1 Samuel 19 – Saul speaks
to his son Jonathan about his desire to kill David, but Jonathan of course
warns David. The next day, Jonathan speaks to his father about David. He reminds Saul of the many services David
has performed from him and tries to tell him it will be a very great sin if he
harms him without cause.” Saul heeds the voice of Jonathan” (19:6), for the
time at least. These stories of Saul’s vacillating
relationship with David seem so real to me, so reflective of what has to have
been a serious mental illness in the king. He is amenable to reason sometimes,
but then the paranoia comes over him and he becomes lethal.
But
later, the same evil spirit comes upon Saul, and in an unexpected moment, he
tries to “pin David to the wall with the spear” he has in his hand (19:10).
David flees.
His
wife Michal warns him that night that he will be killed in the morning if he
does not run away. He does, and Michal takes an idol and makes it up to be
human size and human looking (19:13).
Saul realizes that Michal has tried to fool him. She tells him that
David threatened to kill her if she didn’t help him by trying to deceive Saul’s
men.
David
flees to Ramah where Samuel lives. Saul
sends messengers after him to get him.
They encounter David and Samuel with a group of prophets in a state of
frenzy (20:20). The messengers too fall
into the frenzy. The same thing happens
with another set of messengers; so finally Saul
goes down himself and he too falls into a prophetic frenzy (20:23). He
strips off his clothes and lays naked all day and all night.
Proverbs 23 – Pretty
much the same here:
“Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough
to know when to quit. In the blink of an eye wealth disappears, for it will
sprout wings and fly away like an eagle” (23:4-5).
“Commit yourself to instruction; listen carefully to words
of knowledge. Don’t fail to discipline your children” (23:12-13).
“O my son, give me your heart. May your eyes take delight in
following my ways” (23:26)
”Who has anguish? Who has sorrow? Who is always fighting?
Who is always complaining? Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns, trying out new drinks”
(23:29-30).
Augustine (354-439)
Confessions
26 - And yet, you
stream of hell [the educational system
of the day, that forces these god-stories into children’s minds], into you
are cast the sons of men, with rewards for learning these things; and much is
made of it when this is going on in the forum in the sight of laws which grant
a salary over and above the rewards. And you beat against your rocks and
roarest, saying, "Hence words are
learned; hence eloquence is to be attained, most necessary to persuade people
to your way of thinking, and to unfold your opinions." So, in truth,
we should never have understood these words, "golden shower,"
"bosom," "intrigue," "highest heavens," and other
words written in the same place, unless Terence had introduced a
good-for-nothing youth upon the stage, setting
up Jove [Zeus] as his example of lewdness:—
Viewing a picture,
where the tale was drawn,
Of Jove's
descending in a golden shower
To Danaë's bosom .
. . with a woman to intrigue.
And see how he excites himself to lust, as if by
celestial
authority, when he says:—
Great Jove,
Who shakes the
highest heavens with his thunder,
And I, poor mortal
man, not do the same!
I did it, and with
all my heart I did it.
Not one whit more easily are the words learned for this
vileness, but by their means is the
vileness perpetrated with more confidence. I do not blame the words, they
being, as it were, choice and precious vessels, but the wine of error, which was drunk in them to us by inebriated teachers;
and unless we drank, we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to any sober
judge. And yet, O my God—in whose presence I can now with security recall
this—did I, unhappy one, learn these
things willingly, and with delight, and for this was I called a boy of good
promise.
You cannot really understand Augustine without some
knowledge of the myths he was being forced to learn and regard as sources of
knowledge of life’s deepest mysteries. The whole story of Danae can be checked
out in brief at this site: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977031557.
Danae was the daughter of a king
who heard from the Delphic oracle that he would never have a son, but his
grandson would kill him. So he tries to lock his daughter up so she won’t meet
anyone and want to marry. The god Zeus called the “promiscuous father of the
gods” is the only one who can get to her, but he does and she has a son –
Perseus.
These stories were part of the
fundamentals of Roman education. Terence was a Roman author in Northern Africa
in the 2nd century. When Augustine was a boy, Terence’s plays would
have been part of the curriculum.
