Biblica_1_Layout 1 20/01/12 11:44 Pagina 591 591 PROSOPOPOETICS AND CONFLICT: SPEECH AND EXPECTATIONS then increases his vehemence with ties to themes of deception and mur- der that appear frequently in the larger context 33, leading to his iden- tification of the Jews as children of the devil (u9mei=j e0k tou= patro\j tou= diabo/lou e0ste/, v. 44). Utterly — and understandably — enraged, the Jews finally determine an identity for Jesus based on his words and appearance: rather than being the Messiah, he is a demon-possessed “Samaritan” and a young, blasphemous upstart (vv. 48.53). From this point, the Jews ask Jesus who he claims to be, but react to his words according to the identity they have given him. In other words, for the Jews within the narrative, the only way Jesus’ attributed speech can be appropriate to both his character and the situation is if he is a demon-possessed blasphemer. No Messiah they can identify talks like this, especially not in the Temple, and especially not during the Feast of Tabernacles! It is difficult to place blame on the Jews in the narrative for reacting to Jesus this way. How else were they to rec- oncile Jesus’ words with his appearance and location? To the other characters in the text, Jesus appears to be a Jewish man from Galilee; therefore, he should respect the celebration of Tabernacles and the teachers present in Jerusalem. He is the son of Joseph with a mother and brothers, who has no special family lineage or claim to teach in this manner. Moreover, he is less than fifty years of age, a youngster whose youth adds to the incredulity of his words 34. As with the other characters to whom Jesus speaks in the Fourth Gospel, the Jews in as well as in character, was an expectation expressed throughout antiquity. For example, Aristotle mentions that where a parent has a scar, a tu/poj of that scar will be visible on their child (Gen. an. 721b). This is one reason why de- termining a person’s origin was so key for establishing character (cf. Theon, Prog. 78, 115-116). Jesus highlights the failure of the crowd to welcome him as a messenger of God as a contrast to Abraham’s famous hospitality toward the angels who visited him at Mamre in Gen 18. 33 Accusations of deception are leveled against Jesus in 7,12.20.47; Jesus denies these charges in 7,18; accusations of demonic possession appear in 7,20 and 8,48; discussions of Jesus’s death occur in 7,19-20.25; 8,22.37.44.59; and attempts to arrest or punish him surface in 7,30.32.44.45-49 and 8,20.59. 34 The attention to Jesus’ age in particular reflects expectations for speakers present in the Fourth Gospel’s milieu. Along with gender, origins, ancestry, and socio-economic status, rhetoricians include age as a category that should guide how one crafts a speech for a character (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.12-14; Quintilian, Inst. Or. 3.8.50-54; Theon, Prog. 78, 115-116). In addition, both Aristotle and Quintilian instruct their readers concerning the age at which it is appropriate for one to begin — and to end — a career as an orator (Alex. Rhet. 29.31-34; Inst. Or. 12.6.1-7; 12.11.1-8). According to Quintilian, when one starts too young,