A wonderfully dense little book of cultural interpretation on the Greco-Roman world and their sensibilities in relation to sex and death. It is not dense in a ponderous academic sense, but dense in its richness of thoughts and references. It is probably not the best book to read if you are unfamiliar with the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world because you will miss the point of much of what he is saying or the subtle nuances, but if you are, it is a delightful book that gave me a better understanding of the values and concerns of the Ancients who were obsessed with death and sex. And is it any wonder? More than half of all children would die before the age of ten and never reproduce. Priapus, the god of the fructifying seed implanter, was the most worshipped god in the ancient world. Erect penises were everywhere but so was death.

The ritual specific to Rome is the ludibrium, a Priapic rite of ritualized indecency. This sarcastic game, the obscene dancing, joking, the sarcastic display of erect penises, the killing with ridicule, was Rome’s contribution to the ancient world.

To quote from the book: “The Christian history has a ludibrium as its founding moment. The primal scene of Christianity – the servile torture of crucifixion reserved for the man claiming to be God, the flagellatio, the inscription ‘Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum’, the purple robe (veste purpurea), the royal crown made of thorns (coronam spineam), the reed as scepter and the shaming nudity – is a ludibrium designed to elicit laughter. The seventeenth-century Chinese to whom the Jesuit fathers were attempting to teach Christianity understood it as such from the outset and could not comprehend how a comic scene could be made into a an article of faith.”

OMG – This is so right on - it truly is the religion of slaves as Lucian sarcastically pointed out.

The author discusses the slow transformation that occurred under the Romans from the joyful sexual exuberance of the Greeks to the melancholic Romans who laid the groundwork for the final renunciation by the Christians. To quote the author: “The Christians no more invented Christian morality than they invented the Latin language.” This truth has always been apparent to me. The New Testament reflects Roman values…it does not represent Jewish values or anything of the sort...those who have only read Christian literature…especially of the conservative variety don’t get this…can’t get this because they have never read or studied the Ancients themselves. As Joachim Jeremias, Professor of New Testament and Near Eastern Studies, once wrote, there is not one original thought in the New Testament. Well of course…it is only with a profound historical forgetfulness that Moderns don't know this.

IMO, the one thing that is quintessentially Jewish however, is how the death of Jesus is turned into a triumph. This characterizes all of Jewish history down to the present. The fact that the Jewish people survive repeated crushing defeats is turned ( subverted ) into a triumph. And thus it is with Jesus. The bastard son of a low woman from a conquered crushed people is turned into a King( When Pompey conquered Israel in 63BCE, he put 12,000 Jews to death. When he entered the Temple and saw the tablets, he said 'Smash it all'. ) .

The book is not about Christianity, these were merely remarks - which characterizes the book as a whole - it is full of insightful remarks - the book is about how Romans viewed the world as illustrated in their literature and visual arts. The author includes many color plates of ancient art along with his unique interpretation.

A nice complement to this book is From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity( http://www.librarything.com/work/14100723 ).

The book includes many color plates of Roman art and his interesting interpretation.

Tolle lege! I am rereading it again. ( )