A certain Skeptic praises a fellow by the name of Musonius Rufus. Do we deny that the attention is deserved? No, not really. Rufus seems like he was a decent fellow, but the purpose for this Skeptic in highlighting this chap was not simply to praise him. We are told that Rufus was "the moral superior in my opinion to Jesus" -- and what we want to look at is the reasons given for thinking this is so.
A biography of the man (full name, Gaius Musonius Rufus) is offered, and we see someone who today would probably be President of the local Kiwanis club: a preacher of moral lectures, a participant in moral causes to the point of imperiling his own life, preaching peace to the armies. Even Origen gave Rufus a thumbs-up, calling him one of the very best men in history, along with Socrates. He went to jail, he underwent torture.
But what makes this better than Jesus? Here's what we are told:
- "...what makes him so admirably human is his sense of humor, a classic case of which, an example that in my opinion sets him above Jesus as a more human and interesting teacher..." The case is as follows:
"Musonius," Herodes said, "ordered a thousand sesterces [silver coins] to be given to a beggar of the sort who was pretending to be a philosopher, and when several people told him that the rascal was a bad and vicious fellow, deserving of nothing good, Musonius, they say, answered with a smile, 'Well then he deserves money'." (Fragment 50)
That's quite funny, true. But if the critic wants humor, Jesus has plenty, he just doesn't like it or doesn't recognize it:
Matt. 23:24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
This is called humorous exaggeration. Picture if you will the man walking around with the big beam in his eye, clubbing people with it and not even noticing.
Of course our critic may say he prefers the subtle wine of Rufus to the hearty beer of Jesus. The Jews also liked stuff like puns, which are not so clear in the translation to Greek. But at any rate, that he prefers subjectively one type of humor to the other is no more call to rate one over the other objectively. It isn't a viable reason to rate Rufus over Jesus.
- Next up, teachings. It is said of Rufus, "His program included logic and debating skills, for the purpose of building the ability to reason through ethical decisions competently."
That's excellent, but of not much concern to a Galileean peasant mainly worried about where his next meal is coming from. Someone oppressed by the Herods didn't need this sort of microscopic epistemology. Indeed, granting that reasoning is an essential skill, very few sages in the world ever took this step of teaching people how to reason -- the common man needed his answers now and did not have time for the intricacies of logic-chopping.
But not all is well even here, as we are told: "Although many of his views are remarkably progressive for his time, being for example a strong advocate for the education and extension of equal rights to women, he regarded homosexuality as unnatural and monstrous, and all forms of recreational sex of any kind as immoral, and opposed abortion." Jesus' regard for women was exceptionally high, even radical (see here), and the Jews themselves already stressed such education as could be had for those in grinding poverty, which wasn't a whole lot. Rufus wasn't special here...and those "buts" don't seem problematic to us at all.
He was also not secular, but preached a divine rational order, and occasionally appealed to the wishes of God (principally Zeus the Savior, but other gods as well) in support of his arguments.
That counts as a strike against him from a secularist, doesn't it? But here is a morally questionable comparison:
...in contrast with Jesus who called even those who think of adultery to cut out their eyes (Matthew 5:27-30, Mark 9:43-9), Musonius said "freedom of speech means not suppressing whatever one chances to think" (Discourse 9).
Our critic is apparently not aware of Semitic hyperbole. There was of course no literal recommendation to cut out one's eyes; no more so than Rihbany's friend who welcomes you to his home by saying, "This house is yours; you may burn it if you wish," is inviting you to light a match.
At the same time, if Rufus condemned recreational sex, etc., does that mean he thought it was all right to think about it? Our critic is placing two thoughts against each other that were never intended to collide.
- "Like Jesus, Musonius preached charity (Discourse 19), declaring that 'to help many people' is 'much more commendable than living a life of luxury.' But unlike Jesus, he also emphasized the importance of civic duty as well (Discourse 14)."
Well, what of it? Depending on what that means, the average peasant was in no position to do "civic duty" -- they needed civic duty done to them, and weren't getting it from the oppressive tyrants who ruled the roost and took upwards of 50% of their produce from them in taxes. It's all well to speak of "civic duty" when you have the ease to do so.
Of course no points FROM Rufus for this, but it is unreasonable to be expecting Jesus to say a word on it.
But then, how is "civic duty" defined here anyway? Our critic does not say; this could mean anything from casting votes to sweeping streets. One might take a Good Samaritan sentiment to mean that "civic duty" in general is desired for every member of the messianic community. We can't immediately get a copy of Rufus's work for comparison -- as our critic notes, it's very hard to get hold of -- but at least lack of specificity here is a problem.
- After noting that both Jesus and Rufus taught pacificism and forgiveness, it is said that Rufus "exhibits this concept of forgiveness, which is in my opinion wiser and more sophisticated than that of Jesus" -- and here is the parable:
When [Lycurgus of Sparta] had been blinded in one eye by one of his fellow-citizens and had received the young man at the hands of the people to punish as he saw fit, he did not choose to do this, but trained him instead and made a good man of him, and afterward escorted him to the public theatre. And when the [Spartans] regarded him with amazement, he said: "This man I received from you an insolent and violent creature; I return him to you a reasonable man and a good citizen." (Fragment 39)
A couple of other examples are given but how they are "wiser" or "more sophisticated" than the teaching of Jesus is not specified.
- "...[T]he analogy of the 'birds who do not sow or reap' (Matt. 6.26) is found also in Musonius, and one wonders whether this was a popular idiom, or if the Gospels were infected by the sayings of other men, placing them in the mouth of Jesus."
One wonders the latter only when one starts with an assumption. Ideas about God's care for nature and provision for creatures are found throughout the Jewish sapiental literature [Keener, Matthew commentary, 235] and didn't need to be stolen from Greeks any more than any other universal figure of speech, as if only Jesus or his Jewish contemporaries would have been too lacking in poetic talent not to come up with it on their own or make use of it. It is admitted as well that the figure of speech is used by Rufus in a different context (against child exposure) and said to be "remotely possible that Musonius heard such an analogy from Jewish or Christian speakers," but really, we need not think anyone borrowed from anyone. Birds are everywhere, as are beliefs in providence of whatever deity, and it takes very little to make a figure of speech out of them.
Further objection that the Gospel version "seems snatched out of context and is not clear in its meaning" is justified on no grounds other than that it "appears incomplete or the logic of the analogy unclear--one immediately notes that humans starve if they do not reap or sow, so surely something is missing..." Nothing is missing but relevant background knowledge: As Keener reports, this saying is firmly in a tradition that recognized God's care for animals and His sovereignty, represented as well by the 2nd-century Jewish sage who said that "not a single bird hunted by a fowler died or escaped apart from a heavenly decree, and decided that therefore he should emerge from hiding, trusting God to protect him as well..."
As we have noted in another essay, the passage encourages the reader not to worry about things, but to trust God's provision, and has nothing to do with idleness as such and does not suggest that humans can just sit back and expect to get fed. There is offered no excuse for idleness: Not even the "fowls of the air" lay around waiting for food to drop into their mouths.
- And finally, slavery. "Musonius went farther than any other in antiquity in building a point of view which certainly implied that slaves were and ought to be treated as equal to free men, though he fell short of outright calling for the demise of the slave system."
Really? What about Paul and his radical revamping of the household codes? For more perspective one might look here. The people Jesus spoke to were too poor to own slaves, and were more like slaves themselves in terms of how their rulers treated them. One may as well object that Jesus said nothing about whether to be a Republican or a Democrat.
And so it is. The evaluation closes with a repeat about Musonius being a better comedian than Jesus; a judgment that Jesus is "not sophisticated or clear in his discourses" (with cites, not explanations, given in a footnote; we would simply reply that the reader here is the one lacking sophistication and clarity, and needs to prove otherwise); "his parables are often brutish" (which seems to mean, they reflect realities); and "his lessons simplistic" (with again, only cites given with no explanation).
There's also a mention of the "violence and arrogance to remove the sellers of sacrificial animals" (to which we reply, check this out) and a closing recommendation that we'd be better off looking at Rufus for guidance than Jesus.
Well, we won't hesitate to say that Rufus had his good points. However, our critic offers little more than subjectivity as justification, and that's enough reason to reply with indifference.
-JPH