on God, when someone asks Epictetus about the calling of the

Cynic, the first thing he says is: "I can tell you this much, that the man who lays his hand to so great a matter as this without God, is hateful to him" (3.22.2; cf. 3.22.53). The

Cynic must be ever at the command of God (3.22.3-8). He has been sent by God (3.22.23, 46). He calls only on God (3.22.56). He should not even have a family, so that he may remain "wholly devoted to the service of God" (3.22.69).28

Eddy writes that Jesus "passed up numerous opportunities" to attack sacrifices, taxes, and marriage, and that this shows his distance from Cynicism (p. 463). But Eddy does not say what these opportunities were. Regarding sacrifices, it is not obvious why a

preacher in Galilee would have had many occasions to talk about the Temple service. In

any event, Jesus' attitude toward it is portrayed as less than reverent. Mark 2:25-26 describes him holding up as a model David's (technically illegal) consumption of the bread of the presence.29 More famously, Jesus is said to enter the Temple and halt all the sacrifices (Mark 11:16).30 Q 13:35 does show Jesus lamenting over a forsaken

Temple, but this appears to be a post-70 CE addition.31 Neither is it clear what the "numerous opportunities" were for commentary on tax-

ation. The Temple bureaucracy was probably not a daily presence for inhabitants of Galilee. Indeed, Galileans were noted for their relative indifference toward such mat- ters.32 Matt 17:24-27 is very likely a Matthean attempt to bring Jesus' teaching into line with Jewish traditon, and so is unhelpful here. As for imperial taxes, criticizing them would have been dangerous, and there would have been good reason for passing up whatever opportunities presented themselves. Jesus does say, "Render to Caesar the

things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17), but again, this is a Cynic-like chreia: compact, clever, and lacking any expository explication of the matter at hand. Moreover, it echoes the popular, Greco-Roman philosophical distinction between earthly and heavenly authority.33

27 Compare "For the cloak does not make a Cynic, but the Cynic the cloak" (Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 69).

28 Cf. Diogenes Laertius 6.44; Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 67; and the literature cited by Downing, Cynics and Christian Origins, 135 n. 99. See also my Deconstructing the New Testa- ment, 164-65.

29 Compare the following: "And he [Diogenes the Cynic] saw no impropriety in stealing any- thing from a temple" (Diogenes Laertius 6.73).

30 Whether the incident is historical has been questioned; see G. W. Buchanan, "Symbolic Money-Changers in the Temple?" NTS 37 (1991) 280-90; R. J. Miller, "The (A)historicity of Jesus' Temple Demonstration: A Test Case in Methodology," in SBL 1991 Seminar Papers (ed. D. J. Lull; SBLASP 30; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991) 235-52; D. Seeley, "Jesus' Temple Act," CBQ 55 (1993) 263-83.

31 See my "Blessings and Boundaries," 143-44. 32 S. Freyne, Galilee From Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 B.C.E. to 135 C.E. (Wilming-

ton, DE: Michael Glazier; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1980) 281-87. 33 Epictetus 3.22.56. See Downing, Christ and the Cynics, 146. See also Diogenes Laertius 6.38.

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Eddy argues that Jesus does not criticize marriage, and that this puts him at odds with Cynic pronouncements painting matrimony as an impediment to fulfilling the

philosopher's task (p. 463).34 However, Q 14:26 is very much in keeping with Cynic attitudes toward family in general.35 There Jesus is said to assert that his followers must put their new calling above even their love for parents or children. The Lukan version of this remark plays out its unmistakable implication for marriage, adding (somewhat patriar- chally) that the calling must also come before affection for wives. This leaves Jesus' position essentially the same as that of the Cynics. One must not be tied down by family ties. God's work comes first.36

Eddy maintains that Jesus' speaking of a "father-son relationship" with God places him "in diametrical oppostion" to Cynicism (p. 463). But in reality, Cynics too spoke of God as Father.37

The balance of Eddy's article deals with Hellenization and Lower Galilee (pp. 463-67). He admits that "[i]n recent years, historical and archaeological studies have

suggested that Lower Galilee was influenced by various aspects of Hellenistic culture to a greater degree than previously thought" (p. 463). Still, he insists that "the notion of a hellenized Galilee supported by recent scholarship in no way provides for the type of

hyper-hellenized Cynic incubator as portrayed by the Cynic Jesus theorists" (p. 464). Several points need to be made here. First, no one has argued for a "Cynic Jesus." As noted above, the argument has been that Jesus the Jew incorporated Cynic elements into his teaching. Second, no "hyper-hellenized Cynic incubator" must be posited in order to claim that Jesus did this. One need imagine no more than an encounter with an individual who knew the essential structure of Cynic thought. Eddy makes much of the fact that we cannot specifically place a Cynic in Lower Galilee in the first century CE

(pp. 466-67). But major trade routes passed through Lower Galilee (near Nazareth, in fact),38 and Cynics were a wandering tribe. Only a few hours in a marketplace or at a

34 See, e.g., Epictetus 3.22.69-71. Paul is largely in agreement with the Cynic position (1 Cor 7:32-35).

35 See my "Jesus' Death in Q," 230 n. 28. Eddy argues that Q 14:26 is actually "Semitic-style overstatement" used as a "rhetorical ploy" ("Jesus," 460 n. 60). He does not, however, explain what this means, and in any event, the fact remains that Q 14:26 seems closer to the Cynic admonition to avoid family cares in favor of divine service than it does to Jewish attitudes (see below). Eddy points to Mark 7:9-12 as a counterbalance to Q 14:26, but the former is polemic against the Pharisees-

just the sort of passage whose authenticity scholars have often questioned. 36 For the relation between Cynic attitudes toward marriage and 1 Corinthians 7, see now W.

Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7 (SNTSMS 83; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

37 Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 145; Dio 1.39-40; 2.75; 4.22; 12.61, 75; 36.36,60; 53.12; Epicte- tus 3.22.82 (cf. 1.3; 1.9.6; 1.13.34; 1.19.9; 3.24.15). See also the places where Heracles, the Cynic model, is described as the son of Zeus (Epictetus 2.16.44; Dio 1.64; Malherbe, Cynic Epistles, 103).

38 Nazareth "overlooked the main route that led south and west from Sepphoris to Caesarea and was only a short distance from Japhia. E. Meyers and J. Strange have accurately observed that the cities and trade routes of the Galilee in the first century C.E., and especially the Via Maris near where Jesus grew up, were among the busiest in ancient Palestine" (H. C. Kee, "Early Christianity in the Galilee: Reassessing the Evidence From the Gospels," in The Galilee in Late Antiquity [ed. Lee I. Levine; New York/Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992] 15).

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crossroads would be necessary for a bright, creative mind to absorb the basics of Cynic thought and begin mixing them with Jewish tradition. Those aspects of Jesus' teaching which seem to echo Cynicism are important, but they are not especially elaborate or

complicated. A single diatribe would have sufficed for their transmission. Alciphron describes a fishmonger pausing in the agora to listen to a nearby Cynic (Epistles 1.3.2). Why might a carpenter not have done the same? In the words of Martin Hengel, "Why should not the craftsman Jesus, who grew up in the neighbourhood of Sepphoris, have made contact with Cynic itinerant preachers, especially since he himself spoke some Greek?"39

Perhaps Eddy would answer Hengel's question by saying that

a notable political and economic rift tended to exist between the more urbanized, hellenized centers of the Greco-Roman world (such as Sepphoris) and the smaller surrounding peasant villages (such as Nazareth). Thus, the claim that Jesus as a Nazarene would have been significantly influenced in a posi- tive direction by Sepphoris's more hellenized ethos is questionable (Eddy, p. 465 [emphasis his]).

By this, I take Eddy to mean that it would be unlikely for Jesus to find Sepphoris's hellenized ethos appealing or attractive. But it is not necessary for a thinker to accept an ethos in order to utilize elements from it. An example of such utilization is 4 Maccabees, a stridently anti-Greek tract that is written in Greek, uses florid Greek rhetoric, and

employs Greek philosophical ideas.40 One must not confuse the borrowing of parts of a culture with wholesale assent to that culture. Besides, the very existence of the rift that

Eddy sketches has been seriously questioned.41 Near the end of his article, Eddy refers to a lecture by Eric Meyers at the 1993

AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. (pp. 465-66).42 There Meyers said the

following: "Taking the example of the work of Crossan that an urbanized Galilee was the

appropriate setting for the transmission of popular Cynic ideas ... we must say that this is not evident in either of the Galilees we have explored" (quoted by Eddy, p. 466). But as has already been noted, one has to posit no more than active trade routes or a market-

39 M. Hengel, in collaboration with C. Markschies, The "Hellenization" ofJudaea in the First

Century after Christ (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989) 44. Hengel also says there that "[t]hese affinities between Gospel tradition and Cynic religious and social criti- cism go right back to Jesus himself."

40 See R. Renehan, "The Greek Philosophic Background of Fourth Maccabees," Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie 115 (1972) 223-38.

41 D. Edwards asks: " ... was there significant cultural antagonism in the Lower Galilee between largely conservative, Aramaic-speaking rural areas and Hellenistically-oriented urban areas? The evidence suggests that the answer is 'no"' ("The Socio-Economic and Cultural Ethos of the Lower Galilee in the First Century: Implications for the Nascent Jesus Movement," in The Galilee in Late Antiquity [ed. Lee I. Levine; New York/Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992] 71). Kee says of Sepphoris that "the physical proximity makes it impossible that there would not have been extensive economic and cultural contact by inhabitants of Nazareth with this important Roman cultural and administrative center" ("Early Christianity in the Galilee," 15).

42 The lecture was in the Frontiers in Biblical Scholarship Series. The date was 21 November 1993.

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place. Both of those were present in Jesus' environment.43 Eddy maintains that, "similar to segments of diaspora Judaism, Galilean Jews-under the pressure of hellenization- tended to bond even more closely with their religious traditions just because of the close

proximity of pagan and/or Hellenistic influence" (p. 466). But if, as this passage seems to indicate, Eddy is implying that Jesus' teaching was no more influenced by Hellenistic

thought than diaspora texts like 4 Maccabees or the Wisdom of Solomon, then he is

admitting all that Downing et al. require and more.

Eddy adverts once again to the work of Eric Meyers, in citing the latter's conclusion that the archaeological remains of Sepphoris reveal "a Torah-true population" (p. 466).44 Meyers bases this view on the number of miqva'ot and the practice of burial outside the city. However, whether so sweeping a conclusion can be drawn from these

findings is open to question. More specifically, does the presence of ritual baths and the absence of graves show that there could not have been Cynics passing through?

Perhaps the crux of the debate between Eddy and scholars like Downing is demonstrated when he says that Meyers's portrait of Lower Galilee is "hardly the type of

setting conducive to converting a Nazarene Jew to a Cynic mind-set" (p. 466). It has been stated above that Downing, Mack, and Crossan are not arguing in such "either-or" terms. They do not conceptualize Jesus' use of Cynicism as a "conversion" to it. Rather,

they are arguing in "both-and" terms. They see him as combining parts of Cynic thought with his native Jewish traditions. To quote Downing once more, "Jesus the Jew must also be seen as Jesus the Cynic."45

Eddy begins a final section titled "Concluding Thoughts" by agreeing with Hans Dieter Betz that the "'Jesus as Cynic' hypothesis" is "easy to criticize"(p. 467).46 In light of this, he wonders what is the "cash value of the Cynic Jesus model, a model whose pro- ponents are willing to defend it in the face of all apparent odds?" (p. 467). He surmises that, for Downing, the "mass of surface parallels" has proven to be "mesmerizing." Fur-

ther, "the Cynic values of poverty and degradation of wealth seem particularly apropos today, given the crass consumerism of the modem First World." However, Eddy again does not investigate this "mass of surface parallels" and does not explain why it is merely superficial, or how it might "mesmerize" an experienced scholar like Downing. Nor does he say why exegetes disillusioned with crass consumerism should seek recourse to Cynic texts. Wouldn't Jesus' comments on wealth be enough to satisfy them (e.g., Q 9:58; 10:4-8; 11:3; 12:22-31, 33-34; 16:13)? With regard to Mack, Jonathan Z. Smith, Ron

Cameron, and Leif Vaage, Eddy writes that, for those "who have adopted a revamped form of the history-of-religions approach and have reduced 'religion' to a subset of 'social formation'-without remainder-the Cynic thesis serves the purpose well"

43 On trade routes, see n. 38 above. Sepphoris had two marketplaces (see, e.g., E. Netzer and Z. Weiss, "New Mosaic Art From Sepphoris," BARev 18/6 [1992] 42). On marketplaces in Mark, see Edwards, "The Socio-Economic and Cultural Ethos," 59.

44 See E. M. Meyers, "The Challenge of Hellenism for Early Judaism and Christianity," BA 55 (1992) 88. See also idem, "Roman Sepphoris in Light of New Archeological Evidence and Recent Research," in The Galilee in Late Antiquity (ed. Lee I. Levine; New York/Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992) 325.

45 Downing, Jesus and the Threat of Freedom, 132 (emphasis mine). 46 See H. D. Betz, "Jesus and the Cynics: Survey and Analysis of a Hypothesis,"JR 74 (1994)

471.

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(p. 468). Here, Eddy presumably means that Mack et al. tear away the theological anchor of religion and regard it simply as a sociological phenomenon. But why Cynicism would be particularly pleasing to such a perspective remains murky. Cynicism was, to be sure, a very pragmatically oriented movement, yet the above remarks concerning the

Cynic's reliance on God show that it rested on a firm, spiritual foundation. As for the motives of Crossan and Hengel, they are not discussed.

In the end, it may be said that Eddy's criticisms of Cynic influence on Jesus have not entirely hit the mark, leaving the way open for further debate on the issue. A profitable beginning would be an extended discussion of the parallels to which Eddy refers, but which he never examines at any length.47 Less profitable would be more ad hominem arguments such as those with which Eddy ends his article.48 Speculation on the motives behind colleagues' work is inappropriate in scholarly venues, and serves more to inflame than inform.49

David Seeley 1001 Louisiana Blvd. NE, #46, Albuquerque, NM 87110

47 Eddy is by no means the only exegete to give short shrift to this subject. In G. A. Boyd's 416-page book attacking Downing et al., the section titled "Parallels between Jesus and Ancient Cynicism" runs from p. 160 to p. 162 (Cynic Sage or Son of God? [Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1995]).

48 Eddy is not alone here either. B. Witherington III writes that "Funk, Crossan and their kin ... have caught what they were looking for... " (TheJesus Quest [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995] 79). Witherington does not explain how he knows what these scholars were looking for.

491 wish to thank the anonymous reader forJBL who offered critical comments on this essay.

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Jesus & Cynics