Was Jesus a Cynic?
Was Jesus a Cynic?
Though most of Jesus’ Galilean followers would have been peasants, no one would make the claim that most of them were Cynics. Some have compared Jesus’ demands on disciples to those of wandering Cynics (usually without claiming direct Cynic influence).85 The comparison of Cynics to elements in the early Jesus movement (often offered negatively by outsiders) is not unreasonable; Diaspora missionaries like Paul86 may have helped make this model acceptable.
Nevertheless, one may claim with confidence that Crossan’s “peasant Jewish Cynic”87 type never existed. Aside from the lack of any Jewish Cynics known to us (and appeal to unknown ones argues from silence against all our extant evidence to the contrary), Cynics were (as Crossan also concurs)88 characteristically urban,89 whereas peasants were by definition rural.
Jesus’ Non-Cynic Environment
Despite some similarities, Jesus’ itinerant ministry in Galilee is hardly distinctly Cynic (even in Luke, who is most apt to present Jesus to his readers in such culturally relevant terms).90 For example, Jesus may have had a home, probably in Capernaum (cf. perhaps Matt 4:13; Mk 2:1; 9:33; Jn 1:38-39), from which most of Galilee was in walking distance.91 Further, Cynics were not the only sages, even among Greek philosophers, who traveled.92 Jewish Torah teachers also could travel “from place to place to speak.”93
Most telling, Cynics were surely too rare in Jewish Palestine to provide the primary model.94 Although rightly placing the emphasis of Jesus’ ministry in Galilean villages, Crossan opines that Jesus’ “peasant village was close enough to a Greco-Roman city like Sepphoris that sight and knowledge of Cynicism are neither inexplicable nor unlikely.”95 How plausible is this view about Sepphoris? Sepphoris was hellenized in many respects,96 was the most pro-Roman city in Galilee,97 and refused to participate in the revolt against Rome in 66 CE.98
Sepphoris was, however, a thoroughly Jewish city, and remained faithful to Judaism as its inhabitants understood it.99 Archaeology shows that though many pork-eating Gentiles later settled in Sepphoris, pig remains are absent from the city of Jesus’ day.100 Later rabbis emphasize (admittedly probably partly for propagandistic reasons, given their own work there) that Sepphoris was particular about the purity of Israelite lineage101 and acknowledge the surrounding region to be Jewish.102
Moreover, Nazareth may have existed in the shadow of the wealthy Hellenized Jewish city of Sepphoris, but Galilean villages and towns were not severely economically dependent on the two Hellenized cities.103 Whatever other drawbacks Nazareth may have had (Jn 1:46), its inhabitants seem to have been entirely “orthodox,” as attested by priests probably a generation later.104 Sepphoris’ prominence and later Christian tradition about it make its absence in the Gospels all the more striking; Jesus probably had little contact with it,105 certainly during his ministry.106 Traditions about Jesus ignore these cities even when Jesus denounces sites that had not responded adequately to Jesus’ ministry among them (Matt 11:21, 23//Lk 10:13, 15).107 This neglect is not surprising: large cities usually were economically parasitic on the countryside,108 and most Galileans hated the two cities.109
The Character of Real Cynics
What were real Cynics like? Despite complaints we will note below, Stoics sometimes respected Cynics,110 and others also followed the example of “good” Cynics.111 Stoic views toward Cynics in this period are typically ambivalent, with both positive and negative characteristics.112
Nevertheless, Cynics got their name from being compared with “dogs” (kunes, pl. of kuōn),113 and not without reason. Their indecent, private acts in public gained them this reputation; thus Diogenes, while preaching, squatted and did something considered dishonorable, leading the crowds to denounce him as crazy.114 Even most other philosophers despised such behavior: for them, being “bestial” meant being led by passions instead of by reason.115 They and others thus ridiculed Cynics’ “doggishness.”116
Some philosophers denounced fake Cynics and other philosophers,117 accusing them of greed118 or of abandoning real work for the easier job of preaching. 119 Many viewed excess Cynics as demagogues;120 the masses, some complained, could not distinguish between true and false philosophers121 (the sort of complaint many scholars offer today about public voices on the historical Jesus!).
Cynics were known for their uninvited public preaching.122 Lucian gives us a sample of the style of preaching attributed to harsh Cynics.123 He mentions Cynics harshly and indiscriminately abusing passersby.124 They were loud and boisterous,125 and might rant angrily if contradicted by another speaker.126 One comic portrayal presents Cynics hitting each other with their staffs.127
Cynics were known for their rudeness and especially their disrespect for social rank and status.128 When a person of status warned the famous Cynic Diogenes not to spit in the wealthy home where he had brought him, Diogenes allegedly spat in the man’s face, explaining that nothing of poorer quality was available.129 They were also antisocial enough to criticize rulers, but given their established tradition, they usually got away with it. In stories about Diogenes, he desired as much honor as Alexander of Macedon130 (a clear example of Cynic hubris). A Cynic could, of course, go too far; when Demetrius the Cynic in Rome denounced baths on the day that Nero dedicated his new baths, Tigellinus allegedly had him banished from Rome.131
Comparing Jesus with Real Cynics
While Jesus speaks boldly in the Gospels, the traditional Jewish model of prophet seems a closer parallel than such socially alienated Cynics. Unlike Cynics, Jesus had close friends and many followers. Jesus’ miraculous ministry likewise recalls some biblical prophets, but not the activities of Cynics, who did not perform miracles but lived on the street and harangued passersby on urban street corners.
It was the Cynic’s lifestyle that above all distinguished one as a Cynic rather than something else.132 Granted, elements of Cynic behavior were adapted by others without adopting the Cynic tradition wholesale.133 In the case of Jesus, however, we must ask whether Cynic models are the nearest cultural sources for similar elements in Jesus’ behavior and teaching.
The radical lifestyle of the Cynics does provide a historical analogy for the wider sort of traveling sages in the first-century eastern Mediterranean world. These other sorts of teachers also used witty sayings for often analogous purposes. Radical Greek teachers, including Cynics, used humor, shock and incongruity to hold attention.134 But of course so did the biblical prophets (see e.g., the Hebrew puns in Mic 1:10-16) and, as we shall see later in the book, Palestinian Jewish sages (to varying degrees). Jesus used rhetoric meant to attract attention; in this he resembled Cynics, but also a wide range of other ancient sages. It thus seems more profitable to explore analogies closer at hand to his culture, the sort of analogies with which he may have actually had some contact (in contrast to Cynics).
Cynics and other radical teachers shared with Jesus a notable departure from established societal roles and readiness to critique the social order. Yet Jesus did not obscenely defecate or stimulate himself sexually in public as Cynics were known to do. He did not cajole hearers while begging for money, threaten anyone with a staff, or even spit on a host. He and his disciples are not said to live on the street, or in the shadow of temples. In contrast to Cynics and even John the Baptist (Jesus’ explicit, and Jewish prophetic, foil),135 Jesus was not completely antisocial (Matt 11:18-19//Lk 7:33-34). Jesus was not interested merely in critiquing the social order for the sake of philosophy; like some other Palestinian Jews, he prophesied a new order to be established by God.
Moreover, Jesus’ itinerancy is explained more simply without recourse to the example of Cynics. Those most apt to wander from town to town were socially dislocated people, like landless persons seeking work.136 Some point to a more particular model of wandering prophets.137 Itinerancy — perhaps a feature of ancient mobility in general — was hardly a central or distinctive feature of early Christian prophecy.138 Nevertheless, the most relevant background for Jesus’ itinerant mission widely known in Jewish Palestine is that of the Old Testament prophets;139 Jesus and his followers did, after all, have a prophetic mission (see ch. 17).
Some compare with Cynics Jesus’ instructions that his disciples should travel lightly on their mission (Mk 6:8-9). Urban Cynics voluntarily limited themselves to a single cloak; they chose a simple and toilsome lifestyle living on the street (unlike Jesus’ disciples) to prepare themselves for hardships.140 But the very passage that some use for this comparison reveals that Jesus forbade his disciples to carry a pouch for begging (Mk 6:8),141 in contrast to Cynics!142 Some even think that the prohibition is designed to distinguish the disciples from typical wandering preachers (probably similar to Cynics in the Greek world) “whose questionable reputation they did not want to share.”143
Far more relevant to Jesus’ immediate environment were the abundant rural peasants; at least in the poorest parts of the empire some might own only one cloak.144 Some Jews known as Essenes also showed their devotion to God by a simple lifstyle; those who lived in the wilderness devoted all their goods to the community.145 Josephus also indicates that Essenes did not take provisions when they traveled, expecting hospitality from fellow-Essenes in every city, fitting Jesus’ instructions in this passage.146 Likewise, Israel’s ancient prophets (the relevance of which we have already noted) lived simply in times of national apostasy.147
Most scholars note that, whatever the parallels with Cynics in Jesus’ teaching and ministry, the differences are far greater;148 they were not known, for example, “for healings and exorcisms.”149 Even one scholar who does portray Jesus in Cynic terms elsewhere offers a sound methodological warning that, in light of the foregoing evidence, should bring any extensive use of Cynic parallels into question: many abuse the comparative method by simply “seizing a few elements in diverse cultures, describing them in very general and similar terms, and then positing a causal connection.”150
Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz put the matter well from a German perspective (although as an American I would hesitate to blame our state of California for this idea). Noting that the current Jesus “quest” divides between those advocating a non-eschatological, Cynic-type Jesus and a Jewish Jesus focused on restoration eschatology, they complain that the former view “seems to have more Californian than Galilean local colouring.”151
Greek Background Is Not the Problem
I should clarify at this point that I am not minimizing the value of Greek background for the study of the Gospels or the historical Jesus. First, the Gospels are written in Greek and presumably bear marks of literary adaptation for Greek and Diaspora Jewish audiences. We must take these features into account when working back to the historical Jesus. But second, and more important for the study of the historical Jesus, much evidence suggests that Palestinian Judaism was hellenized152 (influenced by the pervasive Greek culture), though of course less thoroughly than Judaism in the Greek-speaking Diaspora.153 (On the limits to this approach, see our warnings about Sepphoris, above.) By contrast, the Greco-Roman world on the whole was far less Judaized.
Yet this clear direction of Greek influence in Jewish culture but mostly negligible Jewish influence on Greek culture invites another conclusion. Wherever we have a mixture of Jewish and hellenistic motifs we must be dealing with something primarily Jewish, not something primarily Gentile (since the latter would exhibit much less Jewish influence).154 This observation has serious implications for some theories proposed today. Thus, for example, Burton Mack’s view that Jesus, though Jewish by birth, was more “hellenistic” in his behavior, 155 has nothing historically to commend it. James D. G. Dunn is right to complain that the “neo-liberal quest” of Crossan and Mack still treats Jesus’ Jewishness as not central to his identity.156 It is to Mack’s views, generally less grounded or nuanced than Crossan’s, that we now turn.