Tag Archives: Judith

One Goes Hungry While Another Gets Drunk, Part 2

Posted on by
Reply
Judith with the head of Holofernes, Lucas Cranach The Elder. (c. 1530) In the Book of Judith, the Jewish heroine enters the tent of the Assyrian general Holofernes, gets him drunk and chops off his head to save her town. Judith, who is “the pride of all our people and the glory of our race” is considered to be a type of the Mother of God: As Judith beheaded Holofernes, so also is Mary the woman who by her divine pregnancy and childbearing (of Jesus) crushed the head of the serpentine demon, the Devil. Read more about Judith as a type here.


For in eating, each one by preference takes his or her own meal; and one goes hungry while another gets drunk. Don’t you have houses for eating and drinking? (1 Cor. 11:21-22)

The apostle condemns the parish members who are better off bringing their own food and wine to parish dinners and then refusing to share, getting drunk while other people at dinner are going hungry. The meal that was meant to erase and heal social divisions only exposed these divisions and made them worse.

The contrast between the “haves” and the “have nots” is a classic theme of Greek and Roman writers. Pliny complained that some hosts served “cheap and paltry” food and wine to guests that they thought less important while having “elegant dishes” served to themselves and a few special guests. Pliny thought this was sordid behavior. (Epistle 2.6)

Other writers, like Juvenal, made fun of hosts who did this. The host was not refusing to spend money, Juvenal said; the host just wanted to cause his guests pain. “What comedy … is more amusing than a disappointed stomach?” A host who did this was truly malicious, Juvenal thought.

Socrates insisted that meals be truly communal experiences. Plutarch warned against disorder at meals and dinner parties. Nevertheless, drunkenness was so common at common meals that Sparta and Crete outlawed dinner parties. Even in the Old Testament, hosts were urged to take care of their guests before sitting down at the table themselves. The host who is generous with food is blessed and guests were expected to help others before helping themselves to the meal. (Sirach 31-32)

Alas, the misbehavior of the Corinthians at dinner had a long pedigree. Their misbehavior revealed that they despised the Church rather than loving their brothers and sisters, as they claimed. Actions always speak louder than words.

Paul reminds us that the Master gave up everything, including himself, for us. But we are reluctant to even share a little food with our fellow believers…. Do not dishonor your brothers or neglect them in their hunger. Do not get drunk. Do not insult the Church. When you come together, give thanks for what you have to eat and do not cut yourself off from your neighbors.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 27 on 1st Corinthians

Armageddon

Posted on by
Reply
The sixth angel emptied his bowl, Angers Apocalypse tapestry, 1377-82, commissioned by
Louis I duke of Anjou, designed by Jean Bondol (Chateau d’Angers, France).

The sixth [angel] poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare a way for the kings…. Then I saw coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet three foul spirits like frogs…. “Behold, I come like a thief!” Blessed is he that stays awake and keeps his garments by him, so that he does not walk naked and his shame is seen. And they mustered them at the place which is called in Hebrew, “Armageddon.” (Apoc. 16:12-13, 15-16)

Almost everyone recognizes the place-name, Armageddon. It is imagined to be the location of the last battle–or maybe the nuclear war–that destroys the world. But very few people know anything more than that.

“Armageddon” means “the mountain of Megiddo.” This is a mountain pass in the north of Israel that makes possible passage from the coast to the plain of Jezreel. It is a geographic feature important for military-strategic reasons. Many battles were fought at Armageddon; it was especially associated with disaster after the death of King Josiah there (2 Kings 23:29-30).

Armageddon is also important in the Old Testament book of Judith, which is an extended parable about God’s deliverance of his Chosen People. (We think of parables as only a few sentences–or at most, a paragraph or two–because Jesus’ parables were all short. But there is no composition rule that insists that a parable has to be short.)

It is also interesting that the Old Testament readings generally called “prophecies” by Western Christians on Easter Eve or other significant occasions are called “parables” in Church Slavonic.

Judith lives in an imaginary town near the Armageddon pass. By placing the town there, the people hearing the parable would immediately know that the story of Judith was about the End of Days, the great Last Battle when they hoped that God would deliver his people from all their enemies. The people hearing the story of Judith knew that it was not history as we think of history. It was never meant to be understood as an historical record. It was a parable: a story told to make a point, to illustrate something true that was otherwise difficult to grasp or understand. The story of Judith at Armageddon is like the story of Moses at the Red Sea–God acts in a miraculous way to save his people through the intervention of his chosen servant. Judith is a female figure that represents the faithful of Israel, identified by the prophets as the Bride of God.

Because the enemies of Israel almost always have to come through the northern mountain pass at Armageddon to attack Israel, the direction North became associated with evil and the powers that oppose God or his people. That is why the medieval Western Christians would read the Gospel at High Mass facing north–both to proclaim the Gospel to the pagans living far in the north but also to proclaim God’s triumph over all the powers that oppose him. Reading the Gospel facing north was a kind of exorcism of the neighborhood, telling the devil to “Go away! You have no business here, devil! You have already been defeated by Christ–stop trying to avoid your inevitable imprisonment in Hell!”

When St. John described the battle at Armageddon, he might or might not have thought people would identify the earthly mountain pass as the place of the Last Battle. But they would certainly understand that wherever the Last Battle was to be fought would be “Armageddon” in a much more real and substantial way than the mountain in northern Israel.

See a talk I gave about Judith here. The passcode to view the recording is 2w$Pq&6e