Category:The Subtle Dialectician

Two other men, both of them criminals, were also led out to be put to death with Jesus. When they came to the place called “The Skull,” they crucified Jesus there, and the two criminals, one on his right and the other on his left. Jesus said, “Forgive them, Father! They don't know what they are doing.”

They divided his clothes among themselves by throwing dice. The people stood there watching while the Jewish leaders made fun of him: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah whom God has chosen!”

—Luke 23, “Jesus is Crucified”.

I remember being given this lesson as a child. I reflect on it all the time. The lesson is the good people are sometimes profaned and mocked; derided.

Somehow it modulates the simple absolutism of Aesop? Look: sometimes the lesson is ironic.