20:56 Mar 3, 2017
As this stage in the game there's no point in posting another answer, and I don't disagree with Jack's adjectives; crude certainly does mean those things. But I think it's important to understand that crucifixion was not only regarded as uniquely cruel and painful but also, and perhaps above all, uniquely shameful, fit only for slaves and criminals; just look at Cicero on the subject. It is this, I think, that Paul was addressing: not just the barbarism but the degradation, a degradation that Christ embraced with supreme humility. This is where Paul develops the enormously influential idea of the folly of the cross as the supreme wisdom (see Erasmus), and it is this above all that is the challenge to the settled ideas of the Corinthians. |